Oliver's Walk

Oliver an Dad went for a morning walk - he's trying to sniff out the gophers. They were here a second a go, how do they move so fast?

Sunflowers, hey these are Mom's favorite!

Snoopy Sniffer!

Bugs to chase

On the scent of a
Gopher!

Tuckered!

Time for a long afternoon nap - that was some walk! Sweet dreams - I am sure some of them will be about finally catching the gophers!

Lilies

These lilies just opened up today. A friend gave us these in the fall so this is the first time we are seeing them in bloom. They are much different than my other lilies - the nice purple colour on the petals is just beautiful. I had to snap a picture of them.

The Demons Inside

I think we all have our demons, things that we have to fight against. Mine would be 'putting myself out there' - sharing of myself with others with my time and talents. Even trying new things is not easy for me to do.

In the last few years I've been pushed outside my comfort zone and it has been eye opening. I've discovered for example that I like Indian food(who knew) and even after I discovered this I was adamant I didn't like chai tea, another surprise. For me though it isn't just that I have been afraid to taste new foods, I've also been afraid to do new things, meet new people and basically live life to its fullest.

A good lady recently died at the ripe age of 90. She was a marvel of a lady and only recently went into an independent senior complex. You always saw her helping out after a church function, she was the first one to get to the dishes. Always smiling - always putting herself out there. We had a nun who worked with us and she was the same way - going like there was no tomorrow. She was 90 years old and she was the one taking communion to the housebound and elderly. Nothing stopped her - it was only when her order told her to go back to the mother house that she stopped doing all her volunteer work. She was living life to its fullest.

Until I met some of these people I didn't realize that I was missing out on a lot. I was afraid to put myself out there. I think I was cocooning myself as a self-preservation mechanism. I was afraid of what would happen. I had a short time after the birth of my son where I was actually getting to the point of being afraid to go outside. It would be so easy to close myself up in my house, not say hi to the neighbour or go to events that are held.

I haven't won the battle yet. Each day I have to make a conscious decision to allow myself to take down my guard and take a bit of risk by doing new things or going to new places. I hope that when I'm gone people will be saying the same things. "She always had a smile on, she was always the first one there, so friendly." For now I'll keep trying to take risks and do new things and maybe I'll even surprise myself with what I am able to do.

Stormy Saskatchewan (Leader-Post, 23 Jul 2008, Page B9)

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Stormy Saskatchewan

Leader-Post
23 Jul 2008

The family of three and their dog had been in the house for only 10 minutes when lightning hit the tree. “It was shocking,” she said. “There’s lots of structural damage. The contractor from the insurance company told us not to stay here tonight. “The...read more...

Tech Tags: Leader-Post newspaper News

Oliver celebrates Canada Day!

Oliver insisted some pictures be posted of him - here he is celebrating Canada Day with us at the park. As you can see he was getting a little hot, try as I might to get him to drink his water. He was very excited and curious about all the people and other dogs to see.

My Day Off

Well I have been more quiet lately - it would seem summer has me doing many other things and I am not often on the computer. I will be very sporadic until Fall. I have a few moments here today as I have today off. I am getting a little lonely as it's very quiet - DH is working as well as well as DS and DD is off to camp for two weeks so the house is quiet.

I've been knitting and enjoying the yard. Last night we watched Hot Fuzz - if you haven't seen this movie and you like comedy I suggest you try it. It's hilarious! We watched it on Sunday and last night we watched it again with our son and it was just as funny the second time.

I spent the morning taking Oliver for a nice hour long walk and then visiting with my Granny. This is why I love summer, the pace is so much slower and I can just relax and do things I like to do.

I made the boys a homemade coconut cream pie for dessert, just because. Another little summer treat - time to cook and bake, thank goodness for AC!!!

The power of prayer

Well last week my DH was away on retreat for a week - of course if you don't know us then you probably don't know how close we are. Well I did good as did he but on Wednesday a volunteer funeral lunch lady stopped by to give me flowers. She's never done it before and I believe she was inspired by the Holy Spirit to do so. They are beautiful peonies from her garden. When I had a chance to talk to my DH I thanked him for the flowers - God knew what I needed. One of the ways DH makes my busy weeks go better is a little gift of flowers to brighten my day.

Then on Friday our morning mass group was having their usual Friday breakfast. Often DH will ask me to join and even be insistent. I had gone into the room to put something away and our boss called for me to join them for coffee - he never does that. He also wouldn't take no for an answer and was really insistent just like DH usually is.

I know that DH was praying for me that I'd be ok and these little signs made me realize that there is power in prayer and if we are aware we will see the signs of it around us.

Childhood Favorites

Do you have some favorite treats from when you were a kid? I can remember eating sponge toffee(like what is in the middle of a Crunchie Bar) - yes pure sugar and oh it tasted sooooo good! Of course there were the obvious summer treats of a Fudgsicle or a PopSicle(preferably rootbeer flavor) and then there were MoJo's they were oh so good, I loved the green spearmint flavored one but they were all very good. I wonder if that's why I like StarBurst candy so much.
I remember eating Bar Six chocolate bar and of course a Cuban Lunch - I loved that little square of milk chocolate filled with peanuts....mmmmm! I could wash it down with a Hires Rootbeer, back when the pop was still in glass bottles - oh how I miss that! Then we could take all the empty bottles back to the local corner store and get the refund and buy more treats.Does anyone remember when Old Dutch came out with Pizza flavored chips? I remember eating them at a sleepover and my friend insisted on crumbling them on top of vanilla ice cream - Yuck! I don't know how she ate that. Not too many years later we got Hostess Chips now known as Lays.

Ok I'm Awake Now

We had a beautiful ride to work this morning. I'm definitely glad to have DH back with me. Our 16km trek didn't seem too strenuous and in fact I feel much more awake than if we simply drove here.

If that wasn't enough to wake me up then the call from my DD sure was. She called in a panic, she thought our cat Ginger was dead. She had just gotten home from taking Oliver for a walk and she found Ginger in a closet and she didn't appear to be sleeping - she was adamant that she wasn't moving. DH was just getting his bike ready to head home and make the necessary arrangements(yes we have plans - I have every intention of having her cremated and having a plaque made up). Thankfully it was a false alarm. Our DD panicked and all is well. It wouldn't have surprised me as she is 12 years old - I do hope it doesn't happen when she's home alone with her as I can see how upsetting it was just to think for those few minutes that she was dead.