See You Next Year

My car wouldn’t drive anywhere December 22nd... it's still in the process of getting checked out. Yesterday Hot Rod took a trip to the transmission specialist, and hopefully some time next week I should know whether or not it is indeed a transmission problem, and whether or not it’s too costly to fix. I’m really really really hoping it’s not a huge problem and is fixable, otherwise I shall be without a car for a good period of time until I can somehow save up to get another one. Sometimes life is rough.

Another year’s Christmas is over (yet, the Christmas season goes on… isn’t December 30th too late to be playing Christmas songs on the radio???) I didn’t go home this year, and for the first time, I wasn’t with my parents or any of my siblings Christmas Day. I spent my holidays with some relatives a couple of hours away from here, after many many hours on the bus. I was hoping to never have to take the bus ever again, but somehow these things end up biting you in the butt and you get stuck and have to do something you really really don’t want to.

I was to be in Chicago for New Year’s, but unfortunately with Hot Rod’s heart attack, I lost my ride to Toronto to meet friends for the drive down, and also any disposable income I may have had will now be going towards vehicular costs rather than pleasure trips, so alas, I am at work today instead of in the Windy City, and I’ll be here in Ontario for New Year’s Eve instead.

2004 has been an interesting year... full of many many good things, many changes, and many things I did not expect. It’s interesting to look back and see where life’s road has taken us.

Here’s to 2005. I’ll talk to you next year.

New Reads

Lysha, Legacy of Christ
Rob Pringle, Randomnicity
Rob Martinson II, Rob's Whirled
Jeannette, My Spiritual Quest
Abel, Finding the Center
Carle, The Life and Times of the Girl Next Door
Annie, Let's Get Talking
Becky, The Dementedness of Me

Good Thing!


I got this written on the back of an evelope with a card from my sister today.

Foods That Are Sometimes Absolutely Delicious and At Other Times Are Absolutely Revolting

1. Hot dogs
2. Peanut Butter and Jam
3. Jell-O
4. Kraft Dinner
5. Coleslaw
6. Pizza Pops
7. Chili
8. Mushroom Soup
9. Roast Beef
10. Mr. Noodles
11. Radishes
12. Rice
13. Mushrooms
14. Hamburgers
15. Bananas
16. Salmon
17. Meatballs
18. Stew
19. Sausages
20. Milk
21. Lobster
22. Canned little corn
23. Beans
24. Clam Chowder
25. Orange Juice

Coolest Dudette



Written by our friend Mike, my friend Nat sent me this picture from camp this past summer.

It makes me chuckle.

Homesteading




"Men like my father cannot die. They are with me still -- real in memory as they were in flesh, loving and beloved forever. How green was my valley then."
- Roddy McDowell, as Huw Morgan in "How Green Was My Valley," Twentieth Century Fox, 1941

My great-grandfather took this photograph. The back of it reads simply, “Longbout at the gate & two 4 yr old Mares in 1916.” It’s part of what I think is a beautiful series of photos he took when he and his wife were homesteading in a little non-descript Saskatchewan town. The photographs depict endless grass-less prairie, with my great-grandmother and their neighbours in dusty clothing, a few animals, sod and clapboard buildings, reflecting the harshness and disparity of settling an unyielding and barren land. Some of the photos remind me much of Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother

I particularly love this photo in the series, not only because of the beauty of the horses, the faded and fuzzy spots of focus, the background that simply is Saskatchewan, and the sheer motion that is in the running chicken, but because of what it represents. From my Gramma I have learned of the love my great-grandfather had for his horses, they were always one thing that he was proud of. These horses would have been their most valuable possession.

My great-grandparents moved from Ontario to Saskatchewan to start a new life and create a place that could be called home. But from what I understand from my Gramma, they only stayed there a year. They returned to Ontario for a couple of years, and then later moved to Manitoba and started out once again. That time, they succeeded, and lived the majority of the rest of their lives there.

Unfortunately, my great-grandfather is a man I never got to meet, he died six months before I was born, at age eighty-eight. He was a man of courage and determination, love, and a gentle spirit. He was orphaned at a young age, lost his younger and only brother not too long after, and had to quit school after the third grade in order to work. When my grandfather died, he spent the next year teaching my Gramma to farm, in a time when women were never the breadwinners. When he died, my Gramma says she lost her best friend. She missed his daily phone conversations when he would call and say “So how are things in the country today?”

Web Publishing

It has been interesting, these past 2 years, blogging thoughts and observations and funny things and quotes and hopes and dreams and daily occurances and the like. What is blogging? What is a blog? What is it's purpose? What is okay to blog? What is not okay to blog?

My thoughts on these subjects have changed since I first started web-publishing, and they continue to change. My style has change. People I know and don't know have read what I've written. I've somehow gained an audience.

Some come to read daily, some come weekly, some stop by every once in awhile, some come once and never return.

Some surf in off comments I've left elsewhere, from links from other blogs, from articles on other websites, and many from search engines far and wide.

Sometimes I wonder if I should get rid of my archives. They're past thoughts after all, they were from the time. But sometimes that is exactly what I love about blogging, it's a glimpse into someone's life at a certain time. It's a memory, but unlike memories, isn't quite so fleeting.

A blog is like a journal. With that, it's a personal look into the persona of a specific person, and often, even the inner self. People change, their writing changes. Their writing, however, reflects who they were at that specific time in their life. As does their memory.

Today I got a request from someone from my past to remove their name from my blog. They were upset and stated that I did not have their permission to use their name in any form let alone on the internet.

Sometimes I wonder if I should start from scratch again. I always thought it was odd when people did that on their blogs. But if something hurts, it shouldn't be on the internet, especially on my site, because that is not what I want to do.

I'm sorry.

I Should Put This On My Resume

This blog is the #2 result on Google for "nice people in world."

(Just in case you were wondering, the aforementioned "nice people" are listed under "Sites to See" on my sidebar).

Icey

Welcome to a little Christmas season re-design. I love cranberry and green.

I am back at work this morning after 5 days (and no weekend off) at our national staff conference. We listened to speakers and generally froze or were too hot (no inbetween at such things). We stayed at a conference centre but it was really much like a hotel, minus the swimming pool. The meals were good, but it seemed often like all we did was eat. We had breakfast and lunch and supper and a snack before supper and a snack before bed. I don't think I need to eat again for awhile, I can live off the fat stores I have accumulated from a week away.

The roads are slick and icey and slippery and other words that describe hazardous driving, one of the camp vehicles met an unfortunate end on Saturday when it met a rockface. The driver and passenger were fine, the car however has gone on and we had a moment of silence to remember it. As for my little red hotrod, I'm hoping that it makes it through the winter. Actually, I'm hoping it makes it through a lot more than just the winter, but we'll take things one step at a time. Tonight's drive home for instance, our goal is to get there without slipping off the road!