I’ve spent the last few days sitting in the living room reading and enjoying my flowers…


it has been a bit rainy and overcast and cool … a bit of a downer…
I am waiting for it to get sunny and warm again…
15 Saturday Apr 2023
Posted in health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
13 Thursday Apr 2023
Posted in business, garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blanket, blessed, chairs, cushion, garden, happy, jacket, moments, nature, patio, sunshine, time, weather, widow
Tuesday, the patio door was open for a good portion of the day… guess it is time to connect the spring again…

always such a treat when that day arrives each spring… spent a good portion of the day sitting on the deck…
started the morning in one of the new deck chairs… after I pulled out one of the cushions from the garage… needed a blanket and jacket, but the sun was shining;-)…

then I brought out the wicker set from under the tarp on the back deck… I purchased and put them together last year…

and got very comfortable… by that time the jacket was off and the blanket put to the side…
wonderful way to spend the first day that was warm and sunny enough to be outdoors…
12 Wednesday Apr 2023
Posted in garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, chairs, clean, deck, garden, happy, moments, nature, snow, Spring, table, umbrella, widow
on March 12, this is how the deck table looked covered in snow and with the very dilapidated old umbrella… and then on the 2nd of April when the new umbrella was installed…


Sunday, the chairs made it onto the deck… and Monday, the table got washed and the chairs set around it…



starting to look like spring;-)…
02 Sunday Apr 2023
Posted in business, food, garden, health, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
Assiniboine Park, big girl pants, blessed, breakfast, canopy, Diversity Gardens, exercise, food, frozen, garden, glove-free, ice, moments, nature, Park Cafe, photos, snow, trees, walk, weather, widow
on Thursday we walked instead of going to aquasize…
we had breakfast at the Park Cafe where we waited a few moments before getting our table…


I had falafel eggs Benedict without the English muffin and it was very tasty…
after that, we drove over and walked around the outside of the Diversity Gardens on the road which was clear of snow and ice… we went through the Gardens as well where most of the paths were snow free… it was cold, but basically the only frozen things were our fingers, lol… particularly when I was glove-free taking photos…





we enjoyed our half hour walk and are looking forward to more such walks as the weather improves;-)…
01 Saturday Apr 2023
Posted in family, food, health, life, moments, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
beige, big girl pants, blessed, cooking, dinner, family, food, grandsons, happy, home, home cooked, moments, widow
had a delightful day yesterday… got to cook for my grandsons…
made stuffing (one of their absolute favourites), prepped mashed potatoes, boiled a turnip (to use the water in the gravy), cut up cucumbers, cooked mushrooms, and opened a can of cranberry jelly…




such a treat to have them for a home-cooked meal, lol… and fun to make dinner for more than one or two people…
put the chicken into the oven and the final piece was to make the gravy and pull out the cranberry jelly (only two of us like that)…
as always, while I work away making the pieces of the meal, I am thinking about the people who will be eating the meal with me…

dinner turned out delicious, although it was a bit on the beige side, lol… sadly, only one of them was able to come as the other was home sick with a stomach bug;-(… I did send home a goodie bag for when he feels better…
21 Tuesday Mar 2023
Posted in business, garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, deck, garden, layers, melting, moments, nature, path, shovelled, snow, solar motion sensor, weather, widow
shovelled a path across the upper deck on Sunday morning… that way I was able to adjust the solar motion sensor… the squirrels had tipped it down on their trips back and forth…

it has been many, many, weeks since the deck had been shovelled… and in that time, the sun has frozen a number of layers so it was a bit difficult to get it cleared…
later in the afternoon I noticed that a lot of the remaining snow where I shovelled had melted away… so I made another pass…


this time I left a bit of snow to melt there…
my photos suggest that it looked like this in March of 2021… hard to believe, lol…

20 Monday Mar 2023
Posted in garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, bins, bird feeder, blessed, fill, garden, hot tub, lane, moments, nature, Spring, suet, top up, water, weather, widow
on Saturday I went out to top up the hot tub…
the weather app was suggesting it was -21 out, but the sun was shining and there wasn’t any wind in the garden…
was able to slide the one side open without taking it right off… worked fine…

while the water was running, I brought in the recycling bin from the lane…
and I found a suet feeder in the garage and put a frozen block of homemade suet out in the front yard…

nice to be outdoors for a little while… Spring is coming…
19 Sunday Mar 2023
Posted in business, garden, health, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, Blue Morpho, butterflies, elusive, garden, happy, moments, nature, orange, photos, Shirley Richardson Butterfly Garden, sun, The Leaf, treat, walk, widow
had a fun time in the Shirley Richardson Butterfly Garden at The Leaf on Thursday… it wasn’t too cold outside and bright so there was lots of activity…
a fair number of people were in the space and there were many butterflies…




apparently I was enamoured with the orange ones, lol…
this little one sat and offered different poses;-)…

and, of course, I tried to catch the elusive Blue Morpho… there were quite a few of them, but what makes it elusive is that you need to catch it in flight to capture the blue colour, lol… but I did get a partial shot;-)…

at least you can see some of the blue…
spending time in this space sure does make me happy;-)…
15 Wednesday Mar 2023
Posted in business, food, health, life, moments, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, clothes, Costco, extras, groceries, items, moments, shopping, shorts, treats, widow
went to Costco for four things, hahaha…
came home with three of them and just a few other things…

including leggings that I had picked up a while ago, and loved, in a different colour… shorts with side pockets (spring must be coming, right!), two v-neck tops… salad, and maybe a fun snack;-)…
14 Tuesday Mar 2023
Posted in business, garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, chopper, cold, doorknob, exercise, garden, hot tub, ice, moments, nature, shovel, slippery, tool, weather, widow
sun was out and it only felt like -14 Celsius, so I went outside to see about getting rid of the ice that has built up where I stand to get into and out of the hot tub…
ice here seems unusual, but could be because I haven’t cleared the snow on my path to the tub every single time it has snowed, lol…
anyway, I’ve slipped a few times so it felt important to clean it up…
that, of course, meant I had to get into the garage to get the ice chopper… but the good news is that now the doorknob has been removed I can get in via the person door again… so I had to shovel to get there…

once I had the chopper it took a while to get rid of most of the ice as the sun doesn’t shine in this area of the garden;-)… handy tool to get the job done…

was careful not to get too close to where the power cord goes… but, it is done and now safe to get in and out of the hot tub…

and I got my exercise for the day…