I, like most parents, made sure my little ones were protected by the vaccines available for them. I have gotten flu and pneumonia vaccines to protect myself. But shingles vaccine, pfft. This weekend I got an education.
Shingles is hell – I would think it would be hell anywhere but I have it across my face and through one eye – which has been found to lead to dementia (Yay). Elderly people with shingles are subject to stroke or heart attack. If I am fortunate, I will just have a rash comparable to having acid poured over my face, stabbing pains in my head (think icepick) and constant nausea for a week or so.
Shingles will not cause shingles but it can cause chicken pox in anyone who has not been vaccinated – because they are too young or were from the pre-chickenpox vaccination days – like my husband and adult chicken pox is terrible.
Bottom line, if you are fifty or over, have had chicken pox, have not gotten the shingles vaccine – get it now. Protect yourself and your loved ones. 💞
Tomorrow we head north to visit my son and celebrate his son’s birthday. I am pretty much packed and ready to go. I just have to get Kat’s bag packed and get a few hours of sleep. That will be the tricky part, getting to sleep with so much on my mind.
Dan is working tonight. It is his forth twelve hour shift in a row and he works hard. He will be home early enough to get a few hours sleep before we leave, but not enough for me to make him drive to Lloyd, so I will be behind the wheel.
I do not love travelling and I definitely do not love driving. I am cursed behind the wheel. I have driven through more than my share of construction, fog, blizzards, icy roads, gale force winds and a herd of pigs. Not friendly pigs either – a mean, nasty, gang of pigs. I have lost more than my share of windshield wipers – oddly true. I have slid down a muddy country road sideways in pitch dark, pouring rain. That was not fun. None of it was fun, so I am not totally excited at the prospect of tomorrow’s adventure.
Dan usually does his share of driving and mine when we travel. I have been thinking lately that I should make more of an effort to polish up on my highway driving skills. One never knows if it is a skill I may need in the future. This is probably as good a time as any, to start making the extra effort.
I had better go try to get some sleep. Apparently it is hunting season in Saskatchewan. If anyone out on the open road tomorrow will be dodging bullets and startled wild life, we know it will be me. 🦌🐇🦆
Tonight was the night to trim Kat’s feet, the hair around her face, and give her a bath. She was not even that dirty, but somehow setting her in a tub of warm clean water and lathering her up with doggy shampoo releases the worst wet dog smell ever.
I’m sure there must be some scientific reason for why dogs smell so bad when they get wet but I cannot imagine what it would be. Whatever the reason, I am pretty sure Cavaliers, or Kat anyway, is worse than your average wet dog. 🤦
Our election is over, and the results are in. These are my opinions, everyone has a right to agree or disagree. I speak only for myself.
First off, we came away with the best possible outcome. The Liberals will lead the country with a minority government, and the Conservatives, Bloc, NDP and Green parties have the power to work with them to bring positive changes for all Canadians.
We came away with the best Prime Minister possible. In the past four years, Justin Trudeau has made some rookie mistakes. That being said, he is a good man and a good leader, a good example for our youth. He treats his Mother with genuine respect and affection. He and his wife are respectful of each other and openly affectionate of each other and their children. When Mr. Trudeau speaks of his late Father, he remembers and admires him for the right reasons – for the way he raised his family and for the way he instilled in his sons a respect for themselves and others. Despite meeting with disrepect and ingratitude from regions of Canada, Mr. Trudeau works hard to serve all Canadians and is our best chance of ever having one united country.
Now for the post election disappointments:
1) Mr. Sheer, leader of the Conservatives couldn’t wait to start throwing dirt and dissention this morning, swearing he will ultimately take down Justin Trudeau at the next election.
2) Our Premier in Saskatchewan started the day by announcing that, with the support of Saskatchewan voters, he was going to Ottawa to demand an end to the carbon tax, more pipelines for Saskatchewan to pump our oil to market, and revised equalization payments favoring Saskatchewan. I for one did not vote for him to run the country and I for one have no idea why he thinks with less than 3 percent of the population of Canada, we should assume to rule the entire country with zero respect for other Canadians.
3) Mr. Blanchet, the leader of the Bloc Quebecois, started the day by announcing that he would work for the good of Quebec and only Quebec. Again, no. We are all Canadians, one country. Our federal politicians should be working for the good of all Canadians.
4) Ralph Goodale has served the people of Canada for twenty-six years as a Liberal MLA from Saskatchewan. His seat was lost last night. He has served us well and deserves a respectful end to his career. Instead public forums, were filled with spiteful, ignorant comments. Just disgusting, in my mind.
That’s my take on the election. I hope we can find a way to work together going forward, to rebuild a strong country with respect and compromise for ourselves, our families and our fellow Canadians. I hope our politicians will get it together and lead the way. 🇨🇦
Well, we did our part☺️. Now we just have to wait for the results of our federal election.
Sadly, there were people who did not get to cast their votes. Every election there are more and more issues with Elections Canada. The worst was the polling stations that were closed due to lack of staffing. That is inconceivable. I am so sorry for my fellow Canadians who did not get to exercise their right to vote.
Regardless of the outcome of this election, I hope people on all sides will be gracious with the results. I hope our politicians will be civil and work together for the good of all Canadians. For all of our sakes, I hope the nastiness of the past six weeks is in the past and we can get back to being Canada. 🇨🇦
Today is National Youth Confidence Day. This is a USA national day but since we live within a couple of hours from the USA border, I felt qualified to weigh in.
There are two main ways that are recommended for marking this day. For me, the first is easy – acknowledge young people and their accomplishments, talents and strengths. I’ve got this!
I have spent a lot of time with a lot of young people and for the most part I am impressed. Young people get smarter all the time. It is not just their natural comfort level with technology. Most young people are born with an electronic gaming system in one hand and a cell phone in the other. It would be strange if they were not more comfortable with technology than those of us who predate fax machines and calculators. It isn’t even the extent of their ‘knowledge’. They have been connected to the internet from day one. They have access to virtually all of the information on the planet, they cannot help but being informed. It is their comprehension and capability level that I find amazing. Acknowledging youth accomplishments is something I do regularly, not only on National Youth Confidence Day.
The second way that we are encouraged to observe National Youth Confidence Day is by mentoring, advising and teaching our youth. With this I have a problems.
1) I am a baby boomer – one of the later ones but still of that generation. We destroyed the environment, we destroyed the economy, we attended racially motivated costume parties and any number of horrible things that we had no idea were evil at the time – like serving jellied salads or wearing polyester pant suits. The bottom line is, nobody wants our advice .
2) Youth today (ie anyone under fifty) have no concept of what confidence is. They live in a world of ‘fake it til you make it’. We were taught virtues as a means of strength. Now they are looked on as weakness. Respect and gratitude are to be avoided at all cost – especially when it comes to acknowledging anything positive coming from the dreaded ‘Baby Boomer’. Which makes mentoring or advising pretty difficult from where I sit.
Yong people can choose to ignore the advice and education of their teachers, parents, grandparents co-workers but why would you want to throw away decades of trial and error, failures and success? That I do not understand. I would happily offer anyone the benefit of my experience and the wisdom I have accumulated over the years. There are a few areas I could be of some assistance:
Child-bearing and Rearing. Been there, done that X3. They are all pushing forty from one side or the other and still have all of their fingers, toes and most of their hair. They all work, raise families and contribute to society. I am pretty sure I got something right.
Grand-parenting. I have nine, close to perfect, grandchildren. Grandparenting is pretty much a refresher course on child rearing but more fun. Plus I learned how to work a five point harness. (Which comes in handy if you ever have small children or the need to wear a high viz vest)
Health. Have destroyed it with years of smoking, salt and sugar. Have clawed my way back with healthy living – diet, exercise and vitamin B12.
Relationships. One eighteen year un-holy matrimony that thankfully ended and one twenty year marriage that I appreciate every single day.
Loss and grief. I lost my beloved father after supporting him and my mother through his four year, hellish experience with cancer of the sinuses, at the worst of my marriage from hell, days before Christmas. As I climbed the hospital stairs to clean out his room, the cathedral bells stopped playing Christmas carols to toll the bells for his death. The town and cathedral were decked out with Christmas flowers and decorations. I survived his funeral, Christmas and decades of December PTSD.
Responsibility. I learned responsibility from my parents, from volunteering as a teenage candystriper, from decades of parenting and working, from taking care of my aging mother and father-in-law.
Work. I have worked part-time, full-time and double time. I have worked in a hospital, a donut shop, as an office administration and in sales. I have always been competent and appreciated as work goes. I have worked in the construction industry for 25 years. I work for a smaller company, selling construction specialty products – hospital curtains and tracks, operable partitions, wall protection, security grilles, entrance matting and the like. I am very good at it. There are 7 of us including my boss. This year, I have been solely responsible for easily two thirds of the sales of the company – from pricing, to ordering, to delivering, to billing. 😊
If you are a struggling youth, I would be happy to advise and encourage you. For a lot of the challenges you will face, I have been there and I know what worked or did not work for me. I can give you a few words of wisdom or be the candle at the end of your tunnel. But, you have to want it, you have to respect it and you gave to appreciate it. It just doesn’t work otherwise. 👍
My husband is home this weekend. It is one of those weekends when he is not scheduled to work, outdoor golf courses have closed and indoor golf clubs have yet to open their doors for the winter season. We have one of those rare weekends when we can enjoy each other’s company for two full days.
I run my errands on Saturday morning, so the first task at hand is to go through the fridge and cupboard to make a shopping list. We all know what can happen to a budget without a shopping list.
Off to the store list in hand, or on my phone, as the case may be. A stop at the bank and we are on our way to The Real Canadian Superstore. We make our way down the aisles and off to the cashier. Unfortunately, our granddaughter will not be ringing us through as she has been promoted to supervisor and works the evening shift. She is a sweet, hard working, responsible girl and she deserved the promotion even though she is only fifteen.
We get to the cash register and the list and the budget are obviously out the window 🙄
Since neither of us were super excited about going home to deal with our groceries, we stopped at Smitty’s for late breakfast/early lunch.
The afternoon was spent packaging up meat for the freezer, cleaning the fridge, cleaning up the yard and doing laundry.
It is so good to have a day when we can just be together, working side by side. Nine more months and I will be retired. It will be nice not to have to work around my schedule as well as his. It will be nice to have more ‘our’ days. 👫
Saskatchewan is not one of those scenic places that makes it to the top of a lot of bucket lists. While we do have beautiful northern lakes and forests, the southern part of the province is a whole lot of endless prairie. In the middle of a this prairie is the capital city of Regina, where I live with my husband.
While we do not have mountains or tropical plants or endless beaches alongside the ocean, here are a few pictures of the nature we do enjoy in our little prairie city.
Morning FogThat’s Original🙃Evraz ParkOur Backyard – A Poorly Planned Shortcut 🤷Candy Cane ParkThe Legislative Buildings in Wascana ParkWaterfall ParkWascana ParkClouds🤷The End
Today is World Food Day. This year the focus is not only on sufficient food for all but also on looking at the quality of the food we all consume.
My husband and I strive for a healthy diet – we do a fair amount of home cooking and focus on using healthy ingredients. We grow our own vegetables and herbs in the summer. We generally use lean meat. We avoid overly processed entres like tv dinners and the such.
We do fairly well until we look at the other side of our Canadian diet. The side that obviously needs work.
Today might be a good day to work on that side of our diet. At least we shouldn’t have trouble finding room for improvement. 🙄
Today (October 15th, 2019) is the day to honor rural women. In Saskatchewan, virtually every woman is a few blocks away from being a rural woman. I live in Regina, the capital city of Saskatchewan, and I can pretty much see rural Saskatchewan from my back yard. But, I digress.
Today is about real rural women. In Canada, that includes women like my sister, Lorraine.
Since we grew up and moved from our small town home, Lorraine has built her life in the country. At four- foot- ten and never having seen the right side of a hundred pounds, Lorraine can and does work head and shoulder above most men. This summer, three months after adopting one of her son’s kidneys and still struggling with the side effects from the drugs she takes to ensure her body does not reject it, she was still going harder and stronger than I ever have.
Lorraine is a smart, strong, fearless woman. She can build a fence, kill a chicken, pull a calf, drive anything with a motor, fix anything with a motor, find the answer to any dilemma on Google, file government forms, plant a garden or a field – all the while juggling a home, family and helping out a neighbour. Plus, she can and does make it look easy. She and her husband love the rural, independent life they live and they are both more than willing to pay the price to live it.
Such is the case with many Canadian farmers. It is beyond sad that family farms in Canada are virtually a thing of the past and that small rural towns are vanishing with them.
In many third world countries, small family farms are still the norm. In Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, eighty percent of food is supplied by small holder agriculture. Much of the work to produce this food is done by women living in poverty, without access to equipment, training, education, infrastructure or even basic healthcare to support them. These women are working to provide for their families, while caring for their families. They are struggling with the increasing effects of climate change while dealing with the ongoing issues of gender inequality.
Rural women around the globe are a special breed of women. I, for one, am glad to see them getting this day of recognition. I support the women in third world countries, struggling to raise crops and livestock. I admire the women in all countries, who work and live in the agricultural industry. I know it isn’t easy even when you make it look that way. Today, I gladly take time to acknowledge all of you🌱
Seclusion 101 with AnneMarie 