Snow Melt and Sunshine ~ 1.

After days of deep freeze paralysis:

Slush splashing by busy cars

Footprints on sidewalks melting away

Leafy autumn debris exposed

Cross-country skiers ski

Joggers jogging

Walkers walking (I was one of them)

Tobogganers tobogganing

And way out on the frozen lake

not succumbed to the sunshine

a family sleds and plays

p.s. - all shapes and sizes of dogs benefited from all this activity.

“Some old-fashioned things like fresh sir and sunshine are hard to beat.”

~ Laura Ingalls Wilder

Unexpectedly

Quite unexpectedly, it’s been a busy morning and into the afternoon. I did have a plan. However, the best laid plans………Getting this post written and posted much earlier would have been preferable. Yesterday, I got out for a walk with a friend ~ good social distancing while we were out. Coffee shops were still open for take out’s only, so we did get coffee. We enjoyed this bit of normalcy. Before setting out, I did point out the Wren’s nest to my friend. It is impossible to see from the sidewalk so we had to approach it carefully by stepping onto the wide lawn, not getting too close has we would have received a severe chittering. 

Today the House Wren is still busy with his construction. Most of it seems to be interior work right now. It’s a bit cloudy and a much cooler day so I wasn’t certain how active the wrens would be. The male hasn’t got his winged supervisor present today ~ at least I haven’t seen her. Only at my desk now for about ten minutes, I suspect I’ve missed many comings and goings. I have seen one of the hummingbirds zip through the shrub. No stopping for a sip of nectar today. 

Why was I busy? Emails to family and friends, texts messaging (also to family), FaceTime (great chat with my son) and ironing. I know that ironing isn’t a preferred activity for many, but I enjoy it for a couple of reasons. It’s actually pretty mindless for tea towels and napkins, but for shirts and pants it actually helps me with focus.Regardless, it slows my very busy brain down. The other reason is that I like the feeling that smoothness gives to a garment. And all the while that I was busy, listening to Michael Enright on the Sunday Edition. All except my FaceTime visit. My last bit? Rice pudding in the slow cooker. I really want some kind of dessert.

All this is trivia but it is so important that we keep a semblance of normalcy in our homes while we are supporting our country with social distancing or any needed social isolation. Watching the birds and squirrels, and sometimes deer is greatly enhanced from a distance. Seeing outside of ourselves to the natural world shows us many lives being lived. Always from a distance. 

Take care everyone!

“I imagine a line, a white line, painted on 

the sand and on the ocean, from me to you.”

Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is 

Illuminated.

*Just as I was finishing up this post, this deer stopped by for a little graze beneath my House Wren bush.

Piano Jazz at Christmas

Christmas music. I’ll admit it. I love most Christmas music. My preferred is smooth piano jazz. Mellow and lovely whether it’s Jingle Bells or White Christmas. I can hear the clip clop of the horse in Jingle Bells. White Christmas shares calmness with visions of a silent snow fall. Even the soaring Hallelujah course almost pales. That magnificent music is reserved for special and more sacred times and venues. But for background music at home, there is none that beats smooth piano jazz. James Taylor or an unknown pianist on YouTube. Both have satisfied my soul, giving me much peace and joy. In a busy family, I’m afraid any music of such delicacy would be lost in the activities of this beautiful holiday season. Baking cookies with the kids or wrapping presents with a fun snowman wrapping paper. Putting up a Christmas tree or decorating with the important pieces of the season. Welcoming friends and guests into your home or last minute grocery shopping. Once the evening quiets, or maybe in the morning before everything gears up, my smooth jazz piano Christmas tunes are an excellent companion.

“Ah, music,” he said, wiping his eyes. “A magic beyond all we do here.”

 J.K.Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Grab Your Calendar and Buckle Up!

As summer falls into autumn

it feels as though I’m about to crash.

An unwelcome crash into a wall of noise and busyness. Crisp, golden leafed weather taking a back seat crammed with food wrappers, water bottles and spilled milk, blankets, extra sweaters and toques unless and until it interferes with active activities planned and gearing up once more for this season of change. 

‘No rest for the wicked’ the old saying cries 

but few of us are wicked at all just good people 

who feel tired before seeming even to have time to think!

“Nothing is so painful to the human mind 

as a great and sudden change.”

~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein

Out on a Limb

Bringing back a schedule seems

rather like a step backwards

unless it is setting it by myself.

Squares on a charming wall

calendar set up chosen activities

with flexible variations depending

on the next right thing

to be done even it is laundry

or paying bills - life’s necessities.

Bringing back a scheduled life

in this seasonal change of retirement 

grants me some control in each day.

“Hard is trying to rebuild yourself, piece by piece, with no instruction book, 

and no clues to where all the important bits are supposed to go.”

~ Nick Hornby, A Long Way Down

Retirement Blues

A summer time shot from a couple of years ago - my goal,

Fourteen days into official retirement Twenty-six days from my last shift,

stepping forward was my choice ~
excited and open hearted until spaces of time when groceries bought for lunches magically appeared;
when the alarm clock no longer goes off
but I awaken on time and early anyway.
To these open spaces that drift past
left unfilled until I learn to stop rushing in my head and 

become comfortable with the tap tap and sway of new
rhythms in life and learning about
  Yesterday’s beliefs
      Today’s activities and
          Tomorrow’s hopes and dreams.

“Sooner or later I’m going to die,

but I’m not going to retire.”

~ Margaret Mead

Gingerbread Showcase 2018 - Victoria, BC

Victorian Noel
created by Karen Peachey

Today, it is blustery and pouring buckets of cold rain from skies gray and foreboding. Saturday, the day I attended two Christmas season fundraisers, was a bit cloudy. A shade warmer but no rain. A good day for a stroll through downtown Victoria. I had already seen the Tuba Christmas, which I posted yesterday morning. I stopped for delicious lunch of gruyere quiche, chocolate dipped oatmeal shortbread and coffee at *Fol Epi about half-way along to see this year’s Gingerbread Showcase. After being warmed and fed, I set out to the annual Gingerbread Showcase held this year at the Parkside Hotel & Spa at 810 Humbolt Street. The Gingerbread Showcase is a fund raiser for Habitat for Humanity.

A West Coast Island Christmas
created by Cari Miller

The Gingerbread Showcase is their ‘premier’  fundraiser and brings together professional and amateur bakers from Vancouver Island. This year there were 25 entries ~ each with their own detail and creativity in edible art. Unfortunately I only have room to show three of them as each of them deserved attention. This year’s theme is ‘There’s No Place Like Home.’ These creations, from humble to grand, whimsical to playful, must meet specific criteria as these are judged by a select group of judges and later on by the public. In a space of 24” x 24”, all components ~ rocks, people, trees, anything included in the setting for the Gingerbread House ~ must be edible to be judged formally.

I have attended other Gingerbread Showcases in the past few years and have always been impressed by the design and execution if these homes. One house (not shown here) was inspired by a family home that had burned down. The bakers created a charming replica of the house, yard and a couple of the family members. Wizard of Oz and Harry Potter inspired Gingerbread homes held the attention of many in the crowd. Sadly, I missed the Harry Potter home due to the interested crowd and the small space accommodating the number of entries. However, this event is held until January 2, 2019 so I must get back to see what I have missed. Choosing my favourite was a task that was very difficult as they were all my favourites until I saw the next one. I don’t remember which one I voted for ~ it may have been the West Coast Island Christmas. But as I said, I missed a couple so I may have missed my ‘favourite’.

The Pawer of RUV created by The Team from
Love of Dogs and Cats Organic Treats

There really is no place like home - a home where there is a real life with laughter, understanding  and tears, home cooked food and music ~ and maybe even the wisdom of a dog or cat. The house doesn’t need to be grand or filled with things. Seeing all these gingerbread homes, is a walk through of all the potential of a home. My wish is for such a home for each of us wherever we have landed in this life.

“Winter is a time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch 

of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.”

~ Edith Stillwell

Qualities of A Sunday

On the ferry home to Victoria tonight

Sunday has a certain special quality that requires regular maintenance. For each of us they will be different. But here are a few that we dedicated ourselves to this Sunday: (‘We’ being Jason and I - Corette took the morning off in gentle repose and Jeff had activities involving hair to cut and a squash tournament to be played.)

1. Up early to enjoy the day
2. Stay in pj’s
3. Watch a movie (today - Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark)
4. Out to breakfast with friends - Dim sum at the Pink Pearl Chinese Restaurant in Vancouver
5. Another movie - (this afternoon - Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom)

In between that very laborious schedule of activities, Jason made cabbage rolls some of which came home with me tonight.  It would have been a great beach day, but there was not enough time between our breakfast and my bus time for my return to Victoria. Nourishment has been my theme this month, and I do believe my shared activities have absolutely fit the bill!

“Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort.”

~ John Ruskin

Signage

Heeding signposts planted along the way is not especially easy when the signposts are internal. Not the ones on the streets and over highways that give us directions, or just the signage that indicates a grocery store, a shopping mall or a gas station. I reference the signposts given us by our grandparents, parents, teachers and mentors, some with gentler or louder voices than others. They have all fed our soul’s inner wisdom, our self esteem, our minds and hearts. It is up to each individual to discern which become positive self talk and which become negative self talk.

There is a particular, more insidious signpost, that can challenge the value of going deeper, not wider. I suppose it could be called self sabotage, but that sounds a little too psychological for my taste today. Two terms come to mind: cabin fever, experienced in long, cold winters, and then there is frugal fatigue. Cabin fever, in my experience, is the result of burrowing deep inside our homes during winter storms. It is full of angst, snappy tempers and just longing for even one spring day - just one! Frugal fatigue seems to be the result of burrowing deeper into what we already have. In Daniel Cain’s blog, at raptitude.com, he discusses our learned need for constant newness. Along with going deeper into what we have, there is a drop in shopping unless it is for groceries, or some article of clothing or shoes that are needed. Shopping is that most treasured of activities our society has come to know and participate in sometimes with wild abandon. There is a fairly high degree of social activity accompanying shopping. It may be a shopping spree with a good friend, but for the most part it is the interactions with other shoppers, the experience of having the hum of other people around and the pleasantries at the till that create this social activity. After all, it is called retail therapy by many participants. 

Frugal fatigue, like cabin fever, can be most disconcerting, even though everyday a quality of richness exists within our homes. So much has been neatly tucked away in a cupboard or closet. Finding a social depth within our communities provide a solution to this unexpected problem.

“…learning to live without regular doses of the little high we get when 

we start something new. If we indulge in it too often, we can 

develop a sort of ‘sweet tooth’ for the feeling of newness itself.”

~ Daniel Cain, raptitude.com 

Turnaround Monday Treasures

Done my day job for a few days
Writing set aside but for diary and blog

Late lunch at James Bay Heron Rock Bistro!

Lots of activity from morning to night!
Walking and talking and laughter and chat

To a huge mall seeking yarn for a project
UpTown Mall is vast and walking was long!

Then back to town to James Bay - hunger growled!
Heron Rock Bistro and a Smoked Salmon Benny with Horseradish Hollandaise more than satisfied that!
To say that I had the best Benny I’ve had would be understated.
A mere, and very delicious, perception of the horseradish
Thin crunchy curls of onion with home fried potatoes…………...but I digress.

A shopping wander through Second Chance Consignment next door
Leaving with Blossom Time china pieces and a fine piece of pottery.

Home for  a short break….hang a Christmas bow glittering green and red on the door…
So exhausted….sigh…….

Then off to the annual Victoria Athletic Club Christmas Party
Members attending bringing food donations for the Food Bank drive.
Catered beautifully by the Grand Pacific Hotel 
Door prizes won by fifteen members - I wasn’t one of them.

Now to bed after such an exhausting day!

“You can either be a victim of the world or an adventurer 

in search of treaure. It all depends on how you view your life.”

~ Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes