Wedding Anniversary

Time does fly! It’s hard to believe it’s our wedding anniversary again!

The day is still fresh in our memories! It started out early, with Terry picking up a friend at the Greyhound Bus station. She had travelled on an overnight bus from northern Ontario. Our apartment was full of family and friends who had come for the wedding, some of whom slept in sleeping bags on our carpeted floor!

Some friends joined Terry at the church hall to help set up for the wedding reception.

Ours was a very “hands on” wedding - catered by friends. - with lots of family and friends helping in any way they could.

So many memories!

Helping Out

For years now, an Anglican Church in our neighborhood has had a small "nearly new" shop in the basement, manned mostly by senior lady volunteers.

I'd stop in from time to time, shopping for clothing or books. I always marvelled at these white-haired ladies and the community of good will they created, offering this service to the community and enjoying each other's company at the same time.

Well... now I'm a white-haired senior lady... (I know... When did that happen?!!) A retired friend is now in charge of the "Nearly New."

If you ever need help, Anna, let me know, I told her.

Last week she called...

So I went to help out... and it was fun!

(I also managed to do some shopping myself!)

Extra fun!

Neighboring Flowers

Our neighborhood, St. Clair Gardens, used to be known for its small houses and big gardens... 

Amid the inevitable changes, fortunately many beautiful gardens still remain.

I always enjoy looking over at the flowers in my neighbors, Earl and Mary's yard.

As the blooming season comes to a close in our climate zone, Earl and Mary are at the seed-gathering stage of the season, pulling off seeds to plant next year.

We gardeners are a hopeful bunch - always looking forward to next spring!

Questionable Claim

Saw this on Facebook - it was posted by a friend last Tuesday (2 days ago)...

But isn't it a bluff? Doesn't adding our age to the year of our birth always add up to the current year - assuming we've had our birthday...??

Also... nobody's age is 2023...!! Or am I misreading what it says?!!

I have a feeling someone is "pranking" us!

Bees!

There are still lots of bees about in the flower beds...

Terry is a big fan of bees! (He's been known to scratch their backs gently... Not me!)

I wonder if they're from the bee hives nearby at the college.

Printer Problems

My first mosaic crochet project was done. I was ready for another.

I had purchased the previous pattern online. Now I wanted to buy another from the same pattern designer. She has created so many colourful ones I love.

But when you purchase a pattern online, it is emailed to you. Then YOU have to print it up. Unfortunately the new printer I purchased in April wasn't printing properly. Now several colours weren't printing, so pages with color were illegible... What to do?!!

I returned to the store where I had purchased the machine to ask what my options were, but customer service wasn't at all helpful. They simply informed me that their obligation to exchange it ended 30 days after I purchased it. No mention of what I could do now.

I confess that at this point I was ready to put the printer in the trash and buy another one - NOT from the same company. There must be "lemons" in the printing world - and I had obviously bought a lemon.

Well, you have a one-year warranty, Terry reminded me. They have to fix it.

I decided to try to contact the manufacturer by phone rather than go back to the store - but of course, they no longer provide telephone contact numbers. So instead, I went to their online website and started typing in my problem using the online "chat" option. It was effective though cumbersome. Half an hour later, I was asked to open the printer and describe what I saw... I had no idea what I was looking for.

I offered to email a photograph of the inside of my printer.

They agreed and quickly identified the problem: Bubbles blocking some ink tubes. They then told me to press this and that on the "maintenance" button to fix it... And, to my amazement, the printer now worked!

Here are the pages I printed before and after the intervention. Yes!  They're the same page. That - on the right - is what the page was supposed to look like!

As I sat down to print up my new crochet patterns, it occurred to me that this is not an experience my parents would ever have had to  face. They never owned a printer - though my dad would have found it interesting. He loved machines.

I can't say I love machines - but because I wanted to print up some patterns, I forced myself to turn to technical support. As they say, "Necessity knows no defeat." 

I can almost see my dad smiling.

It's Not My Job!

In our family, we all have our roles. One of Terry's (by HIS choice) is cutting the grass.

I'VE decided that "bugs" are also his domain. When a large black centipede scooted across the floor early one morning, I stopped. So did he!

I hurried to get an empty plastic yogurt container, hoping he wouldn't disappear while I was gone.. He was still there, so I dropped the container over him. I then added a note to warn Terry about what was underneath.

I wondered if the centipede would still be under the empty yogurt container when Terry got up. (It was!)

There were two interesting reactions to the above scenario:

When I sent my daughter the above picture, she was shocked (perhaps even disgusted) that I wasn't dealing with the problem myself. (Are women braver these days?!)

Terry, on the other hand, was happy to oblige - BUT he was surprised that, having had the bug in captivity for over an hour, I hadn't yet given him a name!