Social Media

Happy Sunday! We’re actually seeing some sun here today and it’s great!  We haven’t had much precipitation, snow or even  rain this winter so far, but we do seem to have a lot of cloud cover much of the time.  It’s nice to see the sun today!

I was stumped for a blog topic today, but having had a great conversation about social media last evening, I thought it might be an interesting topic.  I was at an annual get-together at my friend Viv’s place.  Most of us are in the mid to late 50s range, although Viv is 90 and there were a couple of girls in their early 20s. I should point out that Viv does not even own a dryer.  She, as she says, is happy to have a phone and a flashlight.  She does have an LED TV now (because the old TV stopped working), but is happy to not have a computer or smartphone.  She doesn’t need them.

So, the conversation was amongst the rest of us, and many saying they have no interest in social media and do not understand the need for folks to post a picture of their dinner and need instant approval of what they are eating, or even where they are visiting, or whatever.  Many use it simply to keep connected to their family, which was how I got started a few years ago.  The only place I found pictures of my kids was on Facebook.

These days, Dad is even on Facebook, although my stepmother is much better at posting updates of their travels and at least that way, we know they arrived somewhere safely. My youngest daughter took herself out of most social media, because she was bullied through that means in high school.  My oldest daughter uses it for her hair styling business (particularly Instagram), where potential clients can see her work. So, there are lots of uses for it, or you can just ignore all of it.

I actually have a Facebook fan page, which I set up in the hopes of actually selling some of my books, but I now use it to post daily prayers.  I don’t have many followers, only 162 at the moment, but that is up 7 in the last week, so perhaps it is finally really growing, time will tell.

I also have Twitter, where I post mostly Bible quotes, but also other interesting and/or inspiring quotes, although it’s original intent was to sell books too! I also don’t have many followers there, only just over 7,400, but it is growing relatively steadily. This one is up over 100 over the last week, so perhaps this one is also finally really growing too!

I have a Pinterest account as well.  The intent here was also to sell my books (see a pattern here?), but I got pulled in finding all kinds of recipes, crochet patterns and craft and decorating ideas for Christmas.  I also find Bible quotes and great prayers here as well.

I am on Instagram, but I really stumble on this one.  I have never posted anything, but I do like to see what others post.

Goodreads is one of my favorites! Again, the intent was to sell books, but I like that I can keep track of the books that I read.  I even got a report at the end of 2016 that said I read 49 books! Not bad, considering everything else I do. I can get reviews of books I’m going to read, and post my own reviews.

I have LinkedIn, too, of course, but because I’m not looking for a new job, it isn’t of much use, but I do like to see updates from my colleagues.

And, that covers what little I know about social media, which obviously is not much!  I have found my own uses for it, but there so many more uses than what I get out of it!  I pray that if you are out there on social media, that you find it useful.  God bless!

New Projects

Happy Sunday! It started out as a lovely sunny day, but it is quite cloudy now.  I have to go into the city tomorrow and won’t head back home until Tuesday.  Of course, there is a chance of snow.  I do get nervous driving now because the whiteouts between Toronto and here can be really bad.  At least I am travelling during the day both times, so let’s hope for the best.

The farmers’ almanac promised a long, very cold and snowy winter this year.  So far, we have been very fortunate and it has not arrived.  That either means that it has not yet arrived, or perhaps, they are wrong and it won’t arrive at all.  I am praying for the latter.

The good news is that, of course, being home pretty much all winter, I can work on some projects. Reading is my top project, truthfully, because I have so many books to catch up on. I also have reading for my priest course that I am really enjoying.  I have to balance the two, to make sure I finish the books I need to read for my course on time!

As to other projects, there is the usual gathering of tax information, that will require a tidying of my desk and going through all the paperwork on my desk and then getting my spreadsheets together.  That way, when I get all of my receipts, it will be quick to complete and then send in right away if I’m getting a refund, or sit on until the last minute, if I owe them money.

In addition to the office tidy, I have to re-package all the stuff in Rubbermaid containers that I collected from last year’s house purge.  Cavan hasn’t had the garage sale he said he wanted to have (typical, I’m afraid), so I am going to re-organize them into containers, so that I can put lids on them and stack them.  They are driving me crazy right now in the utility room and I have to move them every time I have the furnace maintenance done. Okay, that’s only twice a year, but I also hate having to work my way around them to get to the litter boxes to clean them. If there is no garage sale by this fall, it is all going to charity, which is where I wanted it to go in the first place.

The only other real project I have planned is getting my microphone setup for recording my stories and possibly even prayers as I work a bit more to sell my books. I don’t think I will invest any more money into selling them.  I have vestments to buy this year for my ordination into the priesthood (a new stole and chasuble) and I want to treat myself to a clergy tea dress, to add to my current wardrobe of two clergy shirts.

Other than that, I am hoping to find more places I can help people.  I have one couple that I visit weekly, just to chat.  Community Care Northumberland calls it ’friendly visiting,’ and I hope to take on another one.  I also connected with the Anglican deacon who does a monthly Holy Communion service at the Extendicare here and I have offered to take over for her, as she is hoping to retire. I will also be volunteering at the same facility in whatever capacity, they need me in. I’m leaning toward the palliative care.  We’ll see how it goes.  I also have monthly Accessibility Advisory Committee meetings for the Town of Cobourg, for which I am now vice chair.

I think that’s enough for me to take on now. After my ordination in June, I’ll see what else I can get involved in. I’m a little concerned about over volunteering and wearing myself out, so I’ll work on not offering myself up too often. I mean, I am retired and all.  And I am hoping to get in a couple of bus tours this year. I’ll see if Viv would like to do one and perhaps Cavan will go on one with me too.  There is a nice bus tour that does Kingston and the Thousand Islands, as well as Montreal and Quebec City. I would also like to see the Agawa Canyon. So, we’ll see who would like to join me. I guess I’m working on trying to find a nice mix of volunteering and leisure.

That’s where I’m at folks!  I pray that everyone has a reasonable mix of work and leisure too!  God Bless!

Whole30

Happy Sunday! It’s a beautiful sunny day here in the resort town of Cobourg, although I only got as far as the front step to get the newspaper.  I also got the slow cooker going with a balsamic chicken recipe I found on Pinterest.  Pinterest is a marvelous thing.  I find all kinds of paleo, gluten free and whole30 recipes, plus a ton of craft stuff.  I have used several crochet patterns from there.

But today’s blog is about whole30. I’m sure that I must have blogged about my attempt in November.  I started on November 1st and was doing very well, but then I started to get sick just as I was heading out for my Frankenmuth trip, so my efforts were kind of put aside, while I was wrestling with that long cold.  Then, of course, Christmas was coming and there were lots of get togethers, etc.  So, I set my sights on January.

I asked Cavan if he would do it with me and his response was, “I will say yes, but I probably won’t.” At least he is honest about it.

So, I began on January 2nd. January is a good time because we haven’t got much in the way of eating away from home, so I thought it would be a good time.  So far, so good.  Pinterest, as I mentioned is a great resource for recipes.  That balsamic chicken is cooking away in the slow cooker, as I type!

I think that mostly what I needed was a sugar detox.  Sticking to paleo most of the time, I don’t have refined sugar, but I do use palm sugar, xylitol, honey and maple syrup.  Those are off my list for the moment, but I’m doing okay.  They say not to weigh  yourself until the end, but I did at the beginning and today and I have lost 6.7 pounds!  Not bad for two weeks!

Weight loss wasn’t my main goal this time, although it is a wonderful added bonus!  I just wanted to feel better and I do. I no longer have that heavy, bloated feeling at the end of the day.  I’m still looking for that energy that they say you should have, and I haven’t found it yet, but then, the MS doesn’t get cured with this.

Cavan is eating what I make, so he is kind of on it, but he did buy the shortbread cookies on sale at Bulk Barn and he did buy a lemon meringue pie on sale at M&M’s.  Oh well, perhaps we will try something else that will make a difference. I’ve read a lot about polyphenols and it looks like something that we really should make sure we get lots of in our diet. There are lots of sources, but I think that if we just add some blueberries and pomegranate, it will help, although we are looking for a really good source.

Well, the bottom line is that I’m feeling better, so mission accomplished.  I will stick to it for the next two weeks--it is a 30 day thing after all.  After that, I’ll see.  I may just give it a rest for a few days and try it again, or just stick to the paleo again.  I have a friend who is trying the keto diet with her family. She has one young daughter, not yet in her teens that is overweight and after a week, the daughter is down a couple of pounds, so that is working for her.  I could try that, but it suggests a lot of dairy, which I have trouble with sometimes, and only vegetables grown above the ground.  I would miss my carrots, parsnips and sweet potatoes, but it might be worth the try.

I’m thinking that you need to find what works for you and if I find something that can give me some energy, I’ll probably stick with that.  I haven't found it yet and possibly will never find it and just chalk it up to the MS. Oh well.

So folks, that’s about it for this week.  May you find the diet (or really, lifestyle) that works for you!  God bless!

Unhappy Event

Happy Saturday! I’m taking a break from getting the Christmas decorations put away, so I thought it would be a good time to get to my blog. To me, it is always a sad time to put all the wonderful, colourful decorations away for another year and then we just have a cold and snowy winter to look forward to.  I just want to hibernate!

Today, I write about an unhappy event that I was not ready to document last week, but I can manage now.  Over the holidays, my sweet little cat, Squeaks died.  

Christmas is always a very busy time, with family and such, but it did not escape my notice that Squeaks was failing.  She had been getting thinner for a while, but still tore up the stairs, as she often did, when she wasn’t carrying one of her little stuffed animals from the rec room. She carried these little ones in her teeth, like her own babies and I would often wake to as many as five in the living room in the morning.

Squeaks was still waking me in the morning to put out the food, although she was never a big eater. She was still drinking lots of water and using the litter box.  I paid special attention to that because my daughter was visiting with her dog over Christmas, and while the dog is in the house, my cats stay in my bedroom, with a litterbox in the ensuite bathroom and I always have a water dish in each of our bathrooms.

Now, truthfully, she did not sound like herself on Boxing Day. I had thought about taking her to the vet before, but she hadn’t been outside the house, except on the back deck, since we had moved in the house and hadn’t seen the vet since she had been fixed. Squeaks was my cat and frightened of most people who came to the house, so I was afraid that taking her to the vet would worsen whatever was wrong.  She was over 15 years old, which is relatively old for a cat. About 78, in people years I understand, so I was thinking that age was the greatest issue.

The day after Boxing Day, Cavan had work in Sudbury, so I wanted to drive with him, because the weather can be pretty bad between here and there.  We were only going overnight.  When we returned the next evening.  I had to go through the house to find her.  I found her in the front room, which is kind of a chapel now.  She was dead behind one of the chairs.  It was awful.  I felt so bad that I hadn’t been with her when she passed.  I had been with both my other cats when they died.  One was an assisted death, the other was not.

We put her in the cold garage for overnight and I called the local vet to arrange cremation.  Of my two previous cats, one was buried in the backyard that he loved to prowl and one was cremated and buried above him because she also liked to wander the yard.  The two cats I have now, well, Squeaks and Jett, have always been inside cats, so cremation and an urn to keep in the house make the most sense.

Oddly enough, this is what gave me an idea for my ministry.  If I can manage to bury my own feelings, I could do pet funerals.  I’m giving it some thought.  I’ll ask the vet if we have anyone in Cobourg who does it now and think about it. Until I become a priest in June, I don’t have the authority to bless living things, but I can do funerals.

So, dear friends, I have now lost three dear pets in my life and I pray for your recovery, if you have lost any of yours.  It is a trying time.  The oddest things will bring tears, I’m afraid.

Blessings be upon you all, in whatever your challenges are.

Happy New Year!

Happy Sunday and prayers for a wonderful and prosperous new year to all! Here we are beginning yet another new year.  A clean slate! A new page! Out with the old and in with the new! Get all those new year’s resolutions ready and try to keep some of them!

It has been such a busy time for me that I haven’t even thought about new year’s resolutions.  I plan to get back to the Whole30 diet tomorrow.  Not so much to lose weight, although that is a wonderful side effect, but because I just feel like crap when I eat crap. I don’t remember if I blogged about my Whole30 attempt back in November or not.  I followed it carefully for two weeks and then got that terrible cold that was going around.  Plus, I also had my Frankenmuth trip and it was not impossible to follow then, but it was a challenge.

I will say that I did lose 6 pounds during those 2 weeks, so it was obviously getting a lot of crap out of my system.

I have no trips or anything planned this month, so this should be a good time to get back to it.  If anyone else is interested in giving it a try, just do search for whole30 out there on the web and you will find all kinds of resources.  I can tell you that I was never hungry, I had lots to eat and I never once felt deprived.  It’s pretty easy to stick to and if you are already into the paleo lifestyle, it just adds a few new twists, like not allowing ANY sugar substitutes.  So, no honey, no coconut palm sugar, no maple sugar…

I think that the sugar detox is what I need the most. Especially after Christmas, since I wasn’t even sticking to paleo.  I also know that I feel much better when I stay away from the grains, especially wheat.

I also got away from the exercise in December, so my body is feeling that.  I do have a great chiropractor and massage therapist and between the two, they keep me upright, when my MS seems to want me to lean to one side.  The exercise also helps with that.  Nothing crazy, because I can’t even get up the stairs if I go too strenuous, but I like the T-Zone and then the yoga and stretches

So, it seems that I do have some new year’s resolutions, or at least one that is really to get back on track and feel better.  I have almost finished the Hospice and Palliative Care course and I have the priest course to continue.  Lots on the horizon, which means that I expect that this year will fly by as well.

I want to again wish everyone a wonderful and prosperous new year!  Stay safe and may God bless you and your family.