Keeping in Touch

Why is it so hard to keep in touch with people?
Phones, cells, email, msn, facebook, heaven to betsy - mail. There are so many ways to keep in touch with everyone now compared to our parents and grandparents. Yet at times it seems like all we do is share jokes back and forward.

It seems like we know more about our friends and family but on a very shallow level compared to pre computer days. I use the computer so much to keep in touch with everyone that I feel like I have forgot how to talk to people. But at the same time I know exactly what they are doing on their holidays as soon as they put their pictures up on facebook. I also know what my children, friends, nephews and nieces look like when they have had too much too drink. Not always a pretty site. As Rachel would say DON'T CREEP MOM!! Good advice.....

So I am going to do my best to phone more people, go down and visit family and friends and write much newsier emails. And if all that fails I'll update my profile on facebook. lol

A Grand Young Lady - miss you

Mom Carlson inspired me. When she broke her leg at 87 and was told she may never walk again, she ignored them and within 5 months was up walking around her room holding onto furniture. Over the next 7 years we had the pleasure of her company at our home on numerous occasions and she taught me that as a mother, you always need something to do. I would say, Mom – relax, let us take care of you. Well I received a large Pish, Posh to that. And up she went to peel potatoes, dust, iron, set the table, fold clothes, etc, etc.

The most vivid memories of Mom Carlson revolved around her kitchen and her kitchen table. And needless to say those memories centred around desert. Raspberry pie, chocolate marble cake, banana cream pie, pumpkin pie, pineapple upside down cake to name a few. Mom and dad’s love of raspberry pie made them put in a raspberry patch in their backyard that was as tenderly cared for as their children. Every July they would start picking their raspberries and freeze them individually on trays so they could have raspberry pies the whole year. Sometimes they even shared these pies with the rest of the family. Everyone was so polite until Mom brought out the deserts, this is when her inner strength started to show. I was never sure if the pie lifter was actually for dishing the pies or was a weapon to protect them. Don’t get me wrong mom wasn’t being stingy, there was always a chocolate marble cake to go with her pies. I could never figure out how after a huge roast beef dinner with her famous roast potatoes the family could still eat desert, never mind a piece of cake and 2 pieces of pie.

Mom sitting at the top of the dining room table with her family surrounding her is an image that will always be with me. As a 17 year old girl she plopped me in the seat beside her and welcomed me into her family and when I sit at my dining room table with all my Carlson’s around me her love will continue to surround us. Love you mom.

Dashing here, dashing there, no time to write in my blog. Feeling rather Bah humbugy and then all teary eyed over the Christmas spirit. And then today my good friend MJ calls and says let's go down and watch the Olympic Flame and it's like wow, I'm not the only one who thinks this is rather neat. I had been trying to decide whether to go or not, had done the usual - mention it to my kids to see if I got any bites and wasn't hearing any "wow great idea mom, let's get up and go out in the cold to watch someone with a flame run up Yonge St". So when MJ called it was magical. So again off we dash down to Yonge St, stop to pick up a coffee and have a moment of panic as we come out of the coffee shop and hear the Olympic truck go buy with it's speakers blaring and sirens going. Panicking now we race down the walkway at St Andrews thinking we have now missed the flame, thankfully realizing before we collapsed from exhaustion that it was just the preliminary introduction truck. Now we leisurely walk the rest of the way along with school kids with flags, some of them had made the olympic logo out of different hula hoops, I think every adult in our area who wasn't at work today was there. The street was lined all the way up and down Yonge St. So what happens next, my throat locks, my eyes well up and the torch approaches. Cheers, waves, clapping resound up and down the street and the torch passes by us. How amazing. 100 yards up from us the torch flame is passed onto the next runner and off it heads to Newmarket. I know I witnessed something momentous and so did the other 1000 or so people there. I watched the 1988 torch in Aurora, and now the 2010 torch and I will go to everyone that ever goes near me as long as I can, because the Olympic Spirit truly is inspiring.

Thank you

Sometimes you just have to say thank you. Thank you to my family. Thank you to my friends. Thank you to my cats ( they do make me smile and giggle). We were at a funeral today for a friends father, he was 87. How lucky we are that our parents lived so long. I apologize for having been so whiny in my short life, our parents lived through so much. This father today was in a Siberian POW camp for 4 years. He landed in Canada with his wife and 2 daughters and $40 and worked hard and made a wonderful life for his family. How can anything in my life compare to that. I have been so spoilt. Thank you Canada for allowing me to have the wonderful life that I have. Tonight, I had a wonderful dinner with wonderful friends that I love dearly. I have a large (very large) family and I am so lucky to have them all in my life and all I can say is THANK YOU TO ALL OF YOU, I am so lucky and blessed. Yes, I know I use the "I" word way too much in this short paragraph, but yes I am so thankful. God bless.

Move over Forest Gump

How did this happen? It was a nice sunny day, no wine involved. Suddenly the little "you've got mail" beep dings. Happily I open my email and there's this email from my sister-in-law, Maureen, yeah - it's not junk mail. And then I open it. I read it, I read it again. "Who is this", someone has taken over Maureen's email. Well no, Maureen hadn't been abducted by an alien, she just wanted to know if we wanted to do something insane like walk 60 kms in 2 days. I started to laugh and then the next thing I knew I was replying, "sure why not". Remember, there was no wine on my desk at this point in time. Then I quickly emailed Rachel and asked her to join us, like the rest of us she quickly jumped on the band wagon and the next thing I knew we were registered for the "The Weekend to end Women's Cancers".

That is why I now feel like I am the female version of Forest Gump. I walked to IGA today (2 km). On the way down I thought maybe tomorrow I'll walk to Dominion (5 km), let's walk in the Santa Clause parade on Saturday. That should be good practice, as we'll be singing carols at the same time. All I am thinking of is different places I can walk to. Move over Forest.

Rachel asked how far is 30 kms. I thought about it for a minute and then said to her that it would be equivalent to walking from our house to Toronto straight down Yonge St., and then back again the next day. At that point, both our jaws dropped open, wow, what have we done.

We can do this, we must train, we will need good music, we will have good family and friends with us and I am really excited about accomplishing this feat, because this will be a feat. Thank you Maureen for your email. I'll make sure to say that lots over the next 10 months of training (probably with some wine). Let's go team "Organized Chaos".

http://www.endcancer.ca/site/TR/Events/Toronto2010?pg=team&fr_id=1440&team_id=92396

I miss my dad STILL

I miss my dad STILL. It has been well over a year since he passed away and his presence is still felt everywhere in my home. Bending down to pet the cats and rub their tummies I can hear his laughter behind me telling me what a nut I am. Turning on my cd's in the kitchen at 6 pm when I went in to start dinner always brings a picture of him sitting in his chair at the kitchen table, where he would update me on his conversation with Ina. Which I always new the gist of because even though he was upstairs in the bedroom talking to her, he talked so loud and laughed so loud that the conversation reverberated around the whole house. His soccer conversations with Andrew, his teasing David about girls, Rachel mothering him, laughing at Jim trying to sing all these memories still live in my home. Whereever I go, in the house, at the cottage even in the car (as soon as he got in the car he checked the time to see how long every trip took) he is still there with me. I am sure these feelings of him looking over my shoulder will diminish but for now I am still going to enjoy having him around. Love you dad

I like to laugh

I love my husband tremendously, but why is it that we don't belly laugh together the way I do with my girlfriends. Yesterday was Halloween and the guys went golfing so the girls and I went to Port Perry on an outing. It was grey, cold and windy but from the moment the girls hopped in the car, the moods all lightened and by the time we made the 40 minute drive to Port Perry we had shared a number of good laughs, shared some secrets (nothing major) and were ready to tackle the stores. The giggles and laughs continued up and down the streets of Port Perry as we bought some beautiful little Christmas crafts, read some hilarious pillows with quotes on pms and husbands (does your husband wear briefs or boxers - depends - this one really broke us up) and then the highlight was the Home Hardware store. Yes scary but the highlight of the trip was finding a pumice stone with a handle on it, there we were 4 50 year olds laughing away as we all lined up to buy a pumice stone with a handle on it for 8.99 so we could clean the calcium marks on our toilets. It was a great day that reinforced the value of friendship and made me thankful for being a women and having such good girl friends.