Musings
About retirement… and random other things!
These blogs first appear as weekly columns in the Red Deer Advocate
Is anybody happier because you passed this way?
I’ve been thinking long and hard about the impact we have on one another through our actions. It’s a vital power, actually, that can be used for good or for evil. My deep reflection comes from a message of gratitude from a person that I helped over three decades ago, that I wrote about last week. It got me thinking about some of the people who...
A jolt of kindness
Have you ever received a message completely out of the blue from a person you strain with all your might to recall, but for whom you apparently wielded a gigantic influence? I’ve had old friends look me up and some thank you notes from work colleagues over the years. But this extraordinary message came through my retirement website last week and...
Cooking up the right approach
I know I’ve been going on and on about cooking lately – or lack thereof. ‘Learn to cook’ was front and centre on many lists and charts I was instructed to make when I contemplated what I would do with my time in retirement. It has stayed there through a couple of iterations of these charts over the last year since I scribbled the first one – and...
Maybe it’s a generational thing
I grew up in a home where cooking was predictable, unimaginative and meant to simply help everyone maintain their body weight. Mom didn’t waste too much time and energy on specialty dishes – and pasta was considered specialty, especially by my Irish father who only wanted meat and potatoes, potatoes, potatoes. So there were Fish Fridays, which...
Going all out with Julia Child
My dear friend, Jan, is undoubtedly the most talented artist I know. I’m fortunate that she has been involved in pretty much every literary endeavour I’ve embarked on - she is behind the adorable wise-old owl on my website. Her love of visual art is evident in everything she does – how she furnishes a room, how she sets a table, how she shares...
The kitchen is not my favourite room
--- This pupcake has been my greatest success in the kitchen! -- My brother has been a paramedic for nearly 35 years and when people ask him the grossestthing he has ever seen, he says ‘my sister’s cooking.’Now my rudimentary skills allowed me to keep my daughter adequately fed while she grewup, but they also gave her cause to plead for a...
Books glorious books!
Reading has been one of the greatest pleasures throughout my life. Quite certainly I’ve stated that to you before, so it’s not new information! But I know it’s a life priority that many, many of us share – and what has become clear to me through the book exchanges, conversations and gifts over the holiday season is that we are reading for many...
Digging for treasure
There was a tiny ledge above the highest shelf of our kitchen cupboards growing up, where strange and unusual things were kept. Like the gallstones my mom brought home in a jar after her surgery in the 1970s, and the plastic-wrapped and yellowed top layer of their 1953 wedding cake. Sometimes there was Halloween candy purchased in advance and...
Trash talking
Do you know where your horn is? Like, of your car? I had never used mine before, mostly because I didn’t want to add to the anger that seems to pave our streets these days. I recently found myself searching quickly to try and find it, though, and when I did it sounded like a high-pitched whine instead of an authoritative bellow. The reason I blew...