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Screen Shot 2016-03-18 at 11.07.24 PM 3 Today seems like a perfect time to write about what I wear to play my favourite sport. After all, I won the ladies side of the Viking Golf Club seniors tournament yesterday!

Let’s ignore the fact that there were only four ladies entered in the tournament, shall we?

Weather permitting, my golf attire usually consists of a sleeveless, collared golf shirt worn with either capri pants or long shorts.

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Though my wardrobe is made up largely of neutrals, golfing is a fun time to add a splash of colour, so I have several bright shirts to choose from.

I always wear a ball cap when I’m golfing to shade my eyes and keep my often unruly hair under control. I have a variety of them in several different colours to coordinate with my shirts.

 

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Though I most often golf in a comfortable and supportive pair of golf shoes, I also have a pair of golf sandals that are especially nice on hot days.

Regardless of what I wear, I’ll never look as elegant on the golf course as my Mom did! Here she is back in the 1940s. I doubt if there’s a course anywhere in the world today that would let you on the greens in those shoes, but aren’t they adorable?

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Swimsuit shopping

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We spent the past few days camping with two of our grandchildren, 8-year-old Drew and 6-year-old Jami. The prime attraction at the campground was the outdoor pool where we spent many very enjoyable hours. Drew even learned to swim this week!

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I’ve never been particularly fond of swimsuit shopping and though I hate to admit it, the newest one in my bag was probably purchased more than a decade ago! It wasn’t until I entered the pool this week that I realized how saggy it had become. I was literally in danger of showing off body parts that ought not to be displayed in public!

On Wednesday, I had to go into Edmonton for a medical appointment, so we had arranged in advance for the children to spend several hours with their auntie and uncle, our youngest son and his wife. Before it was time to pick them up again, we had a bit of time to kill and I decided that I’d better use it looking for a new swimsuit.

I started at The Bay in West Edmonton Mall and got no further. Apparently late July is the ideal time to shop for swimsuits at bargain prices. Every suit in the store was on sale, many for as much as 60% off. The swimsuit department was a hodgepodge of season’s end offerings, but there were still many to choose from.

I quickly realized that it had been so long since I’d shopped for swimwear that I had no idea what size I should be looking for! I wandered around gathering up a variety of sizes, styles and colours and was delighted when the attendant let me take all of them into the fitting room at once! As I narrowed down the field, she kept stopping by and taking away the ones I rejected. Soon, I was down to two choices.

Choice #1:

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Because I’m quite long in the body, I prefer a tankini, but this one piece was very comfortable. I liked the colour, the ruching which disguised the bulgy bits around my middle, and the removable straps. I prefer a higher cut leg, but the price was great. It’s hard to say no to a $95 suit that’s selling for $38.50!

Choice #2:

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This one was a tankini. The downside to a two piece these days is the fact that the pieces tend to be priced separately. As a result, this one was almost twice the price of the first one. I loved the bold black and white stripes though and I also liked the racer back which doesn’t show in the photo.

So which one did I choose? Both of them, of course! I wore one of them to the pool yesterday and the other today and I felt comfortable and attractive in both of them.

Which one do you like best? What do you look for in a swimsuit?

I’m only home overnight; long enough to do laundry and repack. Tomorrow, we take Drew and Jami back home to Calgary and then make our way to Camp Harmattan where we’ll spend the coming week. Nestled in a beautiful location in the Little Red Deer River valley between Olds and Sundre, Camp Harmattan is a place of peace and tranquility where I look forward to a time of social and spiritual refreshment. Following Augustine will be on hiatus until our return. There will be no Fashion Friday post next week, but I’ll see you right here when I get back!

We’re winking again!

It’s hard to believe that it’s already been a year since my daughter and I put on our blue eyeshadow and participated in Wink Day 2015, but here it is again and as it turns out, I’m at her house again.

What is Wink Day, you ask? It’s a day set aside by the Canadian beauty industry, through it’s charitable foundation, Beauty Gives Back, in support of women going through the social and emotional challenges of the Cancer Blues. Women across Canada are  encouraged to post pictures and videos of themselves wearing blue eyeshadow (with the hashtag #winkday) as a way of raising awareness of the Cancer Blues. The Cancer Blues is a term, coined by Beauty Gives Back, to describe the emotional distress caused by cancer and its treatment, an often ignored consequence of the disease that can seriously affect a person’s ability to fight and thrive through the ordeal.

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My daughter looks great in blue eyeshadow, but me, not so much! “It ages you,” she told me as we applied our make-up and I think she’s right. For Wink Day, however, I’ll put vanity aside.

For over 20 years, Beauty Gives Back has supported tens of thousands of Canadian women through the Cancer Blues with programs such as Look Good Feel Better and FacingCancer.ca. Look Good Feel Better workshops are free of charge to all women with cancer and are designed to help them feel better about themselves and thus face their illness with greater confidence. Over 1800 volunteer cosmetic advisers and hair alternative specialists give generously of their time to bring the two hour seminars to cancer care centres across the country. I was so impressed with my own Look Good Feel Better experience that I’m now a spokesperson for the program helping promote the twice a year fundraising galas put on by Shopper’s Drug Mart, one of the program’s biggest sponsors.

Though I’ve been diagnosed with two completely unrelated cancers over the past three years, one of which is incurable, I must admit that I haven’t experienced the degree of mental distress that many victims of the Cancer Blues do. I attribute this to my faith, my wonderfully supportive family and friends, a great cancer care team and the fact that, so far, my treatment has been successful. My disease is stable and I’m able to live a reasonably normal life. I do, however, love those occasions when I’m someplace where no one knows that I’m the woman with cancer; moments when I can almost forget about it myself.

On days like Wink Day, however, I’m eager to do my part to raise awareness even if it means looking totally silly! It’s not too late to join the fun. Simply post a picture or a video  of yourself wearing blue eyeshadow on social media anytime before the end of June (with the hashtag #winkday) or visit winkday.ca to find out how else you can help.

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Special dates with Sam and Nate

Separated by distance, we aren’t able to spend as much time with our Vancouver grandsons as we’d like and when we’re here, we also need to spend time with my very elderly father and my special brother, Donald. Fitting in quality time with the boys is a priority, however, and this time we managed to go on a special date with each of them. Though they enjoy a lot of the same activities, Sam and Nate are as different as night and day personality-wise, so one on one time with each of them individually was great.

Sam is just finishing first grade, but Friday was a professional development day for the teachers at his school. Nate was at preschool that morning, so it was a perfect time for our date with Sam. He decided that he wanted to go geocaching, a hobby of ours that we introduced the boys to a couple of years ago. We started by searching out a couple of caches within easy walking distance of his house. He was especially intrigued by this old gent sitting very near the location of the first one.

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Here he is retrieving the next one from beneath a cedar tree!

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Found it!

Here in North Vancouver you are never far from nature and forest trails are easy to find. Part of our morning was spent in Princess Park. The clue for one of the caches there included this description: “You are steps away when you see a trunk that looks like a bird bath, or a water bowl for a Great Dane.” What in the world could that mean?

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It was obvious when we saw it and sure enough, the cache was hidden nearby.

Sam loves sushi and so do we, so when we asked him where he wanted to go for our lunch date, he chose Valley Sushi, a great little restaurant close to his Lynn Valley home.

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This morning, Sam was back at school and it was time for our date with Nate who only attends preschool three mornings a week. He knew exactly where he wanted to go; Lighthouse Park in West Vancouver. He’d been there once before with his other grandfather and had shown me a brochure containing a map of the trails that criss-cross the park the day we arrived. He wanted to hike to Juniper Point and after hearing about Sam’s geocaching adventure, he also wanted to find some caches. There were two of them along that trail. The hint for the first one said, “Horizontal tree meets vertical tree.” The GPS doesn’t work really well under tree cover, but we thought we’d found the right spot when we found a fallen tree right beside a standing one. When we didn’t find the “treasure” right away, Nate grew bored and wandered a little ways away. Suddenly we heard his shout, “I found something! I think this is it!” Sure enough, he’d located the cache all on his own, tucked into the end of another fallen tree.

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Another cache was found near the beautiful rocky point where we enjoyed a snack overlooking the ocean.

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After completing that trail, I also managed to convince Nate to hike out to the lighthouse. Look closely and notice the bald eagle perched on the weathervane!

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Nate’s date ended just like Sam’s with lunch at Valley Sushi. Even his order was the same; California rolls and Dynamite Rolls. Yum!

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Making memories with the boys on our special dates worked out so well that I think this should be the beginning of a new tradition. I wonder where they’ll want to take us next time we visit?

Starting them young

At five and six years old, our Vancouver grandsons are already avid skiers; a passion passed on to them by their mom’s side of the family. We, on the other hand, look forward to the day when we can play a round of golf with them!

Today, Victoria Day here in Canada, we left our daughter-in-law at home preparing a delicious turkey dinner for later in the day and headed for a driving range with the boys.

Nate’s club of choice was a putter, but he did a pretty good job of whacking it off the tee.

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Oops! The ball’s still there!

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Sam got some tips from Daddy then made some great shots.

We finished off the morning with a fun round of mini golf.

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Unlike their Gram who didn’t take up the sport until I was about 40, these two are starting young!

Seaweed and crabs

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When I spoke to my five year old grandson, Nate, on Mother’s Day, he told me how excited he was about our upcoming visit. I asked him what he wanted to do while we were here and he immediately told me that we should go fishing together, so this afternoon we spent some time fishing and crabbing off West Vancouver’s Ambleside Pier.

No fish were caught, but the boys were happy to catch and release large globs of seaweed!

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Big brother, Sam

Crabbing yielded greater success with a couple of red rock crabs and one dungeness finding their way into the salmon baited trap. None were big enough to keep, so back into the water they went.

Our oldest son, Matt, was once one of my little “prairie chickens”, but he’s definitely become a coastal boy! I love visiting all our children and grandchildren, of course, but coming home to the coast and seeing one of my kids fully embracing the environment that I grew up in does this Mama’s heart good.

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 Measuring the dungeness crab

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Aging with grayce

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Why is it that gray hair on a man is often considered sexy or sophisticated? Think Richard Richard GereGere, ladies!

Women, on the other hand, have long felt tremendous societal pressure to cover their gray. Amazing amounts of time and money are spent fending off the effects of time and trying to hang onto a coveted youthful ideal. Recently, the lovely young Duchess of Cambridge was chastised in the press for allowing a few strands of gray to appear in her lustrous brunette mane!

Times and trends are changing though and even some well known actresses and models are choosing to embrace their gray. Far from looking old and washed out, these gals are stunning!

Jamie Lee Curtis

 

I’ve always loved Jamie Lee Curtis’ short pixie cut and doesn’t it look great in pewter?

 

 

 

 

 

Kori Hendrix

 

 

Here’s Kori Hendrix, a Texas realtor and model. Isn’t she gorgeous?

 

 

 

 

 

 

In days gone by, it was thought that women who did let their hair go gray should at least keep it short, but not anymore! Look at the flowing locks on these beauties!

Ingrid Becker

 

In her late 60s, Ingrid Becker is a top German model.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Model Cindy Joseph

 

Cindy Joseph, began her career in the late 1970s working as a make-up artist for fashion and beauty photographers. In 1999, at the age of 49, she was approached on the street by a casting agent and asked to model for a Dolce and Gabbana ad campaign. That ignited her modeling career with Ford Models Inc., which continues to flourish today at age 66.
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Nicola Griffin also came to modelling later in life. A middle-aged single mother from Nottingham, England, who ran a business organizing student exchange trips, Griffin was standing in line at the bank with her twin daughters when a stranger representing a hair product company asked her if she’d be willing to model for the company’s latest campaign. She was sceptical, but her teenage daughters urged her to give it a try. That quickly led to other modelling jobs and at age 56, she became the oldest woman ever to model for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue!

Born in France in December of 1955, Yasmina Rossi is both a grandmother and a highly sought after model who still looks good in a bikini!

“My hair started turning gray when I was 12 and was salt-and-pepper by the time I hit 20,” says Rossi. “I never colored it, because I knew it was my best asset.”

Yasmina Rossi Model age 59

Yasmina Rossi

Who says gray can’t be sexy and sophisticated?

My first strands of gray began to appear when I was in my mid 40s. I distinctly remember sitting at the dinner table between my oldest son and his friend, both in their teens and both towering over me in height. Looking down at my head, my son commented on the fact that I was getting quite a few gray hairs. “That’s not gray hair,” his friend responded. “Those are silver highlights!” I always did love that boy!

Going gray has been a very slow process. Almost twenty years after that dinner table conversation, my hair still looks more brown than gray in photos. I don’t remember where I first saw the “aging with grayce” phrase, but I’ve adopted it as my own. I can’t tell you whether you should colour your hair or go au naturel, but I love my silver highlights and I have no desire to hide them. I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll ever go completely gray, but if I do, I hope I can carry it off with as much dignity and grace as the beautiful ladies shown above!

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Beauty from the inside out

Screen Shot 2016-03-18 at 11.07.24 PM 3Long before I ever thought about trying my hand at fashion blogging, I wrote a series of posts about what makes a woman beautiful. You can find those posts here, here and here.

As I mentioned in the first of that series, the Bible speaks of “the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit” that “does not come from outward adornment.” (1 Peter 3:3-4) It also says “The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)

If these things are true, and I sincerely believe that they are, why in the world am I blogging about fashion? Nowhere does scripture say that a godly woman shouldn’t concern herself with style, dress in fine clothes, wear elaborate jewelry or use make-up. It simply says that her true beauty shouldn’t depend on these things. It ought to come from within.

Some Christians emphatically declare that inner beauty is all that matters; that attention to outer beauty is sinful vanity. I disagree completely! True, a nasty, mean-spirited woman dressed in designer clothes and made up impeccably, is still mean and nasty. Unless something happens to transform her from the inside out, that ill-tempered spirit will soon become evident and we will see through her attractive appearance. Similarly, a beautiful spirit can be hidden beneath a frumpy or unkempt exterior, but sadly, it may not be noticed. It’s our outer appearance that often attracts people to us and makes our inner person readily available to them.

Clothing, hair and make-up can be an asset without becoming an obsession and, like it or not, the way we present ourselves sends messages to those who come in contact with us. Rightly or wrongly, we live in a culture where people do judge a book by its cover.

What does your appearance say about you? Does it tell the world that you care about yourself, that you matter, that you’re worth the time it takes to look after yourself? I think it should!

Clearly, we need balance in our lives. We need to do those things that nurture inner peace and beauty, but if we want them to shine through and be seen,  it behooves us to put a little effort into our outward appearance too. In addition, looking good is a great confidence booster!

Looking our best doesn’t mean being overdressed and it doesn’t have to cost a lot. Here’s a comfy, casual look that I might wear to the grocery store on a cool spring day.

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I’m wearing dark wash jeans from Old Navy, a Reitman’s t-shirt, cute sneakers and a very special bright pink hoodie that adds a pop of colour to my otherwise neutral outfit.

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The prints on the pockets are the hands of two of my young grandsons! They live over 1300 km from me, but when I wear this gift I feel just a wee bit closer to them.

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And this is hidden on the inside… from my son and his wife.

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Don’t I have a creative daughter-in-law? She’s definitely one of the beautiful women in my life!

Barnabas

Last Sunday afternoon, we left our son’s home in North Vancouver and headed for Gibsons, setting of the popular Canadian comedy-drama series, The Beachcombers, that ran from October 1972 to December 1990. There we climbed aboard the Kinbasket Queen and left the rest of the world behind! Our destination was a five day family retreat at Barnabas Landing, perched on a hillside on Keats Island overlooking Howe Sound.

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Taking it’s name from the New Testament character whose name means Son of Encouragement, Barnabas Family Ministries has been dedicated to strengthening, educating and encouraging families since 1986. Barnabas is sometimes referred to as a “thin place”, one of those wonderful places where the boundary between heaven and earth seems especially thin and we feel just a little closer to eternity. This past week was certainly like that, a time when we left the stresses and concerns of this world behind immersing ourselves in the beauty of the location, enjoying luxurious accommodations and savoury meals, and being renewed physically, mentally and spiritually.

Lamplighter's Cottage, our home away from home for the week

Lamplighter’s Cottage, our home away from home for the week

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Our days were full but energizing. Every morning after breakfast the children went off with their various age group leaders for a wide variety of activities while the adults attended sessions with our speaker. Afternoons were family activity time with many options to choose from. On Monday, Richard and I joined a group for a hike across the island to Bridgeman’s Bluff, one of the higher points on the island, where we enjoyed the spectacular view.

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Other afternoons were spent taking long walks along the rocky beach, doing crafts, enjoying a wide variety of waterfront activities and visiting the General Store for ice cream treats.

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Bedtime for the kids was a highlight for the young parents because it was taken care of by the staff! That’s right! While the adults attended another session with the speaker, staff tucked their little ones into bed and continued to look after them until 10:00 PM. After our sessions, the General Store was open again for the adults to enjoy a steamed milk or a cup of tea and a snack before heading back to their rooms and taking over their parental duties.

Our speaker for the week was leadership coach, Mark Warren, who specializes in helping people discover and experience their personal life callings. This was Matt and Robin’s third summer retreat at Barnabas and Mark was speaker at their first one. They enjoyed him so much that they specifically chose this week in order to hear him again and I can definitely see why. I found myself looking forward to each session. Learning about our core strengths and exploring our personality types, we came away with lots to consider and apply. We also learned about empathy and how to diagnose and master the stories in our heads about other people and how they affect communication and relationships. A dynamic Christian, Mark applied biblical principles to all that he taught us.

In addition to being a retreat centre, Barnabas is also a working farm and much of what we ate during the week came from its organic gardens. Everything was cooked from scratch and was delicious! With the exception of one formal, adult-only dinner, meals were served buffet style on the Orchard Terrace, a casual outdoor setting. Yes, we were well fed mentally, spiritually and physically!

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It’s Wink Day!

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June 18, 2015 is Wink Day! The Canadian beauty industry, through their charitable foundation, Beauty Gives Back, has been encouraging women to post pictures and videos (with the hashtag #winkday) of themselves wearing blue eyeshadow today in support of women going through the emotional trauma of the Cancer Blues. The Cancer Blues is a term, coined by Beauty Gives Back, for the emotional distress caused by cancer and its treatment and is an often ignored consequence of the disease that can affect a person’s ability to fight and thrive through the ordeal.

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For over 20 years, Beauty Gives Back has supported tens of thousands of Canadian women through the Cancer Blues with programs such as Look Good Feel Better and FacingCancer.ca. “We are a ‘feel good’ industry – colourful, sexy and fun. We use colour to make women look good and feel better every day, so no one knows more about how women feel about themselves than we do,” says the Beauty Gives Back website. “We count over 95% of Canadian women as customers in their lifetime. And we cannot, and will not, abandon those same women when they are fighting for their lives against cancer. Therefore, the mandate of Beauty Gives Back is clear, real and relevant: We dedicate ourselves to treating the emotional fallout from cancer. Using the sum total of our knowledge, experience, expertise and resources, we do what women trust and rely on us to do – to make them feel human again in the face of the ravages of cancer and its treatment. In doing so, we help restore their confidence, and the confidence of those around them, to continue fighting with conviction and living with dignity.”

That’s definitely a cause that I could get behind, especially when all it took was a bit of blue eyeshadow, a camera and social media! Since we’re visiting in Calgary, daughter, Melaina, and granddaughter, Jami-Lee, joined in the fun. Even Jami’s cat, Duncan, with his blue collar, had to get in on the action!

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In spite of dealing with two completely separate cancers over the past two years, one of them incurable, I can honestly say that, though I have, of course, faced some emotional symptoms, I have not really suffered from the Cancer Blues. I can easily understand how it could happen though. I feel blessed to have had the amazing support of family, friends and a fantastic medical team. I have the good fortune of living just two hours away from the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton, Alberta, a world class treatment centre that is truly dedicated to treating the whole person. A Look Good, Feel Better workshop early last year was fun and a very helpful diversion from the more serious sides of dealing with my illness, but above all, I attribute my lack of mental distress to my undying faith in God who assured me the day after I learned that I had cancer, “I’ve got this in my hands. I know what’s going on. I’m going to take care of you!”

It’s not too late to get in on the Wink Day action! Photos and videos can be posted throughout the month of June. Why not wink with us?

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