Sad Paws News, An Early Departure, Short Walk, Markdale Appointment, Jiggling Jell-o for Bill

Bill woke to his alarm on Monday, Oct. 1^st. He wasn’t originally going to work at CanAm beyond Sept. 30^th but when you have a client asking for you specifically to do their orientation on a ‘new’ rv, what do you do? You go. To make it worth the drive, Bill has always asked them to find 2 days work for him, please. That was to be the case when he left this morning at 6:05 am.

Rest in peace, little Grunt

I got up with Clemson around 6:30 for his outside business and then we both crawled back into bed. It was raining quite steady when Bill left and was petering off by the time I got up at 7:15. Clem didn’t move until 8:30. He was a good boy again, sleeping through the night. I had gone to bed last night at 9:45, just couldn’t stay awake even though I wanted to spend as much time with my birthday boy as possible. The sooner I go to bed, the sooner he leaves.

She loved fishing with her Daddy
They were 'buddies' before Patrick married and had a family

When my son, Patrick, called to wish Bill a Happy Birthday last night, he told us of some sad news. Grunt, his 12-yr. old(?) Pug/Australian Shepherd cross, had to be put down. Oh my! This is so close to home as we’ve also come near that decision recently. I went with Patrick the day he drove to pick her out and we ended up bringing her home the same day. A tiny precious ball of ‘pug’gishness. She was adorable!

A new addition to the Ridge family
thank you Sandra and Bill
(our adopted children)

I won’t go into the troubles she has had as of late, but we believe he did the right thing, even though through broken words and tears, I can hear his inner doubt. Sweet little Grunt is at peace now in Doggie Heaven 👼 and I went to bed with some wet eyes myself. Now I’m going to have to hunt up a recorded video I have of her and a young Clemson playing tag in our house living room! I know I have it somewhere in this huge house! 😁

We have a few of these little birch trees down the lane
The wet bark is so shiny

It was spitting a very misty kind of rain when I loaded the recycle bins and garbage on my wagon to take it to the road. That would be my morning walk, by the looks of it. I came inside and had my cup of tea while reading some blogs. I loved a post that my daughter put on her blog called Sort of Sibs. If you don’t read hers, you could check this touching one out at Two Cents. It sure brought back memories of when we lived in Zurich, Ont. and seeing it from a child’s point of view was a real treat. Even my little brother got in on the comments.

My drive to Markdale

I got washed and dressed for a bank appointment in Markdale regarding Mom’s finances. I usually like Bill to go with me to these, simply because he has the financial brain for this kind of thing. I guess I have done all right so far, by Mom, but with his input which is very much appreciated. Neither one of us is ‘sold’ yet on this new advisor at the BOM but we’re giving her a chance since she took over from our gal in Hanover. Today, was not a good meeting for a couple of reasons. Later on that.

I do love small towns

I arrived early, as usual, so wandered into a little store called The Bargain Centre. The Hidden Room, entrance in the back of the Bargain Centre, and beside the main store, is where I was headed. I love the garden and home décor offered there and found a couple of unique things at really great prices. Nifty stuff like this isn’t usually so reasonably priced. I’d go back in a heartbeat. 

The Hidden Room is the door to the far left of the picture

I gathered my bank stuff from the Rav and walked across the street to the bank for 10 am.

I got a parking spot directly across the street

Since the goal with Mom's $'s is not to take chances and not worry about the very highest interest rates, Bill and I have taken the recommendation from the last advisor.  She suggested compiling as many of Mom’s investments into one or two that will come due at an appropriate time during the period when we are back in Ontario. We had hoped to continue with that but this new gal just doesn’t give me the confidence that she gets what we are trying to do.

I can't help but take pictures of the changing leaves

Sadly, every time I’ve gone in, she just looks at me for direction and seems to show no recollection of what we’d set up. What? We’ve already discussed what we’re aiming for, you are supposed to advise me! Anyway, their computers were down and she couldn’t get into anything online so she really had no clue how to move forward, admitting she couldn’t remember. Thankfully, I had taken all of my statements and past notes or she’d have been at a total loss.

And the country roads make the trees even prettier

As it turned out, time was wasting and I said “why don’t I come back when things are up and running”. I said “you need to see what and when investments are due in order to help us get this set up”. All of a sudden, I seemed to know more than she did! Duh. I hate criticizing people, but even more I dislike incompetence. I’m not saying that is what this is, but she did no prep work before I came in even though she informed me 4 times that the computers were working fine before I arrived.

Over hill over dale coming home

I left the bank only grateful that tomorrow, if and when I go back, Bill will be with me. If we are not satisfied, we’ll make the drive to Owen Sound to meet with Shannon, our original advisor. I hate to do that but we are the client and need to have total confidence in who we are dealing with. Before going into the bank, Bill texted saying that he was coming home tonight. LOL Oh my goodness! So, a day’s drive in and back. I'm happy about it though with the issues that popped up later in the day.

it is a pretty drive

I worry about those treks because he has no afternoon nap on these long days and no doubt he’ll be tired driving home. I don’t know what happened to the scheduled orientation tomorrow but I know there is no way to know of those unforeseen things. He will keep me informed when he is leaving the city so I know when to expect him.

So, back home, of course I missed the turn off onto Grey Road 23 so carried on down to Base Line and then Baptist Church Road. The rain had pretty much stopped, I only used the wipers a couple of times when a vehicle would meet me. I came inside and little fluff bum was asleep snuggled in the afghan on the couch. I made myself a coffee and looking in the fridge, I realized that Bill forgot to take his breakfast sandwich after all. Good thing he is coming home.

My favourite picture

I warmed it up in the fry pan and enjoyed it myself. I wrote some of this post and considered what I might get up to today. Now that we are in a new month, I was able to work on my book from home since the library is closed Mondays. I want to get a better handle on it soon. I did that for a while and feel better about how to get more for my money by moving things around on the pages. It can be a frustrating system especially now that they have made changes to it. It was pretty simple before. You've heard the phrase "Make it simple, I'm stupid"?

I don't know if you can see them, but these turkey buzzards
were sauntering at the edge of Baptist Church Road
There were 6 of them, in not too much of a hurry

Clemson and I took a walk down to the end of the lane to bring the bins back up on my wagon. It is a cool wind out there and the temperature has not risen above 46F today. Sure feels like a cold fall day, hey, I guess that is because it is! We sat together with my book and afghan. It seems like we’ve run out of propane early this afternoon so I turned the heat pump on/and the fireplace to warm it up in here. 70F is where we like it and it was hovering around 67. We’re fine now and I’m even happier that Bill is coming home tonight.

When it came time to cook supper, I had planned a salmon filet and dill sauce. Unfortunately, with the convection oven, the heat pump and the tv on, a breaker tripped. I didn’t know what to do, duh, so texted Bill. I wasn’t sure where to check for the problem but that is how I learn. I switched over to the inverter for the fridge while waiting for him to respond. When he called at 6:30 to tell me he was on his way home, he instructed me to go to the bunky panel and flip the breaker off then on again.

Supper was quite good!

I’ll cook the fish and then my carrots, again in the microwave and then turn the fireplace or heat pump on again. Not sure if we are completely out of propane or just what is the answer today.  Anyway, we can deal with it tomorrow. We will be good and warm overnight. Supper was good and I got the heat back on and cleaned up the dishes.

Oh, an update on the bank thing. Bill and I decided to move on to our original financial advisor in Owen Sound so I called and set up an appointment with her. She was happy to have us follow her from Hanover and offered to call Markdale and cancel with Jennifer on my behalf. She said it happens all the time and there are no hard feelings about it. Some people are just not compatible and the bottom line is that we all have someone to relate to when dealing with finances. I felt so much better.

We were nice and warm cuddled with Mom's afghan

With NCIS reruns in the background, I sat with Clemson again and read more of my Jack Reacher book. This one is called The Midnight Line and it is not a let-down. I love the ‘chase’ that is always involved in his adventures. As we sat here snuggled together I watched tv and read until Bill arrived home at 9. He unloaded his stuff in the rain and he'd had a crappy wet drive home, most of the way. We watched 9-1-1 which is turning out to be one of the good new shows for the season and then Bull, one we enjoy.

It was 11 when I had to call the day quits and went up to bed with Clemson. I think Bill followed soon after although I was dead to the world by then. It doesn’t take me long to drop right off. This was a lazy type day with a few things taken care of. The change of location for Mom’s banking is a big relief. We’ll deal with that appointment on Wednesday. Good night all.

And one last one with her blue eyes shining as she proudly
sits in Clemson's bed at a year or so old
I can't help but smile at the colours we had chosen for our home in 2007
We always loved the Southwestern theme and this was 6 years before we even
thought about this lifestyle!
Funny.

Thank you for stopping by.