Image of the Day

Hello friends and fellow bloggers,

One of my favourite subject matter for photos is trees. Another of my favourite subjects is the sky.

Taken May 7, 2024

What subject matter do you like to photograph?

Thank you for stopping by. I hope to see you again soon.

The Week Ends and Starts Like This

Hello friends and fellows bloggers, 

I hope you are all fine and that you enjoyed the weekend. As I mentioned in my last post here, I was very tired from all the walking and shopping I did on Friday and Saturday.  Thankfully the weather was good for those days. In fact, it was good all week long.

Late Saturday the raindrops started falling but just sporadically. Today it rained but not so much. It will rain more tomorrow. So we ended the week in sunshine and start the new week with cloudy skies and rain. 

 

It looks like the week ahead will be mainly sunny and warmish, with a few cloudy periods.  This is good news because one of my dear friends and I are planning a walk around a lake and of course we'd prefer that it isn't raining when we do so. We've postponed a ew times already due to inclement weather but now the temperatures are much warmer than they were a few weeks ago.

I haven't been reading much this week as I've been busy with several meetings and appointments. I need to get cracking on 2 books that will come due at the library shortly.

I've been experimenting lately with eating parts of the beef that I don't normally eat. Partly it's due to lack of availability at my local grocery store. But last week I made beef tongue which I haven't had since I was a young girl. It was nice and tender. On Sunday I made beef liver with some onions and pieces of bacon. I didn't have a lot of bacon so I cut it into pieces and mixed it with the onions. It was tasty. 

Liver isn't readily available at my local grocery store either but oddly enough I found it at another grocery store owned by same billionaire. Now the parent company is converting one grocery store (Buy-Low) into the other (Save On). I don't know why they are doing this because Buy Low is not a new acquisition. It was purchased in 1995 by the Jim Pattison Group but I have noticed the soaring prices at Buy - Low over the past 3 years.  All three major grocery stores in my general neighbourhood are owned by the same company.  It's no wonder the prices are so high at all of them.

The Last Weekend in April

 This is what it looks like here on Sunday early evening.

I'm keeping busy on this rainy weekend with a bit of cooking, decluttering and cleaning. 

Roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy and vegetables

Chicken and rice stew

Roasted, seasoned chicken

Roast beef stew

I don't buy many books and magazines these days however I noticed that lately I've been buying a magazine or two each year. I just let go of 18 magazines, some of them are as old as 2009 and 2012 with a few in the last 3 years. The books are old. I think I inherited one and I bought one many years ago. I never look at them so out they go.

I snapped these next photos while out for a few errands on Friday. It had been raining heavily but stopped for a few hours. The blue in the sky looked so lovely.

I also went thrifting on Friday. I'm careful what I bring into the house these days since I'm decluttering. Adding more than I really need would be counter productive.

This Omega juicer is like new but needs a good cleaning.

These cute stamps were a bargain.

I've been wanting a tray with an old map on it for ages.

During these times of heavy rain and cloudy skies before summer arrives I've been turning up the hygge.

Some lovely, fresh tulips.

A lemon scented candle.

Some faux flowers with twinkling bulbs at night.

Instead of reading this weekend, I ended up binge watching this tv series on Netflix. I still have one episode to go and it's quite thrilling.  If you haven't seen it, I recommend it.

That's how I've spent a satisfying weekend. I hope you enjoyed yours.

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 weather reporters keep telling us it is going to get very warm and above seasonal temperatures by the weekend. So we'll see how tomorrow goes.

I had an unexpected trip to the dentist today to a repair a tooth which broke yesterday.  I walked to my appointment and took the following photos to share with you.

Thank you for stopping by!

I'm joining in with Skywatch Friday this week.

Warm & Cold

Hello friends and fellow bloggers,

I hope you are all well. Today I want to share photos I took on Wednesday. The day started off sunny and warmish. I went to the community plot in the late afternoon (first photo) and by the time I left it had turned cold. 

In this photo you can see how bright and beautiful the sky was before it began to cloud over. Today is now Friday and it was very cold when I returned home from a late outing. It's supposed to start raining soon and I expect we'll have unsettled weather for the rest of this month which is the norm. I'm glad I went to put the compost in the garden on Wednesday because I sure wouldn't feel like doing it now.

Thank you for stopping by.

I'm joining in with Skywatch Friday. 

Saturday Skies & A Quick Walk

Hello friends and fellow bloggers,

Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day and I took an unplanned walk and shopping expedition. Part way through I stopped for Bento Box dinner which was very yummy.

The weather was quite warm and the sky cleared a bit here and there.

The sushi restaurant is located on a very busy street corner and right across the street from where they are building the new Sky Train station (Main Street & Broadway) for the Broadway Sky Train extension.

The dinner was delicious.

Thank you for stopping by.

Even though I'm a day late to post I will be linking up with Skywatch Friday.

💗💗💗

Christmas and the End of Year

Hello friends and fellow bloggers,

I hope this post finds you well and in good health and that you didn't suffer at all or too much during the wind, snow storms and flooding that I've heard about on the news over the past week or so. Mother Nature really packed a punch!

Thankfully my household escaped relatively unscathed. We did get several snowstorms within a few days just before Christmas, and again just after Christmas.  The heating system was not able to keep the house warm for a few days so it was very cold but we survived.

The lead up to Christmas was nice. This year I was prepared early and had the tree and decorations up at the end of November. Christmas cards were mailed and gifts wrapped in early December. These days I don't have quite so many gifts to wrap because we lost a few loved ones over the years and have fewer small children to consider.  However not all my time was spent on preparations. I was able to get together with several friends and one family member to visit, catch up and make sure that Christmas did not rush past us without sharing our Christmas wishes.  I also went to the annual Van Dusen Festival of Lights for the first time ever.  It was simply spectacular. If you missed my blog post about it, you can find it here. 

Not all was sparkly and well.  DH and I had some very sad news a couple days before Christmas. Japheth, one of our dear pastor friends, died unexpectedly and suddenly in a motor vehicle accident. He was a very dear friend to my husband in particular.  Pastor Japheth had written such a lovely letter of reference for us as Jonah prepared to immigrate to Canada. Jonah said that Japheth was a very rare man with a pure heart, a wonderfully magnanimous nature and exemplary faith.  We are deeply saddened that we will not have a chance to visit him next time we visit Kenya but we are thankful we have the hope of reuniting with him again one day.  Japheth and his congregants had just completed a new church building and Japheth was working on constructing a family house before he passed.  The people of his church decided to complete building the family home in Japheth's honour and so that his grieving widow and children have a home to live in.  The congregants were honouring Japether because of the leadership, vision, selfless love and caring demonstrated so often over the years. They loved him a lot.

Although it's always a busy time of year we did not forget about the Kenyan missions.  We're grateful to have temporarily lightened the load of a few dear people:

Loice and 3 children, widow and wife of the late Pastor Japheth. They live in a suburb of Nakuru City.

Sarah, a young married woman with 3 school aged children. Sarah lives with her family in one of Nairobi's slums.

Emily, a young unmarried mother with a very smart little 3 year old girl. They live in one of Nairobi's suburbs.

Alvin, a young seminarian in his first year of religious studies in Nairobi. He visited his family in one of Nairobi's suburbs over the holiday.

Jane, a mature single woman who has been battling cancer and is in India receiving treatment. Jane lives in one of the suburbs called Westlands in Nairobi.

Eunice, Ernest, Livingston - Eunice is a mature Kenyan woman who has been in hospital for long and is currently in rehabilitation. She is slowly improving. Ernest and Livingston are two single men who both suffered broken legs in the last few years. These 3 individuals all live in villages near Kericho Town.

Jecinter a young, single woman I met in Nairobi while on my last visit to Kenya.  On Christmas Day she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl and they now live in a village near Kisumu Town. I am hoping to send a small monetary gift to mark the occasion of the baby's birth.

As always we pray for and are grateful for any donors to these grassroots missions. We know it is very difficult these days for many people so as always, let the Lord lead and guide your decisions.  Donate buttons are found to the left of the blog. You can find them by clicking the 3 lines (bars) in the top left of the header photo.

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Christmas Day was a quiet affair which was spent with loved ones (DH and DB). We had nice and unexpected phone calls from a few loved ones.  Once again I prepared a Christmas dinner of turkey, stuffing and gravy, potato casserole, broccoli slaw and all the trimmings for Christmas Dinner. It was tasty and there were a lot of leftovers even though I bought the smallest turkey I could find. Since Christmas we've been having warmed up turkey dinner, turkey sandwiches, flaked turkey sandwiches and turkey-corn chowder.  The remaining leftovers will be frozen because there is only so much turkey one can eat in any given week. 

Now that Christmas is over I've been catching up to washing dishes one uses in preparing a large meal. It also seems like there's more laundry to wash, dry and fold than usual though I don't know why. I indulged in watching a lot of television series and Christmas movies watching.  I also slept more than usual. I wasn't completely lazy though.  I knitted about 7 dishcloths with little scraps of cotton yarn that I wanted to use up.  I don't really care what they look like since they are only being used to wash my dishes, not to give as gifts.  I also touched bases with a few Kenyan friends by phone and last but not least, I've been doing a few small repair jobs here and there.

The year will soon be over and I'm trying to wrap up a few things here at home. I went into high gear today after having a few quiet days. Lab work was completed, appointments were made with the hair dresser and dentist and I had a manicure.  All of these things take considerable time and it will be nice to get these tasks out of the way before the month is over. 

Soon the New Year will be upon us. Dinner plans for New Year's Day include a ham roast, mashed potatoes, salad and all the trimmings. We usually ring in the New Year with a toast at midnight.

I thank God for helping my loved ones and I through 2022. It doesn't seem like I accomplished that much in 2022 but what I did do has lightened my mental and emotional load. 

I hope you are enjoying your holiday and are looking forward to the New Year 2023.

I want to thank each of you for following my blog and leaving me comments.

It means more than you know.  

God bless.

💗💗💗

First Snow that "Stuck" & Health Care Worker Needs

 Hi friends and fellow bloggers,

Here are a few photos of what the scene looked like off my balcony on Tuesday morning. It snowed all night Monday and this time it stuck around a bit longer. I took these photos just after 6 a.m.  Yesterday when I went out to do some grocery shopping, I noticed that most of the snow had melted but some still remains on my patio in areas where the sun doesn't reach. Snowing so early in the season is highly unusual. I guess the last time that happened was in 1991.

Almost all of Canada is suffering a great shortage of staff in many sectors. Canada's Immigration Minister and the Government of Canada has released it's figures for immigrant or newcomer admission targets for 2023, 2024 and 2025. Altogether newcomers will total  almost 1.5 million people.  Skilled labour in the health care and construction fields have been identified as priorities. 

On the news the other day this graphic was shared about the projected needs for health care workers over the next 10 years.  These projections are just for the province where I live.  The needs for the rest of the provinces and territories in the country are just as great. If the government plans to attract more foreign workers something needs to be done quickly to address the very real housing shortage and it's related issue of affordability.

In pleasurable pursuits I said earlier that my reading goals this year would be modest and they were. I decided I'd aim for 1 book a month knowing I might read more some months and nothing in other months. As it turned out I did reduce my reading as planned but I still read far more than I intended. To date I've read 43 books and almost 16,000 pages. I'm sure I won't make 20,000 pages before the end of the year. Even though I've got another 7-8 books in my reading pile I may not be able to complete all of them. 

I had hoped to cut down on reading and spend more time on crafting and sewing this year. That didn't happen because of decluttering and small household projects that took more time than I thought they would. But I did manage to complete several alterations on various trousers for DH.

In the photos I'm showing preparations involved in lengthening the pockets on a pair of DHs trousers.  When I compared pocket length in various of his  trousers these ones were shorter by about 4 inches. That's a lot. 

I didn't have the right fabric in my stash so I 'made do' with some light cotton fabric. After cutting the shape and sewing the seams, I attached the new piece to the bottom of the original pockets. Those of you who are sewists know this isn't as quick as it sounds. The challenge I have is none of my machines are as able as mom's old Singer treadle machine to sew through several layers of fabric as in the side seams of trousers and jeans.  But I did the job and I'm happy it's done.  The other project was tapering the legs on a new pair of jeans and hemming them. DH has worn the jeans a lot since then. Next up, I have several pair of pants of my own to hem and I'd like to shorten a linen tablecloth I bought a few months ago.   I still have a lot of household stuff to deal with and I think I'd be more able to focus on sewing once these other things are out of the way.

I know some people are already putting up their Christmas trees. I don't plan on setting up mine until some time in December, usually about half way through the month. However I've been buying a few gifts here and there whenever I see something I like.  I can spread the Christmas spending over a longer period of time that way. Earlier this week I was able to wrap gifts for 2 people on my list. The task was made easier by buying some Christmas fabric bags from the Dollar Tree. They are quite cute and made the job a lot quicker. I think I need to get a few more of the bags for the other Christmas gifts I want to give. 

What about you dear reader?  Are you experiencing health care worker shortages where you live? What is your government doing about it if anything? Have you read any good books lately? Are you working on anything creative or have plans to sew anything for Christmas gifts?

Skywatch Friday ~ October Vibes

Site of the new subway station at Broadway & Main

Hello friends and fellow bloggers,

We've had record setting temperatures over the fall season but on Friday we are finally expecting some rain.  The other day the meteorologist reported that since July to the present time we have only had 16 mm of rain when the norm would be just over 160 mm of rain. No wonder the tree on my patio died. It had been looking sickly for a few seasons and it has finally succumbed. I'm a bit sad but it's not going to matter much. 

Within the year or so the strata will be uprooting all the patios and is contemplating not having any gardens at all. The weight and growth of them (dirt, plants, roots, water) has the potential to become problematic for the structure of the building. No decisions have been  made yet and there will be a special meeting to discuss all the results and options going forward once a report is ready. I think I would rather confine my gardening to containers on the patio and have a bit more footage to arrange furniture.

In the meantime here are some photos I took of the sky when I was out and about running errands earlier in the week.  I took these photos just as thd light was fading. I thought the ones with the trolley lines set against the sky were quite interesting.  A lot of those lines will be likely be eliminated once the new subway system on the Broadway corridor is running (target is late 2025) but I don't know that for sure.

 

In my reading stack this week I found a wonderful little book called The Birds of East Africa. It is short read of approximately 200 pages and is a sweet little tale set in Nairobi, Kenya. The style is along the lines of Alexander McCall Smith's #1 Ladies Detective Agency books.

I'm now reading the best seller The Distant Hours by Australian writer, Kate Morton. It's an interesting book about family secrets connected to 3 elderly sisters living in an imposing and decaying castle. 

I picked up both of these books at the thrift store on a whim and wasn't expecting much from them but they are both turning out to be satisfying reads.

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I also picked up a set of sheets and pillowcases at the thrift store. I wouldn't have purchased them but they were a good price, minimally used and I like blue and white. This set is by Tommy Hilfiger but strangely they look quite wrinkled even though they are not 100% cotton. I don't iron most things including sheets. By the time they are pulled flat onto the mattress most of the wrinkles will disappear.

Each piece of the 4 piece set was sold individually.  I didn't notice that the two exact same pillowcases had different prices until I got them home.  I'm guessing two different clerks priced them.  I paid about $26 dollars in total for the set. I think the price is okay given what new sheets cost and these appear to be little used.

Have you found any good thrifting deals lately or read any good books?

I'm joining in with Skywatch Friday this week. Thank you for stopping by!