Learning Curve

I am having to learn quite a few new things living in Canada. One of them is how to tell the temperature. We don't do fahrenheit here, we do centigrade. So it's not 62 degrees now, it 17 degrees. But since my 63 year-old brain still thinks Fahrenheit, I have to do the math to know if I should be hot or cold. Joking; I just like to know how it works. So, here's the formula for those that want to know; take the temperature times 9, divide by 5, and add 32 and, viola! you've just converted centigrade to fahrenheit (which I even know how to spell now). Try it, it's fun! So, yesterday it was 17, which is quite chilly since it's been in the 30's a good part of summer. It was cloudy too, but not raining, so Mart & I decided to go for a walk. In Mitchell's Bay, which is about a 20 min. drive from here. It's on the shore of Lake St. Clair. Hence the lovely sunset photo. We're wearing jackets, because it's breezy and 17 degrees. I love it!

New Decor

Martin and I are learning a little more about the whole blogging thing. He's showing me where to find help. When I saw this background of a library, it seemed to create such a warm cozy setting. Now if I could just find a nice tea cup for my heading. I have a lot to learn.

A Small Luncheon

Five of Martin's sisters (and three attached husbands) joined us for a retiree lunch on Monday. The weather was perfect and these girls were at their hilarious best. They never miss a chance to have some good laughs during all the conversation. Amazingly, we all get along great; in fact, the sisters get on so well that they are all going on a cruise together next month. Maybe next trip we will join them, but next month our calendar is full of house chores and bureaucratic paperwork. Getting into this country for keeps means crossing lots of T's and dotting all the I's.

Hidden Treasure

When we bought our lovely home, we were told it had hardwood floors. We even had a peek beneath a flap of carpet in the hall. Our original plan was to immediately take up all the old carpets before moving in. After looking at the situation more closely, we discovered 50 yr.old foam carpet padding quite adhered to the flooring. We had to ponder that dilemma before taking action. Finally, we came up with a plan. Cut away 2 feet of carpet and start scraping, using wooden spatulas followed by scotch-brite pads and lots of muscle. The task seemed daunting but we persevered. One week later we have a beautiful oak floor in our bedroom.

Morning Glory Graces

I've been marveling for weeks about the view from our back yard. I've mentioned that our back yard faces our church parking lot, which is a good thing. But I may not have noted that a chain-link fence separates us. I'm not really fond of chain-link fences, but I knew we would not be doing any landscaping projects to enhance our view this year, so I didn't let it concern me. We are so thankful to the Lord for all the blessings of this move. One day, shortly after moving in, we noticed some vines growing up the fence. The next day they had grown about a foot. And so it has gone, until nearly the entire 10-ft. fence is covered with Martin's favorite flower--Morning Glories! We give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! Sorry about the awkward layout, but I wanted to show before and after pics and the view through the fence that we still love.

Downsizing

You hear about downsizing. Well this is what it looks like when going from almost 3,000 sq. ft. to a 12x6x6 ft. U-Haul, a Ford 150 truck, and a Saturn station wagon. It all fit in a 10x10 storage in Canada. It was much cheaper to give away or sell a lot of our old stuff than move it. And we had the joy of finding just the right homes for most of our stuff and blessing others who could use it. Don't worry, we kept all the important stuff, and we have accumulated the additional things we needed to furnish our 1,000 sq. ft. retirement cottage. We still haven't spent what moving costs would have been and we've enjoyed finding just the right pieces here and there. I'll post some pictures of the inside of our dear little home soon. Martin did a great job organizing everything to go through customs at the border.

Early morning on the lake

This is a short, quiet video of an early morning canoe ride on the lake. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.