Showing posts with label Family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Family. Show all posts
Autism Awareness Month 2013 on Acting Balanced #Autism
For the past several years I have tried really hard to spend some quality time sharing glimpses of Autism by devoting a large part of my blog posts in April to Autism Awareness Month... and I am doing it again this year. I know that many of my readers have been touched by Autism in some way, and others have not, so you may come at this from a very different perspective - I hope that at some point this month you will learn something new, be touched by something I post (whether it's written by me or a guest), dispel a myth, share something you've read or just comment and tell me about how Autism (or learning about it) has impacted your life!
I am still accepting guest posts from experts, parents, individuals with Autism and anyone who wants to share their unique perspective or voice... if you're interested, please email me at heather at actingbalanced dot com
I am still accepting guest posts from experts, parents, individuals with Autism and anyone who wants to share their unique perspective or voice... if you're interested, please email me at heather at actingbalanced dot com
To start with I thought I'd share a little bit about where we are today...
As a mom who has been living with Autism in her family for six years (4 with a diagnosis) I am still in awe of how fluid and erratic Autism can be. Sometimes it's a matter of one step forward and two steps back, sometimes it's watching my little guy grow by leaps and bounds overnight, after what seems like forever - when something just clicks, sometimes I get complacent and think that we've reached a milestone and we're always moving forward and then I am shaken from that complacency by those darn setbacks...
At this time last year we were still following a gluten-free diet for Liam, but over the summer last year I charted his behavior after he accidentally ate something rich in gluten and saw no change, so we gradually reintroduced gluten to his diet and haven't seen a significant change in his behaviors since... which has helped a lot with school - he can now participate more fully in classroom activities, parties and community learning opportunities now that he's not on the restrictive diet...
At this time last year, we were struggling a little with Liam's schooling... he was in a class with 12 students - 8 typically developing and 4 with special needs and we were all struggling with that placement - Liam would get overwhelmed sometimes and forgotten at others... it was tough to teach him the skills he needed in that setting because he needed more one on one help than the teacher could provide... in some ways those difficulties were a blessing - by the very end of the school year, Liam was granted an extra 90 minutes a day of targeted 1 on 1 instruction to reinforce concepts... and that has carried over to his current placement!
I have to say that I am totally in love with his current classroom and the team of teachers, specialists and educational assistants who work with them - he is in a self-contained Autism class with nine other kids and four full time adults - his teacher, two EA's and the ABA Therapist. They also have several other great adults who spend quality (and quantity) time in the classroom - and because all of the kids have minutes towards things like speech therapy, OT, Autism specialist etc, those specialists can spend MORE time in the classroom and they get to know all of the kids that much better! Liam has also been spending time in a regular kindergarten class and has progressed there with few incidents ... although we did have one 'big' issue a few weeks ago - a huge TMI moment, but the good news is that it was handled well and the only addition is that Liam is now going to Kindergarten with an aide again instead of alone...
Last year at this time, Liam was still getting after school therapy, but this year we made a conscious decision not to bring in additional therapies outside of school right now - he comes home from school so tired and I think that having time to be a kid is outweighing the need to add more therapy...
Last year at this time, Liam was recognizing letters and starting to spell simple words, he could write the alphabet and count to nearly 100... now he is reading simple stories using a variety of tools and focusing on comprehension! He's counting beyond 100 and adding and subtracting single digits! He's still struggling with the social side of school, but comes home and tells me about his friends - focusing more on spelling their names out, but it's a start right!
As we continue our Autism Month posts I am sure that I will share more about where Liam and our family are on this journey and I hope that you will share this little trip with us! If you have space and an interest, please consider grabbing the Autism Awareness Month button off my right sidebar and sharing it with your readers!
Wordless Wednesday - Walking at Edisto
Please link up your WW posts here and feel free to suggest captions for any of these pics!
A Woman Who Inspires Me (Back to Blogging with SITS - day 4 )
I have to say that there are hundreds of women who inspire me daily... almost every blog I read gives me a chance to pause and consider things about my life and how I could be a better person... or what I could try... but it all goes back to the person who inspired me to start writing... and I write about her often - my grandmother.
Somehow, over the years she morphed from Nana to Grandma, but she has always been Dorothy or Dot... She was one of 19 children, 9 who lived to adulthood and she's lived her entire life in various towns and cities in Ontario, Canada... She raised four children of her own and now counts 12 grandchildren, 7 grandchildren in law, and 5 great grandchildren in her legacy.
I had the privilege last winter of being the second editor to her memoirs, a collection of short stories about her life that she originally published for her children about ten years ago, and wanted to update and share with her siblings and grandchildren. Technology has come a long way in 10 years, and my cousin and Aunt are putting the finishing touches on this second edition by helping her scan through the thousands of photos that help tell her story...
I'm going to borrow some of her own words to give you a small snippet of who my grandmother is today, and then link up a few of my own favorite posts from my Sunday Family Stories:
She opens her book with a preface that sums up some of the things that inspire me most:
Grandma took me back to the farm on Easter weekend. Needless to say, I was not allowed to go to Toronto to stay again until I left home for good at the age of fifteen.
My feet being faster than my head, instead of climbing down the ladder, I slid down the side of the hay mow, right onto the handle of a stable broom. I propelled myself face down onto the floor and tried desperately to remain conscious.
If you are playing along, please feel free to enter your posts in the linky below:
Somehow, over the years she morphed from Nana to Grandma, but she has always been Dorothy or Dot... She was one of 19 children, 9 who lived to adulthood and she's lived her entire life in various towns and cities in Ontario, Canada... She raised four children of her own and now counts 12 grandchildren, 7 grandchildren in law, and 5 great grandchildren in her legacy.
I had the privilege last winter of being the second editor to her memoirs, a collection of short stories about her life that she originally published for her children about ten years ago, and wanted to update and share with her siblings and grandchildren. Technology has come a long way in 10 years, and my cousin and Aunt are putting the finishing touches on this second edition by helping her scan through the thousands of photos that help tell her story...
I'm going to borrow some of her own words to give you a small snippet of who my grandmother is today, and then link up a few of my own favorite posts from my Sunday Family Stories:
She opens her book with a preface that sums up some of the things that inspire me most:
It has been said that ‘if you want to leave footprints in the sands of time, you had better wear work boots”. People say I am so lucky to leave a beautiful family, but I tell them, the harder I worked, the luckier I became! I hope by reading some of my ups and downs, the reader will understand what went into the making of my personality and how and why your life will be so different from mine.
My grandmother came into this world against the odds and continued to thrive despite odds to the contrary...
Dorothy Anne Theresa Oliver was born on September 5th, 1929 at the Grace Salvation Army Hospital in Toronto, Ontario, weighing less than five pounds.
When my birth was imminent, my mother was frying onions at a dining booth at the Canadian National Exhibition. The ‘big top’ called ‘OLIVER’S DINER’ belonged to my paternal grandparents. (I still love the pungent aroma of onions sizzling in a frying pan.)
I was the fourth child and first daughter of Stanly and Greta Oliver. My mother couldn’t believe the good fortune of bringing forth a girl after three boys. Also, in stark comparison to my brothers who had all been blond, I was dark skinned with a full head of black hair.
My parents named me Dorothy, which means ‘a gift of God’. (I found the poem entitled “Dorothy- a Gift of God” shortly after my mother passed away and shall always treasure it.) My second name, Anne was for both grandmothers, while Teresa was for one of Mother’s cousins who had been very good to her. In those days it was an honour, and expression to name a child after someone. Teresa and her husband Will Brown were childless.
Her family lived north east of Toronto in various places around Lindsay, Ontario and Bobcaygeon, Ontario. Infant mortality was still high in the twenties and she was a little fighter who battled through her first emergency surgery when she was six months old. My great-grandmother, another wonderfully inspiring woman whom I only had the privilege to know a short time, was almost continually pregnant (hence 19 pregnancies, many of which resulted in miscarriages or still-births). Times were tough when my grandmother was young - she grew up during the depression and moved around with her family quite a bit, following the work available...
In order to go to kindergarten, she was sent to live with her paternal grandmother in Toronto, a very pious and religious woman. In her memoirs, she recalls this memory:
Starting School
Kindergarten was not available in our one-roomed rural schoolhouse, so it seemed a good idea for me to start school in the city. At the tender age of five, I was sent to live in Toronto with my paternal grandmother and my father’s sister Aunt Gladys. Grandma Oliver was a devout Christian so she and I spent many hours at our local United Church. The first two months went well, although I missed my family and the farm.
Before I knew it, Halloween had arrived and I was invited to attend a masquerade party in the upstairs flat of a neighbor child. Oh how I wanted to go! But alas, I didn’t have a mask. I pleaded with Grandma, but she was adamant. I went to my room to drown my sorrows, crying into my pillow.
A little time later, Grandma entered my room with a compromise. Being very frugal, she wouldn’t give me the money for a false face, let alone a costume. She instead gave me permission to return two empty one quart milk bottles for a refund of five cents each at the Sunshine Dairy. I was then to cross busy Queen Street to the Woolworth’s Five and Dime store to purchase the mask. This would teach me the value of money.
I arrived at the dairy in lightening speed, and found myself at the end of a very long line-up for the cashier. Those bottles were getting heavier by the minute! At one point during my long wait, I thought I might reconsider and spend the money on the delicious looking apple blossom cookies that stared back at me from the glass case and just forget about the party. That decision was taken out of my hands when I finally reached the cashier. I set the bottles on the counter. Then the awful news was delivered that the bottles were not property of this dairy and they would not cash them in.
My world had collapsed and I began to cry! The Five and Dime would be closed in five minutes, so there was not time to return home for the ten cents. With my eyes blinded by tears, I crossed Queen Street against the red light. I was struck by a large transport truck and was rushed, without identification to St. Joseph’s Hospital. I was suffering from a broken leg, and a concussion. I was also unconscious and without my two front teeth.
My grandmother finally came to the hospital to identify me, but she never notified my parents. When Mother came to Toronto to take me home to the farm for Christmas, she was horrified to find me hospitalized. I remained there for a few more weeks.
More hardships lay ahead - in 1940, when World War II was ramping up, her mother gave birth to twin boys prematurely -
Naturally, I was very disappointed at not having a sister, but they were so tiny and needed so much care. Not expecting twins, especially not so soon, there were only thirteen diapers to use between them both. No disposable diapers in those days, nor did we have running water or electricity. I hemmed pieces of soft flannelette sheets to provide enough diapers for both boys.
Claude was the healthiest one, while Claire was so tiny that his head would fit in a tea cup. They were born in June, just as school was finishing for the summer. I had just passed grade six.
It was my job to feed Claire every two hours. No ‘Breck’ feeders back then, so he was fed with an eye dropper. I missed many days at school in order to help my mother.
My grandmother would continue to attend school somewhat sporadically and because of frequent moves didn't get established in any one place... when a bout of appendicitis left her too weak to walk to high school after completing tenth grade, she stayed home for a semester to continue to help her mother, who had more young children at home. Instead of returning to high school, she enrolled in Baker Business School and learned secretarial skills to complete her formal education.
She left home at fifteen years of age and moved to Toronto, taking a job as a clerk at an insurance company, making $75 a week. After two years of working there, and becoming permanent staff, my grandmother took a two week vacation and headed home to visit her family.
It was August of 1948, and she arrived during threshing time. After helping at a neighbour's house, her father was worried about their own hay, so she went out to help with their own crop.
We got the first wagon load up the gangway and onto the barn floor. Hay was usually taken from the wagon into the mow by way of the large fork suspended from the roof and operated by pulleys and ropes. Somehow it was jammed and wouldn’t come down. Dad remained on the barn floor while I climbed the ladder to the right hand mow and tried to trip it with a rope. I guess I wasn’t strong enough so I decided to try the left hand mow.
She was rushed to hospital and the doctor performed a new surgery that had been written up in the New England Journal of Medicine. Despite the odds, blood loss and potential complications, she was eventually able to recover slowly with the help of a new wonder drug - penicillin and a lot of rest.
She would eventually go on to move back to Toronto, marry, have those four children that I told you about at the beginning of this tale, help her husband build their own Glass and Mirror business and become a beloved matriarch to a growing brood of grandchildren and great grandchildren.
I have stolen snippets from her memoirs that don't begin to flesh out the life she lead as a child and young woman, but just the things she overcame in these incidents and all the other stories she has to tell, make her someone who continues to inspire me. She is now living in a retirement facility with my grandfather who is battling Alzheimer's disease and patiently answers the same questions twenty times a day. She is active in her community - having started a bridge club, playing scrabble and walking daily. She is also constantly working to improve life at their facility, going toe to toe with management on issues such as ensuring there is hot water in the on-site salon, food quality and service in the dining room and more...
I have shared several 'Sunday Family Stories' about my grandmother in the past - my own recollections about things that have shaped my own life and I invite you to read them if you are so inclined:
This post was written as part of the Back to Blogging challenge with SITS, sponsored by Standards of Excellence, Westar Kitchen and Bath, and Florida Builder Appliances.
If you are playing along, please feel free to enter your posts in the linky below:
Happy Birthday Liam!
I got a little off track with my count down to your birthday, Little Man... but I wanted to share that I am so glad to be your mama today and so proud of everything that you do ;)
Even the stuff that drives Mama nuts...
But I am especially proud of the leaps and bounds you are making in speech and school - you know all your letters and are starting to sight read your favorite words, you are starting to make progress in other areas of language and actually talking more than ever before. You are making eye contact with the people you love and initiating touching and even occasionally acknowledging that other people are talking to you.
Despite the fact that you aren't saying your name, you are spelling it and you recognize it when it's written!
I'm just so thankful that you're my special little boy...
Happy 4th birthday - I can't wait to see what this year brings :)
For those who don't know, these are huge accomplishments as my son learns to overcome the learning curve that comes with his autism... which makes me even prouder!
Even the stuff that drives Mama nuts...
But I am especially proud of the leaps and bounds you are making in speech and school - you know all your letters and are starting to sight read your favorite words, you are starting to make progress in other areas of language and actually talking more than ever before. You are making eye contact with the people you love and initiating touching and even occasionally acknowledging that other people are talking to you.
Despite the fact that you aren't saying your name, you are spelling it and you recognize it when it's written!
I'm just so thankful that you're my special little boy...
Happy 4th birthday - I can't wait to see what this year brings :)
For those who don't know, these are huge accomplishments as my son learns to overcome the learning curve that comes with his autism... which makes me even prouder!
My husband wrote his own tribute on his blog which brought tears to my eyes... I almost just copied and pasted it here as a guest blog, but I'd rather you pop over and show him some comment love - it's a new venture for him!
Sunday Family Stories - My Opa
I really don't have memories of my Opa, he passed away when I was two years old... but I have memories of great stories and a wonderful family heirloom to share with my children that was made by his hand...
I also don't know all of his story, but the parts that I do know make me proud to have had a man like Franz Loeffler as my grandfather... From early on, the stories I was told of my father's father - Opa, was that he was a quiet man who spoke with his hands... he was a carpenter and I remember the garage at the bungalow where my father spent his teen years and my Oma lived when I was a child to be full of strange and wonderful tools of his trade... chisels, planes, saws - almost everything he did was by hand, in the Old World style... and he worked on a special piece for his first grandchild, a rocking horse... but I digress... I want to tell you some of the history that I know about him before we talk about my gift...
Franz Loeffler was a young man, growing up in Germany in the twenties and early thirties... as an apprentice and then journeyman carpenter, he was a socialist and believed in unions, trade and commerce... and as Fascism took hold in his country, he made the difficult decision to follow his beliefs and leave a country that no longer supported him and his ideals... from what I gather of the stories, he fled through Czechoslovakia and made his way carefully to Canada.
Upon arrival in Canada, he began to build a life, interrupted by the growing ills in his homeland and surrounding countries in Europe - the escape route he had used fell to German forces that occupied Czechoslovakia and Franz felt the need to return to fight against the oppression and atrocity being wrought and joined the Canadian Armed Forces and returned to Germany as a translator... it must have been an impossible situation as he headed into familiar territory to fight against oppression and tyranny of his own people...
While there, he met my Oma, Ursula, who immigrated to Canada shortly after the war to marry my Opa - she had two weeks after landing on Canadian soil, knowing almost no English, to get herself organized, acclimated and married!
They built a life in Canada, having three sons, my dad being the oldest... who married my mom in 1973 after having known each other off and on all their lives... and growing up down the street from each other... I was born in 1975 and from all accounts was my Opa's darling - he shared some of my firsts... he gave me my first beer, and of course, my first 'pony'...
I know so little of the intervening years...my Oma shared some stories with me before she passed away on January 1, 1998, but what I do have is a legacy... and my children call her 'Dotty'
Dotty is a fabulous, one of a kind preschool size rocking horse... and one of my greatest treasures... my Opa lovingly created her for me and never got to see me ride her... She was a Christmas present that he nearly completed before passing away.
I was inspired to write this before I could contact my family to get pictures to include... I promise to scan and add new pictures of my Opa and Dotty as soon as I can and I will announce the opportunity to come back and see this post come to life... but I really wanted to share this story with you as my Sunday Family Story today!
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Don't forget to check out my giveaways - Etch-a-Sketch Keychain and $45 CSN Stores Gift Certificate
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As usual lately, I am linking this post up at:
I also don't know all of his story, but the parts that I do know make me proud to have had a man like Franz Loeffler as my grandfather... From early on, the stories I was told of my father's father - Opa, was that he was a quiet man who spoke with his hands... he was a carpenter and I remember the garage at the bungalow where my father spent his teen years and my Oma lived when I was a child to be full of strange and wonderful tools of his trade... chisels, planes, saws - almost everything he did was by hand, in the Old World style... and he worked on a special piece for his first grandchild, a rocking horse... but I digress... I want to tell you some of the history that I know about him before we talk about my gift...
Franz Loeffler was a young man, growing up in Germany in the twenties and early thirties... as an apprentice and then journeyman carpenter, he was a socialist and believed in unions, trade and commerce... and as Fascism took hold in his country, he made the difficult decision to follow his beliefs and leave a country that no longer supported him and his ideals... from what I gather of the stories, he fled through Czechoslovakia and made his way carefully to Canada.
Upon arrival in Canada, he began to build a life, interrupted by the growing ills in his homeland and surrounding countries in Europe - the escape route he had used fell to German forces that occupied Czechoslovakia and Franz felt the need to return to fight against the oppression and atrocity being wrought and joined the Canadian Armed Forces and returned to Germany as a translator... it must have been an impossible situation as he headed into familiar territory to fight against oppression and tyranny of his own people...
While there, he met my Oma, Ursula, who immigrated to Canada shortly after the war to marry my Opa - she had two weeks after landing on Canadian soil, knowing almost no English, to get herself organized, acclimated and married!
They built a life in Canada, having three sons, my dad being the oldest... who married my mom in 1973 after having known each other off and on all their lives... and growing up down the street from each other... I was born in 1975 and from all accounts was my Opa's darling - he shared some of my firsts... he gave me my first beer, and of course, my first 'pony'...
I know so little of the intervening years...my Oma shared some stories with me before she passed away on January 1, 1998, but what I do have is a legacy... and my children call her 'Dotty'
Dotty is a fabulous, one of a kind preschool size rocking horse... and one of my greatest treasures... my Opa lovingly created her for me and never got to see me ride her... She was a Christmas present that he nearly completed before passing away.
I was inspired to write this before I could contact my family to get pictures to include... I promise to scan and add new pictures of my Opa and Dotty as soon as I can and I will announce the opportunity to come back and see this post come to life... but I really wanted to share this story with you as my Sunday Family Story today!
***************
Don't forget to check out my giveaways - Etch-a-Sketch Keychain and $45 CSN Stores Gift Certificate
***************
As usual lately, I am linking this post up at:
It's almost...
BACK TO SCHOOL!
When I grew up in Canada, the end of summer and back to school were marked by one glorious long Labour Day weekend, often spent lazing around my grandparents cottage (read about it here) and cramming in just one more weekend of summer goodness mixed with the growing anticipation of fall, felt by cooler nights and witnessed by the leaves beginning to change from bright green and shiny to an array of wonderful fall colours - yellow, gold, orange and red...
Here in Charleston, it's harder to see a definitive end to our summer frolicking - there's no great holiday celebration, the weather is still an almost unbearable mix of heat and humidity every day and the leaves won't change here until just before Christmas, if they do at all... so for the next few days the kids and I are creating our own 'long weekend' and cramming in back to school parties, trips to the water park, last minute shopping and trying to get a few more days to sleep in, although Hubby's back to work schedule is filling up fast after joining us for our month long sojourn back to Toronto...
As a Mom, I am looking forward to my 2 hours of peace and quiet every day and my special afternoon time with Liam for the next few months before Ach Baby makes his appearance but the kid in me is mourning the loss of another wonderful summer too soon....
What was your first day of school like? What do you do to make the lead up to back to school special for your kids?
I am participating in a couple of blog hops today - if this is your first visit and you haven't gotten enough balance yet, try out these other great reads:
- this one is linked to that yummy MMMmonday Recipe
When I grew up in Canada, the end of summer and back to school were marked by one glorious long Labour Day weekend, often spent lazing around my grandparents cottage (read about it here) and cramming in just one more weekend of summer goodness mixed with the growing anticipation of fall, felt by cooler nights and witnessed by the leaves beginning to change from bright green and shiny to an array of wonderful fall colours - yellow, gold, orange and red...
Here in Charleston, it's harder to see a definitive end to our summer frolicking - there's no great holiday celebration, the weather is still an almost unbearable mix of heat and humidity every day and the leaves won't change here until just before Christmas, if they do at all... so for the next few days the kids and I are creating our own 'long weekend' and cramming in back to school parties, trips to the water park, last minute shopping and trying to get a few more days to sleep in, although Hubby's back to work schedule is filling up fast after joining us for our month long sojourn back to Toronto...
As a Mom, I am looking forward to my 2 hours of peace and quiet every day and my special afternoon time with Liam for the next few months before Ach Baby makes his appearance but the kid in me is mourning the loss of another wonderful summer too soon....
What was your first day of school like? What do you do to make the lead up to back to school special for your kids?
I am participating in a couple of blog hops today - if this is your first visit and you haven't gotten enough balance yet, try out these other great reads:
- this one is linked to that yummy MMMmonday Recipe Sunday Family Stories - Kakabeka Falls
I was six years old and off on an adventure... my grandparents, my mom, my brother, sister and I all packed into my grandparents motor home in late July for a three thousand kilometer journey from our home in Toronto, to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and later, a small town just outside of Saskatoon called Lac Vert... my grandfather's hometown. Why, you ask? A family reunion... but that's another story, because today we are focusing on the journey, not the destination...
A year or two before that summer, my grandparents had bought a motor home and started traveling all over the place, taking trips to the Southeastern United States in the winter, and taking off all over Ontario in the summer. I remember going away overnight with them one fall weekend and stopping by a farm in rural Ontario for freshly picked Mcintosh apples - yum...
but, again, I digress.. that trip was part of the scheme to get my sister Catherine, who was five, my brother Mark, who was four and myself acclimatized to the camper and feeling at home with a long drive... we loved it! Quite simply, the fact that we could get up and get a snack out of the fridge or go to the bathroom without stopping was a novelty and we relished it...
So, as I said, in July of 1981, and yes I'm that old, we headed west. My grandfather was at the wheel in the big captain's chair... and I remember the adults talking about hitting the open road once we got past the traffic of suburban Toronto and setting the cruise control... I knew it had something to do with driving, but in my six year old mind, I pictured an autopilot dummy popping up to drive the motor home when my grandfather wanted a break...
Our journey would take us at least a week, because even with the amenities of the motor home, a kid needs breaks... so we stopped and found playgrounds in towns all the way along the Trans Canada highway. Our first goal wasn't to get to the reunion - that was a somewhat vague notion at the end of the trip, but to get to the mythical Kakabeka Falls... My grandparents had been building up the place in our minds - partly because it was a goal to reach there by the second or third day of the trip and because, quite honestly I think that saying Kakabeka (ˈkɛkəˈbɛkə) was just so much fun!
You can read the wikipedia entry about Kakabeka falls here,
While it's no Niagara Falls, to a six year old, Kakabeka Falls was amazing - the rush of water over the 40 foot cliffs was almost deafening and the awe of watching the swirling pools at the bottom.. well I'm sure I was awe inspired...
Somewhere in my parents pictures of us, there is one of all three kids standing with my grandparents in front of this fence at Kakabeka Falls... and if I'd been better organized, I would have asked my dad to scan it and send it to me for this blog post, but I'm not and I didn't... so my six year old self will have to remain my my mind's eye for now and when my mom reads this blog entry, she'll ask my dad to dig out the old photos and find the one of me, Cat and Mark standing with Nana overlooking Kakabeka Falls... found it:
I remember just fragments of the trip really, getting off and on the motor home, stopping at several provincial and national parks and of course, that just before the reunion, we had stopped at one more park to play - and my sister had fallen off the monkey bars and sprained her ankle... I also remember meeting a myriad of relatives, having lots of pictures taken, and dancing with my cousin, Trevor - the only kid my age at the party.
But, the one thing that sticks out in my mind from that trip forward is that no matter where we were going on a long car trip, an imagined ride in the car or boat at the cottage, invariably our destination would be Kakabeka Falls... whether we got there or not.
Next Sunday, I will have my act together and my mother will have browbeaten my dad into finding some pictures from that era... and I'll post them here with another memory of that long ago motor home trip across 2/3 of Canada to reach into my grandfather's roots.
Please check out part two of the story of our family road trip in Summer 1981!
As for other stories about my family, I invite you to check out:
A year or two before that summer, my grandparents had bought a motor home and started traveling all over the place, taking trips to the Southeastern United States in the winter, and taking off all over Ontario in the summer. I remember going away overnight with them one fall weekend and stopping by a farm in rural Ontario for freshly picked Mcintosh apples - yum...
but, again, I digress.. that trip was part of the scheme to get my sister Catherine, who was five, my brother Mark, who was four and myself acclimatized to the camper and feeling at home with a long drive... we loved it! Quite simply, the fact that we could get up and get a snack out of the fridge or go to the bathroom without stopping was a novelty and we relished it...
So, as I said, in July of 1981, and yes I'm that old, we headed west. My grandfather was at the wheel in the big captain's chair... and I remember the adults talking about hitting the open road once we got past the traffic of suburban Toronto and setting the cruise control... I knew it had something to do with driving, but in my six year old mind, I pictured an autopilot dummy popping up to drive the motor home when my grandfather wanted a break...
While it's no Niagara Falls, to a six year old, Kakabeka Falls was amazing - the rush of water over the 40 foot cliffs was almost deafening and the awe of watching the swirling pools at the bottom.. well I'm sure I was awe inspired...
Somewhere in my parents pictures of us, there is one of all three kids standing with my grandparents in front of this fence at Kakabeka Falls... and if I'd been better organized, I would have asked my dad to scan it and send it to me for this blog post, but I'm not and I didn't... so my six year old self will have to remain my my mind's eye for now and when my mom reads this blog entry, she'll ask my dad to dig out the old photos and find the one of me, Cat and Mark standing with Nana overlooking Kakabeka Falls... found it:
I remember just fragments of the trip really, getting off and on the motor home, stopping at several provincial and national parks and of course, that just before the reunion, we had stopped at one more park to play - and my sister had fallen off the monkey bars and sprained her ankle... I also remember meeting a myriad of relatives, having lots of pictures taken, and dancing with my cousin, Trevor - the only kid my age at the party.
But, the one thing that sticks out in my mind from that trip forward is that no matter where we were going on a long car trip, an imagined ride in the car or boat at the cottage, invariably our destination would be Kakabeka Falls... whether we got there or not.
Next Sunday, I will have my act together and my mother will have browbeaten my dad into finding some pictures from that era... and I'll post them here with another memory of that long ago motor home trip across 2/3 of Canada to reach into my grandfather's roots.
Please check out part two of the story of our family road trip in Summer 1981!
As for other stories about my family, I invite you to check out:
Why we can't move home again...
This post has been rambling around in my brain for the past few weeks, since we've been home in Toronto...
Wayne and I made the move to the USA to further his career, since there was little opportunity to land a tenure track position in Southern Ontario in his field when he graduated from his PhD... after spending a year in Pennsylvania, we moved to our current locale, Charleston SC... and expanded our family....
Every time we come home to Canada to visit, we inevitably get asked... when are you moving home? And as much as I love being home and visiting, we know it's not in the cards for us... for the following reasons:
plus... we've learned that Liam is a true Southern boy who wouldn't ever swim in open water again if we moved up north... he likes his ocean much warmer than the cold lake water he's stepped into around here...
Wayne and I made the move to the USA to further his career, since there was little opportunity to land a tenure track position in Southern Ontario in his field when he graduated from his PhD... after spending a year in Pennsylvania, we moved to our current locale, Charleston SC... and expanded our family....
Every time we come home to Canada to visit, we inevitably get asked... when are you moving home? And as much as I love being home and visiting, we know it's not in the cards for us... for the following reasons:
- The cost of living in Ontario is significantly higher...
- Gas is about $4 a gallon compared to $2.50 a gallon in SC
- Milk is $5 a gallon, compared to $3.50
- Our house, uprooted to Toronto would easily cost double or more than we spent, and mortgage rates.terms are significantly higher here...
- Autism services have a huge backlog in Ontario...
- We are fortunate that SC has great programs and services for Liam with little to no wait time...
- Taxes are significantly higher
- Our income tax rates are fairly similar but the tax breaks on our mortgage interest and insurance, as well as dependents help to keep our OOP taxes low
- The SC Sales Tax varies but is rarely more than about 7% and there is no federal sales tax, while Ontario has a 13% HST (8% provincial, 5% federal) on 90% of goods and services...
plus... we've learned that Liam is a true Southern boy who wouldn't ever swim in open water again if we moved up north... he likes his ocean much warmer than the cold lake water he's stepped into around here...
Ach Baby Updates
I've been remiss about catching all of you, my bloggy friends up on the latest and greatest news from my pregnancy...
I had my 'big' ultrasound this week... and everything looks great!
I'm measuring 1 week and 2 days ahead of my due date, but they chose not to change the date - not sure if the baby is just big, or if it really is older than we thought, but the O/B is sticking with November 8th as a due date!
And now for the news you've all been waiting for....
It's a .....
BOY!
Wayne has 'naming rights' for Ach Baby, and he had a girl's name all picked out and ready to go... but still hasn't come up with a boy's name... so any suggestions are welcome :-D
Other family updates:
Robyn did fabulous on her final report card - 6 A's and 2 B's!
Wayne is in the midst of teaching a June course on "Wedding Planning"
Wayne is also doing a guest post, which will be featured tomorrow!
Liam met 10 of his 14 goals in his IEP this year!
Liam was also accepted into the one day Surfer's Healing camp at Folly Beach on August 17th! This will be his second year and we are SO excited!
Heather is counting down the days until school starts again - August 18th here I come!
Our trip home to Canada is on schedule now that our passports were renewed with a minimum of fuss - two phone calls and a fax in addition to two attempts at Passport Photos...
Other blog updates:
Have you entered the giveaway for the Rock Stars of the '80's and 90's photo book?
I had my 'big' ultrasound this week... and everything looks great!
I'm measuring 1 week and 2 days ahead of my due date, but they chose not to change the date - not sure if the baby is just big, or if it really is older than we thought, but the O/B is sticking with November 8th as a due date!
And now for the news you've all been waiting for....
It's a .....
BOY!
Wayne has 'naming rights' for Ach Baby, and he had a girl's name all picked out and ready to go... but still hasn't come up with a boy's name... so any suggestions are welcome :-D
Other family updates:
Robyn did fabulous on her final report card - 6 A's and 2 B's!
Wayne is in the midst of teaching a June course on "Wedding Planning"
Wayne is also doing a guest post, which will be featured tomorrow!
Liam met 10 of his 14 goals in his IEP this year!
Liam was also accepted into the one day Surfer's Healing camp at Folly Beach on August 17th! This will be his second year and we are SO excited!
Heather is counting down the days until school starts again - August 18th here I come!
Our trip home to Canada is on schedule now that our passports were renewed with a minimum of fuss - two phone calls and a fax in addition to two attempts at Passport Photos...
Other blog updates:
Have you entered the giveaway for the Rock Stars of the '80's and 90's photo book?
Post it note Tuesday- the houseguests edition!
They are giving out free scoops of Vanilla, Chocolate or Coffee Ice Cream from 4-8 today!
If you enjoyed reading my Post It Notes, check out more at Supah's Post It Note McLinky!
Sunday Stories - Mulberry Jam
My little younger brother's birthday was last week, and I had planned to do a featured Sunday story about him, but my two part story about my fabulous sister-in-law Shellie turned into a three parter (start here) and I didn't want to interrupt, so I am posting this a week later than originally planned...
My brother and his friend W were two peas in a pod growing up... they were born six days apart and lived six houses from each other... W moved onto the street when they were both turning 3 and they became almost inseparable... They were both blond, skinny and full of mischief and together they were more than double trouble...
My mom's favourite story comes from one of their earliest escapades together... they were just 4 and had both learned to ride their bikes... they knew that the beach was down past the end of the street (in reality about 10-12 blocks away in a zig zag pattern... but they got it in their heads that, with or without parents they were off to the beach... they found towels, snacks and sand toys and set off on their adventure... of course they were caught at the bottom of the street because they knew they'd get in trouble for crossing the street without an adult..
My favourite story comes from when the boys were older and working on monetizing their lives... we'd always had kool-aid stands and yard sales, painted rocks at the cottage to try to sell to neighbours, participated in bake sales at school and other fundraisers... my bestscam sales tactic was that I was allowed to go to the corner store and was one of the oldest kids on the street... so I'd go and buy a couple of packages of $.10 Chews gum with about 20-25 little pieces of gum in them, break them open and sell each piece for a penny... but I digress...
My brother has always had a keen eye for making money (and he now is a published author
and successful real estate investor steadily growing his empire) He saw that kool aid and gum sales were 'penny ante' and wanted to do something bigger...
W's neighbour had a mulberry tree that overhung the lane way behind our houses, so the boys decided that they would collect mulberries and make jam... they were about 9 and had seen their mothers make jam a few times... but hadn't really paid attention... all they knew is that you cooked the berries and mashed them up and put them in jars...
Well, their first problem was that they didn't know how to tell ripe from unripe fruit... the second was that the ripe fruit they did get was salvaged from the asphalt lane... and of course everyone who makes jam knows that you need sugar and pectin to make any jam palatable...
but make something they did... a purple kitchen.. my mother's of course... and did manage to sell a few jars to unsuspecting friends... without taste testing themselves...
fortunately no one ate any before the scheme was discovered.. and the 'jam' returned to the ground from whence it came (through the compost).
This was not the first or the last scheme the boys perpetuated... but it was my fave...(as an evil big sister) if only because the boys ended up dyed in the wool purple for a week...
As I mentioned before, my brother survived his childhood reasonably intact, and most of his faculties... and has now become a successful Realtor, author and real estate investor, as well as being a good brother, husband and father to my sweet niece Ella Bella...
I encourage you to check out his book, his website and his blog to see where the boy who sold Mulberry jam has gotten to ... and I hope you enjoyed reading today's Sunday Story...
Please check out the other Sunday Stories by choosing Sunday Stories from the labels ----> and reading more about my family and extended family.
(as a complete aside, I just want to thank The Lady Blogger Society for featuring me yesterday as part of their weekly featured blogger posts and suggest that you grab a cup of tea and head over there to participate in their Sunday Tea Party Social and find some great blogs, networking opportunities and check out their archive for cool tips and posts about blogging!
My brother and his friend W were two peas in a pod growing up... they were born six days apart and lived six houses from each other... W moved onto the street when they were both turning 3 and they became almost inseparable... They were both blond, skinny and full of mischief and together they were more than double trouble...
My mom's favourite story comes from one of their earliest escapades together... they were just 4 and had both learned to ride their bikes... they knew that the beach was down past the end of the street (in reality about 10-12 blocks away in a zig zag pattern... but they got it in their heads that, with or without parents they were off to the beach... they found towels, snacks and sand toys and set off on their adventure... of course they were caught at the bottom of the street because they knew they'd get in trouble for crossing the street without an adult..
My favourite story comes from when the boys were older and working on monetizing their lives... we'd always had kool-aid stands and yard sales, painted rocks at the cottage to try to sell to neighbours, participated in bake sales at school and other fundraisers... my best
My brother has always had a keen eye for making money (and he now is a published author
and successful real estate investor steadily growing his empire) He saw that kool aid and gum sales were 'penny ante' and wanted to do something bigger...W's neighbour had a mulberry tree that overhung the lane way behind our houses, so the boys decided that they would collect mulberries and make jam... they were about 9 and had seen their mothers make jam a few times... but hadn't really paid attention... all they knew is that you cooked the berries and mashed them up and put them in jars...
Well, their first problem was that they didn't know how to tell ripe from unripe fruit... the second was that the ripe fruit they did get was salvaged from the asphalt lane... and of course everyone who makes jam knows that you need sugar and pectin to make any jam palatable...
but make something they did... a purple kitchen.. my mother's of course... and did manage to sell a few jars to unsuspecting friends... without taste testing themselves...
fortunately no one ate any before the scheme was discovered.. and the 'jam' returned to the ground from whence it came (through the compost).
This was not the first or the last scheme the boys perpetuated... but it was my fave...(as an evil big sister) if only because the boys ended up dyed in the wool purple for a week...
As I mentioned before, my brother survived his childhood reasonably intact, and most of his faculties... and has now become a successful Realtor, author
and real estate investor, as well as being a good brother, husband and father to my sweet niece Ella Bella...I encourage you to check out his book, his website and his blog to see where the boy who sold Mulberry jam has gotten to ... and I hope you enjoyed reading today's Sunday Story...
Please check out the other Sunday Stories by choosing Sunday Stories from the labels ----> and reading more about my family and extended family.
(as a complete aside, I just want to thank The Lady Blogger Society for featuring me yesterday as part of their weekly featured blogger posts and suggest that you grab a cup of tea and head over there to participate in their Sunday Tea Party Social and find some great blogs, networking opportunities and check out their archive for cool tips and posts about blogging!
Sunday Family Story - Shellie part 2
If you missed part one - check it out here
As we left off last week, I dangled a carrot for you my readers...Shellie was my friend and I was dating her adorable brother, Wayne. Shellie had moved a few hours away from Toronto, both to be closer to her boyfriend and to get out of 'the Big City'. When she came home for a visit in October of 1997, we both had great news to share with each other...
Being the sweetie that she is - she let me go first, since she could see I was bubbling over with excitement! I had to tell her we were becoming sisters! Wayne and I had gotten engaged the week before after going ring shopping - he was applying for grad school in the States and we didn't want to take the chance that I couldn't go with him when he went... and so we had picked our wedding date to allow for any paperwork and such to be completed ... right after we both finished our BA's - May 30, 1998. I rambled on about the details that I had already planned... (if you missed that story check it out here) and finishing up my long winded explanation by asking her to be a bridesmaid...
She hesitated for a second, which isn't like her, then said "Well, that's just peachy! but I can't be a bridesmaid... my due date is June 5th" We laughed, we cried, we hugged! We thought about changing all the wedding plans, but she convinced me that it would all work out okay and she'd do her best to be there if she could, but not to change all the plans already in place...
Shellie was so excited that she was pregnant, having not been able to conceive during her marriage, and I knew that she would make an excellent mommy! We sat there that Thanksgiving weekend plotting baby strategy and wedding strategy, and having a great time...
The next several months passed by in a blur.. I was finishing school, planning the wedding and working almost full time, but we'd talk when I was at work on Wednesday nights, since all I was doing was working the office shift at a small rec centre and Wendesday nights was ball room dancing - those wild and crazy dancers rarely got out of line... We'd compare notes on the week, the next week and beyond... until the last week of April 1998... Shellie had gone to the hospital to be monitored on the 22nd of April, because she had started having contractions... she also had previous medical conditions that made it likely that she'd stay in hospital until they got her completely sorted out...
She made plans for a long stay and we settled into a new routine of talking every day if we could... I honestly think she just wanted someone to complain about the wonderful food she'd been served that day... they were able to stop her contractions but wanted her on almost complete bed rest and had her hooked to a bunch of monitors so the farthest she could travel was to the bathroom and back... and of course at almost 8 months pregnant, she was getting a pretty good workout in...
Almost exactly a week later, we were talking during our usual Wednesday night... I was working on reports for work and she was shooting the breeze about a roomie that had delivered and left earlier that day... when she asked me to time something... 5 minutes... 4 minutes... she knew right then and there that she was in labour again and that the doctors wouldn't stop it this time, having done a battery of tests on the baby and mom, and knowing that it would be the safest thing for Shellie... so I gave her my love, hung up and called my future inlaws to tell them Shellie was in labour!!!
They didn't even ask how I knew, I just told them to hop in the car now - her labour was progressing rapidly and if they wanted to be there... it was about 7 pm when they hit the road...
by 11 pm, Robyn Anne Loucks had made her appearance, small but healthy at 4lbs, 11 oz and breathing on her own...
As Shellie said, her daughter had impeccable timing - they were going to keep her in the hospital for about a week to monitor them both and then they'd have 3 weeks to get used to each other before making the trip to our wedding :) Everything was going to be peachy keen :)
So that's what they did... Robyn Anne made her public debut as the star attraction at our wedding, picured here with her mom and dad:
If you haven't had enough yet, there is one more story to tell next week... sadder and more poignant, but worth reading here.
Thanks for letting me share my Sunday Family Stories
As we left off last week, I dangled a carrot for you my readers...Shellie was my friend and I was dating her adorable brother, Wayne. Shellie had moved a few hours away from Toronto, both to be closer to her boyfriend and to get out of 'the Big City'. When she came home for a visit in October of 1997, we both had great news to share with each other...
Being the sweetie that she is - she let me go first, since she could see I was bubbling over with excitement! I had to tell her we were becoming sisters! Wayne and I had gotten engaged the week before after going ring shopping - he was applying for grad school in the States and we didn't want to take the chance that I couldn't go with him when he went... and so we had picked our wedding date to allow for any paperwork and such to be completed ... right after we both finished our BA's - May 30, 1998. I rambled on about the details that I had already planned... (if you missed that story check it out here) and finishing up my long winded explanation by asking her to be a bridesmaid...
She hesitated for a second, which isn't like her, then said "Well, that's just peachy! but I can't be a bridesmaid... my due date is June 5th" We laughed, we cried, we hugged! We thought about changing all the wedding plans, but she convinced me that it would all work out okay and she'd do her best to be there if she could, but not to change all the plans already in place...
Shellie was so excited that she was pregnant, having not been able to conceive during her marriage, and I knew that she would make an excellent mommy! We sat there that Thanksgiving weekend plotting baby strategy and wedding strategy, and having a great time...
The next several months passed by in a blur.. I was finishing school, planning the wedding and working almost full time, but we'd talk when I was at work on Wednesday nights, since all I was doing was working the office shift at a small rec centre and Wendesday nights was ball room dancing - those wild and crazy dancers rarely got out of line... We'd compare notes on the week, the next week and beyond... until the last week of April 1998... Shellie had gone to the hospital to be monitored on the 22nd of April, because she had started having contractions... she also had previous medical conditions that made it likely that she'd stay in hospital until they got her completely sorted out...
She made plans for a long stay and we settled into a new routine of talking every day if we could... I honestly think she just wanted someone to complain about the wonderful food she'd been served that day... they were able to stop her contractions but wanted her on almost complete bed rest and had her hooked to a bunch of monitors so the farthest she could travel was to the bathroom and back... and of course at almost 8 months pregnant, she was getting a pretty good workout in...
Almost exactly a week later, we were talking during our usual Wednesday night... I was working on reports for work and she was shooting the breeze about a roomie that had delivered and left earlier that day... when she asked me to time something... 5 minutes... 4 minutes... she knew right then and there that she was in labour again and that the doctors wouldn't stop it this time, having done a battery of tests on the baby and mom, and knowing that it would be the safest thing for Shellie... so I gave her my love, hung up and called my future inlaws to tell them Shellie was in labour!!!
They didn't even ask how I knew, I just told them to hop in the car now - her labour was progressing rapidly and if they wanted to be there... it was about 7 pm when they hit the road...
by 11 pm, Robyn Anne Loucks had made her appearance, small but healthy at 4lbs, 11 oz and breathing on her own...
As Shellie said, her daughter had impeccable timing - they were going to keep her in the hospital for about a week to monitor them both and then they'd have 3 weeks to get used to each other before making the trip to our wedding :) Everything was going to be peachy keen :)
So that's what they did... Robyn Anne made her public debut as the star attraction at our wedding, picured here with her mom and dad:
If you haven't had enough yet, there is one more story to tell next week... sadder and more poignant, but worth reading here.
Thanks for letting me share my Sunday Family Stories
Sunday Family Stories ~ Shellie part 1
I liked my sister-in-law as soon as I met her. I had actually met Shellie independent of meeting my husband Wayne, whom I met through work. Shellie, I met through Scouting - we were both Beaver leaders... and met at training and various area scouting events and became friends... At the same time I was reconnecting with Wayne, getting stuck working together every day teaching two half day summer camps.. but I digress and that's a family story for another day...
I put the two together when, a few months after Wayne and I started working together he invited me to a barbecue at his house and out walks Shellie and I ask her how she knows Wayne... at which point she's roaring laughing - because neither of them - my future husband or his sister had ever put together that the Heather they had both been talking about was the same person :
She'd been ranting about her little brother off and on and he'd talked about how her older sister was thinking of moving back home when he left to complete his last year of college because she was separating from her husband... but neither had ever mentioned a name :)
Wayne and I began dating after he headed back to university a few hours away and Shellie did indeed move home... and we starting getting together more often - two single girls hanging out... me, waiting for the weekends where I'd have the car to be able to drive down to Brock to see Wayne, and her as she re-adjusted to single life.
At the same time, an opportunity came up in Scouting for both of us to take over a Cub Scout group without leadership and so we became partners in crime... or as criminal as you could be when dealing with a dozen eight to ten year old kids (Canadian Scouting was co-ed by then)..
Shellie's wicked sense of humour is what drew me in first I think... her mind worked a mile a minute and she was forever thinking so far ahead of the current situation that once you caught up you laughed for hours... She could also stop you in your tracks with a look...
Plus, she was a few years older than me and had a cool job working downtown at a property management firm... and after school I would take the subway down and hang out at happy hour with her... to shoot a round of pool, people watch or just grab a drink.
She was also a fountain of useful knowledge... at trivia... her eidetic memory was great for playing NTN at the bar and killing hours...
We'd meet to go to the movies and end up going for coffee instead... and she'd give me the inside skinny on her brother... his past dating life, his childhood obsession with baseball, and of course the story of how he generously gave her the gift every older sister wants from her younger brother... permission to inflict bodily harm that would draw blood...
When Wayne was in high school, it was in the late 80's and it was becoming a trend that men got one ear pierced, so for Christmas one year, Wayne offered to let Shellie pierce his ear with a sewing needle and an ice cube.. You should have seen the way she told this story... with both a fondness and a little sadism ... she was nice and numbed the ear and of course sterilized the needle... but just to have had the opportunity to freely maim her tormenting little bro was a highlight...
Just as Wayne was finishing up his studies at Brock, Shellie met and decided to move out of town with a new guy... she had always hankered to get out of Toronto... She preferred nature to smog, small towns to big office towers... and she was looking for a fresh start... I think Toronto still held a lot of reminders of her marriage and other points in her life she wanted to forget...
Plus, housing in Toronto was expensive and she was souring a little on her job ... she loved the numbers she worked with, but not always the people... so she up and packed everything to move to London... She rented a cute little apartment and got a job working less with numbers and more with people but still in property management... We lost touch a little after that... she was busy setting up her new life in London and I was working on my last year of school and working nearly full time...
Next week, I'll tell you what happened the next time we saw each other... we both had good news to share ... so please stop back next Sunday and see what happened
(Read part two here )
I put the two together when, a few months after Wayne and I started working together he invited me to a barbecue at his house and out walks Shellie and I ask her how she knows Wayne... at which point she's roaring laughing - because neither of them - my future husband or his sister had ever put together that the Heather they had both been talking about was the same person :
She'd been ranting about her little brother off and on and he'd talked about how her older sister was thinking of moving back home when he left to complete his last year of college because she was separating from her husband... but neither had ever mentioned a name :)
Wayne and I began dating after he headed back to university a few hours away and Shellie did indeed move home... and we starting getting together more often - two single girls hanging out... me, waiting for the weekends where I'd have the car to be able to drive down to Brock to see Wayne, and her as she re-adjusted to single life.
At the same time, an opportunity came up in Scouting for both of us to take over a Cub Scout group without leadership and so we became partners in crime... or as criminal as you could be when dealing with a dozen eight to ten year old kids (Canadian Scouting was co-ed by then)..
Shellie's wicked sense of humour is what drew me in first I think... her mind worked a mile a minute and she was forever thinking so far ahead of the current situation that once you caught up you laughed for hours... She could also stop you in your tracks with a look...
Plus, she was a few years older than me and had a cool job working downtown at a property management firm... and after school I would take the subway down and hang out at happy hour with her... to shoot a round of pool, people watch or just grab a drink.
She was also a fountain of useful knowledge... at trivia... her eidetic memory was great for playing NTN at the bar and killing hours...
We'd meet to go to the movies and end up going for coffee instead... and she'd give me the inside skinny on her brother... his past dating life, his childhood obsession with baseball, and of course the story of how he generously gave her the gift every older sister wants from her younger brother... permission to inflict bodily harm that would draw blood...
When Wayne was in high school, it was in the late 80's and it was becoming a trend that men got one ear pierced, so for Christmas one year, Wayne offered to let Shellie pierce his ear with a sewing needle and an ice cube.. You should have seen the way she told this story... with both a fondness and a little sadism ... she was nice and numbed the ear and of course sterilized the needle... but just to have had the opportunity to freely maim her tormenting little bro was a highlight...
Just as Wayne was finishing up his studies at Brock, Shellie met and decided to move out of town with a new guy... she had always hankered to get out of Toronto... She preferred nature to smog, small towns to big office towers... and she was looking for a fresh start... I think Toronto still held a lot of reminders of her marriage and other points in her life she wanted to forget...
Plus, housing in Toronto was expensive and she was souring a little on her job ... she loved the numbers she worked with, but not always the people... so she up and packed everything to move to London... She rented a cute little apartment and got a job working less with numbers and more with people but still in property management... We lost touch a little after that... she was busy setting up her new life in London and I was working on my last year of school and working nearly full time...
Next week, I'll tell you what happened the next time we saw each other... we both had good news to share ... so please stop back next Sunday and see what happened
(Read part two here )
Sunday Family Stories - Happy Birthday Mom!
When I always comment that my husband keeps me balanced, there is probably no one else in the world who helped me to be unbalanced (not always in a bad way) as my Mom...
You see, my grandmother always said that my mom was her reminder of how she tested her own parents... so much alike... and that's how my relationship with my mom was too!
I don't remember my mom as a child... I hadn't been born yet (tongue firmly in cheek here), but I got to know her through helping to work on my grandmother's memoirs so before I share my reminisces, I'm going to share some of hers:
Her Birth:
"Judith Anne was born February 27th, 1952 at St. Joseph’s Hospital, weighing in at six pounds, eleven ounces. She was short and as fat as a roll of butter, with a full head of dark hair. She was named for Judy Kosovi, and her middle name, Anne, was for my mother Annie Oliver and my paternal grandmother Sarah Anne Vanstone. Anne is also my second name.
At this time, Ken was on short time at Consolidated Glass and was afraid to ask for time off. He was on a job out-of-town on the day I was released from the hospital, but he arranged for his supervisor to pick up Judy and me and deliver us home.
It was against hospital rules for patients to keep money at the hospital and I could not be discharged until the bill was paid. I couldn’t ask Ken’s boss for the money so I went to the office and filled out a blank cheque for the amount due… knowing there was no money in the account. My first and only act of fraud! When Ken came home that night, he took the cash to the hospital and retrieved the worthless cheque… sometimes you do what you have to do!
These were emotional times for us, as the doctors had said we would never have children and we had proven them all wrong. I was constantly plagued by poor health though, and Ken was only working part-time. Every evening, Judy would sleep on Ken’s knee in the big chair, sometimes all night because he hated to put her in her bassinet. We both had so much love for this miracle baby."
And to top it all off:
"When Judy finally arrived on February 27th, 1952, Ken called on the “old party line” to relate the wonderful news. Everyone in the rural community knew that when the central operator rang the Olivers, it would be with the news of the birth and therefore picked up the line. This made it extremely difficult to hear on the long distance call! Dad answered, and when he heard that the baby was a girl, he demanded rather impolitely for everyone to hang up, promising to call them later. A multitude of clicks were heard on the line."
My mother was only two days away from being a leap year baby! She was the oldest of four children and boy did that make her bossy... She came by it honestly though, as I probably do...
Before she married and had kids, my Mom was a teacher and taught Kindergarten at Wilkinson P.S. in Toronto... she tells the story that she was down on the rug playing blocks with the children one day when one of her students came over to her and said that a "Man with yellow socks" was there to see her... it turned out to be the School Principal but it taught her a lot about perspective.
My Mom always came up with ingenious ways to deal with me and my siblings - I have two by the way, Catherine and Mark.. and she needed to, because we were all born within the span of 30 months of each other... I don't know how she survived those preschool years - money was tight and I remember her canning everything that didn't move, in between doing loads of cloth diapers because we didn't wear disposables, and making her own baby food... In those years she was SuperMom! She even devised a way to keep my siblings at bay when I, as the oldest wanted privacy - you may have read about it here.
I could go on and on, but I will close and say Happy Birthday Mom! I love and miss you and can't wait til you get here for a visit in May!
You see, my grandmother always said that my mom was her reminder of how she tested her own parents... so much alike... and that's how my relationship with my mom was too!
I don't remember my mom as a child... I hadn't been born yet (tongue firmly in cheek here), but I got to know her through helping to work on my grandmother's memoirs so before I share my reminisces, I'm going to share some of hers:
Her Birth:
"Judith Anne was born February 27th, 1952 at St. Joseph’s Hospital, weighing in at six pounds, eleven ounces. She was short and as fat as a roll of butter, with a full head of dark hair. She was named for Judy Kosovi, and her middle name, Anne, was for my mother Annie Oliver and my paternal grandmother Sarah Anne Vanstone. Anne is also my second name.
At this time, Ken was on short time at Consolidated Glass and was afraid to ask for time off. He was on a job out-of-town on the day I was released from the hospital, but he arranged for his supervisor to pick up Judy and me and deliver us home.
It was against hospital rules for patients to keep money at the hospital and I could not be discharged until the bill was paid. I couldn’t ask Ken’s boss for the money so I went to the office and filled out a blank cheque for the amount due… knowing there was no money in the account. My first and only act of fraud! When Ken came home that night, he took the cash to the hospital and retrieved the worthless cheque… sometimes you do what you have to do!
These were emotional times for us, as the doctors had said we would never have children and we had proven them all wrong. I was constantly plagued by poor health though, and Ken was only working part-time. Every evening, Judy would sleep on Ken’s knee in the big chair, sometimes all night because he hated to put her in her bassinet. We both had so much love for this miracle baby."
And to top it all off:
"When Judy finally arrived on February 27th, 1952, Ken called on the “old party line” to relate the wonderful news. Everyone in the rural community knew that when the central operator rang the Olivers, it would be with the news of the birth and therefore picked up the line. This made it extremely difficult to hear on the long distance call! Dad answered, and when he heard that the baby was a girl, he demanded rather impolitely for everyone to hang up, promising to call them later. A multitude of clicks were heard on the line."
My mother was only two days away from being a leap year baby! She was the oldest of four children and boy did that make her bossy... She came by it honestly though, as I probably do...
Before she married and had kids, my Mom was a teacher and taught Kindergarten at Wilkinson P.S. in Toronto... she tells the story that she was down on the rug playing blocks with the children one day when one of her students came over to her and said that a "Man with yellow socks" was there to see her... it turned out to be the School Principal but it taught her a lot about perspective.
My Mom always came up with ingenious ways to deal with me and my siblings - I have two by the way, Catherine and Mark.. and she needed to, because we were all born within the span of 30 months of each other... I don't know how she survived those preschool years - money was tight and I remember her canning everything that didn't move, in between doing loads of cloth diapers because we didn't wear disposables, and making her own baby food... In those years she was SuperMom! She even devised a way to keep my siblings at bay when I, as the oldest wanted privacy - you may have read about it here.
I could go on and on, but I will close and say Happy Birthday Mom! I love and miss you and can't wait til you get here for a visit in May!
Sunday Family Stories - Ace, two, three...
You know you are born into a game playing family when you learn to count Ace, Two, Three.... Jack, Queen, King. We started out playing concentration and go fish, and moved on to Crazy Eights, War, Euchre and Gin Rummy and as we got older as well, we started learning about gambling - 31 turned into 21 turned into Blackjack, and Poker.
But cards alone were not our vice, we integrated them into knock down drag out matches of Cribbage on Grandma's special map of Prince Edward Island cribbage board which was hung in a place of honour over the master bedroom door at the cottage, and into Rumoli where pennies flew!
All of this though was covert training for the real game...
BRIDGE
Bridge is an institution in our family and one of the rites of passage into adulthood was to be asked to sit and play the hand out while one of the four adults playing needed to make a pitstop... and then being asked to stay on to bid, well that was just the biggest honour!
Bridge, once you learn it is a fairly straightforward game after bidding has taken place, but until that point you are trying to communicate in a foreign language of cards, suits, high card points, voids, singletons, doubletons, and tricks... and one doesn't really mean one, it means seven...
Once the first bid is made, the language gets more complex as you decode the message and supply a return message, interrupted by your opponents message to their partner... you're bidding on Trump, or No Trump, how many cards you can take in your suit and of course your opponents are working to their advantage too, often trying to one up you, fortunately there was always an out - PASS!
Bridge was played so often that when my cousin Stephanie was little, she wanted so badly to learn to play 'PASS'
My grandfather was one of those fly by the seat of his pants bidders - he'd look at his cards, size up his partner and open with some outrageous bid, forcing the rest of the table to pass and then making his contract exactly. The rest of us cobbled together our knowledge, tried to get by and decode what our partner wanted us to say and hoped - kitchen table bridge at its best.
When I was in high school I met several other friends who played cards and spent hours after school in an empty classroom playing everything from Euchre to Canasta to Gin Rummy. We got caught there by the janitor who was closing the school down and word spread the next day to one of our guidance counselors, who taught bridge to adults on the side... he legitimized our 'club' and set about teaching everyone bridge - I knew the basics from playing with my family - but I had no idea what was in store for me when we started playing duplicate bridge (a tournament style where all the hands are preset and you rotate through multiple tables so everyone plays all the hands) and I added strange new words to my vocabulary - Forcing, Blackwood, Staymen, Jacoby, Transfers... my head swam! We played in preparation for a huge bridge tournament and everyone started to get pretty good, or so we thought...
Imagine, a room with 240 card tables set up in groups of eight tables, each with four chairs and a set of cards in special duplicate bridge holders - 950 adults and ten high schoolers out for their first time... you had to play quickly, deliberately and technically - it wasn't grandpa's kitchen table any more...
And to be honest, it wasn't nearly as much fun - it was WORK!
I came away from that experience with 1/4 masters point and the knowledge that I wanted games to be games... so I never played in another tournament again... but I still play bridge every chance I get... PASS
But cards alone were not our vice, we integrated them into knock down drag out matches of Cribbage on Grandma's special map of Prince Edward Island cribbage board which was hung in a place of honour over the master bedroom door at the cottage, and into Rumoli where pennies flew!
All of this though was covert training for the real game...
BRIDGE
Bridge is an institution in our family and one of the rites of passage into adulthood was to be asked to sit and play the hand out while one of the four adults playing needed to make a pitstop... and then being asked to stay on to bid, well that was just the biggest honour!
Bridge, once you learn it is a fairly straightforward game after bidding has taken place, but until that point you are trying to communicate in a foreign language of cards, suits, high card points, voids, singletons, doubletons, and tricks... and one doesn't really mean one, it means seven...
Once the first bid is made, the language gets more complex as you decode the message and supply a return message, interrupted by your opponents message to their partner... you're bidding on Trump, or No Trump, how many cards you can take in your suit and of course your opponents are working to their advantage too, often trying to one up you, fortunately there was always an out - PASS!
Bridge was played so often that when my cousin Stephanie was little, she wanted so badly to learn to play 'PASS'
My grandfather was one of those fly by the seat of his pants bidders - he'd look at his cards, size up his partner and open with some outrageous bid, forcing the rest of the table to pass and then making his contract exactly. The rest of us cobbled together our knowledge, tried to get by and decode what our partner wanted us to say and hoped - kitchen table bridge at its best.
When I was in high school I met several other friends who played cards and spent hours after school in an empty classroom playing everything from Euchre to Canasta to Gin Rummy. We got caught there by the janitor who was closing the school down and word spread the next day to one of our guidance counselors, who taught bridge to adults on the side... he legitimized our 'club' and set about teaching everyone bridge - I knew the basics from playing with my family - but I had no idea what was in store for me when we started playing duplicate bridge (a tournament style where all the hands are preset and you rotate through multiple tables so everyone plays all the hands) and I added strange new words to my vocabulary - Forcing, Blackwood, Staymen, Jacoby, Transfers... my head swam! We played in preparation for a huge bridge tournament and everyone started to get pretty good, or so we thought...
Imagine, a room with 240 card tables set up in groups of eight tables, each with four chairs and a set of cards in special duplicate bridge holders - 950 adults and ten high schoolers out for their first time... you had to play quickly, deliberately and technically - it wasn't grandpa's kitchen table any more...
And to be honest, it wasn't nearly as much fun - it was WORK!
I came away from that experience with 1/4 masters point and the knowledge that I wanted games to be games... so I never played in another tournament again... but I still play bridge every chance I get... PASS
Too busy...to think... random thoughts
I used to be one of those people who thought that I couldn't be a Stay at Home parent because I would be bored and drive myself insane... and I guess that I really am not following the Stay at Home part of that equation, especially lately... but as often as I have thought about sitting down to blog lately I have either opened the laptop and stared blindly at the screen... or I haven't even made it that far and I've just given up because I've been too busy to do anything, especially think...
I haven't been home for more than two hours awake time since Friday... and the toll is starting to show on my mental processes... so much so that today I had my car (our only family vehicle) locked into a secure construction site and had to call a friend to come and rescue me and the kids... so I think I've finally reached my breaking point... and am blogging for some much needed sanity and reassurance that, while I cannot string coherent sentences together vocally, with a little editing, I can still get thoughts to appear magically from my fingertips :)
So bear with me as I completely expound on some of the useless random things I have learned since I last blogged...
A little snow can be a dangerous thing in the wrong hands...
This is especially hard to understand as a Canadian, but now that I know ... I will remember it forever..
I haven't been home for more than two hours awake time since Friday... and the toll is starting to show on my mental processes... so much so that today I had my car (our only family vehicle) locked into a secure construction site and had to call a friend to come and rescue me and the kids... so I think I've finally reached my breaking point... and am blogging for some much needed sanity and reassurance that, while I cannot string coherent sentences together vocally, with a little editing, I can still get thoughts to appear magically from my fingertips :)
So bear with me as I completely expound on some of the useless random things I have learned since I last blogged...
A little snow can be a dangerous thing in the wrong hands...
- Wayne had a conference to go to in Charlotte this past weekend, and I had planned to go with him for a romantic weekend, but life intervened and our babysitters (aka the grandparents) had to return to Canada earlier than planned, so we thought.. why don't we take the kids with us to see some sights in Charlotte while Wayne goes to the conference... which leads me to the next few random points
This is especially hard to understand as a Canadian, but now that I know ... I will remember it forever..
- Three episodes influenced my understanding of this...
- The first is that the one attraction that we wanted to go to was closed on Saturday because of the weather... tried to go again Sunday, and despite the fact that everything was melting and clearing... it was still closed..
- The second one is that we almost didn't get to eat dinner on Saturday night.. the first eight restaurants we went to were all closed ... finally found an open Appleby's and were seated ... as were the couple behind us... and then everyone else was turned away because they were closing too...
- And the third... we decided to go and check out a mall, phoned ahead to make sure it was open... only to get there and find out that over 1/3 of the stores were closed because of the weather...
- The hotel we booked didn't have suites or even couches in the rooms so we had to opt for two doubles instead of a king bed... Wayne was presenting in the morning so he needed a good night's sleep, and he was too long for the bed, so chose to sleep diagonally.. leaving the kids and I to share the other double... if you've read about my bed hogging three year old you can imagine what my night was like...
- Fortunately, I didn't have to move myself or my home, but Robyn's school is moving to a newly constructed building in behind their current school and today was moving day for the Media Center.. and since I volunteer there, I offered to help out... I've been helping pack since Friday...and so has Liam, hence part of the reason I haven't been home at all...
- The move itself went reasonably smoothly, until we were shelving the books and realized that all the new shelves were unstable if you pulled the books to the front of the shelf and leaned on them in any wat... lesson learned after 3 shelves of books were dumped over by the movers
- It was really tiring...
- I haven't been to the store since Thursday (albeit we were away from lunch Saturday to lunch Sunday) and I still have a full freezer and pantry... I will probably need to pick up milk either tomorrow or Thursday, but otherwise we're all good ... cause I've barely made a dint in the stuff around the house
- I have been on a bit of a couponning/hoarding spree lately and hate to miss out on FREE stuff... and I'm kinda missing seeing my fave people at my Publix, but it really is ok that I didn't go to the grocery store this week...
- I drove around to the new school building this morning because I had to run out and grab lunch for Liam and it was raining, so instead of parking in the current school lot I went around to the back and parked near the new building... then went about my day, running back and forth between buildings...
- I left the new school bustling with workers and went for a 'quick' 15 minute PTA meeting... that lasted an hour and a half, and by the time I was back to my car, they had chained and locked the gates to the construction site... and my poor car is on the wrong side
- I phoned my friend Janice, the Media specialist for the school, in a panic because no one was left in the school who might have an inkling of a way to help me... and despite the fact that she'd been on her feet longer than I had today and had only gotten home a half an hour before, she turned around and came and got the kids and me and brought us home
- And she's coming back in the morning to get Robyn and I before school so I can get my car and Robyn won't be late :)
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