happy birthday B!

Twenty-four years ago today a very special person was born. Here he is with his big sis. Happy Birthday B!!

And now for a little praise report. He was at the ophthalmologist's yesterday - the one who examined him in the hospital after his accident. The doc said he had never seen an eye recover as well. Thank you Lord! (Also, his cast came off last Friday.)

welcome baby david!

We have just returned from a delightful ten days in Kamloops, welcoming the newest addition to the family.

(Click on photos to get a larger version)

Baby David Matthew was born on September 14th. Here he is at six days old.

At 7 lbs. 10 oz. he was a pretty average size, though felt really tiny after his brother Liam, who was over 9 lbs. at birth. (Hubby's arm gives a sense of his size.)

Here are a couple of photos of the two little boys getting acquainted. The fact that baby David has big brother Liam's white blanket piled on top of him is pretty significant, as this is Liam's blankie which he drags everywhere with him and won't give to just anyone.

 

Though we all took our turns cuddling the new baby, mommy is definitely the winner in that department...

with the swing a close second. What a blessing is that battery operated baby gadget!

I spent a lot of time in the kitchen too - making food. Though the weather was hot in Kamloops this week, I cooked a turkey, made several soups, buns, cookies, stew. Lots of fun! (Hopefully it will come in handy for my girl, when life with two little ones plus a part-time job gets too hectic for kitchen duty.)

All the best to the gorgeous little family!

bottles

Bottles

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Thursday Challenge

Next week: ART (Paintings, Drawings, Murals, Graffiti, Crafts, Brushes, Pens, Pencils,...)

fresh

Rose (Butchart Garden, Victoria, BC)
(Click on photo to enlarge)

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Thursday Challenge

Next week: BOTTLES (Containers, Cup, Mug, Vase, Beverage, Cosmetic, Ornamental,...)

nesting - grandma style

This morning we got the joyous news that our daughter delivered a healthy boy - her second. Little David weighed in at 7 lbs. 10 or 11 oz. 

Saturday on her FB page, daughter talked about the lasagna and pumpkin pies she was making - and someone called it 'nesting.' Well, after today's news, I kicked away from the computer and did a little nesting of my own - grandma style. I made soup and cookies to bring with us when we make trip to her house later this week. Now to do a little shopping... (books - I need books for the toddler, plus newborn stuff, plus something to make the new mommy feel special - and I'd better not forget about the new dad either. I am so not a shopper, but this demands a break from my customary avoidance of the mall) and we're good to go.

mural monday

It's been a while since I've had a mural monday. But if you like these audacious street paintings as much as I do, you'll want to wander over to my mural blog and feast your eyes. I'm currently doing a series on the murals of Vancouver's Commercial Drive (new postings every Monday and Thursday until the mural well runs dry).  

Here's a sample. Is it  gorgeous or what? Love the colors, love the location. Doesn't it just make you want to get out there and buy potatoes and green onions?

(Click on photo to enlarge)

when discouragement hits

In Psalm 43 the writer is in trouble again (sounds like a David psalm but the writer isn't named). He feels misunderstood, caught, struggling in the dark, discouraged, God-forsaken, alone, hopeless.

He prays for God's help:

"Vindicate me...plead my cause... deliver me.

He prays for a sense of God's presence:

"...Send Your light and Your truth. Let them lead me; Let them bring me to Your holy hill and to Your tabernacle."

He ends by doing a little self-talk:

"Why are you cast down, O my soul?
And why are you disquieted within me
Hope in God
for I shall yet praise Him"

This psalm tells us that even spiritual giants like Bible writers sometimes feel alone, discouraged, misunderstood and down. Can we learn from what this one does about it?

- He asks God for help.
- He plans to go to the place of worship.
- He takes up his musical instrument and plays a song of praise.

In other words, he acts himself out of his funk. He does what he knows to do, realizing his feelings will follow.

Lord, help us not to feel guilty when we struggle with negative feelings. Instead help us do what David does - pray, meet with God's people, dust off that old harp and praise God, even if we don't feel like it.

exposed!

Exposed


Through the summer night and day

Spider spins her life away,

Weaving gossamer entrapments

For her unsuspecting prey.

Threads from clothes upon the line,

Between my beans upon the vine

And when I go through my front door,

I break more threads ticklish and fine.

Until one frosty day in fall

From tiny shrubs to pine tree tall

Each lacy trap in white is sketched.

The frost has come, exposing all!

© 2002 by V. Nesdoly 

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This poem came true today - only it wasn't frost that exposed the spider webs, but dew. I have been waiting forever to see this phenom again with just the right lighting and camera in hand (I wrote the ditty after the first sighting some years ago). Today was my lucky day!

langley good times cruise-in

This is the weekend of the famous Langley Good Times Cruise-In. Tomorrow (September 12th) the downtown Langley section of Fraser Highway will be a parking lot of vintage vehicles with people by the hundreds, food, entertainment and a generally good time being had by all. (Elvis always makes an appearance at this event).

If you live in the area, check the Cruise-in website for times and location - then pay a visit!

This is a slide show of last year's parade (intersection of Glover and Duncan Way). Sorry, I don't even pretend to know my vintage cars - just the impressions they make on me.

(Slide show doesn't seem to be working in Firefox - but it does load in Safari. What gives with FF lately?)

flight

Bird's eye view of the Canadian Rockies

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Thursday Challenge

Next Week: FRESH (Water, Fruit and Vegetables, Flowers, Clean, Air, New,...)

is it lunch yet?

I have a new food obsession - pickled hot banana pepper rings. They're sour and salty, hot and delicious, and  so non-fattening - 5 calories for 15 rings.  My fave is to put them between halves of a toasted whole wheat bun together with a poached egg and cheese. Docile egg and dairy never had such zippy company!

easing into fall

 Bedford Channel - Fort Langley, BC

It's been a lovely, lazy weekend - with rain and cool temperatures. Despite the showers, we've fit in our walk each day. Yesterday after the early service at church we drove to Fort Langley and walked part of the Fort to Fort Trail.  The Bedford Channel looked like jade. After our exercise we indulged in a delicious lunch at Beatnik's and then lazed at home - napped and read.

I was pretty unmotivated today too. Did the laundry, watched a half of football, Toronto vs. Hamilton, did a little blogging ahead, but not much else. (Somehow my Wordpress blog dashboards aren't working in Firefox with only a fraction of the tools displaying above the edit box. In Safari it is fine. What gives?)

I'm trying to psych myself up for tomorrow - and the official beginning of the fall season. When the kids were off to school, the division between summer holidays and fall was such a line in the sand. Without school, not so much.

But it's hard for me to get into new projects because I'll soon be interrupted again. It's an interruption I'm looking forward to -- visiting my daughter after the birth of her second baby. She's due this week!

in shock

I'm in shock.  This morning I heard that my neighbor of 24 years died last night.  We lived next door to each other from 1983 to 2007, saw each others kids grow up, chatted over the 'garden gate' - though we didn't have a gate, just a hedge - or caught up on each others lives beside the hydro kiosk between our two properties. Each year we remembered each others' birthdays and exchanged Christmas goodies (I bought her birthday present a week ago, for crying out loud).

It was sudden - way too sudden. The dreaded C-word was first uttered in April. What was to be a simple course of radiation, then surgery, then getting on with life turned deadly when breathing complications surfaced at the beginning of August. I saw her last on Monday - and she looked better than she had on Friday. There was talk of her going home midweek. 

Today I cooked soup. E. made a batch of buns. Now I'm planning to bake a some cookies. Then it's off for a sad visit to the old neighborhood.

Listen folks, the Bible isn't kidding when it says our life is short and uncertain - like grass, a mist. So don't waste a minute. Don't put off till tomorrow what you can and should do today.

is summer over?

So, how are you liking September so far? It's early days to be asking, I guess. But here, as if to prove that more has changed than just the page on the calendar, today turned cloudy and I definitely felt a tinge of fall in the air as I walked to and from the library just now. We got a few showers so everything smelled fabulous. Along with the smells of damp earth and rain-soaked yellow grass there is always, when one walks in town at least, the perfumy fragrance sometime on one's walk, of dryer sheets. I know it's not a smell of nature, but I love it!

Now, back from the library, I feel rich. For I have returned with three (count them) novels which are not new and waiting with bated breath to be reviewed and have their names splattered all over the internet, but old (in the case of Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping - 1980, and Ken Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion - 1964) and new but by an established writer (Execution Dock - 2009 by Anne Perry - the Brit. writer who wrote the foreword to Donald Maass's Writing the Breakout Novel). No one of these writers gives a fig whether I review their books or not I'm sure.

One of my summer pleasures -

watching these Hibiscus flowers open up.

Trouble is, they only last a day or so.

So, until my next shipment of review books comes, I shall be reading for sheer pleasure - while I enjoy the tail end of summer and the first cool breaths of fall.