Make a Memory.....steal a piece of time

Make a memory.....that is what I did this Christmas season. It was a memorable morning December 22 as I awoke to see 4 inches of snow on my car knowing that today was the day to drive to Sundre AB AND it was still snowing! It was a memorable moment to see a car in the ditch by Sicamous on its hood to remind me how slick the roads are! It was a memorable moment when I arrived in Revelstoke to hear my phone beeping alerting me to messages friends have left in concern that I was traveling in a storm and to offer up prayers for safety. When I arrived at Rogers Pass summit it was memorable as I realized I might actually make it to Sundre....and again my phone beeped to remind me I have friends at home praying for me as I travel.

When I made it to Golden I will never forget the relief that settled on my shoulders as now the highway was bare AND dry. As I pulled my car into my mom's lot all the stresses of the winter highway driving just washed away. Those were memorable moments of my trip home for Christmas.

However there are memories that you purpose to happen either by the people you surround yourself with or the environment you put yourself in.

My purposeful memories for Christmas 2007 was to be with my family. It is not often we see each other all together at one time and place. 2007 has been an exception to that though, I believe my family which consists of my mom, her husband, my brothers Dave and Derek, my sister in-law Jenny and myself have seen each other 3 times this year which I think is a record for our family.

The memories that I have of Christmas day 2007 will last a life time. My Aunt Trudy, Uncle Patrick and their son Jordan and my Uncle Gary's son Colton joined us for the day. We had 10 people filling my moms small cabin and it worked out just great. We moved some furniture to make the eating tables work and we moved the same furniture to make room to play Wii. If anyone has played Wii you know you need room to move.

I was blessed to spend Christmas with my family. It will be many years before we are all together again as my brother and his wife are moving to New Foundland end of January 2008. With modern ways of communicating through emails, web cams and the good old phone we can still keep in touch even across all those many miles of our great country Canada.

Oh here is one last memory. My brother Derek said his goal for 2008 is to find a husband and a house. I had to laugh to myself as my goals are the same as his.

May 2008 be the best year you ever had. Purpose yourself to do things you have never done before and live in the moment.

Christmas in 10 days

Wow Christmas is only 10 days away!! I feel like it was just the other day I put my golf clubs away and pulled out my fall/winter wardrobe.

On December 22 I will head out by car to Sundre AB to spend Christmas with my family. It has been 8 years since us three kids have been together and I am excited to spend the holidays with my brothers and the rest of my family. It will be a bitter sweet day as my brother and sister in-law are moving to St. John's NFLD at the end of January so this month will be the last time I get to visit with them until who knows when. NFLD is a long ways away even though it is still in Canada.

I am nervous about the conditions of the road after all I do live in Canada. It is a 7 hr drive plus the time change to Sundre and this time it is a drive I will take alone. At least the other 2 trips this year I had someone with me. Winter driving is NO fun! I just pray that the sky is clear and that is it below freezing so that it does not snow!

As a family we don't really have any traditions to speak of....secretly I have kept some in my heart for when I have my own family. Well maybe there is one small tradition at least it is for me and that was to eat mom's shortbread while we opened our presents. This year there will be no shortbread as I am on a new eating plan and trying desperately to loose weight. So I will have to start a new tradition this year while opening gifts....maybe it will be eating oranges!

I will be sure to post after Christmas as I am positive I will have tons to share!

Merry Christmas!!!

Thankful Canadian

Yesterday was Remembrance Day; a day when we take time to remember those who lost their lives for our freedom, those who fought for Canada so that we can live in a safe war free country. I watched a few TV broadcasts of the different Memorial services around Canada and as I saw the faces of the war veterans I felt a surge of thankfulness well up within me.

In some of their faces you could see a sense of pride as they know they have served their country to the best of their ability. There was pride as they shared their stories with ones far to young to know what Remembrance Day is all about. In some faces you saw tears of sorrow as they remembered the friend who didn't come home from the war. In some faces it was almost as if they were reflecting or reliving a certain day during their tour of duty; maybe it was a day they got a letter from a loved one, maybe it was a day they had a warm meal to eat or a dry place to sleep and sadly maybe it was a day when they watched a member of their platoon die in their arms as there was nothing that could be done for them. Or they watched from a distance as a foxhole was raided and no one survived. Maybe they were reflecting on the day they arrived home safe and their family held them close more excited then they thought they could be to see their solider alive. Maybe they are remembering the day they lost a limb or limbs but are incredibly thankful to be alive even though they had to adjust to living with a disability. And there were a couple of faces I saw that looked as though they were lost; as if their mind is now protecting them from a time in their life where they saw great pain and sorrow. Maybe in some way this is nature's way of letting them cope with those experinces of war.

I don't ever want to forget what those men and women did for me and my family. I personally don't know of anyone in my family who served in any war so I don't know what it is like to loose a loved one to war or to know the incredible sense of pride of having a loved one serve our country. However that does not lesson the importance of Remberance Day for me and it does not lesson my pride as a Canadian.

Thank you to families who take their young children to these services on November 11 by doing so you are teaching your children the importance of our history, the price our veterans paid for our freedom and you and your family are paying respect to our war hero's alive and dead. You are teaching your children the importance of their freedom!

We still have Canadians in wars and peace keeping duties today. I trust you support them and I trust you pray for them and their families.

Thank you to all the war veterans from the bottom of my heart!!

God Bless you!

Another Season is Over

Officially today my golf season is over! I didn't get as many games in this year as I wanted but the games I did play I was pleased with. I am just an average golfer and likely that is dictated by how much money I am unwilling to pay for this sport.

I think my clubs are 10 years old and yet still serve me well. The only new club is my driver and this year I got to know my driver pretty well.

When you are on the course you are surrounded by God's beauty. The green fairways roll out in front of you. At the end of the fairway you are taunted by the flag you are to aim for. As you walk up to the tee box you are confident you have this holes number. This hole will be the best hole of the day. So you very carefully choose where to put your tee in the tee box. You line up your club in a straight line to the flag that continues to taunt you. You square your feet to your shoulders and make sure your shoulders are square to the flag. You may even shift your weight a few times to find that comfortable perfect spot. All around you is complete silence; you slowly bring your driver back behind you and all the while keeping your eye on the ball. As you bring you driver forward with a smooth yet forceful swing you connect square on the round golf ball and you hear 'ping'; that is the sound of a great shot. You continue to keep your eye on the ball and you admire as it goes straight down the fairway. Now this is where the outcome changes for everyone. Going straight down the fairway can mean it went 20 yards and is barely off the tee box, or it means it went 100 yards and skimmed along the ground the whole way. OR it can mean your ball arched beautifully just like the pros and when the ball finally comes to a complete stop your drive is 100 yards short of the green. I like to think my tee shots are like the latter but I have my fair share of 50 yard drives that barely get off the ground.

I love to golf with friends. There is no competition between us (but I know silently in the background it lurks). Besides a little competition is a good thing.

So as I moved my golf bag from the trunk of my car to storage I am careful to count the clubs to make sure none are lost, check to see if my glove is in the bag (I lost 2 gloves last year), remove all the candy wrappers and empty water bottles. I carefully put the golf bag in storage all ready to be pulled out at the first of the season in 2008.

My last game this year was the one I enjoyed the most. I golfed with my friend Deb, just her and I, no one else. Our skill is similar to each other however I always feel I am 2 or 3 strokes behind her. Look out Deb next year I will catch up to you.

A perfect end to my thanksgiving weekend was a great golf game with a dear friend and later tonight a turkey dinner with more friends.

I am truly blessed.

Deep Thoughts

Do you ever wonder why you were born? I know that is a huge question but seriously have you given it some thought?

Some were born to discover cures for disease; some born to be doctors, nurses or dentists; some were born to fight in the wars; some were born to be in politics and lead our nation; some born to be pastors/ministers; some were born to be missionaries; some born to be blue color workers and some have been born to never work at all.

Do you ever wonder what God was thinking when he created a new life that would be missing a leg when born, or deaf when born or maybe even blind at birth. What about the child born with downs syndrome or the child who carries a cancer gene and will not live past childhood.

How do these people play a part in our world as we know it? How do these people play a part in your life as you know it?

I heard a story today that has obviously caused me some deep thinking. Let me share this story with you; I am curious of your reaction.

There was a lady and her daughter living in a poor country and the daughter was very ill and she needed surgery to survive. Other then her daughter, two chickens and an angora rabbit she had nothing. On a regular basis the rabbit was groomed for the wool to make clothes and blankets and all they had to eat was the eggs provided by these two chickens.

A doctor was visiting the town she lived in and she knew she had to get her daughter to this man. After the doctor saw her daughter he agreed to perform the surgery that she needed at no cost. To show her appreciation she invited the doctor to her house for dinner. He knew she had nothing and did not want her to go out of her way but he also knew the right thing to do was to go to her home. So the next evening he went to her home and as he looked in the pot to see what she was cooking he saw the rabbit and two chickens. This women knew the true meaning of gratitude! She gave all she had in thanksgiving. When was the last time you gave all you had in thanksgiving?

Who knew that over their life time these three people would have been brought together. And who knew that this ladies selfless act would leave such an impact on this doctors life. Is that why they were born?

I know in my life there have been people who have left there mark. And I choose to believe I have left my mark in a few peoples lives as well.

At times I wonder why I was born. I have finally learned that God has a plan for my life. I don't know fully what that plan is I can only speculate. I wonder why at my age certain things have not happened to me and then in the same breath wonder why so many things have happened to me and have filled my life.

Do you know why you were born?

Technical Difficulty

Oh this is so frustrating!!! I was writing out a new post and somehow in all my clicking it got lost. For you bloggers it says at the bottom of the create window that blogger now saves your drafts automatically, well it lies!!!

So here I go again with this blog.

Every person has a piece of modern technology of some kind. The most common ones are laptops, cell phones, Blackberries (not the fruit) and iPods. I like my 'toys' and enjoy them when they work. Very frustrated though when they don't work and I start to wonder why did I spend so much on them.

Just this past week my laptop decided to fail. It got a glich I guess you could say. For some reason Windows would not launch normally, every time it tried I got a flicker of the 'blue screen of death'. After several attempts of trying to fix the problem and never able to get to launch in safe mode or normal mode; I had to think of how to resolves this problem. I had to first decide if the data on my laptop is worth paying someone hundreds of dollars to fix or if I should just attempt to format the hard drive and hope that solves the issue.

I decided I would try and fix it myself. So now I needed to go rummaging for the recovery CD that has Windows on it and walk my way through the slow and painful process of wiping my laptop clean.

For whatever reason I had not recently backed up my data; guess I figured I didn't really need to or decided I was too busy to deal with it. Either way it came back and bit me in the a**.

After spending a total of about 5 hours my laptop is now back to as good as new. You know it is going to be a long process when Windows update has 60 updates for you computer!!!

Ya know Bill Gates as quite the thing going here. Every home or business has a computer which means they all need an operating system and unless you bought an iMac you are using some version of Windows for your operating system. I have not yet moved on to Vista as I figure it needs oh say 2-3 years to work out all the bugs so I am still using Windows XP which I was informed was a stable operating system. One would think that will all of Bill Gates millions of dollars his people could build an operating system that does not crash. But then again if nothing ever crashed how would Bill Gates make all his millions?!

My next laptop will be an iMac!!

3 balls, 2 strikes......full count

I enjoy a good ball game! Slow pitch or fast ball makes no difference to me. Another season has wrapped up today for the Servillian Technology Code Monkeys. Actually they played in two leagues this year, the spring league and the fall league. The team was placed in the intermediate for the spring and competitive for the fall. We played good ball in the fall just not good enough to make much of a mark in the league.

For me part of the excitment is seeing people give their best for the team. As I sit behind home plate it really doesn't look that far from home plate to first base and yet so many don't make it safely to first base. Their feet are moving as quick as they can, they clench their jaw and push hard to get there before the ball does and many times the ball is faster then them. You can see their disappointment and frustration. It is almost a walk of shame as they walk back, cut in front of home plate; grab the bat they used and head to the dugout. You hear cheers and words of encouragment from the team for their teammates effort. "It's ok you will do better next time", "Great hit, nice cut!"

Just as there are many faces of weather over the ball season there are also many faces for each player. At the first of the year there is hesitation, nerves and a lack of confidence. Getting to first base is a huge success and catching a fly ball outfield derserves an MVP vote. As the season moves on you begin to see confidence in the face of the players. Each one begins to set higher goals for themselves. The men are now striving to hit doubles and the ladies are making it to first base more often. You can hear them cheer each other on as the team starts to gel. Catching a fly ball in the field is the norm and double plays bring excitment from the fans and loud cheers from the team!

It is a long 8 months until the next season starts. Even though just today the season ended I am already looking forward to next year.

3 strikes! You're out! At least until the next season.

Paradigm Shift

Have you ever had one of those in your life? A paradigm shift I mean. If you have not then you have missed an amazing process that will challenge and change your way of thinking of a certain topic or area of your life.

My paradigm shift is eating. Yes I said eating. We all have certain foods in our lives that we shouldn't indulge in and yet they make us feel so good at least at the moment of consumption. For some it is coffee or chocolate or Cinnamon buns or something salty. For me I am a sweet and savory person. My aunt Trudy introduced me to popcorn and Smarties. You have the salt and butter of the popcorn in your mouth and you add one or two Smarties to that mix and the taste in your mouth with cause your taste buds to explode with excitement and ask for more!!

I am in the process right now of re-learning how to eat. Let me tell you re-learning is NOT easy!! For many years I have eaten certain foods with certain foods in certain ways and now I am being challenged to change that way of eating. A paradigm shift.

You see I have joined LA Weightloss to loose the weight I need to loose. I briefly thought about Jenny Craig until I realized I really need to learn how to eat foods you can buy in a food store and not just learn how to open a box and put it in the microwave. Really folks it is likely that box has played a part in getting me to the weight I am today. It is VERY tempting to have a freezer full of food I can eat neatly wrapped in a Jenny Craig box but the reality is what happens when I can no longer buy 'their' food. I would have spent a ton of money and learned nothing of how to change the bad habits and poor choices that got me to where I am today. The commericals with Kritsy Ally are stupid in my opinion and since this is my blog I get to voice my opinion. Sure Kristy can loose weight, she likely has a whole team of paid staff to make it happen so that she can continue to receive the free food from Jenny Craig. I am always amazed at how many Hollywood stars get stuff for free when they are the ones who can afford to buy it in the first place!!!

Ok so back to the paradigm shift. I always thought that if you eat less calories then what your body needs daily you will loose weight. Well I was wrong! Ok actually there is some truth to eating less calories you will loose weight however you need to be aware of what that magic number of calories is. For example if your body requires 2500 calories a day to keep all your organs and metabolism working normally and you decide you are only going to eat 1500 calories a day so you can loose weight well guess what; that will only work for a very short time before your body feels the stress of less calories and puts itself into starvation mode. Meaning anything you eat and I mean anything you eat your body will store as fat as it thinks it is starving because you are not feeding it enough calories for it to function normally. Now everyone one of us has a different number of how many calories you need to function daily. The key is to find that number so that when you do loose weight you can keep it off. That is where so many diets have gone wrong and why so many people who diet quickly put the weight back on and often more weight once they start to eat normally again. So that is where I am right now in the shift of my thinking. For many years I have not eaten enough thinking if I don't then I will loose weight. WRONG!!!! On LA Weightloss I am eating more food then I ever have before and loosing weight. Of course it is healthy food so no fast food anymore, no popcorn with Smarties, no Cinnamon buns either. I know not eating those things takes the fun out of eating but only for a time until you realize how crappy you feel after eating that kind of food and then you will wonder why you ate it in the first place.

When I went to weigh in yesterday they (LA Weightloss) told me to increase my food intake. So I am now on a different menu plan and have to eat more. For most they would be excited to be told to eat more food. For me it is a struggle; a struggle of a mind set of not eating a lot of food so that I can loose weight or at the very least not gain weight. And for all those years of thinking like that I gained weight and never caught on or questioned what is going on. So for the next 4 weeks I am on this new menu plan of increased food, eating every 3 hours throughout a 12 -14 hour period. I have never spent so much time in the kitchen before preparing food and planning on what to eat for the next day.

I have noticed though my recycling back has gotten smaller as there is no longer prepackaged food boxes in there.

Tattoos

I have to admit there are some UGLY tattoos out there!! I don't understand why people have skull heads and pitch forks permanently marked on their body. Dragons seem to be really popular too. I wanted to pick a spot on my body that when I was old and wrinkled it would still look good. Who knows I could be the trending senior in a seniors home one day. LOL! And if I was going to go through all that pain the tattoo better be in a place where people can see it with all my clothes on!!

I like to watch Miami Ink to hear the stories of why someone is getting a tattoo. Some of them are incredible stories and I think for the most part those are the ones they put on the show to grab the audiences attention.

Well here is my story behind my latest tattoo and yes I did say latest as I now have 2!!

I decided to have a butterfly tattooed on the just off my left shoulder towards the back of my arm. The butterfly is symbolic to me; I have been on an amazing personal journey since January 2007 and I wanted a permanent visable symbol that will allow me to share my story. The way I see it is that at first a butterfly is not much of anything. No one has any idea of the beauty that is within the cocoon until the butterfly emerges, unfolds its beautiful wings and takes flight. It soars with ease against the blue sky, a light breeze causes it to change direction and still it flies with little effort. You see I chose the butterfly as I am starting to see the beauty in myself that has always been there but I never saw it before. God knew how colorful my wings would be and now I am trusting him to show me the beauty of my 'wings'.

The tattoo itself took 1.5hrs to complete and I forgot how painful it is until Jordan started to tattoo the outline. I now know my pain tolerance timeline is about 1 hr. I am so glad he only had half an hour left. Once it heals I will post a picture.

Inspired

Ok the idea of a blog is new to me I never thought I would do one for myself as I always thought my life was too boring. Ya know no kids to brag about, no crazy stories of a husband to share but I have realized that I have a lot going on in my life and this also allows me to 'practice' writing. So bare with me on this adventure.

Just last week one of my brothers started a blog and since he seems to lead me down the technology and trending road I figured there is no harm in trying it out. So thank you Derek for inspiring me!!!!