Coming Back Down To Earth…..🌍

 ……..and a very soggy earth at that as we are presently experiencing what is called an “atmospheric river” here in the West End!  It is nearing dinner time but even a few hours ago when we walked up the street for a Persian lunch, we were literally jumping the puddles coming back to the hotel! Our son arrived at our hotel this morning with all his luggage as he moved from the bnb the gallery put him up in to the home of good friends who live only a ten minute walk from here. The puddles in the street gutters and low lying spots on the sidewalk are too deep for him to have rolled his suitcase around in going to their place, so he got stuck paying the Surge Pricing the cab companies use in these sorts of weather circumstances that provide them with a surge in clientele. His seven dollar fare was set at a minimum of twenty dollars. 💸 

My husband and I are banking on this weather meaning we won’t need a reservation at the wonderful pizza restaurant just around the corner despite it being a Friday night. Perhaps those families prepared to brave the weather and still take their kids out Trick Or Treating will leave a few more empty tables available as well? Here’s hoping! I am in the mood for a margarita pizza and Caesar salad tonight! My Persian lunch had too much ground sumac in it so it was a bit more sour than I care for. I did enjoy the dolmeh though…the grape leaves were tender from soaking in oil and the tiny candied pomegranate seeds were a delightful bite of sweet flavour to accompany them. 

The opening at the gallery last night was well attended by quite a number of collectors. That was encouraging. Showing with such a world renowned sculpture artist as Jessica Stockholder is an amazing opportunity for our son. Traffic was not as high though as it would have been if the Simon Fraser University had not had its grand opening of a fancy new gallery at the same time, but still, the amount of traffic was more than acceptable. As we were leaving, one of the collectors was carrying a large box out to his vehicle. He had purchased one of our son’s paintings that was a bit older, left over from a previous exhibition….the third painting of our son’s that he has collected. The number of repeat buyers is climbing, so that is great news. The way the current show has been curated, with a remarkable interweaving of sculptures and paintings that complement each other, should stand both artists in good stead. We had a great time later in the evening over the provided dinner for family members, collectors and other artists represented by the gallery….the atmosphere was relaxed, conversation and laughter flowed easily, my priest husband was surprisingly invited to ask a blessing over the food which was quite an honour for him, I had a blast sitting next to an 80 year old flirt of the a gentleman, just a sweetheart. 

Tomorrow afternoon a cousin of my husband’s is meeting us at the gallery and then we are going for dinner together. I will do laundry in the morning and then we will be set with sufficient clean clothing to last until we get home. 

This has been a much more chill holiday than is usual when we come to Vancouver and not just because of my being physically slowed down, but on Sunday I think we will rouse ourselves, head to Coal Harbour and catch the little ferry over to the Lonsdale Quay for some window shopping and a change of scenery. Not much time on the water, but better than none.

Over Six Km On Foot Today!

 I am delighted to report that today I walked a total of 6+ kilometres around our neighbourhood over the course of three trips: a nearly 2k trip this morning, a good 3k trip this afternoon and another nearly 2k this evening. My speed has improved, I am not leaning over onto my cane like I was previously as my leg can finally handle a bit more weight if I walk quickly, I am managing the uphill climbs on these streets at something faster than a snail’s pace and my husband tells me my gait is finally somewhat more natural. Guess the physiotherapy and determination to walk as much as possible are paying off. We were able to cover part of the walking path around Lost Lagoon and get the first part of the Coal Harbour walk onto our itinerary…..so enjoyable walking among the eight foot high bulrushes and the giant red and yellow Japanese maple trees, the evergreens and the holly bushes. Being beside the waters of the inner arm of Burrard Inlet and seeing the sailboats docked along the piers is incredible soothing to mind and spirit.  We will try to walk the full Coal Harbour pathway before we leave here.

Tomorrow evening is an artist talk at the gallery between the two exhibitors just prior to the official opening time and then it will be bedlam for a couple of hours as people stream in and out of the gallery, then the private dinner will happen for the artists and their invited guests….always fun! Our son will be wiped out from exhaustion, but will have to get up early the next morning to work on another public art proposal for a new development in North Van that is due the day he flies back to New York. The “suggestion” he apply came up very quickly and late in the schedule, so he has no time to rest on this trip. 

We were delighted when he showed up unexpectedly at our place this evening. Out to a nearby oyster bar for dinner. I have not developed a taste for oysters so I stuck with a bowl of butternut squash soup filled with halibut and topped with crumbled bacon. Delish, and not overly filling despite it being a rather hearty soup. The kilometre walk back to the hotel took care of some of the carbs! hahaha 

We had beautiful weather today….+13C with mostly sunny skies and not much breeze at all. The seemingly never ending prairie winds in Saskatchewan have been a constant source of irritation to me since we moved there for three years of seminary back in 2003! Twenty two years of nearly constant high winds….no wonder I love it here in a west coastal environment, staying near the water, but not close enough to catch the wilder winds blowing in from the Pacific Ocean!

Hopefully I will sleep better tonight now that I am used to the change of mattress and pillows, elevation and street noise. Also, tomorrow is a day off physio, so I don’t have to wake up like I have been, between 5:30am and 6am, to work out for an hour before my husband wakes up to share breakfast together.

The time seems to be flying past too quickly already!

Mee Goreng….Yum, Yum!

 We are grateful our son had no meetings this evening and was able to come over for a visit! We went back to the Malaysian restaurant together to try some more tasty foods! My favourite tonight was the mee goreng…soft noodles lightly fried in a mild sweet soy sauce and garnished with tofu, shrimp, onions, peppers, green beans, broccoli stems, green leafies, and slawed pickled cabbage. It was fantastic! I didn’t care personally for the chicken and veggie curry, although the meat was plentiful and the carrot tasty. Wish there had been more carrots. The vegetable dish featured well cooked eggplant, more green beans and very tender okra. We absolutely gorged on the delicious fare….urp…..

Accomplished all my physio today by 7:30am! One more day tomorrow and then a day off, I was glad for the workout as later in the morning we took a one kilometre walk to a London Drugs so my husband could purchase a new mouse to replace the one he lost back at home in the airport. A kilometre is not that far for me to walk, but I was so tired we had to stop for lunch at the Earl’s next to the store because that kilometre is completely uphill. My poor thigh muscles were feeling quite weak after that wonderful workout! After the rest the downhill return was a blast….SO easy, but I was careful not to let my feet slide out from under me from the wet tree leaves all over the sidewalk….yes, it was raining just enough to be enjoyable . The Japanese maple leaves are such a brilliant red in autumn so we are very glad to be here before the winds blow them all off the branches! 

I was so exhausted from the effort that I read the entire mystery novel I bought at London Drugs in the afternoon hours. hahaha  I don’t think I left my comfy reading chair the entire time! My husband was horrified by the cost of the book, so as soon as we got back he downloaded the app for our library at home. I can borrow all manner of books that way and enjoy reading them on my iPad! Yay!!

The unexpected arrival of our son just before dinner buoyed my energy again and I was able to hobble back to the restaurant. Just before we left after dinner to return home there was a cloudburst of rain. Oh how I enjoyed walking back to the hotel in the darkness with the rain deluging. I nearly skipped through the puddles forming on the sidewalk outside the hotel. Yup, a bad hip and a cane….skipping through the puddles? Hmmm…I think not! 

Tomorrow post physio is an open book for plans and we love that. We can do anything we want….or nothing at all. We may or may not see our son for lunch, we may or may not take a longer walk on flatter ground….it is lovely not to have any firm commitments with time deadlines and expectations from other people. Our energy is boosted considerably since we arrived here, despite two bad sleeps in a row. We are not thinking about all the things we have to face once we arrive home. So far, so good on this holiday! 

The Hotel Has Everything We Need!

One thing we love about this hotel is the attention to detail. There are televisions in the living and bedrooms which is a bonus for my and my husband’s very different ideas of what constitutes tv entertainment, there are plushy bathrobes and umbrellas, carpeted bedroom floors, recycling bins and compost collectors, bedside packages of earplugs, a well appointed kitchen with full sized appliances, a Juliet balcony, comfy living room chairs, a good sized dining table, a fireplace, well made window blinds, lots of closets and hangers, a non skid bathtub mat, underground parking, a rooftop bbq and dining area, an en suite washer and dryer that includes the detergent pods, AND the piece de resistance: a toilet that must have been purchased at an L.P. sales convention because it is only about a foot tall! 🚽

If I was an L.P. instead of an average sized person I would be congratulating the hotel on providing exactly what is required for my comfort, but as an A.P., with a new hip replacement, it is quite a struggle to use this toilet! I only progressed at home from a 5” raised seat to our regular toilet which is a bit too low, but compared to the one in our hotel room it feels like Mount Everest! 

TMI?? Weeeeellllll…..let me tell you that if you were a senior with a four month old total revision arthroscopy to recover from, you too would care about struggling with attempting to deal with your body’s needs while balancing on one foot Karate Kid style with the operated leg waving wildly in the air to keep it from bending too much at the hip, one hand grasping at the high vanity counter while the other is feeling around for the foot lower bathtub rim while you try to maintain your balance sufficiently to manage the required contortions needed to sit down without losing your balance so as not to end up face down on the newly replaced linoleum floor! It is particularly fun at 4am when you are jet lagged and fuzzy headed and mostly still asleep. 

Yup, we have it all here! Hahahaha…..🫣😳😬🙄

Just a travel hint if you should happen to be planning a journey only a few weeks or months after any sort of hip replacement surgery: ask your hotel staff to give you a height measurement on the toilet in the room you want to book. It may be worth paying for the extra suitcase under the plane ✈️ in order to take that raised toilet seat from home along with you! Wish I had done that very thing! Teehee….🙃 

Misinformation, But That’s Okay This Time!

We are happily on the west coast, after a very good trip out….both flights on time and zero issues making our connecting flight. Such stress free air travel seems to be becoming more of an anomaly with every passing year. Things were not looking good as far as our initial flight arriving in time to make our connecting flight, but it turned out the airline had given us incorrect info. According to that info our first flight was not scheduled to arrive until five minutes after the second flight began to board, leaving us only fifteen minutes to land, deplane and race helter skelter across the terminal in scant hope of boarding before the gate closed. Since Flight One left ten minutes late, we knew we had zero chance of making our connection. Well, lo and behold if it didn’t happen that the initial two hour flight we were told to expect was actually only an hour and twenty minutes, so even with the delay we arrived for Flight Two a full fifteen minutes before boarding began! All was well! 

Those of you praying for my stress relief will be pleased to know that despite how things looked prior to our discovery that our flight was shorter than expected AND the actual time of arrival was earlier than our original boarding passes said it was, AND even when we were convinced we had missed our connector altogether, I did NOT freak out! I had peace in my heart and mind! It is because of our merciful God answering your prayers! I even got a few hours of sleep last night despite knowing the alarm would ring at 6am. Hallelujah! 

We were able to check into our hotel two hours early which was a relief. Our carry on bags were stuffed with all manner of things to avoid having to take under the plane luggage and were SO heavy!!  As soon as we unpacked we headed across the street to a Malaysian restaurant for a 3pm “Lupper”. It was fabulous and the same general price as a far less fabulous restaurant mid day meal at home! We purchased breakfast fixings at the grocery store across the street and I think we will just have a late snacky sort of dinner of grilled cheese sandwiches. 

Quite a number of restaurants and small businesses in this neighborhood have closed out since we were here nearly two years ago, but others are springing up to take their places. The Ukrainian Sushi restaurant is still here but the Starbucks on the street level of our hotel has closed. Our favourite Italian and pizza restaurants are still here but my husband’s beloved Polish deli recently closed down. Any disappointment over that is somewhat mitigated by having a giant red leafed tree right outside our teeny Juliet balcony.

As often happens our son’s flight out of JFK was delayed, but only by one hour and he is now en route! He will get to his bnb late this evening. He has a full day of installation and meetings at the gallery tomorrow, so it will likely be the following day before we see him…or maybe the day after that when we arrive at the opening night of his exhibition. No matter…once opening night is over there will be several days worth of opportunities to get together. 

We realize that even if seeing our son was not part of the equation this trip, we do need to get away and be somewhere else for awhile. Looking forward to rainy walks along tree lined streets and around the harbour near the hotel. The Coal Harbour walk is gorgeous! There is a giant sculpture there by my favourite west coast artist, Liz Magor, that I look forward to seeing again.

It was dry and sunny when we arrived but now a gentle rain is falling. Little green and white lights strung through the branches of the brilliant red tree outside are twinkling and have tiny drops of illuminated rain trickling from their bottoms. The sun is going down and the air is humid and warm. We ditched our jackets as soon as we got to the hotel and enjoyed a sunshiny walk in the +10C afternoon.

My husband is napping and smiling in his sleep. As soon as we landed at the airport and I saw the green leaves still interspersed with some autumn colours, well even before that as our plane flew out over Georgian Bay prior to landing and I saw the water, I felt the tension of the past 18 months falling away. 

Thank you God for this travel opportunity and thank you family and friends for your supportive prayers! Now, I pray I will be faithful to do my physiotherapy while I am here. I brought my resistance bands and everything, so I had better make use of them!

 

Dapper Dan...Or Bespoke Bob....Depends On Your Generation!

Our son has a wonderful tailor who made his wedding suit for him.  Here it (and he) is:

Amazing what a good tailor can accomplish for the groom!

 

When we see him on the west coast in a few days, he will be wearing slightly less formal attire, so we are going to enjoy looking at this photo often!!  This artist cleans up pretty darned well, does he not?  (Hey, I'm his mom so I can brag up my son no matter how old he is now, right?  Of course right!)

5 Seconds And Counting.....

FINALLY: after nearly five months of physiotherapy, today I was able to stand unaided on my operated leg for a full 5 seconds for at least half of the 30 reps for one exercise.  Since there are 8 other  balancing exercises and I can still only balance unaided for about 2 seconds or less for most of them, being able to FINALLY do it for even this one exercise is a small but significant step of forward progression.   There hasn't been a lot of progress on my lying side abductions, but over the past week I discovered I can hold my leg up for the full five seconds and gently lower it down, instead of barely hanging on before I lose control and it crashes back onto the mat.  Again, small but, for me, noticeable progress as I continue flogging through the physiotherapy.  Last week I was quite discouraged, but this bit of progress has encouraged me to continue without fail.  

Baby steps...baby steps...but steps nonetheless.   

Now comes the crazy day of packing and repacking, choosing and discarding, pushing and forcing things into my flight bag, then pulling everything out and starting all over again as I reassess what I will truly need to take with me.  The temptation to over pack is great, but the limited space in my carry on keeps me from loading it too full. I do want to have a bit of space left if I need to purchase anything to bring home....like the trashy novel from the grocery store that i don't quite get finished before it is time to come home....well, hey, I paid for the dumb thing, so I am going to complete it. Cheapskate that I am.......

Reality Check....Sigh...BUT Also Great Joy!!

Our son just received a schedule from the gallery where he opens his show next week.  All three of us are happy and disappointed about the number of commitments he now has, but also thrilled that his agent and gallerist are putting this kind of time into advancing his career!

Isn't it funny how it goes sometimes, eh?   You wait and wait and wait for something special to happen, sometimes it costs money, sometimes it costs added life stress, but then it finally happens....only to be not quite what you were expecting and "the bloom comes off the rose" to some extent.  That is how we were feeling right now about this upcoming trip when we first saw the schedule.

 It appears we will be fortunate if we see our son at all the first three days we are all there together. He is booked into meetings and installations and photo ops etc. from morning to late afternoon and then there are meetings with people who could help him advance his career and his agent is setting up these marvellous meetings for him.  When we read the schedule he sent us it was kind of like getting slapped in the face with a dash of cold water, BUT on the other hand, he has waited several decades to get this kind of an agent who is so supportive and so intent on progressing his art career.  

We got over the disappointment pretty quickly once we realized the way he is being promoted right now by this new agent.  It is pretty thrilling and we are very excited to be able to be at the opening night exhibition, the private dinner following it and to be able to attend some artist talks that have been set up for him.  It is all "good stuff".  

Isn't it funny how even when our adult children are well established in their own lives, we still want to spend every possible minute with them. Perhaps it is because our son and his wife live so far away...the other side of the continent, so our times together are limited.  

Finally there is a bit of an upside to our daughter in law being unable to come with him on this trip.  What on earth would she do all day, day after day, in a city she is unfamiliar with?  There is no way she would want to be stuck with us old codgers for three days straight at the beginning of her visit, that's for sure. She is a real go-getter and would find things to do and transportation to get to them, but it isn't always that much fun  exploring a strange new city on one's own.

We need to plan a family trip to the west coast some time when it is not based on our son's art exhibitions.  Yay, more good ideas to think about and plan for. Perhaps our daughter in law could locate some good theatre we could go to together since she is the playwright and producer in the family.

I finally found a huge diameter hair brush in a store the other day, after searching this city for the past couple of years. The only stores selling them have been supply stores for hair salons only, but now I finally have one and my hair looks better now after washing and drying than it has in a very long time. YAY!  So grateful I found one at last.

Well, physio is done, shower and hair are complete, I have hauled out a number of things I will need to pack for the trip, so it must be time to do the laundry!   

Looking For Longer Term Food Expiration Dates!

 My husband and I were discussing this week how we detest arriving home from a trip and before we even get back into our house to unpack we have to stop at a grocery store to pick up milk and yoghurt and bread to get us through for a day or two until we have recovered our energies enough to go grocery shopping.  For some reason neither of us enjoys that brief shopping expedition prior to FINALLY getting home.

So, today we went on a short shopping trip to see if we could find any of those three products with Best Before dates at least several days longer than our arrival home date.  We of course scored with our favourite breads because I have finally emptied the small refrigerator freezer sufficiently to get a couple of loaves in there.  The yoghurt was also a "score one for the team" because I discovered several 4 packs of Too Good yoghurt brand that don't expire until November 25th, weeks after we get back.  Milk is the issue.  We just don't get milk anywhere in this city that will not expire before we even get home, let alone at any time afterward.  We found a good, large package of tilapia that will fit in the freezer, we have rice and some frozen veggies we can use up for our first couple of meals before grocery shopping, we have cheese in the freezer....SO only the milk is outstanding.

It is all great news except for the milk.  Although it is only one product, it is going to be required immediately for both our daily diet considerations.  So, it means that despite our best intentions and attempts to get a few groceries to come home to, we are still going to have to stop and pick up milk before we can go home.

We have decided that the best way to do that, since our car will have been sitting in our parking lot unstarted during our time away, we will have the taxi from the airport take us first to a tiny neighbourhood grocery store that isn't quite half the distance home and does line up with a fairly direct route to our house. It is worth a few extra dollars on the taxi meter to make that stop.  Home with luggage and milk, then we won't have to go out again for several days if we don't want to.  Aaaaah.....a solution hath presented itself!!  Of such teensy weensy dramas do our lives now consist! hahaha

My husband just found out yesterday that he is responsible to write an article about miracles for our diocesan newspaper and it is due tomorrow!  There seems to always be some obligation that unexpectedly rears its ugly head when he is trying to have a relaxed time preparing to travel.  He ran errands with me this morning and has been researching and writing his article all afternoon. Now, after dinner, he is at it again.  Tomorrow will be tied up with it and when he can take a break he will have to return his university library books.   MAYBE sometime this weekend we can actually start seriously packing up. To that end, I will do laundry tomorrow.

A friend with family visiting from out of town contacted me today to ask where they should order Indian food to celebrate a family birthday tomorrow.  Guess where I recommended???  Bet you can't!!! hohohoho Okay, you are right. I recommended DarBar with a secondary choice of Caraway Grill.  Big surprise, eh? hahaha

We will attend the Church of Zoom again this Sunday in an attempt to remain healthy before we go away. It seems my own little medical issue has finally responded to the latest round of antibiotics and that is quite a relief.  

Our son seems even more excited to see us than usual. Bless his heart.  I am hoping sometime he can take his wife to the west coast for her first visit, just the two of them, and he can introduce her to all his friends there.   It would be a great place for them to have a long delayed honeymoon.  I suspect she would have a much better time being there on their own than having her first visit there during one of his art shows and being stuck day after day with his parents due to the busy schedule his agent always has him on for the opening weekend. That being said, I still wish she could be there this time...sigh....she is so marvellous and we love her.

The day didn't start that early for us, yet it seems like it should be at least 10pm and it isn't even 7:30pm yet.  Guess the fact that it is now dark by just after 6pm accounts for at least part of that "Isn't it time for bed yet??" feeling.  

Back to physio tomorrow after two days off.  Fortunately I have done a fair amount of walking those two days.  My husband has noticed I am walking considerably more normally just in the past week or so. That is encouraging. Today I was able to walk a short distance from our car into the bank and back sans cane without any downhill slide in my walking movements. Even such a small encouragement buoys my spirits and makes me happy to return to my exercising tomorrow.  How this nearly daily exercise thing is going to work on our trip I am not certain, BUT I will make it happen one way or another and if I have to miss an extra day or two I am not going to flagellate myself over it.  I still have over 7 months of work to do and do it I will. 

Run, Run, Run....Catch Mice...Run, Run, Run.....

It has been several days now of running madly about in all directions getting various errands run, meetings and doctors' appointments attended to, working in the truly meaningful events like last night's Taize healing service and this morning's coffee time with my friend, using up all the groceries in the refrigerator, setting up a ride to the airport, AND now to be added to the list: trying to capture the mouse or mice that we discovered evidence of in our car yesterday.  Apparently while I was busy inside a bank yesterday my patient, "Waiting in the car AGAIN", husband realized he was looking at evidence of yet another autumn mouse invasion of our vehicle...torn kleenex, tote bags pulled out of their bin and shuffled about on the floor of the back seat and also other less savoury evidences. Sigh.....  

As soon as we arrived home he pulled everything out of the car and the trunk, put all the grocery totes, the blanket and pillow cases into the washing machine, I washed down our brand new "leave in car" take out food containers and my husband removed his tool boxes and other " workin' man goodies" from the trunk and washed them off on the back deck, drying them carefully before hauling them all inside.  Then he went to the basement and found the last of our disposable mouse traps, loaded them with peanut butter and placed them into the car.  I am forbidden to drive it now until he either catches a rodent or sees no further evidence of its presence after a 24 hour period and then has disinfected the entire interior of the car.  Once he arrives home from a morning church meeting he will do another check on those traps.  Nothing was caught between 2pm yesterday when he put them out and late last night before we went to bed, but we have found that sometimes on the warmer days like yesterday, the invaders will disappear from the car and then return for the overnight hours. Ooooh YUCK!!!!  An out of town friend who lives alone just managed to clear a nest out of her house after much gagging and stress as she has never had to do that before. I am SO PROUD of her for tackling it and not calling someone else in to remove the carcasses.  Knowing how nearly impossible it is for me to pick up a dead mouse in a trap, even with gloves on and simply dispose of the whole thing in a garbage bag, I cannot imagine her crawling around in an attic room removing an entire nest on her own. God bless that woman.

I am laughing because our son seems even more excited about getting together than we are, and we are pretty excited!  He is arriving on the coast the same day, a few hours later than we are and leaving the same day we are, so whenever he is free we are going to have some time for good visits and meals and fun.  The only downside is that his wife can't travel right now....major bummer....so hopefully we can all be together in NYC next year.  Lord willing.....

Off to a haircut now.  I received a call this morning that my stylist is ill and did I want to re-book or see someone else today?  I really don't want anyone else cutting my hair, not even trimming it, but what choice to I have? I deliberately waited a couple of extra weeks for this cut so I would have nice short hair for travelling so it can't really wait for another 2 weeks or more to be done.  A small detail I suppose, but I do hope and pray just a trim is what I will get today.  AND I hope this stylist understands what my regular person is doing with my cut so I don't bring a mess with me the next time I have an appointment.

A day off of physio as usual today, but my scheduled times for exercise are going to change somewhat to accommodate flight days.  I will pack my physio equipment in the top of my flight bag so that if it has to be checked the agent won't have to dig through to the bottom of the bag to take a look at it.   Having a washer and dryer in our suite is wonderful. I can pack half of what I would normally need for clothes. YAY!  Last time we stayed at this hotel I somehow missed the fact that there was an in suite laundry and had far too many clothes items packed. It meant I had NO room left for any purchases whatsoever while I was away and that was kind of disappointing.  Not so this time!

Grateful for a sunny day today!  It will make my walk to the hairdresser most pleasant! 

Okay, time to go and get my hair cut. Hopefully my husband will get home and be able to figure out what is going on with the mouse in car situation and get things cleaned up before I get back....mice....ick!!  He is so good to do all this mousie rousting without asking me to help him.  He knows....he knows.......yay!

No Errands Running Today After All

Wow....not the day to be running our errands!  The wind is howling and blowing the light rain in all directions, the wind is so strong that our metal mail box lid is lifting up and slamming down time after time in the breeze.  (That went on all night and so my husband is going to get some magnets to hold it down more sufficiently so we can sleep with fewer slamming interruptions from that lid!)

We had a long list of pre-trip errands to run today, but they can wait a couple of more days.  Tomorrow the weather is to be vastly improved and continuing to move in that glorious direction for the rest of the week, yay!  However, that will not be a day for errands either.  My husband needs the car for a morning meeting and then I am booked into my doctor for a follow up appointment as the medical issue I went to Urgent Care for is not completely resolved despite meds and my best efforts to clear it up.  I can't go away without another check up and likely more meds to tide me over until we get home.

We are having a bit of a different trip to the coast this time.  Last time we tried hard to see as many old friends as possible, some visits working out well and others not, but this time we are restricted to one possible visit with a cousin of my husband's. Apart from that we are going to spend as much time with our son as possible, spend more time at the gallery where he is exhibiting, and far more time just being on our own than we did last time.  We have a lot of things to discuss and make decisions about and are hoping a complete change of scene will assist with that process.  It has in previous trips away.  I am stuck doing physio most of the mornings we are gone so that limits my energy and our free time.  We are both completely exhausted right now and the idea of having to sprint around here and there to meet up with other friends is not the exciting, joy inducing idea that it should be.  That is okay. We will go again soon at a time of year weather wise that is more conducive to having friends driving and ferrying and busing around the area to see us.  We would like to make another trip out to Vancouver Island for a trip down memory lane and to see friends there who we have been in touch with for decades.  It will be worthwhile renting a car on the mainland and making a reservation on the ferry to the Island. (Of course just this past summer we finally cancelled our automatic annual rental car insurance payment on our credit card as we realized how much we are spending for something we have barely made use of in the past eight years and it is unlikely we will be doing very often any more, hahaha.) My husband has a cousin in Victoria we are in touch with semi-regularly and it would be great fun to see her as well.  Another trip for another time....something else to look forward to, hopefully next year. Nice to have some currently vague plans that actually have a good hope of coming to fruition.  We have to haul our minds out of the winter doldrums here at home by thinking farther ahead about planning things we truly enjoy doing!

Lots of meetings and appointments to get to this week and in around those perhaps we will actually have time to get ready to go. I began the week with great plans for a thorough housecleaning prior to travelling, but the way the week is filling up with other necessary appointments and the recognition that laundry will have to be done one more time, is kind of ruining my housework plans...we shall see how much energy I have by the weekend......    

A Do Nothing Sort Of Day!

Despite the glorious sunshine today, I didn't get outside longer than it took to take the garbage to the bin across the parking lot.  Guess I overdid the exercising yesterday by adding an over 2km walk to a physio day.  Oh well, live and learn, right?  Still getting over my little medical issue from last weekend, completed the meds last night, but still didn't seem to be completely over things until just this evening....maybe I am okay now?  If not I will be first in line at the walk in clinic on Monday morning.  I will try to give myself one more day before I go seeking more help.  I just don't want to spend a second Sunday in a row at Urgent Care!!!!  

So, as a result of feeling so weak today, my poor leg was given a nearly complete rest.  I ironed for an hour this morning and made/helped my husband make the meals and did the dishes a few times....apart from that I sat at my computer, in front of the tv and on top of my bed quilt reading.  No more physio until Monday morning and maybe a good break is what I need. I find that on Mondays my leg responds very positively to physio but by the end of the week it is feeling pretty limp and unresponsive in comparison.  Little glimpses of progress though this week, so I am not discouraged.

My husband spend several hours today helping a friend by putting a brand new door onto her back yard shed.  Things went very well.  In payment, she is planting our herb pots into a sheltered garden bed space in her back yard so we can see what herbs may winter over under their blanket of snow until the spring.  Some of them are rather hearty, so there is a chance at least a few of them will survive. When we lived in Alberta our house had a fairly substantial overhang of the roof in the front of the house, there was a garden bed right below it and I remember one particularly bitter winter when I thought I saw something in the midst of the deep snow there, right about the first of March after a couple of days of warmer than usual sun.  I went over to have a look and lo and behold it was a basil plant poking its leaves through the snow!  I was overjoyed and the plant lasted right through until the following autumn, providing us with wonderful fresh flavour for sauces and gravies all summer long.

Looks like a couple of possibly miserable days to begin the new week....rain and possible snow mix, but by mid week the temperatures during the day appear to be aiming for double digits, mid teens!  YES!  

I have a lot to do over the next week or so to get ready to travel.  Hopefully I won't need to lose all of Monday sitting around in a walk in clinic trying to get some more help!  Praying so hard I am over the worst of this issue now.  There are library books to be returned to the university, travel funds to move from one bank to another, some more bills to pay, as well as an early rent payment for next month, complete the information sheet for our executors should anything happen to us, so they know where to find everything. if something were to happen to us and on and on it goes. Details drive me nuts, but actually that is a pretty small list of things to accomplish and I have quite a few days to succeed in doing so.  Now, how I am going to work in a proper housecleaning as well, plus all the physio....hmmmm....guess it is going to be a busy week!  And that is A-OK!! 

Not Quite The Week We Were Expecting, But That's OK!

 This week has not turned out the way we planned, but nothing terrible has happened, so that makes it a great week in my opinion!

We were caught walking in a freezing cold wind tunnel howling between the downtown high rises on Tuesday afternoon when some appointments turned out to be farther from where we parked our car than we thought they were. Within about 36 hours we felt rather tough with sinus issues and exhaustion.

Since we didn't want to spread our possible "JOY" with any of our friends here, we proceeded to cancel out my evening at weekly Taize healing service, our Bible study the following afternoon and my attendance at the church women's breakfast tomorrow morning. While neither of us is feeling any worse as the days go by, our sinuses are still unhappy, we are still abnormally tired and so the jury is out on how ill either or both of us may still become over the weekend.  Since we are leaving in a week's time for the west coast, we are taking short walks during the days, close to home, and spending most of the rest of the time hibernating and working on home projects until we are certain we are okay enough to be around other people. To protect ourselves from the many illnesses making their way through our church congregation we will attend the Church of Zoom on Sunday morning!  'Flu and Covid vaccinations have only become available in our fair city in the past two days; we cannot get ours until after our trip unfortunately, because we both tend to react negatively to both of them, so don't want to risk becoming even more ill prior to the trip even if these sinus issues clear up in time to get vaccinated before we go.. Always some little health issue seems to crop up right before we are going away it seems.  Oh well.....

Today we walked to the pharmacy to pick up some prescriptions.  Although there was a bit of a stiff breeze, the glorious sunshine and the falling leaves made for a nice little jaunt and we sat on a bench under a tree along the route on the way home to enjoy the last of the outdoor days prior to the downturn in temperatures next week.  It was quite lovely and we weren't spreading any sinus infections to anyone.  We have begun masking in stores again just for the sake of keeping ourselves and everyone around us as safe as possible since the recent round of colds and 'flu's showing up here are pretty darned miserable ones.  I noticed as we walked by the nearest clinic that there is a sign up telling all who enter that once again they MUST be masked.  So noted.....

I get two days off physio now, always a wonderful boon to my weekends, so will spend some time ironing and beginning a pre-travel house cleaning.  It will be good exercise of a different sort.  

Brrrrr....No Fresh Snow, But The Winter "Feeling" Has Arrived!

Although we are currently about to hit the double digit high temperature of +10 for today, it feels almost like it is below zero outside.  The sky is very greyly clouded and there is a 40% chance of more snowfall or rain.  Now the wait is upon us for the first of the freezing rainfalls.  Oh so glad we will soon be getting a bit of a break from the onset of prairie winter with our trip to the west coast.  At least there is mostly bearable rain there, even if it is constant and there isn't much to worry about in terms of freezing rain.  Even if there is, or a bit of snowfall, it never lasts very long....a few hours, a day or two at most.  Going west will serve to make our upcoming winter seem less long.

This morning we slept in. It was glorious not eating breakfast until 9:30am, even if that does mess up my mealtimes for the rest of the day. Who cares?  I got my physio all done, got on the phone to get the current amounts owed on our utility bills and credit cards, got them paid for another month despite the mail carriers' strike.....it has been a good morning.  Not completely sure my antibiotic is doing its job completely as it comes to an end tomorrow, but still have time for a second round if necessary before we go away.

The property management company workers arrived this morning as well, to change out the furnace filter and test the smoke alarms. As usual there was an accompanying staff member with a clip board asking for a review of their indoor and outdoor maintenance services.  In the past six months I have given three very honest reviews of the same questions and of course nothing has changed, so today I just said they get an 8 out of 10 for attempting to keep these old tenements standing up.  Whatever.......  At this point what does it matter?  The surveys over the years have changed not much it seems and we don't intend to be here much longer so....

This afternoon my husband has a meeting and so I am going to get started on the laundry. That will mean lots of going up and down stairs and weight bearing, so that will make up for me taking my required day off physio tomorrow.   If the weather tomorrow is good enough to walk to our small group meeting that will take away my unnecessary guilt for taking the day off.  

Here is a wonderful quote a friend sent to me that really got my attention about not running ahead of the Lord and his plans...a struggle I have been having for over a year and who knows why!  This worrying about living accommodations etc. has not been much of a problem for years and years.  My trust and faith for this event need to be restored it seems!

“God does all while we wait and wonder. Consequently give yourself to prayer, when you can, and trust in God that he will lead you, without your choosing your path. Wait for pressure from him. Do not act unless you must. Let him take the initiative.*”

* Quoted by Benignus O’Rourke, Finding Your Hidden Treasure (Darton, Longman and Todd, 2010), p. 48.

Well, better get started dragging all the clothes down to the washing machine! 

Things Have Surely Improved Over The Past Two Days, Thankfully!

 I am feeling ever so much better than I was on Sunday morning when I had to make a trip to Urgent Care. Thank you Lord!  Thus far the meds seem to be working and I am most grateful for that.

Yesterday was a very fun day!  We went over to the home of some friends from what I call our TEENY fellowship group where we enjoyed not only an amazing soup and sandwich lunch, but an entire afternoon of laughing and talking and just sharing presence together.  Oh what a blessing to have some friends in the "younger than us" category with all the amazing stories about their lives and careers and families.  We spent the entire afternoon together and even after those several hours, we were all loathe to leave. I don't remember the last time I had that much fun with a group in someone's home just "being". I slept well last night after such a satisfyingly tiring day.  

Now that my physio is mostly all able to be done in the mornings as part of my weekly routine, I am certainly enjoying being able to use the rest of my day times for going for walks and visiting friends.  I am really hoping the weather will be warm and dry enough in a couple of days' time to be able to walk to a meeting of our larger fellowship group.  It is 2.2 km away on foot, but there is a scenic shortcut through the park near here that cuts the distance to 1.7 km, so with a 90 minute break between going there and coming home, the distance will be more than manageable. Please Lord, can you hold off the rain for a few hours that day?  I GOTTA walk!!!  Before I know it there is going to be ice all over everything and the true winter season will be upon us. (speaking of weather, the teeming rain on Sunday opened up a wider crack in the foundation of our place and a good half gallon of water ended up in the collection tubing and pail my husband set up down there a couple of years ago....so grateful for his ability to find and fix these issues that keep the floor of our suite dry. The snow out on the lawn is nearly all melted now.)

 Today we were at an appointment downtown and the person we were meeting with asked us what we knew about a major fire that broke out only a few blocks away, burning to the ground a brand new nearly all constructed low cost housing apartment, ruining the houses on each side AND as we found out later on today, destroying the garage at our lead minister's house!!!!  We hadn't realized it was RIGHT beside his place. SO grateful his family and main house are fine, but hoping he hasn't lost the vehicle or other major items that may have been in the garage.  Oh my....there is so much arson in this city that of course that is where one's mind immediately goes, particularly in that rather rough area.  We arrived home to an email from our pastor letting everyone know that as traumatic as it was, at least their house and family are safe. He requested prayer for the contractor of the apartment building that burned down and for families renting in the houses on each side of that building who are now without housing.  Hopefully we as a church can come together to help those people get reestablished.  What a shocking bit of news.  

We had time left on our parking meter after our initial appointment this morning but we are tired of eating at our usual downtown haunts, so we tried a little Italian cafe recommended by friends just yesterday. It is called "Silvia's Italian Cafe" and it is in the bottom of the Canadian Legion building.  We arrived only 45 minutes prior to them closing. The lunch crowd was long gone and so the proprietress was about to close early.  We said we would return another time, but oh no, she wouldn't hear of it.  She ushered us in to a lovely little table for two and quite happily took our order after sending the regular server home.  The food, (spaghetti and meatballs and a meatball sandwich on a toasted whole wheat ciabatta bun), was very simple and extremely tasty as well as reasonably priced.  Oh yum, yum, yum!!!  Her husband stopped in so we had a great visit with him as well.  We met his mother who is visiting from the Maritimes. She herself spent over 50 years in the food industry so on her visits she comes to work each day in the restaurant here. hahahaha  By the time we left we felt like we were almost part of that family!!  I am guessing they have a lot of "regulars" who enjoy the ambience of the red checkered tablecloths, below ground view of the street above, the little table lights and the authentic Italian dishes. It is a limited menu that probably hasn't changed in years, but if it works then that is a good thing. We will definitely return.  We want to go for brunch one day, just as they are opening and spend a couple of hours sampling their appetizer menu.  Finally, some place here that is new to us, but with a well established menu and clientele.  We noticed a couple of new places in the downtown area we will have to try as well one of these days.

Now it is time to be making supper, but we are still so satisfied from our late lunch that it is going to be 7pm I am sure before I even begin cooking another meal.  

Tomorrow is wide open for me while my husband attends some meetings, so after morning physio I think it will be a wonderful day to do the laundry. My husband finished drying the rest of our home grown herbs today and got them bottled, so that means the dryer and other accoutrements can be moved off my laundry table! 

PS for those of you who have been asking about my physio, yes there is minimal progress, but I am guessing there won't be any updates worth mentioning for another two or three weeks at least. It is just going to be a very long process to heal the main tendon.  It just is. 

No Dinner Out, Urgent Care, No Church, First Snow....Happy(?) Thanksgiving...Pout, Pout, Pout!!!

This Thanksgiving Sunday has not turned out quite the way we were expecting.  I woke up at 7am with a medical issue that needed immediate attention, so it was off the the Urgent Care Centre for a three hour wait to see a doctor and get a script.  SO grateful for this facility. Even though for the first two hours I was there in the crowded waiting room there was only one doctor available, at least I got attention more promptly than I would have at the ER departments of our local hospitals.  I got my prescription, headed to the pharmacy where I got very, very quick attention based on my need to begin treatment as soon as possible and less than 4 hours after leaving for the medical centre I was home, medicated and well fed by my wonderful cook of a husband.  We splurged and had bacon and eggs, hashbrowns with diced green onion and red pepper, whole wheat toast, tomatoes.....oooh, it was quite lovely.  Since it had been over five hours since I had forced myself to down my breakfast and only managed to eat less than half of what I should have had, my blood sugar was most happy to get some carbs!

So we completely missed the church service this morning, one of my annual favourites, but thankfully it should be appearing soon online.  Love one side effect of the COVID issues in 2020 and 2021 and that is it was the beginning of recording all our services and posting them for future viewing.

The teeming rain changed to snow just as we were leaving the pharmacy to come home. What a mercy!  I was wearing my summer sandals on my feet because I left home in such a hurry this morning and wasn't thinking about the upcoming change in the weather today.  The wind is blowing out of the north and apparently the central part of our province is really getting whacked with snow.  Looks like we won't get quite that much snow on the ground, but wow, the city streets are getting pretty slushy. So glad we only have to go out once tomorrow but not very far from home as the slush may be icy by then. 

Off (HOPEFULLY) to some friends' for lunch tomorrow, a simple lunch of sandwiches and soup, one of our favourite meals, and some fine fellowship with the members of our teeny tiny fellowship group.   If we end up cancelling out of this meal we truly will have reached "ludicrous speed" this Thanksgiving weekend! Ho Ho Ho....Merry Christmas....well, have you seen the first snow that has arrived SO EARLY this year????

His Happy Place!!

 My husband took a friend of ours canoeing yesterday and they had a wonderful time.  My husband was delighted for the unexpected chance to get out one more time before the winter weather arrived.  AND it HAS started to arrive with lots of rain pouring down this evening.  It is predicted that we could receive as many is 20mm or more overnight before the moisture changes to snow, so we shall see what actually happens by the morning.  We may just remain at home and watch the church service on Zoom if we don't feel like masking when the time comes. Gotta stay healthy for the next few weeks.

Here is the Happy Camper:

It's a big deal to see him giving a rare smile!!

 

An Uppity Downity Thanksgiving Weekend!

 Our Sunday evening Thanksgiving dinner hostess texted me this morning to say she still has her cold so our dinner together is cancelled.  I am so sorry she has a cold already this early in the season!  Now I pray her husband doesn't also come down with it.  In the meantime our "teeny tiny group" of friends is planning to get together for a simple Thanksgiving lunch on Monday, so really hoping that works out for everyone.  Today my husband is hoping to take me out driving for my first time in over four months....should be interesting!  If I can get comfortable in the driver's seat and using the pedals all will be well. I will likely be paranoid enough about the other drivers etc., to do okay once I get on the road....hopefully anyway.  My goal is to deliver a Thanksgiving gift I put together for our Sunday dinner host and hostess....a drop and run, hahaha.  

There is a funeral at our church again today...the third one in a week for our overworked ministers.  We didn't know the deceased very well at all, are considering going, but masking as it will be a rather large affair with at least 60 extended family members arriving from all over the continent.  We cannot access 'flu and Covid vaccinations yet in our province and thus will be unlikely to get them until we return for the west coast, so we need to be cautious about exposure in the next little while.   There are always questions this time of year as to what is appropriate for limiting exposure and downright unnecessary paranoia.  Do we go to church unmasked tomorrow, Thanksgiving Sunday?  At least one of our members who was at yesterday's funeral does have a cold, so......aaaargh!  Guess we will decide in the morning if we are going at all or watching the service online.

Overnight the heavy rain is to begin, followed tomorrow by a rain/snow mix and flurries....so much rain, so I can only hope and pray it doesn't freeze into ice too badly overnight. I guess that will determine whether or not it is safe for me to go to the morning service. Looking forward to getting out today, or final warm day before the weather changes for the next few months. 

A Favourite Funeral Hymn

 At today's funeral we sang one of my favourite funeral appropriate hymns:  Hymn of Promise, words and music by Natalie Sleeth (1930 - 1992)  This particular hymn was published by Hope Publishing Company in 1986.  When I was involved in my son's high school music programme the senior high choir performed  her Prayer, a lovely arrangement of the Lord's Prayer, that still brings a tear to my eye just remembering it.

The Hymn of Promise captures well the idea that death is simply a transition from one part of life to another.  I am glad we sang it today as I haven't heard it for awhile. Sorry you will have to cut and paste the link below if you would like to hear it.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDpByzZqeQ4&list=RDsDpByzZqeQ4&start_radio=1 

2.4 Kilometres And Counting!

 It has been a delightful day....well, as delightful as spending the morning at a funeral for a dearly beloved church oldster can be, but the funeral was so uplifting and held so many fascinating details of the dearly departed's life that even that was a delightful time.  The lunch and fellowship time afterward was lovely as well and we got to meet some of the extended family members.

Once my husband dropped me off at home and he left for his afternoon of canoeing, I decided I should take a bit longer of a walk since I finished my physio just before 9am and have the next 2 days off from it.   I decided to walk to the pharmacy a few blocks away to pick up a prescription of my husband's and load up on vitamin supplements we are getting low on.  I knew the distance was about 7 blocks to the pharmacy and I thought it would be no problem as I walked a good 8 blocks home from the hospital the other day, but as I was walking along I realized a fault in my logic:  the trip back from the hospital was one way and this walk would be a return trip, hahahaha.  The idea of getting a nice walk outside beside the trees in the park across the street was so exhilarating and left me feeling so heady, that I forgot I would also have to turn around and come back.  hahaha  Short version is that it is 1.2 km to the pharmacy, so that made my return trip 2.4 km!  YES!!!  I was not aching when I got home.  I forced myself to sit down for an hour and relax though and now I have been getting some household chores completed.  I praise God for giving me the idea that I should go in the first place and I felt very impressed upon that I must do this to help prepare for going to Vancouver.  What a relief to be able to start adding more and more distance to my walks....right in time for the first taste of winter cold and snow about 30 hours from now....sigh...'twas ever thus, right? hahaha Oh well....

Other cute things that happened today:  as I was walking home from the pharmacy a vehicle pulled into the bus lane beside me and the lady driver opened her window to talk to me. I assumed she was going to ask me for directions to somewhere, but what she actually said was, "I really LOVE your dress!!"  Huh?  Someone much younger than me loves my dress so much that she had to pull a vehicle over in heavy Friday afternoon traffic to tell me that?  Like, how sweet is that, right??  I was touched, tickled, thrilled that a complete stranger would bother to go to so much trouble to pay me a compliment on my taste in dresses!  hahaha  How very kind of her!  I am still glowing.  Her pre-teen son is likely still totally embarrassed!! hohoho!

The other cute thing happened when my husband pulled into a parking spot outside the church so we could attend the funeral.  Our minister's oldest son pulled in right behind us, got out, looked at the parking meters in absolute befuddlement and shrugged his shoulders in confusion.  It was obvious he had not thought about downtown parking meters when he drove into the area.  I asked him what was wrong and he confessed he had not even considered he would have to pay for parking as he always walks from his house to the church, but today he had to use the car as he was coming to the church from an earlier appointment.  As the musician for the service he was barely arriving in time to be prepared to play, but he decided he had better seek a parking space elsewhere since he had no money to pay a meter.  Knowing that he would have to park many blocks away to avoid meters, my husband and I told him we would pay his meter for a couple of hours so he wouldn't be late for the funeral.  He was so embarrassed to be so unaware, but finally agreed to letting us help him.  I told him what time the meter would expire so he could move the car or get money from his dad to extend the time after the funeral and away we all went into the church.  After the funeral there was a lovely luncheon and as my husband and I were finishing up our meal we realized the parking meters would expire in a few minutes. We looked around to see where the young man was sitting and sure enough, as we watched him getting another drink and sandwich, we knew he had no concept of the passing of time, had likely forgotten about the meter all over again and we had to chuckle.  We have a very soft spot in our hearts for this young man because, like our son, he is an artist and occasionally suffers from a bad case of artist brain, just as our son also did when he too was in his early 20's. hahahaha  We didn't want to embarrass him in front of his family and friends who surrounded him at the table, so we just slipped out the side door of the church to get to our own car and popped another hour's worth of time into his meter before we drove away.  Aaaah, such memories of our own son....hahaha. We laughed all the way home.  I am guessing when this fellow did return to his vehicle he would have had no idea we had paid another hour for him, likely didn't look at the meter at all and we can only hope it was less than an hour until he went back outside from the luncheon so that he didn't get a ticket after all.  We will remember this event for a long time and it will make us giggle every time we think of it.

My husband is out canoeing for likely the last time this season.  We are to get our first dose of winter chill and wind and sleet and freezing rain and snow late Saturday evening and into Sunday.  Not looking forward to it, but by Monday and Tuesday the day time high temperatures should melt whatever bit of ice is covering everything outside....trusting that will be the case. Perhaps, assuming I am right about the melt, there will be time for a few more walks in the outdoors before the winter ice and snow arrive in full.  Here's hoping!

Always Good To Get Happy Family News!

 Our son called us this afternoon with some happy news.  As a result of his home exhibition he scored another participation in a NYC group show for a gallery owner he very much admires and who has an excellent reputation for serving his exhibiting artists well.  Details with his agent are still to be worked out, but apparently she is very happy about this. So, the push is now on for him to have time to create two brand new works between now and the end of this year!  Tomorrow he will start prepping the wooden panels he paints his artworks on and he hopes that he can get them ready before he leaves for his Vancouver show closer to the end of the month.  He is still working 3 days a week, but his employer is very flexible about which days he has to be there, thankfully.  He also had his combo influenza and Covid vaccinations today and was starting to feel a bit sore and woozy as he was talking to us. He tends to have some rather poor reactions to any and all vaccines, so we have been praying for him to get over this reaction quickly.  We are going to have to wait to get ours after our own trip unfortunately, due to the fact that they will not be available in our province until the middle of the month and we too need time to get over some reactions...fortunately generally much milder than those our son endures.  We are just happy he has been included in another show south of the border, even a small one, because it gives more proof of his need of the type of visa he is currently renewing.  All our prayers son!

Guess Yesterday’s Appointment Settles It?

Soooo, I guess the fact that I need to have my next visit with the surgeon in June of next year and part of the discussion will be about operating on the other hip, on top of a possible eviction notice coming between now and the new year, we have our answer about staying in this city versus moving elsewhere. Of course, things can always change unexpectedly like they did when we shockingly ended up in Tokyo via Chicago years ago, but for now it appears we will be staying put. By the time I have my second surgery my husband will be 75, so at that point it is even more unlikely we will have one more “adventure move”. At the moment I am ok with that likelihood. Visits with local friends and acquaintances over the past year have also been fulfilling to the point where the thought of leaving them is not a happy one. 

So, after our upcoming vacation it will be time to start a thorough search for rental accommodation right here in our little city. We can only trust that God will provide the right place at the right time. I believe he has forgiven me for getting ahead of his plans in the spring of 2024 and packing up so many of our belongings when I was confusing my own panic to get out of our current tenement with his will for us. God is merciful and kind like that, fortunately for me. 

My coffee buddy had to bail this morning as she appears to be fighting a cold and that could also cancel our Thanksgiving dinner together with her this weekend. As disappointing as that would be we are grateful she doesn’t want to expose us to her cold so close to our trip. Bless all our friends who love us and try to keep us safe. We will try to be equally considerate by masking now at group gatherings like church! 

Physio, as I suspected it would, is starting to help a bit more now that I don’t have to get stressed out at any more PT appointments where I feel, ridiculously I know, like a performing monkey. 🐒 Knowing it will take a few more months is relaxing and inspires me to work all the harder. 

My husband is at a meeting this afternoon, so I think after lunch I will walk to the grocery store to get more Going To Vancouver walking practise. 

I finally watched the last day of the September sumo tournament and as happy as I am for the young, more recently promoted winner of the Emperor’s Cup, I admit I was rooting for the more experienced Hoshoryu who worked so hard for more years to receive his promotion to Yokozuna. Here’s to him winning the November Basho!

An Encouraging Visit With the Surgeon!

It has been a banner day for me!  I am more encouraged today than I have been for quite awhile after meeting with the surgeon this morning.

While he admits I am slow in recovering, yes I am, considering all the factors involved he is actually quite pleased with my progress.  I was shocked by how happy he is!!  He is impressed by how much less listing is involved when walking without my cane and by the speed I can move on foot now.  

He is pleased that I have added some more difficult exercises to my daily PT routine and that I purchased the athletic quality resistance band.  The weak tendon and the weakness in the muscles where he found the unexpected scarring during the surgery will heal, as the PT told me, but they will take a long time, as in several more months.

The best part is that I do not have to see him again, unless I experience a set back, until the one year date of my surgery, so the first week of next June will be our next meeting.  I can drive again. I can restart a number of activities that have been put on hold for the past four months.  Today he handed me back my life.  He trusts me to continue doing my regular physiotherapy exercises, thus feels no need to check up on me before next year and I will not let him down.

Until he sees me next June  and I can prove I can fully weight bear etc. on the operated leg, there will be no talk, not even a thought about doing the other hip.   The arthritis in that joint has not progressed one iota since the initial x-ray in this process back in July of 2024.  What a relief. The upcoming months of physio will assist that hip in remaining strong.  YAY!!

So, once we are home from our upcoming trip to the west coast, we will be able to start looking in earnest once again for a new place to live and our kids Stateside can plan their wedding reception dinner extravaganza....or NOT so extravaganza.....whenever they like next year.   These things can be planned without having to worry about surgical wait time for me, or about recovery schedules on the other leg.  

I feel like today my life was handed back to me.  I was so excited after the appointment I didn't bother to phone my husband to ask him to pick me up. I enjoyed the 8 or 9 block walk home from the hospital on the tree lined streets, under the blue, cloudless sky in the gentle breeze.  It took me a full 15 minutes to walk that distance, but that is okay. I was really enjoying myself and I didn't have to lean heavily on my cane to do it. What fun!

Maybe tomorrow afternoon or the next day I will have my husband come along as my passenger and make sure I am not too giddy with the excitement and stress of getting behind the wheel of the car again.  It has been over 4 months since my last foray out on the streets as the driver of the vehicle.....aiii yiiii....will I remember anything at all???

Thanks everyone for your care and prayers and encouragement. They are appreciated more than you know. 

The icing on the cake is that friends from out of town just called and asked us to meet them at a restaurant that is really a great one....lots of organic veggies and other locally grown food products....for dinner tonight. I kind of hemmed and hawed as it is the same night as my beloved Taize healing service, but how do you say no to beloved friends you don't get to see nearly often enought, right?  Taize will be there again next week but my out of town friends will not.  So excited to see them!  Praise the Lord....it is like a special celebration of my news from the surgeon before these friends even find out about it. hahaha 

And now to go and iron the first half of the rest of the winter clothes I unpacked a couple of days ago.  No, it isn't too soon to complete the wardrobe switch out: by this coming weekend the true autumn weather will begin...rain, sleet, overnight temperatures in the freezing zone each night and highs averaging only about -8C during the day times. Blecch!  Oh Lordy....how on earth am I going to tie up my own shoes now that sandal weather is coming to an end?? That is one thing the surgeon cannot help me with!  Aiii yiiii.....

 

Another Small Step Up With Physio!

 It has been a happy morning of PT! I struggled manfully (womanfully?) with the resistance band exercises but didn’t give up. In some ways it is beginning all over again with these particular exercises, but I have added in two extras that are not in the recovery handbook and I am certain they will help.

My “big” news for the day is that as I headed upstairs after exercising I was able to go upstairs one step at a time without holding onto the handrail to help my operated leg straighten completely at the knee. First time for that, so I am rather excited and will attempt to remain handrail free now going up the stairs. Hallelujah…..another teensy encouragement to me to keep trying, to keep working hard! Thank you God and all you praying buddies!

Could You Offer Up A Prayer For My Friend?

When I will have an update on this situation I don't know, but if you are so inclined could you offer up a prayer for my friend Gigi?  She and her family are on a holiday together and in the process of travelling and staying in myriad hotels, Gigi has picked up a bad case of scabies that has ruined the remaining time they are all away.  All the family was given a treatment by a doctor at a walk in clinic and they are currently hiding out at their holiday accommodation to avoid the spread of the little creepers who have caused this disaster. Tomorrow evening they will receive a second treatment.  Thus far only Gigi has developed symptoms, itching, bleeding, disastrously uncomfortable skin, but it could take a couple of months before the rest of the family will know if they have avoided the contagion.  They tried to change their flights so they could fly home this coming weekend to see their own doctor, but with it being the long weekend for Thanksgiving, the cost to make the changes is prohibitive so they are stuck where they are for awhile yet.  Their days currently are spent washing and rewashing their clothes in hot water and using a hot dryer, fumigating their suitcases, bagging up any personal items that could be harbouring the teensy infesters, staying in place for now so they don't spread this around to other people...it is a total nightmare.  I just feel terrible for them. They had been looking foward to this holiday for months and now cannot go to see the very family members they were so excited to visit.  Sigh....talk about the Trip From Hell.

Thank you for asking for healing and mercy for my friend and her family.  I feel so badly for them all. 

Capitulating To The Autumn Weather!

After nearly freezing to death as we tried to sleep last night, we gave up with our idea of waiting until after the next warmer stretch of daytime temperatures and put the furnace on right after breakfast!  Brrrrr, chatter, chatter, chatter, shake, shake....'twas kind of a miserable night's sleep.  After breakfast I changed out the summer duvet for the autumn/early spring duvet and the heaviest dead of winter duvet is all cleaned and ready to be put on the bed in another six weeks or so.  My husband brought up the final two bins of winter clothes from the basement storage. I emptied out the items, put the clothes on hangars as they await the iron and started filling+ those remaining two bins with the last of the holdover summer clothing items I have been continuing to wear with sweaters over the past week.  Once I do the laundry this week, the rest of the summer clothes can be binned and taken back to storage downstairs.

It is officially deep autumn in our house!

One thing I have never understood is why we here in Canada also call the autumn "fall".  Is it because the leaves fall off the trees?  Is it because of the falling outdoor and subsequently indoor temperatures?  Is it because some of us, me included, fall prey to the temptation to be depressed as we stand on the threshold of winter ice and snow and bitter cold?  Is it because some of us tend to fall down regularly on the aforementioned ice and snow?  Is it because miserable, horrible, barely bearable winter weather is a punishing result of the "Fall" of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden when they disobeyed God for the first time???  Oh so many good reason to call autumn "fall".  I however have a much better substitute phrase for autumn, at least for autumn on the prairies:  The Lead Up To The Hellish Season.....that hellish season being winter, of course.  Dear Lord is it really almost that time of year again?  It must be....even the geese have deserted our property already.  Sigh.....

Yesterday was a wonderful day that kept the dark thoughts of late autumn away, which was appreciated!  We went out of town to another former parish of my husband's and received a warm welcome. The priest included my husband in the service and during an interactive time during her sermon, included me when she asked for comments from specific members of the congregation.  We felt so welcomed in by everyone even though we weren't there to lead the service.  We collected the 2026 Anglican calendar my husband had ordered a few months ago, we stayed for a wonderful time of fellowship over coffee after the service and met quite a few of a slew of new folk who have been coming to the church for the past few months.  It was so exciting to see the congregation growing.  One  woman we met had her first encounter with the living Christ only this last February at the age of 40 and she was happy to share her spiritual journey with us.  It was good to get caught up on the news from our former parishioners, support their wonderful new priest and feel a part of the group despite my husband having retired from their parish over three years ago.  

In the afternoon we watched the recorded service from our own church and realized how many newcomers we also have since last spring.  Lots of different ethnic groups are represented there, so we have been learning all kinds of things about these other cultures. Fascinating stuff!!

After our out of town church service we returned in time to share lunch with two wonderful friends. What a good time we had. We haven't seen a lot of them lately because they have been busy out at their lakeside cabin in Manitoba and finally got it cleaned out and closed for the season only a week ago.  So nice to catch up on what has been happening in all of our lives over a shared meal.  

Gosh, is there anything more encouraging than to have a handful of truly close friends?   

I have completed my daily physio and today introduced a brand new, extra strength, resistance band I purchased on the weekend. WOW!  For a couple of my exercises it was like starting them all over again from the beginning.  The use of the band confirmed exactly where the tendon and muscles are lagging behind in their strengthening process.  I am most excited because the strength of the resistance band is what will eventually strengthen that tendon and surrounding muscles.  More and more hope is being restored as far as my eventual recovery. Hallelujah!

So the question for this afternoon is:  laundry so the rest of my summer clothes can be packed up later today, or ironing of the first half of the remaining winter clothes so I can get that over with and hang them on the rack?  Aaaah, decisions decisions for my exciting day, hahaha. 

Wait For It……

 …..a week from today we are forecast to get a snow/rain mix. Blecch! Our autumn weather has been a marvellous blessing, so I suppose the fantasy has to end sometime soon……sigh…..

Up to 15 cm of snow could be currently falling in the areas around Banff and Jasper, so I dare not complain about some possibly disappointing but actually seasonal weather here by next weekend, right? I do admit to hoping next weekend’s predicted weather is incorrect…..and for the better, not the worse! Oh wimpy moi!

My Husband Is In Football Heaven!

As a result of his phone call to our tv service provider yesterday, the updates she made to our account mean he has all the TSN channels again. Oooooh, how delighted he was to be able to watch not one, but two CFL games last evening! Since our last change of channel lineup when we cut back drastically on our number of channels received, he has missed the sports channels far more than he thought he would. He only got onto watching football two or three years ago, so he thought giving up the sports channel package would be no big deal, so was quite surprised to discover he was missing it. I confess my heart leapt just the tiniest bit when I realized the PGA is airing right now….plus any boxing not moved to the PPV channels will be available again so that is a happy thought. Part of the drop in cost, despite the addition of TSN and a couple of other channels we haven’t had before, is because several channels have gone permanently off the air. A couple of them have moved to a streaming service and some have simply ceased to exist. I find it interesting how a number of subscribed to channels will go off the air and yet our monthly bill remains the same. As of yesterday that is no longer the case, yay! 

We realized a couple of days ago that we had somehow forgotten the September sumo tournament! Fortunately NHK has not yet deleted the event, so my husband started downloading the 15 days of highlight episodes to a disk. We have watched the first three episodes and hopefully will have them all downloaded before they disappear. 

So in our old age we have somehow become football and sumo junkies??? Who’d a thought?????? Yikes! 

Going Round Robin With Our TV Provider!

 My dear husband just spent a full hour online trying to get ONE CHANNEL added to our tv package.  So grateful for his patience in going through the process of finding our online account with our provider, going to umpteen separate pages on the computer screen until he finally located the online chat service, had a long online chat with a REAL PERSON, YAY, and sorted out what we want to happen starting on Monday when our free preview channels expire. He has made good arrangements to update our entire package plan to incorporate the one new channel we want and overall the woman online managed to save us a few more dollars each month over what we have been paying and that INCLUDES the additional channel.  Has she inadvertently left out something we wanted to keep? Who knows and I guess we will find out on Monday morning after the switch happens, but for now we are rejoicing that this person was very helpful in answering my husband's questions.  We were told by a local provider employee, who didn't seem to want to serve us today when we arrived at his office, that this process was quick and easy....it was neither....but in the end it appears we have what we want.  Hallelujah!!  Oh how I long for the days when we simply picked up the phone, did our waiting for a staffer to be available to assist us from the comfort of our own home and still accomplished the required changes lickety split in comparison to the length of time it now takes doing things online.  There was no waiting while keyboarding the two conversation back and forth. The conversation was verbal, instant, any confusion over questions and answers was cleared up within seconds....yup, those were indeed the "good old days". hahahahahahaha  

I Don't Know Where The Time Goes Some Weeks!

 I haven't posted for a few days.  If you were to ask me why, what I was doing that was so all fired important on the post-less days I wouldn't be able to tell you.  I know that on one day my coffee friend was here and we visited with a large group of friends in the afternoon, but that is about all I remember of any significance to me.  The past few days have passed in a haze of physiotherapy, a couple (I think) of small grocery shopping events, writing some long over due emails....I don't know. The time seemed to disappear with minimal value to show for it.

Today, once my husband is ready to go out, we have some errands to run...more than we usually get to do together on a Saturday, so it will be nice to get out.  I have to go to find a new resistance band for my PT as the one I have is old and worn out to the point of becoming too loose to use effectively.  Since I have had it for about 15 years and used it now for three different surgical recoveries, I suppose it has outlived its usefulness.  We will have to sit in one of the SaskTel offices for probably a very long time as I want to order a tv channel we have had on free examination for the past couple of months and has been responsible for at least two thirds of the programmes I watch each week. We lose the channel preview at midnight on Sunday and I don't want to miss Monday's shows. In a few weeks all the tv packages are going to change completely, once again, so we will have to, once again, do this "Dance of Waiting" for yet another change, but that is okay.  Winter is coming....prime tv season for those -35C days and nights.  My husband has some computer equipment he needs to try to buy today. So, the day should be well taken care of for errands.  

Out of town for church again tomorrow, a different location than last week, but still an Anglican church, so I am looking forward to the familiar liturgy that I miss so much at our usual church.  Maybe it will entail lunch out? hahaha  Oh how I live for  Sunday lunches out. hahaha It seems to complete the day quite nicely after socializing at the church.  

More medical appointments and other events next week.  I look at the upcoming weeks each weekend and they appear to have little going on beyond the long standing medical appointments, but then it seems as each week begins a whole bunch of unexpected commitments crop up and we certainly have little time to be bored or to sit around feeling sorry for ourselves. That is a GOOD thing!