Author Archives: sulis303

planning…

18 Saturday Jan 2014

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a few weeks ago I booked a flight to visit Cyndi and Ron in Ottawa… will be going toward the end of April so it is a ways off…

will only be there for about five days and am looking forward to seeing where the kids live and what is around them…

the newest Cirque du Soleil show is starting around the time I am there so we booked tickets to see it… we have now organized a train trip to Montreal and a bus trip back so that we can do everything in one day…

kurios from Cirque du Soleil website...

Kurios from Cirque du Soleil website…

today I spent quite a bit of time online trying to find a great restaurant to have lunch at while we are there… hard to do when you don’t know the place…

sent a list off to Cyndi with a bunch of ideas and hope that she can pick one or two for us to make a final choice, depending on their proximity to the train and Cirque du Soleil…

looks like there are lots to choose from…a couple looked quite interesting: Kazu, Le Petit Opus, Maison Boulud, Toqué… some of the ones that looked good weren’t open on the weekend so that helped shorten the list…

kind of made me hungry, lol…

a year ago…

17 Friday Jan 2014

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thought we had gone a bit later but realized that a year ago today we were on our last few days of vacation in Mexico…

here’s what I wrote in my journal:  Thursday, January 17, 2013 – Crystal came by early for coffee and a visit and Kyler got up about 7:15. Tried to change my profile picture to the undersea pic but it is having a serious think about the whole thing. Boys played in the pool – girls went to the Spa for massages. 7:30 dinner at Brazilian place without Crystal as she was sick.

as I was writing this blog I looked up and saw a picture of the palm trees on the electronic frame, lol…

this is one of the first pictures I took once we arrived at our resort…

boat anchored at sunset...

boat anchored at sunset…

we had a wonderful time and it was a great way to celebrate George… this Spring we will gather to disperse his ashes together and will remember Mexico without him and lots of special moments with him…

 

blustery…

16 Thursday Jan 2014

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this morning my ride couldn’t get into the city and I was lucky to be able to get a lift with another colleague… gave me a bit of extra time before getting picked up so I put on the big girl pants and went out in my heavy parka and shovelled the sidewalk and steps…

from the house it didn’t look that bad out but when I got there it was very windy… the snow wasn’t wet, but from all the blowing it had packed down and was quite difficult to pick up and move… could have made a great igloo…

shovelling done...

shovelling done…

got the job done and came inside and sat down and waited for my breathing to settle down… it was good to get it cleaned because I had a box of soup and dumplings to take in for Souper Thursday, lol…

I don’t think the dumpling experiment went very well, although everyone said they were good… just weren’t their usual fluffy selves…

have just come in from a lovely hot tub sitting in the moon beams… haven’t been out at this time of the evening for a very long time and it was great to be able to enjoy the moon shine…

chicken soup…

15 Wednesday Jan 2014

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just finished the chicken soup for tomorrow’s Souper Thursday…

started it last night after doing some research into the best foods to help stave off/recover from colds… chicken soup was at the top of the list…

feels like almost everyone I know either has a cold or knows someone who does… this particular variety seems to last quite some time, so I thought a little chicken soup would be helpful all around…

last night I made the broth, simmering a whole chicken with carrots, celery, onion and bay leaves… then I separated the meat from the chicken…

tonight I added the vegetables and barley and simmered that… George loved barley in his soup, so that is an homage to him…

then I tried an experiment… I cooked small dumplings and have set them aside and will try warming them up in the microwave tomorrow… I have often warmed up leftover soup and dumplings in the microwave the next day so am hopeful this will work, lol…

doing some searching, I discovered that people sometimes use ready-to-cook biscuits and drop them into the broth in the crock pot for the last hour or so before the soup is ready… sounded interesting, but I really wanted to use my Mom’s Dumpling recipe so decided to try the warming in the microwave technique… will see what happens tomorrow…

dumplings for tomorrow's soup...

dumplings for tomorrow’s soup…

just a few weeks ago was talking with someone about how delicious dumplings are, which also made me think I should give this a try…

found a great slideshow on the Canadian Living site about ten foods to eat to help beat colds and flu… also found information that sugar is very bad for you when you have a cold, sigh…

stay well…

bendy busses…

14 Tuesday Jan 2014

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just looked up and saw a picture of George and I in Cyndi and Ron’s house in Courtenay… we had a lovely visit on that trip…

made me laugh because I was just thinking about bendy busses… and Cyndi…

I rarely read the newspaper, although it sits right at my desk every day… for some reason this morning I looked over the front page and saw this…

bendy busses coming here...

bendy busses coming here…

the first time I saw one of these busses was in 2000 when Cyndi and I were in Chicago for a church event about Families… she saw the busses and went a little bit crazy about them…

so this morning, I took a quick picture of the front page and emailed it to her… one doesn’t text in the morning because that might wake her up, but emailing is okay…

she responded within a few minutes saying she was actually riding on a bendy bus in Ottawa as she read my email…

I still haven’t ridden on one… maybe they will run along Portage and I can take one home one night in the spring, when the weather is nice…

synchronicity is an amazing thing…

made me smile for quite a while after, and even as I write this I have a smile on my face… one of those special moments…

holy moments…

13 Monday Jan 2014

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ordered a spicy perogy pizza and Caesar salad from Boston Pizza for my group tonight, as I was on for food… when I called the young woman was very helpful and didn’t try to get me to order more than we really needed… she was spot on and everyone enjoyed the pizza…

we then checked-in and read a wonderful book titled: Three Wise Women by Mary Hoffman, with pictures by Lynne Russell…

Three Wise Women...

Three Wise Women…

 

we talked about the holy moments in our lives and how we are constantly searching for them…

made me think of how I am trying to live my life these days… being in each moment and taking the time to feel/see what is actually taking place…

we talked about those special conversations that accidentally happen, that you might not even consider as something important… but if you spend a moment you realize that you are in the midst of the holy…

for me it is often nature that helps me find those moments… yesterday morning in the quiet of the hot tub, as the birds flew past chirping like it was spring… the bunny spotted in the garden… the heaps and heaps of beautiful snow, lol…

what amazing women these are and how special the time that we spend together… talk about holy moments…

hot tub…

12 Sunday Jan 2014

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this morning I headed out for a hot tub… didn’t check the temperature but it was beautiful… it was around -5 with the windchill I discovered later…

felt like a spring morning… once I got out, I put in some chemicals and moved some snow away from the tub… reminded me of a lovely time that Cyndi and I had in the tub while she was here over Christmas… Ron came out and took a few pics…

 

hot tub with Cyndi...

hot tub with Cyndi…

 

I have enjoyed my hot tub for the nearly five years that I have had it…

when the girls were very small George spent some time in Baker Lake and while he was gone I had pool people come out for an estimate… because we had lots of overhead wires and a small yard they could only put in a small pool, which didn’t seem worth it… for about 10 years we would rent a hot tub for our anniversary weekend and we all loved it.. at the time our oldest grandson was a toddler and he adored it… as did all the girls’ friends who were sure to come by that weekend, lol…

got this tub in March of 2009, but we had our first hot tub on Mother’s Day… and since then I have gone in it nearly every day, although for the last few months it has been much more sporadic with the extreme cold… I don’t mind when it is -30 but I don’t really like it when the windchill is below -35…

kids having a hot tub...

kids having a hot tub…

the boys still love it, although someone wants to be carried in and out if it is cold, lol…

although George always said he didn’t like it, he would usually join me and we would have wonderful conversations… always amazing how the darkness and enclosed spaces opens up the most interesting subjects…

thinking of some of those special moments tonight as I come in from another lovely tub… got to enjoy the beautiful weather… particularly after hot water was added this afternoon:-}…

struggles…

11 Saturday Jan 2014

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thinking about how life changes in the blink of an eye…

interesting as I had been thinking of my dear friend Ellen earlier today as I watched hours of skating on television… she lived next door but was as much family as any…

remember...

remember…

I still remember how she would take the girls when they were babies… they always wanted attention when we were sitting down to eat, whether is was 4:30 or 7… they just knew… she would come and take them over to her house quite often so that we could eat our dinner in peace… for a number of years she and her husband would have dinner with us one night a week and then babysit while we went off to our bowling league… when the girls got older she made them each a cookbook with her special recipes…

we both loved skating and would call one another when something was on to be sure the other didn’t miss it… George was very happy when we got a second television so that he wasn’t stuck watching, lol…

a number of people I know have been struggling with family health issues over the last month or so and it has reminded me of how lucky I am to just have a cold…

I have a warm home – well, now that the furnace people came again this morning and fixed whatever wasn’t quite right from yesterday’s job… I can manage financially and I have my health… I have my kids, friends and colleagues…

truly I am blessed… sending healing thoughts to those who continue to struggle…

fixed…

10 Friday Jan 2014

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got up a bit early this morning so that I could get the boxes onto the front steps…

boxes of hand-me overs...

boxes of hand-me overs…

 

thought I heard a whining noise from the furnace, but didn’t have time to go and check it out…

then I drove to work, nearly getting stuck in the driveway… apparently I need a lesson on how to get into Drive 1…

busy day at work and had to leave early to get home for the furnace guys… they arrived about an hour after I rushed home…

different noise when I got here and when the guys arrived they discovered that a motor was dying and one of them had to go and fetch a new one… they worked away for a couple of hours and were ready to leave when I noticed that the furnace wasn’t running… after another fifteen minutes they had it going again…

seems to be working fine now…

heading to bed to see if I can’t sleep this cold off…

 

sunset…

09 Thursday Jan 2014

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got this shot of the sunset tonight… nice to see a blue sky that isn’t filled with sundogs, lol… was discussing with someone today about taking the time to enjoy the moment and not just rushing through the day, week, life, etc., and seeing this sunset reminded me of the importance of taking that moment and savouring it…

sunset tonight...

sunset tonight…

day started off fairly windy but quite warm… with the wind chill it was minus 16 Celsius… everyone was very happy… people even walked around without mitts and toques.. and the sun was shining as well for most of the day… it was lovely…

a bit sick that we think -16 is a heat wave but lovely none the less…

traffic has been brutal for the last number of weeks as the icy and rut-filled roads are causing accidents and everything is, and has been, moving at a snail’s pace…

my head is still full of cold, but I am feeling the slightest bit better… which is very good news… sadly there are many around me who are falling ill with this and I am hoping that they will all be feeling better very soon…

missing my beloved today as I gather up boxes of hand-me overs to go out on the step tomorrow… he would have helped me carry them from the various rooms so they would be ready at the front door in the morning, although he might have also wanted to go through them and save some of the items…