Vivian's Tranquil Garden

A trillium at Summit Park, Montreal I’ve been waiting for the results of my CT Scan for what seems like forever, if you count from when I started the 6 chemo treatments (February 10th) and finally the scan, (May 24th) and then the wait.  I wasn’t all that nervous going into the appointment to get the results either.  Maybe it’s because when you already have one of the worst medical diagnoses you…

I finished my 6th chemo treatment last Friday (May 12th), and it’s been a rough one.  They say the effects of chemo can be cumulative, and I think it’s true.  The most debilitating thing is the fatigue, but I also have some back pain that’s not quite managed all the time by the copious pain meds I’m taking.  It’s now been a week and today I finally feel a bit better. Pirate tulips, rescued from…

Some housekeeping before we get started: I noticed that some people wrote to me a long time ago about my situation and I only just got their emails because they sent them to the email associated with this blog. I had been ignoring that account, because I had lost the password, and figured I never used it anyway. My apologies for the late replies and I hope you’ll write again! Please use the…

Hi, Gentle Readers, I was surprised to learn from a good friend of mine that my website wasn’t working.  She thought I’d deleted it myself, but I assured her that I hadn’t. I had been receiving emails mentioning that the site hadn’t been performing backups the way it was supposed to, but I ignored them since I didn’t know how to deal with that, having never had that issue before. I thought I’d…

I was overwhelmed by all the touching messages I received after my last post.  I was brought to tears over almost every one of them.  What I hadn’t expected nor foreseen were all the gifts that were sent to me.  I was surprised and somewhat abashed.  I definitely appreciate every single gesture, but I’m glad they’re trickling to a stop now. It was wonderful, but overwhelming.  Keep the messages…

Well, my friends, I have some pretty sucky, awful news.  Here’s the story. I saw a random doctor at a clinic on Boxing Day about my suspected stomach ulcer.  At that appointment I happened to mention a little pain in my right side under my ribs, which had made sleeping uncomfortable lately.  The doctor gave me a requisition for an ultrasound.  I went in for an ultrasound on January 3rd and just…

Epic Adventure: a setback

I’ve been meaning to write a post about our upcoming trip to Mexico, but it’s been a busy time and I’ve not been feeling very well— more on that later.  After feeling stressed (see this post for details) about the trip at first, I’ve calmed down and I’m feeling pretty excited.  Yes, still nervous about driving in winter (especially after the recent awful storms!), but focusing more on the end…

More Adventures with the Alto

Last night was our first night sleeping in our new little Alto trailer.  (Apparently everyone names their trailers…not sure that’s really our thing, but any suggestions welcome!) We drove out to see some friends who live in the country towards Ottawa and they let us park it in their yard and feed off their electricity for the night.  This is known in the biz as “Moochdocking”, by the way.  We had…

Back in February or so, Dave was so sick of winter here in Montreal, that he decided to book us a place to spend some of winter ‘23. He went ahead and booked an Airbnb (with no possibility of cancellation, which, having booked so far ahead, might not have been the best idea, but hey!) near Puerto Penasco, in the Bahia de California, about an hour past the border, south of Phoenix.  It looks…

Confessions of a lazy gardener

The Surprise Mum This started out as a gardening blog many years ago, back when Apple had a platform for creating blogs.  It was super simple and I loved it, but eventually they stopped supporting it altogether so I had to find another way to continue my blog, so I got a WordPress account and after much trial and error, managed to relaunch my blog.  For quite a few years it remained primarily a…

On my daily walks I find it comforting to move through the world as part of that demimonde of people who are free for some reason at 10 a.m. on a Thursday.  These people are walking dogs, drinking coffee outside coffee shops, chatting on park benches with friends, power-walking (while no doubt listening to NPR podcasts on their headphones), playing with their children in playgrounds, or just…

Waking up, A la Proust

I’m finding Proust fascinating, but I can only read about 10-20 pages at a time before my brain gets tired.    I’m really enjoying the little ritual I started of reading Swann’s Way in the mornings with my coffee.  I have my phone’s dictionary open plus a notebook at my side to jot down notes, and quotes that I love.  I have to read many sentences more than once, but that’s okay, it feels good to…

Ta-da! I’m almost at the finish line of my Penguono sweater by Stephen West.  It’s been quite an adventure and I’m happy with it.  I don’t think this pattern would suit everyone, with its crazy colours, but it was a very enjoyable project.  I was happy I was making a dent (albeit a small one) in my stash, and hardly bought any extra yarn.  In the end, I bought a couple of skeins for it but I…

“…our social personality is a creation of the thoughts of other people.”  Discuss. I’ve been delving into Swann’s Way, the first book of In Search of Lost Time, by Marcel Proust and I read that phrase on page 23.  It made me pause, partly because I’ve definitely heard it quoted before, but also because it made me ask myself…”Is it, really?” However, Proust doesn’t leave you hanging after that…

Getting back to reading

Some flowers! I’ve been thinking a lot about getting back into reading, for real. See, here’s the thing.  I adored reading as a child and adolescent; it was a wonderful escape, worlds to explore without leaving my couch, and it was the best therapy.  However, now that there’s the easy internet, I tend to spend my “waste” time scrolling social media.  It’s a completely lazy form of reading…

Mourning Roe v Wade

It’s one of those hot summer days that discourages a person from doing outside activities. It’s not blistering on the scale of the heat wave currently going on in Europe, but it’s still a bit hot and I don’t tolerate heat well.  Still, I went for a walk and did some gardening.  I then spent most of the day knitting and when not knitting, scrolling social media or playing with Buster.  By the…

Knitting down the Stash

I’ve been worried, on a subtle level, about working down my stash of yarn lately.  Partly this is the result of aging and thinking, will I have enough time to use all this in my lifetime?  The only way to reassure myself that it hasn’t gotten WAY out of control, is to choose projects that will use up the bits and pieces, single skeins, and project leftovers that I can never bring myself to throw…