No Snow, But....

 ...but o wow, the wind overnight and well into this morning was atrocious!  It is a good thing the meeting out of town today was cancelled just in case of a snowstorm, because my husband and I got very little sleep last night. The wind report was telling us that the winds were gusting to 70k, but I suspect it was actually higher.  All night long our building was creaking, the siding was popping and there was a constant Whoosh Whoosh coming in through the bathroom ceiling fan that opens into the attic space.  Tossing and turning was how I spent my night, not sleeping soundly as I have been of late.  My husband gave up trying to sleep before 7am despite having sat up reading in bed until after midnight.  There is no way we were in any sort of decent shape to go driving off across the province for a meeting that was able to be postponed to a future date.

So we have both been dragging around all day.  We went out to get our R/O water jugs filled this morning and made some decent meals, but apart from that it has been a day for vegging and dozing out in front of the tv newscasts.  

I have had two full days in a row off from physio, so the ruptured tendon in my foot is feeling pretty good. However, I will have to get back to the hip exercises again tomorrow.  I think I will take Sunday off as a matter of principle and then resume my proper weekly schedule on Monday. Doing physio three days in a row earlier this week because we planned to be travelling today exhausted my hip. It was barely keeping up on Day Three.

Not sure what we are doing tomorrow. Guess it will depend on the weather and how we are feeling if we manage to sleep better tonight.  Sunday we aren't sure what to do. We will likely attend the adult learning class before the service at the church, but I think we will either come home after class or go church visiting instead of attending our own service.  It is a special 20th anniversary service to remember a time when many of the congregation members welcomed groups of refugees into their homes and our church was rented out to them for services on Sunday afternoons for over ten years.  Their congregations grew and both groups of refugees have purchased their own church buildings now.  We are combining for a joint service on Sunday. It will be packed with people, there will be standing room only by the sound of it and to be honest, I think we will feel like intruders if we attend.  We were not part of the church at that time and don't know much about the people groups who were welcomed in back then.  While it would be interesting to learn more, I am not sure we are up for the crowded conditions and exposing ourselves, through the size of the congregation and singing in each others' faces, to more colds and influenza than we have been already in the past week of gadding about all over town.  There will also be communion and according to the church bulletin we will be passing the elements in trays down the rows of pews and added chairs.  I admit I am still a bit paranoid about having other people breathing on and touching the bread and wine glasses I will be imbibing from.  Guess it is a holdover from the first days of COVID, but I am just not thrilled about it.  We have another day to decide what we are going to do.  We should be more excited about this grand event than we are...not sure what the real reason is that we are not.  The rest of the church members are practically jumping for joy! What is wrong with us??

We are in another weather cycle of a couple of days of slightly above zero temperatures followed by a couple of days of miserably cold temperatures.  Oh yuck!!  The nice crunchy snow path I was able to navigate safely out to the car yesterday was frozen into a smooth icy patch by late this morning and tonight it is going to go down to -22C.  It will be a chilly weekend, followed by quite a warm up and subsequently more snow by the next weekend.  The above temperature days are not enough warmer to constitute  the joy of a true chinook system. It is more frustrating than helpful to have them because the price of some minor melting ends up being even slipperier ice once the melt refreezes in the return to bitter cold.  Oh how I am looking forward to the spring season when all the ice will eventually melt away, never to return....until the autumn at least.

 

No Out Of Town Trip Tomorrow After All....Shucks!

I am disappointed that weather reports for the morning have effectively scotched our trip out of town tomorrow, but also relieved that the people we were going to meet with made that decision on their own...one of them is ill and the other of them decided it wasn't wise for the ill person to miss the meeting, plus apparently two old codgers should not be out drift busting on the highway in the blowing snowfall.  Another day.....

Today was a great day around here!  My husband got a couple of hours to himself while I went out for coffee with my weekly coffee buddy.  Usually she comes over here but today we decided it was time to go to a coffee bar of some kind. Wow, did we ever have a great time...my London Fog was such a treat and during the hour and a half we were there not one other customer entered the premises...we had the entire place to ourselves!  Incredible.  That has never ever happened to us in that particular venue in all the times we have been there and for about six months last year we went there every week.  We were sure with the sudden temperature rise to above zero status the place would be filled to overflowing, but nope! YAY!

We had friends in this afternoon for a Bible study. The leader is amazingly gifted and a very experienced Bible teacher....no, it isn't my husband, although he also qualifies on both counts, so it is nice for him to sit under someone else' teaching for a change.  While I rustled up the snacks my husband drove down the street to the nearest coffee shop so the staff could fill our coffee carafe.  We still have never purchased a coffee maker despite several years in full time pastoral ministry in towns where the ONLY drink of choice was, is, and will be forever: coffee! hahaha

As soon as our company left we hurried out to the CAA to straighten out a glitch in our payment plan. What a comedy of errors: first of all we unwittingly planned this venture during the start of the evening rush hour, dumb, dumb, dumb; then when we got to the CAA building we realized it had closed several month ago, but we had both forgotten; so away we went to the farthest away end of the same street, blocks and blocks and blocks, to the other still existing location, but now in the midst of the heavy rush hour traffic NOT knowing that only a few blocks from the CAA our trip would be stopped dead for a full ten minutes at a level RR crossing while we sat on pins and needles while what seemed like the longest train in the country crawled past at snail's pace, then came to a dead stop for a full minute.....sigh.....( yes, a run on sentence...but its pace describes the way things were going and how we were feeling at the time).  We could see the CAA sign ahead of us as we sat and waited impatiently, not knowing for certain if we were going to get there before closing time and trying not to fret.  FINALLY the last train car passed, then we had to wait for a slew of pedestrians to cross before our conga line of cars was able to start moving forward.  Thankfully we did get there prior to closing time and straightened out the issue with our payment.  Hallelujah!!  We will not find ourselves without coverage when our annual plan expires tomorrow!!

As we were leaving CAA my husband confessed that the reason he too had been a bit crabby while waiting for the train to pass was that he had forgotten to eat lunch and was absolutely ravenous.  I suppose I hadn't noticed at the time because I was eating enough for the both of us.  Anyway, I know that look and that attitude and decided we should stop at the first restaurant we came across to get him a meal.

The first place we came across was a somewhat sketchy mini mall pub: Chappys Restaurant and Lounge.  It has been there for a long time apparently but we had not noticed it before as we rarely go into that area of the city.  I admit, we didn't find it at all appealing, but in sympathy for my husband's obviously low blood sugar, in we went.  It was a nice surprise actually. Despite the decor being right out of the 1990's the place was clean and didn't appear to be falling apart at the seams.  Our "seater" and also the server were very pleasant and efficient, always a little bit of icing on the cake.  We received prompt service and chose their new menu item: a prime rib burger.  Okay, we had low expectations, but we were pleasantly surprised. That burger is the best one we have eaten in a very long time. It as very simply dressed with lettuce, tomato, mayo, a melted white cheddar slice and sauteed mushrooms.  The onion rings and "fries from a bag" were kind of standard diner fare, BUT the burgers were delicious....AND the price was amazing:  $16.99 per plate.  Yes, it was basic and simple, but the flavour was so good.  My husband isn't one to think something dreadful is good enough only due to his supreme hunger, so when he also enjoyed it, I felt justified in my own assessment of the meal. It was a lot of fun. Again, when we first arrived the main floor booths were already full, so we were seated in an upper portion of the restaurant where we sat completely alone for the first hour and a quarter before other dinner seekers began filling "our" area of the restaurant.  Two very private spaces for visiting in the same day...what are the odds, right?  I could see it on a bitterly cold Monday, but late on a Thursday afternoon in sunny sky-ed,  +6C weather??  WOW!

We came home for a pleasant evening here: my husband worked on a presentation for some postulants he has to give next month and I caught up on some tv shows I recorded some time ago....FINALLY watched the last of the most recent "Father Brown" series...at least the most recent one being shown here....from early 2025 I believe.

Now my husband is staying up late to watch a Science Fiction movie while I do a bit of keyboarding.  Since we don't have to be on the road by 7:30am now, we can just act like a couple of college kids and stay up as late as we want to.  There is only one errand to run tomorrow and we can accomplish that at our leisure.  

What a busy and happy day...more than worth doing 3 days of physio in a row on top of a thorough house cleaning so I can take two consecutive days off.  Unfortunately today's +6C was the pinnacle of our high temperatures for some time to come with a high of only -8C tomorrow and that being about average for the next few days. NOT looking forward to another day of swirling snow tomorrow!!

Taking My Chastisement Like An Adult Today!

Sometimes the Lord has to give me a slight rap on the knuckles when I am tempted to disobey him out of fear and that is something I should be able to avoid by now, based on past experience, but today.....sigh.....

It is payday for we oldsters and when I saw our pensions had arrived, I began preparing the various payments due for the first of each month.  One category is our tithing and other giving. Weeeeelllll, we have one large, extra expense coming up in two days' time, so I was extremely tempted to give no credence to the still small voice in my head telling me that I should double my giving to the church this month, that it wasn't really necessary...not this month, surely not THIS month.  After a bit of a fight with myself, weighing out what seemed most practical to me today, hemming and hawing like an idiot, I finally crumbled and arranged to give the larger amount, then wondered if maybe I had "misheard" the instruction to give more. What had I done to our finances for the coming month by giving a larger gift?

Weeeeeellllll, about an hour ago my husband received a phone call from an old buddy who has done well financially in recent years.  For some reason he always felt very badly that over twenty years ago when we were on a mission overseas he had not been in a position financially to provide support to us.  He decided that, although he sent us some funds a few months ago for the same reason, he should send a bit more.  If you have had experiences with the Lord in regard to financial provision for yourself, you know where this is going right? 

Yup, sure enough the amount he sent covered the larger than usual gift to the church, plus the one big extra expense we have coming up at the end of this week, and the total of what he sent is twice the cost of those expenses.  Duh....oh me of little faith....and after all my experiences of God providing for us if we will just be obedient and GIVE as he asks us....I am beyond embarrassed at my reluctance to give, my lack of faith when I know better than to be that way.

I am deservedly chastised and just pray that the next time I am asked to give more than I had prepared to give, to just do it and assume that God will also provide for us if we need extra by month's end.  Aiii yiiiii....I am confessing my lack of faith in hopes it will encourage some of you not to be afraid to obey what you know is the right thing to do because you worry about leaving yourself in a precarious position later on.  I do hope you can learn some good things about God from my mistake. 

Hoooo haaaa....hopefully I will remember this day next time I am tempted to put my own provision above the needs of others. 

Praying For The Safe Return Of Friends!

 We are praying for friends stranded in Mexico. Although flights back to Canada have resumed out of Puerto Vallarta after the lockdown due to outbreaks of violence following the death of a cartel leader, our friends who are vacationing a few hours away from there are still on lockdown in their hotel. They are without power, no cell service apart from texting, and frighteningly they are nearly out of food. Even if they could leave the hotel there is nowhere open to purchase groceries, no restaurants are open, so it is pretty scary. Should you feel so led, a prayer for their safety now and return home soon would  be appreciated. Thank you on their behalf. Will let you know how it goes.

Life Is Slowly Getting Easier! Amen!

 I have been cleaning house this afternoon after a bit of a sleep in and a good round of physiotherapy this morning. Until recently it seemed if I didn’t get to the main housework chores until mid afternoon I had no energy left to even get started, so I am pleased with my two hours of vacuuming and dusting today. Tomorrow I will finish the vacuuming, wash the linoleum floors and the bathroom fixtures after lunch. In the morning there are errands to run and baking to do for company the following day.  Although the ruptured tendon is a bit more sore than usual after today’s workout, it is withstanding my weekly cleaning, physio  and errands schedule fairly well now. Once tomorrow’s work is done I will take my two days off physio to relax and enjoy my company and our quick trip out of town coming up. Then both hip and tendon will be ready for a physio day on the weekend. I am thrilled that suddenly housework is less challenging physically than it has been because the hip is so much stronger.  I am coming to grips with the acceptance that the tendon in that hip is likely not going to ever recover fully, and that’s ok. 

The sun is shining brightly, the sky is pretty winter blue, little cloud cover, and the temperature today is liveable at just below -10C. Snow flurries were forecast as a possibility today, but thus far there is no sign of them, so I am delighted. My husband worked hard today on coordinating his computers so they communicate properly with each other and is having a refreshing nap. It is quiet in the suite; the neighbour kids began Canadian school today, so no wonder it was so quiet in here after 10pm yesterday and all day today. I LIKE it! I also liked seeing their huge smiles and hearing their laughter as they got off the school bus and raced home across the icy snow drifts on the back lawn. Cute kids! I pray they will be able to learn English quickly and help their parents learn as well. 

After months of uncertainty and feeling defeated and saddened by the ongoing consequences of the hip revision surgery, life is becoming a bit less bleak. Hallelujah! 

A Sky Covered In Wool Batting!

The pale blue sky is peeking out between cloud formations that look like rows of wool batting: curvy fluffy puffy sorts of clouds in neat rows.  Makes me want to pull all that cloud cover down and wrap myself up in it to stay warm on another cold day.  At least there is also a bit of sun shining through the gaps in the woolly loveliness.

It has been a happy weekend.  I kept up with my physiotherapy so I could take my Sunday off as usual, I had a great time yesterday ironing, playing a silly old video game that has brightly coloured graphics which amuse me greatly, making decent meals and just enjoying my day.  Today I had a good time at church. We started our adult class on meditative poetry with a short selection each from George Herbert (The Windows), John Donne (Batter My Heart, Three-Personed God) and John Milton (When I Consider How My Light Is Spent).  I confess I have not spent a lot of time on any of these three poets as I tend to go in for the more obscure types of poems, BUT really did enjoy the class today. I learned more about the spiritual and circumstantial state of each of those three poets at the time when they wrote these poems.  The one I identified with most was John Donne's.  The very real struggle so many of us go through, knowing there is a better way to believe and live that only God can give to us, but knowing we are completely and not that unhappily trapped in the endemic evil of the world we live in.....so much truth in that brief French sonnet. The author wants and even feels a need for God to violently wrench him away from the world that has taken over his life, yet he is dealing with a god who doesn't force change, only knocks quietly at the door of our hearts.  The sonnet is from about 1633.  Love how the definitions of some of the words in these poems  have changed in our day...for example our "gladly" appears at the word "fain".  The word "fondly" in Milton's poem, circa 1652, actually meant "foolishly".   It was a fun class and I learned quite a bit about how these men struggled with their faith.  Looking forward very much to next week's class! Next week we will be tackling Gerard Manley Hopkins "Pied Beauty", T.S. Eliot's "Journey of the Magi", and Robert Frost's "The Silken Tent".

Coffee hour was fun after the service today: I had a chance to visit with an 85 year old friend who discovered competitive swim meets when she was 65 and is still competing.  She was at the local pool this morning before church where she swam her daily 150 laps. I feel like I am 100 years old compared to her and her incredible energy.  I think I am doing well to complete 90 minutes of physio a few mornings a week without collapsing. hahaha  Wow....she is an incredible inspiration!  NOT sure though just how inspired I myself will end up being in terms of my own fitness once the physio finally comes to an end! hahaha  

We decided to go to Fancy Fork for lunch after church.  We each decided to order the Forest Feast crepes stuffed with chicken and mushroom and onions and covered in a delicious arugula pesto sauce.  There was also an over easy egg on each plate and we were supposed to order two sides. My husband ordered the Greek herbed cubed potatoes and bacon for his sides and I chose the fruit selection and bacon with mine.  WEEEEEELLLLLL....my fruit selection was wonderful: a slice of jack fruit, a quarter of an orange, a large slice of pineapple, 4 black grapes, a strawberry, a small slice of watermelon....yummy!!  What we didn't understand from the menu and never considered possible was that we would each receive three of the crepes...THREE!!!  Okay, the crepes were not gigantic, but they weren't pint sized either.  Oh my goodness....all this yummyness for only twenty dollars a plate!!  Yes, they were gigantic plates. They had to be to hold all the food!  How on earth could we bring home pesto covered crepes? They would never last. So we just ate them and brought home the fruit and the bacon. My husband managed to eat all three of his crepes plus his potatoes.  I was very grateful for the giant sized glass of soda to wash all those crepes down.  Fortunately we had to take a little walk after lunch to get back to our car and then after a short drive I had an errand to run that used up a few steps.  Slurp, urp, burp....wow, we are both still full four hours later and will be eating dinner very late this evening....a teeny tiny dinner after the huge luncheon.  

We received word this morning that my walking partner's father in law passed away very unexpectedly last evening.  We are praying for her husband as he is in shock and for all of the family.  I know that shock. It is not good.  If you feel so led, could you offer up a prayer that all the family can come together to support the surviving spouse and assist in making arrangements to assist her in the future? Thank you so much.

I am kind of happy that the televised Olympic coverage is over for another couple of years because most of my favourite TV shows take a hiatus during that two weeks. Since I only watch the occasional bit of Olympic coverage, (I am not the biggest supporter of those games due to the doping issues, the politicized voting, the lack of good sportsmanship among the various world teams, the cheating scandals), it has been kind of a dry week for televised entertainment.  Fortunately I don't have that many programmes each week that I truly enjoy, but still I have missed that handful of shows.  In the meantime I tried to get into "The Copenhagen Test" as much as my husband is, but when I watched episode seven, thinking it was the last one, only to discover there is one more that Crave has not yet put out for public viewing and I have no idea if it will ever show up or not, my last bit of interest departed.  There were some pretty wierd gaps in logic that suddenly cropped up in episode seven...yes even more so than in the other six episodes....so even if the last episode appears I don't know if I will bother seeing how the season ends.  Meh.....

Tomorrow will be another good day I think: physio in the morning while my husband attends a couple of meetings, one on Zoom and then before it quite ends, racing off across the city for an in person meeting.  After lunch we are going to visit a cousin of my husband's that we only see once every couple of years. Even though we all live here in the city, she is gone to Arizona most winters for about 5 months and has a lakeside cabin for the summer months that is many miles away.  Occasionally there is a cousins' reunion for the handful of cousins who all live here but never seem to cross paths in the routine of regular daily events.  We have  visitors coming a couple of times this week, my husband is out for breakfast with a friend one morning, we are going out of town for part of a day weather permitting....yes, after being stuck at home so much last week due to snowfall and cold temperatures, it feels wonderful to have a few things to look forward to!

FINALLY Got To Drive My Own Car Today!!

 I have been snickering all week at my husband and his treatment of our new car! hahaha  Although technically it is MY car, bought and paid for and insured by MOI, he is treating it like a brand new baby.  He hasn't driven it at all since the big snowfall and cold snap that hit a couple of days ago and any trips we made prior to that, well, when I came out to get into the car on our way to perform various errands, I found himself behind the steering wheel every time. hahaha For someone who didn't EVER want to have to give up our former vehicle because it carries his "used twice a year" canoe so well, he is extremely enamoured of said new vehicle. hahahaha  

Today a friend of mine was hoping I would come over to visit because she was going to be alone all afternoon and suffers from partial immobility.  The temperature warmed up to a balmy -23C by the time I needed to start the car and get the snow and ice off the windshield, so my husband, after some hemming and hawing about starting the car in such cold weather....huh???...when has that ever stopped us from starting any vehicle we have ever had???....went outside the cleaned the windshield off for me as it sat idling and warming up the inside. THEN I GOT TO DRIVE MY OWN CAR FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE PURCHASING IT A FULL WEEK AGO!!!  YAY!  Oh, it was glorious to get out and get behind the wheel without my husband anxiously hovering to make sure I wasn't driving too quickly, wasn't waiting too long to apply the brakes on our very icy streets, wasn't telling me things I already know such as how to turn on signal lights and windshield wipers etc.  Such freedom of movement in MY OWN CAR! hahahaha  I was laughing so hard at his proprietary and even fatherly concerns for the car's safety, not so much for mine, I had tears running down my face before I drove away....as he stood and watched me from the back lawn until I was out of sight. Oh gosh, it was hilarious.  I was tempted to request he confine his pastoral care concerns to our friends and family and leave the car be, but I didn't want to let on how cute I thought he was being.  Anyway, it was quite thrilling to be able to drive this new car and thoroughly enjoy the experience.  The All Season tires actually did quite well on the ice, but I will definitely be purchasing a new set of studs come next winter.  I am used to the way my vehicles handle and stop with studded tires and mentally I feel more secure knowing they are on the car.  It will be expensive as I will get new rims as well to avoid having the hassle of longer and more expensive seasonal tire changes in future but safety is worth the price to me.

I had a great time "coffee'ing" with my friend.  She loves stories and we both love Stuart McLean stories, so today I read her his hilarious "Book Club" and we shared many a laugh together over coffee and blueberry scones.  The sun shining in through the bay window in her living room, rays glimmering through the branches of the large pine trees in her front yard, fireplace crackling beside us....the combination was magical on a freezing winter day.  It was relaxing and I realized I had not been out of this house since last Sunday for church.  No wonder I was so anxious to get out today despite it still being so chilly.  My friend and I decided that next time I go to visit her I will bring another Stuart McLean story to read to her: Dave and the Duck!

My day away inspired me to make a decent dinner tonight after my husband's wonderfully cooked fish dinner last night.  I had fun making tortellini with tomato sauce filled with diced grilled chicken and broccoli florets.  It was a simple meal, but it tasted very good. Since I drank coffee this afternoon for only the second time since sometime in the early new year, I suspect that explains my energy level and desire to stand up long enough to work on a pasta dish. Caffeine Shock! Oh gosh, I hope I can fall asleep tonight at a reasonable time!

The Soothing Sounds Of Snow Removal

It is quarter past six and I have been awakened by the sweet sounds of ploughs and trucks removing snow from the streets: rrrrrmmmm, squeal, squeak, BOOM, scraaaaaaaaaaaaaape, squeal, BANG, BANG, BANG, rucka, rucka, repeat…..

For some reason I found waking up to sounds of the ploughs and snow removal trucks to be relaxing rather than annoying this winter. It is nice to live on a main thoroughfare that is on the official priority snow removal route, especially since trying to drive from our surrounding residential streets out to that main thoroughfare is a sometimes terrifying slip ‘n’ slide over snow so packed down by traffic that it turns into thick ice with deep tire ruts that do not fit every wheel base. Hitting the cleared Main Street after the stress of arriving there safely is a major winter time treat! Fer shur! 

Last evening the oldest boy from next door cane over with his mom’s cell phone 📱 which he thrust at me to read a message from his mom that was translated into English from Arabic. The translated message was a bit confusing, but I finally figured it out. She wanted to borrow a particular type of hand mixer to mix a soup and would return it upon completion. Fortunately we just happen to have the kind she was looking for, a long, narrow appliance my husband mostly uses for whipping cream and single serving smoothie drinks. It was nice to be able to help. We have had neighbours before who participate in the practises of Ramadan, so we knew what we were in for once the sun went down and the kids had eaten their daily meal that would raise their blood sugar after a 24 hour fast: rmmmmmm, BANG, SHRIEK, BANG, SHRIEK, mumble, mumble, BOOM, bang, bang, bang, bang, giggle, giggle, HA, HA, HA, BANG, BOOM……until just after 11pm when sleepy time silence returned for the rest of the night. 

Living in a public housing complex is always an interesting mix of sounds. So is living on a main thoroughfare during winter snow removal. I am very, very grateful to still have decent hearing and pray it will last for a long time to come! 

It is a physio day today. Yesterday I compensated on my regularly scheduled day off to do six loads of laundry. By the time I was ready to haul the last basket of dried items up to the second floor my hip and opposite foot were rather tired, so I let my husband retrieve it from the basement. I cheated….don’t care…..

My friend wants me to come over for coffee this afternoon but it is so very cold today. I will see if I feel like remembering how to use the command start for the car and doing the slip ‘n’ slide on the side streets by this afternoon. My husband also has a friend who wants to go for coffee this afternoon, so perhaps he can drop me off at my friend’s house while he goes to meet his friend and pick me up again afterward. In this bitter weather I am not sure I want to be driving alone in a so far untested vehicle on All Season tires instead of studs. However, it is time to see if it works well in this type of severe winter weather.

For those of you with doubts about life after death, just something to think about in the link below. 

 https://youtube.com/shorts/Wk6eAZJf4rU?si=uHvhCcLHBSTRyG97

On The Wrong Side Of The Arch Once Again!

 I am looking out my window and seeing that there is what I call a "reverse" chinook arch going on outside.  When I lived in Calgary area I lived for those sky signs of an impending chinook warm up because I knew that when I looked to the west from under the cloud cover over the city and saw deep blue cloudlessness out there, the temperatures by the afternoon were going to rise by as many as 20 degrees and last for a couple or three days, almost all of the snow would met away so that when it got cold again there wouldn't be very much ice to deal with.  Not so here....today we are under the blue sky and there is a perfect arch of CLOUDS to the west, so that means our temperatures are going to stay very cold for a few more days, whether or not we get any more snow.  I just checked the weather forecast to confirm, and sure enough we have overnight lows between -24C and -28C coming up this weekend. Blecch!!!  My husband just told me he watched a sun dog form around the sun earlier this morning, confirming what I suspected is going to happen when I saw the reverse arch. Dang it....WHY do I detest winter so much??  Well, there are obvious answers I suppose. Perhaps the question is better phrased as, "Why can't I seem to adjust to these miserable winters the way I used to be able to?"  I suppose THAT is the real question!

Even though the cold entering our suite through the single and double paned windows is rather intense today, we have all the blinds and drapes open so we can soak up the sun for however long it lasts.  Gosh, even on such a miserable day for temperature, the sunshine can't help but make us cheerier than we are on overcast, grey days. We can put on extra sweaters if it gets too cold in here with the curtains open. 

My energy is up:  cooking and dishes and 6 loads of laundry have been happening, I got showered and dressed bright and early this morning and am just taking a break between loads of laundry.  I had a decent sleep last night as our next door neighbours went out with one of their sponsoring families last evening to share the first night of the Ramadan season together. They didn't come home until mid morning, so we got a great sleep last night with no banging about next door until 3am for a change.  

It feels good to feel good today!!  Long may it last!

REAL Winter Weather At Last! The Warm Spell Is Officially Over!

Wow, we have nearly a foot of snow on our back deck that my husband has just finished picking up with the shovel and tossing it out over the porch railing onto the new foot of snow below!  Under that snow there is the remainder of the wickedly horrible ice, so will have to be careful when we finally allow ourselves to leave this nice cozy lair of ours, but that amount of snow should provide at least a bit of grip for our boots.  The wind has gone through periods of gusting on and off all day, but there aren't yet too many very deep drifts. Hopefully when the snowfall ends overnight tonight....it IS ending, right forecasters??....we won't have to shovel through two feet of drift across the back lawn to access our car.  So grateful we were able to get the old car stashed safely away off the street before all this winter weather returned yesterday.

My big task for the day, apart from returning to a full physio routine now that the ruptured tendon in my foot can handle it again, was taking a teensy weensy sewing needle and poking it through the teensy weensy spray hole in my iron in hopes I could get it working again....SUCCESS!!  I was afraid I had damaged it when it ceased to work last week and equally afraid I was going to damage it by poking it with a needle and equally afraid that if the needling didn't work I would have to fork out money for another new iron already.  So thankful that the needling worked perfectly.  I had just cleared whatever was blocking the sprayer when my husband came to tell me he had looked up my iron online and discovered that if the sprayer wasn't working it was a good idea to poke a teensy weensy sewing needle into it. hahahaha FOR ONCE I figured it out first!!  hahahaha  We have a bit of a "how to repair this" competition going on between us, so today I WON!!  hahaha  Nyaah, nyaah.....Silly us! Just grateful I finally got the ironing done after sitting looking at it for the last few days.....

We opted to stay home this evening instead of attending any of the Ash Wednesday services we usually go to. We often attend one of the Anglican services that occurs at 5:30pm, then head over to the service at our current Baptist congregation for 7pm, buuuuuuuut....today we are feeling chilly and lazy and don't feel like taking the time and energy required to dig our car out of the snow while melting the ice off the windshield, particularly as the temperature is dropping rapidly and it is REALLY REALLY cold outside!  Aaaaah, one of the joys of getting older: feeling quite justified in staying home from an annual event because of the bad weather.  

Time to go and make my part of tonight's dinner.  My husband is making baked potato rounds in the toaster oven and is preparing two filets of sole to fry on the stove. I will take care of the Brussell's Sprouts and the salad.  We will have a relaxing evening at home watching Jeopardy and chatting.  Loverly way to spend a miserable winter evening! 

Hunkered Down Inside For The Duration!!

 It has been a blessed day in many little ways!  We began our day with the arrival of the plumber who was able to get the plumbing problem between our suite and the one next door fixed in less than two hours!  YAY!!!  We are so relieved.  He was shocked by the extent of the mess in our bathroom last night and said the water and sludge must have absolutely exploded out of our sink drain.  It is wonderful to not have that worry any more.  

My husband went out this morning to pick up some necessary items and arrived home just in time for lunch.  As soon as we completed our meal we drove our "old" car over to the home of the people who are going to be using it to get it off the street over here.  We have some appointments made over the next couple of weeks for some fairly minor repairs, an oil change, picking up the summer tires from storage etc., that we want to get done before we fill out the bill of sale.  Had a great visit with our friends as their wee Shih Tzu puppy and their huge marmalade cat seem to love me. I came home happily covered in pet hair, on the verge of a slight asthma attack and happy as if I was in my right mind.  I LOVE animals.  Oh dear Lord, I wish my animal allergies had been healed at some point when I was still young enough to want to have a cat or dog, but it was not meant to be....probably for the best when I look back on how my life has gone! hahaha

 About fifteen minutes after we arrived home the predicted freezing rain began pouring down, teeming down in fact.  SO now our new car and everything else outside is becoming encased in sheets of ice!!  On top of that new ice we are predicted to have 20-35 cm of fresh snow by tomorrow evening, along with gale force winds to create all manner of hard packed drifts here and there and everywhere.  The first flakes are just beginning to fall.  We have been advised of possible, even probable, power outages during this storm so my prayer is that power outages could be the one thing everyone in the path of this large storm system could be spared.  From my mouth to God's ear.....amen??

I discovered a series of three not so worse novels in my closet the other day that I had forgotten about, so now that I am out of my pet hair covered clothes and in my warmest nightie and Mark's Comfy Robe in honour of the coming storm.  I will enjoy relaxing and re-reading that series.  It has been long enough since I read the books the first time to have forgotten most of the details, so it should be fun.  I so rarely read a book even as often as twice more after finishing it the first time.

So bring on the storm I suppose....sans power outages of course....and bring on the minus mid twenty temperatures once again and then let that be the last of the bitterly cold weather until next winter....okay?  Lord are you listening?  Is it possible to get a resounding YES answer to that prayer?  I mean, it is quite alright to ask and I won't be upset if the answer is NO....at least not TOO upset..... 

 

Ka-BOOM! Ohhhh Nooooo…….Our Bathroom!!!

We just finished eating dinner tonight when my husband went upstairs to wash his hands.  As soon as he turned on the bathroom light he saw water and black "gunk" from our sink drainpipe all over the floor, the walls, the toilet and toilet paper....on the hanging towels....pretty much everywhere.  The sink had literally "exploded" the contents of the pipe below it.  What an horrendous disastrous mess!!  From what we know about the shared stack between our place and the next door neighbours' suite, we can make an educated guess that their sink was plugging, so they decided to use some kind of plunger, likely a compressed air plunger by the look of the wide spread mess in our bathroom, to get their sink draining again.  So, we are guessing that the blockage had/still has to be in the shared part of the plumbing stack where our two separate sink drainage pipes combine into the main stack.  Since our neighbours don't speak English, there is no point trying to explain to them about the shared pipe situation. Under the circumstance we really can't ask them not to do any more plunging while a plumber has been requested. Aiiii yiiiii.....Oh dear, dear Lord, please let their sink continue to drain well enough until we get professional help in here.

While my husband mopped, wiped, and disinfected  every surface of the bathroom, I put in a maintenance request online and I can only pray the plumber arrives tomorrow morning before a major snow storm arrives in the afternoon.  I also have to pray that the neighbour's sink doesn't plug again before the plumber arrives because I don't know if my husband is up to crawling around on the bathroom floor again trying to clean every nook and cranny like he had to do tonight.  Between my hip and my foot and my knee issues I cannot join him down there to help out with that part. Once I have cleaned the sink and top of the toilet, replaced towels and other Standing Only chores, that is the end of my ability to assist. Sigh....

We have to get our old car moved over tomorrow morning to our friends' driveway.  We can't leave it on the street because we are to get 25-35cm of blowing snow starting sometime in the early afternoon and it will keep snowing and blowing for about 24 hours.  If our car gets snowed in out on the side street it will be nearly impossible to dig out and move to our friends' place.  So, I am praying we can work that out as soon as possible in the morning, then hunker down safely at home for a few days. YUCK!!!!  That much snow will take forever to clear with the city ploughs. The side streets around here likely won't get ploughed at all because the main thoroughfares will have to be done first and that is going to take a week or more to do properly.  

Dear Lord, I am so looking forward to the end of winter....are ya' with me?? 

Running Errands While The Sun Is Still Shining!

It has been a busy couple of days, getting the car contents moved from one vehicle to the other, getting a few necessary errands done while waiting for winter to begin its snowy, chilly return tomorrow sometime.  Brrrrr.....

In the meantime it has been fun as my husband learns to drive the new car and get used to all the new electronic "assists"....some definitely not that helpful...and I get my courage up to properly drive the thing myself.  I am guessing that now will not happen for a few days while my husband tests the all season tires out on the forecast fresh snow and ice pellets, after having used studded tires most every winter to date, before he decides to take the passenger seat and let me take the wheel. I am totally FINE with this scenario as I am still being careful with the ruptured tendon in my gas pedal leg!  As I read through the car manual I am becoming more confident to give the beast a try.  My time behind the wheel thus far doesn't count as sufficient to make me feel that I have REALLY driven it.  

Oh the sunshine this morning was glorious. Now at mid afternoon the clouds are just beginning to form to the north and west of us, indicators of the coming change in the weather.  We had a marvellous late morning after my husband's weekly  Zoom meeting with several of his preacher and teacher friends.  On the weekend he made a giant batch of baked beans, so we had a great deal of fun today delivering cartons of them to friends who enjoy a little break from cooking on occasion.  At the last house we visited we were ushered inside for a cup of tea and a wonderful visit.  We were there for the better part of 2 hours before coming home for a very late lunch.....of my turkey chili, not my husband's beans, as I have been eating so many of them and decided it was time for a change of menu.  We do have one carton of beans in the freezer for later on and enough left in the refrigerator for an addition to our dinner tonight.  The last of the chickpea and lentil soup will be eaten tomorrow at lunch time, the last of the chili for dinner and then it will be time to start cooking up something else. Since it is going to be cold and miserable outside again for a week or so, it will be a treat to just remain at home looking to tackle some hearty winter recipes.  

Gosh, looking outside right now it is nearly impossible to believe we will be plunged back into the depths of winter deep freeze again in the next 24-36 hours....drat!!  We are forecast to receive 10-15cm of snow with the possibility of up to 25cm. NOOOOOO!!

 

Wow....Such A Great Day, My Head Is Still Spinning!

After running an errand late this morning we decided it was finally time to start our search for a "new to us" vehicle, after waiting a good two years longer than originally planned.  We assumed it would be the usual arduous process of going from dealership to dealership, arguing about what we should get, both of us disappointed and/or in tears with the frustration of trying to find something both of us would be comfortable with in terms of ease of driving, condition of vehicle and price point.

Well, it certainly didn't turn out that way....glory to God!!  We got to the first dealership, had a marvellous salesman, experienced great customer service all around, took a car for an extensive test drive and an hour later left the dealership, bill of sale in hand, to head off to the bank and the insurance company to complete the legalities.  Unbelievable! I think we are both still in shock!  Such a thing has never happened to us before when purchasing a car of any kind.  Now we will get the handful of repairs done on our old vehicle so it will be ready to be passed on to some friends who are in desperate need of a second vehicle that is roadworthy for their summer trips to their favourite cabin at "the lake" and for doing their separate errands around town!  

The shock is starting to wear off now, but wow...what was predicted by us both to be a discouraging, frustrating, unhappy time looking at previously owned vehicles ended up netting us a car that is 8 years newer than our present vehicle, only 67,000k on it and owned by an elderly fellow who treated it so well that both exterior and interior look like brand new....I have the same sense of inner peace about purchasing this vehicle that I had when I gave away my piano:  all the expected stress and disappointment never surfaced. It was simply time and I knew it in my  heart, just like what happened today.  The car has four brand new all season tires on it, so that was a bonus!  It also has more electronic  "bells and whistles" than we have ever had, so will spend this long weekend studying the manual and trying to remember the tutorial our salesman gave us before we drove it off the lot. 

Wow....I am eternally grateful not only for today's purchase, but for the restoration of a long missing peace about any upcoming move out of this suite....when the Lord deems the time and circumstance to be right, it will happen without so much upset and worry as we had when we thought we were moving two years ago.  I am ever so thankful for the example of that peace we experienced  today.   

 

First Foray Out Without My Cane!

 Since so much snow has melted from the sidewalks and some of the parking lots around town, when we went out this afternoon I tossed my cane into the car and didn't use it at all.  The first walk was short: parked the car downtown and walked across the street into a building where there were only about fifty steps in total to walk before returning to the car.  Then we drove to the bank where I walked across the parking lot, did my banking business and walked back.  I realize that doesn't sound like much of an accomplishment, but I am thrilled that I was able to mentally let go of the dependence on the cane for a feeling of security.  Yes, I was limping very noticeably, which I don't when I carry the cane, even though I am not putting weight on the cane and sometimes even forget to put it down on the ground when my operated leg takes a step now, BUT I was brave enough to risk tripping over potholes on the street and in the lot and over broken bits of sidewalk.  Thank you Lord. The bravery to start the next phase of returning to a more normal life finally happened today.  

Next time I go out....tomorrow actually....I will once again try leaving the cane in the car, just in case I am on my feet too long or have to walk farther than is comfortable as we tour around.....are ya' ready for this.....the parking lots at a few used CAR DEALERSHIPS!!!  At long last my husband has decided he can manage to detach himself emotionally from our current vehicle...long story....and begin the search for a different, slightly newer, "new to us" vehicle.  By noon tomorrow we will be on the hunt. Don't know how long it will take us, but it is time to begin.  We want to have a different vehicle up and running properly before mid April if possible so we can pass our current vehicle on to friends who need a second vehicle so they can stop having to share one car every day and who could use one like ours to transport all their summer gear to the cabin they rent at "the lake" every summer.  There are some repairs that need to be made to the electrical system and the emergency brake before we turn it over, but it should work well for them for some time to come.  Lord willing, this plan will happen and our present vehicle will have another life to live.  Here's hoping we can find ourselves a decent used car very soon and make the switch over by early spring.  

As I assumed, lower temperatures and snow are supposed to hit us again next week. The good part of that is the fresh snow will cover what remains of the icy sea across the back lawn and perhaps I will have enough traction then to get to the car in the parking lot on my own.  Looking at highs of only -10C at that point, but it surely has been great to get out and about so often this week on this string of above zero days.

My Turn To Get Dinged By The CRA

I have heard and read about how far behind the CRA is these days in sending out rebates and assessments for the previous tax year etc. Today I discovered it is my turn to pay the price for their being so far behind. I got a notice today telling me that my final assessment for the 2024 tax year has resulted in my having to repay an assessed over payment of the Harmonized Sales Tax rebate. Their reassessment of what I should have received over this past year means I have to repay the CRA for their over payment, BUT fortunately I only owe them one hundred and forty-eight dollars. Whew! As PO’d as I am that it has taken them this long to figure it out, I do consider myself fortunate to have such a small tax bill. I will go to the bank tomorrow and make my payment. I also have to figure out how to do my 2025 income taxes online at long last….finally forced into it because I received the notice recently that paper copies of my tax forms will no longer be delivered in the mail. Rats…..I have to get with the programme and learn more new technological methods instead of being so technologically lazy. Poop! Hahaha….

It Isn’t Up To The Kids To Exonerate Their Parents’ Unresolved Guilt!

I am learning things now that I wish I had understood much earlier in my life, as it would have made for more adult emotional security for myself and may have helped my parents understand the reality of the consequences of some of their actions toward me. If nothing else I could have changed my own pathetic responses to some of the things they said to me, even when I was an adult, but stupidly I never did. 

A few examples stand out to me. There are many more, but no need to share them all because I have forgiven my folks. All parents make mistakes and I am guilty of some real lulus with my own son. 

I am now realizing that some things said to me by my parents were for the purpose of getting ME to absolve  THEIR guilt; things in some cases that I never needed to know. I didn’t need to know at age 4 that a lovely young woman we knew had asked my parents if I could be the flower girl at her wedding and they said no because they felt I was not mature enough. Even at that young age I knew inside, when they confessed the situation and their decision to me, that my job was to tell them it was okay even though for me it wasn’t, that I understood, even though I didn’t and that I wasn’t upset about it, even though my little four year old heart was breaking with overwhelming disappointment. How on earth was I so aware of my “duty” to absolve at the ripe old age of four years? And why did I even have to know the possibility of being a flower girl had even come up? 

For the next more than 50 years I had many similar situations occur: that my parents rejected my acceptance into the accelerated learning programme in elementary school, that after assuming I would be going  along and included as a grandchild, I was not taken to my grandparents’ funerals when I was in high school…missing my most dearly loved paternal grandfather’s funeral, ("We had planned actually to take you to this final funeral for your one remaining grandparent, but decided you should not miss a week of school.", despite my being an honour student at the time). That was a tipping point for me as I cascaded into an emotional breakdown for which no professional medical help was offered. Why at a time of great need for my family did I need to know this: my parents told me what they had planned to do to assist us, but, “now we’re not because we can get this great situation of ourselves instead.” In all these cases I did not need to know what wonderful things they had originally planned for/with me and then decided not to for various odd reasons. I just remember myself continuing decade after decade to go through the expected motions of telling them it was okay that they had changed their minds and that it was okay that they told me about these possibilities they then decided were not going to happen…even though it wasn’t.  How much guilt about their own changes of mind in regard to what was going to happen in regard to events that impacted me were they harbouring that made them so needy for my forgiveness over things they could have just said nothing at all about?

As I say, I have forgiven them and harbour no more resentment, but I had a strong feeling this morning during my prayer time that I needed to attempt to send out a message to parents who read this blog:  DO NOT expect your children to rid you of your own guilt over actions that you have taken in regard to decision making for them. Expecting a young person to understand why you have changed your mind as to how they should be involved or not involved in a situation where you have that kind of control, a situation they did not even know had arisen, to wave the tempting carrot after the race to decide has already ended without including their input is not fair to any child.  Please don't do that.  Don't expect a pre-schooler to make you feel better about your decisions affecting them....decisions about situations they had no awareness of until you told them about it and made it seem like they were going to be participating in the situation or receiving something from the situation and then pull the good possibility out from under them because you know inside yourself you feel guilty for some reason for the decision you have made.  Please, please, please don't do that to your babies.  Assess very carefully their need to know the situation or possibility has arisen in the first place.  As a four year old I didn't need to know I had had the opportunity to do something that sounded so wonderful and then had it snatched away with no input on my feelings about it. Discuss with your child before the decision is made, not afterwards, and then only IF the child is old enough to understand what is being offered and why the offer is being withdrawn.  Ask yourselves, do they even need to know about this?  Are they too young to understand our decision?  If so why, REALLY, are we telling them and expecting them to forgive us for our decision?

Thank you for reading this and thinking about what I am saying.  As I mentioned, I made some horrendous mistakes myself as a parent that still haunt me when I remember them, but this is one bit of advice I can offer as someone who paid the price for that kind of communication glitch with my own parents.  As an adult I could have and should have responded with calm honesty to these kinds of situations, but I didn't and that is on me. 

Blessings on your day!  My own day has been blessed because my husband and I were able to get out grocery shopping in the nice warm sunshine.  We were able to get to multiple stores and stock up on many sale items.  My boots provide wonderful support for my sore foot, so although I probably didn't need to wear winter boots today for most of our walking about, it was marvellous to be on my feet that much and be pain-free!  We stopped for lunch at Roots and took advantage of their daily $10.99 lunch specials...really, really nice hand formed burgers and three cheese with spinach dip and uber fresh corn tortilla chips.  No wonder it is so crowded at lunch time there....really good food, low in salt in our case as requested and the price...amazing!  

So all the groceries are put away, my bank book is updated, I have done this blog post, had a good chat on the phone with a BC friend....must be time to go and do a few physio exercises.

Thank you God for a very good day today! 

Tomorrow my coffee buddy is coming over and in the afternoon is Bible Study, plus it is to be a few degrees above zero again....lots of happy things to look forward to. 

 

 

Oh SO Tempting To Skip The Physio Today!

 However, I didn't!  Just finished up. 

I had company this morning....a MARVELLOUS, nearly three hour visit with my walking partner. She is a very interesting person and we have a number of things in common in the way we look at life and the world around us and our relationship with God.  It was very good.

After she left my husband was grouching around in the kitchen, not at all happy with one single thing in the refrigerator or cupboards that were available to be eaten for lunch.  I was certain I could put something together for him fairly quickly that he would enjoy, but NO!  He wanted to go to The Cottage for one of their lunch specials, so that is what we did.  It wasn't until we got to the restaurant that he confessed he had not eaten any breakfast prior to his morning meeting, so no wonder he was grouchy with nothing we had to eat appealing to him. His blood sugar was probably in the basement after being awake for nearly 5 hours with nothing but a small cup of green tea to sustain him.  Of course as soon as he had finished off his tomato bisque, lasagna and Caesar salad he was his usual cheery self again.

We decided not to turn this little trip out into a short listed grocery shopping trip and came home again right after our meal.  We have to work in a larger grocery shop and RO water jug refill trip one other day this week anyway.  Since he is going out for breakfast with "the guys" tomorrow morning, I am guessing we will go out to run errands the next day.  Whatever....I can do physio tomorrow morning while he is away and then if I want to I can do it again the following afternoon, or just that afternoon and take my usual day off tomorrow between sessions....it is nice to have the option to stick to my every second day plan, or do two or three days together and take off two days in a row if  my hip is too tired.  This retirement thing is really pretty great for being able to keep or change the pre-planned physio schedule. It is all good.

The air temperature is not that cold today but a bitterly cold wind is blasting through the city.  When I went outside to access our car today my hair blew around so wildly I wondered if it was going to blow right off my head.  The hood on my parka kept blowing up over my head without me pulling it up there and I had to put on a pair of gloves I found in my pocket to keep my hands warm.  Tomorrow it is to be plus three for a high and the possible snow flurries overnight tonight have disappeared from the forecast, but it is certainly cold enough to snow, if that miserable wind is any indication. 

We are in preliminary discussions regarding getting us both out to Alberta in early spring and my husband out to BC.  We have about a six week window to do both things, so a LOT of details have to be worked out.  Depending on when we find a new to us vehicle in the next couple of months, I MAY opt to remain here at home car-less while he goes to BC to help a friend who is building a boat and who wants to take my husband on hike for a few days in a mountain range my husband has not hiked in before.  As I see his desperation to get out and be in his beloved mountainous outdoors, I am more inclined to agree to just not have a car while he is away if we still have only one vehicle.  He truly needs this trip to find out what his limits actually are in terms of how far he can travel by car on his own and just how much he can achieve for altitude and distance in the mountains on what may be his last or nearly last foray out there.  If I have a travel need here at home and no car and the transit bus can't take me where I need to go, I can always call a taxi.  At least our wee city is large enough to sustain a fairly sizable taxi service.   I do want to go to Alberta with him, but the circumstances that I would find myself in should I also accompany him to BC are not only less than ideal, they would be torturous for me.  I can play a little bit loosey-goosey with my physio sessions for a couple of weeks or less in AB, but I can't stretch that into another couple of weeks in BC.  So, we shall see what if anything comes from all this discussion and these presently airy fairy ideas.  

Right now I need to wrap my head around what to make for dinner tonight. Fortunately our huge lunch precludes having to prepare some kind of mega meal for tonight. 

For You Friends and Family Who Don't Understand What We Are Dealing With Ice-wise

I found these photos that are indicative of the icy pathways we have to cover to get to our own parking lot....you can see how these kinds of ground covers all over town are quite a challenge for someone recovering from hip revision surgery who CANNOT risk falling down:

While there appears to be snow beside the icy pathway, that snow is also covered in a layer of slippery, unbreakable ice.

 

We Made It Out This Morning After All!

Oh how grateful I am that we got to church ⛪️ this morning! My husband managed to get across the ice covered snow bumps all over the back lawn without falling and brought the car around to the front street. There were a few odd patches of ice on the sidewalk, but he poured ice melt on them to give me traction and away we went! The sidewalk  by the church door also had irregular patches of ice, but I shimmied across them ok as they weren’t too large and my husband found a place to park where he could clamber over the curbside snowbanks. It was great to be back with The Fam and enjoying the latest adult classes on Church architecture and its spiritual symbolism. 

My husband rejoiced that he was able to get me out of the house 🏠 for something other than grocery 🛒 🛍️ shopping and didn’t want the break away to end too quickly, so he took me to Fancy Fork  for a tasty meal.🥘 I enjoyed my Greek bowl with its base of herbed, cubed potatoes 🥔 smothered in spinach, red and green pepper 🫑 slices, grilled tomatoes,🍅 feta cheese, and an egg 🍳 with a side bowl of Hollandaise sauce. It was a huge portion, so in our refrigerator are the leftovers for dinner tonight. My husband enjoyed his Quiche Lorraine with cubes of bison 🦬 bacon.🥓 

Now we back home relaxing, 😎 looking at the blue sky, reading a most entertaining annual letter from some cousins of my husband’s and deciding on what portion of today’s Winter Olympics 🎿 coverage we want to watch.

My goodness it was wonderful to get out at last for some spiritual food and fellowship.

More rain 🌧️ and snow ⛄️ flurries with freezing temperatures are forecast for tonight. Sigh 😮‍💨. I am so fed up with having to tackle ice, but we are another day closer to spring and that is a wonderful thing to bear in mind! If the ice doesn’t stop her, I will have a happily awaited visit with my walking 🚶‍♀️ partner in the morning. Yay! 

Another Sunday Morning….Same Question

We are entering Day 2 of fog 🌫️ and more freezing drizzle, so for yet another Sunday morning we are faced with the strong possibility we will attending church via Zoom instead of in person. Rats! 🐀 In an hour or so I will check the ice conditions outside, but I am not holding out much hope of being able to get across the icy ❄️ glaze over the snowy bumps on the lawn between our door and the car 🚘. If my husband could manage to slip and slide to the parking lot to bring the car around to the front door and the long strip of sidewalk from the front door to the street is not iced over, I could get out, but we don’t know how bad the sidewalks are around the church. Is it worth the stress of finding out? This winter 🥶 I have a much better understanding of my husband’s overwhelming wish to get out of Saskatchewan. For a number of reasons though we are kind of stuck here for now, maybe forever, so I hope we can “buck up old chicken” and soldier on. We don’t have a lot of friends here, but the handful we have are so very wonderful it would be incredibly difficult to leave them. Age limits our options as well and consistent medical care has become a “must” for us both, costs in other provinces is a huge factor….my poor husband is desperate for a change, so I am praying for better peace of mind for him. I am too busy just getting through each day right now to give much thought to the future. I am hopeful that a bit of a road trip break in a couple of months will encourage us to break out of this mental rut we have been in the past few months that is being exacerbated by the rotten weather. Here’s to a change in attitude for us both.

As We Get Old And Forgetful We Might As Well Enjoy Our Serendipitous Mistakes!!

What a laugh we had at ourselves earlier this morning!  My husband was supposed to be getting his regular police check done to confirm his Anglican License to Officiate for another year, and he was pleased that he could get in today, even though he only tried to make the appointment a couple of days ago.  It usually takes a lot longer than that to secure an appointment.  We were thrilled to get to the visitor parking at the police station just as someone else was pulling out of their space in the midst of the woefully inadequately sized lot.  YAY!!  We were right on time. Things were working out very well.  My husband went into the station and I opened the first pages of a brand new book.  In about four minutes my husband returned to the car, looking sheepish and obviously very embarrassed. hahaha Poor guy....yup, he was indeed booked in for a Friday morning appointment....for NEXT Friday!  hahaha  He completely misread the calendar and when his texted confirmation of date and time arrived on his phone right after he booked in the other day, he didn't bother to look at it because he was so sure he knew what he was doing.  hahahaha WRONG AGAIN! hahaha  Oh how we laughed when he got back in the car and explained to me what had happened.  

So, there we sat....were there any other errands we could run since we were out and about anyway?  I told him we were not far from the eye-wear store where I bought my newest glasses and that I needed them tightened,  so off we went into the downtown.  He was most fortunate to find a parking space open only a few yards from the store I needed to go to, so this time it was himself reading a book while I went to have my frames reset.  I was only gone about twenty minutes.  My husband put 30 minutes worth of parking time into the meter, so we had time to spare.  Well, while I was in there cars had  pulled in very closely both in front and back of him and getting our car out of the spot was going to be nearly impossible. Our car was completely hemmed in.  We sat in the car for a few minutes with no sign of either of the other drivers reappearing to move their vehicles and give us the space we needed to pull out of the spot. What to do?  

We decided that since we were only less than a block from a busy little downtown pub, Lancasters, we would go over there and eat lunch.  We shared a 10 inch spinach, feta and chicken pizza and quite enjoyed ourselves.  Since we arrived a few minutes before noon we were able to snag our favourite front of house table, a large semi-booth right in the front window and away from the loudest of the music speakers.  It was quite lovely.  With it being a Friday we didn't plan to hang around after we ate because we knew the place would be filling up quickly with downtown office workers.  Our pizza was quite delicious and just the right size for us.  As we were eating our last three or four bites a friend from church arrived with her five office staff to celebrate a birthday lunch for one of them. The place was packed out and there were no other tables available that would hold that many people.  She was starting to check her phone to see if there were other restaurants in the immediate area that had room for a party of six, so we got her attention and told her we would be done in two minutes or less so her party could have our booth.  They were so sweet and didn't want us to rush, but we were done anyway. While my husband downed his last couple of mouthfuls of pizza, (actually the correct word is more like "mouthsfull", but the spell checker goes insane when I try to key that word in, so....), I went to the cashier and paid our tab, explaining that a large party needed our spot.  My goodness the staff were so very grateful not to lose a party of six because of two oldsters doddling over a small, shared pizza. hahaha  It worked out very well for us all.   

When we returned to our car, the car that had been behind us was gone and we had all the room we needed to get back out onto the street to go home.  There was a fair amount of time left on our parking meter, so I was delighted that as we were pulling out, another car was about to pull into our spot. Someone received nearly an hour of free parking today.  YAY!!  I love when that happens....to me and to others.

SO, no police check today, but my glasses were unexpectedly tightened. we had lunch out and were able to end up being table savers for our friend and her colleagues, we were able to unexpectedly help out someone who needed a parking meter....hahaha...what a great time this morning turned into after all....and just because of one mistake my husband made over his scheduling!  You never know when cool little things are going to happen to make an ordinary day kind of special.

Then I arrived home to the news that my walking partner is coming over for a visit early next week. She has been very ill with a respiratory virus and I am so relieved she is feeling better at last.  Having had a similar illness a few weeks ago, I can relate to how miserable she felt and how long it has taken for her to get better.  

I feel like doing physio today again and then taking both weekend days off, but I also realize I MUST rest the damaged foot on the non-operated leg.  The ruptured tendon, (yes, it is ruptured, but only about a level 1 to 2 at worst, so I have been doing all the right things to help it along during its 12 -16 week healing period), let me know by last night that it needed another day of rest after unexpectedly doing physio two days in a row midweek, so I am going to obey its commands.  It is feeling quite good today.  I can tackle the physio again tomorrow as is usual for my weekly schedule.  Eventually all my little aches and pains associated with the fallout from the hip revision surgery will heal up and then I will be all set to have the other hip replaced....Oh dear Lord, will the need for recovery and physiotherapy ever stop???  At this point my non-operated leg has sustained more injuries than my operated leg...more annoying and only temporarily debilitating compared to the surgery, but so very irritating!!!  Okay, okay, this too shall pass.....

Now I just need the horrific icy covering on the snow buildup on our way out to our car to also pass.  The thin coating of ice that was melted yesterday and re-froze overnight means it isn't possible to break through to the snow for boots to get a grip.  I slipped and slid my way out to the car this morning, gripping my cane in one hand and my husband's arm with the other.  I wasn't able to step down from the ice on the lawn onto the icy patch beside our car, so my husband had me stand on the bare edge of the concrete ledge between the edge of the grass and the step down into the lot, then he backed the car out of our parking space and pulled around sideways so I could step down onto one tiny patch of bare asphalt and fling myself into the passenger side. hahaha Quite a spectacle I am sure. Well, we are nothing if not an entertaining sight for our neighbours, hahaha.  It isn't going above zero today, so who knows when our current "ice age" will come to an end with more snow to cover the remaining ice prior to the BIG "ice age" of spring. Aiii yiiiii......

It's A Beautiful Day In OUR Neighbourhood, How About Yours?

The temperature is currently +5C and the snow is slowly melting. The large piles along our parking lot that have been stacked during parking lot snow removal efforts have shrunk somewhat and are muddy looking, no longer bright, pristine white.  The sky is winter blue and the sun is shining...o glorious day!!

It has been a good day thus far: my coffee buddy came over this morning and we had a great chat.  While we had breakfast my husband and I cleared off a couple of tv programmes we had recorded previously.  After lunch I felt compelled to take advantage of feeling so very well and energetic today, so I didn't take today off from physio exercises.  I just completed the full repertoire and it feels good!  It means I won't have to do the exercises tomorrow and can accompany my husband on some late morning errands.  YAY!  So that is three sessions out of four already accomplished this week. Only Saturday physio to complete the commitment for the week.  I am going to go outside and wander about for a few minutes on our currently snow free sidewalks, because by Monday we are back to rain that will freeze overnight and leave the sidewalks and streets nearly impossible for me to navigate as the temperatures after that predicted rainfall will remain below zero for several days....IF the forecast is actually correct.  Gosh, I so hope that rain prediction is dead wrong.  

Last evening we went out and had a really great time!  Friends from church and some of their musical acquaintances have a fun band, Narrow Gate, that was playing at Bushwakker's Brew Pub, so my husband and I met up there with two other friends to spend the evening.  We had a wonderful dinner, followed by 90 minutes of listening to our friends singing and playing their hearts out.  It was so much fun. Quite a few other people from the church were there to support them as well, so that made the whole evening extra special.  We rarely go out to such things of a winter evening, so it was quite a treat. That is twice now in the past couple of months that we have enjoyed an evening event, the first being our trip to the Globe Theatre in December.

I am going to try to enjoy each and every warm day for the next few days by getting outside either in the car or for a short walk or both.  Once it gets icy and cold again my wings will be clipped until the next melt occurs. 

Connecting With The New Neighbours

 Yesterday we trudged through the deep snow between our suite and the one next door so we could deliver a loaf of my husband's yummy challah bread to our new neighbours.  Please pray for us that we can find ways to connect with them in the coming months if they are not averse to that.  We found a mom and approximately 11 or 12 year old daughter there and the mom was racing to put on her hijab before my husband saw her.  They seemed happy and grateful for the welcoming gift, we came in long enough to introduce ourselves, and they invited us to stay for coffee....a traditional invitation of hospitality for Arabic culture as near as we can ascertain....but we declined.  They have no furniture, just a plethora of personal items and some cooking utensils by the look of things.  They also have no English apart from "hello", "bye-bye", "come in", "thank you" and "coffee".  They say "No English", very well, but that seems to be the end of their English words and comprehension.  However, with lots of smiling and gesturing they did eventually figure out that we live next door.  The husband seems to be working long hours during the day so we only usually see his vehicle coming home after dinner in the evenings, but he is gone early in the morning.  

We are guessing they must be newcomers to Canada because they are still living on Middle Eastern Time: since the day times are so hot all over the middle east, we learned from other friends from Egypt and Iran that there is a lot of sleeping during the hot daylight hours and then the people come alive at night when it cools down.  So, we understand now that we have met some of our new neighbours, why they are not up and going during the daytime hours, but banging and crashing about between 9pm and anywhere from 1am and 3 am.  Our big box floor fan does take the edge off the noise, but I think I will make one more accommodation and start wearing my ear plugs to bed.  I was up until just before 3am this morning due to the loudness of the banging about on the floors and stairs next door...third night in a row I have had a less than long enough night's sleep...and I cannot keep this up.  My husband remains blissfully unaware and I do so wish I could sleep that soundly.

So, we just pray we can be good neighbours to them, be of some kind of assistance when and if needed and we do hope that this spring when we can all be outside it is possible to connect on a deeper level.  Praying their Canadian sponsors can assist them with English lessons and that the young girl can get some schooling if she isn't already doing some kind of lessons at home.  

I cannot imagine being in their situation. The only country I have ever lived in where English was not the primary language was Japan, but there are many English speaking Japanese, lots of English signage thanks to previous Olympic and other major sporting events in Japan and eagerness to learn  Western culture and ways among their younger folk.  Also we knew we would only be there for a year before returning home, so our situation was nothing like theirs, where they are likely here in Canada for the duration of their lives, barring changes in their home country down the road.  

Bless them Lord for putting themselves through this transition, for whatever reason and please bring them support people who are fluent in both Arabic and English. If we can help them at all, please show us how. Amen!! 

Age: A Most Humbling Experience!! Sigh.....

The past couple of days have been interesting in terms of my and my husband's ability to pay attention to the details of what is going on around us.  Oh good grief.....and to think there will be more of this to come!  Aiii yiiiii.....

Last evening my husband finally relented and told me why he had been chuckling and chortling all that morning; almost every time he looked at me in fact.  Turned out I had my pull over house robe on inside out.  Duh....I was so embarrassed!  Thank goodness I had to get properly dressed in the afternoon when my friend came to visit because at least I put those clothes on properly!  Well, he had a good laugh at my expense, BUT the tables were turned on him today!

We managed to navigate the thick ice and oatmeal snow and late afternoon freezing drizzle when we went out today with little problem. The worst ice was in the driving lane in front of WallyWorld...at least four solid inches of the stuff, with slippery oatmeal snow on top.  My husband tells me my new "winter walk" since my hip was replaced reminds him of actor Tim Conway when he played the role of the shuffling Little Old Man several decades ago on the Carol Burnett show.  Well, he is right AND I am darned proud of it because that is how I stay on my feet in this kind of weather! I enjoyed shopping for some books and a few groceries while my husband was in the medical clinic.

As we drove home my husband told me that the doctor was questioning him today....sort of like a memory testing session. Since he had gone simply to get a prescription refill, it kind of upset my husband.  Apparently his doctor keeps track of various details from previous visits, such as any travels the patient has taken or special events in their lives and when he feels it is "necessary" he asks them questions about those things at subsequent appointments.  Today my husband got grilled all the way back to details of our last trip to NYC, a long time ago now.  By the time we were on the way home my husband wasn't feeling at all well. His stomach was roiling from the stress of worrying about why the doctor was asking him such questions. HOWEVER, once we got inside the house and he took his coat off he started laughing his head off.  

"Here's why he must have been asking me all those questions!", he said to me.  

"Why?", I asked.  

"Take a close look at me", he answered. 

I looked at him but had no idea what I was to be looking for.  

"Do you like this shirt of mine?", he asked.  

"You KNOW I do!", I answered, somewhat impatiently.  

"Do you like it when it is inside out?" he queried.  

I took a closer look and sure enough.  Oh dear....the snap buttons are able to be done up easily when the shirt is inside out, but of course it is the back of the snaps that are showing to the onlooker. The seams didn't show up too badly along the sleeves and shoulders as the shirt is a dark plaid, but sitting with the doctor at close range they would have been quite noticeable. Suddenly I noticed something else:  under one arm of the shirt there was a huge white tag hanging down....the tag telling what kind of fabric the shirt is made of.  Along the seam on the other side of the shirt closer to his waist was another huge white tag sewn in....a "this shirt was inspected by inspector #7" tag.  Both tags could not be missed really once my husband moved his arms around. The doctor would definitely have seen them although he was good enough not to say anything; likely because he was thinking my poor dear husband is getting senile.  Oh dear. Can you imagine if the same doctor had seen me in my own inside out fashion the day before????  My husband is absolutely humiliated to have allowed the doctor to see him dressed that way.  hahaha I however, am not so upset....it was my husband's turn after all!!!  hahahahahahahahahahaha!

Right now he is consoling himself in front of the tv, shirt turned proper side out, and eating a large helping of his favourite peanuts. The oily, salty little devils will not assist him in lowering his lipids, but he is so traumatized by the doctor's questioning that I will let him get away with it this time....poor guy......

More Snow To Cover The Ice On The Back Lawn....YAY!!

 I am happy that we had more snow this morning because it gives my winter boot soles something to grip as I crab walk my way out to the car later this afternoon. The ice underneath is still curling rink quality, but at least if I scuttle sideways across the lawn it will reduce my chances of my boots sliding on that icy under layer.  Been there, done that, many a prairie winter now.

Thought about some silly old sayings this morning for some reason, such as: I don't know how many cookies it takes to make a person happy, but so far I know it is not 27! hahaha  For a cookie addict like myself, this is a great saying!! hahaha Then there is the oldie but goodie:  Hello, this is the Urology department. Can you hold?  hahaha  Talk about silly, eh? 

The freezing drizzle yesterday morning meant once again we could not go to church in person. Well, my husband was originally prepared to go without me, but he had a bad sleep the night before, so just remained at home watching on Zoom with me.  Turns out it is a good thing we didn't try to go. Reports from other friends who braved the trip made us aware of how slippery and dangerous the residential streets around the church were and how some of them almost turned around to slide back to their cars and return home.  Our poor verger strained something in his back when he was opening the church early in the morning and then made it worse when he turned around inside to pull the door closed again.  Apparently he spent the service in his office waiting for the pain killers to kick in so he could get home again.  As of yesterday afternoon he was back home lying on the sofa and feeling quite fine....as long as he made no attempt to move!!  Back pain....one of the worst.  We pray he heals up quickly and can get on with life and work.

A dear friend decided to pick up our charitable receipt at the church and bring it to us yesterday afternoon.  How incredibly kind.  I watched her slowly wending her way across the ice to get to our door and felt even more gratitude that she would do such a thing.  The other benefit for me was that she stayed for a nice long visit....a real boon on an otherwise lonely weekend.

We have confirmed that while my husband is at his doctor's appointment today, he will drop me at the front door of WallyWorld to pick up a few groceries and a few cheap novels to read as I am completely out of books!  There MAY be some kind of biography or truly interesting detective novel on the shelves, but I suspect I will end up with something less than stellar to peruse once again.  I have not shopped for food products at WallyWorld for many a year, apart from an occasional item here and there, so it will be interesting to see if I can find the things we really need there.

My husband made challa bread yesterday...three beautifully braided loaves.  We have three neighbours we want to give the loaves to once they return home from work tonight....our Ukrainian friends, our Nigerian friends and, if they are at home tonight, our new next door neighbours.  Food has been delivered to them in the past several days from their faith community, so hopefully they will be open to some bread from us.  I would take them a casserole, but have no halal meat at the moment.  I need to pick up another couple of packages of Halal for just such "emergencies". 

My schedule for physio is working out well now. I should have started this schedule long ago.  Having a day off between bouts is working well as far as being motivational on exercise days, and also gives my hip a good rest between sessions.  Mentally and physically it provides a good time to regroup after every session.  So thankful to have FINALLY figured this out. I have a vague memory of my post-surgical physiotherapist recommending this, but like most things I was told while still in my anaesthetic haze, I completely forgot about it until a couple of weeks ago. Duh... 

My walking partner who has been terribly ill with a respiratory infection let me know today that she is sufficiently mended to have a visit sometime in the next week or so. YAY!  I LOVE having company. The lack of medical appointments we have to go to after today is also most pleasant and makes me all the more eager to see people as I gaze at the almost empty calendar thus far for this month.