A Special Week!

Well first off my weekend was lovely with my aging Dad and he ate all I prepared and said it was good too!!!  My youngest sister Florence & Wayne had booked the RV campsite for the weekend so were happy to have me stay at their place and watch out for their two cats along with Dad.  Well they had to escape the rainy/windy campsite (couldn't fish either) early and I got to visit with them too!!!  Then Florence and I took off to Elsie's for Sunday evening (where the power was out for some reason) and there we visited with her son & family, my sister Marlene & Henry and their daughter & family - just lovely.  AND to boot I even came home with a few "too small" items from Elsie for myself!!!

My drive back home was good too on Monday.  Then Tuesday early I did a quick load of laundry and repacked, dropped off my Library books and the last two Lace Days posters for June 5th and then headed out to Stonewall to check out Stacey's Quilters Cottage birthday special and to have lunch at the McLeod Teahouse.  Well Mobird, I LOVED my luncheon of spinach salad with Granny Smith apples, walnuts and raspberry vinegarette dressing and multi grain & Brie cheese toasts and Berry Berry tea - SCRUMPTIOUS!!!  Then I topped it off with their cranberry lemon scones with Devonshire cream and preserves - I've died and gone to heaven!  YUMMY!!!

Then back into the car and by this time the winds had picked up horribly and I had to keep control of the wheel to stay on the road on my drive to Gimli and my free overnight stay at the Lakeview Resort (doorprize I won at the February Quilt Show there).  I was very glad to make that a direct drive - no other stops as I'd planned.  When I was checking in I mentioned it was a treat to myself on my birthday and they promptly upgraded my room to a suite for the night - WOW!!!  I had planned on having a manicure before dinner but she was booked so instead I changed and headed out for a walk along the beach.

Yeah right with that wind I lasted like 15 minutes on the beach before deciding the sandblasting I was getting was not to my liking and headed inland and walked all around the town.  Now it was kinda tough with those wind gusts but not to bad until I got to the highway side - felt like I was going backwards instead!  Then my hat flew off and I tried to catch it - ZIPPO - instead I stabbed myself with my chipped nail and it kept bleeding most of the walk!!!  It was a rough 1.25 hours and only amounted to 5.6 kms - much less than my usual pace.  The clerks chuckled when I came in as I guess I looked a sight from that trek!!!

I then changed into the new skirt and top for supper and enjoyed the hotel's garden salad (quite interesting), beef skewers special with scalloped potatoes and awesome steamed asparagus, peas, corn and carrots along with a glass of white wine.  I then decided when asked if I wanted dessert, I said yes since it was my birthday I deserved some.  I was getting the rundown on the items and settled on the mango creamed cheesecake and the waitress said it was on the house - LOVELY!  Well the dessert was very lovely too - nice and light.

After that I retired to the Lounge to hopefully catch the hockey game and have a ceasar or two but they weren't playing so I relaxed and read instead until they closed at 10 pm.  So then I stopped at the front desk to ask for Internet access and the same clerk I checked in with asked if I was a guest???  HUH!!!  I kinda chuckled and said "Yes, what you don't recognize me" and it took another glance before she recognized me and then apologized.  I teased her a bit and then said "I guess I cleaned up pretty good eh?"  We had a great chuckle and then Tracy (the Retreat organizer) stopped by and we all chuckled again!!!  Well guess I was mellowing out real fast as I did not last long watching TV before crashing.  Wednesday morning I was up early and out for a brief boardwalk trek before grabbing some breakfast for the drive back to Winnipeg.  I did stop into Keepers Quilts in Winnipeg Beach and found some locally dyed silk ribbon sold in her shop along with some more nice batiks for my flutterfly postcards - quite the selection now I think!

Then it was a quick repack, drop off the vienatarte for Pat for Randy, do some banking and then head out to my sister's, Sylvia & Len, in NW Ontario.  I had intentions of stopping in for tea with Adeline but she was not home so I grabbed Tim's coffee and bagel and continued onwards.  Needless to say I'd done way too much driving and eating sunflower seeds to keep myself awake as I was sprouting a cold sore and talk about stinging!!!  Well if that was not enough, Thursday morning Sylvia and I headed into Dryden for some groceries and bedding plants and lunch with a neighbour, who was also in town, then back to their place and thankfully I stayed put until Sunday, except to visit Fran & Shorty!!!

Now as usual, I took way too much planned projects to work on and did not really complete anything.  Dang it!!!  And yes the weather there was not so great and even some boomers too!  But I still had a lovely visit even if the power there too went out while having breakfast and Len was teasing me that there may have been some downed power lines or the highway washed out too as there was no traffic like usual!  HMMMM, not funny, I told him that would not go over well with my boss and he'd probably be calling to find out if and when I was coming back!  LOL!  As I was loading up the car traffic was starting to move in both directions so I knew it was not the road, but still no power until noon for them.  Before entering Kenora I pulled over and called Adeline, still no answer, so I took the bypass and headed straight for the city as I had my Lace Group meeting I wanted to catch this afternoon.

So yes It was an enjoyable and pleasant week off and on Saturday I had told Len that I did not want to go back to work at all!!!  Too bad my finances were such a mess that I could not fulfil my retirement this month as I'd hoped for.  Oh well in a couple of years that may become reality - it's in the future that is for sure!!!  AND even though I was watching my food intake I was not being restrictive and sometimes even had a second helping if it was really good and lacked my walks too - seems like I only put back one pound - that's not bad at all me thinks!!!