Spring changes around the Seidlitz house

Hi everyone,

I see that I haven't posted since December - oops! Lots of things have happened since we finished our bathroom renovation. 

The first big event was the birth of a little great niece in the end of December. Wendy went out to Pembroke to help and was absolutely thrilled to be around a baby again! 

At New Years, Parker's girlfriend Jaclyn dropped by to ring in 2022. 

Maddy was happy to start playing with her new soccer balls (two different sizes, but she adores the large one). Maddy turned 11 in February and enjoyed her once yearly eating at the table.

Valentines day saw Parker and Jaclyn get together for an official photoshoot (with me as the photographer).

Wendy and I went to Toronto for a short vacation during the February break week. We hit the Art Gallery of Ontario, went out to dinner with several friends two nights in a row, and stayed in an apartment that overlooked the Island Airport (so I could watch airplanes). Wendy was also able to go to the new Chick-fil-A, and we went to Krispy Kreme on our way home.

Seidlitz Powder sign in Kiehl's (Yorkdale Mall)

Art Gallery of Ontario

In March, Wendy and Adam went skiing with our niece and family in the Kitchener area. We also went for dinner with the family while my sister was visiting (on her way home from Pembroke, before heading back to BC). The restaurant we went to was directly across the lake from Justin Bieber's house. 

Parker finished his real estate course and is now licensed as a real estate agent. He continues to work with Fair Square (previously called Purple Bricks) and hopes to learn as many aspects of the business as possible. 

One of the students in my program recently wrote a series of articles after interviews with people all relating to the topic of "I am not my illness". She published it online the night before my birthday. The link to the story is pasted below.

https://healthydebate.ca/2022/04/topic/thyroid-cancer-remission-professor/

Wendy and I are planning a few trips this year (pending the pandemic). We are going with friends (Terry and Theresa) to Newfoundland in July, and are going to Disney World in mid-December (likely with Parker and his girlfriend, plus our friends Mel and Murray). A couple of days before Disney, Wendy and I plan to go to a concert - Andrea Bocelli at Madison Square Gardens in New York City! We will likely go out to dinner and wander around the city before we head to Florida from there.

For me, the winter term has just ended and marking is now the focus for the next several weeks. After that, I am teaching two courses in the spring term (May to mid June), so there won't be much rest for a while. The spring flowers are just out and the weather is warming up. We went to Dairy Queen the other day to get Blizzards for dessert - since it was so warm and since my family were experiencing an April blizzard in Manitoba. 

I will try to post again soon, as we are having some new people move into our house this weekend (a young couple from Ukraine). Will tell you all about how it is going once they arrive.

Spring has sprung, needle has poked, new doors, a puzzle, and a potential new voice

Another post, and so soon! Well, lots has happened. 

Our spring came quite quickly this year with temperatures heading to 20+C a few days. The crocuses came up and bloomed last week and the daffodils just yesterday. 

Wendy got her first vaccine dose recently - they are pushing to get those working in hospitals done. Seemed to go well.

After a long COVID delay in receiving some new doors for our house (front screen and main door, plus one going into our garage), they finally arrived this week. Parker approved wholeheartedly with the grey colour (his favourite). Below are the old doors mostly dating from 1964 (the screen door was from the late 1990s).

Front screen door

Garage door

Front door handle

And here are the new doors!

Planning to paint the trim and hang a stained glass on the left

New garage door

Screen door has a hidden screen at the top that comes down when you slide the glass

Front door handle

Wendy did another time lapse puzzle and beat her record for a 500-piece puzzle!

You can click here to open directly in YouTube if this video doesn't play well on this page.

With everything else going on, I also got my surgery booked for an injection medialization of my left vocal cord. It is permanently paralyzed due to the nerve being lost during my tumour surgery in October 2019, so we finally got around to dealing with my difficulty speaking. The same surgeon (a grad of the BHSc program!) did this procedure yesterday. I have to not talk for about 5 days (not as easy as I thought!), then will see next week what is different with my voice. I started a before/after video about this procedure this week, but will wait for my voice to be regained and will put it together and post here.

More to come!

The world has changed...

OK, now on to the small and large changes that have happened over the last few weeks.

As you all likely have experienced, the world is not what it used to be - since COVID-19 took hold. The first real change for me was that in-person classes at the university were cancelled on Friday the 13th. I had planned to stay home on the Friday (no classes that day), but I am kind of annoyed that I didn't get to fully enjoy the realization that I had taught my last class (potentially forever). One other annoyance was the fact that Wendy and I were planning to go on a trip once classes ended. This was to be just the two of us, potentially to Ireland, mostly to relax and see somewhere we have never been. We want to travel before I can't travel any more. Well, it appears the whole world has stopped travelling for now.

Thanks world, I am most definitely NOT impressed.

One small change for me is that I bought some new glasses. My old ones had a scratch that irritated me. Normally, it takes me weeks to narrow down the choices before I select the right ones. This time it was different. Wendy and I went to a place in Ancaster (Hanley's) and it took us barely a few minutes to find the right ones! No comparison shopping needed. These glasses fit all my requirements except the price, but since these are likely my last pair, why not splurge a little? Other than having a wider area of prescription in the middle to see through (don't have to turn my head as much to see clearly), I think they are cool because the arms are mounted sideways. All I can see when they are on and I look to the side is a very narrow strip of titanium instead of a wide arm. Much less distracting. Another cool feature is that the frame around the lenses is actually semi-transparent. Odd, but fun in a strange way.

Picked these glasses up on Friday the 13th

I also went to the grocery store one last time as the beginnings of hoarding started around here. Couldn't find toilet paper or hand sanitizer (the hoarding items of choice), but I did find these interesting cereals.

Wendy decided to do some more cooking (unusual in itself, as many of you know). She has been getting more into making food when I am not so interesting in cooking. That seems to have been happening a lot lately, although this was partly due to the difficulties that I have had with swallowing as a result of the radiation I had in February. My appetite and desire to cook has improved slowly over the past month.

The COVID-19 restrictions really hit home, and so did the whole family. Adam returned from North Bay for his reading week, Parker's in-person classes ended, Wendy started working from home, and Sally's experiments slowed down then stopped and she started working at home. Our evenings have included watching the news (there is only one story on, all day long!), playing Canasta, etc.

I have had some time to clean up my stained glass area and I re-engaged with the big project I have been working on (dragging my feet on...) for several years. I want to get this one done while I have the energy to do it. It is a custom-created northern Ontario scene (64" wide, but likely will be split into two panels).

We also taught Sally how to play Mahjong! It was actually quite fun to play and a little easier than Canasta.

As for my work, I have now become a virtual professor. In the past two weeks I have quickly learned how to use Microsoft Teams, Cisco WebEx, Google Hangouts, and Zoom. I spend quite a bit of my time staring into a webcam. It isn't the same as sitting in a room with my students, but it is all we can do right now. Since I am at quite a high risk of getting COVID-19 (I have a few pre-existing health conditions), I am sticking at home as much as I can.

One exception to staying indoors is for Wendy and I to take Maddy for a walk. I suspect that what is really happening is that Wendy is taking her husband for a walk. Increased restrictions have even closed the local playground and the nearby rail trail. Can't even go hiking as the nice weather starts to become more frequent.

Wendy had to cancel the monthly cleaning crew that comes to the house, and she moved her piano lessons to a web meeting. Here she is with her piano teacher - on her iPad, which is hanging off the cardboard box on the chair where the teacher usually sits, weighted down by old anatomy books. Hey, it works!

Yesterday (March 27th), our crocuses bloomed and made it unmistakable that spring is now here. Too bad we can't fully enjoy it.

Another thing that happened yesterday was that I received the report and images from the MRI that I had on Tuesday this week. Aside from the risk of going out in public and going to a hospital during a pandemic, the scan was worth it. As an aside, there was lots of parking at the hospital and it was almost deserted inside once I got through the screening at the door.

The MRI report suggests that there has been no major changes since the last time I had imaging done. I seem to have healed well from the radiation damage to the top of my lungs, but the images show that I still have radiation-induced inflammation (likely) around my esophagus, which would explain why I continue to have difficulty swallowing. I will have a CT scan in mid April to check again, but it is clear that we have made considerable progress in regards to the tumour in my neck. Just for fun, I have included one image from the MRI series (I have access online). I chose this image mostly because I thought looked relatively easy to interpret (nose to the left, you may be able to figure out what most of the structures are). You may be able to see that there is no massive tumour taking over my neck. I call that progress. (Wendy says she likes my cerebellum...)

For those interested in the details, this is a sagittal T2-weighted image.

Aside from the few minor changes mentioned above, things are pretty much normal around here. 😉

Spring visitors

It has been a while since our last post, and the early spring of 2020 has been... shall we say...eventful.

We have had several visits from family and friends to keep us busy. My sister, Cathy, came out from B.C. to help her daughter Carrie. We stopped by for a brief visit and to pick up Maddy after our Vegas trip. Carrie had many random days of school closures for the provincial teachers' strike and she also hurt her foot while out with Maddy.

Eric, Maddy, and Cathy

Our friend Carolyn came by and had a quick visit. We hadn't seen her for a while, so it was great to catch up!

Eric, Carolyn, Wendy, and Maddy

Not long after Carolyn's visit, my sister's youngest child Daniel and Veronika came for an overnight visit. I have to say, in my opinion Dan seems to be getting taller every time I see him...must be the Army!

Veronika, Wendy, Dan, and Eric

It is always a great time to have people come to visit, but as the spring of 2020 progressed, that became far more complicated. More on that in a later post...

Hints of summer, a new resident at the Seidlitz bed and breakfast, and multiple short trips

Spring is sort of here... and is still here... and it is June already. Even with our chilly weather, we have still gone out to do a few things.

First off, we have a new person living with us! I know, eventually that statement is not going to surprise anyone... Staying with us this summer is Wendy's cousin's daughter (Christine). She volunteer's at the hospital with Wendy's manager. This opportunity for some healthcare system experience could prove useful for her future goals.

Hiking at one of Hamilton's many waterfalls

Although a month later than normal, our crabapple tree bloomed gloriously this May. It was so cold out that the blooms also lasted far longer than expected. Guess they were needed for insulation.

One day, Wendy was looking at a picture of her father (Ron) and his older brother (Roy) and decided to take a photo of their two grandchildren (Parker and Christine) holding the photo. This also gave me a chance to try out the portrait mode on my new phone (Google Pixel 3a, if you are interested).

We recently decided to go into Toronto to take in a Blue Jays game, stopping first at our niece's place nearby for lunch. Leanne, Scott, Elyse, and Brynn joined us at the game and sat in the next row from Wendy, myself, Ying, and Fanfan. The girls seemed to have a great time; the dads found the one discount beer stand on our level (hint, instead of buying an $11 beer, the same one costs $5 at the Dugout Deals stand on each level of the Rogers Centre).

Ying and Fanfan under the CN Tower

Scott photobombing our selfie

Elyse taking it all in

Brynn likes the camera

Fanfan also loves the camera

 Since the game was a "Junior Jays" event, the girls got to go onto the field after the game (the Jays won by a mile) and ran the bases. Fanfan wasn't completely sure what the big deal was, but she enjoyed it nonetheless.

On the field

Our spring flowers are in full swing now (yes, in JUNE), but they will soon wilt as the heat comes rushing in later in the month.

Last week Wendy took a trip with her manager to attend a conference in Detroit. It was purely a work trip, but she noted that her hotel was directly beside the border crossing as you come out of the bridge from Windsor. They decided to drive there, since it would be too much hassle to fly.

Another last minute trip was scheduled after Adam called us last week and asked if we could come up to North Bay on the weekend to attend the Annual Parade and Banquet for the Cadet Squadron where he is a civilian instructor. He acted as the MC for the parade, and this occurred in the hangar at his college. Over the course of the long day, we got the full tour (inside the aircraft as well - including the 727), and learned how he helped move all the aircraft around to accommodate the parade. We also got to meet many of the people that he has talked about over the last year.  If all works out, the next time we are up in North Bay, we may be able to get a guided tour of the NORAD facilities at 22 Wing, the air force base next to the college. Adam may  no longer be a civilian in the next few months, but that event may appear here in a later post.

The MC at work

The weekend ended with a nice breakfast at our hotel, where they said Adam could come to eat for free. Small towns are great!  Long drives home through Toronto cottage country traffic... not so much.

One last note, here is a photo to show Christine in her uniform at the hospital. Although we frequently drive in together to work, Wendy is the only one who see her 'at work'.

Coming up this week, I go to a conference in New Orleans that I stumbled upon only a few weeks ago. Wendy won't be able come along, as I will arrive Friday late afternoon and leave Sunday noon (I need to get back to teach on Monday). Too expensive for 1 day (while I am in conference). Looks like it will be a very interesting meeting (it is called the Teaching Professor Conference!), and the weather there is likely going to be very hot (30-35C, plus humidity).

Later this summer will see a short trip to Calgary and Banff, then a week at a rented cottage on Sauble Beach (Lake Huron). Glad I bought a new carry-on bag - it will likely pay for itself in the next several months!