14 Friday Aug 2026
Posted in business, family, food, health, retirement, Uncategorized
yesterday, we went to Dairy Queen to get blizzards to support the Children’s Hospital Foundation…
it was all for the children… you have to do whatever is needed to be supportive 😂…
13 Thursday Aug 2026
Posted in business, family, garden, health, life, nature, retirement, technology, travel, Uncategorized
Tags
afternoon tea, Airbnb, big girl pants, blessed, Butchart Gardens, family, moments, Technology, train, trip, Victoria BC, widow
my daughter recently sent me this postcard to remind me how close we are to our big trip…
for my birthday – the big 75 – I decided to take the train through the Rockies and visit gardens on Vancouver Island…
planning started last summer, and we had to book our train trip by December to be able to travel in September… crazy, lol…
next we searched for gardens that we would like to visit, besides the Butchart Gardens, which were first on the list…
then came looking at other spots in and around Victoria that we would like to see… we are going to have as many afternoon teas as possible, lol…
finding accommodations for our stay took a bit of work, but we found a lovely AirBnB close to the Butchart Gardens (and a Butterfly garden)… our second place to stay is a cute little hotel that faces the ocean in Victoria…
and finally, first class flights were booked back home… as I haven’t travelled for ages, the flights were covered by points… how cool is that;-)…
now to think about what I need to pack for a train trip and fall on Vancouver Island…
02 Sunday Aug 2026
Posted in family, life, loss, moments, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
anniversary, apartment, beloved, big girl pants, blessed, Chevelle, friends, memories, widow
yesterday marked fifty-six years since my beloved and I were married…
unbelievable that I have spent the last fourteen without him…
just last week I discovered that a young friend has moved into the apartment building where I lived with my parents at that time…
I can still remember looking down from the balcony and seeing our brown Chevelle, as the guys dropped it off that morning…
and bursting into tears of excitement;-)…
yesterday, I got this photograph looking down from their apartment balcony to where our car would have been that morning…
I spent some time looking for a photo that I was sure I had, of the decorated car from the balcony of our apartment, but could not find it, lol…
amazing that they are living there now😊…
01 Saturday Aug 2026
Posted in family, garden, life, moments, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, family, fixed, garden, grandson, moments, temporarily, vinyl siding, widow
this morning my middle grandson arrived with a coworker to silicone the vinyl siding that he’d temporarily fixed a while ago…
they were here for less than fifteen minutes, and in that time fixed the siding and checked out an issue on the shed roof which he will come back to sort out when he has time…
and then, off they went 😊…
I certainly am blessed…
29 Wednesday Jul 2026
Posted in business, family, garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, dwarf morning glory, envisioned, family, flowers, garden, nature, obelisk, plants, widow
I planted these morning glory seeds that my daughter sent to me from Ottawa as part of my Advent Calendar…
I didn’t read anything about them and envisioned they would grow up this obelisk…
apparently, they are dwarf morning glories…
and that means they don’t climb, lol…
25 Saturday Jul 2026
Posted in family, retirement, travel, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, chocolate, chocolate-covered, family, grandson, macadamia nuts, sarong, sea turtle, spoiled, widow
my housemate was away on vacation and just returned…
I was treated to an absolutely beautiful kitchen towel that has a sea turtle on it…
a light and airy sarong…
and 3 boxes of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts…
Costco used to carry them in a big plastic jug, but they haven’t had them for ages…
talk about spoiled 😊…
21 Tuesday Jul 2026
Posted in family, life, moments, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, family, grandson, moments, silicone, vinyl siding, widow
I was surprised today when my middle grandson arrived…
I had messaged him on Sunday about a piece of siding that looked to be coming off the house and I was worried it might come right down…
today, he stopped by on his way home from work to check it out and see if he could fix it…
with a little bit of ingenuity, he managed to get the piece of vinyl back up, although we will need to pick up a tube of silicone and he will come back and do a permanent fix…
my job, when anyone is on the ladder, is to hold the sides and make sure the bottom of it is flat, lol…
17 Friday Jul 2026
Posted in family, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
bearded dragon, big girl pants, bugs, convinced, family, moments, Tatsu, veggies, widow
while my housemate is away, it has been my job to feed Tatsu, the bearded dragon, her vegetables…
only once has she come right up to the glass, as clearly the veggies had not arrived soon enough…
took a while for her to move off to the side so I could open the glass door and put her dish in… yikes… since then I have been putting them in around 9 am when she is still sleepy…
a friend of his has come every two days to feed her the bugs, because I could not be convinced to do that job🤪…
what one does for their grandchildren…
09 Thursday Jul 2026
Posted in family, garden, life, loss, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, continuous, family, garden, leak, moments, pond, waterfall, widow
last year on July 8th, the upper pond and waterfall were being taken apart to fix the continuous leak we’d had for a few years…
when I think about it now, it was a miserable summer as the repair took a number of weeks to complete…
and I came across this photo from July 2013 when the pond was being built…
as I sat out there yesterday morning I was so happy to have everything working and no leaks…
what a different summer it will be…
07 Tuesday Jul 2026
Posted in family, garden, moments, retirement, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, family, forget, garden, hoses, label maker, moments, reminder, soaker, Technology, weather, widow
my housemate recently demonstrated how to change the label maker cartridge and then I got to work…
each of the four hoses connected to the water supply outside now have labels noting what they are for, lol…
I often forget which one is the soaker hose, so this should help me remember 🤪…
