Musings on a Summer Day

These images are in reverse order. I cannot figure out how to put them right so you'll have to pretend. They do tell the story of our adventure the last couple of weeks.

Many of you know our daughter, Jennifer, and the red car shows what happened when she was hit by a dump truck. God was gracious to her and she managed to escape with just a few bruises - no concussion, no broken bones, no open cuts. I am very thankful to two young Chinese women who stopped when they saw the accident and called me twice on their cell phone to let me know what was going on. They are truly good Samaritans.

The car is a total write-off. It was a very faithful member of our family for 15 years. Jennifer had it for about a year but before that, it was Dad's. Our Toyota dealer was able to find her a low mileage (24,000 km - about 10,000 miles), two year-old  Yaris that you see in the top picture. It is a standard which is what J. wanted and very well looked after. Hopefully it will serve her well for 10 or more years.

Dad has to have minor surgery on one of his toes on Thursday. I have to drive him to his former doctor in Newmarket since this has happened before with another toe and he feels very comfortable with him. On Friday, he has to go to the dentist. He broke off a piece of one of his front teeth. Our summer has been one exciting round of medical appointments. I am glad, however, that this kind of care is readily available to us.

There were a couple of interesting articles in today's paper. One was about a small town about 2 1/2 hours drive away from us called Smith Falls. Smith Falls is near Ottawa but was more famous for its Hershey factory. We used to go there two or three times a year to stock up on their very fresh chocolate products. Even though the factory made a profit and had been there for 46 years, the main office in the States decided they could make more money elsewhere so they moved this operation to Mexico and the States.  Smith Falls is a lovely little town so I hope it can survive this blow.

The other article concerned our army. Now, Canada has a VERY small army and with the war in Afghanistan, we are pretty much stretched to the limit. We have small numbers of soldiers serving elsewhere as well in a peacekeeping role but with the Olympics in British Columbia in 2010 and the G8 conference of world leaders in Ontario in the summer of 2010, the government is afraid that our army will be too small to handle everything. Instead of training new soldiers and thus supplying employment during this recession, it has decided to send civilians and retired soldiers to take on some of the less dangerous jobs the army is doing now. Not my idea of a great solution but they didn't ask me.

Well, I guess that's enough for now.

Snowy Day

This blog may be more disjointed than others. I still find this blog site very frustrating. I have been trying to upload a picture and it has taken 20 minutes and still isn't here so for the moment I have given up and will try to upload it later. (After 4 tries to upload a simple picture, - the last taking 20 minutes -  I have given up and you will have to read this blog without a picture!)  I much prefer Yahoo 360* despite its challenges. Jennifer didn't teach me how to link the two sites so I will try to write another blog for Yahoo later today or tomorrow. I also have two articles to finish and a couple of letters I want to write. I may have a busy afternoon.

This is one of the "interesting" weather days here. We have had rain, a tiny bit of freezing rain, ice pellets and now snow - about 6 inches so far. At least it's mild. Our ladies' coffee hour was cancelled so I had a free morning but didn't accomplish all I wanted. I did a wash and went for my walk and picked up some fresh veggies at the store.

One job we have been doing since the new year began is getting rid of empty boxes. Since we have relatives out west and I send them gifts from time to time, I have been saving boxes that are appropriate for mailing. Unfortunately the boxes have greatly outnumbered the gifts. We have weeded out about 50. I had no idea since they are downstairs and out of sight. It's always good to get rid of excess and this has been good.

Have you noticed how prices are going up? We buy cored pineapple and it used to be $2.99 for one pineapple or even 2/ $5. on sale. Then it went up to $4.99 ( in one week) and last week it was $5.49. I don't know if this is a fair price or not since we obviously can't grow pineapples here in the winter. This is not the only price hike, of course. I try never to buy anything that is not on sale but this is a challenge.

If I am able to upload this picture, I took it in 2002 on a visit to the Rockies. I have been missing them today although I wouldn't want to live there in the winter. For one thing, it is way too expensive and I don't imagine the winter driving is a treat!

We have booked a flight to Calgary in June and will see the Rockies again then. I can't wait.