The Next Chapter

Good Morning! Well we made it to the WEEKEND. I think that I would like to change my name to WEEKEND, lol. Too bad the name was already taken by a famous rapper who happens to be a citizen of Canada as per SIRI. She is all wise. Happy Saturday. This is going to be a quiet weekend for us, for me. No plans for serious cleaning or running about. I am just going to be here for Miss Cookie. We went for a walk after work last night and the smallest harness that I have just doesn’t work, hangs down in the middle. She is much smaller than Alvin ever was. My son-in-law popped in for a visit after he walked the “line” He texted that she was very anxious. She is anxious period. A very busy little girl. I was just happy he popped in to check on her. Cookie is not alone for long periods of time so this is hard for her. I remember having to leave Alvin for the day. In the early days it bothered me but everyone left their pups at home for long days while they were at work. Unfortunately there was not much of a choice in the matter. Alvin never had an accident. When I arrived home, he was my first order of business. Can you imagine having to hold your “pee” all day long for like 11 hours or so? I cannot. I would have had a big old accident every single day and likely more than one. I am grateful for COVID, for the Pandemic in that I was here for Alvin everyday for about 2.5 which was in his later years.

This is Miss Cookie. She is very fast. Very inquisitive and likes to explore. She is small and can up to place that I would not even imagine. Alvin was larger and although he was curious, the curiosity was mainly when it involved food. He loved food and to eat. Cookie on the other hand could care less. She did eat a bit of her wet food yesterday morning and then after work she ate some dried food. Cookie likes variety. I am enjoying having her here but she certainly keeps me on my toes, literally. I have to be careful opening the door. So I have ordered groceries and was thinking that I will need to hold her until I get the bags into the house. I can hear her doing that shake downstairs, like she is shaking off something. You know. She also stretches in the morning just like I do, or should do. Alvin used to stretch which is good for them as well as we humans.

She also likes to lie down in the brown chair which is opposite the one that she is looking out the window from. Mainly the brown chair is her sleeping or napping chair and the green one is for checking out the neighbourhood. I also tied up the one blind so that she had a better view of outside. I think she enjoyed that. I love how her one ear stands straight up. She is a busy little doll. I love her.

I also found out yesterday that Alvin’s best friend Teddy just had major surgery and has cancer. We, me and my family are sending them love and good thoughts for a speedy recovery and I hope with my whole heart and soul that he will be with his family for a long time. Kobi needs her big brother. I cannot remember if Teddy just turned 10 or 12. Such a doll and I miss those days when he would sleep over with Alvin. They were so chill. Best buddies.

Okay, I still have a few chores to do, like LAUNDRY. That never seems to go away. I will do little things so that I can spend more time with Cookie. Besides I am exhausted as it was a “very busy difficult” week at work and I hope that things calm down in the upcoming weeks. All of my coworkers are feeling it. I see a lotto win in our future. Hoping that our temperatures warm up a bit, these under 10 degree days are brutal although I am grateful that we did not get the massive amounts of snow that our neighbour to the east Saskatchewan received. For that I am most grateful. I sure hope that it warms up and starts to melt but not too fast that there is flooding.

Have a great Saturday. Enjoy the view. Deep breaths.

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

Always, Carol & Alvin (My Forever Angel) and Miss Cookie.

The Next Chapter

Good Morning and Happy Friday. The sky is a little overcast and hopefully will clear over the course of the day. Not to be warm today coming in about 5+ celsius. Thinking of all my friends and family back in Saskatchewan as they relive “winter” all over again. Hopefully the sun will come out and the snow will melt quickly but not that quickly for flooding.

Yesterday when I came home from work. Miss Cookie had been busy. I noticed that she did a bit of climbing as ornaments were tipped over and a photo frame. I had to move the “soft” coffee table as she jumped up and then knocked over some items on the floating glass shelves under the television. She also left me some presents. Thankfully she peed on the pee pad (she is pretty good at that) although she did get excited when I arrived home and peed just at the edge of the entry mat on the floor. There were a few “brown” presents as well most of which did make it to the pee pads but not all. She was happy to see me. My grand pups did not come as my daughter worked from home yesterday so my son-in-law had the car. All good, a bit of poop never did bother me as easy cleanup. However the climbing – not so happy about that. Hopefully she will be more calm today. My kids and grand pups will not be coming today as my daughter can work from home again today so the son-in-law has the car.

I sent photos, an update and video to Cookie’s family. They will be back one week from tomorrow. They are enjoying time in the U.S. with family. But Cookie will be okay. We did try to walk but that is another story. Oh, I hear her upstairs.

Photos will be posted of my little visitor tomorrow when I have time. Time to head downstairs. Oh, she slept really well last night so that is great. I was hoping the first night was just due to missing her family.

Wishing you a very Happy Friday.

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

Always, Carol & Alvin (My Forever Angel) and our visitor Cookie.

Last Half 2022 – November

Good Morning ALL! How are you this morning? We are doing great. Up at 5:15, (well up at 3:00 as both of us had to “go”) for the day. Alvin has had his breakfast and I have made our bed and had a shower. Now time to be creative! I love having the opportunity to write this post every day or most days. This post, this blog is meant to be light and fun although there are days when it can be very dark. Everyone has days where it is difficult to keep that bright light and positive energy and mindset shining. Today is a bright light kind of day. I hope that it is for you as well. There is a full moon. I am not sure how many folks out there have the belief that a full moon can play with people’s behaviors but I tend to lend toward “yes.” When you work with the public – you can definitely see it. The sky was beautiful clear with the moon up front and centre and stars scattered about. Happy Wednesday!

Last night I made the “Hamburger Quiche” for supper minus the ground beef and using the YVES Mexican blend “meatless meat.” It was a nice reminder of home, I mean Regina. Edmonton is home but Saskatchewan will always be my “home, home.” I was born and raised there until my early teenage years and spent most of my adult life in Saskatchewan, so it is home. Back to supper. The Quiche was good and I had peas for a vegetable. I usually do not have ketchup in the house or even use it but I bought the smallest bottle that I could as you just have to have it with this dish. Not sure why.

I was nervous when I opened the front door last night and Alvin was not there. Two second later he bounded down the up stairs. My heart deflated as I realized that I had not put up the baby gate to keep him downstairs when I am not at home. I had forgot. I think that our bed is one of his happy places as he can look out of the window as he no longer can get up on the chairs in the living room. A few years ago I would not have thought twice about preventing him from going upstairs but now in his golden years, I do not want him to slip and or fall and injury himself. Whew. Thank goodness he is okay. I will remember today. I will.

We had a good evening after supper and dishes were done. It was close to 7:30 when I sat down with a cup of tea. That is one thing about working at the office – the commute. Honestly I do not like it. We lose two hours each day commuting. That is two hours that I missing with my Alvin. I do enjoy the conversation with Michelle, my coworker and carpool driver. But I would much rather be at home. I can tell you when we were outside at 3:00 a.m. and I went to take a breath of air and my lungs hurt from the extremely cold air this morning, I just wanted to go back into the house and curl up under the blanket with Alvin. Which we did because it was 3:00 a.m., lol. You know what I mean.

Today and tomorrow at the office and then the long weekend. Remembrance Day, November 11th.

Have a wonderful day everyone! I hope that you are able to “shine brightly” on this day!

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

Always, Carol & Alvin

PS: couple of things to do and we will even have some cuddle time before I leave at 7:00. We are leaving earlier because of the snow and ice on some of the streets.

Last Half 2022 – September

Good Morning ALL! Thank goodness the smoke has dissipated and the sky was clear a few minutes ago. There are clouds in the sky so perhaps some rain is on the way. I sure hope that they are able to put out the fires in Saskatchewan. I am thinking of all the people, domestic and wildlife that are affected by the wildfires. Always a loss of life and is incredibly sad. We were up about 2:00 a.m. and then hit the sofa until 6:00 (up and Alvin had his last transitional meal with mix of his regular food and bland diet). He has not pooped since yesterday so perhaps everything is coming together. Gross thoughts but it is the truth. An important truth. My truth, my life.

We were up to stay up just after 8:00 a.m. as I thought there is no rush, resting is good. After that we spent a few minutes outside. Bogart and Humphrey were in the backyard, Alvin wanted to be outside sniffing and looking through the fence at them. I was following Mr. Alvin around the backyard waiting for him to poop when I noticed that Bogart, like an athlete in his prime, had jumped onto the top of the fence and was looking down upon us. I called out to this Mom and we had a quick chat.

So today with the cooler temperatures, it is time to get some housework done and some things outside. I will have to check the long range forecast and see when the overnight temperatures begin to dip so that I can bring in some plants. I need to winter my geraniums. Some I think I will put in the basement and others will put in the kitchen. I like the open kitchen window area so I will not fill it up with huge plants that block the light. Look beautiful but darken the kitchen.

I have already cleaned out most of the front flower bed so that is done. The back one can wait until it is almost time for frost and then I can clean it out.

Tomorrow is Mr. Alvin’s ultrasound and that will tell me what our future looks like. I will know what needs to be look for his care and for our future. Scary how one day can possibly change your life. I have ideas but cannot go ahead until I know what his prognosis is, no point in worrying ahead of time. I know that eventually things will change as no one lives forever but I need to figure out with our mandated return to work schedule how to care for him if I am back to work. I am grateful that I was able to spend everyday with him for the last 2.5 years and that would not have happened without COVID. Things may have been a whole lot different. At the end of it all, I have been blessed, we have been blessed. Just more changes to figure out a new plan A, likely a plan B and possibly even a plan C. It will be okay, I have faith and I will remain positive.

So time to head out for a walk. It may rain by the look of the sky. The windows are open to let in the fresh cool air. I had closed them all last night as it was getting so smoky in the house.

Head out and check out the park. Alvin will again sniff out each blade of grass and I will admire the trees, the flowers in the yards that back onto the park, the water that is flowing in the ponds and the sky and life.

Have a wonderful Monday. Today is Labour Day. We are grateful.

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

Always, Carol & Alvin

P.S. if you have multiple emails and did have old emails – you should read them. I have found some treasures that make me realize how much my life has changed and not changed over the years.

The New YEAR 2022

Good Morning ALL! Another bright sunny morning and although I could see my breath at 5:00 a.m., it is nice outside. How are you on this Thursday? We are well. I believe that excluding human food from Alvin’s diet has made all the difference. Now that being said he does still have canned pumpkin to help him poop. But that is it and today is the fourth day for this experiment. Again he slept until 4:00 but was up to eat at 5:00 instead of the 6:00 from yesterday. But this is a huge improvement. Six hours of sleep in a row for me is huge. Alvin has his regular five week vet appointment this afternoon, so I took the afternoon off as vacation. I sometimes think it is a waste of a whole afternoon but then I think yay, I am taking a well deserved break. I do not mean waste for him, waste of having to take vacation time. Anyway, I am grateful to have the time to take off.

On Monday morning, a dear friend of whom I affectionately referred to as my second “Mom” passed away back in Saskatchewan. I wanted to wait until her family had the opportunity to contact all members of the family before I posted on this platform. Yesterday the announcement was made on social media and the announcement from the funeral home was posted. I have known Shirley my whole life. Funny story her first name was my Mom’s actual first name, only my Mom went by Jean. Anyway, she was a great loving sweet, funny woman and I shall miss her. When my Grandfather was killed in a combining accident in September of 1973, I moved from where we were living in Alberta back to my Grandparents farm in Saskatchewan to stay/live with my Grandmother. I was going into Grade 11 that fall. Shirley and her family lived only a short distance, actually walking distance from my new home. So we reconnected. She made me and of course the whole family feel like part of their family. Shirley and her husband Charlie (passed 2012) were family. They included me in everything. It certainly helped ease the feelings of missing my sister and brothers and parents back in Alberta. Shirley was simply beautiful inside and out. She enjoyed volunteering for her church and singing in the church choir and of course, looking after her family. Family meant the world to Shirley. She will be greatly missed by her four children and their spouses, grandchildren and great-grandchildren I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to know this dear soul. There were no computers and video calls in those days. I am grateful for the technology so that I can be at her service. Another angel has joined the heavenly choir.

Photo by pattama choomsree on Pexels.com

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

Always, Carol & Alvin

P.S. 61 days till my 65th Birthday……

The New YEAR 2022

Good Morning ALL! I hope this finds you doing GREAT on this Thursday, April 28, 2022. Almost the end of April and one more day closer to SUMMERTIME. Yesterday those grey clouds gave us rain which turned into snow. The snow actually stuck to the deck and to the grass until later in the afternoon when the sun came out off and on. Last night it froze but the ground is bare. Lots of moisture. The sky is a brilliant blue this morning with that old SUN shining brightly down upon us. As I glance out of my upstairs office window the trees appear to be still. Lately that it is rare. Weather, gotta love it or put up with it as there is no other choice.

With the snow and rain we did not get out for a walk until after work. We got almost half way round the park/pond by our house and then Mr. Alvin decided enough and headed for home. When he makes up his mind there is little changing it. So back home we went. Still was great to get a walk in no matter the length. All fresh air is good for the mind, body and soul.

After work today the plan is to go for a walk with our friend Pauline. She is recovering from some health issues (NOT COVID) and we look forward to seeing her and catching up.

I was thinking this morning of all the places that I travelled/lived over my almost 65 years on this planet. Perhaps not too many compared to others but enough all the same. So I am going to list a few of them before I sign off:

Corning area (farm), Windthorst, Saskatoon and Regina – Saskatchewan

Lumby, Vancouver, Victoria, – British Columbia

Vilna (farm) and Edmonton – Alberta

Toronto, Niagara Falls – Ontario

Montreal, Quebec City – Quebec

Winnipeg, Brandon – Manitoba

New York City

Las Vegas – Nevada

San Diego and Los Angeles – California

McAllen, Padre Island – Texas

Minot – North Dakota

Black Hills – South Dakota

Nebraska, Oklahoma, Arizona,

Mexico

There are so many others but here are a few.

Have an awesome day. Try and think of all the places you have visited or lived.

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

2021

Good Morning All! How are you this morning? I was thinking that this is the weekend that we change our clocks back one hour. It is funny that just a few weeks ago we were voting on the issue that has haunted most of us and that is “Daylight Saving Time.” You push clocks back in the fall and ahead in the spring. Saskatchewan is one Canadian Province that chose to Daylight Saving Time a long time ago. Now that we are approaching the time to change our clocks, I am actually happy that we are pushing them back one hour. One more hour of sleep. I am only thinking this as I am tired due in part to being up during the night with someone and that it is that time of year when our bodies just want to hibernate as the temperatures dip. Anyway, I voted for the change and in the narrowest of margins, the vote to change time won over. It was super close.

PHOTO DAY

Alvin’s Best Friend Kobi and Teddy visited.

Sunrise from yesterday morning – it was glorious. The most beautiful colour palette that I have seen in awhile.

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Time to fly. Lots to do today work wise. I guess that is true for most days. I wish you a wonderful Thursday.

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

Always, Carol & Alvin

2021

Good Morning ALL! I hope that this Tuesday morning finds you well and rested. We had an okay sleep. I had a great Monday, well actually both Alvin and I had a SUPER Monday. Alvin’s BF Teddy and his little sister Kobi arrived in the late morning and left about 3:30 in the afternoon. Honestly, Alvin was so excited, he skipped. I am so happy that we got to see his Teddy and Kobi. They were equally happy to see us and I cannot wait until the next time they can come for a visit. They spend more time at the farm now so our visits are limited. I snapped some photos and videos. When I took my lunch break Alvin and Kobi were on the chaise part of the sofa and Teddy was snuggled on my lap. I would have snapped a photo but my phone was not nearby. The utter joy these little ones bring to our house makes my heart sing. I was so happy for Alvin. As he gets older having his best bud around is so important. I know that he misses him terribly as whenever we walk by their house he runs up the driveway for the steps. It breaks my heart when they are not home. Anyway, yesterday was a good day for us both.

After work I called our friend Pauline to see if she was able to go for a walk but she was having her granddaughter and her boyfriend over for supper and was not able to go. We chatted for a few minutes but my phone kept going in and out. I am not sure why. Dead air/space without Wifi in the house? I do not know. After our chat we went for a walk. The wind was bitterly cold so we walked close to Pauline’s house which is about halfway and then back home. Garbage day today so we meaning me got it ready and put it out. I must say that I love our new bins. Just wish that we had something for recycling other than blue bags. But it is a start. Then we had supper and after supper my sister called. We had a great chat. Lots of laughter. Catching up. We decided that next summer (hopefully we can get together) we will have Christmas in August. Instead of celebrating some birthday we will have Christmas. I will bake their favourite treats and I will put up my small tree. I would decorate the house but my sister said “too much.” So the little tree it is. Funny thing that my phone did not cut in and out this time, was it because I was on the speaker phone? We chatted for almost two hours. I love my sister. She always makes me laugh so hard and brings joy to my heart. She does for me what Teddy does to Alvin.

Well time to head downstairs. I kept putting on the “SNOOZE” button this morning. I noticed that the frost is quite heavy this morning on the cars so definitely a colder morning. Thankfully when we were putting out the garbage last night, I remembered to put away the new garden house and drain it.

Have a wonderful Tuesday.

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

Always, Carol & Alvin

2021

Good Morning ALL! How are you this morning? I hope that life is treating you well. We had a good sleep. I noticed when I went to bed that the furnace did not go off once the house was warmed, it just continued to run. As I fell asleep I was hoping that it would turn off but found out at 4:00 a.m. when Alvin got me up that it was still running and likely did not turn off as it should do. So I quickly googled possible solutions / problems and went over the list and I have a new furnace filter, (which was the big reason), furnace has been cleaned, and some other things. They mentioned to check and see what position the furnace fan was at “ON” or “AUTO” and it was at on. So I flipped to AUTO and in a couple of moments it turned off and then a few minutes later came back on. “Auto” means that the fan automatically works only when the air is being heated or cooled. So once your home reaches the temperature set on the thermostat, the fan stops. “ON” means the fan is on 24/7, even when the air isn’t being heated or cooled. The “ON” mode costs you more money as opposed to the “AUTO” mode. Interesting. Well I certainly hope that this solves my problem. I do not remember the furnace running continuously in the ON position so perhaps there is an underlying problem. When a homeowner there is so much to know and unfortunately like parenthood there is no handbook (or maybe there is).

Well that has been my excitement for the night and early morning.

I am running late so will have to sign off.

The smoke fills our air from the fires in Saskatchewan. I hope that everyone is safe and that they are extinguished soon. Not much fun to walk in. We will say inside except for Alvin going to the backyard and me with him. My hair smelled like smoke and I was grateful to have a shower this morning.

I hope that you have an awesome day.

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

Always, Carol & Alvin

2021

Good Morning ALL! How are you doing this Wednesday morning, May 5th, 2021? We are okay here at my house. Mr. Alvin for some unknown reason has been up and down since 3:00 a.m. There are so signs of distress other than him whining from time to time but that is not unusual for him. He ate his breakfast in quick time as per usual and did his business outside. I will have to keep an eye on him. Perhaps it is arthritis in his paws/legs. Poor guy. He does not look sickly and his eyes are clear. They sometimes seem to tell me when something is off. Bored, perhaps. I do not know. Older age, possibility! So I am a bit on the sleep deprived side. So it is Wednesday, mid week. The sunrise was gorgeous, yes I watched the sky turn from my vantage point on my sofa. My windows in the living room face north but I can see how beautiful the sky is as it goes from night to sunrise to morning. There is a bit of a breeze this morning and I believe today is to be a good day weatherwise.

It is true that we never know what any day is going to bring us. Yesterday for example. At noon we only walked to the park and then turned around and headed for home as it had started to rain. Although I don’t mind walking in the rain, I really don’t like Alvin to get his ears wet. He can get ear problems faster than anyone I know. Does not matter that I careful dry them. So a short walk at lunch time. I made sure that I finished work right on time as I had our Annual General Meeting for our Union Chapter on Zoom. I wanted to feed both of us before the meeting and I managed to do so but it did take me 15 minutes to get into the meeting and I was ten minutes late joining. But I did it. After the meeting I cleaned things up and decided that as it was 13 degrees out at 7:00 p.m. that we should go for our regular walk. We did just that. There were a lot of folks out walking and walking with their dogs. We were just inside the park when I noticed a man coming down the path with two really large dogs. I walked onto the grass and almost to the fence of the houses that line the park giving them a wide berth. He saw us and walked around a tree and when I came back down to the sidewalk and he got the sidewalk he turned his head and started talking loud enough for me to hear that “something about COVID, he worked as a biologist/chemist something or other for a company and that they had come up with a quick test before something else.” He also mentioned about the numbers put out by the government were crap. I mentioned about the 30 million people in India that have COVID and he said that how come only 16 US states are reporting no COVID?, Mexico? and other places he mentioned have no COVID … he went on and on … stating that his family were all University trained (what the heck did that mean). He said so much and spouted off numbers and such and said the f word a couple of times or so. Clearly he did not believe that COVID was real as he said it is just influenza. I will say this kind of scared me. No wonder we are where we are ….. I did not hang around very long. But he managed to say a lot of something in just a couple of minutes.

We continued on our walk as I tried to make sense of anything that he said. Now he said so much and I could hear him but not hear word for word.

I arrived at home just in time to see that a call was coming in from messenger. I did not catch it in time. So I opened messenger to find a message from someone from my hometown, the place where I was born. I had not spoke to him in decades. He had sent me a message and as I was reading it I accidentally called him so we chatted and he apologized for contacting me with bad news. A guy that I went to elementary school with passed away. How incredibly sad. We chatted for a long time catching up on our families. I was grateful for his call.

What a strange evening. You never know where things will go or what will happen.

Well time to head downstairs, I am truly running late and that coffee is going to hit the spot this morning.

Continuing to live this live with kindness, respect, compassion and patience for all.

Always, Love Carol & Alvin