Trick or Treat!

Hallowe'en is Gerard's thing. He buys the pumpkins, buys the candy, carves the pumpkin, puts out the decorations, hands out the candy, and eats it too. And I get a kick out of watching him enjoying himself.

There, everything's ready for the kids to come.... and here are our neighbours from across the street - Tinkerbell and her brothers...

Before all the Hallowe'en excitement, we enjoyed a gorgeous day - it was up to 18 C outside on October 31st!

My Afternoon Walk

This afternoon I had an appointment and decided that, instead of driving there, I would take advantage of the gorgeous weather and walk - just over an hour in each direction. I loved the sun, the wind, and shuffling through the leaves. And the smell of the leaves - Ahh! On the way home I ran across some community gardens and wandered through them. Most were already cleaned up for the winter so there wasn't all that much going on today.

I did find one garden plot in which the owner had created a little "home" at one end. It's always interesting to see how each person has their own style of gardening. It reminded me of when we were first married and had a garden plot behind our apartment building. We often went out there after dinner and there were always other gardeners there. It's a great place to get to know your neighbours and to pick up gardening and food preparation ideas.

Look at the brightly coloured stems of this swiss chard!

A wonderful afternoon outside!

Snow on the Ground

This morning we woke up to snow that actually stayed on the ground for the first time this fall. However, nothing like what some of you got yesterday in Eastern Ontario, by the sounds of it.
(Had to get a picture of flowers in there somehow, today, since it's been quite awhile since I last posted flowers!)

Birthdays & Sculptures

This weekend we attended an open house on Saturday evening for Adrian's 40th birthday celebration and then a surprise open house on Sunday afternoon for Naomi's 30th birthday. Lots of special food, lots of socializing and celebrating...


Here are some interesting sculptures that I walk by in a small park on my to the subway. When they were first installed, I thought someone had left their glove and tool behind on this little wall. It looks so realistic from a distance!

A closer look...

And I love this one. It's a small mound (about eight inches high and maybe about one meter across) in the grass along an extra loop in the path, so sometimes I detour around that loop just to get a look at this sculpture again.

Another Productive Saturday Morning in the Kitchen...

Baked mini pumpkin muffins and a loaf of whole wheat bread with sunflower, flax and sesame seeds; cooked a pan of fish chowder; prepared a dish of lasagna - half vegetarian and half with ground beef; and prepared a bowl of salad. That should keep us going for a while. We actually already ate some of the salad and lasagna.

This afternoon I attended an open house at the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine. There were table displays re. naturopathic medicine. I got a free mini health assessment based on an intern taking my pulse and looking at my tongue. I don't know what she could tell about my tongue because it was probably black because I had just eaten four double salted dutch licorice (dropjes). And I attended a lecture by a prominent naturopath about the naturopathic way of dealing with stress - not that I was feeling stressful, but it was the only lecture while I was there. Interesting! This kind of holistic approach to medicine makes a lot of sense to me. If naturopathy were covered by OHIP I would seriously consider going to a naturopath. I did find out that some benefit packages include naturopathy so I'm going to check out my benefits which I just got a few weeks ago.

Saw these berries on my way home. I had seen only red ones before and was surprised to find all these different colours in one bunch. They remind me of sweet peppers.

The Cupboard is Bare

Yesterday I got a little sidetracked from sorting my clothes, so today I put my summer clothes away. And then I did what I do every once in a while - completely emptied out my side of the closet and my dresser drawers and put everything in "Mark's room". Now I'll be putting clothes back in as I use them. This way I end up with only the clothes I actually wear, in my closet and drawers. After that I'll figure out what to do with the ones that stay behind in the other room. I have a hard time getting rid of things. I always think they might come in handy some day. But I'm learning to be more ruthless - ruthless for me, that is. When I'm in the right mood I can actually get rid of stuff, so hopefully one of those moods will strike again soon.

Sorting some "stuff"

Today I'm going to sort through my clothes, putting away the real summery ones and pulling out some warmer ones like long-sleeved tops and sweaters. So I'm still thinking about the idea of not purchasing anything new for a year, or a few months, or a month. And eventhough I'm not much of a shopper to begin with, all of a sudden it feels like I "need" to buy all kinds of things.

No New Purchases for a Year?

For the last few weeks I've been thinking that it would be fun and a challenge to give used gifts for Christmas. One year when the kids were in university and no one had much money we tried to come up with gifts for each other that cost around $5.00. It was amazing what we were able to make or buy second hand for only $5.00! The fun in a Christmas gift exchange for me is not in getting huge expensive gifts, but in being together for an evening with the fireplace going, eating snacks, sending each other around the house with notes to find gifts, multi-wrapping gifts, and surprising each other with little stuff. So I'm sure we could come up with some fun things that we already own, that we could give to someone else to use for a while (a year and then swap again or return it to the owner?). I'm thinking of sharing a book, a game, a piece of jewelry, offering a service, etc. Actually, many people I talk with these days, regardless of their age, are purging - trying to reduce the stuff they have, to unclutter their homes, to live with less. So why be buying more? and feeding into the consumerism mentality? Just when I was thinking about all of this, I ran across an article called "Code Green" in the October 11 issue of the Toronto Star. It features a family whose 14-year-old daughter was "falling into the pattern of shopping for recreation". So as an experiment they joined "The Compact" - "a loose group of people around the world who commit to not shopping for a year... There are some exceptions: food and drink obviously, medication and other health essentials, work necessities and safety requirements, like new car tires. Everything else they would borrow, buy second hand, or just do without.... Some do it for social justice, protesting sweatshop labour. Others commit for spiritual reasons. But for most, it is an environmental pledge" ... "Our American society is consuming out of control. It's unsustainable." So not buying anything new could be an interesting challenge, even just for a few months. I'll think about it...

Maybe if I had less "stuff" I'd accumulate less clutter on my desk... but then again, maybe not.

If you want to learn more about "The Compact" you can Google it. They don't have a website, but you'll find a blog and some articles about the group.

It's Snowing!

It's snowing and blowing. The first snowfall of the season! It's been coming down for about three hours already. Some flakes survive on the car or roof for a while and then melt, so it mostly just looks wet outside. And with the strong wind the leaves are coming down too.

A Funeral, a Hike and a Good Book

We had a weekend full of variety and meaningful experiences. On Saturday Mark, Rosemary, Gerard and I attended the memorial service for Jo-Ann, Melanie's mom. The church was packed! Extra chairs were brought in and there were also people in the overflow area watching a closed circuit television. It was a real celebration of her life with some of her favourite music, songs that had special meaning to her, tributes from family and friends, a powerpoint presentation of pictures of Jo-Ann set to music, and a very personal message. The praise team and all three pastors of the church participated. Funerals are so confusing for the emotions. It was a special celebration, and we know she is now with God in heaven, yet at the same time so sad that such a wonderful person is now missing from her small group, her mission team, her church, her circle of friends, the people for whom she was a teacher and caregiver, and especially her family. We sang joyful songs, experienced love and support from family and friends, laughed at memories of the Jo-Ann's free-spirited and spontaneous escapades, and shed tears of grief, all in one hour.

On Sunday after church and lunch, we hiked a beautiful piece of the Oak Ridges Trail, which makes up part of the Trans Canada Trail.

And in between everything I read "In Tandem" by Peter Slofstra - his account of the 2005 Sea-to-Sea ride in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Christian Reformed Church in Canada. I had followed the blogs of a number of cyclists that summer and know some of the cyclists, so this book was a new perspective on the trip, and fun to read. Great to curl up with a good book once in a while. For some reason I haven't been reading many books the last two years, so this was a treat!

God's Artwork on Display

The colours in the trees this year are just absolutely spectacular! I don't remember seeing such brilliant colours before. Gerard heard on the weather channel that the conditions for optimum colours are a summer with plenty of rain and then a dry sunny late summer and fall. That's exactly what we've had here this year so that may explain the amazing colours we've been seeing. Here's some of what we saw in our comings and goings yesterday.

Our own new little maple tree in the picture above is actually getting some pretty good colours too already.

Happy 61st Birthday, Gerard!

We had a great day celebrating Gerard's birthday. Started off with a swim, then a hike at Mary Lake, lunch at the little tea shop at the apple farm half way round the trail, and dinner with Mark at Swiss Chalet downtown.
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Our Family Photo Gallery

In order to give myself some motivation to get the job done, I set the date of Mark & Rosemary's engagement open house as the deadline to refresh some of our pictures and photos in the living room. The pictures and mats were getting faded, and I thought it would be nice to have some family pictures available in case anyone asked about our family - which they did, a lot. The purpose of the open house event was to give people the opportunity to congratulate Mark & Rosemary on their engagement and also for us to meet their friends and for the two families to meet each other. The photos helped, especially for people to see pictures of Alida, who was not able to be there because she's in Australia. So here is the revived picture corner.

And here are some of the pictures up close. Melanie chose which pictures of Alida to put in this frame.

Here is our family a long time ago, and both sets of our parents...

and a collage of family pictures... many of them taken in Australia.

I also put my collection of "Country Cousins" figurines in this corner because they're kind of a family portrait too. I was saving the ones that showed various stages of Henry, Mark and Alida's childhood...

Our kids spent a lot of time on their sleds going down the "hill" from our back patio, and also used their red wagon and their tricycles a lot. There is one figurine that represents Alida at ballet lessons, one of Henry as a paper carrier, and two identical ones of Mark and Henry going to school wearing jeans and carrying their backpacks. Then we got a little sidetracked from the children's theme - the lower ones represent me gardening and exercising. The girl riding the pig was supposed to be a girl riding a tricycle. Gerard remembered that I had asked for a girl riding something.... And the birthday girl was a gift from someone who didn't realize the theme in what I was collecting, but it could represent the many birthdays we celebrated. So this is kind of like a family portrait. I got a lot of them as birthday gifts from Gerard and the kids. Too bad the Country Cousins were discontinued and I've never seen any at garage sales or second-hand stores. I think they're really cute. And they bring back memories of many surprise birthday packages and of the kids when they were that young!

Happy Birthday, Anneke and Andy!

Belated Happy 50th Birthday on Sunday, to my sister Anneke in South Dakota.


and Happy 47th to my brother Andy on Monday, out in Alberta. I'm trying to find a picture of Andy, but don't think I have a single digital picture of him! So I'm off to find/beg/borrow/steal one from somewhere.


May God bless you!
May God bless you!
May God bless you Andy and Anneke.
May God bless you!!!!!

(to the tune of Happy Birthday)

Thanksgiving Day

Love and greetings from all of us on Thanksgiving Day!

Everyone is getting in on the action - preparing dinner.
Gerard cutting bread for the stuffing...

Michael stirring the cranberry sauce and Laura mixing the stuffing ingredients...

Henry & Melanie dropped by for brunch before going to the airport to pick up family friends and her Mom's luggage and then going back down to Niagara to be with her family. Delicious waffles with strawberries, peaches, bananas, maple syrup, whipped cream...

We all went for a hike in Betty Ann Bush and Earl Bales Park. The colours were gorgeous!

And then enjoyed a traditional Canadian Thanksgiving dinner with Michael, Laura, Mark, Rosemary, Carolyn, Gerard and I.

Sightseeing in Niagara and TO

Laura stayed with us for the summer of 2002 when she was an intern with Alida at the mission where I work. Now she's back for a visit with her husband, Michael. They arrived on Friday evening and we've been sightseeing, having fun and enjoying the gorgeous weather together ever since. Saturday we went to Niagara Falls and then wandered along the Niagara Parkway to the whirlpool, hydro plant, floral clock, Niagara on the Lake, through the vineyards, orchards, pumpkin patches. It was a fabulous day!


We had a great time on the Maid of the Mist - a boat that takes you right below the falls. It's a totally different experience than seeing the Falls from the road level up above. From the boat we saw the rocky cliffs of the gorge, heard the thunder of the falls, and got rained on by the spray (which was really heavy this time) of the Falls. It was a first for Gerard, Laura & Michael and loads of fun. Here's Laura trying to stay dry. We laughed so hard looking at each other in these outfits! She's got equally complimentary pictures of me.

The rain ponchos they gave out kept us dry, but Laura's shoes got soaked and gave off colour on her feet...

We had to introduce Michael to the ultimate Canadian experience... Tim Hortons!

Today after church and lunch Michael, Laura and I headed downtown Toronto and hopped on and off the subway, buses and street cars with our day passes all afternoon. Started out going down on the subway and then a bus ride on Wellesley past the Bay St. financial centre, Queen's Park, and U of T. We walked around the mission and hopped on the street car to China Town...

and around the block to Kensington Market...

Then back on the street car to Harbour Front, street car to Union Station, walking through the Skywalk to the CN Tower, Rogers Centre, Bay & King, Tim Hortons again, Nathan Philips Square, Eaton Centre, and Dundas Square and the subway back home. The weather was just as fabulous as yesterday. What a fun afternoon! I love the city! It's so interesting! And I love riding public transit!