Monthly Archives: August 2015

Share Your World 2015 – Week 33

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……thanks Cee for four more great questions

What are some words that just make you smile?

Ice-cream, babies, wine, family and friends are some of the words that will bring a smile to my face.

You’re given $500,000 dollars tax free (any currency), what do you spend it on?

I would pay off the rest of my credit cards and then take some of that money to renovate my house and cottage. I’d also put some money aside for travelling. That would still leave me with a nice sizeable chunk and I couldn’t enjoy any of that money knowing that my children also have debts so I would probably give each of them $50 000. and put the rest away for our retirement.

What subject would you like to study in depth, if given the time to do so?

I’d love to study visual art in depth. I’ve contemplated going back to university after I retire, just for the fun of it.

Would your rather be stuck in a small plane with bad turbulence for 2 hours or be a passenger in a car racing the Daytona 500?

I’d rather do neither but if I have to make a choice I think I’ll put up with two hours of turbulence. But wait! You did say ‘in a small plane’. Hmmm? Maybe being a passenger at the Daytona 500 would suit me better. I don’t know! I’m a terrible passenger in a car that is travelling at high speeds.

Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

I’m grateful that my husbands surgery is over and that the prognosis looks good. Will know for sure in a couple of weeks. I’m also grateful that our youngest daughter was able to spend some time at the cottage last week.

I’m looking forward to spending the weekend at the cottage with my older daughter and her partner. It will be the first time that they’ve made it up to the cottage this summer. I’m also looking forward to spending some time with our friends D & D, who I haven’t seen much of this summer. Hopefully the weather will be good so that I can get in some swimming and of course lots of walking. Maybe I’ll even start running again.

A Minor Setback, a Trip to Dundas and More Steps

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….a trip to the doctor, relief, enjoying the rest of the day

This morning my husband woke up with terrible pain in his foot. A quick trip to the clinic confirmed that he was suffering from gout probably brought on from the morphine he had been given after his surgery. Luckily the problem was quickly fixed with another medication.

We had planned, earlier in the week, to visit our daughter in Hamilton. K could feel the pills were starting to work so we took a chance and made the trip. It was raining when we left but by the time we drove into our daughter’s driveway the sun had come out. G suggested that we take a short drive to Dundas where we could walk along the quaint main street and take in some of the unique stores and enjoy a coffee in one of the popular cafes.

Dundas is a formerly independent town and now a constituent community in the city of Hamilton. It is home to about 27 000 people and is nicknamed the Valley Town because it is located at the bottom of the Niagara Escarpment on the western edge of Lake Ontario.

We spent a couple of hours walking around the area and enjoyed a light lunch on a wonderful outdoor patio. Here are some photos of our day trip.

We headed back to Toronto during rush hour but traffic moved fairly well. After a simple dinner of sausage and a couple of salads that we purchased at the local butcher shop in Dundas I took Frances for a much needed walk. It was another beautiful evening and we walked through the Humber College grounds. Total steps for the day: 10 500.

Friends, Lunch, New Studio Space and More Walking

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…..sometimes it just good to get out of the house

My good friend from high school, LB, and I had made plans to get together for lunch today. As much fun as it is getting all our high school buddies together, sometimes it’s just easier to plan with just one other person. We had a great time over our Japanese bento boxes, catching up on work, our kids and spouses and the trials and tribulations of our mutual friends and acquaintances.

After lunch I jumped on the Spadina streetcar and headed south to Queen St. West where I transferred to the westbound streetcar and got off at Trinity Bellwoods Park. My other good friend, AB has a new studio space in the area and I agreed to come down to see it and help her organize some of her stuff. She has a lot of stuff and we barely put a dent in it but it’s a start and she’s actually feeling very good about the progress.

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It was pretty hot and humid today so we quickly lost our energy and around 5:00 we decided to call it a day. AB drove me back to the subway station so that I could pick up my car and head home. I made a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up a few things for dinner but by the time I got home my husband had already prepared a meal for himself. When I called earlier I told him that I was still pretty full from lunch so he assumed that I didn’t want any dinner. Anyway the good news is that my husband must be feeling somewhat better if he’s cooking for himself. I was happy with just having an ice-cream bar.

One of the things that K isn’t ready for yet is taking the dog for long walks. After dinner I changed into more comfortable clothes and Frances and I headed out the door. I guess the last two days have been pretty exhausting for the dog so she was pulling to go back home after only a very short walk. I knew that I had to try to get in close to 3000 steps to reach my goal today so this ‘short walk’ wasn’t doing it for me.

I’ve discovered on past walks that if I change the route slightly the dog doesn’t resist. I don’t know if she doesn’t know where she is in relation to our house or if she also just wants a change of scenery. In the end we managed to put in an extra 4500 steps and I clocked in at 11 500 steps. Yay! That makes five days in a row that I have surpassed my daily walking goals. I’m sure that my Jawbone Up will be suggesting that I up my goal to 12 000 steps a day.

Week One – Averaged Over 10,000 Steps a Day

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….I’ve owned my Jawbone Up for almost a year

On August 29, 2014 I uploaded my new Jawbone Up to my iPhone and set a walking goal of 10 000 steps a day and 8 hours of sleep a night. I’ve struggled when trying to reach either of these goals throughout the year. I have reached both of them but never consistently and for some reason when I have a good walking day I don’t have a good sleep and visa versa. IMG_5601

Last week when I started writing about my walking goals I started to achieve them. For five days I walked 10 000 steps or more and I averaged 10 500 steps a day. This is the best week I’ve had since getting my tracking device.

My husband came home from the hospital today. I got a phone call at 7:30 this morning from K asking me to pick him up because he was being released. I quickly got dressed and drove to the hospital only to find K still in his bed. He wasn’t even dressed. He was still waiting for the paperwork to be done so that he could be released.

I walked to the other end of the hospital to get myself a coffee and something to eat. When I returned K had decided to get dressed but we still had to wait for final instructions before we could go home.

By the time we left the hospital and picked up K’s pain medications from the drug store it was almost noon and the day had really started to heat up. The dog and I hadn’t been out for our walk but I knew that we wouldn’t get very far in this heat so I waited till this evening to go for our ‘long’ walk.

I’m glad I waited. I had managed to get in almost 5000 steps just watering the garden, doing laundry and going shopping. I knew that to reach 10 000 steps I would have to do the entire length of the park and back again. It was starting to get dark and I notice a sign warning about the coyotes that are in the park so I decided to stay on the walkways that were more frequently used by the public. It was nice changing up the route and seeing different parts of the park. When we finally got home I had added over 6000 more steps for a daily total of 11 100 steps.

Here are a few of the sights we saw on tonight’s walk.

Sunday Trees – 196

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…..thanks to Becca Givens for hosting Sunday Trees

On one of our walks this week we spotted this tree in the park and thought that the leaves were already turning colour. Upon closer inspection we discovered that pink colour on this unusual maple tree came from the keys.

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