FRIDAY, December 19th, 2025
Estate Lane, Nova Scotia
6*C/43*F wind warning in effect
Dear Neighbor,
The weather has swung completely around now and things have been fairly mild these last few days. Wednesday afternoon was really mild. I did go out briefly with my sister to pick up my prescriptions and a card and gift for our father's friend Maryann. She likes to play scratch cards and so I got her a nice card and some of those. One is a guaranteed $5 winner if nothing else, but she will have the fun of scratching them off. She is my father's lady friend who is deaf. I think that she would like for it to be a lot more, as she is clearly very caring towards him when they are together, but he is in the friend zone.
When I got home from that, I still had enough to time to go to my next-door neighbor's Open House. It was nice and I actually enjoyed myself. I got to know one of the neighbors across the way a bit better as well as my next-door neighbor. Glenna was there when I went, so that was nice also. Zella (my neighbor) had homemade War Cake, Gum Drop Cake and an Applesauce cake, plus eggnog, tea or coffee.
Her Christmas tree was beautiful.
I found out what happened to my Great Grandparents house, the house my mother was born in. One of the McGills (descendants of my mother's Aunt Orabel) decided they didn't want any of the other ones to have the house, so they had it torn down and then burnt. I do not know how the house came to be in the hands of the McGill family. The last person who had been living in it was my mother's cousin Florence.
Anyways, it was ascertained that the husband of my next-door neighbor is indeed related to us in some way. We still need to have a conversation to nail it all down. Family history is a very interesting subject. At least it is to me.
Yesterday afternoon, Cindy and I took my dad out to the mall with his friend Maryann so they could have a last visit together before Christmas. She absolutely dotes on our father. That's very clear. While they were having their visit together, Cindy and I had a few errands to run. I wanted to get some bread so that I could make some finger sandwiches to take to the ladies' get-together I am going to later this morning. I also picked up a small dinner ham to make
them with. Its just a ham salad type of filling. I will also make some
cheese and pickle. That way there will be an assortment. There will only be five of us altogether so I won't need to make many.
After we picked up dad and Maryann and took her home we went up the mountain to get a large chicken at the farm for Christmas Dinner. Thankfully they had a nice big plump one. I also got some eggs.
Cindy looked everywhere for ground pork but couldn't find any. It may be that she will have to buy a pork butt and then come over here and grind it in my meat grinder. I wouldn't mind. Anything that allows us to spend time together is a bonus in my books.
I am looking forward to this little get-together today. I love all of these ladies I will be spending the time with. We have been friends for many years. I am grateful that we were all able to get together like this. It will be lovely.
We have each of us found ourselves single in our golden years, so we have that in common, plus we have the Gospel in common as we are church friends as well.
This is a nice time of year to be able to get together with much loved friends and share something good to eat and good conversation.
This little girl has become a lot more affectionate as of late. She just had her morning zoomies. That's what I call that period of time in the morning when she races back and forth through this small house like crazy. Her little feet galloping back and forth across my floors at high speed. Yesterday afternoon when I got home I was sitting on the sofa and she came and sat behind me on the back of the soft. She was singing me the loveliest song. Every few seconds she would stretch one of her paws out to touch me, wanting me to give her a little scratch behind the ears. It is funny, she will not sit on my lap, but most of the time she is not very far away from me. A little while later she got down beside me on the sofa, and she was stretched out on her back willing me to rub her tummy. I happily obliged her. Right now, she is lying next to my chair on the floor. Zoomies are obviously over.
I don't know where her brother is. He did not come out for treat time. He is probably fast asleep under my bed.
The stores were not quite as busy yesterday as I had expected them to be. Walmart wasn't at any rate. I did not go into Giant Tiger. The parking lot was quite full, however. Maybe I was just did better at ignoring the crowd than I usually do. All I needed in Walmart was cat food and I wanted to pick up some small cards for today. It seems I am always buying cat food in an endeavor to please Cinnamon's taste. Nutmeg would eat just about anything, but she is very picky. I had expected it to be quite crazy in Walmart, but it wasn't. I was able to get what I wanted and then go through the cash quite quickly. We even got through the grocery store quite quickly. I imagine it will be somewhat of a different story come Monday when all of the pension checks, etc. go in. Monday will be a bit of a madhouse. I do not expect to have to go for any reason. If I really need anything I can grab it at the farm market behind my place. Not far at all. I do not anticipate needing anything, however.
When we were dropping Maryann off yesterday the post van came up the drive and had quite a large package for them. My sister helped to carry it into the house. Maryann's daughter was busy catching up on some Christmas baking. Cindy came back to the car with a handful of little ginger biscuit rounds that were absolutely delicious.
To me that is Christmas and I caught the tiniest bit of the Christmas spirit. For me it has never been in the gifts, etc. it has been in the preparations. The baking of special goodies. The decorating, etc. Now I live by myself I don't have the need to do much Christmas baking. And not a lot of decorating either.
We went with dad for supper on Wednesday night as planned. I hadn't been going to get Fish and Chips but in the end that is what I ordered. Dad, Cindy and I all ordered them and oh boy was the batter on the fish ever greasy. The fish itself was cooked nicely, but I regretted the batter so much. They don't seem to be draining it very well. It's like they are using the chips to drain it on. Not ideal.
Plus, we sat there for at least half an hour before anyone came to wait on us. People all around us were coming in and getting waited on while we were being ignored. My sister had to go to the front and ask if there was a problem. Not ideal.
As we were sitting there, another table of ladies moved over from where they were sitting to right behind us. I think there were four of them. I was trying to ignore them as one was my ex-husband's wife who has been so wicked to and about me for all these years and another was the lady my daughter Eileen used to live with for a few years who has also not been very nice to or about me. So, I had to sit there through the whole meal with them boring a hole through the back of my head, while I tried to pretend that they were not there. Knowing all of the nasty things she has said about me over the last 25 years (I was dirty. I was a liar. I was lazy, etc. and I belong to a cult.) plus feeling every inch of the wedge that she has helped to drive between my two estranged children and myself. Not nice.
It didn't make for a very comfortable supper experience to say the least, and I was very happy to leave at the end of it.
Life is a funny old thing and often turns out to be quite differently than what we had planned. when I was a younger woman, I often imagined myself, at my age, surrounded by family with a quiver full of grandchildren coming over often to visit with me. Families today are often spread so far apart, its just not possible for many people to achieve or experience the ideal scenario or the life imagined. That does not mean that it cannot also be a very good life, despite it being different that life which we had hoped for.
I think in the new year I will make some moves towards paring down and making things simpler around here. I know, I somehow managed to stuff my house and now I need to trim it. We will have to see how good I am at doing that.
I don't really want to leave it all behind for someone else to have to get rid of. I have plans for next year. We will see how that goes. I have plans most years and I don't get very far with them. I hope 2026 is different.
I am an easily distracted soul. I start doing one thing and then end up doing five or six others, with the first thing never having been finished. I have a very difficult time pinning myself down.
I have been sleeping very poorly these last weeks. Ever since my fall. I just cannot get comfortable in bed, no matter how I lay down. I wake up every hour or so all night long. I don't seem to be able to fall asleep and stay asleep for any more than that. The pain is really quite intrusive. Its deeply embedded inside my upper left arm, but it spreads out and up my shoulder and neck, across my upper breastbone on the left side and down into the fingers of my left hand. It hurts to hold my phone in my left hand and type with my right. It hurts just sitting. It is always hurting. It never goes away but only becomes tolerable depending on what I am doing and the time of day. My left knee from where I fell has never gotten better either. Nobody even looked at that. Probably because I was more concerned with my arm at the time. My knees have always been bad, but since my fall my left one has been much worse. I have to be very careful with how I move. The slightest move in the wrong way or direction can bring on excruciating, debilitating pain. I know I need to get more exercise. When just sitting still is a painful experience, the idea of movement is almost unthinkable. And then when you compound that with lack of sleep, well . . . it is very difficult to get motivated to do much of anything, but I do try.
And I am sorry to sound like I am just complaining about everything this morning. I do feel like a very blessed person in so very many ways. The constant pain just gets to me sometimes. Staying as busy as I can is key. And I am trying.
I really need to end this off now as I have things that I need to do, like make sandwiches, before Glenna and I leave here at 10:30.
A thought to carry with you . . .
☾ ° ★° * 。
• ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ • •。★★ 。* 。° 。 ° ˛˚˛ * _Π_____*。*˚˚ ˛ •˛•˚ */______/~＼。˚ ˚ ˛˚ ˛ •˛• ˚ ｜ 田田 ｜門 ★*Do not go where the path may lead,
go instead where there is no path
and leave a trail.• ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ • •。★★ 。* 。
~Ralph Waldo Emmerson• ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ • •。★★ 。* 。
• ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ • •。★★ 。* 。• ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ • •。
In The English Kitchen,
Breakfast Stollen Slice. A delicious quick and easy version of a traditional German Christmas bake.
I hope that you have a beautiful day filled with light and love. Don't forget!
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⊰✿░G░O░D⊰✿⊰L░O░V░E░S⊰✿⊰░Y░O░U░⊰✿
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And I do too!
