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...