The world seems to have gone completely crazy. What
has happened to respect, manners and consideration for fellow humans in the
recent years? Every morning I’m saddened when I look at the news and see so
many killed, not just in the US, but all over the world. Apart from daily
catching up with BBC news and a little bit of CNN via streaming, we haven’t
watched any other news. We did carefully watch the lead-up to and including the
Brexit vote. We even tried voting but ballots had to be mailed out to us and
then returned by mail, and that wasn’t going to happen in the short time frame
they allowed! We are still waiting to get a Christmas card that was mailed to
us last November. (I thinking we’ll probably never get it!)
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| Tuesday Taco night |
Just when we thought our lives would slow a bit for
the summer low season, we’ve been busier than ever with almost daily meeting up
with friends for activities such as an ice cream tastings, Tuesday Tacos,
Friday Foodies as well as extra dinners and trying out new restaurants/bars
using cupocity coupons - PV’s equivalent to Groupon. It seems there’s always
something going on and it almost always includes food.
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| Our wonderful doctors! |
My wish for a break from food came the first Sunday
in July during a day of volunteering at another spay/neuter clinic, where
there’s no chance to eat all day long. We had a lot of first-time volunteers
this clinic, so I had an opportunity to get really hands-on, taking their
pulse, temperatures and checking their breathing. This one had extra excitement because we had
a couple of cats who weren’t breathing after surgery; a dog who escaped
(temporarily) as he was getting prepped for surgery; and someone mixed up a
couple of dogs, so when the owner came to pick up his dog he said, “that’s not
my dog”. These days are definitely not your sit back, relax and chat type days.
Our kitty-proofing tasks are nearly complete with
Steve finishing the balcony and we both finished our work on covering the sofa.
I took the fabric that Steve bought while I was away and made thirteen cushion
covers -- these little devils seemed to take forever! Steve did the base
covering, and together, we think we’ve protected the sofa from Kato’s little
razor-like claws. He’s not scratching it on purpose, but he’s so active and
runs and jumps, and because he’s still little, he digs his claws in to pull
himself up.
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| Ready for action! |
Due to the constant round of eating out, some of my
friends and I decided to form an aqua aerobics class at my pool at least once a
week. A friend that I’d met through one of my volunteer roles has previously
taught classes, so she’s teaching us as a small group. This week, I’ll get two
lessons as she wants a guinea pig to try out a new routine before trying it on
the group. I definitely need the workout!
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| Big check from Richard Reed Foundation! |
We are also continuing our volunteer activities and
I got a chance to try out setting up a GoFundMe site for the PuRR Project. I’d
done a lot of research this spring for another charity so knew what we needed
and it seemed to come together quickly and easily. So far, just from the site
alone, we’ve raised $3,250 and through some publicity, emails and FaceBook
relating to the site, we’ve raised another $5,950 all within 3 weeks. Everyone
is so excited about it so we are hoping the donations will continue. Following
on this success, we are hoping to do a couple of more campaigns throughout the
next year. I’m in the process of getting things set up so that we can do the
same type of campaign for the children’s organization.
Some of our time has been spent organizing an
October trip to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary and Steve’s 60th
birthday. We’ll be visiting Chile; staying in Santiago while taking day trips
to wineries and spending a day in Valparaiso and Viña del Mar. I’ve compiled a
long list of things that I want to do in Santiago but we are only in the city
for 1 ½ days, so I’m going to have to do some serious weeding out or not get
any sleep! On our 6th day, we fly on to Easter Island for the rest of our trip.
There’s so much negativity in the world right now –
on the news, on social media – it’s everywhere you turn. I just want to leave
you with these thoughts . . .
