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Eek…a mouse!
Hickory Dickory Dock….Angelina Ballerina…Mickey…Three Blind Mice. Mice are abundant and as children, we look at their cute fuzzy faces and quivering whiskers with delight. I remember more than one spring, at my family’s cottage in South-western Ontario, where we found nests of baby mice in the engine of our garden tractor. As we cleaned them out, separating babies from parents, my brother and I took great delight in trying to keep those little mice alive. We fed them with milk from bottle droppers and stroked them lovingly. We were never successful, but boy did we try. Living out in the… Read more…
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I can do it – really!
I was born of practical people. If we could do it ourselves, we did. And my parents could – and still can – do just about everything! I guess I’ve inherited that sense of independence, and dare I suggest it, passed it on to a certain extent. My Dad sent me off to university with the basics of a tool kit. Hammer, a variety of screw drivers (even the trusty Canadian Robertson!), pliers, socket wrenches and more. It meant I could – and did – fix simple things without needing assistance. In fact, when I married, I was the one…
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Bidding adieu
Tomorrow morning, bright and early, the moving truck will arrive. It will trundle up to my driveway after having made its way along the torn up streets in my neighbourhood, ready to whisk me away to the next chapter of my life. But today, I’m wandering through empty rooms; my life is packed up in box upon box stacked in my kitchen, my living room, my bedroom, my study. As I stand in the entry to my daughter’s room, I can almost smell the scent of nail polish and hear the giggles of long-haired beauties as they choose a new… Read more…
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Letting go
Last week, I let go of my wedding dress. A few years ago, I wrote a blog about the art of letting go. This was a bit different. In the throes of downsizing, I’ve been decluttering, visiting the dump regularly, selling and giving away excess pieces of furniture. Who knew you could collect so much stuff over 15 years and three children. Finally it was time to box up the contents of my hope chest. Yes, I have a hope chest – a relic from a time gone by when young ladies stitched household linens and stored them away until they married. One… Read more…
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Real estate rollercoaster
I think I got lucky. I think I got really lucky. A couple of months ago, I found the smaller house I’ve been “sort of” looking for on and off for the past year. It’s been time to downsize for a while, with numbers 1 and 2 off at university and number 3 set to go in a year. Real estate has been a hot commodity in my part of the world. My house was estimated to be worth more than three times what I bought it for a decade and a half ago, and homes were selling in two… Read more…
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I love you … I love you not – surviving spring
I love spring. Every year I wait for the snow to melt, eager to start lifting up the heavy, wet leftover leaves in my garden to see the beginnings of signs of new life. Slowly the whole world comes to life. Little snowdrops push through, rewarding me with the first glimpses of what’s to come. About the same time I realize that the cold winter air is beginning to fill with the sounds of songbirds. Out come the rakes and we uncover tulip and daffodil leaves. Purple and yellow crocuses follow quickly and then the starry shapes of chianodoxa. It… Read more…
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Listening in the silence
Science has shown us that babies grow in the quiet hours while they sleep. And more recently we’ve learned that exposure to nature – and the stillness it brings – can actually help with hypertension and mental health. So why do we fill our waking hours with noise and distractions? I remember as a kid, my parents sometimes returning from visiting neighbours or friends and criticizing them for having the television on all the time. At the time I agreed with them. Who needed that noise all the time. Somehow, slowly over the past few years, I’ve fallen further into that… Read more…
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One more chance…
Second chances. I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. It sounds so simple. Of course everyone should given a second chance. But what happens when a second chance turns into a third, a fourth, a fifth? How many chances should someone be given before you simply have to turn away? When do your own needs for peace supplant someone else’s need for another opening? Real-life friends will know my marriage exploded in relatively spectacular form a little more than a decade ago. In early years, I tried to remain very open to my children’s father having a second chance… Read more…
