5C's Que Pasa

Here it feels like the middle of summer.  It is hot with temperatures in the low to mid 30’s/90’s forecast for the next week.  The weather is described as sunny but it mostly is smoky or hazy.  In the early morning for the last few days we have had a few lovely clear blue sky hours and we cherish those.  Today we finally got all the ash cleaned out of our home.  We will continue to keep our windows open, I refuse to live in air conditioning.  Fortunately it was only two days of ash falling.  It certainly makes us appreciate when there is only smoke.

With a new month comes another calendar girl photo.  We continue to miss our girls so very much and every now and then I stop and shed a few tears over what could be but is no longer.  Be sure to stop and take the time to give your pets an extra hug here and there.  A memory of  that feeling is just not the same as the real thing.

On the road to Mexico.  Taken in October of 2016.

Last Sunday was day 46 of walking over 10,000 steps per day.  Since then I have just managed a few thousand per day.

My right instep began to ache while at the airport in Edmonton last Wednesday.  The day before while at the chiropractor he did a minor adjustment of my right leg.  If you recall I fell back in May on my right knee,breaking my glasses, etc.  Dr. McKenna noticed that I had a very small rotation to the left.  He adjusted that among other things.  When we left his office we noticed a shoe sale at a store that specialized in walking shoes.  I bought a pair for $100.00 which normally sold for $200.00.  I wore them back to the hotel and they seemed fine.  I did change shoes for the rest of the evening and we did a lot of walking along Whyte Avenue and the thru the Fringe Festival area.

The next morning I wore them for our morning walk and second visit to the chiropractor.  All of my adjustments had held and I had no pain.  I wore the new sandals till we got past security when I noticed my right foot aching a bit.  I changed back to my usual walking shoes, my Mephistos, which are good for strolling but not serious walking.

Last Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday I pushed through the pain and walked my 10,000 steps.  I kept hoping that I would wake up and the pain would be gone but it only got worse.  I began to realize that I had a serious problem with my right foot no matter what shoe I wore.  The pain was centered around my right instep.  I tried to walk Monday morning but had to stop due to the pain.

I like to analyze things and the only thing that I could come up with was that the chiropractic adjustment had altered my leg rotation a tiny bit and hence my instep position.  Likely the new shoes irritated the area.  Had I just worn my usual shoes I probably would have been fine once my body readjusted to where it was supposed to be.  I combined two news things and perhaps that is what caused the irritation.

There was also the possibility that the severe plantar fasciitis I had back in 2009 was making an appearance.  I saw my family doctor just two days ago on Wednesday.  She poked and prodded and believes that I have a soft tissue injury and need to be off my feet for over a week.  That means icing and elevating my right foot.  Of course I should have stopped walking at the beginning of the pain but I was stubborn and thought that I could just push through it all.

I am very concerned that this injury might affect my travels in the future so I have stopped my walks and am just doing a minimum of walking within the house.  I did have to go to the bank today and that really increased the pain. Overall I would say that the resting and icing is helping.   However I am distraught that I had to break my 46 day walking streak.  Hopefully I will be able to get back to it sooner than later and I sure hope that I will be able to wear those new walking shoes.  They would be perfect for Europe.  All I can do is take it one step at a time.

It is official that the hard drive on our two year old laptop, that only gets used 2 or 3 times per month, is toast.  As they say it was a lemon.  Only this lemon requires a $750.00 replacement hard drive.  Something about the year and model and I think I heard the words solar state hard drive.  Regardless either we spend the money or buy a similar replacement for $1500.00.

On a whim last Sunday while at the mall ( we only have one ) returning my new walking sandals ( more on that in the next post ) I stopped in at Best Buy and spoke to a guy at Geek Squad.  They have a program where you pay $20.00 per month and they are there to help you with whatever help you might need with your computer.  The monthly fee can be cancelled after 6 months with no repercussions.  It includes free data transfer from my desktop to the newly refurbished laptop at no charge.  It also gave me a 20% discount on the new hard drive.  They told me that the cost of the new hard drive would be $350.00 before the 20% discount.  Sounded like a great deal to me so I picked up my laptop from Simply Computing on Monday ( well Colin did ) and I took it in yesterday to the Geek Squad.

They looked up the details and told me that the new hard drive was going to cost me $750.00 not $350.00 😯   It appears that the first fellow had given me the wrong info but at least I would be getting 20% off and it would only cost me $599.00.  However I do have to pay the $20.00 x 6 months so I am pretty close to the original price.  However if the data is gone which Simply Computing told me it was then I would have had to pay more to transfer my data.  With the Geek Squad it is free.

So I thought I had saved us $400.00 but it turns out that it might just be $50.00.  Regardless we will have a working computer soon.  Of course it will be the upgraded version of OS that I will have to learn all over again.  When I had my data transferred in 2015 I asked them to keep certain things in the older version of OS that I still currently running, on what some might call my ancient desktop, such as iPhoto.  I do not like change.  Looks like this time I have to sink or swim.

But if I can slowly start to figure out my smartphone then perhaps I will manage with the new program in the laptop.  I have all winter to figure it out before we head to Europe in May.

Speaking of the iPhone, I kept getting texts the other day from someone I did not know and they would not stop texting me until  I gave them my name.  I wasn’t comfortable doing that but then they texted back an apology, wrong number.  Today someone kept trying to FaceTime me ( whatever that is ) and after the third time I figured out how to send a message that I had no idea who they where.  They stopped.  I am now showing three messages on the FaceTime app thingy.  No idea how to get rid of that.  I don’t want to play with it and contact the original sender.  I have someone I can ask tomorrow.

For all the RVers out there, in case you missed this, from the Houston area.

Meanwhile yesterday we awoke to some serious ash on our vehicles and everything else. In fact it had drifted in through the window screens and all the dresser tops and window sills were covered in ash.

It does look more like soot than ash.  The colored light is from the smoke and the white dots are sun reflections.

Colin did get a job done today ( he is still out there doing the final dusk or rather smoke shot ), the client wasn’t fussy about window view shots.   Colin did come home for a few hours mid afternoon and we were just starting to have a quick early dinner before he had to head out again when the phone rang.  We were pleasantly surprised by a call from friends living in Mexico.  We haven’t spoken to them for several months.  It was so very special to hear their voices. Thanks again for taking the time and making the effort.  Life is short, we should all take time to reach out to those we care about.

I took this yesterday afternoon, as you can see the sun is still high and no where near setting.  What crazy times we live in.

My post yesterday wondered where all the smoke was coming from.  It appears that our neighbors from the south are having some serious fire issues.

The Diamond Creek fire is 32,000 acres and is burning right at the US/Canada border.  As you can see by the dark grey outline of the direction of the smoke, we here in Kelowna are in the direct path.  Of course my friends in Osoyoos are in the thick of things as well as my readers in Oliver, Pentiction, Summerland and Peachland and my many local readers.

I have heard and have no idea if this is true, that the US does not fight fires as we do here in Canada.  They rather tend to let them burn themselves out.  Of course they are there to protect homes and cities, etc.  I’m sure that my many US readers will have some input on this.  Just in late today,  the province/state of B.C. in which we live has spent well over 404 million in expenditures just fighting these horrific fires.  They also say that it is likely that the fires may continue well into the fall as hot dry weather is the forecast.  I apologize to you that I am spending so much time on these fires but seriously folks, our entire life is affected, not to mention the hundreds of thousand of others who live here in B.C.

I took this at noon today, looking directly at the sun.  It was dark and eerie.

At 5PM the sky has a pink orange cast to it.  It is dark enough that we have had to turn lights on inside our home.

In all our years living here and dealing with a variety of fires this is the first time we have seen it like this.  I can’t imagine what it is like closer to the actual fire.

Just now at 6PM we are seeing ash on our vehicles.  We just washed our cars late Sunday so we know it is not dirt.

So the mystery of where the smoke came from late yesterday has been solved.  But where do we go from here?

Thanks for taking the time to check in.  I promise to change the topic next post.

The local fire is now about 20% contained and the smoke has not been a major issue until today.   Actually I think we are just all getting used to living in a hazy world.

By mid afternoon today we were socked in.

I seriously thought there was another fire but I couldn’t find anything in the news.  However is was so bad that Colin had to cancel his afternoon and evening photo shoot.  Then about 5PM we got a call from a homeowner in Oliver which is about 124km/75 miles away but almost a two hour drive re city traffic.  Colin has been trying to schedule perfect conditions to take photos of the home and the views for well over a month now.  We have been hired by the architect to do the photography.  He would need to leave about 6:30AM and be gone till about 10:30PM and between the homeowner being away a lot and the smoke, the perfect day was to be tomorrow.  Apparently Oliver is now fully smoked in.  We really don’t know from day to day, morning to afternoon what is happening.  We both have to be totally flexible.

The late afternoon sun surrounded by smoke did make a pretty photo.

On the plus side we were able to have a lovely dinner together this evening which was a nice change.