For at least 40 years, I was a daily reader of the Edmonton Journal. It wasn’t part of a morning ritual with coffee and croissant, because we had to pick it up from a convenience store in Andrew. There’s no door-to-door delivery when you live in the boonies. Most days, reading it was the last… Read more »
It’s quite late Sunday evening as I write this. Whoever said (okay, I know it was the Big Guy) that Sunday is a day of rest obviously hadn’t considered my to-do list. It goes on for miles and doesn’t contain optional, wouldn’t-it-be-nice-to-do-someday items; It’s now or never, do or die, sink or swim-calibre stuff. My… Read more »
There’s just no pleasing some people. In Alberta we were despairing of ever seeing the sun again or having the mercury climb higher than the mid-teens. Now, as we sizzle through the first few days of a forecasted prolonged heat wave, many of us are moaning about that. Without air conditioning, the activities of daily… Read more »
When one gets busy, It’s so easy to forget and forego stuff. Important stuff like life lessons, good habits, and best practices. Stuff like taking time for friends and family. Hard-won weight loss becomes a slippery slope when I forget that I can’t have certain foods in the house. That for my health and well-being,… Read more »
My body is getting weary and my mind is turning to mush as my work as festival coordinator shifts into high gear. Each day I start with an intended to-do list with about 25 items on it: the most time-sensitive, critical items. If I were using Steven Covey’s matrix, these items would fall in the… Read more »
As I write this, we’ve just returned home from the annual provody ceremony at the Ukrainian Orthodox church a couple of miles from here. It is an important part of the Orthodox faith and something we’ve done since Roy’s parents died in the early 1980s. For six weeks after Ukrainian Easter (which can fall any… Read more »
In the May 29 issue of the Edmonton Journal there appeared a half-page photo story with the headline, ?Chinese teen defaces Egyptian temple art.? The story has since appeared on TV. In a nutshell, a 15-year-old boy from Nanjing, China scratched, ?Ding Jinhao visited here? onto the wall of a 3,500-year-old temple. The vandalism got… Read more »
I’ve had a number of surgeries in my day. In each case I weighed the potential risks and hoped-for benefits and made the best possible decision I could at the time. I asked the questions, got the facts, decided. I invoked the power of prayer by sharing the decision with those closest to me. In… Read more »
Every so often, and even when?no, especially when?your to-do list is a mile long, you need to step back and chill. When the stuff on your plate is spilling over into your dreams, It’s time. When you find yourself making silly mistakes and not catching them, It’s time. When You’re getting cold sores and waking… Read more »
Mother’s Day evening totally changed with Roy’s panicked announcement that he needed stitches. With the entire family visiting, it was an attention-getter. Hilary and I sprang into action; Carrie cringed and said she couldn’t look. Roy, as a farmer and a truck driver, is no stranger to mishaps. In this case he had tangled with… Read more »