….photos taken by my daughter in New Brunswick
Wordless Wednesday – January 5, 2022
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Category Archives: Family
Thursday Trios – December 30, 2021
….happy Birthday to my twins, Gaelan and Brendan ….can’t believe you’re 40
If you have photos of trios, join the fun. Post on any day and paste my link into your post.
The Best Christmas Present
…after waiting almost two years I finally got to meet my granddaughter
This Christmas was touch and go. As many of you know our sweet Frances had to be put down last week. If that wasn’t bad enough our daughter in New Brunswick, Gaelan, cancelled her trip to Toronto because of the Omicron variant. All the things I had planned to do with Winnie went out the window. I don’t blame them for not coming. Things got complicated with having to put their dog in a kennel and then they had to be back by December 31st because the kennel was closing down for a two week vacation.
That same day we found out the our daughter-in-law had tested positive for COVID so that meant that two more people were not coming to the house for Christmas. Luckily Josie didn’t have to be hospitalized and our daughter Andrea continues to test herself and the results regularly show negative for COVID. In the meantime on the east coast, Gaelan has been testing herself and she kept getting a faint positive result. Fortunately the last couple of tests have come up negative. On Christmas Eve, Kevin and I spent the evening together sans family.
Fingers crossed that Brendan and his family were going to get here from the U.K. Not only was the spread of the variant rampant there but the airlines were starting to cancel flights because they didn’t have the staff to man the flights. On Christmas Day I finally breathed a sigh of relief when I heard that they were on the plane. When they arrived it was raining but seeing my granddaughter for the first time was like a ray of sunshine.
Jet lag is tough for adults but particularly hard on toddlers. On Sevin’s first night she was up at 3:30 am. I normally sleep till 8:00 but I was in and out of sleep till about 7:00 and I finally decided to get up and actually get outside early and catch the sunrise. We all got warmly dressed. At the least the rain had stopped and we got a peak of the sun coming through the clouds. Seeing that we were up we walked over to the playground so that Sevin could explore.
Today it started to snow. We spent the morning playing with Play Dough and Sevin and I filled the bird feeder and watched the birds and squirrels come for breakfast.
We’re hoping to make some video calls to New Brunswick later today and hopefully we’ll be able to see Andrea and Josie in the next few days. Fingers crossed again.
RIP Frances
…I’ve been MIA for the last two days dealing with a very sick Frances
Frances was our beloved dog for over 14 years. It was just a few days ago that I announced that she turned 15 and little did I know that 5 days later she would be gone. It is never easy to have to make the decision to put down an animal. We both knew that the time would come when we would probably have to make that decision. Apparently very few dogs die naturally.
My husband always said that Frances was his dog but we had a special bond of our own. When I came home from work she would always greet me at the door and even in retirement she would come to me for walks. She loved going to the cottage with me, when Kevin couldn’t and she quickly learned that I had a soft touch when it came to doling out treats. Kevin always gave her liver treats before he retired for the evening but as soon as he went upstairs she would start on me. She knew she could break me down if she was persistent enough and she was persistent.
A couple of weeks ago I ran into a neighbour who was out walking her second dog. Her first dog had passed away a couple of years ago. Frances and Pichou were puppy friends. She was amazed that Frances was still with us and she declared that Frances was the last of the six or seven puppies that hung around together in the summer of 2007.
Every time we have a dog, my husband firmly announces that there will be no more dogs when the present one goes but this time he started thinking about the next dog he wants to own. This time I’m the one that says no more dogs (for now anyway). I was hoping that travel would be in the cards for us and having a dog just complicates that. It will seem odd though not having a dog in the house. We’ve had dogs for the last 38 years. Who do you think will win this argument?
A Week’s Worth of Husband’s Characters
….from Tonguely, Monster Monday and Wacky Bird Wednesday
Last week was busy with doctors’ appointments, art openings and clearing out my father’s apartment. Consequently, some of Kevin’s drawings were somewhat late and I was even later in posting them. Even Tonguely couldn’t believe that another Friday had come so quickly.
Last week a very large delivery was made to the house. It was the Murphy bed we had ordered for the guest suite in the basement. It was so large that Kevin put out an SOS for volunteers to come and help us take it down the stairs. One of his followers on Instagram is an artist in Amsterdam and he suggested that his mouse characters, the Schurkies, (@de_schurkies) could come to assist. Instead Kevin created his own cousins to the Schurkies and in lieu of Monster Monday he drew these guys, moving the box to the basement. In reality we had two strong young men come to the house and in five minutes they had the box down the stair. Now we have to assemble it.
For Wacky Bird Wednesday, this bird was inspired by our Miss Winnie’s daily outdoor classes at Forest School. Apparently in NB this grade one class spends every morning in the forest next to the school to learn science and math.
Throw Back Thursday, Another Thursday Trios and Past Squares
….thanks to Becky tor hosting Past Squares and ThrowBack Thursday https://beckybofwinchester.com/2021/10/21/past-squares-21/and to me for another Thursday Triohttps://mamacormier.com/2021/10/21/thursday-trios-gulls-and-stuffies/
My daughter posted this photo of her and her brother and sister from 38 years ago on our Family Page yesterday. It’s one of my favourite photos. Recently I put together a photo tribute for my Dad’s memorial and I came across this trio of my Dad, Mom and her sister, taken about 30 years ago.
A Colourful Past from Ancient Persia
….thanks to Becky B for hosting Past Squares https://beckybofwinchester.com/2021/10/16/past-squares-16/
In 2016, when my son came to visit us from London we took a trip to the Aga Khan Museum in the east end of Toronto. There were lots of beautiful Persian artifacts and many of them were circular so this post features two themes from past squares.
Wacky Bird Wednesday – Happy Birthday Winnie from the Whole Gang
…today is Miss Winnie’s 6th birthday
All the wacky birds, Monday Monsters and even Tonguely got into the act to wish Winnie a happy day.
One More Walk On the Beach and Falling on the Rocks
….a sore shin but I saved my phone
On Monday, my daughter, Andrea and I drove up to Christian Island to close the cottage for the winter. I didn’t hold up much hope for good weather because the forecast called for rain. As we drove up in the afternoon we drove through some pretty heavy rainfall but the closer we got to the island the rain stopped and the sun came out. It ended up being a beautiful day.
Before starting to empty the shelves and put away the bedding we decided to take one last walk on the beach. There were all of six people on the entire beach and one brave soul in the water.
The east end of the beach is all rocks and boulders. I was wearing flip flops and just as my daughter said it would probably be best to walk in bare feet I slipped, lost my balance and went down on my side. I landed on the shin that I had hurt earlier in the summer when I slipped on our wet deck and slammed my leg unto the edge of the stairs. It took weeks for that to heal. I was holding my phone at the time and all I could think of was not to let it go or let it hit the rocks. I saved the phone but not before bruising my shin, my left arm and my ego.
The worst part was trying to get up again because the beach isn’t flat and my legs were higher than the rest of my body. I was able to turn over but I was afraid of putting any weight on the shin. After a few embarrassing moments I figured out how to navigate my legs without too much discomfort and pushed myself back up.
While I was down I decided I might as well take a photo of the beach from this low angle because I would never get down that low again. The first shot is the spot where I slipped and the second one was taken when I was down.
After our walk we made dinner and decided to do most of the heavy lifting the next morning. It was cooler in the evening but when we went to bed we actually found it very warm and kicked off the extra blankets that we thought we might need.
The next morning we made coffee and oatmeal before we started to work. After a solid 4 hours of work we finally loaded the car, locked the doors and screwed a sheet of plywood over the door closest to the driveway. We brought the garbage and recycling to the bin at the top of our lane and drove into the village to catch the 1:00 ferry.
On the drive home we decided to treat ourselves to fish and chips from Perkey’s Trailer in Elmvale. Delicious!
Sculpture Saturday – September 25, 2021
….sculptures from the Sculpture Garden at the McMichael Gallery
Andrea petting the ears of this wolf sculpture.
Mary Anne Barkhouse (born 1961) and Michael Belmore (born 1971), lichen, 1998
In this work, the artists address issues of nature versus culture. The role of wolves in this setting is symbolic. They are positioned like silent sentinels.
The following sculptures are all part of the Sculpture Garden which was established in 2011. The nine sculptures, donated by well known Canadian artist Ivan Eyre, is part of the McMichael’s permanent collection. Eyre is perhaps best known for his large landscapes and mythological paintings.
Thanks to No Fixed Plans for hosting Sculpture Saturday https://nofixedplans55.blogspot.com/2021/09/sculpture-saturday_25.html
Mama Cormier 