What a great day

All my cards and my flowers

Tuesday was my birthday and I had a wonderful day because my darling husband made it special. On Monday he handed me a lovely bouquet of flowers. I love flowers in the house even if I do have to keep them away from our cats. Lucky enough in this house I have a lovely mantel where the cats do not get.

My Birthday morning arrived I awoke to my first treat, a special cup of English toffee coffee nice and frothy and the first of many cards. Once up and about the treats and cards continued to come. I opened the cupboard where I keep my bullet cups for making my morning smoothie and there in the cup was a bag of maltesers, I love maltesers. There was another card on my chair. Richard went off to the church to work and I continued getting ready for the rest of my day.

Richard came home for lunch with the news that he would be staying home for the evening. Tuesday is his night for teaching confirmation class, the class was canceled for that evening, not because it was my birthday,one of the girls was not well. We decided that we would decide during the afternoon if we would go out for supper or stay home.

As I had plans to go out for the afternoon Richard went to the gym to work-out as usual. Jeanette from church picked me up at three and drove me over to Shananigans coffee house. Gerdie met us there and we had special coffee and a fruit cup dessert. Jeanette was disappointed that none of the other ladies from church were able to join us. It was a great afternoon out.

As I had already gone out during the afternoon I was quite happy to stay home for the evening. Before Richard prepared supper he handed me another birthday bag which had a bar of Walker's Traditional Slab Toffee inside. I have been craving this toffee for months and it is hard to find here in Canada. On Sunday we went into Winners, after lunch with Pat and Merv, where Richard saw the English import of my favourite toffee. Of course that wasn't the only item in the bag there was another card.

Supper was Richard's wonderful chili with chopped fresh tomatoes and grated cheese on top. It was so good. I always like something sweet after dinner and Richard out did himself. He had purchased a toffee cheese cake which he served with toffee crunch ice cream, fresh raspberries and blackberries, talk about decadent.

Another bag was handed to me with yet another toffee slab and card. Then came my main gift. I have a brand new Sony Vaio Laptop computer. Of course I am using this evening to type this blog. The first advantage of of having a laptop is that I can sit in front of the TV and type while watching my favourite shows and spending time with Richard.

What made the day so special were the phone messages that I received. Yes it meant I had missed all the calls from the children but each one had left a message for me. First one was Kegan wishing Nanny a Happy Birthday, it was so cute. Next was Ian with a happy birthday wish and a reminder of his phone number. The final message was from Evette with a promise that she would phone later, which she did later in the evening once Zachary was in bed.

I love having birthdays, I never worry and it does not bother me how old I get, I love the fuss that my darling husband makes of me. Many will think six birthday cards a bit overboard but I love cards and love the fact that he puts them where I will find them and be surprised. My last card was on my pillow when I turned in for the night.

Thank you Richard for making my day so special.

5 Pin Bowling

On Sunday the congregation had an afternoon out to 5 pin bowl and pizza afterwards. Richard signed us both up for the fun.

I have not been 5 pin bowling since my kids left to live with their father. Of course I had two good legs back then. Also back then I would pride myself in not being too bad a bowler.

Bowling today is quite a challenge (different from bowling in our living room on the Wii too!). The first hurdle was finding bowling shoes that would fit my prosthesis, no success so they allowed me to wear a clean pair of runners that I brought with me. Verna had mixed up the teams really well, I was with Merv, Mark and Sheila. The two guys were obviously fairly good especially Merv who bowled a 232 on his second game this also was the high score of the afternoon. Sheila and I were fairly evenly matched although by the third game she did a lot better than me.

It was weird not being able to do my old stride forward and let the ball go. I had to walk to the edge of the alley, take a deep breath to focus my mind, aim, and then throw the bowling ball. I couldn't get the correct balance at all, by the third game I was over compensating for my lack of balance first right then left, gutters that is. I only managed one strike and no spare on all three games. I was disappointed I could not break 100.

I'm still proud of the fact that I went out and bowled. I didn't just watch because of my amputation, I actually participated. The time after the bowling was great, sharing pizza with everyone who came out. Richard took some time out to teach the teens how to play pool or billiards, not sure which one, they had a blast. This was a good Sunday afternoon of entertainment with our new church family and I look forward to many more.

Sorry there are no pictures but Richard and I forgot to bring our camera and I guess everyone else did to, so no pictures of the wild event.

Outside Jobs Planned

These are not new pictures but old ones I've put notes on to make it easier to explain the work to be done, hopefully, in the Spring. That is, if spring ever comes!

This is the front of our home and as you can see there is so much forest you can barely see the house. The first order of the day is to get quotes to remove four trees and the two cedars from the property. Here I've marked the two cedars to be removed.

I've marked three tress here. Numbers 1 and 2 are probably Elms, although they could be Maples, and they are probably on City property. If they are Elms we have to remove or prune before April 1st as per a City by law; Maples can be removed and pruned anytime.

Now if they do belong to the City and we cut them down there will be a fine. The fine being the value of two fully grown mature trees. Number 1 tree has grown against the house and is beginning to cause moss damage to our roof. If we do nothing to the tree our roof will need replacing a lot sooner than the estimated 6 to 8 years from now.

Tree number 3 is a spruce and is on our property therefore will be removed. Number 4 tree (not in any picture) is a Maple in the far bottom corner of our property. This area we intend to level in order to a place to park our motor home. The dirt from here will be used to regrade the land on the west side of the house.

I've called four tree removal companies and received two quotes to date. The first one is for $1,565, not including stump removal. The 2nd quote for exactly the same trees is for $790, also not including the stump removal. We still have two other companies to give us quotes. The City still needs to let us know if trees 1 & 2 are theirs and if they will remove them. If not both at least tree number 1 by the side of the house.

The next project; the need to replace all the eavestroughing on both sides of the house and along the front of the porch. Again four companies were contacted initially over a month ago, having heard from none of them I recontacted them two weeks ago. So far only one has been out to discuss what we would like and take measurements. No quotes have been received but we should here by Monday from the first company.

With the Eavestroughing we to remove the existing flashing that joins the porch to the house and replace it with flexible flashing. Once this is done the leaks into the porch should stop. We have also requested a quote for a zinc strip to be placed on the porch roof to stop the moss from growing there. The house faces north and this part of the roof will always be prone to moss growth even with the trees taken out. The house inspector informed us that the Zinc strip will impede the moss growth. This quote will also come from the companies who quote on the eavestroughing.