Are you having a good summer? What has been your special moment to date? Have you been waiting for August to arrive before you take off to visit distant family members, travel to a destination that is still on your ‘bucket list’, or enjoy your home garden with a tall glass of iced tea?

I’ve been a bit scarce on The Hill, and I miss the stories shared by friends, meeting new members to our favorite cyber community, and using a bunch of words myself. We haven’t done much travelling this summer, except for the occasional visit with friends who live in a distant community of our province. There has been a variety of activities at our spot in the valley to keep us on our toes, and for the most part, has been a lot of fun.

We have a boarder this summer; a doctor from South America who is trying to recover from serious medical, family and financial problems. His children live with their mother for now, but his 16-year-old son comes to our home on weekends, to be with his dad. We are being reintroduced to dealing with a teenager, who thinks that the most important things in life are sleeping until early afternoon, his iPhone, and baseball games. When it comes to doing anything that looks like work, he pleads inability to tackle anything like that. He is learning that his Canadian grandma (‘me’) can be tough when it comes to her ‘house rules’. We have enjoyed their miniature schnauzer, who has been with us since last November, and thinks that I am his new owner. We haven’t learned to speak Spanish, but have learned to appreciate customs of a country that we have never visited. We are also learning to enjoy new foods (as long as it’s not too spicy), and that I must remember to always have a dish of mayonnaise on the table with every meal. Mayo is enjoyed much more than butter, even on bread.

I have been challenged to be “content in my situation”, learning to appreciate the help of a walker and the protection of an air boot on my fractured foot. No exciting circumstances… just flipped my ankle in my living room. I sit on the patio in the sun when it’s not raining, laptop on my lap, learning as much as I can about Windows 10, and marketing vintage telephones on the Internet. It has also given me more time to read books that have been piling up in our den; books that I purchased at Book Fairs and Garage Sales.

This week, we have been experiencing weather moods; so much hail and rain that the city looked like the middle of winter with 8 inches of hail on the ground and flooded streets. We had another storm today. Yet another example of a well-known quote in our area, “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes!”

So… if you have been wondering where I’ve been, I have been doing a bit of lurking late at night or early in the morning before my day begins, but I haven’t given up on NOTH. I’ll be back when life slows down.

Tags: Summer Stories Fun