I Definitely Need This Study!

This morning a dear friend and sister in the Lord sent me a copy of a bible study she is working on by Steve Johnson titled, "30  Days to Coping with Delay".  It is about learning how to better handle life when it seems God is taking his sweet time and then some to answer prayers that seem to us in need of far more quick responses than what we are getting.

At first glance the study seemed simple enough; based on Abraham and Sarah praying for a child and the terribly long wait they had for Isaac's arrival.  However the first question based on Proverbs 13:12"...hope deferred makes the heart sick." caught my attention. The question is "How do you feel when hopes are delayed?"  

Confession time:  Ummmm....without even taking time to think much about it I had 5 words/phrases, boom, just like that! And ALL negative! Yikes! (frightened, hopeless, resigned to the worst possible outcome, undeserving of God's attention, confused as to whether or not I have been praying for the right kind of answer) In other words every response EXCEPT "trust" (in God's wisdom to answer correctly in HIS time).  WOW, how incredibly embarrassing is that after all the years I have been trying with varying degrees of success to be a disciple of Christ??!!!? After all the years of seeing God answer prayers at the last possible second, and perfectly, how could these be my instant first responses to the question?  Aiii yiiii....I have some work to do in my relationship with God, that's for sure.  I am most grateful to my friend for passing this study along to me.  Never too old to learn so that is a good thing! God is so incredibly patient and for that I am most grateful!!

An Incredibly Busy Day And It Has All Been REALLY GOOD!!!!

This has been a rather incredible first day home in over a month!  Our plans today were to sleep in...didn't happen because we were in bed so early last night, hahaha...then eat a leisurely breakfast....which we did just after 6am, so guess we are still on NYC time two hours ahead of here....then figure out how to spend our quiet day mostly at home recovering from the trip.  HAH! That is so NOT how things went, hahaha.

I decided I would go to the bank and pay off our US credit card bill and redeposit the rest of our US cash, but had few other plans. Maybe I would stop at the store near the bank and pick up the yogurt I forgot to get yesterday...or not...whatever....  Before the bank opened I remembered that I was supposed to call the surgeon's office about my other hip surgery as soon as I got back and see if my surgeon came back to work this week and what the next steps are.  WOW, that started a whole day of action!  The office manager told me to hie myself to my GP as soon as possible for a requisition for new x-rays of my "used to be good" hip which has been complaining rather obviously after a whole month of very long and brisk walks. She told me that my surgeon is not coming back now until the middle of October...so the progression has been that he would come back the middle of March, then July, then September and now October. The line up to see this wonderful man, assuming he eventually actually returns, who will no longer be able to do nearly as many surgeries in a day as he was doing before going on medical leave is getting longer and longer of course,  BUT now he has taken on another doctor as his partner.  I do not know this second surgeon but I believe if he is now the partner of my surgeon he must have some skills.  Once the surgeon's office receives my x-rays I will be contacted to choose which of the two surgeons I want to meet with between the third week of October and into early November.  I am praying very hard about this decision because as much as I love my surgeon, I can't wait around for an extra long time just to see him if the other surgeon is going to be available sooner and will do the surgery sooner.  With the news that the new AI Data Centre being built just south east of our part of the city is going to actually be quadruple the size that was announced, (to the tune of a $50 billion investment), resulting in an influx of thousands of construction workers and over 500 permanent workers when it is completed, we know that will drive rents up and reduce greatly the number of rental residences.  Maybe "we gotta get outta this place" is what is going to have to happen. Maybe we are going to have to return to teeny tiny town living in order to have an affordable place. Maybe God will do something incredible either here in Regina to get us moved farther from the Data Centre, or find us a teeny tiny town not too far from the city, or somewhere else all together that we would never expect. Who knows, I just know I cannot wait around too many more months to get moved out of our current tenement post surgery or there will be nowhere left to go.  We cannot justify paying much more for this dump than we already are.  Our ministry within the complex is dwindling now as those we have been helping have been slowly moving on to government housing we don't qualify for or out of the city altogether.

OKAY, so back from the bunny trails to the actual story of what happened today.

As soon as I hung up from the surgeon's office I called my own GP to see if I could get an appointment for a requisition some time soon.  The office manager there asked me if this afternoon would be soon enough as two appointments had just opened up. TODAY?  Already?  You betcha buddy!!  I went right after lunch, (at DarBar to celebrate our safe and on time arrival home and to delay the start of having to cook for as long as financially possible), only waited a total of fifteen minutes to see my doctor and emerged quickly with the needed x-ray requisition. My doctor asked me why I was looking "so fresh" today so I told her where I had been. She agreed that NYC is a wonderful and busy place with many things to see and do...."Not like here!", she said at the end of that conversation, hahaha.  Yup, she gets it.

Off to the Imaging Clinic and within 10 minutes of arriving my x-rays were all finished and the papers signed to have them sent to my surgeon's office, where they should be available in two or three days.  Incredible!!  Bing, bang, boom, life is going full speed ahead already.

The pile of mail has been opened, sorted and dealt with since I got home from the x-ray appointment, joy has hit me because the utility bills for this month are showing a goodly amount of money left over from my pre-payments, so there will be little to pay on any of them next month either!  We have not met our new neighbour on the other side of the wall yet in person, but through a series of noise testing he has discovered how loud he can play his tv and music now that we have arrived home again. He seems to understand now the lack of soundproofing and has been most compliant. Hopefully we will bump into him soon casually outside and be able to welcome him to the fold.

One thing that certainly has been helping get readjusted has been my husband remembering to download the first couple of days of the September Sumo Tournament that began this past Sunday for our afternoon viewing pleasure.  Another thing was getting back behind the wheel of the car to drive to the bank.  The car started right up, first try, so the new battery definitely held up with the car sitting unmoved for four and a half weeks.  I had to stop and think where I was going today and how to get there as I have not thought about the car or driving since the day we left for NYC. hahaha  Our dining room table has an old towel covering it and on top of that towel are the many tomatoes our house sitter picked from our back deck plants before the first frost, along with some of her own larger tomatoes and a gorgeous looking cucumber.   One of the "basics" we got at the grocery store our "chauffeur" friends took us to after we landed was a package of precooked, lower sodium bacon, so tonight for dinner it will be bacon and fresh tomato sandwiches. Yummy!!!  Seeing all those tomatoes ripening up again this year makes for a better feeling about being "home".  The x-ray tech was happy to hear we had enjoyed our time in NYC, but of course although it is a great place to visit, we wouldn't want to live there. I told him that actually I would give my right arm to live there but my arm wouldn't raise enough money, haha!

It is now after 4pm, so since we ate lunch at 11:30am it is time already to be getting some of those tomatoes sliced and a couple of bacon strips heated up to make sandwiches on the nice fresh bread and bagels we purchased here yesterday.  

What a wonderful day of needed accomplishments. I am still kind of stunned by the series of appointments this afternoon that were so quickly set up after my call to the surgeon's office!  Wow...

Tomorrow I suppose we are going to have to do battle with Canada Post about them not holding our mail, despite all their email and snail mail assurances to the contrary before we left. Yesterday we got an email message from them saying it was our last day of mail holding and that all our mail would be delivered to our home post box today. hahahaha  All we got was the credit card bill that always comes on this date every month, because all the mail that was to have been held, showed up in our box several days each week as usual. HOLD SCHMOLD!!  Well, live and learn, even if we get our money back by some miracle, (which I highly doubt is possible), we will never attempt to use that service again. It is truly the only real blight on our homecoming. Everything else has been good, good, good!!! Hallelujah!  The friends who picked us up at the airport yesterday are on their way to the maritimes today and sent us "happy, smiley face" photos from Toronto from their also on time flight this morning.  Oh happy day!

More Youth Violence In Our Court Tonight

 I am feeling ill this evening after a sad incident that happened near our place just after dinner.  A young couple in their 20's appeared at our back door asking if we had seen a boy between the ages of 8 and 10 anywhere near our place in the past few minutes. They described him and his outfit and when I asked them how long he had been missing, they told me he was not missing. They were seeking him because he had just deliberately killed one of the geese right in front of their unit.  Based on their physical description, I was relieved that it couldn't have been Moh, but I was left wondering about another of our young boys that does fit the description. I told them I hadn't seen anyone wearing that outfit because I hadn't. I hadn't seen any of the kids as I was sitting in the living room watching tv with my husband.  About a half hour later there was another knock on the door. It was the police asking us about the same incident.  We noticed that our place was the first one they came to and they asked a lot of questions about a neighbour near us.  We chatted for a minute but we were of little help to them and then they headed to the suite of the kid I was wondering about.  They were there for a few minutes, then talked to some of the other neighbours before driving away again.  Apparently they were unable to suss out the culprit. The young couple who had come to my door originally were accompanying the police in their own vehicle and apparently had seen the young boy take off for our part of the court after he killed the goose.  I am just ill about the incident.  I am even more ill as I consider who it is that I suspect may have done it.  Unfortunately I didn't see him at all so I don't know what he may have been wearing when he killed that goose.  I pray I am wrong, but that if I am not he will be found out.  It is a crime to kill the Canada geese because they are protected by an agreement between the American and Canadian federal governments, so that in itself is a serious enough offence, but that it was committed by a boy of that age is downright disturbing.  It is getting to the point around here that it will be the violence of the children that finally forces the issue of us moving out of this complex. It is all becoming too much for us to handle.  Please ask God to deliver the children here who are very disturbed, often because of life circumstances before they ever arrived in Canada that were traumatizing.  We are seeing more evidence of that all the time and it is frightening to think of where these children may end up.

We Are Going To Miss Being Able To Use FedEx!

We only occasionally send items to our kids in the States and we have always used FedEx for those "couple of times a year" mailings.  So when we headed over there the other day to send the first such parcel in many a month we got a nasty surprise!  We found out that in order to use their ground services delivery we now have to get ourselves a customs broker!  In order to do that we have to sign all manner of paperwork and also provide said broker with a Power of Attorney that allows that person to act on our behalf.....uhhhhhh....nope, not gonna do and pay for all that.  Not worth it to send two or three hundred dollars worth of gifts each year.  We could still use their air transportation services with the base price being two hundred and fifty dollars!  Nope, not going to do that either. The cost associated with air transportation would be more than the cost of the gifts! 

So our son is going to contact us today and explain to us what better ways are available to us for less hassle and cost. He ships things all the time between countries both for his work and for personal items, so he is up to date on all these things.  There are other ways of course than using FedEx, but they have been so delightful to work with, every package arrived on time, it was easy to track each one's whereabouts and the staff at the desk here have always been so efficient and so great at explaining things to us....as they were the other day when they were explaining the customs broker requirement.  If we were sending things regularly for business reasons it would be worth it to have a broker....or at least MORE worth it.  

The times they are a'changing...(thank you Mr. Dylan for those song lyrics and you are so right about that!)   

Living Vicariously Or Just Plain Jealous??

Our son is spending this week installing the lighting for a new exhibition at the Chicago Art Institute.....sigh.....I do tend to live vicariously through his and his wife's artistic lives, but this time I have to admit as I sit here in the freezing cold and snow and ice of the Canadian prairies, that I am downright jealous of their access to the arts, to the large and amazing cultural events that happen in New York, Chicago and Philadelphia.  They attend so many wonderful exhibitions, ballets, art shows, plays.....I feel like I am strangling from the inactivity here in the winters.  It isn't that there aren't a few very decent events to attend here, but on the scale that I enjoy....well, not so many.  I am craving a totally different life and have for the past ten or more years, but it is not to be. Lord, restore my contentment!  I pray it is just due to the surgical recovery time coupled with the winter weather that is causing my strong, nearly urgent, desire to depart this place for a location more in line with my interests in life.  Perhaps I am always this antsy every year at this time.... when the last vestiges of winter begin merging ever so slowly with the outdoor weather changes indicating the prolonged prairie voyage into spring.

Taking My Chastisement Like An Adult Today!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you God for a very good day today! 

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

 

 

PS Today The Sun Is Shining.....

 ...and all is right with the world once again....this weather related depression at least lifts at the first sign of the sun!  YAY and Happy Day!

Today we have been grocery shopping at a couple of different stores, gone out for tomato bisque and toast at London Belle, been in touch with some relatives in Ontario and here in town, scoped out where we are to meet with friends for dinner tomorrow evening....it is a wonderful day despite the -21C with gusty winds.   It is amazing what a little bit of sunshine, even on a bitterly cold day, can accomplish for one's spirits.  I am grateful the sun is shining so that I don't feel as caged in and miserable as I have the past couple of grey, snowy days.

We got a phone call this morning in regard to a (remotely) possible rental property sometime in the new year.  It is all very tentative and has as much chance of not happening as happening, but it is a start to this coming year's search.  Details will be shared in a few weeks' time IF this actually comes about.  Prayer request? Perhaps..... 

Gotta Do Better With The Proof Reading On These Posts!

I apologize that I have been rather laissez faire, lackadaisical and just plain lazy in recent weeks when it comes to proof checking these posts. Spelling errors, grammatical errors and completely missing words have decorated too many of them. 

Guess if I have a New Year’s Resolution, this is it.

A Good Lesson From The Postal Strike Of Late!

I am extremely grateful for one lesson learned during the postal strikes that have happened here the past two autumn seasons!

Since I still have my utility and other bills delivered by snail mail in paper form, I have learned exactly what time of each month to make phone calls to each company to ensure those bills are all paid on time during mail delivery stoppages.  Going through each company's security process to gain access to our accounts takes less time and stress than waiting for the end of a strike, or lately of watching the mailbox closely every day while waiting to find out if whatever storm has just occurred is going to mean a temporary stop work order for the delivery folk.  Bills that should have arrived by yesterday at the very latest were trapped by the stop delivery order after having two blizzards in three days.  (I do have very personal, practical reasons based on some past debacles for refusing to receive my bills online that I don't need to go into here....just in case you were wondering why I am still living in the dark ages of having bills delivered in the post.) 

There has to be some kind of good thing to come out of things like postal strikes, blizzards and other reasons for mail shut downs.  We have been told by our kids to expect a parcel delivery from them on a particular day next week, so there is just a bit of stress with that because the one delivery company sometimes delivers to the front door that we rarely use, but occasionally still delivers at the back doors that all of us tenants use the most often.  I expect I will spend the day running back and forth between doors every half hour to try to thwart the package pirates that have begun infiltrating our neighbourhood.  Hopefully I have to sign for this parcel.  We will make certain at least one of us is home that day until said parcel arrives.  This after we all promised each other there would be no gifts at all, of any kind, this year for Christmas.  Bless their  hearts. hahaha At least WE complied this year!!  (Yup, first time, I admit it.)

I Am Already Enjoying My Christmas Present!

 Today I had the chance to wear my Christmas necklace that a friend presented me with a couple of days ago.  I wore it with a black sweater and pants and received many compliments on it. Thank you dear friend for the sparkly, fun gift!!

 

 

I love that it reminds me of a Jessica Stockholder sculpture!  Merry Christmas to moi!
 

Allergic Rhinitis....What A Nuisance!!!

 So.....a full week after returning from Vancouver and experiencing the allergic reaction to the new cleaning products used at our hotel for the last 2 days we were there, the rhinitis continues to get worse.  My head feels thick, my eyes are puffy, my sinuses are dripping on and off....oh my goodness it is has been years since I have had a case this bad to start the winter.  I was hoping to have it under control prior to my annual physical exam in a couple of weeks, but it appears I am going to have to ask the pharmacist if he is allowed to prescribe anything without me having to make yet another doctor's appointment in the next week.  Aaaaaargh!  I went out for coffee with a friend this morning and something in the restaurant set both of us off.  She was snuffling on the way back to the car and my own head, which was starting to clear out a bit once I left home and got active this morning, got all stuffy and thick feeling again.  Dang it!  Guess, since the condition usually relies on an application of corticosteroids, I am going to have to go see the doctor prior to the physical.  Well, she is going to be my "best friend" by the time I add in all these appointments on top of the several I just had with her before our trip.  

Yesterday when we were out of town I did very well. By the time I got to my friend's house, after a miserable night with my sinuses, I was feeling quite alright again and we had the best visit and a wonderful lunch at her local art gallery cafe. Chicken almond sandwiches with spinach salad are the best....and the lovely slice of dark gingerbread and lemon sauce we shared for dessert topped it off so nicely.  Yum!!  Then I wandered over to another restaurant a few blocks away to join my husband and his work colleagues as they finished up their lunches post meeting and was able to enjoy a nice visit with them as well.  The weather was perfect for an autumn drive....warm and breezy with no snow or ice on the roads or sidewalks.

I knew I was going to be late for a monthly evening group meeting because I was determined to see my friend who I attend the Taize services with and go to that meeting first, but I didn't realize just how late I would be, hahaha.  The priest was really wound up last night and incorporated a lovely candle lighting ceremony into the prayers.....of course it would be MY candle I couldn't get lit, so my wonderful friend stepped in and lit it for me, bless her. Then the priest gave an extended personal testimony. Then at the very end as I was about to put on my coat and leave, the priest decided that God had given her a word specifically for me!  Okay then.....  It was a good word and one that meant something to me, and has inspired me to continue on in a spiritual direction I have neglected for some time, BUT some of the things she said made me wonder if she has an incorrect perception of me.  It was both a good and also confusing word, but I am sure it was inspired by God...mostly. AND my dear friends and family, although I did check my watch a couple of times I did NOT freak out about the service going on so much longer than usual.  I relaxed and enjoyed it and my friend was swift afterward to take me over to meeting number 2! Bless her once again!!! 

I was feeling badly about being so late for meeting 2, but I needn't have. One of the other folk was also late as he was called to an emergency meeting at his place of employment.  About the time we thought he wasn't going to be there at all, he texted his wife and she left the meeting to race off and pick him up so he could join us as well.  He hadn't been with us long when a call came in to one of our hosts that a person she is helping to care for had missed a committment in the building where she lives, and others could not locate her. She didn't answer either her door or phone, so our host and the fellow who had just arrived from his meeting went racing off to see if they could help the missing senior lady.  Short story....they were gone for about a half hour. When they arrived at the lady's house, expecting her to have fallen (again) or to have passed away, she wasn't home!!  Where the heck could she be? Fortunately she arrived home after they had been there a while and her absence was quite legitimate and she was safe.  She just hadn't thought to inform "her people" that she was doing something unusual that evening. hahaha So the host and friend returned to our place of meeting. By this time my husband realized he would not be preaching his scheduled sermon and was actually very relieved as when he checked it over before leaving home, he realized it needed some work he had missed doing on it before he can really present it properly. hahaha What a crazy night!  We have scheduled the next meeting in a few weeks' time and hopefully this time we will all be together at the same place and for the same amount of time as scheduled.  The visiting the rest of us got done around the late and missing members was also very valuable as we have not seen each other for quite some time. Getting caught up was very important and edifying for the group.  

This afternoon we were supposed to be heading off to see some friends and share lunch together and a bit of a Bible study, but my husband got a call from a former parishioner to ask for help with a family member who is suicidal.....since being a pastor is not actually a job a person can retire from, my husband is happy to assist in any way he can, so we cancelled our attendance with our other friends and he will be free to do what he needs to do this afternoon.  The up side for me about the cancellation is that I will have plenty of time to get my sinuses back under control with some OTC products so that I can do my physiotherapy properly this afternoon before I am too tired to do much at all. Rhinitis is energy draining....along with the sinuses draining.....yawn....it also makes me sleepy! 

A Million Dollar Smile For Only Forty Dollars!!

A six year old Rwandan boy who lives a few doors down from us has been asking my husband for the past ten days if he would try to fix his bicycle.  He and his siblings live with their mom here in our complex, Dad is elsewhere for whatever reason and mom is struggling to make ends meet.  There is no money for bike repairs, that's for sure.  My husband promised the young man he would look at his bike after the camping trip, so today that is what he did.  The tire needed more than a pump up with air.  The little guy had been riding it with a flat tire trying to keep up with the other kids on their far superior bikes so he wouldn't get left out of the fun, so the tire and inner tube were completely thrashed.  My husband brought the bike to our back lawn and took it apart, then we went and bought a new tire and inner tube, along with some patching material for his eleven year old sister's tire that has a small slit in it and only holds air for a day or so before going flat again.  The young man, two of his siblings and a five year old we have never seen before and who doesn't live in our complex at all, came along to watch my husband make the repairs....nearly driving him crazy picking up the tools and trying to play with the remaining tire on the upside down bicycle, but they were fascinated and thrilled to have the attention, so who can blame them, right? hahahaha  Every time my husband had to come into the house to get something for the job, I had to go out and guard all the materials so the little fellows wouldn't run off with them. hahaha  It was quite hilarious to watch the interactions. Eventually, just as the sun was setting, the new tire was all set in place and ready to roll.

Little guy had come home from school when we were away picking up parts and apparently when he saw his bike all taken apart at our place with a tire missing, he bawled his eyes out thinking his beloved cycle was not fixable.  He was nearly ill with excitement when we got home and he found out not only was it fixable, but he was going to have a new tire so he could keep up with the other kids.  My husband didn't have time to fix his hand break or reinstall the kick stand because he was running out of daylight,  but he promised he will do it tomorrow morning while wee man is in school and also blow up and patch his sister's bike tire.  As our little friend sat on his bike and began riding away he turned back and flashed the biggest, sweetest smile of joy we have ever seen before riding off, literally into the sunset, with the rest of his teeny buddies.  And THAT is all the payment my husband needed.  

We don't know mama at all.  We do know from a couple of brief previous interactions that her English is nearly non-existent and we suspect she too has no idea we spent money from our own pockets to fix her son's bicycle.  She has so many needs and is trying to raise six children between the ages of 1 and 15 years on her own in a new country.  A charitable food delivery service brings a lot of their food to the family, as well as other Rwandans bringing clothes and used toys to the children.  Whatever their circumstances, they are here without dad and husband, facing whatever tough circumstances they are facing that we likely will never fully be able to comprehend.  An inexpensive fix for a couple of her kids' bicycles seems the least we can do for them.

I am proud of my husband for wanting to help the kids.  He loves them so much and seeing him interacting and learning about the kids, it seems that perhaps there IS a reason we are still living in this tenement. Maybe God has a bit of work yet here for us to do? We can only hope that is the case. 

A Bad Case Or The "Sleepinesses"!

It has been so long since I had a few days to myself I forgot that, after the running around getting supplies and the other stresses involved getting my husband ready for an outdoor adventure, helping him get packed up and then having to create things to do and times with friends for myself to enjoy while he is gone, I tend to collapse like a punctured balloon for a day or two!  It actually hit me last evening after my friend went home, but I chalked it up to the excitement of the day of visiting.  I dozed out right before and right after dinner for a few minutes and as previously posted, went to bed early.

 

Today after the women's meeting I came home and dozed out again, then again before dinner tonight. Presently at this still early in the evening time, I am feeling like a limp dishrag.  All the general daily stresses of having another person in the house, HIS stress getting ready for outdoor trips and coordinating all the details with the other people going along, plus his concern for me and all the help I have needed since my surgery, have plum worn ME out as well!  

So, since I have already been awake for nearly 15 hours, minus two short naps during the day, and am feeling exhausted again, I suspect I will be heading off to bed uber early once again this evening.  Oh dear....I hope this doesn't happen again tomorrow. I need to get some house chores done after I get home from church, not lie around dozing in my comfy recliner chair!!!  It is the same kind of weariness that hit me for ten straight days after delivering my son to college and realizing his "creative ways" were no longer my problem.  Ten days and nights of sleeping before I snapped out of it...I thought I was dying or something, but it was just a reaction to the lifting of stress. Good grief..... 

An "Out Of Sorts" Sorta Day!

 I am very grateful we are meeting good friends for dinner tonight at Agave!!  I can't seem to settle into any of my needed house chores, or anything entertaining or relaxing or exciting or anything at all.

There are a couple of reasons for my feelings today.  First of all I woke up to a steady snowfall and while it is melting on the streets and obviously not going to hang around very long, the sky is grey, my car is parked on a side street collecting snow while our neighbour has the moving van outside in our parking space while the movers pack up her belongings....which brings me to the second reason I feel rather morose today:  the last of my wonderful, quiet, friendly, "other side of the wall" neighbours is leaving for another accommodation. Sigh....Although we didn't spend a great deal of time together in person, her texts and phone calls kept us in touch about all manner of things; personal things, issues with this building complex, spiritual things.  Until I saw her drive away in her car, followed by the moving van, a few minutes ago it hadn't really hit me that she is not coming back to be my neighbour.  Guess  I am just feeling kind of sad about that.

Going out last night with some other dear friends to the Cottage for some very nice meals kept my mind off of today's impending loss. There was so much laughter and joy around the table as we celebrated quite a few events that have happened in all of our lives over the past year.  I am grateful for the fun and friendship that kept my spirit light last night.

Tonight will be a great time as well with another pair of wonderful friends.  The four of us have been taking a few journeys of discovery into the wonderful world of local restaurants over the past couple of years and that has been a ton of fun.  She and I are a kind of picky eaters with limited numbers of things we enjoy and our husbands are pretty open to enjoying large plates and bowls of almost anything at all, hahaha.  I think Agave will give us all plenty of choices, but I am certain I will order my usual taco salad with beef barbacoa because I like it so much.  We are familiar enough with the menu that I hope we can steer her toward less spicy items she will also enjoy.  Ooh, what a balm to my hurting heart that we get to celebrate life with fun friends tonight.

To get out of this funk I think I should go to visit a hospitalized friend after lunch. The best way to get my mind off my own self absorbed self is to try to encourage someone else....the "rub off" effect should be most helpful to me as well.

The weather is going to be improving daily, with single digit plus high temperatures toward the end of the week and by next  Monday it is possible we will have a day or two in the double digits plus daytime high range!  YAY!

I Made It To The Breakfast After All!

I was delighted to wake up this morning and discover that there had been no freezing rain overnight and the snowfall was minimal.  It meant I could go to the women's breakfast at church.  It took less than 5 minutes to get the car started, the snow brushed off the car and the tiny amount of windshield ice scraped off.  I had to cross one busy intersection on foot when I parked near the church, but the ice patch in the centre of the crosswalk was easy to skirt around, so there was no problem in getting from car to building and back.  I am happy that I went as it has been some months since I have been free to attend.  It is a gathering where I usually get the opportunity to visit with some of the church women I don't cross paths with very often on Sunday mornings at services, so that is always a treat.  The food was yummy....Easter bread with toppings available, yogurt and fruit, coffee and an excellent selection of teas.  The short Bible study from the Book of Ruth set the group up for a bit of discussion about some of the female mentors we have each had in our lives over the years. One of the women sang a couple of songs she wrote during times of stress, when God used other women to get her through the dark times, so that was most meaningful.  It was a nice morning and I am glad I was able to be there.  Now that the weather is better I hope I will be able to go to the next two or three before the annual summer shut down of the church programmes.

The freezing rain possibility has moved into the wee hours of tomorrow morning and that may have an effect on getting my husband first to church to teach his next installment of his Forgiveness seminar, then quickly over to another church where he is supposed to be attending a weekend evening and Sunday morning seminar....which he sadly forgot about last night when it was slated to begin.  Fortunately he is not a presenter, but he felt very silly and very disappointed that his memory failed him about the event.  Should there be freezing rain coating car and streets, I will stay home and watch his class and the church service as well on Zoom....he doesn't need the worry of me being outside on the ice....sure hope that once again the forecast will be incorrect!!! How many times will my "luck" hold on this one in the coming week or two? hahaha

I am already praying about our trip out of town next Sunday for my husband to preach and preside at a former church of ours.  In good weather it takes nearly an hour, but snow is predicted to start next Thursday or Friday and continue throughout the weekend, leaving the highways in a mess of ice and slush once the semi traffic melts the snowfall down. It will depend on the air temperature whether or not the highway is safe to travel.....or even open.  The forecast appears to indicate one of our infamous end of March spring storms is on the way.  We will watch the forecast predictions each day this week and my husband will get his sermon prepared by Thursday in case we have to head out for a winter laced "mini-holiday" that would encompass the entire weekend and maybe then some.  It WOULD be fun to get away for a few days.....neither of us would complain.....  So time will tell over the coming week. Maybe something unique to look forward to????

When Your Bathtub Drains Into Your Neighbour’s Basement……

 ……and she calls to let you know, the sick feeling in the pit of your stomach intensifies greatly.  That call came here a few minutes ago and we are all waiting for the emergency plumbing crew to arrive. Sigh…..with yet another serious maintenance issue arising today, I fear we will lose our wonderful next door neighbours in a few months when their lease is up. Sigh again….

My husband had a bath a short while ago and when he drained the water out it ended up gushing into the basement of the suite next door. Our shared plumbing stack is on their side of the wall and we suspect the ongoing freeze, thaw, refreeze cycle this winter has put ice down into the stack where it has cracked the pipe. Oh my……I don’t want to imagine the amount of water the neighbours are dealing with. Right before my husband had his bath I had a shower. Oh dear….

Guess I will go and make dinner, keep an eye out for the plumbers in case they have to access the connecting pipe from our bathroom, and pray that for our neighbours’ sakes , and ours, the pipe can be repaired right away.

Henry Rollins Captured My Own Feelings

We have moved so many times in the past 25 years that I am feeling rather rootless and disconnected as life marches on.  Losing most of our family members and many close friends in the areas we lived longer term prior to beginning all the years of moving is not helping me feel an ongoing sense of connectedness to any place I can truly call "HOME".  The writing below by Henry Rollins sums up my feelings well:

"Someday, I would like to go home. The exact location of this place, I don't know, but someday I would like to go. There would be a pleasing feeling of familiarity and a sense of welcome in everything I saw. People would greet me warmly. They would remind me of the length of my absence and the thousands of miles I had travelled in those restless years, but mostly, they would tell me that I had been missed, and that things were better now I had returned.  Autumn would come to this place of welcome, this place I would know to be home.  Autumn would come and the air would grow cool, dry and magic, as it does that time of the year.

At night, I would walk the streets but not feel lonely, for these are the streets of my home town.  These are the streets that I had thought about while far away, and now I was back, and all was as it should be. The trees and the falling leaves would welcome me. I would look up at the moon, and remember seeing it in countries all over the world as I had restlessly journeyed for decades, never remembering it looking the same as when viewed from my home town."  --Henry Rollins

Yes, I would love to have a place to return to that would be home in my heart, but such a place at this time does not exist....the most obvious city of choice still stands but the former beauty and most all the friends and family are now gone.  It will be interesting to see how my longing for home eventually turns out. It makes me think of Jim Reeves old gospel hymn "This World Is Not My Home".

Nabisco Has Discontinued Our Favourite Stoned Wheat Thins....WAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!

 For the past couple of months my husband and I have been haunting the cracker aisles of every grocery store in town trying to track down the only crackers we have ever liked....Nabisco's Stoned Wheat Thins.  Nada, nil, nothing at all in any of the stores.  It seemed odd to us so finally tonight I got online and tracked down the reason: the are no longer being made!!!  The last of the stock in any of our local stores was nearly gone when we made our last purchase, but we didn't know they wouldn't be on the shelves again or we would have bought a few more boxes. Sigh....first Tong Peanuts and now Stoned Wheat Thins....GONE FOREVER!!!!  We are so sad.  At other peoples' homes we have already sampled the newer versions of wheat thins produced by other companies and there is no comparison.  The Stoned Wheat Thins were far superior in quality and crispness and flavour to any of the attempts to mimic them.  I made the mistake of trying a box of another brand last week and 3/4 of them are now in the garbage....SO BAD in comparison: tasteless and crumbly. Trying to spread butter or cream cheese on them resulted in them falling completely apart, unlike the Stoned Wheat Thins that held together wonderfully when spread with various toppings. Sigh....cry.....weep and wail.  We will miss you Stoned Wheat Thins.  Our wonderful cracker eating days are over after several decades of enjoyment.  Sob......

This morning while I was shopping I discovered something I have looked for for many years and never found: an inexpensive, nearly ankle length casual long winter dress with long sleeves and a turtle neck.....like an overgrown, thick cotton winter teeshirt.  I bought two of them!  I can wear them as in the house dresses when it is bitterly cold outside instead of wearing one of my long summer in the house sleeveless, vee necked dresses with a ratty old cardigan sweater over top to try to keep my arms and neck warm.  The ones I bought are nice enough to wear out casually with a pair of skinny pants underneath to keep my ankles warm.  Just because I am stuck inside this cold suite for days at a time in the winter doesn't mean I have to look like I crawled out from under a rock in the attempt to keep warm!!  Mentally I think these warm, oversized dresses will give me quite a boost on the -40C days!!  YAY! I am going to go through my winter wardrobe totes this weekend and sort through what is there. I am certain there must be some older items I can take to the thrift store.  I have new warm sweaters to replace the old ones that didn't really stand up to last winter's cold due to their age, but now I have no other needs for winter wear and I should be warm enough for a change this time around. YAY!

From 8 Hours To 2.5 Hours! YAY!!!

We are very glad we didn't feel the urge to go away for the day today due to the planned power outage for our complex!  We were to be without power from 8am to 4pm, but the power didn't go out until about 10am and was back on around 12:30pm.  YIPPEE!!!  I did get up at 6:30am so I could eat a hot breakfast at 7am.....gotta have that bowl of piping hot unflavoured oatmeal for the sake of my cholesterol reduction.....which was difficult as I slept so poorly during the small hours of the morning, but it was worth it because had the power gone out at 8am as predicted it would have made my breakfast routine difficult.  I will do the same thing tomorrow morning because I do that every Thursday anyway.  My friend and I go out for steamed milk on Thursday mornings and I need to have sufficient time between when my breakfast is ingested and that large cup of deliciously hot no sugar caramel flavoured 2% milk to keep my blood sugar stable.  It was a nice treat today to have such a short time without electrical power.

My husband had kind of a miserable day today.  He had to fast for about 13 hours overnight for his quarterly cholesterol test this morning at 9am.  He fought with stomach acid for part of the night since he was unable to have his bedtime tummy settling snack, but he managed to keep things under control and get to his appointment on time....albeit driving the car the short distance to the lab rather than going for his usual highly anticipated walk.  Well, that is overwith for another four months! YAY and RELIEF for him!!  😅

It has cooled off considerably today and rain has been tumbling down for the past couple of hours.  It is the first day in the past couple of months that at least one of us has been home during the daytime hours with all the windows firmly shut.  REALLY enjoying the cool air and breezes for a change. Tomorrow will be similar and then the temperatures begin heating up again, but hopefully they won't quite get to +30C and above any more now that the peak of summer has ended and we are heading into September this coming weekend.

My old PC is showing a few initial signs that it isn't going to be with me for much longer.  I have still been running Windows 7 on it, but as more websites and systems upgrades don't support the programme any more I need to accept the fact that this poor old machine needs to be replaced with a new computer with a Windows 11 installation. My husband has been using that for awhile now on one of his computers and he has Ubuntu on the other. Since he is already very familiar with the differences between W7 and W11 he will be a great guide for me as I work through the frustrations I always experience when trying to learn any sort of new technology.  Bless his patience with me.  When we get back from our trip south we will purchase my new machine.  I love having a desktop PC!!  So many more things I can do on it than on my wee iPad.

Speaking of new purchases, my husband was able to purchase a new mobile phone yesterday with a very handy stylus to help his large finger pads when he texts and writes emails.  I am delighted for him. His old phone was purchased in 2017 and didn't have the VOLTE communication system he needed to do more than text message when he was in NYC in June.  My phone also has that capacity I discovered even though it is not a 5G, so we will put the US coverage plan in place before our trip. We are both going to need to phone home occasionally to see if we have received any outstanding calls from specialists who have had referrals for us for some weeks now.  For me that is kind of unlikely, but my husband can't afford to miss any calls from his own specialist that could be coming in by then. I am praying he hears from her before we go south so that will be one less stress for him to carry when he is supposed to be enjoying fun with family.

All these purchases we have had to make recently and the upcoming purchases for me of a computer and a couple of other things have us rethinking......AGAIN.....the idea of moving in the near future.  Hmmm....since we are still here in the lowest rent in town divy place, we have a substantially larger amount of money to spend on other things like computers and phones and travel and lunches out and giftings to charitable organizations than we are going to have if we end up in the next least expensive sorts of places which will cost us at least seven hundred dollars a month more in rent and utilities than we are paying here....even with the rent here going up one hundred dollars a month in January.  We admit that after forty years of struggling along making ends meet "through many dangers, toils and snares", it feels pretty wonderful to be able to have some fun in retirement.  Perhaps it will be worth spending the winter here and then reassessing rents and available places come early spring.....perhaps.....God may have other plans.....again......  Today we went over the numbers for the umpteenth time, talked about my lack of physical ability to pull off a move before the hip surgery with any ease at all and how much more it will cost to hire movers to do what I can do myself when I am not struggling with decreased mobility and increased pain, how much more time my husband could use to complete ALL of his downsizing tasks....AND....hmmmmm.....depending on what God might lead us to after the NYC trip, we may just be spending a few more months rather than weeks right here in our own personal lal la land of a suite.  Tradeoffs....which ones are we willing to make in the near future???  Lots to think and pray about, that's for sure.  We continue to get confirmation that now is not the time to move after all....not just yet....maybe soon.....maybe not......