16 Thursday Nov 2023
Posted in family, garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, cover, deck, extra, family, garden, grandson, lawn furniture, moments, nature, tarp, tarpaulin, weather, widow
used the tarp from the extra wood to cover the lawn furniture on the back deck…
didn’t take long at all with two people…
it is a really large tarpaulin so we tucked all the excess under the legs…
11 Saturday Nov 2023
Posted in family, health, life, loss, moments, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, cancer, family, memories, moments, mother, remembering, Remembrance Day, strong, time, widow, WREN, WWII
I’ve been thinking of my mom a lot in the last few days…
she spent the last months of her life at Princess Elizabeth Hospital, in the final stages of esophageal cancer…
I was blessed with the time to be able to spend those final days with her…
they were hard but so important…
she was a WREN during WWII, a survivor of mental illness, a caregiver for her husband, a poet, a proud Legion and Army and Navy member, and a participant in the organizing of the Women’s War Memorial by the Legislature…
she was strong, but it took me many years to really understand that;-)…
09 Thursday Nov 2023
Posted in family, health, life, moments, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, cheery, family, garden, happy, houseplants, light, moments, nature, plants, sunshine, weather, widow
the plants in the basement were not doing well, so they were moved upstairs…
they, along with some others that had been on the dining room table, moved into the den…
it looks like a garden in there now;-)… a lovely cheery location to start the day…
08 Wednesday Nov 2023
Posted in family, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, bird feeders, birds, blessed, grandson, health, ice, metal shovel, moments, nature, reach, seed, shovelling, snow, sore, weather, widow
it was overcast, but not too cold on Saturday, so I went out and was able to fill all the bird feeders…
even the one that I won’t be able to get to before too long, as the snow will make it difficult or impossible to reach, lol…
then I spent half an hour shovelling the driveway…
my grandson had done it awhile ago, but there were icy tire tracks on the slope so I broke them up and tossed the bits to the sides…
the next day my hamstrings and butt were a bit sore from all the bending as the metal shovel I was using was short, lol…
I will be happy when the tires get changed in a few weeks, but now the slope won’t be difficult to get up;-)…
04 Saturday Nov 2023
Posted in family, life, loss, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
beloved, big girl pants, blessed, clean-up, continues, family, garage, grandson, moments, never ending, ongoing, rafters, reorganize, stuff, tidy, treasures, weather, widow
we were back in the garage last weekend and spent an hour reorganizing…
we planned to spend another few hours to make enough space to get the car inside, particularly as we have tons of snow already…
we did spend another focussed time in the space… this time all of the stuff that was in the rafters came down to be sorted…
there is a ton of wood and other items on the floor now, in various piles… for garbage, giveaway, and a small pile to keep… but the space above is cleared out and ready for whatever needs to go back up there…
no room for the car just yet…
02 Thursday Nov 2023
Posted in business, family, life, loss, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, car, family, garage, grandson, hung, mess, moments, organized, sorting, tools, weather, widow
nearly a year ago, my eldest grandson and I began working away in the garage… he has a very organized mind…
a few weeks later, we cleaned out a spot and moved the shelves further along the wall…
the next time we worked in it, after purchasing additional hardware, we attached hooks and hung up a number of garden and winter tools… like items were gathered together and placed on the shelves… we came in when we started to get cold…
we spent another few hours another day working away in the space… more tools were hung on the other side of the space, the garbage bin was filled with broken, unusable items, two boxes were filled with giveaway items and the bench had much more space…
great strides were made each time we were in there and we were able to get the car in when it was home over the winter…
then we didn’t do anything more, because it got warm and the car didn’t need to live inside…
so, maybe it got filled up with other stuff, lol…
over the summer, it was great to be able to find tools without effort…
27 Friday Oct 2023
Posted in business, family, garden, health, life, loss, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
adrenaline, appointment, beloved, big girl pants, blessed, dentist, family, garden, grandson, hidden, moments, nature, photos, pretty, ride, shovelling, snow, spare, taxi, trees, walk, weather, widow
this morning I got up early as I had a dentist appointment and my grandson was going to drive me down before he went to class…
it was dark and there was a lot of snow out there…
I put on a vest, dug out a hat and gloves, and made sure I had cash for the taxi…
it lightened up before we left and I went out to start cleaning off the car… there was easily six or seven inches of snow on it…
made it to my appointment, and when it was done walked to the Delta Hotel to get a taxi…
got a few nice photos of snow-covered trees on the short walk…
as I was riding along in the taxi, I realized that I didn’t have a house key😳…
thankfully, after my beloved died and I was on my own in the house, I put a spare key in the backyard for just such an occasion…
and, I was able to get through the snow and collect it, lol…
I unlocked the door and put the key back before shovelling the front sidewalk and steps and the back deck and hot tub area…
got that adrenaline going, in the taxi, and in the yard;-)…
25 Wednesday Oct 2023
Posted in business, family, health, life, loss, moments, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
14 years, bathroom, beloved, big girl pants, blessed, broken, family, fit, grandson, handwritten, Home Depot, medicine cabinet, moments, new, plastic, Rona, search, stock, widow
been having trouble keeping one of the medicine cabinet doors closed for the last few weeks…
I thought it was because the magnet on the mirror was separating from the plastic behind it…
the other morning I looked at it and thought it was no longer level…
at which point I discovered that the plastic where the door attached to the cabinet had broken… it took two of us to remove the broken cabinet…
what a treat to discover my beloved’s handwritten measurements inside the hole🤗…
after measuring the space, it was off to Home Depot to see if we could find something that would fit into the hole in the wall… and of course I needed two, sigh…
we found a cabinet that should work, but the store we were at didn’t have any in stock, so it meant another trip… after trying two other stores it was off to Rona, where we found two of the same cabinet at an even better price;-)…
it has been fourteen years since my beloved installed these cabinets when we redid the bathroom, so I guess it did pretty well, being opened more than ten thousand times, lol… that wasn’t a bad run…
and, just like that we have two new cabinets, although the space inside them is smaller, but they will work fine;-)…
22 Sunday Oct 2023
Posted in family, garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, blower, feeder, garden, grandson, irrigation, leaves, moments, nature, prep, pump, put to bed, stacked, time, weather, widow
spent the morning in the garden…
we blew out the irrigation system, and put the caps in a clear bag on the side of the fridge so I can see them and remember where they are come spring, lol…
we stacked lawn furniture and got it ready for the tarp which will go over it in the next week or so…
we used the leaf blower to move many of the elm leaves into the flower beds so bugs and other things have a place to over-winter…
we moved flower pots under the deck and into the shed… and took apart the hammock stand to go in there as well…
two umbrellas came down, but because it had rained not long before we started our work, they went into the garage open to dry before making their way to the shelves…
we hooked up one of the bird feeders so I can get to it from the deck once the snow starts…
the pump came out of the bathtub pond and made it into the house, was cleaned and is ready for storage…
phew…
21 Saturday Oct 2023
Posted in family, life, moments, retirement, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
beloved, big girl pants, blessed, car, car racing, devoted, family, formula 1, grandson, happy, hooked, learning, moments, naps, sports, Technology, widow
my grandson has got me devoted to Formula 1 car racing…
a few years back, he used my car to drive to a race in Montreal…
often the races are rather early in the day, so sometimes I end up needing a nap on race day…
today I watched a few hours of cars shooting around a racetrack in Austin, Texas…
I am learning more of the nuances during each race and have been having a good time getting questions answered by my own expert, lol…
I think that my beloved would have enjoyed it as well;-)…
herbiggirlpants 