Family Reunion with Gerard's Side

On Saturday afternoon and early evening we cut out of the church camp-out for a while and enjoyed a beautiful drive up the east side of Lake Simcoe, through Orillia, and back down a bit on the west side of Lake Simcoe. Really enjoyed catching up with a lot of family members we hadn't seen for quite a while!

These are the only two pictures I took and they're not the greatest, but at least it shows we were there.

Top picture: L - R: Barb, Heather, Richard, Ed

Bottom picture: Front L - R: Hilda, Barb, Jane, Emily, Gerard
Back L - R: Evelyn, Suzanne, John

Mini Family Reunion

My parents with four of their nine kids

Beautiful "Weeds" at Sibbald

Our Experience of the Tornado Weather System

We had set up the tents, put up the tarps, gone for a swim to cool off, when it started to pour!! Part of the tornado weather system that went south of us. We got a lot of rain in a short time, but hardly any wind. We heard thunder south of us, but saw no lightning. The road past our tent (to the right) was like a river. Later that night we heard about the tornadoes in Woodbridge and Newmarket.

After the rain slowed down we went to check out the neighbouring camp sites which were totally flooded. The branch in the water is marking the firepit, so we wouldn't fall into it.

Down at the beach there was this weird lighting. Looking to the west the horizon was clear and the sun was shining. Then looking east we saw this rainbow against the stormy sky.

Off to the "rocky beach" to see the sunset.

We're Back from Camping

We're back from our church campout. Had a great long weekend of fellowship, food, fun, rain, sun, beach time, games and campfires. We're still using our good old-fashioned 9 x 12 Woods canvas tent. It has lasted us for 34 years so far, but hasn't been water proof for a long time. So the only way to stay dry is to use this humungous bright orange tarp. It's so ugly, but I guess it's worth it. We open the tent bag and there is that wonderful canvas smell that means camping!! And it's so nice a spacious and tall. We can easily stand up in it. We also have a nylon dome tent we use for travelling, but it's just not the same without the canvas smell.

Love These Flowers!

I love these flowers. We got a few small clumps of these from my mom about three years ago and now they are cheering up the whole front yard. Low maintenance cheerful-looking perennials!

Chick Pea Sandwich Spread

I just enjoyed this chick pea spread sandwich - recipe from Karin G. It's basically like tuna salad, only instead of tuna you use crushed chick peas. I added some celery, green onions, relish (or pickles), honey mustard, and mayonnaise (or vegan non-mayo). Serve with tomato, lettuce, or whatever you like. I love chick peas! So this is a new option for my lunches. Delicious!

Second Seeding for Fall Harvest

Spinach, lettuce & radishes.

Front Flower Bed Tomatoes

The tomato plants in our front yard flower bed have grown so huge that they are taller than I am. I don't know whether it's the soil conditions or abundance of sun out front, the type of tomato plants, the cool moist summer we've been having, or all of the above. Anyway, when the plants outgrew their first set of stakes, I found longer sticks to hold up the plants, I topped off the plants and removed a whole wheelbarrow full of extra leaves from just three plants! But then during a thunder storm and a downpour the other night, the stakes broke at ground level and the plants toppled over. I don't dare to move them because I'm afraid the stems will break. Since they're loaded with tomatoes, I'm just going to let them lie in the flower bed and provide us with lots of delicious juicy tomatoes. We've hardly had any tomatoes from the back yard vegetable garden for the last few years. Maybe there's not enough sun there anymore because of the big trees. Looks like my front-flower-bed-vegetable-growing experiment is starting to bear fruit!

Relaxing Afternoon at Sibbald

We spent a nice relaxing afternoon at Sibbald Point. I finished reading the book, "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto" by Michael Pollan. I had seen this book recommended by both nieces Alida and Phyllis on their blogs, so I picked it up from the library. I recommend it too, if you want to read that many pages for some very common sense advice about food: Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Nothing your grandmother wouldn't recognize.

Blessing of Garbage Pick-Up!

The strike is over! The trucks are rolling again. Today recycling got picked up for the first time in eight weeks. Last week they collected garbage and next week the garden waste pick ups start again. Yeah! I'm very thankful for the service of waste pick up in the city.

At Work Today...

Today I had a wonderful, young volunteer helping me at work. I've never had a volunteer who had to stand on a chair to reach the top drawer of the filing cabinet before! I just had to chuckle every time I saw her standing there. It made my day!

She checked through all my files and typed up new labels for all the files that had hand-written labels on them. Then she printed them off and stuck them on the matching files. It was a great help and now my files look amazing! Great job, Rebecca! Thank you!

Yesterday my friend, Jeannette, took me out to a Mediterranean restaurant for a belated birthday lunch. I had tabouleh, which they made with loads of parsley. It was really good and inspired me to go home, cut most of my parsley from the garden, pick the ripe cherry tomatoes and make my own tabouleh with a lot more parsley (but not enough) than I usually do. I took it to work today, picked up some falafel balls and hummus with a pita from the restaurant around the corner, and had this delicious lunch. Yum!

Mrs. O's 88th Birthday Party

Yesterday we had a very interesting experience! We attended the 88th birthday celebration for our Japanese neighbour lady. In Japan 8 is a very special number and so 88 is double special and calls for a big celebration.

We were served deep fried passion fruit slices in these fancy origami wrappers.

There were artfully arranged platters of food, beautiful flowers, and musical entertainment. And on our way out we were personally thanked by Mrs. O. for coming, and received a "loot bag" that contained two fancy little boxes of cooked rice (because the symbol for 8 is the same as for rice), chop sticks, a bag of tea, and a bag of mint candies. Very interesting and entertaining!

Taste of the Danforth

Last night I went to "Taste of the Danforth" with Karen, Anna, and Karin.

Checked out "The Big Carrot" - a huge natural food supermarket.

And this candy story

We tried simosas, giros, perogies, pastry with spinach, and crepes with fruit

Today's Visit with Mom

Ninety-seven and a half years old!

Home Grown Tomatoes

Some of our first home-grown tomatoes.

My Blog's One-Year Anniversary!

Exactly one year ago today I wrote my very first blog entry. I just went back to read it and here is what I wrote at this time last year...


Monday, August 4, 2008

My Very First Blog Entry!
Welcome to my brand new picture blog! - a new year's resolution coming to life! While visiting Australia this spring, I saw so many beautiful and interesting things and thought it would be interesting to start looking at my surroundings back home through the same eyes, and so learn to appreciate and marvel at my daily world more often. Then on my birthday, a few weeks ago, I decided to pay more attention to all the blessings in my life. The idea of bringing these two things together by way of a picture blog was inspired by Phyllis' blog, which I really enjoy..

So this weekend I have been spending a lot of hours working in our flower garden. I love being out there. Here is a piece of a flower bed in the front yard...

Well, some things don't change very much. The reason for the blog is still the same - to recognize the blessings in my life and to appreciate the beauty around me right here in my own surroundings and in my every-day experiences. The flowers in my garden haven't changed - the same ones shown in this picture taken last year are in full bloom again right now. And this weekend I spent many hours gardening just like I did a year ago.

As I look through the many blog entries I see that I am richly blessed and that there are many interesting things and much beauty to appreciate right in my own every-day world. I like to think that through this blogging experience I have become a little more positive in my outlook on life. And so I think I'll just keep on blogging for a while yet.

Henry & Melanie's Flower Bed

The very first day that Henry & Melanie had the house, Karen and Melanie pulled all the weeds out of this front yard flower bed and Henry and John dug all the tree roots and other root clumps out.

Then today Gerard and I went there to help with some gardening again. This is today's "before" picture.

And this is today's "after" picture. Everything in this flower bed came from the back yard, except the geranium that I brought from our house. So we did not spend a penny on this project. This was two hours of very rewarding work! I love gardening!!!

Are These Your Sun Glasses?

Do you recognize these sun glasses? I found them under the queen-size bed in the spare bedroom on the main floor.

Morning Glories

Fence by our garage full of morning glories

Painting Karen's New Apartment

Arriving with a big can of paint.

We painted the whole kitchen area with a nice cheerful yellow.

And rewarded ourselves with lunch - Karen's first meal in her new house. Notice the yellow walls!

Then one of her housemates came over to help pick out a colour for the next room and she was a little more daring in her choice of colours!!

Woah!