Musings
About retirement… and random other things!
These blogs first appear as weekly columns in the Red Deer Advocate
Challenge to self: Learn to crochet
Does this look like a pumpkin? The crochet instructor said we would all go home with one we made ourselves! Doesn’t knitting and crocheting sound like a perfect pastime for aging persons? Keeping your fingers agile, your mind active, your giving spirit open – I mean, do you know anyone who knits anything for themselves? It seems to always be...
Farewell to a force
We said goodbye to Jane Goodall recently, but she also said goodbye to us. We followed her partnership with the great chimpanzees of Tanzania over the decades, we learned from her scientific quests, and we were moved by her devotion to nature. And then we were touched by her message to us, after her death, through a sensitive and clever interview...
Our daily bread
Did you buy a loaf of bread at anytime between 2001 and 2021? Maybe you made some French Toast on a quiet Sunday morning, or put together a peanut butter sandwich for your child’s lunch, or stuffed a festive turkey. If so, you should add your name to the Canadian Packaged Bread Class Action Settlement before December 12, because someone was...
Challenge to self: Skate
I have skated a lot in my life. The whole of my childhood years was spent on community rinks, followed by teenage and young adult years gliding along the pond at Bowness Park in Calgary. We’d blast across the ice holding hands and playing crack the whip until the whole lot of us tumbled in a heap of laughter – and no broken bones. How is it that...
Small business owners believe anything is possible
It was small business week a few weeks ago and I am more and more aware of what that means. Partly because I’ve recently been asked to do some freelance work for the Chamber of Commerce at a town south of Red Deer and I’ve been interviewing business people about their goals and dreams. Also because some small business owners near where I live in...
A thankless job – many thankless jobs
Can you imagine being a receptionist at one of the UCP MLA offices right now? It would be a task almost as impossible as being a teacher in Alberta. I made my first-ever phone call to my MLA at 8:55 on October 28, the morning his party introduced Bill 2. ‘My constituency’ office phone rolled through nine rings before I received a message that the...
Halloween manners
A long time ago when my daughter was out with the throngs of other young trick or treaters, there was a bit of drama on the Halloween route and I needed to vacate my candy-giving duties at our front door to go run interference. It was those tricky few years when they were too old for a chaperone but too young to always have the world situations...
Childhood song is now an inventory list
Remember that song “head and shoulders knees and toes…” It was taught to us as kids and then we taught it to our kids to help them learn about their bodies. Now it’s a good jingle to carry into senior years because it’s a perfect inventory list when you’re doing your body scan to see if you should 1) get out of bed, 2) keep all the plans you made...
Lessons in democracy
Knowing that it takes all of us – men, women, children – everyone, from all walks of life, to protect and enhance fundamental human rights in this country, I have raised my daughter to clearly know the democratic process. It’s been important, but also sort of a blast, to bestow the knowledge. When she was a young toddler, thanks to the...