About the Stomachs

Last night we had a lovely supper with our son and daughter-in-law and their wee baby boy. Ben was pretty tiny when he was born before Christmas but I am pleased to report his growth has been excellent. He now has flesh under his skin and his cheeks are pleasingly rosy. He is quite beautiful, in fact. His grandfather and I take turns holding him, a joy for each of us. Ben opens his blue eyes wide when he is awake and takes in all around him, especially anything bright like the window or lights.

We took a Dairy Queen ice cream cake to celebrate our daughter-in-law's birthday and she was very happy. I bought the smallest one I could as all of us are watching our weight, but having a slice was a welcome treat. Leanne loves it so I hope she is able to be strong and not eat the rest of it in one sitting as she told us she would.

Our daughter-in-law is a great cook and had made a very good tuna casserole and a healthy salad for first course. I love when someone else cooks!



Today is my writing club and I leave in a few minutes. Imagine. A whole afternoon reading, listening and sharing writing with people who feel about it the way I do. It helps to spur me on with my novel revisions. I am hoping to have the thing revised and ready for the publishing world to fight over by April 1. Oh, better make that March 31 as I don't want to tempt fate by setting April Fool's day as my deadline.



I have begun to put out feelers for an agent. Also I need to do some research into online publishing as I have a website just waiting to be mounted, gifted to me by my computer guru son. Lots of exciting things out there.



Finally here is a card from Victoria's Tea Festival which I attended last week with Beth. Lots of fun, if a little heavy on the remarkable sweets offered at many of the booths. Try to take it in if you can next year.

Super Saturday

Yesterday my husband and I took the killer road (Highway 401) to Toronto for a great day of adventure. First we stopped at the International Centre off Airport Road for the Outdoor Adventure show put on by Tourism Ontario. A huge pool carried water demos of all kinds, from kayaking to bicycling on pontoons. This last I decided was more gimmicky than practical. Imagine biking up in the air over the water if the waves began to flow and the wind started to blow.
There were many vendors with kayaks and canoes and many more with outdoor clothing. One vendor had down-filled vests for $14. That was an awesome price and if I liked vests I would have bought one. I have, however, always found that my arms freeze when I wear something like that.
We got dozens of samples of fruit bars, fruit and nut bars, supplement pouches, coupons, and even one taste of fruit and cottage cheese that my doubtful husband liked. Then there were one or two things we tasted that we didn't like. Luckily there were lots of garbage pails placed strategically around the huge facility.
We spent two hours touring around the whole show and finally left when our sample bags were so packed we could hardly bear carrying them anymore. Most of that weight was because of the wide variety of tour books we got. Bicycling, rafting the heritage tour of the Ottawa river, walking/biking trails in various lake front counties all made for some great additions to our box of things to do weekends. This should be a great spring/summer/fall season coming up.
We lunched at Tony Romas and then made our way to the Exhibition grounds along Lake Ontario where we went to some kind of home decorating show that Ron had found on the web. It was good but we are not so much into that, having just bought our condo last year. Not too much renovating needed for a few years.
One good find was a picture for our front hall which piece we desperately wanted to provide a focal point in that area. Now we have ideas on how to paint and finish it off with a flourish.
We started for home about 4:30, had a wonderful Italian dinner at Il Fornello, a great restaurant in Oakville, just off the QEW, and made the final leg of the journey in snow and rain. We got to Woodstock, gassed up, and headed for the movie theatre where we saw Doubt. Leaving the theatre I said to my husband, "The movie was pretty interesting but I have some doubt about it. I think it's a renter." He chuckled and agreed.
So that was our Saturday, full of fun, food and excitement. Love those days!

Walking the Songhees Walkway

Last week in Victoria Beth and I took a wonderful afternoon walk around the north side of Victoria Harbour on the Songhees Walkway. Beth beat me to the punch blogging about it. If you link to her blog you'll see the pictures are similar. Guess we like some of the same things.

A harbour walk would not be complete without a sea plane taking off or landing.

Here is Beth posing. Looks like Scotland or Ireland here.

This shot shows the cut out to the shipping channel.

More of the same below.

I have no idea what this is but couldn't resist a picture. Maybe I should hold a contest to see who comes up with the best caption for it.The Canada geese lazed about in the semi sunshine.

Beth took this shot of me posing in front of one of the stunning arbutus trees you find in BC.

I love the way the light plays on the water above and below.

Yet another arbutus. It is impossible to shoot a bad angled picture on this walk.

Oh to be ten again and climb up to rest in the crook of this tree!

Or lean over this fence to look at the rocks below. Aren't the clouds cool?

I never tire of visiting Victoria and the lovely scenery there. Of course snuggling with Chelsea is fun, too.

Bits and Pieces

This time my title is literal. For Valentine's my husband chose and ordered a wonderful new set of dishes for our home. Oh, he checked to make sure I liked them--I did--and then did all the work. So nice. Until today. We had waited over a week for notification that the package was ready to pick up and yesterday we got that. Last night we were pretty anxious for today to come. Bright and early Ron went to the post office and picked up the two huge boxes, rushed home and opened the first box. This is what we saw.

Four of the dinner plates were badly chipped. I took this picture to include with our e-mail to the company. Of course they will replace them but we'll have to wait again. Grrr. Sometimes it seems nothing is seamless anymore. There always seems to be a catch.

On a brighter note I cleared my old dishes out of the cupboards and loaded in the new (minus the 4 broken plates.) They are lovely. We have started using them already. In the picture below you can see how well they match our counter tops. The whole condo is brighter when they are set out. Maybe I'll feel more like cooking at home now.

Let's see. What would look good on blue/brown plates?

Winter Gives Over to Spring

Here is a golf course near us where my husband and I walked a long, lovely hour last week. Actually the course was only part of our walk but it made us long for spring even more. This year has been a particularly snarly, cold winter and everyone is sick of it. Here. Drink in some blue skies and the promise of green grassy golf.

Or maybe you prefer up a lazy river by the old mill stream? Well, there's no old mill here but my grandmother used to have a farm whose house was in the foreground. Of course that was prior to the building of the dam in the distance. Grandma once took me fishing right by this river, and I was amazed, impressed, disgusted that she grabbed worms and threaded them right on the hook. They wriggled and scriggled as I dropped the hook in the water. Ugh!

On the other side of the road we watched the river rise almost over its banks. Downstream a bit it will be flooding our favorite walking trail. Ah well, spring is coming and the flooding will pass, leaving lovely bits of grass and wildflowers. I can just smell them!

Finally I captured this panorama showing winter receding with its bare roads and trees, bits of ice and snow, and the promise of warmer weather under this sunny blue sky.

Almost home, I caught Pittock Lake with four apartment buildings across the water. My mother spent the last few years of her life in one of them and she loved it there. I never see them without thinking of her.

Look at the icy pile of leftover snow at the end of the street. We long to see it melt away entirely, clearing the way for glorious spring to burst out all over. Okay, now I feel better about the new snow sticking to the ground yet again just outside my window. :-)

Three Goods and Three Bads

Last week was a crazy mix of ups and downs. First we got the news that a friend's father had passed away, but since he had not been himself for a long time this was bearable. The next day I learned that a man from our church whom I'd known since I was a little girl dropped dead suddenly at age 75. I went to the funeral with my sister and returned home to have my husband tell me that my cousin was dead. She had had a cold which just got worse, she lost consciousness and quickly died, all in one week. That last was a real shocker as she had gone for medical help twice and they gave her antibiotics and sent her home. Two days after the last time she was gone.

Makes me wonder about the health care system we have when a relatively young (64) woman, in good health, can just be gone like that and no one seemed to think they should check into her symptoms further.

We went over to Michigan Saturday and Sunday and the sun shone lifting my mood and helping me to forget the crappy things of the past week. The temperature went up so that we were going coatless in the car and even shopping. The warmth and the bright sunny heat were such balm. Both Saturday and Sunday made me glad to be healthy and alive.

Birch Run was loaded with wonderful shopping deals and although we are not great shoppers both my husband and I took advantage. We bought twin pictures for over our bed (not up yet). He found two pair of pants at 70% off. I found three pair of pants that fit me and were really inexpensive, 60 % off. And, of course, I had to add three shirts to that as they, too, were 60 % off.

We had great food, lots of sleep, and lots of time to talk but Sunday morning was the best. We went to Bronner's in Frankenmuth. Years ago we had been there when our kids were young and we found it much changed. It was a fairyland. We wanted to look at front door wreaths and found that they were at the back of the huge store. Wandering from room to room I am sure my mouth was open and my tongue hanging out. Everything was gorgeous. We found ourselves singing along to Silent Night and Holly Jolly Christmas even though this is February. We were entranced. On our way out we went by a mom and little girl and heard her say, "I never want to leave here." We laughed at her innocence but also because we felt the same way.

Oh, the three great things? Sun, Run and fun--a lovely respite for both of us.

We're Back to Frigid

After yesterday's post with melting snow and hopes of spring, I bring you today's weather report. Freezing cold! Fifteen below zero Celsius with the wind chill making it feel like twenty below. Yes, we went walking in the sun just before lunch but I didn't see much of the blue sky. My head was tipped down into my scarf and my toque was pulled way over my eyes in a vain attempt to keep my face warm. How cold was it? Too damn cold to be out walking. I long for the weekend and the promised high of seven degrees above zero!

Here is my office with the faithless sun streaming in as though the day is wonderful and warm but I now know better. I'm spending the rest of it snuggled inside.

My Monday Walk

Yesterday was lovely and sunny and I was on my own for my walk in the afternoon, but I didn't mind at all. The air was much warmer, even took my hood off for part of the tour, and my legs were not freezing. The day was sunny with a perfect blue sky and wisps of white floating in from the west. What a great time to be alive!

In the foreground above you can see how the snowplows leave a lot of the snow and just clear out the bare minimum. Below the wind has done a wicked job of filling in the plowed area. If this is what it's like in the city, you can just imagine what the back country roads are like.

Believe it or not, there's a golf course over there!

And there. In the foreground lots for sale are sleeping under the white coverlet.

Turning east again I snapped a picture of the snow melting and running down the street. Believe it or not, this is a sign of warmer weather here in Canada. Spring, even! No, I didn't see any groundhogs, even though it was February 2nd.

As I crossed the highway I noticed the many snowmobile tracks parallel to the road. This is quite the sport in Ontario when we have a snowy winter. Personally I prefer the quieter walks and cross country ski treks.

On our street you can see how the snow gradually melts back from the road in an ever widening effort to provide roadside parking once again.

The old snow is pretty disgusting but I was glad to see its icy, sloppy texture as it means spring is coming. Finally my walk was nearly over and I was glad I had caught the late afternoon sun, and, incidentally, my elongated shadow. Now there's an idea--an elongated Elaine!