Author: annemariedemyen

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.

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🌱

One thing I look forward to, once I am retired, is getting back to home cooking. Pots of stews and soups, trays of buns and breads, roasts and the like. I am so excited about getting back to ‘real’ cooking, that every now and again I have to go for a trial run when I have an extra day off. Today is one of those days.

The only problem is, when I was last into home cooking, I was feeding my three teenagers (and their twelve closest friends at the best of times). I dice and slice, pour and stir into a pot that should hold the perfect amount of soup. Then I add a bit of this and a bit of that and I have to move up to a bigger pot.

This happens two or three times, until I have a cupboard full of pots to wash, my husband says “I told you your pot was too small”, and we have enough soup to feed a small crowd.

I can’t imagine how this happens – every time. I’m talking one onion, a couple of shallots, two carrots, a parsnip, a stalk of celery, a bit of cabbage, one small steak and one cup of barley. Mix them together with a couple of litres of broth and poof, we have gallons of soup to deal with.

I don’t have any proof but I am pretty sure Dan is sneaking into the kitchen and slipping things into the pot when I am not looking. 🤷

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in Canada. We are celebrating tonight, as my husband is working five straight twelve hour shifts. Friday, Saturday and Sunday days (so he will be home tonight by six) and then Monday night and Tuesday night. He is a good man and I am definitely thankful for him.

I am grateful that we live in a country that is relatively safe (except for the sudden sinkhole situation this summer) and generally peaceful (except during an election which unfortunately is now the case).

I am grateful for my home and yard. I realize that although it is rather humble, it is far more than what many have.

I’m kidding. Our house isn’t quite that humble. That is Grandpa’s garden shed and the playhouse he built for the grandkids. That isn’t even our patio. Grandpa got carried away with the monster pool last year so it had to move to the patio and we had to improvise for our patio set.

I am grateful for my career that is winding down, my boss, my co-workers, clients and suppliers. It has been challenging and frustrating and a lot of fun over the years.

We all know which one is the ‘real’ boss.

I am grateful for the parents who raised me, the siblings I grew up with, the family I raised and of course the grandchildren they are raising. I am grateful for our little dog, Kat.

Most of all, this year I am grateful for the life I have been given. I am grateful for the challenges, the blessings and the beauty of my life. This year, after sixty four years, I am at peace with whatever life hands me and I truly feel I have the strength, the wisdom and the sense of humor to fully appreciate my life.

Happy Thanksgiving, from our home to yours🍗🍖🥧🍷

This month our youngest grandson is celebrating his first birthday. Being the frugal, practical Grandma that I am, I volunteered to buy him his first winter boots for this auspicious occasion. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Cason needed a birthday present, he has a home filled with toys and cute outfits and lots of other grandparents to buy him more of the fun stuff, so boots were the perfect gift for Grandma and Grandpa D to provide.

In case you haven’t bought any baby boots lately, they are not the easiest thing to come by. Size 4 baby boots are particularly hard to come by. After two dedicated shopping trips I broke down and bought him a pair in size five. (I am not that dedicated when it comes to shopping) They are the tiniest, lightest boots I have ever seen. Mom is just going to have to work those wiggly little feet into an extra pair of socks until they grow a bit. It’s not like winter will be over anytime soon. He’s got a good seven months before he will be venturing out in sneakers

It remains to be seen how practical the size five boots turn out to be, but Grandma definitely fell off the frugal end of the spectrum. I am not one to splurge on footwear. I myself have a pair of sneakers, white heels, black heels, winter boots, summer boots and a pair of sandals. Combined they cost me as much as Cason’s boots. 🙄

Practical or pricey as they may be, I can’t wait until the end of the month when we head off to celebrate Cason’s birthday. Nine grandchildren in, there is one thing I am certain of. Whether Cason is as excited as I am about the his new boots, he is for sure going to love the box they came in.

Living in Canada, I have never felt that being a girl or woman was a handicap. There seemed to be positives and negatives regardless of gender and there were extenuating circumstances regardless.

Through personal experiences over the years and with communication barriers removed by advanced technology , I have come to see my naivety on this subject. I have come to see the brutality towards girls and women around the world. I have also come to recognize the more subtle, systematic abuse of our gender. The challenges that girls face are real and they must be addressed. Many of them are unconcionable in this day and age and all of them are harmful to females and to society as a whole.

I am no expert on this subject, but I do believe that we all need to do our part to promote respect, safety and support for all girls and women around the world. For my part, I recommend all who have not already done so, to start by reading “The Moment of Lift” by Melinda Gates. She is an expert on this subject and her book is eloquent and moving.

World Day of Girls is a day worth noting. The many critical issues facing girls around the world are worth recognizing, discussing and working to remediate. The girls today are to become the women of tomorrow. We need to do our part to ensure that they will be educated, healthy and strong.

Today is World Mental Health Day. I have long felt that quality of life is as important, or more so, than length of life. As such, I feel mental health is as important as physical well-being.

I cannot imagine that there is anyone who does not, or has not, at some point suffered from some form of mental illness. I do not know why there has ever been stygma associated with mental illness or why our society has such a problem understanding the need for mental health care.

My biggest struggle with mental well being has always been anxiety issues. I realize my issues are not as traumatic as many others, such as schizophrenia or anorexia or any number of serious conditions that others deal with on a daily basis. The problem is, to compare it to physical conditions, a broken toe may not be close to battling cancer, but it is still a problem. When you suffer from an anxiety attack when you are driving to work, it is a big problem. When you have to deal with anxiety, regardless of what routine or extraordinary task you are doing, it is a real problem – it makes everything so much harder than it should be.

Over the years I have tackled my anxiety issues in a number of ways and I have come a long way. I know everyone is different and what works for one does not necessarily help another, but here are some things that have worked for me:

1) Seeing a professional counselor. I have seen three different counselors during three different life crises. The first one was a great help. One trick he taught me was to focus on something mentally challenging when my stress level was out of control. That helped a lot. The other two counselors were worth the time to see but mostly because they gave me a safe place to talk through stuff I was going through.

3) Writing daily positive affirmations. The written word is so powerful for me. I pick new affirmations to start every new year but I always include my favourite by Louise Haye. “I am at peace with my own feelings. I am safe where I am. I create my own security. I love and approve of myself. “

2) Self help books. I generally find there is some helpful bit in every self help book but my favourites have been – every book be Wayne Dyer, every book by Louise Haye, Alter Ego by Todd Herman (specifically for vanishing my inner demons – great chapter) and From Panic to Power by Lucinda Bassett (this one helped me get over my anxiety attacks behind the wheel – huge help)

4) Positive pillow talk. When I struggle, I give myself pep talks as I am falling asleep. I quit smoking years ago, using this method. I also find it helps me get to sleep quickly, so that helps me feel better in the morning.

5) Confronting my fears. My first memory has always been one of absolute terror. As a small tot, my Mother would take my sister and I for a walk which included crossing a swinging bridge that terrified me. That my older sister loved to jump and run on it to make it swing harder did not help. A couple of years ago, my husband took me ‘home’ to cross my bridge from hell. Fortunately, the bridge had been rebuilt and was much more solid than it had been and my sister was hundreds of miles away. I crossed the bridge a couple of times – absolutely fearless! I still have the memory, and the sister, but that day did wonders for my confidence going forward😉

If you or any of your loved ones struggle with mental health issues, keep working on it, keep helping others who struggle. You will never do anything more important in your life.

Happy World Mental Health Day.