Morning Memories June 2022

DD has been coughing for about a week. Choco had a seizure this morning.  Festus just enjoys cuddling.  We are spending the day together. ❤️

May 2 - No Playground Coat!!

 It is finally warm enough to not wear a coat during lunch hour/recess supervision.   It has been a long cold crispy winter.  Brrr....   Anyway, in four days Festus will be a year old.  I can't believe he made it...and me too!  He was a HARD puppy.  Biting, chewing, you name it.  Went through 5 harnesses - all beautiful in the beginning.  After destroying the last one, I made him wear a piece of rope in the shape of a harness until I found his latest one.  I discovered Value Village is an awesome pet resource!  Anyway, he has more good boy days, than bad boy days now. :-)  Ahhh, all good things these days. 

love to all,

Darci and the Fur kids

What A Beautiful Memorial Year!

The worldwide congregation is just wonderful. 🦋🌹 We can all show love and support for each other, and develop the BEST friendships. I have two immediate congregation families. Lake Country and Korea. Today I attended the Memorial of Jesus ransom in Korea. This is my old congregation and Kh. They had two zoom connections. One at the door so online participants could talk to ones as they arrived at KH. And one aimed at the speaker. Then after the meeting, a brother roamed with the tablet so the online participants could say hi to ones in the hall and also meet Bible studies and visitors. It was beautiful and so encouraging!!! 😁🌸 The taxi driver named Youyo was in attendance too!  He came to study the Bible and become part of the congregation in part because my friend Brenda kept talking to him about it each time he picked her up for meetings. Anyway, our congregations really are special!🌸🌼❤️

Getting Ready to Sizzle

 Hey hi to all, :-)

It is May 15th tomorrow and supposed to be 27 degrees. Beautiful.  Usually, I like about 25 degrees but it has taken so long to get to the really warm weather this year that I am truly looking forward to some heat.  I am working on painting and refinishing the walls in the 30ft travel trailer. (I don't live in it full-time anymore). I know it is older, but I absolutely adore this trailer.  It is just totally airy and bright and has a wonderful feel to it.  Several years ago, it was the answer to many prayers, so I will always love it.  It was home whenever I came home for visits when living overseas, it was easy to pull no matter where I took it, it is well built and got me through many cold winters and hot summers, and helped me keep my life simple all this time - just a true blessing from Jehovah God all the way around.

Things weighing on my mind this week.  The ones in the Middle East.  Scary.  Lots of prayers being said for them.  The amount of trust and endurance they are showing at this moment is incredible.  Using peaceful moments in our life to build our faith and trust certainly was good advice to receive.

So wasps are fast.  You would think the way I ran from the wasp nest after I knocked it down that it was a near-death experience.  I had it all planned out except for the part where I turned and ran but forgot there was a metal pole holding up my awning...  so like now, I got a goose egg on my forehead.  Nice.

So I am hooked these days on watching this chef cook with things we can find in our backyard and lawn.  All I can say is - Future. Future. Future.  Knowledge is power...and delicious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyRfaksY6a4&ab_channel=CBCLife

Okay, gotta run.  The cuties and I have to brave the storm outside and get a walk in before work.  Have a wonderful, warm, happy week!

Love to all,

D, P & C

 

The Pink Stool

 Hey hi to all :-)

    All is good here.  For the last couple of years, I have been researching pallet gardening and this is the year to give it a go.  So far so good.  The big factor in doing this, is that have a small yard, and I get a small sliver of sunshine - just enough for a sunny wall, so that is where my garden should be.  And amazingly, everything is sprouting!  A month from now I should have vegetables falling every which way out of the wall.  I put tomatoes on top but they are bending over so that was not necessary.  Mint and all the super tall ones are on the bottom, but I am learning the plants will grow straight out so placement doesn't matter as much as I thought it may.  I will post updated pics.  And since I have a blue theme going around here, that is what I painted the pallets too, Electra.  Then of course a pink stool, because I love pink. :-)

Choco is adjusting well to our home.  He gets along really well with Pearl.  After he realized she is the queen and he is the serf everything fell into place.  :-)  I actually learned that tip online.  It said when introducing a new dog to your home always pet, feed, and pet the old dog first and there will be no jealousy issues.  It works!  And because he is a senior I am thrilled because he is already trained and good to go.  Puppies are cute, but not for me. :-)

Anyway, very grateful for Jehovah God's care these days with world conditions as they are, and hoping that all my friends are coping well too.

Love to all,  Darci, Pearl & Choco

Started a Loose Watercolour

Momma and her babies.  Will take a few more days to finish due to work schedule.  But isn't creation wonderful!

It Has Almost Been A Year

 Hey hi Everyone!

I can't believe it has been a year since Covid restrictions started, and our lives changed so drastically.  Even though it has been a huge adjustment in many ways, there have been some wonderful positives come out of it too.  I have spent quality time at home and got painting again.  Something that also happened was that I connected again with my congregation in Korea.  Each smile feels like a warm embrace.  I love my congregation in Canada, as well as my congregation back in Palm Springs, but my congregation has filled a hole in my heart because I hadn't seen them in so long, and I just yearned for that.  Also, I feel wiser, and more mature, at this time in life, so that I can show my gratitude to them better too.  They were the ones that patiently helped me build a wonderful life in Korea, and helped me see the world-wide brotherhood in action.

Pearl is doing well these days.  I caught her trying to jump off the end of the bed a couple weeks ago.  She actually did it as I yelled for her to stop.  I was in mid-sentence of running toward her, telling her that she was almost 15, hard of sight, and probably had brittle bones.  But she landed fine and trotted off to her food bowl.  Crazy fur-ball.

We are still in the RV trailer.  Renting the pad at mom and dad's while Stan stays safe at my place.  Only Jehovah God knows how all this will come together.  Stan's health is precarious, and with COVID he seems to be doing fine plunked in his armchair in front of the TV. 

Meanwhile, I am making things work.  All that matters to me is that we are okay.  Pearl is healthy.  My closest friends and family are doing well.  I am grateful. 

The Scary Covid 19 Nurse said ISOLATE! - So I did...

 So much has happened since the beginning of the school year.  All of us staff entered the school in sheer panic and fear, not knowing what to expect and what would happen.  But I am so glad I chose the school to work at that I did. Rigid, regimented, detail-oriented, clean up the kazoo, are all terms that would describe my daily life for the last 3 months.  Protocols to no end.  I knew that if this virus got past the defenses the school set up there was no stopping it, as there was no safer school anywhere.

Well, last Sunday night, I got a text message from my school principal saying he wanted to meet on zoom.  Minor events of life started flashing before my eyes because this is REALLY out of the ordinary, nothing good about this request.  I go on and have it confirmed that COVID exposure has happened. I logged off and started shaking.  Every bad scenario of what I thought would ever happen started going through my mind.  The Principal said to be at the school at 8am for details that Interior Health would provide him during the night so he could pass along what he was learning.

It was bad.  My class.  Everyone was told to isolate for two weeks.  The principal told me to call 811 to talk to the Covid nurse, which I immediately did.  She said you have to go home and isolate and not go out NOW.  I felt like a stiff tin man as I walked to my truck, but got in, and got home, and started to think about how I would make this happen.

I have been letting an elderly man live in my place to avoid COVID himself, which means I opted to stay in my 30ft travel trailer on an RV pad beside my parents' place.  But I was pretty prepared.  For the last few months every time I went shopping I bought a little extra and threw it in the chest freezer "just in case" I was ever in a lockdown situation due to COVID.  I had full tanks of propane, a full tank of water, and TYPE O blood.  I looked at the last one as a bonus because several times on the news outlets recently reported that people with O type blood did better during the sickness time.  So upon arriving home I started prepping my place with the mindset that if I did get sick it all had to be organized in a certain manner so I could take care of myself, and take care of Pearl.  By that first evening, I was prepared to be sick.

Woke up the next day, and was still standing.  So with nowhere to go and nothing planned to do, I started rummaging through a closet for art supplies that hadn't been used in many years.  Then I phoned my parents and asked them to dig through their basement for a mini step machine I had bought and forgot about also several years prior.  They dug it out, crept up to my door, and left it.  Small and compact I decided it would have to be my exercise plan along with kitchen dancing for the next two weeks.

And so it began, my covid quarantine.  Time doing things I love but had no time for.  Time exercising, in a way I had never exercised like before - in a small space. Writing, art, learning from incredible people on YOUTUBE.  I think I will cherish this time after it is finished.  ...as long as I don't get sick.

My Covid Staycation

Hey Hi!  With all the stuff happening with the Covid 19 virus, the health official asked us to travel local this year.  So I decided to make a route of wonderful bike rides, boondock or stay in rec sites to keep it all economical, and I have to say it has been great.  Pearl has jiggled around in the basket as we have done skinny trails, fat trails, gravel trails, paved trails, etc.  By far the favourite so far is the Princeton trails.  Can't wait to get back to those.  After two+ weeks on the road, it was such a hard decision where to go next, stay and do more interior ones, or go do a couple coast ones.  Well due to the intense heat this week in the interior I have decided we are heading to the coast.  Will avoid people as we have been doing, and just enjoy nature and what Jehovah God created on this Earth.  Here are some random pics in no particular order.  Just little memories of the wonderful time Pearl and I are having on the road. 

Prayers are ALWAYS Answered

So yesterday was the anniversary of Harvey passing away.  I knew it was going to be a gut punch of a day to get through, so in my morning prayer I asked Jehovah if he would help me turn it into a day of looking for ways I could help others.  To be watching and alert.  So I hopped in my car and headed off to work.  No spectacular moments happened where I really felt like I was making a difference.  I came home, dug snow, more snow, and more snow, came inside and basically laid like a wet noodle on the couch with my eyes closed because I was so tired.  Then at 9pm my phone dinged with a message.  It read: "Darci, I need your help".  It was from a Bible study I had a year ago that decided to go another path in life.  I immediately phoned back and she said she was in the hospital.  So I got up the next morning and went there.  The nurse told me that she had been there a week but that her family had just called and said they were on their way to pick her up, so I knew we had little time to really 'talk'.  Had a good heart to heart about where she is at in her thinking, and she asked if she could start studying again, and coming to the Kingdom Hall.  Really...is there ANY better way to be able to help someone???

Love to all,
from D & P

Wanted to share this news of growth

Even though something came up and I wasn't able to join the northern Canada team this year I have been so happy to hear the success Jehovah is giving them.  In previous years when the community leaders have heard of our arrival they immediately granted a meeting place for a Sunday meeting.  Everyone on the team worked hard, and Jehovah blessed us with one person in attendance each year from the territory.  This year, HOWEVER he drew EIGHT to the meeting.  That is an 800% increase!  And four more said they would have come!  Even the rv that I have been texting throughout this year went.  I sweated over every text wondering if my wording was right, just hoping that what I could write in a few words would make a difference.  But Jehovah's spirit must have been on her because she and her daughter attended together.  Anyway, now, Jeff, the team leader is looking at the next step.  How to keep these ones spiritually nourished in such a remote, rugged, harsh winter area.  Lots of prayers happening between all of us right now.  Who knows maybe the society will send in a year round couple to nurture the growth.

1. Eldon at his makeshift podium (one guest told him he looked like a Prime Minister because a flag was attached to the wall behind him.  Couldn't remove it.)

2. The brothers who bring their big trucks to get into the territory are so much appreciated.

3. Goodies after the meeting to encourage association.

4. Some of the guests arriving (horse buggy)

Marvelous Tool

Last night I have to admit I tossed and turned a bit thinking about our visit to Stanley Park.  I wanted to walk the seawall again because it was a regular activity of mine while living here.  So I got up early this morning and sweated all the way down about finding easy parking parking.  Not to worry.  Parked at the police office where all the horse stables are.  Lots of room.  Central.  Parking til 11pm.  Loaded Pearl in the buggy and took off.  She got lots of friendly smiles and pictures taken as we did the Brocton Point side. 

But that is what I love about about having the camper.  No need to do the whole seawall at once.  So at lunchtime we came back to the camper, ate lunch, snoozed, and read a book.  With parking til 11pm, why rush.  Anyway, the camper is a marvelous tool because it allows us to do our days like this.  You can see by this picture, other people with RVs had the same idea.

love to all,

D & P

What A Great Couple Days

The weather has just been fabulous the whole time.  We stayed overnight in the school parking lot at Confederation Park.  Just a really perfect place.  Pool right here (went there for a while today).  Track.  Dog Park.  This morning got up and took a long walk in the park.  Talked to a gentlemen and his snauzer.  Juan is a master wood carver.  Retired but still carves 2 or 3 hours a day.  At first I thought maybe be meant those crazy little wooden bears or garden gnome things, then I saw his pictures and understood.  Incredible stuff.  Wow stuff. 

Yesterday we stayed at harbourside in North Vancouver.  Now that was an incredibly beautiful spot.  Right on the beach.  The lights at night were awesome.  Pearl has been walking a lot.  But I sense she is a little tired so I broke out the buggy and been pushing.  Which worked out excellent cuz we walked McDonalds and got a coffee frappe.  Yum.  Tonight will do the same and then walk down Hastings.    

Made dinner for a friend last night.  We figured out we have known eachother 30+ years now.  And we have known awesome people along the way.  Frank Garland, Olga Brill, Vi Priest, etc., all ones who used to tell us about living through the ban in Canada, and the book confiscations and burnings.  Anyway, it is nice to have a history like this with someone.

Well, Pearl is looking all zonked at the moment, but as soon as she wakes up we are off to the dog park.  Right here at Confed Park also.  Great place to hang. :-)

Love to all,

D & P

These two pics are the same scene but just later.

Peaceful Place To Sleep

After a beautiful day of birdwatching, slept at Boundary Bay Airport.  Right beside beach so nice breeze.  Really good.

Boundary Bay Dyke Trails

Love the tranquility.  Smell of the air.  Surrounded by farmland and a nice fresh wind.  Will see how far we get.

A Little Piece of Heaven In My Arms

Stayed at Winthrop Public Library last night.  Awesome.  Right beside river and park.  Tried to rescue a lost dog.  Chased him all over the park with a handful of Costco chicken, but he ate and ran.  Diablo lake was incredible.  Talked to two guys van camping at the reststop.  Nice set up.  What a view to wake up to.

Enjoying The Good Life in Methow Valley

This place has it all.  River floating, bike trails everywhere (same as Fernie, bc).  When I stayed here for a few days some years back I promised myself to come back.  Don't know why I waited so long.   This is just great.  Pearl loved the sun after a river dip.

Awakenings

Hey hi all,

Do you remember a movie from several years ago with Robin Williams called Awakenings?  It was about a bunch of comatose people that suddenly were revitalized.  Well a miracle kind of like that is happening at my dog park right now.

As you know the people I hang out with there are pretty old, and their dogs are pretty old too.  A few weeks ago, Gary and Tizzy came as usual.  For the last year Tizzy has had a lot of trouble moving.  Got to the point where when she stood up she would fall over or stumble as she tried to walk.  Gary was so beside himself that I thought I had to do something.  So I went home and got a large bottle of Glyco-Flex III that Harvey had been using over the years because of his vertebrae disease.  It really helped him and I thought maybe the contents of bottle would help Tizzy too.

Two nights ago, Gary and Tizzy show up at the park.  Suddenly Tizzy takes off chasing and playing with the other dogs.  Not stumbling or falling over.  LIKE A MIRACLE!  Nobody there could believe it.  We asked Gary what he had done and he said he has been giving her those pills I dropped off.  Then another lady comes with her ancient dog and it too starts running around playing.  We asked what she has been doing, and she tells us that Gary gave her a handful of the pills I dropped off at his place.  Astounding.  Then, this morning I am at the dog park and Ginny shows up with her dog that she has been pushing around in a stroller because it couldn't walk anymore due to pain, and it is running around.  Amazed, I asked her what has happened and she says that Gary gave her a handful of the Glyco-Flex III pills, and in about a week her dog started walking.  We're talking crazy here, but totally cool.

Anyway, it warms my heart and tears my eyes to know that a legacy of Harvey is that something of his that was passed along has made such a difference in three, or should I say six lives.  The pup parents are so thankful, and it really is incredible to see the change in these dogs.  It is just a wow thing.

love to all,
Darci & Pearl 💙

Simple Joys

It is so important for all of us just to keep things simple, and prioritize.  ...When I was sitting on my ladder outside today I was so happy to be touching up the stripes on my RV.  It was fun, and every time I stepped back to see the progress I was just so happy this is my home. From the moment I got it I truly felt it was a gift from God.  Just perfect.  For me. 

Then I went out and took a picture of my garden and milled through the leaves looking to see how many squash were growing, and so surprised to see what actually was growing.  Simple joys.

I think that is how we have to live life otherwise things can become overwhelming. 

Sad hearts.  I talked to a friend today and could feel true sadness in her words.  Sometimes we forget to stop caring what others think, and just do what we gotta do to get back to that happy place in life.  Roll back the thoughts to our happy moment and do what we need to do to get back there, or roll forward and change things up so that we can get there.  Either way.

Uncomplicate the complicated.  Recreate joy.  And if it has been a while since you felt it, and forgot when it was the last time you felt it, find a good friend who can trace your memories with you to that time.

Okay, enough deep stuff. Time for a mushroom spinach cheese pizza.  Yum, ...again a simple joy of life. 

Not Lakeside, But Gorgeous

We dropped in at Monck prov Park and got a space.  Beautiful, dry.  Took a long walk.  Pearl is exhausted and I am reading.  Just might finish this book one day.