Christmas 2008

There is still a bag of wrapping paper and boxes cluttering my floor, table and chairs stacked neatly against the wall and a tree that looks barren with no gifts underneath......I guess this means Christmas 2008 is over.

Christmas this year for me was a great one!! If you can imagine I had 8 people for dinner in a small one bedroom apartment. I had to be creative in placement of furniture; one piece is in my bedroom and other piece was moved to the storage room. It is amazing actually how much space can be created with the manouvering of a few pieces of furniture!

It is a blessing to spend Christmas with family. I did miss my brothers and sister in-law though as this years it was not possible for them to join us. Thankfully we have wonderful technology which allowed a first for me this year was to open gifts via a web cam with Derek my brother in Toronto. Dave and Jenny live on the eastern shores in New Foundland so when we called them they were getting ready to eat and we had just finished opening gifts. Funny how a time change of 4.5hrs puts each one of us at a different point of our day.

I did learn a few things this Christmas; to cherish your family as God gave them to you, live each day with purpose, be flexible, don't eat too much there will not be a shortage of food, only satisfy your sweet tooth don't needlessly indulge it, take time to reflect, don't miss opportunities to say kind words into someone else's life, and to bite your tounge every now and then it is God's reminder of how hurtful those words could have been if spoken.

I am looking forward to 2009 however I admit I have no expectations of what I would like to see or happen in the upcoming year. Sure I have a goal to loose another 30-50 pounds in the next 12 months, I will strive to be the best at my job, but those are no brainer goals or expectations I will set for myself. The one that is harder to work towards is to see God in everyday of my life, to follow His path that is set before me, to spend quality quiet time actively reading His word and staying still and quiet long enough to hear Him speak.

I am going to embrace 2009 even though I have no idea what it holds!

I want to encourage and challenge you to do the same. 2009 is a blank calendar of events that you don't even know about, it could hold days of opportunities, chance meetings of old friends and new aquaintances. There will be vacation time scheduled with excited anticipation of it happening. Birthdays will roll by giving you chances to bless those special people in your life and your birthday is your day to celebrate who you are!

I know you can't see this....but as I old up my glass and clink it against yours; a toast to 2009 would be a year full of God's blessings, mercy and grace. A year where you fall in love all over again with life. A year filled with God moments and discovery.

Cheers 2009 I await your arrival.

Thanksgiving lets us know fall is here

Today is Thanksgiving Monday and as I sit at home enjoying the extra day off from work I start to reflect back through the months of 2008 that have already passed.

Time goes by at warp speed some months and yet winter months seem to freeze in time.

I have been blessed with a family that loves each other and stays in contact with each other! We are spread as far is east is from the west across this majestic country of Canada but with modern technology we can easily stay connected.

As I watch the tree leaves turn from a brilliant green to various shades of yellow orange and brown I can't help but think those trees gave their brightest colors in the spring and summer and now as fall approaches the colors are beautiful. They are a reflection of the seasons just passed. They are colors of warmth, they are colors of cool "see your breath in the air" mornings and colors of warm sunny afternoons when the fog lifts. They are colors that signify a change of seasons.

We all have seasons in our own personal lives and I trust that your seasons that have passed by already have brought new life, new opportunities, new growth, new friends, new responsibilities and maybe even a new place to live. In our seasons of life there is so much to learn and as I reflect back today I see what I have learned and I also see missed opportunities.

All too soon the snow will begin to fall and blanket us in white. It will cover up all the fallen leaves on the ground, it will cover all the green lawns that have now turned brown, it will cover up the dull and make it bright and clean as only a fresh snow fall can.

Today I was able to get one last golf game in. I am so thankful for that after injuring my achilles tendon earlier this summer I was not sure I would golf again this year.

Fall is just around the corner and I look forward to the nights curled up with a cozy blanket on the couch watching the snow fall outside my window with channel 2 on the TV so that I can pretend to have a fire place!!

Happy Thanksgiving family and friends!

Summer Musicals

I have not been a fan of musicals mostly due to any I have seen have not been live; they were a very long movie version and lost my interest quite quickly. This summer I have had the privilege of watching two musicals live; the first one was a production done by Summerstock and the musical was Grease, the other was a production from Viva Musica and the musical was The Chorus Line.

Grease was so good, I saw it with my mom at Olympic park downtown Calgary on a beautiful summer evening. The actors and actresses were local talent from western Canada and they were sure talented. The summer of 2009 Summerstock with present the musical RENT and I strongly recommend if you are in Calgary the first week of August this is an event you MUST attend.

The Chorus Line was different as it had a few more mature and experienced actors and actresses. I was offered a ticket to see this play by one of the actresses, she is my boss' daughter and this musical was her debut. She was amazing! She played Cassie in case any of you have seen the musical or movie. I never knew she was so talented!! I had no idea that The Chorus Line is one of the longest running shows in Broadway that is until Phantom took over that prestigious honor. The Chorus line had an amazing 6137 performances and outran blockbusters like Grease, Chicago, Hello Dolly!, Fiddler on the Roof and the list goes on. During the 15 years of running the original production of The Chorus Line, 677 other shows opened and eventually closed on Broadway. I was very impressed with the Canadian talent in Kelowna for the production of The Chorus Line.

I might just been hooked on musicals; time will tell.

8 seconds

8 seconds is a very short amount of time. There are many things that can be done in 8 seconds; you can drink a glass of water, you can put on your jeans and shirt, you can share a smile. You can swing a golf club and watch you ball fly straight down the fairway, you can change channels numerous times on the TV in 8 seconds. You can take a picture, you can smell the flowers and you can blow a bubble with bubble gum.

And then there are some who earn or loose their pay cheque in 8 seconds. I am talkin' about professional cowboys; bareback riders, steer wrestlers, calf ropers, saddle bronc riders and bull riders.

This Saturday I went to the 90th Falkland Stampede and those boys sure have chosen a hard way to make a livin'!

I am glad I don't have to work as hard as them in 8 seconds however I have been made aware of how I do spend all the "8 seconds" that fill my day.

What have you done with your "8 second" moments?

Innocent Love

I had a date yesterday!!!

Well ok it was a date with a 4 year old names Thomas. Hey but it was date or shall I say play date. Thomas is the boy in a set of triplets and for some reason likes me. I have taken him to a couple of Vernon hockey games and for that he never lets his parents forget, every time they drive by or are near the Multiplex Thomas announces that is where 'Jan and I went to hockey!'.

We played for a few hours with various toys as no small child stays at one activity very long. I had lunch with the family and Thomas made sure I sat beside him at the table.....I felt honoured. When it was time to go Thomas took my hand as we left his bedroom (we did clean up the toys) and Thomas said, "Jan I need to give you a hug, give you a kiss and tell you I love you. And the secret handshake."

As I stood at the door ready to go I picked up Thomas and got the biggest bear hug that a 4 year old could give.....the wettest kiss a 4 year old gives and the sweetest words a 4 year old can say....I Love You. Then of course we had our secret handshake!

I walked out their door with the biggest smile on my face with the knowledge that I made a difference in his life and little does Thomas know what a difference he as made in my life!

Thanks Thomas! And I love you!

Milestones

Throughout our lives we have many milestones. Some go so far back that we don't even remember them; the first time we smiled as a baby, first time we rolled over, first tooth, first words and our first steps. I am sure at each of those milestones our parents celebrated in their own way and for most of us it was likely written in our baby book for us to look at many years later. I have a baby book that chronicles those events and it even has a snipit of hair from my first haircut but once those baby years were over that book ended.

Milestones were chronicled differently as a grew older. It was pictures for the first day of school or the new clothes for school. It was report cards sent home to chart my progress or laziness in school. It was the stars on the chores chart that hung on the fridge reminding you of how you need to help out at home. It was graduation pictures showing that you made it through the first part of school, the first 12 years at least and who knows how many more years you would spend in post secondary education.

This week I have a milestone; I will be turning 38. I think I need to celebrate that I am not quite yet 40! But seriously, some where along the passage of time I misplaced the book that would chronicle these milestones. Don't get me wrong, I still have my baby book and graduation pictures but I don't have photos of my wedding or a baby book to tell of my children's milestones. It has really set in this year when I think about my birthday and more importantly my age how much I have missed in life. I have watched my brother and cousins get married; I have watched them have children; I have even watched my friends children grow up and the whole time secretly wishing I had the same.

I am blessed, very blessed to have amazing friends and family who love me. There is still however something missing, there is still a void.

One day I hope to have a medium in where I have chronicled milestones instead of years going by where nothing has changed.

5 pins with a black stripe and one ball

In 1909 5 pin bowling was born and 99 years later it is still going strong. Every city has bowling leagues that range in various ages from children to seniors. It is a past time of the ages.

Last weekend about 40 of us from APC went bowling. It was great! Of course you have to do the crazy bowling first which is anything from spinning 3 times before you throw the ball to bowling with your eyes closed. I have to add that crazy bowling is slightly dangerous with people who have too much fun with it. At one point we had to bowl through the legs of everyone on our team standing in a row with legs spread apart. As I stood my turn in the row I waited to feel the ball hit my ankles, you could feel it coming, hear it rolling and breathed a sigh as you heard it go past your feet. Nothing like trying to explain a foot injury that was caused by some crazy person bowling through your legs!!

It is such a simple game and yet people take it very seriously in striving for the highest score or some will even see how many gutter balls they can throw.

My grandparents bowl......they have for as long as I can remember. They are getting older now and I hope they have years left of bowling. Something they started when they were younger and maybe now it can help keep them young.

Who would have thought this game would last this many years?