Tag Archives: beloved

engagement…

04 Sunday Dec 2016

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recently took part in a conversation about how people met their significant other… reminded me of how our life together began…

forty-seven years ago today my beloved and I got engaged… we took our parents to Rae and Jerry’s for dinner to celebrate his 21st birthday… and announced our engagement at the same time…

we met in the Spring, shared an instant connection and had seen one another every day since… it really was love at first sight… 

he had come over to visit a friend who was living with us at the time… the friend worked at the garage that George’s dad owned and where George also worked…

we found the perfect ring together…

it was actually an engagement ring and the wedding ring which we had joined together…

funny because he had an amount in mind about what it should cost and was insistent on getting something that fit that budget… we picked it and he went in every few weeks to put money down on it so it would be paid off by his birthday;-)… in those days people didn’t buy much on credit…

I haven’t worn it for a number of years but will wear it today as a reminder of our amazing life together…

I have been, and continue to be, blessed…

shower…

02 Friday Dec 2016

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what a lovely time tonight… a group of sixteen gathered to celebrate the coming birth of a baby… pretty cool timing, eh…
had a cup of tea and looked over the space before everyone arrived…

we had lots of fun, conversation, good food and there were some great gifts as well…

this was the first big party that I’ve hosted since my beloved left me…

it might have been here, but there were many others who helped make it a success… from the planning team who decided on each step of preparation, to the friends who came and helped with Christmas decorating, to the ones who set up the planter, to the ones who made the centrepieces, to the ones who came at noon and helped with salad prep, to the ones who picked up the pasta and organized the kitchen… to the ones who brought various bits and pieces of yummy treats and gifts, to the ones who cleaned up and left the house the same as it was before anyone arrived…

my life is filled with such special people… 

down…

26 Wednesday Oct 2016

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for the last few weeks I have been feeling down… 

missing my beloved a lot… usually when I am struggling with missing him I can spot the triggers… a date… a particular activity…

can’t put my finger on anything in particular right now… and I think that makes it worse…

this morning it was dark when I left for work… and when I checked online it showed the sun rose at 8:09 am and set at 6:15 pm…

so it really is getting darker all the time, sigh… light affects me a lot, or lack of it…

and of course the overcast skies and rain don’t help much either…

find that I sleep more as it gets darker… maybe I want to hibernate, lol…

have been taking vitamin D for the last few weeks and think I need to start using my SAD light on a regular basis…

light and shadow on a lisianthus in the English Garden

dreams…

23 Sunday Oct 2016

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yesterday we went to a play in the afternoon…

it was about a woman and her adult children and how they dealt with her diagnosis of Alzheimer’s…

I am always amazed at how they can take a few inanimate objects and make them appear to be different things throughout the play…

there were a few moments that brought back memories for me…

they talked about the loss of the husband a year previous and how difficult that and the intervening time had been…

the mother told one of her daughters that she was going to take her own life when she felt the disease was overtaking her… 

that reminded me of my own mother asking me to help her die… she was in palliative care in the end stages of esophageal cancer… nowadays there are some options if a person wants to end their life when they have a terminal illness… there wasn’t anything to help a person when my mom asked me… she also asked if she could come home to die… it was difficult to say I couldn’t help her or bring her home to die… at the time she would have been staying in my daughter’s room and I wasn’t sure my daughter would be able to move back into the room if her grandmother died there…

it was a very powerful play and certainly opened up opportunities for people to discuss these difficult situations…

slept very poorly last night… kept having strange dreams with my beloved in them and then waking up… don’t usually remember dreams… thinking the play triggered them…

we did have these cute pumpkin pie cookies my friend picked up and which were very tasty…

dark…

11 Tuesday Oct 2016

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yesterday was in a conversation with someone about how dark it is getting in the evening…

they mentioned that by 8 pm the light was fading… sadly tonight as we were coming home from aquasize at 7:25 it was already dark…

was also thinking about how my beloved would make fish and chips for when I’d get home from swimming… I miss that…

this was the light at 7:48 this morning… just getting light out…

addition…

30 Friday Sep 2016

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last night I was sitting in the hot tub remembering when my beloved and I would sit out and watch the stars…

for a few years we would rent a hot tub on our anniversary… I was always the one who did this as I liked hot tubs way more than George did, lol… one of my all time favourite pictures is of my oldest grandson in one of the rented tubs… adorable, isn’t it…


brought to mind the fact that we’ve had it for just over seven years… when I was dismissed from my previous employment I received a settlement and used some of that money to buy it…

I think we bought it in March but didn’t get it home and going until Mother’s Day that Spring, partly because we had to fill in a pond and build a deck for it to sit on… 

first time in our hot tub…

I have loved every minute… and often think about what it took to get it…

George grew to enjoy it over time and the kids have all had great fun in it, on their own, or with friends…

it has certainly been a wonderful addition to our garden…

orchids…

21 Wednesday Sep 2016

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this morning before I left home I took some pictures of the October orchid… the one I got from IKEA last October… which has been blooming since I brought it home… except for a few weeks… it has been amazing… 

it almost looked artificial as the blooms stayed perfect for months at a time… when it finally dropped the last blossom, a new branch emerged and these blossoms have been open for months as well…

my beloved brought me orchids on a fairly regular basis… some for home and some for my work space as well…

he also picked them up for some of my colleagues…

one of my colleagues is away this week and I am orchid-sitting… can’t remember if this is one that he picked up for her… anyway it has seven blossoms on it…

have made sure the light is on in the office and the blinds open… even put the heater on for a while…

it has been so long since it bloomed that we can’t remember what colour it is going to be…

very exciting, although I do hope it waits until her return before opening…

fleeting…

11 Sunday Sep 2016

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what a lovely ending to my vacation…

enjoyed a walk to and through the Park before a breakfast date with my sister-in-law, nephew and his girlfriend…

after breakfast we took a quick tour of the Gardens…

she lives in Calgary so it is always great to spend time with her when she comes to town…

had just pulled my camera out to take a picture of a butterfly bush when this butterfly decided to land on it… and pose…

surprised how this picture turned out with the light and dark from my shadow…

I love this spot and often sit here for long periods of time… a favourite place where my beloved and I would rest when we walked through the Gardens…

and my kids came for supper… soccer is over, yay… we had a great time, Pokemon-ing and visiting… everyone enjoyed the food and there were leftovers to share for a few meals this week…

kitchen is tidy, laundry is done and I am ready for my return to work after a fun and fleeting break…

I think I enjoyed every moment of the ten days… lots for the memory banks…

lucky…

30 Tuesday Aug 2016

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this morning I had a memory on Facebook of my youngest grandson, as a baby, swinging in a park close by… there was also a picture of he, his older brother and my beloved on the back deck that same day…

just last Friday, when the boys were here, we talked about swinging in that very park…

today, the kids came downtown, spent a few minutes playing Pokemon Go at the Millennium Library Park, and then picked me up for lunch…

we went for dimsum at Kum Koon Garden, our favourite…

they have a stunning salt water fish tank and my grandson took a few pictures for me…

he had my phone because we share a Pokemon Go account so whenever we’re together he is checking out the game, lol…

the point of this story is how lucky I am to have the opportunity to spend time with my kids and grandkids… and how lucky we both were to be able to make memories with our grandchildren…

crawler…

22 Monday Aug 2016

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been missing my beloved recently…

this morning a very big spider was on the kitchen counter… George would have come running when I screamed and dealt with it… he always saved me from bugs and spiders…

now, I don’t bother to scream… just went and got the fly swatter and tried to get it…

this is where it was… but it got away… still somewhere in my kitchen… ugh…

looks like there is only one caterpillar left on the parsley…

tomorrow I will search and see if I can find the chrysalis…

tonight a cricket came in as the patio screen door was opened… was able to catch and deal with it…

lots of creepy crawlers today…