5C's Que Pasa

We were blessed with almost two days of sun and heat. Truly wonderful. We spent that time working in our new garden plot which consists of nine raised beds of different sizes with really good soil. Most of the walking around area is covered so hopefully we won’t get too many weeds this summer. With Colin’s help I planted half of our climbing peas as well as a small bed of bush peas. This is an experiment for us as they don’t require any support. We also planted beets, two types of carrots and kale. Perhaps in two or threes weeks we will plant more peas so we get a staggered crop, as well as the rest of our vegetables.

Photo taken in Mazatlan yesterday, all those fish are going to be given away to those in need.

Once the weather got nice and warm, Colin put away our electric heaters.  So of course today we are cool again especially with the wind coming off the water. I spent most of yesterday organizing and filing an online medical claim for my knee. Happy today that was completed today and sent off. I was told that they would cover up to a certain amount from my knee surgery and related costs. We shall see. Colin meanwhile decided to get up extra early and was at Costco at  7:20AM and already there was a line around the building. It was not long after 8:00AM when they opened that he got in. Other than social distancing he did not notice any special sanitizing efforts except for the new normal plexi barrier at checkout. Sadly they had no romaine and have been out for several days. We practically have ceasear salad with every meal. Long story short he stopped at Superstore and was able to pick up a few individual heads. He also went to Home Depot to purchase a new empty propane tank ( we left the two older ones back on the Isla ) and later filled that up at the Husky. This was all in prep to BBQ some wild salmon that he picked up at Costco. We haven’t had salmon since the end of September. Too cold to BBQ tonight but likely tomorrow we will be dining on salmon.  I am so very glad that I did not  to go with him as his hands were extremely dry from using so much sanitizer.

Happy Earth Day

The most difficult part of the day for Colin was taking the Jeep into the auto body shop ( because of being rear ended in early November  in Las Vegas. ) for them to look at it.It needed to be done. A new bumper needs to be ordered and the other damage will be repaired. They will look for alignment issues, etc. However the fellow touched the key fob, the door handle and for some reason sat in the drivers seat. Colin had to sanitize all of that before he could get into the car. He will get a loaner next week when he takes it in and they say that they sanitize the loaner before you get it and again your vehicle when you pick it up.  They did not even offer to do anything today after looking at the Jeep.  Major sanitizing coming up.  Time to breakout our coveted container of Clorox wipes.

The following was sent out by our park as BBQ season is almost here. This is an alert, not a joke and it is frightening. If you BBQ ( or actually even use a propane stove ) you should watch this one minute video relating to sanitizer and fire. I am unable to show it directly so you need to click on the link to see the video.

http://www.contessajewall.com/oldblog/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/VIDEO-2020-03-29-12-53-32-2.mov

What is frustrating me? My bangs, they are so long that I have to clip them to the side. I don’t care so much about my roots showing, depending on how long this all lasts I might just let my hair go natural. I really would like to get my eyeglasses adjusted as I now have to clean them every hour or so as my eyebrows and cheeks kept smudging them and I go crazy if I have dirty lenses. They definitely need fine tuning. Of course I would like to see a chiropractor, get a massage and I do truly need to have my veins done but that part I can wait out. I don’t need any added pain at the moment. I still am mostly unable to leave blog comments although I get a few sporadic  hours here and there. For a while all of your bog comments were only coming into my junk file. That has self corrected so hopefully Google is working out this problem.

Loved all the responses to the movie ‘Leisure Seeker’.  More on that in a bit.  Took a long while to figure it out.

I have decided to make my knee my number one priority in my life which means no matter what I do, my exercises twice per day as requested by Octavio ( gosh I miss him – and I worry about him ) and a good fast paced 30 – 40 minute daily walk is imperative.  I looked in the mirror the other day and one knee is a few inches higher than the other.  Obviously my body is out.  Perhaps that is why I am having so many knee problems.  I have had to cancel my Edmonton chiropractic appointment booked for mid May and I did get a full refund for both my airfare and my hotel.  However that does not help me.  Hopefully soon I will be able to see even a local practitioner. But at the moment they are all shut down.  Colin’s lady works for him but not so much for me but she does help a bit.  Since we were rear ended in Las Vegas in early November I have not been the same.  Ninety percent of the time when I turn my neck to the right I have a shooting pain and often see stars.  With some experimentation I have discovered that sitting at my desk for long periods, over two hours, is the source of my knee pain.  I am trying to sit in the recliner and use the laptop for general reading and emailing but all my work files are on the desktop 🙁

This was only our second time out to a grocery store but we found that most were observing social distancing.

Today we went out for the second time since getting back home on March 26th.  I am making menu plans for a few weeks ahead so that if I need something extra for meal prep I can pick it up for a few weeks at a time. It is impossible to take photos while wearing a mask and gloves and keeping clean what needs to remain clean.  We each try and keep one hand clean which means that it has not touched anything but the car door handle or the credit card. It also takes both of us to use our dirty hand to open a produce bag.

Seriously, each of us only using one gloved hand would have made a great photo.

We could not get raisins nor Red River cereal today a Save On Foods.  However they did have baking soda which we could not get before and they have two types of yeast which I understand is like gold.  The main purpose of our trip out of the park was to drop ( we had to use a mail slot as the office is closed to us ) some signed papers and a cheque to our lawyer to complete our year end.  I need that before I can complete ( well I actually have not even started 😯  ) our year end and tax payment. The other stop we made was to the local provincial liquor store.  There were only two others in the store. I was shocked that our favourite day to day wine here at home was out of stock 😥   We prefer different brands of wine in Mexico. Once home I called the main store in Kelowna which was also out of stock of the Painted Turtle Pinot Grigio and ordered two cases.  State by state they are going dry in Mexico. So just in case, I am going to stock up just a wee bit.

I am planning on sending my final donation amount to Dallas on the Isla in a few days.  This is a good time to please donate $10.00.  I do mean that seriously.  Ten dollars here and ten dollars there makes a wonderful donation.

This what each package contains, one kilo each of rice, beans and flour plus pasta, tomato paste, one litre of oil and of milk plus fresh veggies. Costs are approximate and run at 200 pesos/$8.32 USD/11.77CAD per package.  This will help the average family for 1 – 2 weeks plus the fresh fish that is being handed out. There are also others helping out with food in the Colonia.

A woman in the Colonia receiving her despensa or package of food from Rocio and Dallas. Yes that is her home behind her, her arm is in a sling and she had no shoes.

After 40 minutes I gave up and handed the task of finding the movie ‘Leisure Seekers’  for us to watch to Colin.   Amazon Prime was not our friend and at one point said that we needed a legal Canadian address for our credit card 😯  There are some suggestions in the comments from last nights post worth your effort if you are in the USA.  I have no idea how Colin came up with this, but for my fellow Canadians, You Tube is the answer.

A very good price to watch this movie.  However Colin started to watch the movie to make sure that it worked out on our TV.  Once you start to watch the movie you only have 48 hours to finish the show.  However once you pay for the movie you have a full month to start to watch it but once you start to watch you only have 48 hours  to complete the film.  Guess we will have to watch it tomorrow as I am not in the mood to see it tonight.

Gandhi never had enough time in our world to share his wisdom.

I want to address a few comments here ( 9 PM and we have not started dinner yet and in the essence of time), thanks for your understanding.  Marlene, I get over 200 emails per day and I was referring to incoming emails as we were driving every day.  I did read the easy ones and responded and deleted many, but there were many that required my detailed input with time involved hence the back up of emails.  David, I loved your Northern lights story.  Brad thank you for going above and beyond.  Carol, I hope that you can find the movie to watch.  Rick, Karen and Living on the Cheap, be sure to check out You Tube.  The rest of you, I think you should be covered in the above.  Sorry but my eyes are crossing and blurring.  This is what I consider an easy post to write but it still took over 90 minutes to put together.  Love you all and please stay safe.

What a fun and wonderful surprise!  Our annual travel medical insurance which is handled by Manulife had been extended for three months at no charge.  Of course none of us are traveling anywhere at the moment but it is a nice touch.

Have you ever seen the movie “The Leisure Seeker”, staring Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland?  It was filmed in 2017 and is about an older couple taking their last trip in a classic 1975 Winnebago.  You can read about the film by clicking here.  I have no idea how I missed this movie.  The write up states that you can catch the film on Amazon Prime Video, is that different than Amazon Prime?  Please let me know as Colin can’t find it on Prime and we really want to see this movie. I hope that you at least watch the trailer if not the actual movie.

I love the Northern Lights and have not seen them since a few months before my Dad passed. It was the month of September and I was staying at my Dad’s place while he was in hospital ( he never came home ) and I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. The sky was ablaze with dancing lights but I was so tired and went back to bed thinking that I had the next few months to watch them. That night back in 2014 was the last time that I have seen them, they just never appeared again. Depending on where you live you have a great, good, slim or no chance of seeing the aurora borealis. Colin and I are planning a trip up north one of these years to see them. Just a few days ago, a link came into my inbox.  Click here to read the article about how to see those special lights online. Don’t miss the bottom of this article where they show some spectacular photos. Even better here is a link to stream the Northern Lights live from Churchill, Manitoba, Canada.  I hope you have fun with this.

This was taken a few days ago on the beach in Mazatlan. The fishermen have come in with their catch and are giving the fish away to anyone who wants one.  They are very generous to those that need food right now.  This is also happening everyday on Isla de la Piedra.

I get so many things in my inbox everyday and a few of the above come from that. I have good news to share in that my inbox is down to 71 from over 600. I could not keep up as we traveled home from Mexico. Just over a week ago, I resolved that I would not read a novel until I got my inbox down to 40, almost there, thank goodness. I really miss reading for relaxation.

Taken a few days back. Yes we still have that much snow up there.

The street side of our house has a few windows that look down the street and I check the view at least every hour and for certain every time that I pass by.  Such a treat to see someone walk past.

This past Tuesday one of my friends here in the RV park organized a food drive. We were given lots of notice to put our donation out at the foot of our driveway for collection between 11am and 12 noon.

Cindy also arranged for a crew of volunteers to pick up within that hour time frame and later pack everything into clean boxes for the Lake Country food bank. This golf cart is already pretty full.

A truck load of food was collected as well as $610.00 cash.  Well done. There might have been more food collected had a larger number of residents known about the food drive.  New ways to advertise will be in place for the next time. Interestingly enough there was an article just the other day in the local news about how there has been 27% increase in people needing help from the food bank.

Speaking about food for thought…..good idea by the City of Kelowna to implement this policy. The less we touch the better.  Personally I would have used my elbow to push the button had I needed to cross the street but then as you can see there is no traffic.

Also in the news today, our Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix made the above statement.  I think being in the eye of a Category 5 hurricane says it all. Stay home everyone.

I signed up for a 30 day free trial of Amazon Prime and we are trying to make the best of it. A few nights ago we watched the movie ‘Contagion’.  It came out in 2011 so someone had to have thought about the concept even earlier and then come up with a script and then the actual filming, so perhaps as early as 2009. The movie is about an airborne virus that was started because of a bat in China. As the fast – moving epidemic grows, the worldwide medical community races to find a cure.  The movie stars Gwyneth Paltrow and Matt Damon. The movie is so relevant as to what is happening in our world right now.  It is almost like we are living the movie as we watch it.  It may be on Netflix, you would have to check.  Below is the link to the trailer, watch it if you dare. The movie is no longer fiction but reality.

Our first paddle border of the season enjoying his sunset tranquility.

Time seems to fly by everyday.  So happy that we had sunshine and 17C/62.6F today.  Pure bliss.  I even took my fleece jacket off for the first time since we got back from Mexico.  I am still wearing a light sweater in the house.  As I sit typing this it is dusk and the swallows are doing their sky dance. They just reappeared a few days ago.  Where do they suddenly come from?  After their 20 minutes swooping they suddenly disappear. Where do they go?  Do they eat earlier in the day?  I need to learn more about these birds.

The park provides fresh soil every year to top up the gardens. Colin was out there doing his thing earlier today.

I joined him and evened out the soil between the beds.  Yes I am wearing running shoes, finally.  So far so good.  Breaking them in slowly.

Char, the lady here in the park, that is doing baking just because she is not working and is bored, made three types of mini pies yesterday.  Lemon meringue is my favourite plus I really don’t eat any other pie.  She bakes and her husband delivers. Finally they are taking donations for ingredients. It was delivered warm. They have made the best bread we have ever tasted, best ever carrot cake, ever better butter tarts and now this mini pie.  OMG better than anything else.  I ate the whole thing myself – really I did, it was that good.  I strongly hinted to Colin to buy one for my birthday next month.  Hope this virus ends soon or I might be in trouble.

Colin got my car batteries hooked up and parked it in its proper spot. He ended up covering it again because we have extended the storage policy. We certainly don’t need two insured vehicles on the road, where the heck would we go?

Isn’t this a great idea? We sent it on to our builder clients as a suggestion.  So far they love it.

The fundraiser for the Isla is coming along well.  Not as many donations as I expected from the Isla RVers but you blog readers have been great.  Once I get a final total I will share that with you, as well as what is being purchased and some photos.  There is no deadline and every $10.00 or more is willingly accepted.  I sent Dallas ( my Isla contact who is purchasing and distributing the food ) some money this morning and he is out purchasing food. I know that hunger is a problem all over the world as well as in the US and in Canada. Fortunately there are some stimulus cheques being sent out. The state of Sinaloa is giving every Mexican who is out of work a one time payment of 400 pesos, about $23.00CAD.  Whereas the state of Yucatan is going above and beyond including delivery of wonderful food packets to each family who needs it. Delivery. In Mazatlan they have to line up shoulder to shoulder for hours  ( no social distancing ) to get their 400 pesos.  Then they have to line up for hours again to get into a bank to cash their cheque.