Uncategorized

I don’t like being Spam!

/ edebock / 2 Comments

“What were you doing in my spam?” asked LouAnn, writer of ON THE HOMEFRONT, one of the blogs that I’ve been following lately.

I wish I could answer that, LouAnn! Apparently I’ve been ending up in a lot of people’s Spam lately, even my own daughter’s!

So what is Spam? No, I’m not talking about the canned luncheon meat that we found to be so popular on the island of Saipan!

According to Wikipedia, “Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages, especially advertising, indiscriminately.” Not guilty!

Microsoft Security defines it as “any kind of unwanted online communication.” Unwanted? Are my comments unwanted? I don’t think so! I tend to receive positive responses to the ones that don’t disappear into Spam folders never to be seen again.

So why are my comments ending up in Spam folders? That’s a good question and one that the WordPress happiness engineers haven’t been able to answer to my satisfaction yet. I do appreciate the support that I get when something goes wrong in the blogging world but I wish that they could figure this one out for me as I really don’t like being Spam!

This is not me!

An added blessing

/ edebock / 6 Comments

I spent most of this morning in a dentist’s chair with my mouth wide open. In addition to having a broken tooth prepared for a crown and a temporary crown inserted, I had my annual cleaning and check-up. Little did I know that I might also be helping delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, though there isn’t enough scientific evidence to prove that a healthy lifestyle can prevent Alzheimer’s disease, studies have shown that regular exercise, a healthy diet, managing stress, getting quality sleep, staying socially active and engaging in mentally stimulating activities may help prevent or delay symptoms. Now it looks like good dental hygiene should be added to that list.

When I got home from the dentist and sat down to read the morning news the headline “Dental health linked to dementia risk” caught my eye. I was already aware of the connection between gum disease and heart disease, but dementia? As is so often the case, upon reading the article I discovered that the headline slightly overstates the case.

Apparently researchers in California who followed approximately 5500 seniors over an 18 year period found that women who reported brushing their teeth less than once a day were up to 65% more likely to develop dementia than those who brushed daily. The effect appeared to be less pronounced amongst men but men who had lost all or most of their own teeth and who did not wear dentures had almost twice the incidence of dementia as their counterparts. Other studies have found that people with Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, have more gum disease-related bacteria in their brains than people without Alzheimer’s.

This morning’s article went on to say, however, that these studies do not prove that poor dental health results in dementia or that brushing your teeth regularly will prevent you from getting Alzheimer’s disease. Clearly much more research needs to be done before a link between dental health and the risk of dementia can be proven. For example, could the evidence simply be showing that people in the very early stages of dementia often fail to practice good dental hygiene?

Either way, I was happy to hear my dentist say that, other than the broken tooth, my teeth and gums are in excellent condition. If keeping them that way has any chance of protecting me against my mother’s fate, that’s definitely an added blessing!

Getting back on the horse

/ edebock / 6 Comments

I suspect that the person who coined the saying “When you fall off the horse, you have to get back on” meant right away, not 35 years later!

I didn’t actually fall off the last time I was on a horse but it was quite a ride. Early in the spring of 1977, less than a year after we were married, Richard and I were visiting his parents’ farm when we decided to take the horses, Moose and Ginger, out for a ride. They hadn’t been ridden all winter. We rode up into the hills behind the house and all went well until we turned the horses toward home. That’s when Moose, with Richard aboard, decided to pull out all the stops and head back down the muddy trail at a full gallop! Moose came by his name honestly. He was a giant of a horse and stubborn as well. There was nothing Richard could do to slow him down. When Ginger, usually a calm and gentle mare, saw Moose take off, she decided to follow suit. I was an inexperienced rider; a city girl who’d married into a farming family. I clung to the saddle horn, determined that I was not going to fall off that horse and make a complete fool of myself. Down the trail we flew with mud flying everywhere. To this day I remember the thoughts running through my mind. I couldn’t remember whether or not we’d closed the gate at the bottom of the hill. If we had, what would the horses do when they got there? I was certain that if Ginger came to a sudden stop, I’d be launched into the air and would land as a broken heap somewhere on the other side of the fence! Fortunately, the gate was open and the horses slowed to a stop as they entered the yard. I slid off and walked gingerly back to the house covered in mud but with my pride intact. I had not fallen off the horse!

It wasn’t the wild ride that kept me from ever mounting a horse again. Over the next few years, pregnancies and babies kept my feet on solid ground when I was visiting my inlaws. Time slipped by and eventually there weren’t horses at the farm anymore. The opportunity to ride just didn’t present itself again.

This summer, as we travelled into BC’s Chilcotin ranching country, I decided that the time had come to get back on a horse. I wanted to go for a trail ride and though Richard was less than enthusiastic about the idea, he agreed to go with me and to fork over the high price that they charge tourists for such activities. Unfortunately, however, the day we’d chosen was a dismal rainy one. That’s when my wise husband came up with a much better suggestion. “If you really want to get back on a horse,” he said. “Why don’t you ask Sheryl to take you riding?”

Sheryl is a long-time friend who loves riding and has her own horses. Knowing that I might not actually ask her, Richard did it for me and Sheryl readily agreed. She and I are co-leading of a group of children at Vacation Bible School this week and when this morning’s activities were over she suggested that we go riding this evening.  She and her husband, Trevor, own a hobby farm not far from town. They have quite a bit of bush and pasture land that is crisscrossed with riding trails. As the sun dropped below the horizon and cooler air replaced the heat of the day, we enjoyed a peaceful ride and a great visit. It was like going for a hike without any of the effort! As the evening came to an end, I told Sheryl that I’d love to do it again sometime. I’d just better not wait 35 years this time!

  

Riding Willow, a gentle horse of mostly Arabian descent.


Thank you, Sheryl!

an·tic·i·pa·tion

/ edebock / Leave a comment

(an-tis-uh-pay-shun)  noun
1.  realization in advance, foretaste
2.  expectation or hope.
3.  a feeling of excitement about something that is going to happen in the near future

So what am I anticipating? First of all, did you know that August 18 has been designated International Geocaching Day, a day devoted to the hobby we’ve grown to love? Until recently, I didn’t either. Apparently today thousands of geocachers will attend one of more than 100 International Geocaching Day events around the globe. We won’t be amongst them but we wanted to do something special to honour the day. From the moment that we began geocaching 4 months ago, we’ve been planning on placing a few caches of our own around our area for other searchers to locate. The only reason that we didn’t place our first cache before this was because we haven’t been home enough but what better way to celebrate our first International Geocaching Day than to hide our first cache. We actually hid it yesterday as we knew we wouldn’t have the opportunity today but it was first published on geocaching.com this morning. So, I’m anticipating someone finding it soon! We also planted our first trackable in the cache. A trackable is a geocaching game piece that is moved from cache to cache by geocachers like ourselves. The goal we gave our trackable, attached to a Canada flag keychain, was to visit all 10 provinces and 3 territories of Canada as well as all 50 US states so I’m anticipating following it’s journey as it travels around North America.

I’m also anticipating being very busy this coming week. I spent this morning over at the church decorating for Vacation Bible School which starts at 9:00 a.m. Monday morning. We’ll spend every morning from Monday to Friday with an energetic bunch of kids helping lead them through a fun filled week of learning that “Everything is possible with God” (Mark 10:27). I’m also anticipating our house being busier than usual this week as we host 3 of the Bible school students who are coming to direct the VBS program. Though I thoroughly enjoy our empty nest, I’m looking forward to the excitement that youth bring with them!

Most of all though, I’m anticipating harvest! The reason that we’re not out searching for geocaches this afternoon is that Richard is swathing canola! That means that I’ll soon be out on the combine, one of my favourite places to be. While we were busy holidaying in BC, our home area was enjoying one of the best growing seasons ever. Lots of rain and lots of hot sunny days have resulted in grain that is ready to harvest much earlier than usual. Months ago when we agreed to help out with VBS, we had no reason to expect that it would conflict with harvest so next week we’ll spend mornings at the church and the remainder of each day in the field.

How boring life would be if we had nothing to anticipate!

What are you anticipating right now?

Summer memories

/ edebock / 6 Comments

We’ve made a lot of good memories this summer, many of them with our grandchildren. We had a great time visiting Drew and Jami-Lee in Calgary in June and Sam and Nate in Vancouver in July. Many hours were spent reading stories, playing with toys, visiting playgrounds and going on adventures.

We spent a couple of glorious days camping with Drew and Jami-Lee (and their Mommy) and had hoped to camp with Sam and Nate too. When that didn’t work out, two-year-old Sam had a sleepover in the trailer with us in his very own driveway!

What would summer be without the beach, whether it be a prairie lake or a rocky ocean shore? Here’s a gallery of some of my favourite memories from this summer:

Jami-Lee and Drew at Gull Lake near Lacombe, AB

   

   

   

Sam and Nate at Cates Park in North Vancouver, BC

I was amazed at how sure-footed 17-month-old Nate was on the wet, barnacled rocks!

   

Is it any wonder that we feel so blessed?

Who’s the parent?

/ edebock / 2 Comments

As my mother’s Alzheimer’s progresses and caring for her becomes a greater challenge for my father, our relationship is changing. I’m beginning to feel more like parent than child. No longer is a visit a time to kick back and relax. Instead, it’s a time when I do whatever I can to make their lives a little bit easier.

For the past several years, we’ve been in the habit of giving the apartment a thorough cleaning whenever we visited; doing the things that Dad didn’t have the time or energy for or that his failing eyesight kept him from noticing. Now there’s Victoria, the bubbly Filipina housekeeper/caregiver who comes in twice a week. What a blessing she has been! This time we didn’t have to do any housework but there were many other ways that we were able to help out.

Until this visit, my proud and independent father had never asked me for help. In fact, in the past, much of what we did around the apartment we did when he was out because he wouldn’t have wanted us to do it. Now, however, all that has changed. For the first time ever, my father actually asked me for help! Together we took care of paperwork that he would have needed a magnifying glass to struggle through on his own. I also accompanied them to the geriatric clinic, took care of Mom while Dad went to the dentist and shopped for things for Mom and for the apartment.

It would be so much easier if we lived closer and I could drop in for a few hours once or twice a week instead of visiting only three or four times a year but I can’t beat myself up over that. I couldn’t afford to live in Vancouver even if I wanted to. The cost of housing is astronomical. When I start feeling guilty about not being there often enough, I simply remind myself that it was my parents who moved me far away from there in the first place. They chose to return long after I’d grown up and made a life for myself somewhere else.

Each time we visit, I go away happy if I feel that we’ve won a few victories; accomplished a few things that make life better for them. This time that included Richard taking Dad out to shop for some much needed clothing for himself.

I don’t think I’ll ever be completely comfortable with the need to cut my mother’s meat for her and help her dress, the things that she once did for me, but I’m glad to be able to do them once in awhile. I was especially delighted to be able to take her out for a long walk in the sunshine. Though she enjoyed it thoroughly and some of the flowers in Central Park were bright enough for her to actually be able to see, she seldom agrees to leave the apartment except to go to medical appointments.

Here comes the bride!

/ edebock / 10 Comments

On a misty summer morning ten years ago my cousin was married in the First Nations feasthouse on the top of Grouse Mountain overlooking Vancouver, BC. Though he arrived via the Grouse Grind, a challenging 2.9 km hiking trail that climbs 2800 feet up the face of the mountain, his bride and most of the guests took the easier way up the mountain arriving via the Skyride, North America’s largest aerial tramway.

On Friday, we attended another mountain wedding. Our niece , Stacey, was married high above Sun Peaks Resort near Kamloops, BC. This time the bridal party and their guests, including Stacey’s 88-year-old grandmother, arrived via chairlift!

It was a beautiful sunny day and the setting was spectacular.

The ceremony was simple and meaningful. It was truly a family celebration with Stacey’s brother, Martin, as her “man of honour” and Gerhard’s father and older brother as his two groomsmen. Even Odin, their beloved canine was present! Richard was honoured to be asked to bring a blessing.

Congratulations, Stacey and Gerhard! May all your days be blessed and may your life together be as beautiful as the day on the mountain!

A life of its own

/ edebock / 5 Comments

I’m a Site Stats junkie. When I’m at home, I check WordPress several times a day to see how many people have viewed my blog. I guess that sounds a little narcissistic but I love knowing that someone has read what I’ve written and I’m always fascinated to see where they’re from and what search terms have led them here.

We were home for less than a week in June. Most of the month I was either camping without internet access or so busy that I didn’t have time to spend online. Consequently, I only posted three times and I rarely checked my stats. When I finally did, it was with a bit of trepidation. Had Following Augustine died of neglect? Would my stats page show nothing but a flat line like a heart monitor on a patient with no pulse?

No! It appears that the blog has taken on a life of its own.

Even when I’m not here, when I’m off gallivanting instead of writing and I’m not even checking my stats, you, my faithful readers are still here!

It thrills me to know that because the trailer is packed and we’re leaving again tomorrow morning! There will probably be much to blog about over the next few weeks but once again, we won’t always have access to the internet and when we do I’ll sometimes be too busy. There’s a family wedding to attend near Kamloops, BC and grandchildren and aging parents to visit in Vancouver. We’ll also cross by ferry to Vancouver Island and spend a few days with some of Richard’s relatives at Port Alberni. When our time with family is over, rather than coming straight home, we’re going to follow BC’s gold rush trail through the mighty Fraser River canyon to Cache Creek then on northward through Cariboo country. With a side trip to historic Barkerville, we’ll continue at least as far north as Prince George before circling back into Alberta. Along the way there will be geocaches to find and perhaps a few golf course to play as well as lots of history to explore.

Yes, there will be much to blog about and I will update as often as possible. In the meantime though, I’m happy to know that the blog will survive without me!

 

Five years!

/ edebock / 2 Comments

Tomorrow is the last day of school and also marks five years since I walked out of the classroom for the last time. It amazes me to think that we’ve been retired for that long already! Where has the time gone? For the past couple of days I’ve been doing some self-evaluation, asking myself what we’ve accomplished over those five years and whether or not we’ve done the things we wanted to do. Overall, I think the answer is a resounding yes!

We had some pretty specific goals in mind when we retired:

  • teach English in Asia for at least one year – done
  • travel – never completely done but 9 provinces and 15 states plus Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Macau, Saipan and Costa Rica are a pretty good start
  • short-term mission work – one summer in ministry has only whetted our appetite for more

Becoming grandparents was something we hoped for and though we can’t take any credit for that being accomplished, grandchildren have been one of the most delightful additions to our life since we retired. Four of them are firmly attached to the family tree and there are five others who also call us Gram and Grandpa. Four of those belong to two families in Japan who ‘adopted’ us while we lived there and with whom we’ve been able to carry on a relationship since our return to Canada.

The past few years have brought other unexpected surprises including becoming seasonal farm labourers! That definitely wasn’t part of the plan but we’ve enjoyed it immensely. For the first time since returning from Japan in early 2009, we weren’t involved in seeding this year’s crop. Louis, our 83-year-old ‘boss’ and very good friend, passed that part of the process on to his stepson and grandson this spring. He still plans to have us help him harvest the crop this fall though.

Surprisingly, we haven’t golfed as much as we thought we would since retiring. In fact, we haven’t golfed as much as we did before we retired! We’ve been too busy fulfilling our other goals. This year eight of the nine greens on our local course are undergoing reconstruction. The course is open but the temporary greens are pretty pathetic so the desire to play hasn’t really been there. It was a good year for us to take up a new hobby; geocaching. Though there are geocachers of all ages, many are retired. In fact, the activity is highlighted in the most recent issue of News and Views, the quarterly magazine published by the Alberta Retired Teachers’ Association.

Writing was always something I planned to return to in retirement. I thought I’d be freelancing again, sending my work off to publishers and waiting with baited breath to find out whether it would be accepted. Instead, I find myself blogging! Though I did experience the thrill of publication, in my early writing days I also received enough rejection slips to paper a small room! Blogging is so much more satisfying and I enjoy the opportunity to interact with some of my readers.

Do we ever regret retiring as early as we did? Never! Would we do it again? In a heartbeat! Have I enjoyed every moment of it? To be completely honest, no. Most of the time, I absolutely love being retired but there are moments, especially in the depths of our long Canadian winters, when I long to be doing something more meaningful with my days; moments when I join the writer of Ecclesiastes in lamenting that “Everything is meaningless, utterly meaningless!” Fortunately, those days are few and far between. I don’t think Richard has experienced them at all. Maybe that’s because he spends so much time playing Farmville that he doesn’t have time for such thoughts. His ‘farm’ is something else I didn’t expect to be part of our retirement but it keeps him happy!

As this school year comes to a close, I wonder what the next five years will hold. Our goals remain the same… more travel (we haven’t seen Europe yet) and more short-term mission work. I’m sure there will also be more unexpected surprises along the way.

 

 

Graduation day!

/ edebock / 7 Comments

Taking a two-year-old and a four-year-old to a university convocation might not seem like the best idea in the world but that’s what we did today. Seven and a half years, one husband and two children after she started working toward her degree, our daughter Melaina graduated from the University of Calgary today! I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a more well earned degree and the children were so much a part of the process that it was only fitting that they be there for Mommy’s big moment.

All dressed up and ready to go!

Melaina graduated from high school in 2001 and headed off to college to begin a two year legal assistant program. By early in her second year, she was already fairly certain that she didn’t want to spend her entire life at that career but Melaina isn’t a quitter. She finishes what she starts so finish she did. After graduation she went to work for the Merchant Law Group. At nineteen years of age with little life experience behind her, she found herself handling difficult immigration and residential school cases that she didn’t feel ready to deal with. In January 2005, after a year and a half on the job, she chose to cut back to 30 hours a week at the office and entered university part time.

That fall she became a full time student again. In December of 2006, during her Christmas break from school, she and Aaron were married. Full time studies came to an end when Drew was born in the spring of 2008. In fact, she had to have her final exams deferred when he arrived a little earlier than expected! She wrote them when he was just a week old.

Melaina had planned on graduating that spring but exhaustion brought on by her pregnancy and what was later determined to be an enzyme deficiency had made it impossible for her to carry a full course load that year. When Drew was born she was still a few courses short. Four years later, by taking a night course here and an online course there, she finally completed all the requirements for her degree and today was a day to celebrate!

Melaina’s graduation comes 37 years, almost to the day, since my own. When the graduating class rose to recite their pledge today, all past UofC graduates in attendance were invited to stand and recite it with them. As I did, I thought of the many papers I’d edited for her along the way. Though hers is a Bachelor of Arts and mine a Bachelor of Education, we both majored in English.

Watching one’s child graduate is always a moment of pride but today I was proud of Melaina for more than hanging in there and completing her degree while raising her children. I was also incredibly proud of her for the job that she’s doing with those children. Though today’s program lasted almost two and a half hours, their behaviour was fantastic!

Melaina has no immediate plans for the degree that she’s finally completed. She works as a part time administrative assistant for her church, a job that allows her to work from home. Though she’s a gifted administrator, being Mom is her first priority these days.

  

This morning when Melaina was telling Drew about what we’d be doing today, he told her that someday Mommy, Daddy, Gram and Grandpa would come to his graduation too. I hope so Drew, I really hope so!