One Part Inspiration...

I am looking back over 2007. New Years always makes me a bit melancholy. But tonight, I am going to turn the dial the other way and recount some of my best of 2007. This year, we have travelled more as a family than in the previous 16 years. At the beginning of the year, my in-laws made plans for us to accompany them on their celebratory 10 year anniversary trip to Disneyland. It was so, so much fun. I had never been there before and I just loved it. It reminded me a lot of Expo '86 - lots of street entertainment, rides, food, new experiences and people to encounter. We came home from that trip, feeling like our bond as an extended family had been strengthened. In the summer, my Dad flew us out to Ontario to enjoy a two-week stay with him. In that time, my immediate family experienced one of my all time favorite places - the cottage. The to-do list was incredibly long. We swam, ate, did puzzles, went for canoe rides, learned to fish, read, visited, watched the loons, ...stayed awa...

This was a 2007 favorite Christmas story [although not written by me, enjoyed by me] and so I am sharing it with you - Merry Christmas Everyone! - The Christmas Pageant My husband and I had been happily married (most of the time)for five years but hadn't been blessed with a baby.I decided to do some serious praying and promised God that if he would give us a child,I would be a perfect mother,love it with all my heart and raise it with His word as my guide.God answered my prayers and blessed us with a son.The next year God blessed us with another son.The following year,He blessed us with yet another son.The year after that we were blessed with a daughter.My husband thought we'd been blessed right into poverty. We now had four children,and the oldest was only four years old.I learned never to ask God for anything unless I meant it.As a minister once told me,"If you pray for rain,make sure you carry an umbrella."I began reading a few verses of the Bible to the children e...

It was one of those mornings: Rush Rush Rush. Quick get yourself together Throw your music instruments in the van and rush to your session at the Elementary School with the Kindergarten and Grade One class. Arrive at the school. Throw open the doors of the van and begin taking out your instruments. Rush Rush Rush. Look at watch again and realize you only have a few minutes before your session. Get out instruments. Begin carrying instruments to the classroom. Rush back for another load. Come out the door, look toward the open door of the van. Notice kitten standing at the doorway of the van. Remember you forgot to check van before you left, for kittens who felt the need for education. Look at watch again. Realize there's not enough time to return home with the kitten before the session. Talk to principal who takes the kitten to the Grade Six/Seven class and asks if they are willing to kittensit until recess. Heave a sigh of relief when they say a resounding "yes". Realize ...

99 things on my list to do 99 things on my list, Take one down, get it done, 98 things on my list to do..... There's no use in getting all panicked about it because should the song ever get to 1 last thing on my list to do, 1 last thing on my list..... The mail will arrive, or the phonecall will come, or the emails will be sent and I will be right back to 99 things on my list to do 99 things on my list.... Ah well, upward and onward. I was watching Santa Baby last night and the Santa Claus character made the comment " every year it's something....too few sleds, the toy trains break.....forget the country of Belgium ". .... So if Santa feels this way, then there's hope for me....Christmas seems to work out for him every year.... HO! HO! HO! [ or is it OH!? OH!? OH!?]

I do not like egg nog Sam-I-Am . Not one little bit. It is as far at the bottom of "drinks I'd choose off the tray" as I can get. Sometimes, I wish I did, because I might have an explanation for some of the crazy things that have come out of my mouth lately. "Oh that silly thing? That was the egg nog I was drinking. " "It couldn't possibly be a lapse of my short term memory, or that my hearing is bad, or that the "right= word= retrieval= button" in my brain has a sign on it " OUT OF ORDER ". Last week we attended my young son's first band concert. Two teachers ran the program. One introduced himself as "Mr. Dodson" who taught French and Music. By and by, there was a break in the program, and we were allowed to help ourselves to goodies. "Mr. Dodson" walked by me and my husband. I said in passing " Now he teaches French and something else here. What is it again????" To which my ever loving and patien...

I was just blog lurking. So many bloggers have pictures of their homemade Christmas baking and have written out the recipes to try. They look delicious. If you have been reading my blog, you will know that this Christmas, I will be offering my home made baking [made with the help of a large food company] to anyone who drops by. I don't have a recipe to share with you but I do have some happy memories associated with baking. When I was growing up, we lived across the street from a very lovely gramma -type neighbour. We called her "Aunt Lucy". She didn't have children of her own, but was sort of adopted by our family. We all enjoyed the friendly look-out-for-each-other type of neighbourliness we shared back and forth. A few years after we moved in, "Aunt Lucy" made our family [of eight] a huge platter of home baked goods for Christmas. She kept up this up for several years running. We all looked forward to the arrival of that platter. The ones we fought over...

You know, it's a week before Christmas. I know you know that. I just had to say it as a way to start my explanation. I am so not ready . [My mother should be calling me anytime now about my pathetic grammar.] But really , I am not even close to being ready. It probably should concern me, but every year at this time, I know that I feel the same way. Truth is, I simply will never be "truly ready" . A co-worker pointed that out to me last week when I was telling her how I felt like I had so many things to do to get ready for Christmas and I just didn't know how I would fit them all in. "You feel like this every year" was her comment. Obviously she's worked with me for a few years with the same refrain echoing throughout the halls of my work place. So since that comment, I have decided to relax into the fact that I won't be able to fit it all in. I simply won't be able to. I am not even going to feel the least bit guilty about it either. Her...

Here's my step-by-step guide to "Not-so-stressed" Gingerbread houses. Step One : Decide to create a Christmas memory. Step Two : Estimate the amount of time it would take to make a gingerbread house from scratch. Quickly opt for a store bought option because you are bad at math and counting all those pieces to make sure you have enough of them is just too much for your little brain to bear. Step Three : Pick up store bought gingerbread house and a few extra candies just in case you need them. Pick out the ones that you really like and hold them back until the end. [which being interpreted is "hide the really good ones because you know they're not going to last"] Step Four : Look at instructions. Rejoice because the icing is already made and in a bag so you just have to clip the end off. Congratulate yourself for spending a little more on this model so that you don't have the hassle of mixing up the icing and hoping it will be thick enough. Throw out smal...

This idea came from Ellen's blog ( http://happywonderer.wordpresscom/ ) She called it a Meme. You answer questions using pictures and descriptions. It looked like fun so I am giving it a try. 1. Age I will be at my next birthday. 2. A place I would like to travel to and see. Switzerland. My husband tells me to look out the window and I won't be missing much because we have such a beautiful view. 3. My favorite Place The cottage. Need I say more? 4. Favorite Objects This was a hard one. I have so many. Favorite is such a subjective and circumstantial phrase. Here are a few that came to mind. Just because I don't need anymore, doesn't mean I can't look! I tried to find a picture with all my favorite tools.. If I have to do a job, give me a great tool and it suddenly gets a whole lot easier. I love tea in a great cup. 5. Favorite Food And you thought I was going to say chocolate didn't you?!!! 6. Favorite colors God's paintbrush can't be beat. One time...

My husband loves the snow. Me too. As long as I knowthat I [or anyone I know] doesn't have to drive anywhere. If the fridge is stocked. And I am sure there's not going to be a power outage. Other than that, as the old song goes " Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow ". Last Saturday, the weather outside was promising to be frightful. But my husband said he would go out with me to stock the fridge. " ..is so delightful ! " Next thing you know, my daughter wanted to come. Then my #2 son said he thought he could make the time and then my #1 son decided he didn't want to be left out. " But as long as you love me so "... We stopped for lunch. Usually by the time we've decided to go and the showers are all complete, it is several hours later. We were hungry. And you can't stock the fridge when you are ravenous. Even if you are at a Big Box store that gives you samples. They don't really appreciate you hovering over the tables grabbing th...

Found this in my files and am passing the enjoyment along. A recent survey has compiled all the qualities that people expect from the perfect pastor. Here we share some of them with you. Results of a computerized survey indicated that the perfect pastor preaches exactly 12 minutes. He frequently condemns sin but never upsets anyone. He works from 8: a.m. until midnight and is also a janitor. He makes $60 a week, wears good clothes, buys good books, drives a good car, and gives about $80 a week to the poor. He is 28 years of age, and he's been preaching for 30 years. He is wonderfully gentle and handsome. He gives of himself completely but never gets too close to anyone lest he be criticized. He speaks boldly on social issues, but must never become polically involved. He has a burning desire to work with teenagers; he spends all his time with senior citizens. He makes 15 calls daily on parish families, visits shut-ins and the hospitalized, spends all his time evangelizing the unchur...

" Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord, my soul to keep If there's a sound that me awakes I pray the computer is not affected by any potential power outage so I can sit around and blog until I feel sleepy again. " The storm woke me up. Well, who am I kidding? I find it hard to sleep through the night anyway. I have already investigated the dripping noises that I hear. My magic bag is heating. While I wait, I will sit and blog blog blog. What makes sleep distubance worse is knowing that I have to get up in just a few more hours to start the day. I find myself saying " Hurry up and relax. You gotta get up soon . " Usually that doesn't work too well. So I begin the process of elimination of my relaxation techniques . Hopefully one of them will work before too long. I'd hate to end up with 29 minutes of REM sleep before the alarm. Sometimes I think of Bible characters and run through the stories in my mind. " Samson Samson, the Philistines are up...

Well, this is my big announcement. Today marks a whole year since I started blogging!!!!! I am now officially adding it to my list of interests. Just having the opportunity to put down my thoughts on various subjects - whether they are interesting to anyone else or not - has been great fun. Thanks for reading and for your encouragements. I feel as if I have gotten to know a lot more people through reading your blogs and the links that you have are often part of my nightly entertainment routine. If you read and you haven't left a comment, it's great to have you along. I would love for you to leave a comment anytime. - Fiona and Carol, you guessed and even though I haven't lost any weight - although wouldn't that be a great side benefit - and I am not planning to write a book ...yet...- I am going to send you each a little coupon for a Timmie's on me. Thanks for playing! Happy One Year Anniversary everyone!

O.k. it's another day closer. I am getting so excited to reveal what my celebration is about. That will happen tomorrow. I am thinking that I will offer a little something to whoever can guess what it is. You can leave a comment if you like with your guess. How about this...I will send you a coupon for a coffee at Timmie's if you put your guess in and even if you are not right...you could win. While you fill out that ballot, I will give you a little story. Everyone has their own way of celebrating Christmas. My first mother- in -law was famous for knowing all the presents she was going to get. She was very sneaky. She'd undo one or two pieces of tape just to see what it said on the box. Then she would reattach the tape and pretend that she'd never opened it at all. For a while, we couldn't understand why she always knew what her presents were. When it came her turn she'd always say "I don't need to open this, I already know what it is". I think she...