it started late yesterday when the light blew in the den… I went and got the kitchen stepstool, but when I stood on the second step it made me too nervous to take down the cover…
after I thought about it for awhile, I decided the small ladder from the garage would work, so I had my grandson put it beside the back door while he was here shovelling… I brought it in and left it to warm up, as it is metal and it was very cold out today…
finally, I climbed up, changed the bulb, and returned the ladder to the back door… tomorrow will be warmer so I will return it to its spot in the garage…
I am having to figure out how to do more things as I am not having anyone in the house these days… looking forward to the time when people can come and do jobs for me…
I have the nicest neighbours… they are basically all new(ish)… when we first moved here we became good friends with a number of neighbours, but they are all gone…
since then there have been a few inhabitants of various houses who we didn’t chat with very much…
today, the neighbour across the street came over and fixed a piece of siding at the peak of the house that had come loose during the big wind storm a while back… we had a lovely chat as he tried to get it hooked back in… he had volunteered to fix it for me, via his wife, who I had chatted with the other day when the fire trucks raced down the street… he helped me last winter when Indi got stuck at the bottom of the driveway and I couldn’t get her up the slope…
the tomatoes I’ve been eating came from the next door neighbours on my right… they have been in the house for a few years now and remind me of our friends who used to live there… he spends a lot of time tinkering in the yard and garage, lol… they spend time at the lake and moved here to help with their grandchildren and have them over on a regular basis… they got a dog a few months ago… not sure what type he is, but he is small and learning not to bark when he sees me in my garden…
the neighbours behind have been there for ten or so years so knew my beloved and they would chat over the fence all the time and share tools… the other day he offered to help with the garage cleanup…
the neighbours on the left are the newest addition… they are a young couple who also have a new puppy, which is going to be fairly large… they have both offered to pick up anything I might need when they are out and about…
I think back to the gatherings we used to have on the deck… weekend breakfasts, dinners and visits… those days are long gone…
and of course, nowadays the only visiting we do is at a distance…
still, it is lovely to know that if I need urgent help I could call on any of them…
in December we had a Random Acts of Kindness contest at work… we added berries to the wreath whenever we did something kind, or saw someone else doing something kind… at the end of the contest we sent a donation to a local charity…
have been thinking a lot about kindness lately…
from friends taking meals to support others…
to someone bringing me a cup of tea while I was deep in a project…
to the person who brought me my favourite lunch treat for no reason…
whenever I see frost on my garage window I remember the kindness of someone who invited me to their house not long after my beloved died… the frost on the window in their garage was stunning and I will always remember taking some pictures of it…
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…
yesterday my son-in-law and middle grandson came over and we went to Costco to pick up a few things…
they carted stuff in and put it away while I prepared the meat for tacos… serendipitous as my grandson mentioned he’d been craving them for a few days…
the boys use both hard and soft shells, but I like to make salad with mine…
after supper we jumped in the car and drove to Boon Burger for some vegan pumpkin pie ice cream… my son-in-law is having to watch his dairy intake and was very excited to learn that they have this particular ice cream and that he could eat it…
it was snowing a bit as we left with our treats, lol…
this afternoon I watched a bunny run across the neighbour’s yard… it looked tired, lol…
when the kids arrived my son-in-law fixed the floppy siding – which makes so much noise when it comes loose… which happens every now and then… and the garage door which had shifted and wouldn’t stay closed… for the last week I’ve had a stool up against it on the inside of the garage and had to come and go from the front of the house using the rolling door… been a bit of a pain… but, now it is fixed… yay…
the youngest brought me a picture he’d made for grandparents’ day at his school… he shared that he had traced the flower pot which was used as a template by the rest of his classmates;-)…
had picked up chocolate bunnies, gift cards for some of their favourite places, and fancy cookies…
and the Easter bunny had dropped off some mini eggs in the living and dining rooms…
had a lovely dinner… everyone lent a hand to get the last minute jobs done… my daughter is the meat/poultry carver… my oldest grandson now does the potato mashing, the two younger ones carry things out to the table… after dinner my son-in-law leads the clean-up brigade… by the time they leave the kitchen looks great and there is nothing left for me to do…
here’s how the table looked tonight…
and here’s how it looked last year…
always try to have lots of flowers, and bunnies…
my beloved has been gone five years but this is the sixth Easter without him… and for whatever reason I was missing him especially today…
spent some time thinking of the fun we had over the years as we celebrated Easter together and with the kids…
it was about a woman and her adult children and how they dealt with her diagnosis of Alzheimer’s…
I am always amazed at how they can take a few inanimate objects and make them appear to be different things throughout the play…
there were a few moments that brought back memories for me…
they talked about the loss of the husband a year previous and how difficult that and the intervening time had been…
the mother told one of her daughters that she was going to take her own life when she felt the disease was overtaking her…
that reminded me of my own mother asking me to help her die… she was in palliative care in the end stages of esophageal cancer… nowadays there are some options if a person wants to end their life when they have a terminal illness… there wasn’t anything to help a person when my mom asked me… she also asked if she could come home to die… it was difficult to say I couldn’t help her or bring her home to die… at the time she would have been staying in my daughter’s room and I wasn’t sure my daughter would be able to move back into the room if her grandmother died there…
it was a very powerful play and certainly opened up opportunities for people to discuss these difficult situations…
slept very poorly last night… kept having strange dreams with my beloved in them and then waking up… don’t usually remember dreams… thinking the play triggered them…
we did have these cute pumpkin pie cookies my friend picked up and which were very tasty…
happy with all the new plants… can hardly wait to get them outside…
the gardenia smells delicious…
and the flowers are very pretty…
the two tropicals are ready to get into the garden…
they are going to make it a bit more lush… not exactly sure where they will end up, and will likely move them around a bit to find the best spot…
the mandevilla looks great and I can hardly wait to get it planted…
very happy with the fire table…
been looking for months for just the right one… saw this on Friday and met the kids to actually buy it on Saturday and they brought it home in their vehicle…
was able to get it going easily… simple to turn on and off and I think it is going to be just the right thing for me…
sat in the hot tub and watched the flames for ages… very nice…
looking for a bit of help with the gardening I think…
