Why O Why Did I Bother To Ask???? Hahahaha....

We were "up 'n' at 'em" by 8am today; breakfasted and dressed and ready to go by 9am.  We wanted to get to our nearest post office branch before it got busy and we were successful in that.  It took just over five minutes to arrange for our mail to be held while we are away and then we were on our way home again.  

The plumbers are supposed to come today to suss out our leakage issues but we knew they likely wouldn't get here until later in the day. So at nearly 3pm we are still waiting, but that is just fine.  It is highly likely they got held up on another job, so if they don't get here today they will be here tomorrow and one of us should be home most all day to explain the problem to them.  Who knows when arrangements will be made for the issue to actually be repaired, right?  We know from our years in construction how the best laid plans in the trades can come apart within seconds, leaving the next customer waiting longer than arranged for originally. That is just how it goes sometimes.

Once we arrived home from the post office my husband headed over to our friends' house to complete the building of canoe racks for their and our canoes, so I stupidly asked myself, "Hmmm, I wasn't expecting to be done with the post office this early so what shall I do for the rest of today?"  Dumb, dumb, dumb.....I barely got the question asked when things began to happen.  I realized it was time to put a load of my husband's clothes into the laundry and some of it needed stain spray...that man never remembers to put on his chef's sized apron when he is stir frying with hot, spattering oil.....and I wanted to get that finished before the plumbers might arrive and have to turn off the main water valve.  Just got that in when my next door neighbour arrived with a giant tote bag filled with more bags of rice and rolled oats that, when added to what she has already brought us since the end of June, could combine to feed a lumber camp crew for an entire summer.  In the top of the bag were two large bunches of carrots and a giant head of broccoli, both veggies needing immediate attention.  So, I spent the next hour cutting off carrot tops and peeling and bagging them for my husband to make soup out of, perhaps tomorrow.  Then I chopped the heavy, tough stem off the head of broccoli, removed a section for our dinner tonight then cut the rest of it into somewhat smaller pieces, blanched the whole works, cooled all the pieces and bagged them for the freezer.  Originally I had hoped to have the freezer and most of the refrigerator free of any food items before we left town, but that isn't going to happen, so all we can do is pray our refrigerator, poor ancient scratched stained ugly old thing that it is, doesn't break down while we are gone. So thankful our friend is checking in several times a week to water plants and check things like basement flooding and dead refrigerators. God bless her!!  

After lunch I got the load of clothes dried and sorted, but I think I will wait and iron them tomorrow.  For some reason our lunch preparations resulted in more than the usual amount of dirty dishes, so I spent a fair bit of time tidying up the kitchen and washing plates and glasses and bowls and pots and and and and....

Now as I write this I am waiting for my son to call in regard to some mutual banking arrangements we need to make together in regard to our trip.  Those arrangements will dictate how I spend the rest of the next ten days in preparing to go. 

Tomorrow morning if I am looking at a chunk of free time after I iron the laundry I washed today I think I will just keep my questions about further chores for the day to myself!  Hohoho!!! I certainly can't whine today about not getting enough exercise.  I have lost count of how many times I have been up and down both flights of stairs and how long I spent standing in the kitchen doing various chores.  

That part is ALL good!!!  My hip muscles on the operated leg are finally beginning to strengthen up to cover up the fact that the tendon has not returned to full operation.  YAY!  I thought I was done with all of the healing and restoration process, but no!  That 18 month time frame for complete or nearly complete healing is still in effect for me for the next 5 months apparently. I am delighted and relieved as I see the limp finally beginning to lessen even when I am walking farther than usual without my cane.  Thank you God.

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. 

So Which Is It Then?????

Today I read two conflicting (?) reports by two different cities in two different provinces about how each of their individual current weather conditions create perfect breeding grounds for the nasty mosquitoes that make outdoor living in Canada in the summer....along with the hideous ticks of course.....itchy, annoying and potentially disease causing.

A report I read from Lethbridge Alberta told me that their rainy spring along with its WARM weather made for the perfect breeding grounds for mosquitoes. In the same news feed was a similar article from our own city of Regina telling me that the rainy spring along with its COLD weather made for the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes.  

So, which is it? AND does it really matter?  Apparently the air temperature has little effect on these little bloodsucking insects. As long as there is standing water anywhere at all in this country, we will continue to be plagued with the little monsters.  Yucko!!!  I am not encouraged that the number of mosquitoes this year, all across the west at least, has risen substantially over previous years. Oooooh, as someone who is well loved by mosquitoes I am not at all impressed. Swat! Slap! Squish!

I just keep telling myself that it is all worth it because so many of the northern Alberta and Saskatchewan forest fire hubs are also getting a lot of rain thus far this summer, helping keep the surge of large fires in check.

Today I finally tackled some small chores I have been putting off because I have found the thought of doing them more stressful than those chores warranted.  I checked finally to see if our last credit card payment went though after my first attempt to pay in person at the bank and if Amazon did indeed refund the card for non-delivery of an item we ordered for the kids.  Everything was tickety boo.  So, why was I stressed over something so simple?  Easy: I have experienced so many mistakes by the bank and credit card company in the past few months that I hold my breath just looking up my account online.  Aaargh!!  I printed off paper copies of our flight and accommodation reservation for our upcoming trip.  We have run into some minor issues in the past when trying to use my husband's phone to bring up email confirmations in our own airports and across the border, so this time I am fully prepared with the information we may need and can whip it out of my suitcase in its bright red plastic folder if required. hohoho!! Gotcha' downed internet issues, this time I gotcha'!!

The bathroom walls needed a washing down and I should have done it two weeks ago, but was feeling so punky with my sore sinuses and ear infection that it seemed like far too much work to be bothered with. So, I did that today!  There is still cigarette smoke residue trickling out of the overhead fan system from the last tenants before us who smoked, as well as the various smoking neighbours next door since the smoke rises up into the ceiling fans for distribution throughout the open shared attic space.  All the bathrooms in the suites here have the tobacco residues streaking the walls unless the walls get washed down regularly.  I have never washed bathroom walls as often as I have since we moved in here.  

Tonight we are meeting up with a newly retired colleague of my husband's. She is selling her house and returning to live in her native Caribbean country. We are happy for her and she is very excited to leave the drabness of the prairies and our unique prairie culture behind her.  I don't blame her.....hmmm....I wonder if she knows of any rental units in her home country that would be interested in having some elderly Canadians rent the space for a few years....hmmmmm.....hahahaha. Yes, yes, unlikely and not sure my husband would go for the idea, but I can dream right?  A former parishioner of ours who was widowed over ten years ago started travelling solo to the Caribbean a few years ago and is now remarried to a local fellow there. She is very, very happy and we are happy for her.  Let's see how I feel about such a move: Caribbean--Regina; Caribbean--Regina; Caribbean--Regina....hmmmm...people who know me will know exactly how I would feel about such a move, teehee. We are going for Indian food tonight.  It will be yummy and we are excited to be able to have one last visit with our friend before she leaves in a couple of weeks' time.

Tomorrow I am picking up my coffee buddy and we are going to a coffee bar for our visit.  It has been several weeks since we last did that so I am looking forward to it.  Tomorrow was originally forecast for warm and dry, but I see now that there is a 40% chance of rain again.  No surprise there, right? hahaha At the moment the thunder is booming here, but it has arrived two hours after our last bit of drizzly rain and at the moment there is nary a drop falling from the sky.  Interesting weather, that's for sure. 

Could My Thought Process Possibly Be LESS Creative??? Nope, I Don't Think So! Duh........

 I have been putting off cleaning out the vegetable crisper drawer in my refrigerator for almost a week now because it is always such a chore to clean such a small compartment.  This afternoon I knew it was time to stop putting it off.  Yuck!!  Little bits of vegetable detritus and possible liquid stains from who knows what are what I thought I saw in there and was dreading having to spend the time and energy involved on cleaning it all out, as well as removing the drawer and cleaning the bits of food crumbs and stuck on liquid from spills that have happened in the past few weeks that would be all over the ledge the drawer sits on.  Yuck again.

Today, being particularly tired and the air here being particularly muggy, I was dreading it even more.  I had a great visit with my walking partner this morning, even though the rain showers kept us from doing any actual walking out of doors, I got my ironing finished, made a decent lunch, got all the dishes done....but now it was time to tackle the crisper. No more flimsy excuses!!

When I pulled out the drawer and looked at the bottom ledge where the drawer sits, it appeared that most of the little crumbs were loose and there was no evidence of any hardened puddles of spilt milk or juice anywhere.  As I pondered how on earth I was going to manage to get down low enough to wipe those crumbs out with a wet cloth, due to my aching, mobilization compromised hips, the lights FINALLY went on...after HOW MANY years????  Feeling so stupid for all the hours previously spent with wet cloths sometimes doing little more than pushing the crumbs about before accidentally whisking them out of the fridge and onto the kitchen floor, when I COULD have simply put the crevice tool attachment on the vacuum cleaner to remove them....well, again with the DUH!!!  So that is what I did. In about 5 seconds all the crumbs under the drawer were vacuumed up and since there were no hardened puddles of anything to gum up a wet cloth, that part of the task was done.  So, I emptied the vegetables in the crisper drawer, checked the veggie "crumbs" in there and proceeded to vacuum those out as well. There were a few crumblies stuck onto the bottom of the drawer that I was able to wipe out with a wet cloth in about 5 seconds, gave the drawer a good drying with a clean cloth, put the veggies back in the drawer and replaced it in the fridge.  In less than 5 minutes the whole task was completed.  WHY O WHY have I never once thought of doing the crisper cleaning this way??  At my age, how could I have so thoroughly missed this possibility as a better, less physically demanding way to clean that part of the refrigerator????  I also realized that the yard stick I have hanging on the side of the fridge is a great length for attaching a wet/dry cloth to the end of it to push it around on the ledge the drawer sits on if there are any removable stains from spilled liquids.  I think I have just been so used to doing things the exact same way for the past five or six decades that it hasn't dawned on me to quit griping about how hard it is on my body to have to crouch or bend over to clean certain things and find a better way.  Aiii yiii....talk about silly, right???

We received an email from our daughter in law this morning regarding spending a few days upstate with her and our son when we are visiting them later this summer.  She is booking a family friend's beautiful cabin for three nights near Germantown, about a 2 or so hour drive out of the city.  Her brother is loaning her his car so we can make the trip.  We will stop in Beacon, about half way along the route, to see the Dia Beacon art museum and enjoy their current large display of paintings by Saskatchewan's very own Agnes Martin.  This is very exciting. Our "kids" are eager to escape the heat of the city with a short trip to the more rural area surrounding this beautiful cabin with a screened in porch, beautiful bbq pad and right next to some lovely hiking trails.  It is their "thank you for coming all this way" gift to us before the wedding reception rolls around. How grateful we are to be able to enjoy the beauty of an area of the state that only my husband has seen before. It will all be completely new to me.  I am SO excited!  Our daughter in law has been talking about spending a few days out of the city ever since the idea of us going down for the wedding reception was floated a couple of months ago and she is getting her wish. Bless her for setting this up for the 4 of us.  It is going to be so much fun.  We are so grateful as well to have a few days away from the intense summer heat. So many happy times to look forward to after two very physically difficult  years for both my husband and myself.  We are blessed.

 

The Usual Working Around the House Saturday!

 Gosh, but I find Saturdays difficult!  It seems to be a really great day for my husband to work on sermons and articles he is writing, but I nearly lose my mind every Saturday.  Yes, I could get out and shop or look about at some little art galleries, but Saturday is the day working folk and school children are off and so of course it gets rather crowded at most venues and restaurants.  With it being Father's Day weekend, some places are even more crowded than usual today from what I can gather.

So today I did the laundry. hahaha Happy Saturday!!  Good to get it done and I can iron tomorrow or Monday afternoon.  Great to get the exercise going up and down the two flights of stairs as well, although that second hip is giving me grief over it.  Dang it, but I really am going to have to get a prescription for Naproxin to get me through our US trip this summer. Oh well...I was on it for hip number 1 the last time we visited our kids there.

Our kids wrote to us today about the possibility of spending 3 nights in upstate New York with them the first week of our holiday. They know how much we are NOT going to pay for three nights of cabin accommodation there when we have already paid for our apartment in the city, BUT they want to cover that cost.  It is a beautiful cabin with a lovely outdoor barbeque area, which greatly appeals to our BBQ King son and our daughter in law has been talking about this sort of possibility ever since we told them back the end of April that we were coming for a whole month.  The cost of the cabin they want to rent for 3 days made us gasp, so we told them if they truly want to pay for that, okay, their choice, BUT we are paying for the food, train transportation and event entry fees.  Just waiting to hear back from them as to whether or not this is going to happen.  I know they both want to get out of the beastly hot city for a few days and I can't blame them as I too would love that!  Guess we shall see what their decision is. They are nothing if not full of interesting ideas!!

It has been a lovely warm day with only a bit of a breeze wafting through the tree tops.  Not great to be stuck in the house all day, but I have been enjoying the unusual quietness outside on the lawns.  Over the past week all the African kids have found other friends in a different area of the complex to play with, so they are gone over there right after school during the week and took off across the parking lot once again early this morning, not returning for more than a few minutes at lunch time.  Moh and his brother have barely been outside playing in the past week and it seems their family has had a serious falling out with our next door neighbours, so Moh and his brother are not playing with the two boys next door now.  The indigenous kids in our part of the complex have been packing up trucks and vans with camping gear, either heading out before school ends this coming Tuesday or getting ready to go as soon as they are free at that time.  They are too busy packing to play outside.  The other slightly older kids are heavily involved in baseball and soccer now and so by 8am every weekend day they and their parents are gone to practises and tournaments. Wow, it is so quiet around here lately it is downright eerie!! We miss the kids playing outside, yelling and kicking balls and riding bikes and fighting. haha

Our one truly beautiful day this week, today, is apparently a one off, unfortunately.  According to the forecast we have very heavy rain on the way tomorrow, followed by another two days of showers.  The poor tomatoes are so far behind I am not sure how much of a harvest we will get before we leave for our vacation this summer.  We assumed we could pick and freeze a fair crop and that we would have already picked a fair number of our wee cherry tomatoes, but nope.  There are only three tomatoes that formed nearly two weeks ago but are still dark green with not a hint of ripening. I noticed two more blossoms this morning....TWO!!  That will make a total of five tomatoes in the first three weeks of this month...that is assuming they fill out and ripen sufficiently to be eaten.  Sigh.... We need sunshine and heat for our plants now! The bonus of the rain in our province is that the forest fires are not starting and getting out of control because the rain in that area of the north has not had the accompanying lightning strikes....yet anyway.

We made a big decision yesterday to drop out of the one Bible study group we have been attending twice a month regularly for the past three years. There seem to be other things coming up for us this fall that will leave us unable to keep that commitment regularly.  That is disappointing on the one hand, but on the other hand it will be nice to have some new things to do. It will also leave us more time to invest in our small care group that began meeting some months ago and that has proven to be not only a good spiritual learning time, but also a time of deep and personal fellowship with a few folk who are significantly younger than we are and who help us restore our flagging energy levels. We don't meet nearly as often as the Bible study group does, but we enjoy everything from Bible studies to movie nights to group dinners....it is so much fun!  

My husband is doing the scripture readings at church tomorrow, so it is nice for him to have a service task that is super easy, much easier than teaching and preaching.  Next weekend we will be out of town to attend the ordination of two of the deaconal candidates he has been mentoring, so that will be really fun. AND it is on Saturday!  A GOOD Saturday for me for a change! hahaha

Well, if we survive the heavy rain that is supposed to fall tomorrow, it will be a nice relaxing Father's Day.  My husband is a great father!  Another of his many gifts!! 

Busy Times With The Neighbours, Etc.......

This week has flown past in a flurry of "busy". For someone who has spent the past two weeks fighting ear and sinus infections I seem to have had very little time, particularly this week, to just sit around and heal.  But it is okay because the antibiotics I am currently on, along with the nasal spray, seem to be doing the job sufficiently this time....so far at least.

Attending the annual Big Book Sale, a fundraiser for the seniors programme to promote life long learning at the U of R, has taken up a few hours of our time, both in donating a ton of my husband's books, (yay you, sweetie), and purchasing books, particularly for myself.  My husband picked up a handful of books that he has been wanting to read...but not keep....that haven't been available through his online library account and I found some novels to get me through the rest of the summer.  So we purchased 26 books and three record albums for $44! Not bad, not bad at all.  As I am still working through quite number of books I picked up at various community library boxes around the end of April, first of May, I should be reading well into the coming weeks.  All the books we purchased will be read and then funnelled into various community library boxes.

My husband had three mens' meetings this week, particularly enjoyable as they involved men visiting from out of town who have only been involved in the weekly Zoom meetings with my husband and his friends, but happened to be in Regina this week, so it was a joyful first in person meeting for the out of town participants with the rest of the local group.  I enjoyed my weekly visit with my coffee buddy and one of my husband's meetings this week was a breakfast meeting with her husband. They have become such good friends over the past 3 years...they are older like us and we have lots of mutual ideas and shared life experiences.

The most time this week has been tied up with the next door neighbours.  It has been really fun, but having to use translators is rather exhausting.  This weekend my husband is meeting with the husband next door to peruse Facebook Marketplace together, trying to eventually find a used car that is clean enough and in sufficiently good mechanical condition and that fits our neighbours' budget....could take some time, but we will do what we can to assist them.  I was invited to sit on a blanket out on the goose poopy back lawn one evening with the wife from next door and her most hilarious friend that she met while jogging around our complex one morning.  We drank tea, talked as much as we could via translator, worked on their English words for awhile and they assisted me in learning a whole 3 words in Arabic....3 nouns so I won't get confused. hahaha  

Another day, right around dinner time, a frantic sounding hammering on our back door roused me from the dinner table.  There was our neighbour with her oldest son, nearly in tears because their ride to the son's Grade 8 graduation at his school had not shown up and was not coming after all.  Freaked out driver MOI to the rescue. Trying to drive to a school I had no idea existed while glancing over as quickly as possible at the tiny screen on my neighbour's cell phone that showed the route, (There is a good reason it is illegal to look at cell phones while driving!!!!), was terrifying and the worst fear was that I would get completely lost along the way and the kid would miss his special ceremony.  Although I did manage to miss seeing the school on our first pass by because my neighbour has not yet figured out the difference between Left and Right while waving her hand in the air rather vaguely, I was able to get around the block for a second pass by and found the school at last.  As they were getting out of the car, in plenty of time to get to the ceremony after all I might add,  it hit me that they would need a ride home afterwards and none of us had any idea how long the ceremony would last.  Rather than wasting time putting my phone number into her mobile...because I was stopped in a no parking zone on a very narrow street with an impatient car unable to get past me from behind....she decided she would call her daughter and the daughter would come to our house and knock on the door to let me know it was time to pick her mom and brother up.  So, about 90 minutes later I was on my way back to the difficult to locate school...found it first go this time, managed to stop in the no parking zone once again while my passengers loaded in and with no other car behind me this time freaking out because I had stopped illegally. YAY!

When we got back my husband and I were invited to their back porch for tea....the first time our husbands would be sharing this social time with us. My husband had only just then heated up his left over DarBar food and was about to eat, so he apologized profusely for bringing his dinner with him and the four of us shared a lovely, happy time with lots of laughing due to odd translations from SIRI or "whoever" and it was great fun.  We finally got the budget from him for the car he wants to buy and we can only thank God for Facebook Marketplace possibilities because there is no way he is ever going to get anything remotely decent anywhere else for the price he is able to pay.  

We found out they got to Canada on a federal government refugee programme, so now we understand why they are not allowed to work at this point in time.  They are being financially subsidized by the government for a certain period of time, when their ability to work and take care of themselves here vs whether or not it will be safe for them to return to the Middle East will be reassessed.  They left their home in Syria about sixteen years ago due to war and settled for about the next fifteen years in southern Lebanon, but then war caught up with them there. All three kids are traumatized by the sound of army aircraft buzzing closely overhead and dropping bombs in towns near where they lived.  It explains some of the behaviours we have seen from the kids, their reluctance to talk, to even make eye contact on occasion, even though their English is improving now enough to carry on a short conversation.  They are completely freaked out and afraid to believe they are now safer than they were. They are used to working hard after school back in Lebanon and we watched some phone videos of the three of them, even the youngest, planting and harvesting the huge vegetable garden they had back home and working at cleaning inside their huge house...now they live in a teensy, overpriced, poorly maintained two bedroom townhouse with nothing to do after school but kick a ball around and try get along as best as they can with all the other kids of varying ethnicities and languages.  We learned that the one couple who tend to show up at odd times, unannounced, at their place and take them to various grocery stores and the food bank, are teaching them street rules and driving laws, finding them doctors etc., are their government assigned sponsors who are monitoring their use of their subsidies and helping them get their kids looked after for school enrolments etc. Our neighbours were supposed to come over here for tea a couple of afternoons ago but just as they were leaving for our place their sponsors showed up, again unexpectedly, so that was the end of that.  We are going to try again tomorrow to have them over for tea.  

Just before we left their place they gave us news that really upset me, although for VERY selfish reasons:  by the time we return home from our trip south in September, they very likely will be moved into far less expensive government housing.  When they told me what their rent is on their little old town house unit here, I was shocked to the core.  Our suite is far larger than theirs but even when our own rent goes up in August, we will only be paying twenty-nine dollars a month more than they are right now!!!  Highway robbery!!  We have been fortunate I think because we have not made any demands for the new flooring or for cabinet and appliance updates we have a right to ask for. It does keep our rent lower and since the whole place has to be remodelled once we move out, we are not asking for anything right now from the management company....in the (possibly once again mistaken) belief that God will help us move out of here sometime in the next year.  My selfish fear is that once again after only about 6 months with these neighbours we have come to love, we will be in tenterhooks about who is going to be living on the other side of the wall.  Sigh.....  Assuming they leave either just before or during the time we are out of the country, what on earth are we going to come home to for new neighbours?  The last two times new people moved into that suite while we were away, we came home to one horrific nightmare and one so so upset that at least got taken care of within a week or two.  Oh Lord, what next?  Are our neighbours at present going to end up in some old scuzzy bucket apartment that has even more neighbours on the other side of their walls making noise, or a building that has been badly maintained even more so than the buildings here at this complex? Sigh again...what is going to happen to these people Lord?  Do their kids really have to change schools for the third time in less than a year???  

Well, I need to get to bed now and stop fretting about the neighbours.  They are so easy to love and so easy to want to help. If they move I hope they end up living close to even more people who are able to assist them as they try to deal with all the trauma they have experienced in the past year or more.  

Tomorrow is my last day of antibiotics, so hopefully there will be no more ear infections. I have not one commitment for the entire day, so I can sleep in and do laundry at my own pace. Looking forward to it. 

PS I have decided to add a new label called Stress because there has been so much of that in our lives lately with more to come!   

Doctor Eagle Eyed Fleagle!!

Yesterday I was able to access the final report from the fill in surgeon I saw earlier this month at my one year THRA checkup. It proved this young woman had a lot more going for her than I realized! 

I did not of course see her when I was in the outer waiting room and she was occupied with another patient, out of sight, when I arrived in my examination cubicle. Hoping I could hide the fact that I was still using a cane, (why I felt this need to be deceptive I am not sure….some kind of childhood issue with authority that leaves me feeling like a kid sent to the principal’s office for using a cane I “should” no longer need?), I saw a great space along the back wall of the cubicle to stash it pretty much out of sight. From the time I entered the clinic to the time I left I had the cane draped over my arm and was not using it to walk. 

As the surgeon bebopped into and back out of my cubicle during our ten seconds of interaction she made no mention of the cane and neither did I. Stupidly I thought I had gotten away with not admitting I still need it for walking farther than a few blocks.

As it happens, no I did not. 

The final sentence on the post appointment report was, “The patient still walks with a cane.” 

Sigh….turns out the surgeon, who appeared to me to be about twelve years old, does indeed have the sharp eyes of the very young. 

I tried. I failed. 

So Glad I DID Quit Monkeying Around And Went To The Doctor!

 After some rain overnight the moisture stopped moisture-ing and the sun burst forth from behind the clouds for most of today. How very lovely. The wind was more of a light breeze and the temperature was a bearable and enjoyable low plus 20C's.  Aaaaah....a true taste of spring today.  Unfortunately our city may get hit with heavy rain and more hail tonight into tomorrow. Dang it!!  All I can do is pray and hope for the best: that the hail will miss us completely this time.  The big storm system is starting off in Alberta this afternoon and heading this way. Wow...what a weird spring season.

I felt somewhat better again when I woke up this morning, but as has become usual in the past few days, by noon I  was aware of the sinus issues and just a slight inflammation inside my ear.  So glad I called the doctor for an appointment. She checked me over and decided that the first batch of meds nearly 2 weeks ago started to clear an infection but not completely because then the symptoms returned immediately after I finished the meds, with mid day fevers occurring after being outside. So I am on a different, faster acting antibiotic for the infection, along with what has been in the past my most effective nasal spray.  I expect the antibiotic will wallop me for a day or two, but it is a short term dosage so I will be done with it by the weekend after being instructed to begin with a double dose today.  Surely the combination of the two meds will help clear any residual infection and calm the sinus inflammation. I don't want to spend my entire summer battling sinus and other respiratory issues, that's for sure. My husband and I were looking last night at a slew of medical appointments we have coming up in the next six weeks and were reminded of that old senior citizen joke:  "You know, people who are retired do a lot of travelling; a LOT of travelling! They travel from one doctor's appointment to the next!"  Sadly funny, but also sadly true.  Sigh....

Tomorrow is grocery shopping day and we will do a few other short errands as well.  With no other commitments (yet) we should be able to sleep in and take our sweet time getting things done.  If we can both sleep as well tonight as we both did last night, tomorrow should be a very relaxing and productive day....as long as we don't have to spend it lined up at SGI filing a hail damage claim for our car.....eek....I can't wait until the June hail season passes. 

Lovin That Sunshine!

 Although I could happily do without the howling winds today, it was marvellous running errands late this morning in the blessed sunshine!  The warmth of the sun's rays are so welcome and so soothing for the soul and body.

It has been a very good day indeed in productive and fun ways.  I wasn't feeling terrific by the time we went errand running before lunch, even though I had a solid just short of 7 hour sleep last night and originally awakened feeling quite healthy, but after getting some banking done with no hassles for once and driving around to various library branches while my husband picked up books he had been waiting for, I was feeling pretty cheery and relatively healthy again.  (I did make a doctor's appointment for tomorrow afternoon to see if I can get some nasal allergy spray to get a handle on the inflammation in my sinuses. Happily, our neighbour has not smoked his hookah for the past two days so I have had a break from worrying about the horrendous odour taking even more toll on my respiratory system.)

We found ourselves parked near the downtown library branch round about the time we needed to eat a late lunch, so we toddled into the Western Pizza across the street from where the car was parked. We had low expectations, but our meal was a slight bit better than meals we have had at their other locations around the city.  WP is kind of a last choice spot, but we were parked, our parking pass was already filled out for an hour's worth of parking and, well, why not since WP was right there. I had the smashed dill pickle burger with a Caesar salad.  The salad was pretty much not very Caesar salad-like, but it was tasty enough. My burger was delicious with two smaller sized smash burger patties, lettuce, cheese, tomato and red onions on a very nice small bun with a brushed butter top crust.  My husband's pizza was very tasty although he found the sauce to be an odd combo of "sweet and sour" for lack of a better description. I noticed that he still ate half of it, plus all my croutons and part of my salad, hahaha. He will have the rest of it for dinner tonight. I am so stuffed from lunch that I will have a couple of slices of ancient grains bread with melted cheese and a glass of water for dinner!  That will be more than sufficient!!  The bonus for us eating at this restaurant is that we arrived at 12:45pm and they close the table service at 1:15pm when they revert to take out and delivery only.  We were allowed to still order anything we wanted and stay seated as long as we wanted. The only thing we had to do differently was to pre-pay for our meal.  No problem, happy to do so.  Lunch was just over $40 including the sales taxes, we were delighted.  The restaurant was seating only ourselves, so we felt quite relaxed and happy with no noise to interrupt our chat with each other.  We will try that same arrival time again some time just to have that kind of alone time in a public restaurant.  hahaha

The sun is still shining as I write this post just after 5pm. I can't believe how a few hours of sunlight makes me feel better over all.  I would be almost as happy without it today though because my husband booked our flights to NYC at long last.  Yup, expensive compared to other years, BUT nearly eight hundred dollars cheaper for the basic fare than the same flights were charging three weeks ago when we first looked at the possibilities. Even with paying extra for our seat choices, we are still all in at five hundred dollars less than that original base price, so we are content.  Hallelujah. So now the prayers begin that we won't be delayed leaving and miss our connection to NYC from Toronto on flight day!  I have already explained to my OCD that God is in control and if we do get delayed for some reason that is on Him and no need to get all in a twist about it. Things will work out.

Here's hoping for more good weather tomorrow.  My husband is going out for breakfast with a buddy, so that will be fun for him.   We started out this week with only one commitment on the calendar and now there is only one day free....but I think we will have to do our grocery shopping and other away from home errands that day, so...... it should be a good week! I have a haircut scheduled, coffee with my friend and other happy events planned. We will not be bored, that's for sure!

Time To Quit Monkeying Around!

 I felt kind of lackadaisical this morning about making a doctor's appointment about my sinuses. Waking up feeling so much better meant I was procrastinating again, as I often do with "iffy" respiratory conditions. Then a little while ago I got a text from my coffee buddy asking me if I had made that appointment, so I decided to take it as a sign I should.  I am going to see my own doctor tomorrow afternoon. YAY!  Since it seems this issue with my sinuses is allergy based I am definitely going to need help this summer keeping the inflammation at bay.  Thank you coffee buddy.  You gave me the nudge I needed to get off my duff and git 'er done!  As a result my husband has also gotten himself in gear and made two medical appointments he also should have made for himself a couple of weeks ago.  There have been so many details accruing regarding our trip this summer, along with a myriad of other attention grabbers and stressors that the easiest things to leave out have been the making of medical appointments, but no more.

The sky is blue with large white cloud formations forming to the west. To the east it is cloudy, opaque grey, so who knows if we will get more rain today?  One never knows around here, hahaha.

Off to pay some bills while I am feeling well enough to go out for awhile. I expect that will knock the starch out of me for the rest of today as it is also fairly warm outside. 

Not Healthy Again After All....Drat!!

Weeeeelll, I managed a great sleep last night after feeling the previous evening like my ear just may be showing signs of ongoing infection, but after that good sleep I felt quite fine so after breakfast we got dressed and headed off to church.

I made it easily through the first hour of the adult learning class but about ten or fifteen minutes into the service afterwards I stood up to sing and nearly fainted.  My head was becoming fuzzier and fuzzier, usually for me a precursor for blacking out from some kind of illness, generally sinus related.  Fortunately my husband realized what was happening and led me out while the rest of the congregation was still on its feet and singing lustily as it was an old favourite hymn.  Not many people noticed our departure, so I wasn't completely embarrassed and making a scene.  Whew!!

We got home and I spent an hour lying on the bed dozing. By 12:30pm my upper sinuses were very clogged and my head has been full feeling  and achy ever since. Dang it!  Guess I will call the doctor's office first thing in the morning and set up an appointment with my own physician who has seen me through these allergy based sinus/ear infections in times past.  I am fairly certain it is a reaction to the hookah pipe tobacco next door. Sigh.....  If I can get some spray for my sinuses to control the allergy on days when it is too cold to open the windows to eliminate the fumes and odour, I will be okay this summer.  As I suspected at the time the meds I got from the walk in clinic were not quite strong enough to clear the infection OR else they didn't do much apart from specifically helping my ear because the sinus aspect is allergy and not bacterial in nature.  

Thankfully the first part of this week doesn't contain very many commitments for me apart from a trip to a couple of banks tomorrow that I absolutely must make happen. 

Today is a lovely day.....at last. All the windows are open, the sun is bright but not overly hot, the breeze is not very strong...most enjoyable, even sitting here at my computer.  These are the days I live for when the winter snows and ice buildups are finally gone and the rain gives us a break for a day or two or three. 

Grey Skies In Winter, Grey Skies in Spring! WHAT THE HECK???!!!

It has been very nice to have all the rain showers we have had over the past week and more, but it would have been even nicer to have had some more sunshine between showers.  An hour or two scattered here and there throughout the past ten days or so has felt sadly insufficient, not only for us humans but also for our struggling tomato plants and herbs.  The tomatoes vines are stunted this year and the two or three tiny pieces of fruit on the one plant have not ripened at all in the past week since they appeared. I am afraid we may lose those teesy tomatoes to rot. The second plant wasn't huge when we got it and it hasn't grown much at all. Both plants are too spindly for this phase of the growing season. Glad the herbs are thriving much more and we have a fair crop of usable leaves and stems all ready. YAY!

I am discovering the joy of Ancient Grains bread that my neighbour shares with us on occasion.  For a strictly commercial brand...Dempster's....it is quite delicious.  Not being a great fan of the flavours of spelt and kamut they do blend together well with the other grains in this particular bread.  Yummy!  I have a loaf in the freezer that I am going to thaw today and enjoy!  It is a good kind of bread to intersperse with my Coop and Superstore Loaves of Alpine Grain breads.  

My husband is so refreshed after his trip to the mountains and his mind is clear, no headaches at all since going off his current statin meds. So on Monday he will call his doctor for a new med to be prescribed. He really does need the help as exercise and diet adjustments are not quite sufficient to keep his cholesterol count below scary range.  Inheriting that penchant for over producing cholesterol of the bad LDL kind, makes it that much harder to control without help.  At least he has tried to avoid meds, very seriously, but has had to admit defeat.  

Yesterday I got my courage together and called my orthopaedic surgeon's office manager.  I told her what happened at my appointment with the fill in doctor earlier this week and asked her the question I was leery to ask:  would I have to return to my GP to start the referral process all over again for the second hip?  The answer, to my huge relief, is NO! Hallelujah! His desire to do that hip is right there in his notes.  She will know sometime in August when and even whether my surgeon will be returning to work sometime in September after his extended medical leave. She has explained to me exactly what I need to do to see him as soon as possible after I return from my trip in August/September.  It will involve my GP ordering new x-rays of the other hip and getting them sent into the surgeon's office as soon as possible upon my return.  She also confirmed that should the  worst thing happen and the surgeon cannot return at all, there is indeed a contingency plan in place. YAY! The O.M. has been incredibly helpful and when this is over I must find the perfect card of thanks to send to her and to the surgeon.  It has turned into a very long haul between the length of recovery time for the hip revision arthroscopy and the eventual surgery on rapidly deteriorating hip number 2.  I am going to have to get a prescription for Naproxin again to get through my month long holiday this summer.  Drat!  My kidneys will be less than thrilled about that, but I already know there is no other way I will be able to cope with all the walking I am going to be doing on the trip.  Such is life, right?

So now that my husband is back and rested we are going to have to tackle our CRA account notices and track where they are with assessing our income tax forms sent in to them in April.  Oh please Lord, don't let me owe any more money to them because it is such a hassle ensuring the bank and the CRA employees actually get that money to the correct department, as I have sadly discovered in the past.   What a year it has been with this task!  Well, it can't be put off any longer. In the next hour or two we MUST get to it.  

After being awake in the middle of the night for a couple of hours,  for the fourth night in a row  last night, I finally got a solid four hours of post awake time sleep today. It was nearly 9:30am when I finally woke up. YAY!  My husband also slept in and we feel a lot more clear headed today, have more energy and are now up to dealing with that CRA account and other online "things" that have been amassing this week.  

Have  a happy weekend one and all!! 

My One Year Hip Revision Arthroscopy "Appointment", And I Use the Word Lightly! Haha....

 It has been a very active day and I feel all the better for that! This morning I was all cleaned up and dressed and off to the grocery store before 9:30am.  Yay me!  Now my husband will have actual food to eat when he gets home tonight from the mountain "expedition".

We have been receiving weather notifications most of the day regarding impending possible severe thunderstorms, but looking at the sky when it was time to walk over to the hospital to attend my one year surgical checkup I was quite certain I wasn't going to have to worry about that.  So glad I cottoned to the fact that it was going to a few hours before any rain would become an issue because I had a delightful walk.  Looking at the complete absence of parking spaces available on the streets surrounding the hospital I was even more grateful I hadn't had to drive there.  By the time I found a spot on the street....so much easier to get out of than the larger pay parking lot....I would have been far enough away from the hospital doors I would have been soaked in a rainstorm just getting to the car.

The walk there and back was refreshing to my soul and to my operated leg. Unfortunately my non-operated hip complained all the way there and all the way back.  Sigh....yup, I will definitely need that hip replaced fairly soon...or before the Naproxen I will likely have to go on by the time we leave for NYC leaves my kidneys non-functional...whichever comes first I suppose.  Wow....it is getting worse rather quickly!!

I was grateful to be earlier than asked arriving at the Admissions desk because there was a long lineup and it took awhile to get registered and get my paperwork to take to the Ambulatory Clinic for the appointment.  The doctor replacing my surgeon temporarily to do these appointments was as close to being on time as any I have ever had.  I arrived in the Clinic at 12:45pm for my 1pm appointment, had my x-rays and talk with the surgeon and was on my way home at 1:30pm.  

So, the appointment itself took less than 10 seconds in total: the doctor appeared at the foot of the table I was asked to sit on, didn't even actually enter the cubicle,  told me my hip x-ray was perfect for the operated leg, and turned to leave. I called her back and asked her what the full hip x-ray had shown for my non-operated hip and she whipped back out to the x-ray reader to have a look, whipped back in and told me the arthritis had progressed from mild to moderate since my last appointment 7 months ago and turned to whip out again. I called her back again and asked her what was going to happen if my own surgeon was not able to return to work as planned for a possible second surgery in the autumn, so I at least found out that his office has a contingency plan if that turns out to be the case and all patients would be informed. Then the doctor whipped out again and that was that. SO, when my x-ray results arrive at my own surgeon's office in another day or two, I am going to call that office and ask the very efficient and extremely knowledgeable office manager what I need to do to have this second hip replaced. How do I get back on my own surgeon's waiting list assuming he does indeed come back?  Do I need to be referred once again by my GP? Will I have to wait up to 3 years for this second surgery since he will likely have a huge backlog to deal with?  If that is going to be the case then I will start researching another surgeon possibility and see if I can get any quicker action, but I suspect sticking with my own will work out if he returns.  He already had me pegged for the other surgery and was originally hoping to do it last autumn, but of course...as you know...that would not have been possible with my uber long recovery time with the first hip.  

I am SO grateful for the years I spent living in another province where advocating for myself was the only way I got any kind of medical help within a reasonable amount of time....and that was decades before the COVID and its ensuing problems created the ongoing medical system disasters of the past six years.  I learned so much and now in this province I have learned to tweak my knowledge to the methods used here in our city.  

Thank you praying family and friends for praying with me about this appointment.  I am grateful to know that my operated hip is looking so good on the x-rays. None of the hardware has shifted, there are no bony growths returning at the site of the surgery.  The fill in surgeon didn't think it was at all odd that I have had such a long recovery time and am still working on my walking gait with occasional cane assistance. This much I was able to draw out of her before she left the door of the enclosure I was in for the last time. haha

My husband was apparently going to be on his way home this morning starting at about 8:30am.  I figure that by the time he drops off his friend in his town, gets him unloaded and then drives the other hour back here he should be home by about 6:30pm.  Fortunately I remembered to take meat out of the freezer to thaw so there will be dinner awaiting him when he arrives.  It will work out for me to eat late tonight because I had to shorten my lunch intake to get to my appointment on time, so on the way home I stopped at Subway for a six inch veggie sub on Italian herb and cheese bread.  The staff packed it with white cheddar cheese, spinach, banana peppers, black olives, green peppers and cucumber slices with just a small amount of Greek herb and oil dressing.  I managed to get home and into the kitchen before I wolfed it down.....not a big fan of those subs, but o wow, when I am that hungry they taste amazing, hahahaha.  Yum!

We are now under a yellow level severe thunderstorm watch, but looking at the sky I am thinking it may be possible for my husband to make it home and get all his equipment unloaded before the pouring rain arrives. Here's hoping anyway. By then the myriad pooping geese should have left to return to their nightly haunt and I will be able to get outside with my scoop shovel and poop collection bag to clear a path for my husband to unload and get to the house without him stepping in too much yucko!! 

A Whole Year Since My Surgery!

This past Friday was one year since the revision arthroscopy. Unbelievable that much time has passed, but on the other hand it seems like years ago. Thanks everyone for your concern and support of all kinds during a miserable time of recovery. I so appreciate it!

A Little More Knowledge = A Lot More Comfort!

This morning when I woke up at 3:30am and couldn't get back to sleep right away I decided to do some decent research regarding my total hip revision arthroscopy surgery, looking at accredited/respected medical journals online. I discovered one major piece of information that has helped me "take a valium" in regard to the slowness of my recovery progress.  While I have had many encouraging moments during the course of physiotherapy over the past year there have also been many dicouragements in regard to the amount ongoing muscle pain and discomfort and in the long time it is taking me to regain proper walking gait with less limp.

What has put my mind more at ease is that in more than one article I read this morning the most painful and longest recovery orthopaedic surgery is usually a total knee replacement, followed fairly closely by "ta da": total hip revision arthroscopy!! The more I read about the issues with THRA surgeries the more I began to realize that my case absolutely fits the usual pattern of recovery. As long as I don't give up working on my walking gait and my once or twice weekly standing and side lying abduction exercises to keep that hip limber so it doesn't stiffen up again, I probably have a bit more recovery to come. Walking, as I suspected, and paying attention to my gait when I walk, will now go a long way to regaining a more normal, less limpy gait overall.  YAY! Newly encouraged, I shall carry on.  I am especially glad I read these articles so close to having my one year check up next week.  Hopefully I will now have some intelligent questions to ask the surgeon.  I am so very grateful that I felt "prompted" to do this research!

My son called a few minutes ago to ask me if I will be home this afternoon to receive a delivery. What a lovely surprise. I am guessing it is flowers as his wife in particular so enjoys sending me bouquets at various times of the year.  That is why my being home at a particular time today is so important.  Oooh, I am really excited to be thought of and spoiled rotten by my kids.  They are so kind.  I will be home in plenty of time after the funeral I am going to this morning, so there will be no worries about me missing the delivery.  Glad they let me know it is coming.

We had some rain a few minutes ago and the dark clouds are re-forming to the west, from whence another storm system is wending its way here.  I am hoping and praying that the thunderstorms attached to this system will not carry hail.  My new car has to be parked outside, so that is always a worry if the big stones hit our area of the prairies.  I wish giant hail stones on no one, anywhere! I have seen the damage they can do....cars nearly unrecognizable and barely driveable after being pummelled by baseball and even golf ball sized hail stones, plastic siding with so many holes punctured through it that it looks like lace, tree leaves shredded to bits and blown along with their tree limbs all over the streets, flooded lots and basements.  Oh Lord, deliver us from that kind of storm. Thank you and amen!

Fascinating Cloud Formations

 The sky was fascinating this afternoon.  There were long, twisted swaths of thin cloud that reminded me of long neck scarves and scattered among them were darker grey clouds, flat on top and bottom and round with smoothly serrated type edges and corners. They were shaped like smash burgers or like old fashioned home made peanut butter cookies; the kind we used to press the tines of a fork into in order to make a pattern on the top. haha  Such fascinating arrangements of several different types of clouds.  Unfortunately the hoped for continuation of rain didn't occur today, but there is hope for tomorrow and even more hope of rain on Sunday. We shall see....

My husband texted me this evening to say that he and his buddy arrived safely at their destination.  He was over half way there before he realized he left his air mattress at his buddy's home where he slept on it last night, so they pulled into a city along their route to purchase another one.  How, HOW, how can three adult people in one small house miss seeing my husband's giant air mattress sitting in the middle of the living room floor???  'Tis a puzzlement!  Oh well, I did find out that there are actual beds made up for the guys at the home of the friends where they are staying on this trip, so either way he is covered for comfy sleeping.

This morning I realized how dopey and stupid my meds are making me.  I have taken this drug before and it is affecting me the way it always does. So, I cancelled my out of town trip for Sunday morning and am staying right here.  It isn't at all safe for me to be driving on the highway in this condition...plus if there is rain as predicted it will be kind of a miserable trip and I don't want to risk getting another chill before this current infection has a chance to heal.  

My day was brightened by a surprise visit from Nan. She was in town to run some errands and very kindly dropped in for a short visit this afternoon.  GREAT to see another human being and have a chat.  It worked out well because my next door neighbour brought over a couple of more food items she was given that her family cannot use, so I was able to send a fairly large watermelon home with Nan as I don't care for them.  What a blessing to so many my next door neighbour is turning out to be.  No food is going to waste, that's for sure.  She also brought me  beautiful fresh "foot long" hot dog buns and some small cupcakes that I can't eat, but that I can donate to the church for coffee hour or for our community Saturday lunch programme. Food blessings abound in our court, that's for sure.

We had quite a long talk with Moh yesterday afternoon.  He was pulled from school yesterday for the day by his parents who do not support a certain programme there that flies in the face of their personal beliefs, so the poor kid was kicking his soccer ball all by himself for the afternoon.  We pulled him for a chat because we caught him throwing rocks at the geese and their young ones.  Part of Moh's problem is that he is extremely intelligent but his level of maturity has not caught up with his brain and he is very frustrated, looking for an outlet to vent.  My husband explained to him that cruelty to animals will result in anger from most of the other people who live in here and that if he kept it up, asking for what the weakest parts of a goose are so that he can attack them, the police would be coming again and he would be in far more trouble than he was when he beat up another child.  We are praying for Moh's deliverance from whatever is causing him to be cruel to people and animals alike.  I find it quite frightening the way he was coldly calculating the weakest parts of a goose so he would know where to aim the rocks.  My husband was very, very honest and explicit about why this is not a good idea and what the consequences would likely be for him. Please pray that something got through. The kid has deeper issues than we can deal with by having a few talks.  Since the police were here he has stopped beating up the other kids, so perhaps they are going to have to drop by again in relationship to the geese and be more direct even than they were the first time they were here.  If there is any more abuse by Moh of either children or animals that we personally witness it will be us calling the police.  We are extremely worried about where all this violence is going to take such a bright young fellow. Please, if you are so inclined, pray for Moh. Thank you.  It has been a long time since we have been around this sort of thing.  Once our own son grew up and we moved out of the town where he was raised we have had little contact with "neighbourhood bully" types.  We dealt with two of them during our son's growing up years.  What a tragedy for one of the two boys when he got into his late teens....prison and disaster. So sad.

Apart from Nan's visit I spent the afternoon alternately reading and dozing off for an hour at a time.  I missed lunch completely until early afternoon so ate dinner tonight at 7pm.  Good grief.  I read a whole novel in between naps....it wasn't that long and it was pretty silly. If I hadn't been feeling so exhausted and unmotivated  I likely would have tossed it into the "remove from house" pile and found something more worthy of reading.

I am still hoping to attend a late morning funeral tomorrow and then come home for a rest and a bit of ironing, but I am going to have to see how fuzzy headed I am and how sore my ear still is as the morning progresses.  No plans for the afternoon so another long time of rest.

Sunday I will TRY to go to church here, but again will see how I feel. Friends are wanting to take me out for lunch afterwards so hopefully that can all come about.  By Sunday I will be bored out of my mind unless I am EXTREMELY ill again, so better to get out for a few hours if possible. Then in the late afternoon my Thursday coffee buddy is coming over for a short visit, which I am also looking very much forward to since I had to cancel our Thursday meeting.  Monday morning my walking partner is coming over and if it isn't raining perhaps we can get a walk in at least part way around the lake. Here's hoping anyway.   One of the friends from out of town that I was supposed to see on Sunday morning may be coming by with lunch Monday at noon and then I will have a good long rest before my important surgeon's appointment on Tuesday afternoon.  Oh how I am praying for good things to happen as a result of that visit.

When my husband returns we are going to get going on actually booking some kind of transportation to NYC for August.  Praying a lot about that in hopes that we end up doing the right thing.  No matter what we do the cost is going to be out of this world, so at this point cost isn't even a major factor in the decision.  It will be what it is.

Time for bedtime meds and hopefully a good sleep again tonight! 

Not The Day I Was Planning!

The past couple of days I have been feeling kind of fuzzy brained and physically exhausted, more so than was warranted based on my level of physical activity. Occasionally my left ear would start throbbing for short periods of time. Yesterday I had a headache all day and I never get headaches, so that was annoying. This morning when I woke up dizziness was threatening and I had to sit on the side of the bed struggling to fight it off before I could safely stand up. By 7am I knew I had best go to the walk in clinic for help. My dear husband got up before he was ready and drove me there a half hour before it opened so I could be first in line. I was in and out of the clinic in ten minutes, with a prescription in hand to treat a confirmed ear infection and prevent infection from spreading. Less than a half hour later my wonderful husband was driving me home again, medication in hand. So, so grateful for his help. Being on the verge of dizziness made it unsafe to drive myself. So, praying this medication will work well without too many annoying side effects. 

Sadly I had to cancel my lunch plans with my Thursday coffee buddy. Poop! I was so looking forward to it! Maybe next week. Hoping to feel much better in a couple of days.

Well, there are worse things than a few enforced days of rest! 

Late Night Kid Noise But No Early Morning Goose Wars! Yay!

 After a long and busy day that included a cup of deliciously strong tea which kept me awake late into the evening, I was very pleased that the Goosey Turf Wars from that morning seem to have ended….for now. The weekend event in the park where most of those geese normally reside, that drove them over here for the weekend, ended sometime close to dinnertime last evening so by bedtime all the geese had returned home. This morning we have only our usual five regulars who do very little squawking. Whew!

Our little troupe of middle eastern kids who play outside often even on school nights until midnight or later was at it again last night after a blessed two night reprieve. Last night I didn’t care at all because the tea had ME bouncing off the walls until nearly 1 am….the same time the kids finally went silent….a nice dovetailing that gave me a good start on staying asleep for the night. 

I am grateful! I feel almost awake this morning! Yay!

Goose Wars At 5am….Sigh…..

It was a short night around here sleep-wise. At 5am the latest territorial goose wars erupted on the front lawn immediately below my bedroom window.  An hour and 45 minutes later the war rages on. Apparently across the entire two block long unbroken expanse of fresh green grass at our complex nowhere is as green and fresh and desirable as the patch right here, ten feet below my sleeping quarters. Aaaaargh! Oh the incessant honking, the screeching, the beating wings, the chasing, the nipping….one couple is not even physically involved in the war between the two couples vying for the below my window greenery. They are standing on the sidewalk across the street, four lanes of traffic away, hooting and hollering like banshees while the four combatants under my window chase each other around on the lawn. Big sigh….. My husband is sound asleep in his cool basement hideaway where the goose war cacophony does not penetrate the thick concrete walls. Lucky guy….. I am not sure how well I am going to stay awake to fully enjoy our day out of the city after only five hours of sleep. The motorcycle racers and muffler deficient stunt drivers that enjoy utilizing the wide streets around us didn’t quiet down until around midnight. 

My alarm is set for 40 minutes from now. The geese have finally ceased their squawking. I am sleepy. If I fall asleep for such a short time how groggy and miserable am I going to feel when I wake up? Hahaha…what a crazy start to the day….AND what is this I hear? Apparently the time out is over for the geese. Here they go again….aiiii yiiiiii……at least that answers my question about going back to sleep. 

Me Do It Myself!!

Do you remember saying that as a kid when your mom went to zip up your winter parka or tie your shoes and you wanted to do it on your own at last?  Or maybe you went through this scenario with your own toddlers as they were growing up.  

Well, this morning after my husband left for a day of meetings I got online and went back to attempting to solve our banking and credit card issues from yesterday. After a lot of frustration and fiddling about I FINALLY figured out what to do to solve the problem!!  I can now access my card information and my balances, payments and statements just like everyone else who does such things online!!  There were no interruptions of the kind that happen when my husband and I try to figure out website access protocols together. We continually interrupt each other with not helpful questions and distract each other constantly. So this morning I decided to get some self-confidence going for the first time in a few years and solve the issues if I could.  Thanking God that I actually did!  He may just be restoring me to a higher level of confidence that has been missing for a long time.

Over the past couple of decades I have lost so much confidence in my own abilities that I am afraid to even try to solve anything like computer access issues on my own.  I have become so terrified of making a mistake that I don't even try to do things like that by myself any more. Ridiculous? Yes!  Has my husband been the one to make me feel the overwhelming lack of confidence?  Not remotely. He has done nothing but encourage me to figure things out on my own, to have some faith that my brain hasn't completely atrophied at this point, to try to get back to who I "used to be" twenty years or more ago when I was living on my own and raising a child on my own so much of the time because my husband was working out of town or even out of the country.  A few things happened in the meantime to strip me of my confidence, but I am finding lately that there is a need for me to try to restore it.  I need to stop being afraid of making a mistake, particularly with the computer, and get moving forward. 

I have learned much about the necessity of being more confident in my own ability to figure things out from my friend Nan. Since her husband Cee passed away on the way to two years ago she has been forced to figure out all manner of things on her own that she never thought possible she could do without help. She has had to solve one frustrating and/or frightening issue after another in recent months and she is developing problem solving skills, finding solutions to issues like she never thought would be possible by herself.  Nan has become my "heroine" of problem solving for the sometimes seemingly hopeless issues that have come along in her life.   So, I would like to thank Nan for all she has been teaching me, without even knowing she has, about relying less on my husband for problem solving and getting off my duff to figure out a few things on my own.  It feels good!

AND after a few more house chores before lunch I am going over to see a good friend for the afternoon...coffee and visiting....in an air conditioned house on this VERY HOT day.  YAY!