I like Thursday

Once again it has been a while since I was able to join with Lana and a great group of bloggers who share their posts about things that bring them joy or they are just plain grateful to be able to share. The links can be found at LeeAnna’s site Not Afraid of Color.

Today would have been my mother’s 92nd birthday and I find that strange. She passed away when I was in my early 20’s. I was thinking of her this morning. She did get to meet my daughter and my sons before she passed away. I’m grateful for the things she taught me; to cook, to knit and to be strong enough to do what I needed to to raise my children and be independent. I actually started chucking when I was thinking of her, so many memories and then remembered her treat drawer. In the kitchen she had a bottom drawer that always had treats for my kids; a new book, a new toy or occasionally a sweet treat or a chocolate goodie for each of them. The kids always did their best to be good and to charm Gramma in to allowing them a trip to the drawer. They would never go in to it to even peek without permission. I kept up the tradition when my children were young and when I was living near my grandchildren. My daughter and I were talking about the treat drawer earlier this week (she does it, too). She hadn’t realized that it was her grandmother who had started that routine since she doesn’t really have any memory of my Mom. Now that my daughter has grandchildren she says she always has fun trying to find special things for the drawer.

Since February is the month we all are reminded of love, whether it be for a partner, or friends and family, I do want to say that I am grateful to have my DH in my life. He has the most bizarre sense of humour and a lot of friends and family say that I am the only one to get his humour.

After the nightmare of his watching the news for between 6 and 12 hours a day during the election where Trump won, my DH finally realized last year (when our Clarke died) that I don’t function well with the constant barrage of the news media. He has control of the remote so he normally watches news, sports, car shows and poker. This winter he has been checking all of the new series as they start and has been recording the good ones so we can always find something that we both can enjoy. This means that instead of sitting at my machine sewing, I sit in my comfy chair next to him doing some handwork while we enjoy a show and chat through the commercials or pause the show to discuss something.

One of the new shows I have really been enjoying is Will Trent. We have also been watching Shannara and a variety of police and Investigative series. I always did enjoy the CSI series and of course shows like Marketplace. Nothing like a variety of drama, investigative journalism and pure fiction/fantasy to make an evening interesting.

If you have read my blog for a while, you know that my DH does have MS and I often end up doing more of the chores by myself. He dislikes shopping and discovered that the Pandemic gave him the perfect excuse reason to stay home and be a hermit. In return for me having to do the shopping, the trips to town for meds and any other errands, he has decided that the vacuuming is now his job since he doesn’t cook and I prefer that he not do laundry. 😉

This past winter he convinced me that I needed to joint the Board of Directors for the Golf Club since they are in the position most charitable organizations are; short on bodies and a too heavy workload for the number of bodies they have. Upon being elected as Secretary I discovered that they needed to be brought in to this “new era” with digital files so I have been setting that up as well as trying to find new sponsors. It has cut in to my sewing time, so often when I am heading in to town my DH will hand me some cash and tell me to buy something “stupid” with it. To him that means a trip to my favourite source of my greatest addiction; fabric! The funny thing is it’s almost the end of February and I still haven’t bought any fabric. I do however have a nest egg that is building since we are planning a trip to America in April and I do have a couple of shops I like to visit while I’m there. 😉

In return, my focus has been on making him some new cushions. He spends more time sitting in his recliner over the winter and often finds he can’t get comfortable. I indulged in a new craft for me; embroidery to stitch a design on one cushion. Then I used a couple of blocks I had tested the patterns for and made another two cushions.

I have also been doing some EPP Stitching and have several projects on the go.

I have always been a person who enjoys reading and have added listening to audiobooks to my list of things that bring me joy more lately. I listen to audiobooks while I’m driving and usually read a book for an hour or so before I go to bed. My reading ranges from every genre, but have found that since the Reconciliation Report was published and they have been finding the unmarked children’s graves on the Residential School Sites here in Canada, I have been doing more reading on Indigenous Issues. It has long been known that our police forces have had problems with being biased and not investigating the cases of missing and murdered persons. I am currently reading a book that tells the story of seven murdered students in a community I have connections to. It’s a wrenching story, but one that we are all too familiar with. I borrowed it in digital format from my library and am going to manage to read it at least twice before it needs to be returned.

Other than that our life here is back in to the winter deep freeze mode, so I am not getting out for my daily walk to my Guild. It’s only a couple of miles along the trail system. I am grateful to have the trail system we do. When the bears aren’t hanging around I try to get on the trails most days. I did hear of a bear sighting last week, but think that with the cold weather setting back in there shouldn’t be too many of them out yet so I will likely get a few more weeks at least of enjoying the trails.

I will be heading over to LeeAnna’s site after I get back from town to see what our friends are sharing on their linked posts.

Thank you for stopping by to read my post. Hope your month has been filled with happy days and many things to be grateful for; that bring you joy. 😁 Carol