Sylvia's Simple Shots

It has been another busy week with travel and health appts and the storms and cold.

This is a bit of snow taken from inside through the window in the lobby.

Christmas cards have been arriving in the mail.

A bit of an icy trip into the city on Sunday to visit my old church. 

During the brunch afterwards I was able to see many of my friends and say hi!

There was sweets on for eats so I did bring home  a couple of Nanaimo bars.

I had a visit with my sister and brother and delivered caramel popcorn while I was in town.

With the weather improving on Monday I headed out to see my sister and brother in law.

They prepared Turkey Dinner for me and I brought stuff to make Raspberry Bavarian that Mom used to make. Used tapioca instead of gelatin so it was ready for supper.

A few more shots from my sister's place. She has a lot of the ornaments we have created for our family Christmas celebrations.  The angel is one I did one year.

Beautiful nativity from Germany.

A couple of Scrabble games after supper.

Turkey noodles for lunch the next day.

Driving home in the sunshine was a blessing.

In the middle of a snow storm I headed out to get vaccine shots.  I had to wait 3 weeks for the appt so I was not rescheduling.  Flu in the left and COVID in the right.  

I took Advil for 2 days for the soreness then I was good to go.

Great to have access to these.

My sister sent turkey leftovers which provided me a couple of meals.  There was one serving of turkey noodles for Tuesday night.  I have frozen one piece of turkey for later.

Thanks sis!

Spoiled is what I am.  High bush cranberry sauce that my sister gave me in the fall.  We normally pick this together but it did not happen this year.

Yummy!

A Log Cabin Christmas Collection by Wanda E. Brunstetter was light reading.

Nine love romance stories set in the pioneer west of the USA in 1800s.  Deep cold winters, warm fires, log cabins, and men and women getting together in several surprising situations.

Faith was a consistent theme through all the stories.

Short enough the read before falling asleep.

Several days of very cold days and the snow on Wednesday ensured a Christmasy feeling.

I am so glad to have seen family earlier.  Now, if I have to hunker down inside because of the cold weather it is all okay.

I decided to get the art shelf up in the front hall. 

This building seems to challenge me with electrical wires in many of the places I want to put a screw.

I did have to alter my plan some what and I had pencil marks all over the wall. I aligned the right hand edge of the shelf with the same edge on the mirror.

I hope to have a plant trail down from the shelf down to the mirror eventually.

I moved all the furniture out which gave me the chance to wash the lace cover while I worked.

The art shelf will allow me to change the art as I want with out having holes in the walls.

Unpacking paintings, photos, frames, and more which I brought home a while ago from my aunts.

I now have Mom and Dad sitting on a book shelf with the fairy light a created in their remembrance after Mom passed away in 2023.

The colors are green for Dad and blue for Mom.

Starting to feel like home.

Sylvia's Simple Shots

Woke up with a fever this morning and tested positive for COVID. Yeah.

It is not surprising after the year I have had.

I will be staying home for a while and just sitting in my chair, reading, watching TV and sleeping.

I expect a decent amount of Kleenex will be used as well.

With staying at home I finished another book.

Cold Cold Bones - Kathy Reichs - Temperence Brennan living in North Carolina spends time with her daughter Katy who has recently returned to civilian life after time in the military.

Bizarre things start happening, a human eyeball with GPS coordinates, mummified corpse in a park, and more.  She works with retired detective Siddell and her Montreal based beau - Andrew Ryan.

Then her daughter disappears.

A pattern eventually emerges that these relate to previous cases Tempe has been called to work on as a forensice anthropologist.

It has a very twisted end.  

I enjoyed this book and will have to keep an eye out for otheres.  I did watch the TV series.

I found this film on my TV this week.  Toast with Freddie Highmore.

Set in 1960s England, Toast follows young Nigel Slater, a food-loving boy whose world is shaped by his mother’s terrible cooking and his father’s indifference. 

When his mother dies, a new housekeeper, Mrs. Potter, enters their lives. Skilled in the kitchen and soon romantically involved with Nigel's father, she becomes Nigel’s rival, sparking a culinary battle between them.

Nigel enters culinary school, starts working in a pub and finds himself competing with his stepmother -- both in the kitchen and for his father's attention.

It was worth watching.

Another book I finished this week while isolating because of illness.

Buckingham Palace Gardens by Anne Perry.

The Prince of Wales has asked 4 wealthy entrepreneurs and their wives to the palace to discuss a fantastic idea: a 6,000 mile railroad that would stretch the full length of Africa from the Cape to Cairo.

The gathering falls into chaos when a prostitute is found murdered in a linen closet. Inspector Thomas Pitt is called in to discreetly investigate. He brings in his maid Gracie to assist so he can access what the house staff may know - which is more than one thinks.

It rests with Pitt to solve the murder - in doing so he must reconcile his own concept of justice with those who feel it is within their right to make their own laws, whatever the consequences.

I always enjoy this time period and I have read some of her books before. 

Enjoyed the book.

Sylvia's Simple Shots

Nice to have a cool Christmas story in the middle of a summer heat wave.

A Baxter Family Christmas by Karen Kingsbury.

I am not familiar with the family but there is a very good summary at the beginning of the book.  

John the patriarch of the family has invited the recipient of his precious Erin's heart, Kendra Bryant for Christmas Eve dinner.  Erin, her husband and 3 of their 4 children were killed in a car accident. Some of the siblings don't want to meet her and make different plans.  It will be a different Christmas than the one everybody has celebrated in the past.

Flanigans are friends of the Baxters but due to changes which have taken place in the last few years they have not recently joined the family for the traditional Christmas Eve dessert and Pictionary evening.

Maddie West a granddaugther has been helping with the Christmsas children's play organized by Bailey and Brandon. Connor Flannigan has been asked to judge the auditions for this years show by his sister Bailey.  There is instant chemistry between Maddie and Connor but there will be some trials between Thanksgiving and Christmas that they will need to navigate.

I packed up the bookcases this week in preparation for the removal of the carpet later this week.

The bedroom is getting pretty full of stuff from the living room and dining room.

The heat wave has started and it was HOT all week!

The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George is a book I read this week.

Monsieur Perdu runs a book shop on a refurbished barge docked in Paris on the river Seine.  He lives in a house with several other residents.  Catherine Le P. as recently moved after separating from her husband.  She has very little and the owner of the house is asking for donations, in particular a table. Monsieur Perdu has an extra table which has not seen in 20 years as it was closed off in a room when his love left him.

Catherine finds a letter in the drawer of the table which Monsieur Perdu received when Manon his love left.  He has not opened it.  He was afraid and has lived his life hiding for a long time.

After some persuasion, he reads the letter and it was not as he expected.  He has wasted 20 years and now he must find her.  He releases the barge and heads south on the Seine.

Many adventures are had.  It was a very easy read and delightful to travel France.

I was very grateful when my sister and brother-in-law agreed to come help remove the carpet.

The temperatures were soaring and it was hot and sweaty work.

I had most of the dining room done when they arrived.  We worked from 10:30 am to 1:00 pm to get the carpet and tack strips put into rolls.

We washed up, changed clothes and headed to Boston Pizza for lunch in air conditioning.  We had great food, conversation and rested for a couple of hours.

There was a lot of rubber cement and areas of adhesive that needed to scraped down with blades to make sure the surface was smooth.

The underlay was just a mishmash of different colors and remnants all just patchworked together. All the seams had been glued.  Not exactly wonderful.  They took away the 11 rolls of carpet so that was one less job for me.  Thanks so much!

The installation of the new flooring has been put on hold.

Plans to start on Monday are postponed until approval has been granted.

YUCK!

I decided to paint the dining room.

In the top left hand corner of the collage you can see how the place was painted before I moved in.

The electrical plates were not removed and the paint did not even go to the edges.

It was a very hot and sweaty job.  The paint was drying fast so I had to take it a little bit at a time to get it covered well.

It was a full afternoon of up and down the step stool and my arms were tired by the end of the afternoon.

It looks fabulous!  Worth it.

I got my COVID shot this week.

It was not like the old days, I walked into my pharmacy with my updated prescriptions and asked whether I could schedule a shot and was told we can do right away.

Filled out the paper work, got the shot and waited my 15 minutes and it was done!

Sylvia's Simple Shots

I visited the Heritage Hills Wetlands this week on a day where the weather was considerably cooler than a few days ago.  

Also, there was not waterfowl to be found.  No Red Winged Blackbirds so I expect they had headed south.  I have not seen any V formations of Canada Geese headed south but I may have missed them.

Considering that it is almost Halloween we have been blessed with a wonderful fall.

I did find this sparrow.

Most of my siblings headed to the Big Mall for a get together, our first since both Mom and Dad have passed. 

My sister organized a night out to a dinner theater.  We made time before supper to visit but a pub was not the best venue though it was close by. Dealing with the crowds at the mall were stressful.

The dinner theatre - music was excellent, food was very good, company was great, but I have to say it was a late night for me.

We need to make the effort to continue to get together so I am grateful for the sister who planned and those that attended.

I did manage to get an appointment to get my flu shot and my COVID vaccine this week.   They were just made available this week.

I got the shots in my left arm on Thursday and I did take a pain killer to sleep that night. I did take pain meds another couple of times.  

I guess it was at least 3 to 4 days with a sore arm but no other side effects.

I did get my appointment at my regular pharmacy so that was very convenient.

I did get a big grocery shopping trip done before the snow came.

I found these dishes on sale at the grocery store and decided that I would get a set of 2 cups and plates since they were under $1 each. The color is marked as wheat.

I added a nice glazed gourd and a small shiny glazed bowl. I believe this color was sunflower or something like that. That would have been the preferred color but there were no cups left in that line of dishes.

Just another option for hosting a friend for tea.

I decided to try my hand with a dip pen.  It has been on my mind for a while and Inktober came across my feed on Flickr I decided to try it. Inktober is a yearly event where drawing is encouraged.

I did have to unpack my liquid inks to give this a try.  I cleaned some nibs and got started. 

I really have no idea what I am doing.  I just created marks on a piece of card stock.  

I have view a few videos since this attempt and found better nibs in my stash. 

It's just a relaxing time.

Sylvia Simple Shots

I booked my 4th COVID Booster shot with health services and was given a pharmacy I had not been to before. I needed it done so I agreed.  I carefully walked the block and entered into a space with no one else in there.  Different for sure. I was quickly given my shot and waited my fifteen minutes. 

I limped home and all I had was a sore arm for a day.

I had been limping since the 6th of January but managing but not getting any better. 

After a urgent care doctor visit on January 12th, I headed for an ultrasound on my right knee/leg to check for blood clots the next day.

At home, on my way up the stairs I felt a pop in the back of my knee and the pain got 10X worse.

I spent the day waiting for ultrasound results, having a nurse assessment, a Zoom Medical Doctor visit and at last a call from my own doctor.  She confirmed no blood clots! Wonderful but what is wrong. After answering another ton of questions she had an idea what it might be. She did not a feel a visit to emergency was necessary and suggested icing and elevating and she would see me Monday, Jan 16th. 

In the meantime, I borrowed a walker and a cane from my sister who delivered it that afternoon. After icing the knee felt a lot better.

I have kept the cane, as physiotherapy has been prescribed but more about that later.

With some down time I finished this book - Sutton by J.R. Moehringer.

This story is centered around a real figure of Willie "The Actor" Sutton who was an American bank robber. So named for the disguises he used while committing his crimes.  During his forty-year robbery career he stole an estimated $2 million, and he eventually spent more than half of his adult life in prison and escaped three times. He did not kill a single person during these many robberies. 

He is pardoned Christmas Eve 1969 and he spends Christmas Day with a reporter and a photographer while they revisit the scenes of his crimes and other key events/crossroads of his life. I believe there were 17 marks on the map and they would have to be visited in chronological order.  

This book is very well written and a joy to read. 

Flickr Macro Mondays challenge was "shadows" this week. 

I took quite a few shots of several different things.  I was not able to decide and ran out of energy to actually post an image.

Here's one of the shots.

A glass bowl vase with a ripple edge. 

I am having trouble keeping track of all the stuff that has happened, no wonder I am exhausted.