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Tag Archives: neighbours

days…

24 Sunday Jan 2021

Posted by sulis303 in garden, health, life, loss, moments, Uncategorized

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beloved, big girl pants, blessed, days, friends, garden, happy, meals, memories, moments, neighbours, normal, widow

today, as I sat in the living room looking out the window I spent a few happy moments remembering the wonderful neighbours we have had over the years…

our next door neighbours became our very good friends… when the girls were first born they would take them home so that we could eat our supper without interruption… the girls would go over to their house to see if “Uncle Buzz could come out to play?” and he did… we fed them on Wednesday nights and they babysat while we went bowling… at one point Ellen produced a cookbook for each of them with all of the recipes she made that we all loved…

the neighbour across the street made Barbie clothes and we shared many meals and coffee on the deck…

the neighbour a few houses down the lane would come and help my beloved with whatever project he was working on and they had such fun together…

the neighbour across the back lane shared their pool…

these days we aren’t quite as close to the neighbours, as all of those have gone, but they are all kind and caring in their own way…

made me think of today’s contemplating card;-)…

maybe, if the world ever returns to some semblance of normal, I will have them all over for a meal and time together;-)…

rang…

17 Tuesday Nov 2020

Posted by sulis303 in business, family, food, life, moments, retirement, technology, Uncategorized

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big girl pants, blessed, Christmas, doorbell, family, food, friends, lockdown, moments, neighbours, rang, Save-On-Foods, shopping, Technology, timer-whisperer, treats, widow

been a hectic day, not the norm around here…

a friend dropped off an item she had picked up for me and we had a short chat… she by her car, and I on the steps with my mask on…

time online on the laptop searching and ordering various things… maybe even some Christmas presents…

had a lovely conversation with my Winnipeg son-in-law who then FaceTimed me and maybe got the timer working, lol… fingers crossed…

and it worked… I had read the directions and tried it a few times before talking with him… he is the timer-whisperer, lol…

also spoke with my Ottawa son-in-law who helped me out with a different issue…

I was on a call and the bell rang… my neighbour brought me a cute little tin filled with fresh baking;-)… woo hoo… and I gave her some books which were needing a new home;-)…

I am now answering the door with a mask on all the time, not that the doorbell rings very often, lol…

final event was a delivery from Save-On-Foods with needed groceries… early in the pandemic, it was taking 2 weeks to get groceries once ordered… then it was down to the next day, but now that we are going back into a more serious lockdown, it is taking 4 or 5 days… so blessed to have this option… now I just need to plan a little further ahead…

certainly the busiest day I’ve had in ages;-)…

neighbours…

24 Thursday Sep 2020

Posted by sulis303 in garden, life, loss, moments, retirement, Uncategorized, weather

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beloved, big girl pants, blessed, chat, friends, garden, help, house, memories, moments, neighbours, siding, widow

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…

fence…

05 Wednesday Aug 2020

Posted by sulis303 in garden, life, retirement, Uncategorized

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big girl pants, construction, display, exposed, fence, moments, neighbours, watched, widow

the neighbours have been building a new fence…

I’ve watched the process… once the fence came down between our yards it seemed very exposed…

they cut down two volunteer elm trees that have been growing next to my garage and took all the junk to the dump…

then a company came, dug the holes for the posts, and installed them… the neighbour and a friend put up the frame and then they got most of the boards installed…

that looked very nice and he then worked on the gates and the cap;-)… pretty sure their puppy was happy when it was all done and she could get off the rope…

pleased to have it back up which makes me feel much less on display, lol…

kind…

28 Thursday May 2020

Posted by sulis303 in garden, life, moments, nature, Uncategorized

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beloved, big girl pants, blessed, garden, giggle, grass, kind, memories, moments, mowing, neighbours, widow

yesterday morning I received an email from my new neighbours… they moved in on the 15th and have been busy getting settled and welcoming friends since then… they have also added two puppies to their family… so far the puppies are very quiet… unfortunately directly behind them live two small, and very yappy, dogs who are constantly barking…

anyway, back to the email… they mentioned they would be working in their front yard and wondered if I would like them to mow my grass…

made me giggle a little bit, as the front yard looks like a meadow filled with yellow flowers… bad news is of course those flowers are dandelions, lol… as I’ve mentioned previously, my beloved was probably making faces from above…

of course I responded quickly with a very happy yes please… I was thinking they might want to get rid of all the dandelions so they wouldn’t have so many, although the other side of their yard has lots in it as well… or maybe they were just being kind…

I am consulting with my middle grandson to see if he can come over and mow for me every week, but we aren’t quite organized yet…

just after five I heard the sound of a mower and spotted one of them working away at the front of the house… once mowed, a whipper snipper was taken to the area as well… it didn’t have a cord, very nice…

looks great;-)…

 

move…

15 Friday May 2020

Posted by sulis303 in family, life, loss, moments, Uncategorized

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big girl pants, blessed, declutter, home, memories, move, neighbours, remembering, sugar cookies, treat, welcome, widow

I’ve spent a good part of the day watching the activity as the new neighbours move into the house next door…

looks like they are a young couple and they have been coming and going since around 7:30 this morning…

last Friday I watched the moving van arrive and take away all the belongings of the couple who had lived there for over 10 years… well he lived there for that time, and recently got married… since then they have come and gone a number of times to do the last bit of clean up and removal… his adult kids had all been by to fetch their bits and pieces and a couple of days ago a truck came and picked up the hot tub…

it made me think of a couple of things…

first was the day we moved into this house… it was in August of 1973… we had purchased the house from an older couple and on the day we were to move in, we arrived at nine in the morning to discover them sitting at their kitchen table having tea… it appears that they had forgotten they had to be out that day… we were freaking out at our end, because we had to be out of the apartment we had been living in by the end of that day… amazingly, their son arrived and they were out of the house by 3 pm…

second is the thought of what my kids will have to do when I leave the house… we have lived here for 47 years so there is a lot of stuff… I keep thinking about how I need to be decluttering more than I have, although right now isn’t really the time to do that, as organizations are not taking donations at this time, lol…

but it does remind me to get onto that project as soon as possible… we won’t even discuss the state of the garage, which has not been dealt with since my beloved’s death over eight years ago…

I baked sugar cookies to deliver next door and share with a few others…

 

 

 

neighbourly…

07 Monday Jan 2019

Posted by sulis303 in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, travel, Uncategorized

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beautiful, big girl pants, blessed, clearing, driveway, group, neighbourly, neighbours, snow, snowblower, widow

my oh my… it snowed quite a bit last night… and then the wind took over… blew the side door of the garage open and quite a bit of snow went inside…

looked pretty as I was leaving the house this morning, although the driving wasn’t great…

at the end of the day we left the office in groups to be sure that no one got stuck in the parking lot…

when I arrived home I turned into the driveway and couldn’t get up the slope as my snow clearing person hadn’t made it over yet…

vehicles were parked on the street so I was worried I might back into one of them if I tried to make a run for it… I went and knocked on a neighbour’s door… the vehicle wasn’t his but he thought it was from the house right across the street from me… that neighbour was shovelling so I went and asked about the vehicle… it was his, but he said I had lots of room…

he came over and tried to drive Indi up the driveway… as he was trying, the first neighbour came out to help… with a number of tries, and two of us pushing, Indi made it to the flat section of the driveway… thank goodness for winter tires…

I was able to get her into the garage from there…

I opened the side door to see that my back lane neighbour had snow-blowed the sidewalk from the lane to the deck;-)…

I took a picture of the spot where Indi got stuck, but it doesn’t look like a problem…

here’s the driver as he finished shovelling his sidewalk…

pretty neighbourly, I’d say;-)…

neighbours…

26 Friday Oct 2018

Posted by sulis303 in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, travel, Uncategorized

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adapt, appointment, big girl pants, breakfast, buddy, English Garden, friend, geese, halloween, honking, insurance, Leo Mol Garden, neighbours, widow

this morning I started my day at the clinic doing bloodwork before my next appointment…

on my way back to the car I kept having to stop and watch the geese flying overhead… I cannot keep from looking up when I hear them honking…

then I met up with my walking buddy… we had breakfast at The Park Cafe, and noticed that all the geese that usually spend time in the pond were off filling up somewhere else, lol… afterward we wandered through the English and Leo Mol Gardens which are rather sad just now but it was great to be outside…

I dropped her off and we checked out her newly renovated garden… as I was leaving I got this pic of a neighbour’s Halloween decorations;-)…

when I arrived home, had a lovely visit with one of my neighbours… haven’t been outside at the same time for ages so it was great to catch-up… they usually spend a few months at their property in Arizona but with health issues they can’t get insurance so will be selling… they do have a winterized cottage just outside the city, so will spend time there…

seems like we have to adapt quite a bit as we get older…

camping, day nine…

18 Saturday Aug 2018

Posted by sulis303 in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, travel, Uncategorized

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big girl pants, birthday, boat, campfire, camping, day nine, family, neighbours, tubing, widow

long night with very noisy camper neighbours…

had a big breakfast and then packed up for a family birthday party on the beach…

we went from smoky skies with the sun behind the haze to it peeking out through clouds…

the afternoon was filled with eating, tubing, kneeboarding, wakeboarding, visiting and tanning…

today my daughter and son-in-law had fun on the wakeboard… my son-in-law also played on the kneeboard while my daughter drove the boat… he doesn’t get to do this often, but he still puts everyone else to shame with his skills, lol…

back to the campsite for steak and shrimp dinner and then a fire with lots of family guests…

many of these folks have camped in this area for thirty years… when they move around the campground they often come across others they have camped with when they were young…

chimes…

10 Saturday Jun 2017

Posted by sulis303 in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized

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big girl pants, chimes, Christmas, copper, friends, garden, George, heart, neighbours, sound, widow, wind

the new neighbours have put up some wind chimes… the kind that I like, not the high pitched tinkling ones…

wonder how long I will refer to the neighbours as new, lol…

reminds me of the wonderful ones that we had… they were a gift from friends and had a lovely deep sound… 

one year we decided to make similar ones as our Christmas gift for friends… 

George took ours apart to create the template and worked on them for weeks… 

we had great difficulty finding the correct type of copper, but eventually all the bits and pieces were gathered up… 

during that time he came down with an infection which damaged his heart… he just finished the gifts in time, as he was feeling so sick… 

he never did put ours back together… I think the struggle to get the gifts done really tarnished his love of them… 

a couple of months ago I found the bits for our original set, but apparently some of the pieces aren’t there… 

I can’t figure out how to put it together but with the lovely sound coming from next door I think it’s okay…

rose buds getting ready to open…


funny the things you remember…

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