TToT: Too cold For Pumpkins and Other Stories – A Day In The Life, #BraveEnough #EightDaysAWeek #Review #10Thankful

This will be part gratitude post and part music review, I’ve decided. Music always causes me to be thankful.

Here’s what else’s going on.

I am thankful for some of the best October weather lately.

Okay, so that weather decided not to hold on for our family day, when we’d planned on visiting a pumpkin patch, to have a good time like we did last year. Ah well, can’t win em all.

Before that though, well I would stop at my favourite spot in my house, my stairs, on the landing, and I would put my chin on the window ledge. It is high enough that I just meet its height. It makes me feel child-like when I stand there. It offers perspective.

With this weather, first it was a couple of extremely breezy days and I just loved the sound of rustling leaves in the trees, some far off hissing. Such mild breezes and the smell in the air was just glorious.

I am thankful for Canadian healthcare.

I tried to feel indignant on some comments DT made about our healthcare, but decided that is nothing but wasted energy.

Nothing is perfect, as I continue to have symptoms that become difficult to treat, but when it really counts, Canada is the best place to be.

Again, I worried about my brother’s health, three years post kidney transplant. He needed medical help this week suddenly, to be treated for shingles immediately, and he was. Hopefully, he is on the road to total recovery. Knock on wood there are no further complications from the virus. It is his second time with it.

I am thankful for live music.

Shawn Hook was the opening act.

I am thankful that I was able to attend a live musical performance like no other, with my sister and my unborn niece or nephew.

Lots to say about this show, which was a lovely surprise of a performance, but I still want to write a full review another time.

This song just makes me want to get up and dance.

I was looking forward to seeing Lindsey Stirling live for a while now and, once more, I found myself becoming transformed by what I heard and felt.

I am thankful for another Wednesday evening in “The Elsewhere Region” (which just means my twice-a-month writing group), that you just never know who might show up there.

This week we had a surprise guest from Denmark. She was a friend of one of our members, just visiting for the week, but it was nice that she came along. She is a writer too, which was obvious from her piece that she wrote and read aloud to the group.

I am thankful for the love of certain kinds of music that my father has passed on to me, from his generation, of the kind that a lot of people my age don’t have.

My father taught me to love and appreciate The Beatles. I owe him for that.

This documentary was sweet and sad and it brings you back to the 60s, a time I did not live through, but when I watch things like this, I feel I can understand a little of what that time was like.

I am thankful for a violin teacher who shows me lots of compassionate patience and who lends me a chin support so I can keep hold on my violin with just my neck and head.

I am thankful for my brother’s quiet support of my attempt to learn to play the violin.

Recently, my discouragement has been growing, but I will not give up.

Some things we really want, we soon learn just aren’t meant to be. Learning to play the violin, for me, isn’t one of them.

Doesn’t mean I don’t doubt myself on a regular basis. I may not be the most dedicated player, devoting hours and hours to learning, but I am a slow yet determined learner.

Just when I was beginning to doubt that I was doing all of this for the long run, I practiced, on the sly, while most of my family were elsewhere. I did not draw attention to it, but my older brother was present.

We both think the violin is just so neat and I felt better in that moment, when I acknowledged how hard it’s been and when he offered up his signature style of quiet support as I fumbled to get through a song.

I vowed then that I would not give up on my dream.

I am also thankful that he doesn’t give up.

He keeps helping me with things I struggle to do on my own, now that it’s just me.

I think music sounds so much better in surround sound. He made it so much easier for me to go from cable TV, to movies, to my computer. The fewer steps there are, the easier I will pick it up and do it on my own, even if it takes me forever to master it all.

And my brother keeps coming back, helping me, over and over again.

I love hearing my niece and nephews playing. They even allow me to get in on their games now and again as well.

We played and I watched how the game was constructed. How my niece acted out what she sees every day, with the grown ups in her life, how there’s a repeated order to the imaginary day we were living. Wake up. Going shopping. Eating lunch. Having a day where we just rest. Back to bed. My brother was the best at these last two.

🙂

Children are the best and I watch the children in my life, reminding me of the child I once was myself. This is a priceless gift.

I am thankful for my family. Goodnight.

TToT: Dog Days of Summer – Memory Locations and Yahoo! #10Thankful

“Crocodiles are easy. They try to kill and eat you. People are harder. Sometimes they pretend to be your friend first.”

—

“I have a message for my fans. Whatever you want to do in this world, it is achievable. The most important thing that I’ve found, that perhaps you could use, is be passionate and enthusiastic in the direction that you choose in life, and you’ll be a winner.”

—Steve Irwin

I’m just here, on this final long weekend of the summer, watching Crocodile Hunter videos on YouTube. I loved him. Not sure how it started, but I loved him for his Australian accent and for his larger-than-life personality, but mostly because he had so much passion for animals. He seemed to know, instinctively, what his passion in life was, when I did not feel nearly as sure of my own. I guess, the more I listened to him speak, I suppose I hoped I would figure that out, like something from all that energy and enthusiasm he used to put forth might rub off on me.

And so I dedicate this week’s Ten Things of Thankful to Steve because I was hardly even writing at all when he died and I didn’t get to write any sort of tribute back then.

Dog Days Are OVer – Florence + The MAchine

Thankful for popcorn, not candy.

🙂

Sounds like a trip to the movies, doesn’t it? In this case, when normally it’s such a difficult choice between those two things when approaching the concession stand, it’s not a matter of any choice this time.

It’s another catchy and memorable line to help me break up notes in Twinkle Twinkle on my violin.

It is a little hard to explain, but it’s one more reason I am loving the surprises each time I have a lesson. I am learning faster than one might imagine. I have my moments of course, long way to go yet, but I am building the foundation for my future as a star violinist, at least in my own circles in which I currently travel.

I’m thankful for a glass of champagne and some delicious fried chicken tacos after my violin lesson.

A lovely evening, late dinner out on a patio. The drink wasn’t to celebrate anything in particular, other than another successful lesson. I thought that worthy enough of a beginning of the week celebration just then.

And then, don’t get me started on those appetizers. Wish they had been my whole meal.

Have you ever eaten coleslaw in a taco? Topped with the kind of fried chicken that could beat KFC any time.

I’m thankful that Brian and I were able to, after a few starts and stops, get most of Episode Two: Ingredients Listed recorded of our podcast, Ketchup On Pancakes.

I had it all planned out, and it takes a certain amount of planning to be ready to record.

Then something is missing. Either one or both of us just isn’t feeling it. There needs to be a certain kind of mood and I knew it might be this tricky. The whole structure of our podcast is how we interact as siblings. That relationship can’t or at least it shouldn’t be pushed or else we end up sounding less like ourselves and more like we think two people on a podcast should sound. That is definitely what we don’t want.

We are going by no real time table at this early stage. We are taking our time and not rushing or pushing it. It comes out naturally, organically, when it’s meant to be.

Thankful for all the lessons I’m learning about editing.

This is nothing new, or shouldn’t be, for anyone who claims themselves a writer. Editing is part of life and ever more is it becoming so as I write more.

Well, this is a manifestation of that same skill development I’m learning. It is hard, when it is something you’ve created, to cut some of that out. It just isn’t practical to keep everything. An hour is what we’re aiming for with this podcast, when many are less than, but we are following our own instincts and not paying attention to what anyone else may be doing.

And so I create and then we execute that creative vision and then we cut out and trim and edit and narrow down.

Hope to have our second episode finished sometime this month. A lot more to learn.

I’m thankful for the arrival of September.

I realize what this signifies to most people. I don’t long for extreme cold and snow either. I just dislike extreme heat and humidity. Just because September means one month closer to winter isn’t enough of a reason to dislike it. Now, if I were going back to school in any traditional way I might understand.

To me the cooler nights and decrease in hot hot days is when I’m most comfortable. I love the way the scent in the air changes. I love the apples.

I’m thankful for the release of a truly modernized take on travel, place, travel based writing, and so much more.

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR-AND-CHIEF – Panorama: The Journal of Intelligent Travel

September 1st was the day their first publication came out. I like that their first one is focused on firsts.

I hope to have a piece I’ve written published here one day.

I’m thankful for bees.

I spoke of apples above. Well, I wouldn’t have my apples if it weren’t for bees.

And so, after one patio lunch this week which included sharing my meal and a lovely final day of August afternoon atmosphere with them, I can gladly say: thanks for not being too loud with your buzzing and thanks for not stinging me. Oh, and thanks for all you do with the pollinating of the flowering buds on the apple trees.

With all the fear of Zika virus lately, so much so that lots of bees were killed in the States from some attempt to kill dangerous mosquitos – I am able to carry my long standing phobia of bees and put it in its proper perspective, enough to appreciate the apples I hope to enjoy in the days and weeks to come.

Millions of bees dead after South Carolina sprays for Zika mosquitoes

Of course, I am not at any immediate risk from those virus carrying mosquito pests, threatening the lives of so many unborn babies either. There’s got to be a better way to handle it.

I’m thankful for birds and Canadian birds especially.

I thought of this the other night, hearing a flock of geese outside, and proud to live where I live, that they are known as Canadian geese.

Whether it’s the squawking of a bluejay or a sea gull or even the cawing of the crows I don’t like quite so much.

Then there’s the haunting sound of the loon.

http://nationalbird.canadiangeographic.ca/bird.asp?name=Common-loon&id=1005

I’m thankful for the first of two men to have a profound affect on me.

September 2nd is the anniversary of the death of J.R.R. Tolkien.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/lord-of-the-rings-creator-tolkien-dies

I am currently working on writing about Tolkien’s participation in World War I where he easily could have been taken far too soon, depriving the world of so much.

When he did die, many years later, he died an old man.

Not everyone is so lucky.

I’m thankful for all that Steve Irwin (Crocodile Hunter) gave of himself, until his heartbreaking death ten years ago.

“If we save our wild places, we will ultimately save ourselves.”

—

“We don’t own the planet Earth, we belong to it. And we must share it with our wildlife.”

—Steve IRwin

Larger-than-life. No doubt.

Interview

I’ll never forget when I heard of his death. I was moving out of my childhood home and into my very first house.

I didn’t exactly find it to be an unexpected end to a life. All that time around all kinds of creatures and it was bound to happen. It was a fluke thing, when all other days he had come out alive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeydzMjP4Oo

Very few people devote their whole lives to animals. I wish there were more Steve Irwins’ in the world because animals are constantly about to be found on the nearly extinct list and people are afraid of things they don’t understand, animals included, and that is why Steve did what he did.

“I have no fear of losing my life – if I have to save a koala or a crocodile or a kangaroo or a snake, mate, I will save it.”

—

“If we can teach people about wildlife, they will be touched. Share my wildlife with me. Because humans want to save things that they love.”

—Steve Irwin

Crikey!

Grandparents: Our Greatest Teachers

Today is National Grandparent’s Day and I wanted to speak about the great teachers they become in our lives.

Firstly, if we are lucky we all have them. I learned so very much from my four grandparents and was blessed to have them all for from ten to twenty-six years of my life.

Opa was a fun presence in my young life. He was a storyteller and a partner in crime. My memories of him are vague mostly, but several memories do stand out and always will. I miss the sound of his voice and his accent. I miss his total love and approval, which I realize now not everyone else received from him in the same way. That is what grandparents are for. They should love you unconditionally and always represent the lighter side of life.

Grandma was my secret confidant. She was the only one who ever truly understood. She was sweet and loving and always there to listen. She was even more naive than even I can be with life sometimes, but that is what made her the fair and generous lady she was. I miss her uncanny way of making me feel better about the things that life throws at you. I cling to the presence and the connection we had and I will never fully let go of that.

Grandpa was the jokester and the wever of humorous tales. He had an endless string of jokes to tell and a mischievous spirit to make me laugh always.

Oma was the toughest woman I have ever met. She was a survivor of all things I could not comprehend. She bared widowhood with strength and resilience. Her love for me was unquestionable and the strongest thread I’ve ever felt. I miss her saying my name and her generosity with me always. She showered me with things, material and priceless, of which only an Oma could.

I love that my nephew has an oma of his own now. I know she and his parents will never let him forget he had an opa too.

I love to see my niece and nephews interacting with their grandparents. It makes me smile whenever I witness the bond they share.

So Happy Grandparent’s Day to all of you grandparents out there and I just want my parents to know what important roles they now play. I know they probably already realize, but I am here to repeat it anyway.

You are special people to your grandchildren, speaking from experience. You should never underestimate the influence you have on them and the adoration either. You are fun and light in a world full of day-to-day rules and responsibilities. You are a break in life and a place to just be kids. You imprint lessons and morals into their lives that nobody else can. Let them be free with you, free to just be kids and they will forever hold you in their hearts with a love like no other.

Lastly, I wanted to take a moment and share something about the importance of teachers Whether they are the life teachers that are grandparents or the ones in the classroom.

I found myself sitting on a slide, in a playground last week and thinking about school. As my little niece was to start her first day of school I imagined her playing where I sat, only days from then.

I saw my young self in the midst of a playground full of children, so long ago now it feels. It wasn’t always easy and it was downright tough at times, but I survived and learned so much from those years. I grew into the woman I am now and I am lucky to have gained those experiences. I hoped for only the best with my niece.

I think we were all scared for her, as myself and her grandparents pictured her there. The next time she appeared on this playground she would not have us there to protect her, and so we were afraid to picture our little girl set free in such a big big world. That image affected each of us in different ways. We saw her as that little baby still, but in front of our very eyes she had grown. Her independence can not be denied and so I knew in my heart she would knock em dead.

The other day I came across a video and I want to share it here now. I strongly urge you to take five minutes of your time and check out this speech by a truly inspiring teacher. She is well-spoken, humorous, and just the sort of teacher I hope my niece will have. Listening to this educator speak made me feel better about my niece’s new adventure and her step forward in life, which all who love her felt had come much too soon, but of which we all know she will learn so much.

Every Kid Needs a Champion

The teacher in this clip talks about the student-teacher relationship as a human thing, a connection, the building of relationships. It is hugely comforting and heart-warming to know there are teachers out there that care this much.

School is a series of learning and growth experiences and it effects every child in its own unique ways. There are lessons to learn academically and socially that not every child grasps the same. I want my niece to thrive and make friends, to learn what she is good at and what she can excel in. I hope she makes lasting connections throughout the years and that her teachers inspire in her a love of learning. I want teachers and students alike to see what an amazing girl she truly is.

So this post is dedicated to grandparents and teachers. Always remember and be mindful of the power you have in your hands.