Here comes the heat

Hooray, summer will officially be here in three days! We've had several days this week of cool and sometimes rainy weather. We even had hail one afternoon. I made a mad dash out to the deck to pull the containers of tomatoes and peppers under cover, though I probably didn't need to, as it was just pea-sized. The heat arrived on Friday and will last through the weekend. Now I realize this is relative but when the average temperature has been around 19C (66F) for much of the week and then it suddenly jumps to 28C (84F) and 35C (95F) - Friday and Saturday - it is a shock to the system. Most welcome, though I'm grateful for the a/c.

Since the weather wasn't great for puttering in the yard, I spent most of the week indoors. Monday, the plumber arrived just before lunch to replace the bolts in the downstairs toilet. Thankfully that was all that was needed. Because it wasn't a big job, he gave me a break on the labour cost. On his way out the door he jokingly asked when I thought I'd need his services again. I laughed and said, hopefully not until the work in the upstairs gets started. 

The rest of the week was fairly relaxing. I've started the process of de-cluttering once again. I needed to move several boxes of photo albums, photos and books that had been stored in the now-renovated room and temporarily stored in the furnace room into the storage room. Don't ask me why I didn't complete that task in the first place; I don't know why I didn't. Of course, this meant moving things around in the storage room to make room for the additional boxes. I had my son give me a hand with some electronics - an old computer and a stereo system. He removed the hard drive from computer and loaded it in the trunk of my car so I can take it to the recycling. The stereo, he tells me, is a gift I gave him for Christmas more than 20 years ago. He no longer wants it so it will end up in the donated items.

I realized I really need to do additional paring down of decorative items (especially Christmas), but I left those tubs alone for now. I did clear out a few items that didn't fit into the tubs that I no longer want. As well, some exercise equipment (fitness ball and weights) have been donated to a youth center here in the city; those were picked up by one of the staff mid-week. By the time I finished, all the boxes were on the shelves and one shelf is empty. 

One of the boxes that I pulled off the shelf to go through was a box of old ledgers from my dad. He farmed for close to 50 years and these contained the records for about twenty years or so. The oldest is dated 1945, the latest was about 1984. Obviously there were many years that were missing. I've recycled most of them, but have decided to keep one for myself and will distribute three others to my siblings. They can discard them if they wish.

Later in the week, I tackled my bedroom closet. When C moved upstairs all of the items that were stored in the spare bedroom closet were moved to my closet. This included extra pillows and bedding and a few other random items. The latter have been returned to their appropriate locations or put in a box for donation, along with the pillows. The bedding remains as I expect I'll need it at some point. Or perhaps I'm just not ready to let it go. Maybe in the next purge.  

On Thursday afternoon I wandered into my craft room. Oh boy! I'd forgotten that we'd moved other items in there from the spare room - Eli's toys and another big box of framed photos. I really need to go through these photos (and the ones in the boxes downstairs). Most have been packed up for a year or more so....I probably don't need to keep all of them. I did a bit of re-organizing but that's a room that will need more time and some ruthless culling. 

Some of my down-time was spent doing other things I enjoy. I had picked up a jigsaw puzzle last week on my trip to Value Village so I started that on the weekend. It was a real surprise that it went together so quickly and none of the pieces were missing. Isn't it pretty?

The other activity that kept me on the couch was watching sports. I've really gotten into baseball this year watching the Blue Jays. They split their series with Baltimore this week and lost the first game of the next series with the Yankees. I've got the television on now, and it is scoreless after the first inning. 

The NHL (hockey) playoffs also started this week, and it is week 2 of the CFL (football). I'm rooting for Tampa in the hockey, only because one of the players is a friend of my daughter, and I'd be happy if he is able to be on the winning team as I expect he'll likely retire if he does. Our Riders won their first game last week coming on strong in the fourth quarter. They're playing Edmonton this evening so you know I'll be yelling at the television. 

While watching television, I finished three more dishcloths for D, and pulled a UFO from earlier this year - a mitten that was barely started. I had done some crocheting during the cruise and finished the body of a small bag; it's been pulled too and I'll crochet the handles and finish it this weekend. 

Finally, I did get out for a couple of walks this week as well. Once with my camera so there is evidence. I'll end with a few of my favorite shots.

Two curious gophers - one my second walk (no camera) one ran on the path in front of me. I wish I'd had the camera as it was just a couple of feet ahead.

My favorite shot of the day; this is a female red-winged blackbird. I so rarely see them, as they seem to hide out in the reeds along the edge of the creek or pond. I wonder, was she taking a break from the kids?

There is nothing exciting about this photo. I took it only to demonstrate how thick the pollen is this year from the trees. All that yellow you see at the water's edge is pollen! I'm so glad not to suffer from allergies.

Edited - Marie has commented this isn't a cormorant but rather a red-necked Grebe. She is absolutely correct. I'm accustomed to seeing the cormorants on this pond so this one is new to me! Over at the pond, a pair of Grebes cormorants have actually built a nest at the standing pipe. This bird has a distinctly different coloring than the cormorants I've seen in the past. 

Finally, here is the male red-winged blackbird, happily singing his song as I walked by. They really are one of my favorite birds.

One more thought before I hit publish on this post. It's clear that comments are being marked as spam by Blogger. Now that I'm aware of this, I've been able to retrieve a couple on the latest post and going forward, I'll keep an eye for them. I'm not sure why it doesn't catch the real spam comments and once reported, not allow them to comment, yet it marks these. SMH!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone! 

Back on track

This should be a short post, as I thought I'd try to catch up the rest of the week and then next week I can do another wrap-up.  Or least that's the idea.

We had another three showings from Thursday to Sunday as well as an open house on Sunday.  None resulted in any offers but I did get a bit of decent feedback; "house looks good overall except windows".  A second wasn't as favorable, "Didn't like the small yard and the work to do in the basement."  Sometimes I truly wonder if people look at the photos on the website before coming to view the house.  In the latter case, they would have seen both the size of the backyard and that a portion of the basement is unfinished.  Oh well, c'est la vie.  

I had dinner with my friend C on both Thursday and Friday evenings.  I haven't said anything (until now), but she and her husband N have split at his instigation.  This was huge shock to her and I've been spending a fair amount of time with her over the past several weeks.  He was packing on Thursday at the house, and had movers coming on Friday so she stayed at local hotel as she couldn't bear to watch this happening.  On Sunday a spent some time there while the open house was underway.  She and her brother have done some rearranging of furniture so the gaps aren't as noticeable.  It's all horribly sad because they've been together for over 20 years and of all the couples I know I'd say they were the last I would expect to see break up.  

On Saturday morning, I made a quick trip out to D's.  When she was here last week the pharmacy wasn't able to get her meds for her due to a mix-up with the doctor.  She called on Thursday and asked if I'd pick them up and bring them out to her.  For some reason, to do with temperature, they couldn't be mailed.  I left just after 6:30 a.m., drove out and spent a half hour with Eli while his mommy enjoyed a shower, then drove home and was back at the house by shortly after 10.  Our forecast high for that day was 32C though I believe it reached 34C.  Very hot for us so I wanted not to drive in the heat of the day if I could avoid it.

We did have another storm after I posted.  My son and I went out to watch the storm roll in.

The clouds were low and moving fast.  It started to rain so we moved into the sun room and watched the lightning show.  We were getting strikes every few seconds and it sounded like a train was rumbling by almost constantly.

When the storm passed to the east, I captured this photo out the west windows of the sun room. I love it!

That was the week that was.  Hard to believe it is already the end of July, though we had a cold front come through yesterday dropping the overnight temperature to just 6C!  Brrr!!!  But there is a full week of heat ahead of us so summer is still in full swing.

Have a great week everyone!