Gratitude

Thanks go out to my readers for recent uplifting comments.

I feel inspired to carry on and start posting again.

It feels wonderful to know

that although we don't talk face to face

(well, thankfully sometimes some of us do)

you are in my corner

and I am in yours.

Some of us have been posting and 

commenting in the same family

of blogs for 8-10 years!

I think that's amazing and

I just want to say...

"I love you guys"!

This is a remark some of my family members,

including me, 

make when we've tippled one too many 

scotches :)

we get sappy and teary

but in a good way.

😁

Signs of Spring!!

The Ospreys are back!

Green - my favourite colour!

Leaves of an early spring wildflower - Trout Lily

The deer are loving the fresh new grass!

I don't like the smell of skunk cabbage
but I do love the colour and
the spirals!

Snowdrops

The wild snowdrops are much more vibrant than my domesticated ones.

Spring also brings out ladies who lunch :)
I was fortunate to meet three school friends in Hamilton
for a nice long catching up lunch.
I love these ladies!!!
Next time I need to wear heels!

Update

Hello my friends. Thank you for the enquiries regarding my daughter. We hit a bit of a low point over the past couple of months and it's been hard to put pen to paper...so to speak. But we are very hopeful that the recent procedure she had done will put paid to pesky abnormal cells and she'll be enjoying full health soon. Well, soonish.

The procedure she had done is called LEEP which can be googled if you want the gory details. The doctor told her after it was performed that it had a 90% success rate so that is where the hopefulness comes in. She still has a year of continuous pap tests to go through before she will be declared free and clear. Every 3 months she'll have a pap test until such time as she has 4 clear tests in a row. Then she'll go to once a year.

Kazi is also doing battle with anxiety and depression resulting in going on short term disability. This has been a difficult struggle as resources around here, such as seeing qualified psychologists and therapists, are in such high demand these days as a whole generation of millennials try to get by on low-paying multiple jobs, many part-time and without benefits and without a hope in hell of ever owning a home or building up savings.

In other, happier news.... SPRING is on its way and we are enjoying a few warm and sunny days with lots of rain and a few snowflakes mixed in. I am doing a minimum of 20 minutes daily in nature to keep my own mood positive. This is my favourite time of year with the ospreys and other birds returning to my favourite spot, Kilally Meadows, along with many wildflowers and flowering trees. Just to keep my feet firmly planted I've started spring cleaning :) just for fun! I started with my dining room as it's an easy room to clean and hopefully by next spring I will have made it through the whole house!

I hope you are all doing well! My plan is to return soon to more frequent posting. Volleyball ends April 26 and I am looking forward to having more time on my hands for writing, genealogy and of course CYCLING!

Thanks for always being there, I appreciate it so much.

May Weather Not Good for Blogging!

I am sooooooo grateful these days for the wonderful weather we're having after our long hard slog through winter and early spring. "Mid-SPRING" has been worth waiting for! Only a couple of weeks ago we had a major ice storm and now the fruit trees are flowering and yesterday I was attacked by mosquitoes and flies while hiking in Kilally Meadows!! The temperature yesterday was a HOT 27c (81F) so I took full advantage of it enjoying a good long ramble.

Mr. Heron is about the only bird that sits in one spot long enough for me to get a photo!

So I guess you know what kind of photos I'll be taking for the next few months :)

Fauna and flora :) in the photo below those 3 blurs are white-tailed deer running along a path.

 I zoomed in a little more and you can see a lovely little white tail just right of centre. They were loving the weather as much as I was. If you look at the header photo above that is the trail the deer were running on. Of course by the time I hiked across the field to get to the path the deer were long gone.

It's so amazing the difference a coat of green foliage makes!

I was getting VERY tired of grey/brown:

Now there is so much colour everywhere!  

So, if I don't post often just imagine me on my bike with a big smile on my face:

Major Explosion!!

The earth has erupted in many shades of green...at long last! 

Needless to say I've been hiking and biking along the trails so that

I can capture some of spring's glory. This

is my favourite time of year when the earth 

comes back to life.

Leaves are appearing...

...delicate flowers are blooming everywhere!

...green carpets are so inviting...

...the trails are easier to see!

...the geese are framed by bridge pylons, softening the view...

...the goslings waiting patiently for the "all clear" from mom and dad...

JACK is back! I thought spring wildflowers were much later this year after the long, harsh

winter but when I checked my wildflower journal it was May 3rd last year when

I first saw the jack-in-the-pulpits, so only a difference of 4 days. 

Mother Nature has her ways of catching up!!

After several floods this year I didn't see as many jack-in-the-pulpits but when I had

a good look around I saw a few more here and there, like in the photo below.

No...that's not my beer bottle. I've cleaned up and filled two garbage bags with garbage while

hiking but it looks like I'm not done yet!

Ahhhhh, green glorious green - my favourite colour!!

As you can see I am spending most of my time outside. We've been having

perfect weather - sunny and 22c today. So it's time for lunch and

then I'll be getting back on my bike so I can explore the trails some more.

PURE BLISS!

So Long April

April was more like winter than spring this year; I can't say I'm sad to see it go!

May is my favourite month and not just because my birthday is in May. No.....I love May because the weather is usually crisp and clear, not too hot and not too cold.  The bugs (mosquitos) aren't out in full force yet and the wild flowers are coming into bloom. There is usually more sunshine than rain. I can get out on my bicycle everyday to see what's new...trout lilies, bloodroot, coltsfoot, marsh marigolds, lily of the valley, lilacs etc....

This year we had more rain than usual sometimes getting 2 weeks worth in 2 days. And the river showed it by overflowing its banks not once but twice so far this spring. It made cycling a bit tricky and I often had to turn around and paddle peddle back to shore!

Remember these photos?

The river is now back where it belongs..... (two days later).

 The photo below I took while I was cycling - I'm a bit of a risk taker........CRASH!

One more photo for today - This was on the wall of a vegan restaurant I went to last Sunday for a fundraiser dinner (very yum!!) and the picture gave me a little giggle as it's based on a hip-hop song with the line "everyday I'm hustlin'". Kinda cute.

We had - roasted tomato soup with quinoa croutins and vegan parmesan cheese - excellent!! Then the entree was eggplant with roasted veggies and fresh sprouts and some sort of sauce reduction followed by New York Cheesecake (the crust made of crushed nuts....(not sure what the cheesecake is made out of for it to be vegan).

All washed down with a new local craft beer - Andersons.

There was a raffle and I bought several tickets but didn't win anything but my friend Julie won a bag of coffee beans! Hopefully she'll share :)

Still to come - April's finances.....

Marching on....

I hate losing an hour. But I do like seeing the sun shine past 7pm - that was a treat yesterday. My daughter thinks spring is just around the corner..... if by corner she means the end of March then she could be right!! Until then we have lots of snow still in our forecast though on the bright side it'll likely melt quickly.

Kilally Meadows

Kilally Meadows

After going to our doctor, then sitting in emerg for 6 hours followed by another visit to our doctor Kazi was finally put on a round of antibiotics. She has been sick pretty much continuously since the Olympics started in February: extreme sore throat, body pain, fever, headache, congestion, cough etc. It has been a long hard slog but after taking 3 pills (not all at once!) she started feeling like her old self again. Or should I say young self. She missed a lot of work - first full days and recently half days BUT today marks her first full-time day at work in several weeks. What a flu season this year!! I really hope she's past it all now.

Kilally Meadows

Not a lot else going on around here - I've been on nurse duty all of this time and beside trips to the grocery store for SOFT food (yogurt, jello, broth, applesauce, popsicles etc) I haven't been doing a heck of a lot. When the weather has cooperated I've gone for long walks and went to my volleyball games. Last Thursday and Friday I spent mostly with my brother booking Airbnbs in Scotland which is quite the exercise in patience - accommodations are not easy to find in the highlands and we spent hours and hours searching and booking. We're pretty much set except for finding a spot in Glasgow for the final 3 or 4 days.

So what to do with my freedom today? Well I think I'll head to Kilally Meadows after doing my yoga. The sun isn't shining but I want to check the Osprey nest. They are due back by the end of this month though I've never personally seen them in March. But I won't see them if I don't check! I also want to see if all of the flooding has receded. When I was there last week most trails, maybe 75%, were no longer under water but the MUD - oh my!

Enjoy your day! Hope the sun is shining where you are. We are only 8 days away from the official first day of Spring!! Wheeeee!

Marching on...

March 8 is International Women's Day!

I am celebrating by going to a women's march on March 3rd. My main interest is
"equal pay for equal work"! 

Sometimes it feels like no progress is being made when you consider how long women have been marching for something that should be a given. When I worked for the Royal Bank of Canada for 14 years I wasn't paid equally to the men working there in the same positions - the saddest part was I accepted that - that's the way it was!! My eyes are OPEN now and I realize how heavy the foot was that held me, and millions of women around the world DOWN!

And so I march on and on...

In other news...I have closed off February's budget and have set up my budget for March. I hope March isn't as spendy as January and February!!! I hope the money I put into savings this month stays there!
OH MY!! 
But the good news is my brother and I have purchased our flight tickets for September's trip. Money well spent as was all the money I have spent recently. Two new pairs of glasses, a very healthy Lily, memberships to ancestry.ca & amazon renewed, invalid food, many household purchases made, car had it's semi-annual inspection & oil change etc etc etc! And let's not forget my big tax bill grrrrrrrrr!!

I've decided to pay my taxes with investment interest as those two items are linked together so it seems fitting: I benefited greatly with big, and I mean BIG tax refunds when Kazi was a dependent and I maxed out my RRSP account yearly. NOW I get to pay back those benefits - aren't I lucky?! Me and millions like me. I used to let that interest compound but now I am going to put that money to use.

 Any RRSP money not withdrawn by age 71 becomes a RIF and I'll be forced to withdraw a certain percentage annually. So from now on any tax payments I need to make will be covered by interest. It feels less painful when I look at it that way :)

That about wraps up the past week. Kazi is over the flu but has a couple of other health issues - she has a weird bump on one elbow and a similar one on a toe. A biopsy has been down and we're awaiting the results. Then yesterday she whacked her foot on a piece of furniture and is going for an x-ray and ultrasound - they're concerned about a blood clot as her calf was tingly all day yesterday. So I've checked my phone about a million times so far this morning hoping for some good news! Nothing...

The weather has been amazing - warm and sunny - helping the ground dry up. My daffodils and snow drops are emerging once again though I hear more snow is in our future.

THIS IS NOT SPRING!! 

Oh darn...

Monday Musings and Signs of Spring

Yesterday was such a gorgeous sunny and mild spring winter day it was easy to think that spring is on its way. Lots of buds on trees - even the maple tree behind my house has buds on it. Poor Mother Nature - things are so out of whack!

I checked my front garden yesterday hoping for a sign of snowdrops but it's the daffodils that are bravely taking winter on!  You might want to dip your heads beneath the soil once again though, as snow is going to be falling most of the day!!

As always the sunshine invited me to Kilally Meadows although the trails were in less than pristine shape! I wouldn't have dared to walk on these chunks of ice below without my trusty walking stick which save me from a few falls by providing me with another point of balance. We've had a lot of rain and a lot of melting followed by a flash freeze resulting in inch thick ice covering most of the trails. In another area I did go through the ice a couple of times but no harm done - it's just empty space under the ice. 

A small pond has formed in a low-lying area.

Oh, but the sky!

Later today I will join the vigil at City Hall to mark the one-year anniversary of the mosque shooting in Quebec City where six men were killed and nineteen others injured, five seriously. One injured man bravely jumped in front of the shooter receiving many bullets which left him a paraplegic but saved the lives of many.

I include below the words of our Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau:

Ottawa, Ontario
January 29, 2018
The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today issued the following statement on the first anniversary of the fatal shooting at the Centre culturel islamique de Québec:

“One year ago tonight, a senseless attack at the Centre culturel islamique de Québec in Ste-Foy claimed the lives of six worshippers and seriously injured nineteen more.

“On this solemn anniversary, I join Canadians across the country to remember and honour those who were taken from us too soon. Our thoughts are with the victims, their loved ones, and all those who still live with the pain and trauma caused by the attack. We also honour the first responders, whose courage and professionalism saved lives that night.

“This was a terrorist attack against all Canadians, meant to test our resolve and weaken our values. It failed. In the wake of the shooting, a solidarity movement formed across the country as Canadians united to condemn the attack and counter hatred with hope.

“A year later, our message has not changed: We are stronger together. No matter our faith or where we were born, we are equal members of this country. We will not let an act of intolerance divide us and make any Canadian feel less at home.

“The Government of Canada stands in solidarity with Canada’s Muslim community. We will continue to fight Islamophobia and take action against it and all other forms of hatred and discrimination, and defend the diversity that makes Canada strong.”