Following the Sky

This was the scene as we made our way from Kamloops to Vancouver this afternoon and early evening.  It was all kinds of strange weather on the way home.  There shouldn't be such cool weather and snow this late in the season even through these high mountain passes.

It was snowing just a short way into our journey and it snowed intermittently.  I thought the strange weather made for interesting sky photos for today's Skywatch meme; especially since there were also bits of blue sky and some sun here and there.

This is nearing the home stretch as we cross the Fraser River on the Port Mann Bridge.

Just as we crossed the bridge into Coquitlam it started to rain.

Then as we drove on it stopped. I expect there will be rain overnight or perhaps tomorrow.

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Give Thanks

Thank you and welcome to my newest follower, Ciccia from Sicily.

In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

1 Thess. 5:18

I want to give thanks for the prayers of faithful people and to God for looking after my mom these past two weeks in hospital. She was discharged from hospital on Tuesday afternoon (April 26, 2011).

She was in a bad way and we almost lost her two weeks ago from a bad infection. She pulled through though and is slowly gaining strength. She has been in hospital so often this past year that is it a wonder she is still with us. I know that given this backdrop her time may be limited so I am happy she is with us yet and I pray she can get stronger and enjoy some time yet with us for as long as possible.

Flower from my garden

I barely managed to plant some seedlings and bedding plants when I had to travel suddenly to see mom.
I hope to be going home by Friday and tend my garden.  I also hope to catch up on visiting your blogs :-)

Remembering

Welcome to my newest followers, Nancy from A Gardener's Cottage in Michigan and Jose Ramon Santana Vazquez from Spain. Thank you both.

It was almost two years ago that we had a fire in the condo and had to move to a hotel suite for a few months. My room mate had one suite in the hotel and I had another. It was nice having this because daily someone would clean my bathroom and vacuum and my roommate would cook dinners and bring them to me down the hall. All I had to do was get ready each morning and wash my dirty dishes as well as do my laundry. There was a washer dryer in the apartment so that was handy.

This was my kitchen area.

This was my living room area and the small built in desk at which I did my blogging. You can see through the open blinds that there was a small patio.

I enjoyed living in the hotel but by the end of my time there (about 4 months), I was ready to go home. Lately though I find myself missing the hotel. What I really miss is the ready access to downtown and the well known English Bay area. 

Off of my patio I can see the waters of English Bay just beyond the high rises.

It was hard to get a good shot of the water due to that one building, lol. But you can see the big "ship" in the background.

Here is a night time shot of the sunset and the busy strip called Davie Street. I enjoyed the busyness and it wasn't too noisy to sleep at night.

What I miss most though is the wonderful and colourful sunsets which I could readily see and photograph from my patio.

I also miss my Saturday walks to nearby places like this farmer's market

... along "secret" winding paths like this

 

... and lovely, unexpected places to sit

...and being able to buy big bunches of flowers like this :-)

and fireworks displays like this....

Even crowds like this rushing  back from the fireworks show.

All in all, I enjoyed my stay at the hotel.  But I am glad that my home is repaired and I can stay there once again. It was just nice to remember the "good times" at my temporary home.

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One Sunny Day in Vancouver

As I am not yet home I'm going through my recent archives to share a sky post with you. These ones were taken on one of our rare, sunny, Spring days last month.

Please click on the badges above to see the wonderful entries posted by people around our wonderful globe. Happy Easter weekend to you too!

To God Be the Glory

Every year at this time I hearken to the childhood days of my Chrstian walk and the songs and observances that I was taught. One of the songs we learned was this one I wish to share with you in video. It seems appropriate in this Easter season especially to give God the glory.

This Easter He has helped my mother to pull through an especially trying time at the hospital and I give thanks for that. Though she isn't out of hospital yet she has grown stronger and we are hopeful she will be released after the holiday weekend. I am still with her and visit her each day.

I pray that those who are of the family of faith will have lots of opportunity to pause and reflect over this busy weekend of what God has done for you. May He continue to keep and bless you and your loved ones.

I haven't been able to blog on those things I want to share but those posts can be saved for another day. Thank you to my blogging friends for continuing to read my blog, for commenting and for offering thoughts and concerns by email. I appreciate each and every one of you.

What's Happening in My World this Week?

I've been quite busy these past few days. Suddenly the other day I realized that I have a lot to get done within the next week or so: various blood tests, finding a podiatrist, getting my prescriptions refilled, writing to my sponsored children, getting my hair done, attending a diabetes clinic, coordinating my travel to visit mom and the business I need to do there, finishing and filing mom's taxes and mine, paying bills and getting some financial things in order. I've been good about keeping to schedule but today I needed a rest. I may not have much time for blogging over the next week but am not 100% sure. If I can I would like to post some more blogs about my Kenyan trip.

I'm looking forward to my quick overnight trip to visit my mom and niece. I have some business to do there at the same time so the trip needs to happen soon. I decided not to travel over Easter because everything in this small city where I'm going virtually shuts down on holidays and it will be difficult to get business done. Also my mom and my niece will each have Easter dinner to spend with others so they'll be gainfully occupied.  I'm trying to arrange for my niece to come and stay with me overnight and she sounded excited when I asked her about it over the phone today.  Maybe she can bring her swim suit and we can relax in the jacuzzi.

This photo I took during the last big snowfall.

We had unexpected wet snowfall here today. Wow! I can't believe it but in the province next door to use they had much more snow. Tomorrow it is supposed to be sunny but right now with the low lying and thick clouds it doesn't look too promising. My garden has been cleaned and I've been waiting for the time to put the bedding plants out. Hopefully it will be this weekend.

Pretty red blossoms in my garden from another year.

Corn in my garden from another summer.

I was busy today looking for paper items to send to my 3 sponsored boys in Ethiopia and Kenya. I had one letter from little Peter near Nakuru, Kenya telling me what a wonderful Christmas he had this year due to the funds I sent for his family. It really warms my heart so much to know I've made him happy and probably alleviated some stress for his dear parents who can also enjoy their children's happiness over the holiday. I also heard from little John in Mathare, Kenya. It is his birthday in mid-June so I've sent a special amount of funds for his family to help celebrate his birthday. I had my first letter from young Haile in Ethiopia too. He is my newest sponsored child so we have only exchanged one letter each. It nice getting a letter to learn of his interests. 

I know that sponsored children love to keep their letters and photos and I'm not sure if any of these little boys have something to keep them in. I was thinking of how to address this. I came up with the idea to send a medium sized gift bag  made of heavier paper. I can fold it in a large envelope to send in my next mail out. I also sent the boys post cards of my city and maps of my country as well as lots of stickers and sticker albums. The boys are all young. One is 6, one is turning 7 and the other is 10. Since I don't have little children in my home, it is challenging for me to write to them of things that they will enjoy but doing good with ideas so far.  I'm sponsoring all 3 boys through Compassion International Canada. If you would like to sponsor a child please take a look here.  You can even write to a child if you don't have money to sponsor them monthly. Just ask the office to identify a correspondence child for you.  These are children that have monthly sponsors but no one writes to them. All children just love to hear from someone and to know that someone cares about them.

I've featured this photo before but I really like it so am showing it again. It is of a tree with bird's nests in Kenya. I took it on the drive back to Nakuru from Lake Bogoria.

PRAYER REQUEST:

No sooner did I post this then I got a phone call. My mom had to be sent to the hospital again. This is the 4th time she has had to go by ambulance to the hospital since February 1st, the day she moved into the nursing home. She has some kind of infection and appears confused and the doctor doesn't know where the infection is coming from. Every time I get a phone call, I get into a tailspin. It seems I barely recover from one episode and it happens again. I will be monitoring things as best I can so I can determine if I need to go and see her sooner and skip my diabetes clinic. Please keep us in your prayers.

Update: 
I am at my mom's. Thank you for your prayers.

My Land is Kenya

I want to welcome  Sunshine  who is my 91st Follower. Thank you so much for joining my blogging family Sunshine. It means a lot to me. I hope to visit your blog too!

Roger Whittaker was born on March 22, 1936 in Nairobi Kenya.  He is an Anglo-Kenyan singer-songwriter and musician with worldwide record sales of over 55 million. His music can be described as easy listening and he is best known for his baritone singing voice and trademark whistling ability.

Roger's parents Edward and Viola, were originally from Staffordshire, England, where they owned and operated a grocery shop. His father had a motorcycle accident and then the family moved to a farm in Kenya because of the warmer climate. His grandfather sang in various clubs and his father played the violin while Roger learned to play the guitar.

I won't recite all of Roger Whittaker's biography as that can be found on his official website or on variety of other websites.

I just wanted to share that as a child I loved hearing Roger Whittaker's music. I grew up in the far north of Canada in a relatively out of the way, and obscure corner of the world. Yet even there the melodious voice of Roger Whittaker, made it's way to me from way over in Africa. I especially loved his song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight".  It evoked the sounds and images that I thought made up Africa and it enticed me (among other things) to want to see and experience Africa for myself one day.  My childhood dream came true a few years ago when I travelled to Africa on a missions trip.  While there I was privileged to go on safari.  I got to see and hear the majestic beasts of the wild.  That first trip to the wilds of Kenya was something magical and mystical, that I will not soon forget.

Many of you will know that at this moment, Kenya is going through tumultuous times. It recently approved a new Constitution through national referendum and is now going through growing pains as a country. My trip to Kenya in November/December, 2011 was my first trip to Kenya since the passage of the new Constitution.

While there I often saw a television commercial showing the ceremony surrounding the passage of the new Constitution and the celebrations that went along with it. The televised images were set to a beautiful song that I had not heard before. No one I asked seemed to know who the singer was. I knew that I knew that voice but I could not place it. It haunted me. Finally when I got home the name of the singer came to me and with that and an idea of the song's title I searched for the song on line.

What a fabulous tool the internet is!   I was able to find out that the patriotic commercial is set to the Roger Whittaker tune entitled, "My Land is Kenya".  The song and the images were so beautiful that whenever I watched it, it brought tears to my eyes. I know and understand the struggle behind the words and the images and that makes them ever so much more poignant and meaningful to me. (Since I first published this post on April 12, 2011, the original video I posted is no longer available. Perhaps it has been replaced by the new government as I've noticed a newer version of it which I'll post in a newer post soon.  As for now, I'm posting a video of the song set to some beautiful images of the country, Kenya).

My dearest wish and prayer for Kenya is that Her and Her people would thrive and prosper and be a beacon of light and hope to the Continent of Africa and to the world.  Kenya is truly is a paradise on earth and I pray that the people of this great nation would arise and take their rightful place in the world. Long may Kenya prosper and may Her beauty shine bright for all of us to see.

God bless Kenya. 

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Blue Monday, April 11, 2011

How would you like to take a spin in this little blue number? * wink.

On another topic altogether, I managed to get rid of the clutter below. Someone from the local Freecycle kindly came and took it off my hands. I feel so much better that someone else will get some use out of it. I never like to throw things away and would have to take it to the charity shop if I couldn't give it to someone. Next I'll be on to shredding all my old paper records.  This can be done a little at a time.

Have a HAPPY BLUE MONDAY!

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