Wednesday October 7, 2009-Gettin' 'Er Done!

We had some sun this morning, we also had rain and the wind came up near the end of the day so it's been a mixed bag.

Some clouds this morning

I noticed these trees have green trunks - sort of mossy looking

A Fall scene



There are a lot of rail fences in this area

This old tree is down by the beach in the campground


I got up late as it was raining and decided to stay in bed for a while but this causes my hips to hurt. Oh well!

This afternoon we headed in to Ottawa to have a final chiropractic treatment. Gordon's back has been really bothering him so the chiropractor sent him for x-rays so he has to go back again tomorrow but I'm done hopefully till we return to Ontario in April/May timeframe. We picked up our prescriptions for the winter. That was a costly stop!

On our way home the sky was really dark and we had a few rain showers.




They've been turning Hwy 7, an east west route that takes us into Ottawa into a 4 lane freeway. They're making great strides in getting it going. Here they're building an overpass at Dwyer Hill Road. When it's complete it will make our commute from Carleton Place to Ottawa much faster!

Tuesday October 6, 2009-Carleton Place Shopping

The day started out to be absolutely gorgeous, sun shining with low lying fog, great for photos. It was a bit cool at 6C (42F) however there was no wind so it wasn't bad for my walk. Here are this morning's foggy photos.










After breakfast I went into Carleton Place to get a few groceries. I'm stocking up on Gordon's rice crackers for when we're in the U.S. and I needed to pick up some fruit and other stuff. That took about three hours. If you'd see the size of Carleton Place, you'd wonder where I managed to spend that much time.

As it got later in the day it turned more cloudy with rain looming. The forecast is for some heavy rain tonight and overnight.

After a nice shower I sat down at the computer and Dee popped up on Yahoo Messenger so we chatted for a while.

Just before dinner I went out to take some stuff to the garbage and met the man across the street. He bought a trailer in a park in Bradenton, FL and goes there every winter so I was asking him about RV parks in that area. He's given me some ideas. Now we just have to decide if we're going over there in March or not.

For Gordon's latest journal update, click here.

Monday October 5, 2009 - Lots of Nothing

Did you know that a large number of people in the U.S. are born on October 5th? You would expect birthdays to be evenly distributed among the 365 days on a calendar. AnyBirthday.com has a database of the birthdays of more than 135 million Americas and claim that more people were born on October 5 than on any other day of the year. The reason seems to be that October 5th is approximately 9 months from New Year's Eve. Another little bit of trivia.

This morning was mostly cloudy and cool for my walk but at least it wasn't raining. I saw a great blue heron flying over the river but not close enough for me to get a photo of him. No turkeys this morning either.

We've had lots of rain

Leaves are still changing

Some horses taking a nap


Not much happening today, we had rain off and on and sun off and on. I watched two TV movies, something I rarely do in the afternoon. I also worked a bit on my yo yo quilt until my eyes got tired and read a bit.

Sunday October 4, 2009 - No electricity!

I was definitely a bad girl today. I woke up to no electricity. Gordon had gone out this morning and saw numerous hydro trucks so when I got up he suggested we go to The Gourmet Restaurant in Carleton Place for breakfast. We haven't been there in at least two years. Breakfast means things that aren't on my new diet - toast, home fries, eggs......BUT at this point I don't have severe enough reactions to anything so away we went.

We had a good breakfast although we were lucky to get a table. The place was packed!

From there we decided to take a drive to Almonte, a little town not far from Carleton Place as it was unlikely that we'd have warmth yet so we drove over there. It's a picturesque little town with lots of waterfalls and a downtown on a hill with a corner in it. Lots of interesting little shops. Almonte is also notable for being the boyhood home of Dr. James Naismith, the inventor of basketball. How many people knew that little piece of trivia?

The Mississippi River at Almonte


Falls on the Mississippi

More Falls in town

And more

Dowtown Almonte

Looking up the hill


Looking down the hillOne of the cute little shops


My younger sister called while we were out and wanted to come and visit but I wasn't sure when we'd be back and if we'd be back to normal so we'll see them Friday at their place for Thanksgiving dinner. Canadian Thanksgiving is next weekend!

After that we decided to come home and see if we had electricity and we did! Thank goodness as I started feeling unwell. I get these rippling pains in the lower right part of my skull sometimes. I haven't had one since probably last year but they really hurt! So I took a bunch of medications to get rid of it and finally went to sleep. When I woke up it was gone!

It also rained for most of the afternoon. Not a nice afternoon!

Saturday October 3, 2009-Laid Back Day

Today was a laid back kind of day, we'd been running all week so decided to take it easy today.

Lots of leaves have fallen this week with all the rain

The sun is trying to come out

The turkeys again

More of a mist this morning than fog

Trailer put to bed for the winter

I had my usual morning walk/run and saw the turkeys again. Gordon also went to take photos of them.

The morning was spent mostly on the computer but I've done some reading, had a nap and chatted with my niece on MSN. She was writing a paper and wanted to know if a lay person could read it and make sense of it. So I read it for her and made sense to my befuddled brain.

Generally it's been a 'do nothing' sort of day. We did see quite a bit of sun and a high of 17C (63F) so was able to have the windows open for a bit. We do have quite a scourge of those Japanese lady bugs here today. They are so annoying!

Friday October 2, 2009-Laundry, Groceries & September Expenses

It was so warm and comfy in bed this morning I had a hard time getting up. Mostly because I knew today was laundry day. But, I got up, changed the bed and headed out for my walk no rain but lots of fog. We did see the sun for part of the day today and it wasn't too cold for a change. I think our high was about 12C (53F) although overnight it got down to 1C (34F).

It was very foggy this morning and sometime this week this tree has fallen over the road.

The turkeys were out again

This tree was much prettier last year. Of course a bright blue sky would help.

The raft at the beach in fog



After breakfast I got the laundry ready and Gordon helped put it in the truck and opened the campground gate for me and away I went. The laundry wasn't busy and I was done in about 1 1/2 hours.

First stop - Laundry

On for groceries. I want to try to stick to foods that agree with me as much as possible so I was looking for breakfast food and something to replace rice and potatoes. I wound up with oatmeal for breakfast and quinoa and sweet potatoes. I also got some fresh veggies, no corn or peas so I got brussel sprouts, broccoli and green, yellow and red peppers. I also bought some meat as we were running out.

I stopped first at Bulk Barn to look at what they had that I could eat as a snack. I bought some more vegetable chips (they're good but expensive), peanuts (which amazingly I don't have a problem with), and cashews. With that and fruit at least I won't go hungry for snacks.

Then off to Bulk Barn
and Superwalmart

then Your Independent Grocery store

and a stop at Staples to do some photocopying



Traveling snacks will be another story. I'm not sure how I'll get around that. I always had a sandwich, granola bar, peanut butter and crackers, corn chips etc. The only thing I can have out of all that now is peanut butter, but I have nothing to put the peanut butter on! Any ideas?

I was asked today in a comment what my sensitivity to carob is. The answer is I am not sensitive to carob, it's a negative on my list however if there is caffeine or caffeine equivalent in it I can't have it due to my reflux disease. The list only takes into account food sensitivities according to what my blood shows not other foods that I might not be able to eat because of other medical problems.

September Expenses

The rather large total for Medical/Dental includes our travel medical insurance for our six months in the US. We've also had dental and chiropractic appointments which our Extended Medical doesn't cover completely either 50 or 80% depending on what it is. Overall, without the travel medical insurance it wasn't a bad month considering all our appointments. We also had the truck serviced this month and new rear brakes.

Thursday October 1, 2009 - RV Service

Today was a very busy day! I was up at 6:45 a.m., no walk but had to get ready to take the RV in for service. We had a list of items for them to check and fix.

We arrived there around 9:20 a.m. and they started work right away. We got unhitched and headed out. First stop, Bayshore Mall for Gordon to have a coffee. I walked around a looked at some stuff but only bought some shampoo and got a roll of quarters in preparation for doing laundry tomorrow. Then we went to Rainbow Foods to see if we could find anything I could eat. I got some vegetable chips and a gluten free pizza crust for Gordon. On to Swiss Chalet for lunch. We had a gift card thanks to Nick and Becky, thanks guys! From there we headed over to Rideau Heights Campsite in the south end of the city where we stayed when we got back to Ottawa last year. We've reserved a site for when we get back this year. Recreationland is just too far east although we would stay there again if necessary. From there we stopped at the library in Bells Corners near where we used to live to use their wifi. When we got there, Gordon called the RV dealer, Vos Trailers and they had just pulled the RV out of the bay so instead we headed back to the dealer.

When we got there Gord, son of the owner went over everything that we had asked them to look at as well as some things they found. Looks like everything is fixed although we do have a problem with the den slide which Gord had to talk to Glendale about so he's going to get back to us on that.

We got back around 4:00 p.m. or so with a lot accomplished today. It was a nasty day, cold and spits of rain every now and then. It feel like winter! Our high today was 8C (46F), way too cold for the first of October!

I had a comment from Birdie yesterday about what I can eat and can't eat. Sorry, Birdie, I've been off alcohol for years due to reflux disease! Thanks to all those who left comments. I'm still trying to sort out what I can eat for breakfast and lunch to take the place of my cereal and sandwich.

Still no photos. It hasn't been good weather for photography.