Flea Market!

Posted on July 12, 2015 | 1 comment
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I’m late, I’m late!

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Barn Art!

Marché aux puces

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Burl art, signed 1997

Since I was small I have been enamoured with flea markets. new to you tables. garage sales, second-hand stores and especially second-hand book stores.

I can spend all day hunting for treasures. I learned thrift (what a beautiful word) from my mother “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” , also from my daughter who told me “the world doesn’t need another toaster”

My first apartment was completely furnished in flea market, 2nd hand, hand me downs. Even the piano was used.

For all you thrifters, happy hunting.  Remember, it’s not a bargain if you don’t need it, and you never “save a lot of money, spending money you ain’t got”

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Mom

Posted on July 12, 2015 | 2 comments

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“The woman who bore me is no longer alive, but I seem to be her daughter in increasingly profound ways.”

Johnnetta Betsch Cole

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It is 10 years  today  that my mom died. Not a horrible death; she was 95 and went in her sleep. She told the nursing staff when she went to bed that she was leaving, going home to her daughters. She had five of us. I was number four born late in her life. She had me at 43 in the 1950’s and another daughter two years later. The grandchildren started in between my younger sister and I. Yikes!! 45 years old and two little ones and three teenagers. Those teenagers started getting married and having children of their own. They were always at our house. Free babysitting. 45 was not the new 30 in 1955.

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My mom was beautiful, talented, creative, a nurturer. She was also human and vulnerable. Life was not easy when I was growing up. My dad was very ill with at that time untreatable bleeding ulcers and there was no national health care yet. He died when I was 18 and my mom was 61. I had just started university.  She never remarried but worked until she was 69; running a senior’s residence no less.

My mom didn’t teach me to cook or sew or knit; all things she was excellent at. She was busy and I am sure that I was a challenge for her.  My god it was the sixties and I was a teenager. The world was changing rapidly. I pushed the envelope many times.

There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about her in some way. My mom baby sat my kids always. Now that I have my own grandchildren I remember so much of what my mother did for me and my children. They had the best relationship with her.

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I find myself saying the same phrases I heard from her.

She had a song “that’s okay Rose would say, don’t you worry none, we’ll have good time by and by in the fall when the works all done” . It was like one of my favourite quotes from Julian of Norwich, all will be well. Or this one from Karen Maezen Miller “your baby will be okay”

 

Miss you mom, all your babies are okay!

“Your child is a boat on the ocean. There are clear skies and calm nights. There are storms and rain and fog. You cannot control the course. Every time you exhale, the boat is carried safely toward the horizon, its distant harbor and home.
You are the breeze.”

Karen Maezen Miller

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Maa…. It’s +38 degrees Celsius

Posted on July 12, 2015 | 1 comment

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Yikes, and my last post was “the jaws of winter”, WHAT happened? Nothing out of the ordinary just life. I definitely have been occupied. (I am trying this word out because I have developed a disdain for the word busy). It has become  the word for a rampant viral disease. We infect others by our smug use of the word. “LIKE OMG I AM/HAVE BEEN/WILL ALWAYS BE SO BUSY” ITS A STATUS.

It was a tough winter for Oma who has lived with us for 15 months. After a very bad bout of Norwalk she went to live in a seniors residence. Her care was  far more than we were capable of.

My babysitting/nannying gig for the two youngest grandchildren is joyful and tiring. I counted my hours for a week and when they tallied more than 55 I thought I should stop counting.

So what have I been doing? I looked at my photo log and this is it.

FullSizeRenderWe baby sat a new puppy dog for my niece.

I visited with the grandchildren at the coast and went to Festival du Bois with them.

What a great celebration of Canadian heritage. Because I was also there to babysit for two nights they also introduced me to two great movies. The Book of Life and Box Trolls. Loved both of them.

We started a “fairy garden.

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We planted veggies to complement Mimi’s copious flowers for bees and butterflies.

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We beat the heat by cat napping in the cat nip or od’ing on watermelon and oh yes meet the new chickens Lacey and Tilly.

We visited the zoo to see the “spirit bear”.

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We have been construction workers.

We have had horseback riding lessons, swimming lessons, goat and dog rodeos and water park and theatre park fun.

We have practiced fine motor skills and gross motor skills

We dug out the old (from 1973, when my daughter was born) yogurt maker.

IMG_7881We practiced camping in case anyone wants to take us?

IMG_7831We hatched butterflies from caterpillars and let them go.

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Meanwhile, new horses were born on the flats and Mimi is working on her documentary. She is also considering buying a horse of her own.  So you see life does happen so no guilt involved..

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I would like to say we are loving this weather but it’s not natural. We are surrounded by a ring of fire just like in 2003; the air quality is awful. Please be considerate of the earth and our place on it.

 

 

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Jaws of Winter

Posted on January 8, 2015 | 4 comments

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Hand Made With Love

Posted on January 6, 2015 | 2 comments

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Just watched the documentary on Knowledge Network about the Cowichan Sweater made by the Coast Salish Knitters. I am totally in love with these sweaters. When my mom moved to the coast in 1933 to a small island from the land locked prairies I don’t think she was aware of what was in store for her. She was ingenious though. Her first home and no electricity or running water. As a sewer and knitter she did her sewing on a treadle machine and her knitting by gaslight. With no supplies and two little ones, she took apart her own beautifully knit and handmade clothes to make outfits for her first two girls. Her love of knitting stayed her entire life. During the winter the only regulars on the islands were native or loggers and their wives. A love of knitting brought them together. My mother learned to knit the “Cowichan sweater” and in turn taught the knitting that she knew best, Scottish and Irish cable. My father always had a Cowichan sweater and we all had Irish cable knits. My mom knit an Irish cable knit coat, blanket and leg warmers for me.

The Cowichan sweater is perfect for our weather, warm and water-resistant. Without my mom to knit me one I went on the hunt. I am an addicted thrifter, ready to rescue beautiful things that people no longer have a use for. I have had some beautiful and valuable finds. My search  for the sweater was not in vain. I found one for myself on Etsy. I wanted to find one for my son to duplicate the picture of my dad holding me and my son holding his daughter.

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I also found one for my grandson and a vest for myself. Cowboy wants to know when I am going to find one for him.

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You can buy these sweaters new. They were very “hot” here during the Olympics but really, wouldn’t you rather have something hand-made with love?

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New Year Resolved

Posted on January 1, 2015 | Leave a comment
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Quote from Uppercase Magazine Issue 23

This week so many blogs, Facebook posts, and tweets  were about new year’s resolutions. I deleted them all. Who would spend the beautiful relaxing week between Christmas and new years rehashing a year that hasn’t ended, cleaning , purging, making lists of changes needed; one even suggesting it would be like a performance appraisal.

“I keep turning over new leaves, and spoiling them, as I used to spoil my copybooks; and I make so many beginnings there will never be an end”

Louisa May Alcott

You see I do this, thank goodness because if plan A doesn’t work, the alphabet has 25 other letters.

I never  wonder what the new year will bring? I know, 365 more do-overs.

My life is simple, every day I collect the eggs, feed the animals and clean the barn. I try to write, paint, or create, and if I don’t get any of these things accomplished, I do something else equally important.

My son-in-law texted me this picture this morning, my granddaughter playing  the french horn; my old french horn. It was a leaf I turned over at 10 years old.

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I stopped after about 2000 of the required 10,000 hours. Should I have resolved to practice more? Maybe if my goal was Carnegie Hall. This was my last official “gig”, my high school graduation. I used to play the french horn.

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Used to be, new leaves turned over or used to do are good. I hope my granddaughter has lots of them. From one of my favourite bloggers today:

“Used to be,” is not necessarily a mark of failure or even obsolescence. It’s more often a sign of bravery and progress.

…Seth Godin

 

Have a great day, turn some leaves over, scribble and throw out some pages, remember all your used to be and do. Tomorrow is another day.

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Hundslappadrífa

Posted on December 28, 2014 | Leave a comment

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skæðadrífa, logndrífa, kafaldsmyglingur, lognkafald and ryk

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In Iceland hundslappadrífa is snow flakes as big as dog’s paws, and I think they should know. If hundslappadrífa is not falling you make your own!

Snow is magical, mystical and on a moonlit night its sparkle conjures peace and tranquility. It is  the Christmas season, how else would Santa get around. We are blessed to have four seasons here in the sub-alpine. Each has its own allure but at Christmas we relish the snow. So much fun to be out in nature, learning all kinds of lessons.

What goes down must come up. (and repeat)

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Adults become childlike in the snow, animals become co-conspirator.

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Children just feel joy.

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Cold is a word that is never spoken, only the words hot chocolate can bring an end to hours of sledding.

As Rumi says “be melting snow, wash yourself of yourself”

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…….at the end of the day, hundslappadrífa, must be removed from the  dog’s paws.

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gleðilegt nýtt ár

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Memories, Duck Eggs and Roosters

Posted on December 27, 2014 | 2 comments

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Okay, so I am human. I haven’t posted since November and Christmas is already past. Not feeling guilty because for the last 7 weeks I have been attending to  what matters. This was my goal for the year 2014; to pay attention to what matters and not get caught up in Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda! It has been tempting. I am in awe of my daughter and her blog. She is a busy mom and probably has less time than me, but she still writes them beautifully and it’s my favourite reading before I go to bed or over coffee early in the morning. Her last post on the memories of Christmas past and ghosts made me very happy. I really know that I have been attending to the important things and when I forget everything falls off the rails.

I babysit my two youngest grandchildren every day. I have to be at their house at 7:30 am so I need to get up at 5:30 am. Hard for a grandma. But it’s important. We go to playschool, gymnastics and skating. We are creating memories.

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We build forts and we do art. ( hey I wanted to create every day, I just didn’t tell my muse, what)).

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We learned that  “a box” is not “a box” (very important for later spiritual life)

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We learned that family is important, memories are created in the very young.

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I learned that when you are attending to important things sometimes you have to ask for help. I learned that Papa (Cowboy) can run the farm. I learned that sometimes when you don’t know something, more is revealed. Like Aflac, we didn’t know what sex she was but in time she told us. (neither of us wanted to blow on her vent to see). Three eggs a day now from the hens and Aflac.

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I learned that when you buy day old chicks at the small animal flea market, you get what you get; four roosters, two hens. Three roosters had to be culled. (and yes we are eating them, no life should be in vain)

Life is like that, and memories are created. Merry Christmas to all my blog readers and a prayer that you created many wonderful memories this season.

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Remembrance Day

Posted on November 11, 2014 | 1 comment

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What do you teach a three-year-old and her not yet one year old sister about Remembrance Day? They know nothing about war or death. They haven’t experienced loss. You teach them with art, song and poetry the only thing that’s important to know. Be loving and kind, and peace will grow.

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Moon Babies and Grandmother Moon

Posted on October 28, 2014 | 3 comments

I was a very interesting child. Weird in fact now that I look back. Introverted, thoughtful, sensitive ….. spent a lot of time in my head. I anthropomorphized many things. moon baby

This is a picture of my Christmas doll Elizabeth. She was a Moon Baby. It was the 60’s and the race to the moon had started. Her eyes seemed to be looking at you no matter where you looked at her from. Very “spacey “. I thought she was beautiful. My older sisters liked my sister’s doll better. She was Mollie and was very much like a newborn. I felt very sorry for Elizabeth. I even cried for her and her hurt feelings: or were they mine? Like I said, strange.

I did get over my doll’s feelings, but I have never stopped anthropomorphizing. I give human qualities to most everything, live and inanimate. All my pets have distinct names and personalities. I talk to them like I would talk to anyone. I can carry on a conversation with Vegas, a cat, he talks back. I don’t dress my pets up as humans or pretend they are like my children. I just have intuitive feelings about things. I have spirit animals and plants.  I always get excited when I see an eagle especially when I am traveling. I just feel safer. I love to hold bees in my hands in the garden. I talk to birds all the time.

Anthropomorphizing is definitely frowned upon in some circles, mostly psychiatric.

I love the sight of the moon through my sun roof when I am driving at night or when it comes in my bedroom window. I always acknowledge her as “grandmother moon” and ask for her guidance in my grandmother role.

I am so grateful that my husband’s practice of native spirituality gives me the space to connect with everything and anything.

Like this old coffee table from nearly 40 years ago. It could have been a candidate for the thrift store, but I didn’t have the heart to throw it out.

Once I sanded the top, it was like a blank canvas waiting to tell a story. A moon story. We had fun helping it.

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You know what they say about stories?

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