Tag Archives: big girl pants

preparations…

25 Thursday Jul 2013

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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 starting in the garage...

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

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

swallowtail caterpillar eating the flat leafed parsley...

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...

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

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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...

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...

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

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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:-)…

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remote…

17 Wednesday Jul 2013

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had to giggle when the light was installed in the pond…

came with a remote…

George loved remotes… he had quite a fabulous one for all his equipment in the basement… I couldn’t even get the tv to turn on with it, lol…

now I have this cute little waterproof job which I am stroll trying to figure out…

the solar lights I put around the pond are looking very nice…

took a few pictures of the light in the pond but it is hard to get a good representation… maybe I’ll try with the actual camera tomorrow…

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three surprises…

15 Monday Jul 2013

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three lovely surprises today…

our Mexico Vacation books arrived this afternoon… they are lovely and show all the fun we had when we were there… we have one for each family to keep… it is nearly six months since we were there, and the book brings back lots of memories of the fun times we had when we were all together…

Mexico Vacation book...

Mexico Vacation book…

when I got home I checked the pond out and realized that someone had been by and watered the hydrangeas – one of which is looking exceptionally sad…

checked the phone and had a message telling me that a light had been installed in the waterfall portion of the pond and that it had a remote control and could change colours…  I tried to take a picture of it purple, but it was a bit too dark to see anything but the purple light…  will have to take another picture tomorrow night before it gets too dark…

then one of our BS group who has been living in Regina and popping into and out of Winnipeg arrived in person for our Monday night gathering… another of the group made it as well while the two remaining members were off to the lake and out for dinner…

we had a lovely visit on the deck and enjoyed the breeze while we chatted…

all in all, a wonderful day…

 

parsley…

12 Friday Jul 2013

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I buy parsley to plant every year in the garden… and I buy two or three plants of it… but, it’s not for me or my family to eat… I plant it for the caterpillars… particularly swallowtails…

this one turned up about a week ago and the boys were busy watching it… it was very small when they were here that day…

yesterday it was crawling around the top of the pot and had grown by leaps and bounds… and the parsley has been decimated… so I put another pot with some in it right beside the empty one, lol…

caterpillar crawling around the parsley pot...

caterpillar crawling around the parsley pot…

this morning, I thought it was going into its cocoon, but when I got home later it was gone so I’m not sure what the deal is… will keep watching…

caterpillar hanging from the step this morning...

caterpillar hanging from the step this morning…

fish family…

11 Thursday Jul 2013

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stopped on my way home and picked up a bunch of feeder fish, as well as two lovely shubunkins…

once home fifty went into the big pond along with the two shubunkins… that pond how has fifty-six fish in it…

spent some time with the pond next to the garage and got it filled and put another ten feeder fish into it…

then spent the rest of the evening beside the big pond, enjoying the sound, watching the fish and reading…

waterfall running...

waterfall running…

funny thing is that it looks like there might be a dozen fish in it, lol…

 

spectacular day…

10 Wednesday Jul 2013

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the day started with an early morning hot tub while one of the neighbourhood squirrels yelled at something in the lane for about ten minutes…  made me think of George…

pond this morning...

pond this morning…

he and a particular squirrel had quite the relationship… the squirrel had taken up residence in the garage and George couldn’t get him out of there no matter what he tried… it got so that whenever George walked out into the backyard, the squirrel would start chattering at him… not a problem if I was out there, but the minute that George stepped out of the back door or out of the garage the squirrel would start yelling…

eventually we caught him and drove him out to the Silver Heights forest and let him go there… we hoped he wouldn’t be able to find his way back… and we don’t think he did, lol…

after the hot tub I got ready and headed to the office… it was our staff appreciation day, so we were starting late…  as I drove down the little lane next to our building I was pleased to discover that the GIANT potholes had been repaired, at last… wonderful…

then we were treated to breakfast and had some training on new technology, followed by gifts for everyone and lunch out on the patio at The Met… very well appreciated we were…

gifts and boxes with appreciation notes...

gifts and boxes with appreciation notes…

we left early and when I got home my pond was done… there were a few tiny things that needed to be adjusted, but the guys stopped by shortly after I arrived and fixed everything up…  I am very happy with the whole thing…

pond at 2 pm...

pond at 2 pm…

the kids came over and we ran out and did a bit of shopping and came home for Chinese food to celebrate the lovely backyard…

I hung baskets and planted a few things that I had waiting… Jeff and the little boys went out in search of feeder fish, but only found a couple of shubunkins which they added to the pond and they also brought out the two fish from their winter condo…

pond at 9 pm...

pond at 9 pm…

what a wonderful day…

yoga…

09 Tuesday Jul 2013

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usually I take part in yoga on Friday… we have a yoga instructor come to the office and use our lunch hour for our class… we are very lucky as our workplace subsidizes this as part of our Health and Wellness program…

Friday yoga started out as restorative… since then it has also included yin and something else I can’t remember… the point is, it is more relaxed… I have been taking part for a few years and have gone through ups and downs regarding how much I have been able to do during that time with my various health issues…

for five weeks I will be having Fridays off and I decided to try Tuesday yoga to see if I might take that class so I get some exercise during the week…

Tuesday yoga is the real deal, so I wasn’t sure how it would go, but today I checked it out… I was worried but went anyway…

well, it is certainly more strenuous, lol… my classmates are amazing and when I see what they can do, I am hopeful that some day I might be more flexible… they did tell me that the class was much more difficult than usual…

at the end of the class I was in tears just thinking that last year, and even the year before, I couldn’t do downward dog for more than a second or two… today I held that pose while the others were doing something way more complicated… but the point was that I was able to hold the pose for quite a long period of time…

I have grown in strength and flexibility over these few years and look forward to more Tuesday classes… just hope they aren’t always so hard…

tonight while speaking with my daughter on the phone, I had to go see who was making all the noise in the back yard… Mr Goldfinch was singing to Mrs Goldfinch while she was having her dinner…

goldfinch singing away on a wire just outside the back door...

Goldfinch singing away on a wire just outside the back door…

feel a bit like I was singing myself… little steps on the journey… my beloved would be so proud of me…