Month: November 2025

The temperature has risen slightly and this is causing the slushy piles at the end of the driveway. If it got colder, that slush would become solud ice making it impossible to get the car out. I decided to clear it out myself rather than waiting for Colter to do it.

The Weather network is predicting more snow tonight so it’s good to get that done.

I continue proofreading my blog entries working backwards from today. I want to be ready to get all my daily blog posts for 2025 ready for inclusion in a hard copy book that I will have done early in 2026.

They usually have a sale around that time that I’ll be able to take advantage.

Other than that, I have done little else except do several taste tests on Jane’s freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. Delicious.

Well the Weather Network predicted it. We had snow all night long and up until noon today.

We got about a foot of snow and it’s supposed to snow some more later today.

Fortunately for us, we don’t have any places we have to go today, so we can just stay home and inside.

We met for the first time with Dr. Majeed, our referred to family physician. He saw both Jane and I at the same time and began by reviewing OHIP coverage and how much time he allocates per visit.

He spent very little time reviewing my health record although he did spend more time with Jane.

I did get him to issue a blood requisition but when Jane asked him about prescription renewals, he left to check and never came back. Not impressed.

We did stop at New Life pharmacy and were assured that our prescription renewals will last beyond our next doctor visit.

We’ll see how this goes.

The weather network is predicting a winter storm with significant snowfall in the next few days, so we went to the grocery store to pick up a few things to avoid going out in the next couple of days.

Tomorrow, though, we do have one thing to do and that is to have a meet and greet with our new doctor. It’s not too far, so it shouldn’t be an issue.

Last night we had a video call with Max and he showed us everything in their house especially all the Christmas decorations. We showed him our decorations here and also showed him the new bunk bed he’ll be using when they visit on Boxing Day.

He ran up to his room and came back on camera to show us a Lego poster he wanted to give us to put up on the wall over the bunk bed.

It was a great call with him.

Yesterday I partially assembled the new bunk bed in the main floor guest room. I had a little bit of difficulty getting the final pieces to fit together but with Jane’s help we finally got it fully assembled.

It takes up most of the room, but it will enable everyone to have comfortable sleeping arrangements.

Later I did some more raking to get rid of the leaves before we get a predicted heavy snowfall.

The new bed arrived today, a day early. It was a very heavy box but I managed to get it into the garage and start unboxing it. The instructions were a bit messed up, but by taking my time, I avoided making a mistake.

The photo above shows one end of the bed and tomorrow I will resume the assembling of the rest of it.

Today Colter gave me a hand to stow the double bed mattress and box spring in the garage.

There is still room for the car to parked inside until we are ready to set it up when we have all the family here.

The new twin over queen bunk bed is coming on Tuesday.

This morning Jane and I had our coffee down at Centennial Beach here in Barrie. There was some walkers out despite the gloomy weather.

I started working on this years annual Christmas newsletter in which I choose one highlight for each of the past months that have been included in my daily blog, Life Unfolding.

I have done some work on tidying up all the cables associated with our internet connections.

Today I disassembled the double bed in the upstairs guest bedroom to make room for the twin over queen bed that we ordered from Wayfair. The new one is supposed to arrive on Nov 25th at which time I will assemble it.

The new mattresses are scheduled to be delivered on December 3, so we’ll be all ready for our Christmas family visit.

This morning we went to see Dr. Cheung for Jane’s follow up appointment after her eye surgery last week. Everything was very positive and Jane may not even need surgery on her right eye after all.

We go back in January for another follow up and in the meantime Jane will just continue with the prescribed eye drops.

It was an easy drive down and back with clear dry roads and sunny weather.

A good day for good news.

Today Jane and I did some more Christmas decorating, mainly in the family Room.

The mantle is done as well as the little “village” on the buffet. Jane did the little table and we got the wreaths hung as well.

We still have the Christmas tree to put up, but we’re in good shape for the family Christmas.

Today I attended the new Doctor’s location to initiate the registration process transferring from Doctor Morin to the new one. We will have a meet and greet on Nov 27.

I called Mike the Mattress Guy to change to Queen mattress to a 10 inch instead of an 8 inch. The delivery date is set for December 3 after the metal bunk bed arrives around Nov 25.

Jane has finished doing the Christmas decorations upstairs and I got the nativity scene set up in the sitting room niche.

Tomorrow I’ll set up the lights for the console and the curio cabinet.

Today I went to Mikes Mattresses and ordered two of them for the bunk beds that are coming from Wayfair at the end of the month.

Later in the afternoon I returned all of the Bell Fibe equipment via Purolator because we have switched our internet service to telMAX.

I did order some shorter Cat 6 cables to tidy up all the wires involved and at some point I will get a range extender to boost the signal on the back deck and in the back yard.

Jane has been doing some Christmas decorating on the main floor a little at a time.

Today I finished connecting all the Wyze cameras to the new WiFi network. They seem to be working quite nicely, even the one at the far end of the back yard.

I have disconnected all the Bell equipment and will pack it up in a box for return to them.

The upstairs TV had an old outdated App,e TV which would not allow apps to be downloaded, so I picked up a new one at Best Buy and spent quite a bit of time getting it to work the way I wanted it to.

I have ordered some short Ethernet cables to make the modem connections a little neater.

This morning telMAX is coming to install a fibre optic connection for our internet. They will also have a TV package included and the cost is about half of what Bell Fibe TV costs.

There will be a lot of connection updates required with all the devices that rely on internet.

Both Apple TV’s, Alexa, our phones and I pads, the desktop computers, the drip irrigation system to name a few.

But the internet connection speed should be fantastic.

Jane had a restful night but this morning had some difficulty opening her eye, the one that had surgery yesterday. But, after a short time, it began to open enough to get drops in it.

Sh went back to bed after a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast and ham.

I spent some time taking down the Fall decor and stowing the bins in the garage.

Then I swept up out there and did some research on mattresses for the new bunk bed that I ordered from Wayfair.

Jane and I are at the hospital for Jane’s scheduled eye surgery on her left eye.

The actual surgical procedure was supposed to be done at 1PM, but as of 1:30 there was no progress.

I decided to get a bite at the food court.

On another note we just learned last night that we would be having the whole family at our place for a couple of days starting on Boxing Day.

We are thrilled and have already started planning.



This morning we went grocery shopping at Metro and picked up everything we need for the next while.

Jane got word that her eye surgery is scheduled for 1pm tomorrow afternoon so we won’t need to stay overnight.

The weather tomorrow is calling for rain, but that’s better than snow.

We’ll drop off the cider purchases at Chris’ work tomorrow before we go the Humber River Hospital.

Today is Remembrance Day here in Canada and Jane and I watched the ceremony conducted at the cenotaph in Ottawa.

Later today we are going to the Cineplex movie theatre to watch Nuremberg starring Russell Crowe.

And I topped up the tires with air and the windshield washer fluid.

It’s been snowing off and on since this morning.

The snowfall that began yesterday continues today and is staying on the ground as opposed to melting. Winter has arrived. We were going to go to a movie this afternoon, but have decided to wait until tomorrow afternoon instead.

Jane continues to proofread her journal on Max which consists of memories from his birthday until he was four years of age. She is adding photos as she goes and eventually will get it put together into a book which she will give to Max when he’s older.

She will do the same for Roxana and Royce.

My nephew, Alan Hewick, sent me a couple of photos of my brother Larry taken on his wedding day to Kathleen (we called her Kitty) which was very thoughtful of him.

As predicted by the Weather Network, we are experiencing our first snowfall of the season here in Barrie.

The snow began around 6am and is expected to continue for most of the day.

Fortunately for us, we don’t have any need to go anywhere today, so we’ll just stay home.

A weather alert popped up today warning of impending snowfall to begin early tomorrow morning. This Autumn has lasted longer than usual, so I’m not surprised.

We decided that today we would do a BBQ steak on the Bbq seeing as there is no snow on the deck right now.

And tonight we’ll just sit tight and watch the hockey game.

This morning I did some more leaf raking. This will probably be the last one for the season. I finished just in time because it started to rain.

Jane had a good visit with Chris, Tonya and Max and on the way home stopped at the cemetery where her Mom is buried.

Today I called Bell to cancel internet and TV service effective November 16, 2025. Our new service will be installed on Feb 15, 2025.

This morning I put Christmas lights on the backyard fence which pretty much completes the exterior decorating.

Jane has gone to Toronto to go to see Max practice his skating so I am on my own tonight.

Today I signed up with a new internet provider called telMAX to replace Bell Fibe. They will be installing it on Saturday Nov 15.

This service will be better than what I am getting from Bell in that it will be a lot faster and half the price.

I am looking forward to this.

This morning I continued putting exterior Christmas decorations up and connecting them to a timer.

I won’t turn the lights on until after Remembrance Day and tomorrow I’ll do the exterior lights around the back yard fence.

Because Jane has plans to do some sanding and staining over the winter, I purchased a ceiling mounted heater for the garage. It was in sale at Princess Auto for about $45.

It was an easy job to mount and it simply plugged in to a nearby outlet. It has two heat settings, so when it gets really cold out there, it should make it comfortable.

This morning Jane and I headed over to a nearby Eco Park to go for a walk.

There is a long boardwalk that spans the swamp which is full of cattails and bulrushes.

We met several other people who were out walking and feeding the ducks in one of the ponds.

Quite an enjoyable outing after which we picked up a hot chocolate at Tim Hortons and enjoyed at Minet’s Point while watching kayakers.

With the weather today not too bad, I decided to do a few outside jobs. First, I did another raking of the front and back yards. That took about an hour and a half. Next I cleaned out the gutter of leaves.

The last thing I did was to put the Christmas lights on the eaves. I got that done and decided to leave the rest of the ground level lights another day.