water woes

It's 11am on Monday and I'm sitting on one of the black plastic (ugh! plastic), adirondack chairs on the back deck. I can't really see the screen with the sun glare but I'll revisit when I'm back inside. So yes!!!! It's sunny and warm. I'm still in my workout shorts and sports bra but I'm hot :-)  Maybe I'll get a tiny bit of sunburn or at the very least a huge dose of vitamin D!

A while later… hurrah! The tiniest haze of pink adorns my beluga white body and vitamin D is coursing through my sun starved cells. The tendrils of summer have pushed aside the dregs of the dreary winter for a few hours… 

We have been without running water since supper time on Saturday - take note of how often you turn on the tap or flush the toilet! Luckily we had some jugs of drinking water (which Carm refilled yesterday from a neighbour) and the pool for flushing. We put a big black bucket of water from the pool on the back deck for a sponge bath later today. We both have a doctor appointment this afternoon so have to somehow get cleaned up. If the pool water was 10 degrees warmer I'd jump in to rinse away a few days worth of living, but alas… it's only in the low 50s F. I am not that hardy! Or desperate!

The boss of the plumber workers dropped by this morning to assess the situation but the guys who do the actual work are on another big job today… our fingers are crossed that they'll have enough time to fit us in. The pressure switch is broken which he thought was due to the bladder in the tank twisting so that might need replacing as well. 

Yesterday we met up with Francine & Ken for supper at a local restaurant. The difficulty in doing dishes was a good excuse to go out! I ordered chicken parmesan, hoping that it would be like the veal parm that they made years and years ago. Alas, it was a poor facsimile although perhaps the simpler tomato sauce and lack of breading made it a bit healthier. HOWEVER! I was not looking for healthy! I wanted the cheesie, salty, fatty version of old! If I wanted healthier I would have ordered the salmon…

Who knows, maybe we'll eat there again tonight if the water situation isn't sorted today.

The lilac tree outside the window is looking a little more green today. I suspect that the heat today will hasten the greening of the fields. Maybe it will even dry up the ground a bit so that farmers can start to get into their fields.

I got Carm to take a few ‘after’ photos of me but he doesn't look at what's in the viewfinder so I have a light sprouting from my head and a bucket emerging from my side. He needs Olaf to give him a little course on looking and seeing! Also, they are at weird angles and since I'm not an experienced model, they all have me standing in really weird ways and none of them flattering…

Way later in the day… the plumbers were here and gone in a flash, leaving just as we had to dash out the door for our appointment. It was the switch so an easy (although expensive) fix. Yay for running water and hurrah for a hot bath!

Awesome!

“a sunburn”

“running water”

“finding 2 pairs of jeans my size at liquidation”

still raining or raining again

Here's a surprise… it's cloudy and raining. It seems like the air itself is grey and just by merely breathing it in, my cells themselves have become grey as well, sapping all energy and motivation! That's okay as I know it's temporary so I'll give myself some grace, letting myself off the hook for doing more than the basics today. 

I did force myself to walk this morning which mentally was good (although it left too much time for rumination)!

The days seem to be flying by! Was it actually only last Monday that I wrote - it seems like ages ago yet was only 5 days ago! I guess it was a semi-busy week with a haircut, zumba, Pat for supper one night and Trudie & Leo for supper last night. That was the extent of my cooking - the rest of the time I gleaned soup from the freezer or sat down to a giant salad. I've had caramelised onion lentils on my menu plan for weeks now but it's a lot of work so I keep shifting the day to make it. 

Yesterday I ‘met up’ with June over the internet for a long walk and chat. She is in Basel, Switzerland so it's fun to get together even virtually! After I collapsed on the sofa for 15 minutes, I got cleaned up and we did a spur of the moment trip into the city to pick up the cases of pomegranate juice that we ordered. Since the shopping centre was just up the road we took a quick trip into the Bay to see what was on clearance. It was sad walking around knowing that after its long history, it would be no more.

I've said (over and over) that the spring has been crappy and cold, yet, out the window to the west I can see the lilac tree that snugs up against the house has buds, and to the north, the tree that the bird feeder hangs from also has buds. The trees say “ ‘F’ you! We are going to grow! Nothing will stop us!”. And in fact it seems that nothing will stop the growth on the bird feeder tree. Half of that maple crashed to the ground a few years ago during an ice storm so Carm had to hack the rest of it down, leaving just a 8 foot ‘stump’, where the woodpeckers have made countless holes, further weakening it. Actually, it's pretty much dead. However, little green leaves are on the crown that grew last year.

I have to channel Nature's power!

Awesome!

“buds on the trees”

“Lupa snuggled up against me on a rainy afternoon”

“A&W burgers for a lazy supper”

“dark chocolate, dates, peanut butter”

cheerleading

Easter has come and gone and still the days are cold… This morning I took the dogs out and had to have the hood of my winter coat pulled over my head. The wind was brisk and chilly. The sun was out but I could see clouds to the west and south so knew the sun wouldn't shine much longer.

Yesterday we made the trek to Kirsten's for a lovely Easter lunch with some of the family. Kirsten made salmon asparagus quiches that were fantastic! I've never made a quiche before but I'm inspired to try… although maybe it can be Kirsten's special dish :-)

It was also Shenna's birthday yesterday so we also got to celebrate with her… 2 kinds of cake for her, and millions of chocolate eggs from the Easter bunny. Kirsten had strategically placed bowls of various kinds of chocolate eggs throughout the house… it seemed that anywhere I stood, a bowl was within arms reach… OR could it have been that I subconsciously made sure that there was one nearby at all times 😀 By the time I rolled into the car to go home I had a slight jittery sick feeling of having had too much sugar. But it was worth it! (and I'd do it again today!)

Last week was mostly quiet. I'm still trying to recover from my crash and it's taking a bit longer than I hoped. My energy has somewhat returned - I'm no longer staying in bed for most of the day, partially disabled with brain fog and fatigue, but it is still a struggle to get through my exercise, and did scale back a certain amount for a few days after I was able to start back up. All said, I wasn't sorry to take a break yesterday. I'm still a bit fragile emotionally so it doesn't take much to knock me back down but I'm like one of those punching bags from the 70s that pop back up with every punch, although a bit deflated!

It probably doesn't help that my sleep is still messed up - short nights are not good for my mental health. The quickest way to screw up my brain is to have a few sleepless nights and unfortunately I've been waking up with the sun and not falling back to sleep for weeks (months?). I don't have the energy to get out of bed so I end up ruminating which is not helpful AT ALL! I have to time my emergence from under the covers to be between hot flashes! Ugh!

Carm has been a big support through all of this with never a complaint when I can't get it together enough to make more than a salad or soup from the freezer for supper. We've eaten A LOT of soup! One of Carm's greatest traits is how easy it is to feed him - he loves soup and can eat it day in and day out. I've mostly been making a sort of bean minestrone without the pasta - I do all my prep in the early afternoon when I have the most energy and then later pile it all into the instant pot so it's ready for supper. I ALWAYS cut up way too many vegetables and sometimes have to cook them separately then add at the end. But it makes 8 huge servings so that's dinner for 4 nights! Not in a row! I'll label a few and pop them into the freezer for another time.

On Wednesday, Carm went with Pat to negotiate for a new car! We are excited for her 😀  There's nothing like that ‘new car smell’ (hmmm… I wonder which chemicals are being released…)

I just had a chuckle when I wrote down the entry in my awesome list about adding another rep. I am my own best cheerleader and can stoke myself up at the tiniest improvement! It took years of practice to get halfway good at it but it's worth the effort! 

Awesome!

“all the ice from the pool is melted”

“ducks in the pond”

“adding another rep! 10 now!”