It’s about that time again folks

With age comes wisdom they have said in the past. Welcome the golden years as they will be joyful they also have said in the past. I ponder who are these wise folks from the past? And how did they arrive at those conclusions they have and do they have documentations to back up that the years you live are golden once you arrive at that age?

The scale for age appears to be a number that has fallen into the black hole and found its way back in time. Age for seniors keeps getting moved forward just like the clocks we must move in the Spring. Spring forward and in the Fall -Fall back, just don’t break a hip in the process. You know standing on that step stool to reach the wall clock in dire need of dusting.

Who ever thought this one up was having a slow mental appreciation day and came up with this ditty that has lasted for as long as I’ve been alive and believe you me that’s a hell of a long time. I ponder if once I find what year I will arrive to the Golden Year will I even know that I’ve arrived?

Or, will I just think that someone is playing a trick on me and it is all a dream like they did to Bobby Ewing on Dallas. If you are old enough you will know what I am talking about and if you are too young well you missed out on some juicy nighttime episodes back in the day.

Let’s just say the opening tune for Dallas was stellar indeed as were the actors who were rich due to oil, without a care in the world about the golden years. I suppose when actors reached a certain (Golden Age) they were put out to pasture like the cattle on the Ewing Ranch.

I say do not go into that Golden Age thinking – it’s a hoax to lure us into our comfy chairs starring out our picture windows until bedtime. I say Get up and refuse to let the number on our birth certificate dictate how we should behave. Golden Age is not golden at all.

It is full of aches and pains. But it is also proof that if you are aching that means you are living and was doing an activity before the aches and pains arrived the next morning you put your feet down and tried to stand upright from your comfy bed where your last night sleep consisted of tossing and turning over to find a spot that didn’t hurt after laying there for 15 minutes.

Or of course the parade you must take to and from the bathroom just because that bag of chips loaded with too much salt called your name in a slight whisper because it knows not to speak beyond a whisper. Your better judgement might overhear it and call off the evening of snacking on the tasty goodness of something salty.

I use to sleep a good 8 hours each night, but the golden years has other plans for me as far as restful sleep goes. I now sit at the computer playing a Farmville game and find my head nodding because I’ve fallen asleep with my hand still on the mouse.

Oh God that never ever happened before. Who me take naps. No way no how. That will ruin a good nights sleep that I pray will magically return to me one day, but knowing those days are only a memory as long as I keep my memory intact. Don’t get me started because I will just wind up repeating the paragraphs here and you if you were in the beginning paying attention to what I am typing you will shake your head and say oh no it’s too late.

Just wait we will all have to walk through the black hole and back again in search of those glorious Golden Years. Heed my warnings to you. Get up and do something. Garden in buckets if in ground is too difficult because getting down on your knees is out of the question.

Knit from a pattern if your hands are still working and that good old Golden year arthritis has not set in. Because following a pattern is good for the brains memory that is if you can still see well enough to read the instructions from the small print on the pattern pages.

Oh Joy just look at how not boring the golden years are because you must find different ways to accomplish tasks but it is doable. May is around the corner , actually it is tomorrow and I await for the nights here in Canada to warm up before putting out the seedlings I’ve been growing all winter. I know as each year arrives my days gardening have had to slow down and find ways of moving soil for the plants without having a blow out of my back.

I garden in totes on my back deck now so not to have more stairs to manage during the day. But, that is okay because I can still MacGyver my way around gardening. The plan is to still be gardening in my eighties and beyond. Have a plan I say and don’t leave your options to the Golden Years. And , if you do well all I can say is find old re runs of Dallas and sit in your comfy chair. At least until your brain tells you to get up and never give up or give in. My hands hurt so it must be time for a cuppa tea and a little nap afterward. Hugs from Laura

It actually Snows in June here in Ontario, Canada

I’ve had it snow in past years in June after waiting six months for winter to finally be over and dusted. Now I hear they are calling for the hottest summer yet, so I am ready with shade cloth for the deck container garden that I used last year.

I actually bought the shade cloth and the netting to keep the Cabbage Moth butterfly off my plants such as the Pak Choy, Swiss Chard, since they are far too eager to lay hundreds of eggs on the underside of the leaves and soon the caterpillars hatch to eat all of these plants in a flash.

Nature is amazing to say the least. The Cabbage Moth Butterfly is really a pretty specimen with its all white body and two black dots on the top of each wing. Fluttering around on the current of the wind to land with precision on the leaf of choice, Broccoli family plants are their favorite. They are fast also when placing the eggs all around the underside of the plant leaves. So if you are sitting outside with a cuppa tea you can go right behind them and wipe off the eggs.

But, as nature demands you will never get all of the eggs and some might just fall on the soil and merely hatch right there. I suppose I garden to witness nature up close and personal, because between the insects, and the critters all hungry for food that I’ve in their opinion placed out just for their banquet to enjoy. I can’t for the life of me actually blame them for this one bit. They are doing what comes naturally.

So, I play with netting game of trying to cover up those broccoli family plants and put shade cloth over on those too hot days for these types of plants. My problem is by the time the weather stops frosting and the nights are no longer in the single digits, it becomes too hot for these Fall loving plants. My Fall time is too cold for me to grow these and my Spring is too cold.

Just yesterday May 24th it was -3 C outside and possible rain/snow predicted. Needless, to say still to cold to plant out my seed potatoes that arrived weeks ago from P.E.I. where I order them from months ago while I was still in winter. Because they sell out fast if you don’t pre-order them.

Every morning I check what the weather is going or suppose to be like for the coming week ahead, this week they are calling for +30 C toward the end of the week. What a difference from -3 C yesterday. It’s no wonder the critters are spending time on my deck looking for my container plants which are not planted out yet.

Indoor, here in Northern Ontario, we need to sow seeds around March to try and give the plants a head start to the growing season since it is so dang gone short once we get gardening in the soil outdoors. Well, it is a gamble what and when to sow the seeds indoors because you will have to place them in larger containers after they outgrow the pots you sowed them in. Oh mercy me it is a dance with a blindfold on not knowing what the weather will do and how long will I try and keep these plants happy.

Right now I’ve got tomatoes and Jalapenos growing under grow lights, and I’ve eaten lettuce, Pak Choy from my hydroponic garden indoors since I began them in November. I am however disappointed at the small size until I remember I bought dwarf size plants for the pak choy in the seed packets. I’ll try outside under the shade cloth but they usually bolt and go to seed as the temps rise above 75 F. I can always enjoy the beautiful yellow flowers they give me and wait to save the seeds to plant again next November indoors.

Somehow there is always something good to go next to the disheartening moments in ones day, as long as you take the time to find these little nuggets of golden smiles and delights. So I say come on 2023 gardening year I shall greet you with hopes and dreams and watch the dancing Cabbage Moth Butterfly trying to find its way inside the netting. Or, the chipmunks trying to find a way to take a bite off my tomatoes when they turn red. So, I will also have the yellow tomatoes growing as they don’t seem to know if they are ripe or not. I’ll take a win or two from the garden and thank nature for what it provides to me and respect her for what she gives to her family of insects, critters , etc…

Oh yes and I almost forgot to mention I’ve already harvested twice from my asparagus beds and enjoyed steamed glorious green stems of goodness. Nothing better than that while coming out of winter waiting for the temps to play ball for the season…

I Can’t Breath Through It All

There are some truths no matter how difficult they may be or become with time, space and much thought that often goes into them. This day the 31st of December 2022 will go down into my mental history as one of the days I am finding it difficult to just breath through this day when my dearest friend of over forty years has gone over to join his beloved wife that he lost over nine years ago.

I spoke with John a week and a half ago in the Facebook messenger which is where we would interact over the many years since this platform was developed. Gone were the days of waiting over seven days for the postal service to deliver hand written letters from Florida to Canada with its often tattered edges where the letters must have gotten hung up in the ever moving machinery of the sorting office. But, never the less the mail carrier would deliver a letter from the deep south where mosquitoes were the size of Volkswagen beetle vehicles most days during the summer time. He would catch me up on the goings on in the deep south since I left to immigrate to Canada upon marrying my late husband. The grace of time and space merely granted me fifteen years with my husband before removing a part of my heart which would forever more be lost to me. But, the grace of said marriage gave me part of him in the gifts of a son and a daughter which continue to live on supplying my heart with the needed tenderness it so rightfully needs.

During the first few years after immigrating to this beautiful country for which all I really knew was lots of trees and great fishing as my grandfather who raised me along with my grandmother would describe to me many times while out on our fishing boat. Most times these adventures began long before the sun rose on the gentle waves of the Gulf of Mexico waters. Smooth as silk they were with a light fog hovering over the water appearing to dance along with the small schools of fish that often caused a slight ripple effect to the surface of the ocean as we passed along slowly while grandpa poured hot steaming coffee from his green thermos and unwrapped fried egg sandwiches for us both. Before we continue here I must add my grandfathers passing back in 1978(my first huge loss) was the biggest part of my heart that disappeared to parts unknown never to be sighted again.

I had no idea just how much of a single organ could be lost and the human still survive to tell the tale. I suppose it’s like a scar that once the surface heals a scar will remain to acknowledge the difficulty of ones entire life in a nutshell. After time and space has passed you don’t forget about the pain but something odd happens to you. It’s like looking at a piece of paper on the floor that you don’t bother to pick up right away. You see it the next day, yet you leave it there for whatever reasons that you do. A few days pass and you walk right past the paper turning yellow on the floor without ever noticing it. Perhaps, it will wind up sticking to your shoe and is carried off to a different location all together, never to be seen again. Or, even better it goes outside with you on one of your walks and is lost, but never really forgotten.

During a slow mental moment in your day, imagine staring at the floor for no apparent reason and all of a sudden you wonder where the small piece of paper went that you were if given enough time would have bent over to pick up or vacuum during the weekly chores that with age are turning into bi weekly chores as the vacuum tends to gaining weight and is now difficult to push through the old orange shag carpet you had always meant to replace after buying your home twenty three years ago.

But, with all of the repairs that were needed at the time and the broken hot water heater in the basement deciding to burst emptying 60 gallons of water over the half carpeted floor there. Then was not the time for the old orange shag to go. But, rather pulling up the three layers of carpets soaked to their core with hot water needed to be addressed a.s.a.p. Along with replacing the hot water tank 40 gallons this time and buying carpet for the basement.

They say time has a way of healing ones wounds, that may be true to cuts on the skin or a few broken bones that will in time rear their ugly heads so to speak and begin to tell the weather with a great deal of stiffness and pain. One might say, ” At least the pain lets me know I am still alive”. Yeah right… How many times have I said that to myself and pretended to believe it for decades, until breathing became so difficult after hearing of the loss of my friend of over forty years. He was always there for me and always said, “I love you” this was a love between friends that knew each other actually better than we each knew ourselves most times. Gone was my grandparents who as much as I could feel they loved me beyond life of time and space they rarely spoke those three words out loud. I suppose they just figured I knew so what was the point since growing up they gave me everything I could ever want, except for an understanding why my own parents abandoned me. But, that which does not kill us , makes us stronger. They say. I can’t breath

I am not sure who came up with that phrase or was it in the bible? I’ve no clue I just know one thing, no it does not make us stronger, it just adds to the collection of scars that we eventually end up with upon our own demise. No tattoos here for me but lots of human tattoos in the form of outward scars and inward lost of heart parts. Where do they go I pondered many times. I mean the heart muscle is intact so to speak, but it’s scarred and when it gets scarred it is like barren ground after the soil had been treated with salt where nothing will rebound and rejoice like it use to. John you were a part of my heart for over forty years and will remain there until my own demise. I’ll regain my ability to breath like I use to, but with an added scar that will remain like a tattoo with your being attached.

Our last message was

John

“I’ll try and message you in a few days if I wake to this world or perhaps I’ll just join Alice. Which ever it may be please pray for me. ”

Laura

“It’ll be fine John, you have so much more to do here. The surgery will be fine and you will be up and about.”

In closing to this long blog that I needed to write which many will never make it this far to the end. Like we all get to the end one way or another. But, my heart knew he would not be contacting me again. I prayed and God was the driver the day he went into the hospital. Was John ready ? I think he was, I think our last conversation on Facebook Messenger was his way of saying farewell. I Love you one last time as much as he didn’t want to leave me after all of these years of giving support.

The Fallout of the Senses

The unpleasant results or effects of an action or event. Meaning from the Cambridge Dictionary. We all are aware of the fallout from a nuclear blast. We’ve heard about this for decades and probably will continue to pass that term around with a heavy heart.

I can remember being in grade school back in sixties where the teachers would weekly have us kids preform a drill where in case of such disaster we would get under our desk with our hands over our heads. At that age most young kids had no idea why this was being done. It’s not like that would offer any real protection, but it was rather a means to an end. To try and keep the peace in those moments if said disaster were to fall from the sky.

But, and with me there is always a but. I say grinning slightly without taking the first two paragraphs lightly. I grin at the fact that over the past 3 years there is being a fallout all over the place and it’s nothing to do with a nuclear disaster.

Over the past three years I have thought about my late husband and wonder what all he would have thought about all of this. I think about my late sister who took her own life years before the pandemic. I found myself thinking, well at least she didn’t have to live through this, because she was such a social butterfly always on the go. Or, my poor late mother who passed away last year in the calendar month of her birth. I wonder if she even was aware of the situation since she had Alzheimer Disease for many years.

Sadly, to say I really never knew my mother at all. My father grabbed me away from her at the tender age of 2 1/2 and stretched down on the railway tracks not far from their home waiting for the end. Sort of like us kids did in elementary school during the drills. Waiting for the end. But, at the time I had no idea the end could arrive to me so soon in either case if that was to be my fate in this life.

I can remember my dad dropping me off with two old people with grey hair and jumping into a yellow taxi cab. By then we had flown from California to Florida via the tickets my grandfather wired to the airport in Los Angeles. I ponder over what long winded story of falsehood my father gave to this elderly couple now that I am many decades older and have really nothing more to do than to ponder over these issues since it is safe to do so.

I say safe because before 2020 I stored these issues behind a wall. Not to hide them away from myself, but rather to keep them safe until I was ready to deal with the fall out if there was going to be one. You see I had married twice, had two beautiful children with my second husband and became a widow merely 15 years after our marriage and my immigrating from the United States to Canada. In all that time there was no time nor good time to un pack these issues because I had to stand strong and tall so to speak and travel my way through this lifetime.

I knew in my heart there would be a time when certain issues would need to be addressed in full. But, I also knew that no matter what the fall out was going to be that I would handle it one way or the other.

There have been things that I kept reminding myself about. Keep common sense first and foremost. Next never be afraid of the unknown. The unknown is merely something that if it is meant to be known it shall be. It’s alright to feel sad by what life throws at us, but don’t let it drag you down for too long.

Ask me how I know this? Been there done that and I almost beat my sister to the suicide fallout back in the 90’s – Four years before my husband suffered a sudden heart attack without any warning. What would our two children have done then ? No matter how bad life gets there is a reason for it. We mostly never know the reason until much later, or perhaps never. Somethings are just meant to be left in the void of the unknown.

When it is the darkest is when you need to scrape and scratch yourself up to the light. There is light waiting for you, but not without work on your part. No one can make you happy, only you can make yourself happy. It’s out there or should I say in you…

I know a lot have lost the battle with the fight that is sometimes referred to as Life. But, I am here to tell you no matter if you’re a young child of the sixties hiding underneath your school desk with your hands covering the back of your head, or you’re laying on the railway tracks with your father who had momentarily lost his way, there is light out there and it is up to you to reach it. To be brave if only one second at a time.

At times we are given a ton of lemons for which to make lemonade, but someone forgot to give us the sugar. It’s sour and too tart for the taste buds and all we want to do is pour the drink down the drain.

But, if you wait just a moment in time, perhaps a tad longer the sweetness will arrive at your doorstep and your thirst will be quenched with sweet tasting lemonade.

As you look around just wait. Life has a way of surprising us when we least expect it. It’s sort of like winning the lottery. Say you’ve played the numbers week after week expecting that huge win fall of cash, but all you wind up getting is a ticket with ink printed numbers not worth the paper it’s printed on.

But, if it is within a budget and you play the lottery without expecting hitting the jackpot, since the odds are never in our favor. But, sometimes there is a winner who just waited and lived their lives the best way that they could.

Just Wait…..

A different mindset makes all the difference in my world

Gardening this year has taken on a completely different meaning for me. The fresh vegetables bought from my local grocery store has been lacking so to speak. You can taste and feel on your lips that there is way more pesticides being used on the produce, which is why about ten years ago I stopped buying the fresh produce all together.

Growing your own vegetables can be a challenge but not impossible, unless you have barriers that can make it very difficult and most times for me heartbreaking. In February and March I usually begin my vegetable growing journey by sowing seeds into small containers, and also placing older seeds that I am uncertain will sprout on damp paper towels to see if they will germinate. That is just the beginning of the journey and the long wait for spring here in Northern Ontario Canada can and is a long one while waiting on warmer days dreaming of growing my own food.

This year after many years of losing cooler weather crops to the cabbage moth butterfly which flies non stop to each plant laying many upon many eggs which will hatch in mere days to devour your plants, stripping them down to the stems. Year after year I would rise just after the sun rose with a cup of coffee and soapy bucket of water to hand pick off the tiny lime green caterpillars from beneath the leaves knowing that no matter how many I pick off the plants there is always millions more hiding from my sight.

So, last Fall I decided to spend some money on netting and shade cloth to perhaps save these cooler loving plants. I do most of my gardening these days of my vegetables on my large deck since I can monitor the weather and cover the containers at night when it falls to 6 C just last week. Spring and summer this year as with most years is a crap shoot weather wise as it can be 37C during the day and fall to 7C at night. The warmer loving plants such as tomatoes , peppers and the like do not tolerate the colder temperatures and just die post haste if not cared for and covered.

Those are the easy aspects of my gardening year. Last year my dog passed away leaving my back yard free from her doggie scents to ward off some of the hungry critters that arrive each spring to gobble up your newly planted seedlings that you have babied for months indoors underneath grow lights so they don’t become leggy and yes plants becoming leggy is not a good thing.

If you have ever tried to outsmart a squirrel or chipmunk you will know that is a losing battle since mother nature gave her creatures the knowledge to hunt for food no matter what we as humans try and do to protect them.

Nets work well but the creatures can become entangled in them and if you care about all living things and don’t wack it over the head with a heavy object then you must get your thick gloves and scissors to cut away the nets to release the creature from its grasp. Needless to say the first time I had to do that I no longer bought those type of nets that are usually used in a high location to ward off the birds from landing on your fruit.

Cages are wonderful except when built to keep the critters out also means it will keep the gardener out as well. A cage with a door will never work against a chipmunk as their bodies are like mice and can magically squeeze through tight spaces. Also they will dig from under the ground and rise up right in the middle of your caged area, unless you add wire on the ground and set your newly built grow wooden box on top. But just to be on the safe side I used a double layer of wire on the bottom, then a layer of cardboard, a layer of branches , limbs, twigs, leaves, compost all before the beloved seedlings are place inside the box which was and is surrounded by four feet high wire and topped with wire.

I have peppers and tomatoes planted in there out in the yard having to defend themselves since my job was done to the best of my ability.

Usually the back yard garden consists of flowers of all types that come back year after year. Those I love…. No work needed after planted except for dividing them every few years.

I have a permaculture bed in the yard as well that was built back in 2015 after a birch tree needed to be taken down as it was then just a woodpecker hotel with many holes adorning the massive trunk of the tree that was threatening to fall any day. My heart sank on the day it had to come down but I knew I would be putting to to good use in making a permaculture bed out of its remains.

Over the years other trees on my property needed branches trimming back or other trees losing their branches into my yard. So I began the back fence branch society so to speak. Resting the bigger hardwood evergreen branches upright so as not to rot laying on the ground. As it turned out it made the height of my back fence go from 4 feet tall to double that height, which helped when a mother bear and her three baby cubs wandered into the back area just beyond my back fence.

My pup was alive at that time and outside barking her fool head off at the bear with her bear paws resting on the back fence growling at my dog who was barking like the world would end any moment, and I up on my deck yelling at my dog to come to me. Hoping the bear would not risk going through the tall branches that were merely leaning on the fence. Thankfully, she climbed the tree along with here cubs just 2 feet behind my fence. If the cubs fell into my yard the mother bear would have followed I am certain.

Luckily, my dog finally came to me as the police and wildlife officer arrived back there to retrieve the bears in different sized cages to transport back into the wild . There is a small brook behind my house down the way and that summer had been drought worthy indeed, and the bears were thirsty I would imagine and got turned around trying to leave between houses. Black bears are common as the bear hunts have been cancelled and the bear population has been on the rise knowing there is food in the neighborhoods for the taking. I digress and for that I don’t apologize for since the bear scare of my life was worth it in the telling.

After all of these barriers that every year try and stop me I pondered over why I never just gave up trying to garden when some years there was little to show for it. I realized that if I quit and gave up that would mean that I was not being the person I knew myself to be. I actually enjoy the challenges of the spring and summer garden. I enjoy trying new ways to protect the garden and the bug netting I purchased last Fall is working amazingly well and I can tell you there has been stir fry being made in my tiny kitchen and also bowls of ramen noodles with freshly harvested pak choy added from the garden. The caged yard box in the back yard is working wonderfully and the tomato plant has grew to the top of the cage, soon there will be tomatoes for me to enjoy.

Nothing in this life I have learned over these 6 decades comes easy because if it did come to me easily I would not enjoy the harvest for its taste and my determination to have some of it come to harvest and the rest that either gets eaten by the squirrels , chipmunks, bird, and slugs ~ Well my growing my own food outside on their land , their stomping grounds, their habitat ~ It’s only nature and Natural that they feel I’ve gone and set the dinner table for T H E M… Rightly so I suppose when you really think about it.

So I’ve added a new level to my gardening this year and it’s a trail Camera for which to capture images of the critters as they dig up the popping corn I planted for them as a distraction so they may or might leave the rest for me to eat. Oh how they love the corn stalks, tender and sweet.

Excuse my French, but what in the bloody hell is going on?

I’m certain I will toss and turn typing this title into my newest blog post, but it must be done and even more so be done.

I’m an old Fart as my late husband use to call himself when he was a tender young lad of 46 before he passed. What in the Hell !

Today I am 63 going on 64, feeling like 94 with each rain drop that is falling this spring so far. What the Hell?

Now to be honest and I actually dislike when folks repeat that saying, “To Be Honest”. Well if you’re being honest in the first place and live an honest life there is no need to announce that at this point in time you’re going to turn over a new leaf and become honest in a statement that is to follow. Right?

Actually this is the first time I’ve used to be honest, either saying it out loud or typing it here. Feels sort of cheesy and also it feels like I’m being dis-honest by announcing it. Weird I know but to know me is to love me .. wink…

I began making videos on YouTube in 2015. Not knowing what I was doing but sometimes paddling out into the deepest of waters where the sharks live just waiting for tadpoles to swim by can be exciting. I can almost have read their minds, “Hum…Tasty treat has arrived.”

So, I dodged the dangers of sharks in the giant ocean of other YouTubers trying to put out videos in hopes that someday they would attract attention like a bee to honey. Well, I sailed along until 2019 when the platform stirred the pot big time and were laying down the law so to speak, YouTube was no longer the Wild Wild West any longer and the sheriff rode into town to clean up the ones who were upsetting the advertisers or whom ever was upset. (It had something to do with children content) What the hell!

So, being a little channel with just over 1, 500 subscribers at the time I got a bit worried since my channel consisted of animated story lines that I was have fun creating. You see even old dogs can learn new tricks and with the help of my son the graphic designer he guided me on how to use a computer drawing tablet and off I went as happy as a pig who had just found a water hole for which to roll over and over again.

So I created a few story lines and did the weekly drawing on the tablet which to most folks looked like a cartoon of my story.

My favorite of all the panels for my story, memories of Iowa and my great-grand-mother

Those are just a few of the art work I was creating for my story line and I narrated each Friday because it took many many hours and 6 full days to get each panel just right for my story and remember I was a new comer to this type of digital art. I learned with pencil and paper, moving on to paint, and oils back in the day. But, I must say I adored the time and hours spent creating like this and my son was proud of me for picking it up so quickly. All was good there on YouTube for a brief time it felt like. My channel was never going to be huge and lots and lots of followers which at times made me a bit sad .. But , I really did not have the trolls as they called them coming to my channel because I was that tree in the forest of many. Trolls to me were those fat belly dolls with the colorful hair that lived underneath bridges.

I use to play with them when a child myself, and so did my daughter many years later. Funny how some old things are new again. I most times wish I were too. Especially when my knees hurt or the gout attack I experience after eating a few spears of Asparagus that I grow out in my garden but can no longer eat without my body turning on me. F.Y.I if your curious about what causes gout , for me it is Seafood, Beef, Turkey, and the glorious Asparagus. There are other things as well but you would have to research that on your own or ask your doctor.

I digress again as per usual. I get on here with you readers of my little blog and I feel as if you are sitting right here with me and either rolling your eyes at me and my ponderings or laughing along with me. If, there is a point where I actually laugh out loud while typing on here I hope I can cause a huge ripple effect for you to giggle too because What the Hell we all need it right now.

So long story even longer I deleted my YouTube channel in 2019 and hid behind my woes feeling I’d made a big mistake, since after a few days I sorely missed the interactions I had with my subscribers who were mostly at the time view for view but heck and good golly miss molly I didn’t care because I typed and typed to them back in the comment section when they would comment on one of my videos. I loved every key click of my keyboard and smiled in pure bliss.

You see even the most simple and mundane appearing actions one can preform can and does give you joy which I’ve found grows into a sense of happiness. How many of us take our entire lives looking for that blue bird of happiness when it was right there inside of you all the while. Waiting for you to see.

So go ahead and be brave even if you want to cause a young neighbor child to laugh with a big blue bowl atop your head. Smile like you’ve never been happier and the ripple action will begin and you’re on your way to bliss. No fooling ~give it a try…

So shortly after deleting my original YouTube Channel I made a brand new one. Realizing I’d never get back my original subscribers and yet again I was back at ground zero wondering off and on since then why am I doing this. I threatened to quit many times when my videos which I worked very hard on never got off the ground. Actually, I knew it’s a young persons world. In my sixties I’m not going to be out front of the camera and my channel would have to exist with me being the director behind the camera trying my best to create something of purpose.

I suppose I figured I’m too old to show off what gravity does to a aging body. Gravity did nothing to my mind and I most times still feel young at heart although with age comes experience and hopefully wisdom. I’m still waiting on wisdom to arrive but I’m at peace with the experience gathered over these 6 decades. Now if you’ve read down this far and you are not ready to pour a nice big glass of wine and go to bed then here is the sole reason for this blog post.

Two days ago I made a little sort of funny video about the critter out in my yard waiting for me to take out all of my seedlings that are waiting for warmer temps here in Ontario Canada. So, they bide their time (chipmunks) looking inside of my patio door just sitting there waiting, wondering when their bounty of seedlings are coming out. I giggle at them and yes I still giggle like a school child even in my sixties. “Not until mid June little buddy I say out loud.”

So the other day I was weeding a part of the garden watching the wee chipmunk watching me from the fence. He or she would scurry along a little and poke its head back at me. This went on for a few minutes and I wondered if it was checking on if I was sowing any seeds they could dig up as soon as I’ve left the garden. This is the reason for seedlings, better chance to save them. Anyway I went to stand straight again after being bent over with the weeds when something flew by my head only inches away from me and it was the darn critter.

After being startled for a second, a natural born YouTuber will proclaim, “That’s a Video”

So I came indoors and made a little wee video and used some of my digital talents I’ve gathered over the past few years and created the video. Now let me tell you I rarely get over 20 views on most of my videos, except for a chosen few that have done well. But, this Critter video has 462 views in two days. What the Bloody Hell is going On ! !

But the day before I made that critter video and the chipmunk thinking it was a good idea to try and do a Olympic landing on the top of my head I was done with YouTube even if I didn’t know what I was going to fill my days with when my knees were hurting and I could get out there to garden yet. How on earth would I cope with the state of affairs of the world without my own YouTube Channel to be a daily distraction keeping me sane. What I ask.. ?

Well, something guided me back before I deleted my channel for the second time, weather it was a grand kick of the backside from above or perhaps they sent the critter to land on my head, but whatever stopped me in my tracks I 100% felt I was to not suppose delete the channel. And then the last video I created blew up well for my stats anyway. I’ve laughed for two days watching it grow and grow. So if you’re bored and need something different to watch over there, (not so shameless plug since I’ve only 121 subscribers at this point in time and I’ve got the welcome mat out just for you all here, since you feel like family.

Hugs and kisses across the world wide web, virtual that is..

Is positivity an illusion ?

I often times as regular as 99.99 % of the time feel that my glass is always half full even if it appears to have a crack in the glass and some of the positivity begins to slowly leak out, almost without my even noticing.

I worked for the Canadian Red Cross helping the elderly families out with housekeeping or just being there as someone they could chat with on a weekly basis. In the beginning I wondered why the grown children of the elderly families didn’t come for a visit very often outside of the given yearly holidays.

I knew most if not all were married with children and led busy lives. But, didn’t they see the sadness in Mom or Dads eyes ? I wondered since I could see it when the elderly would speak of them and how proud they were of their sons and daughters.

I suppose I was born to do this work, since my own elderly grandparents raised me from two years old and I was able to witness this part of the end years of life first hand. I offered to do the evening dishes before I was tall enough to reach the sink and do the laundry with a step ladder to reach the washing machine to plunge into it trying like it was a game to grab the wet clothes that had finished the spin cycle. Indeed, I was born for this job working for the Canadian Red Cross and I adored every moment spent with the elderly families more that mere words can ever describe. They made me a much better person in the end.

I also since my scheduling book for clients was never that full on any given week because I was newly hire to the organization and they didn’t spread out the clients evenly even when I asked them to a number of times. So, what does a widow of two children do? One child in college and the other in high school, she gets more work to total up 10 – 12 hour days ~ 7 days a week.

I divided my time up and scheduled accordingly between school pick up and making the dinner meals and checking homework before heading back out to work, often times after the sun had set. I was riding high on feeling that I was doing the best that I could do and gave to my children what they needed.

I was a stay at home mother after my husband suddenly passed away one Good Friday Morning, 11:11 to be exact. The children were barely 10 and 7 at the time, so this was what needed to be done. I remained positive after a month or two scared out of my wits about how I was going to survive up here in the frozen north of Ontario Canada. For 6 months out of the year. The challenges were real, and you just never knew what storm or blizzard was just around the corner from week to week. You will quickly figure out just what you are made of in a blink of an eye.

After a plan was erected in my mind about how I was going to live I found the positively returning on a more regular basis. I learned not to doubt myself and move forward one day at a time ~ One shovel full of snow at a time. Until…..

Until, I didn’t. Seven years of pushing my body to the brink of collapse and never giving in to the pain the joints were feeling after a 12 hour day of hard labor working cleaning other peoples homes and going above and beyond my limits of common sense about lifting items that were better left for a strong armed man or men.

I would return home and sit in my easy chair that is now ratty and not so easy on the body since it lost all of its comfort from the fluffy cushions and is now a flat pancake of a cushion to sit upon.

After, about ten minutes of resting I’d try and stand up but the legs had another agenda for me, by way of locking up and refusing to move. Yet, I continued working since by the next morning I was not hurting and ready to begin another day of work. Until….

One morning I raised my head to swing out of bed, but the body refused to remember it belonged to me and my head that was lifted off the pillow. Did I panic ? No, I knew in my heart of hearts that my body was at this very point in time showing me who was actually boss and doing its best to protect me from future devastating harm I was hell bent on doing to my own body. I finally noticed that crack in the glass that I assumed was half full and would always remain that way as long as I didn’t doubt myself and my own capabilities.

The moment I began to doubt positivity is the moment I began to realize that it is and always has been an illusion. My illusion of how I saw things ~ How I wanted to see things~ If I see that the sky is meant to be blue with fluffy white, dreamy clouds then that must be true and not an illusion. But, those fluffy white clouds contain moisture that often times will turn dark and rain is imminent for any given day if mother nature calls for it.

I dearly wish that my late husband could be by my side and we follow through with our own dreamy dreams of growing old together on a covered front porch rocking in wooden chairs that are both antiques, yet fit our aged bodies like a glove and feel like there is no longer gravity to hurt our aging joints. But, that is a lovely dream of wishes and an illusion to what my own path in life is and was suppose to be.

He would often ask me a very odd question which I shall share with you here. “Why do you love me?” I supposed he considered himself not lovable or not handsome enough since he had the sexiest bald spot developing on the very top of his head. Which before going out he’d adorn a ball cap if not in his Military Dress Uniform.

My answer was always the same, “Because I see you for you.” Our hearts danced even when there were days he or I were mad at each other for what ever silly reason. Because let’s face it you can’t totally live and share with another person without those days littered into them like pepper to our sugar.

My eyes were the last thing my husband saw when he left this plane of existence, and I know at that very moment my love for him all those years was no illusion and he took that knowing with him until such time we meet again. Rocking and sipping strong coffee at the little yellow cottage by a babbling brook in Nova Scotia, which we owned together for some time and spent a lot of enjoyable moments together looking up at the darken night sky deep in the forest where all of the earths stars are totally visible and you are aware of just how short a time we have here on this plane.

The eyes of my grandparents told me.

The eyes of the elderly families I took care of told me, and…

The night-time stars showed me that positivity is not an illusion after all.

Dream like there are never too many dreams to dream no matter what age you are.

Live like tomorrow you will close your eyes and see those dreamy stars from the other side.

Love like it’s sugar that you can not do without, yet never harms you in any way.

Be brave , yet see that glass for what it is. Because what you might see is indeed just an illusion you are telling yourself.

March Break isn’t just for the Young

There comes a time within the 365 days that make up a single year when you must have fun and take stock. The young are off soon on March Break to sunny locations I am certain. While the rest of us partake in the notion that the gardening season is soon to arrive here in the frozen north of Canada where the temperatures got down to -40 C which is -40F as well at that point on the gauge.

As the young head off for their week of fun in the sun on the March break vacation I take stock of the 8 weeks that I will need to start my garden seeds for planting out the middle or end of May. June can still bring snow here in the north, but a nice plan of the gardener who lives this far north will tell you they also have a solution for that.

Number One… Don’t even think about planting out my tomatoes until closer to the end of June.

Number Two… Know at all times where the large tarp is for covering up plants if the weather and it always does change and you are running like a chicken with its head cut off cursing like a demon while yelling where is that tarp from last gardening season.

Tip.… I know where all three of my Tarps are at all times. I may not know where my will is located, but heaven willing I know where the tarps are stored. I make it a must at the end of every gardening season to store them out in the open in my garage sitting on top of my dead 24 year old car whos battery died back in March of 2020.

I decided to not worry about it two years ago, thinking all the while I’d get a boost from my daughters car. But, strangely enough as the days turned into months and the months turned into years I noticed a very odd occurrence. I really didn’t need to drive anywhere since well you know the world hit a very big speed bump for us all. I could have my daughter bring food and I could order off the world wide web for other things.

The oddity was I was actually saving lots of money not keeping the old car running which would be a few thousand each year as it was literally falling apart and I was being stubborn not to get rid of it. Black Beauty was or still is her name, yes don’t judge me. If you own a vehicle that long you damn better give it a friggen name. Enough said .. Now Stop Judging me. wink

I no longer needed to pay the high car insurance which double at the very same time the car battery died in March of 2020. Amazing how much money began to be at my fingertips and not going to these things. No longer high gas prices either, or buying what I don’t need at the grocery stores. I made a grocery list for my daughter of only the staples of needed items since I was no longer tempted by the isle and isles in the grocery store with their shinny packaging.

I stopped needing to sweat about how was I going to pay off the credit line I got for a new roof many years ago, or the college tuition that was tacked on to the loan. Now, It’s getting paid back at an alarming rate and I can finally sleep soundly at night as I wait for spring to arrive and my joy of gardening can begin again for another short but sweet growing season of battling with the critters wanting all of my fresh produce.

Number 3… This old gardener has a plan for that as well. I will just grow more. Some for the critters and hopefully some for the gardener. Indeed, growing on a small scale was not working and I’ve over the years gotten really good at permaculture and making compost, which is the gold for all gardeners.

So let the young partake in the sandy beaches of Florida or the Caribbean while I flip through my seed catalog just checking to see if I missed something when I ordered my seeds for 2022. I am making plans for making another new permaculture bed with a canopy to protect the tomato plants from the falling limbs of my neighbors old tree.

I am so excited to get gardening and have the soil underneath my fingernails because I’m going to create the new bed and canopy with items I already own. Part of my heart sinks for what the world is going through, but my soul is focused on my mental health and what is in store for my spring garden. The serenity prayer comes to mind as I end this blog post.

You’ll Never Find It ~ Until You Stop Looking…

How many times have I held on to the railing of my basement stairs traversing the thirteen steps to reach the landing, safely. The problem with the notion of doing a task as safely as possible is you forget. That one time you are in a hurry and do not grab the handrail that is usually on all stairs that of course lead you up and or down the steps.

That one time is when your body takes flight and in mere seconds you are either flying though the air to the eventual bottom of the floor or you bounce along like a toy you’ve thrown as a child down the stairs just to take glee in experiencing it bounce along appearing to not mind the task in the least. But, and yes with me there is always a but.

I’ve taken to bouncing down my basement stairs at least four times in the past 22 years and 6 times down the upper level stairs of my top floor. The sixth time bouncing on my south end wound up breaking my tail bone and if you have ever broken a tail bone you will know there is no cast for which to apply to this injury as with broken toes also.

You must grin and bear it for the length of time it takes for it to heal. So what does any of the last few paragraphs have to do with something that is lost you might be pondering by now. Or at least I hope you’ve read this far to this point. It’s been years since my last tumble down the stairs and I pray will not happen again.

You see when you age you tend to lose the ability to remember everything you use to remember when younger. Some might say they forget at any age and it’s nothing to do with aging. Let’s just say I use to multi-task so much easier years ago. I would store items in one certain place for years and then would come to the un-earthly conclusion that a another completely different place was better.

This is called storing into my Black Hole of a Memory. For the life of me I swear under my breath and sometimes calling out into the air, “Why oh Why did I think storing that item in a different place was a good plan?”

Christmas of 2018 I use to store my little 3 foot tree, adorned with the lovely ornaments gifted to me by my beautiful daughter over the many years of gift giving. They were themed ornaments which is why I bought the little tree in the first place. I had a 7 foot Christmas tree that I used for many years, but it became a tad harder each year lugging the many totes of ornaments and lights up the basement stairs and dragging the bag with the 7 ft. tree to the living room.

Not only the lugging of Christmas decorations that needed to be done, also the living room furniture needed moving every year so I would have room for the tree. This became just too much for me and the joy began to disappear from the upcoming holiday celebrations. So, I stored that 7 ft. tree on a huge shelf in the garage and allowed it to rest for a number of years, until my daughter who now was married and had her own decorating tasks to perform. Needless, to say upon her informing me she needed a Christmas tree for the holidays back in 2018 ~ Well you can guess by now that I gave it to her with Joy in my Heart, because I’d never again need to move the furniture around or lug all of those totes out of the basement.

So in 2018 just after New Year I stored away my little 3 ft. Christmas tree in my walk in closet inside of all things an empty Karaoke box from a gift I’d given my daughter when she was a teenager. She moved out with the machine leaving the box behind. Just my luck it was the right size for the tiny Christmas tree and this is where it was stored, happily I must say. As every year I would smile when grabbing the small box and knowing there would be no moving of heavy furniture around.

Well, during the year 2018 I was feeling fantastic and decided to clear out my walk in closet and donate clothing that I no longer wore, you know what I mean. All those party dresses and sparkling party shoes that were so tight on my ever growing feet, did you all know that as you age your nose, ears and feet grow bigger? Along with your thighs and tummy of course.

For the life of me and I can’t remember why I though the Karaoke box no longer was suitable to store my tiny tree. I’d find a better place and not store it in my bedroom closet any longer. December of 2018 came around and with glee I walked upstairs to retrieve the Karaoke box containing the tiny tree and as it turned out all I found were a few dust bunnies in its place. Hum…

Never in my wildest dreams did I ponder if the Black Hole of a Memory had anything to do with my simply misplaced tiny tree. I’d find it post-haste for sure. Well I searched room after room and no tree was to be found and neither was the Karaoke box. Now don’t be mistaken to imagine big rooms of my home, because they are quite small indeed. So, in time I was sure that I’d locate the tiny tree I told myself as I added more rum to my fruitcake I’d been tending to for months.

Did you know the secret to really delicious fruit cake? It’s all in the rum that is added in small amounts (a rum bottle cap full) once a week beginning in October leading up to Christmas. No driving allowed after eating my Christmas fruit cake that is for sure. It is so good that I had orders from my friends who lived in Mississippi, Louisiana, Los Angeles California and finally in Los Vegas as well. I’d ship them off just after Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November. Oh those were fun times back when I lived in Florida over 3 decades ago.

But, I digress again as I often do these days when pondering over the many memories of ones lifetime. So long story not too short, the tree was not found until just 2 weeks before December 25th (2021) in my basement. You see I had a flood back in the summer of 2019 from a hose attached to my basement sump pump, which meant moving totes from one place to another for the men to work on the problem.

I’d in the past given my daughter many totes marked Christmas decorations for her new family and didn’t think twice about the newly found tote marked Xmas. Hum…A smart person would have looked inside long before now as I grew over the years more and more saddened about losing my small tree. But, my heart knew I didn’t throw out the tree to the garbage or donate it to good-will. So one day it would appear like a Christmas miracle I was certain.

The basement was wonderfully repaired that summer before our world changed due to the virus. I was thankful the pump broke that year before the outbreak because I would not have wanted anyone in the home at that time.

So the tote marked Xmas caught my eye the day I noticed my hot water tank in the basement beginning to leak on Dec 21st 2021. Yes I’d needed to have my hydro (electric company) replace it I hoped. I’ve rented the tank from them ever since I bought the home 22 years ago. It’s just easier to pay a monthly charge , instead of getting a plumber to buy me one and install it. This year might have been difficult with the lack of things available to purchase such as hot water tanks. I’d be in a pickle for sure. So I thanked my lucky stars for renting the hot water tank and with my heart pounding in my chest I called Hydro.

They said of course and would 9 in the morning on Dec. 22nd be alright for the install. Well I about cried with joy over this important appointment. Remember the tote that caught my eye? Well it was underneath four lightweight cardboard boxes, glaring at me or should I say snickering at me to take a peek inside and that is just what I did.

But, I must say this tote in question was out of sight and out of mind in the basement behind a curtain next to my washer and dryer I suppose since I cleared out my bedroom closet.

So I removed the cardboard boxes and looked inside. One of the biggest smiles came across my face and heart since before the virus hit us here in March of 2020. There was not only the fully decorated Christmas tree but the extension cord and the table top cover for under the tree, along with my Christmas Stocking my beloved grandmother crafted by hand upon the notice of my birth at Our Lady of Angels Hospital in Los Angeles California so many moons ago.

Little did she know at that time my father would run away with me to drop me off on my grandparents doorstep in a small retirement village in Carrabelle Florida.

He walked down the driveway to a waiting taxi cab never to be seen by me again until I asked my grandfather when I was 11 to meet my father, and later at 14 to meet my mother. I digressed again. But, in telling a Christmas themed story it’s at times nice to get to know a little about the storyteller.

I learned at a young age not to look too hard for what is lost as it will find you when it is meant to or not. We never know what the future holds we must just be thankful and live it. Along with pondering about such things. Happiness is what you make of it. My grandparents were my angels and provided me with the love I needed and always respected my wishes. I met both of my parents and found out that my life was suppose to traverse in this manner for me to become the woman that I am.

So just when you think something is lost to you forever , let me tell you to just stop looking and wait for its arrival.

The Power of Positivity

My heart is so heavy at this very moment for the past twenty-four hours due to the lack of strength to generate a certain amount of positivity needed to cause a difference. What in the heck am I referring to you are pondering I am sure.

There are powers we as mere humans can attain as a matter of fact or just shear will of heart. This I know for a fact as I’ve been in direct contact with the shear matter of my own will to make things I needed to happen actually come to be. To be born so to speak.

Although the force of an undertow in the ocean carries with it its own powerful force that a single human can not match wills, so you must carry through it until such time as it releases you onto your own strength of will to rise to the surface for that needed breath of air to survive.

It’s amazing to me that a single amount of shear will from one human can attain such things during a lifetime, but and yes there it is.. But, a grand force of many with the same shear wills combined can direct such a power of positivity into the grand space of time to carry with it an outcome that is in my own simple opinion a miracle without becoming biblical in nature.

Don’t get me wrong I am very spiritual and to some it might appear an overwhelming amount of faith that I hold within this body, but that is not what I am referring to. I am referring to you and I as a whole, so fourth and so on. Continuing to multiply in numbers (humans) until we all become such a force of positivity that it can reach those in such a dire need of wellness of soul.

Please help me send such a grand positive force to those that are in such need after the terrible recent tornados that tore through towns and cities for over 250 miles. We as one can only do so much in the grand scheme of things to effect such a ripple, but the many can truly make a difference.