Christmas

I didn't think it would bother me this much. Our eldest son has decided not to come home for Christmas. That makes it 7-8 months since we've seen him.  He and I talk every week, sometimes several times. But it is not the same as having him home. He likes to point out that the last few years he was home but worked through the holidays, so it was almost like not being here. I reminded him that we would still cross paths, often late at night, so I could actually see him.

Now I understand why my mother tells me she just wants to be in my space for awhile. We 've got a country between us not just 1/2 a province ;-) 

These stages of motherhood can be a real drag.

Lest I Forget

You would have thought from that last post that only my mother's family enlisted. That is not true. It just happens that my mother's family talks more about it's past. My father's family is less open and has a greater spread in age. 

It's weird to think that in World War 1 my grandfather would have been considered too old to enlist even though he was in his 30's. At the time life expectancy would have been about 60. By the time WW2 came my father's oldest brother was eligible and enlisted right away. He however never left Canada, spending the war working at a supply depot in the maritimes. This was a vital and necessary job yet unless you were a 'fighting man' there seemed to be less honour in it. My uncle never spoke of his enlisted time but I often wonder how these people who sent supplies, mail and people, often to their doom, felt. They were also the ones who handled the mail to loved ones and the death notices.

My father's next older brother managed to enlist at the age of 16 by being extremely tall and lying about his age. He was trained and waiting in Halifax, within a week of sailing to Britain, when the war ended. Again, because he never fought on he field of battle he didn't consider himself a veteran. 

The fact that they were willing to enlist, to fight and possibly die in a faraway country for their country and ideals makes them worthy of respect and admiration. I wish they were around for me to thank.

My father was not even 10 when the war started. His father passed when he was little. He never fought but he did what many families did, he along with my grandmother, supported the war effort on the home front. One of the things he did as an adult, and continues doing to this day, is support the local Legion. Yes, that does mean going down and having a few with the boys, but it also means volunteering to help with fundraising, spending money at fundraisers, helping vets get to appointments or simple to get groceries. Even in his seventies, he remembers what it was like at home during and after the war. The damage that was inflicted and the support that was needed and continues to be needed. 

Care, Attention and Support. They will always be needed by those who serve and by the families that let them.

Remembrance Day

For today I shed a tear,

for those who've left us standing here,

To thank them for the sacrifice

Of dying to protect our life

Not perfect but heart felt. Remembrance Day may have started as a way of commemorating the "Great War" but it had already evolved into a way of remembering all veterans of armed conflicts, long before the "official" move. 

My children used to ask why I watch the ceremony in Ottawa rather than attend the local one. Each year they have watched me dissolve into tears as the ceremony goes on and they now just sit and watch with me. Once I watched the ceremony because it let me "remember" at the same time as my parents and I could call and we could talk. 

My mother's uncles enlisted in the RAF at the beginning of WW2, before Canada had entered the war. They flew as part of a bomber crew, although having 2 brothers on the same crew was unusual. I remember interviewing one of them when I was about 8 or 9 for a class project about their participation in the war. Looking back on it now I realize how difficult it must have been for him to talk to me, and the other cousins that were there. We had to stop as he became very emotional, saying " we don't talk about it, we don't talk about it..." I don't remember what question I asked but his response will stay with me forever. A sign of his times - ignore the mental pain inflicted, if you have no physical injury you're fine.

My mother's youngest brother enlisted  in the Air Force out of high school. He was stationed in many places throughout Europe and Canada, even serving in Cypress. He was even given the honour of standing guard at the War Memorial during a Remembrance Day ceremony. While his Air Force career did not include periods of large conflict, his UN career included the first peace keeping missions to The Middle East. We as a family were happy he was on the home side of the supply chain. However he knew many in harm's way, including a few who lost their lives. He participates in his local ceremony to show support for those that serve now and in the past. Our family goes to show their support for him, to remember family members and friends who have served and to show support for those that have served and currently serve. 

A number of my friends enlisted after high school. I considered it myself. At the time women were not in combat and had limited options of what they could do. That didn't appeal to me. Some of them are still in the military, others have left to go onto other things. None were killed but all have some tale to tell. Now I have friends with children who have enlisted and they are in active conflict zones. Remembrance Day now includes my thoughts for these people, their strength, their hurts and their safety.

That is what Remembrance Day should be, remembering the past, thinking of the present and pondering the future. We need to be thinking of the people who lost lives, were injured in body and spirit, who stood up anyway to defend ideals that matter more now then ever. Peace, freedom, family, country are important. The world and the people in it need us all to be willing to stand up as a whole and say No More.

Lest we forget.

Meandering Thoughts

After 12 years of evenings and weekends, I have started a new job that starts early in the morning 5 days a week. If it weren't for the fact that I have been working 8, 9, 10 hour days over the last few weeks I don't know if the change would have been this easy. Working all those hours messed up my body clock so bad that the shift to longer day shifts is going to be easy ( I think). 

The first week of the new job has gone well. Of course having 3 days of it focused on a book fair that set a new sales record for us could account for that. This next week has Remebrance Day in it and 2 days of Health and Safety training. I'm hoping that the week after that will be an example of a "typical" week for this job. I'd really like to have one of those.

Terrible weather is on its way here and I should get prepared. Or I could finish the laundry and read a book. Yeah, that's what I'll do. ;-)

What the Future Holds

Change is good, necessary and natural. It can also be scary & stressful. It is also an opportunity you can take advantage of.

My boss has recently retired and I have taken on the interim director position for the next 6 months. This buys the library board sometime to see if the new library will be done and gives me a chance to see if this is something I'd like to do for the long haul.

This first week has been stressful, exciting and full of learning. Things are off to a good start.

What will the future bring?

Change happens. It can happen gradually or suddenly. Sometimes it affects things you thought would be forever. 

A friend will be moving out of province after 30 years in this community. Her job was eliminated and there isn't anything comparable available in town. ( one of the down sides of a small town) She arrange my first date with the man I eventually married. She babysat my kids and spent many Halloweens at my house handing out candy so we could take the boys out. We may have drifted apart over the years but we'd recently starting to meet regularly for coffee or breakfast. So many of our friends have moved away over the years it's been great to sit down with someone who has known you for a long time. It's going to be hard when she leaves. 

Change has also hit work. My boss has decided to retire. I'm excited for her. She be able to spend more time with her grand kids and doing other things she hasn't had time for. It also means she will not be around for the eventual move into the new library and cultural centre. So much has gone wrong with the project that I'm sure she's  happy to have it off her plate. Of course her departure means changes for the rest of us. The board meets this week to decide what they want to do.

Changes

Musings

It's quiet.

Just the sounds of my shoes on the dirt road,

The jingle of the dog's tags,

And traffic, out of sight.

No birds

No squirrels 

No trains!

The dog walks behind me, watching, nervous.

The berries are ripe.

Bear?

Pictures of flowers, rocks and trees.

We head back,

The dog takes lead

And there is a bird.

A single bird

Not singing 

But chirping, low, slow

He surveys the area

Follows us down the road

Defending his kingdom?

At the end he stops,

On the top of a tree,

as we head down the path toward home.

And it comes to an end

As has become obvious my intention to blog each day in June was not a resounding success. I have however managed to blog more this month than the entire of last year. Of course none of these blog posts were stunningly fantastic. The process did remind me that I do not use writing as a way to record, review or evaluate. I regularly mull over things but I never write them down.

It's interesting to see how education, even society, has changed. Once the focus was on reading, writing and arithmetic. Now the focus is educating kids to become creators. There used to be a path the majority followed. Now we understand that we ( society & individuals) need people to follow a variety of paths. It's that variety that makes life vibrant and nurturing. Success is measured in a variety of ways now that go beyond a single target of monetary wealth, ideal family and social standing. 

Yes we are all on a path, but that path can change at any moment. Success has become a continuously moving target. What society sees as success today may be different tomorrow.

So move along your path in life, but don't be afraid to cut a new trail when you need to. Remember to document it so others can learn from your journey.

What day is it?

I managed to remember to blog every day last week yet have managed to forget this week. Things have actually been slowing down a little so why forget? 

I have a feeling that it's not so much being busy but "when" I'm most busy. Later in the day balances out fine. Early in the day and it effects everything for the rest of the day. And that was the difference between this week and last. I had extra things going on in the mornings this week which made it hard, impossible even, to get caught up. This affected my sleep which effected my energy level the next day. And 'round and 'round it goes. 

Something tells me I'd better get used to it. 

Ahhhhh

I am not sure why any time you need to make a change or fix something it changes the date of a post. I don't want the date to change I want to fix mistakes. Why is that so hard?

Playing with apps

Many thoughts

I woke this morning feeling rested physically but my mind was very active. Random bits from various conversations, moments and internal thoughts were swirling. I'm not sure what will come from all of these thoughts, if anything. It might be a sign that I need some quiet time to just 'be'.

Tonight might work for that.

Oops, Not Again?

Apparently I was so tired last night I forgot to post. Tonight I've spent the last hour reading my twitter stream while I gradually took up the "I'm soo tired I can't sit up straight" position. Most people would have thought I had fallen asleep at the table. I haven't. Instead I laid down so I wouldn't hurt myself if I did fall asleep.  Apparently I'm not tired enough to not notice that I'm rambling. Which is a good thing I think.  

Good night

Quiet

Quiet comes in different flavours. The quiet of an empty house. The quiet as you watch your show and no one bothers you. The quiet as you read a book, tuning out the distractions. The mental quiet of the morning before the day gets started. The quiet in the yard after the magpies have gone to sleep. 

Quiet balances our lives.

TV

Gotta love the modern age. Cable, satellite, web, streaming, you name it, you can see it. Guess I should go watch Sherlock with my hubby. 

Father's Day

In an odd twist this year my in laws have ended up cooking a family meal for both Mother's Day and Father's Day. Today it was ham, scallop potatoes and veggies. Family meals, even when limited to "immediate" family can include 10 people. Add in the cousins & "might as well be family" friends and we could be looking at 30. Today we limited it to immediate family & cousins. A good time was had be all including the dogs who kept trying to slip ham off the tables. 

I've been very thankful to have a terrific dad as well as a terrific father-in-law. Hubby is also a terrific dad. I am blessed to have them in my life.

Woohoo

The week is finally done! 

10 class visits to the library which all included a tour (small space, quick tour), basic library info, summer reading club talk, question & answer and if we had time a stories or two. The class visits have already paid off with a number of kids dragging their parents into the library to sign up for the summer reading club.

Preparation and execution for the annual used book sale. This was facilitated by an amazing set of volunteers. Thank heavens for Molu who's went above and beyond helping us get ready. We didn't sell lots but we did made a few hundred dollars. 

A very productive week overall.

 

Chilling

After a busy productive day it's nice to relax. Pjs, browsing the internet, listening to hubby watch his shows and chilling. Some days end really well.

SRC & Class Visits

Great day today. I had 5 class visits to the library. It was heart warming how many kids couldn't wait to sign up for the summer reading club. I'm glad so many of the teachers see the benefit in bringing their classes to the library. As usual the English Grade 6 class will not visit, yet the French Grade six class will. Hmmm. For the first time none of the Grade Five classes will visit. Not sure what is going on there. With school coming to a close soon it was great to connect with the kids before summer, giving us a chance to remind them about us. 

I'm anticipating that we'll get a large number registering for the SRC but only have a small group attending the weekly program. Hopefully we'll have better numbers than last year when we moved to Saturdays. This year we'll return to Tuesdays with Summer Fun coming in the morning and the library program running in the afternoon. 

Now if I could only find the time to get the details worked out. Maybe after the book sale this Saturday. 

(Always something)

Messy day

Some days are just not meant to be recorded. At least the details of the day aren't. I can say that I have a terrific husband who reacted with calm, cool, collectedness. Which in turn helped me recover my cool. Sometimes that's what you need, someone who will wade in and just do what needs to be done to get things back under control. 

To my husband I'd like to say thank you for getting me through this day. 

Love you.

I'm missing a few days

How the heck did it get to be Monday? I could have sworn I blogged on Saturday & only missed Sunday. 

We went to see Maleficent on Saturday and I was sure I blogged before I went to bed. (The movie was terrific by the way. We both highly recommend it.) What the heck happened (hands on hips, scowls at everyone)? 

Sunday was fun, funny, and exhausting. I did a girls day with my niece and 2 of her cousins. We did crafts, painted our nails, played and went to the park. Then came back and did more crafts. I'm sure the parents were thrilled with the pile of stuff each girl took home. 

I'm falling asleep as I write this. Guess I'd better go to bed. 

Good night. 

Long day

Long day, late night

Attended an annual workshop that I really enjoy because I am able to spend time with other children's programmers. 

Visited a cousin/friend in the hospital for a much shorter time than I would have liked. But we had to get home and she was looking tired/emotional. She's in for the long haul so we need to plan for that. 

Tomorrow, back to work and the extra stuff that helps our friend and our extended family. 

And this is how you find out

That adding a tag changes the publish date on a blog post. Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh

Now to get some sleep before a VERY early day. 

What will I learn tomorrow?

Two days later...

One thousand and one excuses for not blogging yesterday: I was tired and went to bed early, forgetting to blog before bed as I intended. Okay that was one excuse & the truth at that. 

Why I was tired is harder to pin down. There seem to be a number of contributing factors from a poor rest the night before, to the ongoing worry of a friend in the hospital. One or two I could shrug off. Right now there are too many to ignore. It's not just physical tiredness either. It's mental and emotional tiredness as well.  Sometimes I want to curl up in a cave and sleep for a hundred years. Such is life. We learn we can't avoid things, we just have to deal with them. And sometimes it leaves you feeling tired. 

Since I was late

I thought I'd write 2 blog posts. 

I went back to see what I had been writing about in February and realized I could continue from there. 

So January we had the fire in the Zamboni room, got through 3 weeks of restoration work, heating unit for the temporary area died and we suffered through the 3 coldest weeks of the winter with no heat. In April the heat comes back on. Only it turns out the unit had never been fixed and as a result my boss gets carbon monoxide poisoning. It took 2 days to convince someone there was wrong. I was the only one who didn't get exposed but that is only because my boss had to close the library due to the high levels. 

So we're back to no heat which isn't terrible because it is finally spring and not freezing anymore. At this point there has been a decision to replace the units instead of fix them & the job is out for tender. We're pessimistically thinking it should be fixed about the time we move into the renovated building. Which we tentatively think will happen in September. Maybe.  

Okay I'll admit to becoming jaded about the whole project. One day I will have windows again. Some day, in the future. 

June is Blogging Month

I had intention of starting yesterday but of course...  Getting back into blogging after several months away from it is a challenge. I've come to the conclusion you need to have a schedule or routine to be successful at writing, whether writing a blog or a book. You also need courage to write and keep writing. Let's see if I can dig some up.

Just Keep Moving

So we're still in our temporary location, 18 months or so. The library has been delayed for a variety of reasons, none of which are under our control. We get a lot of visitors and members asking us when the library will be done and we can only give them what we know. Of course we also hear things off the record that remind us not to hold our breath.
On the last Sunday in January there was a fire in the zamboni room in the arena. This is just outside our temporary space under the bleachers. The fire was quickly detected and put out, but not before some severe damage was done. While the library area was lucky not to have any noticeable damage we are still affected by the restoration work in the arena.
We have had our ducts cleaned, the chairs cleaned and every shelf wiped down. (The non fiction section will eventually get put back in order.) Now they're replacing all the ceiling tiles. Of course they took them all down BEFORE they put up plastic to protect the books and recently cleaned furniture from possibly contaminated particulate matter. I know I shouldn't bitch, but that seemed like a backwards move to me.
To make matters worse the furnace for our area broke down and the required part will be 2 to 3 weeks getting here. We're supplementing with space heaters, although that can get tricky as certain ones pull too much power and end up throwing a breaker.
I have no idea how my boss is remaining so calm about this. I was luck and missed the nauseating, headache producing fumes from right after the fire. I've missed the coldest days in the library. All of this was happening during an extremely cold period (-30C anyone?) I've even missed the demolition of the ceiling. She hasn't. A lesser person would have closed the library and waited it out. Unfortunately we've lost business being in our out-of-the-way temporary location. Being closed for anything less than a complete gut job has been out of the question. So we continue on.

On the funny side I was reminiscing with a colleague about the "old days" in the library (currently being renovated and expanded) when it would regularly be below 12C during the winter. How soft we've become lol.

Time

The last few months have been... hard.

It has only been 2 months since we put T down. It seems much longer somehow. I'm not as 'haunted' by her absence as I was by Misty's, but that might be because we knew we were on borrowed time and so were more prepared.

It has been the remaining cat and dog that have missed her more. T had always been their 'momma kitty' having raised them both. She had been the arbiter and peace maker. We are still settling in to the new normal and some days are harder than others.

In November both my sis-in-law and aunt were in hospital for life threatening issues. Things stabilized for both of them to go home but there was a lot of "let's just get through Christmas" going on. And we did get through Christmas.

Sis-in-law was finally able to have her procedure which has improved things for her health. Unfortunately my aunt returned to hospital shortly after Christmas where she declined rapidly until her passing. Bro was able to bring dad out for her funeral. This was dad's last sibling which made it very important for the family that he be here.

I miss being able to talk to her. She was the third call I made each Sunday after talking with my parents, then brother and sis-in-law. It will take some time to recover. She went out on her terms, with everything arranged to her liking. I hope I have her strength when my time comes.

If you are lucky, your job and place of work are supportive and personally fulfilling. I have been very lucky to have worked with some fantastic people over the years. Janeen has been one of those rare individuals that I just clicked with. Right from the start we worked well together and I always knew she understood what I was getting at even when I wasn't sure myself. Life brings changes and she was able to grab the opportunity to be a stay at home mom. It has been a great opportunity for her and her family. I miss her even as I'm excited for her.

That of course meant we needed to hire a new person. We waited till January, thinking Christmas was not the right time to advertise effectively. We are now through the hiring process and have started training the new person. I keep catching myself being "old and cranky" lately. Am I getting less flexible as I get older? Where did my enthusiasm for my work go? Oh I haven't lost it exactly, it just seems weaker than it use to be. There is so much stuff to teach this person. Being a small library means everyone needs to be able to do most everything. She has the enthusiasm to learn it. I need to find the enthusiasm to teach it.

The last few days I've felt overwhelmingly tired. Not so much physically but mentally. Today everyone else has been at work and I have been left with the dog, cat and silence. Sure I've done the basic chores but most of the time has been devoted to reading. Reading has always been my go-to activity for pleasure and stress relief. I haven't been doing as much reading for fun as I want, or NEED to do. I feel better today for taking the time to do what I need to do.