I consciously avoid topics about politics and religion in my posts. Today is different.
It’s a sunny, crisp October morning.
Soon, we’ll be heading to the city to take my 92 yr old mom to visit one of my sisters who is very ill in hospital.
I’m sitting on my balcony listening to hymns being sung over a speaker in a nearby church and I’m trying very hard to pray with faith.
“Thy will be done”
Made by my niece and on my bedside table for review each night.
Carole over at pigletinportugal.com has started a new tag-along. It sounds like fun!
Some years back, our then mayor and city council decided on a downtown beautification project.
It involved pouring large cement flower planters every few feet along both sides of the street in the downtown area.
Community groups, businesses, and individuals sponsor the planters, and each group purchases the flowers and plants their individual planter. The city then looks after the watering. I’m not certain who does the weeding.
The planters do indeed beautify the downtown area.
Now, our current city council is allowing downtown restaurants to add outdoor seating areas in previous parking spaces.
The issue? Parking is extremely limited, and this is a great inconvenience for both the elderly and other physically challenged people. There are parking lots at the rear of some of the main street businesses, but not all. The banks have only front street entrances, so with limited parking in front, these are a challenge, especially in the winter.
Hindsight is 20-20 and sometimes foresight is completely blind.
There’s been a tendency in the past several years here, for people to purchase abandoned churches at a low price, and convert them into homes.
This has never sat right with me – especially when the new owners don’t keep up the property.
My feature photo is one example.
This was once an original Lutheran church in our city. The last time I was in this church, it was many years ago for my father in law’s funeral.
When the new Lutheran Church was built, the congregation split and for a few years, both were operating but with very small congregations.
I don’t know what it is, but something inside of me wouldn’t allow me to have an abandoned church as my residence.
How about you?
“Anyone can see the pinecones in the tree. None can see the trees, none can foresee the forest in the pinecone.”
~ Mark Spritznagel
When hubs and I entered full retirement life, we agreed on winters somewhere warm to get away from our harsh Canadian winters.
Having explored a few options while we were still working (vacations to Mexico and Arizona, a Caribbean cruise, and a 10 Day stay on Curaçao), we agreed on trying the RGV in South Texas.
Our first two winters there were with our motorhome and we completely lucked in to a park and community far beyond our expectations.
During our second season, we decided to purchase a mobile home in that park.
We have zero regrets … well, maybe just one.
Hubs’ health no longer justifies long stretches south of the 49’th parallel, so the mobile home purchase was maybe not such a great idea. The one truly special thing about the large mobile, is that we were able to house and entertain many family visitors after we bought it. Those special memories will last forever.
When he’s feeling up to it, we’ll make one last trip to the RGV to pack up our sentimental items to bring home, list our mobile for sale, and bid a sad farewell to the dear friends we’ve made there over the past seven years.
I’ll post updates as things progress – for now, suffice it to say… I’m OK … Sad, but OK.
There’s always a plan B.
New York City from the historic Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal, 1997. It’s not a clear photo because it’s a picture of a small picture, but it holds significant memories, especially today.
As I posed for the photo after touring the terminal … the twin towers of the World Trade Center behind me were just more skyscrapers. When I used my vacation tine to ride with hubs in the semi, he and I had visited many big cities, so had seen too many tall buildings to count.
Little did we know at that time, that the devastation that would happen there just four years later would change life as we knew it in North America forever.
On recent morning walks, there has been virtually zero wind. This is a rarity in these parts.
Besides adding to the comfort and the peacefulness of my morning power walks, the reflections on the river have been outstanding.
At one of our city parks that’s adjacent to the newest elementary school here.
I’ve had an e-reader ever since the Amazon Kindle was first released in 2007.
At that time, these amazing little gadgets weren’t offered in Canada, but I was able to get one because hubs was regularly driving to the USA and he could have mail sent to a hotel address where his company had overnight accommodations booked year round for their drivers. These originals even had a keyboard! (The iPad wasn’t released until 2010).
My next e-reader was the Kindle Fire, released in 2011. I didn’t get mine until 2013. I still had to order to hubs’ USA address. The Fire tablet was in full colour.
A few years later, I purchased a Kindle Paperwhite. Finally, I could purchase a Kindle in Canada! This e-reader felt good in hand, was close to the same size as most paperback books, and the backlit non glare screen was perfect for both bedtime and sunny outdoor reading. Unfortunately, my current reader was facing end of days and I wanted to be sure I didn’t lose any of my extensive e-library.
Yesterday, my new Paperwhite arrived. The screen dimensions are a bit bigger (approximately 1/2” overall in each of width and length). Where the frame had a ridge before, it has none now. Overall, it feels and looks great.
E-reader pros: To me, the biggest pros are space, convenience, and cleanliness. I have a huge library that takes up only a bit of real estate on my bedside table or on the little table by my armchair.
When we travel, my entire library fits into my purse.
I can have several books on the go at a time, without having a pile of them around my chair and each book is automatically bookmarked at the last page read. I can also hilight passages and look up the definitions of new-to-me words.
For many, the tactile sense is the biggest reason for “real” book preference.
That’s not an issue for me. Real books can be a pain in so many ways: torn pages and broken spines, too bright to read outside on a sunny day, the space they take up, the book mites that make me sneeze, if they accidentally get wet, they swell up or the pages glom together and they’re pretty much hooped, and the list goes on.
I guess you could say that e-readers are a good fit for my ocd-ish personality.
