02 Saturday Jun 2018
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
having a hard day… been ages since I’ve had one this bad…
a few things have happened over the last week which have made me wish my beloved was here with me… he was always my biggest supporter…
never know when the grief will overwhelm you, sigh…
spotted these yesterday… he loved alliums…
05 Monday Mar 2018
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
beloved, big girl pants, chocolate, family, flowers, friends, girls, journey, loss, memories, missing, organs, six, step, time, widow, years
two thousand one hundred and ninety-one days since my beloved left me…
you would think that six years would make it easier…
some days it does seem a little easier… many days it doesn’t…
I do things that I’d never done before and I do them well… those big girl pants and all… but I would much rather have him beside me…
I continue to try to remember the good times and focus on them rather than feel sorry for myself… although there are certainly times when I wallow…
I’ve learned to feel those moments and sit in them and not push them aside… I believe that has helped me move forward…
as I write this the tears fall… over the last few weeks I’ve have been reminded of the days when George died and the memorial that followed… it has been very stress-filled as I have been reliving the hours and days immediately following his death…
thinking back to the police arriving at the door and my friends going with me to the hospital… not being told he had died, but walking into the room where his body was… calling my girls, and others… signing a form so that they could harvest his organs… going home to a house without him…
hard days… but today I got chocolate in the mail and bought myself a bouquet of flowers to make me smile;-)…
one step at a time on the journey…
27 Tuesday Feb 2018
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
rough day today…
attended a celebration of life with my colleagues… it was lovely…
gatherings like these are always hard for everyone… for me, they bring up the people who are missing in my life…
I’ve been thinking back to the day of George’s memorial… the stress as we all got ready in the house… the meltdowns, the tears… worrying about how the little boys would manage and not wanting them to have a bad memory of the day…
staying calm as the program took place and making sure that everyone was looked after… so many details and people to speak with…
and then it was over… and my new life began…
20 Wednesday Sep 2017
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
beloved, big girl pants, blessed, fish, flowers, George, memories, missing, orchid, pictures, pond, widow
still thinking of my beloved…
took this shot of the fish in the pond this morning…
the pond looks different now, but he loved working in all of them… through winter he would make sure the fish were cozy in their condo in the house, and it was always exciting when it was time to move out to the pond… often he would have little helpers to assist with the transfer…
over the last while one of my colleagues has been sharing updates on her orchids… this morning she brought the small one to my desk to show me the newest blossom…
George often brought orchids into the office … one of his colleagues who worked in the seasonal area would let him know when a new batch of orchids had arrived and say you better get some for your wife…
and he would, and bring them to the office as well… this is one of those he brought in and my colleague has looked after it beautifully… think this is the third time since he died that it has bloomed… another larger one is nearly ready to bloom under her amazing orchid fingers…
usually I only use my own photos, but tonight another colleague sent me two of the above shots that show the bloom…
what wonderful memories… I have been truly blessed…
01 Saturday Apr 2017
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, travel, Uncategorized
Tags
. soup, beloved, big girl pants, ChefsPlate, chocolate, cold, eat, hyacinth, jammies, meals, meatballs, missing, omelette, recover, sick, smell, widow
have really taken the day to rest and recover from the cold I’ve been struggling with all week…
these are some of the times when I most miss my beloved… he always did a great job of looking after me…
jammies on all day and the only thing I did was prepare meals…
for breakfast I really wanted to order something, but dragged myself down to the kitchen and took inspiration from the cute woman at the resort who made all the egg dishes… cooked up mushrooms, green onion and spinach and made an omelette with a little cheese in it as well… came out very nicely…
for lunch I chose the last bit of my zucchini basil chicken soup with chips and some Mexican chocolate… seemed like just the right combination, lol…
for supper made one of the ChefsPlate meals… still enjoying the process of preparing the meal… and it tasted great…
turkey and spinach meatballs…
as I was sitting in the living room waiting for the meatballs to finish cooking I could actually smell the hyacinth…
hurray, the cold is starting to let up…
02 Saturday Jul 2016
Posted in family, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, bunny, dragonflies, duck, English Garden, friends, George, Leo Mol Garden, missing, recovery, walk, widow
yesterday I discovered this plaque that a dear friend had given to me… it had come down from the bedroom wall four years ago when my older daughter arranged for her friends to come and paint the room for me before my surgery… the bedroom had been looking very worn and we knew I would be spending a lot of recovery time in it…
when I discovered it yesterday it went right down into the bathroom where it has a place of prominence…
on my walk in the Gardens at the Park today I was also thinking of friends…
often meet a friend to take this walk but she is away so I was on my own…
beautiful iris…
one of the gardeners was busy with the ongoing work in the gardens but happily answered my questions…
like why so many of the benches were tipped over… apparently some of the concrete needed repair… kind of funny, because they just put them in about two weeks ago after they had redone many of the walkways…
spotted this leopard frog having a look over its domain… that was just after a turtle slipped into the water on the other side of the pond…
my other question was about the string algae which is rather prominent in their pond as well… they are having pump troubles and also dye the water so the sunlight can’t get through and cause more algae…
dragonflies were everywhere… didn’t even see this one on the lilypad when I took the picture…
this one posed very nicely for me…
sat on “my” bench – where George and I would often take a break on our walks through the Gardens – and the cutest teeny bunny came out from the undergrowth five or six times… but when I finally spoke to it, it left for good…
not sure why, but I have been missing him terribly for the last month or so…
as I toured around the Duck Pond I caught sight of this mallard mom and her babies having a rest in the sunshine…
while I was walking thought a lot about my friends and how blessed I am to have them…
14 Tuesday Jun 2016
Posted in family, health, life, loss, nature, technology, Uncategorized
as I was heading out of the driveway took a shot of the roses which are just starting to open…
rather funny because the flower bed they are in is nearly completely overgrown with grass… hoping to get some help soon to clean this bed up… but great to see the blooms, lol…
caught sight of this just before reaching the office…
a man with a very lovely murse, or man purse… not a great pic because I took it through the front window of the car…
reminded me of my beloved… he carried a murse for years… well before it was the cool thing to do… used to drive the girls crazy, particularly when they were teenagers…
looking at the rest of the garden today I am really missing him… he loved the garden and worked in it all the time… much harder worker than I out there… can see that now…
22 Sunday May 2016
Posted in family, health, life, loss, nature, technology, Uncategorized
lots done in the garden today… also fit in a nap and some sports on tv…
been thinking a lot of my journey lately and missing my beloved…
with over four years on my own some things are coming more easily… eating out on my own… something I would not do for any reason in the before time… getting more and more comfortable doing that… shopping on my own… doing things with the car, like taking it for gas and to get washed, lol…
working in the garden on my own… George was the one who executed so many of my ideas… he also did a lot of the work in the garden… I would do the planting in pots, but he would often do the digging and heavy work and the maintenance… I can mow the grass but also appreciate when others do it…
he was also the weeder… he’d spend time in the garage (lots of time!) and then vanish into an area of the garden and pull weeds… I did not realize how much time he spent doing that, lol…
I miss him in the morning, I miss him during the day, I miss him after work, I miss him in the hot tub and I miss him at night…
I miss talking to him, reviewing the day, getting his opinion… today I don’t think I spoke except on the phone with my daughter for a few minutes… I miss the sound of another person in the house…
the garden misses him too, I think…
maybe it is the season, or spending time in the garden… not sure exactly what it is, but missing him so much… will continue to feel my way through…
26 Saturday Sep 2015
up early and headed out for breakfast after we woke up the teenager…
on our way, stopped by the spot where we scattered George’s ashes as the middle one had asked about it a few weeks ago and we weren’t able to get there because his brother was sick…
wasn’t sure if the other two would want to, but they both said yes and away we went…
found the spot and played on the rocks and talked about that morning and how the oldest had scattered the ashes and they had gone out to the river and on to the lake… all places that Grandpa loved…
when we were sitting down for our breakfast we had a toast to Grandpa…
while we were waiting for our food to arrive we talked about our breakfast that morning and how it would have been better to have grandpa with us…
late in the afternoon we went across the street and the boys spent some time climbing a tree by the creek… it was just at the time that my friend’s ashes were being scattered in another part of the city…
sat and thought about her as they climbed away… special moment…
missing a lot of people today…
21 Monday Sep 2015
Tags
beloved, big girl pants, gerber, mandevilla, missing, orange, sunset
first thing this morning I took a picture of the Mandevilla… it is a lovely shade of pink…
then I spent a bit of time putting a few new plants on the steps at the front of the house…
came out pretty nice… hope they last until the cold comes…
been noticing orange things as I remember my friend Susan… she loved orange… on my walks in the Park I have been drawn to the orange flowers… I’ve been working on a project and have noticed I’ve been gravitating to orange there as well…
missing my beloved lately as well… interesting how time can go by and then all of a sudden I miss him tremendously…
tonight the sky was beautiful again…
pinky orange, lol… amazing sunsets lately…
final picture tonight is one of the gerbers that are part of the bouquet from the kids…
flowers make me happy…
