Husband in hospital

My husband is in hospital once again. It is difficult to let a person be cared for by strangers but it had to be for the moment. He may be able to come home tomorrow or Monday. Time will tell. 

Thanksgiving Day

Although Thanksgiving Day is also a holiday here in Canada, the second Monday in October, the American Thanksgiving Day has gone around the world in particular for the day that follows which has become known as Black Friday everywhere. And why is it Black Friday - an interesting and historic mercantile statement. That is the day that businesses' books go into the black (i.e. start making money) and it continues apace until the end of the year. Although totally an American day until lately one sees Black Friday sales around the Globe including here in Canada. 

Traditionally we as a family have spent Thanksgiving together; we used to make the Great Trek to Southwestern Ontario every year to spend Thanksgiving with our families when our parents were still living. This year we did not do Thanksgiving together in the usual way. We did not do birthday parties together really although we did have a present opening session in the backyard earlier in the year but I do not really call that a Birthday Party! Just part of it; perhaps one of the best parts for the receiver but definitely lacks the finesse of a real Birthday Party. This year our Christmas thoughts are slowly scaling back as we realize that once again we must be strong and do this by Skype. My husband's illness makes it particularly poignant. One hopes that everyone will scale back and beat down this pandemic once again. The vaccine is coming; we just need to be patient for a while longer. 

Happy Thanksgiving to America; may the day be all that is possible.

 

To do - 857 Emails

I have 857 Emails in my Inbox. Through the spring and summer into fall I tend not to be speedy in filing my emails into folders. There are some that I want to pay some attention to and others that I will delete but want to have some time to really think about that action. At least it is less than one thousand but it will take me a couple of weeks to clear them out. If anyone has been waiting for a further response to an email that may be forthcoming in December. December tends to be catch-up month for me. It is incredible how fast the past eight months has flown by considering we were on lockdown for some of it and partial lockdown for another month of that time. I do not have a lot of work to show for all of that time because much of it has been spent in looking after my husband. It is a full time job really being a caretaker for someone with his condition. I would say that he is stable but not being a doctor can not really state that as fact. He has good days and bad days in terms of side effects of his condition. But overall his mental attitude has stabilized which is perhaps the most important part of his health anyway. Physio has not happened for a couple of months now. He does benefit from it but the effort is too much at the moment. We continue to work on his exercises at home. Now that we are into winter likely most of our time will be spent inside the house or out on the patio as we keep that cleared. Having the snow removal company is great and we will think about expanding that to shoveling as well as the scraping done by the larger machines. I am strong enough likely to run the snowblower but I am not going to take that on. I would rather do the small amount of shoveling that is left. 

Another snowfall happening again today so our gradual buildup begins although we could still have a thaw time will tell on that. I like the snow though as it helps to control my day in that one cannot garden outside (which is not really my thing anyway); running outside is not overly practical at my age so I do that inside as I have for a number of years anyway and I am not a sun person in terms of spending hours getting a tan so winter suits me just fine!

Cleaning day again today as I did not accomplish as much as I thought I might have yesterday.

A new cousin from Australia

Although I had found a new cousin in Australia a while ago I had not really looked carefully at the data. It is an interesting match that four of my siblings have with this match - 42 centimorgans in one block (plus two of them have a second match). I do not match at all but it is on a chromosome where I am not matching my siblings on my paternal side at all. It does look like a Rawlings match and a return email leaves us with that thought of working on the new match after the New Year. It is amazing to talk about the New Year. It does hold so much hope for the world with three vaccines coming to fruition. 

Good news from our American neighbours with the transition to a new team moving forward. CDC has been so maligned these past couple of years that their advice not to travel during their Thanksgiving festivities has been ignored by over three million thus far as that many have traveled already and the holiday is still two more days. Prayers that COVID-19 will not increase as much as is suggested by the modeling. It will be so nice to have a President who lets CDC do their job and respects them for it. America deserves better for sure. 

We are of course struggling with growing numbers of cases here as this idea that wearing a mask is something that could ever restrict your freedom. If you do not want to wear a mask then stay home; what right does anyone have to subject the people around them to possibility of COVID-19? It is up to all of us to do our part to slow the spread of this disease; protect our hospital infrastructure and our physicians who have to care for the patients therein. There is no freedom for anyone unless all of us have the freedom to clean air. How can people be so ignorant?

Snow Snow Snow !

A lovely covering of snow this morning and our first snow shoveling done by the group that we hired to do that. Yesterday I actually managed a couple of hours phasing DNA results. 

Our Church has now purchased a camera so that the YouTube production is live including the actual service  with continuous image and dialogue. Far superior sound and the camera kept up with the service the entire time. The music was also greatly improved. I can see myself attending this way for a long time. This way perhaps I will never actually move from the Anglican Church; I like my church service and can live with the Book of Alternative Services although I prefer the Book of Common Prayer. But I do not have to be part of the ongoing discussion that I feel could have been avoided many years ago. Sacramental marriage has not existed since the Divorce Act became final and the Anglican Church accepted it. Marriage is a civil affair as it was in the beginning. 

Today more phasing hopefully but first I need to clean the house. Today the top floor gets cleaned and that takes about three hours to four hours for me to accomplish it.  I am somewhat slower these days and I do take a break every hour to hour and a half for at least half of an hour.