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herbiggirlpants

Category Archives: retirement

stuff…

20 Sunday Sep 2020

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

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beloved, big girl pants, blessed, cleaning, family, garage, garden, grandsons, moments, stuff, widow

yesterday and today I spent a good portion of the afternoon in the garage…

I haven’t done anything with it since my beloved died… and that was eight years ago, sigh…

I still don’t know where stuff is or even what stuff is in there…

last month I had the roof reshingled and now I’ve decided to make cleaning and sorting it out my fall project…

it is going to take a lot of time, but for now my plan is to fill the garbage can each week with junk and set aside things I want and things I can give away…

this picture might look like a before, but it is actually the after of yesterday’s effort…

three shelving units were cleared off, the garbage can was filled, the next door neighbour took some firewood and the neighbour behind took the fancy woodworking wood that I discovered…

boxes were set up and put on the shelves for gardening, pumps, plants, bubble makers and fish supplies… and I found a couple of things I can use… brought one item in for another little project, and gathered scrap metal for my son-in-law…

today my middle grandson finished emptying the final few shelves, loaded up boxes with bits of wood to take home for their fire pit, washed down all the shelves, put the items back on the shelves and mowed the grass…

the oldest moved the ladders, picked up items at various stores, trimmed the Virginia creeper and loaded the wood into the car…

it is kind of exciting to really know where some stuff is…

looking great;-)…

blackcurrant…

18 Friday Sep 2020

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

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big girl pants, blackcurrant, blessed, delicious, family, happy, moments, online, purple, shopping, Tea, treat, widow

months ago I ran out of my favourite tea – Twinning Blackcurrant… I was very sad… I went online to see if I could order it direct from the company, but they no longer carried it…

about a month ago my Ottawa son-in-law came across a site in Europe that appeared to have it… I went online and ordered one package as the photo looked slightly different and I didn’t want to get a ton of tea I might not like…

Tuesday a very sad package arrived in the mail in a ginormous plastic bag…

the big plastic bag was an apology from Canada Post regarding the state of the parcel…

thankfully the plastic covering the box of tea was still intact and the tea bags were fine…

I made a pot of tea and it is the right kind;-)…

so happy… I then went back online and ordered 12 boxes… yay…

inside…

17 Thursday Sep 2020

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

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big girl pants, dahlias, flowers, frost, garden, hibiscus, inside, mandevilla, moments, nature, weather, widow

in preparation for the colder weather I’ve now brought in the three plants that live in the house…

last week the Japanese maple came in and settled back in beside the living room window… the leaf colours had already started to change…

a few days back, the mandevilla came in… I added fresh earth and sprayed it with insecticide to remove any creepy crawlers that might have wanted to take a trip…

it had been hanging outside and really wanted to lean forward… eventually three elastics helped make it stand up straight… hope it doesn’t decide to fall over in the dining room…

yesterday I brought the hibiscus inside…. excited to see it has buds on it;-)…

might also bring in a couple of others to see if they can survive the winter in the house…

and tonight I’ve covered the dahlias… the temperature is likely going to -4 Celsius… four of them have buds and I’m hoping they get to open… for two of them, it will be the first time they bloom and I am interested to see how they look…

den…

15 Tuesday Sep 2020

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

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big girl pants, blessed, den, gift, google, mini, Technology, widow

the other day I received a Google Nest Mini in the mail… it was a gift for joining a program…

after thinking about it for a short time, I decided to put it in the den… the other option was the laundry room, but I’ve been spending more time watching TV in the den, so we will see how it goes…

I didn’t even have to read the how-to instructions to set it up… the process is easy and it connects with all the others seamlessly…

hey Google;-)…

tasting…

13 Sunday Sep 2020

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

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big girl pants, blessed, chocolate, daughter, fun, Google Duo, moments, notes, package, Qantu Chocolate, tasting, Technology, treat, widow

received a chocolate tasting package from my daughter months ago…

we finally got together via Google Duo and did the tasting together… the last time I participated in one was over Christmas in her dining room… it was set up beautifully…

this one was certainly different… I didn’t think to put them on a pretty plate, but did have them lined up and with the note pages… in the end I felt very happy and enjoyed what I had learned… she really helped me discover the different notes of the five pieces of chocolate;-)…

my favourite was a Qantu 70% Chuncho bar…

next time it would be fun to have a few other people participate and hear their thoughts;-)…

traffic…

12 Saturday Sep 2020

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

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big girl pants, blessed, Bruce Park, flowers, garden, health, moments, nature, traffic, walk, water, weather, widow

walked through Bruce Park the other day…

much less people traffic than the area around Assiniboine Park… quiet and peaceful…

got to see water flowing, flowers blooming and shaded green spaces…

lovely…

Instagram…

08 Tuesday Sep 2020

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

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big girl pants, blessed, flowers, garden, happy place, Highlights, Instagram, memories, moments, nature, pictures, plants, pond, sanctuary, Stories, widow

recently it was pointed out to me that I don’t show much of my garden on Instagram…

that is because I usually focus on close ups of the flowers in the garden, lol…

when I joined Instagram my focus was photos of flowers and I have continued to concentrate on that theme over the years with the odd picture of critters and chocolate included…

this is rather funny as I spend most of my days in this renewing space…

a few days ago I took a number of photos in the garden once all the cushions were out and then put them up in my Stories…

it was a fun process and I had to relearn how to do a few things;-)…

now there are Highlights of the garden… of course the funny thing is that the garden is not at its best as we are moving into Fall… maybe next year I can start earlier in the season so others can see this sanctuary throughout the entire summer…

I love my garden and wonder how this crazy summer would have been without it…

coverage…

30 Sunday Aug 2020

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

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big girl pants, blessed, coverage, garden, moments, nature, rain, shade, sky, sun, test, turn, umbrella, weather, widow

not too long ago we got a new shade umbrella… it has worked well for a portion of the day, providing shade for one chair but I was hoping it might adjust to provide more coverage, depending on the time of day…

yesterday I learned how to turn it, which I didn’t think was possible… very exciting…

unfortunately, the sun had already put the whole backyard in shadow so we couldn’t test it out… I’d hoped to see what it could do today, but it has been overcast followed by a thunderstorm… no sun expected, but tomorrow should be sunny all day;-)…

no testing today, lol…

fudgicles…

28 Friday Aug 2020

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

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baby fish, beloved, big girl pants, blessed, dinner, fish, friends, fudgicle, garden, memories, moments, nature, photos, pond, Technology, walk, widow

had an excellent visit with a good friend a few days ago…

she brought fresh veggies from her garden… we consulted on a project, talked about our lives, exercise, technology, and living on our own…

we ordered in some tasty Pho Hoang and had fudgicles for dessert…

after dinner, while we were sitting beside the pond, I spotted baby fish… this was very exciting…

after she left, I sat and spotted at least four, in three different sizes… looks like two about two inches long and at least one each of two smaller ones…

have not been able to get any photos as they move very quickly and look black in the water, lol… maybe they are nervous about some of those bigger ones..

a lovely time…

additions…

19 Wednesday Aug 2020

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

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additions, big girl pants, family, fish, garden, gift, goldfish, grandson, moments, no fishing, pictures, pond, treat, widow

got new additions to the pond…

two very large goldfish… a white one and an orange one…

they came from a family who plan to move to fancier fish… the grandma brought them over with the oldest grandson’s Nanny, who connected us…

they left them with me once they put the bags in the water… after the fish acclimatized for about half an hour I freed them so they could meet everyone else…

once they were safely in the pond, I took some pictures to send to the family, via Nanny, so that the grandkids could see they were in a good home…

the pond and fish bring me such peace… what a lovely gift;-)…

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beloved big girl pants birds blessed chocolate Christmas cold delicious dinner family fish flowers food friends fun garden George grandson happy health hibiscus hot tub light lunch memories moments morning glories nature orchid photos pictures plants pond purple rain remembering shopping sky snow sun sunshine supper Technology time treat trees walk water weather widow

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