A New Chapter

Happy Saturday! It’s sunny, but a little too warm for me today, in the resort town of Cobourg.  I’m away on a new adventure tomorrow, so I am blogging today.  Actually, this new adventure--this new chapter of my life--actually started last week.  

Last year, my friend Rev Deb (actually she is Archbishop Deb) told me about a course she was running for the Community Catholic Church of Canada (CCCC).  She is training deacons for her church, which is located in the Niagara area.  As a deacon for the CCCC,  I can perform marriages, funerals and baptisms.  I thought that this was something that I really wanted to do, although I confess that I was partly interested because it might give my books more credibility.

I’m feeling more than that now, although truthfully, I think my calling is to work with the elderly.  I kind of laugh at that because my dearest friend is now 90 and I consider her to be more of a peer.  Perhaps what I am guided to is peer counselling!  Then, that might lead to funerals unfortunately, but that is our circle of life.  There are several seniors’ homes here in Cobourg and I’m hoping that I can connect with elderly there and really get to know them and be of some assistance.

So, I say that the adventure has already begun, because I ended up retired, so I now have the time to put into it, and I have already taken the chaplain course  As a chaplain, once I get my approval from the province, I can do marriages (as well as commitment ceremonies and renewal of vows).  Let the new chapter begin!  My home will be known as St. Anne’s parish of the Community Catholic Church of Canada and my front room will become a chapel.  I’m still working on a name for it.  It’s my reading room and it has my collection of teacups and teapots.  I’m thinking The Tiny Tea Chapel, but that implies that the tea is tiny rather than the room.  I am open to suggestions!

After I am ordained a deacon, which will happen in November, I have the option to go on to be a priest for the CCCC.  I was originally not sure of that next step, but I now understand that if I am not a priest, I cannot bless people, which I believe is important in the ministry of the elderly, that I hope to embark on.  I will decide for sure before the priest course begins in November, but I believe that it is what I want to do.

Tomorrow, I head down to Niagara-on-the-Lake, for our official kick-off.  Most of the course is online, but I will be down there four times in total, including tomorrow and the ordination in November.

I find this pretty exciting as I never believed that IT was my purpose in life, although it did help me pay the bills and raise two lovely daughters.

Well, that’s it for today, folks, as this deacon-to-be is in the midst of laundry!  No matter what our purpose in life is, there are still the everyday chores to do.

God bless all of you in the latest chapters of your lives and I pray that your adventures are satisfying!

Father's Day

Happy Monday everyone!  It’s pretty hot here in the resort town of Cobourg.  We are awaiting a thunderstorm that will bring the temperature down a bit.  It should help my sad looking plants, too!

Yesterday was Father’s Day.  I got to spend some of it with my dad, as did many of my siblings, so it was a great visit. I managed to find an early picture of me and my dad, that I posted on Facebook.  I was really happy to see so many posts as tributes to other folks’ fathers and grandfathers.

For my kids, it’s kind of a day that they pretty much ignore, except to wish my dad (their grandfather) a great day.  If you have followed my blogs, you know that my kids stopped seeing their father when my oldest daughter was in her first year of high school. It was one of the most heartbreaking days I have ever had to experience with my girls.

They came home from dinner with their father and I watched from the window as they broke down into tears as soon as they sadly walked by the front of his car in the driveway.  Obviously, something was wrong.  Alysse came downstairs, where I was waiting for them, and picked up the cordless phone handset.  She paced and looked at the phone, paced and looked at the phone and paced and looked at the phone.  She was so torn and she finally called her father and told him that she couldn’t see him any more.

It broke her heart because she had pretty much dedicated her life to trying to please her father and no matter what she did, it always seemed to be wrong.  I remember her getting on the soccer team and playing in goal. She was so thrilled because her father really loved soccer.  His response was that they only put the worst player in goal.  The negativity was too much.  Despite the fact that she loved her father very much, she could no longer be around him.  This, of course, cut her off from the rest of his family.

I should point out that Kaitlyn, my youngest, never felt the same about her father.  She was only four months old when he left and so they never had the same relationship as Alysse and her father did.  As a matter of fact, it seems that the only reason that Kaitlyn had continued to see her father as long as Alysse did, was to protect Alysse.  Kaitlyn, wise well beyond her years, hated to see how their father broke Alysse’s heart and felt that she needed to be there to help Alysse through those rough times.  Kaitlyn was glad when it was all over.

So, I feel very blessed that I not only have a wonderful dad, but that he is a wonderful role model to my girls, so that they know that there are great fathers out there.  There are many wonderful dads out there and they all deserve to be celebrated!  There are even some really great uncles out there who are loving and caring with their nieces and nephews.  They too, should be celebrated!

God bless all the good and wonderful influencers in children’s lives!  All parents welcome such great caring people in their kids lives.

Have a great week!  God bless all!

Books and Reading

Happy Sunday, everyone!  It’s a little cool here in Cobourg, but I’m loving it.  If the entire summer was like this, it would work for me!

One of my great pleasures is reading. I enjoy writing too, but I absolutely love reading.  I am reading more since my surprise retirement, which is great, but I cannot seem to keep up with my friend Viv!  As Viv reads, she passes on her books to me and I thought I was doing well when I returned six books to her a couple of weeks ago, but she gave me nine more!  Who knew I would be so busy that I couldn’t keep up?

I actually have an entire bookcase dedicated to just the books she has given me to read over the last few years.  I actually have over 150 books of hers waiting for me to get to them!  It will be a few years before I get to my own books to read, that I have been buying, or been given.  But all in due time, I guess.  

Viv has about 130 books stacked up that she hasn’t read yet.  She has been keeping records of what she has read since January 1999.  She has read well over 1,000!  Each book is logged in a notebook, with the title, author, date she read it and a comment about the book.  I have been using Goodreads, at least for the last year or so, I guess, and it keeps track of the same information, as well as the rating I assign.

Viv just turned 90 this year, and although I am hoping that she will be around for another ten years, you never know.  She had a mini stroke last year, but has recovered nicely.  Anyway, I commented to her that she should let her sons know that I have a good chunk of her library is at my house, just in case it matters, when she passes on, but she said that she didn’t think they would care.  So, I guess, that whatever books I don’t get read before she’s gone are mine.  I am hoping that I live long enough to get through them all, as well as my own!

I should point out that although I am not opposed to Kindle or whatever eReader floats your boat, I still kind of prefer the physical book.  I guess it isn’t the best option for reading when you go away on vacation, but I generally pack the lighter books--paperbacks.  And boy, I have a lot of hardcovers.  Since the eReader, the cost of hardcover and even books in general (if you look for the deals), are cheaper than they used to be.  I am even finding that buying books online is cheaper than at the bookstore, too.

Whenever there is a book that I want, I check the prices at Chapters and Amazon for the best deal.  Cavan has free shipping with Amazon, but if I am buying a bunch of books from Chapters, that often doesn’t matter.  Although, I must say, often Amazon has the best price.

And now, for a bit of a plug for my books!  You can find all four at both Amazon and Chapters, by searching on ‘Janet K Warren.’  I noticed that the hardcover version is not yet there for ‘More Animals of the New Testament,’ but I am looking into that.

So, time to get back to reading!  I actually have a reading room, imagine that.

Enjoy your week and may it involve time for reading!  God bless!

Family

Good Sunday afternoon!  Sorry, I didn’t get my butt moving early enough to blog before noon!  It’s a rainy Sunday here in Cobourg and our pitiful grass really needs it!  The weeds, of course are thriving, but the grass needs work.

I’m blogging about family today.  Those of you who follow my blogs know that family means a lot to me.  We don’t get family visiting here much, which is a shame, because we have lots of room and even lots of places for folks to stay over.  It kind of makes me sad that they don’t visit, but I will confess that visitors do exhaust me and I need help with entertaining if folks are here.

Having said all that, it was great to see much of my family at Dad’s a couple of weeks ago.  My sister Linda was in from Vancouver with her lovely little one, so most of us got together there and it was great.  Sally always puts on a great spread and we have a great time catching up.  I was there on the Saturday, when most of us were there and then on the Victoria Day Monday, Alysse and I went in for a visit.  Little Alexandra is a darling and I’m so glad that Linda can make it in to visit so that we can see both of them.

Yesterday, Cavan and I were at his aunt and uncle’s home for a lovely visit (a delicious dinner!) and catch up.  Cavan’s mother, Edna,  was there as well and we brought her back with us, so that we can get her to a doctor’s appointment in the city tomorrow.  She is getting a cortisone shot in her knee that, hopefully, will relieve the pain.  Surgery is out of the question.  With the alzheimer’s, I’m afraid that she wouldn’t recover well as she would forget and get up to walk and land on the floor, possible injuring something else.

I will be back in the city on the Wednesday, visiting with some of my work family that I  have missed seeing since my retirement.  The following Wednesday, I will be attending a semi-annual IT retirees lunch, where I get to have a delightful lunch with those older IT folks from Enbridge (like me!) who have retired.  It will also be great fun!

Well, I guess I had best get upstairs to spend some time with Edna.  I have rhubarb pie to put in the oven and I have a leg of lamb to cook in the oven for dinner!  It’s always nice to have something special when folks visit.

So, I pray that everyone has a blessed and gentle week.  God bless!