Chair Slippers

These chair slippers look like an interesting invention...














... to avoid scratching hard wood floors.

They don't slide... But they come with a product warning:

Don't lean back!

Sunny Spring Day!

What do people in Ottawa do on a sunny day?!














Swarm to outdoor cafes in the market!

We were among them one recent sunny Sunday...














We stopped for lattes and croissants at Terry's favorite market bakery.














It's been a long, cold winter...














Everyone was enjoying being out!

Thank God For ... UNanswered Prayer!

Prayer is associated with hope - hope that our desires will be fulfilled. We "hope and pray" for so many things in the course of a lifetime.

Many of the things I have "hoped and prayed" for have come to pass, but not all. Why? Why are our all prayers not answered the way we would like?

Richard Foster provides an interesting twist to this question when he suggests we thank God for prayers not answered. Why?

"Many times in our shortsightedness we ask for things that would do us in...

In such cases, ... it is God's grace and mercy that prevent our prayers from being answered. God withholds his gifts from us for our good... So we must thank God that many of our prayers go unanswered. C.S. Lewis writes, "If God had granted all the silly requests I've made in my life, where should I be now?"*

That is a question many of us might ask ourselves!  

* Quote from Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home, p. 182 

Algonquin College Garden in Early May

I wandered over to Algonquin College....


















... to see what spring flowers were blooming in their gardens...


















... in early May.














There were lots of tulips!














And daffodils... including these beautiful white ones.

In one part of their garden, little white flowers were growing out of a rock wall.














In another area, protected by hedges, I saw these mounds of blooms.














I'd love to have a garden like this - but I'd need a much bigger yard! (And I'd have time for little else than gardening!)

A New Bed!

Terry has been complaining about back and shoulder pain. Time for a new bed?

After weeks of online research - and visits to numerous mattress stores - he decided on an organic bed made up of layers of foam rubber:


















Built to individual specifications, each sleeper chooses a different foam firmness for different parts of the body (upper body, torso, and leg).














These smaller foam pieces are sandwiched between two layers of foam rubber...














Placed inside a mattress "skin," the mattresses are assembled on site...














If this doesn't cure his ills, I get to choose the next mattress!

Spring Flower Confusion

I've been enjoying the first spring flowers...















Many of the earliest to appear in our garden are blue or white ...  I love them, but I get them confused! (Are the ones above the same as the ones in the picture below?!)














I'm glad to see a few flowers growing from bulbs I planted last year. (Covering the bulbs with rocks deterred the squirrels from eating them. I'm glad they survived!)















As I look at this most recent bloom - which I assumed was a hellebore. (It's growing out of the bunch of yellowish helleborus flowers behind it)...















I am wondering: Is it a Canada anemone instead?!

 Have I accidentally planted one above the other?!

(Does it matter?! I'm enjoying them all!)

Instant Recognition

When I saw this tree in bud in a nearby park..

... I immediately recognized it!














The branches were full of the same red buds that my neighbor Mary brought to our last botanical art class.














The buds are the beginning of Crimson King maple tree leaves - leaves that have a reddish hue all summer long...



















(Nothing like drawing something to fix it firmly in your mind!!)