Go to the Water

When I was a little girl, I had my life plan all organized. I would become a Grade 1 teacher just like Miss Burke. I would get married and work for two years, then start a family and have four kids: a girl, a boy, a girl and lastly another boy. Their names would all start with the letter "A".  I would become a stay-at-home mom with the four kids, and never work another teaching day in my life. I am sure I ended my plans with "live happily ever after".  Now isn't that just the sweetest little girl's look on life.     I love my conversations with my friends. When they talk about people I don't know, I feel like I do once they are done sharing. During one of those conversations, my friend told me something I found very interesting about a couple that she knew. This couple have always had a life plan, and have always followed it. My question to her was "all of their lives together", because I was pretty sure she meant retirement only. I was wrong, ...

I have now become a daytime TV watcher, or should I say more of a TV listener.  Twice in one day I heard the talk show hosts say, "it's a lost art". Is it a lost art or is it better defined as, "things we used to do".  Maybe, in today's world the following lost arts aren't deemed necessary.                                             Let's start with the simple act of a "Thank you" for a gift or an act of kindness.  The way I look at it is: if I do something for someone it is not to receive a Thank-you, I did it because I wanted to.  If I receive a Thank you, that's bonus.  I always extend a thank-you when I am on the receiving end of someone's kindness. To me it is just wrong not to show them how much it meant to me. But, if I give a gift for a special occasion, I do expect a response of some sort.  We all remember writing out individual thank...

If I was to ask you, "what do you remember, your biggest success or an epic failure?" Some people will find that question easy to answer, others will not have a response. I am not sure I can even answer my own question.  The one thing I do know in regards to my life, some of my biggest lessons were learned from my epic failures.     Once again, I am going to refer to Rachel Hollis.  She said, "don't be afraid of failure, be afraid of never achieving anything because you were  afraid of what others might think of you if you failed". To her a  dream is something you hope for in your life.  A goal is a dream with work boots on.  She believes everyone should have a goal.  Having something to work towards gives us purpose.                                           This is perhaps the most famous quote by Wayne Gretzky. It can be ...

                                                 What profound yet simple words to live by. Go outside at least once a day, drink lots of water even when you aren't thirsty, move about, rest when your body says rest and eat when your body says it's hungry. In other words, listen to your body.  Most families are structured to eat three meals a day and snacks when necessary. Farm life meant that mealtimes were breakfast upon rising, 12:00 for dinner as it was called and 6:00 for supper.  Each meal was a substantial meal to say the least, including a dessert and often fresh bread. How on earth wasn't everyone morbidly obese?  Hard manual work certainly saved them, as well as most of the food was made and grown on the farm.  I believe that most families come together for an evening meal.  Breakfast has shifted from traditional cereal and toast...

The last Canadian census was taken in 2021, and it revealed that there were 9,545 Centenarians in Canada.  That number had grown from 1971, when there was only 1,065 Canadians that were 100 years or older. Of the current number of centenarians,  7,715 of them are women.  All of the information points to the fact that all over the world, women live longer than men.  Historically men worked themselves into an early grave.  They put extra stress on their bodies by working in a mine or ploughing the land with horses. Currently, more men have sedentary jobs, but it doesn't seem to change the result that women continue to have longer lives than men.  A fun fact comes from Sweden which has the best historic records. In 1800, the life span for women was 33 years and 31 for men. Today it is 83.5 years for women and 79.5 for men.                                        ...

                                        Early on Easter Monday, I was finishing a blog that I planned to post today. Not sure what happened but somehow, the screen went all blue and then all my words were gone into cyberspace, never to be seen again.  Because I am a believer in that all things happen for a reason, I collected myself and thought let's talk about something else. I decided it would be about spring.  The reason for the "spring" topic was because as I was writing I noticed that  Robins had returned to my patio.  They flitted from eave trough to eave through. Since there is still a massive amount of snow on the ground, I wasn't expecting them.  The reason that they return to my patio is a few years ago, a family was born in one of my hanging flowerpots.  I feel the Robins are descendants of that birth. The story goes like this, one day I ...