15 Saturday Dec 2018
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
beloved, big girl pants, Christmas, joyeux, parcels, productive, snowflakes, widow, wrapping
had a quiet, but productive day…
watched some tv, did laundry and wrapped all but one Christmas present… will do the final one tomorrow…
very happy with the wrapping paper… one side is covered in snowflakes and the other with the words Merry Christmas and Joyeux Noel…
it is nice and thick, which always makes wrapping easier…
missing my beloved as I work through the preparations for Christmas…
11 Tuesday Dec 2018
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
alone, beloved, big girl pants, blessed, Christmas, family, friends, help, many, melancholy, memories, poinsettias, sad, stocking, widow
this can be a melancholy time of year… often we think of those who are gone and won’t be with us to celebrate… I made sure to put my beloved’s stocking out where I could see it and remember the many wonderful celebrations we had…
it also seems to be a time when people are ill or feeling alone…
I was thinking of that when I took pictures of the poinsettias…
when you glance at them from one angle it appears there is only one, all alone… but when you look at them from another point of view you see there are many of them…
when I’m sad, I often get caught up in thinking I am all alone… good to think of the many who are there to support me…
the trick is to remember and be brave enough to tell them I need them… and then to accept the help, lol…
04 Tuesday Dec 2018
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
on my way home from work today I stopped at Co-op to fill up the tank… I do not put gas in the car, mainly because I can’t stand the smell… my beloved always looked after making sure the car was always filled and at top performance…
today marks the seventh birthday for my beloved without him… he would have been seventy…
he liked the gas at Husky… something to do with the quality… for the longest time after he died my kids would fill up the tank for me whenever it was low…
finally I went to get gas, only to learn that they hadn’t pumped gas for ages, lol… pretty embarrassing…
so, now it is Co-op for me… happily they still serve…
today I had them wash the windows and they did a great job… having worked so long at his dad’s service station my beloved was very particular about the cleaning of windshields…
he would have been happy with the job… although maybe not so pleased with how dirty the car is, lol…
02 Sunday Dec 2018
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
angels, beloved, big girl pants, Christmas, decorating, friends, glitter, lustre, ornaments, purple, reindeer, santas, silver, snow people, snowflakes, trees, widow
for the last few years a dear friend has come over to help me with the Christmas decorating…
I’ve always loved Christmas but since the loss of my beloved it has lost a bit of its lustre…
this year I’ve been working away on my own to decorate… I decided to try some different options… took me a few weeks but it is done now…
have put my tree collection in the dining room where my pottery usually lives… and even passed along some pieces, yay for me;-)…
put up a new tree with purple and silver decorations and hung up the glass balls on either side of the picture above the sofa…
put the snow people up the stairs…
got a garland going along the ledge in the dining room… final piece was to put the glittery trees on the fish tank…
still might have my friend come by to check it all out…
then going to go through the rest of the Christmas boxes and maybe pass some decorations along to others…
there are the reindeer, the snowflakes, the nativities, the angels, the santas…
26 Monday Nov 2018
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
I’ve worn contact lenses off and on for 40 years although for the last few years I haven’t worn any, as I’ve had a bit of trouble with my eyesight and some infections in my eyes…
have gone through a period where I didn’t see as well with the contacts in, so there wasn’t much sense in wearing them…
got a new prescription a while back and the other day when I put my contacts in I realized that one was missing… couldn’t find it anywhere around the sink so just thought “I guess it’s gone”…
first time I’ve ever lost a contact like that although over the years my beloved was always there to help me if I did misplace one…
when I got home from work that night I discovered the contact sitting on the edge of the sink, all dried up… too funny…
just a few days ago I took my contacts out and put my glasses on, only to realize that I still had a contact in one of my eyes…
not sure if this is a sign of old age, or what…
18 Sunday Nov 2018
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
10 years, 40 months, beloved, big girl pants, bypass, doctor, failure, heart surgery, recovery, widow
it has been ten years since my beloved had a quadruple bypass…
he caught a virus that caused immense damage to his heart…
I can still remember the doctor’s appointment where we discovered that he was in heart failure and would need surgery…
all the appointments between that first meeting and his surgery…
waiting during the operation, wondering if he would survive… and watching his miraculous recovery from the surgery…
he came home November 17, 2008 and we had forty wonderful months…
04 Sunday Nov 2018
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
beloved, big girl pants, facecloth, garage, hands, little things, missing, now, spiders, widow
it’s the little things…
was sitting in the hot tub this morning thinking of my beloved… realizing that some of the things I miss most are the little ones…
like having him wring out facecloths and towels and swimsuits… he had the strongest hands… now, I’ve developed more strength in my hands and wring things out myself…
like dealing with spiders… I have always been afraid of them… and always felt that they search me out… he would save me when I would come across one… my shriek would be a fairly clear sign for him, lol… I can now find the nearest item to use to smack down a spider when I come across one… just the other day I was surprised by a big one and I didn’t even freeze… just grabbed something and wacked it…
like being there to commiserate with… this morning I banged my foot on the door… it really hurt… no one to say poor you;-(… haven’t found a solution for that yet…
like driving the car into the garage… it was always stressful for me because of the slight jog in the driveway… now I just drive right on in, even when I know I have to go out again soon…
and of course holding hands… I really miss that…
02 Friday Nov 2018
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
beloved, big girl pants, drive, hand, hoarfrost, holding hands, memories, Park, remembering, trees, widow
found this photo on Facebook… happy that I get these reminders of wonderful memories…
it is from ten years ago and is one of the few pictures that I have of my beloved and I holding hands… it is lovely to see him and such a great reminder of a fun day…
one of the things I miss is having his hand to hold when out and about…
the beautiful trees after the snow this morning were another reminder…
brought back memories of the day before he died when we drove all around the Park so that I could get pictures of the trees covered in hoarfrost…
24 Wednesday Oct 2018
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
today was Election Day…
was at the polling station ten minutes before it opened as I was trying to vote and get to work on time…
when I arrived I checked my information to be sure I was at the correct location because there wasn’t a single car in the lot or any signs… at five to the cars started to pull in and filled the parking pad… shortly after that a person came out and put up a sign advising that this was a polling station…
waited until 8:01, only to discover about 15 people lined up inside… the door didn’t open for another few minutes… often the first people are guinea pigs as the various workers figure what to do, sigh… bit of that this morning…
finally got out and headed to work… would have been on time except for the lights all flashing red along Portage…
miss my beloved on days like this… voting was something we always did together…
21 Sunday Oct 2018
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
bakery, beloved, big girl pants, change, daughters, exciting, family, memories, playground, walk, widow
early this morning I walked to and from La Belle Baguette to pick up some bread…
the sun was in my eyes on the way there as I walked past the park between Amherst and Sackville at Ness…
on my way home I stopped and got a few pictures of the construction… no changes have happened in this playground for thirty years or so that I can remember…
it is going to be exciting to see what the final area is going to look like…
herbiggirlpants 