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It’s a weird and wonderful life!

/ edebock / 1 Comment

It occurred to me today that I live a weird life; or perhaps I’m just a weird person!

I’m a 60 year old woman preparing to go to China to teach English. In between weight lifting sets this afternoon, I’ve been working on editing a master’s thesis for someone in Japan and taking apart a dress for my son! Yup, definitely weird!

I started weight lifting 18 years ago before it became a popular activity for women. According to Wikipedia, nearly 20% of American women now lift weights on a regular basis but I doubt that many of them are in their sixties and most of them probably weren’t total non athletes like I was in my younger days.

I like what Adam Campbell, fitness director of Women’s Health and author of The Women’s Health Big Book of Exercises says:

But do I look like I lift weights? Absolutely. I’m lean and fit, and my muscles are well-defined, even if they’re not busting out of my shirt. 

You see, lifting weights isn’t just about building 20-inch biceps. In fact, for most women, it’s not about that at all, since resistance training may be the single most effective way to lose fat and look great in a swimsuit. What’s more, the benefits of lifting extend into nearly every aspect of your health and well-being. So much so that after nearly 12 years of reporting in the field of health and fitness, I’ve come to one rock-solid conclusion: You’d have to be crazy not to lift weights—even if bigger biceps are the last thing you want. 

The truth is, lifting weights gives every woman an edge. Over belly fat. Over stress. Over heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Lifting even makes you smarter and happier. 

To read more, including his 20 reasons why you shouldn’t live another day without lifting, click here.

If you’ve been reading my blog for very long, you know that I also love writing and keeping my mind active. That’s why when my friend, Smoky, asked if I would be willing to edit his thesis on factors that affect Japanese junior high school students’ motivation to learn English, I jumped at the opportunity.

Smoky's family

Besides, is it any wonder that he doesn’t have as much time as he’d like to polish his own writing? Those darling children are three of our “Japanese grandchildren” and I’d way rather he spent his time loving them!

dressNow, what about the dress? As I mentioned in an earlier post, on February 9th Nate will be skiing the 31 km Canadian Birkebeiner in an African schoolgirl dress to raise funds so that little girls in Sierra Leone can go to school. He’s already raised enough to provide a full year of schooling for one girl and is hoping that money will continue to come in.

The dress is snug on his 6 foot 3 inch frame. He needs more room for a warm layer underneath and to ensure that his arms can move freely when he skis. I’ve opened the seams down both sides and am adding panels of stretchy sportswear fabric to provide the space and mobility that he needs.

Yes, my life might be weird but it’s also rich and full and I wouldn’t have it any other way!

Time flies!

/ edebock / 6 Comments
Melaina's watch

The watch we gave our daughter for Christmas!

I recently read an interesting quotation by inspirational speaker, Michael Altshuler.

The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.

It seemed fitting for this time of year.

Every pilot needs two things, a destination and a flight plan. According to a 2007 study conducted by author and psychologist, Richard Wiseman, only 12% of the participants successfully kept their New Year’s resolutions and achieved their goals! The other 88% knew where they wanted to go but they didn’t get there. Perhaps they didn’t have a flight plan.

Did you make any New Year’s resolutions this year?

Whether your destination is a cleaner house, a lower number on the bathroom scale, a college degree or a new job, you need a plan.

Wiseman suggests six ways to actually keep your New Year’s resolutions:

  • Be specific. Make sure your resolution has a tangible, achievable outcome.
  • Write it down. Outline the small manageable steps you’ll need to take to achieve your goal.
  • Make time. Establish a realistic schedule for accomplishing your goal.
  • Move past doubt. Don’t listen to negative self-talk.
  • Find a supportive partner, someone who will keep you accountable.
  • Be still. Spend time every day doing something to relax and let go of stress.

Sounds like an excellent flight plan to me!

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions but we definitely have a destination this year! China, our next big adventure!

The flight plan is a work in progress. Right now we’re working our way through a lot of little steps while we wait for the documents that we need to apply for our visas to arrive. This morning, I made numerous calls figuring out how to suspend telephone, internet and cable TV service while we’re away and notifying our credit card companies that we’ll be out of the country. Next week we have appointments to make sure our immunizations are up-to-date and will have photos taken for the visa applications.

I’m sure the next few weeks will fly by but step-by-step, we’re getting closer to our destination!

Definitely a word nerd!

/ edebock / 8 Comments

Imagine being able to exercise your brain and your butt at the same time. That’s exactly what I’m going to be doing over the next few months!

I like a lot of things about living in a small prairie town but sometimes I wish we lived closer to a bigger centre. One thing I’d really like to be able to do in my retirement is take a few college courses just for fun but distance makes that impractical.

Then my sister told me that she was enjoying university lectures on DVD while walking on her treadmill! For more than 20 years, The Great Courses have been producing college level courses taught by the best professors that major American universities like Harvard and Stanford have to offer. Their lectures are available on CD and DVD as well as either audio or video download.

The Great Courses offers something for everyone; everything from science and mathematics to business and economics, from gourmet cooking to world history. I could have borrowed DVDs from my sister but our interests are very different. Her lectures on statistics and probability would have put me to sleep and I would have ended up a broken heap on the basement floor behind the treadmill! Knowing that, she suggested something entirely different for me, a course entitled The Secret Life of Words: English Words and Their Origins. I was intrigued!

There’s absolutely no question about it; I’m a word nerd! I even got excited reading the introduction to the course guidebook.

We’ll travel back in time to the invasions by Vikings and the Normans to explore words from sky to story, which are so familiar they hardly seem borrowed at all. Then, we’ll immerse ourselves in the classical revival of the Renaissance, which gave English related sets of Latinate words, including omnivorous, carnivorous, piscivorous, and voracious. 

I know, if you’re not a word lover like me, you’re probably falling asleep already. I hope you’re not on a treadmill! I, on the other hand, could hardly wait for my DVDs to arrive in the mail. I watched the first lecture this evening and wasn’t disappointed. My professor is Anne Curzan PhD, Professor of English at the University of Michigan. She’s an excellent speaker; clear, easy to follow and obviously in love with her subject matter. I could hardly believe it when the 30 minute lecture was over. I’d walked almost two miles and hardly noticed!

I’ll continue to use my walking videos from time to time. In fact, I’ve been walking on the Isle of Capri lately but I can hardly wait to spend more time in the “classroom”. In this evening’s lecture, Professor Curzan introduced four main themes that will be covered by the course.

  • English is a mixed linguistic bag with many borrowed words giving it a rich, multi-layered vocabulary.
  • Words are powerful.
  • English is a living, ever-changing language.
  • Studying English asks us to rethink some very common notions about language.

Oops! There I go putting some of you to sleep again!  I hope you’ll bear with me though if I share a few tidbits from the course over the next few months. I probably won’t be able to help myself!

He’s doing it in a dress!

/ edebock / 3 Comments

Our son, Nate, is a man’s man, never happier than when he’s exploring an underground cave or scaling a rugged mountain.

Nate in cave 2

Nate on mtn 2

In September, he attempted to climb Mount Robson, the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies. Nasty weather prevented his team from making it to the top so they summited a nearby peak instead and he’s already dreaming of challenging the big one again.

So why am I going to be spending time while we’re together this Christmas modifying a dress to fit him better? So that a little girl in Africa can go to school, that’s why! And you can be a part of it!

Do It In A Dress is an initiative of One Girl, a non-profit organization that gives women and girls living in Sierra Leone access to education. Believe it or not, a little girl born in Sierra Leone is more likely to be sexually assaulted than she is to attend high school!

Do It In A Dress asks participants to challenge themselves to do something… run a half marathon, bungee jump, sky dive, play a team sport, host a barbecue… almost anything, all the while wearing an African schoolgirl dress and raising funds so that a little girl in Sierra Leone can wear one too. $240 is all it takes to give a girl access to education. An educated girl becomes an educated woman – a woman who can change her world!

On February 9, 2013, Nate will be skiing the Canadian Birkebeiner, a 31 km cross country ski marathon, in a dress! The dress is a little tight. It needs some modification to to provide space for a warm layer underneath and to ensure that his arms can move freely while he skis. That’s where I come in.

What can you do to help? Click here to sponsor Nate. Tell your friends and suggest that they donate too. Nate will appreciate it and so will a little girl whose life will be forever changed.

Christmas magic

/ edebock / 10 Comments

In one of her recent posts, LouAnn who writes On the Homefront, asked a pertinent question.

So what proof do you have of the magic of Christmas? What is your “kernel” of Christmas magic?  

My mind immediately went back to one of my most poignant Christmas memories. Ten years ago, it captured the imagination of Laura Eggertson, now a self-employed writer, editor and freelance journalist who was, at that time, writing for Homemaker’s magazine. Here’s the introduction to her December 2002 Special Feature entitle Christmas Kindness.

“The knock on the door came late on Christmas Eve, as Elaine and Richard DeBock were putting their children to bed. The family had just returned from a service at their church in Sedgewick, Alta., a small town southeast of Edmonton.

The DeBocks’ four-year-old daughter, Janina, was home from hospital after an eight-week stay. She was dying of leukemia. Though Elaine still had hope, she knew this would likely be Janina’s last Christmas. As she tried to make it a joyous occasion, she also battled her sorrow.

When she opened the door, the bearded figure on the front stoop was one the children were expecting – though a complete surprise to the DeBocks. There stood Santa Claus and, without a word, he nodded to the adults and strode in, gifts in hand for Janina and her two-year-old brother. Barely stopping to register the children’s wide-eyed delight, he waved a mitten-clad hand and was gone.

“To this day, 20 years later, we have no idea who the kind stranger was who helped make our little girl’s last Christmas a magical one,” says DeBock, a teacher who still lives in Sedgewick. “I believe in Santa Claus.”

The anonymous Santa gave the DeBocks a Christmas they will never forget. Though the circumstances were exceptional, the gesture was born of a more ordinary gift: simple kindness.”

We’re approaching our 30th Christmas since the one described above. Many people helped lighten our load during those dark days but none was quite as magical as the anonymous Santa. Such a simple act of kindness, yet we were blessed so profoundly.

I often thought that if I learned the identity of the unknown Santa, the magic might be lost but not so.  The mystery was solved just a few years ago when his mother, back in town to play in our annual ladies golf tournament, happened to mention the incident to me. He was just a young man with a big heart. Like the rest of our small community, he knew what we were going through and wanted to help.

Maybe that’s the magic of Christmas… reaching out in love to help someone in need. After all, isn’t that what the babe in the manger was all about?

“I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”  

John 10:10

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Nativity

/ edebock / 10 Comments

When I hear of controversies and lawsuits in various places in the United States over the public display of nativity scenes at Christmas time, I’m glad I live in rural Alberta where we’re still free to say Merry Christmas to one another and to portray the real reason for the season! As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, our hand carved olive wood nativity from old Jerusalem is my most treasured Christmas decoration. It’s the first one to come out of storage each year and the last to be put away again.

This year, there’s also a nativity scene on display in front of our church and it’s the reason that a lot of things on my Christmas To Do list haven’t been done yet. For many years it sat in storage too badly weathered to be used; so many years, in fact, that many of us had forgotten that it even existed. Over the past couple of weeks, I spent many peaceful hours in the basement of the church repainting the nine almost life sized figures.

IMG_0618

Pieces that looked like thisIMG_0609

now look like thisIMG_0613

and now I can get on with the rest of my Christmas preparations!

Checking my list

/ edebock / 5 Comments

IMG_6251

He’s making a list
And checking it twice;
Gonna find out Who’s naughty and nice
Santa Claus is coming to town! 

Yes, the jolly old elf is a list maker and so am I! My friends tease me about my many lists but I don’t think I could live without them! I have a Christmas To Do list on my computer that I print off and post on the front of the fridge every year. Just in case you don’t have one of your own, here’s an annotated version of mine. The check marks indicate the things that I’ve already accomplished and those things that are crossed out, I don’t have to do this year because we’re going to be at our daughter’s for Christmas.

Christmas shoebox:  (for our sponsored child in Haiti)

  • fill  √
  • mail  √

Sadly, after paying Canada Post more than $27 to mail this to the collection point in Florida, we’ve made the difficult decision not to do this in the future. Instead, we can pay New Missions, the small organization that we sponsor through, $45 to fill a box for us. It will be less personal but with the money we save on postage, we’ll be able to fill a Samaritan’s Purse shoebox for a second needy child.

Shopping:

  • gifts  √
  • stocking stuffers  √
  • cards  √
  • wrapping paper  √
  • ribbon, bows  √
  • tags  √
  • Christmas crackers  √
  • tree

Until last year, we always bought a real tree but now that we’re spending two Christmases out of three in our children’s homes, we have an artificial tabletop tree for those years when we aren’t going to be home.

Wrap gifts

Mail gifts

We did all our shopping for the Vancouver portion of the family while we were at the coast recently. The gifts were bought, wrapped and delivered before we came home so there are none to mail this year. Haha! Canada Post loses this time!

Baking:

  • shortbread
  • nuts & bolts
  • butter tarts
  • macaroons
  • antipasto

I usually make other goodies as well but Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas at our house without these old standbys. I make the shortbread and the nuts and bolts using the same recipes that my mother used when I was a little girl. The antipasto is a favourite amongst our friends so I’ve increased the amount that I make over the years and several bottles are given as gifts. I haven’t done any baking yet this year but I did buy all the ingredients today. That must count for something!

Christmas cards:

  • write Christmas letter  √
  • print Christmas letter
  • address envelopes
  • write cards
  • mail

Oh darn, Canada Post wins again!

Decorate house

I put out the olive wood nativity set that my parents sent us from Jerusalem the year they spent Christmas there more than a week ago. That’s always the first decoration to come out of storage and although we have many boxes filled with others, it’s really the only one we’d need. After all, it represents what Christmas is really all about.

Take out Christmas mugs & glasses

As retired teachers, we have lots of these received as gifts from our students over the years.

Decorate tree

Buy turkey  √

Crossed out and checked off? How can that be? Well, I don’t have to provide this year’s turkey but I always like to have one in the freezer. We used the last one at Thanksgiving and they were on sale today so I picked up a smallish one to have on hand.

Plan menus

As you can see, I have lots to do over the next couple of weeks! How about you?

Of course, since we’re going away for Christmas, I’ve also started a packing list. I’ll have to remember to add the ski pants that I picked up at the local thrift store this afternoon for just $2, bought especially for playing in the snow with the grandchildren!

On an entirely different note, I received a notification from WordPress this afternoon reminding me that today is my blog’s 5th anniversary! Happy Birthday, Following Augustine! I think I’ll go pour myself a glass of wine to celebrate.

The end is near?

/ edebock / 4 Comments

2012

If the doomsayers who have long predicted that the world will end on December 21, 2012 are right, we have less than three weeks to go! Based on the number of people flooding the malls to do their Christmas shopping, I’m clearly not alone in thinking that we have nothing to worry about.

Based on the fact that the Mayan long count calendar comes to an end on that particular day, some fear that everything else will too. As they did prior to the Y2K non event of January 1, 200o, survival groups are preparing for the worst. All sorts of cataclysmic events are predicted; everything from a sudden reversal of the earth’s rotation to earth’s collision with a large interplanetary object known as Nibiru. Nasa calls this nothing but an internet hoax. In fact, December 12 simply marks the end of a 5 125 year cycle of this ancient calendar, not unlike our own calendar coming to an end on December 31 and beginning again on January 1.

I like what freelance journalist and former Ministry of Defence UFO investigator for Great Britain, Nick Pope, had to say in a recent article. “Whether it’s out of fear or fun, on Facebook and elsewhere, people are beginning to plan end of the world parties for December 21, 2012. I may organize one myself. If the world doesn’t end, we can raise our glasses and drink some champagne. And if it does, at least I won’t have to do the washing up!”

I do, however, believe that the world as we know it will eventually come to an end. I’m nearing the end of an in-depth Bible study on the Old Testament book of Daniel. The early chapters were pretty straightforward containing familiar stories of Shadrach, Mishach and Abednego being thrown into a fiery furnace and Daniel into the lions’ den. The second half, however, is filled with prophecy. It is much more perplexing and difficult to understand. Like the New Testament book of Revelation, it contains many references to end times. Considering the fact that Daniel foretold with astonishing accuracy events that have already occurred, I think we can trust that there is something to what he says about end times.

I don’t begin to understand exactly how things will play out or when they will occur but I do know for sure that the end won’t come on December 12th of this year. Matthew 24:36 tells us that “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, or the Son, but only the Father.” The fact that there are those who claim to know the exact date is a clear indication to me that they are wrong.

The Bible does speak of many signs of the times; indications that the end may be drawing near. “There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God – having a form of godliness but denying its power.”       2 Timothy 3:1-5

Doesn’t that sound like the day in which we live? Perhaps the end is not so far off after all!

In the meantime, I still plan to be here on December 25th. My shopping is done but there are cards to send, gifts to wrap, goodies to bake and a tree to trim so I’d better get at it!

What about you? Are you planning an end of the world party, a Christmas celebration or both?

The Trip

/ edebock / 19 Comments

I wasn’t home from Vancouver for a full week before I started packing for the next trip… The Trip. It didn’t take me as far from home or last as long as most trips do but it was one I looked forward to with great anticipation. I spent the past weekend in Edmonton with six friends from church on our 10th annual Christmas shopping trip; a marathon of shopping and fun!

Over the years, our number has varied from three to more than a dozen ladies. I’ve missed only once, the year we lived in Japan.

We’ve learned a lot since our first trip. In the beginning, we’d leave very early Saturday morning, spend one night in a hotel and return home completely exhausted the following evening. Then, for several years, the mother of the one gal who’s been on every trip offered to host us in her home. That’s when the trip became a two nighter. Deb’s mom now lives in a care facility and we’re back to hotelling but we continue to spend two nights in the city.

One year we simply couldn’t find a weekend that worked for enough people so we squeezed the trip into a single day leaving Sedgewick in the wee hours of Saturday morning and arriving home well after midnight! Never again! That was simply way too grueling.

A couple of days after that trip, I met my across the street neighbour in the grocery store. “I almost called you in the middle of the night on Saturday,” she told me. “There was a van backed up at your door and I thought maybe you were being robbed!” I assured her that that was just me arriving home from my annual Christmas shopping trip and unloading all my purchases!

Our accommodations have varied from last year’s dingy motel where, on one of the coldest weekends of the year, one of our rooms had no heat (we were eventually moved to another room) to this year’s luxury digs where Pam and I soaked in the hot tub after a long day of shopping.

Unlike last year’s dingy motel, however, this year’s hotel didn’t include a complementary breakfast so we brought our own picnicking on muffins, yogurt, fruit, juice and coffee before setting off each morning. We also came well supplied with wine and chocolate!

Another lesson we’ve learned is to ensure that we have enough vehicle space for the multitude of bags and boxes that join us over the weekend. We still laugh about our first trip when two women purchased guitars at the very last store we stopped at. There were seven ladies packed into an eight passenger van and it was already fully loaded. We managed to add the guitar boxes to the top of the pile in the rear of the van but every time the driver touched the brakes they slid forward stopping only when they encountered the heads of the poor ladies in the back seat! This year there were seven of us again but we took the eight passenger church van and a large SUV!

Just some of our Saturday purchases!

Where do we shop? Well, over the years we’ve been many different places avoiding only West Edmonton Mall which is just too big and too crowded at this time of year. In recent years, we’ve settled on a route that works well and takes in the widely varied needs and interests of a group that ranges from a very young mom to grandmothers like me.

On our way to Edmonton, we stop in Camrose usually taking in at least Walmart and the Christian bookstore, Wisemen’s Way. The staff at Wisemen’s has learned to expect us at this time of year and have even kept the store open late for us several times. This year we left home early enough to get there during regular store hours.

On Saturday morning, we try to be in the parking lot of Greenland Garden Centre in northeast Edmonton when the doors open at 9:00 a.m. At this time of year, Greenland is transformed into western Canada’s largest Christmas store. Whether or not we buy anything, we all love spending time there soaking up the ambiance and getting in the mood for a full day of Christmas shopping. We also pose for our annual photo in front of one of their gorgeous trees. There’s always a staff member willing to oblige and act as our photographer. One year when there were only three of us, we even had staff members stand in for regulars who were missing!

After we leave the Christmas store, we make our way toward the south end of the city stopping first at Londonderry Mall and then Kingsway Mall. Further south, we visit Blessings, another Christian bookstore; Southgate Mall and several stores in South Edmonton Common. This year a few of us also made a side trip to Cabella’s, a huge outfitting store on Anthony Henday Drive. We also added a Toys R Us store to our usual itinery.

On Sunday morning, we go to church together before hitting a few more stores and then heading for home. This year we broke with tradition and included a Y chromosone on Sunday morning. Michelle’s youngest son is in his first year at the University of Alberta so we invited him to join us for church and lunch.

Being our tenth anniversary, we spent a lot of time reminiscing and laughing over past fun and foibles, retelling stories like the one about the wayward guitars and the year that Tracy walked into a pillar bending her glasses out of shape! She was blind as a bat without them so a trip to an optician was quickly added to our agenda. On the same trip, she stumbled and fell in an underground parkade managing not to injure herself or break the fragile gift she was carrying! Tracy moved to Saskatchewan several years ago but we still miss her!

We also instituted a new tradition this year. We stopped for dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Camrose on Friday. When we opened our fortune cookies someone suggested that we purchase a Lotto 649 ticket using the numbers on the backs of everyone’s fortunes. The draw for $3.5 million was to take place on Saturday and we’d have seven chances at the jackpot. Split seven ways, we’d each win          $500 000! We had so much fun all weekend exclaiming over the things we’d buy or the adventures we’d go on if we won that we’ve decided to buy a ticket every year from now on!

On the way home we stopped in Camrose again to check on our luck. Since splitting our $2 win seven ways wouldn’t work very well, we invested in another ticket! That draw is on Wednesday and the jackpot is an estimated $8 million so the dream goes on. It would probably be easy to guess how I’d spend some of my winnings. After all, here’s what my fortune cookie had to say!

Your quotes

/ edebock / 7 Comments

Thank you to those of you who not only read my last post but also sent me your favourite quotations! There were some very good ones so without further ado, here they are!

Crystal, a former student who went on to become a teacher, contributed two.

Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality.

by Emily Dickinson, an especially poignant thought coming so close to Remembrance Day, and

Just accept yourself and find something that brings you closer to complete.

by Anthony Raneri of the band, Bayside.

My friend, Doris, sent the following quotation by writer, director and performer, John Harrigan.

People need loving the most when they deserve it the least.

These are not simply words to Doris. She and her husband, Ken, are currently giving of themselves to those who need loving at an addictions centre in Langley, BC.

Fellow blogger, Jeannie at gracefully50, sent this favourite quote by Linda Wooten.

Being a mother is learning about strengths you didn’t know you had, and dealing with fears you didn’t know existed.

I’ve recently learned that this is also true of being a daughter of elderly parents!

It seems that many of us like posting words on our walls. My brother-in-law, Jeff, sent this quote that he and my sister, Linda, had hanging on their kitchen wall until it underwent renovations recently.

We don’t believe in miracles, we rely on them.

If my online search is correct, that’s an adaptation of a quote by Peter J. Lawrence, an educator best known as the originator of the Peter Principle, the concept that people are often promoted until they reach their level of incompetence and then remain there. Hmm… I may have known some of those people during my days of employment! Oops! Did I really say that? I digress!

On the topic of miracles, LouAnn posted another great quote on her blog, On the Homefront, this week.

There are only two ways to live your life. One as though nothing is a miracle. The other as though everything is a miracle.

Well said, Albert Einstein and well said, dear readers. Thanks for sharing!