Amy from the blog – The World is a Book… – is hosting this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #222 and she has chosen a topic I am all too familiar with – Mountains are calling and boy, are they calling!
Continue reading “Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #222: Mountains are Calling” →
Good morning! Come on in! It’s a good day to have some hot drinks and relax.
Continue reading “#WeekendCoffeeShare – The Highs and Lows of the Week” →
Continue reading “What do you see # 156 – Unapologetic” →
Seeing full-blown autumn colors can definitely classify as a fleeting moment as it’s constantly changing from near peak to peak to past peak. Yesterday was most likely the last real weekend to see autumn colors as we are expecting the temperature to drop about 10-degrees and rain this coming weekend. In my opinion, once rain comes, autumn colors are no longer pretty.
Yesterday’s trip was all my mom’s idea. She saw one of her co-workers post photos of Bridal Veil Falls in Provo Canyon and thought it was pretty. Next thing I knew, she was calling her sister and brother-in-law (BIL), asking them if they were interested. Of course, they were. They’re off every other weekends and after this weekend, they will be working all the way into November. So I wrote, probably the last weekend for autumn colors.
Her BIL was driving. It’s always him who drives and it was a good thing it was him who was driving because I ended up sorta tricking everyone to go to the place I wanted to go.
The whole trip, for me, was full of fleeting moments because I was traveling with three adults who did not want to walk. My mom has back pain and can’t walk a few steps without complaining. She’s currently waiting to do surgery to fix that problem. Meanwhile, her sister and BIL just didn’t want to walk. They aren’t out of shape, they just prefer to sit and look at their phones all day.
Thankfully, they let me roam, for a very short time at least like a dog on a leash. If I venture too far, my phone instantaneously rings, one of them telling me to get back to the car. So I needed to walk fast and take as many photos as I could so I can have it for memory.
This was the my first time going to Provo Canyon. I’ve always stuck to the Alpine Loop as it’s closer to home and I happen to think it’s more beautiful up by Mount Timpanogos with all the aspen trees. If you’ve ever been in the area, you’ll know what I mean. Even in summer, it’s beautiful with its white trunks and its leaves dancing to the breeze. I made a trip there back in August (before the accident) and couldn’t get enough of the place.
I fell in love with this picture as soon as I blew it up on my laptop. Another fleeting moment as we were parked in one of those tiny turnout on the road and as soon as I got out of the car, my mom began yelling, “How can you do such thing?” She was talking about how I led her BIL to the Alpine Loop when I knew fully that it’d be a narrow road that required drivers of one direction to yield to oncoming traffic.
I drove on this road before and didn’t encounter any problem. The only one that might have a problem might be my mom as she doesn’t do well in narrow road situations.
Anyway, I ignored her and focused on finding compositions. After all, I only get this one shot and everyone was waiting on me, so I must make it quick despite I could stare at this golden landscape for hours, maybe days.
The Alpine Loop was surprisingly crowded. I’ve never seen so much traffic that it was backed up. Perhaps maybe because many people knows to come here to see fall colors and that this would probably be the last weekend of 2022 to see such color.
After my accident, I became very anxious whenever something comes too close to the passenger side of the car, almost like a kind of claustrophobia. With the traffic, my uncle was forced to steer the car toward the trees a few times, causing me to panic as I seem to be doing quite a bit lately. These were definitely moments I didn’t want to remember from the trip and was relieve when we were no longer on the narrow road.
All in all, I am very grateful for the trip as I got a photos for memories despite my time there was very limited. I guess my goal to see autumn colors in 2022 is now fulfilled.
This week, Ann-Christine from Leya is hosting Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #221 and she asked us to show our favorite flowers and tell the story behind it.
Continue reading “Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #221: Flower Favorites and Why” →
Good morning! Come on in and grab a coffee or a tea, and sit.
Continue reading “#WeekendCoffeeShare – October 2022 Garden Update and Driving Anxiety” →
Melanie from Sparks From a Combustible Mind is back with another edition of Truthful Tuesday this week and as almost always, I’m a day late. This week, she asks:
Continue reading “Truthful Tuesday 10-11-2022 on a Wednesday – Phone and Doorbell Disconnection” →
Continue reading “What do you see # 155 – Happy Halloween?” →
Good morning! Come on in and grab a coffee or a tea, I have lots to tell you.
Continue reading “#WeekendCoffeeShare – The Longest Day of the Week” →
Continue reading “What do you see # 154 – Love for Woodworking” →
Good morning! My my my, is it October already?
Continue reading “#WeekendCoffeeShare – Last Day of Vacation” →
Between Mom’s snoring and feeling cold due to lack of covers, I got a very poor night sleep the night we arrived in Ottawa. The cons of sharing a bed with my mother – she wrapped the covers tight around her because she was cold while I just had the thin blanket sent up by request.
Anyway, the day forecasted rain so I wanted to see as much as I could of Ottawa before it starts to rain. We walked down to the Rideau Canal to see the canal locks. When I was studying for my Civil Engineering and we talked about the locks at Panama Canal, I couldn’t imagine what those locks looked like. Well, I have a pretty good idea now.
The picture above was one of my favorite pictures that day despite the gloomy sky. This is the Alexandria Bridge. On the other side is Gatineau – part of Quebec Province. I love the variety of foliage colors even though I am slightly disappointed that I haven’t seen much autumn colors yet despite the autumn equinox was a few days ago.
I almost forgot our surprise that day. We had planned to tour Parliament Hill but it was closed. As we continued to walk up the street, we found men and women dressed in kilts and were practicing their pipes. I tried to ask around to find out what was happening but just my luck, everyone I talked to was a tourist like me and they either didn’t speak English or they, too, were just as clueless as me.
I tried to Google it on my phone, too, but had no result.
Then the parade began. Men and women walked down Wellington Street in either a police uniform or in kilts.
In the meantime, mom has developed a dry hacking cough. She was cough every few seconds. At the same time, she was having leg pain. I told her a few times, “if you must rest, rest,” but she was adamant, saying she has traveled this far to see Ottawa, not to lie in a motel room.
I felt frustrated to had to stop every few minutes to look back to see her grimacing at the pain while hacking a cough or two. It made me feel hopeless because I couldn’t help her. It also made me feel frustrated because she was throwing tantrums as well.
By the end of the day, I am starting to feel an itch in my throat. I sure hope I haven’t caught whatever’s got mom because my swollen gums have just gotten better. I don’t want a hacking cough and who knows what else.
For date reference, day 4 is referring to September 23 and day 5 is September 24. I think this is more for me than for anyone in particular.
As I wrote in this post, I felt like the trip had gone downhill after day 3. Even with the spectacular views from CN Tower on day 4, I can never compare those views to that of the Niagara Falls.
After CN Tower, we took the street car up to Toronto Chinatown. I have been to only two other well-known Chinatowns so far – Los Angeles and San Francisco – and I’ve come to expect rowdy behavior from the senior residents of Chinatown. Still, it was a bit disorienting and with Mom constantly wandering to God-knows-where, I had to be on my toes every second.
Can you tell my anxiety level has been pretty high during this trip?
After finally grabbing a bite, we walked a few blocks down to Toronto City Hall. It was my idea because I needed a photo of the Toronto sign in the Nathan Phillip Square to prove I’ve really been to Toronto. I don’t know about you but have you ever had to prove to someone that you’ve really been to a certain place?
I have. From then on, I’ve always photographed the sign of the place I’ve been to.
That afternoon, on the way back to the hotel, I received a call about my car. At first, I thought they were calling me to notify me my car was ready to pick up but it turned out they broke something while dismantling the car door. So now, new parts will need to be orders and who knows how long that’ll be. I became so anxious after the call. I know I should had been but I was.
Day 5 aka my birthday was spent driving from Toronto to Ottawa. Mom drove while I sat back and enjoyed my birthday drink from Starbucks – Iced Matcha Latte. I was thankful she allowed me to connect my phone to the rental car so I can play some music instead of listening to the hum of the road and our pathetic attempts of trying to make small talks with each other despite our small talks so far lasted less than a minute before Mom either got angry and started shouting or she got bored.
She also wasn’t feeling well that day and she had to exit in a random town and take a nap behind a Tim Horton (Canadian coffee franchise) while I just sat there, earbuds in, and listened to my music. I volunteered to drive but she wouldn’t let me, most likely still worried about my driving skills after my accident.
We finally arrived at the Ottawa motel at a little after 4 PM. As soon as we had a small meal, mom took some cough medication and went to bed.
Good morning! I am on the road to Ottawa today from Toronto and since it’s my birthday, Starbucks is giving me a free drink. So take yours and join me on the road.
If we were having coffee, I would tell you I have a feeling this would be a special birthday because I’m in Canada. Hopefully, mom will not ruin this day like she had ruined day 3 of the trip aka Thursday, September 22.
Today is day 5 of the trip and we are already a mess. My gums has been swollen since arriving in Buffalo, New York, probably from being dehydrated from the lack of drinking fountain in Canada. I can barely talk at times because of the pain and I’ve been irritated by the way mom makes me shout sometimes just so she could hear me even though shouting exacerbates the pain in my mouth.
Mom was having on and off fever yesterday, which she thinks might be an infection somewhere and not COVID. She was having pain in her legs before we left on our trip, which caused her to barely able to walk. Having walked almost 30 miles since Tuesday, she’s almost constantly complaining about the pain in her legs and guess who had to put up with it?
I swear, if we were a married couple, I would be the husband, putting up with all the complaints and temper tantrum and never getting what I want while needing to do everything else like keeping an eye on Google Maps while paying attention to the road signs because it seems like, when in Canada, one is unable to read road signs and drive at the same time. I hate being the navigator because sometimes, I have trouble reading the GPS and sometimes, the GPS has trouble pinging my location. That’s when the one-sided shouting matches begin because mom wanted everything to be perfect.
Unfortunately, I’m far from it.
Last night, she actually called me selfish for wanting to finish the trip. 4 days in and she’s wanting to go home. Well, we can’t because our plane tickets are non-refundable and to modify our plane fares cost more than the original plane tickets alone. She also suggested we could go hole up in Richmond or Philadelphia. Who’s the selfish one now?
I knew this would happen, why did I even agree or be excited to go on this trip in the first place?
Anyway, here are some of the memorable photos I shot on the trip so far. I have posted an entry for Day 1-3 of the trip so far, you can read each one by clicking on the links.
#weekendcoffeeshare is hosted by Natalie of Natalie the Explorer. I appreciate you stopping by and hope to chat again same time next week.
The last two days has been absolutely crazy. On Monday, I worked almost 12 hours before continuing on Tuesday with a little over 4 hours to complete my 16 hours of the 40-hour work week.
For the first time in a long while, I felt hectic, trying to get every customer billed and all the payments reconciled. I am a billing and accounting specialist, in case you haven’t figure that out. I send bills to customers and reconcile payment for a living.
I am writing this post prior to getting on my first flight from Salt Lake to Las Vegas. From Vegas, I’ll have a 4.5 hours layover before boarding another flight to Buffalo, New York. Of the airports I have been to so far, the Salt Lake airport has the best Wi-fi. So I’m taking the opportunity to type this on my laptop with a physical keyboard.
Anxiety-wise, I think now that I’m sitting in the airport, sipping on an iced chai latte, I am feeling a better, not near-hyperventilation like a few hours before. In fact, I had been near-hyperventilation for the last few days.
I was getting cold feet about trip. There’s so many worries. As much as I tried to relax and look forward to my long-awaiting trip, my anxiety, as always, was holding me back. Darn you, anxiety! Always causing misery. Why can’t you leave me alone?
So many things to do, my brain kept telling me. You can’t go. I barely slept the night before my flight. My brain kept me all night with about a million thoughts. Why didn’t you purchase carry-on luggage for the flight? There’s no way you will bill all these people before your flight. You can’t place your trust in those people to take care of your garden.
All night long. Just thought after thought. Ugh!
I spent Tuesday night on the flight to Buffalo, New York and will be there at 5 AM. Hopefully I will get a few hours of shut-eye during the flight.
This is Another Story