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.

It is now October 30, 7 weeks since I wrote my last blog. Not a very good start to something I was so eager to do. Well on this dreary drizzly day I'm back. And surprisingly in an upbeat mood. The cottage is closed, as much as I miss it, it is nice not to have to worry about it for a few months. No trying to remember if you need butter at the house or the cottage. No dashing about trying to tidy up the cottage for visitors and figuring out menus for the whole weekend. O:) No lying on the dock lapping up the sun (not that we did alot of that this year). No more boat rides with friends (especially as our boat has gone to the boat graveyard). Now tis the season to regroup, take care of the house (maybe some painting definitely a good clean), putting the garden to bed for the winter, enjoying my cats (they don't like the cold and rain so hang around me alot more) and dinners with friends and family in the dining room with food from the oven rather than the bbq. Yes O:) I am looking forward to the fall and winter, good job as it is coming anyway.

Thought – Labour Day marks so many things in my life. I could never figure out why I was always so emotional the last week in August and the first week in September. It is such a milestone date, memories of being a kid and last day at the Ex, first day of school, can remember starting high school like it was yesterday (right down to the so cool tartan skirt my mom bought me, that wasn’t so cool when I went in to register, luckily there was a boy there whose name was Doug Shirley, who was called up to the stage with “Shirley, Doug” that might have been more embarrassing). Then Labour Day goes on a sabbatical for a while when work starts, but boy does it come back with a bang when you start having kids and they go off to school.

Preparations were crazy the week before, school bags, lunch bags, pencil crayons, etc. What to wear, we always bought new fall and winter clothes and the first week of school was always beautiful, and off my 5, or 6 or 7 year old would go with his/her new wooly sweaters, that usually came off by the time they got to the school yard. And there was me standing in the school yard with all the other moms, with my throat acting like it had just closed up from a major allergic reaction as I tried not to cry. By the time the kids were in grade 3, the other parents knew just to nod at me.

It’s funny now I can close my eyes and bring back that happy/sad feeling that will always be associated with Labour Day weekends, or I can just play the Staples commercial on youtube and enjoy the day. “It’s the most wonderful time of the year”. Happy Labour Day