It has been extremely cold here the last 24 hours (-40C with windchill and it's been a strong wind) and we have been trying to make things as easy as possible for the outside cats (12 of them) and the horses (2 of them).
Horses were blanketed, 6" inches of shavings thrown down in their shelter, extra feedings of hay cubes, black oil sunflower seeds and various "treats" were given in the mornings as well as their usual evening feed, extra hay was provided, and warm water topped up in their water tank.
Outside cats had strips of rigid insulation put into their wooden box, extra straw thrown in, as well; then extra feedings of soft cat food, kibble and leftovers given 3 times a day plus their heated water bowl was topped up, too.
This morning, a visitor has appeared: a big black-and-white tom who clearly is looking for a place to refuel - for sure on food and shelter, perhaps on love, as well. He's not intimidated by humans in the least. Usually visitors like this are, but this guy stood his ground and only moved a few inches away when I came towards him. He even cried at me when I tried to keep him away from the food the others were getting.
So I grabbed a small portion of kibble soaked in beef broth and put it in a separate bowl that I took over to him at the end of the porch. If he had behaved himself and eaten politely with the others, I would have allowed him to come into the group, but there was a lot of head-batting going on between him and some of the younger toms that were born last spring. Several were so intimidated by him and his willingness to fight them that they had scattered and weren't eating at all so I removed the culprit and let the rest eat together.
Towards the end of the meal (a few seconds later - they eat fast) the B&W tom came back into the group and made his way towards a pan of bacon grease we'd also brought out. He walked right up, parting cats in his way like Moses parted the Red Sea and stuck his face into the pan. Except he failed to realize the Great-Granny of them all, a little mousy-coloured female we've dubbed "Yoko" was eating at the other end. She pounded him one good swipe - right across the face, next to his left eye - and he jerked back in surprise. He lifted his paw to retaliate, saw who it was he was dealing with, deferentially backed away and jumped off the porch.
When the matriarch says you've had enough, you've had enough.
Sunday, 15 February 2015
Monday, 8 December 2014
Icing on the Cake
Baked a cake tonight after supper and while frosting it once cooled, I remembered that my grandma (Martha) used to make her frosting from scratch. She would invariably have extra when she was done and would frost up some graham cracker cookies for me to avoid wasting it. My grandparents (and consequently my parents, too) came from thriftier generations where everything was kept or stretched so that it would go as far as possible.
We've lost something, I think, in not teaching our children to value every morsel, appreciate every little thing in our lives. We take so much for granted now and simply expect that what we want, we'll get plus we'll have more than we need. I'm not typically a person who lives in the world of "what ifs?" but I do wonder where we're headed when the majority of us couldn't even feed ourselves for a season...or wouldn't even know how to function if the power went out. We have made ourselves extremely vulnerable in our quest to make life easy. In our effort to prolong our lives with "safe environments" we've inadvertently put ourselves in danger.
But I digress. I miss sitting in my grandma's kitchen on my favorite yellow, metal stool (with the pull-out steps) and watching her as she mixed her ingredients and stirred her batters in a ceramic mixing bowl with a wooden spoon - all in her "house dresses" that she wore during the week. Martha was always busy - if she wasn't cooking or cleaning dishes, she was picking up pieces of lint by hand from the carpet or sprinkling water on my grandpa's dress shirts before ironing them. (She used an old Pepsi bottle - glass - with a special "sprinkling" adapter that plugged into the top like a cork.)
I miss that pioneering spirit, that gritty work ethic, wrapped in a hunched-over body. She kept going and going...but took time to rest and play with her grandchildren, too. She was my druid-like, chicken-loving, nylon-stocking-wearing, yoo-hooing great lady and I miss her. Her birthday was November 30 - though I'm not sure what year she was born any more. I anticipate these memories have flooded back because of that date. Wherever you are, Grandma, sweet dreams. I love you muchly.
We've lost something, I think, in not teaching our children to value every morsel, appreciate every little thing in our lives. We take so much for granted now and simply expect that what we want, we'll get plus we'll have more than we need. I'm not typically a person who lives in the world of "what ifs?" but I do wonder where we're headed when the majority of us couldn't even feed ourselves for a season...or wouldn't even know how to function if the power went out. We have made ourselves extremely vulnerable in our quest to make life easy. In our effort to prolong our lives with "safe environments" we've inadvertently put ourselves in danger.
But I digress. I miss sitting in my grandma's kitchen on my favorite yellow, metal stool (with the pull-out steps) and watching her as she mixed her ingredients and stirred her batters in a ceramic mixing bowl with a wooden spoon - all in her "house dresses" that she wore during the week. Martha was always busy - if she wasn't cooking or cleaning dishes, she was picking up pieces of lint by hand from the carpet or sprinkling water on my grandpa's dress shirts before ironing them. (She used an old Pepsi bottle - glass - with a special "sprinkling" adapter that plugged into the top like a cork.)
I miss that pioneering spirit, that gritty work ethic, wrapped in a hunched-over body. She kept going and going...but took time to rest and play with her grandchildren, too. She was my druid-like, chicken-loving, nylon-stocking-wearing, yoo-hooing great lady and I miss her. Her birthday was November 30 - though I'm not sure what year she was born any more. I anticipate these memories have flooded back because of that date. Wherever you are, Grandma, sweet dreams. I love you muchly.
Saturday, 6 December 2014
9 Months Later
I realize there's been a silence, a lengthy one. I feel it in my bones - not just on the page. I'm stuck and busy and don't know when I'll kick-start myself into serious writing again. Clearly my brother's death has affected me profoundly.
I have completed the book of poetry to accompany Scott's photographs and got the "blessing" from his children and widow to pursue a publishing deal of the compilation, so I've sent 3 queries out to small publishing companies and another 2 inquiries out to literary agents who represent poets. No responses so far, but it's early days. If I wind up going the self-publishing route on this venture, it will be a printed, bound book since an e-reader / Smashwords won't be able to do his photographs justice.
Paid work has been consuming me. There have been a lot of challenging, time-consuming employee relations to handle - along with the intensity of going for accreditation in two major fields (youth and adult mental health). There were over 500 standards that had to be met and aside from some quick-fixing on one standard, we passed with flying colours. We are now the first community services / non-profit in Canada to attain accreditation in both. It's quite the accomplishment, but it took a tremendous amount of energy. Essentially from January-July, 2014 I rewrote close to 100 HR policies and then from July to September (the date of our onsite review), I worked on cleaning up employee files and catching up with other jobs.
Then in September, the Agency's Executive Director (who has been with the organization for 40 years) announced his retirement. An intense recruitment process was initiated by the Board of Directors (but conducted primarily by me), where I held 14 phone interviews, prepared 2 sets of interview questions for the Board to ask and carried out reference checks on 3 candidates. I'm pleased and relieved to say that our new E.D. starts on Monday. I think he will bring an exciting new vision and direction to the Agency, but as one of his references said, "when you get on his train, you'd better be ready to leave the station." I only hope we can keep up with his energy level!
So that's where things stand now. The new E.D. acknowledged within 30 minutes of our first pre-planning meeting that my workload is far too heavy for one person to carry effectively and has said he's going to change that. Hopefully that means by April 2015 (our new fiscal year) I have some type of assistance in doing the administrative tasks of my position and can actually go back to a normal work week (instead of staying for a couple of extra hours each night). Now that the winter is settling in and I won't be able to do much with the horses, I'm hoping it will give me time to write in the evenings again.
Noel (one of my main characters from the Aquarian Era Tales) has been visiting me again. In the early hours of the morning when I'm emerging from sleep, he's there, always whispering, "don't forget about me...get the rest of my story down." I have to honour that request. He's been very good to me so far. <g>
I have completed the book of poetry to accompany Scott's photographs and got the "blessing" from his children and widow to pursue a publishing deal of the compilation, so I've sent 3 queries out to small publishing companies and another 2 inquiries out to literary agents who represent poets. No responses so far, but it's early days. If I wind up going the self-publishing route on this venture, it will be a printed, bound book since an e-reader / Smashwords won't be able to do his photographs justice.
Paid work has been consuming me. There have been a lot of challenging, time-consuming employee relations to handle - along with the intensity of going for accreditation in two major fields (youth and adult mental health). There were over 500 standards that had to be met and aside from some quick-fixing on one standard, we passed with flying colours. We are now the first community services / non-profit in Canada to attain accreditation in both. It's quite the accomplishment, but it took a tremendous amount of energy. Essentially from January-July, 2014 I rewrote close to 100 HR policies and then from July to September (the date of our onsite review), I worked on cleaning up employee files and catching up with other jobs.
Then in September, the Agency's Executive Director (who has been with the organization for 40 years) announced his retirement. An intense recruitment process was initiated by the Board of Directors (but conducted primarily by me), where I held 14 phone interviews, prepared 2 sets of interview questions for the Board to ask and carried out reference checks on 3 candidates. I'm pleased and relieved to say that our new E.D. starts on Monday. I think he will bring an exciting new vision and direction to the Agency, but as one of his references said, "when you get on his train, you'd better be ready to leave the station." I only hope we can keep up with his energy level!
So that's where things stand now. The new E.D. acknowledged within 30 minutes of our first pre-planning meeting that my workload is far too heavy for one person to carry effectively and has said he's going to change that. Hopefully that means by April 2015 (our new fiscal year) I have some type of assistance in doing the administrative tasks of my position and can actually go back to a normal work week (instead of staying for a couple of extra hours each night). Now that the winter is settling in and I won't be able to do much with the horses, I'm hoping it will give me time to write in the evenings again.
Noel (one of my main characters from the Aquarian Era Tales) has been visiting me again. In the early hours of the morning when I'm emerging from sleep, he's there, always whispering, "don't forget about me...get the rest of my story down." I have to honour that request. He's been very good to me so far. <g>
Sunday, 16 March 2014
Poetry Is Best
My oldest brother, Scott, passed away on February 24 after a 6-year, on-again, off-again battle with cancer. I miss him terribly. The pastor officiating at his funeral service said two things in particular that have struck a resonant chord with me: first, he knew how to love and second, he saw beauty in everything - everything. And he did.
He graduated from a local technical college with his focus on graphic art, always had paintings underway in the basement where he and my other brother had bedrooms, and had a wicked, keen sense of composition with his photography. In fact, it was by looking at his photographs on the day of his visitation (I put together a montage of his best that were displayed as a slide show on my laptop) that I was able to say my good-byes to him. It was in my dad's office, as I scrolled through them, that I had a silent conversation with my big brother.
I saw how he went through phases - from the techniques of Ansel Adams to Georgia O'Keefe to Andy Warhol - and practiced until he found his masterpiece in each genre. I saw how he learned about the effects of light and geometry and brought his unique perspective on the world into his camera lens.
Everything is too raw right now to work on the novel, so for those of you who are waiting for another installment of the Aquarian Era Tales, please be patient. It will have to wait.
I didn't write at all for a couple of weeks - any desire to express (at least in that way) was gone. Now I'm finding that poetry is best: I can coat the pain with imagery; I can buffer the emotions with structured lines.
He graduated from a local technical college with his focus on graphic art, always had paintings underway in the basement where he and my other brother had bedrooms, and had a wicked, keen sense of composition with his photography. In fact, it was by looking at his photographs on the day of his visitation (I put together a montage of his best that were displayed as a slide show on my laptop) that I was able to say my good-byes to him. It was in my dad's office, as I scrolled through them, that I had a silent conversation with my big brother.
I saw how he went through phases - from the techniques of Ansel Adams to Georgia O'Keefe to Andy Warhol - and practiced until he found his masterpiece in each genre. I saw how he learned about the effects of light and geometry and brought his unique perspective on the world into his camera lens.
Everything is too raw right now to work on the novel, so for those of you who are waiting for another installment of the Aquarian Era Tales, please be patient. It will have to wait.
I didn't write at all for a couple of weeks - any desire to express (at least in that way) was gone. Now I'm finding that poetry is best: I can coat the pain with imagery; I can buffer the emotions with structured lines.
Wednesday, 20 November 2013
E2 - Second Experiment, pt. 1
The next experiment in Pam Grout's E-Squared is to tap into the concept that everything we could possibly want is available to us in abundance, but because there is so much "stuff" coming at us in the course of a nanosecond we filter out all but what we've been conditioned to look for.
So today I was to count the amount of vehicles of a certain colour I saw. I picked the colour white because I don't see many of those in the course of my day; I wanted to make this a bit of a challenge. I saw 168 white vehicles on my drive to work alone and another 20 on the way home before it got too dark to determine colours. That's a lot of white vehicles.
The first thing I saw when I looked out the front window this morning (straight out of bed) was a white pick-up truck going by on the road. I also saw an ambulance, many odd-looking delivery vehicles, semi-trucks and at least 5 Purolator vans on my commute. I thought that last was a little too coincidental so I asked a co-worker if there was a dispatch center for the company nearby. She confirmed there was. This means that I have probably passed numerous Purolator trucks every day on the way to work, but I haven't seen a single one because I haven't been looking for them. Today, because I was looking for white vehicles, I finally saw them all. Amazing.
As referenced in my previous blog (E2 - Second Experiment, pt. 2), there have been 2 car accidents this week already on my way home from work that delayed me. Today, there was a 3rd accident on the way in to work. And guess what colour the car was? Yep. White. Just weird.
Tomorrow I'm supposed to look for something a little more challenging. Grout suggests looking for yellow butterflies. I've decided to look for blue marbles because I can't even fathom where I would see a blue marble - let alone multiples. I'm excited by this one - if I see a blue marble I'm thinking that's a pretty big "sign."
And on we go.
So today I was to count the amount of vehicles of a certain colour I saw. I picked the colour white because I don't see many of those in the course of my day; I wanted to make this a bit of a challenge. I saw 168 white vehicles on my drive to work alone and another 20 on the way home before it got too dark to determine colours. That's a lot of white vehicles.
The first thing I saw when I looked out the front window this morning (straight out of bed) was a white pick-up truck going by on the road. I also saw an ambulance, many odd-looking delivery vehicles, semi-trucks and at least 5 Purolator vans on my commute. I thought that last was a little too coincidental so I asked a co-worker if there was a dispatch center for the company nearby. She confirmed there was. This means that I have probably passed numerous Purolator trucks every day on the way to work, but I haven't seen a single one because I haven't been looking for them. Today, because I was looking for white vehicles, I finally saw them all. Amazing.
As referenced in my previous blog (E2 - Second Experiment, pt. 2), there have been 2 car accidents this week already on my way home from work that delayed me. Today, there was a 3rd accident on the way in to work. And guess what colour the car was? Yep. White. Just weird.
Tomorrow I'm supposed to look for something a little more challenging. Grout suggests looking for yellow butterflies. I've decided to look for blue marbles because I can't even fathom where I would see a blue marble - let alone multiples. I'm excited by this one - if I see a blue marble I'm thinking that's a pretty big "sign."
And on we go.
E2 - First Experiment, pt. 2
Well, the 48 hours of getting a gift have now come and gone and along with the tensor bandage pin I found the first morning, I also had a free sample of Nutella delivered in the mail yesterday. That was about it for gifts. Neat in its own way, but I was expecting something a bit more phenomenal than that! It made me laugh, anyway.
One other thing of note (because of what's happened with Experiment 2 - see next blog entry) : on both Monday and Tuesday nights I was stuck in traffic on the way home due to some pretty significant accidents out on the 403. I was delayed both nights at work which perhaps could have been a "blessing in disguise." If I had gotten out on time I may have been involved in the accident, rather than sitting behind it.
One other thing of note (because of what's happened with Experiment 2 - see next blog entry) : on both Monday and Tuesday nights I was stuck in traffic on the way home due to some pretty significant accidents out on the 403. I was delayed both nights at work which perhaps could have been a "blessing in disguise." If I had gotten out on time I may have been involved in the accident, rather than sitting behind it.
Monday, 18 November 2013
E2 - First Experiment, pt. 1
A friend of mine gave me Pam Grout's E2 (E-Squared) book for my birthday this year. Here's the Amazon synopsis:
E-Squared could best be described as a lab manual with simple experiments to prove once and for all that reality is malleable, that consciousness trumps matter, and that you shape your life with your mind. Rather than take it on faith, you are invited to conduct nine 48-hour experiments to prove there really is a positive, loving, totally hip force in the universe. Yes, you read that right. It says prove.
The experiments, each of which can be conducted with absolutely no money and very little time expenditure, demonstrate that spiritual principles are as dependable as gravity, as consistent as Newton’s laws of motion. For years, you've been hoping and praying that spiritual principles are true. Now, you can know.
E-Squared proves the following:
1. There is an invisible energy force or field of infinite possibilities.
2. You impact the field and draw from it according to your beliefs and expectations.
3. You, too, are a field of energy.
4. Whatever you focus on expands.
5. Your connection to the field provides accurate and unlimited guidance.
6. Your thoughts and consciousness impact matter.
7. Your thoughts and consciousness provide the scaffolding for your physical body.
8. You are connected to everything and everyone else in the universe.
9. The universe is limitless, abundant, and strangely accommodating.
______________________________________________________________________________
I began Experiment #1 (I'm "proving" to myself within a 48-hour timeframe that there is an invisible energy force or field of infinite possibilities) at 10:43 last night. Essentially, I have asked God, the Universe & Everything for a gift - an unexpected gift - to arrive by 10:45 on Nov. 19th. I am to be vigilant and expecting of this gift and to document this experience.
Surprisingly, I do believe that I'm worthy of receiving the gift (which would have been issue for me a few years' back) but I have had a difficult time with the following concepts:
1 - I believe (apparently in error) that there has to be a trade-off. I have to do something nice for someone else before I get my gift.
2 - There is a difference between a "kindness" and a gift and if the Universe knows the difference, apparently I'm not real clear on it yet.
3 - Unexpected, unexpected, unexpected. I keep wanting to specify and define what my gift should be. (Apparently this will be a later experiment.)
So I asked the "FP" for my gift last night, closed the book, and my stand-offish cat came over, sat next to me and began purring. She never does this. Was this my gift? Hmmm. It's nice and all, but I expected...more. ("Unexpected, unexpected!") Maybe she's a conduit? Maybe she picked up on my shift in energy? Time will tell. (The next 48 hours, to be exact.)
I woke up this morning and we had 2 fence posts snap off in the heavy winds last night. Our property is covered in big, house-crushing trees so I'm grateful it was just 2 little fence posts that can be replaced at minimal cost. Was that my gift? Hmmm. Seems a rather back-handed gift. "It could be worse" is not really a gift. That's where the idea sprang into my mind of "kindnesses" vs. "gifts." It was a kindness that the FP didn't squash me or my horses or cats...but not what I would define as a gift.
As I was going to my car for my commute to work, I noticed a huge, fuzzy caterpillar just behind the tire of my car. This thing was immense. He was also on a stick, so I picked up said stick and moved him to a safe place where he could go about the long-overdue task of spinning his cocoon. Came back to the car and scanned the ground again, just to be sure I hadn't missed any more critters. And there in the gravel of the driveway was a pin I'd lost a couple of weeks ago for my tensor bandage. I would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that this pin was lost somewhere at work - I had it on in the morning when I came in (I've sprained something at the base of my thumb) and 2 hours later, it had disappeared. I looked everywhere at work for it and was quite upset that it was gone since it's so much easier to secure the bandage with those things, rather than using safety pins. I had given up on it awhile ago, however - it wasn't that big of a deal. Was that my gift? Hmmmm. Now, don't get me wrong, FP - that's pretty cool that 2 weeks later this little needle shows up in its global haystack...and I expressed my gratitude for its return. But my gratitude has admittedly been followed up with "Now, BIGGER!" (And did my saving the caterpillar cause me to find the pin? IS there a trade-off required???)
Less than 36 hours to go. The observation continues.
E-Squared could best be described as a lab manual with simple experiments to prove once and for all that reality is malleable, that consciousness trumps matter, and that you shape your life with your mind. Rather than take it on faith, you are invited to conduct nine 48-hour experiments to prove there really is a positive, loving, totally hip force in the universe. Yes, you read that right. It says prove.
The experiments, each of which can be conducted with absolutely no money and very little time expenditure, demonstrate that spiritual principles are as dependable as gravity, as consistent as Newton’s laws of motion. For years, you've been hoping and praying that spiritual principles are true. Now, you can know.
E-Squared proves the following:
1. There is an invisible energy force or field of infinite possibilities.
2. You impact the field and draw from it according to your beliefs and expectations.
3. You, too, are a field of energy.
4. Whatever you focus on expands.
5. Your connection to the field provides accurate and unlimited guidance.
6. Your thoughts and consciousness impact matter.
7. Your thoughts and consciousness provide the scaffolding for your physical body.
8. You are connected to everything and everyone else in the universe.
9. The universe is limitless, abundant, and strangely accommodating.
______________________________________________________________________________
I began Experiment #1 (I'm "proving" to myself within a 48-hour timeframe that there is an invisible energy force or field of infinite possibilities) at 10:43 last night. Essentially, I have asked God, the Universe & Everything for a gift - an unexpected gift - to arrive by 10:45 on Nov. 19th. I am to be vigilant and expecting of this gift and to document this experience.
Surprisingly, I do believe that I'm worthy of receiving the gift (which would have been issue for me a few years' back) but I have had a difficult time with the following concepts:
1 - I believe (apparently in error) that there has to be a trade-off. I have to do something nice for someone else before I get my gift.
2 - There is a difference between a "kindness" and a gift and if the Universe knows the difference, apparently I'm not real clear on it yet.
3 - Unexpected, unexpected, unexpected. I keep wanting to specify and define what my gift should be. (Apparently this will be a later experiment.)
So I asked the "FP" for my gift last night, closed the book, and my stand-offish cat came over, sat next to me and began purring. She never does this. Was this my gift? Hmmm. It's nice and all, but I expected...more. ("Unexpected, unexpected!") Maybe she's a conduit? Maybe she picked up on my shift in energy? Time will tell. (The next 48 hours, to be exact.)
I woke up this morning and we had 2 fence posts snap off in the heavy winds last night. Our property is covered in big, house-crushing trees so I'm grateful it was just 2 little fence posts that can be replaced at minimal cost. Was that my gift? Hmmm. Seems a rather back-handed gift. "It could be worse" is not really a gift. That's where the idea sprang into my mind of "kindnesses" vs. "gifts." It was a kindness that the FP didn't squash me or my horses or cats...but not what I would define as a gift.
As I was going to my car for my commute to work, I noticed a huge, fuzzy caterpillar just behind the tire of my car. This thing was immense. He was also on a stick, so I picked up said stick and moved him to a safe place where he could go about the long-overdue task of spinning his cocoon. Came back to the car and scanned the ground again, just to be sure I hadn't missed any more critters. And there in the gravel of the driveway was a pin I'd lost a couple of weeks ago for my tensor bandage. I would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that this pin was lost somewhere at work - I had it on in the morning when I came in (I've sprained something at the base of my thumb) and 2 hours later, it had disappeared. I looked everywhere at work for it and was quite upset that it was gone since it's so much easier to secure the bandage with those things, rather than using safety pins. I had given up on it awhile ago, however - it wasn't that big of a deal. Was that my gift? Hmmmm. Now, don't get me wrong, FP - that's pretty cool that 2 weeks later this little needle shows up in its global haystack...and I expressed my gratitude for its return. But my gratitude has admittedly been followed up with "Now, BIGGER!" (And did my saving the caterpillar cause me to find the pin? IS there a trade-off required???)
Less than 36 hours to go. The observation continues.
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