Friday, October 27, 2017

I Like #9

My aim is to do one of these a month, yet it amazes me how fast that time comes around. I could probably do these at least twice a month as almost daily I find myself mentally noting, or actually photographing something for which I am grateful. Although I actually started writing this a couple of weeks ago, it is a day late because yesterday was travel day, which brings me to my first like.

1. I like Visa cards that give points. Since I first learned of the Aeroplan programme in 2004, I've collected points like a fiend, and have gotten many trips. Today, I am typing from the living room of Brady's house! I especially like getting great connections when travelling on points.


2. Winning Cheryl's Five Year Blogiversary giveaway at Meadow Mist Designs was a huge WOW knock my socks off win. I just love her designs, have done since I first 'met' her a few years ago when my blog was a baby. The prize was a hard copy of 15 of her patterns!! I already own a few; I've tested two for her, and and I've bought a couple that I love like Outlined Plus. Anyhow, to save on postage, because I live in Canada, she sent me all 21 PDFs of her patterns!  To enter you had to tell her your favourite which for me is Pike's Peak:

You can click the photo to buy your own copy of the pattern.

3. Each month I revel in the beauty of Mother Nature. This past month this moth posed on my kitchen window one night and allowed me to photograph her underside. I like moths. Butterflies grab everyone's attention, and although I'll admit I light up with a smile, don't care who sees me, whenever I spot a splendid Monarch butterfly floating around on their migration south, I do think moths are as beautiful, just in a more subdued way.

4.  I love Naala. She is our Rottweiler, age 10 years 8 months. We came dangerously close to losing her twice this month. As you may know from a previous post, she had an emergency splenectomy on October 13. Half a week after surgery, she then had a terrible several days of vomiting and then refusing to eat. We got that under control thanks to an anti-nausea shot and a few days of pills. I am thankful that she is eating almost like her usual self, is now bright-eyed and perky, although she does rest a whole lot more, but hey she was down to 81 pounds, this from a girl who was regularly 98 pounds her entire adult life. Besides, she's had major surgery, and experienced a rough week ahead of that surgery.

I am so grateful for an excellent vet, who suggested doing another blood panel, when he saw us for a follow-up appointment to the emergency trips, and who told us to turn around and take her back in for immediate surgery because he suspected internal bleeding. The pathology report has come back, and it is mostly positive: some benign, some 'bad stuff' as in cancerous, in her spleen, but the next two months are critical and if she gets through these okay, he feels she'll be fine. If she continues on her upward trend of the past few days, we are confident that will indeed happen and we can have a few more years with her.

5.  I like lucky stones.

These are actually the ear bones or otolith of a freshwater drum also known as a sheepshead fish. They are amazing, because those 'J' or 'L' shapes ingrained on them act as a daily journal of what the fish did, and ate, kind of like rings in a tree, but even more detailed. Here is a great blog post (not mine) about them. I have found four lucky stones so far in my recent rediscovery of Seacliff Beach.

6. I love love love being only 10 minutes from Seacliff Beach in Leamington, Ontario. I never tire of getting out of my SUV and seeing this

and of spending a pleasant hour or two in absolute Zen, walking along the shore, hunting for lucky stones, and collecting beach glass, of which I am amassing quite a collection.


7. I love music. Love. This month, Beethoven's 5th Symphony, the Fourth Movement, particularly resonated with me one day, such joy after the ominous dun-dun-dun-DUH of the First Movement. I do love many genres of music, and particularly like this new song, "Clouds", just released this past week, a collaboration between the Strumbellas and an Inuit group, The Jerry Cans.

Besides the catchy tune, rhythms, fiddle-playing, combination of both English and Inuktitut, and inclusion of Inuit throat-singing (see another of their songs below where you can both see and hear more of this technique, and see Northern Lights) the fact that two bands collaborate and share makes my heart happy (The Jerry Cans eventually recorded in the same place The Strumbellas did, 'The Woodshed', which they say was "our first step to sharing our music outside the North").  We can cooperate, reach out, across cultures...and together create such profound beauty, no?

8. I really enjoy CBC's À Propos programme, which I have listened to faithfully on Sunday afternoons for nearly a decade. I was French in my previous life, probably in more than one life, as I've felt such an affinity for all things 'française' since being oh, about 4, when I'd sit, spellbound, watching "Thierry La Fronde" on TV, a French programme. The music Jim Corcoran plays is predominantly la musique Québécoise, and I enjoy listening to favourites of artists I know, as well as hearing new releases from them, or from new artists.

9. I love my friends, and I am rich in many. They support me in many ways, from laughs to hugs, and from sharing to giving. I look forward to getting together with a few friends over the next few days. I have been so grateful for their support and messages of care and concern from near and far when we were so worried about and sleep-deprived because of Naala. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

10. I love Fall. I did not used to when I lived in Alberta. It lasted only a few weeks from leaves starting to change until they were off the trees. It was too cold too soon, and then drab brown. Knowing winter was around the corner, a winter that would last for the next 5 months or more, was altogether too depressing for this warm and sun-loving girl. Here, Fall is wonderful. So slow! With the vast variety of trees here, they change at different times, so many colours, such depth of colour! Here is last week on the Greenway:



Fall means we make salsa, something I used to do faithfully, but haven't for a few years now.
Although these are not our own garden tomatoes, they are grown right here in our county, as are the peppers, and majority of other ingredients. It is absolutely delicious, a recipe I've made for two decades now, from the sister-in-law of my sister-in-law!

Finally, I adore, no deeper than that, cannot express the profound love I have, for my grandson, Brady. I look forward to this next week with him, three of those days where I have him all to myself.
Posing outside a fantastically decorated for Halloween house


The DrEAMi! linky opens tomorrow and runs for a week, so I am looking forward to seeing what has snagged your attention to the point you've literally dropped everything to focus on the one project...I know snowmen grabbed Vicki...

Affiliate links ahead; thank you for your support! 💖 You many have noticed I've become an affiliate for Sewing Machines Plus. I have purchased from this company and have been pleased with the service, so when they invited me to become an affiliate, I took another look through their site, found a little more to it than I'd realized, ha, look out, and decided to jump in.  They have nine different brands of thread, in a variety of weights and fibres, and at good prices. They have free shipping on orders over $49 in the US. They have a promo deal on write now with the code TREAT.

Also remember Connecting Threads has their thread sale on, great time to stock up. It's what I do! My Avanté loves this thread; I used a few colours of it on 'Radiance', Aidan's quilt.
They, too, offer free shipping on orders over $49 in the US, over $75 goes free to Canada, the UK and Australia! Sweet.

Linking up with LeeAnna at Not Afraid of Color


11 comments:

  1. A wonderful post full of beauty inside and out. Have a wonderful time with Brady!

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  2. Enjoy your time with Brady. A very fun post.

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  3. Great picture of the moth. Enjoy time with the grandson. Great music.

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  4. And all this time, I thought I made the best salsa in the world! We'll have to swap recipes and see how they compare to each other. (I wouldn't be at all surprised if our recipes are almost exactly the same! That would sound just about right!)

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  5. I love your likes and am so happy to see a happy update on Naala.

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  6. What a great post! I'm glad Naala seems to be doing better. Many of your likes resonated with me as well. My brother makes salsa on Labor Day weekend every year and it's so good. I'm always grateful for a jar of it. Thanks for the music shares. Nice to discover something new. I've been on a classical jag for a while, especially nice to fall asleep to at the end of a day. I don't always take particular note of the composer or name of the songs, but one day I did after a particular song gave me goosebumps. I might share a link to it in a future blog post, but it's Josef Suk's Scherzo Fantastico op. 25. Particularly fun at this Halloween time of year. I love where it changes to a beautiful lilting waltz about a minute in.

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  7. I like reading your sweet posts. Glad Naala is doing a little better too. My parents buried their sweet dog this month. He and Cheetah grew up together. They got him the week Cheetah turned one.

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  8. Congrats on the pattern win. I hope Naala is feeling better soon. I may have submitted two thread orders.......

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  9. Wonderful loves you have, including your family, nature, happy home, pets. Congrats on the win and look forward to a creation of yours with the pattern!

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  10. Hi Sandra! Very, very interesting about the Lucky Stones. I will read the link you shared. Look how sweet Brady looked - a year and a half ago. Time sure goes by quickly, doesn't it?! ~smile~ Roseanne

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