Take Three Thursday - Hats Off To Summer

Happy Summer - She arrives this morning in our part of the world at 6:07am & yes I am in the garden greeting her with my tea.

In an effort to notice more of the ordinary in my life, I have decided to share what I have noticed this week in Take Three Thursday.   The idea is to take 1 - 3 photos that are linked some how; by theme, by colour, by date, by moment,  by points of view. There is no formal link in but please feel free to join in.    What have you noticed this week?  

Have a peek what others have noticed this week:
Maggie at Farmers Wife Day by Day
Karen at Random Reflections 

This week I was amused by the blooming of my back garden poppies.  I have 3 clumps in these gardens; 1 true red & 2 that are watermelon pink.  They bloom later than the white, front garden poppies.  As I took my morning stroll with tea in hand, I noticed that they were tipping their "hats" to Summer's arrival.  We are all in agreement - welcome.

There's a bonus photo today - don't you think this is a perfect example of equal portions for SPSH?

"Through the dancing poppies stole a breeze, most softly lulling to my soul"  John Keats

"The poppy opens her scarlet purse of dreams."  Scharmel Iris

Me On Monday - June 18th

Good Morning & my FaceBook feed tells me that today, we should be wishing Sir Paul McCartney a very Happy Birthday! 

Oh what a week last week was, I was so glad to roll into the weekend & be done with the work week.  This Monday I am finishing the paperwork for several clinic related issues.  On June 7th both the reception ladies were knowingly out of balance at the end of their shifts & yet in the logbook they both wrote "In Balance" & signed their names.  $160 out of balance.  Both of their individual errors could have been avoided (1) if they had called me to say, hey I've got this situation, how do I handle? (2) told me by either email or a note in the logbook that they had an issue could I please fix.  But no, both chose to just ignore & not say a word. It was just by chance I noticed the error.  The boss is SO angry.  Now I have to do spot checks for several other days to make him feel confident with these two.

Last week I also dealt with the Ministry of Labour for Ontario - a very strong governing body.  There were 5 two part things that we (the clinic)  have to complete by June 22nd.  I've done my pieces which included taking two online (CBTs) for Violence & Sexual Harassment in the Workplace & the general Health & Safety course.  Each took me about 20 minutes, I've printed off certificates to prove to the inspector I completed & passed. I have written a clinic policy regarding our zero tolerance for either violence or sexual harassment.    While the inspector was there I took a phone call from a patient who decided that yelling at me was the best way to communicate his request.  I received kudos from the inspector of how I handled but he said that we should not tolerate such "aggressive" behaviour & it falls under the guidelines of Violence in the Workplace.  The inspector sent me a link for a doctor's office notice that basically reads "aggressive behaviour towards staff could result in you loosing patient privileges"  WOW.  I like it.


My latest read was "How To Walk Away"  it was an easy read; it was very predictable in the plot, easy to know how it was going to turn out by page 25, both the main plot & a sub plot.   I need a read that will grip me like The Thirteenth Tale did. 

 
In the mail bag I received a really nice piece of happy mail from Lady Ella at Flowers of Progress  So very thoughtful & it cheered me immensely.  The post card is a sketch of a bridge in Japan.  Which coincidentally, one of my sisters is there now, in Japan on business.

Several weeks ago in the mail I received happy mail from Karen at Random Reflections,  she sent me a diecut of the word JOY, which was one that I had admired on one of her Christmas cards.  Joy was also the word that found me over the Christmas season.  I am thrilled to be able to quickly & easily cut the word JOY and use in my garden album; it is a perfect word describing the flowers that visit.

 I feel very blessed to have such kind friends in the blog sphere - I think politicians could learn something from we ladies of the blogging world.
 
In my own shopping cart this week, I found these these two stamp sets in the "really reduced" bin; Crazy Cat Lady stamp set & Summer Plenty stamp & die set.  $5.00 (Canadian) can buy you some joy.

Mid week, the farmer behind us sprayed something quite chemical on the fields (again).  It smelt awful for a couple of hours.  The driver of this large piece of farm equipment was a young lady & it is the first time the farmer has hired a female summer assistance.  Progress!

Our weather forecasters told us on Thursday that Sunday would be very hot & humid, low 40(c)+ so Mr Man got prepared for a relaxing  Father Day's Sunday by purchasing a few astronomy magazines for himself & he also picked up a magazine for me - he saw that it came with free stamps of tea related things.  So he does listen to me when I rattled on about my crafting!  Score with the choice of magazine & score that it came with free stuff.

 
So now as I return to spot checking end of day balancing, I think a couple of these thoughts  ...  "Either you run the day, or the day runs you"  OR  ... "the future depends on what you do today".   Happy Monday, Happy Week.

Take Three Thursday - Strength

In an effort to notice more of the ordinary in my life, I have decided to share what I have noticed this week in Take Three Thursday.   The idea is to take 1 - 3 photos that are linked some how; by theme, by colour, by date, by moment,  by points of view. There is no formal link in but please feel free to join in.    What have you noticed this week?  
See what others have found:
Maggie at Farmer's Wife Day by Day

This week I have been reading a lot about strength.  Strength within yourself, strength within groups, countries, beliefs, convictions & such.  It seems to be about how we deal with adversities thrown into our life path. We can either embrace the obstacle, working with it or we can oppose the obstacle & try to remove/move it. It is wisdom to know when the obstacle is one or the other.  I was also doing some work with my One Little Word for 2018 (Focus) & needed to find some photos that represented to me, strength when dealing with life's challenges & adversities & I found these photos in my collection.  Nature for me is always a source of calm & inspiration.  These trees all seem to have embraced the obstacle in their path to growth.

SPSH 2018 UPDATE CHANGE

Good Morning all you SPSH hunters - I am seeing wonderful successes in your hunts.  

As you know "we" don't have too many, if any rules for the SPSH & one of our very lovely participants made the brilliant suggestion to make a small change to #16.   SO please note "we" have made a small change/update/addition to item #16; Something that could be from a favourite book/movie - now added SONG.  

1. The Rosiness Of Red
2. Stripes
3. A Framed View
4. Wings
5. Pedal Power
6. Glorious Green
7. An Unexpected Reflection 
8. A Pile Of
9. Looks Smaller Than You
10. A Field of Plenty
11. Pretty In Pink
12. Bell(s)
13. Equal Portions
14. A Trilogy Of Three
15. Out Of The Blue 
16. Something That Could Be From A Favourite Book/Movie/Song
17. Re-purposed
18. Currency; Coinage or Paper (the odd, the different, the beautiful)
19. Picture Postcard Perfect
20. Mellow Yellow

Alternate A: a shopping bag (not the store's plastic)

Alternate B: a coupon to use

As before, there's no formal link in, but I thought we could share as we did last year by me indicating your blog site on the days of sharing on my blog post for that day.   Just let me know in the comments you'd like to be included in this list.  Link in days will be June 29th; July 27th; August 31st & September 30th

Me On A Monday June 11th

Gracious Me It's Monday Again! - Didn't that week go fast?

As part of our Trains, Boats & Automobile Summer Manifesto, this past weekend we did the boats part.  

Along with some friends we took a lunch time cruise on the Grand River.  It was not what I expected.  The actual boat was smaller than I had envisioned, but that was OK, it meant that there wasn't a large group of people on board.  

Prior to departure there was a welcoming reception of tea/coffee & muffin & a 30 minute performance from The Blazing Fiddles.  When does a violin become a fiddle?   They were quite a lively group.  

 

There are 3 boats; The Queen, The Princess & The Belle.  This Saturday, The Belle was for a private party celebrating a family event; The Princess was for a teacher's year end celebration & our boat, The Queen was made up of individuals or smaller groups like us.

The deck around the boat was very narrow.  The speed was quite slow.  Being that it was covered we were able to enjoy the breeze without getting wet.

 There was very little scenery to be had.  A rather overcast, with some light rain day.

The part of the river that we were on, ran mostly through the Six Nations Reserve.   Six Nations of the Grand River

The lunch meal was quite good & they were able to accommodate my vegetarian needs.  Mr Man had the roast beef lunch & he said it was quite tender & tasty.  Our friends both had the chicken lunch.  Freshly made that morning, bread to start with, which we bought a loaf to take home with us, & homemade apple pie for dessert.  The captain of our boat, The Queen, kept up a running commentary through the 3 hour cruise; he thought himself the comic - he was not.  I was able to get an item done from the SPSH list, an unexpected reflection.

I had mentioned that last Thursday was our anniversary, we bought ourselves three hanging patio lanterns, these run on batteries which means when we go through the often village power outages, we'll have another source of light for inside.  One hanger stand has two of the lanterns with 1 hanging plant & the other hanger has 2 plants & 1 lantern.

I made two cards this week; the cat birthday card is for a friend who is also a cat lover.  The other is the card I made for Mr Man for our anniversary (it's on the right).  He's also a cat lover.  He bought me the most beautiful worded card.

Not sure how much our provincial elections made the world news, but we went to the polls on Thursday to elect the Premier of Ontario.  The majority of the polls closed at 9pm (two stayed open until 9:30p because of electronic difficulties) but by 9:20pm Doug Ford of the PC party (Progressive Conservatives) was declared the winner with a majority win.  That is the fastest I have ever seen a winner announced.  The party currently in power, The Liberals, lead by Kathleen Wynne did not gain enough votes to retain official party status!

And my final update is regarding my sister, who has been in hospital since breaking her leg (femur) in April.  At the fracture clinic they took an x-ray of the mended leg & hip, all is healing well but still another 6 weeks before she can put weight on it, so it was decided that she could rest at home & then return to hospital  once the all clear is given, when she will begin physio & learning to walk again.  It has been an incredibly long road for her.  The surgeon said this repair has been in the making since the original accident many years ago.  The drunk driver that hit her was never caught in spite of several witnesses.

Hope everyone has a delightful week.

Take Three Thursday - Wedding Bell Memories

In an effort to notice more of the ordinary in my life, I have decided to share what I have noticed this week in Take Three Thursday.   The idea is to take 1 - 3 photos that are linked some how; by theme, by colour, by date, by moment,  by points of view. There is no formal link in but please feel free to join in.    What have you noticed this week?  

See what these ladies have found:
Eileen at A Bracelet of Days 
Maggie at Farmer's Wife Day by Day

This week what I am noticing or more to the point, remembering, all things from my wedding.  Today is our wedding anniversary.  We both have the day off work to do a little celebrating together.  I was recently sorting through boxes & came across a "wedding memories"  box.  Treasures to be found.

The first memory find was the pattern of my wedding dress; I had it made & the lady who made the dress had a whole box of possible patterns, I chose this one because it was quite simple & the dressmaker had made before.  We also used the same pattern for my one & only attendant.   The dressmaker had more of a challenge making BF's dress than mine, since my BF lives in Calgary so wasn't present for any of the fittings, it was all done with exacting measurements. BF flew in the day before the wedding so only thing left on her dress was to hem it.   The dressmaker had 5 weeks to make my dress & BF's dress.  

 
The second memory box find is the lace fabric for the yolk & sleeves of my dress & the green print fabric for BF's dress yolk & sleeve cuffs.  I really wanted her in pink but she refused, so we settled on green (a good colour for her) with pink flowers in the pattern on the yolk.  If we were going to have a big wedding I would definitely have gone for a dress that was like a big meringue, I love wedding dresses, but ours was a very simple, not long in the planning style, so something simple but still with lace.  I felt a princess wearing my dress.  Today I measured the cummerbund that I wore & it was 27" around!  Could I wear my dress today, sure but not that cummerbund!

The third & fourth memory find is of the veil & bouquet - I didn't wear a hat, but a "Juliet cap" borrowed from a friend,  I purchased, a finger tip length veil with lace edging to match the dress, I really liked it, it was rather frothy.  I carried a combination of pink roses, white stephanotis, & pink lilies.  The florist  also made a smaller silk floral memory bouquet of the flowers I carried that day.  It's a little crushed now.  BF carried a bouquet of pink carnations & white stephanotis flowers.  I was getting my pink in,  in what ever way I could (lol). 

Oh such wonderful memories.  Let's drink to love today, maybe some pink champagne!

Five In Five On The 5th

Joining in with Sandie's Five in Five On The Fifth at: Sandie At Itchifingers

My five this month are from a walk about in a river side garden in the town of Fergus.  We were there scouting out the "perfect" find for one of the items on the SPSH.  We noticed that the gardens have been through a clean up & addition of several artist pieces.  It was quite a chilly walk as the temperatures have taken a dip, but the sun was out & the sound of the river below made for an enjoyable walk.  It was also nice that other than us & a fisherman in the river, there was no one about.  I do hope you go have a peek at what Sandie & others have as their 5.