Once our children had families of their own, we established a rotation of sorts so that we could have our whole family together every other Christmas. This worked especially well when grandchildren were young and travelling the almost 1000 kilometres between our households was a big undertaking. We did this for several years and then COVID hit and extreme weather hit and airline cancellations hit and to make a long story short we have not been able to get together with our whole family at Christmas for a while. But not for lack of trying… *x#?&* COVID As everyone knows, on the first Christmas in the throes of dealing with…

Never in a million years did I see myself writing about cars and driving, but recent events have had this topic in the forefront of my mind. You see, we are now the proud owners of a new van, not so exciting in and of itself, but the journey to get there was like nothing I ever expected. The Fun Bus Back when our first grandchild arrived we thought purchasing a van might be a good idea so that we would have room for all the grandchildren we thought were sure to come. So we did just that and over the next several years more grandchildren did arrive. As time…

This is a story about a table, yes, a table- the one you see my grandchildren using for their chess game in the picture above. It is a beautiful solid wood table of the kind you don’t see much any more and that you certainly wouldn’t find at IKEA. It first belonged to our parents and after their passing now belongs to me. Before you start wondering what more one can say about a table, the real story here is about what that table represents and the memories that are attached to it. We Bought A House After many years with his company, dad received a promotion which involved a…

Haven’t we all at one time or another felt like our life was a three ring circus? Well, in our house we recently had a three ring circus of a different kind when raccoons decided to set up house in our attic. Yep, that’s right – literally raccoons in the attic, and figuratively too as we tried to figure out what to do. Spring Has Sprung One morning as I was sitting at my desk enjoying the sunshine, I heard a kind of a scratching on the roof and sounds that I thought might be baby birds. I quickly chalked it up to a bird nest on our roof. Kind…

Due to the nature of my husband's job we've moved often- thirteen times to be exact. This meant we did not spend a lot of time living in any one house. Fast forward to retirement and the house we have now lived in for thirteen years. A record for us by far. And while staying in a house this long has brought us comfort and ease, there have also been a few surprises of the maintenance variety.

For a person my age, I think I’ve been pretty lucky in the health department. Low thyroid, high blood pressure, the odd memory lapse and an arthritic hip, but that’s about it. For the last few years though, my Optometrist has been telling me I’m going to need cataract surgery soon. Well, it seems soon has arrived. Easy Peasy? I was not really worried about having cataract surgery. I’d heard from friends and family that it was a quick, relatively painless, straight forward procedure and really nothing to lose sleep over. And the fact that I may not have to wear glasses afterwards was a huge bonus. I was excited…

The other day I saw a piece about how "granny chic" style is all the rage right now. The article said it is defined as "donning vintage-style pieces like crochet sweaters and eyeglass chains." I suppose I should be happy that I am finally going to be on the cutting edge of style, being as how I am an actual grandma.