Merry Christmas

A very Merry Christmas 

to all of you! 

I wish you a safe and happy Christmas.

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Image credit here 

Please visit again soon

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It Snowed!

Hello friends and fellow bloggers,

Vancouver has been experiencing a cold snap this past few days and we also had a lot of snow over a few different days. 

Today and yesterday were super cold. I went out Monday and had a good long walk home. On my way back I snapped the baubles on the outdoor trees. I think they look lovely and brighten the otherwise bare branches and gray sky.  We had a fairly large amount of snowfall overnight Sunday so you can see a large amount of snow on the sidewalks.

Monday night the snow began falling again and we woke up to the patio trees and furniture heavy laden.  I didn't go out today because I knew it would be quite chaotic today on the roads and it is hit or miss as to whether the stores are open. In fact I went to a shop in the neighbourhood on Sunday night and when I got there I discovered it had closed an hour early.  This is what many businesses do during times of storm. It helps everyone to get home safely.  I hope to go food shopping on Wednesday because I need to buy groceries for Christmas dinner. 

Stay safe.

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Tuesday 4 - Countdown to Christmas

Hello and welcome once again to Toni Taddeo's Tuesday 4 where we hope that 4 questions help you to blog, meet people and think about things in general.     

Let's talk about the countdown to Christmas or Chanukah or both!

1. What was the countdown to the holidays like for you as a child?  Special projects at school.. at home.. with friends?      Was a big deal made of the month in your family or town?  What does your countdown look like now?

Christmas season was always super busy for kids. We not only had Christmas programs at school to rehearse and prepare for but we also had Christmas programs at church to rehearse for the congregation. December was a nice, celebratory month in my town but I don't recall big and ostentatious Christmas displays. It was a small town after all and most people who decorated did so modestly. We children looked forward to getting the presents under the tree each year and to having a feast at Christmas dinner and all kind of snack foods throughout the season. Our house was a place for relatives and friends to drop by throughout the day to eat and visit. This was the case at every holiday and mom absolutely loved having everyone over and making sure they had too much to eat.  Mom didn't go all out baking cooking and sweet snacks but she did make a big batch of Dream Bars and also shortbread and sugar cookies.  I still absolutely loved and still love Dream Bars and make them on occasion for the Christmas season too. A day or two before Christmas and New Year all sorts of snacks would be set out which including things like nuts and mandarin oranges (the only time of year we could get these oranges in local stores), fruit cake, deli meats, variety of chips and dips, smoked oysters, pickles, cheese, crackers and cheese balls.  We had this basic selection all through my childhood and into adulthood too. There was always plenty of food.

2. As a kid did  your family stay home on the holidays or go visiting around ... what do you do now?

My family usually stayed home on the holidays and people came to us.  These days, I find most of our relatives stay in their own homes celebrating with their own immediate loved ones or they travel far to gather with loved ones.  After all the families have grown up with children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren so things have changed.  I hosted both friends and local relatives for years but these days don't do much of it.

3. What foods did Mom and Grandma make for those  days?   What snacks were out?   What is the food situation in your home today? 

The snacks that were always out were mixed nuts most of which you had to crack yourself, Christmas candy (the red and white or green and white ones that tasted of wintergreen or mint, mandarin oranges, fruit cakes, Dream Bars, cookies,potato chips, pickles, cheese cubes, cheese balls, crackers, smoked oysters and deli meats.  The only real baking was the Dream Bars which have a shortbread like bottom with crunchy coconut flavoured topping. I basically make the same Dream Bars but not every year and we have a lot of the same snacks. I guess the other home baked goods were the cookies, usually shortbread and sugar cookies.

4.  Did you have a traditional way of spending the day with time to open gifts, visit,  special breakfasts, special dinner, guests?    What do you do now?

Christmas morning was always for our immediate family. The children woke early and excitedly waited until parents rose and said it was okay to open gifts. Then everyone sat around together and opened their gifts one after another while we all oohed and awed and commented on the revealed gifts, lol. I don't remember if there was a special breakfast until much later when my mother and sister always made waffles with fresh fruits, whipped cream and bacon for breakfast. Then we waited for the full feast at dinner. I still basically do the same but we don't have the special breakfast every year and I do not put the Christmas turkey on the table until supper time. Mother always wanted the 'dinner' early so it was more like late lunch growing up. Then we ate leftovers throughout the day and into the next.

Let me close by wishing you all a very Merry Christmas. May you enjoy the season whether alone or with friends and loved ones. I hope you will feel refreshed and look forward to 2023!

A Beautiful Night

Hello friends and fellow bloggers,

I hope December is going well for you and your loved ones. Things have been rather hectic for me in this month as I prepare for Christmas and try to get a lot of other business out of the way as well. I'm sure most of you can relate. Soon the big day will be here and until then I am trying to get together with as many friends and family as I can before Christmas arrives. The actual Christmas Day will be a quiet affair with me making some kind of dinner, probably our traditional turkey dinner since we just had ham earlier this week. Jonah is working a lot this month and only has Christmas Day off so our first Christmas together will be rather limited. My local brother will be able to join us for dinner. My nephew will host in-laws from Europe so I won't see him for awhile. We made a point of getting together a week or so ago and we had a nice visit out at the university.

Today I want to share the beautiful light display from the Festival of Lights held annually at the Van Dusen Gardens. I don't think there was a light display for the past 3 years and I had been wanting to go all that time. I finally had the chance on Tuesday night and it was more spectacular than I had anticipated. I shared some photos with a friend who said she had gone a few years ago and it wasn't as nice so she and her family will go again this year and enjoy the lights anew.

Since I published my last post I have switched computers to a Mac Mini and am in the process of having to relearn how to do everything. I've been used to Android devices for so long and having both Android and Apple products means extra steps and frustrations to do what used to be done more easily, especially where photos are concerned. I also discovered I can no longer make comments on blogs. I get sent around in circles whenever I try yo log in, get asked to sign in again , then start the process all over again. I have finally figured out that if I use another browser I can make comments on blogs without all the rigamarole but it's a nuisance. It's an annoyance to have to find so many work arounds but that is what I get for making the switch. The big plus in making the switch to the Mac Mini is that I no longer have a huge desktop tower with which to contend.  Well it is still there on my desk but only temporarily. 

I'm super excited to have such a small computer. It's fantastic. I'm too lazy to read instructions so I've just been finding my way around the IOS intuitively. The first thing to trip me up was just figuring out how to close a screen. Also I'm so used to using all things Google that it will take time to retrain myself and adjust to something different.  I'm not sure how far I will go with Apple products. It might just stick with the Mac Mini or I might succumb to temptation and get an iPhone. These days phones have replaced using a heavy camera and you need a good phone for crisp, clear photos.  I'd prefer having a Google Pixel but that might create more steps and possibly frustrations in working with Google photos on an Apple computer. Anyway, time will tell and costs and device availability will dictate my final decision.

If any of you have experience with the transition from Android to Apple and can share your experiences and lessons learned I'd love to hear from you!

Skywatch Friday Vancouver

 Hello friends and fellow bloggers,

Happy Friday to you all. I hope you are all doing well.

Thursday was a beautiful, sunny day here in Vancouver. I had an appointment downtown and walked back to the main transit station to return home. Along the way I took these photos to share with you.

Vancouver Art Gallery (with red banners) and the Vancouver Hotel just to the left in the photo.

Robson Square in the heart of downtown, UBC downtown campus

View looking south from Robson Square, Vancouver courthouse just beyond the trees in middle

Part of the Sheraton Wall Centre Hotel

Adjacent buildings reflected in one of the Wall Centre towers

The Vancouver Courthouse

Nelson Street going east

I'm linking up with Skywatch Friday this week. 

Thank you for stopping by!

The Weekend & Some Heavy Thoughts

Hi friends and fellow bloggers,

How are things going with you?

I'm doing okay. I've had a fairly bad cold all week but I'm feeling a bit better now. I've gone out here and there to pick up a parcel at the post office and to do a bit of food shopping. I also tried valiantly but unsuccessfully to reach the car insurance place. Basically I'm returning their call about physiotherapy treatments. I'll have to try again next week.

On Friday night DH and I went off to see the new Black Panther movie, Wakanda Forever. It was quite touching in parts and beautifully done. However I still think the first Black Panther movie a few years ago was a tighter story line and I enjoyed it so much.  Don't get me wrong though. The new movie is worth watching; especially if you've seen the first installment. There are some new characters who add a lot of depth. The movie is very long at 2.5 hours and I'm glad we went to a showing that was in early evening. The movie ends in such a way as to anticipate more movies in future.

 

Other than errands, shopping and a movie, I spent the weekend trying to get some rest and worked on a financial project I've had in mind for months. I've been saving all my food receipts for the last 6 months and wanted to input them all into a spreadsheet.  I finally did it and it was a real eye opener it was as to exactly how much money was spent on groceries.  It's astronomical  It's also interesting to see how the spending progressed every month due to the rampant inflation and whether shopping at different stores made a difference in stretching the dollars. I also started waiting a few extra days to a week to buy something we ran out of and stopped buying things altogether if they were too expensive. Food costs were extremely high in June and July.  Shopping around and delayed purchases made a big difference in September ($200 + savings) and an even bigger difference in October ($350 savings).

I'll be keeping track of all expenses, not just food expenses, for the rest of the year and possibly beyond.  But hopefully I won't procrastinate about inputting receipt information in future.  You can  imagine that it took some time to organize all the receipts and put them in order before I started inputting the data. Tracking the household income and spending will help DH and I with planning our budgets an setting our short-term and long-term financial goals.

Besides daily routines, I watched a very limited amount of television this weekend. Instead I spent some time talking to a relative and a long time friend who is going through a dark time. His life has completely changed over the past year because he developed some kind of spinal problem and can no longer stand up or walk.  Physiotherapy hasn't helped and he no longer wants to live so he's been exploring Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID). He's always been a person who experiences a lot of emotional upheaval and various problems and over time his life has become harder and harder mainly due to physical challenges and health issues. 

It's hard to be a friend to someone who wants to die and talks often about dying.  I really don't believe he wants to die but I do know he hates living in a wheelchair. I know that whatever I say will not change his mind and I no longer offer advice or try to talk him out of what he says he wants to do. I don't believe in taking one's own life with medical assistance except in the very rarest of circumstances.  But sadly it's become quite common in Canada and especially in my province for people to end their lives with the help of medical professionals. Recently this option was expanded to include those with mental health problems. I remember hearing about euthanasia as a child. At my tender years I wondered how a society could legalize dying yet here we are now in my country doing the same thing. How did we ever get to this point as a society?

I do understand when some people no longer want to live but the numbers just seem far too high in Canada.  These days there are so many people falling through the cracks of society and the disabled and mentally ill are particularly vulnerable. If they only had adequate supports (housing, food, therapy) I think a lot of them would not consider dying early as an option though there will still be some that want to choose their time and place. Medical assistance in dying (MAID) has gotten so popular as an option despite being an option for a short time in Canada. MAID was enacted in June 2016.

Data shows that 10,064 people died in 2021 with medical aid, an increase of 32 per cent over 2020. The report says that 3.3 per cent of all deaths in Canada in 2021 were assisted deaths. On a provincial level, the rate was higher in provinces such as Quebec, at 4.7 per cent, and British Columbia, at 4.8 per cent.

MAID Requests and Outcomes (CANADA), 2019 to 2021

I've been thinking of the MAID issue because the subject was featured on television recently due to the expansion of the laws.  Obviously too, with my friend having applied for MAID (I don't know if he heard anything about his application yet) I paid attention to the broadcast. I was alarmed at the high numbers and the fact that Canada's euthanasia numbers have soared so quickly in comparison to the Netherlands, the first country to legalize euthanasia. However, I did a quick google search and found that the numbers of applications and deaths in the Netherlands has also dramatically risen over the past several years. and doubled from 2002 to 2009. It's a sad state to think so many want to end their lives.

Obviously there are many people who are greatly struggling and governments are under pressure to respond to public demands. In Canada, the MAID issue came about due to some very sick people advocating all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada for their right to die and others who lobbied politically. Now that the government has responded and met their demands, it seems like they are getting a bit carried away by expanding the laws to make it easier for the mentally ill to get MAID.  I'm greatly concerned about the future. We've already had a veteran  being asked by a Veteran's Affairs employee if they considered MAID when what they needed was mental health support. Part of the problem it seems, and some doctors who review MAID applications have said, that is it harder to get appropriate treatments and supports that it is to get MAID. A very sad and concerning state of affairs.

Sorry for the heavy thoughts but this is what is on my mind tonight. When I'm faced with such difficult thoughts, I'm grateful I have my faith and my hope in God. I'm also glad that I can pray for others. It's been my experience that many who are not Christian and don't pray, feel comforted by prayer and will even ask for prayer when they are going through challenging times.

Keep well friends. Stay safe and if you are going through hardships, please reach out to someone near you or call a helpline.