generosity | Mama Cormier

….being at the cottage makes it difficult to keep up with some of these weekly challenges

If you had your own talk show, who would your first three guests be? (guest can be dead, alive, famous or someone you just know)

There’s always one question that stumps me or makes me hesitate as to how I will answer. This is the one. After giving this some thought I think my three guests would be John F. Kennedy, Meryl Streep and Ray Cattell (my favourite contemporary artist and my girlfriend’s father).

One of Ray’s paintings in my sister’s home.

What can you always be found with?

I always have my camera or iPhone with me.

What is the most fun thing you did in school?

It was probably in art class or home economics. I loved those two subjects in elementary school. In high school, however, the one thing that really stands out for me was our trip to Expo 67 in Montreal. I think it was a three day trip and it was probably my first experience away from home with a school group on an overnight trip.

Photo courtesy of : http://www.westland.net/expo67/aerial.jpg

What’s something you know you do differently than most people?

Writing a blog is something that I do that most of my friends and colleagues don’t do. Whenever I mention that I have a blog a lot of people are intrigued but very few of them actually try to create their own.

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 the company that I have at my cottage. My neighbours are always so generous when it comes to sharing meals. This week my girlfriend’s adult son made me a lovely breakfast of blueberry pancakes and scrambled eggs and later in the day I invited him to my place and we shared BBQ chicken, grilled zucchini and sweet potatoes, steamed broad beans from my daughter’s garden and fresh strawberries and cheese for dessert.

Looking through the trees to my neighbour’s cottage.

Later this week I’m looking forward to spending time with a couple of friends from the city at the cottage. One daughter is coming over for dinner on Friday and on Saturday the other daughter is coming to the house with her brother-in-law to help us clean out the garage and take all the garbage to the city dump.

For more Share Your World posts check out Cee’s site.

….. 3 hours on the picket line, 50 minutes on the elliptical machine and 2k to dinner and back

I tossed and turned in bed last night and had weird dreams about being accosted on the picket line by an angry parent.

None of it happened of course, in fact, the day was surprisingly civil and we were met with a lot of positive support. For those of you who are unaware of what I’m talking about, let me explain. In Ontario today, 30 000 teachers walked off the job for a one day legal strike to protest Bill 115. In a nutshell, this bill has taken away our right to negotiate a new contract with our employer, the school board, and gives the government the power to determine our wages, benefits and working conditions without consultation or discussion. The minister would disagree with this statement but she has predetermined the conditions of these so called negotiations.

This strike is NOT about money. We have said that we are willing to take a pay freeze. It is about losing our democratic rights and the erosion of The Human Rights Code and our Labour Relations laws. If you want to take the time to read the following letter, it explains it much better than I can.

A Letter by a Member of Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario

The media has said over and over again that teachers do not have the support of the public. After today I’m not so sure. Only one car in three hours gave us the thumbs down while dozens more honked in support. We had so many neighbours and parents come by with coffee, tea, water, soup and treats that our little cart was overflowing with the generosity and kindness of the ‘public’.

More food arrived after this picture was taken.

Even on the radio today, the media was extra tough on the Minister of Education by being more persistent in demanding that she answer their questions instead of side stepping the issues with pre-scripted statements that didn’t deal with the issue at hand. They are starting to put some of the blame for this mess into her court and are demanding that she take some responsibility for it.

I went to the gym today after walking for three hours, to work off the one Timbit, three homemade cookies and the 1/2 cup of hot chocolate I ingested. It doesn’t sound like much but when you haven’t eaten these things in a long time it seems like a huge indulgence. The scale shows that my weight is holding steady at a 32 to 34 pound loss.

We decided to go out for dinner tonight because neither of us felt like cooking. We walked to our favourite Indian restaurant and ordered and shared two vegetarian dishes, a plate of rice and an appetizer of chicken kabobs, nicely grilled and seasoned with lime juice. We had water as our beverage. We took the leftovers home and will probably add some of the sauce from the saag paneer to our eggs in the morning and one of us can probably have a light lunch from what’s left over. We walked home briskly after dinner to add about 2 more kilometres to my walking total for the day.

I have another appointment at the gym tomorrow for my last free personal training session and I also have an appointment for one more acupuncture treatment to see if it can alleviate my occasional bouts of dizziness. I’ll share my experience in a future a post.

Cheers!