Although winter doesn't officially start until December 21st, we had one of the hottest, driest summers we've had in years. Not to be outdone, winter decided to arrive when we'd barely had one month of Autumn.
When its colder than -15 I make soups, chili, bake bread or I scrapbook. And sometimes I just curl up with a blanket and good book! We've had three deaths in my husband's family between August 20th and November 3rd. The funerals/memorials were Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. When we got home yesterday I de-stressed by scrapbooking. Finally, did the pages that I have been wanting to do of my great nephew, Dallas. He will be two in four months and I haven't even met him. I missed my opportunity this summer due to conflicting travel.
Its November 3rd. We've cancelled the plans we made this morning and are staying put where its warm, dry and no chance of getting into an accident. We've been listening to the radio and hearing of more and more accidents and road closures. "Don't try to drive up this hill... you won't make it." etc. It started snowing November 1st. We now have 12" on top of our barbeque and patio table.
I had my first yoga stretch class (preceded by a noon meditation at Nirvana) before we decided to park the Jeep and stay home.
My poor Maggie hasn't gone for a walk in 3 days. The wind chill factor has been high and the Weather Network keeps saying this will last 2 weeks. So every few days the 2 week cold spell gets extended for "2 weeks". This happened far too early this year! We had one of the hottest summers on record here in southeastern Alberta. We're already known as the sunniest city in Alberta but that was ridiculous. We weren't able to ride our bikes as we weren't about to get up at 6:00 a.m. to do it. We even had to cancel camping trips because there is no point going camping if its uncomfortable to sit outside and you have to sit inside the motor home in the air conditioning! We did manage to have some great longer trips. In May we spent 2 weeks travelling to BC and visiting family at Mirror Lake (south of Kaslo). We camped at Creston, Crawford Bay, and Cranbrook as well on that trip. The Discovery Channel had a program that showed a bit about Kaslo's May Days' logging competitions and we decided that we wanted to be there for May Days. That was a lot of fun with all the people coming for the festivities. We planned a family gathering of my siblings and their spouses but one sister wasn't able to rent a cottage and stay with us. She got a ride out a couple days which was great because it wasn't a short trip for her. We spent a week camping between Writing on Stone Provincial Park, Waterton Lakes Provincial Park and Taber Municipal Park. Another week was spent camping at Creston after our Cypress Hills Provincial Park Labour Day weekend camping trip. Creston's Fall Fair happened to be on the weekend we were there so really enjoyed that; and enjoyed going to the three wineries and doing wine tastings. Also checking our their second hand book stores and going to coffee shops for specialty coffees and fabulous lunches.
Fall hit so fast that we had to bring the motor home back 3 days after we had taken it back to the storage lot so that we could winterize the water pipes. But Fall didn't last long and Winter hit before it was supposed to.
I'm feeling much better just these past two to three weeks and have actually gotten back some of my motivation and creativity. Its been probably 18 months or more since I had scrapbooked. This past little while I've probably gotten 14 pages done! Here are the most recent:
