Yesterday was a shopping day and four bags of groceries for $103 which was not too bad as it included my chicken purchase which is every three weeks. But yes I agree groceries are more expensive than a year ago. This week I also changed back to summer tires and had to replace all the brakes so $2600 plus for that. My car sits too much in the garage all winter and it is hard on the brakes. It is running like a new car now although I did not particularly notice anything but then I am only driving it a couple of blocks to the grocery store and back always mid morning when there is pretty much no one about and the store uncluttered. When I have to go out twice in one week like that though I think about my one room idea and just not have to do all these things but I am very lucky to be in the state I am in although would have preferred to be doing all of this with my husband still alive that is for sure. But he was ill for a long time really and now he is at peace with God I am sure. He would have been so sad about the world as it is today especially as he wanted to travel a whole lot more in Europe but just because he found war to be very sad. He used to say to me why does God let war happen? But I said that humankind was making its own way through life I felt since the Second World War. I think that was Armageddon but we survived, all of us, by our ingenuity and so we continue but we need to follow God's commandments - love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and love our neighbour as ourself. When we do that we will have peace. During the sad days of COVID my husband did find peace and contentment as his life slowly ebbed away. The saddest moment in my children's life (and mine with Edward) was that last night together all of us as we had been for so many years as he slipped away gone to us physically but forever with us in our minds and hearts. He was smiling at his daughters as they fussed over him taking care of him that last day. A sad but also a good memory that he loved them so much. I can remember as he held each one of them as an infant in the hospital and at home so tenderly so calmly and so happily. Fatherhood suited him. Although he could be impatient with them they knew it and got out of his way quickly!
Finished off the FT DNA matches and started entering them into my various databases including the newest one which is for phasing the great grandparents (not true phasing but rather dividing up that portion that belonged to the grandparent pair into their parents (a never ending task really). I have recorded relatives in common, matches in common on a lot of them and will let AI use that information to help direct me towards the appropriate great grandparent when I get started doing that.
It is Saturday and meant to be mostly cloudy here. I looked yesterday and thought I should clear away some of that dead foliage in the gardens. But I never got out the door to do that. It will need to be done as the plants are now coming out and it just neatens it up. In the woods it would just rot away and replenish the soil but it takes a while. I want to move one hosta but other than that we go with what's there although I might buy some bulbs in the fall and bury them deep!
Drinking my tea and solitaire puzzles are next (one of my luxury items as it is an American company that sells it although they do it from a Canadian address). In essence we liked CUSMA well enough but our need to be tariff proof for the future is our first concern and so we are diversifying our trade as rapidly as we are able. Like Mexico we saw ourselves as part of the North American market being an active contributor to the product lines of so many companies. That has changed as car companies retreat to the United States to avoid tariff and the push to draw Canadian companies across the border. We are proceeding forward on many items that have sat waiting this last decade and most certainly the mine in Northern Ontario has been a desire for the First Nations to get it going for more than two decades. Time to move forward and get these new industries up and running and our youth employed. As it is always the case, the youth must follow the jobs that are available to them. No one can control the type of work that will be needed in any generation; we just have to put our backs into the work that needs doing and get it done. The trades have sat on this sideline which saddened me because I do know the value of the trades in our lives - everything we do that is related to our life needs the trades at many points in that need. As AI enters the workforce to do the mundane sitting at a desk type job this is the time to save the health of our youth and their brains for that matter doing the skilled work of a tradesmen. The tools are fantastic; the results stunningly beautiful. We are on our way.
I liked Conrad Black's post for sure and do tend to agree with a lot of what he says; the road will be difficult but like him I believe in Canada and that the power of success is ours. We are running but we just have to double the pace and get it done. There is a lot of work ahead. The advantage of going into the military in one's youth is the discipline that is acquired and no longer obtainable in our schooling system. I will always remember those long straight lines going into my elementary school as a child in the morning, recess, lunch and recess once again. We lined up straight and quietly with our principal front and center always. He was an ex-British office and a brilliant organizer. That was the rule and we knew how to follow it. Five years/ten years in the military and you come out with a trade/skill and ready to go but we need to get going I agree with Conrad Black and the task is not easy. We must do it for the future and take our place once again as we were back at the end of the Second World War; secondary to no one.