Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day everyone!  Glad to be able to celebrate this great holiday with so many and to see so many patriotic folks out with flags and painted faces, red and white coordinated outfits and such a plethora of cool Canadian t-shirts that as someone remarked tonight, they must have come close to running out of red dye this year.  150 years old as a country!  Quite remarkable and yet quite young really.  It was a splendid morning to spend down at the tall ships, to tour the amazing ship from Holland, to get a bit of sun and wind on our faces, to spend time with friends, reinforcing bonds of friendship which will and have carried us through these last weeks.  I am SO thankful for my friends, new and old, casual and true.  Without their help, I would have been lonely, stuck at home, grocery-less, Fathers Day gift-less, Canada Day T-shirt-less, and foodless.  Yet, they have made life so much more - doing little and big things along the way, texts to encourage, cards to upbuild, fans to cool, food to feed (mmm, meringues and strawberries for dessert), words to entertain or to upbuild, and ears to listen and take on my thoughts and sorrows and joys.  So for this Canada Day, here's a hats-off to my dear friends.  You mean the world to me, to Timothy, to Martha, to my family!
I don't have much on the medical front to update with - only nice to spend much of the day not thinking about next week - we were too busy seeing tall ships and trying to stay standing up straight on a jam-packed shuttle bus to remember that chemo starts Tuesday.  Home care has still been coming daily to change my surgical dressing; things do appear to be slowly improving with the incision less red and angry looking.  We are still doing daily dressings though so that always has to work itself into the plan for the day.  I keep tabs on things with pictures on my phone because I find that often you forget from day to day what things looked like and especially with different nurses each day, it's better for consistency.  So if you have a queasy stomach, you better not go browsing through my phone's pictures lest you find some disagreeable images there... not for the faint of heart.  So we continue to pray for healing and for strength for the incision, especially as next week the surgeon plans to take the rest of the sutures out - I always worry that Ava growing will place extra strain on an already difficult area to heal but I have to trust that he knows what he's doing!  I've trusted him thus far so I can't start doubting now.  I'll just have to stay away from funny movies after next week - Timothy and I watched a pretty inane movie last night but I'll admit to loving the slapstick humor bits in it and nearly snorted out loud at one particular scene but then realized that laughing too quickly might not be good for an unprepared stomach.  Must remember to clench those belly muscles first, lest the stitches split open... always a bit of a fear in the back of my mind!
Anyhow, eyelids are threatening to close, eyeballs are starting to roll and despite a nap this afternoon, the old body is saying,, "head to bed, my dear, lest I give up on you!".  So goodnight and hope you are all blessed with the proclamation of the Word on the morrow, as we celebrate the joy of a Sunday together!
I'll leave you with a few pics from today.. of our garden, from my friend's daughter, a budding photographer!