Showing posts with label Vancouver West End. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vancouver West End. Show all posts

Thursday, October 26, 2023

Relaxing At The Waterfront

 



It was a spectacular day on Wednesday and again today. I had to go downtown on Wednesday and took a detour afterward to the beach and waterfront.  A lot of other people had the same idea because we don't get so many sunny days in late Fall and Winter. 






If you missed my frugal post, you can view and read it here. I'd love hear your tips in the comment section. I'm joining in with Skywatch Friday. Thank you for stopping by. 

Friday, September 1, 2023

....And to Celebrate the Last Day of the Month

Every August 31st is a special day.  It's the birthday of my late mom who passed almost 6 and a half years ago.  My brother and I used to make a fuss on her special day once she went into the care home so that she would know how much we loved her and I know she always enjoyed our time together on her birthday. So each year on her special day I try to remember her by doing something different. Sometimes we have a cake in her honour or I do something to enjoy myself.  She and I used to especially enjoy walking along the waterfront and stopping to have a coffee and a pie or something sweet.

I haven't really spent much time enjoying the summer because it was super hot and I don't enjoy hot weather.  It got a lot cooler this week and I decided a walk to the waterfront was in order.

I took a lot of photos (and videos) so today's post is photo heavy. I hope you enjoy them.

The circle on the map shows Davie Village situated on Davie Street in the city's West End. I walked from the St. Paul's Hospital to Denman Street then to the beach.
















Joining in with Skywatch Friday today.

Thanks for visiting and have a wonderful weekend.



Thursday, October 11, 2018

Another Week Goes By

 Welcome everyone,

I hope you are all enjoying the month of October so far.

Another week has flown by. I didn't get out to take new photos because I'm still under the weather but these photos are relatively recent. 

The weather is still beautiful here after a few days rain.

The forecast is for sunshine for another week or so.
I'm hoping to get out and enjoy it






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Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Tuesday News

Hi friends,

I hope you are all doing well. I've been a bit under the weather so I have slowed down since the weekend.

I managed to get together with a friend I seldom see. She invited me last minute for coffee and snacks and we were able to work it out. I always enjoy visiting with her. Other than that I've been catching up with various people in Kenya regarding matters that crop up during the missions outreach I do there. That always takes a fair bit of my time and is difficult because of the time and distance differences. I may have a more full some update later on the missions. I know some of you have been waiting.

Since I posted my lovely sunny photos last Friday, the weather has returned to rain. Not endless rain so it is okay but gloomy looking overhead. I am not complaining because my neighbours in the province of Alberta have had lots of snow. I prefer the rain to snow.


 No complaining when I see views like these.



 




Other than enjoying the beautiful scenes at the beach I've been on a personal mission to save a few pennies here and there.  My next post will be about saving money.

I send a lot of funds overseas to help people in desperate situations because I know we are blessed here in North America where even the poorest people have access to food banks, food kitchens, shelters and so on.  I send to people mostly in Kenya not through any organization but directly to people I've met along the way.  I also sponsor some children in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda. I also like to try and send a bit extra at this time of year for the families of the sponsored boys so they can have something extra for Christmas.

In Kenya they like to have a meal of chicken (sometimes goat if the budget allows) and also a new change of clothing at Christmas.  This is in the villages where historically the people would not have so much access to new clothing due to the cost or to things we take for granted here at Christmas or any other time. There the focus is on eking out a day to day existence and trying to ensure the children get an education. Just these two things are beyond the ability of many families. If you are a subsistence farmer there is very little to meet all the needs and some are not so fortunate as to have a farm of their own.

If you would like to sponsor some very needy children I recommend signing up with Compassion International. I sponsor through the Canadian office and have found the staff to be excellent and responsive to all my questions including following up on an issue here and there about local conditions in Kenya.  I get letters from my sponsored children several times a year and I know they are all growing and developing well. Compassion tries to deal with the whole child and not just give them food or a bible. You can learn more about their approach here.

I also sponsor through a new to me  group called Food for the Hungry. I learned about them last year when the wonderful gospel singer, Don Moen was here and he encouraged his audience to sponsor a child that night. The response was very overwhelming and I know this organization also does great work. Both Compassion and Food for the Hungry take great care with the funds they receive and manage to keep the administration costs down to a very reasonable level. This means your donated dollars are actually getting to the child and to the communities.

This week and last week I took a bit of time to write my sponsored children some letters and also some cards for Christmas as well as figure out what to send to their families. In case you are interested, Food for the Hungry doesn't allow gifts to the children other than what you can send via the mail. Compassion allows a gift annually to the child for general needs and birthday and a gift annually to the family.The photos below show my boys from Kenya and Ethiopia. I don't have a digital photo of my boy in Uganda and my scanner doesn't seem to work anymore.

Ian

John

Wondimu


Thanks for stopping by!

Joining in with Our World Tuesday this week.

Thursday, November 2, 2017

Hello November

Enjoy some photos of my recent walk along the beach. 

The way people are dressed and the way the sky looks in some photos it looks as if it was very cold and windy. I guess people dressed for the way the weather normally is at this time of year;  much cooler.

But in fact, it was a beautiful, gorgeous and warm day. 
It was expected to be one of the last warm days before temperature dips and rains begin in earnest.

I only had on a spring coat and a light sweater underneath. It was so warm I took off my outer jacket and walked wearing only my sweater. 














Have a wonderful week!

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Public Sculpture



It was another beautiful day today after several days of heavy rain. I didn't get to the waterfront as I'm feeling quite tired but I enjoy seeing the sun through my windows. 
I also enjoy seeing these photos of the waterfront and reminiscing about my time there.

Joining in with Our World Tuesday today.
Thank you for stopping by!

Friday, March 18, 2016

Saturday Fun & a Catch Up

The dog photos in this post were meant for Saturday and Eileen's Saturday's Critters.  Somehow I saved the post to draft rather than as a "Scheduled" post so I'm sharing them a bit late.





I enjoyed watching this dog try to get in on the throw ball action between the two friends.



We've continued to have a fair bit of rain since the weekend but life goes on.

On Friday night I attended a new to me restaurant in town called "Nuba's", a Lebanese restaurant. The food is fantastic and I can see why there was a line up out the door that night. There are actually 3 restaurants by this name in town and I went to the one on Hastings and Carrell.  The group ordered sharing plates filled with tabbouleh salad, humous, baba ganoush, olives, houlami cheese and shredded beets as well as plates of pita bread. Then we ordered side dishes of chicken, lamb etc. All of the food was delicious but my favourite one is called "Najib's Special".  It is a deep fried cauliflower dish with a wonderful array of spices. Yum!

Photo Credit: Ashley from Yelp.  This is Najib's Special

Friday's gathering was a group of men and women saying "farewell" to a a member of the group. It was my first time meeting some of them.  They not only were a beautifully dressed group of people but a very diverse and interesting social set who immediately made me feel at ease.  Sadly two of the women I spoke with that night are leaving the city shortly. It seems that their work prospects did not pan out as hoped and they are moving on.  This city is a very expensive place to live and one can only sustain a life here if there is enough money to pay the bills and have some recreational money.  I know that is true in many places but this city is known for having a very high cost of housing, both rentals and purchases.  That is what makes the difference.

Since last week was such a busy week, I took Sunday to recuperate as well as catch up on house work and chores. There was and is still a lot to do on the home front.  One of the tasks I did was to sort through a lot of packaging from parcels received over the last few months.  In February I ordered some colouring books and some pencil crayons as well as felt markers.  Some of these are gifts and some are for me to colour and relax. It seems to be all the rage at the moment. I've seen these types of colouring books at my local pharmacy and also at the craft store. I've ordered 3 colouring books so far. One for me, one for my niece (for Christmas or Birthday) and another so I can send pages to my sponsored boys in Africa.

I spent Monday tutoring my friend in Mathematics. Right now we are doing a lot of work on multiplication, division, addition and subtraction. I've also touched a bit on fractions and decimals. Today though I walked my friend through a very practical lesson, that is drafting a monthly income and expense sheet.

For the past two years or so I've been constantly encouraging him to do certain things like pay himself first (investment into Registered Retirement Savings Plan), start a savings account, arrange overdraft protection for his Chequing Account, file annual taxes on time and watch his spending on the little things. He has done most of these things but not all of them.

Today's exercise opened his eyes to how much he was frittering away on coffee and snacks each month and how much his impulse purchases and recreational activities were costing him on a monthly basis. It also taught him that he is spending far too much on groceries each month for one person and that he can afford to cut back there and increase his budgetted amount for certain other expenses. I think it also opened his mind to the idea that if he spends carefully and saves every month he could actually take a vacation rather than believe he can't afford it.
I sent him home with homework to determine if all the line items were correct as one must have a real handle on one's spending each month before one can determine real income and expense amounts. I know many people recommend recording expenses every day for a period of time but I didn't ask him to do this because he is a very busy person and that would just never get done. Once we are done basic mathematical operations we will continue on to learn about basic geometry and algebra.

The other project we did today was to identify monthly savings requirements for variable expenses that may only occur once or a few times in a year rather than every month.
It was an opportunity for him to realize that he has been overpaying his medical premiums and he now needs to contact the provincial government and get this sorted out. He also needs to contact the Canada Revenue Agency to ascertain some other information related to deductions.  I could do this for him but I want him to do it himself. After all it is his money and he should have the responsibility of looking for the information even if he is very busy.

It took us a few hours to go through the exercise even though I kept him on track rather than get into side discussions about each aspect of the monthly expenses.

After our discussion he promptly went to the local supermarket to buy food so that he wouldn't have to buy meals tomorrow for breakfast and dinner.
~~~
I went to a different supermarket (my local supermarket) on Saturday and discovered there is next to nothing remaining to buy in the store. I was hoping to pick up some meat and produce. I couldn't even buy bananas.
Whatever I did buy was 40% off but I noticed that first the store increased the "regular" price before they started the sales so in the end you were paying almost the original regular price. You really have to know your prices before you buy things these days.

As I mentioned in a post a few days ago I was looking for a new glucometer.  I met with my pharmacist on Saturday to look at some of the options and decided on the One Touch Verio Flex. Boy I really wish I would have had something like this a few years ago to better track everything without having to log it all into a chart by hand or manually.


 Just in case any of you are looking for one here is an image (albeit blurry). The coloured panel tell you when you have low blood sugar, normal blood sugar or high blood sugar. If you turn on the Blue Tooth option and download an app to your phone it will record all the results and chart them for you. You can also add notes about food and exercise though I'm still working on how best to note the foods. I am only 2 days into setting it all up but so far so good. It needs enough data (at least 2 weeks) before the charting of results can be more useful to you. Over time I think this will be a very useful tool.

Weather today was pouring rain. I didn't check the weather report for Tuesday yet but I do have some errands.
If the weather cooperates I might go downtown to see a foreign film. It is only playing one time on one day so it is either see it now or see it never, lol.

A photo from my archives. So far I haven't had much time to take photos of tree blossoms  this Spring.

Thank you for stopping by.
Joining in with Our World Tuesday today.
I hope you all have a fabulous week ahead

It Was a Spectacular Day! ~ Skywatch

Hello friends and fellow bloggers, It was a spectacular, sunny day where I live. It's still rather chilly from my point of view but the ...