Sep 13, 2018

Reaping the rewards

Yesterday morning started out with some low fog. Photo taken from inside hence a bit of reflection ( or dirty window ) in the upper right third of the photo.

At the very end of a long work day at our desks/computers, Colin left about 4PM to start putting our garden to bed for the winter.  Those two sheds in the background are for storing communal garden tools, etc.

Once I had my last meeting and they left I walked over to the garden area to offer some help. So nice that the rain had stopped.  Now that is a large turnip.  I think you got that one Henk!  I shared  beets, Swiss chard and carrots between a few friends as well as our new neighbors.  As you can see our Swiss chard continues to do well.

Our carrots have been slow to grow but it was time to see what we had grown.  Only half of the row grew but certainly enough.  We have been nibbling today and they are great raw and so very sweet.  The five tomato plants to the right of this shot are still producing as is the the Swiss chard.

This is what I picked yesterday. We still have lots more ripening on the vine.

I already have a half of a crisper drawer full of beets in the fridge and will add these.  At least I know that they should do well in the fridge until we get back in the spring.  Hopefully we will be able to eat the rest of the carrots before we leave.  Colin also cleaned a lot of beet tops and Swiss chard and put them in those special green bags.  We will eat all of those before we leave.  During the last week the kale got bugs and some sort of mold so we never got to enjoy the last of it.  But I will grow both kale and Swiss chard on the Isla in pots as is my normal.

The sun sets to the right of this photo but my eye was drawn to the light only on the lower hills.

Not much of a sunset last evening but still interesting.  In about two months those Isla sunsets will be making an appearance 🙂

I have been in communication with my two blog readers who are likely to be affected by hurricane Florence and so far so good.  Thinking of you and sending prayers your way and to all who will be affected.

It is now 8:25PM, my bath is running and after a wee bit of relaxation, it will be time to prepare dinner.  Hasta manana.

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Sep 12, 2018

Contennsa !!! and Intermittent Fasting!

Colin has a new name for me, “Contennsa”.  Wow the countdown is on and today was off the charts.  I never have headaches and I had one today.  Tying to get last minute invoices out and collecting within seven days 8-O.  Colin has more jobs than I can count to get done in the next seven days all based on weather. Only the weather Gods know what is coming up.  I never got one thing crossed off my to do list today due to all the urgent last minute ‘deal with this now ‘ issues.

Yesterday was a one year anniversary for me.  I started a 12 day Wild Rose detox cleanse on September 11, 2017.  Once those 12 days were up I was feeling much healthier and did not want to stop the healthier eating style.  Just at the end of the 12 days I read either a FB post or a blog post from Nancy who has successfully recovered from cancer.  She is very devoted to living a natural lifestyle including eating properly.  I trust Nancy totally and when she mentioned intermittent fasting, my ears perked up.  She said that a side effect was losing weight without trying.  Okay, that sounded great to me.

So exactly one year later without trying, I have lost 21.6 pounds.  Than means no exercise at all and eating what I wanted including indulging in a few glasses of wine on a daily basis.  While in Europe I ate a lot of carbs mostly because our meals consisted of pizza or pasta.  I did however walk a lot there and I came home a few pounds lighter.  I did stay with the intermittent fasting as best I could while in Europe, at least 12 hours fasting on a daily basis.

Sadly at the moment my time is limited, so I ask you to click here to read about intermittent fasting.  I just want to clarify that I am not following the keto diet, only the fasting part.  Of course I do try to limit my carbs ( and sweets which I never usually eat anyway ) but I do have either some potato or a mix of rice and quinoa with dinner as well as wine on a daily basis.  I have chosen, because of what works for my lifestyle, to only eat between 2PM and 10PM.  I fast the other 16 hours.  You can chose to fast only 12 hours per day or only fast 36 hours per week, there are many many combinations of fasting.  I figured out what worked for me.

I am very proud to have lost this weight without having to pay to go to Weight Watchers every week and count every bite or sip.  I have finally found after many many years something that works for me.  Intermittent fasting has also helped many people with diabetes and other medical issues.

This is a link to a Q & A re the program.  Just remember as you read it that you don’t have to follow the keto diet.

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Sep 10, 2018

Overnight visitors

Longtime ( over 35  + years ) friends of ours were in the area and made a point to stop for the night.  As I am an owner here I get a discount for friends and family in both the RV sites and the condos.  I had recently visited Jannose and Colin when I was in Edmonton to see the chiropractor, but they hadn’t seen Colin in a while and it was a perfect stop for them on this road trip.  They arrived around 2:30PM Sunday afternoon and left at 8AM this morning.  So we made the best of our short time together.

We took them to see our garden plot and found this garden full of flowers. Lovely.  Jannose and Colin have a large garden back in the Edmonton area, but I was surprised to hear that once the seeds are growing and established that they don’t water any further.  I know that our veggies would die here in the extreme heat.  There are times that we have to water twice per day.

Wine, appies and lots of discussion.  Luckily we had a heron visit our beach while we were relaxing together.

We went to the only large restaurant in our area, the Greek House.  We were there mid August with blog reader Paul and his wife Jan.  The food is as good as always with large portions as you can see.  Too bad our wait person had the shakes when she took this photo.  We all went to bed with full tummies.

Sadly our friends who were on their way today to Calgary to visit family ( they have the cutest granddaughter ) got stuck in highway traffic due to a major accident.  That made their eight hour drive a ten hour drive 😯   We look forward to seeing them next spring.  Always special to have friends drop in.

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Sep 08, 2018

Sharing a few photos from the past

I really like this one.

…and this one.

Carmeh loved her tiny balls.

When they were younger they loved to dig for crabs.  Caeli was the very vocal supervisor while Carmeh did the actual work.

Carmeh had a unique way of demanding attention.  How could you say no?

This is actually Caeli who was not as proficient at Frisbee as Carmeh was.

Reaction to a spider bite.

Whenever I spent too much time on the computer or Colin spent too much time on his guitar Carmeh would always let us know.

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Sep 07, 2018

Que pasa

I have been busy going to various appointments and doing shopping for our trip south.  There are certain things that can only be purchased here in Canada.  I researched printer ink and it is cheaper here as well as many other items.  I have been twice to Best Buy in the last two weeks and they still don’t have the ink that I need in stock.  I can’t order online as I have a coupon good for 10% which only works in the store.  Please note that we put no railing on this side of our front steps.  This allows us to unload and load much easier.  We just have to slide things over.

I went out shopping three days in a row this last week.  The good news is that I saved $122.42 in various purchases.  The bad news is that my shoulders and back are sore not to mention that the back seat of my car is full as is the trunk.  I need someone 🙄 to load all of these packages into the RV.

Long time readers know that this is our second home here in Holiday Park.  Colin designed both of them.  The first home is across the street from us and now has a second set of owners since we sold.  I could not believe the size of their TV when they moved in the other day.  Almost wall to wall for that particular space.

How can we book a job with two conflicting forecasts for the same week?  We had two jobs cancel on us yesterday.  Crazy weather.  We still have a lot of smoke.

While shopping the last three days, I saw someone on each day, that I have not seen in a long while.  One of them had been at least  21 years, another 18 years and the last one 3 years ago.  So very strange.

I have no idea how I fit all of this into my Costco cart.  Yes that is a lot of TP and paper towels.  We bring enough for our entire time in Mexico as I don’t find their paper products very nice.  In fact most of the RVers do the same thing.  We have the room, so why not?

Speaking of toilet paper, I have commenced an experiment to see how much actual TP we use within a full week.  I budgeted three double rolls per week but what if I might need more?  Hence the experiment 😉

I spent all of today working on the pile of lists on my desk.  Finally, an hour ago the pile looked orderly.  Still some to deal with but manageable.

Colin has finally set up his new computer.  It took a while and then he still had to contact Adobe, Photoshop, Bridge and Lightroom.  Then this morning we realized that there was a problem with Gmail, that took an hour to sort out.  At least he now has a working computer.

Today was rather strange weather wise.  It got smokier by the hour and then very dark.  Suddenly a strong wind tore through our open windows.  That navy binder folder held all my research for our travel plans in the US this fall.  Now all blown over the chairs and floor.  I had them all in order of my needing to access them.  Have not yet picked them up and started over.  Will do so tomorrow.

A bit of a sunset last night.  So looking forward to my Isla sunsets.  What looks like a dust spot about mid photo is a actually a duck flying past.

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