Tag Archives: the Ultimate Blog Challange

A Certain Kind of Light

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It’s the 7th day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I am late coming to the keyboard. Life is busy in this time of my life. My father is almost 95 and every day can be unpredictable. He has congestive heart failure and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). We spent alot of time at the doctor’s, walk-in clince and ER last year after my mother passed. We were thankful that this year has been much better. Still there are episodes.

Today was a doctor day. We were fortunate that we got an appointment. He has been seen, x-rayed and on medications. He is tough and still interested in life and this world of ours. I think he will be okay. I have accepted that this is what is and that I still have a life to tend to. I will be okay also. It was just a little difficult to manage a wheelchair and doors alone. Lucky for me that there were many friendly hands to help.

After the doctor, we went and renewed our application for wheelchair parking permit for another 3 years. Then it was time for coffee at the mall with our friends. Life is still very good and beautiful. Good friends to have coffee with help. Then there’s my gardens. My front yard is so beautiful. It is hard to described. It is bathed in a certain kind of light in the afternoon. It reminds me of the opening line in the Bee Gees’ To Love Somebody. For all the issues I have with my father, I guess I do love him.

“There’s a light, a certain kind of light, that never shone on me”.

My front yard has been an issue with my neighbour for many years. She objects growing vegetables in the fron yard. She calls my raised beds coffins. She has reported me to the city about my messy yard. The city does not agree with her. Maybe all of this is because she really does not like me. I find that hard to understand because I don’t have a relationship with her. Now in these times I wonder if it is because of the colour of my skin. And I am an immigrant. I feel my yard is breath takingly beautiful in a certain kind of light in the afternoon, weeds and all.

No Easy Living

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I woke up to sun at 6 am this July 5th. The first sunny morning all summber. I smiled and the garden smiled. My artic rose is in bloom and so is a peony. In the greenhouse the bitter melons are coming into fruit. I have 3 little ones nodding their little heads. I’ve tagged them so I can readily find them.

It is heating up and I am sweating from trimming the grass and weeds. I am not finished. I’m taking a break as the string trimmer ran out of string. I will have to wind another spool. I am learning to love this tool as it saves me from labourous digging of all those creeping bellflowers. No matter how deep you dig, they keep coming back. Now I am whacking them out at dirt level.

Yesterday, I went to tackle our community garden plot. I was happy to see that my sister was already there and did the weeding and was ready to water it. Two less jobs for me! I staked the two rows of snow peas with bamboo. That was plenty enough work in the heat. Our plot looks pretty good. So does my brother’s right next to ours. We take turns doing the watering.

my sister’s and mine plot
my brother’s plot

It is summer time. I haven’t found it easy living like the song suggests. But then I haven’t found easy living in other seasons either. There’s always work, work and more work. But would I have it any other way? I best mosey along before I talk myself into the blues. The battery is charged up and the spool is threaded for more whipping up grass and weeds. I am also charged up.

Still Here

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It’s July the third and the third day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I am still here. We are having more sunshine today though I still woke up in darkness this morning. Yesterday’s thunderstorm warning came to naught. There’s a 50% of rain for this evening. For now I can bask a little in the sun.

It was hard work this morning washing out white cabbage butterfly eggs off my broccoli and cabbage plants. The whole bed was heavily infested with them though they are under heavy netting. Perhaps we did not do it soon enough. Researching, I found that soapy water can kill the eggs. I will do a daily morning and evening check for them. I did find 2 caterpillars. I feel a bit discouraged with this year’s strange weather, white cabbage butterflies, eggs and caterpillars. My bed of peppers have survived the leafroller caterpillars. But with our cloudy cool weather, they are not big nor robust. Whether they will come to fruit is questionable. Oh the joy of growing food.

It’s 6 pm and no rain yet. There’s a severe thunderstorm warning. We did reached a high of 25℃ today. Anything is possible. Tomorrow is the fourth of July. I wonder what fireworks are coming from our southern U.S. neighbour. This morning I read that a Catholic nun was arrested by ICE while she was walking to attend mass at a church in Texas. Yesterday Major Watson was arrested for calling for Trump’s impeachment. I am heartened that courage and morality are still here. As Heather Delaney says, This is why I still have hope. And you should, too. See you tomorrow.

Pretty in White

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April 25th, 5 more days left in April and 5 more days in the Ultimate Blog Challenge. It is still snowing. My world is pretty in white. The pink garage door is a beautiful accent. I am tired, having stood the while, prepping and putting all the ingredients for chicken soup in the Instant Pot. I feel the snow in my bones. While it is not devastinating pain, it is the ache that can make you scream. So, a tylenol, a cup of tea and a few words of complaint for ease.

The sun is struggling through the grey. Some is better than none. The greenhouse feels amazingly warm at just a little above 10℃. I had to shovel or wade through the deep snow to get to its door. I shoveled. The snow was wet and heavy. It was good exercise. I filled a bucket and added it to the half pail of water inside. Then I filled the bucket again. It will melt down for more watering the beds and seedlings. I hope this will be the last snowfall till next winter. The forecast says flurries are expected to start in 38 minutes. But just now the sun burst through the grey as if to say, No!

Needless to say, the weather and life are a bit strange these days. I feel as if I am living in Margaret Atwood’s science fiction. It would be nice that I’m just having a bad dream. It would be wonderful if when I wake up, there’s no snow and no climate change, no Donald Trump, Pete whatshisname, Kash Patel and all their gang. I wonder if that’s too much to ask for.

Mad as a Hatter

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I’m still mad as hell, breathing fire and brimstone, that the world is not according to how I would like it. I feel like bashing my head on the desk. Who do I think I am anyways that I could put in such an order? When has anybody listened and heard me? Perhaps that’s what infuriates me the most, my insignificance and helplessness.

There! I’ve said it outloud. I’m feeling better. It’s like getting a bit of oxygen when you’re gasping for air. I’m feeling like Alice, falling down the rabbit hole. Sometimes I feel like I’m going mad. Wonderland would be a good place to be in for a mind break. I could have tea with the Mad Hatter, March Hare and Door Mouse and talk nonsense.

I really enjoy these wonderful lines.

From Alice.

  • “I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.” 
  • “What is the use of a book,’ thought Alice, ‘without pictures or conversations?” 
  • “I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it.” 
  • “Curiouser and curiouser!” 

From the Mad Hatter & March Hare:

  • “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” 
  • “If you knew Time as well as I do… you wouldn’t talk about wasting it.” 
  • “Begin at the beginning,’ the King said, very gravely, ‘and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” 
  • “You used to be much more… muchier. You’ve lost your muchness.” 

From the Cheshire Cat:

  • “We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.” 
  • “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.” 
  • “If you don’t know where you are going, any road can take you there.” 
  • “You may have noticed, I’m not all there myself.” 

I haven’t been all there or here lately myself. But I think I’ve chased the madness out of me. I’m feeling much, much better now. What a relief, eh!