OCTOBER 18

Ready to blow out those candles!

No, I haven't blown away in these strong winds that Saskatchewan has had for two days.   I've stayed put and enjoyed having Ashley here to keep me company.  We just finished our lunch and now she is watching a Larry Boy tape from Veggie Tales, or "The Vegetables" as she called them the other day.

Every evening we light this little display of pumpkin candles.  When I was at my sisters and saw her many fall decorations, I realized that I hadn't put out any of mine!  She had bought three mini pumpkins and had Merle drill out a hole in each one just the size of a tea light.  Jodi and I bought some too and had Merle make holes in them.  Mine are sitting on a ceramic tray that Pearl gave me years ago.  It has "Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread" around the edge with sheaves of wheat in the middle.  It was perfect for these little pumpkin lights. As the candles were lit last night on the 17th, three people came to mind, one for each candle.  It was five months yesterday since Howard passed away.  It was my brother Alan's birthday yesterday.  We tried to phone him before we blew out the candles but no luck.  Judy's birthday was a month ago, the day of her sister's funeral.  She said she planned to celebrate with Alan on his day so I hope they had a nice birthday celebration together.

Tie sealer rings together to make a "pumpkin"
a decoration on Sandra's porch

Tomorrow we are going to meet Laurel in Weyburn as she is getting her hair done at Headwaves.  I'm sure Ashley will be excited to be back home again as she did say last night "I miss my family."  She was looking at the wall of family pictures in my bedroom.  She likes to wear the crown that I wore for our wedding so I took our wedding picture off the wall so she could have a closer look.  "Grandma, who did you marry?" I told her that I married Grandpa.  "But that's not Grandpa" she stated.  So I had to explain that Grandpa ( and Grandma!) were much younger then so we didn't look the same.  She accepted that explanation and went on to look at the rest of the pictures.

Her favorite game is with the "Go Fish" cards.  We spread out all 48 cards and then try to find the matching pairs.  She always wins as she is much better at remembering where the cards are than Grandma is.  Sometimes when I turn one over she'll point to the one that is a match so I get a few pairs that way.  I need all the help I can get!

On Tuesday we went to Estevan as our accordion group played at Midtown Manor.  She had been there with me another time so felt quite at home.  She was busy colouring for a while, then decided to do some "dancing" for the residents.  She has good rhythm so when the music was fast she really moved.  And when we played waltzes she slowed down.  Mike, one of the residents, gave her a bag of treats "for dancing".  She hasn't touched them as she says "They're for dancing". I expect she'll open them up when it's time to dance again!

The lawn has never had so many leaves on it as it does this year.  We were raking them into piles on Monday and she was so excited because "We can make lots of piles!"  Then she would take a run and land in the middle of a pile, just enjoying this bounty of crispy leaves.  What I regarded as work, she saw as such a fun thing to do.  Our attitude makes all the difference!  We didn't get the job finished and I'm sure we lost a few of those leaves in the wind.  After reading Kelle Hampton's blog about fall leaves, I appreciate these leaves even more.  She lives in Florida where the leaves don't turn colour and drop off in the fall.  She misses that event so a cousin from "out west" sends her a big box of leaves every fall so she and her girls can have some real "fall" fun!  Do any of you want a box of leaves??

I missed sharing a cute picture of Clare with Abbey and the Sanford brothers, Rhett and Blaine.  This was taken at Sandra and Merle's when we were there for Sandra's birthday and Rhett's baptism.

Clare with Abbey, Rhett and Blaine

 Ashley is having an afternoon nap.  That sounds like a good idea so maybe I'll join her.  See you on Sunday.