26 Tuesday Feb 2019
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
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big girl pants, dad, debilitating, flowers, happy, information, Lung Association, Spring, tulips, widow
we always know when Spring is on the way when we get information about tulips and daffodils circulating around the office…
we always order, and get, the tulips first…
they are a fundraising campaign of the Lung Association…
this is close to my heart as my dad lived his whole adult life with emphysema, a debilitating disease…
it is wonderful to see flowers everywhere in the office;-)…
11 Monday Feb 2019
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
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big girl pants, Brussels sprouts, carrots, cook, dad, family, favourite, grandson, meat sauce, memories, remembering, shopping, sprouts, widow
whenever I grocery shop with my grandson and ask if he wants Brussels sprouts for dinner he always says yes…
they are clearly his favourite vegetable, although he also has a thing for raw carrots, lol…
he cooks them much better than I, so I always get them ready, set out the butter and garlic, and have him do the cooking… sometimes we add a bit of red wine, if there is any around…
this time they went with leftover macaroni that I added to some meat sauce… tasty…
while I was making the sauce I was remembering my dad… his meat sauce was delicious, partly because he added something from every bottle in the pantry, lol…
he’s been gone for over thirty years… always surprises me what might bring up a memory…
31 Thursday Jan 2019
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
tonight I made scrambled eggs for my dinner…
made me think of my dad…
he always used a fork to work the eggs in the frying pan… he would have been using a pan that didn’t have coating so the metal fork would have been fine, lol…
he felt that the fork made the eggs more light and fluffy…
I use a spatula, usually a purple one…
always interesting what we remember, isn’t it…
06 Tuesday Nov 2018
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
. soup, big girl pants, dad, down, flowers, friends, happy, memories, November, orchids, sad, widow
recently have had conversations with a few people about being down, feeling sad, being depressed… seems like many in my circles are struggling this month…
November doesn’t seem to be a particularly good month for me… not sure if it is the time change, gray days, cold weather or what… seems like many have similar feelings…
my dad’s birthday was in November… he was a great guy and I miss him…
I like to remember that where there are downs, there will be ups…
today I bought some orchids to brighten my space which always perks me up…
then I made a lovely pot of Thai shrimp soup which was delicious and a wonderful treat…
09 Sunday Sep 2018
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
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big girl pants, blessed, cooking, dad, dinner, family, flowers, memories, missing, morning glories, pasta, rain, raindrops, remembering, rummaged, sunshine, tomato, treat, weather, widow
odd weather today… went from cloudy to sunny, to rainy, and back again a number of times… ended with sun shining through the clouds…
the poor morning glories took a beating early on… nearly every time it rained the drops were huge…
thinking of my dad today as I took hours to make fresh tomato sauce to go with some spaghetti for supper… I keep buying grape tomatoes to make caprese salad and then never use them all up… he would add all kinds of condiments to add flavour and it always ended up delicious… as I rummaged through the cupboard, I remembered watching him do the same thing, lol…
it turned out great and was a lovely treat as I don’t often have pasta… made some homemade coleslaw to go along with it and have a bit of both for lunch tomorrow;-)…
17 Sunday Jun 2018
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
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big girl pants, blessed, dad, family, Father's Day, flowers, garden, lessons, memories, moments, treat, welcome, widow
spent some time this morning thinking about my dad…
he really raised us as mother and father as my mom spent so much time in hospital during my early years…
he would have loved the garden and did get to sit on the main deck a few times… his dad was a master gardener, but I don’t remember dad doing much in the garden, but he loved seeing beautiful well tended flower beds…
he always welcomed others into our home and we often had people staying with us as they were going through difficult times…
he was a great cook… I can remember one night when he was draining the spaghetti over a sink full of dishwater and the strainer fell into the water… he picked it up, rinsed the spaghetti off and continued with the meal prep… we couldn’t afford to throw it out… it was served with his famous meatballs and homemade sauce… one of our guests went on and on about it being the best he’d ever had… Dad and I laughed about that for years…
he always had candy in his pockets… maybe that’s why I always have candy on my desk, and chocolate inside it, lol…
he loved athletics and we went to events whenever we could manage… he cheered for everyone and taught me that a good job deserved praise… it didn’t matter if it was your team or the other team…
he looked forward to parades and we sat on the curb at Portage and Strathcona for every single one that went by…
in his later years he would take me grocery shopping for my family and would treat us to a lovely roast or steak… took me a while to accept without protesting… I realized that he was no longer able to do physical things to help us due to his health, but he could treat us to groceries…
he taught me to be kind, treat everyone equally, work hard, and do my best…
thanks Dad…
24 Saturday Feb 2018
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, dad, family, love, picture, pieces, remembering, widow
recently I’ve been thinking of my dad…
many in my circles are struggling with parental illness and loss…
which has brought me to the place of thinking of the end of my dad’s time on earth…
he was a very special person and I loved him to pieces…
he was in Deer Lodge Hospital for quite a while as Mom couldn’t care for him properly at home any longer…
I visited him every day… the hospital is close to home so it just took minutes to get there… it was a busy time in our lives… the girls were in elementary school and I spent a great deal of time volunteering as well as looking after them…
when I think back I can remember very little of what happened… I was with dad when he died… I remember that… I don’t remember much else of the next few days… I think I went to pieces inside, although that wasn’t visible on the outside…
I do remember that the afternoon of his memorial the kids were in the car on their own, which they weren’t supposed to do, and it rolled down the driveway and across the street hitting our neighbour’s classic car… thank goodness no one was hurt because it was a beautiful spring day and there were tons of kids playing out there…
interesting because that’s all I can remember…
this is the last picture that we took of him…
without his teeth in, lol…
10 Saturday Feb 2018
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
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accolades, athletics, big girl pants, dad, enamoured, love of sport, Olympics, sports, widow
someone recently asked why I am so enamoured with the Olympics…
I’ve been thinking about that a bit…
at the time I said I loved to watch all sports… then I noted that I am not as fond of the big team sports… hockey doesn’t really excite me… and curling isn’t my favourite…
I really enjoy watching more individual sports… like all types of skiing and skating… short track skating is very exciting and the new snowboarding categories are fun…
my dad was a great sports fan… he had been quite an athlete in his day but developed a chronic illness during his years in the service so he couldn’t participate in anything as he got older…
he instilled a love of sport in me and I remember attending many events with him… he particularly liked athletics and we would watch running and jumping and pole vaulting… he also liked speed skating…
so maybe when I watch the Olympics I am feeling his presence;-)…
he always cheered on everyone, whether they were a favourite or not… his feeling was that if you did well, you deserved accolades… and even if you didn’t have your optimum performance but tried your best, credit was due…
that is something that has stayed with me to this day… a good performance deserves applause…
been up since around four because that’s when the action starts… such fun…
11 Sunday Jun 2017
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
beloved, big girl pants, dad, driving, effort, emphysema, family, George, office supplies, special, sports, treat, widow
been thinking of my dad a lot lately…
he died nearly thirty years ago… he lived with emphysema from the time I was a teenager…
he did as much as he could, but spent the weekends recovering from the week and trying to build up the energy to make it through the next week…
when I turned sixteen, he and I bought a new car together and I began driving him to and from work every day… which also meant that I got to drive to school each day;-)…
he loved sports and we often attended athletic events at the arena and watched whatever sport might be on tv…
he was the person who taught me to appreciate each person or team’s efforts and applaud everyone’s performance, whether they were the one you were rooting for or not…
to this day I do the same…
he started me on my love of office supplies… when I was young I would occasionally spend a weekend morning with him at work and organize his desk, lol…
he spent a good portion of his working life helping people figure out what type of work they would be best at, and he was very good at it…
when my beloved and I were first married, he would go grocery shopping with me and add a roast or some other treat to my bag… at first I felt bad that he did this, until I realized it was something he could still do for us… by that time he couldn’t manage physical things like home repairs any longer… buying us a treat was his way of supporting us…
he was a very special man… my girls were not yet teenagers when he died, much like my grandsons who were so young when my beloved left us… maybe this is why I try to keep memories of George alive so that the boys remember him…
a very rare professionally taken picture of mom and dad…
15 Saturday Apr 2017
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
beloved, big girl pants, blessed, camaraderie, candy, dad, family, flowers, Good Friday, prep, screen, widow
been thinking of my dad a lot over the last few days…
he was ill my entire life and his last four years were really a gift…
he died on Good Friday nearly thirty years ago… I don’t remember the date but it was in March that year… I had been called to the hospital and realized he really was dying… I left for a short while to pull myself together and after talking with a friend went back and sat with him as he moved from this world to the next… a privilege to share those moments with him…
always amazes me how something brings back the sadness and grief, even after all this time…
he was a special man and taught me so much about being a kind and gentle person and always seeing the good in people…
I remember the times he would sit on the deck and enjoy visiting with family and friends…
today I put the screen into the upstairs hall window, which looks out on that deck… over the winter I take it out so that I can take better pictures, lol…
feels like it is Spring now that the screen is in and the window is open… had the screen door open and enjoyed the gorgeous weather while I was cooking and doing prep work for tomorrow’s Easter dinner…
dad always had candy in his pocket… you could almost hear the wrappers rubbing against one another when he walked, lol…
and as I prepared the space and table I was missing my beloved… he was so good at helping me get ready for special meals… he would have picked up the flowers and anything else needed and looked after a good portion of the cleaning as I worked in the kitchen…
I miss that camaraderie…
I have been, and continue to be, blessed with the men in my life…
