-
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair
I have a lot of hair. Not just length, but thickness – the number of hair follicles on my head must be on the very high end of normal. Now I know that this is a good thing, especially as I age, but sometimes it comes with challenges. Once upon a time, my hair was pretty straight. Through much of my youth, I wore a typical young girl long hairstyle and it had just a gentle wave in the back. There were a couple of disasterous short hair cuts, but even through young adulthood and motherhood, I have preferred it… Read more…
-
Rating retirement year one: not quite as planned
I still can’t believe I’ve been retired a whole year. The last day of July, last year, was my last day in the office. And while I really enjoyed my job and usually felt I was making a difference, I haven’t missed it for a single second. I knew it was time to make a change and if I hadn’t been in a position to retire, it would have meant looking for something new. On a trip to the UK that included Canterbury Cathedral. So this blog post should be about all the things I’ve accomplished in these past twelve… Read more…
-
How much change can one person take?!
They say when you retire that you shouldn’t make big life decisions. You know, ride it out a while and see where things settle. Yeah, that wasn’t what I did. In January 2025, I announced at work that I would retire at the end of July. It was not a secret that I was planning to go soon and my boss asked for lots of time so there’d be a good period of overlap with my successor (that’s another story!). So that started the countdown clock. In May, I got engaged to the handsome ginger-haired man I’d been seeing. His… Read more…
-
It’s all a matter of perspective
“It’s cold. I mean, really cold.” That’s what I heard when I mused about the temperature in the Aegean Sea, when my new ginger-haired husband and I started planning our winter honeymoon to the south coast of Türkiye. We love travelling in January. The crowds stay at home, the weather’s usually not too bad, and we can roam (with lots of sunscreen) without worrying about heat stroke! This trip, we had some ancient Roman ruins to ourselves without a single soul in sight. Bliss. Temperatures were looking like 8-10 Celsius for the two weeks we’d be there, so perhaps people… Read more…
-
Life is fragile; handle with care
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the fragility of life. How we take it for granted and how we put things off until ‘later, when we have more time.’ In my circle of acquaintances, there have been four deaths in the past month. One was an elderly person who had been fighting an illness for a long time – a blessing some would say, that his is no longer suffering. But the others have all been lives snuffed out far before they should have been. A sudden illness, a tragic traffic accident, a mental health crisis. Families changed forever.… Read more…
-
The value of touch
I miss human touch. I miss the loving embrace of a hug. I miss handshakes. I miss the feel of lips that kiss a cheek in greeting. I miss feet that meet in the middle of a couch on a sleepy Sunday afternoon with the newspaper or with books. A head that drops on a shoulder in a darkened theatre. I miss the feeling of a hand that clasps a shoulder in recognition of a job well done. Damn pandemic. Scientists have long since proven that which we all know from experience. Human touch soothes. It is compassionate and loving.… Read more…
-
For the love of coffee shops
I miss coffee shops. I miss the smell of freshly ground coffee, the hissing sound of the milk frother and the thump thump when the barista empties the coffee grounds. I miss the background music and the constant buzz of noise as patrons come and go. When I first imagined my sabbatical, I thought I’d spend a lot of time writing in cafes and was looking forward to trying out lots of new ones to find the right creative vibe. When I needed a break from writing, I’d read. I had a stack of books waiting for me to have… Read more…
-
Show’s over…almost
If you’ve been following along with me for more than a year, you know I love fall. Long walks along my local paths, gawking at the show of colours that Mother Nature puts on without fail every year. I love the sound of the leaves crunching under my feet and the smell as they begin to break down. I love watching as the goldenrod go to seed and the milkweed pods open up. I’ve just finished a week of #staycation and I’ve ventured off to many other locations along the Niagara escarpment to check them out. I’ve hiked to waterfalls,… Read more…
