Friday, July 30, 2010

The Birthday Boy

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

return of the traveller

It's sure good to have Will back. He returned tired and with a cold. And says he needs to unwind from always being someone's houseguest. We had his homecoming supper tonight (Grace and Tim skipped rugby and baseball in Will's honour) then saw some of his pictures. He has over 1000 he said.
And he brought presents! Not like Grace and her trip to Calgary.
He also got a lot of priestly garments that he modelled for us. I especially like the cassock.

A Good Omen

I went to the hospital this morning for my pre-admittance. I decided to have coffee and a muffin in the food court before my appointment. As I was leaving the food court, I noticed all these familiar looking boxes, they looked like shoe boxes, and they were!! I could hardly believe it, a shoe sale at the hospital, this is my kind of place.

My surgery has been scheduled for 1:30 on the 4th, so I have to be at the hospital by 11:00 am. The surgery will take around an hour an a half to 2 hours to be done, around half an hour in recovery then off to my room. I met with a nurse, had an ECG, blood taken and an anesthetist. Everyone was very nice, and knowledgable. I watched a couple of videos, one on breathing and how to avoid blood clots, the other on hysterectomies. Everything is moving along nicely. One of the other people at the clinic, is scheduled to have her surgery on the 9th, I tried to trade dates with her, but we had different Drs, so no go.

I was able to sell my FF ticket, I posted a note on the swap board last night and had twenty different responses by 10 this morning. One of the first ones was from a lady who went into labour early, and had her baby on June 1. By the time she got home to try and get tickets, they were sold out. She is coming over tomorrow morning to pick up the pass. I am glad it is going to a good home.

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Sunday, July 25, 2010

Most of BP Canada has been bought by Apache. What does this mean for Geoff? As the big shots from BP and Apache said this week, we don't know. So now is waiting to see how things are going to work out.
This has been the best weekend weather wise all summer. Not a drop of rain, nice and warm. And I didn't do much apart from sitting under the apple tree with my book. As perfect in its way as sitting on a beach in Costa Rica.
Will comes home on Tuesday so we will go up to the city to pick him up. Going to go early and stop at Jude's for tea.
Grace has been working 12 hour shifts all weekend so comes home, eats supper and goes to bed. She works almost every day at one job or the other.
And now another week begins. As I said Will is coming home and Sam will be here on the long weekend, so most of us will be together. We will miss you Anne.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Grace told me that if I ever start wearing jeans with an elastic waist she will do something bad to me if I tuck my shirt into them.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Summer

Richard and I went to the bird sanctuary this past week and saw a beaver, osprey (catching a fish!), heron, and turtle. And deer on the way home on our bikes.
Weather continues to be puzzling. Monday was cold! For here. And since then it has been over 30 and sunny. La Nina, what are you doing?
I have to cut the grass today. Weeds are getting enormous, but it is hot out there. I am giving myself the reward of hanging up laundry after. I love hanging up clothes. They should dry in oh, about 1/2 hour with this heat.
Work has slowed down, thank heavens. We are now having jean Fridays-we donate $2 to support our new unit and get to wear a sticker-it makes me smile.
Richard and I went to the beach yesterday-I am slightly burnt, but in the shade we kept getting cool. Really, how that is possible when the etmperature is over 30 does not make sense. It must be from La Nina.

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Saturday, July 17, 2010

weekend

Henry is home tomorrow and we are looking forward to seeing him. Feels like a long time. Today we are going to the TeePee Creek stampede it is the 96th year, should be fun. Went yesterday and got my eyes tested, new glasses and I got sun glasses too. Hopefully I will not lose them this time. Got the sunglasses for more than 50% off I felt like a good shopper. Wilf got his tested too, he has the start of macular degeneration so must wear sunglasses while out all the time. Having good weather this weekend sunny, threatens rain but not happening yet. 1 month to houseboat, I am so glad I am going and are really looking forward to it.

Vacation

Since my vacation had been scheduled for August and I will be off anyway because of the surgery, I decided to bump it up, and take it now. So for the next two weeks I am free from work. I don't think I will go away, but maybe I will. I can't decide.
I received a call from the hospital, and I have my pre-op on July 28, they also asked what kind of a room I wanted for my stay, and I have asked for a private. My insurance will pay, and then it should not matter how loud my visitors get, they won't bother the other guests.

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Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Big Bike Pictures



Thanks to everyone who sponsored me.

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Tuesday, July 13, 2010

medieval wedding




































I am trying to post some wedding pics that Matthew took. As he said, the Anglican clergy already dress mediavally. Andy's brother is a bishop and he took the wedding.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Yah Hoo!

I went to the Calgary Stampede for the first time this weekend. I have wanted to go for years now, but had never gotten to it. This year Jovita wrote the MCAT on Thursday, and her birthday was on Friday, so Scott and I went to Calgary to celebrate with her Stampede-style. We went down Thursday night when Scott was done work, and only got lost a little on the way to Jo's house. Friday morning we got up early to get downtown to stake out a spot for the parade. We decided it was well worth getting there at 7:00, but only after we found the Tim Horton's. The parade was really good. That was the first time I had seen a big city parade, and I liked how there was so many bands and things like that, although no one was giving out candy. There was a very obnoxious family reunion right in front of us chain smoking and drinking the whole time, so that was annoying. Jet and Cord, the cowboys who were on the Amazing Race were the parade marshals. Jovita and I were very excited about seeing them. Cord was actually in the rodeo too, but he didn't do very well on the bucking bronco. There were also a few Olympians in the parade, and lots of Calgary firemen and policemen. I loved how the police all had cowboy hats. After the parade, we waited for an hour to catch the train to the Stampede. We had tickets to the rodeo, and it was really fun. Jim Berry, who is from Rocky, did well in the saddle bronc, so that was exciting.

Saturday we had not planned to go to the Stampede at all, which turned out to be a good thing as it rained all day. We hadn't got back to Jo's until about 3:30 the night before, so we slept in and went and picked up her car in town, and then met up with my other friend Scott. We all went to Scott Beck's grandma's for supper, which was really good. She is super nice, and it was a really good meal.

Sunday we went back to the Stampede. We got there to see the Acrobatic Ice Show at 10:00. Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, the Olympic gold medalist ice dancers, and Elvis Stojko were in the show. We sat up near the top, and it was amazing. We wanted to see it from closer to the ice, so we lined up again to get better seats for the 2:00 show. We waited for an hour to get in, and got front row seats, but then they told us we couldn't sit there because they were reserved. It was not very well marked at all, and there were no good seats left by the time they kicked us out of those seats, so we left. We went and watched some sheep shearing, and then decided to try one more time at the 5:00 show. We made friends with the usher, and got second row seats. The usher was going to let us move up to the reserved seats if no one came to sit in them, but we didn't end up getting to move up. The show was a lot better from that close, and Elvis Stojko blew Jovita a kiss. After that was hung around for a while just looking at the midway and the marching bands that were all around, with a short stop in the beer gardens. We had tickets for the evening show and chuckwagons. That was really fun; chuckwagon races are so exciting! We cheered loudest for the Pidherney wagon. The evening show was spectacular, lots of dancing and fireworks, and a very long Michael Jackson tribute that I didn't feel was necessary. There were also some dirt bikes doing jumps and stuff, and a really funny comedian.

Jovita had to work today, so Scott and I got up with Jo and went to the mall for a bit, and then came back to Rocky. The first thing Mom and Dad said when I walked in the door was "what did you bring us?" Whoops.

no elephants, but...

Well, I have moved into the new place (127 vs. 123 Elizabeth St) and it's going better than I expected. The move was horrific because apart from some help with the furniture I was babysitting for my friend, I had to do the whole thing myself. Three days of packing, cleaning, hauling boxes up and down stairs.... not fun. Where's Steph and her labelling pen when I need her?!

Living in a shared house again is interesting. There's the usual "who's gonna do the dishes" stuff, but on the other hand I have an instant social life because there is always something going on. The problem is I keep going out with one set of housemates, and then with another set... Definitely going to have to cut back at some point.

So, no elephants around here, but here is a picture of the resident wildlife for you:



And here is another hilarious photo of Kafka, taken by my friend Shawnie Fever when he stopped by on the way through Ontario. I think he looks totally mad dog. You can also kinda see his (alleged) wolf ancestry showing through!



Having a dog has been interesting. Luckily, although huge, he is a very quiet dog (mostly) and very very social. This means he follows me EVERYWHERE, which is hard to get used to - not used to having so much company (not to mention so much dog saliva all over me all the time - he likes to kiss). However, free rent is free rent, and I have started running with him in the evenings, so as a side effect I ought to be in awesome shape by the end of the summer!

Here is a bonus picture of Shawnie and I, in the Little Malta area of the Centre of the Universe. We stopped by to have some pastizzi and a weird bitter orange drink called Kinnie because Shawn has been to Malta and misses the food. (I can't take photos myself because Del accidentally took my camera battery charger back to England! Hopefully it will make its way back to Canada soon).

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Sunday, July 11, 2010

Eleven Days

Just eleven days left in Sri Lanka! This means that we have reached the point when there is way too much left, and not enough time. This week and next will be pretty busy- I'm going north, then east then south, all within a couple days. And Friday the 23rd, I fly out to London for a few days, and then home! It feels strange to be almost done- I have gotten used to things here (even the traffic!) and have started enjoying the food. Although I won't be sorry to not eat rice for a while...

Last Friday I went to see the elephants at the elephant orphanage, where they rescue elephants that are orphaned or abandoned. I posted all about it on my blog, but thought people here would appreciate a few extra elephant pictures.



These are pictures with me and a couple of the priests at the near by church, St. Michael and All Angels. On the left is Fr. Dushantha, who has been one of my supervisors, and is working really hard to make sure that I see everything that is worthwhile seeing. He's great about taking me around Colombo, and showing me the people and places here. On the other side is Fr. Sathi, who is a bit of an agitator. He fights for the working person in Sri Lanka, and gets really angry at me if I don't go visit the oppressed and downtrodden everywhere I go. I get a kick out of him.


There is also a picture of me in my new cassock - I had it made here. A cassock like this in Canada will cost me about $300. For this one, the material was rs 1650 (about $15.00) and the sewing (tailored just for me by a friend of Fr. Dushantha) was rs 600 ($5.40). It's a very nice cassock, and all the nicer for being cheap.

Mom's house













Here are the pictures of Mom's house finally.
It is looking very good especially the floors and ceiling.
Mom is still recovering from her move-as we all are. If I am hanging around not doing anything, I feel like I am missing something.
Thank you to everyone-it looks great and has a lovely feeling to it.
I should be able to come for all of folkfest :)
It is hot here-36 degrees today, but we are enjoying it. Especially because we have air conditioning which keeps things cool for sleeping. Thank you house.
It is taking a ridiculous amount of time to upload these!
Just waved goodbye to our latest visitors. We have had a lot lately. Our friends Andy and Mary Lou were staying out at the cabin this past week, with some of their grown kids. The kids are spread all over the place and Andy and Mary Lou live in northern Ontario so they had a get-together here after their daughter's wedding last week. It was very good to see them. We have been friends for over 20 years and they moved away 12 years ago, but it was as if we had just seen them yesterday.
We were supposed to have a warm sunny weekend but it rained all day yesterday. Geoff got called out to work and Grace is in Calgary at the Stampede, so I did housework. I didn't mind at all. Now everything is all clean and I won't have to do it next week after work.
Went to Tim's yesterday also and finished the last little bit of painting, the front closet. Well I guess the bedrooms are not done yet, but Tim's new plan is to finish one project up before starting something else. Then the satisfaction of finishing keeps you energized for the next phase.
Have finally been eating lettuce from the garden. Everything is slower than usual this year. We need to get some warm sun.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Where are Pictures of Mom's House?

Lisa, you said you would post today!!

I went to the market this morning, and bought fruit and vegetables, pyrogies and pecan tarts, my basket was very full when I was done.

This afternoon, I went to Mark and Holly's(Aunty Kay's nephew and wife) acreage for Tom Yelic's 70th birthday. Aunty Kay called yesterday and asked me if I wanted to go. I was not going to go but then I decided I should get out. I had a nice visit with Marylynne and Deanna, but most of the other people I did not know, or I met them when they were little kids (Mark and Shawna). I made myself talk to other people, who were all very nice. There were some friends of Shawna's from nursing school, some relatives of Hulda's from Manitoba, some relatives from Holly's family. I talked briefly to John and he said he and Elaine would try and stop by and see Mom on the way home. Kind of a funny day, it got cloudy and sunny and cloudy again, it spit rain for a couple of minutes. I also had a nice talk with Nate Carlson, he has gone back to school, Grant McEwen to get his teaching degree, he can do two years there and then transfer to U of A. He wants to teach Junior High Social and English. He said Jr high was where he got off track and thought it would be good to try and steer some kids that age in the right direction. I told him he was very brave, to want to teach kids that age. It was very nice to see Tom and Hulda again, I think the last time I saw them was at Uncle George's 80th birthday.

I also had a long talk with George, he said he heard about my "troubles". I said oh you mean the cancer? He said yes. So I said well once I have the surgery, maybe I will walk over and join you on your bench, if you don't mind. He said sure come on along, but that is if I can still make it, it is getting harder every day. Then a big sigh, and "How green was my valley". He makes me laugh.

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Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Crown moulding


Well here is a picture of the crown moulding. The curtains are hung in the living room and so it is finished. Also here is the tile at the front door.

The Birthday Girl of the Day

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Monday, July 05, 2010

Weekend in Rocky

Sam and I drove down on Thursday morning, I was glad we waited to to until then, because roads were not busy at all. In the afternoon Theresa and I went over to the Historic Park, and saw Pat MacDonald being the Master of Ceremonies, took the short walk past the chimneys, and the exhibition in the visitors centre. We also ran into Grace, Scott and Leanna at the park. It was fun. The rest of the weekend was pretty low key in comparison, lots of reading and hanging out in the yard.

Tim and Geoff put up crown molding in the living room, at Tim's house, and did it ever finish the room up nicely. It looks so different. I was very impressed.

Thursday, July 01, 2010

Happy Canada Day!!

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