….this week WordPress is encouraging us to share our less than perfect photos
Some of my long time followers may remember these photos from my birthday in 2014. My husband loves to ride his bike everywhere; however, on that day he learned that not everything transports well over the handle bars of a bicycle. Case in point….my birthday cake….a large, specially made Black Forest Cake, made with real whipped cream and loads of cherry filling.
None the less, it was delicious!
…..fill in the blank “life’s too short to____________”
Today’s Daily Post on WordPress is very timely. Last Sunday my 88 year aunt passed away. Now some of you may say she lived a good long life and you would be correct. My realization was that I shouldn’t have waited so long to get to know her better.
We tend to put things off until tomorrow but sometimes tomorrow is too late. Case in point: One year ago a group of friends from high school had finally reconnected after 30 years. We all wondered about one friend who wasn’t at our reunion so we investigated and found her. A letter was sent and then a few weeks later we were informed that she had just died. She was 60. At the funeral we learned that she had received the letter and was looking forward to our next get together. It was a few days later that she learned she only had a couple of weeks to live.
This past summer another friend at the age of 61 also passed away. Her 7 year battle with cancer finally took her life. It was her serious health condition that brought all of us together in the first place and I feel blessed for having been able to get together when we did. When my friend L called me in June to tell me that our friend was no longer seeing people and preferred to receive mail I decided to write her a card. Unfortunately I put it off (only for a couple of weeks) and she died before I made that final communication.
I am grateful for the time I spent with my aunt when she was in the hospital and the nursing home. For the last four months I saw her at least two to three times a week. My only regret is that we didn’t spend more time together when she was healthier but as my husband said it wasn’t for a lack of trying. Communication is a two way street. My aunt was always happy to see us but we were always the ones to initiate the visits.
In conclusion I leave you with these important words…..life’s too short to waste, don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
…..here we go again…..thanks Cee
You’re given $500,000 dollars tax free (any currency), what do you spend it on?
I think about this every time I play the lottery because in Canada a lottery win is tax free (for now). First I would pay off all my credit cards and then I would give each of my children about $50 000 to pay off school loans and any other debts that they have incurred. This would still leave me with $300 000 so I would probably fix all the unfinished projects around my house and cottage, take a trip or two (Europe and somewhere exotic) and put some money away for our retirement.
What’s the finest education?
The finest education is the school of life. If you don’t or can’t learn from the hard knocks of life all the expensive education from Ivy League Schools schools is worthless.
What kind of art is your favorite? Why?
My favourite art is abstract art. I love colour, line and texture and some of my favourite artists are Ray Cattell, Wassily Kandinsky, Joan Miro and Marc Chagall.
One of Ray’s paintings.
Is there something that you memorized long ago and still remember?
I hated memorizing poems or anything for that matter when I was in school. Having said that I have to admit that I know a lot of nursery rhymes and the national anthem.
Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?
I’m grateful that my husband’s surgery went well. He had half his thyroid removed and a very large, unattractive cyst in his neck was also removed. I’m also grateful that my son-in-law’s procedure on his heart also went well and any future problems with his birth defect has been eliminated.
After surgery, the next day
Before Surgery
Looking forward to Thanksgiving dinner with the family this Sunday. The kids are doing the bulk of the cooking. Bonus!
….and all their lovely imperfections
Last weekend we pulled the remaining carrots from out garden. It was difficult to see the fruits of our labour amidst all the greenery that grows above ground.
After a thorough washing, I removed the leafy stems and put every tiny misshaped carrot to the side. There were red, yellow, white and orange carrots in the mix and some were smaller than my baby toe. No matter. They were sweet and tender and when I put them into the measuring cup I had almost 8 cups of a very edible and nourishing vegetable.
Tonight some of those carrots made their way into our stir fry. Tomorrow I’ll probably take some to school and eat them raw with some humus dip. Yum!
Over at Colline’s Blog, Colline wrote a similar article about food waste and included a video called Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables. I thought it was excellent and decided to share it with you. This is how France tackled the problem of food waste. Ingenious!
….all my gadgets stopped working 2 weeks ago
I’m not much for electronics but I do love my iPhone and I use the camera all the time. For my birthday this year my children bought me the Jawbone Up which tracks my steps and sleep patterns and I’ve become addicted to it. Everything was working well until two weekends ago when we went to the AGO with friends to see the Alex Colville show. As you know I take a lot of photos and I was devastated when the camera on my iPhone wouldn’t work. The message that came through said that I didn’t have enough storage.
I tried to delete some photos but it didn’t seem to help. Now almost all of the photos on my phone have been backed up to my computer on IPhoto so I decided to delete them all from the camera. Success. Well for a few minutes and then all of a sudden all the photos reappeared on the phone. I did manage to take a few photos at the gallery but I knew that this problem would reappear.
Later that day I discovered that my Up bracelet wasn’t working as well. It is also hooked up to my iPhone. Again the message was that I didn’t have enough storage.
On Monday, the following day, I made a trip to my local Apple store but they were so busy that I couldn’t get an appointment for at least 5 days. I pleaded with one of the staff to give me some clues as to what I could do. She suggested that I back up my photos onto iTunes.
The next day I took my computer to school and my friend L and I played around with the settings on iTunes. It took a while but we finally figured out that the storage problem was on the iCloud. I had two options. One was to buy more storage and the second was to back up all my photos onto iTunes, even though all my photos were already on iPhoto.
Later that night I clicked the button that said back up to the computer and the ICloud option shut down. I’m not sure that I want anything on iCloud for now but maybe down the road I’ll pay the extra money. I guess the one advantage is that I can access my photos from anywhere if they’re stored in the cloud.
The bottom line is that I can use my camera again and my Up is working the way it should.
….so far the biggest surprise at school has been how much I enjoy teaching the little ones art
I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical about teaching art to Kindergarten children but it has been very rewarding and so far it’s gone pretty smoothly. It really helps having the ECE teacher with me. There are 29 JK and SK students in that class and without her help I think it would be next to impossible to run the class without chaos.
Our first class involved making ‘dots’ or circles for International Dot Day and we learned a little bit about Wassily Kandinsky and how to use watercolours and oil pastels. In our second class we discussed the different types of lines that artists can use and I introduced Primary Colours. On a large piece of paper the children drew 4 or 5 different lines with black pastels and then using only primary colours painted in the spaces created by the lines.
Their teachers and I think they did a fantastic job. I’m also grateful that the two kindergarten teachers have hung the work for all to enjoy.
…..today’s Daily Prompt
Today, write about anything — but you must write for exactly ten minutes, no more, no less.
Three weeks ago we took our dog, Frances to the vet to have a couple of teeth removed. Two hours later and a bill for almost $800.00 we were informed that the x-ray showed a root floating around in her gums that our vet couldn’t remove so we were advised to see a vet that specialized in dental procedures.
The appointment was made, time off from work arranged and we drove to the hospital this morning. When we got there, in plenty of time for our appointment, we waited for almost an hour and a half before the vet could see us. She looked at the x-rays done by our vet and was a little concerned about the bone structure on the one side of Frances’ jaw but she couldn’t really tell what the problem was and could only make some educated guesses at this point.
When discussing our options, she said that if it were her dog she would probably wait and see and maybe start a course of antibiotics. She left us for a few minutes to write up the estimate if we chose to go the surgery route. When she returned she presented us with the estimate that ranged from $2000. to $2900. The option of going the medication route didn’t come up again.
We asked if we could have a few minutes to go over the numbers before making our decision. The dog wasn’t in any pain, there were no visible signs of stress or inflammation and she seemed content. What to do? $400. for meds or a possible $3000. for surgery?
The 10 minute buzzer just went off. I guess you’ll never know what we decided.
For more Daily Prompts check out Ready, Set, Done.
….the story of a lost dog
I went to the library yesterday to post my last article but lo and behold it wasn’t opened to the public because a private workshop was in session. The group was on a break so the librarian kindly let me go inside and I had just enough time to check my emails and I was able to copy my story to WordPress but I ran out of time before I could add my photos. So I’m afraid that many of my articles will all appear on the same day, either when I return home or sometime later this afternoon if I get back to the library.
My husband and the dog came up on Sunday and left about 30 minutes ago. We had a great few days together, despite losing the dog yesterday. K loves to run and walk through the woods with the dog on the logging trails. He usually does a loop that is about 9k long. Yesterday when he returned the dog wasn’t with him.
Somewhere between the 5 and 6k mark of the trail, Frances was distracted by something she heard in the woods and took off. K called and called her but continued to run figuring she would follow him further down the path. When she didn’t return to the cottage we both got into our cars and drove in different directions looking for her.
My husband drove into the village and I made my way along the logging path. Unfortunately I don’t have 4-wheel drive so I stopped when I came to a very large and deep puddle in the road. There was no way to get around it. I got back onto the main road and found another logging road further away. Again I was hampered by the deep ruts in the road and had to turn around.
Back at the cottage my husband decided to go back to the trail and and backtrack in case Frances followed his scent in the opposite direction. I drove him into the woods as far as my little car would let me, dropped him off and headed out via the main road to the exit at the other end of the trail. K exited without the dog so I drove him further east until we arrived at the next entrance to the trail which headed back to the cottage.
I drove back along the main roads and returned to the cottage. Before heading down our lane I checked out a couple of other lanes that she might have taken, spoke to a couple of women about our missing pooch and then started to head to the end of the trail where K would exit. For some reason I decided to go back to the cottage one more time before meeting my husband. There sitting in front of our door was Frances, completely exhausted and out of breath. I called her to get into the car and we drove off to meet K together.
You can imagine the relief and joy on K’s face when he saw Frances. He wanted to be mad at her but he was overcome with emotion. We figured that K had walked at least 15k that morning and who knows how far Frances ran. The two of them were pretty quiet for the rest of the day. In the late afternoon we all went down to the beach and both K and Frances played in the water. I think the cool water helped both of them recover from their sore and tired muscles.
I think the biggest lesson that we learned that day was that Frances knows her way home. Next time, heaven forbid, we won’t be so panicked looking for her.
Till the next time,
Cheers!
….this week’s answers are sweet and short
Do you prefer shopping or going to a park?
I guess it depends on the park. I do like to shop but going to the park is definitely more relaxing and easier on the pocketbook.
What is the highest score you’ve ever made in bowling? Actual or virtually played.
It’s been awhile since I’ve gone bowling and five pin and ten pin bowling scores would also be different. Sorry, I just don’t recall how I scored. I just know that I’m not the best or the worst.
Name the foreign countries you’ve been to.
The U.S.A., Ireland, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. I need to get out in the world more. Next on the list? Iceland and Italy.
Describe your own outlook on life in seven words or less.
Laugh, love, learn, share, explore, play.
Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?
I’m grateful for spending time with my family, in person and over the airwaves. This week I’m looking forward to going to the Blue Jays game with the school choir. They were chosen to sing the national anthems at Wednesday’s game.
For more Share Your World posts check out Cee’s Photography.
….it should be more than spending one day picking up garbage
Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that we make children aware of their environment and how to keep it clean but maybe we need to be more diligent about making sure that it stays clean so that we don’t need community clean-up days.
For me Earth Day should be about celebrating the wonders of nature and respecting our environment. Nothing burns me more than seeing people dump their garbage from their cars onto the road, sidewalk or parking lot especially when there’s a garbage bin a mere 20 feet away. There’s a sense of entitlement that I find offensive. If you say anything to these people you know you will be accosted with profanity and rude gestures.
Now that the weather has finally turned around we need to get out and breathe in the fresh air and look up, down and all around us and take in what this beautiful world has to offer. Listen to the sounds of the birds and observe the wildlife that inhabits your backyard. Our environment is precious and we need to savour it and protect it.
Mama Cormier 