02 Friday Jun 2023
Posted in garden, life, loss, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
beloved, big girl pants, blessed, flowers, garden, huge, memories, moments, nature, plants, poppies, remembering, widow
for whatever reason the poppies opening is a huge deal for me…
this morning Facebook shared a memory from this date in 2012 when there was an abundance of poppies blooming…
and when I went into the garden, the first one this season was open…
what a treat, and a lovely reminder of my beloved, who also loved poppies;-)…
19 Friday May 2023
Posted in food, garden, health, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, technology, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, bunny, burbling, garden, goldfinch, happy, home, moments, nature, pond, quiet, Technology, water, weather, widow
early Tuesday morning I was sitting on the back deck, listening to the burbling of the pond, as a bunny came right up next to me… we chatted, well I chatted and the bunny twitched its nose for a few minutes, before it hopped away… pleased that it felt comfortable as I sat there reading quietly… well, maybe it didn’t notice me, lol…
reminded me of how truly blessed I am… and what a wonderful life I lead…that I can sit in the sunshine and shade in my garden and enjoy the nature around me – the birds, and squirrels, and bunnies, and bees – every day that I want…
and while I was there, to hear about the ducklings that hatched yesterday, and today crossed a busy street with their momma, (protected by two different people families) in Ottawa to find a swimming pool to start the next portion of their journey…
later in the day I stood up from a chair on the upper deck and spotted a goldfinch at the feeder… it flitted about nervously for a few moments and then, when it felt safe, called its partner to come and eat… they were happy for a while, until a squirrel came and chased them away…
if I hadn’t stood up at just that moment I would have missed them… a lovely treat…
made chicken soup from the leftovers of Sunday’s dinner and tested out a few new purchases which arrived at the door…
nice…
30 Sunday Apr 2023
Posted in business, family, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, travel, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
amethyst, amethyst heart, banyan, beaches, big girl pants, blessed, cacao trees, flowers, Hawaii, jacaranda, Maui, memories, moments, nature, once-in-a-lifetime, orchids, pictures, remembering, trees, turtles, vacation, water, widow
four years ago in April, we arrived on Maui to celebrate my birthday…
I had always wanted to go to Hawaii, but never made it happen until then…
I have been enjoying the memories that have come up in my social media…
on our way into our first hotel, we spotted orchids in the lobby…
we went to the beach to watch the sun set, got our toes in the ocean, found a great spot to watch, settled in to wait, and then had this group of people walk right in front of us to get their pictures, lol…
I have the amethyst heart that I purchased on my bedside table and enjoy seeing it all the time…
one of my favourite memories is of our time at the orchid farm… a huge space bursting with the most beautiful plants, most of which were in full bloom…
it was delightful…
there were fish and sea turtles…
saw cacao trees with cacao pods on them, jacaranda trees in bloom (purple), and the most amazing banyan tree which took up an entire block…
it was an amazing time and we enjoyed every minute… it lived up to all of my expectations and then some… so lucky this happened before covid…
21 Friday Apr 2023
Posted in food, garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
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;-)…
23 Thursday Mar 2023
Posted in business, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, computer, deleting, flowers, garden, moments, Mylio, nature, photos, pictures, remembering, Technology, widow
after some issues with the computer upstairs, it finally connected to the internet so I was able to work on the Mylio photo program I’d purchased a few months ago…
at last, after trying for a long time, it was able to delete duplicates pictures in my computer and laptop… I knew there were a lot and of the 192,000 images, it deleted 98,543…
it took hours, but the process has now been completed…
although, it found a whole bunch more photos… yikes…
going to need to spend some time deleting some of the multiples of various shots…
I am getting better at deleting excess shots right after I take them;-)…
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;-)…
18 Saturday Mar 2023
Posted in business, garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, biome, blessed, flowers, garden, growth, happy, humidity, moments, nature, plants, The Leaf, trees, walk, wall, waterfall, weather, widow
had another great visit to The Leaf on Thursday…
we arrived about 10:45 am and it felt like we walked into a wall of moisture… clearly the humidity level has gone up considerably since we were last here…
there were a good number of people in the space, but it didn’t feel crowded…
the waterfall is still spilling into the walkways, but it seemed at a lesser degree…
the plants are visibly growing and are lush and bright, even on a partially overcast day…
they seemed so much happier than on my last visit, when many of them looked like they might not survive…
lots of different flowers blooming throughout both the tropical and Mediterranean biomes…
every walk through the biomes brings something different and interesting… can’t wait to see what future visits will produce…
16 Thursday Mar 2023
Posted in business, family, life, loss, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
arrangements, big girl pants, blessed, bouquet, designing, flowers, foam, happy, moments, nature, purple, vase, widow
Wednesday was the day… I took the bouquet that came twelve days ago and separated it into three different arrangements…
the roses have been gone for quite a while but the remainder were doing quite well…
the biggest problem had been getting the water into it as the foam really filled up the top so there wasn’t room to easily add water…
started with designing this first arrangement in an oval shaped vase… it came out nicely I think… it is going upstairs into the bedroom…
there were so many greens that I filled another small container with them and added two of the carnations… this one has gone into the bathroom…
finally, the mums and a couple of daisies went into a very small bottle and were put in the den…
so that meant that the orchid collection has returned to the living room table…
flowers everywhere;-)…
12 Sunday Mar 2023
Posted in family, garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, blizzard, family, moments, nature, shovel, sidewalks, snow, sun, two inches, weather, widow
well, it was called a blizzard, but it just felt like a lot-of-snow day, lol… Google tells me we had about two inches…
it looks pretty now that the sun has returned… and everything is very quiet… not sure how long that will last before cars and people take over the street…
hopefully, someone else is going to shovel the sidewalks;-)…
herbiggirlpants 