02 Friday Jun 2023
Posted in garden, life, loss, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
beloved, big girl pants, blessed, flowers, garden, huge, memories, moments, nature, plants, poppies, remembering, widow
for whatever reason the poppies opening is a huge deal for me…
this morning Facebook shared a memory from this date in 2012 when there was an abundance of poppies blooming…
and when I went into the garden, the first one this season was open…
what a treat, and a lovely reminder of my beloved, who also loved poppies;-)…
30 Sunday Apr 2023
Posted in business, family, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, travel, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
amethyst, amethyst heart, banyan, beaches, big girl pants, blessed, cacao trees, flowers, Hawaii, jacaranda, Maui, memories, moments, nature, once-in-a-lifetime, orchids, pictures, remembering, trees, turtles, vacation, water, widow
four years ago in April, we arrived on Maui to celebrate my birthday…
I had always wanted to go to Hawaii, but never made it happen until then…
I have been enjoying the memories that have come up in my social media…
on our way into our first hotel, we spotted orchids in the lobby…
we went to the beach to watch the sun set, got our toes in the ocean, found a great spot to watch, settled in to wait, and then had this group of people walk right in front of us to get their pictures, lol…
I have the amethyst heart that I purchased on my bedside table and enjoy seeing it all the time…
one of my favourite memories is of our time at the orchid farm… a huge space bursting with the most beautiful plants, most of which were in full bloom…
it was delightful…
there were fish and sea turtles…
saw cacao trees with cacao pods on them, jacaranda trees in bloom (purple), and the most amazing banyan tree which took up an entire block…
it was an amazing time and we enjoyed every minute… it lived up to all of my expectations and then some… so lucky this happened before covid…
24 Friday Mar 2023
Posted in business, family, life, loss, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
abalone, big girl pants, blessed, collection, lost, memories, Mexico, moments, nature, pictures, remembering, seashells, shells, store, widow
came across this picture from a trip to Mexico in 2017…
I have loved and collected seashells since I was given an abalone shell when I was young…
this store was amazing;-)…
I have lost the main part of my collection… this is a very old picture from when I was a teenager…
I think these shells may have ended up in the garbage years ago;-(…
now I fill the drawers with a collection of more recently purchased pieces…
it was fun to remember the store and my collection…
23 Thursday Mar 2023
Posted in business, life, moments, nature, Photography, retirement, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, computer, deleting, flowers, garden, moments, Mylio, nature, photos, pictures, remembering, Technology, widow
after some issues with the computer upstairs, it finally connected to the internet so I was able to work on the Mylio photo program I’d purchased a few months ago…
at last, after trying for a long time, it was able to delete duplicates pictures in my computer and laptop… I knew there were a lot and of the 192,000 images, it deleted 98,543…
it took hours, but the process has now been completed…
although, it found a whole bunch more photos… yikes…
going to need to spend some time deleting some of the multiples of various shots…
I am getting better at deleting excess shots right after I take them;-)…
06 Monday Mar 2023
Posted in family, health, life, loss, moments, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
anniversary, beloved, big girl pants, difficult, eleven, family, grandson, loss, memories, moments, remembering, struggling, time, widow, writing
this anniversary of my beloved’s death has been harder than usual…
not sure if it is having someone else in the house, going through so many boxes and letting go of things… maybe it’s been seeing his writing on papers as I’ve sorted through files… maybe it is realizing I’ve been without him for a quarter of the time we were together…
you’d think after eleven years it would be less difficult…
whatever the reason, I’ve been struggling…
05 Sunday Mar 2023
Posted in business, family, life, loss, moments, Photography, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
beloved, big girl pants, blessed, bouquet, eleven, family, flowers, gone, memories, moments, Ottawa, purple, remembering, time, treat, widow
got a call from the florist Friday, advising they had a delivery for me…
not long after, the doorbell rang and a parcel was handed to me…
when I removed the packaging, I found a beautiful purple vase filled with flowers… what a treat…
they were from the kids in Ottawa… to celebrate my beloved… today will mark eleven years since he left us…
time has flown by and barely moved…
I am going to enjoy these beautiful flowers and take many, many, photos of them as I remember all the wonderful times we had together…
I have been, and continue to be, blessed…
03 Friday Feb 2023
Posted in business, family, garden, health, life, loss, moments, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, family, fourteen, garden, grandson, hot tub, memories, moments, remembering, stress, time, trajectory, trauma, widow, work
my youngest grandson just turned fourteen…
brought back a number of memories as his birth changed the trajectory of my life…
because I refused to miss his birth, I ended up leaving a job I had been at for ten years, as the boss wasn’t pleased that I had taken away time from my position… a lot of trauma occurred over the next while and eventually I was walked out of the office…
one good thing that came out of that was the hot tub, as I was awarded a year’s salary due to my wrongful dismissal and purchased it with some of those funds…
there was huge stress and tension and the hot tub has helped with that for many years now;-)…
after a number of months I found the perfect position where I flourished for nearly ten years before my retirement…
lots of things to sift through…
this photo was taken in 2020, when I was still keeping my distance from everyone, but it does show him and the hot tub together, lol…
hard to believe it all began fourteen years ago…
31 Tuesday Jan 2023
Posted in business, garden, health, life, moments, nature, retirement, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, cleaners, flowers, hibiscus, laundry, moments, nature, recycling bin, remembering, shovelled, sun, tidying, towels, weather, widow
had a busy day…
enjoyed the hibiscus which surprised me with a new flower yesterday and is still blooming, cozied up agains the wall;-)…
ran towels through the washer, folded and put them away…
it has been crazy cold here, but the sun was shining as I shovelled the snow to get to the garbage and recycling bins and then took out a ton of stuff, completely filling the recycle bin… will need to remember to put it in the lane for pickup day, lol…
did some tidying as the cleaners are coming tomorrow…
as I tidy I always remember how blessed I am;-)…
16 Monday Jan 2023
Posted in health, life, moments, retirement, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, Christmas, Christmas mugs, dresser, label, list, memories, moments, mugs, remembering, widow
the project for Saturday was to return the regular mugs to the cupboard and put away the Christmas/holiday ones…
first thing I did was go into the office to get the boxes out from under the dresser…
and they weren’t there… even got down on my knees to be sure…
kind of freaked out wondering if I had accidentally put them in the giveaway pile which had gone out before the holidays;-(…
looked in the basement, kitchen and all over the messy computer room again… then I checked in the den closet and there they sat… clearly I put them in there knowing they would end up upstairs, but thinking I would save some steps when it came time to repack them…
whew… that got the blood pumping, lol…
didn’t take too long to get them changed over and looking good…
they sat on the stairway and then made it upstairs to wait for next Christmas…
and they will go to the spot I expect them to be…
in the dresser, in the office closet, not underneath it, with a label on the front🤪…
15 Sunday Jan 2023
Posted in family, food, garden, life, moments, nature, retirement, travel, Uncategorized
Tags
Audubon, big girl pants, birds, calendar, chickadee, cold, eating, hand, memories, moments, nature, remembering, seeds, train, travel, widow
the Audubon calendar for Friday and Saturday was a chickadee…
and yesterday a memory came up on Facebook of me feeding a chickadee in Mer Bleu three years ago while I was visiting…
I had hoped to train my chickadees to eat from my hand, but so far, no luck…
I did catch this little one dashing to and from the feeder, lol…
herbiggirlpants 