My WAITING Bag

I remember packing a small suitcase - in readiness - before each of my children was born. It held clothing and toiletries I might need in the hospital, in case we had to rush off quickly and I had no time to pack. (I probably packed another bag with clothing for the baby... for Terry to bring to the hospital the day we brought the new baby home.) Those two bags would have sat there WAITING for weeks, as all three were born well after they were "due"...














These days I have a different kind of WAITING BAG - one packed and ready to grab in case I have to go spend time WAITING. I use it for doctor's appointments or if I expect to spend time sitting in the car for a while. (I'm not the most patient of people - and WAITING is hard for me, if I have nothing to do.) In my teaching days, my WAITING BAG contained file folders crammed with papers to grade - there was always an over-abundance of those! But I no longer teach, so my WAITING BAG contains knitting, a few magazines and sudoku puzzles, as well as a notebook and paper, should I suddenly remember something important when I am sitting and waiting.

My father would have puzzled over the concept of needing something to read while waiting. He would have looked around and noticed things - or started a conversation with someone sitting near him in a waiting area. If nobody were close by, he probably would have moved to sit beside someone. He loved to talk to people. He also knew several languages, and enjoyed practicing them whenever opportunity permitted.

Before long, he would have discovered something in common with the stranger he had just met - and they would be chatting away like old friends.

As a teenager, I found this so embarrassing that I would often sit on the other side of the room. Later on, when he told me about the person he had been talking to... ("Why didn't you come over and join us?") ... I would sometimes wish I had!

Did my father have a curiosity about the world and about people ... that I lack? Or have times changed so much that we no longer view strangers as friends we haven't yet met?

Have I spent so many years warning kids not to talk to strangers that the concept has rubbed off on me, too?! Or did I - long ago - decide to be different from my parents... and the habit has stuck?!

We all need a GOAL

We all need a challenge... and a GOAL!

I recently came across an inspiring story of a young lady whose GOAL is to create a new dress a day (for a year), by up-cycling a used dress she paid no more than $1 for at a garage sale or second-hand shop. Her blog shows the before and after pictures - and her talent amazes me!

But equally interesting - to me - is her reason for undertaking this goal: to get out of a rut. (She had turned 30 and lost her job.)

Inspired by the movie Julie and Julia, where a bored woman cooks her way through a Julia Child cookbook in a year and blogs about it, Marisa decided to do something similar. Choosing something she is good at - restyling clothing - she set her goal (365 Dresses for $365)... in a year. Not only did she give herself a daily challenge that was FUN for her, her blogging about it has inspired others.

In my working life, as a teacher of adults, I was expected to help my students set goals ... and achieve them. I remember attending a workshop where I was informed that - in order to succeed - a goal needs to have 3 characteristics:

• It needs to be achievable.

• It needs to be realistic (for that person).

• And it needs a time limit...

In other words, experts say that an impossible, unrealistic goal with no set time frame will never be achieved.

For most of us, this is true. (Perhaps inventors like Thomas Edison, who created 1093 inventions, don't fit this mold.) But for many of us the "principle" holds: "The amount of time it takes us to do something is the amount of time we have."

So as I reflect on the many things I would like to do in the next dozen or so years - the ones I achieve will probably be the ones that are realistic for me... and that have a time limit.

(The fact that I won't be here forever is probably not specific enough!)

Time to stop wishing and dreaming... and set some concrete GOALS!

Strawberry Jam

It's that wonderful season of strawberries again...














There are only so many strawberry seasons in your life, Barbara Frum, a Canadian broadcaster once commented when asked if she ever dieted.


The good news is... strawberries are good for dieters and non-dieters alike!

I wish I could say the same for strawberry jam... I don't normally use a lot of sugar when cooking, and dumping 7 cups of sugar into 3 3/4 cups of mashed berries does cause me to cringe... But if I don't do it, the jam won't solidify. (I know... I've tried!)

We used to pick our own strawberries Bring a carload of kids to the strawberry patch. Each of us picked at least two baskets... We'd come home with a lot of berries! In those days, I froze containers to eat in winter, and even made freezer jam.














The past few years, we've gone to a farmer's roadside stand... and paid the extra to have someone else pick the berries.

Why don't you make some jam again? Terry suggested... So I did! It was actually pretty easy - since I didn't sterilize the jars. (No need to, as I plan to store the jam in the freezer.)














This is the cooked jam - not the freezer jam - made from the recipe that comes with the pectin.














I don't expect it to stay around all that long... Terry likes it on toast - and even enjoys the runny stuff (that I accidentally made by adding less sugar) as a topping for ice cream!

An Audience... of One

"Success" for a blogger shouldn't be gauged by the number of readers or followers a blog has. A blog can have a tremendous impact - even if it is read by an audience of only one!

This comment - made by well-known blogger, Ann Voskamp, at a Christian Writers' Conference I attended recently - has given me lots of food for thought.

Most of us - bloggers included - see success in terms of LARGER numbers: MORE money earned, MORE friends (even facebook friends), MORE blog readers = MORE SUCCESS.

It is easy to forget that, a rock thrown into the pond spreads ripples farther than that rock will ever go. Likewise an action - or a blog comment - or a person experiencing the action or reflecting on that blog comment - will impact many.

It's a mystery of multiplication reflected in the Jewish proverb: He who saves a life saves the entire world.

Is it too much to say: He who influences one life, influences the entire world?

Blogging, of course, is only one way of impacting others, one small way at that. Everything we do - many things we say - touch those around us, and they, in turn, affect others, and so on... in this ever-changing process called LIFE!

It's Official! (I Can See)

Last December, I had laser eye surgery... To correct astigmatism and near-sightedness, I needed a strong vision correction, so the procedure was more intrusive than most these days. Instead of days, I needed weeks to get clear vision! But finally, two months after the surgery, the optometrist announced that I had 20/20 vision in my right eye - and a little less in my left... (Of course, I now need reading glasses - they had been built into my bifocals when I wore glasses.)

How is life different?! I wake up every morning - and no longer reach for my glasses to see the time on the clock! I can see!! For someone who has worn glasses or contact lenses since I was 9 or 10, this is freedom indeed!!

At that time, I was told I could see well enough to drive again... I was also told that my vision was still in flux to some extent, and that fluctuations could continue for a year... or more...

Hoping that the vision in my left eye would improve, I put off going to the license bureau to get my driver's license changed... (I no longer need corrective lenses to drive!) But what if I didn't pass the vision test?! What would I do then?!

You will pass, the optometrist had assured me. You don't need 20/20 vision to drive! Yours is good enough!

I knew I had to do it... but fear of failing held me back...

Finally, three days ago, I mustered the courage to try!

The clerk at the license bureau was friendly... she asked me to peer into over-sized binoculars...

Read the numbers...

I did.

She switched to another (smaller) set of numbers... Then another. Finally to some flashing lights (to check my peripheral vision...)

Okay, I've changed it, she said. Your new license should arrive in a few weeks...

Really?!! I couldn't stop smiling! I passed the final hurdle: It's official! I can see!!

Skies Around the World

I don't look up often enough... at the amazing sky above my head (like this view that caught my eye in Oakville a few weeks ago).

I have vivid childhood memories of lying on the grass in summer, staring up at the blue Alberta sky, playing games by myself as I watched the changing shapes of the clouds.

I heard about a blog that features skies. (Thanks to Sue, whose gardening blog I follow.)














And I started to take more pictures looking UP!

As I look at all the sky photos - taken around the world - I am surprised at how familiar the sky looks everywhere... Whether over the Philippines or New Zealand, it looks just like the sky over my Canadian home!

The sky is a beautiful gift we all share.

My Mother's Canada Day 2010

Eighty-one years ago (at the age of nine), my mother would have experienced her first Canada Day. Her family had arrived six months earlier, on December 8, 1928, having abandoned the family home (which had been built by my mother's grandfather in 1910) ... and their farmland... Knowing it would be taken by Stalin's Communist Regime - and that, as landowners, their lives would be in jeopardy. The world they knew was crumbling around them.

Friends and neighbors were fleeing. Some managed to immigrate to Canada and the United States. Others fled to Poland and China. Others were sent to work in Siberia.

My mother's family was among the fortunate ones who ended up in a free, democratic country.

What was your first Canada Day like? I ask her.














She shrugs. I don't remember. We lived on a farm (in Alberta), so life was pretty quiet.

Later, when she moved to the city, she remembers parades and multi-cultural parties.














And yesterday, eighty-one and a half years after arriving in Canada, she celebrated at the residence where she lives. There was a barbecue. Many wore red and white - the colors of the Canadian flag...

Tonight on Canada Day, there will be fireworks in the park near her home, visible through some of the windows. I ask her if she will stay up to watch...

I don't know... It's pretty late, she replies.

Everything is so different now!