A NewYEAR 2023

Good Morning ALL!

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY

The sun is shining here in Edmonton. The air is somewhat cooler than it has been the past week or so. We are doing well here in our home on this day. Alvin is downstairs sleeping on the sofa while I am upstairs getting dressed (done) and writing this post. I think that I heard someone stirring.

Happy Valentine’s Day to you all! I was thinking back to my childhood in the 1960’s, in Elementary School when we used to write up a little card for each of our classmates. I think each student had a box or bag with our names displayed so that everyone knew where too deposit the cards. For years I used to send cards out to family and friends and somewhere along the way, I stopped. Not even sure when or really why. I loved receiving but most of all I absolutely loved sending cards to everyone. Sending cards to family and friends whether it is for this day or any other special occasion is something that I LOVE to do. As the years pass by and less and less people send cards, I feel a bit more sad. When someone receives a card it brings joy to their face and to their hearts, I know it does for me. It means that someone took the time to purchase and pick out or make by hand and then write up and mail the card. There is a lot of work that goes into this.

I hope that you all have a great day. Whether you give chocolates, flowers or go out for a nice supper with your significant other (if you have one) or if you are like me and spend the day with your pup or for those that have a kitten, it is all wonderful. Just being with someone whether two or four-legged you love is all one really needs. Happy Hearts Day.

Alvin’s vet appointment went okay. He has ear infections once again, not really surprised. Poor guy. Big change. We are changing up his diet. From last night forward he will be on the Balance Diet which is human food and a supplement. Fingers crossed. Last night I did not have the supplement or this morning so I did my best. He does like chicken, peas and carrots and boiled eggs and not so much oatmeal. So will have to do even more research to get this right. I will be picking up the supplement from the vet today as they ordered it yesterday and claimed it to be delivered today. Someone just woke up so I had better go downstairs. As you know, I threw out a huge amount of his dry food as I was not confident that it was still good according to research that I did on the WEB and the remaining five cans of his wet food, I will take to the vet today and have asked that they donate to someone who needs a special diet for their pup as it would help someone financially. Sorry, gotta go.

Have a Happy Valentine’s Day.

Continuing to live this life with kindness, respect, compassion, patience, love, laughter, understanding, gratitude, focus, possibilities and coffee.

Always, Carol & Alvin

Christmas Morning 2020

Good Morning ALL. Happy Christmas one and all. The air is warm outside. The house is quiet as my fingers clack away on the keyboard. Alvin is stretched out on the carpet in the hallway just outside the office door. My daughter, son-in-law and pups are snoozing in “the master suite” (okay perhaps not what you would consider to be a master suite but for me a bedroom with an adjoining bathroom, is pretty master, lol). What a glorious Christmas we are having. The family arrived in the later part of the afternoon on Christmas Eve, that would have been yesterday. We make some snacks, ate some snacks and ate more snacks and more snacks and then decided to open gifts. We always have enough food to feed about 20 people and there are three of us. Likely we should have gone for a walk but it is Christmas and who thinks of exercise when there are presents under the tree and food all over the place. Even before we sat down to open gifts, actually not long after the kids and grandpups arrived – we heard some rustling in the living room. We were busy snacking in the kitchen. Amanda went into the living room and there was the Alvin getting a headstart opening his gifts. He had found one of his gifts that was way back under the tree, without causing disarray to the other gifts or knocking over the tree – he pulled the gift back out onto the middle of the living room and was beginning to tear apart the tissue paper that covered his gift. How he knew that was his gift we will never know. My son-in-law joked that perhaps he knew how to read. What a guy. After we had some goodies, we settled in to watch the Christmas movie “ELF” which is another little story. Steven wanted to watch the movie which I happen to have on DVD in my massive Christmas movie collection. When the kids gave me the new television just before Christmas – we decided to disconnect the DVD player and put it in the basement. We would have had to hook it up which is not a big deal when the light bulb came on and I checked my PVR recordings and voile, I had recorded it. So no need to bring up the DVD player. We chatted and watched the movie. Drank coffee and eggnog. Throughout the movie, someone was whining so much. Not loud but clearly not happy. When the movie was over and we started preparing to open gifts, guess who was the first one to the tree? Three guesses and the first two don’t count. Mr. Alvin. He was so excited. I think with all of the gift opening that we have been doing and the parcels from our friend Val, he is beginning to put two and two together. He definitely understood about the gifts. I will note that he has been going to tree over the past few weeks once I wrapped gifts and we remember when he pulled my son-in-law’s stocking from under the tree and started to open his gifts. Note to self for next year. I made sure that I safely tucked all gifts with food related items and the stockings in a basket in the basement landing until time to open. We certainly were entertained by Alvin. He was frustrated with me at times. What can you do? He, me, we were all super spoiled. The perfect year to be spoiled. I received clothes, books, special pens, several items from my favourite store “Bath & Bodyworks”, chocolates and more chocolates and more chocolates, a hand held blender with more gadgets than I know what to do with and more. Definitely crazy spoiled. My son-in-law received from my daughter one of those projectors for indoors so we did some star gazing for part of the evening. A great night. Merry Christmas.

Well time to head back downstairs and have some coffee. I am going to call my sister and chat. It is beginning to get light outside. Hopefully the sun will shine. We definitely need a walk or two, today.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas. I hope that Santa was good to you. Not sure that me and Alvin deserved all the lovely gifts that we received but we are grateful to all those folks who showered us with them this year. We are grateful to have all of you in our lives. Truly, we are blessed.

Have an awesome day. Be safe, go for a walk. We will continue to live our lives with kindness, respect and compassion for all.

Merry Christmas 2020.

Love, Always from Carol & Alvin

It is a NEW YEAR.

Good Morning and Welcome to Sunday, the 10th day of May, 2020.

Overcast sky with a breeze.

Today is Mother’s Day.

This is an unique one, as they go.

Some children may not be able to visit with their Mothers due to COVID19 and others may live under the same roof.

But whatever your truth is or wherever you may be, you are still able to reach out and tell your MOTHER just how important she is to you.

She doesn’t want huge bouquets of flowers, diamond necklaces, big boxes of chocolates or fancy gifts; she only needs you.

Tell your Mom, your Mother on this Mother’s Day ….. how much you love her, how much your admire her, how grateful you are for everything she has done.

But most of all for just being your Mom.

Keep it simple.

Maybe even write a poem and mail it to her in a card (it would be late but that is okay).

You could write the poem and take a picture of it and text to her OR email her.

I thought perhaps it would be appropriate to share some of my posts from Mother’s Days gone by.

The first is from May 2010 shortly after I began to write this blog, and the other May 2017.

I hope that all the Mothers on the planet are able to have a wonderful day.

Just being safe and in good health.

That is the most important.

Without Mothers we would not be here.

Just to add some colour to this post,

how about some pretty flowers.

I do love flowers.

To add I am having the best Mother’s Day weekend.

Two of my friends came over yesterday morning and we had a fantastic coffee party on the deck.

Keeping in mind the social distancing.

One friend brought Tim’s coffee and donuts.

The other friend surprised we girls with a card, chocolates and a lotto max ticket. (I won $10.00).

Alvin’s BF Teddy came to spend the day and shortly after his arrival, Humphrey came and spent the day with us, too.

The boys all joined we girls on the deck.

When the sun was shining it was warm but when the clouds rolled over it was chilly.

But that did not stop the laughter or the smiles or the conversation.

Have an awesome Mother’s Day.

 

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May 2010 Mother’s Day

I want to tell everyone that may not know or be aware that I have the best daughter on the planet.  Truly she is.  Amanda is warm, charming, loving, giving, compassionate, intelligent, artistic, creative,  and above all else LOVES HER MOTHER !!!

With Mother’s Day just around the corner, I thought that I would share some things with all of you.  My daughter,  really does love me.  We are best friends.  We love the same things.  Like shopping, movies, television, photography, jewellery, purses, puppies, and books.  I am truly the luckiest Mother on the planet.  Now if Al (Alvin) just felt the same.

I want to wish every Mother out there – a very Happy & Special Mother’s Day.

To all the children out there – make sure that you tell your Mothers that you LOVE THEM.  Treat them with the love and respect  that they so richly deserve.  Remember they changed your diapers, read you books, made your Halloween costumes, put band-aids on your “boo boos”, made cupcakes or cookies for the school bake sale,  and were always there when you needed a friend.  Trust me no one else on the planet would be changing your poopy diapers at 3:00 a.m. unless they were your Mother.  Okay, not to offend the Dads out there …… but really mostly the Moms are changing those smelly diapers in the middle of the night.

So CHEERS to all the Moms out there, have a great Mother’s Day weekend.

You deserve nothing but the absolute BEST.

Take Care.  Live Life to the fullest.

Thank you Amanda for being such a great daughter.

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY TO ALL THE MOTHERS OUT THERE !!

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Good Morning and Welcome to Sunday the 14th day of May, 2017.

Happy Happy Mother’s Day.

Yesterday after a long raining day the sun came out.

Now this morning it is partially overcast and windy but I can see the sun.

I wrote this on the fly on FB, as I wanted to wish all the Mothers  Happy Mother’s Day

My girl just called and they are coming over.

So happy to see them today.

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Happy Happy Mother’s Day “Moms.”
Mothers come in all styles.

They may be yours by birth or they may not.

They may be rich or they may be poor.
They may be light or they may be heavy.

They may be yours, they may be mine.

They may stay at home or work away.
They may cook and clean or maybe hire another.
They may sew or maybe not.
They may bake or not.

But they are always your Mother.
They will always love you.
They will always care about your well-being.
Somedays it may not seem that way but in their hearts, it is true.

I want to wish each and every Mother a very special day.
I hope that you are as blessed as me.

Just remember to be a Mom does not mean you must give birth to a child …… it is the love, care and attention that you give to another being that makes you a Mother.

Happy Mother’s Day.

CYLewis, May 14, 2017

With kindness and respect,

I/We remain,

As Always, Carol & Alvin

 

 

 

 

It is a NEW YEAR.

Hello to Thursday.

I just read something as I was signing on …..

“Love is anything but logical”

Interesting.

Heart over Head.

Head over Heart.

 

Last night after work I looked after Mr. Alvin right away.

Outside and then his supper.

While he was eating I ran to the mailbox to retrieve the parcel that our friend “V” from Regina mailed to us.

Alvin watched me and did not eat while I ran to the mailbox.

Now that is strange ….. he always eats.

Anyway, once back in the house, he did eat while I got changed from work to “play” clothes.

After Alvin was done into his harness and jacket so that they we could run over to the Vet to pick up his food.

As per always we played the run around the table for a few minutes.

I even got down on my knees to gently coax him to come out as he nervously shook.

Finally I was able to coax him to come out and put on his jacket and harness.

Outside he always knows exactly which direction to take.

We were about halfway to the Vet when we saw a woman and her small dog in the near distance.

As we approached the doggie got more excited.

We stopped and chatted and ended up walking together.

Her three year old dog Pippa (yup, named after Katherine’s sister, Pippa) was so cute.

Her Mom said how she had recently lost another of her dogs due to dementia.

That was even a thing with dogs.

I guess so.

She said looking back there were so many signs.

The dog that passed was “11.”

She got mixed up with day and night.

She depended on the other dog when out for walks.

Even more subtle signs before the above two.

They walked with us to the Vet, so nice.

I hope that we meet up with them again.

At the Vet, picked up Alvin’s food and toothpaste.

We made his appointment for his regular stuff and the receptionist mentioned that his Bordella (did I spell correctly??) shot was due.

So this coming up Saturday at 11:00 a.m. – Alvin will have a shot, checkup (as that always happens with the vaccines), nails trimmed and anal glands cleaned.

After we got home, I ran over to pick up Mr. Humphrey who spent the evening with us.

The boys were very happy to see each other.

My daughter mentioned that she may visit this weekend (we are certainly excited about that news).

Yes, back to the package.

Alvin lost his mind once again when I brought out the package which I had tucked into the fridge as I wasn’t sure if something needed to be kept cold.

There was a package of homemade doggie cookies for Mr. Alvin.

I hit the motherload.

There were three kinds of buns including my fav “cheese”, apple pie tarts, two kinds of muffins, mini chocolate bars, a organic milk chocolate bar, coconut almond candy and some sauce/spice

mix from Epicure and a hot dog holder and condiment container from tupperware.

My friend certainly knows how to spoil me, us.

 

The boys just chilling….

 

Well it is time to split.

Get back downstairs.

I hope that you all have an awesome day.

Thursday it be.

Weather it be warming up.

It was so nice after work yesterday.

 

Happy Thursday.

Treating each other and ourselves with kindness and respect always wins the day.

 

Always, Carol & Alvin

Thought for the day……

Happy Wednesday February 1st, 2012.

February …… the month of “all things heart shaped” …… Valentine’s Day.

I love the thought of that day …… receiving flowers from that special someone.

Picking up a cute teddy for a special child.

Perhaps picking up a box of your best friend’s favourite chocolate.

Then there are always the gifts straight from the heart requiring no cash, cheque or credit card.

Those are the best kind.

You can give coupons (made specially by you) or else a verbal promise to:

(ideas) take out the trash for a month, babysit for someone, walk a friend’s dog, cook something and take it to someone who lives alone, visit seniors, shovel a sidewalk, invite a neighbour over for coffee, help someone with a special project and the list goes on….. use your imagination.

What do you think about Valentine’s Day?

I think simply that it is an extra special time to show people how much you care.

We should “care” all of the time but it is great to have a “national” day ……, I think.

So if you are contemplating doing something ……. just do it.

Make someone’s day…… doesn’t have to be ten dozen roses ……

Have a great February 1st ..

Special Hello: to all the angels wandering this earth …… thank you.

Always, Carol and of course, ALVIN …..