Happy Moments on Tuesday

Happy Moments on Tuesday 

1. Swam 8 laps

2. Black Tea with milk 

3. Plum Tort and ice cream for breakfast 

4. My Husband and I enjoyed the same breakfast together 🥰

5. A rather dramatic moment was when when it suddenly started storming when we were walking back to take light rail home and I ran into a store! The thunder was so loud and it was suddenly driving rain coming very fast! As suddenly as the storm came it left and the humidity which was like pea soup sticking to you was gone!

6. For lunch I grated the rest of the Gouda cheese over the pasta I had made yesterday and baked it in our toaster oven.  Our toaster oven fits a 9x13! That casserole I used was nearly that long but not that big. Anyway, it was delicious! And we baked up the very last of it for dinner! 

7. I continue to work on my writing project and a friend gave me some suggestions. 

Seeking Thanksgiving

1. Went swimming 

2. Looking at vintage cookbooks 

3. Trying a new eye doctor this Wednesday (I am severely myopic) 

4. Red glasses. One day I may have a pair of blue frames as well 

5. Caffeinated tea with milk.  Was given this new tea by Harney & Sons.  The description sounded incredible. However, it feels like a tea that's very similar to Harney & Sons Victorian London Fog. So I don't know that I will buy this one again.  I'm very picky about my teas.  However, I still enjoyed it.

6.  I boiled noodles, cooked frozen broccoli according to directions. I.E half cup water and cook for 5 minutes. I forgot the timer had turned off and cooked both longer with no problems. I added chicken. I had a chicken gravy about just under one cup. Added some milk to it. Grated some Gouda cheese and basically made a chicken gravy Alfredo sauce.  I added the cut chicken to it stirred it around, turned off the heat and covered it.  And easy meal. 👊

7. Seven plum tort. I always forget that the batter will really cover the entire bottom of my largest cake pan with the removable bottom! I mean I don't forget in the way of not using it, but that I can't believe it'll work and it always does! I should have baked it longer, note to self... 

8. Easy meals for tomorrow 

9. I wish I had gone walking, but sometimes one can't do everything, it's just too hard.  Even though the weather was perfect and tomorrow is back to thunderstorms but I will DV be out on Wednesday...

10. But I am trying to grow and I did work on my writing project throughout the day... 

11. I am dreaming of baking a new sweet bread, based on a vintage recipes but with changes... 

This is exactly right

Fighting with joy  letting the light in. 

15 minutes of very encouraging truth. Worth watching every second. Glory to God for all things!

A beautiful day

It was such a beautiful day today.  

Church, a meal afterwards;

later, after dinner, a walk.

St Elizabeth's Day 2026

St Elizabeth the New Martyr.  It was a beautiful evening and day.  

I wish I got a picture of all the people under the pavilion while it was pouring rain!  It was quite something!

We had vigil for Sunday (done the night before) early because of weather and I think everyone was tired!  But a beautiful feast day.

My Husband and I went back to the Thai restaurant and enjoyed two salads that had lots of veggies, spices and meat.  My Husband gave me an extra piece of beef, saying he knows I enjoy it.  He's a kind one.  😊

I was definitely tired at times but I am grateful for being at the Feast Day.  I felt like I was able to ask for help with some things.... Life has a lot of falling and getting up again, on so many levels.

May God have mercy on us all.

remembering the best chai tea I ever had

it was many years ago now.  It's funny how you can remember things like this.  But that chai tea, I think, at least then, was homemade there.  The blend of spices, including cardamom, was perfect.  

So many restaurants don't make it. 

I still remember the two diners in New York City. It's funny what stands out in one's memory. I remember at good stuff a man coming in and hoping for a job. Ridgeway diner I remember the server who always remembered me and was quiet and conscientious and always seem to be aware of what you need. I think I blogged about this years ago. I remember wondering what happened to the servers after covid destroyed their restaurant.  Ridgeway diner was so peaceful. 

The crown of India that was closed in the last. I don't know when actually, but it survived covid.  

We really liked this restaurant and are sad it is gone.  

It's funny how places stay in your memory.  I remember the fox and feather on Elgin Street in Ottawa. It's gone as well.  I remember outside of the bar area there was this long narrower room that was full of light.  It's where people would have brunch.  I remember it being a beautiful retro feel lamps that I think were round that felt really classy. 

This is a picture I found online of it, the row of windows was where I would have brunch, lots of light there.

The actual pub area I was not interested in, too dark is my memory.  This place was a blessing to me. 

I remember when I was very sick with prednisone that first time. We're looking at about 2010 then.  I had very little money.  Some will remember that difficult time in my life.  But I was so sick from the medicine that I remember going to Fox and feather for brunch.  Even though it was the Nativity fast back then those many years ago, I was so sick. I knew I needed serious protein and I was too sick to make it for myself.  So I would order an eggs benedict, fried eggs with ham and the Hollandaise sauce.  I remember how good it tasted, however the thing I remember most is that would help me feel like I wasn't shaking. Having no idea that 13 or 14 years later I would be on that medicine again, but with a much higher dose that would almost kill me.  Rather dramatic!

But here I am.  I lived.  I have survived great pain.  I am on the other side of it now.  

But the memory of it remains.  I read a novel called The Great Alone about this poor family whose husband/dad was in Vietnam for the war way back when.  And he was a POW and he never recovered his sanity really.  It was well written, at times the daughter who narrates the story would see her father for who he is through his illness and she would see his sadness and the love he had.  But in general, that was buried by his incredible illness, his deep paranoia, anger and abusive behavior.  It's quite the story to say the least.  

I'm very fortunate that I don't deal with things like that.  I can understand better how it would happen though.  If you're captured like that and go through that type of trauma, it would be easy to think you were going to go through it again. 

I'm so glad that it's not up to humans to sort all that out in Heaven.  

It's enough to keep trusting in God's mercy....

The enjoyment of food, novels and the mercy of God

I had roasted a chicken on Monday.  Today the juices from it became a lovely gravy that we had for dinner over a small chicken pot pie store-bought.  The gravy made it almost like chicken, gravy and biscuits.  

I remembered the trick to make some of the juice mixed with flour which creates a quick way to make a thick gravy when you add it back to the juices. Then you just stir it all together over the stove top on at least medium heat with a whisk. I use a flat one.  Until it is thick.

I was worried that it would taste like flour paste but it actually was really good. I must have used at least three tablespoons of flour.

As you can see, we both had ice cream and used up the last two ice cream cone bowls that I've had for way too many years. Things can get buried in our pantry.  They were still good however! 

I've had a lot of struggle lately.  But also a lot of sadness.  About many things like being ill but also my cousin's husband died. They were married 43 years.  My mother is the youngest of eight kids.  So while my cousin is the age of others who are either Uncle or Aunt to me, she's always been a cousin.  

I married later in life and I will count myself very blessed if I married 40 years to my husband. For you see he is older than I.

Sometimes it's really hard to be brave.  But God is there in the hard times.  God is there when you feel weak.  God is there in the darkness.  The one thing I know is that God keeps reminding me that He is the one who will never leave me. That God is the one stable constant in our life. 

I'm very grateful for my husband.  I married him knowing the statistics of marrying someone older than me.  In general, I'm not afraid of that.  Because I'm still young.  

I looked at my writing project today.  Sometimes when I go through a time of discouragement, it feels like how can I continue with it?? But then I read the beginning.  And all I can say is it's still there.  That when I can't write in it it waits for me.  And that the beginning pages are always something that give me hope.

Some writers write everyday faithfully on schedule.  I guess I'm too broken to do that.  But yet a lot is written of the first draft.  I think I have at over 118,000 words.  And all I have to do is continue to trust God.  

I'm going to the funeral for my cousin's husband.   My Grandma is 96 now.   My mom's oldest sister is 90 or 91. I can't remember.  I'm so glad when I was in my twenties that I didn't know what it would be like now.  

When I know one day I will be without my parents, my Aunts, Uncles, Grandma.  It is wonderful that I had years to not think about that.  They're, my parents, still in relatively good health.  

But I understand more now.  How fast life goes.  Even though I would love to finish my writing project quickly. I know it's not possible for me. But it doesn't mean that God doesn't want it. It doesn't mean it won't be finished one day.  It just means I need to be patient.  

But I can tell you one of the main messages of my writing project already.  It's that in the times of greatest darkness, God is there.  It's that when everything feels so discouraging and you just feel like giving up, that somehow God can help you not give up.  

And I guess a secondary message is that family can be a beautiful thing even when you go through such hard times.  

And that even with mental illness, God is there.  God can be there. God wants to be there.  We just have to try to trust try to open our hearts.  To remember that repentance is the daughter of Hope and the renunciation of despair. 

My husband is going to take me out for Thai tomorrow, God willing, I will have one of my favorite fish dishes.  A simple Curry with tilapia. 

I've been enjoying eating eggs for breakfast and English muffins with peanut butter.  I'm partial at times to cinnamon raisin English muffins.  

I haven't had my caffeinated tea in some time because of continued insomnia.  I'm slowly getting better I think.  

I'm grateful for novels.  For things to read.  For a husband who's valiant.  For a life that so many would only dream of having.  For the chance to write.  For a chance to again experience God's mercy.  For the ability to say yes, I fail a lot but God's mercy never fails.  That you don't have to be perfect before God loves you.  That you don't have to be perfect.  That perfection is something, ultimately, in this life, is only fully found in God.  It is definitely possible to meet people in life. Who in their own way have found a type of perfection.  But you can only be fully made perfect in heaven.  That's the comfort while living on a broken Earth in broken bodies with broken minds, broken souls broken hearts.  When we get so tired. When we can't do what we can sometimes do.  When we have times of weakness.  And it just seems like everywhere we look we fail.  It is then that we have to remember that God is faithful.  That God's love never fails.  That God's light is always stronger than darkness.  And that darkness can never overcome God's light.  

One of the things that comforts me the most and that I hope I can testify it too. Is that God wants everyone to find their home in Him.  The beautiful holy mysterious Trinity.  That maybe you won't have many places on Earth that feel like home or maybe none. But God can still be that place. God always wants to be our true home and God is our true home.  

No matter what with God, we have a compassionate father who doesn't injure the injured, who has mercy and compassion.  Who waits for us. Longs for us keeps the light on. Hoping we'll come home.   

How wonderful it is to walk this Earth. When we remember that God is walking the Earth with us and created the Earth and sees everything with the most amazing profound love that we can only dream of, but that truly exists in God.  I often say the reason I believe in God is that the love shown in the gospels and from the very beginning of the Bible with creation with God saying everything he made was good. The sort of sacrificial faithful, constant, trustworthy, love.  Something like that is only found in God.  

And so may the God of love and mercy help us and have mercy on us and help us to take His hand and to stand again when we fall.  How wonderful it is that we can trust in the mercy of God.

May God's mercy be abundant in our lives.

summer and struggle

Swimming 

I can't remember if I swam the first summer after my memory loss. Could be. I know I didn't swim the two summers after this.

Today was my first swim. I did 6 laps, my Husband 12.

Normal. 

The sun was shining. The plastic flags strung across the pool, towards the back.

I swam with my prescription googles. They kept steaming up. 

I returned home, walking slowly, my Husband in front of me.

I felt that I had real air in my lungs and that the sunshine did me good.

Life has so much struggle.  

I continue to struggle towards God, the giver of all good things.

May God have mercy on us all.

Encouraging Words

St Sophrony words on TEA are discussed HERE ... Encouraging.

away and back again

Well, I am back.  We went on a nearly 3 week road trip.  Saw our niece L get married.  Saw friends along the way.  

It's funny, so much happened but I can't write about it more.

We see peeks into the lives of those we love but can't read the entire story.  God alone can do this.

May God have mercy on us.