Make your month different, he says. And he leads by making all of 2026 different, with monthly prompts starting with “make your” for the first time since the start of the Photo Blogging Challenge all the way back in 2013. Thanks, PJ, for mixing things up a little, encouraging PBC participants to pursue a little more agency and to get out of any unhelpful ruts.

Here’s something I learned that makes May stand out. It’s unique in that it begins and ends with a combination of days of the week that is unique among all months. For example, in 2026, May began on a Friday and ended on a Sunday. No other month in 2026 begins on a Friday or ends on a Sunday. A few months have a unique starting day of the week and another few months have a distinct ending day of the week this year, but no other month but May is singular on both ends. Apparently, the explanation is mathematical, and has something to do with 31 not being divisible by 7. All of this is according to simplified Wikipedia, but I cannot find any links to original source material. And at this point I’ve wasted too much time down the rabbit hole!

Birthday Celebration

May 2026 began with a family gathering to celebrate Dad’s 85th birthday. The last time my immediate family was together to mark his special day was likely back in 1981. Holy cow – that’s 45 years ago! What made the gathering possible this year is that my parents moved to Calgary last fall, so very close to me and to my siblings’ homes. Of course that would be the day that I forgot my phone, so I have no photos of the special occasion. 🙁

Having ‘fessed to that particular “no phone” blunder, here are five times in May where I have had my phone or camera along to capture evidence that we acted to make our month at least a little different…

1. Family Visit Days

Having all four parents living in the Calgary area makes family visit days possible. Until the middle of this month, that usually meant a stop at Costco to shop for the two households, then off for sequential visits. Since May 15th, Mom’s been in the hospital with heart issues. As of now, she’s had an aortic valve replacement, followed less than 24-hours later by the placement of a temporary pacemaker. As of the time of writing, she’s received her permanent pacemaker and is focussed on getting up and around and walking short distances before FINALLY returning home.

But for the time being, two visits have expanded to three. It’s made for some very long days. But that should revert back to two households to visit starting next week.

With medical concerns dominating visits with my folks, I welcome the change that comes with visiting Mr GeoKs’ parents in their yard. They are justifiably pleased with their bounty of flowering spring bulbs. In this image, Grandpa GeoK is hard at work planting petunias for the second wave of blossoms.

2. Alumni Event

Mr GeoK and I met at work, almost 4 decades ago. We both resigned from there within a few years of meeting. And while the firm does a good job of staying in contact with former employees, we haven’t attended many alumni events over the years. But given our oldest’s enjoyment of F1, we made the atypical decision to attend this year’s headline event – a presentation on how Deloitte has worked with the McLaren team over the past decade. The keynote was outstanding, the venue impressive and the food and drinks well-tuned to the theme.

Bonus photo – the event photographer snapped this pic of the two of us during the early part of the evening.

3. Impromptu Breakfast Out

Once again, Canmore’s main street is a motorized vehicle-free zone for the summer. We like walking those few blocks early in the morning, the better to admire the street murals and other pop-up art installations. (NOTE – the banner image for this post is a collage of the 10 at-risk species banners decorating the garbage and recycling bins along the pedestrian zone.)

What made the depicted morning especially unique was that after I paused in front of the menu displayed in the window of a local restaurant, we made a spur-of-the-moment decision to head inside for breakfast. My food photography techniques are not great. So rather than include a poor photo of my delicious French toast, I opted for this somewhat better photo of Mr GeoK walking down main street Canmore, Mount Rundle in the background.

4. First Outing With New Paddles

The last week of May, we kayaked Vermilion Lakes for the first time this year. We usually paddle here at least a half dozen times each summer. Nothing different about that!

But this time, for the first time, we propelled our trusty Gumotex Thaya with Greenland style paddles. You’ll see from the photo that they don’t look like they’d be very effective. But as we learned when we had the chance to try them on Lago Grey in Torres del Paine, Patagonia, Chile, they work very well, especially for paddling long distances.

We’re still working to optimize our stroke, as Greenlandic paddles work quite differently to more recognizable Euro paddle design. And we’re looking forward to evaluating the effort/propulsion trade-off on Kananaskis Lakes later this summer.

5. Here Comes The Sun

Despite living in Canmore full-time for almost 5 years, we have yet to fully plug into its thriving arts scene. We took a step to remedy that in May, joining the sold out crowd at the tiny Carter-Ryan Theatre for Here Comes The Sun – A Deconstruct of The Beatles. What a treat! How could live music covering a huge swath of The Beatles catalogue be anything but? Mr GeoK snapped this pic during the cover of Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. 😉

That’s a wrap on some of the ways we stepped outside the lines of our typical choices in May. Some by choice, some not. Have you done anything lately to shake things up? If so, feel free to share with a comment. If not, maybe today’s the day!

To see how my fellow PBC participants made things unique, hop on over to host PJ’s post and look for the linkup at the bottom.

And please, won’t you join us in June? All you need = five photos + a blogging platform (there are several free options, including WordPress.). PJ announces the theme at the bottom of his post and I’ll try to loop back to add it here, as well.