december days missed and photo dumping happens

so i missed a few days.

dec 20: the roads were still bad and katie thought she should do some shopping while she was here. after my shopping day with the reds i knew i wasn't up for a long marathon shop and so it was for the second year in a row i found myself being wheeled around richmond center mall in a wheel chair. if i thought about it i felt a bit discouraged, but i tried not to think about it. besides it doesn't mean i haven't improved in a year. it only means i regressed! *laughing sob*  

katie gave me this hair do.

we shopped 7 hours. just a good day's work. it was cold in the mall. was the heat even on? katie who was pushing me all over the place was not cold at all. elizabeth who was shopping separately from us and not finding any of the stores that she wanted was despondent and hungry so we met up with her at the pretzel shop and we gorged on pretzels and were somewhat revived. 

katie and i, on a whim, went into a store i didn't think had much promise, but turned out to be a treasure trove of amusing delights. we each found some treasures there. we kept finding pig things for mom. should i get this for mom? i'd laugh and laughing katie would exclaim 'yes!' and we'd feel twitterpated with ourselves and each other.

i have no memory of that evening. maybe it didn't happen.

dec 21: more shopping. this time we went to daiso. except daiso is no longer. now it is oomomo. i parked on the side of the road right outside of oomomo which is great, except for the wide swath of dirty slushy snow that needed to be crossed while lugging a wheelchair. except for that.  it was so bitterly cold outside and a vicious wind followed us inside making us shiver and groan.

shopping oomomo was fun. i filled up on japanese snacks for dad because if you are stuck on a dad gift, going with foods is a safe bet. katie found her things and the reds were sneaking around the aisles with their plans too. we indulged in green apple hi-chews and grape pychu's and headed home, bracing ourselves at the doors to outside and shrieking when the icy temperatures whirled around us without mercy.

stopped for some last minute things/groceries/stocking stuffers at price-smart where i walked on my own two feet for once in my life.

back at home we had lunch, mom's yummy soup, and katie and reds packed up and after not too long, dug their car out of the snow and headed back to chilliwack.

that night i got my hair cut.  off.   i got a cutie-cut from jenn at pomp and proper on main street. it sits just above my shoulders. good bye hair. hello chins. just kidding the chins were already there.

before cut:

after cut:

dec 22-23 quiet days at home doing wrapping and the like. wrapping and ribboning and tagging is my happy creative time. this is no secret. i got so cold on one of these days when i was not dressed properly for the weather, that i needed time under a fluffy plushy blanket with mom's donut warmer before i regained my body heat. was decidedly 'over' the arctic cold front. we watched the blindside and enjoyed the feel good of it.

dec 24: now i'm not sure if this was the 23rd of 24th but one of these days the cold streak ended and we got freezing rain. i think it was the 23rd. i enjoyed that day. it felt so good to be outside in the mildness of -3 weather. i drove around the morning dropping off dad's poop at the lab, last minute things at winners, etc. 

but first a windshield wiper adventure. i forgot to say that on one of the bitterly cold shopping days, i was de-icing the car and wiper blades and the driver's side wiper just came right off in my hands. broken. i bought a new one on the way home from my hair cut but i had to pee so badly that i didn't take the time to ask someone if i had the right blade. i needed one with a hook and this one said 'oe' and i had no idea what that meant. well norm didn't either. because i was trying to put it on the car that morning and couldn't understand the stupid directions so i called norm who came over to help. he couldn't get it either. despite 2 attachements/adapters we concluded i had bought the wrong one. derned bladder. 

i called samson and he said i could drop by and he'd help me. it was raining already. not super hard. so i drove to ok tire leaning over to look out the passenger side windshield. samson said "yep wrong one" and had a new one on before i could blink. but while i was blinking i got out of the car without the keys, or my phone and locked it.  it's been a long time since i've done that.  my car has keyless entry too. but the code is on my phone. ack. samson didn't have a slim jim but let me use the phone. luckily i had my purse on me and called my road side assistance. the guy on the phone thought i would have a long wait on a day like that day. but after being on hold for a while he came back and said johnny's towing would be there in 5-10 minutes ("lovely guy, by the way" said the insurance guy). well he was very lovely. and he was there in 5 minutes. and i was soon on my way.

that night shawn, one of dad's care aides, who is kind of obnoxious and rude, but also always goes the extra mile was worried about the slew of icicle daggers hanging over the path. so he took mom's plunger and started throwing it at the icicles. i got off big chunks but then he threw the plunger on the roof. i saw it happen. the next day the rain came for reals and all the snow was being washed away.

on the actual 24th all i know is i finished the last of the wrapping and helped dad do some last minute online present shopping. katie and brent and red heads came for perogies and candle ceremony which was really nice. michealah and cordell joined via zoom. we sang angels for opening and far far for closing. that felt the most true of all the christmas things. it was so nice. martha was coming for christmas but in the end couldn't because she had to work early on boxing day so katie and brent took her presents for us.

dec 25th: i had to speak in church and was up 4ish to work on my talk. it was a 5 minute talk on a parable. it is actually harder to prepare a 5 min talk in a way because you gotta say it all in a short amount of time. i finished my preparations, got gorgeous and went downstairs. before i left for church we had time for mom and dad to open their stockings. i ended up doing stockings for them because i bought so many little things that were stockingish. it was funny because dad's stocking was all snacks and he had taken a medicine that meant he couldn't eat anything for 30 minutes and each thing that he would pull out he would start to open and i would snatch it out of his hands. haha. you can imagine the look on his face. we actually ended up having time to open most of the presents. 2 of my favourite gifts were a kitchen garbage can, which i really needed, and slinky hot pink earrings.

my talk went alright. i was the first speaker and it was nice to get it over with. load off. at least one person said that was the message she needed so that was gratifying. the choir sang 3 hymns. it was a long service. in my opinion i wish we had more congregational singing. and more songs that people love to sing like joy to the world, angels, far far and hark the harold. we sand o little town of bethlehem. i understand that some people like that carol, and i don't want to be a douglas erin, casting dispersions on silent night, type of person, but that is just not the most enjoyable singing experience, in my opinion. still the service was nice enough. aftwerwards i sat on the bench beside evelyn while she played the 'postlude' music and we chatted and people came up and gave her gifts. the brodie family was there and it was so good to see the. bailey came up to say hi with her cutie chubby cheeked babe and sis brodie came seperately. and since it was a joint service i saw tony in the back and i was so happy to see him and thought about my departed friend mei lin throughout the service.

when i came home mom and and dad were both snoozin. i ate some left over perogies and went upstairs and prepped the boid and popped her in the oven, peeled all the roots and doused them with butter and honey, ready for their time in the oven.

a couple of hours later ma n pops beet were ready to open the last of the presents which we did and then mom and i went about our respective arduous whirlwinds of dinner prep. for me it was making the gravy and carving the turkey. the carving is an involved process in which i find myself elbows deep in turkey flesh, and grease, gobbling little delicious bits while i carve. finally i poured the gravy into jars and lugged my wares down the stairs where mom was finishing up with her sweat-on-forehead, out of breath work. we put everything together and were only sad we had no homemade buns. it was the smallest christmas dinner with just the 3 of us but we did our best to stuff our faces and i think we did a good job. some of the roasted roots got burnt but only the some from the smallest pan. mom made gramma's green jello salad with cottage cheese and pineapple. it was so good. she decorated it with flowers made from nuts and marachino cherries. it looked very 80's cookbook. we were too full for dessert.

the perenial christmas jacket

dec 26: the rain stopped and the sun was shining. it was a balmy 10 degrees out. so we decided to go on a walk around the park. i pushed dad. it was nice. i sorted pieces for my new puzzle. we had some good games of skip bo, good because i won both of them.

dec 27: snacks, games and naps. i worked a lot on photos.  i posted pics from the major events of my year on instagram. i had only like 3 or 4 posts for the whole year and i wanted it to be more representative of my year. 

i gave mom these lilac cozy pants to go with the fluffy fleece of the same colour i got her last year. here she is in full outfit.

here she is in her spirit shirt

that night i met dave diel for dinner at the shoestring cafe. i had a gc for it from a member, jason, who gave both jimmy and i gc's to thank us for administering first aid to his badly burned leg/foot for a couple of weeks.  anyways it was time for dave and i to meet up and i thought it was a good opportunity to use my gc. the restaurant was on no 6 in a warehouse area. it was kind of expensive. most of the mains were in the 40 dollar range. so we shared some appetizers. calamri, which was pretty good, crab cake, which came in the singular, and shoestring fries.  i think the calamari was the best of the 3 things. we finished it off with some chocolate souffle and ice cream. 

we got on to the topic of geography and dave was being super condescending and challenged me to some geography wars. he had to say all the countries in europe. he did pretty good but didn't remember the right name for san marino or monaco and almost forgot germany and hungary. i did asia. he was super annoying because instead of listening to me say the names he would stop me and try to direct me in the order in which i was to say them. then didn't realize all the ones i said. his condescension was a little grating. even when he was impressed with my knowledge, it was in a condescending way. pfft. i really showed him up with africa though. still it wasn't satisfying. when i got home i realized that in my recital of asian countries i forgot saudi arabia, yemen, oman, uae, bahrain, qatar. not that i don't know them, but i forgot to say them. so i'm not the great geography guru either but i didn't say i was.

anywho.

dec 28: mom and i were going to go to the temple. today was her respite day. i woke up feeling nauseous.  ...actually nauseated is the right way to say it  saying i'm nauseous means i make others feel nauseated, which maybe that's true. so the temple day was off and i spent most of the morning in bed. when i got up i decided doing the dishes would make me feel better. i had left the christmas dinner mess. so i tackled it. it wasn't too bad. mostly big things. i put my new garbage can into use, swept the floor and wonder of wonders i vaccuumed the spilled dirt in my bedroom. there's been spilled dirt at the end of my bed since the mother took a spill sometime in the fall. i rarely go to the end of my bed so it's easy to ignore. but today was the day to take care of it. and i did.

and now... a photo dump from february and march of 2022

the mother. in bloom. she's grown so much since then. she can't hold herself up anymore. she's in bloom again. as we speak.

my christmas amarylis didn't bloom until february. this year i neglected it and i'm sorry. look how gorge. also see the such catcher i made myself last christmas.

 amarylis in all her glory:

my little fuzzy soft purr baby izzybizzy. miss the old lady. never noticed before how she camoflauged with the carpet. she was so cute!

love the late afternoon sun making shadows of the flowers on my walls...or was this morning light? i dunno. either way i love it.

one sunny sunday in february i took mom and dad to the beach. it was too cold to stay long but i took some clicks.

i was ready for spring. also i have a life long love of weeping willows and this day was no exception.

the sky...

why is it so beautiful to me?

while taking a series of pics of this tree and this path and these path walkers i eventually realized that the guy in red under the tree was doing his prayers.  but it took a while to see.

right about now is when i saw it. good choice of tree for your prayers, red shirt.

so many people walking dogs. this corgie was so cute. he looks ready for adventure.

some kind of party was happening.

shadows...

the next day was family day and heather and i went for a walk at boundry bay. and my favourite tree there, is suprise, a willow. i call it moody tree. it has captured my imagination for many a year.

one weekend in march heather and i met at english bay to walk the  seawall and see the famed beached barge before it was taken away. it was a glorious day with lots of signs of spring. like these croci.

and here's the barge. large as life.

da

daffodils and geese landing in the distance. i lay on the ground for this shot and needed heather's help to get up.

canadian geese refelctions

no. here was where i lay among the daffodils on a slant and needed help up. barge in distance.

large barge

beauty barge in charge

"do your classic pose" i bossed. heather does her best to comply with sore knees. one day we won't be able to roll about on the ground or do our classic poses. but until then we do our things that we always do.

also one day in march mom and i got up early to go see natalie off at the airport. off to the england mtc.  off into the world.

and that is the end of this loooooooong post. look for more photo dumps to come.