With our recent rains and a couple of days of sunshine, our plant life seems to be taking over.
Take care and enjoy your Sunday! 🌤️
Taking Over
Author: annemariedemyen
Wife, mother, grandmother dogmother - lover of nature, peace and tranquility. RETIRED. Life is good!
Survival
The Saskatchewan floods and frigid weather have passed. Most of our plants have survived so far. We will see how many make it through the hurricane strength winds today!
Stay safe and have a good day! 🌞
Back to Work
Dan is back to work – at least for now. He has taken a temporary position in the melt shop in the steel plant at Evraz. (He usually works as lead hand on the legacy spiral mills in the pipe plant but they are currently shut down). From all accounts, and a little imagination, the melt shop is about as close as one can get to hell on earth. But, steelworkers are a special breed and Dan is a steelworker, so when the opportunity arose he took it.
I have been with Dan for twenty four years and worked with him for several months before that. Dan is a good man and I know from personal experience that he is a good worker. He is dedicated, responsible, reliable, dependable, and capable. He takes pride in his work and demands respect for it – not simply for himself but for his fellow workers as well.
Over the years, I have found business interesting on many levels. Although I generally worked in administration, the production department was the heart of every company, in my mind. I have always been fascinated by the process, the equipment, and the skills and strength of the workers. I sat in my (climate controlled) office – supporting managers, serving customers, and doing everything in my power to ensure the production department had what they needed, to do what they did.
For a number of years, I believed that a business was all about the product or service they provided. During the last few years that I worked, I came to realize that the most fascinating part of any business are the people involved – owners, employees and clients.
There are people like Dan, who take pride in what they do and get the job done – regardless of any circumstances. Then there are others. The slackers, who show up (typically late and/or frequently not at all) and do the bare minimum. The desperately ambitious, who claw over anyone in an effort to better themselves 😂. The entitled, who do little of consequence, but blame others for their lack of performance and productivity. The arrogant, who regardless of position, have zero respect or consideration for others. And finally, the self sabotagers who are in a class of their own.
It takes a combination of factors to create a successful business – financial backing, quality product, proper equipment, and good people – Good people like Dan! 🌟
Gardening in Saskatchewan.
We got the garden in! Our plants all seem to have survived two days of +31 temps followed by three days of snow and freezing temperatures. (They did ride out the snow and cold by hunkering down under sheets and blankets). If they can get through the next week of rain without drowning we should be good!
🏒 🇨🇦 🏆
We still have work to do getting the yard cleaned up. I have to finish power washing the patio and outdoor furniture and get the steel planters painted. Dan is working on the front lawn and rebuilding one of the front lawn planters, plus cleaning up some lights and decorations. (Once everything dries up and warms up of course!)
Wishing all a warm and sunny day! 🌞
Our Yard
Dan is out working on a few of our planters so I thought I would share shots of our latest yard acquisitions.
We also have a variety of new holes in the sand around our garden planters. Our squirrels take the peanuts we put out for them and bury them in the sand. Kat smells the peanuts and goes around digging them up – leaving a new hole for every peanut she finds. Fun times! 🤦
Our grass is turning green and the trees have their leaves coming. By the time I post pictures of our yard again, we should have the garden cleaned up and the bedding plants in. Summer is coming! Yay🥳
Keep safe and have a nice day. 💞
Medically Speaking
I do my best to avoid being a burden to our medical system. Actually, I just do my best to avoid our medical system altogether. I should touch base with my doctor more often, but one trip to his office and all too often I have slipped down some wierd rabbit hole into the land of medical miracles and miscues.
My last trip down the hole started last January with a trip to emerg for pneumonia and bronchial spasms. This led to trips to my doctor for follow up tests and x-rays which resulted in a diagnosis of COPD on top of my asthma. This led to trips to a respiratory specialist, a CT scan, more tests, and a diagnosis of bronchiectasis. (I was also supposed to see a heart specialist and ENT but what with the Covid pandemic that never happened.) 🙄
In the meantime, after consulting with my doctor and respiratory specialist, I started working out to hopefully improve my lung (and possibly my heart) function. While that didn’t happen, it did lead to more trips to my doctor for not one, not two, but three hernias.
This led me to an ultrasound clinic – for the hernias and for a checkup on my abdominal organs. From the amount of pressure that the technician had to use, I am pretty sure she was working with the microphone from Barbie’s karaoke bus. (State of the art Saskatchewan medical equipment!) 😩
In a follow up with my doctor, I discovered that the ultrasound technician had totally missed the hernias in my lower abdomen, found a two inch epigastric hernia in my upper abdomen (No doubt a result of violent coughing fits last January and my workout efforts last fall). And, as a bonus, she noted that I have a bit of fatty liver.
Fourteen months in and I am on a surgical wait list for a hernia and my doctor has strong suspicions that I have a serious drinking problem due to the fatty liver thing.
I doubt that a couple of small glasses of wine a week at most, and the occasional Caesar is that big of a deal as drinking problems go. Personally, I think my love of KFC, Cheezies, and Smarties has more to do with the fat I have in my liver or anywhere else. 🤨
The bizarre thing is this is not the first time that my health issues have cycled around to a serious drinking problem! I must have been a heavy drinker in a previous life because it sure hasn’t been in this one. 🤦
Stay safe and have a great one!
Justice Served 04/20/21
Daily Reminders
When Dan was running errands a few mornings ago, he found this metal plaque to put in one of our flower beds.
We are getting to an age where life is becoming more precious and fleeting. Regardless of what is happening, how we are feeling, or who is or is not physically with us, we try to make the most of each and every day. This little sign will be a reminder to help us do just that.
We have other such reminders around our house. They may be a bit corny but they work for us. 🙂 They help us to appreciate each other and our life together.
Not every day is the best, but try to make the best of every day💞
Karma
I have often wondered about Karma – “what goes around comes around?”. It generally seems that Karma is more a hit than a miss. I do something I think is super special and …. nothing. Not a thank-you, not a thumbs up from the universe, Nada! Then someone does something totally nasty to me and …. the universe beams down on them. All the while, Karma is nowhere to be found.
Then there are the other times – those times when I am just trucking along, totally oblivious to Karma. I am not trying to bargain with her or pressure her or sneak anything past her, and there she is!
In the past few days, Karma has just been there! It started off in such a simple manner that it hardly seemed ‘Karma‘ worthy.
Before we received our recent heavy dump of fresh snow, Kat and I had resumed our daily walk. Dan had been joining us. After a few days, the walks started to bother him – a lot! Dan is a big man. He has been working in a steel plant, walking miles and miles, on cement floors, wearing heavy steel toed and steel plate metguard work boots for decades. His feet have taken a beating. Since he has been off of work for a few months now, the feeling seems to be coming back to them, making things even worse than usual.
I knew Dan had foot issues. I knew he had a number of thick callouses and problems with his nails. It is one thing to know it and another to really know it. One day Dan was saying how much his feet always bother him and it just hit me how much discomfort he was in. I started wondering if I could do anything to help.
The next day we went shopping and I looked around for foot care products. We came home with some Dr. Teal’s Epson salts. At home, I found a rubber basin and some foot lotion. That night, I brought everything out and asked Dan if we could try soaking his feet. He was more than willing. Now, this has become a thing we do. Every night I fix a warm basin of water with Epsom salts, he soaks his feet, one at a time, and as they come out I dry them and massage them with foot cream.
Our evening ritual takes less than an hour from start to finish. Dan’s feet started looking and feeling better by the third night in. It was amazing.
What was even more amazing, was the unexpected arrival of Karma. As Dan’s feet have been healing, I have found it pleasant and relaxing to work our way through our evening routine. It is like our own little spa date every night. As a bonus, my hands are smoother and softer than they have been for years, the achy stiffness has been melting away, and my dexterity is improving daily. Thank you, Karma!
Keep safe and have a nice day. 💞
Finding Myself
Back in the day (my day), people went to great lengths searching to ‘find themselves’.
I loved and admired my father. If I ever envied him, it was because he never had to ‘find’ himself. He knew who he was, and he was who he was, regardless of who he may have been dealing with at any particular time.
My father was a very quiet, peaceful man. I spent a lot of time with him and I remember him losing his temper with someone else ONCE! My parents owned a service station/autobody shop. My siblings and I pumped gas from the time we could reach the gas nozzle. One day, my father was busy in the back of the shop when a customer pulled in. He was a big man (at least 6′-6″ and 250 lbs). He owned one of the most successful retail businesses in town and was no doubt on the town council and Chamber of Commerce. I ran out to pump his gas. I was tiny, probably about six years old. This big man got out of his vehicle, stepped around it, and stood behind me. I did not notice he had a lit cigarette in his hand. My father stepped out of the shop. He noticed! He yelled at the man to get away from me and he went up one side of him and down the other for half a block. My father was 4′-10″ and 130lbs. If I had not been so shocked at his outburst, I would probably have found the entire incident hysterically funny. The customer obviously did not, but I never saw him smoke another cigarette in his life. He did remain a loyal customer.
At the other end of the spectrum, my class was making graduation plans. We had to choose a business person to make a toast to the graduating class. I was surprised when one of my classmates nominated my father. When I asked why, he said because my father treated everyone in town with the same respect and consideration – everyone including the teenagers in my class. It did not matter to my father who you were, he knew who he was, and he acted accordingly.
I was not like my father when it came to knowing and being myself. I blame him. 😂 To the very end, on his deathbed and while I was pushing forty, my father would introduce me as ‘our baby’. To be fair, six kids in, he probably forgot my name by the time the ink dried on my birth certificate.
During this past year of seclusion, or reclusion as the case may be, I have been ‘finding myself’. I have found myself, learned to like and accept myself.
The interesting part of this journey, is that while I have been finding myself, I have learned to accept others as they are. They do not have to agree with me or validate my views, and I can accept them as they are and respect their views – even if I disagree with them.
I don’t know if this is a new level of maturity or self confidence, but I am in a good place. A peaceful place. I am ready to quit searching and just be – me!
Have a nice day and stay safe! 💞
Seclusion 101 with AnneMarie 