Wild Flowers in Burns Lake...which one isn't wild?

This is the domestic one that's blooming in front of the house I'm living in.
Queen's Cup
Red Columbine
False Solomon's Seal
American Vetch
Indian Paintbrush

Oxeye Daisy

KnapweedNice, huge field of Knapweed

It is Kind of Warm Today

It's 8:41pm as I'm typing this and it's still 26 degrees (approx 82 farenheit). The pics below are of the view I have outside my bedroom window. Not a cloud in the sky, almost an ice-like smooth lake, green trees and grass and I'm HOT!! I have a fan blowing on my back and neck and the fan is blowing not so cold air.

We have had over 6 months of winter and snow, not much of a spring and now we're jumping into summer and it's June.....I woulda preferred a spring segue (pronounced "seg-way") but oh well.....we get all extremes of weather here.

I work in a hospital that has NO air conditioning....just oscillating fans in windows and in hallways. The outside doors are also all open for air flow....well that's the theory we're going with. This is my 4th summer here and working in the hospital has not gotten any easier in the summer. At least my job doesn't require much movement like nursing or maintenance does but still....very uncomfortable. The plan for the health authority is for BL to get a new hospital in about 5 years. Well the plan may be approved by the health authority but now it's up to the Ministry to approve it. For all we know the plans are sitting on whoever's desk under a pile of paper. I think this hospital should still be improved until we get that new hospital. The employees here can't just wait until it happens and in the meantime swelter in the summer and freeze in the winter. Really now!!

I never intended this blog to become a rant but it needed to be let out. (Sorry to the readers) :)

Anyhoo....below are some peaceful pics of the north.....ENJOY!!

My Life on Film

Just a moment ago, and yes I'm still at work, I was reading the comment on my lastest post and thought about when my mom and I were watching the 8mm film reels in the dining room wall last year. The reels came from my grandpa's storage room. We watched films of my dad when he was a teenager, my dad's brother Dan, other relatives and then there were two reels of me as a baby. These particular films were in color but had no sound which is VERY unfortunate. When I started watching me and my young parents on the film, the reality was very surreal that I was watching myself as a baby. Describing how that feels is a bit difficult as it felt a bit bizarre as well but more surreal I think.

I hope one day those films can be converted to DVD with some sound in the background....it's like watching a silent movie but still no music in the background. Converting is very expensive though as it's priced by the foot most of the time.

We'll see....

My Own Baby Book

I've been planning for over a year now to scrapbook my own baby pictures using the original pictures too. Since my mom had all the originals in a photo album she wanted me to make copies of the originals to replace in the photo album. The task of just getting over 100 pics copied took months and money. I had chosen the album and paper collection quite early on in the planning of my book. What took a while was finding all the papers in the collection. The next part of this project was finding time and motivation to scrap it. I was excited about the project as a whole, but finding time to unpack all my supplies, finding a place to do it and finding the motivation to do it was a challenge.
Two weekends ago came the opportunity to start the project. It was National Scrapbooking day and myself along with 6 other ladies went to our Creative Memories' consultants house to scrap for 7-8 hrs. What a perfect time to start the project. I got about 8 pages done that day. One of the ladies there had a great idea for me to photocopy the back of the photos where my mom made comments and post them with the picture. Then I don't have to rewrite them and I'll still have mom's original comments visible. Then another opportunity came this Friday evening and all day Saturday I scrapped with a few other ladies in a hall called Rose Lake Hall on Rose Lake. We didn't spend the night there but was able to leave all our stuff out overnight which was great. In total I did 18 pages over Fri evening (3 hrs) and Saturday (8 hrs). Needless to say I'm quite tired and my brain is empty of creativity.
When the next time I will continue this project is unfortunately unknown but, at least, I have 7 pages left to do. That'll take me to Kindergarden.

Below are some examples of my progress....

Doing The Laundry

Saibry walked into my parents' bedroom and found grandpa's basket of clean laundry...she grabbed two socks and walked around with them. When she's at her place she constantly "does" the laundry...gets into the basket and tosses the clean stuff all over the room.

Granisle hwy and sunsets

I encountered this large moose on the way back to the hospital from Granisle. Based on the picture I wasn't actually that close. My camera has a 12x zoom now so I was able to stop quite a bit further back and watch him stand there and then.....

run away.

This picture was taken last Friday around 7:30pm on Tchesinket lake. I was hanging out with Diana, public health nurse, and I suggested we go sunset hunting since I brought my camera along. Below is what I called "the heavens coming down".
Since Tchesinkut lake wasn't offering very much in the sunset area, we drove to the little bridge that crosses Burns Lake and stood on the side of it waiting for the sunset to happen....well nevertheless, the sun did set, but there wasn't any pretty colours to report.
While standing on that bridge, Diana and I were attacked by a very harsh cold wind. It went through our bones, made our hands numb and pratically killed the batteries in our cameras. (I hear severe coldness can do that to batteries.) The wind was literally howling through the rails on the bridge too. I tried taking a video and recording the sound of the howling but silly me didnt' take into account the noise of the actual wind being the loudest noise on the video. We'll pursue another sunset another time. So until then...this'll have to do.

And just for kicks, this is what Diana & I say happens on a typical Friday night in Burns Lake. (Yes, that is underwear on top of their pants.....honestly!!)