All weather packing

April 14, 2017April 13, 2017 / edebock / 4 Comments

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The geese are back, the gophers have come out of hibernation and tulip sprouts are peeking through the soil in my flower beds. It must be spring, right? Then why is there snow in the forecast? Because I live in Canada, of course!

I’m envious of those who live in warmer climes, the lucky ones who have already done their seasonal wardrobe switch, putting away winter wear and bringing out shorts and sandals. I had to laugh when I saw this on Facebook the other day because it’s all too true!

Spring in Canada

My dilemma right now is how to pack for our upcoming trip to Vancouver. The coast can be beautiful at this time of year with sunshine, daffodils and a profusion of cherry blossoms OR it can be chilly and damp. The forecast seems to indicate a bit of both.

The answer, of course, is layers. There will be at least 3 camisoles in my suitcase; black, white and khaki. They take up almost no room and make a good base layer providing extra warmth when days are cool. They can be worn under almost anything. I’ll pack tops that can be worn alone or layered with one of the camis and/or a light sweater.

Pants are trickier. I don’t go anywhere without jeans, but I’ll definitely throw in a couple of pairs of capris in case the weather is warm enough. Since we’ll be spending most of our time visiting family, I won’t need anything too dressy, but I’ll take a basic pair of black dress pants that could be worn to church or out to dinner.

When it comes to outerwear, layers are once again the key. I’ll take a light waterproof, windproof jacket and a fleece hoodie that can be worn individually or doubled up on colder days. A tiny pair of knit gloves tucked into a pocket, a scarf and a compact foldable umbrella will take me on outdoor adventures with my grandsons on even the rainiest days.

As far as footwear is concerned, I’m glad that we’re driving not flying. Since I can’t decide if I’ll need sandals, sneakers, casual flats, dress shoes or rubber boots, I may just take them all!

He made the thorns

April 11, 2017 / edebock / Leave a comment

Now that we’re into the holiest week of the Christian calendar, we’re surrounded by the popular images of the season, coloured eggs, bunnies and chicks, but the events of that first Easter week were anything but pretty and pastel.

On Sunday, our pastor used Maker of the Universe by master guitarist, Phil Keaggy, as part of his morning message. Do take a moment to click on the link and watch the video. I can’t get its haunting message out of my mind.

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His holy fingers made the bough,
Which grew the thorns that crowned His brow.

Not only did God create the thorn bush with its razor-sharp barbs, but He made and even yearned for a relationship with the soldier who thought to shape it into a cruel crown and ram it onto the head of our Lord.

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The nails that pierced His hands were mined
In secret places He designed.

On the third day of creation, God created the land and the metals hidden within knowing all the good and evil ways that man would put them to use; knowing that someday His body would be pierced with spikes formed from those very metals.

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He made the forest whence there sprung
The tree on which His body hung.

He didn’t have to do it! He didn’t have to let them nail Him to the cross. He could have walked away, just like He did three years earlier when an angry crowd in his hometown of Nazareth threatened to throw him off a cliff. (Luke 4:16-30)

This time He didn’t walk away. He let them crown Him with a crown of thorns and hammer nails through His wrists and His feet and He did it for me! He did it to take the punishment that should have been mine. He knew that I would let Him down, but He did it anyway. He let them lay His body in a cold, dark tomb, and there He lay for three long days. Thankfully, though, that wasn’t the end of the story. As the old hymn says

Up from the grave he arose;
with a mighty triumph o’er his foes;
he arose a victor from the dark domain,
and he lives forever, with his saints to reign.
He arose! He arose! Hallelujah! Christ arose!

And that is the wonder of Easter! Hallelujah!

Facebook blessing

April 5, 2017 / edebock / Leave a comment

I’ve been known to rant about Facebook, but sometimes it’s a wonderful blessing! Yesterday was such a day.

I was sitting in the vehicle at a gas station while Richard filled the tank when I decided to check Facebook on my cell phone. I immediately noticed that I had a friend request. I’ve recently received (and deleted) a few of those from creepy men I’ve never met, so I assumed that this was just another one of those. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I’m sure my heart skipped a beat when I saw the name of one of our sponsored children in Haiti!

We have been sponsoring Marie through an organization called New Missions since she was nine years old. Today, she is a lovely young woman of 22 with one year of high school left to complete and a dream of pursuing nurse’s training. Over the years, we’ve enjoyed exchanging letters with her, but never in my wildest dreams did it cross my mind that we might become Facebook friends!

I immediately accepted her request and we began a conversation that continued on and off throughout the rest of the day and again this morning. Her English, learned at school, is weak and my Haitian Creole is non-existent, so communication is slow and sometimes confusing, but we’re talking without the aid of a translator! What joy!

Marie, who lost her own mother shortly before we started sponsoring her and her father a few years later, has been calling me ‘mother’ in our conversation. That and her Facebook profile picture of the latest letter and photo that she received from us melt my heart.

For the past few years, we’ve been hoping that when Marie finishes high school and begins her nurses training through the New Missions program, we’ll be able to continue sponsoring her, but even if we can’t, now that we’re Facebook friends we won’t lose touch with her. What a blessing!

For just $33 a month, child sponsorship through New Missions provides a child in Haiti or the Dominican Republic with quality education, a daily hot lunch which for some is their primary meal of the day, and medical care. New Missions also provides a number of community development initiatives including clean water, vocational training and local employment, all vital in this poorest part of the western hemisphere.

Ghost moose

March 29, 2017 / edebock / 2 Comments

We had an unusual visitor yesterday; a young moose that has been hanging around our neighbourhood for the past few days munching on the plant life.

Yes, I was actually that close to him! When I first realized that he was there, he was standing just outside our front door snacking on my rose bush.

A rather scraggly looking character, he is what is known as a ghost moose. Infested and irritated by ticks, he has rubbed off most of his dark brown hair, exposing his pale undercoat.

Though I’ve never seen one before, apparently ghost moose are becoming more and more common and are most often spotted in March and April. Biologists blame climate change for ushering in shorter, warmer winters that are conducive to increased tick populations. The tick’s life cycle begins in late fall. Larva cling to plants and climb aboard unsuspecting moose that brush against them, feasting on their warm bodies over the winter months until early spring when they generally drop off and lay their eggs to begin the cycle over again.

A single moose can be host to a staggering number of ticks. I’ve read numbers upwards of 50 000! Thousands of feeding ticks can actually kill a moose! Calves, like this one, are particularly vulnerable. Loss of blood leaves them weak and easy prey for predators. Scratching off large patches of their thick outer coat in an attempt to remove the ticks leads to the loss of body heat and even hypothermia. Some spend more time scratching than foraging for food. Skinny and malnourished, they eventually die of starvation.

Considering that our young visitor has made it through our cold winter and seems to be eating well, I’m hopeful that he will survive, but I also have other concerns for his well-being. He is obviously one of last year’s calves. As such, he’s still a bit young to be wandering about on his own. Moose calves usually stay with their mothers for about a year and a half.

The fact that he’s spending so much time in town is also a major concern. It’s not unusual for us to see a mother moose and her calves in the yard during the winter, especially at night, but they are usually easily spooked, retreating to the trees on the edge of town when startled. This little guy is much too bold. He continued to nonchalantly trim the lower branches of our weeping birch while vehicles passed by just a few feet away. Even a neighbour in a noisy truck stopping to take pictures didn’t deter him.

Not only is becoming semi domesticated not good for him, but as cute as he is (in his own scraggly way), he poses a danger to people. He’s already big enough to cause serious damage and if he survives, he’s going to get a LOT bigger. A full grown bull moose can reach a height of up to 2.15 m (7.1 feet) at the shoulder and weigh between 500 and 725 kg (1,102 and 1,598 pounds)!

Real date

March 28, 2017March 28, 2017 / edebock / Leave a comment

Since yesterday’s dream date post captured the interest of so many readers, I thought today I’d share a real date that Richard and I went on on a beautiful fall day. We live in a tiny town of just over 800 people. It’s a two hour drive from the closest major city and an hour from a town large enough to have a movie theatre and a choice of restaurants. If we lived in the city there would be a myriad of things to do on a date, but out here coming up with creative date ideas is much more challenging.

Known as a flip-a-coin date or a penny date, this concept is a simple one that works just as well in the countryside as in a city, perhaps even better. Here’s how it works:

Pack a picnic lunch.
Grab a coin. HEADS is right; TAILS is left.
Choose a number. This will be the number of times you turn before you reach your destination.
Every time you approach an intersection, flip the coin to determine which way you’ll turn.
Once you reach the number that you chose in step 3, look around and find a spot to enjoy your picnic.

Since we didn’t want to spend our time driving around and around our tiny community, we drove to the nearest exit from town before flipping the coin the first time. The countryside in our area is criss-crossed with roads, most of them just a mile apart, so we chose a number large enough to take us some distance from town. Though I don’t remember for sure, I think it might have been 20.

We were hardly out of town when we stopped to watch a huge flock of snow geese landing on a pond. It was like a magical dance!

As we wandered the backroads we passed a few old abandoned buildings including this one, the old curling rink which was moved out of town when a new recreational centre was built in the early 1960s.

At one point, a right turn followed by three lefts in a row took us in a complete square back to where we’d been not long before. Fortunately, the next flip was a right and off we went in a new direction!

Soon after we made our final turn, we spotted a secluded clearing overlooking a field of ripening grain.

It was a perfect spot for our tailgate picnic!

Now, with spring finally on the way, geese are flying overhead again. When the last bit of snow has melted away, the muddy roads have dried and leaves are back on the trees, I think we’ll try another flip-a-coin date. I wonder where the next one will take us?

I’m a Barbarian!

January 27, 2017January 24, 2017 / edebock / 3 Comments

I’m fortunate not to have to leave the house to exercise. We have a treadmill, two weight benches and more free weights than I’ll ever be able to lift in our basement. As a result, thinking about what to wear to the gym isn’t an issue for me. I usually work out in a pair of yoga pants or leggings and an old t-shirt. As long as I look presentable enough to answer the door if someone rings the bell unexpectedly, that’s good enough for me. There are, however, three items that I do consider essential parts of my weightlifting wardrobe.

1. Shoes

If I was a competitive lifter, I would want a pair of shoes with low compression soles designed specifically for the sport, but for someone like myself, a good pair of cross-trainers is an excellent choice. The soles, which are wider than the upper part of the shoe, provide excellent stability and support.

2. Gloves

Padded weightlifting gloves improve my grip and keep me from getting callouses on my hands.

3. Belt

Though there is some debate in the weightlifting world about whether or not a belt should be worn, I have always worn one and will continue to do so. The main reason is to stabilize and reduce pressure on my spine, hopefully avoiding back injury. Wearing a belt also forces a lifter to use their legs more than their back which is precisely what you want to do when lifting anything heavy.

Though it’s possible to purchase a pink or purple weightlifting belt specifically for women, I’m not concerned about looking feminine when I’m working out. As I said, I do it in the privacy of my own basement where only my husband sees me. Besides, a girly belt wouldn’t say that I’m a Barbarian!

Fitted or baggy? What’s your style?

January 20, 2017January 23, 2017 / edebock / 12 Comments

It’s kind of spooky how the spirits of the cyber world seem to know exactly what our interests are and how accurately they tailor the ads we see to those areas. Ever since I introduced Fashion Friday to my blog last March, the majority of ads that I see on Facebook and on the news pages that I read regularly have been related to fashion.

Lately, whenever I go to Facebook, this is what I see in the margin.

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I seldom wear dresses, but apparently the internet thinks I should and feels that I should be shopping for some new ones! It doesn’t seem to know my style though, so it’s offering me two strikingly different options.

The dresses on the Fashion Mia site are mostly what I would call fitted. When I do wear a dress, it’s usually for a special occasion and I want to look both feminine and sophisticated. Here’s a closer look at one from that site that I could see myself wearing. It’s definitely my style.

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The dresses on the Buykud site, however, are baggy and, in many cases, shapeless. Here are a few examples.

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There’s nothing actually wrong with them. They’re certainly modest and they look comfy, but they’re not my style. In fact, I’d probably look and feel like a bag lady in any one of them and I suspect that my husband, who is rather fond of my shape, would be horrified! They’re simply not flattering; one of my essential fashion F words.

If I had been looking for a new dress this winter, I would definitely have considered this one that kept appearing on a Bay banner across the top of my favourite news site throughout the Christmas season.

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The Ivanka Trump lace-detailed sheath dress, available here, caught my eye every time it appeared. It’s definitely my style.

In the words of fashion icon, Iris Apfel, “I think the biggest fashion faux pas these days is looking into the mirror and seeing somebody else. It doesn’t work. You’ve got to know who you are.” You need to know your style which may be entirely different from mine.

What’s your style? Do you prefer fitted or baggy?

Take that, Miss Chen!

January 14, 2017January 13, 2017 / edebock / Leave a comment

My first memory of phys ed was Miss Chen yelling at me for not being able to serve a volleyball over the net. It was grade 6, my first year in a new school, and I don’t think I’d ever held a volleyball before. In fact, I don’t recall having physical education classes at all prior to that year. The small town elementary school that I’d come from was overcrowded. When I was in grade 1, the gym had served as our classroom and after that, I only remember going there for school-wide assemblies.

Miss Chen also taught us health. She was an odd and intimidating person. I remember her standing at the front of the classroom doing callisthenics while she taught. Her explosion on the volleyball court did nothing to persuade this uncoordinated, timid child that physical education was a good thing.

In high school, I was the gawky kid who hated phys ed, all except gymnastics. I remember the year that each student had to plan, practice and perform her own gymnastics routine to music. I chose the 1967 hit, Love is Blue. Though I wasn’t able to manage some of the more difficult gymnastics moves like walkovers and handsprings, I remember that my routine started with an arabesque and incorporated other ballet poses and moves that I’d learned in the dance classes that my mother had insisted I take when I was younger. My teacher loved it. It was my shining moment in phys ed! She even wanted me to enter my routine in the high school talent show that year, but I was too shy.

Over the years as a teacher in a small rural school, I taught almost every subject at one time or another, but never phys ed. How remarkable then that one evening this week, I found myself in my basement teaching a couple of friends the exercises that I begin my days with as well as the weight lifting routine that I follow three times a week! Me, teaching anyone phys ed? Wow! Take that Miss Chen!

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A boy for his birthday!

January 6, 2017January 6, 2017 / edebock / 5 Comments

Today is my husband Richard’s birthday. We quit buying birthday gifts for each other years ago, but this year I broke with that and ordered something really cute for his birthday.

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His name is Rodolson. He’s seven years old and he’s in first grade in his home country of Haiti.

No, we aren’t adopting a child in our old age! Instead, we will be sponsoring Rodolson through an organization called New Missions which, coincidentally, is celebrating it’s 34th birthday today.

In 1983, the late George DeTellis and his wife, Jeanne, left the United States for Haiti with nothing more than what they could carry on the plane. They lived in tents pitched under a grove of coconut trees and started a church the first Sunday they were there. Now, 34 years later, New Missions, which also branched into the Dominican Republic in 2000, has over 30 churches as well as elementary schools, high schools, medical clinics, a Bible college, and a professional trade school.

Following the devastating earthquake of 2010 the United States military made the main New Missions compound their primary base camp for relief work in Haiti’s southern plain. Though many churches and schools were destroyed by the 7.0 earthquake, New Missions has rebounded and continues to thrive.

For just $33 a month, child sponsorship through New Missions provides a child with quality education, a daily hot lunch which for some is their primary meal of the day, and medical care. New Missions also provides a number of community development initiatives including clean water, vocational training and local employment, all vital in this poorest part of the western hemisphere.

Rodolson is not our first New Missions child. We have been sponsoring Marie since she was nine. Today, she is a lovely young woman of 22 with one year of high school left to complete and a dream of pursuing nurse’s training. Over the years, we’ve enjoyed exchanging letters with her and watching her grow. Now we get to do the same with Rodolson.

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So, Happy Birthday to both Richard and New Missions and welcome to the family, Rodolson!

Following Augustine

A lifestyle, travel, and fashion blog by Elaine DeBock.

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All weather packing

He made the thorns

Facebook blessing

Ghost moose

Real date