Painting, a birthday, and more windy weather

I think I'm going to need a vacation when I get home from this vacation. It has been another full week of fun and a bit of work.

Our garage sale visits on Saturday were productive, with a number of useful items purchased by J and L. I picked up a mug to leave at the clubhouse for coffee/tea - coffee hour is on Thursdays and I always forget to bring a mug with me, and a cross stitch magazine. I spent a whopping $1.50. The RV park we visited had 1200 lots, two clubhouses, five pools, several hot tubs, as well as pickle ball, tennis and shuffleboard courts. Far too big for me, and the monthly lease costs are approximately $800 USD per month. Too rich for my blood.

In comparison, the park I am in has 59 lots, a clubhouse and a 15 man hot tub. It is a mix of park models, house trailers, and RV's. As a Co-op, and with few amenities, the lot lease is only $125 US per month. That includes cable television, WiFi, and water. I should note the water is not potable. There are many places to buy water. I walk about 4-5 blocks to Desert Water, where I can refill two of my gallon jugs for a mere 50 cents. Walmart and Food City sell these for about $1.50 each. I go through about 3/4's of a gallon each day, more if I'm doing much cooking.

This weekend, many of the residents were busy with painting the perimeter fence. I helped some on Friday, took the day off on Saturday, and then jumped in on Sunday to paint the fence at three lots. I finished the second coat of the third fence on Monday morning. There are some residents who chose not to do the work themselves, so the park will be charging them a fee for the work. The last lot that I finished on Tuesday morning, was one of the latter. On the other hand, there were several people in their 80's out there putting in more than their fair share of work. My painting partner on Sunday turned 79 this week. As a renter, I wasn't expected to help but I know everyone was eager to get it finished. Those who weren't able to paint provided supplies for lunch every day, and it was prepped and put it out for the workers at the clubhouse. 

Tuesday was thrifting day, with L and A. We hit up three thrift stores, where I found a couple of pieces of clothing, another set of knitting needles and a book of crocheted dishcloth patterns. One can never have enough patterns, right? Then we headed off to the mall, where I picked up my first Christmas gift. It is a pretty pink purse for my daughter. We had lunch at In and Out burger, a restaurant I've never been too. It was good and very reasonably priced. The Wednesday photos were from that trip. I certainly know where I need to go if I should need any bathroom aids as I age! The tree was in the The Palms mall area; an oleander, which I've learned is toxic, but so pretty!

The wind picked up that day and there was a lot of sand in the air. Happy hour was held in the enclosed area beside the clubhouse, and even there the wind felt cool. It was noisy overnight, as there are items hanging on the side of the park model that bang. It had calmed down slightly overnight, but I decided to forgo my walk in the morning, and caught up on some housework. I'd vacuumed the prior morning, so washed the floors. I also put together a casserole from leftovers in the fridge. Time is ticking down, and I want to use up as much as possible. 

By Thursday, the wind had died down, but it was cloudy and cooler, just 17C (63F) at noon. I went to the clubhouse for coffee (in my case tea) and goodies in the morning. There were sign up sheets circulated for the Heritage dinner (Feb 22 - I was already signed up), for the women's luncheon (Feb 26), and St. Patrick's Day (I won't be here for that.) In fact, I have less than two weeks remaining here! Time does fly when one is having fun. That evening, I went to dinner at Olive Garden with the birthday gal L, and her husband G, and their park neighbour D. L and D were both nurses and worked together in their community in British Columbia.

I've spent the afternoons stitching on my cross-stitch project. I think I started it a couple of years ago, and I've a long way to go. 

I'm also reading a John Sanford novel, Bad Blood. If you've read his novels, it is about one of his characters, Virgil Flowers, an agent of the State Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, and his investigation into several murders in a small rural area in Minnesota.

Friday was a quiet day, with nothing major on the agenda. After a walk to Desert Water, I worked on my jigsaw puzzle, did some stitching, and finished my book. It appears I will not be able to watch the Scotties Tournament of Hearts curling, as it is only being broadcast in Canada (boo!) I have to keep an eye on the scores on-line and watch the news for highlights.

I have no plans for the weekend and I'm ready for a quiet couple of days. Perhaps time will slow down a bit, and my last two weeks will last longer. A girl can hope, right?

Have a great week ahead everyone!

Another week that was

 As I sit down to write this on Friday, I'm looking back and thinking what happened to this week?  I do know it has been a good one.

Before I forget, thank you to all who expressed your concern for D and Eli last week.  I'm happy to report that she's received an e-mail from the insurance company and the settlement is better than she anticipated.  Her car was a 2009 Ford Focus, and the reason for the write-off was the frame was bent in the accident.  It wouldn't be worth it to repair it.  Now she has a 2011 Chevy Cruze. I should note that both of my adult children own vehicles that are newer than mine...I have 2007 Toyota Corolla, and I plan to drive it until I give up driving.  Hope the car agrees with that plan. 

We've had some near summer like temperatures a few days this week and I managed to squeeze in a walk a couple of days in between curling games.  A girl has to have her priorities, right?  I didn't take my camera with me though so no photos to share. The number of geese and ducks are increasing exponentially.  In the backyard the juncos are here too.  I believe they head further north as I don't recall seeing them much in the summer.  

I did get Eli's sweater sewn together, but have yet to finish the button bands. Since I do most of my knitting/crocheting while watching television (curling) and the picking up of stitches takes close attention it will wait until I'm less focused on the television.  So no photo again this week.  I got distracted with some yarn my daughter sent home with me and started a tank top for her.  I'll have to wait until I see her again before I finish it, as I want to be certain of the size. Plus I'm modifying it, as the patterns calls for tie strings and she agreed she'd rather have shoulder straps.  I've just started a third project but will wait until I get into it before I tell you what it is.  

This week, I've also spent a lot of time on Ancestry.  This time not adding people but rather deleting them.  I had been working on tracing my grandfather's first cousins to see if there were any more close connections.  But I made a mistake as there are two individuals named Janet Bell in my tree - and I picked the wrong one, one who is at least two to three generations older than my grandfather.  You would think I would have noticed the age discrepancy but no.  I spent days tracing from this individual and her spouse and ended up adding nearly 5000 people to the tree before it dawned on me I'd made an error.  It took me a day and a half to delete the entire branch!  I've learned to trace backwards first to confirm that I've got the right person before I start another search.   

Did I tell you that I heard from another cousin?  This one from my grandmother's side of the family.  She is starting work on her mother's side and saw that I had her mother in my tree but the information was not correct.  I was working off a Census from 1920 that spelled her name incorrectly.  M was able to correct the spelling and provide additional information that opened up even more hints. I was also able to give her some information along with photos of her great grandparents (my 2X great grandparents) that she hadn't seen previously.  Her mother and my grandmother were first cousins.  

While I was reviewing that information, I noted the name of cemetery in New Westminster, B.C. This piqued my interest because my dad's brother Wilf, lived there in the 60's and 70's and was married to a woman named Ann.  I seem to recall we met her at one point, and I know as a young girl I wrote to Aunt Ann a few times and she was kind enough to write back.  She passed away in the 70's and Uncle Wilf returned to our home town before 1980 after marrying again.  I decided, out of curiousity, to check the cemetery information and searched for Ann and I found her!  The details provided in the Find a grave site noted that she was married to Wilf H. There is something satisfying about being able to give her a proper name, and not just Ann.

I did get outside on Thursday as well, spending about an hour cleaning up pine cones and pine needles around the spruce tree in front.  I managed to gather two small garbage bags of these items in time for the garbage truck weekly pick-up.  Despite the amount of walking I've done, this activity required different muscles, and I figured I'd be feeling it the next day.  But I didn't, at least not much. Hurray for that!

It's now Saturday.  I'm not watching curling this morning because it all came to a screeching halt last night after one of the teams preparing to head home tested positive for Covid-19.  They would have been in the bubble about 3 or 4 days prior to event, and it's been a full week so I have to assume they were exposed just prior to arriving.  All of the teams that are in the playoffs (Canada is not - they lost their qualifying game last night) will be tested today and depending on those results, the games will be rescheduled.  At least I hope they will.  

So rather than sit around the house and mope, I headed out for a walk this morning.  It was just above freezing, but with no wind, overcast but with a promise of warmer temperatures later in the day.  Here are a few photos.

As I started out on my walk, I could hear several ducks calling close by.  Since I'm not that close to the pond, it was a bit unusual.  This female was talking up a storm on the roof of a house about a half block away.

This male mallard was walking on the street just ahead of me.  He wasn't saying much.  

On my way to the creek I spotted a couple of hares closer to a couple of houses.  This one intrigued me -  it almost looks like it has a dark t-shirt and a light pair of pants.

The creek was very quiet, with the water still so low and freezing temperatures overnight, there was a thin sheet of ice still on the water.  Further along I found this solo duck in a wee bit of open water.

I first heard and then saw a red winged blackbird.  I love their song.

The pond was busier, but not nearly as many ducks and geese as I've seen in recent walks.  This one startled me as I didn't notice it right away. 

Speaking of not seeing - I took the photo below as I was walking back through the park and initially hadn't seen the second hare on the left.

Finally, as I walked up the driveway I could hear a robin in the spruce tree.  I turned around and spotted him at the top of the tree.  Another birdsong that I enjoy.

It was a good morning for a walk and probably the last for about a week.  Though we're expecting a high of 17C (63F) this afternoon, there's another storm heading our way that may bring 10-20 cms of snow (4-8 inches) from Sunday through Thursday.  Just when the trees in the back yard are starting to bud out.  Welcome to April in Saskatchewan. 

Have a great week ahead everyone.  Take care and stay well.