Snowstorm? pshaw!

To make myself feel better in this raging almost-MAY snowstorm, I think about how great yesterday was. This is a crazy place - this city gets blanketed in snow in about an hour and if you try to walk in it your face gets ripped off by the wind and snowy/rainy pellets. Meaning no disrespect to any Calgarians.. I MISS VANCOUVER! But enough of my plight. Let's talk about how great yesterday was.

We are amazed at how many people shared in the joy of Charl's good news the other day. You people are amazing!! If you ever doubt that you can have an impact on someone else's life, by a small gesture like sending a quick email, or hugging someone, or lending a hand or sending cards etc.. please rest assured you doubt in vain. It is always an ecouragement to know that people are walking alongside us in this cancer journey, and for all the things, little and big, it means so much to us.

OK so back to yesterday.
Charl received a package of hand-made cards from the entire Swedish contingent of the Overend family. My brother, his wife and their three kids all made get-well cards for Charl, personalized to perfection. Isak's favourite was cutting and glueing portions of his card into little green pieces (he's 4). You can't start a day better than that - so sweet!!

South Africans all like this hard bread called Biskuit, or Rusk, dipped into their coffee or tea. It's similar to the Italian biscotti, only not as sweet and infinitely harder to find in Canada. Which is why they tend to bake their own. Hence Alida, our friend from the old country, decided I needed to know how to make this for my husband to keep him even happier than he already is at home. Happiness to a man is a full stomach (or something like that).

Armed with nothing but ground flax-seed and some sunflower seeds (from my trusty cancer cookbook I know that ground flaxseed has 3000x more healthy-ish somethingorother than other stuff that could possibly make up the familiar chunchy granularity of Charl's favourite coffee-soaked bread), I showed up at Alida's to start the learning process. Yup, that's me with the apron (alot of strange and wonderful things happen when you get married)

You'll see that this bowl of goo actually turns into delicious Canadian-made super healthy RUSKs, which I'm proud to say, tasted pretty darn sweet.

Upon returning home with the warmly baked goodness this fact was proven by Charl and I gorging ourselves silly on them.

How sweet of Alida to spend her afternoon sharing her million year old trandition with the likes of me??




Well to round the day off - as if the day wasn't already good enough - after we'd overindulged in the baking, we realized we didn't have anything prepared for dinner and were in that half-lazy fog of helplessness just before you capitulate and order take-out pizza. No word of a lie, the next minute, the phone rings and it's Barb from our bible study, saying she and her daughter had made us dinner and were bringing it over now and would that be ok?
ummm.. ya!

Totally kind mom and daughter taking care to make sure we had a home cooked meal.. Amazing grace!

Thanks everyone, for making our day soooo good, that even this freaky snow can't shake our good mood.