November life

Nov. 6

A good strong cup of Red Rose tea, a fire in the stove, and sunshine on the floor.

I am online, looking up recipes for baked halibut.  I think I found one that looks good and isn’t too hard.  Tim and Tammy from church gave us a wonderful bag of fish as a pastor appreciation gift and I’ve been hoarding it.  But I knew my cooking needed some spicing up and last night when my niece (Hi, Mrs. Smith! That is her name, for real) posted on facebook that  she was making maple glazed salmon with honey roasted almonds, I remembered that I had salmon and halibut in the freezer.

I’ve been feeling kind of flat the last two days.  It is probably partly jet lag and just simply getting back into normal life after our trip to Ontario for a wedding last weekend.  At the risk of sounding exaggerated. I pronounce it a fabulous trip.

We flew from Edmonton to Hamilton, which made it fun for the four children we took along with us.  We stayed with wonderful hosts in a big old farmhouse, where we had the upstairs all to ourselves and enjoyed breakfasts with our hosts and sitting in what I’d call a parlor to visit.  I’d forgotten all about the sitting rooms in those old houses.  One was what they called the family room and the other a living room.  And they were both beautiful, though one is more cozy and lived in than the other.

I’d forgotten about the beautiful brick and stone houses back east.  With huge porches! Decorated with pots of geraniums and mums! And rocking chairs!  So pretty and inviting.

I met up with two friends I’d known only through blogging.  We ate extraordinary pie and roasted pork with friends who’d first visited us here at BayTree on a trip to Alaska.  Our girls stayed with another family in a big farmhouse and had a wonderful time.  Our two oldest boys met us in Ontario after driving across the country to get there.  We had brunch and a lovely visit with friends from Guatemala that we knew from our days in Belize.

And then there was a wedding and weddings are always sweet.  Dan officiated and the happy couple looked like they’d never quit smiling.

I burned my favorite veil when I went to iron it at our host’s house, so for the whole weekend I was wearing this big, boxy thing in a land of super neat white caps.  Oh, life is so humbling.

While in Ontario, we got to meet Alec’s girlfriend from Pennsylvania.  She is a delightful person and will get along famously with our family, I do believe.

Nov. 7

Another cup of tea, a dying fire, and rather dubious sunshine patches.

I just finished washing off the front of the house from the mud we had weeks ago.  I tried to do it the other day, but it was too cold.  Anyone who has a clean door and dogs is my hero.  Keeping doors clean is a big job with dogs, kids, and mud.  Not to mention house fronts with pale yellow siding.

Bryant is gone to Wisconsin for two months.  He is living with Dan’s parents and working in his uncle Todd and aunt Kim’s bulk food store.  I am feeling empty-nestish about one less plate at the table.

This morning I cleaned my plant room.  My mom loved plants and I remember her cleaning her big plant table in the south window on Saturdays.  She was always pinching and repotting and tidying them.  When she and Dad built their retirement home (where we now live), she had a big sunroom built on to the south end of the house where she could start her tomato and cabbage plants in the spring.  And where she could display all her houseplants.

Alas.  I like plants too.  But I am lazier than my mom.  I feel like I should use the big sunroom, so it’s full of plants.  But mostly I just water them to keep them from dying.  I don’t trim and tidy and repot like Mom did.  Some of them do well.  Others do not spark joy.

We are having meetings next weekend and a guest speaker from Wisconsin.  So I was inspired to do some upkeep in my plant room.

It looks much better now.

I don’t know why blogging satisfies me so much, but it does.

Thanks once again for reading here.

If you are on facebook and/or instagram, the following pictures won’t interest you because you probably already saw them.

Happy weekend!

For some reason the captions don’t show unless you click on the pictures.

A few Ontario friends:

Do you bloggers remember mytoesareblue from xanga days? We met up in Listowel at Impressions Bakery and it was so fun.

Another blogging friend, Jennifer Jantzi. I just noticed, Jenn, that your initials are JJ. Do people ever call you that?

Stephan and Brenda Gingerich

 

 

And a few of my sketches:

 

My sister Carol and her daughter Jessica

I couldn’t decide which of these sketches I liked best.