27 Monday Oct 2025
Posted in business, family, food, health, life, moments, retirement, Uncategorized
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big girl pants, blessed, busy, Chinese food, company, delicious, family, grandsons, happy, moments, numerous, supper, treat, widow
had a delicious dinner last night…
our company chose Chinese food, so I tried to order from our favourite spot, around 5:30…
it took at least ten minutes and numerous attempts to get through… apparently everyone in the city wanted Chinese food too…
and then, the pick up time was an hour and a half, yikes…
but, when we got it, it was as always, delicious 🤤…
26 Sunday Oct 2025
Posted in business, family, health, life, moments, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
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basement, big girl pants, blessed, busy, constructing, family, garage, grandsons, housemate, lumber, moments, shelves, weather, widow
well, what a day, phew… it was chilly, overcast, and windy…
spent the morning in the garage moving bits and pieces out into the driveway to make room for an empty table to work on…
then my housemate met up with his grandfather to go and pick up lumber for the new shelves planned for the basement and the garage…
once he returned home, we moved more things and then updated a shelf beside the door for my gardening gloves and tools…
it is stronger, looks amazing, and now each tool is much more accessible underneath;-)…
we worked on the basement shelves, his brother arrived, and they finished them…
they ended up looking excellent and adding more useful space for organizing our stuff, lol…
they continued to work in the garage to redo a section of shelves and add counter space…
I didn’t quite get a picture of the finished product, before we moved all the bits and pieces back into the garage for the night…
it is going to be so organized that I might not be able to find anything 🤪…
22 Monday Sep 2025
Posted in family, health, life, loss, moments, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
beloved, big girl pants, blessed, carpet, family, grandsons, moments, nature, project, replaced, weather, widow
since the spring, we’ve been working on a few projects outdoors and one of them involved removing a rusted out planter from the front steps…
next was to be removing and replacing the carpet which has been on those same steps for thirteen years…
I remember a friend of mine coming and replacing it while I was in hospital, not long after my beloved’s passing… it was such a treat to walk up the tidy steps when I returned home…
over the last few winters the carpet has been breaking down, particularly from my shovelling I think, lol…
we emptied the rusted out planter and dumped it right into the garbage can, kind of in pieces… we had a new one all ready to go but planned to wait for the carpet to be removed and replaced before putting it on the top step…
we picked up carpet and glue… next we planned a day when we had help to remove the old carpet and lay down the new one… unfortunately, it rained for most of that day, but during a break my housemate was able to remove the old layer…
that was on July 21st… it looked dreadful but we anticipated that it would happen soon…
every single time we planned to get the job done, it rained… I was starting to believe my grandson is a rain magnet…
well, yesterday, September 21st, it finally happened…
scraping, glueing, and laying down the carpet took a good portion of the day and there are a few bits that need to be trimmed…
can’t walk on it for a few days, but it already looks a thousand percent better;-)…
05 Sunday Jan 2025
Posted in family, life, moments, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, dressers, drywalling, family, grandsons, laundry room, lighter, moments, mudding, prep, sanding, widow
my middle grandson came over on Friday to do some drywalling in the laundry room…
earlier, I took a few photos to have a before and after…
first they moved the dressers out of the space…
a large cable was moved, insulation was installed, and plastic added…
then the drywall was measured and screwed onto the walls…
finally the screw holes and joints were filled with mud, tape went over the seams, and more mud added…
that was it for the day as the mud needed to dry before the next steps…
this morning my housemate sanded, vacuumed, and wiped down the new drywall…
in the afternoon, we shortened one dresser, sanded the bottom of it (with a new Christmas present), and then returned both of them to their usual location… and with the one being shorter we now have access to the plug that was hidden behind it;-)…
I am amazed at how much brighter it looks;-)…
we plan to reorganize the drawers and I think I will find some nicer containers to hold the various cleaning products…
06 Tuesday Aug 2024
Posted in family, garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, digging, family, garden, garden bed, grandsons, heavy, help, moments, nature, plants, project, rock, rocks, weather, widow
doing the happy dance…
Monday, the weather was perfect for being in the garden and my middle grandson came over and worked on the most current project… the soil in this garden bed kept sliding down and covering the stepping stones…
he removed some miscellaneous rocks, dug a trench and then, with my oldest grandson, moved and placed large rocks, which were located all around the garden…
it was interesting to watch as they decided together which rock worked and looked best where…
with my direction, of course…
the rock wall looks good…
so pleased that this project, which has been on my list for quite some time, is now completed…
31 Wednesday Jul 2024
Posted in family, garden, health, life, loss, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
beloved, big girl pants, blessed, construction, garden, gate, grandsons, memories, moments, nature, pergola, photographs, remembering, time, waterbed pond, widow
a friend sent me some photographs recently and in amongst them was this picture of my beloved in front of the just finished pergola/gate…
it had the cutest fastener on the gate… I can’t remember when we put all of the pergolas in, but at that time – many moons ago – we still had the waterbed pond beside it…
then I dug out this one from July, 2009 (a bit fuzzy), when he added a shelf for stuff to sit on while we were in the new hot tub… that was fifteen years ago🤪…
and this is how it looks today;-)…
I showed the original picture to my grandsons and it took them a minute to recognize it, lol…
it does need a trim so that the Virginia creeper isn’t overpowering it and the gate could have a prettier fastener…
time flies…
07 Sunday Jul 2024
Posted in family, life, moments, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
21 Thursday Dec 2023
Posted in family, food, health, life, moments, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, dinner, family, grandson, grandsons, happy, moments, time, treat, visit, widow, wishlist
one of the items on my Christmas wishlist was a visit from my grandsons, so I was excited on Sunday to prep for their visit…
had fun setting the table all fancy for our dinner…
I haven’t seen them since the summer so this was a great treat…
it was fun to watch them open their Christmas presents after dinner…
thanks to the oldest for making this happen;-)…
15 Thursday Jun 2023
Posted in business, family, garden, life, moments, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
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big girl pants, blessed, busy, family, fencing, garden, grandsons, happy, helpers, moments, project, son-in-law, widow, working
the latest project around the house has taken a little while… we began discussing it in February, lol…
the actual work started on Thursday, June 8th, when my grandson and son-in-law took down the back fence as well as the small one in the front yard…
it involved hammering, using the car jack and a great deal of muscle… once it was down, all the pieces were loaded into a truck… then we moved soil, cleaned up the leaves from the cedars and Virginia creeper, and filled many bags of yardwaste…
midway through the day the lumber was dropped off, but had to be brought onto the driveway a few pieces at a time, and by the end of the day we were worn out, lol…
on Friday, my grandson met our handyperson at the hardware store where they rented an auger and picked up a big bag of screws and nails…
they used more muscle to get the old holes redug and finished the day with all posts installed…
Sunday, the oldest dug up excess dirt around the shed while we waited for the rest of the crew to arrive, including one of his brothers…
they worked well together and got the back fence 99.9% finished, with a nice wide gate and the framework up for the front portion of fence…
on Wednesday and Thursday my oldest grandson put the finishing touches on the fencing and both sections look great…
so pleased with the final result as well as how smoothly the process went and what great help we had from everyone…
01 Saturday Apr 2023
Posted in family, food, health, life, moments, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
beige, big girl pants, blessed, cooking, dinner, family, food, grandsons, happy, home, home cooked, moments, widow
had a delightful day yesterday… got to cook for my grandsons…
made stuffing (one of their absolute favourites), prepped mashed potatoes, boiled a turnip (to use the water in the gravy), cut up cucumbers, cooked mushrooms, and opened a can of cranberry jelly…
such a treat to have them for a home-cooked meal, lol… and fun to make dinner for more than one or two people…
put the chicken into the oven and the final piece was to make the gravy and pull out the cranberry jelly (only two of us like that)…
as always, while I work away making the pieces of the meal, I am thinking about the people who will be eating the meal with me…
dinner turned out delicious, although it was a bit on the beige side, lol… sadly, only one of them was able to come as the other was home sick with a stomach bug;-(… I did send home a goodie bag for when he feels better…
herbiggirlpants 