08 Friday Oct 2021
Posted in business, garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
23 Monday Nov 2020
Posted in family, health, life, moments, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, family, journey, moments, new ways, process, safe, Technology, tires, widow
our new process when the kids come by is that they leave whatever they have brought for me on top of the hot tub, while I stand inside the back door…
then I put the items I am sending with them onto the front steps and come into the house and watch out the front window…
they were here today to put the summer tires into the garage, return some mugs and drop off meds for me…
feels safe and also gives me an opportunity to see them;-)…
03 Friday Jul 2020
Tags
attach, big girl pants, blessed, family, friend, garden, grandson, hot tub, ladder, moments, process, siding, virginia creeper, widow
my grandson and one of his friends came over yesterday afternoon…
they were here to finish trimming the Virginia creeper and put the piece of siding back up…
it was quite the process as a door was put onto the hot tub, then a ladder on top of the door and then one would climb up and remove bits and pieces of the vine… then they worked from the driveway side to finish… once the vines were removed, they had to do some fancy work to get the siding back up and properly attached…
eventually it was all done and the area cleaned up…
we had a laugh as this particular friend had also helped with landscaping work in the front yard a number of years ago;-)… nice to have him back and helping…
it looks much tidier and more spacious now… after they left I finished cleaning the hot tub and filled it with fresh water… it takes an hour to get it to the top…
it took until around noon to heat it up, although I’ve set the temperature at 99℃ to see if that might be a nice temp for cooling down in this very hot spell we are dealing with…
21 Saturday Mar 2020
Posted in business, food, health, life, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, delivery, groceries, health, moments, process, safe, Save-On-Foods, shopping, Technology, widow
technology is certainly helping us in these crazy days…
the groceries I ordered online from Save-On-Foods came right at the time they said… the delivery person called ahead to let me know they would arrive so it gave me a chance to ask a few questions…
usually they bring the groceries into the house and have you sign a form…
the new process is that they drop the bags on your front step… once they are back at the truck and see you bring in the groceries they sign the form for you… while he was describing the new process he advised of the substitutions they had made…
I thanked him profusely for providing this great service for those of us older folks, particularly as I currently have a cold which is making me exceptionally careful…
it is a new world we are living in…
17 Friday Jan 2020
I’ve been waiting for a slightly warmer day to top up the hot tub…
it has been running low since I got home and I haven’t been out to sit in it because when it is low it sprays all over me which isn’t that nice…
around noon I removed the dryer vent and put the hose through it… then I went outside and slid between the hot tub and the pergola so I could reach the hose and put it into the tub…
back downstairs to turn the water on and then seven long minutes out in the cold as it filled up;-)…
actually the seven minutes went by quickly and I was able to pop back into the house to turn the water off, return to the outdoors to remove the hose from the hot tub and get back into the basement to collect the hose and replace the vent in the hole in the wall that was letting in a fair bit of very cold air, lol…
now for the waiting game… it will likely be a few days before it warms back up to 103, my favourite temperature… it takes so long because the tub is only plugged in using a regular outlet…
maybe a Sunday hot tub…
30 Monday Apr 2018
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, travel, Uncategorized
Tags
beauty, big girl pants, car, dealership, learn, lease, neighbour, new, now, process, safety, Shadow, stuff, tires, widow
today I got my new car…
Shadow was traded in and I got a 2018 model tonight… this time I bought the car rather than lease it… I am most excited about the heated steering wheel although when my grandson takes it over, down the road, he will likely appreciate the various safety features… the car will keep you inside the lines on the road and match the speed of the car ahead of you on the highway… pretty cool…
was a bit of a process to get the tires into the car to take with me, lol… happily my neighbour was out and about and was able to come over and help me get them loaded…
I haven’t decided on a name for this new vehicle just yet…
took everything out of the various storage places and even remembered to remove the garage door opener, lol…
took a final picture of Shadow as she sat outside the doors of the dealership… it was very cold as I walked to and from the insurance company… wasn’t thinking I’d be outside for so long… eventually got the keys and met the new vehicle in my life… they even put a big bow on her…
she’s a beauty… now I just have to learn all the new stuff…
04 Wednesday Apr 2018
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, happy, memories, moments, nametags, printer, process, remembering, Technology, volunteer, widow
been working on nametags for an event I volunteer for occasionally… off and on over the last week I’ve designed, prepared a list, merged it, printed, separated and stuffed them…
it has reminded me of the first year at my current position when I would agonize over preparing nametags for any events we did… for the longest time I would lose every seventh name on a list… then the printer and I would fight over the printing process… eventually I would come out on top, but only after numerous trips to the printer and a lot of stress…
since then I have refined the process of making nametags and enjoy the various steps, which is particularly handy as I make them all the time…
no matter what, it still takes a good bit of time and energy to get a set ready, lol…
happy the job is done…
03 Wednesday Jan 2018
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, cold, family, furnace, fuse, nest, process, son-in-law, thermostat, widow, wire, work
so the smoke detector was installed on Thursday afternoon… and I am loving it… a cute little ring of blue (a nightlight) appears when I walk under it… so far no alarms, which is good, nor has it talked to me yet…
on Friday my son-in-law went out and found the Nest thermostat at a good price and on Saturday he began the process of installing it…
it was a long complicated piece of business… by 7 pm that night, it was 63 degrees Fahrenheit in the house because after the first install, and putting back the original thermostat, the furnace refused to circulate any heat… the furnace service people came out around 8 pm and discovered that a fuse had blown, so they went back to the shop and brought a new one and installed it… this particular fellow didn’t know how to install the Nest product so we left it so that the house could warm up… it was rather chilly…
on Tuesday my son-in-law tried again, after he had gone out and bought more fuses, in case we blew another one in the process of hooking up the new thermostat…
once again, the new one wouldn’t work so he reinstalled the old one… he walked over to the furnace company’s office and left a message for the owner to give us a call… a while later we heard back and they figured out that there needed to be another wire…
which meant that the drywall ceiling in the basement hall had to come down so he could run the cable… he removed it and cleaned everything up beautifully, but by then it was too late to move to the next step…
today, while I was at work, he was able to pull the wire (without cutting into the plaster in the hall, yay), connect everything, and set the temperature, because it finally worked perfectly…
we added it to my app and I can now change the temperature from my phone… although it does say it is -8 outside, whereas the weather app says it is -22, lol…
seemed like such a simple little job, but he didn’t stop until it was done;-)… I sure am blessed…
02 Wednesday Aug 2017
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
spent the day doing things around the house…
longest job involved the hot tub... ran some chemicals through, and then had to wait for an hour and run the pump again…
eventually was able to drain it…
remembered to take a picture as it began draining… takes a couple of hours to empty completely…
then I had to find the shop vac, which I have never used, and vacuum out all the last bits of crud and water from the bottom… that was a process… you’d think it would dump out water in a simple manner, like maybe push a reverse button, but no, you have to take off the top and then dump it… got a wet sandal in the process… didn’t take any pictures…
now to the filling portion… remembered the pic again, lol…
takes over an hour to fill and while I was doing that I got out Barbie and cooked a steak and some zuchinni…
this little guy was having a snack at the same time…
new to the neighbourhood, we haven’t had chipmunks around for years… goes right past my feet but didn’t want me to get too close to take a pic… apparently shy, lol…
steak was delicious, not sure how I felt about the zuchinni, but I did eat it… finished supper with salad and a few tiny new potatoes with dill…
all of the above jobs used to be taken care of by my beloved… some are easier than others and I continue to learn things…
those big girl pants…
28 Wednesday Dec 2016
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
last night we spent some time preparing chocolate tasting packages…
we prepared six of them… two for us and four to do with some of the kids’ friends while they are here…
it is a bit of a process… first my daughter chose which bars to use… first tasting was chocolate from Central and South America…
then we wrote down which bar was used and wrapped a few small pieces of each type in foil… because you usually taste five or six pieces they don’t need to be big… so the bars go a long way…
numbered them and put them into bags…
then we had our tasting… we paired it with a California Square red wine… in the end, the wine wasn’t that great a match, but the chocolate was delicious…
it was also great fun to do the prep work…
going to look into finding a better wine to pair with the next batch of chocolate…
