This year is winding down. For all of the challenges of 2020, people are excited for all of the possibilities of 2021. I guess that is human nature!
In 2020, I made peace my priority. In a difficult year, this priority served me amazingly well. It brought me into retirement. It allowed me time for walking miles and miles around our neighbourhood with our little dog, Kat. It brought me hours of relaxing in our yard this summer. It led me to a new and inspirational journey within, through meditation. It provided me with countless hours spent with my husband – a luxury after years of Monday thru Friday/ eight to four-thirty while Dan worked twenty-four/seven shifts. In half an hour, it will see us relaxing in the comfort of our own livingroom while we watch son Dan and his soon to be wife Amanda marry in their own home – hours away from us. Once again, in this year of pandemic, we are grateful for technology!
My path to peace in 2020 💞
All the best as you ring out the old and wishing you a beautiful 2021! 🥂
In North America, the general consensus is that being younger is synonymous with being better. We are conditioned to believe that the young have the advantage of being smarter, stronger, more attractive, and all around more capable and valuable than those who are elderly.
I bought into this theory when I was younger. I felt that I was smarter and sharper than my elders. In some ways, I was. I was quick to learn academically. I could read by the time I was three, absorbing the ability by listening to my older siblings doing their homework at the kitchen table. I memorized letters and numbers, poetry and prayers. I stayed at the top of my class, or close to it, throughout my school years. Once I became a mother, I quickly learned that I could multi-task, which I felt was a good sign of higher intellect and a great survival skill. Throughout my working years, I was capable of easily learning whatever was required to do my job competently. I did learn a lot of my knowledge from my elders, but I felt that my younger, quicker mind helped me to utilize that knowledge more efficiently.
Physically, I used to be stronger than I am now. I had the dexterity to perform tasks that I now struggle with (since when did it become such a struggle to do up the zippers on my winter boots?). I possessed the physical strength to shop for groceries, while carrying an infant, dragging a toddler and herding a pre-schooler. I had my own chainsaw and the ability to operate it. (We had a wood stove up north – the ability petered out when we moved back south. I once almost took out our neighbour with an electric knife. Live and learn – one should not cut a frozen ice cream cake with an electric knife. 😔). Even a year ago, my job included physical aspects such as hauling around heavy cartons of files, moving around product for inventory, and helping to load and unload trucks on the loading dock. Tasks that I would definitely struggle with now.
There is something to be said for youthful physical attraction. My babies were adorable and are still an attractive lot. My grandchildren are gorgeous. I was no slouch in my younger days. I had great legs. Total strangers would comment on my legs – in bizarre situations – it was kind of wierd. The thing is, younger people can tend to be dramatic, demanding, noisy, messy and embody any number of traits that are less than attractive. If it wasn’t for the bright smiles, thick hair and nice legs, a lot of them would be lonely.
As far as being overall capable and valuable – I think as a society, we are misguided. I have not been ‘elderly’ for very long. I am sixty-five and have been retired for a few months. These months, I have been slower and less productive than I have ever been. My priorities have changed – so much for the better and (not to brag.. but) I find that I am becoming wiser than ever. I understand things that I have learned and ‘known’ over the course of my lifetime. Even the things that I understood – I understand on a deeper level.
Since growing older, or possibly growing up, I have realized that…
1) Peace of mind is the most important thing in life. There is absolutely nothing that is worth sacrificing one’s peace of mind for. It is when things are at their worst, that we need our peace of mind the most. We are at our best to deal with life (especially the rocky periods) when we have peace of mind… 2) Infinity can only be found within. We can stare at the skies, we can gaze at the mountains and the oceans and the forests, we can look out over acres of prairie grasses and wildflowers, but we cannot comprehend the vast infiniteness of the universe and beyond until we look within ourselves and experience our subconscious minds and souls. 3) Aging is a gift. As we go through life – we live, we learn, we experience joy and grief, pain and pleasure. As seniors, we continue our physical lives, but we have such a precious opportunity to dig deeper. One of my blogging friends, likes to remind us of Wayne Dyer’s famous quote “You are an infinite spiritual being having a temporary human experience.” I always knew I was body, mind and soul. I think I always knew that of the three, the soul was the foundation of my existence. I was just too busy dealing physically and mentally, to live from my spiritual place. Now I am there and I would never go back, I could never go back, to that place where I stumbled and struggled to live my life as an intelligent physical being.
Today marks the 27th anniversary of my Father’s passing. This week is always intense for me. My Father was a good man and he lived a good life – but his passing was the result of five years of pain and grief, as sinus cancer ravaged his body and our lives. His passing was a devastating and heart wrenching relief and blessing – set against a full blown stage of Christmas flowers and decorations, Christmas carols, and of course a raging, frigid blizzard. It was, and still is memorable.
This year, this week is particularly intense. This year, many have lost loved ones due to the Covid 19 pandemic that continues to rage. Many of those lost have been elderly parents, grandparents and loved ones. Everytime I hear another horror story of a nursing home that has been overwhelmed with cases of this brutal virus, I think of my parents and I feel for the residents and their families. I know what it means to be with loved ones when their time has come. I know that it is irrelevant how long a person has lived, or how much they have done or been through in their lives. I know how important it is for the elderly and their families to experience compassionate, loving final hours and days. When it is all that is left, it is everything.
I could go off the rails here and rage about those who protest wearing masks, or spread bullshit about the virus conspiracy, or complain about missing sports or holidays, or whine about whatever else is disrupting their pathetic self-centred lives. I could, but this blog is a tribute to my Father, so this is not the time or place.
I will just take this opportunity to express gratitude for all who have stepped up this year to do their a part – the medical personnel, the caregivers, the support workers, the truck drivers, the store clerks, the teachers, the suppliers of all essential services and products, the politicians who have worked together in good faith with the medical community, the teenagers who have supported their families and their communities, those who have followed health guidelines and done everything possible to protect themselves, their families and their communities. To everyone who has done their part, thank you. 💖
I would also take this opportunity to share my thoughts and prayers and condolences for anyone, anywhere, who has lost loved ones, or who has been separated from their loved ones throughout this pandemic. My heart goes out to you. 💖
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to share my thoughts and prayers and condolences for those who have been personally affected by the Covid 19 outbreak at Parkside Extendicare in Regina. In one, two hundred resident, senior’s care home – within three and a half weeks – there have been one hundred and sixty residents who have tested positive, many who have become severely ill – twenty residents who have passed away – plus eighty six care workers who have tested positive. There have been many from the community that have gone in to assist – paramedics from the Regina Fire Department, doctors and nurses and support workers from SHA, all risking their own health and well-being. The statistics are staggering. The reality for all affected – residents and their families and their caregivers have been beyond devastating. I am so sorry for all you have been going through – all you continue to go through. 💖
Dedicated to my Father – Rest in Peace, Dad. You will always be a part of me & a part of my life💖
Everyone has those times when their light is shining a bit dim. This is one of those weeks for me so I thought it would be a great time to try to share a few of my favourite tunes. I hope they brighten everyone’s day! 🤗
I use this one before ‘meditating to send healing’. Feel the love 💞
How can this not make you happy? A true classic.
Good for a smile or a tear – always brings back memories of my little boys.My little boys (with their baby sister) 1981
Shout out to Dwight from fadedjeansliving.com one can never have too much light! 🌞 (Stop by and check out his blog, people. 👍)
It takes a bit of effort to get there and stay there, but living peacefully is nice. In my mind, it is the easiest, happiest, most fulfilling, and most productive way to live. All good things come through peace. 🙂
So… Why are so many people in the world today hellbent on being miserable, confrontational, and angry? This isn’t just a one situation thing, it appears to be the norm in so many situations.
1. Politics – Someone devotes years and fortunes to becoming a political ‘leader’. They make it to the top, are given the reigns of power to do good for a city, province, or country. What do they do? They waste their time and power fighting the ‘next’ election and attacking other political leaders. They are angry, miserable and unproductive and they encourage their supporters to be angry, miserable, and unproductive. Why? Is that what they were elected to office for? Should it get them re-elected? 🤷
2. Corporations and their employees – Most people spend countless hours of their lives working. A lot of these people spend way too much time battling with co-workers. Even the professional associations (unions, small business associations, large business groups) spend more time creating and encouraging problems between company departments and the people in them, than they do working to resolve problems. Why? Corporations cannot possibly thrive if no one is willing to work together, and yet it is a problem in virtually every corporation. 🤷
3. Families – There was a time when families stuck together. Most families – most of the time. Now days it takes nothing to shatter and destroy a family. Even families that are relatively unbroken can be made miserable by those members who are incapable of being reasonable and pleasant. There are so many people who go through life so busy looking for a battle that they cannot even get along with those who they should be closest to. Why? Your family should be your support system. You should be supportive of those in your family. 🤷
4. Society in General – In this day and age, why are there so many people who cannot seem to co-exist peacefully with others? There is a new protest every day. There are new radical groups every day, pushing for their rights and only their rights. There are groups formed for the sole purpose of being miserable. We had one guy here who started a Facebook page dedicated to posting photos of poor parking, to shame the ‘offending parkers’. He wanted people to get up every day and deliberately look for something that would annoy them. 🤦. Another group, I encounter frequently on social media lately, are those who demand the right to be offensive and they attack anyone who is offended by them. 😂. Why? Why do so many people want to be so miserable, for the sake of being miserable?
I cannot imagine why so many people invest so much time and effort into being angry, indignant, bitter and the like. I cannot imagine what they get out of it. I cannot imagine what they think the payoff is for them – happiness, love, prosperity, health? Peace? 🙄
With physical exercise becoming difficult to impossible since the snow and ice have moved into Saskatchewan, I have been spending more time working on my meditation. Mother always said “every cloud has a silver lining”. Meditation has become mine. 🌨️
I have tried meditation over the years. I even tried ‘walking meditation’ this past summer. My attempts were somewhat successful but, since I distract easily, the results have always been less than mind boggling.
Lately, I have been exploring different forms of meditation on You Tube. Most of them have peace and spiritual healing at heart, but I am amazed at the different methods I have come across.
I have come across Himalayan singing bowls, Native chanting and drums, and African voodoo beat (which is neither African nor voodoo). I find all of them deeply relaxing. I also find the pulse of these meditations very therapeutic for my heart and lungs – and even for soothing muscle cramps! 😳
I have found a number of guided meditations that I love. Most of them are infinitely relaxing and I find they do wonders at expanding my conciousness. These guided meditations have brought much healing, love, joy, and peace to my mind, heart, and soul.
This morning, I found a new line of guided meditations. I searched out meditations for long distance healing. I found one by Nicky Sutton called ‘Send Healing Energy Guided Meditation’. It is amazing – I think it is my new favourite. 💖 (If you get a sudden warm and fuzzy feeling, you are welcome – MerryChristmas 🎁)
I find that meditating with You Tube works better for me with ear phones. I am more focussed so the meditations are more effective. Dan ordered me a pair of Bluetooth ear buds for Christmas. They will be another step up in my meditating practice. I can’t wait to get them! 😊
Wishing all a peaceful day. If you need help creating yours – try You Tube meditation videos. A great investment in your health and well-being. 💞
I got up this morning to the realization that we were virtually out of milk. Since I need some to make mashed potatoes for tonight’s shepherds pie, this was obviously a problem. Since Dan is working today, this was obviously my problem. I dislike shopping with a passion, but being the trooper that I am, I decided to take a drive over to our local Walmart.
I made it through the store. I got almost everything on my list, a couple of things that were not on my list, and a couple of skeins of wool and a new crochet hook 🙂. I dodged the customers who were doddering up and down the aisle moving against the directional arrows (rebels 🙄). I waited patiently for the clerks to move their stocking carts out of the way so I could get past them. I skipped aisles I wanted to go down, just to avoid the families who were there with six kids and Great Aunt Mildred (what happened to one shopper per household? 🤔). I even smiled and said “no problem” to the woman who accidentally ran into my cart. All in all, I did fine. I managed to leave the store in a relatively decent frame of mind.
Then I got to the parking lot, found the Jeep, unloaded my cart, and went to leave it in the nearest cart park. That was the final straw. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE???
There were maybe nine carts in the. cart park. Every one of them was parked pointing in a different direction. An area that should have easily held thirty carts was jamb packed with maybe nine carts. It is +2 celcius today. For December in Saskatchewan, that is balmy. The Walmart parking lot was virtually clear of snow and ice. This cart thing was a situation created totally by shoppers who have just zero respect or regard for other customers or the store clerks who gather the carts and return them to the store. Seriously, I am a frail old lady (ok maybe frail is being a bit dramatic 🤧) but I am oldish and it took me all of a couple of minutes to pull out all of the carts and re-park them in an orderly fashion. It is not rocket science.
The thing is, the people who do that kind of stuff are the ones who stomp and pout through life, whining about how hard it is. Life might not be so hard for any of us if those asshats were not such asshats. But no, they don’t think of that! 🤯
That is my rant for the day. Have a good one. If you have to go shopping, make sure you mask up. If nothing else, there is a certain satisfaction to being able to surreptitiously stick your tongue out at the asshats you may encounter. 😉
I was in the mood for doing some cooking this week. I started on Thursday by doing up a batch of Carmel Corn. (My late Mother’s recipe).
Yesterday morning I cooked a couple of pounds of bacon to have on hand for when we have salad. (It keeps the lettuce from sticking together 🙄)
Then yesterday I baked chocolate chip cookies with my sister, Lorraine. Since we are a few hundred miles apart, we couldn’t judge them on a taste test – but it doesn’t look like either of us burnt them, so we will call it a win-win 👍. Chances are the hundreds of miles between us saved our cookies. We baked a ton of buns together one time, burnt the lot, and tried to stash them in a garbage bag before our husbands came in for lunch. On the off chance that they did not notice that the house reeked of burnt buns, the bag fell over when they walked in the door and about two hundred blackened buns rolled out – one by one by one. Saddest friggin parade I have ever seen. 🤣🤣🤣
I don’t use Keg Spice in my cookies 🤔
The only thing I am making today are croutons for our Caesar Salad tonight. Is there any reason why croutons have become scarce as hen’s teeth and rediculously expensive lately? Have the TP hoarders turned their attention to croutons? It seems odd. 🧐
Hope everyone is having a great December weekend💞 ❄️
Ps for Neese – my recipe collection leaves is less than elegant but here you go!
On Wednesday evening, Evraz issued 500 layoff notices in the tubular division of their Regina pipe mill. That included every unionized worker from seniority number 500 down to 0. I think my husband Dan is around #92.
This news did not come as a shock. Evraz warned of an impending work shortage some time ago. Financially, we will manage but any extended time off will mess with Dan’s pension, so that isn’t great. But, it isn’t all bad for us, either. If Dan’s layoff is actually December 17th, we can spend the holidays together. 🌲⛄☃️🥳. We can hibernate in January. 🐻🐿️ And, I am pretty sure I can find some things on the honey-do list for Dan to work on. (That gym in the garage is not going to build itself – it hasn’t so far… 🙄)
Sadly, this news is devastating for many of Dan’s co-workers. That it has come to this, days before Christmas, makes it worse. I feel so sorry for the younger people out there – the ones with mortgages, loan payments and families to support. It doesn’t help that many of them have been off lately due to a Covid outbreak in that plant. I certainly hope for everyone’s sake that this lay-off is short term. There is not a lot of comparable employment around here – especially now.
The Evraz layoff made our news yesterday. Our politicians are running true to form. Ryan Meilli (our leader of the opposition) is taking the governing Saskatchewan Party to task for their failure to use Evraz pipe for local crown projects. Mopey Moe, our Premier, is blaming Prime Minister Trudeau for the Saskatchewan economy. And, Prime Minister Trudeau has promised to support Evraz and their employees through this difficult time. 🤔
I have been retired for an entire eight months now, so it is time for another update of how things are going!
Finances – contrary to virtually every column I have ever read on retirement, we did not become destitute the day I retired. Granted, my husband is still working, but I am fairly confident that even when he does retire, we will not end up under a bridge. Maybe these dire warnings in finance columns are not meant for Canadians. We have Old Age Pension and Canada Pension, plus Dan will have a work pension. We have public Medicare and reduced costs for prescriptions, insurance and the like. Plus – working costs a lot of money that us retirees do not shell out. (Like restaurant meals, or take out meals or quick cooking meals, clothing, vehicle expense, aspirin and the like). 😊
Appearance – Inevitably, looks change as we get older. Some fortunate people actually get more attractive and distinguished looking as they age. Some of us get wrinkles, move all of our weight to our waistlines, and look like dandelions that have gone to seed on our bad hair days. I choose to avoid mirrors, wear stretch pants, and feel beautiful, anyway. ☺️
Health – Health can be challenging as we age. Apparently when you hit 65, your warranty runs out and parts start to go. That does not mean you have to believe every advertisement or meme out there. I still have my hearing and my sight is as good (or as bad) as it has ever been. I have only fallen down once and found I couldn’t get up. (That incident involved a bottle of tequila and a hot tub, so whatever🙄). I haven’t started to pee a little when I laugh (phew – that is a relief – cause I laugh quite often since I retired). My joints seem to be holding out – except I pulled something in my left knee the other day and that hurts like hell. Other than my sinuses, lungs, heart, and this knee thing, I think I am doing relatively well. 👍
All in all, retirement is still working for me. I am happier and more content than I have ever been. I love being able to live my life around Dan’s schedule and spend time with him. I love having time to rest and relax – it feels so decadent. 🤗 I love having time to remember the good times that I had in my life. This morning I was going through some Christmas pictures from when my kids were tots. They were so cute and sweet and precious. I miss my little ones, but I am happy that they are all grown up and have their own little ones now. It is funny, we enjoy the time when our kids are small, but we are so busy taking care of them that we do not fully appreciate that time until we have time to cherish our memories of it. Thank goodness for retirement!
Seclusion 101 with AnneMarie 