First order of the day is it is Remembrance Day today. I attended a service at dad’s place yesterday with dad dressed in his jacket proudly wearing his metals. Dad, we truly are grateful for the sacrifices you made to give us a better life and that you survived and still with us today. I am very grateful to all the military men of yesterday and today that we are able to live in relative peace because of the sacrifices these men and women make every day. May God Bless them all.
It certainly has been another busy few weeks. On October 25th ,I officially retired from the transcription agency (Accentus) that I was working for. I still am running my own business with the contract I have for a hospital in Toronto but other than manage that account; I don’t have a lot of work to do – maybe just an hour or so each day; and I worked for Accentus just to keep myself busy but it was really starting to drag me down as you have to commit to do a certain amount of work each week and I have been finding that extremely hard and just felt that the time was right to leave. I was always worried that I might feel “bored” if I didn’t work but I think I have come full circle with that and realized there are a lot of things to do without having to work; so now this leaves me time to do the things I want to pursue outside of work. I still am bringing in a bit of money with my hospital account and feel very fortunate that I have the best of both worlds.
I bought myself a new sewing machine and have started to sew again – it has been at least 25 years since I have done any sewing – so it is like learning all over again! I have started by making some doll clothes for Annika’s new Maplelea Doll (18” doll) we have bought her for Christmas. As most of you probably know, I am a “doll addict” and have been all of my life. I still have all my original Barbie dolls in excellent condition and I am just loving this doll craze that the American Girl Doll has created (the Canadian equivalent is called the Maplealea doll) and now I can live vicariously through my granddaughter who just so happens to love dolls as well!! Annika and I are planning to have the grandkid’s room here as our doll’s play house. So at the moment, I’m all into making these doll clothes and other things that pertain to the doll; even getting Brian in on the act by making little beds and wardrobes. Even my sister-in-law Pat is making things for Annika’s dolls! Hopefully in another year or two Selena will also be into dolls but I’m not so sure she will be as she has a completely different personality than Annika and just doesn’t seem like a “doll” person (at least not yet!). Also in my retirement, I am slowly going to get into some volunteer work, starting off with volunteering at my dad’s retirement home. I am so loving my new found freedom and also being able to do things with Brian like a bit more travelling, taking some day trips, doing things around the house, the possibilities are endless it seems!
Well enough about me; Brian had his second last chemo round this past Friday and once again has tolerated it well. This round almost made him hyper, not sure why that happened but he was really quite comical with his hyper-ness – it certainly is much nicer to be hyper after chemo than feeling ill, so we are grateful for that. He has one more round in February and then he will be done and considered in remission until the lymphoma decides to show its ugly head again but Brian is going to be one that beat the odds and he is going to keep that lymphoma away for years to come.
I have a few pictures to add below of things that we did over the last month. First off we had our annual girl’s weekend away in the States where all the females of the family get together for shopping, eating, and catching up with each other. We took Annika and Selena this year and it was great that they got to be with family and Annika was ecstatic to be with her “cousin – Christine”. She loves being able to say she has a “cousin” and was going to talk about Christine at school and how Christine also had her American Girl Doll with her on the trip!
Family!! From the left, Connie, Breanne, Selena, Janet and Annika; in the rear from the left – Pat, Gwen, Cathy and Christine.
Annika driving – Selena on for the ride!
In the hotel pool; Selena and Annika had so much fun with Cathy and Christine! This was the highlight of the trip for them!
Once Selena warmed up to Cathy, there was no stopping her; she was jumping into her arms and swimming around the pool with her. It was hard to get her to finally get out of the pool. Thanks to Cathy for spending so much time with her!
Here are our “only” trick N treaters” this year – our grandkids!!! Brian is now left with 4 boxes of chocolate bars to eat since we had no other trick and treaters at our door!
Trying out the Candy before they left. Just noticed Timme’s bones in there as well!
A little out of order but this was Thanksgiving Day!
Timmie and Mavie taking advantage of a beautiful sunny fall day.
That’s it for this month; will write again in another month!
