I was gifted a beautiful bowl that my daughter found at the Filberg Festival in Comox…

and a gorgeous print by her friend…

how spoiled am I…
16 Friday Aug 2024
Posted in family, life, moments, retirement, travel, Uncategorized
15 Thursday Aug 2024
Posted in family, garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, crayons, daughter, family, garden, moments, paper, rubbings, time, widow
had fun documenting my daughter’s activities as she made various rubbings in the garden for a book she is making;-)…
she has been doing this all the way from Vancouver Island…
she wandered around the garden using sheets of paper and the side of different coloured crayons…


some of the rubbings worked beautifully, others, not so much… she also took a few items to add into the book…
but I am sure that the finished product will be beautiful;-)…
14 Wednesday Aug 2024
Posted in family, food, garden, life, moments, retirement, travel, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, daughter, dog, family, friend, friends, garden, macaroni and cheese, moments, pancakes, trip, visit, whirlwind, widow
my daughter came to town and was here for about 12 hours between Saturday and Sunday…

she was passing through, helping a friend drive from B.C. to Ontario… the friend, her dad, and their dog spent the night with us…
we had supper when they arrived, enjoyed some garden time that evening and the next morning and then they headed off after breakfast;-)…

both meals were requested and it was fun to make her favourite macaroni and cheese and satisfy her friend’s desire for pancakes…
such a treat to see her and meet this friend who I’ve heard much about, but never had the opportunity to meet…

it was a whirlwind…
13 Tuesday Aug 2024
Posted in business, health, life, moments, retirement, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, casting, coverage, moments, night and day, Olympics, sports, Technology, time, tv, wake-ups, widow
well, I have emerged from the Olympics cycle…
I have watched all kinds of sports, some for the first time…
as mentioned previously, I like to watch in real time and managed to do that for a good portion of the sports I was interested in… although I did sleep through one of the medals that Canada won, lol… it meant a lot of 2:30 and 4:00 am wake-up’s…

my hope for every event that I watch is that each person does their best and I like flipping between channels, if I can, to hear commentary from different points of view…

I am less interested in team sports such as soccer or basketball or football… and I’m not too fond of fighting in any of its numerous forms…
the technology at these games had some interesting highlights… I was particularly taken with the cauldron;-)…

I am happy that this portion is over and I have a few weeks before the Paralympics begin…

hopefully there will be lots of it on tv and Gem as well;-)…
12 Monday Aug 2024
Posted in garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
11 Sunday Aug 2024
Posted in business, life, loss, moments, retirement, technology, travel, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, Chihuly, hat, memories, moments, Olympics, shopping, Technology, widow, worn
I’ve been wearing this Chihuly hat since we visited Atlanta in 2016 and love it…

it has turned that very sad gray/black colour and looks completely worn out…

haven’t been able to figure out how to save it, sigh…

got this new hat a few days ago… it was part of the 2024 Canadian Olympics clothing line and I hope it lasts as long and as well as the Chihuly…
10 Saturday Aug 2024
Posted in food, garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, garden, growing, memories, memory, moments, nature, orange, plants, red, ripe, Technology, tomatoes, weather, widow
this memory came up in my feed on Thursday… it was from a year ago and clearly the tomatoes were ripe and nearly ready to eat…

this one is from the garden this Thursday…

obviously these ones are quite a ways behind, lol…
09 Friday Aug 2024
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
anticipate, big girl pants, blessed, experiment, fish, friend, garden, goldfish, grow, koi, moments, nature, neighbour, pond, widow
a few weeks ago a friend brought me some koi that a neighbour had given her for me… they are a fair bit smaller than the goldfish, but I anticipate they will grow quickly…
I’ve never had (or wanted) koi, so it will be interesting to see how it goes… this photo shows one of them (mainly black and white) amongst the much larger goldfish…

my fish are fairly tough… they don’t get any special treatment so we will see how the koi manage in that environment;-)…
an experiment…
08 Thursday Aug 2024
Posted in family, food, life, moments, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
author, big girl pants, blessed, books, family, Fern Michaels, grandparents, grandson, happy, library, moments, Nora Roberts, reading, stair, supper, treat, visit, widow
we went to the oldest grandson’s other set of grandparents the other day for supper and had a lovely visit…
before we left I had access to their library where I got a bunch of books by an author that I had just discovered – Fern Michaels… the shelves looked much tidier before all the books came out, lol…

she also had two new Nora Roberts books I have been waiting for…
we filled a grocery box, woohoo…

I added them to the stair library in order and now I have reading material for the remainder of the summer;-)…

what a wonderful treat;-)… once the Olympics are over I will get down to some serious reading…
07 Wednesday Aug 2024
Posted in business, garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
beautiful, big girl pants, blessed, corms, dahlias, flowers, garden, happy, hues, Lilystone Gardens, moments, nature, pink, plants, purple, surprise, treat, weather, white, widow
I have been so excited…
for a number of years, I’ve been overwintering dahlia corms, but haven’t had tons of luck… sometimes I know what they are and other times they are a surprise when they get put away…
one white one has proven very prolific and it has produced at least a dozen blooms so far this year in three different pots…

these are about the size of my palm…
a delightful feathery one that I purchased last year at Lilystone Gardens has come back nicely and has a number of blooms and buds in one pot…

each bloom is bigger than my hand…
these have all been white so I was particularly excited to see one come up in a pot that looked like it was pinky/purple…

it is a bit smaller than the white pompom-looking ones, but stands out in all its pink and purple hues…
nature is so amazing…