The Blessing Of Friends!

Yesterday was kind of a dud day, redeemed finally by a cheery phone call after dinner last night from a Vancouver Island friend.  What a blessing it was for me to hear from her....particularly at the end of an  overly hot and frustratingly boring day.  Bless you friend!!

Today some friends from church wanted to go out for lunch and that was a very special blessing as well. They are preparing for a huge family wedding next weekend and I know for certain they had "better" things to do than spend a couple of hours over a meal with us, yet that is what they chose to do.  We drove out to Fancy Fork and feasted well.  My husband and I enjoyed the BYO egg plates:  we were each able to choose four items from a fairly extensive list of goodies and we chose 2 eggs (over easy for me and scrambled for him), 3 strips of excellent quality bacon, herbed hash browns and asparagus.  A nice thick slice of watermelon also dressed the filled to overflowing plate. Other choices were sausages, ham, muffins, toast. mushrooms, tomatoes, spinach,  Each of our marvellous hearty brunch plates were only sixteen dollars!  Taxes and tip and drinks included, our final bill was well under fifty dollars. 

The church had a number of floor fans running this morning and it made the sanctuary much more comfortable for the service.  Next week the time change for the rest of the year begins, moving us from a 10am service to an 11am service.  I kind of enjoy the earlier summer season service, but come winter I will be very grateful to be able to have that extra hour to prepare and drive to the church on the ice and snow.  Next week I think we will stay home and watch the service on Zoom to avoid the driving debacle in our neighbourhood that is the annual Queen City Marathon. First Baptist Regina has added something to its online production now.  The Sunday sermon and prayers are now being broadcast in British English, French, Swahili and Hindi, the back grounds and first languages of quite a number of our congregants.  Cool!!

My husband has a preaching gig at the end of this month back at a former Moose Jaw parish, so we are looking forward to that already.  It is always such fun to go back and see our friends and to meet the many new parishioners there.   

Today the city is filled with extra traffic and people wandering about on their way to the annual Labour Day classic football game between the Saskatchewan  and Winnipeg teams.  As we drove back through the heavy traffic on our way home from lunch we also watched dozens of people in their appropriately coloured football jerseys heading to the pick up points for transit buses that run exclusively to the football stadium for each of the football games here.  The level of commitment to their teams is almost scary sometimes. Hopefully cool heads will prevail between the opposing fan bases after the game.  The canoe and kayak nationals on Wascana Lake also come to an end later today.  Between these two events alone, the hotels this weekend are packed full.  I am so happy our friends chose to drive out to Emerald Park for lunch as our usual haunts would have been jammed packed with football revellers eating their lunch prior to the big game.   Not being a football fan I don't care who wins the game, but apparently Saskatchewan's team has been kind of thrashed by Winnipeg in recent years, so I do wish our local players all the best today.

Maybe tomorrow morning I will wake up in time to beat some of the currently forecast hot weather and get my housework at least partially done?  Well, not making any set plans, just in case things don't work out that way. As the cool down begins on Tuesday for a few days, perhaps most all the outstanding household tasks will just be set aside until then?  It isn't like anyone will be here to see and judge my housecleaning skills over the next week, so guess it doesn't matter if everything waits a few days longer, right?  

In the meantime we are coping as best we can with today's heat and will grin and bear it tomorrow as well, keeping our suite as cool as possible. 

Too Hot For Housework Today!

My grand plans for cleaning house are apparently coming to nought this weekend due to the ongoing heat. Although the daytime temperature over the past three days has not risen much above +30C, the past three nights have not seen the hoped for cooling down period between 10pm and 7am.  The overnight lows have been between +16C and +18C and there has been almost no wind to cool the air a bit more.  Tossing and turning and being awake for too many hours the last two nights caught up with me today.  By 10am it was already +27C!  Four hours ago, after a miserable night of sleep loss once again, I managed to drag my duster up the stairs with the full intention to start dusting the furniture, hoping to get the entire suite dusted by late afternoon, taking my time, relaxing, enjoying watching the dust come up off the furniture and lamps.  However, I met with a few other distractions...washing out a shirt I realize I need to wear tomorrow, catching up on some other little home chores that I wanted done prior to starting "real" housework.  Somehow the time got away from me and before I knew it the time for lunch had sneaked up on me and now it is after 2pm, our suite is blazing hot for only the second time all summer, I am exhausted and while I am spending some "quality time" staring at the duster sitting on my desk in front of me, I haven't actually had any inclination to pick it up and use it.  My husband told me not to bother because it is not going to cool down for another 2 or 3 days and with no wind, how much dustier will the place get in that short time?  Right?  NO! NOT RIGHT!  The point of dusting today was to enjoy that 2 or 3 days without a fresh dust build up ruining my work!  Oh well....sigh....I can hardly keep my eyes open, dozed off in the middle of my lunch actually, so I am going to have a shower and wash my hair. Perhaps I will feel more ambitious after that and get at least the upstairs dusted...however, I sort of doubt it.....It isn't like the dust level is unbearable, but it does need a clearing and I had hoped to vacuum on Monday....time will tell when I get my work accomplished.  Tuesday and Wednesday have to be laundry days because thus far they are the only forecast cooler days before the temperature begins to heat up once again.  Running the clothes dryer has to happen one of those two days, that's for sure, or the house will be completely unbearable from the residual heat buildup.

 God bless my dear husband who went over mid morning to a friend's house to work on some canoe repairs for her.  God bless her for moving the canoe and the repair equipment into the shade of a building before he arrived.  He enjoyed himself,  came home when he started to feel warm, brought home the canoe seats and fabric for reupholstering them and can do that task in the cool of our own basement. Good on him!!

Tomorrow after church we are going out for lunch with dear friends.  Lord willing it works out as they are extremely busy right now between work commitments and preparing for a family wedding next weekend.   We are delighted they want to work some time with us into their horrifically busy lives...how blessed with friends are we, right? Amen!

Huge Encouragement Today!

 I got nothing but good news at my physio appointment today!  I AM walking better, it is not just a figment of my ever hopeful imagination!  I walked toward a mirror a few times at my appointment and so I was able to see the positive change for myself.   I DON'T need to put much weight on my cane now when walking out of doors!    I CAN do the step up and side raise onto a step without hanging on to anything now, so can drop the toe tapping exercise and get right to the stepping up with full weight on my operated leg.  I CAN walk up and down the stairs now one foot at a time without clinging to the railing.  It IS safe to do so and I have permission now to drop a couple of other exercises that are no longer required.  I DO have permission to do physio 5 days a week and take weekends off because now I will be using a resistance band to do quite a few of the exercises so the muscles and tendons will need a bit of a break to recover after 5 consistent days of work.  We talked about driving and of course the physiotherapist is not permitted to give me the all clear to start driving, but she suggested than when and if I feel ready to try it in a couple of more weeks, I should take my husband with me on a short drive around the city with no destination in mind and see if I can sit comfortably while driving, get in and out of the car properly, etc.  Since I will not be seeing the surgeon, the one who does issue permission to drive, until sometime in October, I think I may attempt a short attended drive sometime in September just to see if I think I can manage.  IF I see a vast improvement in my weight bearing by then I will try it and if not I will just have to be content to wait.  I am a happy woman after today's appointment!  Since I am usually alone when doing physio I have been feeling kind of shaky about doing some of the unaided step up exercises, but with her there today with me in the physio lab I was able to do those with no problem, no need to hang onto any stair railings or my cane.  Hallelujah!!  Thank you God!

To celebrate my husband is going to take me out for lunch.  It is Friday, I got good news, I have a new physio routine  that can wait until Monday since I did my physio at 6:30am today.  It is a long weekend and we are not going anywhere interesting like "the lake", hahaha, but will be home doing laundry and housework, so this lunch out will be our celebration time.

I needed the mental and emotional encouragement that today's session with the physiotherapist provided.  I feel more free, more sure that the rest of the healing WILL happen if I continue working hard.  I will see her again on one month.  She did tell me that if there isn't substantial improvement in two of my exercises by then it likely means that either the sutures in the tendon didn't hold and need to be repaired, OR the nerve sending messages to that tendon was damaged.  If it turned out to be the latter, I will still heal but the process will be abysmally long.  My prayer of course is that neither of those scenarios will be the case!  Resistance band, I will see you on Monday and we will work hard, hard, hard!!! 

Spend, Spend, Spend....I LOVE IT!!

This font is called Happy Monkey.  I am using it today because I feel very happy....as if I have gotten away with some unexpected shopping fun of my own! hahaha

I had a great visit with my coffee buddy this morning. Our husbands are also becoming better and better friends, so it is ideal when all 4 people can relate and enjoy each other's company.

After lunch my husband decided we needed to complete the shopping list of outstanding items that we started purchasing yesterday.  Off we went again across the city. Most of the purchases were practical items for our household and my husband's workshop, BUT eventually we ended up at Victoria Square where I got a chance to get out of the car and walk up and down the mall....or what remains of the mall.  Oh my goodness, so many places I used to shop at there are gone.  They have been replaced by a couple of video game parlours, and a large community centre that was filled with teens making good use of the space.  I am glad I went up there to see the place, but I have little reason to ever go there again now as my usual haunts have vanished.  Victims of online shopping and rental increases?  

It was good to get out and walk after doing my physio between 7am and 8am today so I could get it done before my company arrived.  Lots more walking is going to help restore the muscles that have atrophied so badly.  

Our last stop was at a sports store where my husband purchased a new waist pack.  For some reason, in the ten years we have lived here we have never been into The Prairie Summit sports shop.  They have an amazingly large selection of athletic outerwear, backpack repair parts, etc. etc.  From now on when my husband needs such gear he will shop there first.  It is a very cool place and looks deceptively small from the outside of the building.  It carries many things that Fresh Air Experience doesn't carry and vice versa.   

While my husband was in Prairie Summit, I realized there was a Rhoda's consignment shop just down the block so away I went for a bit more walking.  In there I found, FINALLY, the perfect black purse for myself....brand new, hard sided, lots of separate spaces inside for the sorting I like to do of my carry-belongings.  I bought it and the cutest little mint green knee length pullover sweater vest that will look great over either black or white pencil pants and skinny tops.  The sweater vest has all kinds of holes in it and it is the cutest thing I have seen in a long time.  What fun I ended up having at our last pit stop!

It is hot again today of course, but we were able to open one upstairs and one downstairs window a few minutes ago, so there is a bit of fresh air exchange going on that is much appreciated.  Having an air conditioned car certainly has made our last couple of days of errand running pleasant!  

Along our route this week we came across the Domo gasoline station on the northern part of the city Reserve land and as usual the price of gasoline there was lower due to not having to pay most of the government taxes. Gasoline jumped up as much as 15 cents a litre yesterday to an average of one dollar and forty two cents a litre.  We got ours at the Rez station for one dollar and twenty two cents a litre. It was certainly worth the short line up we were in to take advantage of the price.  

Time to go and look in the fridge and cupboards to see if there is something creative I can prepare later for dinner tonight.  

All Dolled Up With No Place To Go!

I’ve had some interesting conversations this week with a number of friends in their 60’s and early 70’s. All of us are looking for different accommodation, or city, or province or country and all of us are in limbo. Some of those friends have been in limbo as long as we have been, as totally unhappy with their living situation and yet, just like us, many different circumstances have hampered and prolonged the moving process. Here we all are still sitting in the same spots we have been trying to get out of.

It is the strangest thing for us all. We all feel like there is no answer, no place that will be found that will be the “right” place. Each new possibility turns out to have issues surrounding it that are presently, apparently, insurmountable. The loss of current medical care is a huge problem if any of us are to leave our current towns and cities and of course that is an age appropriate issue that would tend to need solving prior to a move. Simply moving within the boundaries of our current towns and cities means finding accommodation that is not simply trading one set of unliveable issues for another….more difficult than it sounds. 

At this stage of life we are of course realizing our time of being able to live independently, to be able to care for a purchased property, may be limited. Even in rental units, how much cleaning and allowed repair as tenants are we physically able to take on? Who knew so many of us would be struggling with feelings of not belonging, of not going to ever belong, comfortably, anywhere? For all of us the prospects for new accommodation in the immediate future seem bleak….the weirdest feeling ever! So, we are all alternating periods of seeking and waiting, supporting each other in prayer. 

Our plans for last evening to go to a local pub to hear our friends’ band didn’t work out. By the time we completed our errands, travelling all over the city in the +32C temperature we were worn out. My physio workout had to be delayed until the late afternoon in the worst of the heat in our non-A/C suite and my husband at that same time was outside working on the car just long enough to experience the first signs of heatstroke, so we spent our evening with a new season of “Unforgotten” on the tv in front of us and a cooling fan behind us. It was disappointing to miss out on supporting our friends, but it couldn’t be helped. At least my husband and I have finally caught up on some purchases we have needed for some time. We are now the proud owners of two new fire extinguishers and a fire blanket, ‘cause you never know in community housing and there have been some kitchen fires in the complex lately, a new electrical switch, a bicycle pump, new 8 litre water jugs, food composter, windshield wipers and a toaster oven. Oooh, doesn’t that all sound delightfully exciting?? Hahaha…NOT! Hahaha…

I have finally isolated the muscle group that is being so slow to respond so yesterday I upped the one particular exercise addressing that issue from one session of 30 reps to three sessions spread out over the day. It dawned on me finally that when those same muscles atrophied so badly after the last two surgeries I had, upping the reps helped considerably over a very few weeks. Amazing what I have forgotten in the ten years between surgeries! 

The hot weather continues. It appears we will not get a break from temperatures in the low +30C’s until next Tuesday, so I will concentrate on doing a slow cycle of house cleaning over the weekend and leave the laundry until next week when I will be able to run the dryer without making our in suite heat unbearable. Part of the issue is that overnight temperatures are still in the double digits so the suite isn’t cooling off sufficiently day to day. This too shall pass. I notice fewer and fewer of the surrounding tenants who have air conditioning units for their suites are actually running them. The complaints are that the units are not of good enough quality to draw the cool air upstairs into the bedrooms where the heat builds up all day long. They feel it is not worth the extra cost to their electrical bills. 

My coffee buddy is coming over this morning so I am looking forward to that even though it means my main body of exercises will have to be postponed until the hotter hours of the afternoon. I will get a good workout this weekend cleaning house. Yay!

It Seems I Can Walk Farther When I Have A Specific Task To Accomplish!

Today has given me a good revelation of what I am capable of now in terms of distances for walking.  I am encouraged that this will cause my weight bearing to improve soon!

I do enjoy doing my lying down exercises before I even get out of bed in the mornings.  That makes my second round of physio after breakfast easier to do. My leg becomes far less exhausted and I can do more reps of that second set of exercises now.  Still hanging on, but there has been a bit of  improvement with the weight bearing. For the standing hip abductions I can stand on my operated leg and manage to push the other leg out sideways and hold it for about 3 to 4 seconds now instead of a split second to one second....I know that doesn't sound like a huge improvement after over a week of attempting full weight bearing physio, but for me it is a true breakthrough that is encouraging me greatly.

My husband returned home from his morning medical appointment absolutely ravenous and eager to get going on our shopping before the afternoon traffic began, so off we went.  As we were driving he remembered he hadn't had any breakfast yet and the time was approaching 11:30am.  I know what that kind of "fasting" can mean for his very sensitive digestive system, so we dropped into The Cottage for his brunch.  I enjoyed another chicken Caesar salad while he scarfed down a bowl of avgolemono soup, followed by a burger and fries and the remains of MY meal. hahaha  He was so hungry.  hahaha

 

Then we went grocery shopping in a very large grocery store.  We were in there for nearly 45 minutes and I was on my feet the entire time, trucking up and down the aisles, putting minimal weight onto the grocery cart as I raced about. Compared to how slowly I have been walking lately, "racing about" it certainly was.  We parked a long way from the store in the huge parking lot, so I also had to navigate that walk both directions.  As soon as we got home I had to remain standing on my feet to rinse off and put away all the groceries. So, I was on my feet for over an hour total, apart from the five minute drive home from the store.  AND I didn't collapse in a chair the second I was done putting away the groceries!  I had some small chores to do upstairs first, so continued moving about.  I am greatly encouraged.  The problem with going for walks outside, I am realizing, is that I am kind of bored, so I am concentrating too much on how my leg is feeling. There is so little to distract me that I am giving up on the outdoor walks too quickly. 

Tomorrow afternoon my husband and I are going to go over to the large park near our house and do one of the shorter trails so we have interesting things to look at and talk about. As he is having some serious circulation issues in his legs right now as a result of spending too long each day sitting at the computer, we are going to try to walk most afternoons. When I have had enough I can turn around and go home and he can continue walking for awhile at his own, much faster pace.  Hopefully this will turn into a routine we can enjoy three or four days a week at least.

We are losing another wonderful family from our complex. She and I have been sharing prayers together for our various health conditions and surgeries...at age 39 she is YOUNG to be experiencing a deteriorating spine and is awaiting a serious surgery soon.  Yesterday we saw a U-Haul pull up to their place and they started loading up their household.  Today we had the opportunity to connect and say goodbye.  Sad for us, BUT we are very happy for them. They have been saving money to purchase their first house and that is why they are leaving here.  So excited for them and their children are thrilled as well.  Thanking the Lord we were able to see them to say goodbye.  Life as we have known it here is changing rapidly with the sudden departure of several long term neighbours in the past month.  Still praying our current neighbours on the other side of the wall decide to put in the six months of winter here before they also leave, but I suspect God's answer just may be "no".  Well, we shall see what happens next........

What A Normalizing Sunday Pour Moi!!

Today is the sort of day that I really am grateful for, as I have been almost as housebound this summer as I was the first couple of summers of enforced COVID precautions.

Although my husband had a very poor night's sleep, he dragged himself out of bed long enough to drive me to church so I could enjoy the service while he returned home to go back to bed for a couple of hours.  Friends were sweet enough to drive me home so I wouldn't have to bother him again to pick me up. Good thing as it turned out.  He had indeed returned to sleep after dropping me off and when I got home two hours later he was still napping.  He woke up shortly after I arrived back, got up for a bit of lunch and then had another hour of sleep. I enjoyed my afternoon reading and resting, then my husband decided we should to somewhere for dinner that we don't usually go, since a friend had given us a special gift to spend on whatever we wanted.  Off we went to the east side Earl's and had a lovely time together.  It wasn't all that busy early in the evening, so we had a delightfully relaxing time visiting over our meal. The music wasn't  nearly as loud there as it is at the south Earl's franchise.  Despite the somewhat higher than other places prices, it didn't cost us much more than the same meal would have cost at a couple of our other favourite haunts despite splurging on an overpriced bottle of sparkling water and the extra cost for my ordering a full chicken breast with my Caesar salad instead of the usual half.  Glad I did....it was really nice not to have to stretch out the bites of chicken so that I wasn't left with half the salad on its own.  My husband quite enjoyed his burger with extra onions and mushrooms. I think we will go there again sometime.  Yes, it is only an overpriced franchise, but the meal was good, tasty and well prepared.  The service was good too, not as slow as we often have experienced at other Earl's locations over the years, perhaps because they weren't as busy here tonight, I don't know. I just know it was a nearly perfect "date night".  

Tomorrow there is a men's meeting for my husband, followed by his medical appointment and then some grocery shopping that I will go along for.  I need to clean the suite again, but that can wait until the following day.  After a weekend off the bulk of my physio, I will see how I do when I begin again tomorrow. I see the PT at the end of the week for another assessment.....sigh.....  She said I could make adjustments to the routine if needed, so I am starting my morning as soon as I wake up by doing four of the five most difficult exercises before I even get out of bed. They all need to be done on a flat surface and obviously I can't get down on the floor to do them, so my bed mattress is the perfect place for side abductions, bridges and clam shells!  Aaaah, t he names of some of the exercises are nearly as off putting as the exercises themselves, hahahaha.

Encouraging News From Our Cardiac Patient!

Hello again prayer warriors! Better news this time about our dear friend! As of a couple of days ago he began feeding himself, pulling himself out of bed and being strong enough to sit in his chair for several consecutive hours. He still has a long way to go, but thankfully the outlook is looking much less bleak than it was a week ago. God bless you all for continuing to pray for him and for his worried family. There is good reason once again to expect a proper recovery.

Temperatures Here: Up And Down, Back And Forth....Aiiii Yiiiiiii....

 It is another relatively quiet night here music-wise, thankfully!  If we step out on our back deck we can hear the Shake the Lake concert going on, but the noise isn't overwhelming.  In the front of our place we hear it even less. Presently I have all the windows closed and can't hear the concert at all....yippee!

So why do I have all the windows closed of an evening on a warm summer evening in August?  It is because we are going to have another one of our odd temperature fluctuations tonight:  from overnight lows of +15C down to a chilly +9C over the past week, one night only dropping to +20C, tonight it is forecast to be +2C and we have a frost warning!!  By the middle of next week we will have overnight lows in the mid teens again and daytime highs close to +30C.  Honestly, I feel like I can't keep up with the weather changes around here.  A few minutes ago I discovered the frost warning online and had to awaken my husband to go and find blanket and towel covers, along with wrap straps to cover up the tomatoes and herbs growing on our back deck. Unbelievable!  Hopefully there won't be any frost, as there are to be wind gusts overnight of 40km, BUT right now the air is completely still so if we don't get those wind gusts there will indeed be at least a light dusting of frost by morning.  Crazy town!!!

We are sad because some wonderful longer term tenants across the parking lot arrived this morning with a U-Haul and began loading up their belongings for a move out.  Sigh....we were just getting to know them a bit in recent months....lovely people with well behaved children. They hadn't mentioned they were going to be moving so we were unprepared.  That is the third set of longer term good tenants that have left us in the dust recently. Sigh....O Lord, when will it be our turn to go?  When will a new accommodation adventure finally begin?  My recovery rate from my surgery is going so slowly that it will likely delay my second operation and that will keep us in place even longer...NOOOO!  hahaha  It's okay really...I know from past experience that when the move finally comes it could arrive and happen VERY quickly indeed.  Well, we shall see what happens next with neighbours. If the wonderful folk on the other side of our adjoining wall do move out in a couple of months when their current lease expires, do we dare to hope the Lord will provide great neighbours yet again????  Guess we have to start asking now, just in case....

Had the most lovely visit with a friend this afternoon. Two hours of wonderful conversation, sharing memories of growing up years and extended family members, exchanging stories of things God has done in our lives.  We have been friends now for 8 years and are still finding new topics to discuss.  God bless my husband for taking me to her house and picking me up afterward.  

Church tomorrow....hopefully we both sleep well enough to be able to have the energy to attend!   

Wha' Happened To The Music??

 So, after a couple of weeks of dreading this weekend of our annual outdoor rock concert, S hake The Lake, I am wondering what is going on.  It was to start at 3pm today and rock on until after 11pm, but it is nearly 11pm right now and thus far we have not heard so much as a single raspy, quavering vocal or slammin' drum beat.  What the heck?  I mean, it is lovely to not have that noise booming at us for hours, but it is SO unusual that a few minutes ago I actually went online to see if the event had been cancelled at the last minute for some reason....apparently not.....wow, would that every year this event would go so unnoticed by the tenants in our complex!!  NOW, if there was a way to make the same "magic" work to make the disruption of this year's upcoming Queen City Marathon disappear! haha

Despite having one of the best sleeps I have ever had last night, I woke up feeling kind of discombobulated and less than happy about life in general. Crazy....I should have been jumping for joy to have had a sleep like that!  Well, whatever the cause of my depressed feelings, they lifted mid morning when we got a call from out of town friends who were in town unexpectedly and briefly and hoped we would be home for a spontaneous drop in visit and would put the kettle on for tea.  YES!!! COMPANY!!!!!  It was a marvellous time for all of us. My husband raced around and found some old photos of a canoe trip he took thirteen years ago with one of our guests.  Oh my, didn't we have some good laughs over some of the changes that have happened in appearances from all those years ago! hahaha  The memories were sweet for these guys. The upshot of today's visit is that in a few weeks my husband and his friend are planning to go for a three day out trip with the canoe once again. It will be only the two of them, plus thirteen years have passed, so the trip will be MUCH less ambitious than the one we reviewed today, but I am thrilled they are going to get out again on the water together.  His wife and I are going to spend that time together at her place, so I will get a break out of here for three days...YAY!  Something else to look forward to for us both here.  Any sense of depression I had when I awakened was long gone by the time they left.  

It was a very nice day today after all. Thank you God!! I feel much better now.

Guess I will have to close all the windows tonight despite not being blasted out by rock music!  There is a parking lot party going on in the court beside ours, there are a number of young, stoned or drunk, young men out in front of our place cussing each other out and making threats of violence, (no guns or knives in evidence as of yet, thankfully), cars whose drivers are deliberately backfiring their vehicles as they race down the street outside the bedroom window, there are young kids running back and forth through the parking lot screaming and shrieking....with joy....I think...., there is a fellow climbing out of the large garbage bin in the parking lot cussing loudly at the contents of the bin because he apparently intended to sleep in there tonight but couldn't get comfortable enough to stay....wow, it hasn't been this scary around here in weeks and weeks.  Guess it is time to go and pray to God for protection for one and all out there, in their various states of drug and alcohol fuelled angry outbursts, and pray the kids will be safe until they finally haul themselves inside to bed.

Tomorrow is fresh peach fundraiser delivery day from my friend's church, so I am really looking forward to getting those delightful fresh fruits to enjoy. 

Little Glitches Are The Most Annoying, Aren't They?

 Happy "Almost The End Of The Work Week"!

First of all I want to pass on our cardiac patient's family's gratefulness for your prayers for him.  A procedure that was used to stop extreme bleeding was successful and that is a wonderful mercy, but he is not out of the woods yet.  This man must be made of strong stuff because despite ongoing delusions, pain and immobility, he is fighting on.  When he first arrived back at home after his cardiac and lung surgeries, he was at a point where he could walk around the block and at the moment it is taking him nearly a half hour to sit up in his hospital bed, get his feet over the edge and onto the floor, stand up, sit down and get back into bed. Thankfully some of the medical staff were able to get him up for a short walk in the ward yesterday.  I remember my own father going through similar disasters post heart attack surgery and how recovery seemed to drag on for such a horrifically long time, so I am praying our friend does not have to further endure this series of setbacks and can get back into full recovery mode.  Thank you all SO MUCH for your prayers for him.

Around our house there has been one disappointing little glitch that is actually a disappointment for our whole family.  Our son and daughter in law were so excited to be able to hear my husband's sermon from last Sunday and have been waiting all week for the recorded version to appear online.  It hasn't appeared day after day and tonight on the church website there is a notice that the service was not recorded due to a technical glitch. Sigh....we were so excited that our "kids" have been so enthusiastic about listening to a sermon together and now their and our chance of that spiritual input happening is kaput. God has his reasons and really I suppose it is not a big deal, it isn't like they won't have other chances in the future, but the topic was a special one that my husband put a lot of work into and presented so well.  We thought it would speak to their hearts in a good way. Well, apparently not actually meant to be.  hahaha  Yup, it is the little glitches that rub!

Went to Anglican evening prayer and healing again last evening at my friend's church.  Once again it was incredibly helpful and calming.  It is my friend's father who is struggling with the cardiac issues and it seemed that every prayer, every Taize song and even the homily were aimed directly at her to help give her peace and assurance that God is with her and her family. So, it was one of those special times with the Lord in the presence of others in the Christian community.  Thank you Jesus. 

Physiotherapy is still very slow for me, yet I do see some small progress that I am intensely grateful for.  I have honed in on the three exercises that remain the most difficult for me and they all involve the same set of muscles that have been so slow to respond.  However, there has been at least a bit of response. When I am tempted to be discouraged I remember back to when I shattered my ankle in 2011 and required nearly 18 months of physio therapy.  In that case I couldn't fully weight bear on that ankle until less than 2 weeks prior to being discharged from physio and my thigh and calf muscles atrophied to the point where they never fully returned to the same size as those on the other leg.  They have atrophied once again substantially, but I know they will rebuild sufficiently to hold me up when I stand and walk!!  Eventually!!! 

I am realizing how much I look forward to my weekly Thursday morning visitor.  The time together calms me, encourages me and gives me a purpose to get up and moving at least one morning every week.  I have an "embarrassment of riches" when it comes to people I know where the friendship is mutual, and I am well aware that not everyone is as blessed as I am. 

One of those friends is swinging by here on the weekend with a crate of peaches we ordered through her church fundraiser and our two families are sharing it. FRESH BC PEACHES!  I can't wait!!!  Peach pfannkuchen....my husband's specialty!  YUMMY!

Got myself a haircut this afternoon and for once had the presence of mind to book the next appointment 5 weeks in advance.  I usually forget to do that and as my hair grows longer and more unmanageable over the weeks, I am constantly flipping back through the calendar to discover when the last haircut took place.  Yay me for remembering this time!

After being stuck at home for a couple of days it was wonderful to get out for that haircut. My husband decided he was going to prolong my time away from the house by taking me to London Belle for my favourite of their dinner menu items: Cottage Pie and a Caesar Salad.  In our house when I was growing up it was called Shepherd's Pie and I once again enjoyed the tasty "stew" with just the right amount of potatoes to keep my carb count in line.  It is a very small portion all around, but so tasty and just right for me.  I appreciated his thoughtfulness as he has had several fun commitments away from home this week while I only had the short Wednesday evening church service. 

Waiting for some phone callbacks tomorrow from lawyers and doctors so we can get some appointments made over the next couple of weeks. Hopefully, since we are home all day tomorrow as far as we know, those calls will all come in.  

This weekend is the annual "Shake the Lake" outdoor music extravaganza taking place only a few blocks from our place.  I am mentally prepared this year for getting no sleep whatsoever prior to about 1am on both Friday and Saturday nights and having a constant Boom Boom Boom Oooooohhhhhh Yeaaaaaahhhhh, going on from noon onward as the rock musicians crank it out.  The actual level of decibels reaching us will depend on wind speed and direction, but the screeching vocals and incessant drum beats will still be  constants no matter how softly or loudly they arrive through our windows. Then we get one weekend of freedom before the annual Queen City Marathon run the weekend after the September long weekend.  The circuitous route we will need to get to church, the incredibly difficult parking situation around the church with so many streets in that area closed for the marathon is a puzzle that becomes more difficult to solve with every passing year and the route changes year to year.  At least this year our complex residents are not completely trapped. There is one street that will take us out of the area if we are prepared to head in the opposite direction of the church, circle way north of it and attempt to find parking within two blocks so that I can manage to walk the rest of the way to the service.  Always a "fun" time for residents in our area who are not involved in the marathon and just want to be able to get out of their homes to fulfill other plans.  This year the route for the annual Pride Parade was more easy to skirt than usual and we all appreciated those changes very much indeed.  

After three hot days the temperatures are cooling down for a bit. I think the weather is going to be bearable again until next Tuesday and Wednesday. My husband had to cancel his canoe trip on Wednesday due to the heat and now it appears that their plan to go next Wednesday MAY be scuttled for the same reason. My poor husband. All he wants is to get out in the canoe for a short couple of hours of paddling with his friend. Is that really too much to ask for?  

Time for bed.  I have just finished a somewhat disappointing novel by a Canadian author. I had higher expectations than I should have had about the story, so I won't bother naming the book and author. I am sure there are many people who will enjoy the book, it just wasn't what I expected after reading some reviews before I read it.  So, I will sort now through the rest of the pile of unread books I collected from my husband's taking me on that surprise visit to all the local library pop up book sale tables.  So far I have only struck out on two of the six books I have read thus far.  Pretty good I think. 

 

Prayers Needed Right Away For Our Cardiac Patient Friend!

 Some of you have been emailing me and phoning to ask if there have been any updates on our dear friend who recently underwent extreme heart surgery with stents, blood clot removals etc., and had a terrible few weeks in ICU getting sorted out.  At last report I was able to tell you he had arrived back safely in his home city and has been doing well.....until a couple of days ago when he developed a nose bleed that would not stop!  All the blood thinners cardiac patients have to take do that sometimes.

Short version is that he ended up in hospital again in his home city and "died" there temporarily. A long series of chest compressions brought him back to this earth, but his condition is somewhat tentative and he will be in hospital in his home city for at least two weeks. Scary, scary times for his wife and family.

This person is the father of a dear friend and she too needs prayer. Of course her family would like her to be with them and she wants to go as well, BUT she has a child about to go through a major life transition next week and she absolutely needs to be at home for that.  So, she is torn, worried about making the correct decision for everyone involved.  Thank you for including her in her prayers.  If she is not at home for her child's event there could be long term negative effects for her whole family.  What a conundrum!!  Anyway, if you could remember her as well, that would be so kind.  I will be seeing her in a couple of days and hope to find her at peace.

Thanks again all you prayer warriors who have the gift of caring about people you don't even know.  Bless you all and let's see what God is going to do this time around.

A Delightful Little Eretrian Store Right Here In Our City!

My husband presented a wonderful sermon this morning on the paradox of the fear of God and perfect love casting out fear.  Some of what he presented was new to some of the congregants, but he could see on their faces the workings of their brains to connect the dots and figure out what exactly he was saying. There was a great deal of positive feedback afterward so I am happy for him.  

After church we decided to have lunch at DarBar, but they hadn't quite opened yet for the day, so we walked part way up the street to the little Hiya Confectionery Store.   It has been open for awhile but we have never had reason to go in before. What fun we had in there!  The dried food items, dishes, shoes and jewellery are in the small front area, crammed in all over the place but wow....so many things to check out. I found a serving tray with bright African patterns on it for a reasonable price. Since I have been looking to replace my old Japanese serving tray with a broken handle and have had little success in finding what I want, today's find was perfect: small, light and lovely.  In the upper back area of the store are several racks packed with Eretrian style dresses and men's shirts.  The owner was quite talkative once he saw my husband's clergy collar.  He is a Roman Catholic who attends mass at two different RC churches here in the city, he attended seminary in Africa, his first residence in Canada was in Manitoba and now he has been here in Regina with his new business for the past year or so.  We are definitely going back in September to look more closely at the clothing and perhaps do some shopping there for new outfits.  What a little gem tucked away among some other types of businesses, just east of DarBar on Victoria Avenue.  He has a few bottles of cold drinks the likes we haven't seen anywhere else in town.  I had no idea that Crush had flavours like watermelon and fruit punch!  All I ever see are the orange, grape and occasionally cream soda flavours of that particular soft drink brand.  SOOOO FUN looking in a store that is new to us.  It still shocks my husband, even after being ordained for so many years now, when other people call him "Father", but he was very accepting of the moniker from this kindly store owner.

DarBar has attractive new menus, much smaller, book style and so much easier to handle than the large plasticized sheet menus they had previously.  The prices have gone up like everywhere else, finally...but only ONE  WHOLE DOLLAR per dish! hahaha  Wow....compared to other places that serve far less delicious food, they certainly could have raised their unit price more than that. God bless them for keeping prices reasonable!  I brought home a large carton of leftover coconut pepper chicken, rice and chick peas. Can barely wait for my leftovers dinner tonight! 

So, time for physio since there was no opportunity to do it prior to church today.  While it is going to take time to be able to increase how long I can put full weight on my operated leg, I was very encouraged today that as I was walking outside the house with my cane, I was able to walk almost upright without putting much weight at all on the cane....progress....I will take any little bit I can manage to get! haha Even my husband commented that I am listing to the side far less than I have been. YAY!

No AM Phone Calls For Awhile

 Hello family and dear friends:  over the past three days I have realized how VERY far behind I am with my weight bearing recovery, so for the next month that is going to be the focus of my life, particularly after breakfast each morning.  I am going to be using my hour of physio each day as the time when I will not be answering any phone calls.  If your news is important please do leave a message and I will definitely return your call once my work out is done.  If the reason for the call is for fun purposes only, like having a great chatter about everything and nothing, perhaps you could call me after lunch.  

Thanks for understanding.  I just need to focus on my recovery very, very diligently without letting myself be interrupted by the phone.  I am not good at that because I want to chat with you, so I need your support. I need the mental discipline to be able to ignore the phone as much as the physical discipline of physiotherapy. Thanks for helping me with this by restricting your call times.

Here's to the next month of recovery actually being successful! 

Since Some Of You Were Asking About The Change In Hip Hardware....

".....there's been some changes made....", from gamma nail to full replacement!

 

Out With The Old.....

 

...In With The New!!

 Isn't it amazing what is possible with today's surgery???!!!! Hallelujah!

Grateful On One Hand, Struggling For Patience On The Other

We have been living in our current accommodation for the past over ten years and it is no secret to anyone reading this blog....well, anyone who knows anything at all about us....that we are anxious to leave this place.  I am grateful to God and to our many encouraging friends who have given us the strength to remain here as long as we have, particularly over the past two years as we have watched the premises turning more and more into tenement quality housing.  I am very grateful for having had the stability of living in one place for so long....despite missing the end of our "Adventures in Constantly Moving", and as I have posted before, I do hope we can get one more adventure in before we get too totally old to be able to have adventures....however this evening as I looked out our windows the curtain of reality, which I have mostly been able to keep pulled sufficiently closed as one of my coping mechanisms, was lifted for just long enough to survey the property as it truly has become.  It makes my heart sad.

I looked out over the parking lot at the broken deck boards and sagging steps at various units that have been that way for many a month now with no attempts by the maintenance department to repair, the goose poo all over the sidewalks, (NOT the fault of our housing facility as the geese legally have all the rights as a protected species, but knowing that doesn't make living here any easier or less embarrassing), the cracked siding, the various window dressings dangling askew in most of the suites now, the teeny newcomer boys peeing happily day after day in the puddles behind our car in the parking lot, the filthy old mattresses and other furniture brought in to the garbage bin by the facility bobcat, items that are too often abandoned by tenants who have moved on but didn't bother to remove their ancient furniture from their suites, and these items have yet, after several days, to be picked up by maintenance on the larger CAT bucket and hoisted into the bin, an old suitcase and two large bags of old clothes left sitting beside a car in the lot across from us for the past few days, pieces of siding that have detached in strong wind storms, some of them have been hanging off the buildings for months, the sagging kitchen windows whose systems continue to fail and are no longer able to be raised and lowered either at all, or at best can only be kept open by sticking a board under them to keep them from falling out and breaking the glass, the plumbing repair job in our own suite that has left us with a large, poorly mudded and never repainted area of our kitchen ceiling that has been like that for nearly a year, the ruined linoleum in our kitchen that isn't going to be replaced, the toys and bicycles scattered for days over the lawns and parking lot.....oh, it is so depressing.  It isn't like the grounds maintenance crew doesn't see all the garbage and mess scattered hither and yon, but either they have no reason to care or they are just so understaffed and busy (?) that they can't get to cleaning the messes up .  As I watch them "working" a lot of days I feel like I would enjoy lighting a bomb  under their behinds to get them moving.  Until a couple of years ago things around here were not wonderful, but they were never THIS bad.  Either the property will be up for sale soon and that is why so little is being done, or we are all going to be evicted sometime in the near future so that these buildings can be torn down and cheap apartment buildings put up in their place.  I can "feel" it coming. This is a prime piece of residential real estate that could be better utilized for city taxes and rental companies as a development of three or four story apartment buildings.  

Anyway....that is my little confession this evening....I am not feeling upset, or stressed, or freaking out about where we find ourselves living at this age and stage of life. I am simply sad that things around here have come to this.  I am not frantic to get out of here right now because I know we are meant to stay a bit longer for a number of good reasons.  I am simply very, very sad to see how the place is being let go to wrack and ruin.   I feel like the whole complex is crumbling around me.

I Think I Am Going To Enjoy My New Exercise Plan!

I am happy. I just completed my first day of the new physio plan and it is going to be very good, I think.  By the time I work up to 30 reps per each of the sixteen exercises the routine will take about one hour to complete, but for now it is taking just 45 minutes. Only having to do it once a day now means that I can take time to also walk a bit farther in stores and out of doors at other times of the day without worrying that I will miss a physio session and set myself back again on my recovery.  It means I am free to practise walking with even weight on both feet even when using the cane; to  get going on my  regular daily household chores without worrying that I will hurt my hip as I continue to improve and get stronger muscles.

 It has been a good day. My Thursday morning visitor is becoming even more of a prayer partner and we are having many spiritual conversations that I find edifying. I hope she feels the same way.  

Just before lunch another friend called to see if my husband could take a break from his preparation for this coming Sunday service long enough for us to go to her house for a visit.  We went and had a delightful time with her and her husband.  We all have so many interesting life stories to share. It seems that after being friends for the past 6 years or so we still have not run out of memories to share together.  It has been quite a lovely day.  

 Being so busy today meant my exercising didn't get done until late this afternoon, but my plan is, for most days when possible, to do the physio right after breakfast and then deliberately plan housework and short walks outside for after lunch.  Looks like we have a few days in the coming week when it will be cool enough to get outside for a few minutes without getting heat stroke, before a couple of uber hot days next week.  It is all good.  

I am exhausted from the first day of this new physio plan, so I am most grateful that my husband took it upon himself to make a chick pea curry tonight for dinner.  He grew some curry plant this summer so his chana masala tastes much more authentic now.  The smells emanating from our kitchen are most enticing.  Can't wait for dinner time to arrive!!

A Vastly Improved Appointment Today!

 Well, I am VERY GLAD I didn't report my physiotherapist's rather unprofessional comments at my last appointment because today she was a different sort of person, more her real self I suspect.  She must have been having a very bad day last time because today the appointment went wonderfully well.  Thank you God.  She has added in 3 other physio exercises for me to do now that are not in my booklet and they should help a great deal in establishing better strength in my operated leg muscles.  I am most encouraged.  I will see her again in a couple of weeks' time and track my progress. Also, she has asked me to do my now extended physio routine only once a day, to do it slowly and do it well, probably right after breakfast so that my muscles are set up to work well as I increase my return to life for the rest of each day.  The hope is that by only doing the set routine once, I will not be too tired to function normally for doing household and shopping tasks.  Right now I am so exhausted by the time I complete two rounds of exercise each day that I can barely manage to do whatever else needs to be done.  YAY!!  NOW I am more encouraged and expecting some better progress.  She corrected my posture on one exercise and that will help and she told me that although I am behind on the muscle strengthening, I WILL catch up even if it takes me another few weeks.  Wow....what a different appointment than the last one.  She had extra time after my appointment ended, so I ended up counselling her on handling menopause symptoms.....hahahahaha.  Yup, anyone who actually knows me personally knows that having people up and suddenly, unexpectedly tell me their troubles is an almost daily occurrence when I am out and about.  My own little "secret" ministry?  I don't know, but it has been happening for over 50 years and I am quite used to it.  Hopefully at least some of what I told her will prove to be helpful to her in her journey through life.  It was nice to connect with her on a more personal level.  What a cool appointment I had today.  

And now, off to a home made Chinese food lunch at the home of friends. 

Looking Forward To A Bit Of Shopping!

 I need to purchase a couple of household items and I am really looking forward to shopping for them.  For too many years of my adult life neither my husband nor myself would dare to let even a breath escape that we needed some new appliance or piece of furniture because if my parents found out, within days a delivery truck would arrive at our house and the new sofa, set of pots and pans, can opener, beds and linens....you name it, would be brought to our front door.  Sigh.....  It was mostly at my dad's instigation. My mom tried for decades to convince him to back off because perhaps we would prefer to make our own choices, but he never listened.  For years we had furniture that we despised, appliances that we didn't like much and clothes neither of us wore, but Dad had a bad habit of doing these things for us without ever asking if it was okay and then expecting us to rain glory and honour upon his head for taking the initiative for purchasing all the things.  Sigh....  I think that underneath he really did mean well and he wanted to help us out, but he just didn't get it that he was badly overstepping.  (I think the year he announced that he and Mom were coming on holidays with us marked the beginning of a more healthy attitude on OUR part....we compromised and included them in our last week of 3 vacation weeks.) Most everything he bought us was on some kind of sale special so that rendered them nonreturnable and we were stuck. Oh well, beggars reallly couldn't be choosers in our case. hahaha

The first time we chose our own furniture was sometime in our late 50's, in the midst of our many moves, so we don't have anything particularly expensive or wonderful, BUT what we do have has been our own choice for the most part.  I have always found it difficult to turn down a well meaning gift when it is presented by a giver with an  eager attitude and/or grinning face, so proud of what he or she has done for us.  A good side effect of all the gifts is that I have learned to be gracious when being given something I am not really wanting or needing and that has been good for me.  It is something I needed to learn, that's for sure.

Anyway, all that to say I am very excited to be going frying pan and iron shopping later this week!  I love my PC non-stick, ceramic coated frying pan, but the finish got ruined recently when I accidentally put too high a heat under it, wandered off and scorched a couple of chicken breasts.  It took the top finish off so now it isn't as non-stick as it is supposed to be and I am not sure it is safe to use that way.  My iron's steamer unit has given up the ghost. No amount of cleaning the steam vents has restored its ability, and they weren't blocked with minerals anyway when they stopped working because I am obsessive about cleaning iron steam vents,  so it is time to go searching for a new one. I am very excited about searching for a new iron because there are many excellent brands available these days and I have been doing my research.   

Nothing to make me feel like life is returning to normal again like shopping for household goods!! Yeah, you betcha'!!

I Refuse To Be Discouraged!

This weekend I knuckled down and started seriously attempting the exercises in the final phase of the physiotherapy recovery programme. I am delighted to report that I can do three of those final five exercises very well. The other two are still impossible to execute because they involve the same under developed muscle group involved in preventing me from putting full weight on my operated leg for more than a few seconds. I see the physiotherapist in a couple of days so I am hoping for more suggestions on improving the development of those muscles. Discovering it is only the one muscle group that is lagging behind is encouraging as I can now concentrate my recovery efforts there.

Sunday’s sermon at church was helpful, as it was about the wisdom given in Proverbs in regard to the necessity of controlling anger. Even after all these years I still struggle with taking my anger to God first, before I react. I am encouraged that there has been a certain amount of transformation from my formerly anger driven life over the years, but I don’t mind admitting I still need God’s help sometimes. Our pastor was honest about some of his own anger issues so he certainly did not have a “holier than thou” presentation.

My husband and I went to Caraway Grill for lunch afterward. We haven’t been there in quite some time. Our chicken vindaloo and lamb curry lunch specials were very tasty, but we are certain all the sauces, as is the case in many restaurants are prepared ahead of time and the meat added at the time of meal service. While we are sure DarBar likely has to do the same thing, somehow their meats seem to be better infused with the sauces for a more complex flavour. The food at Caraway Grill was very good, we just seem to be maintaining our preference for the flavours at DarBar. Also their naan is far better than what we had yesterday. Maybe we are just old and stuck in our ways……

Last night my husband attended our pastor and his family’s annual summer block party bbq. He had a great time. I stayed home as there is no way I can sit in our fold up lawn chairs. My husband was also concerned about wasps hovering about the plates of food. He got a good walk there and back, about five kilometres so that was a bonus for him. 

Laundry day today. I seem to have an horrendous amount of it once again. While my husband is having a meeting this morning, I will concentrate on physio, then get started on the washing as soon as he is free again to assist me in getting all the clothes to the basement. I am so relieved not to have to worry about any more wasps invading the laundry space! Whew! I want to take advantage of a cooler day today and tomorrow before a brutally warm forecast midweek.

Glorious Rain, Cool Temperature, Lunch Out, Kitchen Cleaned, New Exercises Begun....A Perfect Saturday!

 I am still paying the price for having my foot jammed into too small a space yesterday for 2 hours during lunch with our visiting friends, but decided this morning that aching hip muscles were not going to interfere with my plans for today. AMEN!!

I took my time getting showered and cleaned up after allowing myself a tad extra sleep overnight and off I went with my friend for lunch.  We decided to have a REALLY good meal so we headed out to Emerald Park to Fancy Fork. It has been months since my husband and I were last out there.  My friend was delighted to discover they are still serving the now considered to be "old fashioned" Cobb Salad and also have on hand the equally "old fashioned" blue cheese dressing.  I noticed that their crunchy chicken burger was coated in corn flakes for a deep crisp, so I super enjoyed it.  I had them leave off the bun and I paired it with a caesar salad. It was delicious!  What fun we had visiting and laughing.  Once again my operated leg was forced into a less than comfortable position, but I have been home for nearly 90 minutes now and spent that time doing dishes, dusting cabinets and washing the kitchen floor, so the exercise, extending those hip muscles, has been beneficial to reducing the aching discomfort.  It has been a productive and fun day. 

The weather has been a delightful treat after a few days of rather too much warmth...at least for my husband and I.  Sometime overnight we had some rain and all day long we have had intermittent showers. There is a cool breeze and our high today is only going to be around +19C or so.  Perfect for "us guys".

In a few minutes I am going to attempt to try all but one of the exercises in the final phase of my physio programme.  I tentatively attempted one this morning before breakfast and was amazed that it was a relatively successful attempt.  So, time to try the other two  as well of the remaining four.  I will have to retain the full weight balance exercise from phase 2 and will have to use that one to work my way up to the other exercise I can't do yet in phase 3.  Getting my leg muscles on the operated leg to hold me up is taking forever, but I have moved up from 1 second to three seconds of full body weight over the past few days....three seconds....good grief, will I ever be able to hold full weight on my leg properly ever again???  Hopefully my appointment with the physiotherapist in the coming week will net me some sort of suggestion of how to move this problem forward just a tad faster.  My subconscious fear I suspect is that I will never regain full strength in those thigh muscles, but I know better.  I continue to try and am not cheating. I do my physio ever day, twice a day, with an exemption on Sundays to just do it once so I don't feel so caged into a seemingly never ending routine.

Church tomorrow morning, so I am pleased to be able to get out once again for some more spiritual "food" and fellowship. 

Great To See Old Friends And New!

 We had a wonderful visit over lunch today with one of my former teaching colleagues who became a friend as well, back when my son was still in elementary school.  Her husband was there and another couple she had been to Bible school with many decades ago, so it was a lot of fun to meet some new folk as well.  Our poor waiter seemed a bit confused as to when to deliver the meals to our table, but once all the food finally arrived it was tasty enough.  We had fun sharing old stories of meeting celebrities of various kinds over the course of our lives....one of the men went with his Cub Scout troupe to meet Queen Elizabeth ll when he was 8 years old.  He was one of the flag pole carriers and the poor fellow got heat stroke and fainted right about the time the Queen arrived and he missed her.  Poor kid!  My friend's husband recounted a meeting he had to attend a few years ago...a fundraiser in his city that his boss had to pull out of attending at the last minute so he told our friend to go in his stead.  Our friend went to the fundraiser not even being certain what it was raising funds for and had no idea what was going on. As he was finishing up a drink and deciding he had done his duty representing his boss, a fellow he didn't know came up and started chatting about the wonderful cause being supported and carried on with all manner of general chit chat, while our friend was uncomfortably attempting to leave.  Finally he was able to excuse himself.  As he was leaving he was swarmed by other attendees asking him, "WOW, what did he talk to you about. He was really chatting you up. What did he say to you?".  Our friend couldn't figure out why they were so excited. He just wanted to go home. Finally he asked them who it was he had been talking to and it turned out it was Bono from U2. hahahahaha  I laughed and laughed because I could see myself being just as culturally clued out at such an event.  I don't know who any of these famous people are either....I am still stuck culturally in the 1970's and early 1980's. hahahaha  I thought it was a great story.  Our poor friend was so embarrassed. hahaha

Our son called tonight.  He was so excited because he paid off his student loan today.  He is working on his final painting for the show in Vancouver the end of October.  If you feel so led, a prayer or two regarding the possibility of his green card application with a big fee to be paid showing up just a few weeks too late to avoid him paying ten thousand dollars to renew his current visa status as well during the interim, would be very much appreciated...by the whole family.   His wife is in a similar position.  We are trusting God together for the timing of all of this paperwork and the payout of thousands of dollars so a few more prayers would be encouraging for us all.  Bless you.  If he/she pays for a visa renewal and then the other application shows up soon afterward there will be no refund of any of that initial ten thousand dollars and all that money will be lost.

Tomorrow I am going for lunch with a friend from our care group.  It will be lots of fun. She and her roommate have been on holidays to a lake in Manitoba and always has good stories to share when she gets home. I am vacationing vicariously through friends and family this year since we won't be able to get away anywhere until later in the autumn, if at all this year.  

Have managed to clean all of our place except the kitchen, so that is my duty for tomorrow afternoon.  I was tired enough from housework the past two nights to sleep really well and after being out with friends plus grocery shopping this afternoon I am hoping for similar results tonight. 

Maybe some badly needed rain will be arriving tonight and into tomorrow. I certainly hope so. Today was comfortably cooler, so we really enjoyed that.  Dark clouds are building to the east of us, so perhaps there is a chance for the moisture...just hope there aren't any serious thunder and lightning storms as well.

The exterminator did a great job on getting rid of the wasps yesterday. When my husband checked the location of the nest today, only one wasp came flying out to greet him.  The exterminator will return near the end of next week to check and see if he had sufficient success on ridding us of the little blighters.

Off to church on Sunday morning. It is our pastor's first sermon since he returned from holidays and my husband is preaching there next Sunday, so it is always nice for him to be able to reference a few things from the two or three sermons previously for continuity.   I think it will be a good weekend.  For us it started off well since we saw friends and heard from our son today. YAY!

Banishing The Basement Wasps!

 I am ever so grateful that yesterday my husband was able to stuff some old insulation into the holes where the wasps have been getting into the basement over the past few days. Today he found nary a one down there, thankfully.  This afternoon the pest control fellow arrived to check the situation.  He peeled out the materials my husband had poked into the main point of basement entry and promptly had over half a dozen wasps come flying in.  He was stung immediately, poor guy.  Fortunately he doesn't react, so other than a small sore red spot, he was okay.  He grabbed the poison spray can and covered the wasps with it and my husband was able to swat and kill them all.  Good grief, from upstairs it sounded like a war was happening in my basement...yelling, spray can swooshing, bashing about on windows and walls with the swatter....aiii yiiiii....I fled to the upper storey and stayed there until the noise stopped and the wasps disappeared, then warily went back to the main floor once I had an idea that I could hear the spray foam insulation being sprayed into the basement wall to cover the hole and other cracks.  Whew!  By the time the exterminator got back outside to start spraying where the corner of the deck meets the siding....where the wasps have obviously been working on that nest for some time before we realized they were there....the little blighters were REALLY riled up, so the man was waving a rag around in the air, running about waving his arms and eventually squatting down away from that spot until they calmed down and went back inside under the siding where the nest is.  Finally he was able to get the poison spread about and so hopefully the problem is taken care of. He will return in a few days to check and see.  I don't know what was more annoying when he first arrived to take a peek around the outside nest: the wasps, who seemed to catch on pretty quickly that someone dangerous had arrived, or all the little children who instantly appeared wondering "why is that man here?", as he and my husband tried to shoo them away and explain to them they were in danger of getting stung by wasps.  The kids didn't seem to understand at all that it was dangerous until a comment about the possibility of dying from the stings entered the conversation, at which point they scattered away in all directions, hahaha.  I caught one of them a few minutes later sneaking back to look, but he saw me frowning at him through the window and raced away quickly. That is all I need is for a bunch of our beloved little hooligans getting themselves stung and possibly fatally if they have allergies.  Aaaargh!  I do love those kids, and even more so since their mom got a night job and the babysitters haul them all indoors by 9pm. There has been no screaming and shrieking late at night since mom got a job!  hahaha

Last night I went with my friend to the Evening Prayer and Healing service at her church.  It was lovely to enjoy the Anglican liturgy again for an entire service. The sermon was short and pithy, the readings were wonderful and I was delighted that the priest wanted to come and anoint me with oil afterward during the time of healing prayer.  She packed a lot into 40 minutes, and it was sweet.  My friend is away next week, but I may be able to convince my husband to drive me over there for the service and he may even come in with me.  As the former "bishop's rotweiller", aka Executive ArchDeacon, who was responsible for calming many a troubled water in the various churches in the diocese, he is loathe to attend many meetings and events where he could run into people whose worship experience could be spoiled by his presence if they didn't in the past appreciate his "ministry of mediation" at their particular churches.  hohoho.....

I had my usual weekly coffee visit with my friend this morning, but she got a terrible shock when she went out to her car and discovered a parking ticket for eighty dollars on her windshield!  The ticket info said she was parked in the bus zone, but I am absolutely certain she was not, because for the past 10 years we have lived here people have parked quite regularly right in that spot, sufficiently far out of the bus zone not to interfere or be illegally parked.  She was shocked, I was livid, but we decided that since the cost of the ticket drops to forty-five dollars if she pays it right away, it isn't worth the hassle of fighting it.  Her son in law happens to work for the city and is going to check the by-law on how many yards away from the bus stop a car has to be parked for future reference in case any of my other friends or my neighbour's friends get dinged. My husband figures some parking control officer was short his quota so nailed her on purpose.  I am going to put the cost of her ticket into a card and tell her it is gasoline money for all the times she has been driving over here and will have to continue to drive here until such time as I am able to drive myself again. The first years we did this weekly visit I did all the driving and she gave me gasoline money once a year, SO, my turn to do the same. She refused my offer to pay her ticket, which I offered to do since I am the one who told her it was safe to park there. She is the first person to be ticketed for that "offense" since we arrived....good grief. We are all in shock.  What a nasty business.  

We have decided to go out for dinner tonight.  My husband got rid of a bunch of his "stuff" from the basement this afternoon and I got the living room and dining room cleaned. Since this involved hauling furniture around in order to vacuum the carpets thoroughly, my hip has had enough for today. When I did my physio this afternoon one of the easiest exercises was a tad painful, so obviously I overdid the furniture moving. We decided to treat ourselves for doing regular weekly house chores and downsizing that actually needed to be done!  A pat on the back for lazy, unmotivated us to finally get with the programme around here.  I wonder where we will go for a light meal tonight?  Lots of mediocre to good choices...hmmmm....

So Somebody Out There Must Have Prayed For Me Today!

 By noon today I noticed that most of the pain emanating from my bone spur was gone and tonight it is like the pain never happened!  For the previous two days even using my orthotics in my shoe did almost nothing to help.  Maybe something else was bruised instead then, but whatever was going on, it seems to be completely better.  Thank you prayer warrior(s).  You know who you are. Thank you God.

New Pests....

 Just when I thought the pest situation here was becoming bearable, the geese, well, what can you do....the mice appear to have been banished from our building at last....my husband has been finding yellow jackets in our basement over the past 3 days.  An investigation showed they are building a nest under the back deck near the furnace fresh air intake valve and it appears that is where they are getting in.  I sent in a maintenance request a few minutes ago, so hopefully tomorrow we will get some action. In the meantime we are keeping the door to the basement shut in hopes none of them make their way into our living quarters, I have an EpiPen at the ready, just in case, and my husband has stuffed some insulation bits into the cracks in the cement wall around the entry valve in hopes of discouraging any more of the little beasts from coming inside.  Please pray that neither of us gets stung while we wait for the maintenance department to come....hopefully tomorrow....and deal with these creatures.  Our fake wasp nest that we have used successfully the past two summers to keep them from making nests up on the deck, after a frustrating couple of years with them nesting there, has worked again on top of the deck but they have made their way underneath now.  Sigh.....I am trying not to be frightened and asking God to protect us while we wait for the fumigators.  

It is still a great day, just has this little glitch going on...hopefully not for too much longer. 

Close Encounters Of The Goosey Kind!!

 We have had teeming rain, lightning and thunder for most of the day today. Of course the growing puddles in our parking lot are attracting a few dozen geese and   equally "of course" they are tracking across our back lawn, spreading poop everywhere as they enjoy munching on what is left of the green grass back there.   There were so darned many of them that I couldn't just let them be.  I was imagining how much poop would be on the lawn still by next week when our several days long daily forecast of rain ends.   I went out on the back deck and did my usual "Mork mork, mork mork....." guttural call at them, guaranteed to get them moving on because they can't figure out what kind of creature that sound is coming from, so they don't tend to stick around to find out.    Just as the main body of geese disappeared from sight around the corner of the building, our loner appeared.    This poor goose is mate-less, confused and calls out for its mate over and over all day long.   When I started "morking" at it, the poor goose headed straight for the deck step where I was standing, stopped in front of me and looked up into my face.   I bent over to get closer until there was less than a foot of space between our faces....stupid I realize as the goose could have lashed out at me with that sharp beak, BUT it was quite lovely.  The goose stopped squawking, I stopped making idiotic sounds and we just stared at each other for what seemed to be a long time, but was only a few  seconds. Then with a final honk from it and  a final "mork" from me, it carried on following the other geese.   A half hour later it was back standing at the bottom of the deck stairs, honking  like crazy.  Out I went again. It honked, I "morked" and then it toddled off and hasn't reappeared.  I have no idea what was going on in its wee brain, but it was kind  of a fun encounter for me.    Nice to have a less negative encounter with these beautiful but poopy creatures.

My husband managed to tear his office apart this morning for a deep cleaning.  I am very proud of him.  He has his library to do next, but I doubt he will get to it today as he  got all tired from doing the one room. Doing housework of any kind is not something that he is ever motivated to do, so needs a bit of a nudge occasionally, but he did a stellar job on his office, so if he leaves the library until tomorrow, I will say nothing....unless he doesn't do it tomorrow either, hahaha.  His cleaning of these two rooms he promised at retirement that he would take care of is sporadic at best, but eventually even he can't stand the dust and to work he goes.  I got the bedroom and hallway stripped down and cleaned properly and if my energy reasserts itself before bedtime tonight I will wash down the bathroom fixtures.  As my present physiotherapist reminded me at our first meeting, getting active doing the usual old duties I was doing prior to  surgery, as I am able, will be just as beneficial to getting my muscle tone back as the exercises.  The two in combination are so helpful.  A couple of weeks ago I couldn't manage the vacuum for more than a couple of minutes before my leg got too sore, so there has been progress!  YAY!   Then I just have the downstairs to do: one day for the kitchen and one day for the living room and dining room.  By Thursday afternoon I will be finished, IF I can work tomorrow morning AND afternoon.  Mornings are usually filled with physio and friends and errands.  I feel happy that I got this much housework done without pain afterward.  

The humidity is SO HIGH, but the temperature is in the lower +20'sC, so we are coping okay.    Yesterday was also rather humid and quite hot, so today we are both much more comfortable.

 Today was a stellar day for this mom:  I was able to send my son the funds needed to pay off the remainder of his student loan as part of a delayed wedding gift for him and his wife.  He has paid off tens of thousands of dollars over the years, (American universities are SO EXPENSIVE!!), and with the art market tanking right now I thought it would be a good time to help him out.  He is  so surprised and thrilled and I am equally surprised and thrilled that  I was finally in a position to help him out.  Previously I have never had the wherewithal to do such a thing.  If you are a mom whose kids have had to take out massive student loans in order for them to achieve their career goals, you  know exactly how it feels if you get the chance to help them later on to get out of debt, and how badly you felt that they had to take out the loans in the first place.  I am so excited  and he is still in shock to find himself debt free for the first time in years.  I just have to thank God for a gift I received that made this possible for him.  May the giver of the gift to our family be blessed beyond measure. 

So, it is a wonderful day today and I am grateful for it.  Seeing my ability to do more usual and normal house chores returning is a huge relief . One day I will also be allowed to drive again.  .... praying my husband can hang on another couple of months just in case it takes that long.

When The Pastor Is “Giddy As A School Boy”….

This past Sunday our pastor returned from his annual summer holiday and was the jolliest I have ever seen him to be. He smiled the entire time, led the singing with great verve, had a case of the giggles serving Communion and was using facial expressions and hand gestures to convey unspoken jokes to my husband during the final hymn…although my poor husband had no idea what the jokes were actually about, haha. What the heck? 

I have to be very careful not to view everything a pastor does that is a bit out of character for Sunday service demeanour through my lens of a pastor’s wife, but it is difficult not to wonder if the man has found another position somewhere else and will be leaving us in the near future. He was not acting like a pastor whose vacation has ended. He is usually much more solemn on Sunday mornings.

His obvious joy could have been for many reasons I would know nothing about, but my pastor’s wife antennae are on high alert. Our kickoff Sunday, when the fall and winter schedule and programmes begin is on September 7, so we shall see if any announcements are forthcoming. Hopefully I am way off base in my thoughts. 

My strained rib cage ligament is healing slowly but surely so that is encouraging. Now I have managed to “activate” the giant bone spur on the bottom of the heel on my unoperated leg. For Heaven’s sake, what next???? I can hardly walk even with my orthotics in place in my shoes. The past two days have been torture and doing my physiotherapy has been excruciating.  The spur has not bothered me for several years and the orthotic inserts usually relieve the pain almost instantly. So is the pain caused by something else? Have I overworked some other tendon or ligament? Good grief! I am so fed up with this apparently unending series of setbacks! I have to laugh because this recovery process has been ludicrous right from the start, but it has also been frustrating. Well, I will carry on and see how it goes today, hahaha…..

Tomorrow evening I am going over to one of the Anglican churches for the congregation’s inaugural mid week prayer service. My walking partner is picking me up so we can give it a try together. We’ll see if either or both of us feel any sense of call or connection in regard to making it a weekly event. 

Thankfully my Thursday morning coffee buddy is set to come over this week as well. Despite my aching foot, I am very grateful to have an opportunity to see more friends this week. Hearing about their lives is my lifeline to the rest of the world that is not contained within the walls of this suite where I live, as those walls continue to feel like they are closing in on me. 

I am very excited about Friday this week. Last night I got a text from a former teaching colleague from when my son was in elementary and junior high school. She lives on the west coast now and we see each other once every four or five years. She and her husband are arriving here on Friday and we are meeting them for lunch. That will be a ton of fun! Occasionally we exchange family news at Christmas but it has been more than five years this time since our last meeting, so I am really looking forward to the visit. Yay! 😃 

A friend in another province sent me a bunch of research she has been doing regarding affordable housing there, as she knows we are hoping to move out of this suite next year sometime, (try, try again, haha). She knows how much we would like to be able to move to her province so she is trying to help us with some initial research. How wonderful of a friend is she, right? There are reasons other than affordable housing that would likely prevent such a move, but we are following up on her research “just in case”. It is a fun project. It keeps my hopes for the future active  if nothing else and provides my mind with a renewed sense of purpose when it comes to eventually moving.

My husband and I need to start cleaning house today. As long as I can hobble about enough to wield the duster the project should be a GO! 

Supposedly we will get rain today and a slightly cooler high temperature. Please oh please may it be….l