anniversary…

01 Thursday Aug 2013

Tags

43 years, anniversary, being home with children, big girl pants, filled with emotion, garden sanctuary, grand kids, idyllic life, married my beloved, protocol for celebrating, roses, smaller nest, Sunday dinner, visited the West Coast

forty-three years ago today I married my beloved… it was an amazing day filled with emotion…

August 1, 1970…

we worked for eight years before having our first child and made the decision that I would stay home with the children as long as we could manage… two years later along came our second child…

we had an idyllic life and I had the amazing privilege of being home with my girls throughout their years of school… George worked the whole time and we managed very well…

the girls left home and we enjoyed our slightly smaller nest… we got to do different things but also had lots of time with the kids… our grand kids came along and we had wonderful times with them…

since the girls left home we have had Sunday dinners together and the places around the table have grown and shrunk and grown depending on who was available on any particular Sunday night…

we got to visit the West Coast a number of times when Cyndi and Ron moved out there, and had lots of amazing time in our garden sanctuary…

we both went through some health issues and life wasn’t perfect, but it was our life…

these are the things I have been thinking about today…

August 1, 2011…

a day doesn’t go by that I don’t remember the love of my life and think how proud he would be of me as I continue the steps along this new journey in my life…

today was filled with emotion as well, most of it happy, with a few tears…

I wonder what the protocol is for celebrating anniversaries once your spouse is no longer alive… do you forget them, ignore them, pretend they don’t happen… do you take off your wedding ring because you aren’t technically married… these are also things I’ve been pondering the last few days…

40 roses to celebrate 40 years…

as I move forward in this new life I will continue to ponder these questions… maybe you have some answers…

roses the kids sent last year to remember…

English Garden…

29 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by sulis303 in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

big girl pants, ended with pouring rain, English Garden, great time in the hot tub, lovely pictures, lovely walk, Sabai Thai, wonderful evening

picked up by a friend as soon as I got home from work and we went to Sabai Thai for dinner… it was delicious… my favourite was the hottest one…

then we headed to the English Garden and had a lovely walk… got some great pictures…

beautiful pink flowers…

headed home and met another friend and the three of us had a fun time in the hot tub, that ended when the rain really started to pour down on us…

lianthus, reminds me of a rose…

wonderful evening…

purple-y thistle…

sparrows…

28 Sunday Jul 2013

Posted by sulis303 in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

at the feeder, big girl pants, drinking from the pond, follow shade around, sitting in the cedars, sparrows

this afternoon the sparrows took over the garden…

they were everywhere… a number came to the feeder… and if you watched you could see them taking their turn… some would sit in among the Virginia creeper while others took spaces on the garage roof and top of the hook that holds the feeder… eventually everyone had their turn…

sparrows taking turns at the feeder…

they are also enjoying the pond… I still haven’t seen any having a bath like they used to with the old waterfall but they certainly stop by for a drink…

sparrows checking out the new view…

they were all over the waterfall stone and the bridge having little conversations as they had their drinks…

walking along the bridge…

then they sat at the edge of the cedars… haven’t seen them do that for quite some time, but it also might have been where I was sitting as I could see the cedars very well from my spot beside the hot tub… when I am in the garden, I have to move from spot to spot as I follow the shade around…

sparrows sitting in the cedars…

it was lovely to spend time watching them as I was reading my book…

leaning in for a drink…

not sure if this little guy was drinking or wondering what the fish were doing, lol…

planting…

27 Saturday Jul 2013

Posted by sulis303 in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

baskets, big girl pants, car stuffed, hydrangeas, planting, set plants in the space, Shelmerdine, shrub

got up and headed to Shelmerdine’s to get there right after they opened…

wanted some baskets to set in pots to fill up some of the empty space around the new pond area…

after talking with a very helpful woman I bought a shrub and a number of smaller plants to fill in the area…

had a lot of fun… barely stuffed everything into the car… then I stopped at Paterson’s and bought two more baskets, lol…

got home and had to dig out the hydrangeas, which have been dying… likely because they don’t like full sun, sigh…

set the new plants in the garden and have left them until tomorrow to be sure they are in the right spots… don’t want to have to plant them more than once…

remembering…

26 Friday Jul 2013

Posted by sulis303 in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

big girl pants, drugs, hot tub, nephew, pain, remembering, roses

last night I spent some time in the hot tub remembering…

last year at this time I was home but barely moving… getting in and out of the bed was very painful and I needed constant help… my nephew spent the first few days with me because they let me out of the hospital early and the friend who was coming hadn’t arrived yet…

he had to literally lift me to get out of bed… the pain was fairly high as I wasn’t taking any drugs… and even though I had stopped taking them within 12 hours of the surgery there were still residual effects which continued to make me feel sick…

it was months before I was able to get back into the hot tub…

so that’s what I was remembering…

preparations…

25 Thursday Jul 2013

Posted by sulis303 in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

big girl pants, day off, jobs to do, lovely garden, party, preparations, snowball hydrangea, what fun

very happy it is Thursday night… that means I have the day off from work tomorrow…

will need to do some jobs around the house to prep for the party on August 6… it seemed like it was a long way away, but now it is just over a week away…

lots of the work has been done but there is still lots to do… have to find some Christmas decorations and pick up some things from a couple of stores…

wasp nest gone so everyone will be safe…

happily I don’t have to worry about the wasp next in the garage because Jeff dealt with it when they were here on Sunday… the boys were outside when we realized what he was doing so we called them in to watch some cartoons on TV while he was dismantling the nest… and he found another tiny one which he also removed…

I am excited about how lovely the garden will look once it is all decorated… am hoping that the seemingly dead snowball hydrangea will come back to life in the next week… need to get a few more plants for the pond and the area around it…

so much to do, so little time, but what fun…

wildlife…

23 Tuesday Jul 2013

Posted by sulis303 in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

big girl pants, caterpillar, fly, George, proud, spider, wildlife

was outside a while ago looking for wildlife in the garden…

swallowtail caterpillar eating the flat leafed parsley…

found one of the swallowtail caterpillars and some flowers which should be bringing the butterflies to the garden…

butterfly bush although it isn’t the kind I have had previously…

came in the house and discovered a fly in the kitchen which I then had to try to get out of the house…

few minutes later I was in the bathroom and discovered a good sized spider staring at me from on top of the towels…

not so long ago, I would have come running out calling for George at the top of my lungs… so that he could save me and get rid of the spider… I am not fond of spiders at all, lol…

now, I put on those darn big girl pants, find some Kleenex and deal with the intruder all on my own…

George would be proud…

construction…

21 Sunday Jul 2013

Posted by sulis303 in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

big girl pants, closet doors, construction, fantails, laid carpet, on crutches, picture troubles, remote for waterfall, trim around door, vanishing feeder fish

this morning Jeff and the little boys came over for breakfast and I showed them the remote… they all thought it was pretty cool and when we had company at dinner, Gray ran into the house and found it so we could show it off…

after breakfast they went home and I went shopping with Dan to get the doors for the closet, which he then installed, as well as putting the trim around the back door… all that’s left is to paint the doors…

doors on the basement closet look wonderful…

once he left I laid down for a short nap, which turned out to be shorter than anticipated as I got a call from Crystal needing me to pick the boys up at the hospital where she was going to have her knee looked at…

the boys and I stopped and picked up more goldfish – some fantails this time, as of the 50 feeder fish purchased last week, there appear to be about 3 left… now we have 16 good sized fish in the pond… I sure hope they like it there, lol…

we organized supper and laid a carpet in the living room before our company arrived… Crystal and Jeff came just after we finished dinner… her knee is taped up and they think it will be fine, but she is hobbling around on crutches in the meantime…

we put down the carpet only to discover it is about a foot or so too wide, sigh…

since yesterday I have been having trouble attaching pictures from my iPhone to the laptop… very frustrating and I hope I can figure it out sooner rather than later…

two more jobs for those big girl pants…

been a long and full day… off to bed…

Friday fun…

19 Friday Jul 2013

Posted by sulis303 in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

big girl pants, closet, flower beds, Friday fun, hosta, sleepover, umbrella, wild roses

put out the garbage and watched a bit of tv… then spent the morning working in the front flower beds with two great helpers… got a lot done… the wild roses are gone for now and we moved the woman water feature into one of the beds…

the side bed got weeded and we divided and moved a hosta… then after they left I sat in the garden and read for a while… spent the rest of the day waiting for someone to come and fix the bathroom door in the basement… never did show up…

my lovely young carpenter friend came by to put a last coat of paint on the closet that George started four or five years ago… Sunday we are going to pick up doors for him to install and he is going to put the trim up around the back door too…

then the kids arrived and Jeff got the water running in the fountain… he headed to work and we headed to their house for a sleepover… picked up a few groceries and a new umbrella for the deck…

now to bed, I’m tired:-)…