Thank You All For the Wonderful Birthday Wishes

Hello my friends, just a quick note tonight to say thank you all for your Birthday Wishes. It filled my heart with joy to read all of your kind words.

I had a wonderful day and I am still enjoying my friend, Terry's company. I will do a post on my birthday soon and tell you all about my wonderful day. Love you all and again I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

God Bless .................and many, many hugs.....:-)

Weekend with Fallon

I am really pleased to introduce you to my great niece Fallon. She is very special to me and I love her very much. The past several years Fallon and I have shared laughter, lots of love and many good times together including this past weekend.

I picked her up Saturday morning and we went shopping........gotta love shopping with a 13 year old. She tried on many hats and decided on two, one she has on in these pictures. She also got earrings and a couple of tops and a pair of leggings. We went to Chapters and bought books for both of us, she had just about completed hers before going home tonight.




On our way home from shopping we stopped for groceries and filled the cupboard and fridge with tons of junk food, ice tea and chocolate milk.......all her favorites. We always do this when she comes over, then we read, watch TV, play games or whatever we feel like, everything but housework. She gets to sleep in and do whatever she wants, she is such a good kid and always appreciates whatever I do for her and I so enjoy spending time with and taking care of her. She is easy to please and wonderful company.

Saturday and Sunday were cold and wet here but today was sunny and warm. Fallon's dad called us from Nevada Saturday night to say hello and informed us how hot it was there, we didn't mind, we were glad for him and we like being together. We talked late into the night and laughed at each other's jokes because we were so tired.

Last night we went to see the movie Shrek, The Final Chapter. It was a long weekend here so the theatres were filled and many movies were sold out so we were happy to see Shrek. We had to sit down front and we had a lot of laughs over that. Waaaaaay to close but at least we were able to get in.

We went out for supper tonight before I drove her back home and as I prepare for bed tonight the house is quiet and I miss her. I have already received two e-mails from her so I think she misses me as well. I am so blessed to know unconditional love of a beautiful niece, life doesn't get any better my friends.

Wishing you all a wonderful week, God Bless and many, many hugs:-)

Sunshine, Family and Good Times

Hello my friends, I can only hope you are all enjoying the beautiful sunshine as I have been. The past few days have been unbelievably hot and I have loved every moment of it. Tonight I have all the ceiling fans going and hopefully Ron will stop over and install the air conditioner this weekend.

I am thinking it is getting close to hanging baskets time. I also want to pick up some herbs, tomato plants and of course my pansies. So looking forward to my lavender again this year. We still have the chance of getting frost so usually my neighbours wait until the second week of June before planting anything. The trees and the grass are such a pretty green right now. I imagine the cherry blossoms and lilac trees will bloom withing the next week or so, especially if our weather continues as it has been.

I have been waiting for the handy man to come over and replace a couple of boards on my deck and it needs to be painted as well. I would of liked this done before I put my deck furniture outside and before I placed my pots around but if he is not here by the weekend I am going to arrange the deck and when he shows up I will just move everything for him. Our summers are so short I want to enjoy each lovely day we have.

Below are pictures of my niece Cindy, her husband Vance and their two daughters Carly and Hannah. They are a beautiful family, gosh the girls are so good but what I noticed most was the kindness they showed each other. Cindy is my brother's youngest daughter.

These pictures were taken at Galaxieland in West Edmonton Mall. We spent a few hours at the Mall on Saturday. We did some shopping, had dinner, went to the fair and the girls went swimming at the Water Park.

I am serious when I say if you can't find what you want at WEM, then they don't make it. The Mall is huge and would take several days to see it all. Honestly it was wall to wall people......hard to understand how everyone is complaining about having no money yet everyone was shopping on Saturday.....they all seemed happy. It was a good day.












I have my great niece staying with me this weekend, she is 13 and absolutely cracks me up. We are going to a movie and have some shopping to do as well. Fallon is coming over on Saturday and I will drive her home on Monday as it is a long weekend here in Canada. I am so looking forward to having her stay a couple of days with me.

Have a great week everyone, God Bless.........and many, many hugs :-)

Tis the Season to Grill

Hello my friends,

I hope you all have had a wonderful week, even more I am wishing you all a marvelous weekend.

I am so excited as my niece and her family are visiting this weekend. She is so sweet and very special to me. Many years ago (she is going to like this word many) my brother was in Montreal with his work when his wife went into labour. I had been sleeping over at their home for the very reason that she may go into labour. I was in my teens and trust me will never forget this experience. In fact it was because of this that at 7 months of my first pregnancy that I decided I didn't want to be pregnant anymore, (my husband assured me I would be fine and that our baby was going to come whenever he felt like it, so.out.of.my.control.) I was frightened as I remember how my SIL reacted to labour pains. Now you have to remember this was before the time of spinals or unnecessary C-sections, you just did what you had to do. It was just my SIL and me at the hospital when my beautiful niece was born, and even as I encouraged my SIL through my own fear I have to admit I have loved this beautiful new born girl unconditionally ever since.

This would be my SIL third and last child (I so understood why.) Actually my niece is much like me in many ways but is very much more like her mother. I love them both. They are just 2 of the special women in my life. She has grown into a wonderful wife, mother and teacher. Her husband is a chartered accountant and they live about 2 1/2 hours south of where I do. A very happy couple with 2 beautiful daughters and a home you could see anytime in Beautiful Homes and Gardens. Okay so I am just a bit proud of her as well......LOL

Today I visited my favorite blogs, I love reading how all my friends are doing. Recently I have noticed changes in my being able to read their post. Now last week I had my yearly eye check up and my eyes have deteriorated a bit but I have been having a really tough time reading some of the post. If it is white or light printing over a white or light background I find it so very hard to see each word clearly, if it is a dark background with dark letters.....well it is just about impossible for me to see the words. The verifications words can be a real challenge. So if I write a comment which has absolutely nothing to do with your post then you know I read your post and made up words which I thought you were thinking.

Our weather has been absolutely beautiful.....we have been in the +20's all week and it is suppose to be even warmer this weekend. I have BBQ'd almost every night this week for supper, often I slice a potato, onion, carrot and a hamburger patty, place this in tin foil with a pat of butter then put on the grill for 35 minutes, no fuss, no mess and it taste so good. I usually do 2 or 3 packets at a time, I either have this again the following day or I freeze each packet and pop them in the microwave when I feel like another main meal. I also grilled several turkey sausages this week which are good for breakfast (sausage and scrambled eggs) or I have one for lunch (in a hot dog bun with a zesty mustard). So easy and very tasty. I never waste the heat of the grill, I always cook something on it as it is cooling down, even the marshmallows and chocolate placed between graham crackers that Rebecca told me about last year. Oh these are good but I can only have these as a treat once in a while. I'm sorry I forget the name of these......smors or something like that. (I think this is an American treat) Anyway they are a wonderful treat and my neighbours and I enjoyed them around their propane fire pit one night. I am thinking of getting myself one of the propane fire pits, they are safe and so easy to light. I would place it in the middle of my deck and enjoy the fire on cool evenings. Many of my friends and neighbours have these this year.

Just an update on the credit card fiasco, I have accepted what has happened, am praying for my family member and enjoying the fact that no one has my credit card information. Thank you all for your kind words of support.

Have a great weekend everyone, I am so looking forward to mine.

God Bless...........and many, many hugs.....:-)

She's An Eagle When She Flies

Hello My friends, whenever I hear Dolly Parton singing her song "She's An Eagle When She Flies" I think of my mom. In fact this song describes my mom to a "T" in my mind.

I woke up this morning to birds chirping outside my window and sun shining yet I woke up with a down, uneasy feeling. I had slept well and it was 8:30 so it was time to get up but I turned over and snuggled under my duvet and the dream came back to me.

You see I had a dream of my mother. Many times mom is in my dreams but this time was different, this dream she was upset with me. I could see her so clearly as she shook her finger at me and I recognized that look on her face as well, I had seen it many times as a child. She was talking to me but I couldn't hear her words, I could only see her expressions......instead of getting up I fell back to sleep. Mom came to me again in a dream, and this time I heard her very clearly and after she finished talking she hugged me as she said good bye, I didn't want her to leave and the tears were welling up in my eyes as she turned into a very intense green forest, then I woke up.

I was still trying to understand what she meant but she had made it very clear I was to start standing up for myself, she said I was too soft and let people take advantage of me and only I could stop this from happening. I wish I could say she was right but I honestly don't think so. I try not to be rude but I do speak up. I find it easier to speak up for other people than myself though, but I have always been this way. You know the "always cheering for the underdog type" and my mom knew this. I do think I figured out why I had this vivid dream though:

Just before going to sleep last night I received an e-mail confirming an order placed on the Internet with my credit card, I hadn't ordered anything and when I tried contacting the company I was unable to get through. I think having this on my mind before falling asleep caused me to dream. This morning I checked to make sure the Credit Card used had been cancelled as I requested a couple of months ago. I assumed it had been as they had sent me a replacement card, and yes it had been cancelled. I'm still trying to understand how an order can be confirmed on a cancelled credit card but they assured me no charges were made or even tried to be made on it. I pay my card off each month so I checked the computer a couple of times today to see if any charges have been made on my new card and no there have been none. I was wrong to give my credit card information out to anyone even if it were a family member....she was so right I have to learn to say no, as it has been nothing but problems since I did it.

Too all of you please don't make the mistake I did. I trust every one and I trusted this one member of my family and I was taken advantage of......there is no excuse for this and I am not making any. I was really dumb and I have learned a valuable lesson but I also lost trust in someone I loved very much. I thought I was helping, perhaps I did for a while.

I truly believe no one can base their happiness on someone else being unhappy, when they intentionally do this their own lives are mixed up, they are hurting emotionally and as a result until they make things right and resolve the issue then they will not know happiness.....so tonight I am praying that everyone I know and love will always do the right thing as I want only happiness for everyone.

God Bless...........and many, many hugs :-)

An Amazing Couple

Hello my friends,

I know most of you are enjoying wonderful Spring weather with everything green, many blossoms on your fruit trees and playing in your gardens. We can't do that here yet as we still have lots of snow and it was only +3 on my deck today. We are suppose to warm up this weekend and be really warm by mid week. We do live in a winter province and those of us who live here know we can have snow any month of the year and we have.

I went and picked out my new glasses this afternoon then stopped in at a friends for coffee. Pat (she is the lady I bought my condo from) called me this morning, she is full of cold and has a bit of flu. When she invited me over I didn't have the heart to tell her my immune system is low as I knew she didn't want to be alone. I was so glad I did go. Pat and her husband Dave had taken their 2 daughters, their sons in law and six grandchildren to Hawaii on a 10 day vacation. It was their Christmas gift to them, and they only got back last week. She may have not been feeling well but she was so tanned and looked great. She was telling me about their wonderful trip and showing me pictures but there is one story I want to share with all of you.

Before going to bed one night, Dave, her husband reminded everyone they were having family pictures taken on the beach the following morning so they shouldn't show up in their bathing suits type of thing. Well the next morning they all arrived on the beach, the photographer was arranging everyone and had the adults standing side by side when Dave turned to his sons in law and said, "alright guys you ready" then the 3 men got down on their knees and asked their wives to marry them again.....the photographer was a minister and his helper was his wife. They renewed their vows as they wore the special marital lays their husbands had arranged for them, pictures were taken, and they were given marriage certificates, this is recognized as a completely legal marriage so now Pat shares a wedding anniversary with her daughters and this was done with all their grandchildren present. Dave had arranged all of this before they even left Canada. They had a wonderful champagne breakfast with a beautiful 3 layered wedding cake. I had tears streaming down my face as she told me all about it and seeing the pictures, well it was all so beautiful.

Dave came home while I was there, he came in carrying a bag of citrus fruit, bottles of ginger ale and Tylenol for colds. When he kissed her hello and she smiled at him they were both glowing. Pat and Dave have been married 40 years and are one of the nicest couples I know. They welcomed me to Morinville and we have continued to be friends for all these years, they are an amazing couple with an amazing family. I am so happy for them, their story is a true love story and what an example they have set for their daughters and their families.

I only wish I had a picture to show you, they only look 40 years old.....guess that is what true love does for you.

God Bless.............and many, many hugs :-)

Alberta in May

Hello my friends,

Just a few photos to show you what I woke up to this morning. It is still snowing lightly but what is really bad is the wind which is gusting sometimes to 80 kms an hour causing blowing snow, white outs and making the highways very treacherous. There are many accidents happening and unfortunately a family riding in their truck has slid into a train and all have been killed.

It seems we have about 8 months of winter here in Alberta then Spring, Summer and Fall fight over the other 4 months.

I have a lovely fire in the fireplace, a cup of French Vanilla Coffee and am waiting for my movie to come on soon. It is warm and cozy inside.

Stay safe and warm my friends and if you are living in a stormy area please stay home and off the roads unless it is absolutely necessary to go out.

God Bless.........many, many hugs.......:-)