21 Thursday May 2020
Posted in business, garden, life, nature, technology, travel, Uncategorized
today as I was sitting outside, I took this photo of the tree next door as it is budding out…
so happy to watch this transformation from bare branches to a canopy of leaves…
another thing I’ve noticed over the last few days is the number of planes leaving the airport… there are many more than there have been for weeks… hard to believe that people are travelling, although the planes might all be filled with mail and parcels, lol…
20 Wednesday May 2020
Posted in family, garden, life, nature, Uncategorized
Tags
angel trumpet, beloved, big girl pants, blessed, datura, flowers, garden, gardener, memories, morning glories, nature, planters, seedlings, walk, widow
so excited this morning to discover these two little seedlings… they are morning glories…
once I’ve put out the cushions for the furniture, I walk around and check all of the pots that I have planted…
I’d been worried that the morning glories weren’t going to come up… at the same time I also planted some datura in pots in the front yard and they haven’t come through yet… but now I am hopeful that they still might…
we’ve grown both morning glories and daturas for many years… I am looking forward to seeing some this year, particularly as the garden may be the only place I travel to, lol…
most of the dahlias and tomatoes are doing nicely… it looks like a couple of the dahlias aren’t going to make it…
waiting for plants from Shelmerdine to arrive and make their way into the ground… they were a birthday gift from the kids in Ottawa…
I enjoy planting pots and planters but hope to have the items that are going into the ground planted by Hilda the Gardener;-)…
19 Tuesday May 2020
Posted in garden, life, loss, nature, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, cutie, elm, flower, garden, memories, missing, moments, name, purple, shady, walk, widow
another great day…
while I was on a walking tour around my space, I spotted this little cutie in the shade garden…
of course the shade garden is no longer shady as the elm that provided that shade was removed a number of years ago…
I still miss it… and clearly I need a new name for this garden, lol…
18 Monday May 2020
Tags
arrangement, big girl pants, bird feeders, blessed, family, garden, grandson, inukshuk, nature, oriole, personal shopper, shade, shopper, sun, sun shirt, widow
I spent the day in the garden… I stayed in the shade but eventually put on my sun shirt and a pair of long pants to be sure I didn’t get too much sun, as I was feeling it, even in the shade…
I’d sent my grandson a list of things I needed from various stores… currently our deal is that he has the use of my car and acts as my personal shopper;-)… he spent a good portion of the morning gathering things I haven’t been able to order online and then brought them to me in the afternoon…
we put away all of the goodies, made some adjustments to the bird feeders – excited to see if the slinky keeps away the squirrels – and had a wonderful visit… nice to have someone to talk with in person (at a safe distance)…
I was very clever and made an oriole feeder;-)… apparently they like oranges…
after supper he put the Inukshuk back together for me, as it had been in pieces, lol… too heavy for me to lift…
am blessed to have such a great kid in my life;-)…
17 Sunday May 2020
Tags
big girl pants, birds, blessed, deck, frog, garden, lunch, memories, moments, nature, pond, supper, waterfall, weather, widow
had a lovely day in the garden…
set out the cushions, tidied a bit, and then read, napped and watched a few birds…
moved from chair to chair as I followed the shade and ate lunch and supper outside…
spotted the frog for a brief minute… it has been calling for days and this was the first time I was able to see it;-)…
16 Saturday May 2020
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, family, garden, hose, losing, memories, moments, pond, vanishing, water, waterfall, widow
I’ve been watching the pond since a week ago Friday, when my son-in-law got it running…
for the last few years when the waterfall is going water vanishes from the pond in a slow but steady manner…
same thing this year… Tuesday it was quite low, but the temperature was near zero so I was afraid to use the outside hose to top it up, but I was also afraid to turn it off in case water froze in the pump and wrecked it…
it was still cold Wednesday, but I had to do something otherwise the pump was going to be sucking air and then die…
after removing a connector which had broken over the winter and reattaching the hose to the main tap, I was able to get the hose running slowly and then more quickly once I was sure it wasn’t full of ice…
took quite a while to fill the pond, but I sat in the sun with a jacket on and watched for birds, lol…
then I placed a thin rock behind the waterfall so that the water would fall directly into the pond and not onto the pads behind it…
I was very excited, because I think this might make a difference to the vanishing water…
yesterday I topped it up again, but it is losing water way more slowly…
going to watch and see what happens…
15 Friday May 2020
Posted in family, life, loss, moments, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, declutter, home, memories, move, neighbours, remembering, sugar cookies, treat, welcome, widow
I’ve spent a good part of the day watching the activity as the new neighbours move into the house next door…
looks like they are a young couple and they have been coming and going since around 7:30 this morning…
last Friday I watched the moving van arrive and take away all the belongings of the couple who had lived there for over 10 years… well he lived there for that time, and recently got married… since then they have come and gone a number of times to do the last bit of clean up and removal… his adult kids had all been by to fetch their bits and pieces and a couple of days ago a truck came and picked up the hot tub…
it made me think of a couple of things…
first was the day we moved into this house… it was in August of 1973… we had purchased the house from an older couple and on the day we were to move in, we arrived at nine in the morning to discover them sitting at their kitchen table having tea… it appears that they had forgotten they had to be out that day… we were freaking out at our end, because we had to be out of the apartment we had been living in by the end of that day… amazingly, their son arrived and they were out of the house by 3 pm…
second is the thought of what my kids will have to do when I leave the house… we have lived here for 47 years so there is a lot of stuff… I keep thinking about how I need to be decluttering more than I have, although right now isn’t really the time to do that, as organizations are not taking donations at this time, lol…
but it does remind me to get onto that project as soon as possible… we won’t even discuss the state of the garage, which has not been dealt with since my beloved’s death over eight years ago…
I baked sugar cookies to deliver next door and share with a few others…
14 Thursday May 2020
Posted in garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, bird feeders, birds, chickadees, eat, flowers, garden, hand, moments, nature, seeds, treat, widow
recently spent most of the day in the garden watching the comings and goings at the bird feeder…
my goal this summer is to teach the chickadees to eat from my hand…
starting by putting food out close to my chair and sitting fairly close to the feeder so they get used to me being there…
had a few conversations with the squirrels who kept coming to eat, but I encouraged them to leave… later, I noticed two at the feeder… making up for lost time I guess…
saw juncos, song sparrows, nuthatches, and finches, but no chickadees, lol…
13 Wednesday May 2020
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, comfort, comfort food, family, food, meals, memories, remembering, supper, widow
had a bit of a giggle when I told my daughter that I had mushrooms and bacon with croutons for my supper recently…
she wondered if it was an actual meal…
I shared how it was certainly a meal when I was a teenager although then when my mom or dad made it, it was on toast, not with croutons…
so, for me it is comfort food… I feel that we are eating a lot of comfort food these days as we try to figure out what our next steps will be…
so many of the meals we ate a long time ago might not have been considered as nutritious as what is being eaten these days… I think of corn on the cob and fresh tomatoes, spaghetti and meatballs without any vegetables, macaroni and cheese on its own, lol… a lot more fresh veggies are part of our meals today…
but it is fun to remember, and recreate some of those old recipes…
12 Tuesday May 2020
Posted in business, life, moments, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, computer, directions, forget, learning, moments, patience, projects, Technology, training, understanding, widow
I’ve been working on a few technology projects, including reading a very long manual, lol… I am amazed at how easily and quickly I seem to have forgotten how to spend a serious amount of time learning…
I’ve also been learning and sharing information on how to make programs work… this makes me think about what a great job those who provide this type of information over the phone or computer do… clearly, they are amazing and should get lots of kudos…
it takes excellent understanding and clear directions to help get something working for someone from a distance… I think of my son-in-law who climbs into my computer from away and figures out the problem and either fixes it, or walks me through the process to get things working again… all without a single complaint about what I might have done that may have caused the problem in the first place…
thinking this is good practice in patience and happy to be relearning this skill…
herbiggirlpants 