The tiny owl sat in the uppermost branches of the cottonwood tree behind my house. Despite the harassment from blue jays, grosbeaks, chickadees, and red polls, he tucked his head beneath his wing. At that moment, he wasn’t looking for a meal which the small birds could have easily provided had the little owl been […]
Relationships
Saying ‘I love you’ shouldn’t be that hard
“You all be good,” she is saying, starting to doze. “I love you.” These are the things we all say at the end of book club now: I love you. Of course we do. Why haven’t we been saying that all along? ~ from The Bright Hour – A Memoir of Living and Dying by […]
Chemical reactions and life lessons
From “Listen and Learn Science/Chemical Reactions” from Wikibooks “In a chemical reaction a bond might be formed, existing bonds might be broken, and some other new bonds may be formed. This concept is true, for all chemicals reactions, however big or complex the chemical reaction is. This also gives us the idea that chemical reactions […]
The problem with drawing a line in the sand
Sunday afternoon My Sweet and I went for a drive, not for any reason except to get out of the house. We made to-go cups of tea, got in the truck and took a left turn at the end of our driveway. Left takes us toward the east, away from the busy highway. We drove […]
The truth about my Facebook Year in Review video
The past few days my Facebook news feed has been flooded with personalized 2017 Year in Review videos. Did you have one? Did you watch it? What did you think? Did you edit it before you shared it? I watched about half a dozen before I watched my own. You know what I thought? I […]
Suffering from seasonal friendship disorder…
This past spring I decided to try something new in my garden and I potted some succulents. I suppose it wasn’t so much a decision as it was resignation that I had come too late to the gardening party. When I went to the garden store in search of spring plants there was a distinct […]
Kijiji is just another word for trouble…
My Sweet has no use for Facebook or social media in general except to glance occasionally from the seat beside me and ask “Who is that?” It’s a bit like having someone read over your shoulder, actually it’s exactly like having someone read over your shoulder, and it drives me crazy. Sometimes I’ll tell him […]
Ordinary is never really ordinary…
On the outside, people generally look quite ordinary. For the most part, we dress the same, we comb our hair, and we go about the world in a similar way. Occasionally you will see a colourful character that stands out from the crowd like the man yesterday. He was seated at a sidewalk café opposite […]
Walking a different path…
There’s a German proverb that says, “Sweep in front of your own door and the whole world will be clean.” That’s good advice. If we worried about taking care of our own dirty doorsteps (choices, lives, children…) we wouldn’t have time to worry about anyone else’s. I had such an interesting chat the other day. […]
Emotional apologies
A week or so ago, I was watching the news and a woman was recounting the story of a traumatic event. It was clear she was struggling with the words and when her voice finally broke and tears fell, she choked out two words…”I’m sorry.” I thought, “What on earth does she have to apologize […]