My week at the beach was so very lovely. A beautiful gift to myself during such a special week. Two husbands. Two wedding anniversaries.  Plenty of time to reminisce. To cry. To rest. To rejuvenate.

And I do feel better. Much better. More positive. Ready to try to do a better job at living my life fully again.

I know … I do still have those double death dates looming at the end of this month and those will surely be harder. But since I’ll be in Canada – visiting beautiful Banff on Vern’s date and surrounded by hundreds of widowed people at Camp Widow in Calgary on Jim’s date, I believe I’m going to find my way through it.

Tuesday at the Harbor on my and Jim’s anniversary date was a little bit disappointing. The Harbor Village has changed drastically from what I remember from my visit there ten years ago. Condos have replaced most of the shops and eating spots that I recalled. But Sheila and I still enjoyed our walk around the harbor … all the boats, the seagulls and even a mama seal and her baby sunning themselves on a dock. It was still the right place to be that day. And look at what I found on the walkway when I retrieved my car to drive over to the harbor. A random weed growing between the bricks … shaped like a heart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But our most favorite spot that entire week was sitting in those chairs just outside our cottage door watching the sun set over the ocean. So beautiful. And even though The Strand can be busy at times it’s a great people (and dog!) watching spot. Walkers loved seeing Sheila sit in the chair next to me, and a couple of times she decided she preferred sitting on my lap and that received some laughs and “she’s so spoiled” comments. Yes, she is.  

And, on my final night at the beach there was a partial lunar eclipse. I was able to see it, but my phone doesn’t take good sky pictures. So this is my daughter-in-law’s photo of the eclipse.

I decided to drive straight home and not split it in half like I did on the way in. It took a little longer because traffic was heavy at the beginning, but I managed the 6 hour drive. (And that’s good to know for any future trips.) Since loading up the car to start the drive home was a sweaty chore I had planned to just leave everything in the car and wait until the next day to do the unload. But once I got home I just wanted to get it all done. I’m glad I did that because …

I ended up falling asleep for two hours sitting in the recliner in front of the tv … Sheila enjoyed a snooze, too. And we still went to bed at our regular time.

… and then that evil smoke alarm went off! OMG!

 Why do those things always go off in the middle of the night?! Sheila freaked out, started shaking all over. Even her teeth were chattering. I held her and tried to calm her down before going out to the garage to find the ladder. Now getting on a ladder to reach a smoke alarm on a vaulted ceiling is not something I would advise a 75 year old woman do … but what were my choices? I had to get on the top step in order to reach the thing. Couldn’t get the battery out. Ugh. Back down the ladder to find a screw driver to try to wedge it out. Back up the ladder. Nope. So I pushed a button on the alarm a couple of times and it stopped. Hooray!!

I found Sheila hiding behind the master bedroom toilet. Poor baby. I brought her into bed with me where I could keep my hands on her to comfort her. Sleep arrived for both of us.

But that wasn’t the end of it. Of course.

The alarm started going off again in the morning. Back up the ladder to attack that battery and I finally pried it out and replaced it. Hoorah for me! I returned the ladder to the garage.

Not so fast there girlie.

Yep – it went off again … twice … that night. Sheila went back to behind the toilet.

Retrieved the ladder and checked that the battery was still in place. Hit that button again and it stopped. Back to bed for awhile. When it went off the second time I had a mission to pry that stinking thing off the ceiling. Had trouble trying to release the wires and thought about searching for some wire cutters to just cut those suckers off. But I kept working at it and finally got the wires to release. Brought that cover piece down and put it on the counter. Finally.  Back to bed.

So what woke me this morning? A lower level but consistent alarm sounding every few minutes. I looked for Sheila. Yep – back behind the toilet. Guess she heard the sounds before they woke me up. Climbed back up the ladder and couldn’t find anything that would be causing that. And then …

Oh yeah … I should have removed that battery from the cover piece I took down and left on the kitchen counter. That was what was beeping. Success. Finally. Lessons learned.

I’d say this is when I missed Jim the most but to be honest for the last two years he would not have been able to climb up that ladder to do this anyway. But I have no doubt he would have been fabulous at telling me how I should do it. LOL. And that would have allowed me to get a full night’s sleep these past three nights. Sigh.