Creativity has to be a labor of love!

One of my mother's sisters, Lydia, decided to make an afghan for each of her nieces, which is how I happened to have this cozy blanket:













It is used daily, except in hottest summer weather, by anyone lying on the couch, watching TV.

Aunt Lydia didn't ask what color I wanted it - she chose the colors and design herself - because, as she said, if she didn't enjoy making it, it wasn't really a labor of love.

She had apparently once tried to make an afghan in colors chosen by someone else and had a hard time finishing it - the colors didn't resonate well with her.

I smiled and nodded when she told me this, but I didn't know what she meant. I had never experienced "negative-color-emotion" in any creative project up to that point. (Yes, I'm making up this term - I really don't know what else to call it!)

But I've discovered recently how hard it is to work with colors and designs that don't excite me. Creativity has to give the artist/creator joy. When the element of joy is missing, it's hard to keep going.

I have been having a hard time finishing a certain quilt I started about a year ago. Here are the blocks laid out on the floor. I'm really trying to finish it.

The fabric designs and colors just aren't ME - they are someone else's choice. Perhaps in the end, I'll like it - maybe even love it!














But for now, it's a chore, not a labor of love...

I used to be WITH IT but then they changed what IT was...

"I used to be WITH IT, but then they changed what IT was..." (my favorite quote from the Simpsons) describes how I often feel these days when talking to my 20-something-year-old kids. Their reality and my reality are so very different.

My online-poker-playing son recently showed me a poker web site where players look like characters in 3D video games... As I watched my son's 3D character play poker at my son's bidding, the thought crossed my mind: Is it easier to play (winning - but more often losing money) when it it a video game character doing it? But I didn't ask...

Another of my kids recently told me of a sermon he had heard in church (though he called it a speech, not a sermon) where he could finally relate to what was being said. The young minister had apparently used a baseball game, a recent movie and a video game to illustrate a passage of scripture. Would I have understood his main point? I wondered...

When I was younger, I definitely didn't think my parents and grandparents were WITH IT! Did it bother them, as it sometimes bothers me now?

I remember at 15 talking to my grandmother about lipstick and nail polish - GOOD GIRLS didn't wear either, in her opinion. In fact, she confided to me - if anyone wore face powder, back in her youth, the women in the community gossiped about her! I remember laughing - and feeling sorry for any girl who had wanted to hide her acne. Did my laughter bother my grandmother? Did she feel sad that she was no longer WITH IT? Or was she glad things had been different back in her day?

I have a friend who will soon be 91 years old - and she still works one day a week in the same office (for the same boss) she has worked for, for the past 40 or so years. They are both slowing down - and there is a younger girl in the office who works on the computer - but my friend still takes dictation and types letters for her boss to sign... My friend loves to keep active - and her hair style and clothing are as WITH IT as any young office worker's!

What does it take to remain WITH IT? I suspect it involves keeping active and not taking it personally when life as we know it (and, let's face it, as we love it) does change.

I guess that's one thing I appreciate about having kids - they keep me informed of the ways in which I'm no longer WITH IT.

But I really hope I will remain open-minded enough to value life as they know it, even when it bears no resemblance to anything I have ever experienced or known ...

It always tastes better outdoors...

Now that warm, sunny weather is here, I have begun to eat my breakfast outdoors. The street is peaceful and quiet early in the morning - and I enjoy the fresh air...

But one "danger" lurks in my little paradise - squirrels. They won't come near if I'm sitting on the deck, but should I go in to refill my coffee cup, they would quickly jump up on the table and dig into my food.














That is what happened one summer when I put a fresh-from-the-oven birthday cake on the picnic table to cool. (I was trying to avoid heating up the house on a hot day.)

I thought it would be safe - too hot for the squirrels to touch - but I was wrong! A minute or two later, I looked out again and the still-warm cake was a quarter gone. A squirrel had his tiny hands in the pan - even though the cake was still steaming!

That taught a lesson: Now if I want to avoid heating up the house, I cool cakes by putting them in the car - with the windows rolled up and the doors shut!

A House Full of Books is Not a Lonely Place...

Our house is full of books - as I have a hard time giving any away. Books, to me, are a little like food - my cupboards would seem bare if I didn't have a few shelves of books in sight.

I remember once, as a child, visiting relatives on a rainy weekend. I scoured the house for something to do, and discovered a shelf of books. I began to read one by Emil Zola, an author I had never heard of. The memory of that cozy afternoon, spent reading in an upstairs bedroom, is with me still.

Reading was a pleasure that was encouraged in our home - though sometimes visiting relatives saw my love of reading as "laziness." I probably avoided a lot of housework by reading, but I didn't read (I don't think) to avoid doing housework! Every weekend, I would read two novels: one on Saturday, one on Sunday. It may have been a kind of imaginative escapism - but it also served to broaden my world.

I don't lie on the bed reading for hours anymore, like I did as a child. (My back would probably give out if I tried!) And I rarely read novels anymore either. The last time I got caught up in one was last fall when I started to read Water For Elephants, a fascinating story about an old man in a nursing home reliving his life as a circus veterinarian. I highly recommend it!

The kinds of books I enjoy now are memoirs - where people share stories of their lives. These days, I find fact more fascinating than fiction. The Crosswicks Journals of Madeleine L'Engle are an example, or the memoirs of Anne Lamott. It usually takes me a few months to finish one of those books, and I'm always sad when the book comes to an end (which may be why I have so many unfinished books on my bedside table.) The memoirs I enjoy reading give me the feeling that I'm having a little visit with the author, who is telling me about some of the things he or she has done. My world is a richer, happier place after the "visit."

Books I read nowadays usually have the potential to change me, or at least to make me see life in a slightly different way. And I find it easier to read books with short chapters - with a few thoughts that I can later reflect on.

When I look back, I can only remember one time when books weren't part of my life. For about 4 months after my first year at university, I didn't even want to look at a book! Then about five months later, I walked into a public library - I was ready to read again!

(I don't remember what I did in my free time that summer -I think I kept busy knitting.)

Reading is probably one of the greatest pleasures of my life - I have visited so many interesting places and met so many fascinating people ... through their books!

10 fruits and veggies every day?!

I read the other day - in the Ottawa Citizen newspaper - that we should be eating 10 servings of fruit and vegetables a day...

A day?!!

Is that the goal I should be striving for?

Several years ago, after being told that my blood sugar was too high and my good cholesterol too low, I asked my doctor - What can I do to improve things?

His immediate reply was: Eat more vegetables!

It was then that I started to notice how much I preferred carbs to veggies, how often I reached for a few cookies or a piece of cake - and not for carrots or an apple - when I wanted a snack.

So I am trying to mend my ways...

This morning I added an apple to my normal breakfast of bread, jam and cheddar cheese.

My lunch? Cottage cheese with cucumber, tiny tomatoes, blueberries mixed into yogurt on top of a bowl of sliced pears. That makes 3 1/2 servings, plus my breakfast apple - a total of 4 1/2 servings!


What can I eat to get another 5 1/2 servings into my day?!!

I'm not sure, but I'm going to try... Maybe, like my mother, I'll have to carry around a score card and keep track. Only she writes down how many steps she takes (aiming for 10,000 a day) plus how much water she drinks. (Here she tries for 8 to 12 glasses!)

Her goal is to become one of the few dozen 100-year-old retired teachers in the country.

My goal is a little different: I would be happy just to have "normal" blood-sugar and cholesterol again...

Feels like summer is here...

Today - for the first time - it has felt like summer...














Flowers are beginning to bloom - here are some small irises in my front garden bed.














I love hostas! They look so elegant. Mine have now opened their leaves.














Open windows bring in sunshine and a warm June breeze.














Sitting indoors, looking past the potted flowers to the green grass outside - I am reminded of those lazy days of my childhood when I had nothing better to do than to read and relax... and dream!

Hello June!

The month of May was stressful for me... I had to empty my mother's apartment by the end of the month - and there were heavy items I didn't know what to do with, things I have no room for - or use for - in my own home. I wanted them to go to people who would appreciate them.

So my blood sugar went up (stress does that, I guess) and I woke up nights in a panic... (I'm the worrying type when things are beyond my control.)

Eventually my frantic prayers were answered! Last week, I found a young lover of music who was delighted to have my parents' organ. Another friend needed a micro-wave oven...

Eventually the whole place was cleared on time, before midnight May 31.














Yesterday I handed in the keys, marking the end of an era in my mother's life - an era of almost 7 years when she lived in this apartment building, her first in Ottawa, before downsizing into active retirement-home living, where she is so busy, it's hard to find her in her room. She signs up for almost every activity going!

Yesterday's rain, for example, postponed a planned picnic till today - so she was looking forward to that. She also loves the daily exercise class and musical singalongs in the lounge.

So life has, in many respects, improved for her: no more housework or meal preparation. She has new friends, more activities, fewer aches and pains.

And for me, the burden of emptying her apartment has lifted.

So GOOD-BYE, May - and HELLO June. I'm looking forward to getting my life back to normal again!