Sylvia's Simple Shots

My aunt and I took a walk along the river with our cameras recently.

It was very nice temperature wise and the sun was shining.  A great time.

As you can see, though the river is frozen but we still have no snow.

Love the fall grasses in the foreground with the reflection of the sun on the river.

Gorgeous blue skies which are typical for Alberta.

We heard geese which I was surprised were still here despite the frozen water.  Who knows what they are thinking!

I joined another aunt for a visit to the Art Gallery.  The weather was still nice and I was tasked with driving us downtown and finding parking.  That went well.  It was really weird to be out and about.

First time, I used my vaccination record to visit a non essential place of business in 20 months.

There were 2 exhibitions I was interested which both featured colorful art.  Mostly abstract as well.

The blue and pink piece was about the how color can be dispatched to for social control.  The pink color which is used in institutional settings was studied in 1978 and was found to make inmates violent.  The barn is a piece about our abandoned farm buildings.  Love the abstracts.

Our first snow arrived on Sunday Nov 14th.  

It continued to come down for a few days in varying degrees.

I had to go out on Wednesday and the roads were like slushy soup as they had not been ploughed yet.  Yuck!

I had several places to stop and it was a bit harried but I managed to keep the car and myself intact.

I made roasted vegetables yesterday.  I used the large roaster so I could keep them to one layer.

Yams, red onions, brussel sprouts, rutabaga, turnip, garlic and carrots.  A bit of olive oil and seasonings.

I added fresh oregano in the last bit of its time in the oven.

They were yummy.

That means its time to head for groceries as I am completely out of veggies in the fridge.

An Irish Cottage by Patrick Taylor is the book I finished this week.

Love this author and his stories of a medical practice in rural Ireland in the 1960's.  

In this book the Donnelly's looks their cottage to fire and the community rallies to find the family a temporary place to live.   Then further efforts are made to rebuild the burned out cottage.

The civil unrest with north and south regions plays a part which I don't really understand well.  

Another theme is women's reproductive rights in the 60's where one women is not wanting another child and another woman desperately wants one and is having difficulty conceiving.

The doctors and their house keeper and neighbours provide wonderful stories!

The Perfect Christmas - Debbie Macomber revolves around a young woman who wants to be in a relationship.

She finally decides to hire a matchmaker for $30,000 to find the perfect match for her by Christmas.

The matchmaker gives her several tasks to prepare for her first date with John, her perfect match.  She stands outside a mall ringing bells to raise funds for a charity, dressing up as an elf with Santa at the mall, and prepare Christmas dinner for her neighbors in the apartment building.

Each of these provide opportunities to learn things about herself and ensures visits from the matchmaker to monitor her progress.

In the end, she finds the man of her dreams but it was not exactly as the matchmaker had planned.

It was okay for a light read.