We’re having the strangest weather lately. It can be cold and windy in the morning – like, really cold – and then humid with temps in the 30s just hours later. You could easily use the furnace and the air conditioner in the same day (if people let you use the furnace). It’s like Mother Nature’s going through menopause – unpredictably moody with occasional hot flashes.
Ray and I spent last weekend at our friends’ cottage. There was a lot of discussion beforehand about what the parameters would be, based on the province’s guidelines and what we were each comfortable doing. We stayed in the guest cottage, used separate washrooms, no hugs allowed except for Juno, and we practiced physical distancing, but the four of us did spend time indoors together and shared meals.
This ‘opening up’ is going to be a tricky transition. COVID-19 hasn’t gone away, but it also may not go away for a long time, so we need to find a way to balance that risk with living our lives. And people tend to think that anyone taking more risk than them is being reckless and anyone taking fewer risks is being overly cautious, so I anticipate a lot of judging other people’s choices and worrying about other people judging our choices as we try to figure out our comfort zones. Despite feeling nostalgic for the days when hanging with friends was angst free, we had a wonderful weekend at the lake.
It was Juno’s first summertime visit to the cottage and unfortunately her first exposure to the lake didn’t go well. As soon as we arrived, we headed to the dock for margaritas on the boat. As you do. Juno was on the dock and I guess she decided to try joining us by climbing onto the platform at the back of the boat…without understanding that the platform would move. She fell into the very cold lake, got caught up in the mooring rope and started to panic, before Ray quickly scooped her out. Thankfully, it didn’t take her long to recover from the trauma and by the end of the weekend she was fearlessly retrieving sticks from the lake.
We’re still doing video call trivia quizzes with friends – weekly with a group of UK friends and every two weeks with a group of our Canadian friends. We’ve learned a lot over that time, primarily that our children are more knowledgable than we are. Must be all that time they spend on the Internets. You’d think that after months of weekly quizzes, people would be running out of ideas, but our UK friends seem to get more creative each week. This week’s quiz had a picture round where they’d show you a still shot of an iconic scene from a movie and you had to name the movie. What they hadn’t told us was that they (the host couple) were the ones re-creating the scenes, complete with costumes. We were all in stitches as each new photo came up. Our favourite was the classic Lady and the Tramp spaghetti scene.
The outdoor projects are coming along well. The pergola for our neighbours is finished and Nick is now working on their Zen garden.
I’ve been trying to change a couple of my bad habits. I want to cut back on the doom-scrolling (reading depressing stories on social media or news sites). I also want to cut back on ‘comfort’ eating (my summer clothes gave me the gentle nudge shove that I needed). To that end, I’ve hired Nick as my personal chef. He makes me smoothies in the morning and preps a big batch of salad that gives me a week’s worth of lunches. It’s not that I’m incapable of making my own food, but I have a tendency to wait until I’m hungry, then open the fridge and stare inside with no particular plan, then close the fridge and grab an easy access carb, like a bagel and peanut butter. Nick loves to cook and he knows how to make healthy food tasty, so now I get hungry, open the fridge, stare inside and see a healthy option saying, “Pick me, pick me!”
I was a few days into my healthy eating regime when our neighbours showed up at our door and handed me an entire home-made chocolate pie sprinkled with candied nuts (to thank Ray for some work he did). If you’re thinking to yourself, “you didn’t have to eat it”, well, I don’t know how we’re even friends. We’re talking HOMEMADE. CHOCOLATE. PIE. It was worth every decadent chocolatey calorie-laden bite. [As I was writing this, Nick came in from working at the neighbours with a plate of homemade Vietnamese spring rolls and peanut dip. Sigh. Excuse me, gotta go.]
Entertaining, as usual 😆, Carolyn. I would love to see those movie ‘scenes’ ! Good luck with your healthy-eating ‘regimen’…..wish I had Nick to cook for me! Sigh (; hugs,
Poor Juno! Our former dog, Maddy, had a similar experience and never recovered from it. She’d bound into the water looking like she might start to swim but as soon as the water got over her ankles she would stop no matter how much we coaxed and bribed!
An entertaining post, as always. I wish I had a Nick to cook healthy meals for me! Like you, I tend to wait until I’m hungry and grab whatever is at hand, which is almost always something I should be avoiding. My husband only eats once a day (a bad habit he picked up as a teen and never got over) so I’m on my own for breakfast (muffins, yogurt, cheese) and lunch (whatever is kicking around), and dinners tend to be ‘hearty’ affairs (although I’ve learned to use a smaller plate and a pie fork, so it feels like I’m eating more than I am). And if someone brought ME a chocolate pie, I wouldn’t turn it down either!