24 Tuesday Oct 2017
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
was recently talking with friends about cleaning windows… at the time we were looking out the dirty ones in my living room…
in our house George was the one who cared about the windows being clean…
my friends felt that their husbands seem more interested in clean windows as well…
we kind of laughed because we all like clean windows, we are just less likely to do the cleaning, lol…
as I arrived at the office this morning I noticed the window cleaners setting up across the street…
too funny…
14 Saturday Oct 2017
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
. soup, beloved, big girl pants, dinner, mandolin, turkey, vegetables, widow
Monday night after Thanksgiving dinner, I made the turkey soup broth, and popped it into the fridge…
this morning I worked on the soup by adding a bay leaf, shredded carrots, celery, onion and potatoes… used the mandolin and laughed again as I remembered how my beloved and I hadn’t used the first one we had correctly, lol…
after that cooked down I added in barley, peas and corn and left it simmering on the stove for a few hours…
final step was to make my mom’s dumpling recipe and add it to a portion of the soup…
I tend to remove about half of the soup into containers before adding the dumplings to what’s left…
let it simmer for about half an hour and voila…
vegetable turkey soup with dumplings… delicious dinner…
tomorrow I’ll give some to the kids…
10 Tuesday Oct 2017
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, travel, Uncategorized
today I applied for a new passport… had printed off the documents ahead of time and was in and out of their office in about six minutes…
this is what they do to expired passports…
I had been dropped off, and after I was done, I walked back to the office in the lovely fall sunshine…
as I walked along I was remembering when I got my first passport…
it was about six months after George died and I had decided to take all the kids on a vacation so had to go and get a passport… I had never had one before…
it was odd preparing the paperwork and going through the process required to find individuals to act as references, having a photo taken and then taking in the paperwork… the kind of thing we would have done together…
five years have passed since that day at the passport office… hard to believe that my beloved has been gone for five years, six months and twenty-seven days…
loved this view of the moon over the flag as I was waiting to cross the street…
20 Wednesday Sep 2017
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
beloved, big girl pants, blessed, fish, flowers, George, memories, missing, orchid, pictures, pond, widow
still thinking of my beloved…
took this shot of the fish in the pond this morning…
the pond looks different now, but he loved working in all of them… through winter he would make sure the fish were cozy in their condo in the house, and it was always exciting when it was time to move out to the pond… often he would have little helpers to assist with the transfer…
over the last while one of my colleagues has been sharing updates on her orchids… this morning she brought the small one to my desk to show me the newest blossom…
George often brought orchids into the office … one of his colleagues who worked in the seasonal area would let him know when a new batch of orchids had arrived and say you better get some for your wife…
and he would, and bring them to the office as well… this is one of those he brought in and my colleague has looked after it beautifully… think this is the third time since he died that it has bloomed… another larger one is nearly ready to bloom under her amazing orchid fingers…
usually I only use my own photos, but tonight another colleague sent me two of the above shots that show the bloom…
what wonderful memories… I have been truly blessed…
19 Tuesday Sep 2017
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, travel, Uncategorized
Tags
beloved, big girl pants, blessed, flowers, George, leaves, memories, morning glories, pictures, reminders, roses, widow
been missing my beloved a lot lately…
tonight as I was looking through photos I came across a few that reminded me of him…
this picture of maple leaves, which I took while visiting Cyndi in Ottawa reminded me of a great photo we took in Courtenay of him holding a ginormous maple leaf as we were walking through Cathedral Grove…
on Saturday I turned on the in-floor heating because it is getting cooler… I can remember George installing it in 2009 when we renovated the bathroom… at the time we decided not to put an additional piece of it in front of the sink, thinking it would radiate over… not, lol…
this morning glory reminded me of my 2010 six week stint in the hospital where he brought me photos every day of one of the morning glories that were blooming…
tonight a contractor came by to fix a couple of holes in the bedroom ceiling… George would have fixed that…
and finally, this rose, blooming in the garden… I cannot even guesstimate how many roses he brought me in our life together…
I truly have been blessed over the years… and even now as I am able to enjoy these wonderful memories…
12 Tuesday Sep 2017
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
beloved, big girl pants, bugs, flowers, garden, memories, morning glories, nature, pictures, purple, remembering, widow
very early this morning I came across this… in the bedroom… right by my bed…
but, I put my big girl pants on, and dealt with it…
then I was out in the garden admiring the flowers when I spotted this bug…
maybe it is the one that’s been eating my flowers… hmmmm…
did get a few shots of the morning glories;-)…
really been missing my beloved over the last few days… can’t put my finger on a reason…
but I sure do…
28 Monday Aug 2017
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
beloved, big girl pants, deck, friends, garden, hot tub, light, memories, morning glories, widow, wonderful
just spent the evening with the most wonderful women in my life…
we had a short stint in the hot tub and then sat out on the deck and caught up on our summer…
a beautiful evening which ended under the stars…
lovely to have time together…
below are a few shots of the morning glories that began my day…
they have the most wonderful light emanating from their centre… always make me think of my beloved…
19 Saturday Aug 2017
Posted in family, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, Uncategorized
rather sad today…
this was the scene from yesterday… the back side of the house is done but not the front, although apparently it is water tight…
was looking forward to it being all finished this afternoon… they told me they would be here around nine this morning…
this is what the roof looks like now, sigh…
they never came and their stuff is all over the yard so I can’t even sit out and enjoy the garden…
I’m fairly sure they aren’t going to come tomorrow and Monday’s forecast is for rain…
feeling rather grumpy and wishing my beloved was here to sort this all out…
09 Wednesday Aug 2017
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, travel, Uncategorized
Tags
beloved, big girl pants, bin, birthday, goat cheese, pack, presents, supper, widow
been busy since I got home…
had a brief rest and then a simple supper of fresh cucumbers with tiny tomatoes and basil from the garden with some goat cheese… very tasty…
then I started gathering stuff… clothes, food, birthday presents… put as much into the trunk as I could so that there is less to do in the morning… getting picked up from the office to head out, so need to be organized first thing…
always giggle when I pack as I remember my beloved… he had a great ability to get any vehicle packed in the most efficient way, but he always had to add a grocery bag or two filled with all of his final bits and pieces of clothes or whatever last minute things he felt were needed;-)…
possibly I am starting to take after him, lol…
thought one bin was going to be enough but now have a bag filled with foodstuff, another with a beach blanket and expect to fill another with my travel items for the car…
we shall see…
08 Tuesday Aug 2017
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
beloved, big girl pants, blessed, flowers, garden, memories, morning glories, pictures, surgery, sweetie, widow
seven years ago today I had surgery to remove my gallbladder… I had already been in the hospital for five weeks with pancreatitis but they had to wait till I was a bit stronger… I do believe that was the most serious illness I’ve dealt with, and the sickest I have ever been…
we had been scheduled to go to BC but had to cancel that trip…
George would come to the hospital every day and he would take a picture of the morning glories which were blooming that day before he left home…
today’s picture reminds me of that sweet gift that he brought me each day…
we only had one pot filled with the morning glories and they had just started to bloom around that time…
every morning, as I hunt for the newest blooms, I think back to those days and how my beloved took those pictures for me…
he was a sweetie…
