It Feels Like A Monday

We just had a long weekend and today feels like Monday, not Tuesday. So I'm all outta whack.

So to start your week with me I thought I'd share a sweet little summer video.

P.S. The long weekend also brought a fixed truck. I have wheels again.

Thank You Lord For The Day I Discovered Reading

One of the highlight events of the year for me here in Victoria is the annual TC Book sale. Our local newspaper sponsors a HUGE second hand book sale with proceeds going to “Raise A Reader” a local literacy organization. A few weeks before the event weekend a call goes out to anyone wanting to donate books to this cause - hundreds of thousands of books are dropped off.

This year’s venue was smaller than most years, so more strict guidelines had to be put into place on what can and can’t be donated. All this to say that a mere 300,000+ were made available, where as in previous years the counts have been upwards of 400,000 – 500,000 missives.

At $1 for a pocket book, $2 for larger soft covers, & $3 for hardcover – a shopper and a reader’s heart could be nothing but delirious!!

The doors were opened at 9am, and I read in the paper that some people got in line at 3am. Why? I don’t know. I texted a friend at 8am who had been in line since 7am, and she was already substantially far down the lineup. As a young mom of three, she was treating this as an adventure away from the kids and on her own. I treasure my sleep far more.

I, and a couple of fellow bookworms decided that early afternoon was just fine by us. And to that note I would like to add that there was no wait at the door upon arriving at 1pm. However, I did hear a security person say that by that point (1pm) there had been almost 2,200 people come through.

After 30 minutes one girlfriend complained that her bag was so full that she was done. My other girlfriend and myself were nowhere near completing our rounds and hung on for another 90 minutes.

Two large shopping bags full and only $35 spent – I was content with my finds and happy to call it a day. I debated about going back the next day, but decided I needed to make a dent on what I had, and then venture back to the Library or Amazon when the time came.

Funny though – I didn’t see one copy of ANY of the Twilight Saga books ……

I should also add that over $140,000 was raised. Well-done my fellow Victorian’s.

May I present ....

Lucy May Currie - my first "great" niece.



All I had to do was visit Facebook. The wonders of modern technology.

She is my new star, but don't forget to see the previous post. New Hummingbird pictures.

Almost Empty Nest

I am constantly amazed at the miracles that surround me. I didn't peek in on our little Hummingbird family all weekend. I knew that things would be very different when I came in this morning, and I was right. I don't know where the sibling is, and I like to think that Mom has taken him/her out for a test drive, but here we have one of our wee ones patiently learning the art of balancing on a branch. In another picture I took, you could just begin to make out the slight blush of emerald green starting to appear on its wing.



I will truly miss these folks when they grown on to take care of themselves. It will probably be any day now that they won't be returning.



Oh, if only our human teenage years could go so quickly.

Good Morning Sunshine

To think, these little darlin's only hatched about 10 days ago.

I'm Over The Moon!!!

It's Official! As of 11:45am today I became a Great Aunt. Actually - I'm an outstanding, awesome, fantastic Aunt, but now we can add the extra generation!

Lucy May weighed in a 6lbs.12oz.

My niece is doing great!

I won't get to meet Lucy for another 5 weeks, but that's geography for ya.

Oh, I can hardly stand it!!!

Hummingbird Watch 2010

By my estimation the babies are 1 week old now. It is so amazing to watch them grow. The appear to be a little smaller than my thumb now, and they are having a tougher time both fitting into the nest together. They're very frigidity.


The above picture I caught this morning. You can just see there two little heads poking up.


This picture I took last night just as I was leaving from work. This is proud Pappa feeding his wee ones. Doesn't he look gorgeous! I realize this isn't a great picture, but its been very breezy lately and its hard to get a shot in before the branches move.


They just look like they're looking for trouble. Don't you think?

I suppose I could make this wordless Wednesday, and to be sure - watching these birds has made me speechless.

A Monday Rant

I’m giving you fair warning – I’m going to rant. And not one of you is going to give even a whisper of a hint to my husband about it. Do you hear me?

Through no fault of my own, I ended up taking ‘ownership’ of my husband’s old vehicle. It’s a 1988 Ford Bronco II and has over 370,000 Kms (230, 000 miles -/+). Needless to say – it’s not in the prime of its life, but it’s been a good vehicle. I need/want a vehicle to run my errands when I want/need too, and not be dependent on when the hubster is not in need of the car. I feel a bit stranded when I can’t get around.

I’ve tried to convince hubby that it’s time to put it to rest. It’s old, its untrustworthy, and I can’t even give it away. I know because I tried, and it still found its way back to my ownership.

About 6 weeks ago I tried to open up the conversation about “letting go”, but was met with a “its still a good vehicle, you just can’t park it on an incline”.

This statement came out of a afternoon of adventure that I had with it. I’d gone to a local mall for a little bit of weekend shopping. I parked the truck is a relatively normal area, albeit a slight slope.

I attempted to put the emergency break on, but it wouldn’t go down. So, double-checking the truck was in gear, I set out to conquer my errands, thinking this would be enough.

I had about 3 or 4 different stops to make and had been in the mall for about an hour. I tend to ignore pages that occur because they never pertain to me. Why would they?

Rounding out the end of my hour long stroll I’m just heading back out to the parking lot and the sound of a terse announcement that is being made finally catches my ear.

THEY WERE PAGING FOR "THE OWNER OF A BLUE FORD BRONCO TO RETURN TO THEIR VEHICLE IMMEDIATELY!!!"

There couldn’t possibly be two vehicles like mine it the parking lot – this had to be for me, and I quickened my steps.

Sure enough, there are two security folks waiting impatiently by my truck with large blocks jammed behind the wheels to stop it from rolling back (any further). The truck had managed to roll directly into oncoming traffic, but had managed not to do damage to anything or anyone.

I don’t know how they managed to get it back out of the line of fire, and I didn’t have the courage to tell them that they could have just got into my unlocked vehicle and turned the ignition without the key. (A little known secret, but I keep hoping someone will steal it.)

I shamefaced drove home determined to come to a final decision about getting rid of the rolling behemoth.

Believe it or not folks, I haven’t even come to the reason for wanting to rant today. The preamble was only to give you grounding for my concerns and frustrations.

Bring the previous story forward about two weeks. My hubby ran an errand with the truck on a sunny Saturday and informs me when he got back home that the truck will have a completely flat tire by the next morning. The valve-something-or-other was shot and needed replacing.

True to his word – the next morning I looked out the living room window to see reality. Reflecting back on the previous days conversation I realized that he had never made mention of changing the tire and getting it repaired. AND he was gone for the day now.

The week was busy and come the weekend I asked him if he’d ‘help’ me change the tire so that I could get the valve fixed. He gave me a skeptical look and dismissed my thoughts.

Fast-forward three weeks to yesterday. The truck is still in driveway with a flat tire. I come home from (taking our car) getting groceries and asked again – “Honey, will you please help me change the tire on the truck?” Well, short of kicking the ground like all petulant children do, he grumbled about having things to do.

I said, “No problem, I’ll just call one of our many male friends and ask them if they’d help me.”

He didn’t like that answer. Mostly because he knows I know people . . .

He stomps out of the house, walks around the truck, comes back into the house and informs me “the spare is flat too”, and goes back to his office.

So this is what I’m seriously thinking of doing – I’m going to post it for sale on our local www. buy my piece of junk .com and explain that although it is in working condition – you’ll need to change the tire first because my husband can’t be bothered.

What do you think? Is that too mean?

Brings Joy To My Heart

The baby Hummingbirds have hatched. I began to see them on Wednesday, but I couldn't get a picture until today. I can't believe how much they've grown in only a few short days.


&


Please keep in mind these pictures are taken through a window which made them a little whitish. But, oh, aren't they beautiful!!

God is so good.

Ta Dahhhhhh!

Finally - they've arrived.

And


What do you think of my choices??? Tell me the truth. I can take it.

Again With the Strange Dreams

I'm not sure whether to start with the end and work backwards, or from the beginning and think linear ...

So .... I dreamed that my in-laws were visiting overnight for a couple of nights, and as they are prone to, they get bored with just hanging out when Hubby and I are off at work. So the first afternoon I return home post my work day I come into my living room to find that they (the in-laws) have taken upon themselves to prune my lovely, large fig tree. Which normally wouldn't be all that much of a problem as most growing things need a little pruning once in a while. But in this instance they had cut out all the lush new growth that had been coming on, and what was left was just the older leggy leaves and limbs.

I wasn't happy, but didn't say anything.

The following day that I came home after work (still in the same dream) the out-laws had gone off looking for something to do again and had stripped my lovely, now less than lush fig tree of EVERY LAST LEAF!! It was completely bare. It looked like a forlorn old oak tree in the middle of winter.

I was devastated and just about to ban the raisins from every visiting us again when I woke up. Lucky for them.

Now the reason I wasn't sure where to begin in the story was that, if you've read any of my older entries, you may have come across an entry I wrote about my Mom-In-Law staying with us for a week around about a year ago. Naturally, she got bored with staying at the house all alone all day. After a couple of days she decided to 'help' around the house. And for whatever reason, known only to her, she decided to take my clothes hamper and re-fold all my clean clothes. I might add that this meant she needed to go into our bedroom to find said hamper and clothes.

This did NOT sit well with me, but I took it in grace and thanked her.

A couple of days later, after I had put away all the clean clothes, I had refilled the hamper with my next load of dirty clothes, but had left it on our bed to remind me to do that laundry that evening.

When I came home from work at lunch I find that she'd once again decided to "help" around the house and had neatly folded all my dirty laundry.

That was the straw that broke the camels back, so-to-speak. I was furious, but with guarded tongue I expressed my displeasure and told her that she need not fold my dirty laundry - EVER AGAIN!

It really rankled me that she would go into our bedroom, let alone the fact that she folded any of my clothes - dirty or clean.

So - - - when I had the above mentioned dream the other night, my memory went back a year in time to the laundry folding event.

I'm sure there is a secret message in it all - the dream I mean, and I'll have to ponder it.

On a side note: the In-laws have flown off to England for a month to visit friends. They left yesterday, and I can't help if the two events - dream and flight - are not somehow related. What do you think?

This, That, and the Other Thing

Another weeks updates:

*My new glasses still aren’t in. What’s the deal with that? I did inquire on Saturday, and the clerk looked it up on their computer. I guess this is where I need to be thankful for ‘quality control’ because there was a message that one pair of glasses had 3 notices of “Remake” beside it. Does that bode ill or well? Better than fast food, I’d like to think.

*Hubby and me graduated again further into adulthood on Sunday. We each got new cell phones. And not just your average cell phones, but Smart Phones. Does this make us smart? More mature? Too soon to tell, but I am having fun already!!

*I wasn’t feeling so great on Friday and went home early from work. When I woke up in the morning I couldn’t stop the room from twirling. It came and went, and came and went, until I finally I said “ENOUGH!” and went home. I curled up on the couch and fell asleep for three hours until the husband came home and turned the TV on. The rest of the weekend went better, but I still don’t feel 100%.

*It has been extremely windy around here. When there is extreme barometer change I really feel it in my head. This is probably partially explainable for Friday’s events.

*I got to hang out with a girlfriend on Saturday afternoon/evening. We started out looking for trouble and ended up in Chinatown. I so rarely go to our downtown core that it was quiet a treat. We also took a walk out on the causeway. A breaker that protects the inner harbour from the oceans wind and water. It was very windy, and we really shouldn't have dared it, but it was fun and a little brave. She's a wee bit of a thing, so I acted more as an anchor than anything. Thankfully - neither one of us ended up falling off. That really wouldn't have been pretty.

*I have limited staff around me this week. Four folks are away at a variety of conferences in other part of the country. Kinda quiet around here, but I like it. Last week was very hectic because of a reno job on the church’s café area. So I’m thankful for a less stressful week.

*I got my hairs trimmed and tidied up on Saturday. Feels much nicer. Now if only I could get it to grow faster ……

There it is – a sum up of another week. Not particularly exciting reading, but I felt the need to share none-the-less.