Celebrations & Trips

Once again, it's that time of year when Canadians celebrate Canada Day (July 1st) & Americans celebrate 4th of July, their Independence Day. This year, I will be celebrating here on July 1st, then July 2nd I will be leaving for a weekend away. I drive to Oliver, BC Thursday morning where my friend Mike will change the ignition in my truck (bought one at auto recyclers a month or so ago and have been waiting for this trip to get it done), he will load a steel rack on that he's selling me for a good deal, and some 'spare parts' that he's giving to me. He had a Ford Ranger just a few years older than mine, and recently he sold it, keeping some things for me. I'll get a tailgate in better shape than mine, a visor for over the windshield, and 2 brand new doors. My passenger door is good, though my driver's door has a small rust hole in it that I can put my finger through and the tailgate has some rust though not too serious. The biggest problem with my truck is the box... the driver's side wheel well has a big rust hole above it, though the rest of the box is fine. One day I will have to do something about that... hmmmm.

But I digress... So, Friday morning Mike & I will get into his motorhome & drive south to the USA. We have a friend, Stacey, who lives near a town called Chesaw, WA, so we will visit her, help her make cob for building a home, and then on Saturday, 4th of July, we go to the Chesaw rodeo which we've heard is a big deal. One place on the internet says this about the rodeo: The Annual Chesaw Rodeo, Family Games and Parade have taken place without fail every 4th of July since 1942. Come as a spectator or sign up to play or ride. Walk in some American history and come to the Old Fashioned Family Rodeo Dance.

I don't think we'll get any Cyber Monday shopping in, we're leaving Chesaw on Sunday to return home. I am sure I will love every minute of this trip... and that I will be happy to get home to my "babies". I will be giving all my critters LOTS of food & water, way more than they'd use when I'm home, and leaving them on their own for the weekend. It's always hard for me to leave them behind, even knowing they'll be okay. I do have a fellow living in my yard in a travel trailer and this is nice, having someone living here almost with me, lol. And Reba keeps an eye on things, barking if people come around, and neighbors that know I'm gone, so I know all will be well... and still I have separation anxiety. Sheeeeesh!

Happy Celebrating, Canadians & Americans!!

Update...

I guess it's about time I catch up with a bit of what's been happening here, lol. Since I have a bird on my shoulder & one on my head, and having made reference to them in my Wordzzle post, I maybe could tell you about them.

So.... I had 2 Indian Ringneck Parrots (DW & Paco), 2 budgies (Ellen & Chirp), 4 Peach-face Lovebirds (2 male, 2 female, identical to look at so none have names... or all are named Boid), as well as the dog, cat, rabbit & 4 chinchillas. One day I thought to myself, "Self, I think another cage is needed for the birds. Having Lovebirds in an old commercial chinchilla cage works well in the short term, though not for the long term. Maybe run a 'wanted' post on Freecycle." Well, later that day I checked my emails and found a post from Cheapcycle for a bird cage for sale. It was a great deal and I went for it!! I want to show you some photos, so must be off to my other computer to get them, send to external hard drive, then to this computer... sheeeesh!! This one needs a card reader.

Monday June 29... Okay, so it took awhile. I'm back and uploading pictures for you to see. Did you miss me? (hehehe)

The cage advertised was a powder coated steel cage:

I found it on the internet and see mine is missing the seed skirt & inner grate, neither a big deal though would be nice if it still had them.

This photo shows a bit better look at the play station on top, and the photo on the internet shows the whole cage quite nicely.

Also included were a lot of parrot toys, perches, cuddle bones, mineral blocks, cage covers, a second cage, and 2 small travel cages. How cool is that!! Oh ya... 2 more birds too. A female Cockatiel and a male Parrotlet. I named the Cockatiel Tiki and the Parrotlet Friday (was amazed that neither of them had a name, they're around a year old). The little fellow is Tiki's Boy Friday, always goes where she is, in fact they both get very upset if they somehow can't find each other after flying around and ending up in different rooms, lol.

This is the other cage, and it is on a stand. This is a great cage, though nothing compared to the fancy one, lol.
All this, litterally hundreds of dollars worth of stuff, for $100. See.... a deal I couldn't pass up.

This made it 10 birds in my home, so I decided to 'downsize' a bit. I gave the 2 budgies back to Shannon who gave them to me, and put the 4 Lovebirds for sale, though so far no interest. I'm not loving the Lovebirds. The guy they came from told me they are friendly and they aren't at all except to each other, and they are noisier than my parrots by far. Very pretty birds and sounds like if I had one it would be people friendly, but I have 4, not 1. Oh well. Anyway, these 2 new ones are people friendly and they are a joy to have. They both like to ride around on my head and my shoulders, and to take naps with me, etc. Very entertaining!

June 30 - Walked away and took awhile to get back, lol. This may not be the longest post ever but must set a record for the longest time it takes to get the post up.

Here I am doing my best to take photos of Tiki & Friday while they are sitting on me as they often do.

These two little birds are such a treat. They are so people friendly and they even take naps with me some afternoons. A few times, Mewsic came to nap with me when Tiki & Friday were with me on my bed. She just laid down and cuddled with me and didn't bother the birds. Then one day she hopped up on the bed to come see me & Tiki decided she didn't want the cat there. Tiki stood at her very tallest and took a few threatening steps towards the cat who, having learned from DW about birds beeks, decided to leave post haste. Then another day, Mewsic came and was cuddled with me, the birds were on me, and Tiki suddenly marchs over and jumps off me and square onto Mewsic's stomach. That poor cat wasted no time disappearing.

"Hey Mom, whatcha doin?
"Tiki, I'm taking a picture and you just got waaaaay too close to the camera."

"Hi. I'm Friday and this is Me sitting on Mom's knee while she lays on her bed. I'm a full grown Parrotlet... a full fledged Parrot in a very tiny body, and I have full Parrotude too."

"Check me out... I'm Tiki. An exotic name for a fabulous bird. I'm a female Cockatiel."

"I likes to nap with Mom, zzzzzZZzzZzzz"

I think it's time for me to hit "Publish Post".

*** Wordzzle Challenge ***

Raven, at Views From Raven's Nest, is the hostess of this word puzzle, Wordzzle. You will find her story there as well as links to other writers of this challenge. The words/phrases to work with this week are:

Main Challenge (10): Chorus line, clam chowder, apples, jack-in-the-box, puddles, Iran, quarry, housekeeping, speed, letter

Mini Challenge (5): motorcycle, grandiose, summer, flying off the handle, blue jays

My Mini Challenge (5):

Here I sit on a nice summer night, enjoying the grandiose pleasure of my life. As I dream of being off somewhere riding a motorcycle, I sit here in my computer chair with 2 birds bedded down on top of my head. One is blue, though neither of them are blue jays. They are free to fly around my home much of the time. I've seen them flying off their cage to catch up to me as I go away from them, I've seen them flying off the other bird cages, I've seen them flying off the top of the hutch on my computer desk... though I have never seen them flying off the handle. Haha. Oddly enough this is a true story.

My Main Challenge (10):

Sally rushed from her job in the hospital's housekeeping department, to her other job in the Chorus line. As she drove quickly through the city traffic she ate what would pass for her dinner this evening... clam chowder in a thermos and cut up pieces of apples. It was a rainy evening and she drove right through the puddles, not even trying to miss them. As she drove past the quarry, Sally didn't even notice that a man from Iran stood on the dark, wet sidewalk, waiting to cross the street, and her speed caused her to splash cold, dirty water all over him. She was thinking only of getting to the set of "jack-in-the-box" on time, and of the letter she had received today. The letter told of some cardboard displays her friend Matt was making of Farrah Fawcett & of Michael Jackson, both having left the earth on June 25th and it was his way of saying Bon Voyage.


I wrote the above last night.... now at 4pm Saturday, I remembered I had only gotten half way through the Mega 15. I am again 'time challenged', so have decided to skip the Mega 15 or you won't ever get any of this. Have a wonderful day!!

Manic Monday

The word this week, Mo tells us on Manic Monday homepage, is:
Pop.


I had several good ideas, then Reba stole them on me, so I must start with something 'fresh'... or maybe not so fresh.

Maybe I could talk about Pop getting a tie or one of those pressure washers for Father's Day, though I don't have a Pop/Dad anymore. Hmmm, Oh! I know:

In Canada, or at least the area where I live, we say 'pop' for what I believe people in the US say 'soda'. So, Coke is 'pop'. I am proud to say I have not had any in a fairly long time. No, I don't remember exactly when it was though I do know it was on a Thursday this spring.

I used to drink a LOT of pop, mainly Coke. For awhile I drank Diet Coke, thinking it better than drinking too much sugar, then upon learning of the extreme dangers of Aspertame, I switched back to 'real' Coke and drank it for many years. At one point, I drank at least 6 liters every day. Yes, you read that right... at least 6 liters. (1 liter = just a smidgen over a quart, 1.057 quarts to be exact). I also craved to chew ice!! It was so bad that I had a real hard time not chewing the dirty ice in the rabbit dishes in winter while doing my chores (at that time I was raising show rabbits). I broke several teeth and my dentist told me to stop chewing ice though I could not do so, and I even totally froze my tounge different times. I still have some occasional pain in the tounge that I think is related to the damage done back then. I was having 'health issues' that turned out to be severe chronic iron deficiency, and when this was discovered I was put on mega doses of iron suppliments as well as some treatments that didn't work, eventually leading to my having a hysterectomy. I litterally was bleeding to death each month, my body unable to rebuild its iron supplies quickly enough, due to endometriosis and a fybroid.

I did some research on the internet and discovered that if you have severe chronic iron deficiency, there are 2 major signs and you will have one or the other.... cravings for chewing ice or chewing dirt. I'm kinda glad mine was ice, lol.

After getting that under control I dropped right down to drinking a lot less pop... maybe a litre or two of Coke per week. Major improvement!! However, I did continue to drink Coke & other kinds of pop (never Pepsi, thanks) in various amounts over the following years.

In January of this year, very over weight, I decided to join TOPS (Take Off Pounds Sensibly), and to cut even further back on the pop. About 3 - 4 weeks after joining TOPS, and having no Coke at all in that time, I was diagnosed as Type 2 Diabetic. Since then, I have pretty much stayed away from all kinds of pop, except for one day.

Our TOPS group meets on Thursday mornings and they always say "Thursday is a free day", so you can have some goodies to eat that day that you don't allow yourself on other days. At one point I was really craving a Coke!! I wanted to kill for a nice ice cold Coke. I managed to not give in, and promised myself that if I held off, I could have one on Thursday. So, I did! It wasn't as cold as I liked them, though it was right out of the cooler at the gas station where I fueled up the truck. It tasted rather good, though not as good as I remembered it. I bought a 591ml bottle (500ml is 2 cups) and only drank about half, then felt I'd had enough. By bed time that night I had drank the whole thing, and felt it was pretty 'big' to have taken that long. That is the last time I drank pop of any kind, and I must say I do feel pretty good about that. I kind of wish I knew now what day that was, so I could say 'my quit date was', like I can say 'the last time I smoked a cigarette was October 3, 1988, so my Quit Day or Smoke Free Day is Oct. 4. Wow, over 20 years smoke free!! I wonder if some day I can look back and say "Wow, over 20 years pop free!"

Check back in 20 years!!

Have a great week!!

Manic Monday

The word this week, Mo tells us on Manic Monday homepage, is:
Shower

If I had one of those nice camcorders I could show you what my days are like. You would get to see where I shower at home, and where I shower at the Rec. Center pool. Yesterday you would have seen a small rain shower with lots of clouds and thunder. You would not be seeing me in the shower, nor would you see a wedding shower or a baby shower as I've not been to either in quite some time. Oh, another thing you would see is how people shower each other with love at my Spiritual Centre, the smiles, hugs, kind/wonderful/supportive words all are so powerful & healing.

Happy Manic Monday to you all.

Manic Monday

The word this week, Mo tells us on Manic Monday homepage, is:
Shine

There are a few things that come to mind when I hear/read the word shine. Some of them are as follows:

- the last while, other than today, we've had a lot of sunshine around here. It went from unusually cold temps to unusually hot temps in the space of under a week. Toasty! After such a long, cold winter/spring that just wouldn't quit, it has been wonderful to have hot, sunny weather to enjoy.

- if you have zits and use acne treatments your face could clear up and that would likely make you shine.

- John Denver's song... "Sunshine On My Shoulders"



- with summer upon us here in the beautiful Okanagan Valley, there are a LOT of classic & antique cars/trucks out & about on the roads. They have all been given a wash and a shine before going out on the road.

- last Sunday, May 31, I was out on a Memorial Ride for a friend who passed away last fall. There were about 40 motorcycles all riding together. There was a lot of shine on these bikes as we rode down the roads in the sunshine. Needless to say, I took a LOT of photographs that day. The best of them are posted on the internet and you can see them here. We rode 246 kilometers that day, and it's the first time in many years that I've been on a bike, though I used to ride a fair bit (always on the back). I'm sure there must have been some major shine in my eyes, and I know I was grinning from ear to ear all day. I still feel the joy of the ride whenever I think of it. Not only did I love being 'in the wind' again, I also enjoyed meeting some great new friends, and being reunited with some long ago ones.

- I've been cleaning my home and bird cages, etc. One could say I'm putting a shine on this place.

And with that, I will bid you ad____, ad_____..... hmmm, I'll just say "Good night".

Happy Manic Monday!!

What's Up?

Hi all. I haven't been posting to my blog much lately, or visiting my blogger friends. This is very odd for me as I love to do these things. In several ways I'm not quite myself lately... hmmmm. I've been getting up in the morning at a much more "normal" time for others though very abnormal time for me. I even got up at 6am last Sunday and stayed up all day!!! Well, mind you, I did have a really great reason for that (later story).

I've not been watching TV must at all, and most times I have it on I am not actually paying attention to it. Tonight I didn't even turn it on. Very odd indeed!

Yesterday I even started cleaning my house! Yes!! I know!! I worked in the living room until I couldn't move without shots of pain in my back, then went and laid down for awhile. When I awoke and got up again I felt much better and went right back to work. My living room is almost like a different place it looks so good. Oh, there's still lots to do, and the main area of it is now clean. Crap picked up, area rug vacuumed, floor swept and washed. Utterly amazing, I tell you!! I even took away one of the parrot cages & soaked it in the tub, then washed it all down. This morning I gave it back to them and took the other one, into the tub it went and this evening when I got home I washed it all down too. Now they have 2 fresh, clean cages... and new plastic under them to catch the droppings. My Indian Ringneck Parrots both live free in and out of their cages which are close together so they can move between them. Paco over grooms (has since before I got him) so his wing & tail feathers are too damaged to fly (yes, if he would quit destroying them, they would eventually molt out and good ones grow in). DW can fly though I have kept her wing feathers trimmed back so she can't (or she gets into too much trouble). They've grown out now so I think she could fly if she tried. If I'm lucky she won't try and I won't have to be the grinch that cuts the feathers again. With neither of them flying it is possible to let them live free without being caged up. One drawback to having them live like this, though, is that the cage wires get dirtier than if the bird is locked inside, so means the need to occationally give them a major scrubbing like I just did. Feels great to have done it.

This morning I got up at 7:30am, and hour earlier and much easier than usual Sunday mornings (the rest of the week is later than Sundays). I planned to be early for the Sunday Service and that didn't happen. I did some laundry, did the above with the cages, fed & watered all the birds (this is a daily thing in the mornings), updated the Centre's Membership List to be ready for the Board meeting this afternoon, and did a few other things around the house. I ended up being very late and only caught the end of the service, sigh... oh well, at least I got there in time for the pot luck lunch and the Board meeting.

So you see, I'm really not myself these days. With all the things happening in my life that are so different, I think I may have to get a group of Mesothelioma lawyers and their paralegals, or some Private Investigators or something to look into it and find out what is going on. What happened to the real me that so loves to blog? Actually, I think it's maybe got something to do with being summer, long days that are light much earlier as well as much later, and the 8 parrots (2 Indian Ringnecks, 4 Peachfaced Lovebirds, 2 Budgies. Yes, Lovebirds & Budgies/Budgerigars/Parakeets are little parrots) all chirping and singing and occationally screaching to welcome the new day.... well, I think some of that is wearing off on me. Then by evening, I'm too tired to blog.

Don't forget me though... don't count me out... I will be back. I'm not gone, just on hiatus or something.

"A Thousand Words In Idioms"

Jientje has started a wonderful photo challenge: "As long as people have been around, they have tried to communicate with each other. As a means of getting the message across as clearly as possible, idioms and sayings have found their way into our language.

Now, because a picture paints a thousand words, I thought it would be nice to make this a new photo challenge. The idea is to pick an idiom, or a saying, ( even slang is allowed) and illustrate it with a picture. Each week we’ll cover two letters of the alphabet, okay?"

If “language is the dress of thoughts” ( Johnson), then idioms must the wardrobe …

I'm playing catch up this week, so will be doing I & J from last week plus this week's K & L.

Each meaning has a link to the page where I got it from, and where they post about the origins of the saying/idioms.

Warning: You may want to consider an appetite suppressant before you read further... if you want to look like you eat like a bird, lol. A large salad would work.

I'll be there with bells on:

Meaning: Eager; ready to participate.

Just Deserts:

Meaning: That which is deserved. A reward for what has been done - good or bad.

Kick the bucket:

Meaning: To die.

A little bird told me:

Meaning: I was told by a private or secret source.

Remember to leave a comment, then go visit Jientje to see other participants posts &/or to join in the fun.