Got myself together and headed to Nelson. What a gorgeous drive over the pass. Creston was beautiful and wow, Nelson is in full bloom, so much ahead of Cranbrook.
I met with Leanne, got registered and brought my stuff up from the car before heading to lunch. It was lovely to sit with Al and Nancy Dyck, and meet other new people as we enjoyed a delicious lunch.
The speaker for the afternoon session was… questionable… a white man talking about indigenous culture…. He even smudged… I have no words.
I was horrified to find that the black pegs were not fitting in the crib board I made for the auction so I brought it up to my room intending to make it right only to discover that it was actually only one of the pegs that was over sized. Phew! also, as of last check it was already bid up to $112!
I was able to secure a spot on the brewery tour and tacos trip to Torchlight Brewing Co. Imagine my great delight to see Sam Hurrie playing on the loading dock (yes we had a good laugh about that)
Me and PennyMiddle one scares me
I love that Sam told me he was thinking about me recently and wondering how I was handling no MusicFest this year. I am still mourning as this would be the month I would ramp up work on it.
Penny and I decided we’d had enough beer and needed a nightcap so we stopped at the hotel. We’d just sat down when a bunch of our American members cruised in and we all hung out visiting and shut the place down. It turns out we were sitting with the next three District Governors and their spouses: David and Marlisa, Steve and Denise, Debi and Scott. What a fun time we had! No really, I had to tiptoe into my room, lol.
I also learned today that the Paul Harris Fellowship is a big deal and I am proud to wear my pin.
I will admit that three things were big wins today:, in no particular order:
I was surprised at Rotary lunch by being called up and presented as a Paul Harris Fellow. Paul Harris was the founder of Rotary and I was able to give $1000 US in the Rotary fiscal year which granted me a beautiful award. I didn’t realize it was a big deal until people started congratulating me after. It’s really just a blessing to me to be able to give to something that is making a difference in my community and in the world. I should wear my pin with pride.
The next thing today was completing all my remittances and all, but one of my PST filings in advance of me leaving town, which means I don’t have to worry about anything until one payroll on Monday. This is a major accomplishment.
After work, I headed to Encore and Bill had just arrived. We sat and had an amazing visit about people and his family in our lives when we were married back in the 80s. There were so many questions I had about who had ended up where and it was a really great visit. Roger showed up and I invited him to join my trivia team for the night which was Huy, who was companied by but not playing due to language barriers,his wife, JD, Brett and me! Brett Brought Morgan and Riley as Jill had dinner plans. It was so sweet when Morgan came and asked me if she could call me grandma and I said Nana would work the best and now I am not Marnée to those two girls as well. I love being a significant figure in my friends lives. It is a legacy of the friends I’ve had that moved away. Brett and I have decided that we rock at trivia and it is pure joy for us to play . Our team kicked butt tonight. We only got seven wrong out of 80 and took first place so that each of us got to take home $32. It was only sad because they were so a few teams there and we did so well. The money would’ve been more on a regular night.
All in all, it was a very good day and I now feel confident that I can go away and we’ll get the things done that need to be done. I stopped at the liquor store on the way home and found two lovely items. One was just for fun because it spoke to me.
The other was recommended by John and it is like eating a Werther‘s original only in liquid form over ice, Shanky’s Whip 
I struggled to sleep again last night, that’s just the pressure that I have put on myself and my lack of taking time to make lists and be prepared to go away on Friday, as well as worrying that something was terribly wrong with my ankle. When I woke up and my ankle was still off, I actually dug a crutch out of my closet and used it to walk down the hall until I was sure that I wouldn’t buckle.
I was careful getting myself to the office and did chores along the way dropping off a cooler for children’s fest to use and taking my recycling so that it wouldn’t blow all over the yard while I was gone. I got right down to business doing all the payroll of the day and at one point while I was walking up to the front of the building, I realized that I was walking with only a very slight ache, but my usual lope. I was so happy and remembered again that a perfect stranger had seen me in my boot, using the scooter and told me ‘ just wait till the cartilage snaps’. I couldn’t imagine what he was talking about but now I realize that something last night broke free. Maybe it was scar tissue I don’t know but my ankle feels so much better. There is still a dull lake and I know that’s going to take a while to go away, but I am walking normal. I didn’t limp when I got out of my chair at all today or out of the car it just feels Free. I am not every man of the day aware of it. Yay so many good things about the last day of April.
I opened the fridge at work today and found this. It made me laugh.
I was glad to be done at the office as early as I was so that I could make it to the arts building by closing time of four to pick up my beautiful piece of functional art that I bought back in March now that the showing is over.
I am strangely relaxed and waiting for my laundry to be done so I can throw it in the dryer and get a good nights sleep. Let’s see those May flowers
I was awake at 5:30 so got to the office early before going to a new client for 4.75 hours. I am taking over payroll for a large company for an indeterminate length of time as the person who has the job recently lost her son to suicide. I am impressed how the company is holding space for her and getting the work covered so she can take all the time she needs. once I got back to the office I managed to file the last GST quarter for the month as well as all but one family set of T1s. I hope to complete them tomorrow. My brain is very tired.
I came home and put a lasagna in the oven which was finally ready by 9:20. I managed to clear out my car and make a list in anticipation of leaving on Friday.
Just a few minutes ago I got up to walk to the bathroom and something clicked in my ankle which really hurt and made it hard to walk. I am sitting with it up now and have rubbed a cbd cream into it. Sigh.
It is a very interesting election. All across the country there are less than one percent leads which will make for recounts. They are calling it a Liberal victory but time will tell if it will be a majority or minority one.
I am too tired to stay up late enough to find out. It looks like our riding got Conservative Rob Morrison back in… can’t say that I am surprised. Sigh.
I didn’t write about this earlier as it was so sad and overwhelming They are calling it the darkest day in Vancouver history. On Saturday evening an SUV driven by a 30 year old plowed through a Philippine cultural festival. To this morning there are 11 confirmed dead from 5 to 65 years old. Many others are injured and more may not make it. The driver was known by police for mental health issues. Just heartbreaking.
Yikes. I must have gone from fine to not fine pretty fast last night. I don’t know who drove me and I have a weird mark on my left pinky. I can’t even fathom how I could have done it.
I had a slow get going but eventually picked up cat food and Moms pills and stopped to see Ashlée. She was trying to clean while Rae and Gene were moving him in to the suite. I got Lukas to help Fix the IKEA chair. After loading up some things to bring to thrift and drop off at theatre Ash and I had a good long hug as tomorrow she is leaving for Edmonton via Calgary. Lots of changes in the family dynamics.
I brought mom her pills and then went back to Safeway and did a shop before coming home, unloading the car and having some dinner of delicious ham and baby potatoes
I am ready to go to bed, but it is only 730 and I don’t want to be waking up just after midnight
It’s not very often that I write about a day the morning after, but it seems the gala was so much fun that I availed myself of the safe ride home and promptly fell asleep in my chair when I got here. I woke up at 3:35 in the morning to move myself to bed. It was a very good night. I had a lot of fun selling 50-50 with D’Arcy and visiting with the people at our table Johanna and Mark, Robbie, Wanda and Jason Caven, Niki and Rae-Anne. 
I’ve just come home from poker night where I played for three hours and came home having only spent 20 bucks. I was drinking non-alcoholic Rum and cola and now I just feel all tired and burpy lol. I probably should’ve skipped it being that I have a late night tomorrow night but at least I have no plans tomorrow morning except to sleep as long as I need to.
Today was fit in as much work as I can around my monthly maintenance of all things. Left work for my brow waxing then picked up Ashley at the office and we went to Rotary lunch. It was very interesting as I didn’t know we had cadaver dogs in Cranbrook. Thyme and his trainer Sharon gave an interesting presentation. To recertify he has to find the source in an 80 acre property within 2 hours! They use placenta for training!
Dropped Ashley off and registered for the District Conference in Nelson May 2-3. I will be able to share a room with Leanne. I was so excited to realize I could make that happen as Nelson is only an hour or so from Mark and Kaslo and I will be picking him up that next day. It all worked out perfectly. I am now very excited about things that are coming up.
Next was getting my nails done A little Spring and bling
After meeting with Maxime, working on her taxes, and sending her home with homework, I headed over to the theatre to emcee the last of the Winter Ale series. There was a big mixup when they switched to the new ticketing system and although the event was supposed to be at 7 PM and it even said that on all advertising and media, the tickets said 7:30. I couldn’t figure out why nobody was there until 6:35
Oh well, that’s my job as the MC to keep things running and everybody seemed pretty cool and stayed right till the end. Aaron Alander was the opener and he did an entire original set on his guitar that he just finished making, a 12 year project.
Suzie was phenomenal, as a human and a performer. Turns out we have 25 friends in common on Fb, lol. She signed and gave me one of her CDs.
She also played an Amazing version of my favourite song
Ethan Askey joined her for a couple. They had met on Hornby Island
The finale was fantastic!
It was so lovely at the end when so many people purposely came to thank me for the season and hope to see me next year. This lovely little old lady named Trudy gave me a huge hug and thanked me for being the highlight of her winter. What a blessing.
My middle child is 38 today. She moves to Edmonton next week. I will miss her, but wish her all the good things
I was asked by Kenton, an accountant that I worked with 6 or 7 years ago, to contract to a big construction company that he works for. Beginning next week, I will run their 70 person payroll. I agreed to take it on for two reasons. They will pay my contract rate and they will cover me when I am unavailable. I won’t have to do their payroll from on the road. That is a sweet deal and now I just have to learn the software they use which I am unfamiliar with, but I know payroll and that’s the part that matters.
I stayed late and finished my own books and taxes today and I’m happy that I have kept enough money aside to pay them and then I can start paying for my trip. It’s tough being self-employed for having to pay so much but worth it for the freedom of schedule as a rule.
Not leaving the office until nine having something to eat and watch The Voice has left me very tired so I shall go. good night
I tossed a lot and woke up too early. I was replaying the day before. There were many great moments but I found myself on the outskirts again. There was a period of time when I had to make myself go to big family dinners as there is a family that they are very close to but their teenaged children were allowed to sit at the main table leaving no room for me so I often had Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners at the kids table. Now my own 17 year old Grandson has ‘aged up’ apparently and sat visiting with all of them or being on his phone while I was left standing, which I could only do for so long, and once again ate with the kids. I felt disrespected, that my acting up ankle was disregarded, and that I just wanted to go home.
I will have to get over it or kick out a kid going forward.
The best part of today was getting a message from Reid, Jackie’s son, that the celebration of life will be on Mother’s Day. I will be in Vancouver and can go! Such a blessing
The funniest part was when I voice to texted a client that I would check his urine tomorrow. What a laugh we had as I meant year end.
I got a lot of chores and sorting things done today and also managed to finish the lights on my BB eight make cookies to laundry and take some time to watch a three part documentary about the dark side of young influencers
In the afternoon over at the family, in between bouts of rain, we managed to have our Easter egg hunt, followed by dinner of delicious ham and lasagna and Caesar salad and homemade pie. I was glad Maddi liked the little purse and pink Cadillac Gummies that I got her. I certainly liked my selection of beverages from Rae-Anne
I was also spoiled with some special birthday presents.
Unfortunately, everyone had mostly left when Rae-Anne remembered that they had a cake for me. She had gone out of her way to find me a very beautiful rainbow cake with glitter frosting. It was very light and delicious and I left there very very full.
I came home at a relatively early time because there were some things I needed to do still including kitty litter and garbage out and restraining the lights now that the tree was trimmed.
Once I was in for the night, I put my jammies on and settled down to build my mini millennium falcon and dancing Groot
I awoke far too early. I was ready for the girls when they arrived at 10:30. We had such a good visit. They played with the things I got them for Waster and then dug into the tickle trunk where Gwen found the little kitchen items that were Rae and Ashlées when they were small. She made toast and coffee. I loved the plant they brought me.
They helped me build my shoe cubby and I only wish I’d taken time to take a video of our assembly line. Emmy put the pieces in place that Gwen brought us, I put the connector in place and Gwen used the little wooden mallet to secure it.
As we were enjoying pizza together Gwen asked ‘why Emmy Nana?’ I said I was her Nana too if she wanted and I got the big happy response. I was glad to have the bonus granddaughter over for the first time.
As soon as they left I jumped into the shower and then headed to Key City to volunteer for the first time this year. It was the Alphabet of Awesome Science and over 450 people in big and small family groups laughed and seemed to have a great time
A girl left her ears behind. I think they would look great on Mary
I was surprised by an awesome gift from Galen, Monica and Zoe. I forgot that I enjoyed sitting g on one at their house and intend to use it on my straight back chair when doing LEGO
Galen, Monica and I met at Fenwick & Baker to watch game 1 between St Louis and Winnipeg. 5-3 Jets
On the way home I stopped for the cheapest gas in a very long time!
I read all my lovely birthday messages, was especially touched by some DMs, had a great chat with Mark after he sang to me and am falling asleep in my chair. All in all a great day!
It was nice to have a good sleep in and a relaxing morning before I head off to do my duty as a Canadian I know it is a privilege to vote that not all women nor all people in the world get to, but this may be the most complicated election I’ve ever had to vote in
From there, I went to the office where I sorted all of our paperwork and filed Mom’s taxes and reconciling my books for the last year so that I can do mine soon. I don’t want to be the last one again this year and I need to know how much I owe so I can settle that up before I pay for my cruise.
While I was at the office Danika message to see if I could have Emmy and Gwen from 1030 till one tomorrow. Normally, I would’ve just jumped at it but it’s a little more complicated as I am volunteering at 1:45, it’s my birthday, and I had no groceries in the house nor am I very childproof at the moment with all the stuff out that I’m sorting. I thought about it though, and decided that I would love to spend some time with the girls and it’s the first time that I will have Gwen stay with me. I left the office and went to save on where $300 later I had my groceries. My snacks some Easter treats for the girls and I’m ready for the week to come. It’s been a long time since I’ve done groceries and kind of felt nice. Once I got home, I heated up a pizza and then put together my little bags of goodies for the Easter hunt on Sunday and for the girls to have tomorrow 
I was up silly early, but managed to get back to sleep and take my time getting into the office this morning. I got some work done and then headed to my mom’s to drop off her birthday gift in anticipation of her opening it with Ashlée and having Ashlée hang it in her apartment. It was a photo of the turtles that Ashlée had taken that I very much love and knew Mom would like too.
The Rotary lunch was especially fun as Judy brought birthday cupcakes because her birthday is on Sunday and she is the person who announces all of the birthdays and anniversaries. She called out the birthdays in this next week and called all of us the power five., Beth Bennett, Carol, myself, Lallah and Judy. We are definitely five women who are very involved with the organization. I am proud to be in their company. It was an interesting talk today from Karen Penner and Loree giving us the history of Sam Steele sweethearts, which has now morphed into the youth ambassador program There was no opportunity for questions, but I do wonder at what point will there not be a gender restriction? I think it is important that labels not be applied when it comes to being an ambassador for our city
Back at the office, I was spoiled with a cake and singing.
After work, I stopped and had a lovely visit with Michelle at the bar at Fenwick & bakerbefore heading over to Encore. My team was unavailable tonight for trivia as one of them had to head out of town and the other had a hangover so I was grateful when Roger reached out to join them. It was Roger, Zac, Nesta, Sharaya with her son Hudson and myself, and we won! Took home $77 for my five dollar investment, which was definitely a bonus and our team name was Hoppy Easter. I did very well in the gin category.
I arrived home to a gift hanging from my door from the lovely Diana Grabenhof. We fall into this delightful pattern of gifting each other on our birthdays. I honestly don’t remember when it began and we don’t even see each other very often but there’s just something special about celebrating someone being born and she weirdly knows me so well. The gifts were brilliant. I feel like the only time we’ve been out together intentionally was for sushi so the gift is perfect.
I was also overwhelmed when I decided to check my mail even though I had checked it yesterday. There was a part of me that I’m not necessarily proud of that was sad that I didn’t get any birthday cards. And then tonight I had the biggest surprise of all getting one from Kevin O’Driscoll. I’m met him at a Rotary and he has very much tuned in with support. He and his wife moved here from Australia, although he is originally from Ireland and I had to let him know how much it meant to me to make such a simple gesture. I was brought up to feel that birthdays were special that it was important that I was on this planet. I try to let people in my life know that I feel that way about them and I also try not to expect too much from others. In spite of the fact that it is important to me that I am having a birthday. Is that weird?
It was so weird to drive home at 9:28 PM and it wasn’t completely dark considering that it snowed today! Serious herring, weather happening here. #IYKYK
I was moved when I got up and saw that my love you sign was lit up. I don’t even know how it is possible that the batteries are still working so I just acknowledged my guardian angels because I feel like I get signs from flickering lights and other effects from them and I felt like it was a good start to the day.
I was up stupid early again so I was at the office at a decent time. Got a lot of work done before going to pick up Mom and bring her to the dentist for 11 where they determined that she needs some work done and potentially a replacement for her decades old Plates. The rub is that the new ones will be more comfortable, etc. but are good for 3 to 5 years. She doesn’t even remember when she got these ones that’s how old they are and how long they have lasted sigh
Once we were done at the dentist, I took her to the mall because she was wearing a size 16 super long coat that made it hard for her to get in and out of the car and she’s about a size 8 now although we ended up having to get her a larger size so that she could get her arms into it more easily. There was a good sale plus they gave my birthday discount to her so she had some good savings. She also bought me a jacket for next winter that was $140 regular on for $40 for my birthday so win-win.
On the wall at the dentist office
Back at the office, I got a ridiculous amount off my list and had a lovely little visit with Monica that culminated in an invitation to stop by for a quick glass of wine after work. This of course turned into a three hour amazing visit with her and then Galen when he came back from one of his meetings. I appreciate that the bubble we reside in allows us to say what needs to be said about over things that we are involved in.
Three hours later, I made it home for a fancy dinner. My own version of charcuterie.
triumphgal 