Let us go then, you and I...

I got an email from a friend today, It was one of those normally circulated as a mass mailing - full of baby photos and cute sayings - but in this case, the email message was just from her to me.

A couple years ago, our once very close and warm friendship seemed to fall apart (although I was never quite sure why), so these lines at the end of the email moved me to tears. I emailed her back immediately to say that I love her always. And now if you'll excuse me, I need another tissue...

Life is too short to wake up with regrets.
So love the people who treat you right..
Forget about the one's who don't.
Believe everything happens for a reason.
If you get a second chance, grab it with both hands.
If it changes your life, let it.
Nobody said life would be easy,
they just promised it would be worth it.

I am giving my mom a homemade card for Mother's Day...something I haven't done for years. I used the following poem (found on this website) and a photo from our March 2006 trip. The photo was taken in the grounds of the Villa Borghese, and is of mom admiring the almond (I think?) blossoms.

God's Masterpiece Is Mother

God took the fragrance of a flower...
The majesty of a tree...
The gentleness of morning dew...
The calm of a quiet sea...
The beauty of the twilight hour...
The soul of a starry night...
The laughter of a rippling brook...
The grace of a bird in flight...
Then God fashioned from these things
A creation like no other,
And when his masterpiece was through
He called it simply - Mother.

- Herbert Farnham

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL MY FELLOW MOMS!!!

So I was doing laundry yesterday and finally had to admit that my dryer has reached the end of its useful life. I "dried" a load of towels for about two hours before finally giving up, taking them out of the dryer, and hanging them up to finish. The next load of laundry - sheets - dried just fine. As did the load of jeans. The load of socks, underwear and other lightweight stuff did not fare so well...again, out it came and was hung all around the house to finish drying. Ok, enough of this crap, I thought. When Dave got home, I said "we need a new dryer". He needed no convincing...he'd done the laundry last week...

Into Leon's we went this morning. We found a great, basic Maytag on sale. Of course there were lots of more (and a few less) expensive dryers, but this has all the settings I need. And it has 7 cubic feet of awesome drying space! Fewer loads are always a bonus in my mind.

A funny thing happened on the way to the store...

I decided it was time for a new stove as well. Our old one is more than 15 years old, the burner pans are disgusting, the burners themselves are loose, the oven was not self-cleaning (and since I work full time, you can imagine how often it was manually cleaned...) so was pretty cruddy. All in all, time for a replacement. Again, Maytag to the rescue. We chose this range, with super capacity oven. I love the smooth top, and the warming burner, and the self cleaning oven, and...

I know, I know...how exciting can new appliances be?? (Clearly I don't have enough excitement in my life if I get this worked up over a new dryer and stove!!) I even took photos, how sad is that...

Continue reading "Ooo, shiny!!!" »

We were looking through old photos recently, enjoying stories and memories of my brother-in-law, Floyd. I came across a couple photos from the March 2000 Halifax show of Blue Rodeo's "the days in between" tour.

Floyd was first cousins with the father of Blue Rodeo's bassist, Bazil Donovan. Often Bazil would send Floyd tickets and, sometimes backstage passes, to the concerts when the band played in Halifax.

Once I'd found these photos, naturally I had to go digging and find the rest of my memorabilia from that night. I'd bought the CD sometime beforehand, and Floyd decided that I MUST have autographs, so he took the CD insert and got all the band members to sign it. ('Cause that's just the kind of guy he was...) Then he introduced me to Jim and Bazil (I say casually, as if we're on a first name basis - ha!) and took a couple photos. As for keeping the ticket stub and back stage pass...I must confess to being a terrible packrat as far as that sort of thing. (I even still have the ticket from my grade 12 prom, for heaven's sake!!)

Continue reading "My brush with fame..." »

Only the patriarch of my backyard clan was out today, but soon the hens (usually two or three) and chicks will make their appearance. Last year, there were at least two different broods - one day I counted thirteen pheasants of various sizes! I even got to watch the older male teaching a young offspring some fighting skills. Very cool.