One Part Inspiration...

Today, after the soccer game, where my #2 son was playing in a district final, my husband and I took a trip down (his) memory lane.  The soccer game happened to be in the area where my husband grew up.  His elementary years were spent there.  Instead of driving directly home, we took the roundabout route. First, we drove by the house where he lived.  Apparently, it looked very similar to when he and his family lived there.  He reminisced about which neighbours gave the best candy at Halloween and how his mom made him give up the pillow full of candy so she could re-gift it to the other neighbour kids who were trick-or-treating there.  He slowed down beside the house where they gave out pop.  We had a minute of silence for their generosity, which forever imprinted him with what is the proper stash to have beside the door when the doorbell rings on October 31. Next, we dropped by the entrance to the park where he got in big...

 On the way up to our Anniversary destination, I busied myself by looking at the scenery.  It wasn't very hard.  The scenery is just stunning.  The Sea-to-Sky Highway had been redone in time for the Olympics last year, and the road was a pleasure to drive.  The surface was smooth and the curves were manageable.  We had bought some lunchables before we departed, so we decided to stop at this small lake to have a picnic.  It turned out to be a very popular destination.  We were amused by a group of day campers who came down to the beach while we were there.  There were the typical reactions - the kids who jumped into the water and exclaimed how warm it was, which in turn enticed others to jump in too.  There were the beach dolls who laid out their towels and loudly declared that they would only sunbathe.  There was the lone child who filled up his bucket with lake water and carried it 100 meters, then sat down and then proceeded to ...

In two days, my husband and I will celebrate our anniversary.  It seems like just a blink of an eye that we were driving toward our future in the car my husband had been restoring. What a ride it has been.  There is no way I could have predicted the twists and turns along the way.  Now, lest I wax eloquent and become a little sappy, I will just share with you what we are going to do to celebrate this auspicious occasion.  He is taking me away to Whistler.  This is the first time I will see this world-class destination since I have lived in this beautiful province  It has become somewhat of a joke between us, that we have never gone there. I have suggested it more than once, but he is more inclined to head east.  So this weekend, we will be travelling the Sea-to-Sky highway, making our way to discover this beautiful place. The first question is always, where to stay.  He wanted to know which hotel package I wanted.  A standard one?  A...

Twenty-two years ago tonight, I could hardly sleep for the excitement of waking up the next morning to be a bride. I had everything laid out, ready for the big day. I read and re-read my vows, hoping not to mess up when I said them. Part of my pledge said: " I look forward to sharing my life with you, and whatever the future holds, I will stand with you and beside you, until death separates us ." After living out these vows for 8,035.335 days, I have a very different perspective on what those words meant. As a new bride, I looked forward to sharing life with my husband as an adventure - almost as if I was going to be on a long vacation with him. Now I look forward to sharing my life with him in more genuine ways. I look forward to a cup of tea at the end of the working day. I try to anticipate which tool he will need me to hand him when we are working together. I count on him listening to me vent about the challenges of my day, and making the ONE observation which cra...

I was casting around for ideas for this post and thought I'd looke up quotes on love. One site I investigated had quotes from A-Z. Here's what I found interesting: Love Quotes outnumbered (by a large margin) every other subject except for Proverbs. Love is a topic which everyone loves to talk about, and on which no one is an expert It is the butterfly of relationships - when you think you ' have it ' the butterfly has alighted on another flower. But because it is so crucial for us, we still seek it and analyze it, take joy in it and mourn it. But rather than reinvent the philosophical wheel of love, I will just share some of my 'love' stories. They illustrate love very well on their own. One Christmas, when I was struggling to provide the basics for my family because of severe financial strain, a friend showed up with a platter of fresh-baked buns, cold meats and cheese, and other baking. To this day, I don't know if she had any idea of what dire s...

Today, in church, the speaker was talking about Ephesians 5- about marriage relationships. We are coming up to 19 years of marriage. ( I know,we hardly look like we are past our teens... :) [ I keep trying to fool myself into believing that ] One of the things that he said was about the idea of leaving and cleaving. He said that when you get married, you leave your family. All the ways that your family related, the thought patterns and the traditions you had. Then as a married couple, you decide together what the fabric of your own family will be. I wish that I had got a hold of that idea a lot earlier because I spent a lot of time trying to manufacture a copy of what I had left behind. I respected my parents' marriage so much, that I thought, "why reinvent the wheel"? In doing so, I walked over some very tender opportunities to create "him and me" as family. A good example of that is the gingerbread houses. Gingerbread houses had been a big tradition in my gro...