June 28th

So, I suck at making life an adventure back here in Windsor. I had the best of intentions....have had at many points in my life.
I'm not sure what it is that holds me back here, well, I'm pretty sure it's me, but I'm not sure what part of me.
I have always been someone who looks at things and sees how they could be rather than how they are. I'm guessing I can use this time to appreciate what is available in any given moment rather than what might become available in the next.
Steve got a bike for me and Holly to use. I've gone for one ride and enjoyed it. I also realized I need a few more rides to get back in the groove of regular riding shape.
I've begun the process of starting a morning routine of a walk of some length with the puppies.
I read yoga magazines. I love the idea of yoga and a yoga lifestyle, the comfortable clothes, the beautiful flexibility of body, the mind-body connection. Somehow I need to make a commitment to including it regularly in my life.....giving myself the gift of a yoga lifestyle.
When I returned home Steve had a beautiful rose for me. He has bought me one new rose each week. It's a lovely reminder of what we've been through and why we're here. This week's is a pretty yellow rose.

I learned from the flower lady at the store that you must use a knife to cut the end of the stem when you get home. Flowers have a vein that runs up the inside of them just like our veins. If scissors are used you run the risk of clamping the vein shut rather than opening a fresh area for water to be drawn up. The other tip was that you need to leave the two leaves closest to the flower intact on the stem. The leaves draw up somewhere around 65% or more of the water, if you remove them the flower has a hard time bringing up enough hydration to keep it fresh and alive-like for any length of time.

My Dad and Jean are getting ready for their summer vacation. They are travelling across Canada to the west and north. I'm sure they will have lots of experiences to share when they get home.

I've been reading lots of books from the library. I'm enjoying the mystery genre more than I have in the past. I'm also enjoying some television shows that are more dramatic in nature as opposed to the reality tv I used to watch. Heartland is my favourite show of the moment. Merlin is another good one. This Sunday I watched one the American Girls movies, Felicity. I really enjoyed that too. Kind of returning to my Waltons roots I guess.

So that's that. The adventure part of my life has included figuring out how to keep the dogs out of the garbage and the fridge. The fridge seal isn't the greatest and once Buddy figures out how to get into something like that he gets pretty determined to consistently get in there. This week he ate a good bit of a 7-layer salad and a key lime pie - two separate occasions. I'm sure Fuzzy helped, but Buddy usually gets the blame for the really bad stuff. Anyway, they are both healthy and well. It's always a little alarming when they get into that stuff and eat way more than it looks like their little tummies can hold. But as long as they can puke, pee and poop I figure they will be Ok. That's Buddy in the pic section, healthy and well.

Love to all, be in touch soon.

June 5th

I'm feeling nicely settled back here in Windsor. I took a few pics to give you a glimpse of our space here.

Holly is pretty social these days and her friends come in from every available entrance to our apartment. Since we have the "livingroom" set up as our "bedroom" it's been a little interesting having 18 year olds streaming in through the patio door.

Today we took the bull by the horns and bought some curtains to section off this part of the apartment so we can all have our privacy. We also asked if they could all use the front door from now on:)

Steve and I took a trip to Walmart to pick a few needed items. We haven't had a vacuum cleaner in quite some time now. We were only going to look today but there was a Bissel model for $50 so we picked it up. It works really well. I had been sweeping the carpets but this baby sucked up a bunch of stuff that obviously had been hiding further down in the pile.

Walmart also had hanging flower baskets for $6.99 each. I chose 3 to hang from the ceiling on our patio. You can see them in the picture. You can also see our two little puppies at the bottom of the patio door if you look very closely.

We just got cheap curtains and tension rods for the separating part. I chose burgundy because I like it. I always thought it would be cool to live in a tent like the nomads in the desert. We get a sense of that now, it's pretty cozy.

Brady and Robyn just found out that they were approved for an apartment they really wanted to get in Orangeville. Robyn is going to have so much fun setting that place up! Brady has been doing a decent amount of surveillance type work lately and Robyn is working at Home Depot. I think they are getting off to a good start. Robyn's parents have been awesome for letting the kids and Diesel stay at their place while they settled into work. That has given them a good start at getting ready to move out on their own.

One of Holly's friends appeared at the back door today. He was here to get a haircut for the prom tonight. Holly was the barber. That reminded me of when I was in highschool cutting the guys hair, "Sure I can cut your hair, no problem......I have no idea what I'm doing but I'm sure I can do it." I was proud of her!!

Windsor is such a nice city. It's not an overwhelming place at all.

So, the pics today are: our patio, our room and our kitchen.

Hope you are having a great day!!

June 3rd

Hello from Windsor, Ontario! I made it home yesterday. I was pretty tired as I couldn't sleep during my travels. Dale from work drove me to the airport in Fort Simpson on Monday. I flew out at 5 pm. We arrived in Yellowknife about an hour later and waited a couple of hours for the flight to Edmonton. Arrived in Edmonton around 10 pm then waited to fly out of there at 12:30 am. I had purchased a Best Seller book from the Northern before I left on Monday thinking that would be the best way to kill those little waiting hours and it worked well. I chose a mystery and it passed the time nicely. I just have a few pages left to read today to finish the book. It's "The Calling" by Inger Ash Wolfe.

My most difficult time was on the plane from Edmonton to Toronto. I was tired but not in the mood to sleep and it was dark outside, the kind of dark I hadn't experienced for 3 weeks. I went through the moment of really hoping I was doing the right thing and mourning what I had left behind. I tested out my cd player earphones and they worked with the entertainment system on the plane so I watched a Canadian film for rest of the way back to Toronto. I didn't choose one that would lift my spirits at all, being the dramatic person I can be. I chose a film about an Eskimo man who was diagnosed with TB in the 1950s. He lived on Baffin Island with his wife and two daughters. A medical boat came in and everyone from the area boarded for an exam. He was found to have TB and had to stay on the boat to travel to Quebec for treatment while his wife and daughters had to go back home alone.....home was a tent on the land, he was a hunter and they lived a traditional lifestyle. The adjustment to life in a french city was overwhelming for him and his journey to wellness was not easy. There was more to the story but I'll leave it at that. The pictures of the northern landscape and people of course pulled at my heart even more as I was already in that place of longing. It was therapeutic to say the least and allowed me to shed the tears that needed to be released.

As I put my suitcases on the scale in Fort Simpson I gently pleaded with the powers that be that I would meet up with them again in Toronto. The young guy that was the ticket taker there assured me they would make it. And they did. They came off the luggage mover very close to the start of the luggage which was a nice touch since that had been a decent sized plane and seemed pretty well full of passengers.

Steve was waiting for me as soon as I got through the doors and it was really good to see him. We were both very happy in that moment and the moments that have followed.

Toronto was my least favourite part of this journey. After the beauty and peace of the north I was not in the mood for concrete and traffic. I fell asleep around Milton and didn't wake up until Belle River, about 20 minutes outside of Windsor.

I was wondering how I'd feel about Windsor after having such a negative reaction to Toronto, which in the past has never bothered me at all. Thankfully Windsor is still my "city of choice". I felt peaceful and at home as we entered the Rose City.

Coming home to a new apartment was a bit challenging. Again I wasn't sure what to expect. Brady had done an awesome job setting the place up. He had hung the art and set the rooms up really well.

I settled in and did a couple of chores that helped me feel part of the space. I rested off and on throughout the day. We were planning on having fish and chips for supper.....Windsor has an awesome fish and chip place, but I really felt like cooking dinner here. We have a bigger kitchen than our last apartment and it felt like the right thing to do. So we had a home-cooked meal, which we haven't had together in a while since I pretty much stopped cooking for anyone other than myself last January. I really enjoyed making the meal and Steve enjoyed helping and eating it:)

I slept really well last night and this morning started unpacking. The puppies are curled up on the bed resting. They were happy to see me also. They have really settled in here nicely, the set up of this apartment suits them really well.

It took us a bit of time to figure out how to get the wireless router set up.....being the non-techies we are. It was an easy job once the Staples guy told us what to do. So I am able to continue working with my little pink lady in the comfort of my living space.....whichever comfortable spot I find myself in at any given time. I highly recommend wireless to anyone who's set up can adapt to it.

Being away for the time I was allowed Steve and I to work on communication. Since there was no way we could be together in person we really had to talk everything through. We promised one another that we will maintain that communication to continue moving forward with our relationship and our hopes for our relationship into the future. Being such an emotional day we had good opportunities for practice and I was very happy with the results.

The pictures today are from the flight home. The plane is the one I flew on from Fort Simpson to Yellowknife, those planes all have beautifully painted tails, different animals on some of them. Then the polar bear inside the airport for all of us losers who travel to the north and don't see any living ones. And finally outside the Yellowknife airport. Yellowknife does not enjoy the same temperate climate as Fort Simpson. It was really cool there and Slave Lake was still mostly covered in ice. It didn't look stable, you could see crack lines from the air, but it was still mostly covered.

Edmonton was not as scenic from the air as Calgary. I don't feel the least bit inclined to want to go out of my way to visit there again. Calgary will always be a beautiful picture in my mind and I would love to go back there one day.

So, that's where everything stands as of right now. I am going to use this space to comment on life in general as I live it. I believe that we can experience joy and adventure in life wherever we are.

Love to all of you who are supporting me on this journey of discovery......

June 1st

Here it is, my last day in Fort Simpson for now. If Steve and I decide it would be good for us we may be back together.

I had a wonderful evening last night with a couple from work. They came up here one year ago from Orillia. We made plans to meet up at Mariposa in a month when they are back in Ontario on holiday. I want Steve to meet them.

I slept with my blinds open last night so I could wake up early this morning and enjoy the morning here. It truly is a place of beauty. The pictures today are from 5 am. What a way to start the day!

I'm thinking I"ll be able to see the landscape today flying into Yellowknife for sure and probably Edmonton too. I arrive at the Edmonton airport around 930, it should still be light out there.

Then hopefully I'll be able to sleep on the last leg to Toronto.

Hope everyone is happy and well........