For Our Farming Relatives

 Hello farming family: I am disappointed to report that other than a very brief shower of raindrops around midnight the other night, no true rainfall materialized all weekend. Sigh….it is already scarily dry here. While it is helping local farmers catch up on their late snowfall induced seeding season, the seed isn’t going to germinate properly now if we don’t get some serious rain soon. Over the weekend we were forecast to have anywhere from 30% to 60% chance of rainfall three days in a row but what we received was a big fat nada! Happily no thunderstorms or hail, but….

Sorry about the group post but it saves sending the same report to all of you individually. Happy farming season you guys!

Sufficiently Suffonsified!!!

 We went out for lunch at DarBar after church today....somehow lunch out with friends, laughing and visiting and enjoying some sustenance together seemed a particularly fitting way to celebrate Pentecost Sunday!  The restaurant was packed out and as the only Caucasians among the the patrons we got the hint that their Indian food is indeed as delicious as we always have thought it to be. What a great time we had.

The church was all decorated this morning with red banners depicting the flaming tongues that came upon the disciples on the very first Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was released to dwell in God's followers, the sermon was about how miracles like of speaking in tongues, healings etc., all depend on being properly utilized in a spirit of love toward others, that heaven and earth are likely not so separated as we have sometimes been led to believe and that apparently inexplicable miracles are actually just "WOW" moments when the veil of heaven is pulled back temporarily for us to see what God is capable of...or words to that effect.  It was a very good, encouraging sermon. All the teaching today has give me hope for the presently upsetting circumstances our son finds himself in over his immigration status in the country where he lives....prayer request, should you be so inclined. (I don't want to go into details here or have any political discussions in the Comments, but you are welcome to contact me directly, friends and family, for more details if you want them.  Thanks.)  We are also rejoicing today in the news that one of our former churches of attendance while my husband was doing his Anglican postulancy has, after about a 2 year wait, hired a new priest....presently in the USA, but apparently happy to return with his young family to Canada. Congratulations to that parish!!

My husband is presently down in the cool of the basement chatting on the phone with our son.  We are just under +30C at the moment, after having a skiff of snow on the ground only a week ago, so I expect we may have some significant thunder storm activity either tonight or later in this week of predicted highs between +31C and +34C.  Yup....just checked the local weather report and we are under a thunderstorm watch...so far only at the initial Yellow Level, meaning likely only minimal damage if the storm develops at all and hopefully we will not progress for the next few hours from yellow level to orange level, (storm more likely and with minor damage possible), to the more frightening red level with almost a surety that there will be a storm and a very real possibility of significant damage with hail and high winds.  Red level we prefer to avoid!!

It was lovely to get out today for fellowship, friends, fun and food.  The hot air as we exited the restaurant after our meal was kind of shocking to experience after such a long, cold start to spring. Here it is nearly the first of June, technically summer, and our spring is finally arriving.  If next week's temperatures are anything to go by, it is possible we pretty much will bypass the spring altogether and head immediately into summer as of today. Such an interesting climate around here!

Life Is Finally Getting Back To Normal Again!! YAY!!

It has been a busy and productive couple of days around here.  My husband is nearly back to fully functional, no more issues with his tummy and even the CFS exhaustion seems to be dissipating rapidly.  He hasn't had to nap in either morning or afternoon for most of this week and this morning he was able to go to the lab for some fasting blood work after not eating for over twelve hours, with just a few sips of water to keep his tummy feeling full.  I am so grateful to God for helping him get back on his feet again.  He is teaching tomorrow for the Anglicans and has no stress at all about it, is looking forward to it and did not crash and burn today as he was completing some notes for his talk.  Thank you Lord and prayer warriors!!  What a blessing.

Enjoyed my weekly visit with my coffee buddy yesterday as planned and we had a very nice time this week at Creme drinking London Fogs.  In the afternoon we attended a Bible study that was so good. It has taken us since last September to get about half way through the Sermon On The Mount and will continue on this coming September after the summer break. 

Today was very positive. My husband picked up a camping refrigerator at Princess Auto that he ordered about a week ago.  After it sits for the required number of hours he will test it out both here in the house and, when the rain finally stops tonight and the parking lot is dry tomorrow, using the plug in attachment in the rear compartment of our car.  He splurged big time to ensure he could get a unit with a super duper cold compartment with sufficient voltage to keep things cold for over 24 hours.  When he goes camping next month he and his friend will be able to get pretty much anything needing to be refrigerated into this unit.  It is really easy to move. Not only does it have handles on the sides for picking it up, it also has a retractable handle and is on wheels for rolling along.  I don't know how much use he will actually get out of it over the next couple of years, but I am happy he felt free to buy something expensive for himself for a change!!!  YAY HUSBAND! You too deserve a real treat occasionally!! 

We spent the afternoon at the bank where the mess up happened in regard to the monthly credit limit for our American credit card.  We got some other things straightened out and taken care of for our upcoming vacation AND the woman we deal with there told us that just  yesterday she finally got a response to the email she sent nearly three weeks ago now when we first applied for the card and everything went south.  Apparently there is still a CHANCE that sometime in the next two to three weeks we will get the final answer on our request to have the credit limit changed to what was automatically approved in the first place before the screw up.  So, there is hope.  In the meantime we have come up with another plan that will help us pay for the larger expenses down south that will work if absolutely necessary but does require a lot of fiddling about with finances in the meantime. For now we are content to wait to see what happens.  Either way I think we will be covered now. Hallelujah!

Did a bit of grocery shopping after the bank appointment at SaveOn and discovered some 0 sugar snacks for me to try that aren't so high in fat as some of the other snacks I have seen.  We'll see if the flavour is worth the price. 

After a nice morning the rain appeared once again in the late afternoon and only about 35 minutes from here a tornado touched down in a farmer's field.  Still waiting to find out if it did any damage but looking at the photo the farmer took of it from a couple of fields away it had a substantially sized funnel. Hopefully it disappeared soon after it touched down before it could damage any of his newly planted crop or outbuildings.  This tornado season we may actually have some real tornadoes in the area.  Since our temperature highs next week are going to climb suddenly from the plus mid teens Centigrade to the mid plus 30's in less than 48 hours, I expect we are in for some good storms as a result.  Hopefully no one will be hurt or have any damage from strong winds next week. And please Lord, let there be no hail...please, please, please.....

Tomorrow morning there is a special church ladies' breakfast at the home of Carol!!  We are going to share that time and a meal together in her building's party room.  I am taking a selection of cheeses.  It will be a large group who gathers to celebrate her miraculous recovery.  She is still weak and outside the home uses a walker to support herself, but around home she walks very well on her own.  She has been at the church service for the past three Sundays looking, apart from the walker, as if nothing ever happened to her. Amazing...how grateful to God we all are.

We are praying for Bret again as he is falling into deep depression once again after seeing a lot of improvement for a couple of months.  Please, should the Lord so remind you, pray that he will stop resisting the offered supports and medical help. He is paranoid about going for treatment after a not great experience YEARS ago, but without that medical intervention he isn't likely to improve much.  Praying very much for him and for his worried extended family.  So far he has not been talking about suicide again, but you never know what a person is really thinking when so distressed and afraid.  

Looking forward to church on Sunday. Our pastor and another fellow are going to be talking about heaven and hell over the next two weeks. Looking forward to it. Since I will be out of town for the second talk I am grateful for ZOOM recordings so I can watch and hear the class when I get home.

I have discovered that when I carry a heavy bag of groceries in the hand that is on the same side as my operated hip, I barely limp at all. Why the heck is that???  No bag, super limp; bag, hardly any limp.  I have to figure out why that is and try to adjust my foot and leg placement once again so I can do as well without the bag as with. Always learning new things this old woman....now if I could just learn as many new things about technology I would be SO MUCH better off!! hahahaha  BUT, I have no real interest in putting my entire life on my mobile phone....just can't quite get into it, even though I do envy people who pay for their groceries by holding their phones up to the debit machines.  Maybe one day......sigh......

Sunshine, sunshine, sunshine!!!!

Oh how grand to see the sun coming out and shining brilliantly after another damp and dreary start to the day.  A family of geese came over to our complex this morning....FIFTEEN goslings, still in the "cute" stage, partook of the water in the parking lot puddles and and the new green shoots of grass in the front yard.  Thus far we have barely any piles of poop between our back deck and the car, but I suppose that will soon change.  By late afternoon our gaggle of three to four regulars had grown to about a dozen lollygagging about in the puddles and on the grass behind our place.  Now that the wee ones have been born, the childless couples have been driven out of their usual feeding areas at the park and our complex is the next closest thing to park like with plenty of grass and deep puddles every time it rains.  Well, any reduction at all from the vast numbers we had here over the past two summers is much appreciated.

My husband had a good appointment with his GP this afternoon. The fellow actually listened to him and has proposed a series of tests to check if one of his medications is causing his daily headaches of the past year and if these tests show that a new recommended protocol with this med is also not going to keep the headaches at bay, the doctor has another series of meds lined up to try instead. I am so grateful.  The headaches were becoming debilitating until my husband's nurse friend suggested he try not taking the meds for at least 10 days to see what would happen. By day 3 the headaches had stopped completely. When he went back on them the headaches returned on the second and third days of ingestion, so he stopped them again and made his doctor's appointment.  On day 3 after quitting again the headaches stopped again. Thanking God this doctor has a listening ear and an understanding mind. He rarely if ever makes assumptions and that is very much appreciated. 

Today after the appointment we ran a bunch of errands, stopping for an early dinner at a place that is new to us: The Paddy Wagon. It began a number of years ago as a food truck and now has a couple of brick and mortar locations in the city.  Usually at meal times it is packed out and we haven't felt like bucking the crowds just to get a burger. Today though we were early enough to miss the dinner crowd and had the place almost to ourselves.  Our smash burgers were delicious, hamburgers that actually tasted like real beef, excellent veggies and sauces on the burgers, reasonably sized locally made buns that have a lower carb count than most of the burger buns/breads at other restaurants here, so I was able to eat the bun. The fries were to salty for my husband's tastes but we can ask for no extra salt next time. My husband enjoyed his Greek burger that had a ton of feta cheese and lettuce and tomato slices on it. I particularly enjoyed the crunchy onions on mine...and there was no problem at all requesting that none of the bbq style sauces be added to my burger.  It isn't particularly inexpensive, but it is still less money than the burgers at most other restaurants here, so we were very happy with what we got for our money.  We found out when their slowest times usually are in the course of a week and next time we have the chance to go there we will bear those times in mind.  From what I can figure out, the meal cost us about ten dollars more than combos from, say, A&W and the quality of meat and what is put on the burgers is higher.  That is our opinion anyway. The only "almost a complaint" is that the metal chairs are not comfortable and if your behind size is larger than a woman's size 10-12 or a mans' Medium there could be trouble fitting into them at all.  Takeout may be preferable in that case.  It was fun to try somewhere different.  We almost always go out for a meal after my husband's medical appointments, usually rejoicing in him receiving fairly good news.  As he gets over the other physical issues associated with this latest round of CFS, the mental stresses also are decreasing, fortunately.  

And now, it is time to watch the last couple of days of the present Sumo Tournament!!  It has been quite a tournament for injuries, with all but two of the top tier fighters out of the tournament...the number of injury withdrawals has been terrifying.  Both Yokozuna are out and there is only one Ozeki left, along with two Sekiwake, one of which is hoping for a promotion back to Ozeki at the end of this tournament.  It will be really something if a rank and filer Maegashira fighter takes the Emperor's cup this time, although I suspect the Sekiwake bucking for promotion who won the last cup will likely take it again for back to back wins.  Fun to see what happens.

Hope your day has been happy too. 

 

C'est Pour Ma Famille: Final Weather Report!

This morning we woke up to a skiff of icy snow on the lawn and just a bit more of a buildup on car hoods and windshields.  By 8am it was +1C and the frozen slush was pretty much melted on the streets and our back deck and steps.  Whew!  The highways here are reported to be either bare and wet or bare and dry.  Thankfully we got very little moisture much worse than heavy rain.  Tonight we drop back to -2C overnight, but then tomorrow begins a lovely warming trend for the most part with highs in the low to mid +20'sC.  Yippee!!!  Thus endeth the weather reporting of our miserable pseudo spring. Thank you family and out of province/country friends who are as fascinated by weather as I am.  For the rest of you, yes, barring some unexpected weather disaster, I am done with the daily and twice daily weather reports. (Heave sigh of relief here.)

The plan for this morning, while my husband was attending his weekly Zoom theology meeting, was to clean the kitchen thoroughly. It is in dire need of doing.  However, I slept very poorly last night because I couldn't shut my mind off. I gave up trying to sleep after an hour of tossing and turning, started reading and fell asleep about an hour later, but I only regained the two hours I lost, nothing more.  I feel like a punctured balloon again today, so it will be this afternoon before I get started on any sort of proper cleaning binge.  Yawn.....  With everywhere I need to call for information and appointment making being closed today for the holiday, I will have to roll that into tomorrow morning so we can get to medical appointments in the afternoon.  SO....more cleaning the day after that?  All these little details of varying importance are tiring me out after a run of poor sleeps over the past week or so.  I suspect part of the exhaustion is releasing the underlying stress over my husband's latest CFS issues now that he is improving so well and so quickly.  I am grateful for his return to health.

Maybe I will just go and have a little nap before lunch...... 

You Know Spring Is REALLY Late Arriving When.....

 ......the furnace comes on several times on MAY FIFTEENTH!!!  Yup, May 15 and our furnace has been running for most of the past 24 hours.  Wow, what a miserable spring!  The worst part is that when the heat finally comes it will probably zoom up to nearly unbearable highs, BUT that still be better than this chilly, grey, drizzly time of year.  Fortunately the rain is badly needed so although the cold temperature puts seeding behind for the farmers here, at least the moisture will help a bit once the crop is finally in the ground.  I am very glad we were not living in the small town of Radville SK on Thursday when the wind storm hit: sustained winds of 115km!!  Not good at all. Friends of ours lived there for many years and I bet they are happy right now that they moved away.

I just received word that yesterday's Ascension Day on the church calendar was particularly special for some young friends of ours who had a safe and happy home birth of their new daughter that evening.  Both of their children have been born in their bathtub, delivered by their ever calm and well instructed daddy and loved fiercely and immediately by their mommy.  Even big brother is pretty stoked about the new addition to the family and the grandparents are, of course, over the moon. What a joyous event to lighten the hearts of us all during this bad weather spring.  The wee girl was born right on her due date too!

Tomorrow for entertainment we will begin downloading the spring Sumo Tournament that began a week ago.  We almost forgot about it as we had so many other things on our minds.  Tomorrow we will watch several days worth of highlights and immerse ourselves in another culture's central professional sport....always fun for us. 

Miserable Weather For The Long Weekend Here!

Wow, it is very cold and windy outside still today and now we are forecast to have possibly up to 2cm of snow.  For my husband and I it doesn't matter because we are not going away this Victoria Day weekend, but for friends and neighbours who planned camping and "first weekend of the season at the lake" trips it sounds like they won't have as great a time as hoped for.  That is really too bad.  This year the holiday is incredibly early. Even if it could have happened next weekend there likely would have been better weather for our outdoors loving friends.  I feel badly for all of them.  My husband was able to get over to Kat's in the wind and rain showers this afternoon to pick up some of our herb growing pots we left in her yard last autumn and she kindly gave him a bag of potting soil. Bless her.  Tomorrow morning we have to go over to the house of friends who have once again started our tomato plant for us.  The plant has to be picked up right away from their greenhouse despite the ongoing cold weather because said friends are on their way out of town on a holiday in a couple of days.  Unfortunately we are going to have to put the plant inside at our place and hope there aren't too many spiders and other insects crawling around among its leaves....yukko!!!!  It is way too cold yet to put it outside, even in its plastic wrapping cone.  Now I just need to find somewhere to put it where it will get as much sunlight and warmth as possible until at least next weekend when it will hopefully be warm enough to put it out on the deck even if the wrapping has to remain in place for another week after that.  The weather is so weird and wild and woolly this "spring??"!  

Personally I had a very good day today!  I never did get dressed after I cleaned up for the day because I had nary a commitment away from home for a change, not so much as a trek over to the grocery store was needed.  I felt kind of like a happily punctured balloon all day.  The walking outdoors I have been doing is restoring my overall strength and that is wonderful.  Today I looked at the stack of ironing from Tuesday's laundry and after counting the number of items I realized it was a project that would have to be done over two days as I haven't been able to stand long enough since my surgery to do that many items in one go.  Nope....I did the whole stack and my leg and hip were not the least bit tired. Overall my body wasn't tired. My mind wasn't tired.  FINALLY life is starting a return to my new, limping but still active, normal!  What a relief....and it has only taken ELEVEN months to get to this point, hahahaha.  I am very grateful that my overall strength is indeed being restored.  

Looks like it will be too cold and likely rainy to be walking to church on Sunday, but I will get some walking in at the grocery stores tomorrow and by Monday it should be warm enough to walk longer distances outside again. YAY!  I am adopting a slightly more European concept of grocery shopping, purchasing much smaller loads that I can carry home on foot, therefore walking to the store more often each week.  

My next door neighbour got her weekly ride to the food bank today with her sponsor. Shortly after she arrived home she knocked on my door and handed me a loaf of white bread because there had been extra bread in her box that she doesn't want, a bag of shredded mixed cabbage salad with an enclosed carton of soy sauce dressing, another huge handful of cilantro and a pack of celery which they cannot tolerate eating.  She has to take what she is given of course at the food bank, but neither of her other friends like the flavour of the items she brought to me.  As she handed me each of the items a look of horror crossed her face at the idea that we actually enjoy those things. hahaha  My husband looked at the pack of celery and knew instantly how he would be able to use up the now FOUR bundle of cilantro we have received from her: cream of celery soup!  A goodly sized handful of chopped cilantro on a bowl of that soup is fabulously delicious! God bless my neighbour for her generosity.  At least the food so lovingly donated to the food bank will not go to waste.  Once the soup is made we have a couple of people in need that will enjoy receiving it, along with half a loaf each of that bread, so we will not be the only unexpected recipients of the food items.  Tomorrow when I go to the grocery store I am going to pick up a couple of packages of halal chicken to give to our neighbour.  They get very little meat to eat and I know they like chicken, so I would enjoy getting them a treat.  She gives me food several times a month now, either in grocery form or plates of her marvellous cooking. It is really fun slowly getting to know this woman and her children. If my husband can ever lure her husband out of their place to offer him some simple English language help, we will get to know the whole family better.  Praying for all the right things to happen with our dear neighbours.

 

Well Yes, We Have Been Praying For Rain So….

 ….we are grateful so much rain is forecast starting tonight, just not sure 20-40mm in such a short time span will not create a whole new set of problems. Saturday looks rain free at the moment, but then more rain may arrive. Apart from turning us into Mosquito Central due to the likelihood of large puddles of standing water, the moisture will be a good thing.  

It has been such a pleasant week thus far. Last evening outside with the kids was warm, barely a breeze, sun until well after 8pm, that magic if brief time between winter snow and the onset of mosquitoes and spiders. 

Now, if I could just stop waking up at 🕓 4am. I am stuck temporarily in this sleep cycle of falling asleep for four or five hours, then being awake for about two hours, followed by a couple of hours or more of “dead to the world” sleep. After a few days of this I will probably hit the second part of the cycle: asleep between 11pm and midnight, sleeping for 6-8 hours without stirring. I LIKE that part of my sleep cycle! 

This morning I have been praying to get my act together in advance of my husband’s upcoming trip and get some plans of my own made instead of molding along until the man is already out the door with no plans for myself. It would be so easy to sit around inside getting bored, not wanting to intrude into the busy lives of the people I know here. Trying, trying to think ahead this time!

Doing Thursday’s And Friday’s Chores Tomorrow…Bad Storm Forecast….

 Looks like my morning coffee time on Thursday with my friend is going to end up being cancelled again if the weather forecast tonight holds true. Good grief....we both just laughed and laughed when we read tonight's weather warning.  The fact that it was issued more than 24 hours in advance of this particular storm system coming in from the west tells me there is a very good chance the storm is actually going to happen and is, as reported, going to be a pretty bad one with gale force winds starting tomorrow evening at about 50km to 70km and cresting throughout Thursday with gusty periods of 110km.  Along with wind serious enough that we have been warned it could cause everything from prolonged power outages to roof, tree and vehicle damage, (so high sided vehicles like semis and RV/trailer units are already being warned to consider staying off the highways all together for a couple of days),  we may receive between  20mm and 40mm of rain in a less than 24 hour period.  Sigh....well, climate change or whatever is fuelling these unusual weather patterns in North America, is showing itself finally in our own area of the world this spring and summer.  Tonight my husband went outside after dinner and shovelled a fair amount of black dirt from the pile in the parking lot. He filled in the space all along one side of our suite where the dry soil has pulled away from the building as there tends to be leaks there when the wind tosses large amounts of rain in that crack.  He also checked to make sure the two huge slabs of lumber we have in our basement are still there so that we can pull them over the deep window wells on the other side of the building.  If they begin to fill with water, that water finds all manner of little cracks in the foundation to flood our basement with.  I am glad I thought to purchase a new mop for our kitchen floor when we were at Princess Auto yesterday, so the old one could go to the basement, along with the old pail, in case we have to do some serious mopping up in the next few days.  Although my husband has done a masterful job sealing the foundation cracks, when driving rain in vast amounts hits us, there are always undiscovered cracks just waiting to welcome the excess water pouring down the sides of the building and through the small gaps in the basement window sills.  Oh Lord, deliver us all from damage. Thank you, bless you Father and Amen.

I was able to do six loads of laundry today while my husband spent his afternoon with his hiking buddy planning their trip to the mountains of Alberta in June. They got their routes planned, but will have to check for bear incident related closures right before they leave as there have been so many closures after multiple bear attacks already this spring.  They have their food and accommodation and equipment needs looked after, so it is an exciting time for them. Unfortunately his friend's wife who had planned to spend time with me has been called out of town to work during that exact time, so I will have to be certain I actually make plans for myself, to see some friends, or it will be a very long and boring time for me. Thanking God I have our vehicle to use while he is gone. 

 My husband had some inside work he wanted to do in our basement this evening, after shovelling dirt and, with the help of another new neighbour fellow, sweeping up the mess in the parking lot some of the kids made tossing dirt and gravel around from the piles sitting out there,  but when the African children from the next building, whose bicycles he repaired last summer, realized he was out there they descended on him en masse!  He had three of them out there explaining this year's issues with their poor old bicycles.  Fortunately the new parts we put on them last year held up, but padlocks were lost on some of the bikes, the combination lock combinations to open those types of locks long forgotten over the winter.  So, he spent the evening pumping up tires, sawing old combination locks off and then locating the brand new locking system he bought for himself some years ago and never used.  It is the kind they can wrap around all of the bikes at once and then secure them to their back deck.  He put the key on a long red ribbon that the oldest girl put around her neck, showed her how to make it all work and she thanked him profusely. It is the most lovely thing to be told, "God bless you." by a 13 year old immigrant girl who has never had the material items we are so used to. Her gratitude is deeply felt and very sincere.    

After the initial repairs, when my husband went back inside to locate the new locking system, dear little bully Mohammad decided to attack one of the smaller African boys, not realizing I was standing right there watching.  I used my best school teacher voice to tell him to cut it out, which shocked him into at least temporary submission. hahaha  Then the oldest boy from next door to us decided he was going to ride one of the African kid's bikes and snatched it away from her. She said that no, he wasn't allowed to ride it any more because he and his  younger brother have been stealing the African kids' bikes right off their deck and their mom has already had to go and speak to the other mom to get the bikes back.  Apparently no consequences of any consideration were handed out by the little thieves' mom. Our neighbour boy grabbed it back from her and said he was going to ride it and as far as he was concerned it was his bike now. So, the old school teacher said she thought not, actually.  Apparently my stern tone got through so he released the bike.  I helped the kids get their bikes back to their place just as my husband reappeared with the wonderful locking system.   Hopefully the drama will end soon or it is going to be a loud, brutal, thieving, bloody nosed summer around here for the first time since we moved in over 11 years ago.  The kids causing the problems are all from the same country, have all fled to and from refugee camps at about the same time, have all experienced horrors beyond my imagination and have had to fight with other refugee kids over every possible little broken toy or rusty bike that made its way into their camp.  It is going to take some time for them to settle down, if they ever do.  I feel for them.  They have had rotten lives already and they are already only aged 8-13.  All of their dads suffer from varying degrees of PTSD and other mental health issues. The African kids haven't seen their dad in 3 years.  A problem in his family caused him to return to Africa to help solve the issue and when he tried to return he had visa issues, so he is still trying to return to Canada.  His daughter is afraid he will have forgotten all of his English and she has not spoken Swahili much since she started school here three years ago, so that is a stress for her.  Oh these kids...what they have been through in their short lives. My husband and I have decided that our "ministry" to these kids, if we want to call it that, is to simply be a presence this summer. My husband purchased a nice lawn chair so he can sit out on the back deck and read late in the afternoon when the kids get home from school and will really enjoy spending some mornings out there in the summer before it gets too hot.  The kids seem to love it when we are out there talking to them and praising their soccer and bike riding prowess, at least temporarily submitting to our admonishments to treat each other more kindly....there are some talented little fellows in this complex when it comes to playing soccer, bully Mohammad being the star. Wow, that kid is talented...so smart and articulate too. I really hope he can eventually get a handle on his behaviour.

Haircut tomorrow!  I can hardly wait!  Then a run to the water refill store to get all our water jugs refilled instead of waiting until Friday....not certain where I am going to put the last gallon's worth as I don't have quite enough containers free to take it, but I will work something out.  We have a library book due on Friday and have renewed it twice already so it has to go back even though we aren't quite finished reading it, but it is an older book that doesn't have a waiting list, so likely we can take it out again next week.  Not waiting until Friday, just in case the storm actually arrives.  

It has been lovely sitting here beside the wide open windows while the suite cools down for the night. It is nearly 11pm and I haven't had to close them yet.  I spent the day doing laundry so the heat built up a bit upstairs.  It has been so many months since we could open the windows that I am unwilling to shut them so I can go to bed and sleep.  Guess it is that time though. Sleep well tonight all.   

 

 

Asking For The Blessing Of Rainfall!

 It is finally our fair city’s turn to be located in a bad bad zone for possible fires this spring and summer. There have already been a number of grass fires on the verge of being out of control near smaller centres close to the city,  but fortunately their local volunteer firefighters arrived in time to douse the 🔥 flames before they did a lot of damage. 

We are praying for the mercy of periods of daily rain ☔️ to come soon.  My asthma  🤧 has not been too terrible during the past two summers of northern forest fires, but if there is a lot of smoke happening closer to the city. 

Really hoping for a better outcome regarding fires for all of our country this year, but without consistent rain, well…..

We Are Sorry Local Friends And Family If It Does Indeed Rain Tonight! Our Bad.......

 My husband washed the car yesterday when he had a sudden burst of energy late in the morning. Sigh....so OF COURSE our 30% chance of rain tonight appears to be turning into a 100% certainty. Dang it...he did such a marvellous job washing the outside and painstakingly detailing the inside.  It wore him right out so after lunch he slept for 6 hours. Good old CFS, but at least he had the joy of knowing he accomplished something between naps yesterday. Oh gosh, it was fun for me to drive it to church this morning. It looked great.  He can be proud of the work he did on it.

Church went well today.  Our adult class was led by the associate minister and she went through many Scriptures in the Bible that talk about peace and how deeply meaningful the word Shalom actually is.  My husband stayed home to sleep but woke up just in time to take in the class on Zoom. YAY!  He accidentally activated his translator, so the words being spoken appeared at the bottom of the computer screen. hahaha  There were some real lulus, thanks in part to a bit of fuzz coming through the mic being used in the classroom. When the minister told us that we cannot force peace upon other people the words that appeared onscreen were, "We cannot force pizza upon other people." hahaha That one was a true gem of a mistake. Love it.

In the sermon the minister told us how much it bothers him when people, himself included, use the word "Just" so much in spontaneous prayers.  So often we say things like "If you could Just heal so and so....", or "If you could Just make this or that happen....".  To our minister it sounds like God's own children think they are bothering him or are afraid of being presumptuous with their requests; either that or trying to manipulate the Lord by sounding insincerely humble.  One of the examples he gave of how much God wants us to interact with him, how we are not bothering him, was how Jesus, when John the Baptist was beheaded and he was grieving, still issued the invitation to his followers to come to be with him.  He didn't just walk away to grieve alone for some long period of time.  Out of that time frame came the miracle of the loaves and fishes.  I have some thinking to do about my own prayer life.  I couldn't resist after that sermon: when I went forward during the communion to receive the elements from the minister I whispered, "I Just thank you for these elements." hahaha  He nearly lost it right then and there, trying to keep a straight face while his shoulders were heaving with laughter. Bad me....teehee.

A friend and I went out to DarBar for yummy lunch after church.  We had a deeply personal talk, one of those types of conversations I rarely have a chance to participate in because of course it isn't always appropriate with everyone a person knows. It was very meaningful and I think we were able to help each other at least a little bit with some personal issues we both struggle with.  It was an unexpected and incredible blessing. 

I came home to find my husband having a much better day today.  He woke up at 5am but realized he didn't need to eat or drink anything and went back to sleep until just before 8am.  By 8:45am he was back asleep, but he slept less than 45 minutes and has been awake ever since.  Yes, he is very tired and that exhaustion is going to take at least a couple of weeks to be back under control if things go the way they usually go for him with this miserable disease, but to see his face a normal colour after five or six weeks of ashy grey is most encouraging.  The graph line rarely goes in a straight line during recovery from such a heavy and long episode of CFS symptoms, but even one or two days of improvement in a row usually signals that he is starting to recover to some extent.  I am encouraged AND still praying constantly for relief for him.

Tomorrow morning I have to call my surgeon to set up my one year checkup in June.  Oh how I pray that the surgeon won't be too terribly shocked and disappointed that I am still limping around, still trying to strengthen the muscles in my thigh. I think at this point I have to accept the fact that the tendon is too damaged to fully recover, but I am okay with that. Them's the breaks kid.  (Or, should I say the RESULT of the breaks? hahaha)   

It is going to be a busy week, just the kind I enjoy most and I am grateful for that!   

Another Excellent Update From Caro's Family

  On this glorious, sort of warm, sunny skies with forming white thunderhead clouds kind of day, I am delighted to have another report about Carol's progress.  Her family is thrilled and you prayer warriors have certainly made a difference to her recovery.  Here is the latest:

So far as Carol and I can tell there are no deficits or lasting injury to her brain. She is as sharp as I’ve ever known her and likely ready to get her word game streak back up and running.

Her heart tests are all showing no damage and no lingering weakness! What a relief and huge answered prayer!

Her persistent cough is also gone! I’m delighted about this one!

No news (good news) about the kidneys.

Now for the muscles. She had the weekend and today off of formal/attended physio therapy. However, as we know that doesn’t mean she took those days off. In fact she has excelled at the “homework” her PT gave on Friday and is stretching even hose goals! Also she is noting improved finger strength. Previously her fingers were not strong enough to do her routine inhaler. Today they were!!!!
She is up to the bathroom without assist (except a watchful eye from the nurse)!!! Her goal tomorrow is to be able to brush her teeth standing without leaning! Such great incredible progress.

Tuesday we hope she will be seen by Physio again and given the clearance to walk with watchful assist of family and/or friends.

She is awaiting word on rehab placement. It may be as far away as 150km. In that case she will instead look more into home health options. Especially as she is improving so quickly.

Oh how effective this groups prayers have been. 

I am hoping Carol can get into a rehab facility MUCH closer than 150km away, if her improvements continue at this rate of speed with no unexpected set backs.  So grateful her physiotherapy is helping her so much each and every day!

My husband began his day with a tummy episode threatening, partly because he fell asleep last evening without his usual small snack. He woke up too early....6:30am....because the tummy ache was threatening to hit him pretty hard.  BUT he had a small bowl of yogurt and some water, then decided to go back to bed. He slept for another nearly 90 minutes and woke up just in time to pick up his friend for a men's breakfast meeting.  He looked absolutely horrible when he left and I had a feeling he MAY arrive home in someone else's car before being gone more than a half hour, but he not only survived the meeting, he was able to stop at the wood shop afterwards and pick up his soldering gun for a small home repair he wants to do this week. Whew...he dodged a bullet again today after a kind of miserable weekend, particularly on the Saturday....yikes.  So grateful this latest round of attacks seems to be lessening and I pray he will soon be back to as full health as he ever is capable of being.

Our daughter in law must have arrived home safely last evening as we haven't heard anything yet and if she had not arrived our son would have been calling us. So happy she seems to have had a good week away.  Our son has to balance his home life, job and finalizing a couple of art works for the Esther 3 art fair in May. What a busy pair. I am guessing our daughter in law may not have had today off  from her usual full time job today, but it would be wonderful if she had the day to regroup and rest a bit.

Day two of this week's physiotherapy went as well as Day one did yesterday.  I am hoping to get Day three and four done prior to the weekend as I would really like to take two days off in a row.  Walking more correctly now is helping my full weight bearing balance exercises and vice versa.  It has been a good week thus far for small bits of progress once again.  It is most disappointing that the tendon on the operated leg will likely never fully heal due to the amount of damage it sustained previously, but as long as I can fully weight bear soon for the full required 30 seconds, I will consider myself sufficiently healed.  The "hitch in my getalong" is far less pronounced since I started rolling my foot forward properly when walking without my cane. Praise the Lord for that! 

Finally did the ironing that has been sitting draped over my husband's favourite reading chair in his little library room for the past few days.  It doesn't usually take me this long to get ironing completed after doing a day of laundry, but wow, for some reason there seemed to be so many other things to do each day that I didn't get to it until now.  Oh well....

It is a beautiful day here and I am going to enjoy every moment of the good weather before we will apparently be hit with quite a bit of freezing rain overnight tomorrow, turning to snowfall the following morning.  Sigh....SPRING, WHERE THE HECK ARE YA'???

I am hoping like ten bears my husband will be well enough tomorrow before the weather turns rotten again to come out shopping for a few items with me.  I have GOT to find some brown and navy blue socks. The usual "cheapsy" retail stores are only carrying black, white and grey socks along with some horrific patterned ones, so maybe I will just be content to pay more for the colours I want that can't be found at the places I already looked.  

Are You Also Appalled By The Cost Of Groceries??

 I just returned home from our closest "discount" grocery store with two bags, each filled about 2/3 with groceries...you know the type of bags, right? The usual regular sized cloth totes like you get at stores like Safeway?  Only two bags.....$110.43.  Only one item that I purchased, a medical item, was expensive at $22.99.  The other items were produce and some sale bread and a couple of canned items....$110.43.  Gosh....I am kind of sorry I looked at the receipt to be honest.  Are the rest of you finding it more and more demoralizing to purchase groceries?  This is the month I could have used the harmonized sales tax rebate that got all messed up by the CRA and that I am still waiting to receive.  Sigh....okay, enough whining and complaining! (for now...teehee...)

Although it is overcast with deep grey clouds that may be bringing rain overnight and into tomorrow, it isn't very chilly out and I enjoyed getting out to the post office and the store.  I didn't even take my cane in the car today because since my husband pointed out to me that part of my limping has been my own fault for not monitoring my foot placement properly,  the limp is far less pronounced and it isn't as difficult for me to cover distances.  YAY, I am so pleased.  

My husband felt well enough this morning both before and after breakfast to participate in his weekly theological and scientific discussion group after being quite certain he would have to miss it because of feeling rotten, but he didn't feel rotten.  Has the Indian food from yesterday successfully aided his recovery once again?  No headache today either, so that is wonderful.

Our son got a report from his boss today about the work he did for her in Florida last week and apparently he did well despite not having much of a clue as to what part of the job entailed.  He is like his father....he knew just enough to figure out the rest of it on his own.  I am happy for him.  His wife is now scheduled to return sometime today, so that is also very good news. She is a brave solo traveller and that gives ME forty fits. I think I have seen too many movies of young women getting in trouble driving long distances on their own...or maybe I am more stressed about the world situation in general than I realize.  Anyway, just glad she is on her way home. 

A Wee Bit Of Cultural Experience Next Week!

We are looking forward to enjoying a bit more of a classical music cultural experience next week.  Two fellows from our church are performing their final piano concerts for their Bachelor of Music degrees and we have been invited to attend.  The concerts are taking place in a proper concert venue here in the city that we have enjoyed being in for chamber music concerts in years past, rather than in the less beautiful university student concert spaces, so it will be an evening of excellent performances and classical music.  YAY, something to look forward to indeed.

My husband was able to eat breakfast this morning at exactly the right time to stave off another tummy attack and even managed to get to the early adult education class at the church, AND stay through the entire church service as well, despite being so tired.  After the service I assumed we would come home and he would eat more yogourt or pancakes or some other bland meal.  However, he said that as he was sitting in the church before the service he remembered that the last two times he has had bouts of this nature one of the main healers of his tummy was Indian food.  I have the same memory, so for lunch we went back to DarBar.  He had the mildest spicing possible in his meal, didn't overeat and at this point, nearly two hours later, his tummy is showing no signs of postprandial upset.  If he can survive another hour without any reactions, it should be safe to say he will be okay, at least until after dinner tonight.  He may finish his leftovers for dinner, or switch back to pancake blandness, but at least it seems he will finally have a full afternoon off from his tummy ache.   The adult class this morning was on the use of the Hebrew word "hesed" in both the Old and New Testaments.  Like most words translated from one language to another, the full meaning is not directly, fully translatable so it makes for interesting discussions about how it has been translated into English by the various biblical translators.  It often appears in our Bibles as "lovingkindess", a word that was coined by Myles Coverdale and included in his printed translation of the Bible, (1535),  slightly pre-dating the King JamesV ersion. (1611)

It is only going to about +8C this afternoon and by Thursday morning we may have more snow, but at least we will remain above zero for the next three or four days.  The sun is shining, the clouds are currently thin and the breeze isn't too strong.

Now I am signing off to spend some time in prayer for our daughter-in-law.  She is supposed to be going home today from Texas, but bad thunder storms and possible tornadoes are forecast in the area close to the Dallas airport so we are concerned about her travel possibilities.  Looks like she will be okay driving back to El Paso, but then it gets dicey for her if her flight to Dallas is badly delayed or cancelled due to weather....honestly, at this point it seems there is always some kind of issue lately with every flight that members of our family are booked into.  Praying hard for this dear girl!!!

Got Through It!

I am delighted that despite a nearly 2 hour wait to see the specialist today, my husband got through that wait and the appointment without rushing out ill before the appointment even happened. Thank you Lord!  About a half hour before we left to go to the clinic, I noticed my husband was turning pale again and he admitted he was starting to develop the initial  symptoms of the tummy attacks.  He drank a bottle of nearly freezing cold carbonated water as keeping cold seems to either heal these attacks or fend them off altogether if he can get the water down soon enough.  Yup, it did the trick, but we took another bottle of water and a freezer cold pack with us anyway. So grateful neither was needed.  

By the time the appointment was over my husband was feeling MUCH better and I am sure good news from the specialist, the best actually, was a large contributor to his change of both attitude and colour and symptoms.  He felt great, so we walked over to City Hall and purchased three packs of pre-paid downtown parking vouchers to try them out until we feel sufficiently ready to learn how to pay with our mobile phones.  hahaha  The vouchers are easy peasey to use. They are like lotto scratch tickets so I will have to carry coins in my wallet whenever I park downtown.  You simply scratch off the date, hour and minute of parking, and the year, detach the voucher and put it in the front window on the dashboard. If you think you are going to need the full two hours allowed you simply remove a second voucher, fill it in the same way and just move the time ahead by one hour then place it beside the first voucher on the dashboard.  It only takes a few seconds to do that.  City Hall has space for two or three cars to park for free for up to 15 minutes for people going inside to purchase the vouchers.  So, we now have 14 hours of pre-paid time left for downtown parking.

My husband was ravenous (of course he was....the stress of the appointment was not only over, but he got good news), so he decided we should try out the vouchers immediately.  Fancy Fork was on the way home, so there we went to have our lunch....at 2:30pm!  Thankfully I had chosen to eat a very late breakfast this morning just in case we got held up at the doctor's office, so I was well within my six hour maximum window between meals by the time we ate at the restaurant.  I made the mistake of ordering the beef dip....I say it was a mistake because it was so blasted tasty I used the fact that the whole wheat buns the meat was on were too fresh and soft to last if I took half the sandwich home,  to justify eating the entire sandwich.  Well...."only" about 4-5 carb units all at one time.  (I brought the side of fries home with me for another day.)  I had to exercise when I got home to try to wear some of those carbs off before they raised my blood sugar too much.  hahaha  The beef was delicious, not much fat and I didn't come across any gristly bits, the garlic mayo was not too strong and the fresh very thinly sliced onion slices were a nice addition. There could have been a bit more au jus, but that is a minor technicality. It was the most delicious beef dip I personally have ever eaten.  My husband had a cheese burger sandwich, without the cheese since he never eats beef and dairy together, but he got a good amount of lettuce and tomato,  a bit of strip bacon and the very delicious Caesar salad...dressing on the side to cut down his fat intake due to the two strips of bacon on the burger.  So, we both cheated just a little and enjoyed every mouthful of our most reasonably priced mid afternoon lunch.  I was so relieved my husband was feeling better and able to eat so well after living on grilled cheese sandwiches and plain pancakes for week that I nearly cried into my plate!!

Despite the temperature rising to a balmy -3C this afternoon the wind was bitterly cold all day. So the inch or so of snow hasn't really melted anywhere that car of foot traffic hasn't turned it to icky slush.  Maybe tomorrow we will see more sunshine and less wintery snowfall.  Maybe...   

From The Sublime To The Ridiculous To The Sublimely Ridiculous!

This has been a most memorable Good Friday!

We began our day at an Anglican church with a dear friend and her parents who are visiting from the Northwest Territories. It was an excellent Good Friday service at the church:  the reading of the Passion of Christ scriptures from John 18 and 19, two solemn hymns, the stripped altar, a reminder in the priest's sermon as to why Jesus had to be sacrificed for the sake of all of us, and a tribute to the black draped cross at the front of the church.  It was very spiritually moving and we enjoyed it very much...the spiritual and emotional weight of what happened to our Lord on our behalf sat heavily upon us as we made our way silently out of the church afterwards.  

My husband and I travelled in our car in near silence as we went to the designated restaurant to meet the same friends there along with the rest of their family.  The restaurant was Fuddruckers, a place my husband and I have never been to before.  It was jarring, in a happy sort of way, to walk into the restaurant bubbling over with people and noise and music and the smell of yummy food wafting through the air.  We lined up and placed our order, (my husband and I had salads that were most delicious, huge and with a good variety of ingredients), obediently carried to our table the flashing alarm beepers that would let us know when our order was ready to be picked up at the counter, lined up to get our cold drinks while we waited and began animated conversations with our friends around the table.  To me it was like walking from a graveyard into a bustling market and I enjoyed that sensation.  It was like walking into the hope of the coming resurrection which we will celebrate with our own church congregation on Sunday morning....although I kind of doubt we will make it to the 6:30am sunrise service....for some odd reason. hahaha

After a restful afternoon of napping and physiotherapy my husband went online to find us some kind of interesting movie to watch this evening. He picked The Annihilation of Fisher, starring James Earl Jones, Margot Robbie and Lynn Redgrave, released back in 1999.  For any of you older adults reading this blog, do check it out if you are not aware of it. It is funny, quirky and an amazingly accurate commentary on what happens to people whose hopes and dreams and sense of purpose are taken away from them, particularly as they age.  It isn't a kids' movie, it is for adults who will be able to look through and past the oddness of the characters to understand what can happen to us in light of loss of ideals in our lives. We thoroughly enjoyed it. The script is so well written and the acting is marvellous.  Lynn Redgrave was such a good actress and she excels in her role here.

Tomorrow is a day of no commitments away from home...at least not thus far and I do hope it may remain that way as my husband is still struggling with exhaustion and resulting tummy issues.  We do have to come up with a dessert or two for Easter Dinner on Sunday evening, but that can be done at any time of the day. I will do physio again and then take Sunday off.  The weather should be very fine tomorrow so that will add to the joy (hopefully) of the day. Although the start of the week is considerably chillier than tomorrow will be, there is no snow or freezing rain forecast until mid week. YAY! 

Nearly Over At Last!

 I have had a glorious morning running around town doing errands and treating myself to four new books from Indigo.  I decided that since our wedding anniversary is coming up one of these fine days and we have no plans whatsoever as to what to do to celebrate 49 years of wedded-ness, I would buy myself a handful of newbies and hang the cost.  The one I am most looking forward to reading is "Summers in Squids Tickle: A Newfoundland Odyssey" by Robert Finch.  How that relates to our anniversary is that my husband also spent a few summers in Newfoundland on volunteer work projects with a charity called Operation Beaver and being in Newfoundland provided him with some of the happiest summers of his young adult life.  To my husband:  happy upcoming anniversary!  (What we are going to do for his birthday, the day prior to the anniversary, is also anyone's guess at this point.  He has been too busy to think about either event and I am plum out of ideas after all these years together.  Perhaps if we put our heads together when he gets some time later this week we can come up with something more original than eating dinner out, hahaha.)

I am pleased that as I drove around the city doing my errands I was able to avoid driving through any puddles.  Only the heavy dirt and dust particles blowing past on the strong gales of wind coated the exterior of the car, but it still looks pretty clean and nice after its washing yesterday.  We found some streets to drive on last night when we went to care group that were puddle and pot hole free, so that also kept the car looking good by the time we arrived home.  If we can just get through the next three days of dropping temperatures and highly possible snow flurries and freezing rain, the weather will take an uptick toward spring by the weekend...lookin' good by then. YAY!

This afternoon I think I will work in a physio routine after doing a bit of ironing...hmmmm....maybe best to do the exercising before the ironing so I don't use length of ironing time as an excuse to let the physio go.  Yup...that is the best plan.  More physio tomorrow, then a day off while we have various meetings both in the morning and afternoon. Back to physio on Friday...it is all good. 

I am doing all my outside walking without my cane now that the ice is pretty well gone.  As I go along I have to watch my posture and discipline myself to stand as straight as possible instead of caving in to the weak hip tendon and muscles as doing so causes me to have quite a lean. It isn't necessary and is a lazy, bad habit I want to avoid!  There is a cane in the car at all times just in case I get too tired to hold my back straight on my own.  While the walks around the sidewalks are not usually more than a couple of blocks, at least I can also stand now as well while walking in the retail stores and waiting in line at the cashier tills.  Progress to be sure.  Now, I just have to convince my tired mind and body that I will be able to handle the other hip replacement surgery later this year....I WILL be able, I WILL be able, I WILL be able to handle it. Amen!!!   Unfortunately my "good" hip that has never been operated on, thank the Lord, is starting to ache while doing physio on the operated hip, so I know I will not be able to avoid that second hip surgery. Sigh... Well, old age happens and bodies break down....one day closer to heaven is my motto these days and I find that thought no end of comforting.

Dear Weather: MAKE UP YOUR COTTON PICKIN' Mind Already!!!!

 Gosh, what a day outside!  The temperature rose overnight to just above zero, so there was enough snow and topical ice melt that my husband had to slosh his way out to the car early this morning and drive it around from the lot to our front street so I could go along for the ride to church.  It was far too dangerous for me to try to cross the puddles and remaining ice ridges on the back yard going out to the car lot.  The sidewalks around our place were bare and only a bit wet in places.  The sun never did shine today through the thick grey clouds, but the temperature rose to +6C so there was some melting action, but a chilly wind cut down on any major melting of the remaining snow and ice.  Now at 5:30pm there are tiny snowflakes drifting around, we may get some freezing rain once again and we are on our way to an overnight low of -9C to -11C depending on what weather website I check. Brrrrrrr.....freeeeeeeeeeze.....will it ever be safe for me to go outside to walk by myself???

I should not complain.  In the area of west central Saskatchewan where we spent 5 years before moving to Regina they are having a terrible snowstorm that has resulted in miserable highway driving conditions and power outages all afternoon covering a wide swath of small towns and villages in the north west and along a narrow band all the way to the southern end of the province.  If they are getting such a storm t his afternoon...the area is between 4 and 5 hours to the west of us....what are we going to end up with by tomorrow morning???  We have car repair related errands that have to be run tomorrow and the following day and they will require me to do a fair amount of driving in the new car on my own....blecch! When it comes to driving on snow and ice I am becoming a terrible Winter Wimp!!!  The temperatures will not rise above zero again for a fair number of days and some of the overnight lows are predicted to be in the low minus double digits.  So dear weather:  are we having early spring or prolonged winter?  Make up your gosh darned mind!

Apart from the small stresses related to weather conditions it has been a great day! 

Our adult class on poetry this morning was very good! A local poet was our guest speaker and she shared her thoughts on poems by Robert Frost, George Herbert and Malcolm Guite, as well as one of her own recent works that focused on how God told her he still loves her after she made a glaring life error!  She was very vulnerable in the poem and very honest. She seems a most humble person.  We so enjoyed her presentation.  I am learning so much more about poetry in general...styles and forms and interpretation.  These classes will I think assist me as I continue to enjoy my giant sized tome of World Poetry. 

We enjoyed church even more than usual this morning  because we were participating with prayers and Scripture readings.  I am starting to realize that the thing I am struggling with the most, being a former pastor's wife with my husband being fully retired now and us not having our own parish, is being able to be super duper party pooper involved in the church services each week.  As my energy and mental acuity have begun improving overall the closer I get to a fuller recovery from last spring's surgery, I am realizing I am not quite as content as I have been to just sit in the pews like a lump every Sunday morning. Since we are unable to join the church in a recognized membership role, our abilities to assist are rather limited and I certainly accept that, but wow, it is really nice to be asked to do things once in awhile. It has been a LONG while for me, so I really had fun today. (and please don't suggest that I get involved in the after church coffee hour extravaganza, thanks anyway, because that never was my thing and is the one aspect of church community life I am beyond thrilled to have given up). The sermon was very good this morning, the minister talking about giving God our full attention, and there are some things I need to think about in my own walk with Him going forward.

My dear husband decided that since I worked very hard doing laundry yesterday...okay, yes, I over did it, but it felt SO GOOD to do so much other work along with the washing....that I was not to cook today.  After he promised I would not have to cook, he realized that he is suffering from a couple of nights of poor sleep and not up to cooking either, so we ended up going out to London Belle for lunch after church. hahaha  We both had a chicken burger with lots of lettuce, tomato and jalapeno pepper rounds and a side of tomato bisque soup....SO YUMMY!  There were very few other customers in the restaurant so we were free to talk about whatever we wanted to, relax and have the full attention of the heavily tattooed wait staff....my goodness there are some amazing tattoo artists around here.  The one girl's tattoos were incredibly well done and represented various places in North America where she has travelled.  Since we were one table of only two needing service, she had plenty of time to tell us the origin and meaning of many of her tattoos and it was most educational and fun. The large ring piercing in her nose was also very interesting and the metal, in the bright lights of the restaurant, picked up the carrot orange dye in her hair and flashed it around the room, so her whole face sparkled as she walked about.  I so enjoy chatting with the older teens and 20 somethings. Their culture is radically different from my own and it is always a good learning experience.  We got to chatting because she loved my dress motorcycle jacket.  It is perfect for this kind of "what the heck is going to happen next" kind of weather...warm and wind resistant and long enough to cover the extra long black dress sweater I was wearing over black and white pants today.

To force myself away from physiotherapy and more housework this afternoon I had a delightful time reading and playing video games on my computer while my husband alternately watched tv and napped.  It was a marvellous "old geezer" kind of afternoon.  Now it is nearly 6pm and for the sake of my blood sugar I suppose I am going to have to come up with a bit of light dinner for myself. My husband prefers to put his own catch as catch can meal together after our big lunch, so I will enjoy doing the same.....maybe some bread and hummus or crackers and cream cheese with green olives, or a slice of bread with melted cheese....something simple with a bit of fat for digestion and a large sized drink of water to wash it down and make me feel full for the rest of the evening.  Lately eating any kind of snack before bed, even a protein only with no carbs snack interferes with my sleep, so a "whatever is handy" kind of dinner with only two carb units and then nothing but a glass of water before bed helps with that issue.

So now we are waiting to see what tomorrow holds with the weather and our likely necessary car repair and tire pick up chores.  We are excited that our once a month evening small group is getting together tomorrow evening.  We are the oldsters in the group so we really look forward to spending a couple of hours with good friends who are fifteen to twenty years younger than we are, but who accept us as part of their spiritual and even social circles.  They are a fun bunch and we spend a lot of our time laughing. It is a great bunch of people. Then next morning my walking partner is coming for a visit. Looks like the weather will prevent us from taking even the walk around the complex I was hoping for, but we always have so much to talk about that the time will fly by and be over too soon.  Again, a much younger person who is willing to share her life with us and we have a lot of excellent conversation.

I Love Spontaneous Visits!

 Today began quite happily after a seven hour sleep! Yay! Breakfast was eaten early in the morning and it left me feeling so energetic that I did my tomorrow’s physiotherapy routine instead of taking my usual day off. (I decided to do all the laundry tomorrow to ensure sufficient exercise before my regular Sunday off from physio.)

My husband was going out with friends this afternoon and I wondered what I should do in his absence, but the wife of one of the guys solved my dilemma by inviting me over to her place for a mug of her delicious fresh ground Italian coffee and a visit. We had a great time and she sent me home with an older, beloved novel of hers…..perfect timing as I will soon be finished re-reading a trilogy of the “summer reading for the beach” variety. The loaner from my friend has much more depth to it! (Thankfully!!)

The slight warming of the outside temperature this afternoon melted most of the remaining snow and ice piled up along the major roadways, so all the cars around here are the same colour tonight: deep, muddy brown….yukko! Outdoors in this city, between our likely to come spring snow storms and the last freezing rain events, is truly ugly!!  The entire landscape consists of varying shades of soggy brown, and anything sitting stationary in the sun a dried out brown that tempts passersby to write “wash me” with their fingers on the splattered trunks and mucky windows of parked cars. We call pre-spring warm ups, like we are experiencing today and will be continuing over the weekend, “false spring”: a time when nature gets our hopes up that the snow and thick ice will soon be gone, only to slam us hard at least two or three more times with treacherous storms and cold temperatures.

So, Nature, it will be interesting to see what new weather tortures you will have in store for us next! As for me, I will simply relax, lose myself in the novels I mentioned and enjoy all my visits with friends this crazy month of March: spontaneous or otherwise! 

No Snow, But....

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

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

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

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

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