I Wish I Could Share A Photo Of This!

 My husband is currently sitting on his plastic lawn chair on the back porch.  At his feet are a clutch of tiny Arabic speaking refugee boys and they are talking a blue streak in Arabic, English attempts and lisps while helping my husband pull weeds from our herb and tomato pots, touching and smelling leaves and flowers and enjoying life in the shade on the porch. They are each eating one of our almost ripened cherry tomatoes in the midst of all their blather.  My husband, who always wanted more children but was stoic when that didn't turn out to be possible and who has no grandchildren, is loving every minute of this. hahaha  He is so very patient and quiet spoken with the boys, admonishing them in no uncertain terms when they kick their soccer balls against the side of our suite and put holes and cracks in the siding, but also making sure they know he cares about them and is not angry and freaked out by their All Boy behaviour. hahaha  Watching these antics and overhearing his conversations with them gives me great joy.  I can't post a photo because I don't have permission to put pictures of the boys online of course, but just imagine, those of you who know us, what a kick my husband is getting from these interactions with the wee fellows.

Positive Update On Maman!

 This morning I received the report that Maman was able to have a permanent pacemaker maker installed yesterday and she has done incredibly well in her initial recovery. In fact she may be released in the next day or two. My friend is thrilled by these results and thanks you all profusely for praying. God must have intervened because the situation was dire, with these positive results not really expected. My friend and her husband will be staying with Maman at her home while she completes her recovery there. My friend is a wonderful daughter!

Thanks everyone and thank you God!

Why We Can Still Cope With Living Here

 As I gaze out the windows, front and back, at the sea of goose poo covering lawns and sidewalks from the three groups of between 20 and 30 geese each who hang around here all day, it is so easy to become disgusted by the mess, sickened by watching the kids running through the poo to play soccer and sometimes physically upset by fighting a rising tide of vomit in my throat that my life has come to this.

HOWEVER:  just being able to listen to the various woes of the kids who have begun hanging out on our deck and steps, helping out our neighbours wherever possible and therefore seeing at least some reason from God as to why we might still be living in this tenement is giving us some ability to hang on a bit longer.

Yesterday my husband finally had a reason to answer the request of the Syrian woman next door for him and I to bring her any sewing we needed doing.  He took over a pair of beautiful new black dress pants he wants to wear at our son's wedding reception. The legs needed hemming and he didn't want to do it on his sewing machine because he isn't sure how to use the hemming attachment.  Since sewing at home in Syria was our neighbour's regular source of income, he decided to let her try them.  WOW! She pinned up the hems for him and took the pants to her place.  About 30 minutes later she returned them, beautifully hand stitched and just the right length...absolutely perfect.  Thank you dear new friend. 

She refused to take any money for her work because she and her family want to do something tangible to thank us for all the things we have tried to help them with, plus she was most apologetic that she doesn't have an iron yet and we would have to iron the newly hemmed legs ourselves.  Since we had to go to Canadian Tire later in the day for some items, I picked her up a decent so-called "professional" iron...yeah, aren't they all now for good advertising....but I know it is a good brand.  There was a sale on ironing boards as well, so I added in one of those.  It wasn't a huge cost to help her out as she tries to take in more sewing in the coming weeks.  Once I convinced her that we didn't buy her the iron and board because my husband thought she was asking him to buy one for her when she apologized for not having such things yet and that they were outright gifts, she relaxed and thanked us profusely.  I also have a couple of items I would like fixed up a bit before our trip so will take them to her this weekend.  How marvellous to have a seamstress right on the other side of the adjoining wall!  It will be worth whatever subsequent repair costs turn out to be!

She told me something really sweet: when she told her youngest son, 8 years old, that she is expecting another baby she was expecting a negative reaction from him, BUT he threw his arms around her, hugged her and exulted that he would no longer be the youngest and littlest kid in the family. hahahaha  Love that story. 

Already An Update On Maman!

 Just in the past few minutes since I posted the request for prayer for Maman, I have received an update that her permanent pace maker surgery is likely going to be pushed up to tomorrow instead of Friday. The situation for her is very serious indeed.  Thank you for praying.

A Lovely Evening!

 After a lovely outdoor coffee time with my friend this morning....despite heavy rain very early in the morning, the mosquitoes barely bothered us at the park table we were sitting at because there was enough of a breeze to keep them at bay....I came home to the news that my husband had invited two of our closest friends to meet us for dinner tonight at a newly discovered and loved Indian restaurant.  The visit was fantastic and the food was as good as always, but the best part was that my husband had not only the idea, but the oomph to take the initiative to formulate and execute the plan!  He has been feeling so much more cheery over the past few days and has been making things happen most every day for the past nearly a week!  Amazing!  I am as grateful as he is that the funk he has been in for so long seems to be lifting.  Thank you Lord for this answer to prayer.

I am wondering if he will continue his journey to feeling even happier about life as we grow closer to our departure date.  He had the paper map of New York City out on the dining room table this morning, tracing out routes from our apartment to various museums and art galleries and restaurants and parks that we want to visit while we are there.  He nearly completed the blessings and prayers format for the wedding reception and will send those off tomorrow for editing and approval from our "kids".  Each morning he has been up and moving in good time to accomplish a lot during the day. All this is in spite of ongoing tummy issues as he now cannot eat Bell Peppers or peanuts/peanut butter.  The last go round we had with new deletions from his diet was about 3 years ago now when both beets and pears became no-no's.  It is most disturbing when things he has eaten all his life and truly enjoyed start joining the "DO NOT EAT ANYMORE EVER!" list, but that has been the way of things since 1985 when the whole CFS/dietary upsets thing started.  Every few years new items must be eliminated from his diet and a few items he has not eaten in a decade or more can then be added back in with no apparent bad effects.  Sigh....it is a constant merry-go-round trying to feed this man properly.  After over 40 years of this I am well used to it, but it never fails to hurt me as well as him each time we begin the process of discovery to find whatever new foods can no longer be tolerated. God bless him. He is stoic about it and never complains or feels particularly sorry for himself.  What an example HE is to wimpy whiny ME!!

Please Could You Send Up Prayers For My Friend's Maman?? Thank You, Thank You!

I have just received a request for prayer from my friend. Her mother was taken to hospital unexpectedly today with a heart issue, died temporarily while awaiting her temporary pace maker.  Now that she has that, please pray that she may be able to live until her permanent pace maker is put in on Friday....nearly two days from now.

Maman is a strong person having lived a beautiful technicolor life as a journalist of many years and is now in her early 90's.  She is a woman of vibrant spirit and her family needs and loves her very much.

My friend and her husband are leaving right away to drive many miles to the hospital where Maman will have her pacemaker surgery. Having lost my own mother a few years ago I know the fear of spending an hours long drive wondering what is going to greet you in the hospital room once you arrive.  Please pray for my friend's peace of mind.  Thank you SO much from my friend Jay.  

Language Most Foul!!

The air outside turned an interesting shade of "blue" yesterday afternoon when several middle school aged boys and girls arrived on the back lawn from another part of this complex.  I had never seen any of them before around here.  The boys were kicking a soccer ball around willy nilly, smashing it into porch railings and the sides of our building.  Their conversation was a series of highly refined curses and epithets that caught my attention through our open windows and drew me to have a peek outside.

Well, what a view: there were the non soccer playing girls, sitting around on our back deck and stairs chattering and calling out instructions to the boys who were playing "soccer" with their own made up rules, that seemed to change with every contact with the ball.  hahaha What on earth were they doing on OUR deck and OUR back lawn, we who have no children here and we whose back deck was not the only one sitting in the shaded area of the building?  

I decided to water our already over watered herb and tomato pots just to have an excuse to go outside onto my own back deck without the kids instantly assuming they were in trouble for being there uninvited. hahaha I needn't have worried about that. They were completely relaxed, greeted me quite happily, asked me about the plants I was watering and obviously had no idea that their presence might not be wanted or appreciated.  We chatted away about school and summer holidays, the boys temporarily putting aside their soccer game to join in the conversation.  After a while I started to feel like one of those people who comes home from her month long vacation to find complete strangers living in her house after it being sold illegally to the newbies through some kind of elaborate con.  Aiii yiiii......

My husband had been away for the afternoon and as I was chatting to the kids he drove up, got out of the car and stared at our child covered deck in complete bewilderment.  As he approached the back steps the kids kindly cleared a narrow pathway between them so he could get onto the deck.  He said hello to the kids, walked into the kitchen and shut the door, then stood at the door window and motioned for me to come inside as well.  "What on earth is going on? Who are all these kids?", he queried.  I told him quite honestly that I had no idea, just that I had heard a slew of curses being tossed about outside our windows, looked out and saw several bicycles sitting on the sheltered side of our deck and several unknown children enjoying our place to the fullest, helping themselves to a few cherry tomatoes, but not taking more than one or two each.  Our local "trouble maker" who actually lives in our court arrived at about that time to introduce himself to all these kids and asked them if he could play soccer with them. The boys told him he could if he brought them some water to drink, so, unusually obedient, he went home and returned with thermos glasses filled to the brim.  Then he was allowed to join them and they all had a great time. One of our own court pre-teen girls arrived to introduce herself to the new girls on the block and they seemed to get on famously, so then a couple of her younger siblings came over to join the ever growing mob on our teeny tiny deck.  

My husband and I just shrugged and left them to it, intervening only when one of the boys accidentally kicked the soccer ball into our tomato plants and broke off a branch.  At least he was apologetic, but my husband suggested they move their game into a different, equally shaded area farther away from the building...which they promptly did.  At some point they all went home for dinner and we didn't see them again.  The evidence of their presence was a legacy of thermal tumbler cups left on the deck because their deliverer has severe ADHD that affects his memory and I am sure when his parents asked where their cups were he no longer had any idea.  If I see him out and about later this afternoon I will remind him he should come to pick them up and take them home.

As it is getting to be about the time right now that all these kids showed up yesterday it will be interesting to see if they show up again today. Why our place?  Why us???  There was certainly no concept among them that they could be trespassing here, no idea that perhaps their presence was not wanted on our deck and that made me laugh so hard.  They were an eclectic bunch: Africans, Sri Lankans, Vietnamese, Dutch and Caucasian Canadians who were having a most wonderful summer day.  Aaaah, to return to those carefree days that I will remember from my own childhood....so much fun, so much relaxation, so much activity. So much obliviousness as to their, (OUR), location and possible trespassing.  I just had to be kind to these kids. How very well I remember those  good old summer holidays!! 

It Is Impossible To Drive While Eating Salmon Kawa!! (With Or Without Chopsticks!)

 Well....if it is just being eaten out of a box as a snack without any dip then it would be more possible, but I prefer mine warm out of the oven or fryer and dipped in light soy sauce.  That is how I ate it yesterday after church, sitting in my car in the highway rest stop closest to the town where we went to church yesterday, while my husband enjoyed a huge amount of various sorts of sushi!

We hadn't planned to go out of town for church, but after waking up and feeling restless and ready for another day of adventure away from home, we made a spontaneous decision to go out of town and attend the church where my husband preached the previous Sunday.  Aaaah....we feel so very at home there despite the number of new, younger people who have been attending there in the past few years after we moved out of that city.  It was fun for my husband to be there NOT having to preach or preside or even so much as read a Scripture.  We sat with a dear friend, relaxed, listened to a wonderful sermon by their present priest and it was marvellous.  So many people to visit with after the service even though there is no coffee hour during the summer months.  

We originally planned to just head home immediately after the service because my husband was so tired, but in order to head off a possible tummy episode he realized he had better eat something and eat it quickly.  So we ordered some Japanese food at a restaurant there that we enjoy, but soon realized it was too difficult to eat any of it while driving.  Sitting in our air conditioned vehicle enjoying our meal settled my husband's tummy and we arrived home very full, very happy and very satisfied with our decision to head to that church.

The rest of the day was spent napping and relaxing for me, my husband worked on his sermon for next Sunday at our own church and we enjoyed watching some PBS serials in the evening.  What a wonderful weekend we had together.

Today my husband is having a small medical preceedure done at the doctor's office, so not sure he is going to be up for much else today.  I spent the morning cooking up a pot of cabbage, carrots, turnips and cauliflower, as well as potatoes for a potato salad I just made the put into the fridge for later.  I washed all the new clothes we purchased on the weekend and have them hanging up in the library/den to dry so I don't have to run the clothes dryer on yet another hot day.  Now it is just after 10:30am and I will decide soon whether to spend the afternoon updating information for our executor's package or shredding some of my parents' old documents.  Aahhh...decisions, decisions, and both of SUCH immediate importance....hahahahahaha.

Some Joyful Retail Therapy!

Today I felt like the town resident characters in the old animated movie "Gulliver's Travels".  In my head I was singing "It's a Hap-Hap-Happy Day" as my husband and I embarked on a day of long awaited retail therapy!

Yesterday we made a list of outstanding purchases that have been building up for the past three months or more but that we haven't had to mental or emotional OOOMPH to bother going out to shop for.  Let's face it, we are both still getting over this past winter's depression and it has taken a very long time to get interested in life again.  My surgery a year ago June took more out of me than I realized and it effected my husband too on top of his own resurgence of symptoms from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.  What a pair we have been for the past more than a year....talk about Old Grumpy Pants and The Missus.  I don't know if it is because we are planning to be away from here for awhile very soon, or just that we got so bored with being miserable that we finally smartened up, but this past week we have been feeling more and more in control of our lives and have been happier than we have been for quite some time now.  YAY!  Thank you Lord.

We spent the better part of today knocking the various items off our long list....clothing items, groceries, household items, medical assists.  We had a very inexpensive lunch out at Roots...all day breakfast for me and a chicken and brie burger for my husband. We were very surprised by the low price when our bill arrived at the table.  It was a nice treat after spending a few hundred dollars on our purchases.  Neither of us could believe how long we waited to pick up some of the household and medical items...how have we managed for so long without this stuff????  Tells you how out of it we have been that we kept putting these things off.

It was incredibly hot here today, but spending most of the day inside air conditioned stores and our car meant we survived the heat well.  I got all the windows and blinds and curtains closed and the window inserts installed by 8am, so we had very little serious buildup of heat inside our suite today.  Hopefully I can do as well tomorrow as we face yet another hot day.

Tonight, also after putting this chore off for the past six months or more, I went through all the income tax and investment folders from my parents' estates that I have been storing since Mom died early in 2022.  I had not realized I have been storing old tax files from as far back as 2015 for both of them.  Since I only have to keep the tax files from the year before each of them died, the year they died and the following year's tax forms and then only for 6 years, I have a new pile of "stuff" to be shredded and it is going to take several hours. That will keep me busy between other chores next week.  I have now been able to place the files I need to keep into my cabinet and the huge box that has been sitting under my desk, getting in the way of my foot placement, has now been removed to the basement!  YAY!  I haven't been able to face even looking at those files for the past couple of years.  I didn't want to see my parents' handwriting for some reason....kind of a silly side of grieving I suppose....but tonight I handled it well.  Enough time has passed that I can have visual reminders of their previous earthly existence without feeling overwhelmed by loss.

What a positive and uplifting day. Now, if I can just convince my newest mosquito bite to stop itching so that I can stop scratching it "down to the bone", I will have just as happy a night of sleep as I have had a happy day of shopping! 

The jury is still out on what we are going to do for church tomorrow.  We are in the process of making some changes in our lives and even church destination is presently up in the air for the rest of the summer and into the autumn. 

Flash BOOM, Flash BOO....Oh What A Night!!

 My new box fan worked wondrously well between when I turned it on at 11pm and shut if off again at 2am!  It is the identical model to the one that just stopped working after nearly four years of constant nightly use and this new one works as well as the old one did.  YAY!

I shut it off at 2am because of an incredible lighting and thunder storm.  We didn't get so much as a drop of rain unfortunately, but the flashing of the lightning through the open bedroom window woke me up and the crash of thunder after each flash, along with the gusting winds had me wondering if I should head to the basement to hide from a possible tornado. (Saskatchewan has had 34 tornadoes so far this summer.)  Flash'n'Crash carried on for about 40 minutes, after which time I fell fast asleep and forgot to put the fan back on.  Just as well because at about 3:30am the next round of lightning and thunder came through, less virulent than the first bout, but still enough to wake me up.  I fell asleep again so quickly that I wasn't able to rouse myself to put the fan back on, although I did leave all the windows open.  Without the fan running it is warmer inside our suite this morning than it was yesterday when the outside reached the current temperature of 24C on its way to somewhere between +33C and +35C.  Yuck!  Oh well, there is no snow and, more importantly for me, no ice to worry about falling on outside.

My husband woke up in time for us to arrive at the telephone store outlet just as they opened, so we were third in line to see an agent.  We came out of the store fifteen minutes later with our US phone plan set to kick into place the day we leave.  We are delighted.  Next week we will arrange the holding of our mail.  There will be banking to arrange the week before we leave, I need to update some info for our estate executor, figure out what we are going to do with our car while we are gone, etc. etc. etc.  BUT slowly we are picking off the arrangements that can be made this far in advance.  YAY! 

Once we arrived home I tackled a pile of papers that have been waiting to be shredded for the past few weeks.  Good to have that project cleaned up and out of the way. 

Now it it is lunch time.  Not sure what to do this afternoon. There are lots of little household chores needing doing, but where to start, what exactly is reasonable to tackle in this heat...hmmmm....we shall see what transpires this afternoon and evening.  We were able to pick up the live sumo highlights for Day 13 of the basho before we went out to the phone company, so that was fun to watch while we ate breakfast.  Day 14 should be live right around dinnertime tonight....so grateful that the Japanese broadcasting station NHK allows us to download the daily bouts online for each of the six tournaments throughout the year. 

Red Welts, Itching And Over Heating BUT Still A Productive And Happy Day!!

Today turned out a bit differently than expected, but happily so!!  My husband woke up early enough to get over to our friend's place to work on part one of his outdoor carpentry project for over two hours before the temperature became too hot for him to work, so less than two more hours of work some morning between now and Monday will complete the project. He is delighted to find himself still able to repair fences and dig and spread quantities of dirt about to prepare a flat surface for the rest of the project he is building.  Kudos to him for continuing to enjoy doing woodworking and other projects to keep himself from spending every day in his own head pondering various philosophical and theological issues!  

We chatted briefly about the trip to the telephone company he originally planned for immediately upon his arrival home from the outdoor building project and decided that late in the morning, closer to noon, is the worst time to go and stand in line waiting to see an agent, particularly after my husband spent the earlier morning outside in the growing heat.  So, we waited until after lunch instead and drove to our travel insurance agent's office instead and purchased our travel/health insurance for our trip.  She had time to see us immediately, got the plan put together, I paid for it....about eight hundred dollars less than I was expecting, YES, and the entire process took less than a half hour.  Depending on what time my husband wakes up in the morning, we will likely do the telephone plan then or wait until immediately after his early morning doctor's appointment on Monday morning.  

The joy for me this morning is that as my husband calculated how long he was going to need to complete the first part of his carpentry project, he realized that since we weren't going to have to rush off immediately afterwards to get in line for a telephone agent, I should call my coffee buddy and see if there was any chance if she could use her and her husband's car to come to our place so we could have our usual weekly chit chat.  SHE COULD, so SHE DID and it was a lovely surprise for us both to still be able to get together.  I am so grateful that my husband thought it through and presented the possibility to me and I am grateful to my buddy's husband that he was willing to give up whatever plans he had made for himself this morning that required his own use of the car so that his wife could visit with me.  

Just before we left for the trek to the travel insurance agent another friend called and asked if I could come to visit with her after our appointment.  YES, I COULD and I DID!  It was another excellent heart to heart visit that lasted well over two hours.  It was worth driving back home after that in rush hour traffic!  Still got some home chores done as soon as I arrived home.

Last night at about 3am the box fan, that  I use for white noise so that I can sleep through the traffic and other noises here during the night, gave up. Bearings whining and screeching were likely loud enough to wake the neighbours on the other side of the wall as well....wow....it was so terribly loud and horrific to listen to that I expected to see smoke and/or flames coming out of the fan.  No such distress, BUT I had to shut it off and unplug it and prepare it to go into the garbage today.  While I was out at my friend's this afternoon my husband got online and researched where in this town we could find an identical replacement, so as soon as I arrived home we headed out to Home Building Supplies and came home with exactly what I wanted: a clone of Fan Number One.  Plus it was on sale, so that was a bonus.  It is now hooked up, checked thoroughly to ensure it is working properly and I look forward to a stress free sleep tonight with it whirring efficiently in the background.

I seem to be getting more acclimated to the heat as this week rolls along.  The big blankets my husband has on rollers are up in the east facing windows so that the radiant heat from the morning sun doesn't cause the entire suite to overheat by 9am!  Tonight all the windows on both floors are wide open and although it will be a fairly warm night, there is just a slight bit of cooler breeze coming through. If the forest fire smoke is as high in the atmosphere as it has been the past two nights I won't have to close the windows before the usual closing time of 9am to keep the suite bearable for temperature as the day progresses.

My walking partner just returned from a life long dream trip to the UK and I can't wait to hear about her adventures there. She said she took thousands of photos and I hope she realizes I am going to want to arm chair travel and see every single one of them, hahahaha.  I believe her ancestors came from somewhere in the UK, as some of mine did, so I am really stoked to learn what she discovered about her ancestral roots.  It was most considerate of her to take part of the trip my husband and I were planning to take before our son decided we should come to NYC instead, hahaha.  She has covered that ground for us....God bless her!!

It will be another couple of degrees warmer tomorrow as we head for the weekly highest daytime temperature of +36C on Saturday....no change in forecast in sight as the low to mid range +30C temperatures are to extend well into next week.  Our idea this spring and summer of going out for walks at least 3 times a week got lost somewhere between the 3 weeks of extreme daily rainfall and the ensuing heat wave, so all I can do is refuse to use my cane every time we go anywhere and try to do as much necessary shopping as I can in large grocery stores and shopping malls.  My operated hip and the surrounding muscles are slowly strengthening despite the aborted longer walks outside attempts, so that is most encouraging.  However I am taking my cane on our trip next month "just in case". With the other hip starting to disintegrate now I am not sure how the trip will go if I don't have support available for the massive amount of walking we will be doing. 

Heat And Mosquitoes...Welcome To Prairie Summer!

My arms and legs are covered in small red welts aka mosquito bites after spending last evening out on my neighbour's back deck gorging on fresh fruit and visiting together while my husband drove her husband across the city to look at a vehicle he was thinking of purchasing.  I went out there prior to 8pm and by 9:15pm I had to call it a night and retreat back to the inside of my own home.  There is something positive to be said for the long gown and hijab my neighbour wears....she was barely bothered by the little blood suckers while I, with my bare arms and shins and ankles am suffering the itchy effects of all those bites!!  Owie, owie, OUCH!!! Itch, itch, itch, scratch, scratch, scratch......yikes!!! The local mosquitoes seem to be uneffected by Deep Woods Off, unlike the mosquitoes at the badlands the other day, who respected the bug repellent and minded their own business!!!  From an entire day there I came home with one bite...ONE bite!!! 

Today was a good day despite the temperature getting into the +30C's once again.  I was able to get out and purchase a couple of bags of groceries and tackle the ironing from Monday's laundry day.  I was able to get all but four items ironed and I will complete the other four after dinner tonight.  It was just too hot to continue the project until it was finished.  I actually remembered to thaw meat out for dinner tonight so I just have to think of something creative to use it for.   

My husband has finally tracked down the offending food that has had his tummy on the verge of another "episode" for the past three days: potatoes we were given a week ago, but which became very mushy when we cooked them and then the leftover cooked potatoes became downright slimy when refrigerated overnight.  No potato is supposed to retain that much moisture.  I didn't like the taste of them the first night we cooked them so didn't eat any more, but my dear husband who would rather risk making himself ill than wasting any food, tried frying up the leftovers for lunch yesterday despite already having an iffy tummy. Oh he really paid for that second helping.  He was kind of a mess for the rest of the day yesterday and still not completely back to health today.  This afternoon he is finally feeling that he is better again, just about twenty four hours after ingesting those potato leftovers that were so slimy he actually washed them off before he fried them.  He HAS to learn that if there is any doubt whatsoever about the condition of any food it is wiser to toss it out than end up making himself ill.  It is a hangover from growing up in abject poverty, but one I wish I had a "hair of the dog" to give him so he could get over this habit!  

I had to cancel my weekly coffee time with my friend tomorrow.  My husband needs the car earlier in the morning for a short carpentry project he has been putting off  and then we have to go to the phone company, so that is disappointing, but there is always next week.  At least we will accomplish a few more things tomorrow that have been outstanding for some time. 

Rest In Peace Brian

The church lost a treasured worship leader, singer and songwriter today in the death from cancer of Abbotsford's Brian Doerksen.  For the past forty years my husband and I have enjoyed singing Brian's worship songs in many different churches and it is an incredible loss to the Christian community.  Please pray for his wife and six children, two of which have severe special needs.  While we are grateful he is no longer ill and suffering, he leaves behind a family who needs him.

May he rest in peace and rise in glory...... 

The Days Are Flying Past Too Quickly It Seems!

Sorry folks that I won’t have any more interesting fonts here until I have time to go back through previous posts to discover which link I included in one of them that has a setting which overrides my Google font settings so I can change that post and sort out the fonts again. Always something….

It seems July is disappearing on me already! I am still adjusting to the loss of the month of June and it is nearly August! I haven’t even been doing much of mesmerizing interest, yet the days are flying by. Saturday….did we even have Saturday last weekend? How did we spend the day? 

Sunday was a happy day. My husband preached and presided at our favourite out of town church, so I was able to sit with dear friends. After church a meeting turned into a wonderful lunch get together. I love conducting spiritual “business” over a good meal! Yum!

Wonderfully warm, but not overly warm weather coupled with blue skies and a comfy breeze made for excellent driving conditions, which I very much appreciated since I did all the driving. My husband awakened at 6am with one of his delightful tummy disaster episodes, so we were both intensely grateful that it passed before we had to leave for the service!

Sunday evening we relaxed and indulged our entertainment needs with the latest episodes of “Patience” and “Grantchester”.  At 8pm my neighbour came over to ask if I could drive her family to the grocery store, so I enjoyed that brief outing. I think her husband was surprised to find himself relegated to the back seat with the children after I put his pregnant wife into the front passenger seat….welcome to Canada Saleem, teehee! I think he forgave me? My husband and I were still a bit hyper from the joy of the day out of town, so we both had to read ourselves to sleep. Late night arriving visitors next door woke us up again at 11:30pm and their joyful outdoor greetings and subsequent backyard soccer game kept us entertained until nearly 1:30am. Thankfully we could sleep in yesterday morning.

We are currently being blessed with two days of temperatures of about +24C before heading into another week of highs in the mid +30C’s. I took advantage of that yesterday to do all the laundry that accrued during the previous very hot week. This morning I am about to bake a fruit loaf and that will be the last of my oven use for awhile again.

We are currently awaiting the arrival of the building maintenance staff to perform the quarterly Changing Of The Furnace Filter, as well as the plumber who is scheduled to flush all the drains in our unit. Guess I should go and get the banana loaf made before our place is inundated with trades folk.

Oh, before I go, could you send up a prayer if you are so inclined for our neighbour Hafav who just lost one of the twins she was expecting and is struggling medically to retain the other twin to term? Thank you SO much.

Looking Forward To Another Partial Day Away Tomorrow!

Really happy to be getting away again tomorrow for at least part of the day.  My husband is conducting a service out of town and it is going to be another rather hot day, so the air conditioning in the car will be very nice. Don't know if there is air conditioning in the church we are attending, but the ceilings are so high in that old, lovely brick building that I don't think we will be sweltering in the service.   Now that we have had a full day away, we are more eager to flap our tattered old wings and take off for a few more adventures than we have been having over the last year or so.  

I am going to have to pester my husband to come and assist me in figuring out what happened to all my fonts that I downloaded for use in this blog.  A couple of days ago all that would download from my list of fonts were the names as usual, but the actual fonts disappeared.  Every font name is written in this default font like you see in this post.  I am tired of fiddling about with it trying to get them to come back in reality and not just in the list of names! It is a small inconvenience, but I would like to know what happened. Did I accidentally press a key on my keyboard that removed them?  Is it a glitch with my computer?  Sigh....

A friend from another province is scheduled to phone me on Monday. We haven't talked for weeks and weeks, so I am really looking forward to her call. She is considering a move out of her current town of residence and I am excited to hear how she is progressing with her research and decisions...an in province move but to a different town, a cross country move?  I am hoping to glean some of her energy so that this autumn I can attack our own hoped for moving possibilities once again. 

A Day Away Keeps Depression At Bay!!

 Yesterday was a wonderful day out of town. Our friend whose father passed away earlier this year, (my husband performed the funeral and graveside interment), wanted to take a trip down memory lane, so he and his wife picked us up at noon, (after my wonderful weekly coffee visit with my Thursday buddy), and we headed south west to the farmlands near Avonlea.  My husband is somewhat familiar with the area because his father was born near there and his aunt farmed in that area for many decades, until she was nearly 98!

It was a wonderful day for a drive: warm but not sweltering hot, just enough breeze to scare off at least a few of the hordes of mosquitoes currently in charge of all things outdoors and good roads, both paved highways and gravelled side roads.  We saw some gorgeous fields of still blooming canola, their neon yellow blooms so bright as to be nearly headache inducing, but several weeks of unrelenting heavy rain has destroyed large swaths of crop in too many fields.

We started at our friend's family farm, now run by a nephew, who talked to us about the family history of the farmstead and how the land and crops have changed over the past fifty years or more.  We were able to check out his cattle barn and have a good look at this year's calves gamboling in the fields. Fortunately both our host family and ourselves took large containers of heavy duty mosquito repellent or we would have been forced back into the vehicle within seconds of getting out of it. WOW....heavy rains leaving standing water followed by several days of warmth and bright sunshine....perfect breeding grounds for mosquitoes, but there are not enough dragon flies around at the moment to eat enough of them.  The back of our pant legs and long sleeved shirts turned black with bugs within seconds of stepping outside. It seemed the repellent was particularly effective because I received only one bite on a knuckle and it only itched for a couple of minutes.  Most of the four of us received a minimal number of bites so we are all grateful for that.

From there we headed into the town of Avonlea where we toured their extensive museum site.  At about the time we began moving between the buildings to see the various pioneer exhibits and community displays for the various sports teams and tributes to their downed world war soldiers, a fellow arrived to mow down all the grass around the buildings, unleashing a fresh army of mosquitoes, so we made our way quickly VERY quickly from building to building. We spent a long time there enjoying the displays and all the work that had been put into the planning of each room full of items.  Of course we particularly enjoyed a little old Anglican church that had been moved there from one of the many now non-existent hamlets in the area.   

About the time we were completing our tour of the museum, our host started contacting the two restaurants in the town in regard to us having our dinner there, only to discover both local restaurants closed before 5pm.  Drat!  We did find out that the nice little grocery store had pre-made sandwiches and wraps and they were open until 6pm, if we wanted to purchase those and eat them in the car.  For some reason this was not appealing to any of us, so our host contacted the next nearest town of Rouleau and discovered the old King George Hotel grill and bar would be open.  Whew!

On the way to Rouleau, (where the Canadian comedy tv series, Corner Gas, was filmed years ago), we took a tour of Dunnet Lake Regional Park. Our host learned to swim in the river there when he was a kid, so he wanted to see what improvements had been made there over the years. What a beautiful little area!  There are lots of camping spaces and picnic tables, the lake and the dam, a beautifully appointed outdoor swimming pool and a large concession booth with not only drinks and shakes and iced cream but big meaty burgers and sides.  There were too many mosquitoes of course to make the idea of eating there at the picnic tables very exciting for us, so after our tour we headed the rest of the way to Rouleau.

The hotel didn't look particularly up and coming, but it was open so that was a huge plus!  We were pleasantly surprised by the yummy char grilled burgers and home prepared fries, plus the decor had some newly installed upholstery and the place was very clean....I would not recommend using the washrooms under any but the most dire of circumstances and perhaps not even then, but the kitchen was clean, the staff very helpful and the meal quite delicious.

From there we drove at somewhat breakneck speed back to Avonlea's museum parking lot to hook up with the guide for our tour of the small Badlands area only a few kilometres from the townsite.  

 

Our guide is an archaeology graduate and her enthusiasm for her job and for the badlands area made the little tour very interesting and exciting indeed.  We were amazed at the amount of plant diversity as we hiked along on the 3km round trip after parking our cars along the highway by the entrance. The field we walked through is virgin pasture land but we didn't see the cows, only a coyote that eyed us warily from a safe distance and lost interest in us quite quickly as it loped away.  The amount of cactus plants was fascinating to me.

 

The guide asked us if we would like to hike down to the bottom of the badlands to see some of the plants that only grow in that dry bottom area and nowhere else. I told everyone else to go ahead because I knew I could likely make it down to the bottom, but would never get back to the top in this lifetime, but by this time the sun was on the verge of setting and all of us were a bit tired, plus we found out that we couldn't take the little tour through the entrance to a couple of caves down there due to the heavy rains making the clay layer on the top of the hoodoos too unstable. No one wanted to risk being trapped in one of those caves if the hoodoo tops collapsed of course.  Anyway, cave or no cave, the view from the edge of the cactus lined top field was gorgeous and it was enough to make us all happy.  We walked back through the field to our car and headed for home after a wonderful day away.

"Tip toe through the cacti".......everybody sing along.....

We both slept very well last night once we "un-hyped" from our busy day out of town.

We both slept in a bit this morning, thankfully, and we both woke up feeling really good, really happy, really peaceful.  That seemed a tad unusual because we knew we had an appointment at the "Bank of Seemingly Never Ending Offences" just before noon.  

But...ya' know what?  It went spectacularly well!  My online survey answers from a month or more ago for that bank apparently caused something to click. Not only do we have a new advisor who apparently knows how to do the work she is paid to do, she was helpful, explained everything really well, answered our questions, apologized for the mess the previous FA had made of everything, helped us fix every issue AND sent a toe curling email to the third party institution that messed up our US credit card limit so badly back when we first applied for it.  She said she does a lot of this sort of thing and that she is sure when the people there see another email from her that they don't even want to open it. She very bluntly wrote to tell them the mistake was theirs and she expects them to fix it immediately and restore our the original credit limit they gave us before all the mess happened.  Will her email bring results...well, perhaps not, but for once we felt like someone with at least some authority has gone to bat for us!  Someone actually heard us and understands why we need this limit restored before we go away! So, all we can do now is pray and trust God for whatever the result turns out to be!  If we don't get that original credit limit back then we have to assume there is a good reason for it that we may or may not understand.  At least someone has really tried to help us.

My husband was so buoyed up by the appointment that he headed to the nearest restaurant to buy us lunch...kind of a celebratory lunch for the successful appointment there...for once...and also because it hit him suddenly that he never has taken me out for the special meal he promised me when he had to be absent for my birthday back in June, hahaha.  Lunch today was not particularly special in that sense, but it was a nice surprise and I am not sorry he feels just a tad guilty for forgetting my request for a meal at a particular restaurant some evening in honour my now long past birthday. I suspect that once he gets his out of town church commitments over with on Sunday he will be able to relax and enjoy an evening out more....at least more than he would have today after accidentally erasing the last day's worth of work on his sermon from the upstairs computer he was using as he attempted to save it for transfer to the basement computer where he can work in the cooler air.  Aaaah, the poor guy. I do feel really sorry for him, but he at least remembers well what he had written so I suspect it won't take him long to rewrite that portion.

It is hotter today than yesterday and we are hitting the +30C mark for the weekend, but then the temperatures will supposedly be more reasonable again next week.  +30C seems just fine after several days of nearly +40C so we are not complaining about the heat today! 

 

 

Feeling More Motivated And Productive As The Weather Cools A Bit!

 Yesterday was a better day than usual.  As soon as I woke up, after a fairly decent sleep, I forced myself to get out of bed, get fed and cleaned up and out to the store to find the last of the clothing items I need for our trip.  

Finally I had better success at locating an appropriate wedding reception outfit: black wider legged pants with a transparent black panel around the outside of each leg that is open along the inseam, so the pants seem to flow as I walk.  I will pair them with either an emerald green top I found that has short sleeves and a bit of a collar, or, more likely with a beige cowl necked sleeveless top because I have good jewellery pieces to pull the top and pants together and give me the appearance of colour in my pale face.   I am finally satisfied.  Out of my next three stores of interest only one of them was a waste of time and I quickly located my other needs in the last two stores. YES! 

Shopping completed for vacation trip: check!!✔

It was great fun getting out of doors once again, mosquitoes and all. (Apparently our fair city has one of the largest populations of mosquitoes in the province right now and I can attest to that!!)  So I was very happy to be able to go back out after lunch for a hair cut and a couple of bags of groceries.  My husband and I were hoping to run a few errands today as well, after rain showers overnight cooled things down just enough to be comfortable outside, but he is feeling kind of dizzy and out of sorts, so I guess we will have to remain at home.  I suspect he wore the wrong glasses this morning to clean our old box fan that started rattling and gasping when I put it on last night for white noise at bedtime.  Hopefully a big glass of water and a lie down for an hour sans glasses will help him to feel better.  I am hoping our trip out of town tomorrow will not give him heat stroke and I am hoping that the evening tour of the badlands south of here will not result in us both being eaten alive by mosquitoes.  I found a bottle of mosquito repellent in the basement this morning I didn't know we had and it appears to be full enough to do us well on tomorrow's foray out of town.

So....since we are likely not going out today after all, how shall I productively fill my time?  So many little indoor projects to tackle, so it is just a matter of choice.  I am enjoying the overcast skies as it keeps the heat down, but I know the UV index is still quite high so maybe being inside today is the wisest thing after all. Summer is half over and we have done very little away from home due to the heat....if we didn't have this trip upcoming next month I would be terribly discouraged.  However....we DO have the trip coming up and that will suffice as my own personal summer season.

A More Reasonable Day!

Today is a far more reasonable day for temperature.  We are about to achieve the daytime forecast high of +28C  This we can live with, especially after our better than expected sleep last night.  We were both asleep by 1am and not awake until nearly 8am, so that is incredible....what a blessing for us both.I suspect we slept well because we were so exhausted from three days of intense heat.  We were properly hydrated at bedtime as well after keeping up the water intake all day long.

By 1pm today the insulation blankets had already been taken out of the east windows and those windows were able to be opened as a slight breeze arrived.  How lovely.  The overnight temperatures will still be high, but with highs of average +28C all week, it will be fine.

Tomorrow morning I plan, hope, want to get out shopping for a couple of clothing items I need for our trip and then I have a haircut appointment to enjoy after that.  After being rather home bound for much of the weekend, I am geared up now to get out and boogying again!!  Here's to tomorrow!! 

I Just Need To Accept The Fact That I Will Not Be Sleeping Tonight!

 It is on the way to midnight and it is still +25C outside.  The overnight low temperature is going to be +21C, so I can forget about sleeping.  The best thing I can do is sit up in bed with a book and and alternately read a few pages, then doze for a few minutes, repeat all night long. This isn't my first too hot to sleep night, so as a grizzled old veteran on the lack of sleep circuit, I know I will survive until slightly lower temperatures arrive a couple of days from now. It is all good.  Other than a late afternoon hair appointment I have no commitments for the next  48 hours.  YAY!

Today was the final day of the Calgary Stampede so we enjoyed watching the televised chuckwagon and Native relay races.  AND the Stampede has ended just as the Sumo July Tournament is starting. The first night of that competition was tonight, so I am thinking that by Tuesday or so NHK Broadcasting will have it ready for downloading and we can begin two weeks of viewing the exciting sumo basho.  Yes, our taste in sports is somewhat eclectic....no plebeian football or baseball or hockey games for us these days, hahahaha. 

Well, if I am going to be awake most of the night I'd best find a either a really interesting book or a dead bore of a read to lull me to sleep a bit more often!  

No Wonder It Is Hot In Here!

 It is currently +40C outside on my back deck! Whew!

Sweltering Our Way Through Church and Lunch!

 It is early in the afternoon and we have so far reached a breezeless, (and seemingly airless), +33C on our way to +37C.  Outside it is like a sauna and inside it is like.............. a sauna!  hahaha  

Going to an air conditioned church service this morning was quite a treat. Even if the service had been less than enjoyable I would have remained in my seat quite happily being blessed by the Air Conditioning...yes, living in a place with out any A/C means that the words Air Conditioning deserve to be written starting with capital letters!!  That is how much respect I have for Air Conditioning!!  AIR CON-DIT-ION-ING!!!!!!

The service was good, if not our style of worship and it was a treat to hear my newly found cousin preaching the sermon and comparing it to the sermon on the same parable that we heard at our own church last Sunday.  So many good encouragements from one short Scripture passage. She seemed pleased that we came to support her, so we felt good about attending.  Unfortunately her final stress on the sermon's main points, right at the end of the sermon, was kind of lost as various musicians started wandering about on the platform around and behind her and getting their instruments ready to play right at that time. They started to play the intro to the final song while she was still speaking.  How very distracting for the congregation and how very rude and disrespectful to the poor preacher.  Yes, it is a common style now to have more of a concert venue style of building and worship, but I don't like not being able to hear the rest of the congregation singing over top of the drums and electric guitars.  I am afraid that if either my husband or I had been a guest preacher this morning we would have asked the musicians to go back to their seats until the sermon was completely over.  What church leadership decides on for worship style for their own churches is not my business, but I have to say this modern style of sanctuary space and worship style just isn't my own favourite.  It does give me more appreciation for my church's methods and treatment of congregational worship space.  HOWEVER, that being said we both enjoyed visiting the church and being able to support my cousin. She did well.

Since we were in an area of the city we rarely visit, we looked around for a restaurant that was new to us for our lunch.  It is a newly developing part of the city, but already every possible fast food outlet has set up shop.  It look us a while to find an actual sit down restaurant that didn't specialize in Indian food....we LOVE Indian food, but today was too warm and muggy for us to find hot spicing appealing.  We eventually stumbled on another chain restaurant, Brown's Craft House, (another outlet of Brown's Restaurant Group along with Brown's Social House and Scotty Brown's in the USA), but at least we could sit inside (or outside with other souls more heat brave than ourselves) in comfy booths with padded seating and order off a proper kitchen menu.  We generally enjoyed it, our burgers and fish and chips were yummy and the salads were....well...interesting in concept. The dressing on my Caesar salad seemed to be comprised almost exclusively of lemon juice and the addition of some chopped parsley made it very bitter indeed, BUT the bacon was actually fried and chopped bacon slices and the lettuce was green and fresh. My husband's cole slaw had, for some mysterious reason, the addition of unsalted sunflower seeds...interesting but not a fan.  The in house batter had baking soda in it, so the batter was certainly crisp, also fine and crumbly. It was like the batter had been velveted, similar to the treatment of beef and chicken in some oriental food dishes.  I think I will try that if we go there again.  My crunchy chicken burger was very crunchy and delicious with a hot mayo and such a pile of shredded lettuce on top of the cheese and pickles and tomato, it was like being back at Freshness Burger in Tokyo....just exchange the nearly 5 cm high stack of lettuce for shredded cabbage and I would have thought I was back in our old neighbourhood there. YUM!

So now we are home again. It is currently +18C in the basement where my husband is trying to cool off, but I have him beaten upstairs where the thermometer is showing a balmy +27C and climbing.  Wow, it is HOT IN HERE, hahaha.  Mind you it could be, and before I discovered my routine for opening and closing windows and blinds and curtains it often was, much much hotter and more unbearable in here.  I am grateful that we have a place to live and lots and lots and lots of cold water to drink. Speaking of which, it is time for another drink.  

Our son is at a beach on Long Island today with his former boss and family, so he is taking the heat there in stride.  I am very pleased for him!!  Our daughter in law is away again for a couple of weeks of writers' retreats so she is happily busy.  We are all doing well this weekend. 

Surviving The Heat Thanks To Friends With A/C In Their House!

Last night was the first time this summer that I have removed all the covers from my bed and slept on top of the bottom sheet, thanking God for light summer overnight wear.  I will be doing the same thing tonight.  Today we got up to almost +34C, with not much of a breeze so it was like a sauna outside by mid afternoon.  Tomorrow the temperature is aiming for a high of about +37C and then slowly we will get back to more seasonal mid to upper +20C's.  Can't wait!!

I caught quite a magnificent break this afternoon. Two good friends contacted me and invited me to come to their house for the hottest part of the afternoon. Their house has wonderful A/C, so it was quite a treat!  An icy cold cola and a  fruit flavoured "frozen on a stick like a Creamsicle"  snack lowered my core temperature nicely.  I survived the afternoon well thanks to friends!!  God bless them for their invitation.  My husband was also invited but opted for a long nap in our basement instead after spending a few hours working on our kids' wedding reception programme.  

I must be finally getting into holiday mode because after I visited my friends this afternoon I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a couple of food items, noticed their rack containing travel sized shampoos and toothpastes and such was full of excellent product, so I picked up everything that I need to pack in my carry on for our upcoming trip. Tonight I hard copied all our flight and rental apartment information so I have it immediately at hand if required at US Customs and Immigration instead of having to fiddle about on mobile phones trying to find what we need amongst our email files.  I cleaned out my carry on bag yesterday and started making a few difficult decisions about what clothing items I am going to take with me.  It always takes me awhile to get my head around the details of preparing for a trip. Fortunately I have had a lot of lead time for this one. Final clothes shopping trip here will happen either at the end of next week if it cools down enough or the following week.  My second last haircut is scheduled for next week, I have the dates for refilling my necessary prescriptions all juggled around so I won't run out of them before we get home and I have decided not to take my vitamin supplements.  I can purchase a month's worth once we get there and use them up before we board the plane to come home.  I made a list of what else has to be done at the end of this month: setting up our American mobile phone plans, getting our health insurance figured out and paid for, arranging to have the post office hold our mail while we are gone, setting up arrangements with our local utility companies to pay our September bills in advance of the trip, and figuring out how much actual cash we need to carry with us.  I have been putting off even thinking about any of these things because I didn't have the mental or emotional energy available.  Now, my brain is starting to compute the details and I feel motivated to get with it and prepare. YAY! I think my sudden enthusiasm to do these things was triggered yesterday when I paid the bill for our flights and the hold deposit on the rental apartment.  Once that much money is actually invested it is far more motivating to carry through with the rest of the arrangements.

I have not seen many mosquitoes here since all the rain stopped and the heat began, but they have apparently seen me!!  At the moment I have four wrist bites, a back of the arm bite, a back of the leg bit and three bites on my shins that are currently sending me nuts with itching! Fortunately this kind of bad itching usually only lasts for about a day when I get these miserable bites. By tomorrow I will have angry red little welts, but the horrible itch that tempts me with the urge to scratch at them should be gone. 

Hello Crow!

We have a new resident on our roof who becomes very active every morning at about 6am. It is a large crow. 🐦‍⬛ Our new resident enjoys announcing its presence each morning just before 6am, not so much by cawing but by hopping up and down along the metal eavestroughing located right above the bedroom window. We assume he is eating the insects who populate that eavestrough during the summer. If so, way to go crow! I am now turning out the bedroom light an hour or more earlier each night than I was before the crow “moved in”, to ensure I at least have the opportunity for sufficient hours of sleep before the crow arrives for his foot tapping beak banging breakfast!

Celebrating A Small Milestone!

 For a day that had no plans set up apart from my doctor's appointment and my husband's phone chat with our kids, it has turned into a busy, happy day for us both.

We relaxed this morning eating breakfast while we watched last night's Stampede chuckwagon races on tv.  At noon our quiet day at home changed.  About the time our son and his wife called to chat with my husband to firm up their wedding reception programme plans, our panicked next door neighbour discovered he had no ride to his drivers' license examination and pulllleeeease could my husband take him.  My husband quickly arranged a new call time with the kids and got himself ready to go with our neighbour.  In the process he had no time to eat his lunch, so downed a glass of milk and tucked a nut bar into his shirt pocket to eat while our neighbour was having his test in our car, which he had never driven before.  NO problem with figuring out all the quirks of our vehicle and the examiner said he had great control of the vehicle and good knowledge of MOST of the road rules.  Unfortunately as he was following another car at a stop sign, he forgot that even if the road past the stop sign is completely clear you still have to come to a complete stop before proceeding and not just brake slightly and roll on through behind the first car. The other issue is that one of our homeless people was struggling to cross the street sans crosswalk and light controls.  Our neighbour handily avoided him, thinking that he was giving the fellow lots of leeway should he start staggering toward the car, but the instructor disagreed and hollered "STOP!" at our neighbour.  Fortunately my husband was able to explain to him after the test why he had failed this time around, (my husband is getting better using the interpreter app our neighbour's phone), and that he had to improve his abilities at the stop signs and always to come to a complete stop when a pedestrian is staggering around in the middle of the street.  Hopefully that second incident will not repeat itself in two weeks when the next test is scheduled.  When I arrived home from my medical appointment I found my husband and our neighbour and his wife enjoying a round of tea and almonds around our little plastic deck table that was set up on the back lawn, so I got to enjoy their company too for awhile.  (Speaking of the wife....she informed me that she has just discovered she is pregnant! It is quite a surprise because her youngest child is already 8 years old, but she is only 33 so is carrying well....unfortunately for us it does mean an even greater likelihood of them moving next month into larger government subsidized housing which will be much less expensive for them as well.  I do wish them all the best as they prepare to welcome this surprise child.)

SOOOOO....the milestone event:  I decided since my husband and neighbour had our car I was going to try walking the six blocks to the doctor's office and back sans cane....the first time I have deliberately gone walking outside without it. While I have quit dragging it along with me now for some months to run errands, it is the first "prolonged" walk I have taken with just me and my wonky wobbly limp for more than a block or so.  Also, I was alone with no one to assist me if those hip muscles or my non-operated hip were to give out on me.  Weeeelllll....it all went okay! I was limping a bit more as I approached the office because it was +32C outside and I wasn't exactly taking my time and I wanted to get out of the heat, BUT coming home I slowed down and took the shadier side of the street under the branches of the tall trees in a park and I walked a bit more normally.  Until I either improve my gait some more or the rest of my body adjusts to a new limping normal, even walking that 12 block round trip with a half hour break in the middle with the doctor, was absolutely exhausting!  BUT I am rejoicing. I did it! I did it! I did it!!!  

There was no time to rest when I arrived home because of the neighbours visiting, but I thought if I could  just have a short rest...it was about 3:30pm when they went home....then I would gather my flagging energy and make dinner.  However, about this time my husband realized he still had only eaten that nut bar and a handful of almonds since his 8am breakfast and the thought of having to wait for me to prepare a good meal was more than he could bear thinking about or that his very empty tummy could handle. "We are going to celebrate your successful walk and go to London Belle for your very early dinner and my lupper!", he informed me, so in less than a minute my sandals were back on my feet and we were on our way.

It was a lot of fun getting to the restaurant at 3:45pm for a meal.  There was one fellow in there at a table, we got to sit at our favourite spot and by the time we left an hour later there were two other old geezer couples like ourselves, but we beat the Friday Night After Work pub crowd and thoroughly enjoyed our meal from the Happy Hour Menu. My burger was only $10 and my soda only $3, but because I skipped the fries I was able to do a bit of a cheat and get away with ordering a sticky toffee pudding. teehee...well, my husband was away on my birthday last month and I never did have my special sugary birthday treat so....is it the best sticky toffee pudding ever?  Nope, not at all, but I did enjoy it anyway and my husband was delighted to eat the accompanying scoop of iced cream.  He had eaten a huge off the menu burger and an equally huge salad, so the iced cream was a light dessert treat.  It was a nice date together.  

As the sun goes down the breeze is almost non-existent and the temperature tonight is unlikely to drop below +16C, so that is a great set up for our next hot day tomorrow....+35C, followed by Sunday's +37C. The humidex is going to be around 45 for the entire weekend. I think we have decided we will not attend our own church on Sunday as it has no air conditioning and my husband will end up ill, but I have located a church that has AC so it won't hurt us to visit a different congregation this Sunday and see what they are up to.  I have met the person who is preaching there once before so it might be kind of fun to hear her take on the same Scripture parable our own minister preached on last Sunday, hahaha.  Tomorrow, I suspect we will just remain at home in our cotton summer jammies and wallow in our suffering in the heat, interspersed by a couple of showers throughout the day.   By Monday the temperatures should be slowly starting back down to the mid to high +20C's. I hope so because we are supposed to be going with friends later next week on a day long adventure out in the country.

 

Right On The Bit Air Canada! Thank You!

 As always we are praying and hoping for the best outcomes in regard to our flights out of the country later this summer.  Air Canada let us know in lots of time about some minor changes to the last leg of our homecoming flights and this morning they sent us a confirmation receipt of refund for our seat selections for that flight because with the change of aircraft our original choices no longer apply. Since we are just as happy with the seats they assigned to us on that leg of the flight they are refunding the money we spent on seat selection.  Very nice of them to be on top of this so quickly.  Thank you Air Canada.  It is nice to have something positive to say about one of our Canadian airline companies. Now....will that flight actually take off when the time comes? Who knows, right?  With international travel, particularly air travel, becoming ever more disrupted we may find ourselves stranded in Toronto on home coming day, but that is not the end of the world.  Getting back to Canada is our main focus. Once we are back in our own country our final leg home can be arranged somehow. So as we pray about the trip during these last weeks here at home, we trust for the right outcomes to occur, hoping that all will go smoothly, but trusting that all will be well one way or another and that we will get home the day we are planning on....or the day after....or the day after that.  

Sometimes A Little Complaining Goes A Long Way....Sad That Complaining Is Occasionally Necessary Isn't It?

 My husband just received a phone call from the bank where we have had SO much grief over the past few years.  It was to set up an appointment for him next week.  Seems that since I sent in a poor review to a questionnaire that bank sent out a few weeks ago asking how we find their service to be for us, some things have changed!  YAY!  My review was not scathing, but it was negative enough to warrant an in person chat with me a couple of days after it was received.  I explained in more detail what the issues have been and oh my goodness.....all of a sudden we have a new financial advisor there, after not hearing from the one we thought we had for nearly three years, we are getting calls about things we should have been contacted about many times over the past 3 years and heard absolutely zero about. Suddenly the new FA wants to review what we have left in that bank that has not been moved to another institution, wants to give us information we have been needing for more than four years that due to us not having it messed me up badly with the CRA last year that it took hours of phone calls and repayments of sales tax rebates I had received that year to fix the mess.

This is all good news....we hope. We shall see how things go at that appointment and in the future. 

In other news it has been another lovely warm day today.  There was a return of the rain and thunder last night overnight after a couple of gloriously dry days, but by morning the puddles were nearly dry already.  Unfortunately the thunder woke me up at 3am, but since the rain was tap, tap, tapping on the eaves and I love that sound, I got up and threw the bedroom window wide open so I could enjoy it. What's a bit of water on the windowsill after all, right?  I fell asleep again at about 5:30am and slept deeply for another two hours.  Then it was up for breakfast and a visit with my coffee buddy.

My coffee buddy and I have decided we are tired of paying big bucks for small cups of tea and coffee at the coffee bar nearest her place, so today we took a short drive around her new neighbourhood. Only two blocks away we discovered a fairly large park with not only playground equipment but several iron benches and a couple of wooden picnic tables to sit at. We sat outside at one of the tables in the glorious sunshine, chattering away like two old magpies and it was so much fun being out of the crowded coffee bar, away from all building construction noise and enjoying a couple of daycare groups who came to utilize the playground equipment.  Fortunately for us, despite the hot sunshine after more rain, we encountered only a couple of mosquitoes and one tiny brown spider that went racing across the brim of my friend's sunhat. We came away feeling energized, less broke, haha, and very pleased to have a new place to enjoy our weekly visits during the summer and autumn months. What a blessing to have only a couple of blocks to go for our time together. Next time I will try to find a visitor parking spot open at her apartment and we can walk to the park.  

This afternoon we ran errands, my husband and I.  He is rotating back onto a diet mostly of cooked vegetables, protein and unleavened bread to keep his CFS food sensitivities in check.  We now have a crisper filled with cabbages and purple turnips, radishes for his beloved potato salad, carrots and cauliflowers and a freezer full of frozen peas and Brussels Sprouts. I was able to purchase quite a few packages of free range ground turkey and chicken and some extra lean ground beef that is actually extra lean over at SaveOn Foods....the difference in the fat and transfat contents in those poultry packs and the ones with meat from farm fed/ big production farm birds is phenomenal. SO MUCH lower in the free range poultry.  

The horrific swollen glands (from the CFS) in the back of my husband's head are much better today and far less painful after being completely debilitating yesterday so he decided to take advantage of feeling considerably better to pick up his food items.  Tomorrow he has no out of the house commitments so he can rest again AND have a good long talk with our son and his wife when they call to confirm the plans for the spiritual portion of their wedding reception programme.  All I have to do tomorrow is return to the doctor for my osteoporosis meds injection and then I am done with all things medical for this week, yay!  I spent so much time in the waiting room earlier on that I think I could draw a diagram of very paint chip and black mark on the walls in there! hahaha  

We caved in and watched the chuckwagon races from the Calgary Stampede grounds all this week and even picked up some of the bull riding, kids' teams working to get one of their members on the backs of wild ponies, the womens' barrel races and free roping.....it has been a fun way to spend our evenings at home when my husband has been feeling lousy.  I am adjusting to having only 3 wagons per chuckwagon race but oh my....we very much miss the commentary from Tommy Glass who passed away, somewhat unexpectedly I believe, the week prior to the Stampede.  I can't imagine his son having to perform in those races the very next week, but he is doing his dad proud with his times and skills.  I know darned well I will also cave and watch the entire rodeo the afternoon of the last day to see the winners pick up their cheques and their gorgeous bronze castings of bucking broncs, bulls, cowboys and other ranching related scenes.  I am not really a big rural ranch scene fan, (although I have a great admiration for the hard work cowboys and ranchers have to do...very, very hard, dirty, physically taxing and often discouraging work), because I grew up in the city and, only knowing personally one rancher in my life,  have not had the opportunity to develop a lot of appreciation for that lifestyle and geographical scenery, but those bronzes take such artistry and skill to create. (How's that for a run on sentence, right???) They are lovely. So, I am learning that once a Calgarian who grew up loving the Stampede as a kid, always a Calgarian who still loves watching the Stampede events as an adult and is not ashamed to admit it.

We are about to embark on our own heatwave here on the prairies over the next three days at least. By Sunday we are forecast to reach +37C and overnight lows of a big +16C...not cool enough to help prior to the following day's heat. Church is going to be very difficult to sit through, but it will be a good break from our not air conditioned suite!! If it is only for three days before we get below +30C again we will survive. My husband will disappear for three days into the cool of the basement and I will have an opportunity upstairs to train for our trip to NYC during some of its hottest summer weather!!  There is good in almost everything, right?

Hmmmm...summer heat wave or winter ice....SUMMER HEAT WAVE all the way!!! hahahahaha 

It Is Kinda' Busy This Week....BUT.....

.....every plan I needed to make for this week has been dependent upon the availability of others: other friends, other relatives, doctors, medication arrivals at the pharmacy.....Monday morning was kind of stressful as I wondered how all these up in the air plans were going to work themselves out.  It has been one of those weeks where other peoples' schedules had to take priority over my own.

I needn't have worried.  At noon I got a phone call that sorted out the meeting with visiting relatives, by 1pm I had ordered my medication for arrival at the pharmacy later this week, by 2pm I had an appointment with the doctor to administer the meds after it arrives...and so on like that!  By dinner time on Monday every plan was made, every date and time entered on the schedule and with no overlaps of availability for anyone or anything needing to be fixed up and sorted out.  Whew!  I love it when God helps me like that.  Pray and wait and move on things and wait some more and then relax as everything falls into place.

I had a really nice visit with my cousin and her sister in law earlier this week.  She introduced me to a long lost cousin of both of ours....a second cousin once removed, a third cousin, a first cousin twice removed; no idea and it doesn't matter. It was just fun meeting her.  There won't be an ongoing relationship even though we live in the same city, for lots of good reasons, but it was just lovely to discuss how our families are related, (our maternal grandmothers were sisters), and find out how and why we had never met before as children and where other relatives are now located, where the grandmas and uncles are now buried and where they spent their adult lives and raised their children, their careers and interests etc.  It was really fun.  We went out to DQ for dinner because it was the closest place to eat and that was fun too.  However, the enormous amount of salt in the meal bothered my kidneys something horrible and reminded me of why I don't eat at fast food burger places very often. hahaha  I was okay by the next morning, but wow....NOT GOOD and NOT AGAIN ANY TIME SOON!!  The sodium reaction didn't spoil the visit though.  It was a very nice afternoon and evening.

Yesterday I enjoyed two wonderful visits: one with a long term friend here whose ambulatory abilities are severely compromised after a surgery gone wrong some years ago.  She was feeling kind of blue yesterday and admitted she had not eaten anything yet that day.  So, since I had taken some food along with me for her and her husband, I had fun making them some lunch and getting their coffee maker on the go before we had a very fun visit together.  It is SO DIFFICULT watching older friends reaching that stage where continuing to live in their home of over 35 years is getting to be physically beyond them, but mentally they are just not ready to face some kind of seniors' residence. It made me very sad.  

In the evening we went to other friends' house for a home made Chinese food meal....rather appropriate since our host happens to be Chinese, hahaha. He is 87 and still cooks fabulous meals, for family and friends, so we were blessed last night to eat so very well...and so very much, if I am being honest. Urp!!

Today has been spent utilizing the morning for a flurry of housework and ironing, catching up over lunch on a  couple of tv shows with my husband and then there was medical "stuff" this afternoon. Tomorrow I am picking up my coffee buddy for a trek to our usual coffee bar, where hopefully we can sit outside at some chairs and tables where we can chat privately instead of being crammed into the crowded mini-restaurant.  In the afternoon I need to pick up more meds from the pharmacy in preparation for my doctor's appointment the next day...and then it will be the weekend AGAIN. Didn't we just have one of those???  How did it get to be the end of the first week of July already?  Wasn't last week still the middle of June????  Is it my age that is making the time seem to fly past so quickly?  All I could think of today as I looked at the calendar is that winter could be back in as few as 3 months!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Perhaps after our  upcoming trip to NYC during the intense summer heat of the east coast, winter will seem more appealing?  No? Okay, well, I tried.......

  

Another Story Of My Husband's!

Something we saw this afternoon on tv reminded my husband of another story from his younger years.  He was about to begin his second year of college, around 1970 I believe, but came home to the farm late in the summer to hang out with his friends for a couple of weeks.  

For some reason....the drugs they MAY have been smoking PERHAPS....he and three of his friends decided to go duck hunting one day.  They collected their shot guns, hopped in one of the guy's '58 Pontiac and set out to find the birds they had noticed settling in various farmers' fields.  They drove through several fields of summer fallow, hoping the farmers who owned them would not notice the tire marks but they had to drive rather quickly to keep the car from sinking into the soft, damp ground.  Field after field yielded no ducks at all, so after a couple of hours they decided to forget the whole idea and return home.  Just as they hit the highway back to town one of the fellows spotted a huge population of ducks in a previously unexplored field. The problem was that the ducks were congregated at the far end of the field and obviously would spot the car sliding through the field, its skidding tires tossing great mounds of dirt as it came toward them. Hmmmm, what to do?  One of the guys had the "brilliant" idea that the driver should hit the gas pedal as hard as he could and rush the ducks so they wouldn't have time to react and fly away....hahaha, yeah right, as I said:  the drugs????.... All four of them decided this was a fabulous plan, the driver hit the gas pedal and away they started across the field.  Suddenly it dawned on someone in that car that it would be nearly impossible to hit a duck by shooting out an open car window. So, one of them maneuvered his way out of the open window of the front passenger side and miraculously managed to crawl out onto the hood of the car, clutching his rifle tightly under his arm while the car continued flying forward toward the gathering of ducks.  Of course the ducks saw them coming and scattered just as the friend on the hood managed to wobble to his feet, grab the radio aerial on top of the roof of the car for balance and tried to fire the shotgun one handed.  Can you get a picture in your mind of this craziness??  The shot of course went way wild as the ducks flew off into the distance. The bullet came near absolutely none of the birds.  Of course the guy on the hood of the car had to continue to hang on for dear life until the driver of the car managed to spin around 180 degrees, still at top speed, and get them back out of the field and onto the highway.  Somehow they all lived, the ducks lived and whoever had their fields churned up by the car tires likely could figure out within minutes at least a couple of the fellows who would have been involved in creating the damage. Everyone in the area knew my husband and his friends...thankfully everyone also had great senses of humour and forgave easily. Sigh.....can you imagine anyone getting away with a stunt like that nowadays?  At the time the attitude of the farmers whose fields were  involved was "Well, boys will be boys...."  No one was killed, including the ducks, so no real harm done. The fields could be smoothed out again easily enough with the tractor.  Aiii yiii!!  The Dukes of Hazzard....unsanitized for the real life version.