The Theatre!

Happy Saturday!  It looks like a nice day out there, but I have laundry and other indoor chores to do, so I’m inside regardless of the weather.  I’m hoping for a nice day tomorrow, as I travel with a friend to Niagara-on-the-Lake to see a show!  For the moment it is suggesting rain, but hopefully that will change tomorrow.

When I was in high school, I had the opportunity to travel from Pembroke, where we were living, to Ottawa for a really nice dinner and live theatre.  Oddly enough, I don’t remember the show we saw.  I was with a friend and her parents.  I do remember what the father called a driver that nearly hit him, though, as my father wouldn’t have said such a thing if his hair was on fire!

Anyway, the event had me hooked on seeing live theatre and wherever I lived after I was on my own, I tried to get out to at least one show a year.  I took my daughters to see their first live show, ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ when my youngest was three years old.  They loved it and we have seen many shows in the just over twenty years since then.

Sometimes I take both of the girls to a show and sometimes only one.  Interestingly enough, we mostly see musicals, which all three of us love.  They were only about eight and ten, when we were visiting a cousin, who suggested that we watch a video before dinner and my kids bypassed the kids videos, to watch ‘Seven Brides for Seven Brothers!’  We had it at home, of course, and it is still one of our favorites.  One of their other favorites is ‘Oliver!’, which has great music, although it is, in some places in the play, very dark and sad.  I have no idea how many shows we have seen together over the years.

I also like to get out to see shows with my friend Viv.  We were in Stratford for ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ earlier this year and will be in Niagara-on-the-Lake to see ‘Engaged’ tomorrow.  Last year, we saw two shows in Niagara-on-the-Lake and one in Toronto.

Cavan and I also get to a few shows.  Annually, we go to the naughty panto in Port Hope.  It isn’t an outstanding show, but it is pretty funny.  Cavan and I also try to get to the dinner theatre here in Cobourg.  We saw ‘Harvey’ there last year and it was really well done and the buffet was delicious as always!

Last year, Sally and Dad took Cavan and I to a show in Gananoque.  It is a lovely little theatre right on Lake Ontario and we had a lovely lunch and a great time at the show.

When I go on cruises, I love to see the shows there.

So, take in some local live theatre, or stretch your horizons and get to Niagara-on-the-Lake, or Stratford, or any city near you!  You will be glad you did!

Well, folks, that is it for today.  Back to laundry and other chores, including packing for tomorrow.

God bless you all!

Prayer

Happy Sunday everyone!  It’s a lovely day here in the resort town of Cobourg, but alas, I have no energy to go out and enjoy it.  I sit here in my nice cool basement office willing my fingers to obey me on the keyboard.  

I have just finished reading the book ‘Still Alice.’  I had seen the movie too and for those of you who have not, it’s about a woman who, at the age of only 50, is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's. There are many diseases in this world, but for those of us who have worked with our intellect all our lives, it has to be the toughest.  I don’t actually know anyone with the early onset form of the disease, but I do know several who have had, or have Alzheimer’s.

Cavan’s mother has it, as did his paternal grandmother. So he has it on both sides of his family.  It takes a lot of patience to deal with it, for both the caregiver and the patient.  I was very close to a great aunt who dealt with it.  She would pop in and out of time spaces.  When she was in the past, I didn’t exist and she called my father Harry, who was her brother (my father’s father).  It was very interesting to deal with.

If you ever get the chance to see the movie ‘Away from Her,’ it is worth the watch.  It is also about Alzheimer’s.  A very well done movie that tackles the issues of someone put into a care home for it, and the poor husband who has to deal with it.

Whether it is Alzheimer’s, like my mother-in-law, Huntington’s, like my sister, MS, like me, celiac, like my brother, or any number of other diseases out there, there are medications, or avoidance of foods, or simply rest that is prescribed, but the only assistance I am qualified to offer is prayer.  I will be honest in saying that I don’t pray for a cure, perhaps I should, although to be honest, even if one was found today for any of those diseases, it would be years before it was viable for anyone with the diagnosis.  I simply pray for a gentle journey.  Most of the diseases listed are at least somewhat unpredictable, so, if the journey is at least gentle, perhaps the suffering on both sides will be minimized at least a bit.

Prayer to me is almost like breathing.  It is part of my life and has been for many years.  I have said a lot of prayers for my daughters over the years and must confess that I have said few for myself, except to ask for forgiveness.  Like all Christians, I know that I am not perfect and have lots to ask forgiveness for.  I have discovered over the years, though, that some of the things I needed forgiveness for, were not done out of spite and were sometimes even caused by my rather sarcastic humor.  I do need to keep that in check!

So, this is a rather short blog, for which I do ask forgiveness, but I seem to have over-challenged myself, which has resulted in my fingers not wishing to cooperate.  It’s a wonder the backspace key isn’t worn right down on this keyboard!  Ah well, perhaps one of my many blessings…….

I thank everyone for visiting my blog and I pray that all of your journeys are gentle. God bless!

Lazy Ass

Happy Tuesday!  It’s a rainy one here in the resort town of Cobourg and only the second decent rainy day we have had since the beginning of summer.  The grass and  plants are very happy, although at least we did keep up with watering the plants.  The grass, not so much, and it is pretty much dead I’m afraid.

I don’t really have a planned topic for this rather late blog.  I was in the city Sunday and Monday, so I didn’t get to my blog until now.  I was also rather neglectful of my daily prayers on my Facebook ‘fan’ page.  I will confess that I do not have many fans anyway, so perhaps it wasn’t really missed.  I have only about 130 fans (I know, pretty sad, right?).  On Twitter, however, I now have about 6,720 followers!  Wahoo, who knew an old gal like me could do that?  I am actually getting a lot of retweets.  Most of what I tweet is Bible and other inspirational quotes.  I will also confess that although I have never bought any followers, I have invested money in a company that tweets about my books.  I haven’t seen any real results (translation:  book sales) yet, but it has only been a couple of weeks.  I’ll at least give it a couple of months.

Since I mentioned that I was in the city, I shall enlighten you on why I was there!  The Sunday was spent at my oldest daughter, Alysse’s place.  We had a baby shower for her step-sister, Victoria.  Please note that Victoria is not related to me, but since she is kind of disowned, I do my best to let her know that we care about her.  My youngest daughter Kaitlyn was able to join us as well.  Alysse cooked up some delicious food--lamb meatballs, cassava, sweet potato and bacon perogies, bacon wrapped chicken, etc.  A paleo delight!  Victoria was thrilled with her gifts and I went at least partly practical with a big box of diapers and a big box of baby wipes.  We also got some lovely little outfits.  Shavoy, the baby daddy was thrilled with the little camouflage outfits and they both loved the tuxedo sleeper.  We also got tiny socks and little blanket and stuff.  The little boy is due on September 4th.

Yesterday, I spent with my friend Viv.  We got some errands run--picking up a prescription, banking, mailing a letter, purchasing a new mixer and even had lunch out. It was a lovely visit.  Oh yes, we also went to see the movie Florence Foster Jenkins, which we really enjoyed. I think I’ll try to get in to see Viv at least once a month--perhaps even twice--to help her get thing like that done.  Especially at Christmas.  At 90, she still takes the bus and subway, but I think I would rather help her take care of these things.

Well, I didn’t have a topic for this entry because I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go with it.  Basically, I guess it was just an update of what I did.  Hm, that’s not very exciting.  Perhaps I need to think about what I really want my focus to be now that I am retired.  I’m sure that many of you have heard that if you want something done, give it to a busy person.  I know that to be true.  When I was busy, I had to schedule time for those requests.  Now that I have tons of time on my hands, I still need to schedule things, or they don’t get done.  Truly, my house should be spotless and there should be no chores on the list.  But alas, it is too easy to just put off to tomorrow, what I don’t feel like doing today.  

Yup, I’ve turned into a lazy ass. In my defence, and this is pretty lame, I am feeling the fatigue of my MS even more since I retired, than I did before. We had family over for barbeques, only nine people on a Thursday and then nine more on the Saturday and I was pretty much useless for much of last week.  How sad is that? I guess that I should be thankful that I managed to work fulltime for more than 20 years after my diagnosis.  It seems to be much more than most people get.  Perhaps I have just earned a restful retirement?  But then it is strange to go from being so busy to not doing much.  Then again, my body may be reminding me that that is exactly what I am supposed to do.

So, I am at the end of my musings.  I pray that everyone has a gentle week and that the rain revives my very neglected grass.  God bless!

The Grill Master

Happy Monday everyone! It’s a really nice day here in the resort town of Cobourg.  Today I know, not just because of the Weather Network info, but I was actually outside watering the plants out the front of my place and it was really lovely out.

Over the last few days, we had two barbeque events at our house.  One on Thursday for part of Cavan’s family and one on Saturday for part of my family.  It is so hard to get everyone together, especially once the kids are old enough to work! Of course, there is also the fact that folks are spread out and it is quite a distance to travel.  Well, we do what we can!

This blog is about Cavan, the Grill Master!  He has spent some time perfecting his craft and now even makes his own rub and sauce, although I am going to try my hand at paleo and celiac versions.  There won’t be much of a change.  I need to replace the brown sugar in the rub (likely with coconut palm sugar) and the ketchup in the sauce with a homemade paleo version, so that I am certain of the ingredients.

As to the actual grilling, Cavan has mastered that, for sure.  I should point out that we have a Napoleon barbeque that we have had for a number of years.  The Napoleon barbeques are a little pricy, but worth it!  They are well made and really last.  I think we replaced pretty much every other barbeque we had after only about five years.  We also own a Kamado smoker.  It is cheaper than the Big Green Egg, but it is truly amazing. Cavan has even smoked turkeys with that smoker!

Shortly, we will be the proud owner of a new smoker that will give him more room.  The Kamado, which is shaped like the Big Green Egg, doesn’t hold much more than about four full racks of ribs, so if you want to smoke chicken, or anything else at the same time as ribs or whatever, you are out of luck.  We just use the regular barbeque, rather than smoking the chicken. Or whatever we want to add.  I should point out that we will not be getting rid of the Kamado.  It is a fixture on our deck!

So, let’s get to the ‘meat’ of this blog.  Cavan put on a ten pound pork shoulder the Wednesday night to smoke for pulled pork.  It was amazing.  He also barbequed chicken. So, he looked after the carnivore part of the menu and I put together some salads for the herbivore part of the menu.  For our Saturday guests, we heated up the pulled pork and Cavan smoked three full racks of ribs.  The ribs only take about five hours. Everyone loved the food.  Again I prepared a couple of salads.

We are now planning a barbeque with our neighbours.  I need a week or two to rest up, as I am really exhausted from having the other two barbeques close together, but I wouldn’t change a thing!  I was so glad to have family visit!

Well, that’s it for now, folks.  I pray that everyone has a blessed week.  God bless you all!

One Step Closer

Happy Monday everyone! It’s a sunshiny day here in the resort town of Cobourg, but a bit warmer than I like it outside.  For those of us who work in Canada, it’s a holiday Monday and for those of us who are retired, it’s just another day.

This is one of those days that is a day off, different in every province.  For our friends and family in British Columbia, it is British Columbia Day, in Ontario, Saskatchewan, the Northwest Territories and Prince Edward Island, it is Civic/Provincial Day. it’s Heritage Day in Alberta, Natal Day in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick Day in New Brunswick and Terry Fox Day in Manitoba.  Most people probably don’t know that and truthfully, I just got it from my Google calendar.  The Yukon, Quebec and Nunavut were not mentioned, so perhaps I was wrong is saying that it was a holiday across Canada.

Anyway…………………

The title of this blog is ‘One Step Closer.’ I received this week, the confirmation from the province that I can now officiate at weddings!  My training to become a deacon continues, but this is the first step.  I’m kind of excited!  My dad recently married his girlfriend Sally and I had to kid him a bit that he didn’t wait until I could do the ceremony.  Oh well, they wanted a small ceremony and since Sally’s family is mostly in Australia, it made sense for them to elope and let us all know after the fact.  I am very happy for them.  They are really good for each other and it makes me happy to know that they are there for each other.

In thinking about a chapel in my house, I had planned to somehow set up my front room.  This ended up happening sooner than expected because the lovely Tiffany style cat lamp fell when I was returning it to its place after I washed the sheers in that room and returned them to the windows. The fall took a chunk out of the back of the lamp that couldn’t be fixed, to I had to move the side table it was sitting on, along with the lamp itself to the other side of the room, so that the hole in it was against the wall.

The good news is that I now have my gate leg table in front of the window with a tablecloth on it, so I have my altar already in place with two lovely candlesticks and candles.  I think it looks lovely.

That means that I am pretty much ready to do weddings, affirmation of vows and even handfasting, which is new to me.  Of course I can even go to other locations to perform ceremonies.  Having said all that, I still think that my place will be more likely working with seniors than doing weddings.

As to working with seniors, I am trying to get the organization ‘Seniors for Seniors’ to stretch out here to Northumberland County.  I would love to work as a companion to a senior for a few hours a week.  I found a similar company that does work out here.  Their scope is much bigger and includes anyone working with not only seniors, but children and others.  I put my application in anyway, offering to do as many as four afternoons a week and got referred to a couple looking for someone full time to do cooking, cleaning, bathing, etc.  I am not capable of all that.  I don’t complain about my MS much, but I am not physically capable of working full days much less assisting someone to get into and out of a tub!  Not to mention that I cannot even keep my own house clean!

I shall wait until the right opportunity comes. I’m sure that it will and at the right time.  In the meantime, there are books to be read!

So, dear friends, stay well, keep hydrated, enjoy August and God bless!