Family

One word for 2024

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At the beginning of each year since 2017, I’ve chosen one word to inspire or guide me throughout the new year as well as a scripture verse to go along with it. My word for 2023 was contentment and the Bible verse, Philippians 4:12b. “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” I wanted to be able to say with the apostle Paul that I had learned to be content regardless of my circumstances. 

Everything went pretty well for about eight months. In late March, hubby came through his prostate surgery well. We had a good summer season. We camped, hiked, kayaked and played lots of golf. Everything seemed to be going well and contentment came easily. Then things started to unravel. I worried about a close family member who was going through a very difficult time. Hubby and I encountered more issues with our health and life seemed to become a long series of trips to the city for medical appointments. I no longer came to the end of a day with a feeling of quiet happiness and satisfaction. Instead, I was stressed! Tense! I berated myself for having had the audacity to choose a word like contentment! How could I possibly be content in my present circumstances? Thankfully, time, prayer, wise counsel, and an excellent massage therapist helped get me back on track. Now that the year has ended, I think I can say that I’ve come closer to being able to be content in any and every situation. I’m definitely still a work in progress though! 

It was during this dark time that I settled on my one word for 2024. 

Hope! 

The New Oxford American Dictionary defines hope as “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen”. That meaning is definitely part of the reason that I chose hope as my word for the new year. I hope that 2024 is a good year for all of us. I hope that my family is happy and healthy. I hope that the embolization that I’ll be having to tackle the tumour on my liver is successful and that my cancer doesn’t grow or spread any further. I hope that hubby and I can travel more in the coming year (and not just to medical appointments!) Yes, I hope for many things, but there is a hope that is so much greater than any of these. 

This year, while my word came to me easily, choosing a scripture verse to go with it was more difficult because there were so many possibilities. I finally settled on two of them, Romans 15:13 and Hebrews 6:19a.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

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“We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.” 

The Biblical word hope is so much more than just wishful thinking. From the Hebrew word tikvah, it’s an expectation and a strong expression of faith. It’s a certainty that we can hold fast to. It’s confidence that God is who He says He is and can do what He says He will do. My hope, my certainty, is that some glorious day when the trials of this life are over, I will see Him face-to-face. He guaranteed it! This hope gives me strength to face whatever happens between now and then. It isn’t dependent on my circumstances. As I learn to depend more and more on this tikvah hope, the contentment that I yearned for in 2023 should become more and more real in my life!

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What do you hope for in 2024?

Have you chosen a word for the new year? 

 

Wearing navy and rust

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Navy is often considered a neutral colour because, like black and grey, it’s a good base colour that plays well with just about every other colour. Perhaps that’s why I like dark wash jeans so much. They go with almost everything. That’s not as true of my rust coloured corduroy skinnies. I often pair them with cream, but when I tried them with navy, I knew I’d found another combo that worked. 

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Except for the slippers, I’m dressed in head to toe cabi here. Though you probably can’t see them very well in the photos, even my earrings are from cabi. The pants are from the fall 2020 season and the lightweight striped pullover is from fall 2017. It has been a workhorse in my wardrobe for the past six years and it’s beginning to show it’s age. It’s cost per wear would be so low that it definitely doesn’t owe me a thing and I’m keeping my eye out for something similar to replace it with when it’s no longer wearable. 

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For some reason, this colour combination reminds me of my mother. She was an artist who loved colour. When she decided to redecorate our living room with a blue carpet and an orange couch back in the early 1960s, I remember being somewhat skeptical. That’s when she sat me down and taught me about the colour wheel and complementary colours. Colours that are opposite one another on the wheel go well together, she told me. I guess Mom knew what she was talking about! 

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Perhaps it’s Christmas and not just colours that has me reminiscing about family, so let me take this opportunity to wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas! Whether you’ve been naughty or nice, I hope Santa is good to you!  

A day to remember!

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On December 1, 1923 my mother’s baby sister, Norma Pearl Raby, was born. On Friday, we had the privilege of celebrating her 100th birthday! What an amazing milestone!

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Auntie Norma and I have always been close. In fact, she often told people that I was the daughter she never had! For several years I’d been telling her that I planned to be at her 100th birthday party and I was only half joking as I knew that she’d had an aunt who lived to almost 103.

Auntie Norma has lived in Jasper, Alberta since 1953 and is now the town’s oldest living resident. Always active in the community, she lived in her own home until the age of 97 when she moved into the Alpine Summit Seniors Lodge. On Friday, the lodge staff went above and beyond as they prepared for her very special day. They set up and decorated a table in the common area for our family celebration and served us a lovely lunch. The table decor included photos from throughout Norma’s life and the pièce de résistance of the meal was the amazing cake baked and decorated by a member of the lodge’s kitchen staff!

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For most of her life, Auntie Norma was robust and physically active. In fact, we went hiking with her when she was 87 years old! Over the past year, however, she has become very frail. Now virtually blind and confined to bed or wheelchair, her once sharp memory has started to fail. She has good days and bad, but Friday was a very good day! Although she sometimes goes for days without eating, she had absolutely no problem polishing off two pieces of that delicious chocolate cake!

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She was alert and attentive as numerous residents of the lodge and visitors from the community came by after lunch to wish her a happy birthday. Her body may be failing but her sweet spirit and her sense of humour are definitely intact! It was such a privilege for Richard and I to share her special day with my cousins (or perhaps I should say my brother’s from another mother), Norma’s two sons and their partners.

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Now back home, my heart is full as I look back on such a wonderful day and consider how fortunate I am to have had this special lady in my life for such a long time!

Repurposing… sustainability at it’s best

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Logo by SamWe are a wasteful society, but it hasn’t always been that way. There was a time when women especially were so much more resourceful than we are today. They had no choice. As a young widow in the latter years of the Great Depression, my grandmother raised two teenage daughters on a shoestring. She learned to reuse and repurpose out of necessity. Clothing that was outgrown or worn out didn’t go to waste. As a child, I remember hand braided rag rugs on the floors throughout her tiny house and I loved examining the multicoloured squares that made up the quilts on the beds in her spare room.

A regular reader who is also a personal friend shared a great example of repurposing with me recently. The garment was originally a top that belonged to her mother-in-law. When she had worn it until she couldn’t  stand to wear it any longer, she realized that the fabric still had plenty of wear in it. Obviously creative and handy with a sewing machine, she turned it into a dress for one of her granddaughters. Now it’s been passed down to a younger granddaughter, my friend’s 5 year old.

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When she sent me the photo of the dress, she also sent a message dictated by her daughter. Here’s some of what little Lizzy had to say…

Did you see the picture of my dress? It is really nice. I wear it all the time and my grandma used to wear it and it was a shirt. Then my cousin was wearing it first. A dress was made for her out of my grandma’s shirt. I like it because I like to play Cinderella in it. Cinderella is a nice game to play, a really nice game. I love playing Cinderella. Oh, I like my dress. It has swirls and little dots around it and it’s so great. The end.

Yes, Lizzy, it really is great and it’s also an example of sustainability at its best.

As the cost of living continues to climb, perhaps more of us will need to be like Lizzy’s grandma. Maybe we’ll need to resurrect some of the repurposing skills that carried our foremothers through difficult times. In addition to protecting our pocketbooks, we’d also be taking valuable steps toward passing on a better world to future generations.

Family hike at Bunchberry Meadows

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Trips to Edmonton for medical appointments often include overnight or weekend visits with our youngest son and his family. This morning, we all headed out to Bunchberry Meadows, a Nature Conservancy Canada site just outside the city for a family hike. The 260 hectare (640 acre) conservation site is made up of open meadows, old-growth forest and wetlands and was a great place to spend a couple of hours enjoying nature.

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This was our first hike with 20-month-old granddaughter, Mikayla. Daddy found a sturdy baby carrier backpack on an online buy and sell site last night, so she started the hike riding high and enjoying the sights. 

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Before long, however, she wanted down and was soon leading the way running along the trail! 

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The park has 8.68 km of groomed trails. We took the 4.43 km Aspen Trail which was perfect for a family outing. Though the area is habitat for a variety of wildlife including salamanders, weasels, porcupines, and moose, all we saw was one squirrel, a few fuzzy caterpillars, a frog, and some insects. There were also several varieties of wildflowers including Alberta’s provincial flower, the wild rose that blooms at this time of year. 

Sharp-eyed Nate also spotted this wreck hidden deep in the bush, so we had to check it out. In earlier days, it was common practice on the prairie for old vehicles and machinery to be abandoned in the bush. I suspect that this one was there long before the conservation area was set aside for hikers, cross-country skiers, and snowshoers to connect with nature. 

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If you’re in the Edmonton area and want to leave the city behind for a little while, Bunchberry Meadows might be the place you’re looking for. There’s a parking lot, picnic tables and outhouses located at the trailhead. It’s definitely a place that we’d like to go back to and explore further.

Another second-hand find

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Logo by SamWhen our daughter and her three children were here for a visit last week, we did what we usually do when she’s here. We checked out the two local thrift stores. I don’t know who enjoys these outings more, Mom, Gram, or the almost 13-year-old granddaughter! She was very happy to find a colourful sweatshirt and a great pair of shoes.

I came home with three tops including the one that I’m showing you today.

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The comfortable cotton shirt from Gap is perfect for this shoulder season when winter finally seems to be on the way out, but days are still quite cool. I love the warm neutral colours and the slightly oversized fit. Though you probably can’t see it in the photos, tiny threads of metallic gold run through the darkest bands elevating the casual look without being overly fancy.

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Though the shirt would go just as well with jeans or leggings, I’m wearing it with a pair of dark olive chinos that have been in my spring/summer wardrobe for the past three years. I haven’t actually done my seasonal closet switch yet, but I did pull this pair out of storage as they’re a good transitional piece for this in-between time of year.

So why does our family enjoy second-hand shopping so much? For me, in addition to the fact that it’s a bit like going on a treasure hunt, there are three very distinct advantages.

  1.  Location. I live in a very small rural community. With the exception of the two thrift stores, the closest place to shop for clothing is an hour away. The thrift stores are local and support our small communities. Both are run by volunteers and the proceeds go to local churches and organizations.
  2. Price. Similar shirts to the one that I’m featuring today sell on the Gap website for about $85, but I paid $2! I can afford to pay full price and buy new, but why would I when I can find quality clothes for so much less?
  3. Sustainability. The environmental impact of the clothing industry is monumental. Fashion is responsible for approximately 10% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions and 20% of global wastewater. It uses more energy than the aviation and shipping sectors combined. Shopping second-hand helps protect the environment and reduces the need to use natural resources to make new clothes. Again, what’s not to like about that?

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Those darned socks!

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Logo by SamWe hadn’t been married very long when hubby was shocked to discover that I had no intention of darning his holey socks. He grew up in poverty and darning socks was something his mother did out of necessity. We were both teaching school, however, and could afford to buy new socks when our old ones wore out. After more than 46 years of marriage, however, I recently darned a pair of sock slippers that he uses when we travel. Not only did I want to extend the lifespan of something that he loves, but mending and darning, once second nature to homemakers, are making a comeback as a way to participate in sustainable fashion.

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I’ve done lots of sewing and needlecraft in the past, but since darning was something new for me, I first had to figure out how to do it. You can learn almost anything from YouTube, so I started by watching this very helpful video.

I don’t have a darning egg. In fact, until I decided to tackle this project, I didn’t even know that such a thing existed! Always one to improvise when necessary, I found that an empty olive jar did the trick. Next, I dug into my old crafting supplies and found some yarn. I would have used blue to match the soles of the socks, but I didn’t have any, so I made do with what I had.

After just one false start, I figured out what I was doing and the first part of the process went fairly smoothly. I was even beginning to think that this darning thing was pretty easy.

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The next part was more challenging though and I’m sure the end result isn’t as neat and tidy as it would have been if my late mother-in-law had done it. I’m satisfied though and so is hubby. I just hope he doesn’t think this means that I’m going to start darning all his holey socks because that’s definitely not going to happen!

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Beyond King Tut

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Our grandchildren are growing up in an entirely different world than we did. That’s evident by the many devices, unheard of when we were growing up or even when their parents were children, that are part of their everyday lives. I was reminded again today of how vastly different their life experiences are from our own.

The tomb of Tutankhamun, boy king of Egypt some 3300 years ago, was discovered in the Valley of the Kings in November 1922. It quickly became the most famous ancient Egyptian discovery of all time. In 1964-65, the first travelling exhibition of a substantial number of Tutankhamun artifacts visited six venues across Canada including the Vancouver Art Gallery. As a seventh grade student, I toured the Tutankhamun Treasures exhibit while on a school field trip.

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We saw 31 fairly small objects that had been removed from the tomb; objects like a gold dagger and sheath and gold rings and amulets found on the mummified body of the king. We were impressed. In our wildest dreams, we couldn’t have imagined the kind of multi-sensory experience that we took two grandsons (grade 6 and 8) to today. National Geographic’s Beyond KING TUT / The Immersive Experience was our Christmas gift from the boys and their parents.

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There were no artifacts on display. Instead, we wound our way through visual galleries learning about the life and times of Tutankhamun who became king of Egypt at the age of nine and ruled until his death just ten years later. Through the power of photography, we joined the archeologists and entered his tomb.

We also learned about the mummification process and ancient Egyptian beliefs about the afterlife.

In the final room, we watched a soaring 23 minute video projection that took us back in time from modern day Egypt to King Tut’s journey to the afterworld. Beyond KING TUT definitely took us beyond the experience of my childhood!

My one dress Christmas season

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Logo by SamPrior to the pandemic, hubby and I had half a dozen or more Christmas events to attend each December. When we were still working, there were staff parties, of course, but even in retirement there were dinners, dances, and parties. All that seems to have changed and this year we had only one Christmas event to attend together, a catered banquet and program put on by our church.

In 2018 and 2019, I actually sat down in late November and made lists of what I’d wear to each December event, right down to the accessories. It made getting ready so easy, but this year there was no need to do that. Even without all those events, it’s been a busy month and I don’t know how we would have fit in much more, but I do miss all those opportunities to dress up! 

In addition to the church banquet, I did have one other very special event to attend. Last Thursday evening, my daughter-in-law Colleen, granddaughter Harlow, and I had a girls’ night out. We went to see an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ beloved classic, A Christmas Carol, at Edmonton’s Citadel Theatre. We even had front row seats. Front row might not actually be the best seats in the house, but for 13-year-old Harlow’s first exposure to professional theatre, being so close to the action was very exciting!

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I saw very few dresses on women in the audience, but I was happy for an opportunity to wear an old favourite of mine, the midnight blue Dream Dress from cabi’s Spring 2019 collection. You first saw it on the blog here. Since it’s winter in Alberta, I wore it over leggings and tall black boots this time. 

After spending the weekend in the city, we got home just in time to get ready for the church banquet on Sunday evening. I pulled the dress out of the suitcase and wore it again, changing only my accessories! That’s one of the things I love about the Dream Dress. The floaty polyester fabric and the underslip take up virtually no space in a suitcase and come out without a wrinkle. 

Speaking of suitcases, I’ll soon be packing for our trip to Vancouver where we’ll be spending Christmas with our oldest son and his family. I don’t know that we’ll have any need for dressy outfits, but I’ll tuck in something that would work just in case. 

 

From self-conscious to self-confident

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Logo by SamHere I am more than half way through a Friday and I haven’t written a Fashion Friday post yet. To tell you the truth, I didn’t think there’d be one today. I usually try to write these posts earlier in the week and have them ready to publish on Friday morning, but this week was a hectic one. I was only home for two and a half days between pre Christmas visits with two of our offspring and their families. I didn’t have time to do any research or even a photo shoot.

The first piece of advice that is usually given to an aspiring writer is to write what you know. Thinking about that this morning, I asked myself why I write about fashion. I have no formal training or experience in the industry. It’s not even a topic that interested me until late in life. So, why fashion? Why these weekly posts? 

When I discovered that an item of clothing or an outfit can change how you feel about yourself, I went from self-conscious to self-confident and that’s something that I wanted to share with my readers. 

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If how we look on the outside makes us feel good on the inside, then it’s important to choose what we wear with intention. Think about what you’re wearing right now. How does it make you feel? Fashion is a form of expression and we all deserve to express ourselves in ways that make us feel confident and joyful. Since we’re all unique that will look different for each of us. For specifics on how to dress with confidence check this post from last month. 

With Christmas just around the corner and plans being made to spend the holiday with another branch of the family, time to write and to explore the topic of fashion might be limited, but I’ll do my best to keep up and to have something to share with you each week. For now, though, there’s a grandbaby to play with and a couple more coming home from school in just a little while. 

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