Blooming Blessed

 Yesterday, I purchased some beautiful plants. 

The first blooming beauty I saw was a bush I planted on the right side of my little house, mmm, maybe in 1986-1990... it was a double mock orange with lovely white flowers. That took me right back to the work I did in my favourite house/ property.

I had to wait to buy my Kentucky bluegrass sod. The sod always has to wait until the house is back- filled. This little property is the only place I ever purchased top soil and sod. So, I went to pick out my sod... I had to have what I thought was lovely. So, I loved the Kentucky bluegrass even though the owner warned me... that is not the easiest grass to take care of. For a moment, I mulled over that fact. Then I said, that's the sod I'm buying.

You should have seen it when it arrived... it was this lovely blue- green lush colour and I thought my lawn would look so nice but,... it really only looked really nice for two weeks. For years, I babied that sod while people gave me advice. You should have put more top soil down. You need to water it. Oh, the advice was endless in its uselessness.

I did add top soil, over the years. After all, I did live there over 28 years. I had a few years to spruce things up. 

Back to the mock orange bush I planted on the west side, of the front, of that tiny house. 

  I always wanted the 'double' mock orange but, as you can see, I bought the wrong one. (photo below) The reason I purchased the 'wrong' one was because the double variety wasn't available where I purchased mine. Not everyone carries the same varieties.

Now, fast forward to when I was practicing decorating for my sons' wedding... the mock orange was in full bloom so I created a floral canopy inside my house. It was so lovely. It was only able to be a 'scene set' because you can only use 'in season' flowers for any decorating.

    For my sons... this is how I did things... I don't like wasting money on decorating so I purchased things they could use in their homes after the wedding. I hate 'buck store' decorating that all goes to the landfill after an event. 

    Therefore, I purchased quality items... a lamp... a mirror... a sheet... I made curtains/ drapes for one son... various things that you can use every day. I can't remember who I gave chandeliers to...

I know I donated the last of them to Value Village... still in the box. A few of them were exactly like this black one but the ones I used for the wedding were all white. I bought them at Home Depot. This photo was my living room, in 2014 ish.

I bought some real trees and rose bushes, for one wedding, and put them in pots. 

I gave the pear trees to a friend I went to school with. She had a huge yard. I need her to ask her ex- husband if he has my sons' brown truck.

                             I planted the showy mountain ash in my back yard.

I still have a cream pot from that extravaganza. My advice to anyone, regarding decorating, is to buy what can be used in the home after an event. Anything else is such a waste!

This was my shed, in the back yard... built by myself and my, then behaving other. I bought the harbour light at a garage sale. My son wired the shed, for me, as my birthday gift, one year. The design was mine and I purchased some of the product used, like the 'french windows.' The new cedar was purchased at a lumber store. Those are dutch doors. I love dutch doors. The top doors open independently of the bottom doors. 

                     I painted the floor black and  gold and used the shed for little sales.

Gee, where is that man who can help?

 Back in 2014, I always thought the man who came to my house, 90 Forest Cove Drive, was going to help me.

He was tall. He had big patches on the elbows of his blazer... not the kind of patches that a person puts on a blazer because they are poor... but the kind that a guy buys, on purpose, because then he is stylishly not advertising his wealth to a poor little person such as myself.

Then, the next day he gave me back my key, to my house, because something else went wrong. I had a grey spackled and mirrored front entrance table with a candle on it that had a silver lid. He reached into my house and put the key on that table... if people would just stop erasing my pictures, I could prove everything I write with photos as well.

See? I just looked for a photo in my 'photo file...,' which is in my file but when I click 'browse' a lot of photos don't show up.

If 90 Forest Cove is a house the original owner is entitled to... that is me.

And, just so everyone knows... 90 Forest Cove is where I wrote my novel... 

The Orchard Walk El Dueck

My printer (the printing company I hired), due to a printing error, had to print UPC labels for every novel and I still have 720 labels of the 1,000 books I self- published.

The $7,000 worth of books I recycled at the depot, when I moved from one terrible rental to another, and no one helped to move all my books... I still had not adhered correct labels to.

I also don't recall if I sent the correctly labeled books to the Library of Congress. The rules of self- publishing required me to send one book for every 500 self- published books to them so I had to send them 2 books because I self- published 1,000 of my novels.

I quoted from my novella, The Red Dust Healers, in my novel, just in case I decide to publish my novella. I wrote that little creative writing book before I wrote my 428 page novel, The Orchard Walk El Dueck.

Got to Give

 Calling, texting, calling, texting... I have been doing this for quite some time to see which of my family still has a phone and is using it. I bought a 'flip' phone just for phoning... the first five times I used it, the phone was able to connect to my Winnipeg sons and, last week that inadequate technology wouldn't let me give any TLC- tender loving care to sons because it wouldn't even connect..., so, flip, don't buy a TCL- they can't tenderly care for your loved ones. They can't even connect to your loved ones. Believe me.

So, I have never been given anything, really, by my family. So, either they're all broke or they lost their houses and businesses and everything they've ever had. They're not responding or calling or texting.

If you or someone you know have something to give... 

here is a verifiable truth... 

you or they got it from someone...

illegally or legally.

I have never found a money tree, contrary to folklore. I certainly haven't found a money tree where I have lived for four poverty years now. The years 2013- 2022 cleaned out all my 33 years of hard earned money.

Whenever I'm desperate to hear if my children are safe, I call an old pastor in Winnipeg. The only thing I can confirm is that his answering machine, with his voice message, is still operating. He, at least, knows who my children are.

Once again, I am putting forth the invitation, to my children, to drive here and tell me if they are having problems or doing just fine. 

This is the age of information. I need that information. You can't act on what you don't know. 

The distant family has so many people... Top down in my family...

Oldest- two children; Next- 5 children; Next- 3 children; Next- 4 children; Next- 4 children; Next- 5 children; Mine- 3 children; Next- 3 children. This is the group that is in their late 30's and 40's and many of them have children as well. 

For this group I say, "If you got, Give.

Place of suffering

 Going back to go forward... 

When I lived at 3 Donegal Bay, I went through some of the worst experiences a woman would ever want to go through.

The ice build- up that the garage, at the back, caused in the parking spot where I parked my blue Ram, was such a huge problem... a thick sheet of ice... when coming back from one of my Bison 'drive- alongs' caused me years of suffering. I stepped out of the truck and fell on the ice so badly that my elbow is permanently damaged.

When the water was shut off, for the house, after Bruce died, I was in shock. I know that is not legal. 

When a crew of un- named men came onto the property and dug down behind the house to attempt to fix the foundation... I was terrified. I didn't know these people. There was no legal paper from any of them.

The law firm, Restall & Restall has never phoned me back... for each time I called asking how to settle on this property and I really called quite a number of times. I would say their forestalling has caused me a lot of suffering.

I am, of course, entitled to my investment in that property. I haven't received it yet. 

The construction work I did in renovating a portion of the basement I, of course, have all the bills for. I was asked to send this information to Restall & Restall and I did that forthwith, at that time. Does anyone know if that law firm has gone out of business?

 

What? Locked up?

 

Years ago, I drove to Calgary, for a 'holiday of visits.' I didn't really know some of the people I dropped in on but... someone else's acquaintances are always a adventure of possibilities. 

So, we found our way to an address we'd never been to and the adventure began.

Now, we were all Christians and yet... we attended different, well, denominations? Yes, I think that is the right word... same faith but core values might have been interpreted a little bit differently.

Well, someone I knew, who knew one of these families, had warned me to keep my purse close to my side. I laughed, thinking she was being a bit dramatic. Did she really think a sofa sit down would lead to a purse snatching? Then I thought, I don't have enough in my purse to make it worth snatching. 

The conversations began and there was a healthy, rowdy interchange of what you do, how you earn a living, where you attend church... when a slight movement by my hip made me pause and I noticed my purse moving away from me. I looked over at the offender, smiled, pulled my purse onto my lap and the evening continued without harm. I had been duly warned and my reaction time was 'timely.'

I was thinking about what I serve when I have company... pie, pie, pie... when I noticed padlocks in strange places... I thought, well, that does not look like a pie safe to me! And, even if it was a pie safe, no rodent is going to need a padlock to keep those pests out. So, who are the padlocks supposed to keep out? 

I was feeling a bit uneasy about this so I used the bathroom... when I get a bit 'uncomfortable' in strange settings I just use the bathroom to resettle myself. As I walked past the kitchen, I saw padlocks on the cupboards and then I knew there was definitely something wrong here.

Now, I can understand if you've got a really bad 'renter type' of person living in your house who doesn't respect boundaries... Whew! I've heard more 'renter hell' stories than you can imagine! 

So, I thought about a tea towel I bought one time. "... and a good book...," well, I thought, these people need the good book. Then I thought, they have the good book. They should just read it.

So, the evening wore on and I thought about the saying... 'they're eating me out of house and home...,' and I know some people can eat a lot but I never had that problem, with any of my children. So, I thought, maybe there isn't enough. 

Now, not enough! That is always a problem. My Mom and Dad worked sun- up to sundown, in summer, to make sure we had enough in winter.

These days, when I think about how wonderful life was with my boys... they loved to eat, I loved it when they would eat... my Mom was like that, too. So was Dad. They prepared so much food each time we 'got together,' they assembled little packages and sent those home with us as well. 

Weren't we blessed to always have enough? 

I was a very sane and generous and healthy thinking person and, I assure you, I never locked up the food. 

What a privilege to live in a country where we have enough and we don't have to behave like people did during famine or times of conflict.

If you have enough, make sure your children have enough, too. That is a very Christian thing to do.

From my day, my beef

 

This is 3 Donegal Bay, in Winnipeg. I sold the armoire  to someone who hauled it out to the country, east of Winnipeg. (I think I bought it in 2008/ 2009 when I owned 90 Forest Cove Drive. I had it in my bedroom at that time.) When I moved to 3 Donegal Bay, I had a television in that armoire and, it was so clean when I closed the doors, you couldn't even tell it was an entertainment unit. 

My fondest memory of the series I watched was a family show called Blue Bloods. When I met a woman who asked me my name, she said, "You're Anglo Saxon. Elfrieda is a very Anglo Saxon name."   

When I lived at this address, with Bruce, I went on a few 'ride- alongs' with Bison Transport. That was in between 'finishing out the basement' renovation... I've kept all my receipts, of course.

Now, a Bison 'ride- along' was quite official because I had to sign a waiver for injury in case of any mishaps. I felt rather uncomfortable doing that but I really didn't have a choice. I also had to provide a 'next- of- kin' contact. It was a very organized company.

These 'on- the- road' pictures are always blurry.

On one of these 'ride- along' work runs, we went to a meat packing plant. It was located somewhere on the prairies between Winnipeg and Calgary. Now, if you've never been to meat packing plant, I have a mild caution for those sensitive to odours; myself. That is not an easy place to go to.

This place had security, security, security. You never leave the 'truck' other than to hook up. That is a good thing. 

For those of you who just go to a grocery store and buy your beef neatly shrink- wrapped and don't really think about how it got there... I would like to say, for the time I was in the load pick- up... you would be so impressed by the speed with which meat comes from packing plant to grocery store. These time sensitive loads go from hook- up to hook- up with 'driver waiting' efficiency.

One of my tasks, on these 'ride- alongs' was to either get the paperwork from the back of a trailer, or put paperwork into the slot at the back of a trailer. I always made 100% sure that the trailer was at a full stop before I completed that task. 

'Always be thinking' is my motto.

Once back at 3 Donegal Bay... it was rest time. My basement renovation has a most beautiful solid wood door at the bottom of the stairs... it looks quite like a 'library door.' I stained it myself and purchased the new, quite expensive doorknobs for the entire basement renovation. 

This door, the basement bathroom door, I also finished in the same cappuccino- coloured stain. This is also a solid wood door, matching the full- sized door leading into the rec room... as you can see in the background, my painted baseboards that I purchased at Home Depot were waiting for my construction guy to come install them. This door had to be cut down to the size of the door opening because, strange as it is with some houses that get tweaked over the years... each door in this basement was a different size. Basements are like that when working around furnace pipes. The flooring, in the background is vinyl plank... that was expensive! I painted the walls a lovely lilac blue... very soothing.

This is a photo of the front bedroom/ office when I lived at 3 Donegal Bay. I gave that desk away.

It was a talk- legged shiny black Baroque style desk.

                                                              

 This is my gardening with the shed in the background.

These are the large garden boxes that I wasn't able to remove when I was forced to leave this property, quite illegally. 

These were my flowers at the back door... the bricks must still be there, I'm sure.

This is the railing at the front door, my gardening by the shed shining in the sunlight.

In the background, you can still see my smaller garden boxes, one of which I have here, in Dauphin.

I needed a ladder to cut flowers when I lived here. I think it was all the fresh soil we hauled and put into my garden boxes.

Bruce used to call my 'Kitty.'

I bought this nice piece at Ikea when I lived there. I put it together when Bruce was away. I sold it for so much less than I paid for it. I had my wonderful 'sheaf- back chairs' there as well. They are here, obviously, as they 'go where I go.' I purchased those April 1, 1993.

You can't even imagine how many people have sat in my chairs and eaten food I cooked and baked.

This is the back door.

There's me, Elfrieda, at the back of the property with that old Imperial. My Ram truck parked on the right... when I still had it... before the accident.

Memories... keep good ones alive and I am here to make sure people know what I am owed.

 

Better or Worse?

Did it make you better or worse?

The brain and body needs food to operate efficiently and well. 

Quite a number of years ago I wrote a story about my father and how the medical doctors who were in charge of his life had prescribed way too much medication for his body to handle. He is safely in heaven now so this is the time to help others with his life experiences because he no longer can.

I erased ten years of stories because I tried to monetize and I didn't have a way of doing that so I removed my stories because I was a bit tired of 'giving away my work for free.'

I am writing these stories for my sons so they can learn how their ancestor handled his life.

This is what happened to him. 

We were sitting at his kitchen table and conversing in a natural and normal manner. Suddenly, he got up and started tottering towards his rocking chair. He was walking those 15- 20 feet very fast. I thought, why is he walking so fast?

He got to his chair and reached his hand out for the armrest and his head seemed to become a hundred pounds and aimed straight for the floor and the resounding thud, that his head made on the floor joists, through the rather cheap carpeting and underlay, was astounding.

I got up and raced over and he was already trying to get himself into his rocking chair.

"What happened?" I asked.

My Dad responded, "I got very dizzy." 

"Well, what kind of medication are you on?" I asked.

He laid his head back against his rocker and said, rather blankly, "I'm not in charge anymore."

Now, the only people who were in his house were us daughters and I thought... woah, that means we have to be.

So, the good part of this terrible experience was that his doctor 'cleaned the slate' of his medications and took a much closer look at dosages and things did get straightened out.

So, before you think that taking medication because some doctor prescribes it is a 'sure thing,' remember, you and I are in charge of our own lives and every day- to- day occurrence within our lives. We have to make sure we can explain how we are feeling and if any medication is making something better or worse. If you ever have some free time, look over the many pages of information for any one medication (it really doesn't even matter which medication you research) and you will find as many detractors as you will find possibilities of it having a good effect.

For instance, let's say a medication says it can help you with clear thinking. (I have a sister-in-law that says she has brain fog until noon on any given day.) I imagine she might want to try taking that unless her brain fog doesn't bother her. Maybe that is how her brain functions, slow and fuzzy. Who are we to say?

So, let's say you and I have very clear thinking, crystal clear... and some strange person suggests you take a redundant medication for a condition you and I don't even have... don't take it... why would you try to fix something that isn't broken?

My warning to you is... in this day of pharmaceutical push...

don't be pushed in the wrong direction.