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~ the new reality of a "70 something"

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Category Archives: retirement

thankfulness…

11 Sunday Oct 2020

Posted by sulis303 in garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, technology, Uncategorized

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big girl pants, blessed, family, friends, garden, moments, nature, pond, Technology, thankfulness, widow

our lives have changed so much in the last months… and I’ve spent time considering many of the things I am thankful for…

my retirement at the end of December has been a huge change… I had worried that if I retired I would turn into a hermit, lol… and so I did…

during these crazy covid times I have been able to find businesses that deliver groceries, books, technology, plants, meals…

I am in touch with friends through various applications, and have enjoyed many garden visits during nice weather…

I have found help with projects and my neighbours are available if I have issues…

my grandson has my car and picks up items on a regular basis when I can’t find them any other way… the younger ones have looked after maintaining the grass and helped with the pond…

time spent in the garden, following the shade, soaking up the peace and serenity has been amazing… watching flowers bud and open, birds and squirrels at the feeders, and fish, frogs, plants and blossoms in the pond have whiled away the spring, summer and now fall…

how blessed I am;-)…

usual…

10 Saturday Oct 2020

Posted by sulis303 in family, food, life, loss, moments, retirement, Uncategorized, weather

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big girl pants, blessed, dinner, family, grandsons, meal, memories, moments, preparing, stuffing, usual, widow

the usual family dinner is not happening this weekend…

this year I decided to cook a special dinner just for me;-)… will use some technology to eat with my Ottawa kids…

today I made stuffing muffins for my grandsons… one of their favourites… the smell was delightful and a reminder of what makes a meal special… the eldest grandson will pick them up…

I also prepared potatoes and cauliflower for cooking… I tried something different as I prepared them because, if it doesn’t turn out, I’m the only one eating it, lol… I also cooked a small turnip and made fresh cranberry jelly…

usually as I am preparing for a special dinner I am thinking of those who will be enjoying the meal… today I thought about what a sunny day it was outside, even if it was chilly… and how blessed I am to have the food I want and a place to eat it safely…

crunch…

06 Tuesday Oct 2020

Posted by sulis303 in garden, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized, weather

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big girl pants, birds, blessed, crunch, Fall, garden, leaves, listen, moments, nature, noise, photos, pine siskins, pond, widow

spent a lovely afternoon in the garden before the rain…

pulled more leaves out of the pond… more are coming down into it every day…

I read and listened to the birds as they crunched through the leaves looking for bugs and seeds… considering how small they are, they made a lot of noise…

flocks of white-throated, song, and house sparrows, as well as pine siskins landed in the grass and around the pond where they would carefully jump from rock to rock to get a drink…

then off they went…

after…

05 Monday Oct 2020

Posted by sulis303 in garden, health, life, loss, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather

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after, big girl pants, birds, cleaning, feeders, garage, garden, goldfish, moments, nature, pictures, pond, squirrels, widow

spent an hour in the garage sorting and organizing… I laughed because I always think about the before picture after I’ve done the work, lol…

also was in the garden for a couple of hours watching the goldfish and birds move about…

I filled feeders and put them in different spots…

it is always interesting to see how long it takes the birds and squirrels to find them again, lol…

vivid…

01 Thursday Oct 2020

Posted by sulis303 in garden, life, loss, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized, weather

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big girl pants, blessed, Captain's Table, garden, memories, moments, nature, pictures, plants, trees, virginia creeper, visit, vivid, weather, widow

a dear friend brought my favourite fish and chips, from Captain’s Table and we had a great visit…

after she left I went out, filled the garbage bin with more goodies from the garage, and set it out for tomorrow’s pickup…

then I wandered around the yard and took some pictures of the Virginia creeper… it is a vivid and glorious colour although many of the leaves have already dropped…

I’ve been contemplating how lucky I am to have the time to spend on such activities;-)…

backpack…

30 Wednesday Sep 2020

Posted by sulis303 in business, family, food, life, moments, retirement, Uncategorized

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backpack, big girl pants, family, groceries, happy, moments, shopping, widow

my personal shopper arrived with a few items I had missed from my grocery order the other day…

he came by motorbike and luckily I only needed a few items as he had to fit them all in his backpack…

he brought eggs, mushrooms, and the margarine that I use which is hard to find…

I am so thankful to have this wonderful young man in my life…

monitor…

29 Tuesday Sep 2020

Posted by sulis303 in life, moments, retirement, technology, Uncategorized

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big girl pants, fixed, friends, moments, monitor, tech, Technology, widow

last night, preparing for our weekly BS Skype call, I moved the monitor on my desktop computer… and it went black;-(…

tried checking the cords but the picture would not return…

I ran downstairs and brought up the laptop for the meeting… of course I had to run back to get the cord as it was nearly exhausted…

it worked well and I was able to see everyone… I’ve been trying to use the computer room to see if being closer to the router and internet link would mean less dropped videos…

this morning I was able to jiggle cords and when I pushed the start button it turned on, updated a million things and then worked perfectly…

yay, I don’t want to be having tech people in the house if I don’t have to…

airlock…

26 Saturday Sep 2020

Posted by sulis303 in business, garden, life, loss, retirement, Uncategorized, weather

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airlock, big girl pants, chemicals, cold, garden, hot tub, leaking, moments, pump, service, technicians, waiting, water, weather, widow

have been having some problems with the hot tub leaking for quite some time, but wasn’t certain that the water wasn’t just evaporating with the hot weather we’d been having…

finally it was clear that there was a problem so I called up the company I deal with and made an appointment…

a fellow came out on Monday morning and discovered water dripping from a portion of the pump… he thought it would be about forty dollars for the part which needed to be replaced… he worked for well over an hour and then advised that the entire pump needed to be replaced because the new piece wouldn’t fit in properly as they are now made slightly differently…

we contacted a supplier and my son-in-law went and picked up the new one so that the repair person could return the next morning to hook it up…

sadly, that didn’t happen… I made numerous calls to the store and was advised that they would pass along the message, but no one came… finally I called and asked for an actual appointment so that someone would turn up…

two fellows turned up the next morning and set about installing the new pump… they also fixed the loose jets (with silicone) so they don’t keep shooting the water out of the tub when the water level goes down a bit…

they advised the silicone needed twenty-four hours to cure and that the tub should work fine after that….

cleaned it out and partially filled it to just below the jets and waited for the point where I could finish filling it and turn it on to heat up…

after I filled it up and turned it back on, the pump made noise but the water did not move… I called again and a few hours later the guys came back and fixed an airlock in the pump… then it started to heat up…

I am going out for a hot tub soon;-)…

neighbours…

24 Thursday Sep 2020

Posted by sulis303 in garden, life, loss, moments, retirement, Uncategorized, weather

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beloved, big girl pants, blessed, chat, friends, garden, help, house, memories, moments, neighbours, siding, widow

I have the nicest neighbours… they are basically all new(ish)… when we first moved here we became good friends with a number of neighbours, but they are all gone…

since then there have been a few inhabitants of various houses who we didn’t chat with very much…

today, the neighbour across the street came over and fixed a piece of siding at the peak of the house that had come loose during the big wind storm a while back… we had a lovely chat as he tried to get it hooked back in… he had volunteered to fix it for me, via his wife, who I had chatted with the other day when the fire trucks raced down the street… he helped me last winter when Indi got stuck at the bottom of the driveway and I couldn’t get her up the slope…

the tomatoes I’ve been eating came from the next door neighbours on my right… they have been in the house for a few years now and remind me of our friends who used to live there… he spends a lot of time tinkering in the yard and garage, lol… they spend time at the lake and moved here to help with their grandchildren and have them over on a regular basis… they got a dog a few months ago… not sure what type he is, but he is small and learning not to bark when he sees me in my garden…

the neighbours behind have been there for ten or so years so knew my beloved and they would chat over the fence all the time and share tools… the other day he offered to help with the garage cleanup…

the neighbours on the left are the newest addition… they are a young couple who also have a new puppy, which is going to be fairly large… they have both offered to pick up anything I might need when they are out and about…

I think back to the gatherings we used to have on the deck… weekend breakfasts, dinners and visits… those days are long gone…

and of course, nowadays the only visiting we do is at a distance…

still, it is lovely to know that if I need urgent help I could call on any of them…

experiment…

21 Monday Sep 2020

Posted by sulis303 in life, loss, moments, retirement, technology, Uncategorized

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big girl pants, blessed, books, cleaning, computer, experiment, friends, moments, Technology, widow

recently I spent a good portion of the day in the computer room tidying…

I’ve been dumping empty boxes in there for months and there were about 10 boxes of books that were packed up before the pandemic but hadn’t made it to the fire station…

when I am on my Skype calls with my BS buddies I keep losing video of them, so I thought I’d try a call from the main computer which is hooked up directly to the internet… hope that helps…

so, I had to clean the room up so when I was on the call I wouldn’t be horribly embarrassed, lol…

this morning I carried all but one of the boxes of books out to the garage and put them on the newly emptied shelves… they weigh a lot… the last one is way too heavy for me…

for tonight’s call, one person wasn’t available, one person couldn’t get her camera working and in the middle of the call, my computer decided it was going to upgrade, so I was off the call for ten minutes or so…

interesting experiment, lol…

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