Happy July 4th to my friends south of our border!!!  Hope you’ve all had a wonderful day!

Here in Canada, we had our national holiday on the 1st, so today was a normal working day around here.

My day started out at the surgeon for my 2 month post op consultation.

I liked this plaque that was on the wall.

Good news.  I’m healing as I should be.  My back pain (that has been REALLY bad) is more than likely me compensating for the numbness and discomfort that I feel sometimes when I’m walking. And as a result, he’s told me to “think” about my steps instead of just stepping.  And if I can do that (I can) I’ve been given the green light to do some cardio walks (within reason).  I have to be patient and there will be no high impact workouts YET, but this is a big step forward.  (no pun intended.  Actually, that WAS intended! ;) )

On my way back to the train to go back to work, I took a photo of this lovely building downtown because I liked the way the clouds looked behind it.

And here is that same building reflected in another.

When I got to work I made breakfast, a mini bagel, some fat-free cream cheese, blueberries and a big press of coffee.

Lunch was far from fancy (I threw all of this in my bag as I was flying out the door this morning) but it WAS colorful. It was a hard-boiled egg, sandwich thin, and veggies from the crisper.

I also had a banana.

Later in the afternoon I had a few cherries.

After work, to celebrate the green light to pump up the pace walk for a bit longer and faster, and to celebrate the first sunny day in about a week, I went for a WALK.  Woo Hoo! :)

I’ll spare you many of the plethora of flower photos I took, but will share this dogwood because I thought the inside bit was pretty interesting.

OK….enough flowers.  Instead, I’ll share pictures of the some community art that is only a block or so away from our home.  I stopped to look, and the artist came out to chat.  He’s a stone sculptor but is trying to sculpt sand as he’ll be entering in a sand sculpture contest later in the summer.  Fun!  He said he’ll be knocking the pieces down and building new ones every few days, so you may see more sand sculptures in the next few weeks.

Here are some photos I took in the park I walked around….

And when I had to sit on a bench to rest my back (I guess it’ll be a while before that is better) I decided to play around with the sepia setting on the camera. The runner in the first photo almost looks like a streaker.

This was sunlight that was peeking through and illuminated this one flower in a shaded area.  Lesson learned, shadow and sepia = nature’s own spotlight.

A tree with a very odd stump and the leaves of the stumpy tree from my bench close by…

And then I played with the black and white setting.  How boring…..

Once I left the park, I was greeted with meows by this little shit cute orange tabby. He came running over purring and giving me a headbutt.  He seemed SUPER friendly and happy to meet me.

….then, in a split second, he turned around and tried to bite me.  Excuse me Mr. Cat, but you’re giving me mixed messages!!!!  Maybe he smelled Neva on me, or maybe he just has issues.

Or maybe he saw this sign pinned on the tree behind me.

I passed a school that had murals painted on the side.  This cat below did NOT give me mixed messages.

I think someone may be in trouble at home tonight when they didn’t bring their lunch kit (or any of the contents) home. (I was going for the “pops of color” look in this photo)

This dog was having a reflective day, like I had yesterday. (please feel free to groan)

I stopped and had a small iced coffee….

And liked the way these cup cuffs looked in the basket….

After all that, I decided I wasn’t going to go home and cook dinner, so I stopped and got some takeout sushi….a spicy tuna roll, a vegetable roll and a bbq eel roll.

OOOH….Modern Family is about to start.  I haven’t seen that in weeks, so “it’s a wrap”.  Back tomorrow….