Tag Archives: memories

Whew!

06 Saturday Dec 2025

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Close call! I had jammed my middle finger nail just enough yesterday that the biogel layer actually fractured. I couldn’t feel them through the top coat and my own nail underneath stayed put but I knew I’d have to get it repaired… assuming sometime this coming week. NOPE! And it was my wonderful Anna in Waterloo who had done my Christmas nails with Rudolph once more! So I’m out shopping with mom this morning and I took my glove off and went… oh crap! The fractures had completely broke. I had intended on stopping by the local nail salon anyway to see if they could fix it but now it was urgent. They were able to get me in and Rudolph, once again, is back, ready to lead the way on Christmas Eve!

Mom and dad are coming over tonight just for cake and ice cream since it’s dad’s 75th birthday! How did we ALL get so old? I know you’re only as old as you feel (mentally, ha ha) but some of those milestones strike a little harder than others! So let’s move on to the prompts shall we?

Gratitude for the Past Year today is An ordinary object or item you got that made life easier… my fat pens! They have been a game changer. I wish I could get pencils equally as fat but nobody seems to make them yet. I have some thicker ones but not enough for all the pencil/editing work I do!

Year Gone and Achieved Nothing today is Memories from the year that make you smile, no matter how ordinary… how many sunsets have I had the pleasure to witness? Probably safe to say in the hundreds. But those make me smile over and over and over again. Naturally there were many other things like celebrating my and my brother’s birthday on the Labour Day long weekend when his band played our Halloween party at the trailer this summer. And when my other brother managed to come up to the trailer for my mom’s birthday… the tears and the joy she felt… all priceless moments.

Gratitude Advent today is Family activities you do only in the winter… I enjoy skating and as a family we used to always go. But puzzles now. The one thing I miss doing with my mom and dad these days is the puzzles. They have them out but I just haven’t gotten back in the routine of getting over there more than once a week and this week not at all so far thanks to the work situation yesterday.

Okay, well, I need to go eat something and get ready for mom and dad to come over in an hour or so.

Until tomorrow!

Christmas MOVIES!

19 Sunday Oct 2025

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Not that I’ve had the opportunity to watch any. I’ve only had the chance to turn them on, so far. But it feels so great to just know they are always there!

Okay, so I’ve registered for the sale in Holmsville and I’m in the process of trying to determine how many books to order so they arrive in between the two shows so I’m well stocked! It’s so hard to know what will sell though! I think the storybooks will sell quite well though.

Today’s prompt for People in your life is Favourite sit-down dinner memories… that fits with some of the others this month. My memories go all the way back to my childhood and early teens. Going to grandma and nana’s house for Easter/Thanksgiving/Christmas dinners. It was often the green tablecloth because the dining room table had to be extended. The drink choice was always tomato juice or apple juice and that’s when I started to hate tomato juice! Blech! They were a little more formal because my great aunt and uncle were kind of on the stuck-up side. Then on the other side you’d go to gramma and grampa’s where we had to sit around the ping-pong table to fit everyone in. The afternoons were boisterous and loud with all seven of the kids, their spouses and us grandchildren. Dinner was loud and everything had to be cleaned up before dessert was served, which was fine because then you could stuff yourself! Those were great times!

Today’s prompt for Making the most of the rest of the year is Ways you can show appreciation for loved ones or close friends… I think the best way I do that at this time of year is write out my Christmas letter and cards. Of course I have my blog so I try to show appreciation for them here every so often and sometimes just dropping them a message saying thinking of you. I know there’s so much more I could do, I’m sure you’re thinking the same thing with this prompt. What DO I do? What COULD I do? I know I find memes on Facebook and send them to my brothers if it’s something we have in common. Lots of little things!

I’m going to go get things ready for the shows and watch some Christmas movies and catch up on some TV and Christmas movies because I guess I also need to get back to my Christmas movie blog don’t I?

Happy Thanksgiving… We Won

11 Tuesday Oct 2016

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We swept Texas!  What a relief that was.  And it wasn’t easy!  Ended up winning in the 10th.

Yes, I had much to be grateful for, including that.  Why?  Because Canada has one Major League Baseball team.  Because a very long time ago before there were any sports channels and the Jays played outdoors at Exhibition Stadium my grandparents would take a TV outside, tune in what was then CKCO-TV (now one of the CTV channels) with the rabbit ears and we would sit around watching the game on a Sunday afternoon.  When they made it the first year to the World Series my aunt was getting married.  All night we ran back and forth between the hall and the bar to keep an eye on the game.  It’s something that I have shared with my dad for years and the one thing that I will always remember.

I have passed that on to my daughter because I know how exciting and exhilarating it was 24 years ago when they went to the World Series the first time.  She’s into and it’s something I can share with her.

Special moments.  It’s what we all look for isn’t it?

Well I got back to Confessions today.  Spent quite a bit of time working through the next leg of the novel.  Piecing in the old stuff and then adding filler to bridge the big moments.  And up until this moment, I never thought of it that way!  Sure, we all learn that the plot is made up of scenes each having a beginning, a middle and an end.  And we all learn that scenes move the story forward.  But never have I looked at my work that way.  Never have I looked at my own work from the perspective of scenes moving the story forward.  I’ve always just written the book.  I’ve edited it.  I’ve taken stuff out and I’ve added stuff in.  Never has it gone as far as me dissecting it because it’s not flowing right and the action doesn’t start until Chapter EIGHT!

The old adage is that we learn something new every day… that was my something new for today.

Well, we wait until Friday night for the next ball game.  I’m on vacation this week so it’s time to really sink my claws into Confessions and as much other stuff as I can cram into my days.

I also need to come up with a title for that short story I wrote before I can submit it.  I hate trying to come up with titles!  Sometimes it’s right there, but most of the time it’s not.

I’m going to go to bed now.  Probably watch some Netflix but I’m beat.  Those extra innings went until 11 something last night.  I’ve also had two very large suppers which make me sleepy.  I also had a glass of wine which is making me sleepiest.  Despite being on vacation, the old alarm clock is going to be waking me up tomorrow morning so I can be sure to get my daughter up and out the door.

Goodnight all!

September 11…

11 Sunday Sep 2016

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As many of us will never forget, today is the 15th anniversary of 9/11.  We all remember, and always will, where we were when we first got the news that planes had flown into the Twin Towers.  Yes, I’m Canadian but we too were forever affected.

A year ago today we had our own little 9/11.  The day started off normally.  It was the last day of a two-week vacation (that I weep for this year… ho hum) and I hadn’t accomplished everything I had wanted to but I did get my duvet and cover washed!  That night was the first symphony of the season and I was excited.  That also meant we weren’t going to the barn.  The one thing that did happen was my mom got a call about a bed in a home for my grandma and we were welcome to go on a tour that afternoon at 3:00.

It was a brand new long-term care unit and my daughter and I met them there and took the tour.  An hour and a bit later we were on our way home.  We got to the last corner and the plaza right next to our home was ablaze.  I couldn’t get through because of a fire hose and had to turn around and go the long way home all the while thinking about my windows being open and my cats inside.  It seemed to take forever to get home but we made it.  I slammed my windows shut, thankful that the wind was blowing the opposite direction.  We locked up and went to join the throngs of people who were standing on the sidewalk and parking lot watching firefighters try to fight the blaze.

Of course I have many regrets at this time.  I should have been an adult and been inside packing up overnight bags but I wasn’t.  I was talking to a police officer who was covering off all the what-ifs.  It was when I went to go back at the request of my daughter that the sidewalk to our home was blocked off and an a-hole officer was standing guard.  He didn’t care that we had a small zoo inside.  The back wall had to be brought down and they were evacuating everyone in our section because of the proximity.  It was going to be coming down “any minute” they said.  I asked about moving my vehicle which was probably actually closer and he allowed me to go get my keys to move my car.

When I had moved my car the officers had traded off and I got the nicer one, the one I had been talking to earlier and he let us go get our pets out.  Again, I should have taken my time and been more methodical but the way everyone was talking it was going to be a couple of hours and we’d be let back in.  I grabbed the symphony tickets and we carried all our pets to the car where we sat for about 30 minutes before we finally gave up and went to my parent’s.

We didn’t get let back in.  My dad actually drove over around 8:30 to ask and he was told it would be the next morning.  He texted me at intermission to tell me.  GREAT!  I had no p.j.’s, I had none of my meds with me.  We hadn’t even grabbed animal food!  I didn’t sleep at all that night.  Partly because of withdrawal from one of my meds and partly because of anxiety.  I worried about everything that I had being at home.  Everything that could be nothing.  I should have grabbed my laptop at the very least.  But I hadn’t because I was told hours.

The next morning my dad and daughter took a road trip.  The wall had come down sometime around midnight and yes, we could now go back home.

We had plenty to talk about with neighbours.  How everyone was feeling.  Like 9/11 we tuned in to every newscast we could.  We wanted all the details.  It turned out it was a 15-year-old who had tried this before and, this time, succeeded.  Many felt grateful that we still had homes and I did too but I couldn’t help but feel anger for this little twit who had turned our lives upside down.

A year later, he’s out.  He served six months.  The psych evaluation shows he will re-offend but there’s nothing that can be done with a first offense. He lives about an hour away from here now and is on probation… yeah, whatever!  The dollar store isn’t even open yet.  It doesn’t open yet for a couple of months… just in time for Christmas!

So on this day I look back on two 9/11’s.  I will for many years to come and in another 15 years I will be looking back on the two anniversaries.

It was Surreal!

20 Monday Jun 2016

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Yesterday didn’t go entirely as planned… I had to tell my mom ahead of the time that I had planned all this out and I think there was a tear in her eye!

The actual tour was nothing more than surreal… to be standing there again after all this time and seeing much of what was there before was uplifting.  Sure, at some point in its future it will be torn down but not right now.  The company that bought it actually wants to return it to it’s former glory for a while and keep it as student housing.

We were supposed to go on the tour with one guy however another came in and asked if he could take it instead.  He was so excited to have us there and it helped because I was so excited that it was nice to have someone want to hear the stories.

We took pictures of what still remained almost 30 years later.  The top pictures are of the living room door that was the original… yes, the inside of the door had been painted all those years ago with the natural wood still on the hallway side.  And there’s mom so happy to see all of it!

The bottom picture is the workbench that my great-grandfather built himself.  Nobody can lift it and so it has remained.  The giant tool board that he made still hangs on the wall in the basement as well because nobody knows how he attached it or how to get it off!

The kitchen is still the exact same and we even got a souvenir!

It took my breath away to walk those rooms and have the flood of memories.  The medicine cupboard, the cupboard below where I used to go in and get out the tin of buttons and sort them with my great-grandmother.  The closet that held more coats than you could ever imagine still there with all the hooks intact.

The staircase was the same, most of the windows have never changed and even the same bathtub is there!

My grandmother’s bedroom where I slept for sleepover, my great-grandmother’s room where I went through her jewelry boxes, all intact.  The small room that was made into a large closet for my grandmother still had the same wallpaper that my mother put there well over 30 years ago!

My mom felt like she was in a dream.  She thought she’d never set foot in that house again.  To see her reaction and hear her tell so many stories overflowed my heart!  I hope it was the best present anyone could receive.  She walked from room to room commenting about the floors, the fixtures and just amazed.

She talked endlessly about it afterwards and it was fabulous hearing her memories.

My dad and daughter came along as well and even my dad had much to say.  My daughter didn’t say much though, she was quiet but listened to the stories.

We have been invited to keep in touch and visit as they fix up the house.  I jump at the opportunity!

It was one of those days that you don’t want to forget.  You want to hold down all the memories and keep them with you.  For me, I want to put them in a book!

Change

17 Tuesday May 2016

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Change is inevitable in life.  We don’t really have a choice.  Well, maybe.  I did watch an episode of Castle where the key witness had actually spent 30 years living in the 70s.

But for most of us, we have to roll with the punches as the old adage goes and I’m finding that really hard right now.

Do I speak for all of us when I say that the change a person decides to make is more tolerable?

As you are fully aware, I have chosen to take on the challenge of finding another job… whether that is in healthcare or not has yet to be decided and I have applied for jobs in both healthcare and writing.  I’m comfortable in that decision.

I drove past my great-grandmother’s house this morning to see a yellow city sign on it saying that an application has been submitted for rezoning, etc.  I cried.

My great-grandmother died when I was fourteen.  I spent many, many hours in that house.  I had sleepovers there.  I helped pick apples and plums and beans and tomatoes and cucumbers.  There was rhubarb that I was allowed to eat with white or brown sugar.  I helped with baking on Saturday mornings.  My great-grandmother knew everything.

When she died and my grandmother had to move out of the house and sell it I knew I would never again walk the rooms.  Never again would I help do laundry with the ringer-washer.  But the fact is that it was still there, even if it was a student residence.

Life is so full of change right now.  My daughter is graduating high school next month and embarking on a new challenge in life.  Some things will stay the same but most will not.  As time speeds towards prom next Friday night I see the little girl she was mixed with the young woman she has become.

So much change and just one little me.  I’m teary a lot of the time and that sign on that house this morning pushed it over the edge.

It also made me realize how much more I want out of life but that poses the question how do I change it?

So some change is acceptable, other change is not.  I’m trying to handle it but it’s just not working out very well for me right now.

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