SNAP THAT: Easter

Showing posts with label Easter. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 23, 2025

Easter Weekend ~ 2025

Hello friends and fellow bloggers,

Another Easter has come and gone. I hope yours was a special one.

We had our Easter dinner on Easter Sunday or what many call Resurrection Sunday, the day that Jesus rose from his grave after being crucified on Good Friday.

This year I decided to make it easy on myself in the kitchen. Instead of roast ham or turkey with all the fixings, I made a sheet pan dinner of small potatoes, asparagus and salmon covered in olive oil and herbs. For dessert we had a fruit flan.

Dinner was delicious and best of all I didn't feel so tired out like I usually do when making the holiday meal.

On the sacred holidays I'd rather be thinking about the reason for the season, especially at Christmas and Easter instead of slaving over a hot stove. Right now too everything is in disarray at my home. There are all kinds of boxes, bags and furniture that either has to be sorted or taken to the landfill. This kind of situation doesn't lend itself to having people over as much as I'd like to host a few people on special holidays. It will have to wait until things are more organized.

On Saturday I had errands, the main one was to go to an advance poll and cast my vote for the federal election. The voting day is April 28th but advance polls were open for 3 days over the long weekend and there was a record turnout of voters. I had to wait in line a bit longer than usual and I was glad to get out there once finished because I was too hot in the small room. Everything went well though. The elections here are always well run in my opinion and things tend to go quite smoothly. On my walk to the polling station I took the following photos. This is my contribution to Skywatch Friday this week.Sorry it's late but I had an issue with trying to upload. This has been a problem over the past month.

It had been a lovely day but you can see the clouds forming.

After voting I stopped for a light dinner of Pho Noodle Soup and shrimp salad rolls. It was delicious. By the time I left to go home, it was pouring rain. I was glad I had the warming soup to sustain me because it was also quite chilly and I wasn't quite dressed for heavy rain. I had to walk a few blocks in order to catch the city busy for my short ride home.

Easter Monday saw me getting things organized for the week ahead. I also visited the community garden to weed and plant seeds. I planted 2 varieties of sunflowers, carrots, watermelon and leeks. I'd like to plant some kale if I can find some seeds soon. I may or may not plant tomatoes. I think it's a bit early for a wide variety of seeds and nursery plants but the community garden contract stipulates that our gardens must be fully planted by the end of April each year. It means I start buying seeds and sometimes starting them, sometime in February or March. I buy locally not through mail order and so the options are limited.

While at the garden I ran into someone I knew from university many years ago when we were both working at the Law Faculty. It turns out she is a newcomer to the community garden and we had a nice chat and updated one another on our personal news and other people we both know in common. It was nice to have a visit with her.

That's how my weekend went. I was pleased with my balance of work and relaxation. I hope you had a great weekend too. Thanks for visiting and please come again soon.

Thursday, March 28, 2024

A Few Days in March ~ Skywatch Friday

Hello friends and fellow bloggers.

I hope Spring is treating you well so far. It's been roller coaster weather where I live with mostly gloomy skies, cooler weather and the odd beautiful sunny day. I'm sharing a few days this past week so you can see what I mean.

March 27, 2024

March 26, 2024

And about 30 minutes later on the same day.

March 23, 2024

One of the many things keeping me busy this week is patio renovation. The construction job is behind schedule over all and my patio in particular. This week they were to replace the pavers on the patio membrane. After which they will build the retaining wall and fill it with soil. I don't know yet about whether they will hire someone to replant the gardens or if we will have to re-do it ourselves. When I bought the place it came with a fully planted garden that had trees. Now I may have to replace all those plants myself but we will have guidelines this time from a landscape architect's report about what can and cannot be planted.

No matter what the strata council decides, I'm still paying for the replanting in addition to the payments for the construction. It's just that I would prefer not to have to do all the work myself as it's not that easy hauling plants up from the ground level. I talked to the strata manager yesterday and he couldn't tell me what the timeline is for completion so I don't even know whether anything will be ready for enjoyment this summer. We are expected to have very hot weather this summer and so the timing of that will likely coincide with when the garden will finally be ready. Once it is ready to go, we will need to power wash the pavers and make them look nice again.