Sunday, December 31, 2017

When Cleaning is Cleansing

I am not a clean freak. On the contrary I go for long periods of time forgetting to clean certain things. Just ask my sister in law who regularly reminds me about or empties for me the dead flies in the living room light fixture. I remember when I had my kitchen renos done in 2009 I was determined to keep my new appliances , new kitchen floor and new ceramic tile gleaming. I put the stove on wheels so I could clean behind it regularly. Now I may have done that a time or two but last week when I pulled the stove out it was apparent that I hadn't kept that promise to myself. I will attempt to try again making the plan of cleaning behind the stove at the end of each month. I will clean behind the fridge soon and establish a plan for that. The month of December has been besides Christmas decorating and enjoying the season, a month of cleaning, purging and organizing. I have tackled most closets and drawers and several rooms are completely finished. I have two closets left to do and one room left to paint, organize and set up. I have( for the most part)a finished bathroom renovation that I love. Now to establish a cleaning regime that will keep it looking as it does today. I have bought all the cleaners, the sponges, the scrub brushes and the cloths. I have a plan and my plan is to thoroughly clean the bathroom every Sunday. This may seem a tad obsessive but I need to schedule the cleaning that for me does not come naturally. I am not messy but I do not have the strong cleaning gene some people have or was bred into them. Keeping my new bathroom clean is my way of being thankful for it. Spending time organizing and reclaiming every room in my home acknowledges the blessing that my home is and the shelter and comfort it offers me.

Tuesday, December 26, 2017

A New Water Closet

Today is Boxing Day to most people. In our house it has always been called Sue's Day. I don't know that a day named for me is that much of an advantage but in my head it gives me permission to do whatever I decide to do. Yesterday we had a beautiful dinner in Chapin and Brianne's new home. She pulled off a lovely meal and gathered her family and Chapin's together in their beautiful home. A winter storm did not keep her grandmother from leaving her nursing home and venturing over to be a part of the memorable event. Today I will enjoy some rest and the first order of birthday business is to have a bath in my beautiful new tub. Thanks to my friend Skip and his brother Tim along with our friend Connell (plumber), Chapin's friend Tony ( electrician) and our friend Paul (painter) my vision of a renovated bathroom has been realized. It is beautiful and exactly what I dreamed it could be. I will share the first reno picture showing the beautiful Welcome sign Crystal Mortimer made and donated to the Whites Wharf fundraiser at the marina. Wanda Cosman and I bid the sign up and I was successful in buying it, knowing it would hold a place of honor in my renovated bathroom. I am not sure if a welcome sign belongs in a bathroom but I love it and it certainly welcomes me.I will run a bath in my new tub and reflect as I soak, on the many blessings I have been given as I celebrate my 61st birthday.I will gaze out the new window, step out onto the new floor and totally enjoy my new water closet.

Monday, December 18, 2017

Seven More Sleeps

I am living my 61st Christmas. Of course I can't really remember the first few but I can remember most of them. My Mom and Dad always made Christmas a magical time. I remember it being about the little things;a box of Ganongs red wrap, tinsel and silver icicles placed just so one by one on the tree,Mom's small village set out on cotton batten on the mantelpiece, opening our stockings in Mom and Dad's bed,Mom's mincemeat and scotch cookies, eating breakfast bursting with excitement to get to the tree for the two or three gifts , a blow up Santa , new Barbie dolls, packing up and getting to my Aunt Lois and Uncle Bernie's for Christmas dinner. My childhood is full of wonderful Christmas memories and many of the traditions found their way into our home when Burton and I had our own family.This morning my heart is breaking for my Mom and Dad. I wish I could wrap my arms around my mother and quiet her turmoil. My Mom is locked up in a prison called Primary Progressive Aphasia.Each day it takes more and more from her. The main thing it has taken is her speech. My social,outgoing mother has lost her ability to speak.My dad never a chatty guy now has the burden of every conversation being one sided with no real indication of what his wife of 69 years is thinking. Her only outlet for the thoughts that must be constantly boiling inside her is a agitated type of pacing and obsessing. Dad is unsure how to react to this.My parents have spent many years away from us at Christmas, heading south in November. They have gone to Florida again this year . But last night as I heard the strain these days are on my father and hear only guttural sounds from my mother I want to take them both in my arms . I want to bring them to my decorated home and talk non stop about all the years they brought the wonder of the season to me. I want to thank them and take them year by year through the memories of my 61 Christmases. I want to make their suffering go away.I feel like the one in the middle holding on to the memories of Christmas for my parents, for my kids and for myself of course.My grandchildren are counting the sleeps. Oh how I wish I still had that wonder and innocence. Seven more sleeps and I will hold on to the wonder of twinkling lights, of grocery lists and family favorites, of treasured ornaments and decorations, of watching my kids creating their own memories in their own homes. I will carry all my people in my heart and accept the gift of that knowing that the love my parents gave me has prepared me for the blessings Christmas 2017 will bring.

Saturday, December 16, 2017

My Glass Half Full

I love rum and eggnog.It is a December thing and I treat myself to one glass a night. I seldom overdo it but each evening as I sit and sip I treasure all the blessings of the season. Oh how I could get caught up in the glass half empty approach but I will not even entertain that list but will spend a few minutes on the half full list. Entirely full really when I examine my plethora of blessing. Number one is my wellness both physical , mental and emotional. Oh how I celebrate my wellness.I acknowledge the journey that has brought me that wellness and I realize the key elements that maintain it and do not take them for granted.Number two is my home with its flaws and its shortcomings with the changes it has seen over the years. I am thankful for each room, each piece of furniture , each aspect that makes it unique and ours. This home was built and created and has housed a family blessed with love .It has sheltered us in storms and heartache and has witnessed our journey. I am thankful for the generations; the grandparents, great aunts and uncles, aunts, uncles, cousins, children and grandchildren who have passed through our doors and have left their mark on who we are and who we will be. Friends have gathered and laughed and cried with us.I am thankful for the seasons and see each one as a gift. Winter's cold, the snow, the ice and wind are part of another year we have been given. We take assurance in remembering each season of the past and as Burton always says, "We haven't freezed to death yet." Today I hope to stand the tree up and possibly begin decorating it. I will take each treasured ornament from the boxes placing them on the branches and feel gratitude, peace and comfort. I will not allow the hype and pressure to rob me of my glass half full. It is a choice and I make that choice deliberately and mindfully.My glass is overflowing.

Monday, December 11, 2017

So This is Christmas

Yesterday my friend Kathy and I went to a concert at Elmhurst Outdoors. What a perfect afternoon it was for the event.The snow cover framed the lodge which was decorated beautifully. Inside the place was cozy and welcoming. Mike Biggar , Sandy MacKay, Grant Heckman and Jessica Rhaye entertained for two and a half hours and it was wonderful. The afternoon show had sold out leading them to offer another show at 6:00. I am sure that show was lovely as well. Mike Biggar delivered an energetic and funny performance highlighting his immense talent and musicality. Jessica Rhaye's crystal clear voice is delightful.Mike talked about the spectrum of Christmas music lovers from the haters to the can't get enough-ers. Those who want Christmas music from mid November to well into the new year, to those who tolerate it on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. I am somewhere in between. I hate that the music comes to an abrupt halt and those days right after Christmas day it seems everyone has already forgotten about Chritmas.I have my favorites and I do enjoy most of it.Each song they offered yesterday had a quality of its own and I lost myself in the music. Then they introduced the Christmas song I dread hearing depending on where I am and how able I am to process the depth of the song's meaning for me. Sometimes it hits me when I'm not expecting it and it always brings a jolt of pain and nostalgia. I love it and treasure it and dread it at the same time. The first few measures of it bring me right to the heart of what this song is for me. So this is Christmas...Tears fill my eyes as I type those words. I instantly return to the Christmas Eve when Zac changed the lines in John Lennon's song. I will never hear that song without hearing my son singing along. It was Burton's traditional Christmas Eve run. He had been doing that run for many years beginning when Zac was a toddler and his dad took him along. First stop Sussex for Burton to do his last minute shopping. Later as Zac got older Zac would also buy presents for me and for his siblings. A few years later Megan and Chapin tagged along and did their shopping. Then a stop at Connell's ,then at Mike's for his Christmas Eve birthday spread and open house.Later a stop to see the Barrett's was always made. The run was and still is a tradition entrenched and honored. Both Chapin and Caleb look forward to driving their Dad on that day and sometimes count on it for their last minute shopping.But back to the particular day Zac changed the words to the ones that still echo in my head and heart. Caleb was just over one year old. I had decided I was not staying home but was coming along for the 'run'. All four kids, Burton and I piled into the Jimmy.I prepared two bottles for Caleb filling them with milk from our milk cow.Anyone that knows me knows I don't have a keen sense of smell. Had someone else filled those bottles they may have prevented what happened later.Off we went. Right away Caleb devoured his first bottle. Just before Norton he seemed fussy and still hungry. I gave him his second bottle. Seconds after finishing that one Caleb projectile vomited managing to hit each one of his siblings with a shower of sour milk.A quick stop was made at the Norton store where Burton ran in to buy paper towel. I stripped Caleb down to his diaper and threw away his clothes.The kids cleaned themselves as best they could and off and we headed to Sussex to buy Caleb a new outfit. Sometime along the way Zac began singing So this is Christmas and what have we done. We brought our mother with us and its not very fun.For years afterwards that was Zac's Christmas song and I was seldom(or possibly never)invited on the run. So as Mike , Jessica, Sandy and Grant belted out that song and as the crowd sang along to the chorus I held on tightly to that memory.The world just acknowledged the anniversary of John Lennon's death and that song of course is part of the legacy he left. It is also a part of the lasting legacy Zac left in this family.

Saturday, December 9, 2017

Some Snow and Christmas Decorating

Let it Snow!I say that knowing I am going nowhere today. I am so happy to be staying home and getting down to the job of decorating for Christmas. I do not mind that job at all . In fact I consider it a gift to find myself at this time of year again. Oh how quickly the years go by. This time three years ago I was flying home from Meg's . Leonard had died in the early morning after about six weeks with us . He had arrived in October choosing to spend his last days back in NB near family and friends. Thirty nine years ago I was still in the hospital with my newborn baby . Over the years the Empty Stocking Fund broadcast was always the day I would pull out all the decorations and get down to the work of decorating. It really does seem like a short time ago I was just putting them all away .I have many treasured decorations. I treasure the Willow tree nativity set Chapin and Brianne gave me over the years and I always set it up in the den. I love pulling from the large Rubbermaid container each item that has a special value and place.Last year we went to Meg and Cody's Christmas day so I put up a simpler version of a tree. This year we are celebrating Christmas at home with a January visit to Alberta so there will be a big tree and that job is for another day. Toady I will vacuum and dust. I will put away the year round objects and replace them with the treasures of Christmas. I will accept the season as a gift and a privilege not a hardship or nuisance. We live with such bounty and blessing. We have our health and our wellness and love of family and friends. If it snows it will just add to the beauty of the season. Snow will cover the starkness and drabness of November and each twinkling snowflake will greet the season. Just as seasons add up to a year and years become decades each Christmas season adds to the memories and victories of the season past. I am attempting to clean and purge this month. The chaos of a major bathroom renovation has led me to want some order in the mess and I am tackling every room , every closet, drawer and cupboard. The other day I asked Burton to dismantle my Kenmore sewing machine so I could put it out for the garbage truck. I thought long and hard about this. The sewing machine has not worked for a long time. I had it fixed once years ago but it never really worked well again. I can not remember the last time I tried to sew with it. As I was carrying it downstairs Caleb asked me how I could throw it away. "Doesn't it have sentimental value?" Yes it certainly does. My dad bought me that sewing machine when I was in grade seven. My mother thought it was an extravagance and frowned on his purchase. She thought I would never sew. I made her a dress the following year and completely surprised her on Christmas morning. I sewed a lot on that machine. But that sewing machine is not my Father's love . My Father's love was and is so much more and throwing it away does not diminish the love he has for me, the faith he has in me and the bond of our relationship.So I will go through the boxes and once again place all the treasures of Christmas in our home. I will celebrate the season of 2017 with all its blessings, its challenges ,its worries and its hopes. The snow will fall, the lights will twinkle and the days will pass and I will take comfort and joy in it all.

Monday, December 4, 2017

A Trip to Fredericton

On Saturday I took a trip to Fredericton. As I drove there I thought about the reasons I always feel good about making that trip. I lived in Fredericton from grade 2 to grade 5. 619 Regent St. is a huge and happy part of my childhood memories. I was not happy to move away. I returned to Fredericton to attend St. Thomas University. This was a huge and happy part of a stage in my life I was very proud of. I had been a big underachiever in high school and despite my desire to be a teacher it hadn't been enough to motivate me to do better. But somehow I pulled it together and found the will to make that dream come true. My years at St Thomas were wonderful. I worked full time and managed to work toward my first degree. Then I took a small break and got married and got pregnant with my first child. With a nine month old Zachary I returned to Fredericton (Burtt's Corner actually) and back to St. Thomas to get my education degree.Two summers in the 90's I traveled to UNB and participated in the Maritime Writers Workshop . Both experiences were very memorable for me and gave me the confidence to keep believing I was a writer.For one of those workshops I stayed with my friend Barb, her husband and two little girls who referred to me as Soup. What a wonderful week that was. Every morning I would walk from their house to the university and I was right back to the little girl I'd been walking and biking those streets with friends.I weaved those memories into the story I wrote of 1960's Fredericton in The Sewing Basket. Years later Fredericton became the place I would go to visit my daughter who also attended St. Thomas.She introduced me to a dish at the Diplomat that always calls me back.So on Saturday's trip I felt all those positive Fredericton feelings. I have gone several times to sign my latest book at the Fredericton Chapters. I have often seen Amy who is a strong connection to Zac and always fills me with joy as I see her little family and her smiling face.I meet readers who I've met before and always enjoy signings there. Saturday was no exception. Amy wasn't able to fit a trip to the store into her day but I met Kim a writer with her own story to tell and her own path to walk toward publication. I met Heather, an excited reader anxious to get the new book who after digging a little bit turned out to be the daughter of the salesman who sold me three of my Toyotas. I met Jennifer who was celebrating her 40th birthday shopping with her sister. She stopped and took the time to connect with me and bought three books. Her age and December birthday was a connection to Zac I felt so strongly and she was so kind.Natalie , a neighbor and her two daughters were shopping in Fredericton and stopped by to see me. She had come to my house earlier that morning to buy a copy of Maple Sugar pie for her daughter but took the time to come and support me. We talked and laughed and I so enjoyed the minutes they took from their shopping time.Then a woman came in looking vaguely familiar and I knew right away there was a connection of some kind. The connection turned out to be a previous meeting in which she had bought a book which led her to read all the books and be anxious to buy Maple Sugar Pie. She reads my blog regularly and she was so generous and kind in her praise and love for my work. That was definitely the icing on a already delicious cake. The cookies however were not the hit they were in Moncton. Only three were taken. One after a little girl picked it up to smell it (she was gluten free) and then I suggested she give it to her mother. Barb came for the last twenty minutes but wasn't able to pull hoards of Frederictonians to the table. But that was just fine. I had already surpassed my best expectations having had Kim, Jennifer, Heather, Joyce, Natalie Lindsay and Nicole make my day. Supper followed at the Diplomat with Barb and our friend Mary. An evening of knitting and chatter, a good nights sleep and a breakfast with Patrick( a Susan White fan )and his wife Catherine at The Cabin rounded off the trip. Then I had a safe and reflective drive home from a city I love and have such great feelings about.