Photo Friday

Things are abnormally busy here, so this will be short and sweet:

Snow hanging over the edge of the roof as things start to melt

David's birthday cookies (He will get a proper birthday celebration later)

Smorgasbord Sunday

Smorgasbord, as defined by dictionary.com is:

1. a buffet meal of various hot and cold hors d'oeuvres, salads, casserole dishes, meats, cheeses, etc.

2. an extensive array or variety

I've decided to make Sundays a smorgasbord of stuff...pictures, writing about prayer points and plans.  Just an extensive array. :)

I get the honor of hanging out with the cute, cheeky little boy a couple times a week. I get to play with him while his mama gets some work done around the house.  In the first two photos you can see that he had blueberries with his supper and was very blue.  We fixed that at bath time. 

This last was pretty low key without any major appointments.  The only real surprise was that I threw my back out mid week and could hardly move.  A trip to the doctor for some muscle relaxants and a trip to the pharmacy for the strongest pain killers you can get without a prescription and I got fixed up.  Today I actually haven't needed my painkillers or muscle relaxants and all.  Though I'm thinking I might take some tonight just to keep it from seizing up at night again. Prayers that my back would stay limber and not seize up would be great.

This coming week we have one big appointment:  On Wednesday I head to London for an EEG (brain wave measuring thing) EEG's are fairly routine for me and this one is to monitor how my brain is doing in light of the medication switching that is happening and to follow up on Spot.  I'm thankful it's just an EEG for now and not an MRI, since I hate MRI's.  Prayers for safe travels and no snow storms would be great. (our last appointment in the city was a snow storm nightmare)  Also pray that the EEG would show good things about my brain, since I'm rather attached to it and we really don't want any more issues popping up. *EDIT* This appointment isn't until next week.  I fail at schedule keeping sometimes. The appointment is the 27th, which is not this coming Thursday.  But you can always start praying early. *END EDIT*

I got a fish tank for my birthday in January and we had 4 fish in it.  3 goldfish and 1 loach.  One of the goldfish and the loach died this week.  It was very sad.  We got a test kit and checked water quality and learned that there was too many nitrites and nitrates in the water (and just about everything else was wrong too...except pH and ammonia). So now we are working to balance everything else.  The two goldfish in the tank seem to be pretty much indestructible. 

It was super cold this morning when we got up, so we had a wonderful hoar-frost.  For my non northern climate friends, a hoar frost is what occurs when fog literally freezes on to any structure it can attach to...trees, fence posts, fence wires, etc.  When the sun shines on it, it is wonderfully bright.  When the wind blows gently it starts to fall off and it looks like it is snowing.  By mid morning it is usually gone because the sun melts it.

Frost detail on the fence wire.

Front yard tree

Sun coming up in the bush

view out towards the road with the sun just starting to play over the tree tops. 

Stacey's storm pictures, part 3

More of Stacey's storm pictures.

 Thankfully it only hit the side of the house.

The power of wind is incredible!

 Thankfully no one was in this car and it is neither my car nor Stacey's car!

Stacey's storm pictures, part 2

More storm pictures from my friend Stacey

Stacey's storm pictures, part 1

So my wonderful friend Stacey went out and took some pictures of the aftermath of today's storm.  And being the super amazing friend that she is, she said that I could share her pictures.  In an effort not to overload posts with excessive amounts of pictures they'll come in 2-3 posts.  Ready, set, go!

I've seen trees uproot ground before...

But this time it's an actual chunk of pavement.

I think a repaving project is in order...

Stormy Weather

Today we were "blessed" with severe thunderstorms.  We did need the rain, but maybe not the high winds that came with them. There are reports of trees down and damage all over the place.  I don't dare venture out on foot because there are more storms on their way according to the weatherman.
Up until today there were only two places I really felt safe from storms -the lower chapel at Central and my parent's house in Ontario.  If I wasn't in either of those two places, storms terrified me.  Especially thunder.  I could put on a brave "camp counselor" front if I needed to, but the truth is, I don't like storms.  But this morning I felt perfectly secure here in my apartment. Guess that means this place is becoming home to me.
I shot a bit of a video of the storm this morning.  Just as I stopped filming a huge gust of wind ripped through.  You can see it on the tail end of the clip.  Then the power went out.

I stayed close to home after the first round of storms passed because there were more in the forecast and I didn't want to venture out on foot.  I've heard reports of trees down all over the place though, some completely uprooted.

This tree across the street from me got struck by lightening.  It's being supported by the tree next to it