My World April 5, 2016

The big crane is on the horizon. A huge high rise is going in on a busy street despite many protests.

The tall crane on the horizon lets me know that big changes are coming to my view. I've long known this was happening but never really thought of it's impacts on me since I don't live so close to where the high rise is being built.  In the past week though I've seen the crane there every day.  It is there to stay until it's done it's work and it is clear that the finished work, a high rise, will interfere with my view.  Residents in the immediate vicinity of the new building protested long and hard against the new building because it is the first requiring a change to the density of the area. Vancouver is out of land so all new buildings are going upwards rather than outwards. That is a sign of the current times.

I've been feeling poorly again. I've been sleeping much more than usual and I'm also taking naps. This is very unusual for me. After a few days I discovered it was a chest cold so I'll just have to let it run it's course.

Normally when I'm feeling under the weather I find productive ways to occupy my time.  But in this instance I've really been trying not to push myself." Rest" is my unofficial word of the year. It's unofficial because I didn't choose it until February.  I wasn't going to choose a guiding word for this year.  But this word came to me in mid February or so and somehow it seemed "right".

What about you dear reader? 

Did you choose a guiding word for the year?

After doing virtually nothing but sleep, rest and eat for a few days, I got quite bored.  I finally picked up my e-reader and continued reading a book called, The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan.  I didn't know what I was in for when I started to read the novel and I don't want to give anything away.  But I am about 20% into the book and enjoying it so far.

I didn't read any summaries or reviews of the book before started reading it.  Ms. Tan is one of my all time favourite writers and I generally assume I will like any book she writes.  I'm happy to say that I believe this one will be to my liking as well.  I'm not going to write a book review here as I'm still in early stages of the book.  If you are interested at all, I recommend reading a summary here or here (where you can also sample some pages and hear a sample of an audio recorded book).

In addition to making a bit of progress on the book, I also knitted a few dish cloths. I'm trying to use up the bits and bobs of my dwindling cotton yarn stash. I'm taking my time with these latest dishcloths.  When I'm tired I make mistakes and I don't want to have a mess on my hands, lol.

The Solomon's Seal (above and below photos) has doubled in size in 5 days or less.  It's amazing how fast plants grow with the sunshine.  I need to get out and clean the garden soon but that is another thing I don't feel up to and gardening isn't my favourite thing. I only like to look at and admire plants once they are planted and growing.

 The next few shots I was experimenting with the lens focus.

I had a special outing planned for the weekend but I didn't get to it.as planned.
 Now the weather will be a bit inclement for awhile and then I'll be busy with a few other things.

Hopefully I can squeeze it my outing some time soon.  It will provide a lot of wonderful opportunities for photos which I can share with you.
 I hope you are enjoying life where ever you are in this big, wide world.


Thanks for visiting my world today.

I'll be joining Our World Tuesday and

stopping by to see what is happening in your world.

April Sky

 Happy April!

Joining in with Skywatch Friday this week.

Have a fantastic weekend and

thanks for stopping by.♥♥♥

My World Is Turning to Spring

A few days ago the fresh snow was still falling on the mountain tops.

But now the signs of Spring are here. It's even warm enough for windows to be opened to the fresh air.

I don't remember planting these flowers last year. I'm not even sure what they are :-)

The sakura (cherry) blossoms are gone from my neighbourhood. I think they are still in bloom elsewhere in the city.

In my area those pretty blossoms are being replaced by these new buds.

It's all good.

How is your world?

Joining in with Our World Tuesday today and our lovely host, Lady Fi.

Seeing Double

Seeing Double

Hey wait a minute! Now there's only one.

And he's off like the wind for his run while his mama gets her exercise on the bike.

Joining Saturday's Critters with our host, Eileen.

A Few Brave Souls

This was the sky around dinner time in Vancouver on Thursday evening.

I noticed that there were only a few birds on the wire. Usually the wire is full of birds but today only a few "brave souls" were there.

As of 10:10 p.m. it still wasn't raining. 

According to the weather forecast we are supposed to get mixed sun and cloud over the Easter weekend except for  Sunday when rain is expected.

Next week glorious sunshine and warmer temperatures are expected.

Are there any Downtown Abby fans reading my blog?

I never did watch it until the very last season and I enjoyed the last season a lot.

Are any of you now watching Mr. Selfridge? I was on a television marathon catching up on Seasons 1 & 2. I still have 4 episodes to watch of Season 3 before I'm completely caught up. I'm enjoying it a lot and would like to hear your views in the comments section.

Joining in with Skywatch Friday

Thank you for visiting.
May you have a wonderful Easter weekend with family and loved ones ♥

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

Spring Sky

Corporate Headquarters of the provincial BC Hydro (provincial Crown corporation mandated to deal with issues relating to provincial electricity matters.

 

I'm not sure what kind of tree this is but the blossoms are lovely. I think it is a variety of cherry tree with very light blossoms.

 The sky in my city was lovely today. The temperature was also lot warmer than it has been all week.

I'd forgotten that it was St. Patrick's Day today. But if you look closely there are some green items in my first photos (see logo at top of building and the markings on the street).

Thank you for your visit. 

I'm joining in with Skywatch Friday today.