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…
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…
16 Friday Nov 2018
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, Christmas, coffee table, decorations, drawer, family, fun, moments, photos, redesigned, widow
on the weekend I had a bit of fun as I redesigned the drawer in the living room table…
in the summer I usually fill it with sea shells and rocks…
in the fall I’ve used scarves or photographs…
for the holiday season there have been a few versions of Christmas ornaments… one year silver and blue and purple… another year there were red balls too…
this year I used silver, blue and purple and included some framed pictures of family and friends…
kind of enjoy thinking up new ways to fill it…
and it looks lovely… now to figure out the rest of the Christmas decorations…
this year I am hoping to do some serious decluttering of excess decorations… not that I have too many, lol…
12 Thursday Apr 2018
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, canopy, Christmas, flowers, garden, Japanese Maple, rose, shortbread, smoothie, snow, widow
when I opened the door to head to work for an early event today, this is what I saw…
people, it is April 12th, sigh… even wore boots because I didn’t want to slip and twist my knee…
sat in the living room for a few minutes when I got home and enjoyed the full canopy on the Japanese Maple and the lovely little rose which I am hoping to plant in the garden whenever it gets warm enough… what a difference a few weeks have made…
had breakfast while I was out, so for supper I had a smoothie… fancied it up with some 100% chocolate squares… and finished the meal off with the last two Christmas shortbread cookies which I found by accident in a kitchen drawer…
what a treat…
28 Thursday Dec 2017
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, travel, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, Christmas, detector, kids, nest, presents, safe, smoke detector, widow
well I am safe now…
thanks to all my kids I finally have a new smoke detector upstairs…
for Christmas, the Winnipeg kids got me a Nest smoke detector…
and today, my Ottawa son-in-law installed it and connected it to an app on my phone…
it even shows me the temperature outside when I open the app… how cool is that…
think I will save up for the thermostat and maybe a few more of the detectors… checked for Boxing Day sales but there weren’t any huge discounts…
sure do have a great bunch of kids…
24 Sunday Dec 2017
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
appetizers, big girl pants, Christmas, family, goodies, snacks, tree, widow
have arrived at the kids’ house for Christmas Eve…
took a while to bring in all the goodies and get them under the tree…
then there was gingerbread house decorating… this year I found a house that was already put together… much better…
finally, we ate four million appetizers and soon we will be going to bed…
and hope that Santa finds us…
12 Tuesday Dec 2017
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
beloved, big girl pants, Christmas, decorating, gait, snow people, stairs, trees, widow
last night, as I was going down the stairs, I thought of my beloved… he loved Christmas but sometimes the decorations got the better of him…
he really disliked the various collections that would end up on the stairs…
following his heart surgery, where they took veins from his leg, he wasn’t as steady as he used to be… if you were walking and came upon him from behind you might think he was tipsy because of his gait…
walking was difficult and he only had one speed that worked for him…
so stuff on the stairs could cause him to lose his balance… but that didn’t stop me from decorating, lol…
here’s how the stairs to the second floor look this year… snow people and trees;-)…
he did enjoy shopping and always found many things for me… I miss that…
10 Sunday Dec 2017
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, bird, calling, Christmas, decorating, friend, fun, groceries, hot tub, moments, squirrel, widow
early this morning I went out for a hot tub… for the last few days the temperature in the tub has read 104 so I’ve had a few excursions out there…
I don’t usually have the phone when I am in the hot tub, but a bird was calling and I wanted to record the sound so my birdwatching friends could listen and identify it… it was a beautiful morning and besides the bird there were a few squirrels flitting about…
a bit later I ran out to get some grocery shopping done… perfect timing because the store had very few people in it… took quite a few trips to get everything into the house…
got all the stuff put away and prepared for my company to arrive…
my dear friend, who I haven’t seen in ages, came to help decorate for Christmas… we had such fun…
while I was hanging some ornaments in the dining room window caught this little guy on the rail of the front steps…
once we were done my friend headed home and I put all of the unused things back into the bins and carried them downstairs…
certainly was a full day… and the house looks wonderful…
let the celebrating begin…
20 Monday Nov 2017
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
baskets, big girl pants, Christmas, decorations, flowerbed, grandson, planters, reindeer, siding, sleep, widow
last night my grandson drove me over to the grocery store where we picked up some planters and baskets filled with Christmas greenery and berries…
hard to tell from the photo I took this morning, but the planters have a wooden reindeer head in them… they are quite cute…
the baskets got plopped into two of the planters in front of the living room window…
may have to go back and pick up another couple of the baskets…
waiting for a fancy swag to arrive to hang on the front door from a fundraiser the oldest grandson is participating in…
outside decorating done;-)… although I do have an expert coming and she may have other ideas, lol…
I am laying in my bed listening to the wind whipping a loose piece of siding against the side of the house… it is very loud and seems to be never ending… wondering if I am going to get any sleep tonight…
herbiggirlpants 