This week in 2004 this blog was founded. 1337 posts later it still exists! Scrolling back, looking at some of the original photos and posts I found this one from my 50th birthday party with Bryant at age 14. Read the post and make sure you read his comment below it.  We are fortunate to be…

You probably detect a hint of facetiousness. This one truly baffles me.  Because this year's taxes included the sale of our recreational property, we owed more in taxes than we ever have. We prepared ourselves, filing and paying in a timely manner, but the unusual amount triggered the dreaded review of our taxes with a…

That rhyming title reminds me of seventh grade, when the response would be "You're a poet and didn't know it 'cause your feet are two long fellows." Middle school humour.  This delight is one of my favourites – bird song. A little house finch serenaded me on our deck throughout the first half of the…

Decades before the book came out or the podcast was aired, I kept a hand written list of delights, ordinary things or events that brought me simple pleasure. Recent additions would include the bouquet of flowers produced by the Stargazer lily plant we bought last year.  It cost $1.00 at the grocery store nursery department.…

Post covid reunion #3 took place in Clearwater, BC at Dutch Lake. Their brochure describes it as halfway between Edmonton and Vancouver, but in reality it involved an additional two hours for the Alberta crew. That's a long haul with two little ones in the car. The two campsites they arranged were perfect. We set…

I was so sad to see M and KC go home. I especially miss our deck time: But a week later, after 503 days, we were reunited with Bryant and Sammy. They arrived from the airport with B’s friend since the age of 2, Skylar. Indescribable happiness again! Two kids down and one to go,…

M and KC are problem solvers. She is a planner and he is a doer with lots of practical experience. Between them they can figure out the most complex of problems. This visit the  first one was fixing the espresso machine I bought a few years ago with Airmiles points. M diagnosed a faulty solenoid,…

You can tell by the clouds that the weather is changing. That can be good or bad, depending on your location. Lakefront camping gave us a good view of the prognostic skies.  Yes, things changed. The winds whipped up as the temperatures rose. Although the heat felt lower than it actually was, we were unable…

Not the adventures in my painting brain, as described in my last post. We welcomed the summer with a camping trip. Finally allowed out of our health region, we packed our double vaccinated selves into the car and trailer, and off we went over the mountains, to Osoyoos, Canada’s only desert.   Consistent with that…

That was a particularly appealing title for the recent art society challenge. Especially since we were still in lockdown. At that point it was like living on an island, the ocean to the west, not being permitted to leave our health region to the east, and the Canadian/US borders closed to the north and south. …