Living In An Ice Palace!

 The rain began just before 4am and turned to ice fairly quickly,  5cm of snow quickly followed and sleet is expected to arrive soon, adding the gooey icing to the fresh white cake of snow covered ice. Oh yay…..I think my husband will be heading to church on his own tomorrow, depending on what sort of street cleaning efforts the city is able to pull together for our neighborhood and the property management company for our sidewalks by then….I have low expectations to be honest.  Dang it…drastic temperature warm ups here in the dead of winter are always disastrous when it comes to accompanying moisture.  This morning is a perfect example of a mid winter warm up on the prairies. I don’t dare attempt to go outside. A visit with a wonderful friend has been cancelled. Grrrrrr….just living for mid April when most of the ice should be gone.

One Of The Rare Times I Am Happy We Are No Longer Living On Vancouver Island!

 Many times I have wished we could move back to Vancouver Island, but the town we lived in, near Courtenay, has become the same overpopulated type of place that is the plague of most of the mid to southern end of the Island at this point.  Today though is not one of those days where I am disappointed we weren't able to remain there after a brief foray in the summer and fall of 2001.  The reason is that the entire area is under a flood watch, with some camp grounds close to one of the nearby rivers, the Puntledge at Dove Creek, having already been evacuated, along with several of the homes near the camp.  Other homes in that area are under evacuation alert.  We saw a video of the camp ground that was evacuated and the water had risen already this afternoon to the top of the steps leading into various RV's.  The man taking the video was wearing knee high rubber boots that were dangerously close to taking on water over their tops.  Oh how we are praying for the people in that area as the water continues to rise. If the other river running alongside the other edge of the towns in the immediate area, the Trent, also takes on a lot of extra water, that will leave long strips of highway housing in danger of flooding as well.  Oh Lord please protect everyone there. 

As much as I am dreading more freezing rain tonight and tomorrow, we don't even know if it will actually happen with a 30% predicted chance.  The ice is extremely dangerous to life and limb when a person has to be out walking or driving on it, but likely will not be cause for any evacuations!  Even with freezing rain, we are far better off tonight than our Vancouver Island friends who live along the Puntledge River. Please remember them in your prayers.  Amen!

 

Warmer And Not Warmer!

 Despite the air temperature of only -11C this afternoon, the wind chill must be at least -20C!!  We have just returned home from an abbreviated walk outside....wow, it turned out to be only a four block round trip because it was absolutely freezing out there with the strong wind.  Oh wow.....brrrrrr.  Even with my warm, fuzzy gloves my hands were frozen after even that short distance.  Tonight and tomorrow morning the forecast is for freezing rain and snow, so we shall see what actually transpires.  Glad we got out despite the cold because once there is freezing rain again it will be several days before I will be able to get out of here safely.  Hope this doesn't ruin our chances of going to church in person this coming Sunday!  

Successful physiotherapy today; saw more progress on my weight bearing, so am not as upset now about the lack of progress on my lying side abductions.  I had my husband cup my ankle on that foot in his hands and slowly raise my leg as high as it would go.....hmmmm....not very high, but now I have a better idea of where else to do the pressure point exercises to continue stimulating that still somewhat unresponsive tendon.  My husband is going to help me raise that leg for several reps each physio day before I try doing the abductions. My tendon and brain need to be communicating better about what is supposed to happen for that exercise.  I am guessing I will never truly accomplish full tendon recovery, BUT if I can weight bear fully from a standing position for at least 30 seconds at a time by this June, I will consider myself sufficiently healed to carry on.

Now I am off to do my bit of ironing for the week.  It won't take more than 30 or 40 minutes and after being out in the freezing wind I need to do something while standing on my feet in order to stay awake.  Walking outside in the cold makes me very tired. 

I am out of books again. Turns out one of the books I grabbed the other day from my closest neighbourhood library box is one I read not that long ago. The jacket cover is completely different so I didn't recognize it.  I was parked on a snowdrift on the street in front of the box and standing on a patch of bare black ice, so instead of taking time to peruse the two books I took, I just made a blind grab and hoped for the best before tottering back over the ice and snow into my car.  So, I will continue reading the next section of the most boring biography, the longest, most unnecessarily detailed biography ever written!!!  The subject of the book is long dead and I won't bother naming the person or the author as other people may find it a fascinating read. Presently it is my go to "read until I fall asleep at night" book when there is nothing else to enjoy. This book definitely accomplishes my falling asleep mission in jig time every night!

 

Finally....We Have Our New Neighours!

 After waiting for a full month, there are finally neighbours once again on the other side of the adjoining wall.  It is being rented by the family we thought it was rented by, BUT it is not for the two newly adult sons.  It is for the 30 something aged married son/daughter and their two, I think two, small children.  It seems the main adjustment we will have to make will be to get used once again to having two young, shrieking, slamming about the place little ones, but they are young enough that they should be in bed by 9pm or before most nights.  We have previously survived some pretty horrendous, day long, day after day, groups of 6 to 8 children pounding up and down the stairs and hollering all day long, so once we get used to having Kid Noise beside us again, I think we will be just fine.  If that is the worst noise we have to suffer, it is no big deal for the most part.  The family moved in around dinner time this evening with grandpa's help, hauling large suitcases with clothing spilling out around the edges and boxes of kitchen and bathroom utensils.  Some mattresses have been taken in and the family is staying there overnight. Hopefully they will have some furniture arriving tomorrow.  Grandpa doesn't speak English apparently and I don't know how long our neighbours have been in this country.  I hope we can be wonderful neighbours to them and that we can learn more about their culture as time goes on. In the spring and summer when we can all be outside it will be easier to connect.  Here's hoping.  We feel quite peaceful about these neighbours and hopefully the extra sealant my husband put on the adjoining basement wall will continue to work well because the husband smokes.  Thus far no evidence of any dogs, so that is a plus.  Thanks all of you who have been praying for this situation for the past month. We appreciate it very much.

It has been a good week here.  Each day my sprained foot gets a little bit better and I am learning how much time I can safely spend doing chores and running errands before it starts to feel a bit more tender.  I have been able to get out several times this week and have gotten some laundry and house chores completed that there was no way I could have accomplished prior to this week without incurring excruciating pain in that foot.  

Doing physio on this new schedule is going to work well for me I think.  Going at it every second day makes me more motivated and less lazy to get started in the mornings.  Doing two days together at the end of the week seems less onerous because that happens now only once a week.  It is extremely tiring, but as I see more progress happening I am coping better with being tired after my workouts.

Last night was had a ton of fun:  we planned to meet up with a friend for dinner at the Fancy Fork as her husband has been overseas tending to his extended family duties after a death in the family.   We knew he was scheduled to get home late last night and thought it would be fun to distract our friend for at least part of the evening so she wasn't champing at the bit and pacing at home waiting to go to the airport to pick him up.  Well, when he arrived back in Toronto he was able to sweet talk his way onto a much earlier flight that originated in Ottawa, but got held up in Toronto for some reason. All he had to do was agree he would return to our airport at 11:30pm to pick up his luggage that would be coming in on his originally scheduled flight.  SO, he was back here one hour before our scheduled dinner with his wife.  We assumed dinner would be cancelled, but no!  He was very excited about the idea of joining us, jet lag and all, so the four of us had a splendid time visiting and feasting and hearing about his adventures.  The evening turned out to be even more special than we thought it would be.  

I overate last night as the meal was so delicious (bourbon infused shrimp and chicken with a vegetable medley of carrots, asparagus, cauliflower,  peas, onions and mushrooms, plus the daily risotto that was delightfully  creamy and delicious AND only two carb units worth, so I was free to eat my carrots and peas.  I pigged out on the amazing amount of protein, so that left me very tired by the time I got home and I spent half of today trying to stay awake after a poor sleep overnight, but it was worth it. YUMMM!

After missing the last two Bible studies we were able to attend the meeting today and it was wonderful to get going again with the study and get caught up with the other members of the group. We have not been able to meet with them since our last meeting in early December!  (Thanks to me and all my ills...sigh....)

My coffee buddy was here this morning and we had a most wonderful visit.  It has been three weeks or more since our last visit as well, so we had a lot to catch up on.  

Tomorrow I will do physio and iron some clothes that I managed to get washed earlier in the week, That will feel good!  I hope to do a couple of loads of laundry for my husband as well since I had the most dirty clothes to wash and didn't have the oomph the other day to do his clothes too.  Saturday will be physio and whatever else comes our way....and if nothing does it should be warm enough to get out for a short walk up and down the street in front of our place.....IF we don't have the freezing rain possibility that was just forecast a few hours ago.  Sunday we are going to make a sincere attempt to get to church in person for the first time in a month.  

We have just enough to look forward to this weekend but without being overly busy.  My husband will start looking over his seminar on Forgiveness as he is going to be teaching it at a local church over the five weeks of Lent.  He hasn't had a chance to do a Lenten study for a year or two and this one is pretty well put together since he has presented it a few other times to other groups. He is so looking forward to doing it again. 

Thank you praying folk for your concern for me over the past few weeks. I think I am finally coming out the other side of this annoying series of trials. 

Feels Good To Be Tired From Activities Instead Of Illness Or Injury!

 We spent three hours today racing around the city running various errands and grocery shopping. My sprained foot is only a bit more sore than usual despite spending more time standing and walking on it today than I have in the past two weeks! Yay! The wind was blowing snow across the streets as we drove from place to place, but even with the cold wind it was only about -14C. YES! I am exhausted, particularly after wandering through the grocery store for forty-five minutes, but what a happy exhaustion to be afflicted with. Now that I have made dinner, we have eaten it and I got the dishes done, I think I will sit and relax in front of the Idiot Box… oops I mean the tv …! 

Please send up a prayer for my walking partner. She has been ill for the past several days, flat out in bed with symptoms that could indicate possible Covid. Please pray her health will be restored soon and that her husband and son, (who is in a very intense college programme), will be spared. Thank you so much! 

Hair cut tomorrow….it has been nearly six weeks since the last one. I am so excited AND will be able to drive myself the short distance to her shop and back.

No New Neighbours Yet After All??

We have been reconciling ourselves to the idea that we are going to have two college aged boy-men living on the other side of the wall as of moving in day next weekend, but perhaps not?  Today the suite was shown again to another older couple.  Unfortunately they were there for only a very few minutes and did not stop at the office afterwards as they drove out of the parking lot, so perhaps they will not be our new neighbours either.  There is a possibility that this couple was being shows the suite beside us because it is empty already, but they would be moving into the same style suite in a different building that is presently occupied and the boy-men will still be moving in next weekend.  Gosh, I hope this all works out with quiet neighbours living next to us and who keep their cigarette smoke to themselves...hope, hope, hope...

I am feeling good about re-entering life this week.  This afternoon my husband had to help me roll up and turn our 9x13 foot area rug in the living room and help me push the furniture around to accomplish the feat, and it meant I did get all the vacuuming done downstairs today and the kitchen floor washed.  Good start to this new week is the completion of some needed household tasks over the past few days.

Tomorrow I will accompany my husband on some out of the house chores, Lord and sore foot willing.  My foot is so close to being all better again so I am treating it gently in between tasks.  While he is in a meeting in the morning I will do my phusio, so I will be ready to go as soon as his meeting ends.

I have set up my weekly physiotherapy schedule the way my physiotherapist suggested some time ago with a four times a week schedule:  Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday mornings.  Should work well most weeks.  With the resistance band, four days a week takes up all the energy I have, plus knowing it is only four days instead of five gives me the motivation to take my time and do each exercise well.

Tuesday afternoon I have a hair appointment which I am REALLY looking forward to.  I am gettin' kinda shaggy lookin'! 

Wednesday evening we are meeting a younger, vibrant friend at a restaurant for dinner. That will be a lot of fun.

Thursday morning the weather (and my health) will be improved sufficiently for my coffee buddy to return to our regular weekly schedule and that afternoon we have a Bible Study to attend.  

Since I have been completely inactive and housebound for the past two weeks, I am torn between feeling very excited about getting going again and just a touch of that old agoraphobia leftover from days of yore.  The best approach is to put my head down, so to speak and JUST GO AND DO whatever it is that is scheduled each day. It won't take me more than a couple of outings to get over it and the first two are "gentle" with only my husband and the hair stylist to personally contend with in public spaces. 

It is all good!  Time to get a move on and restore the good life. 

A Short Break Between Physio Sessions

 I had a decent sleep last night!  Sure, I didn't fall asleep until 1:40am because I was reading a novel a friend lent me, but I did sleep for 7 consecutive hours....that is amazing for me any night!  Despite the decent sleep I am quite tired today.  Going from over two weeks of being able to do not much of anything at all other than washing a few dishes and crawling slowly up the stairs a couple of times a day, I am feeling joy at the return to physiotherapy and the return to doing a bit of housecleaning each day.  

Right now it is nearly 12:30pm and I only ate breakfast two hours ago so yes, I am truly running behind today AND it doesn't matter a whit.  I was able to lie in bed reading the news this morning...doesn't take long as I tend now to ignore news items that I know are going to upset me....and luxuriated over a 10:30am breakfast....ooooh, it was lovely. More little signs of progress with the first half of my physio this morning has encouraged me all over again.  My cold has been well and truly gone for several days now and even the lingering dry cough has quit. YAY!!  Next week I will feel free to start contacting friends again for visiting in person.  I always like to be free of colds and influenza for a week before seeing anyone, just in case any of those little bacteria or viruses are still hanging out in my vicinity.  

My plans for the day are simple: complete the second half of my physio, then get showered and dressed.  After lunch I will dust the living room, dining room and kitchen in preparation for vacuuming and floor washing in those rooms tomorrow afternoon.  My husband is going to assist me in moving the living room furniture so we can turn the large area rug again and work out a couple of the rolls that eventually happen due to the direction of the pile on the broadloom beneath it and a couple of couch legs that sit firmly in place on top of it.  Easy peasy!  My foot is sufficiently healed now to be able to do more chores and add in the rest of my physio exercises with most all of the required reps.

Tomorrow, due to the extreme cold, we will Zoom our adult learning class and church service.  Then we will keep ourselves busy doing that housework I mentioned and waiting for the temperature to start warming up a bit overnight into Monday, when we will be able to get out and run a few errands that will be in desperate need of doing by then.

Although the sky is overcast today, there are little breaks in the cloud cover where the sun is able to shine its rays down onto our little corner of the world.  So lovely and so edifying and so motivating. Another day closer to beautiful spring..YES!!!!!

Cold, But Oh That Sunshine Is The BEST!!!

It is -35C again this morning, but I don't care since I don't have to go outside for anything!  What I do care about and appreciate very  much is the cloudless blue sky and brilliant sunshine we have right now.  It is glorious to see. Despite the cold radiating off the single and double pane windows, I have thrown open the curtains and raised the blinds to let the beautiful sunlight in.  So very pretty to watch it glinting off the freshly fallen snow on the lawns.  My bigger concern is what is going to happen in NYC with the predicted huge snowfall and winds there this weekend as it coincides with the opening of our daughter-in-law's theatre production!  Praying hard that it will not turn into a total disaster and that the trains will be running that night.

I completed the first half of my physiotherapy a few minutes ago and am taking a few minutes to rest the sprained foot on the other leg before tackling Part Deux!  This morning, with my walking shoes tied securely, I was able to complete all 30 repetitions of the first part of the programme, so that is encouraging.  I will do a full week of exercises before returning to using the resistance band so I don't risk another injury!  It feels so good to be back into my morning exercise routine. 

My husband's cold is looking more and more like it was a one day allergy attack as he has had no more symptoms over the past three days. We are both so grateful for that!

Yesterday I was able to stagger about vacuuming and dusting the bedroom, hallway and stairwell without further irritating the sprained foot, so that was a bonus accomplished around some other tasks.  This afternoon's self-imposed assignment is to scrub down the bathroom, walls and all.  Then tomorrow I will start cleaning the kitchen, dining and living rooms...and if I have to slop some of that into the next day, no problem. The point is that I have healed enough from sprain and cold to start catching up on all manner of past due needs around this house! Yes, I am being careful okay? Don't worry friends and family.

The wonder of friends has hit me very hard the past few days: from emails of support to phone calls from friends across Canada, to unexpected food deliveries, to books dropped off in my mailbox, the love and encouragement I have received is amazing. Thank you everyone. I love you too!!

This has been a happy week for my husband in terms of cooking:  first of all I was able to return to my kitchen duties a couple of days ago, prior to that good friends from Bible Study dropped off the most delicious soup and biscuits, then last night our Nigerian neighbour stopped in to pick up some things I had for his children and his wife sent over a carton of chicken legs and spicy rice.....Oh wow, can't wait to eat that meal for lunch today.   What a lovely surprise.  He and my husband had a good conversation about who they think is going to win the present Sumo Basho in Tokyo and they are in agreement that it COULD be Aonishiki...the rookie Ozeki.  We shall see what happens at the final event on Sunday evening.

Again....new friends from Africa have been added into the mix of our relationships here.  

One development in our eventual move out of here....IF it ever happens, hahaha....this morning my husband and I had a long talk about how God uses even our mistakes to teach us good things.  I talked about feeling rather foolish that I began packing nearly two years ago now, BUT in that two years we have discovered that in all of those 16 boxes, there is maybe the equivalent of three of those boxes that contain items we have struggled without and know we need to move with us when the time comes.  SO, starting next week I am going to slowly start the unpacking process for the things in those boxes and reclaim what is ours to keep using until the actual move, then one box at a time I will go through everything and eliminate many, many things I thoughtlessly assumed would be coming with us on a move and filling our thrift store box to overflowing once again.  I don't want to take all the boxes of now unnecessary things to the thrift store without salvaging all the packing materials each item is wrapped in as it is very expensive to replace.  I feel like a huge weight has lifted off my shoulders with this decision to do more of my own downsizing on this side of a move. I am realizing there are many things that, even if we moved into another space this large, I simply do not need and will not use again. Thank you Lord for this somewhat embarrassing, but badly needed lesson.

Even my husband confessed this morning that he is losing his interest in preparing various items for mailing that he could send to museums to the west who have expressed a POSSIBLE interest in some of his collected family items.  The amount of work and expense it is going to take is no longer appealing to him and he realizes as time goes on the importance of what happens to them in his own mind has gone way down.  I am so proud of him.  

One of the friends I talked to on the phone this week had the responsibility of eliminating over one thousand pounds worth of her late husband's collection of CD's, comic books and science fiction books.  After doing her research in regard to selling them, discovering none of the bookstores in this country want most of them and none of the thrift stores are interested in being inundated with so many of each item, she loaded up the car umpteen times and deposited every last one of each item in the local dump.  What would have sold for some good money even a few years ago....it is all worthless now as most of even the second hand specialty retail stores dealing in those items are already too full of them and they are not selling.  Good on her!  What a marvellous example she is to us.

Generally the fog is lifting from my addled, sinus infected brain as the infection is pretty much gone now and life seems like it could, just maybe, be worth living again.

Here's to the oncoming spring!!! AMEN! 

So, This Is Encouraging!!

I started doing my physiotherapy again today.  Things are not as bad as I feared, only a slight regression on the weight bearing that will not be difficult to catch up on.  Of my 19 exercises I can do 12 of them fully and the 13th I can do about half the reps before it starts to bother the sprained foot.  YAY!  The ones I cannot do all involve full weight bearing on the sprained foot, so I am not prepared to mess with that until it is fully healed, but wow, it felt great to get going again.  Thank you friends for praying with me about this issue.  One friend said that at our age our bodies are like a deck of cards in that one thing goes wrong that causes another thing to go wrong that causes another thing to go wrong and so on and so on and so on.....yup, she is right!

Yesterday I was dreading having to begin the exercises again more seriously today.  What horrendous loss of ability was I going to discover? How hard would it be to get it back? However, a very wise friend contacted me yesterday about it. She had years worth of pain and deep suffering before finally getting two hip replacements a very few years ago. She too went through the physio and had extra recovery issues because of how bad her hips were prior to being able to have the surgeries, so I give her ideas a lot of credence. When I told her how much time I have missed from doing physio her simple comment was, "Physio? You will catch up."  End of story.  Those four little words gave me the courage and impetus to get a move on today and JUST DO IT!  

Thank you friend.  You are right. I WILL catch up.  Bless you and bless all of you who have prayed along with me for the past nearly seven months.  I WILL be as healed as possible by the time I see the surgeon in June.  I WILL with God's help. 

And now....time to get properly dressed and clean the bedroom! Time to start living life again now that my sinus infection has finally let go.

Another Cold Snap, Brrrrrr………

Yesterday we had another period of wind and blowing snow that ushered in what is to be four or five days of temperatures in the -30C’s and windchills between -36C and -45C. Happy January everyone, but only 6-8 weeks to go now before the threat of such bitter cold comes to an end. Then we will enter the annual Season of Glare Ice, goody, goody! hahaha Yesterday evening we could feel the temperature dropping in our suite as the cold seeped through our insulation-free walls. At bedtime I tossed my Mark’s Comfy Robe over my P.j.’s and pulled up the hood, donned a pair of polar fleece socks and slept very well for nearly eight hours. 

Yesterday I tested my sprained foot by doing three loads of laundry and it didn’t bother it overly much. An hour with the ice pack before bed took the ache out of it. Today I will dust and vacuum the bedroom as my task for the day, since my husband cleaned his office and library rooms yesterday, then restart the standing physiotherapy exercises for my hip that do not require full weight bearing on the sprained foot. Just praying I will not be too discouraged over any lost ground from having to miss almost all my exercises for over two weeks. Staying positive after the last surgery has been a terrible struggle and that is concerning as I have never had that issue after any of the other surgeries. Age related perhaps? Who knows…

My husband seemed to be coming down with a cold a couple of days ago, but after a night spent with the humidifier at close quarters he was fine yesterday, seemed to sleep well again last night. So was it a bad allergy attack or have those little cold viruses gone into hiding, waiting to slam him hard today? 

Grateful my husband was able to top up our groceries earlier this week and that our Bible Study for today was postponed so that we don’t have to go out until the cold temperatures leave us early next week. 

My Heart Is Full Today......

While looking for something totally unrelated, I came across the name of an old friend and working colleague of my mother's from many years ago.  They worked together as office administrators at a large downtown church for many years and they, along with their husbands, became fast friends for several decades.

After coming across the woman's name I checked online and discovered she passed away last year. Her funeral had been put online so I took a look at it.  As the family delivered her eulogy, my mother was mentioned as one of her dear friends and I got very choked up hearing that.  It was so incredibly kind to single out my mom and their other coworker at the time during the eulogy.  Gosh....I am still tearing up.  How very lovely of them.

Another funeral online.....oh my goodness, what is happening???  

My husband drove off through the thick covering of snowflakes this morning to have breakfast with his usual group of men friends. I am sitting here now, snowflakes having stopped falling, looking at the sunshine and clear blue sky that portends dropping temperatures over the next few days.  By Thursday evening we will be back in the mid minus 30C's.  Yukko...but apparently it will be short lived, only about three days of that much coldness.  The temperature will only have begun to fall on Thursday afternoon, so we should be able to get across the city to our fellowship group that day.

The play our daughter in law is producing has its official opening this coming Sunday evening.  Unfortunately the weather in NYC is going to be about -15C and that is brutally cold for them.  I do hope it doesn't ruin the evening for actors and audience alike.  Hopefully the cold will not be accompanied by too much snowfall.

Tonight our son is taking his wife out to a very special dinner after cooking a wonderful Szechuan meal for his wife's family last evening.  My husband and I went out for Chinese food here yesterday after our morning appointments....not quite comparable, hahahaha, but our best attempt at celebrating with them from afar. 

Two Days Of Attending Death Rituals

It has been an intense couple of days of "attending" online funerals for old friends and their family members  in other provinces and to support local friends who lost family over in Ireland.  I am mentally and emotionally spent! 

Funerals have always confused me to some extent.  They are such a mix of intense sorrow and overwhelming grief, often interspersed with relief that the deceased is no longer suffering, joy in the belief that there will be a reunion eventually when the rest of us reach the mysterious "other side"....all kinds of sermons about how in this universe we are created and what we have to look forward to now that we have departed this life: everything from the idea that there is no afterlife at all, to the Christian or other religious belief in an actual understandable afterlife, to meeting up with our guardian angels that protected us in this life, then today I know I have heard it all: that we are created out of the remnants of stars and thus we need to let that starlight shine from us out into all the world.  If a person with no strong foundational spiritual beliefs ever wants to become completely confused, just have that person attend a half dozen various styles of funerals.  Wow.....

Anyway, in all three cases of the funerals I live streamed over the past couple of days,  it was an honour and a privilege to be able to be a part of the rituals.  A former neighbour from our son's childhood whose youngest daughter also passed away four days later....how much tougher could this family have it...., an unknown to me, but father of a close friend from overseas, for which I was up at 4:30 am today in order to live stream the rites.  

After watching these funerals, recalling other funerals I have attended for various reasons, remembering many funerals my husband has been called on to preside at as a priest.....these memories just confirm my own decision to not have a funeral when it is my time to leave this earth.  My husband can call on friends and family to get together privately to support him and my son if he so desires. They can share old stories if they like, they can say some prayers with others here at our home, whatever they decide, but the idea of an open to the public, or even open to an entire church congregation funeral service for my old dead body just gives me the shivers.  No, no, no.......not some formal affair inside a 2/3 empty church building in the middle of a weekday afternoon with a lunch provided by some unknown to me catering company or already overworked church women's group....just a gathering at our home with my husband, son and his wife for the few friends that we have, or will have left by then.  My parents not having public funerals opened my eyes to the joy of the more private event when honouring the death of someone who " lived small", someone like me.  When my mother in law passed that is also what happened: a small gathering of relatives and her dearest friends in a small room with small trays of snacks and drinks, sharing the small memories of a life that may have seemed small to many people, but that, as most of the people there already knew, required steely grit and determination to keep going during some horrendous times.   

Of course when the time comes I will not be present in body, and, I am guessing, perhaps not in spirit either.  My husband and son will be free to do whatever the heck they want with my urn and with their celebration or lack thereof in honour of my life.  These are just personal musings as I have been meditating the past couple of days about what a funeral remembrance for myself should be.  Being around so many reminders of death in only a few days can have that effect.......

Clear And Cold Again

 After our nice warm and sunny week, we have had a couple of good old winter wind and snow storms and today it is very cold outside once again.  At least the sun is shining from an almost cloudless blue sky at the moment, so I am really enjoying that.

My foot is about 90% better, so will likely be able to drop the crutches and return to my cane either today or tomorrow.  YAY!  My sinuses are clearing out, my cough is subsequently nearly gone....light and clarity are returning to my muddled brain.   There is hope on the horizon. YAY!

This is an ONLINE  couple of days.  Just watched our adult learning class from church on Zoom and soon it will be time for the church service. This afternoon I hope to go online to see the funeral of a dear, recently departed friend from many years ago. Tomorrow I will attempt to bookend my doctor's appointment with an online funeral attendance on each side of it.  Thanking God for Zoom right now.  I will be watching funerals from Alberta and Ireland, Lord willing that I can get up at 5am tomorrow for the Irish funeral.  

It is incredible to be able to be "present" for events via the internet.  Wonderful stuff...when the technology works, that is.  Here's hoping for all those funerals.......

No More Tap….Tap….Tap, Tap, Tap…….Tap….Tap, Tap……NOW Youse Guys Can Laugh!

 Despite the wind taking care of the piece of siding that was banging against the house during the past few wind storms, our problems with loud tapping in the wind during the sleepy time hours continued into the day following the worst of the 100k wind storms earlier this week.

My husband and I couldn't believe it.  NOW WHAT?   Finally my husband put on his boots and parka and headed outside to where the insistent and irregular tapping noises were coming from, somewhere near the roof.  He looked up.....he looked waaaaaaaay up, all the way up to the highest eavestroughing and  there he saw something large, bright blue and likely made of plastic stuck up in the eavestrough and as the winds blew around the bottom, visible part of whatever it was, it smacked against the trough again and again and again.  Tap.....tap.....tap, tap.....tap.....tap....tap...

He returned inside and told me that there was something stuck up there and wondered how he was going to get up two storeys into the air when the ice patch below the location of the blue plastic made it impossible to put up a ladder.  I suggested he locate his long handled tree pruners...two of them....connect them together somehow and see if he could manage to grab the object of the tapping without pulling out pieces of the eavestrough.  Well, he did and it worked. IT WORKED!!!!  

What he pulled down was a child's blue plastic boomerang.  No doubt it has been there since sometime in the summer when the kids were out doing what kids do: throwing everything not nailed down up into the air, preferably as close to the buildings and cars as possible in the hopes of seeing what happens when something gets damaged when their projectile smashes into it.  (Hey, I had a son. I know these things!)

The joke was on them this time.  I expect whoever it was would have been too frightened to tell us about the boomerang getting stuck in our troughing in case of trouble, either with us or with the property management company here. hahaha  It is likely, as I think back on the summer, that the  kids responsible for losing their own toy have already moved out and so rather than going door to door looking for the owner, we will add it into the box of thrift store items currently in our basement and in the spring some other child will be thrilled to get an almost new boomerang for a quarter! The pruners didn't even leave a mark on it after jostling it out onto the ground!

Now it is okay to laugh!!  My husband felt like an absolute idiot waiting until the employees here went home so he wouldn't get in trouble for messing with the eavestroughs, had to wait until it was dark outside to go stumbling about out on the ice with a twenty foot long combo of long handled tree pruning hooks trying to pull something blue and plastic out of there. hahaha  We would have received no assistance from the staff here. The maintenance men are not allowed on the roof or on high ladders even in the summer. The lift would have to be brought down from property headquarters in Saskatoon and it is most likely they would not order it just for our purposes...even if they did it wouldn't happen until late spring after all the ice melts. In other words, like with so many other projects needing to be done around here, my husband was on his own.  God bless him for his diligence.  

Last night we fell asleep like two exhausted five year olds and didn't wake up for hours and hours.  NO TAPPING as the winds continued to blow.  It was wonderful!  

Tonight we are to get more blowing snow and wind gusts of up to  70k.  Tonight we will sleep through it. No more tap, tap, tapping!!  YAY!

Our joy was complete today when we had a long conversation on the phone with our son.  He had a good opening at the exhibition the other night and had a chance to learn how that particular gallery is organized.  He said it was so good to see another gallerist's concept of effective art placement in an exhibition.    Lots of his friends came to support him and his wife had the evening off so she could attend as well.  He is going to take some time now to research, meditate and figure out what to do next in terms of what he needs to paint.  He agrees it is time for a change of style, so he turned down an opportunity to show in a small art fair this spring and will turn his hand to other things.  One venue he is starting to experiment with is making furniture with an artistic flair.  He has a lot of his dad's tools and has purchased a few of his own recently for building frames for his paintings.  He has always been an excellent carpenter, but until he began curating exhibits about 15 years ago, he had little interest in any kind of carpentry, putting up with a few weeks of it during the summers in high school, working for his dad off and on.  He has made a few pieces of his own furniture and while, like his builder father, he is a perfectionist about his craft, at least it will give him something else to do and think about while he contemplates his next direction for painting subjects.  He had a marvellous time yesterday at his tailor's shop getting some new shirts to wear under his dress suit...fitted so perfectly and for so much less money than buying  in-store retail.

Our daughter in law is crazy busy with work.  She is producing a version of Ulysses that her company has produced many times before and performed all over the world.  They are mounting the production once again after many requests, the two weeks of shows prior to opening were immediately sold out, the entire run of the play is sold out and the extension that the actors and crew agreed to is nearly sold out as well.  She IS the producer this time and it gives us no end of thrill to see her name at the top of the programme:  PRODUCED BY......and there is her name!  YAY for our kids who are doing wonderful things.   She is still dealing with a painful medical issue so thanks for praying for her.  There is one more test coming soon.

My foot was much better again today and I am using the crutches for safety so I don't wreck that foot again already, but I barely need them now as I can put full weight on that foot, as long as I don't step awkwardly somehow.  I am SO grateful.  The pain continues to lessen, but I will have the doctor look at it anyway when I see her next week. 

Don’t Laugh Youse Guys!

So, thankfully my foot continues to heal a bit more with each passing day. I finally broke down and asked to be included in the prayer requests for healing at this coming Sunday’s church service, resulting in a very nice phone chat with the minister last night. There is something soothing about having a good chat with church leadership. I appreciate his time because, with us being short of a youth leader right now he has taken that on, on top of his already overloaded schedule.  Right now another staff member is away dealing with a family emergency, so……hiring more staff is proving difficult for some reason. I mean, who wouldn’t want to move to Regina SK, right? I suspect the answer to the question is, “darned near everybody”, sadly but truly. I want out, that’s for sure! hahaha

I woke up an hour ago with the realization that my cold may be relapsing. Oh, please let it not be so. Is there an even more ludicrous speed than Ludicrous Speed?? Two more days until my doctor’s appointment and I really don’t want to have to cancel the in person for a phone consultation. With language barrier issues, there have been misunderstandings from other phone consults in the past and it is very important to discuss my recent test results in depth, with eye contact, with concentrated effort to understand and time for me to ask questions and interpret the answers. 

Dang it anyway….i just want to get well and be able to get back to my physio. I am losing ground once again on restoring my hip. I am not angry or depressed, just intensely frustrated at the moment. 

I hope to hear from our kids this weekend to hear details about the latest art exhibition opening night and hopefully get an update on our daughter in law’s health. I never ever thought I would find it so difficult to have our kids living Down There, but I miss them desperately these days. Guess prolonged colds and physical discomfort make my emotions get sappy. 

My husband made the most delicious omelettes last evening! Sautéed diced onions and red peppers, two kinds of cheese…so simple but so delicious. The secret is the sauté on the veggies before the eggs are added. A little freshly ground pepper to top it off and a side of thickly sliced one inch rounds of warmed, buttered French bread….ooooh, to die for! We are both going to suffer when I am able to take back the cooking chore! 

The Painter And His Muse Opening Night

 

Overnight “Hurricane”

 Wow, we got wind whipped last evening and overnight! It was brutal trying to sleep when the roof overhead sounded like it was going to lift right off the building. The siding creaked and popped all night long and the building felt a couple of times like it was going to lift right off the foundation. Of course the age and the, shall we say, “loose” connection between all the building materials exacerbate the creaks and pops and groans when strong winds hit for over 12 hours in a row. 

It is on the way to 10am and slowly but surely the wind gusts are becoming less frantic and strong, but I hope they die down completely soon. My husband slept in the basement last night so the loose piece of siding outside the bedroom wall would not keep him awake. That will no longer be a problem as said piece of siding is now lying in a twisted, crumpled heap on the back lawn. Now he only has to hear the tapping of the metal roof vent and the erratic clunking of our metal mailbox lid as they continue to flap about in the wind. I admit I did not sleep well with all the noise: woke up at 2:30am and was awake counting the clunks and bangs until nearly 6am. Grateful for the following two hours of sleep until just before 8am when my husband arrived with a fresh ice pack and a tray laden with toast and yogurt for breakfast in bed. Very kind of him….as always! 

The horrific pain point on my ankle bone is gone this morning, so now it is easier to isolate the worst of the pain to the major muscle and its tendons running along the inside and bottom of the sore foot. My feet are extremely sensitive to changes in posture and weight distribution, so whatever I did to that foot by walking on it awkwardly for the two days my knee was wrapped….well….I did it up right!  Sigh….

With the pain point gone, the top of my foot and rising half an inch up my leg is very stiff and sore, but achy, inflamed sore, not excruciating pain point sore. Walking the hallway this morning I made a point of distributing my weight more evenly across the bottom of my foot. Yes, it hurt, but no stabbing pains. That big muscle on the side and bottom of the foot is sore to touch, but is responding well to gentle massage and slight foot flexing. There is hope! 

I will go downstairs for lunch today I think. My cold pack will need refreshing by then and I am losing my mind sitting around in bed! Yesterday I was up and down the stairs four times, sat at the dining room table to eat and then stood up to wash the dinner dishes, yay! I stayed downstairs three hours longer than the day before. Today I will try for even longer, but may need to come back upstairs for a nap! (That is, IF the wind has died down enough for me to actually sleep!)

The highways all around Regina were closed by 3am due to high winds, snowdrifts and zero visibility. Slowly some of the main highways are being ploughed and reopened, but I hope there won’t have to be too many commuters having to tackle the miserable driving conditions! I am guessing there will be no mail delivery today. A friend who was to fly out today to be in Ireland for her father in law’s funeral this weekend had her flight cancelled from here. The only planes taking off and landing here today are the large models. The smaller prop planes can’t handle the strong winds. I thought yesterday’s intense snowfall at Toronto Pearson might delay her, but it is our weather right here at home that has messed up her travel plans. Praying she can get on the late morning flight to Toronto as it is a bigger aircraft and would still get her there one hour prior to the departure of her flight to Ireland. From my mouth to God’s ear? 

Yes, winter knows how to use its weather systems to disrupt our plans and frustrate us to the breaking point! 

Guess Our Building Will Be Standing For A While Yet!

My husband just found notice of a rent hike taped to our back door. It is for a whopping fifty dollars a month, hahaha. We were expecting three times that much, but what we were actually expecting was an eviction notice so the building can be torn down as part of a plan to raze the places and put up apartments. As much as I still want to move as soon as I am able, this notice has given me peace that we will not be forced to move while my health and mobility are still compromised over the next few months. Maybe we can still move before my next hip replacement surgery? What a relief, and so is the teensy amount of our rent increase! Thank you God. 

The Power Of A Proper Shower!

 After more than five decades of surviving broken bones, sprains, toe stubs, illnesses that left me bed ridden for weeks at a time, I have truly learned the healing power of taking a shower. Sponge baths in the narrow confines of the bathroom and teetering on one leg in front of the kitchen sink to wash my hair tend to lose both their hygienic effectiveness and their appeal in short order. 

After enduring these miserably ineffective procedures for the past week, I have just finished having a wonderfully cleansing full on shower, with lots of soap lather on the loofa and the cheery plopping of thick masses of shampoo bubbles landing on the tub floor. Oh, what a blessing! To be truly clean! Is there anything quite so energizing after two weeks of being felled by various medical issues? Nope! 

Since my foot is sufficiently improved today to give showering a try, I huffed and I puffed and I hauled myself over the rim of the tub , clutching the grab bar with one hand and a crutch in the other, my loving husband hovering nervously behind me and tutting, “Do you really think you are wise to be trying this?”. 

Standing under the spray of delightfully warm water, I was so grateful and relieved that for the first minute I just stood there and cried. For now it seems I may be able to return to having daily showers. I’m exhausted from the effort and am back in bed with an ice pack strapped on my foot, but have decided I will use my downstairs time after lunch today to rig up a chair in front of the kitchen sink so I can help my husband get some dishes done. In between some important projects of his own he has been cooking and fielding bill payments, grocery shopping and general chores that are usually my bailiwick. Something had to be left undone and this past few days it has been the dish washing, so I am going to figure out a safe way to help him today. 

I have had a few severe cramping issues in my injured foot yesterday and today. It seems that as each of those has been worked out the initial painful spot on the side of my foot has improved. The cramps are bad enough to pull all my toes straight up in the air, so yeah, they are pretty severe. The whole foot situation is just plain weird! I will be glad when it is finished! 

Final (?) Decision Made

 I have to go to the doctor on Monday over yet another unexpected issue and my foot continues to slowly improve, so I will continue resting and icing it until then. Barring some other emergency with it before then, there seems to be no point spending anywhere from 8 to 16 hours or more in a crowded ER trying to see a doctor and get an x-ray, being exposed to all manner of other contagious illnesses. If my GP examines it Monday and wants an x-ray she can hand me the referral sheet right there and send me to either the main x-ray clinic or directly to the hospital x-ray department and that will cut the time of sitting around waiting for help at the hospital by at least half.  My husband, God bless him, is taking all this in stride and being the most helpful man EVER, as he always is. We do enjoy taking care of each other. What a blessing. Thanks for your prayers dear friends and family.

The wind speed has been slowly increasing over the course of the morning, so I have little doubt we will reach the predicted 100k gusts by late this afternoon. I wonder how much siding/shingling our poor old building will lose this time. Now there may be snow accompanying the wind so I am praying the out of town commuters can get home tonight.

No New Neighbours Yet After All

 Apparently we had a squatter for a couple of days in the next door suite. What I thought was a new neighbour was actually a “temporary resident”.  Aiiii yiiii…not a comfortable feeling. Maintenance came in after the squatter left, cleaned up whatever mess was left, fixed a door lock and have now showed the suite to three prospective tenants. So I still have time to pray for mercy in regard to who eventually moves in. Now we have squatters! If I ever get mobile again I GOTTA get outta this place! 

No ER Yet

 Thus far I have managed to avoid the ER, and now with 100k wind gusts predicted for late this morning and afternoon, I will be staying home until they pass. 

I spent all day yesterday lying on the bed with an ice pack strapped to the side of my foot. My husband was shocked by the hard swollen ball of tissue around the main pain point when he brought the first ice pack at 8 am. By 4pm the pain and swelling were both less than half of what they had been the previous day, so I took my crutches and ventured down the stairs to the living room. Gosh, it was so good to have a change of scenery for a few hours!  There was far less pain than the day before.  The first stair to return to bed is tricky as there is no railing to grip and my operated leg is still a bit wobbly to support me 100% safely on its own, so I panicked and put too much weight on my sore foot….yeeeooooww….but once I got up the rest of the stairs the pain was already settling down.  I iced again for a couple of hours and fell asleep around 9pm.  Of course now, 6 hours later at. 3am, I am wide awake. I have had my six hours of sleep for the night so….it’s okay because by 5am I will be zonked out again for another two to three hours. 

Once the winds have died down later today we will check the main sore spot on my foot once again. If there is no positive change in the amount of pain at that point I will still go to the ER because it will be the last opportunity to try to beat the weekend crowds. If the sore point remains unchanged then I have to assume a bone has fractured and get it looked at. 

Talk about “the winter of my discontent”! Hohoho…..

Gallery Exhibition Opening Tomorrow Evening Up In Chelsea

Hello NYC friends: our son is part of a group show that opens tomorrow evening and runs until mid February at Thomas Erben Gallery: 526 W26th Street.  The exhibition is titled "Art As Consciousness" and there should be some eclectic works to view. Check it out if you have time.

One of our son's paintings from the show:

 

It Just Gets Better And Better As The Day Goes On!

 Hahaha…another set of test results in from last week….unexpectedly not great, so I will be seeing the doctor early next week to discuss next steps….oh, good grief! See, I KNEW I didn’t want to know, “What next??”!! Hahaha…..

Guess I am just old and making up for lost time after having many years of at least half decent health…such is life! This too shall pass….or I will. Hahaha…..

Off To The ER Tonight??

Well, it seems there is more going on with my foot than a pulled tendon, after a most painful night. Dang it! At 2am I located one very sore spot along a small bone which I can massage if I am gentle, but putting weight on the ball of my foot results in excruciating pain. Thanking God for my crutches, although with my operated leg not as fully weight bearing as I was hoping for after all these months, I am not as steady on those crutches as I should be for safety’s sake. Getting up and down the stairs yesterday was a miserable journey that I am not prepared to repeat over and over again today! If a full day of bed rest and ice packs do not produce some sort of evidence of healing my husband is going to take me to the ER later tonight; not a thrilling thought, but better than sitting here for a third day tomorrow, not having a diagnosis and perhaps making the condition worse. 

Hahahaha…I would be asking “What next??”, but I don’t really want to know! Aiii yiii yiii……

One Answer In….

 ….the test results just arrived and are negative for everything tested for. On one hand I am relieved, but on the other I am looking forward to a more thorough inspection by the NP next month. I am not sure what is going on, but I need to be retested for a couple of things when I see the NP. From all accounts she is nothing if not thorough. There are a few lingering issues from previous lab tests that are not being addressed and all I want, if nothing else, is to speak to a medical person who will explain some of these things to me, why certain issues are lingering for some not yet apparent reason, but not just ignore them. Well, at least now I know what apparently is NOT wrong with me. Progress? 

One Can Only Throw One's Hands In The Air And Laugh.....Right??

 First of all, many thanks to those of you who have been praying for my friend's father overseas who has been fighting a battle with cancer for the past three years or so.  This morning he passed on to live with Jesus and my friend's wife is making plans to fly overseas on the weekend to be with her husband and his family.  We are all grateful for the number of days in the past three years that this man felt well, was able to visit his children and travel about.  He was doing very well overall until a couple of weeks ago. Now he is at last at peace and his family is drawing together for a final farewell ceremony.  

So, today the warmth and sunshine have taken over the out of doors and the snow is melting fairly quickly out on the lawns and in the parking lot.  We had a smattering of rain last night, but it didn't have time to freeze much.  I am going to wrap up and sit out on the back porch after lunch for a few minutes and hope that I don't get a chill to prolong my cold. Slowly the healing is taking place with the only still noticeably infected sinus cavities being higher up around my eyes.  Even they are not as plugged and sore as they were yesterday.  I had only two very brief coughing spells throughout the night and so I feel that it is now up to me to remain vigilant about keeping warm and not getting exposed yet to any more viruses carried in the air or by contact.  

That will be easier done than I thought it would be, because I now have yet another issue to contend with that is compromising my mobility.  Good grief. I am constantly reminded of the comment in the movie Spaceballs, "We have reached ludicrous speed"!  hahaha  After missing one week of physiotherapy due to the cold virus I was prepared to begin again today....that week off also included having the knee on my unoperated leg wrapped up for two days after reigniting that old soft tissue injury by sleeping in an incorrect posture overnight one night.  Of course, I wasn't thinking about how, when I have to wrap that knee, I walk differently on that foot, and, just like the last time I had knee issues, I have managed to pull something along the inside of my foot under the ankle bone and extending to just short of the "bunion bone" as I call it.  It is so painful to walk on that today that foot is wrapped, now that my knee is fine again, and my husband located my crutches to help me get around the house. Sigh.....what on earth????

It has been a long 19 consecutive months thus far that I have experienced varying degrees of incapacitation every day.  Just when my hip starts to improve, something messes up on my non-operated leg, or I get a cold, or, or, or....there is always something making me ill, or in pain and tempting me to be discouraged.  However, not this time!!  With melting snow and sunshine and a just above zero temperature, it is impossible to be discouraged, despite my awaited test results from last week's doctor's appointment not showing up yet.  Even knowing there is yet one more negative possibility on the horizon, the sunshine and warmth has driven the interior darkness away.  I am still looking forward with hope for a very much more healed hip between now and June when I see the surgeon, I have managed to keep worst case scenario in regard to my missing tests results at bay thus far,  I am shaking my head over this latest foot issue instead of railing against the universe for yet another irritating medical complication.

Some of you readers must be praying for me.  That has to be one huge factor in my present inability to slip into Depression Mode or Out of Control Worry Mode.....how grateful I am.  The severe depression and out of order degree of worry that seems to be easily inherited from my maternal family is not weighing me down at present! YAY!

My husband is making turkey chili in the kitchen, causing our entire suite to smell delicious inside, the sky is so blue and cloudless and beautiful on this January day.....I am going to haul myself off for a shower. I am going to wash my hair.  I am going to hang onto this happy feeling for as long as I possibly can...thanks to the prayers of family and friends.

God bless you all. 

We Must Be Getting New “Other Side Of The Wall” Neighbours Today!

We awoke a few minutes ago to the sound of the complex maintenance personnel chipping the several inches build up of snow and ice off the back steps and deck of the suite next door. That means the new tenants will be arriving today or tomorrow. We are guessing today based upon the fervency with which the personnel attacked the project.

Now the prayers and hopes for quiet, non-smoking, yappy-dog-free tenants begin for the day. There is always anxiety when new tenants are coming due to the lack of adequate sound proofing in this old building. 

We have been so blessed in our coming up to 11 years of tenancy in here with only one set of truly horrible circumstances next door, so do we have the right after all the changes in tenants during that time to ask God for one more set of good neighbours? Is it asking too much? Is it too much to expect? Or do we just assume God will take care of this once again? 

When you are older and retired like we are and spend so much time at home in your suite, noise is a far greater issue than when you are young, away at work all day, going to events most evenings and falling into a deep sleep at night. 

Well, it will be an interesting couple of days around here. I hope WE can also be good neighbours to the new tenants.

Of Course I Forgot You Will Have To....

 ...cut and paste the link into your browser.  Worth the effort. Thank you again my friend.

Some Kind Person Located the Link to the Story I Talked About In The Previous Post....

THANK YOU KIND PERSON!  💖😀👋

Here is the link.  It is just under 20 minutes and worth the time. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNIB5xd08Do 

My Life In Small Towns.....A "Photograph"

 The other night my husband read a story to me that depicted far too accurately my own life experiences with joining various types of women's groups in our many small town living experiences.  Being the newbie anywhere is not always the greatest experience, but it seems I had more than my share of "interesting" newcomer-to-the-group exchanges.

The story my husband read is "Book Club" by Stuart McLean and through his great good humour, he perfectly describes the experiences of Morley when she joins a local book club in her town.  In this case, I identify so closely with Morley's encounters with the rest of the book club members that is seems that SHE is ME!

Unfortunately the YouTube reading of the story has suddenly become unavailable, so I am unable to put in a link to it, BUT I do urge you women, if you have ever found yourselves newcomers who are somewhat out of sync with the rest of the members of a longstanding book club or other such group, find this story, (Part of the Vinyl Cafe Diaries collection), and read it or listen to it.  It is told with such humour but also with deadly accuracy.  

 

An Encouraging Answer To Your Prayers!

 The “thirty something year old son of a friend” who was rushed to hospital with pain and bleeding a few days ago got his test results and diagnosis yesterday. The issue is easily repaired by a surgical procedure so once that is set up, hopefully in the near future, he should be okay once he recovers. With the Big C being very much a worry for the family, even though surgical intervention is needed, the issue has nothing to do with cancer. Thank you so much for praying! Over all it is good news.

Now I Am More Ill…..etc.

 I got word this morning from my coffee buddy that on top of her upset over her husband’s declining health, one of her remaining siblings just passed away. Sigh….I feel similarly to my one friend’s two year old granddaughter who, when she heard rap music for the first time last week, threw up her arms and said disgustedly, “What the heck is THIS??” No one I know who has received bad news recently has only received one item of upset. Oh no, there has been a second and in some cases a third stress to deal with. Maybe the winter season just amplifies the emotional reactions? 

I woke up at 4am unable to breathe from heavy sinus draining into my throat, along with painful ears and glands. For two hours I coughed and medicated before falling asleep again until after 10am, for which I am grateful. Wow, I seem to have gone down rather quickly with bronchitis symptoms and will have to stay warm and rested. My lungs have been a problem since I was a kid so I need to be vigilant to prevent pneumonia. I would have gladly masked up and gone to my walk in for meds right away this morning before the symptoms have a chance to worsen, but I am also going to need antibiotics for the condition I saw the doctor for yesterday. Those confirmation test results will not be available until likely next Tuesday. That condition also needs to be treated “yesterday” so I can’t wait on that. Since it is unrelated to this apparent fast onset bronchitis, I can’t risk taking two completely different antibiotics at the same time without a doctor’s approval, or ability to adjust types of meds for compatibility. I am blessed to have not had so much as the sniffles since my brief bout with Covid in October of 2024. Yay! 

So, I need to get my croaky voice onto the phone and start cancelling all the plans I made for next week. My husband has donned a mask and taken off to the grocery store to pick up the most badly needed items for the coming week. Praying he does not get this too. I will be sleeping in my recliner in the living room until I am over this! Our son just battled his way through a similar respiratory infection and definitely required meds, so I am prepared I may need them too.

Soooo…My Husband Was Rather Honest Tonight!

My husband was grouching around before dinner tonight as we talked about how we are still saving a lot of money by remaining in this dumpy old townhouse for as long as we can continue to stand it. I mentioned that if he was able to downsize a lot more of his “stuff” we could rent a much smaller, less expensive apartment and have even more disposable income each month than we do now. I was shocked by the depth of bitterness in his response as he told me he would ditch everything and agree to live in a tiny studio suite if it could be on the west coast. “I HATE winter!!!!”  He shocked even himself with the bitterness of his outburst, and I was left with my mouth hanging open. 

My husband, who is very accepting of most things and tries with great success to make the best of whatever life hands us totally lost it about this one issue. Wow…..he calmed down immediately upon expressing his true feelings about prairie weather, prairie culture, prairie lifestyle and the prairies in general, but my head is still spinning hours later. I truly had no idea he has been deeply miserable all these prairie years. 

Is this why we can’t seem to find a suitable new residence: because he won’t be happy no matter where in the city we end up living? 

Okay Lord, now what? You need to fix this because I have no clue what to do with this new information! I don’t want my husband to continue to suffer this depth of upset over our location, but there isn’t a way clear for us financially to move anywhere west of the Saskatchewan border to a west coast climate with more high costs than just housing! Sigh….whoa…an evening of revelations to be sure.

My Dad....

 ....would have been 99 years old today had he lived to see it.  He died in 2020 during the height of the COVID lock downs at the age of 93.  Remembering that time, trying to help my poor, shocked mother deal with his estate when it wasn't possible to meet in person with lawyers or bank financial advisors or even funeral home personnel....  On top of that having to move Mom out of their suite ten days after Dad died and into a bachelor suite, with special permission granted to us and us alone to come into the complex and get everything moved from one floor to the next, put all the furniture she was getting rid of moved out in front of the building for Five Star Movers for Seniors to come and pick up, planning our every move to avoid meeting up with any of the other seniors, even though their excitement at having something/someones different to watch from their suite doorways proved too much of a temptation for most of them after being isolated by nearly 8 weeks already at that point. Oooh, it was a first degree fiasco all the way around and yet....and yet....we were able to persevere and get Mom moved, her no longer needed possessions delivered to thrift stores and auction markets....wow....thank you God for the strength to keep going....especially because at that point I didn't realize I had a serious case of shingles developing around my right eye.  So grateful for the strength to maintain all that was required of me at such an odd, stressful, out of this world kind of time. Wow....

I Think I DO Need To Try A Different Medical Care Giver

 I have a "meet and greet" with a Nurse Practitioner in about a month's time. She and her group of NP's are fairly new to the area, by a couple of years(?), and recently received government medical status so that they are no longer forced to be a private clinic, but their patients will now be covered under the usual provincial Saskatchewan Government Health Insurance plan.  Friends who have started going to that clinic over the past six months have nothing but good to say about how thorough the testing and examinations are, how the NP's they are personally dealing with do not begin the in person appointment until they have looked back over the previous appointments, tests and notes for their patients.  While I am not prepared until after the initial appointment or two or three to fire my present GP, this morning certainly has cemented the idea that if the NP I am seeing gives me the same care and attention given to my friends, I may just have to make the switch.

After today's appointment with my GP and thinking back on the past few appointments, I am thinking my GP has some health issues of her own. She cannot seem to see the printing on the box of injection meds she has to give me every six months, she cannot seem to physically open the case with the syringe in it, so I always have to do that for her.  She seemed to have trouble making sure my injection was subcutaneous and not in the muscle, which really freaked me out for a few seconds until I realized she was indeed injecting it properly. Today I also had to help her open the liquid filled vial to put a swab stick into it as her fingers were not capable of twisting the lid off.   This is not the first time I have had to assist her with various bits of medical equipment the patient is not really supposed to be touching.  SHE is the one who has the hygienic latex gloves on to keep samples from being tainted, not me.  Every time I go she asks me what she can do for me that day and today I finally got confirmation that she had not pulled up my chart on her computer to see what my last visits and/or latest tests were about.  She had no idea that she had left a lab referral for me a few weeks ago that I picked up but never had the testing done because there is another issue that came up just before she went on vacation for a month. She didn't deal with those test results and so having the latest referral testing done wasn't going to prove anything as what it seems is ACTUALLY wrong with me would not have shown up on those tests. Sigh.....I feel like a dog who is chasing her own tail trying to figure out what is going on and why no matter how hard I try, I don't seem to be getting any real assistance in diagnosis and treatment for a couple of ongoing ills that are not going to disappear on their own.  What kills me about possibly moving on is that this GP is the nicest person.  We talk about all manner of things, but she is letting me run my own show, myself who has no medical training whatsoever.  I never thought I would ever remotely consider ditching a GP for an NP, but since there are no experienced GP's here taking patients....just like in the rest of Canada....I am just relieved to have this amazing opportunity for a possible switch.  

We shall see what happens over the next month and where my upcoming "meet and greet" takes me.  In the meantime I am not burning any bridges with my current GP because ya' never know......although I am finding out that "something" may not always be better than "nothing".

 

Aaaaand The Bad News Just Keeps On A'comin'.....

The past three days have been filled with one piece of bad news after another for many of our dear friends!  It is becoming overwhelming to be in prayer for so many all at the same time, but that is what prayer ministry is all about, isn't it?  It is the best way to love those for whom in this present world I can do nothing else to help but ask God to intervene for all of them.

The 30-something year old son of a good friend was rushed to hospital a few days ago with terribly bleeding and pain, leaving him and his wife and extended family frightened to death.  The bleeding has not stopped and today he had some very invasive testing to try to find the cause and hopefully a way to stop this insanity.  The man is a husband and the father of a 2 year old with a baby on the way.  

Another friend's father is dying overseas after a couple of years of ups and downs fighting cancer.  He has lived longer than originally expected and has had many months of good, fulfilling living since his diagnosis, but now it appears he is losing the battle.  Our friend is leaving for his home country tomorrow in hopes of seeing Dad before the departure for heaven occurs and I can only pray he the airlines do not mess things up for him as he wends his way back home.

I just received a message from my Thursday morning coffee buddy that her husband's heart is failing and so are his kidneys. He is quite elderly and becoming frail.  Their age difference has left her knowing the likelihood of finding herself a widow for many years, BUT this situation has arisen quite quickly and it is shocking. Fortunately they have children in town who will be there for them, but I am praying HE can get good medical supports to prolong a few more years of good life and that SHE can handle the shock of today's doctor's appointment and test results.

My daughter in law also needs prayer, but I am not free to discuss her present medical issue and its scary possibilities, so for those of you who don't mind praying without the details, we would all really appreciate it. Thank you SO MUCH. She is in her early 30's and this condition could be disastrous considering her family medical history.  We are believing and trusting it is NOT a worst case scenario and it frustrates me the way my mind automatically goes there just because she is family.  There has been no reason at this point to expect the worst, so I need to quit already!!

Thanks everyone for all the prayers for my friends and family this past week and if there are any updates I will certainly share them. If not, we will just trust God together for HIS best possible outcomes for their lives. Amen and amen!!

Yup, I Should Have Known…..Duh……

 Ever since childhood my body has only been able to take on a limited number of activities within prolonged time frames before it fails me and shuts down for a few days. Thanks to all my fun and busy times from mid December until this last Monday afternoon, I have done it to myself once again, after being so careful for the past few years. 

My last time outside was to run a few errands with my husband on Monday morning,  and by that afternoon I was so exhausted I couldn’t stand up long enough to wash a few dishes in the kitchen sink. I went directly to bed later in the afternoon and barely left it until after lunch on Tuesday. By dinner time, after being awake for about three hours sitting in a chair,  I was again flat out back in bed asleep and didn’t wake up until after 10am Wednesday…if you can call it wakefulness! My head felt like it weighed too much for me to raise it from the pillow, my stomach wasn’t upset, but it also didn’t want any food, just a few glugs of water every hour.  So, I spent the entire day in bed, mostly sleeping as deeply as Rip Van Winkle! Truly, I was so out of it that I would not have been surprised to find an entire week had passed me by. After another day spent in bed, I awoke at 8 o’clock this morning with the knowledge that this most recent incident was starting to pass, yay! 

All the same symptoms that attack me during these incidents attacked me again: inability to wake up, thick head, no ability to think clearly, draining sinuses resulting in slightly sore glands, mild fever, full body exhaustion right through to the bone. Typically as well, after two full days of bed rest I am feeling much better and was able to make dinner for us tonight, as well as wash the dishes afterward. My sinuses are almost finished draining, the fever lasted its usual 24 hours, I have been up watching tv and playing video games tonight and don’t feel sleepy at 10pm. Nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to these incidents. Just wish I had been intelligent and tuned into reality well enough to have participated in a few less activities so that I could have avoided the past couple of days of misery. Duh…as it is I will be fortunate if I can keep a medical appointment I have tomorrow morning for my osteoporosis injection!! 

It pained me to have to cancel all the activities I planned to take part in this week, but I had no choice. Serves me right! As the old saying goes, we grow too soon old and too late smart! Yuppers…..

Another Prayer Request For Friends

Hi prayer warriors:  this is kind of a one hit prayer request for old friends who may or may not give an update, but if you could even send up one prayer for them I would really appreciate it.

A wonderfully unexpected friendship blossomed in a town we lived in a number of years ago, unexpected because it began with a challenge to my faith that has turned into an ongoing, if sporadic conversation with one member of this couple who I saw every day in his workplace for nearly three years. Our discussions were, shall we say, somewhat "lively" at times.  Our spouses also met and we all became friends, but now over time and distance the connection is only occasional.

It has been nearly two years since we last communicated, but today I received a note from them. She was diagnosed with early onset dementia over  a year ago and he is slowly becoming a care giver.  Her progress into this disease seems to have been slow, so she is still able to go out and about with him and assist him in his retirement career, but as he says, he is losing a little bit more of her every week.  

My request is two fold: firstly that there will be many supports available to them both in their town as her condition progresses, and secondly that in the midst of their determination not to believe in the Christ who loves them that somehow his love would break through and give them comfort, courage and strength to face what may be coming in the future. 

As I say, I may not hear from them again for a long time, but if you could just take a minute to remember them to the Lord, I would so appreciate it.  While they may not appreciate the prayers specifically, I am fairly sure they will appreciate it that people care enough to think of them and to care for them.

Thanks everyone......they are a sweet couple. 

Senility? Balanced Blood Sugar? Complete Exhaustion? Resignation? Exhilaration? Depression? There Must Be A Reason.....

 It was a nice weekend around here despite some more freezing drizzle and blowing winds!  I am grateful for all of the events!

On Friday evening we had a great time with good friends at Fancy Fork, although I have to say my friend and I both had meals with somewhat dried out chicken due to it being on the grill for too long. That small complaint aside, the other portions of our meals were wonderful and the company was sweet.

Saturday my husband buckled down to polish up his sermon while I went to visit another very good friend. She is quite disabled and is no longer able to come to our house in the winters as she cannot navigate the long stretch of icy sidewalk in front of the house, nor the snow bumps and ice on the back lawn walking in from the parking lot.  We were having such a good visit, with the best coffee I have had in several years, that before we knew it over two hours had passed!!  

Sunday morning we had a one hour drive out of town so my husband could preach and preside at a former Anglican church of ours.  We left early due to the dense fog and the report of some ice on the highway.  Fortunately the fog suddenly lifted about fifteen minutes out of the city and the black ice was mostly confined to the shoulders with the occasional strip right down the middle of the driving lane, so we had a safe and relaxed trip.  The service was fun with a wonderfully lively, rockabilly styled version of Go Tell It On The Mountain, so everyone was in high spirits as they poured out of the sanctuary and into the coffee hall.  Friends from here in town also drove out to be with us and that was really a special treat for us. The many poinsettia plants decorating the altar were up for grabs after the service and they were mostly taken home by the African families. I can imagine their excitement at finally seeing such lovely splashes of colour in the midst of our drab Canadian winter.

The other special treat was having a Japanese meal with Nan after church. She is doing so much better than she was last year at this time, only a couple of months after the passing of Cee, but of course this is also a difficult time due to all the wonderful memories of Christmases together. She is a brick, coping amazingly well with the ongoing grief and always looking for ways to live her life now to the fullest as much as possible.  Continue to lift her up in prayer as the Lord leads. Thank you.

We raced back to the city just in time to prepare dinner for our Nigerian neighbours.  They are the ones who invited us to their church a couple of times in the past few months and we have been wanting to have them over for some time. They chose last evening, so we were not going to say No.  They have a 9 month old daughter who was an absolute delight....no child of that age is so well behaved in the home of complete strangers as she was last night.  She was fascinated by my unfamiliar white face and kept gazing at me as if trying to figure out what it is that is so different. She also discovered herself in the mirror of our floor to ceiling china cabinet and amused herself no end by "talking" to her counterpart in the mirror. She figured out far better than her two and a half year old brother how to use the small Japanese drum we have. She got the twisting wrist motion very quickly and delighted herself with this little, rather quiet instrument, (as drums go anyway), for a long time.  Her brother was absolutely delighted to be in the home of new people as he is very social.  Two minutes into the visit he raised his arms to me to be picked up and he traded off before dinner snuggling with myself and my husband on the sofa.  He is very smart and can already say his alphabet and is starting to recognize the written letters, plus he can count to eleven! TOO cute.  Unfortunately we made the mistake of giving him about a quarter cup of sparkling apple juice with his supper....sigh....we should know better than that...we DO know better than to give such a young child so much concentrated sugar at one time.  He was so revved up by the end of the meal that it was all any of us could do to keep him under control.  He sat on the floor banging on the glass door of the china cabinet, after putting his sister on the run, until my husband had the boy's father had to physically pull him away from it so he wouldn't either break the glass and cut himself, or pull the whole cabinet over on top of himself. He ran from one end of the living room to the other, over and over and over again, he dipped his little plastic spoon in the butter dish: dip, mouth rinse, repeat over and over and over again until his mother removed him from his now greasy dining room chair and took his spoon away so he would stop smearing residual butter onto the wall art behind him.  The poor little guy was completely out of control for about an hour, then he began to calm down again. I felt badly for him. He wasn't trying to be bad, he just couldn't help himself from doing whatever came into his head at any given moment.  His little sister sat and watched him carrying on for awhile, then decided to ignore him for the fun of shredding her paper table napkin into a million little bits and rubbing them into the carpet. hahaha  Yes, they were very easy to vacuum up again as she didn't have any food on her hands.  This morning I was still wiping down pieces of furniture her brother had decorated with mashed buttery rice and chicken gravy.

I am making that young man sound like a holy terror, but he wasn't. He was just so hyper and it was my own fault.  NOW, if you ask anyone who knows me well and my aversion to other peoples' small children, you will read the Title of this post and have to decide why I was so accepting of even the wildest of his behaviour last night.  Even a few years ago I would have been urging the parents to consider that perhaps they needed to take their son and go home and I would have been frantic about possible damage to the china cabinet, the wall art and the furniture. BUT last evening God gave me such grace for whatever reason and I will not hesitate to invite them over again....sans the sparkling apple juice for their son! hahaha

We had such a great chat with these new friends. They watch sumo tournaments even though they have never been to Japan. They were able to share some of their church struggles.  They were able to tell us more about their incredible journey to Canada a few years ago, "with Google's information about Saskatchewan and some prayers".  They have made a good life for themselves and their family here. We learned what kinds of Canadian foods they can tolerate and they both managed to eat fairly well at our house so we feel rather honoured.  Both the food and the culture and the winters have been a horrific shock, but they feel they have been called here and knowing them is going to make continuing to live in this ratty old complex more of a joy for us.

Today we got to sleep in a bit, I had a good chat on the phone with an out of province friend and this afternoon we went to a reunion of some of the local IVCF supporters and our contact with the organization, a local gal who is ministering in Montreal.  Afterwards we ran some errands and then had a late lunch out at Leopold's Tavern Harbour Landing.  Yum, yum....and with it being a Monday, a notoriously slow day for local restaurants, we were able to eat in what is usually a very crowded and noisy pub that we rarely go to for those reasons. This mid afternoon there was only one other table of guests and the music was more than tolerable for "LOUD", the play list was a great mix of old and new music, country and easy listening.

Now we are home, my husband is having a rest and I am amusing myself with this blog, watching a bit of tv and realizing how we will not have to make dinner tonight since we finished lunch after 4pm. A snack at about 8-9pm and we will be good to go until tomorrow.

Thank you God for some really happy times over the past couple of weeks.  Thank you too for helping me navigate the ice and hardened bumps of snow all over the parking lots and streets around town. Thus far I have not experienced any falls or slips and for that I am beyond grateful!