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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…
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And the years speed by
When I started writing this blog almost three years ago, people objected to its original name. And I was more than willing to be told I wasn’t middle-aged yet. But is it time to admit that it might be here now? I’m a communicator by profession; a degree in journalism, followed by a 25+ year career in public relations and communications. As a young greenhorn, that meant interviewing supervisors, managers and even site directors. These were men – and yes, back then they were pretty much all men – much older than me. A few years later, when I accompanied… Read more…
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Boys, boys, boys!
I think my neighbours may be whispering about me behind my back. It’s a bit scandalous. Last week, a man and his two sons moved into my house…. My own boys are off to their university lives. The younger is safely ensconced in his university dorm, making new friends and grabbing life by the tail, experiencing the joy being on his own for the first time. The older has moved into a new apartment with old friends, probably feeling like he’s back home as he enters his third year of post-secondary education. So this fall was going to be a… Read more…
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What might have been…
Do you ever wonder what might have been? If you’d turned left instead of right? If you’d chosen this instead of that? If you’d said yes instead of no? Would your life have turned out very differently? Or would you have eventually ended up in the same place, by a different route? One of my favourite movies is Sliding Doors. Quite apart from the fact that I could listen to John Hannah’s Scottish brogue for hours, I am forever intrigued by the two parallel lives shown in the film. It shows two versions of the main character’s life – one as… Read more…
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Sweet memories of love
Valentine’s Day can be a bit morose for a single woman. And I’m not ashamed to say I’ve drowned my sorrows in chocolate and red wine more than once. But this year I’ve decided to take an optimist’s view of love. Love comes in so many shapes and forms that it seems foolish to concentrate on only one kind. I have loved and have been well-loved in my life and it has been good. I’ve regretted none of it. A parent’s love is the first we experience. It’s a love we are so sure of that we push and we… Read more…
