nervous…

20 Monday Jul 2015

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yesterday was three years since my cancer surgery…

today I had my regular six-month check-up… which I will have until five years have gone by… the chances of the cancer reoccurring are basically nil as the doctor pointed out today, but I was still nervous…

  
usually my daughter comes with me but she wasn’t able to today… didn’t even want to be in the building so soon after my friends’ deaths… and it isn’t CancerCare’s fault… they did everything they possibly could…

everything went well and I am fine… back to the office in record time…

  
combined the homemade pesto with whole wheat pita bread and Brie for a great pizza, with a veggie salad for my supper… doing much better with whole wheat items, particularly if there are strong flavours with them…

I had a few pieces of Lindt Orange Intense Dark Chocolate as a treat… don’t tell my BS friends… this was supposed to be their treat from my Ottawa trip, lol… I’m sure I can save the rest of it…

healthy…

19 Sunday Jul 2015

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three years ago today I had surgery to remove a cancerous uterus and repair a large hernia…

 and here I sit, feeling great after a busy day where I walked to and from the grocery store, went plant shopping with my daughter, made supper for my kids, cleaned up after they left and am spending time enjoying the garden, not even tired…

just the other day someone commented on how quickly I had walked from one location to another…

 
so much has changed in just over three years… the devastating loss of my husband… cancer, surgery and slow recovery… diabetes diagnosis with lifestyle changes and forty pound weight loss…

I am one of the lucky ones… free of cancer and healthy…

  
and life goes on…

surplus…

18 Saturday Jul 2015

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raindrops on everything in the garden…

  
started out bright and sunny, then clouded over and rained…

  
then it cleared for a while and repeated the whole process… really a surplus of drops…

  
talked to my daughter and she was making pesto from her surplus of basil… so I tried making some this afternoon… found some recipes on Pinterest and went from there…

  
hard to tell but this plant is about half what it was before I used it for the pesto…

  
came out very nicely,  and I added it to spaghetti for my supper…

  
tasty… think I will make some more and maybe freeze it… the basil is growing like crazy…

beauty…

17 Friday Jul 2015

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took a few pictures of the gladiola flowers in the living room as I was waiting for my travel buddy…

 they sure aren’t lasting the way they have in previous years… not sure what that is about… but they look beautiful…

on my way back to the office from the post office I had to stop and get a picture of Emptyful as the sun was sparkling on the fall of water… such a lovely sight…

  
arrived home to my daughter preparing supper and the boys arriving at the house… after dinner I noticed that one of the plants in the pond is starting to bloom…  

  
I think it has grown about a foot since yesterday… looks like the flower is going to be a beauty…

  
great end to a very full week…

power…

16 Thursday Jul 2015

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the mandevilla looks amazing… even though it rained last night it was in good shape…

  
picked up some peas and baby cucumbers at the Farmers Market downtown today, so I added them to my dinner plate… I also went outside and picked a few of the green peppers… 

unfortunately they are hot and powerful… put one in my mouth and started to cough and choke… had to take quite a few drinks of water to get my breath back, lol… and there are tons of peppers on the plants…

  
got a letter in the mail saying that Hydro were having trouble getting a reading on my power meter… they suggested I take a picture of the meter so they could read it… I must say reading it has been difficult… wondered why they hadn’t suggested this before… way simpler for me and they get the reading much quicker, without it being done incorrectly…

power in a number of places…

appreciation…

15 Wednesday Jul 2015

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had a wonderful day…

checked the garden and saw that one of the mandevilla buds had finally opened… they are beautifully structured, but take a long time to open…

  
we didn’t have to be at the office until an hour after our usual time as today was staff appreciation day…

  
while we ate breakfast snacks, which can be a bit complicated as we have a number of food issues, we played a serious game of Pictionary… some of us can be a bit competitive…

  
at the same time, taking turns getting henna tattoos… 

  
they were beautifully done by @dahliahenna…

then, a walk to The Forks where we got to take a water taxi tour on the Assiniboine and Red rivers… great fun… nothing like the wind in your face riding on the water…

  
got a nice shot of the Legislature… things always look so different from the water…

  
lunch on the patio of the Beachcomber with an incredible group…

walk back to the office and then home…

truly blessed to work in an organization which does appreciate and care for all staff members…

followers…

14 Tuesday Jul 2015

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kind of excited to see that I have 223 followers…

in 2015 I have had 2,251 visits but the most interesting thing is that people from ten countries have read one of my blogs…

  
not big numbers if you compare them to others, but big numbers to me, lol…

getting likes and comments and new followers certainly gives me energy…

always fascinating which posts get the most response… I might write something and think it isn’t particularly interesting and then have lots of activity… another time I will feel I’ve written something which everyone will resonate with and it gets no interest at all…

started out as a method to share how I was dealing with the loss of my husband and now it is more general, although everything I do is really about moving forward on my own without my beloved…

this bouquet, in the living room this morning, reminds me of how he always made sure I had fresh flowers…

  

hot…

13 Monday Jul 2015

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was another hot day… got up and was out of the house before 8 to go for a walk… didn’t want to be out there when it got really hot…

  
crossing over the bridge got a few shots of the barn swallows... in Ottawa they have just built houses for their barn swallows where they were doing some work on a bridge… apparently they are endangered there… not here, lol…

the English Garden had very few visitors but was filled with gardeners… they were working in every area… looks beautiful…

  
usually I am drawn to the purple/blue flowers but today I kept leaning toward the orange ones…

   
 
my friend loved that colour…

  
can’t even guess how many pictures I have taken of the water lilies in the Leo Mol Sculpture Garden… hundreds for sure… the tropical lilies are just starting to bloom…

got home, welcomed a new cleaning crew and went into the garden to be out of their way… mowed and whipper-snipped the back yard… did some weeding and watering… was dancing around on the deck and in the garden because the ground was soooo hot…

  
finally got to sit down in the shade… nice…

beautiful hot summer day… really enjoying my Mondays off…

loss…

12 Sunday Jul 2015

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recently lost a good friend to cancer… she was a very special person and many people are feeling her loss…

  
this morning I sat in the hot tub looking into the garden crying, for her and for me…

always shocking how the loss of one person brings back other losses you’ve experienced in your own life…

been reliving the day that George died… I can remember some of it… but I don’t really want to… not sure I have done anything harder than call each of my girls to tell them their dad was gone…

interesting that I haven’t thought about my cancer… the diagnosis, wait, surgery, recovery and finally results of the pathology… just about losing my beloved…

life goes on and I wear those big girl pants more and more… but I don’t have to like it…

and some days I just need to wallow in that feeling sorry for myself place…

  

  

storm…

11 Saturday Jul 2015

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am dripping wet right now…

  
hard to see but there is a rainbow in this picture… this is what it looked like after I ran out in the pouring rain and put away all the cushions… first time they have been soaked, sigh… should have put them away before supper…

the day had been perfect up till the storm…

  
fish were out and about…

  
watered all the planters and baskets and they are doing well…

  
found a small tomato…

  
couple of green peppers…

  
and an eggplant… woo hoo…

  
mandevilla is ready to open…

  
and the million bells basket is beautiful…

the rain has ended but the thunder is still rolling…