Waiting...

Back when Kirsten & Matthew first discovered they were expecting their first baby, and it would be due in early January, they were hoping it wouldn't be early - they did not want a Christmas baby! They got their wish - though I suspect the wish has changed a wee bit... it is hard carrying those extra pounds for so long!

Here we are, on January 17, a week after the due date (though she was given three due dates: the 8th, 10th, and 12th), and the baby seems content to wait. Already over 8 lbs according to the midwife, we are now hoping it won't need to wait much longer. I use the word 'need' very deliberately. She gets all kinds of advice on how to bring it on sooner. And much as I want to see and hold my grandchild, I do want it to have all the advantages that it may get from staying in the womb as long as possible.

So I work on looking at the positive. Hopefully this extra time is an advantage for the baby - apparently late babies live longer than early ones! I also have time to be with my kids and observe their pregnancies... something I've missed out on by living 2 provinces away. I'm taking time to meet a few friends here in Winnipeg that I haven't seen in years. I had lunch with my Dad and 3 Manitoba siblings yesterday.

The picture above is taken in my Grandma's house in Linden, which has been turned into a coffee shop. What fun to have time to do this with my daughter.

Now if only junior would show his/her face...

Blessings?

Have you been blessed this year?

I have begun to wonder, recently, if I know the meaning of the word ‘blessed.’ I use it so loosely. Finances are healthy – I am blessed. I am expecting grandchildren – I am blessed. When things are going well in my life, I feel the Lord’s blessing. Or at least I think I do. Maybe I have it all backwards!

In rereading Matthew 5, there is no verse that conveys you are blessed when things are going well. In fact, quite the contrary. Who is blessed? Those that mourn. The meek (down-trodden?). The poor in spirit.

If I am being persecuted and insulted for Christ’s sake, then I am blessed. Wow!

If you were to ask a group of Christians if they would like to experience the Lord’s blessing, you would probably get a strong affirmative reaction. Some might see more than dollar signs – some might even think beyond a good feeling.

Now gauge the reaction of these same folks if you were to first point to the homeless man who is there because he lost everything. “He is blessed,” you say, “Would you like the Lord’s blessing as well?”

We don’t have to lose everything to be blessed. We can be merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers – they are all listed as blessed as well. But I think that it is through loss that we learn best and come closest to the One who gave everything for us. Maybe it has nothing to do with ‘things’ at all…

29-Day Giving Challenge

The concept of a 29 day giving challenge caught my attention very quickly.

I have been concerned about how self-absorbed I am becoming. I could blame it on perimenopause or whatever, but the truth is, I was finding less time for others and was focusing far too much on me.

When I read the story of the founder of 29gifts.org - and how this was born of her pain and how it healed her, I was hooked.

I thought I'd wait a bit though, until life settled down and there was more order in my life. But as I read through the site, I was challenged. And realized there's no time like the present. (Pun intended.)

The idea is to give a gift every day for 29 days. Sounds quite easy. The best part is that it forces me to look outside myself. To look for opportunities. Gifts can be as simple as throwing a bit of extra money into the charity jar at the coffee shop. Or giving a gift card to someone who asks for money. Or even brightening someone's day by buying that chocolate bar from them when they knock on your door. There are lots of ideas on the site because everyone there is in this journey together.

At work we are doing a "1000 Acts of Peace" challenge, which is to do 3 acts of peace per day and write them down. It's a great idea, but I haven't been writing things down. It occurred to me that every gift is an act of peace, so by signing up for this, I can do both at once.

I have reached out to more friends in the last 3 days than in the last 3 months (maybe a slight exaggeration, but only slight), so it is working. And it has been very fulfilling. You can't give without receiving something. So I feel enriched and blessed today.

2010 Blessings

Yes, I am counting my next year's blessings already.

It has been an exciting year for a grandma wannabe. Kirsten & Matthew came home in the beginning of June and the day before Kirsten's 30th birthday, they handed us our combined Mother's Day and Father's Day gift - asking us to open it together. Inside the giftbag was a children's book, "The Ultimate Guide to Grandmas & Grandpas."

We weren't expecting this announcement from them, so it took a minute to register the reason for this strange gift.

Rachel, who has wanted children much longer than Kirsten, became Kirsten's best buddy - getting and giving her information on everything from cloth diapers to what all the wierd new baby gadgets are and their purpose.

It has been a fun half-year - seeing Kirsten grow (at six months, she is shaped just like I was) and, thankfully, not have to deal with too severe morning sickness symptoms.

Seeing one's child preparing for their own child is incredible.

Then the other news came. Paul & Rachel couldn't fly home for their announcement, so it came via phone. I knew the call was something serious - I was asked to make it while alone. With Rachel's seeming inability to get pregnant, and a looming gynacologist appointment, I wasn't sure what to expect. But the words, "I'm pregnant" were definitely NOT what I expected!!

Wow! Given the circumstances, we're calling this one a miracle.

We don't have a date yet, and probably never will get a very accurate one. But since 9 months is the standard gestation period, sometime in the next 9 months we will meet our second grandchild!

This calls for a celebration shopping trip for my girls and I... My flight is booked.

House for Sale

I grew up in the country. Our moves from age 15 on have been to and within small towns. Shortly after our marriage, I lived in the city for the first time. Couldn't handle apartment living in North Vancouver, even though it was a brand new, very nice apartment. A house in Burnaby seemed a wee bit better until I got pregnant. Then it was back to small-town Squamish and my folks.

When we decided to move to Calgary, I suggested that I might last 2 years in the city and then we'd have to find a small town near Calgary. That didn't happen. Calgary was a small friendly city and we didn't mind it. Having friends we could visit in the country helped give us that break from the city when we needed it.

Calgary is no longer the small city we first got to know. Mandy, from Bangkok recently reminded me that Calgary still is a small city, and last year, Gina, from Bogota laughed when I complained about the big city of Calgary. But I haven't been to Bangkok or Bogota, and although I'd love to visit both places, I don't want to live there either. I am ready to move to a smaller community again. I dream of a garden. I'm not sure I'll know how to take care of one anymore. I dream of being able to 'live' outside in the summer. Here our yard is so small that we certainly couldn't entertain out there.

While an acerage is out of our reach financially, moving outside of Calgary could be a wise financial decision. We should at least be able to get as much room inside plus a garage plus an actual yard for the same price in Airdrie or Langdon. And so we've been on a journey.

First we looked at house prices in places like those mentioned, and that seemed positive. Then we spoke to a realtor who was selling a house in Langdon. I was impressed with the photos and the virtual tour, and when I called to ask to see the house, I was impressed with her enthusiasm. We never saw that house. It sold too quickly. But we got the realtor. She did show us a few places in Langdon. And she listed ours.

Karen, the realtor, let us know that she liked to stage a house - it would sell faster. She would bring in a stager and photographer at no cost to us. Emma came - first to let me know what we should pack away and what was best moved elsewhere, etc. So we packed. And we packed. For a whole weekend, we packed. Einar somehow found room for everything in my cold room and his workshop corner.

Emma returned, and while we were at church on Sunday morning, she transformed our house. My pink and purple accents (for a blue and yellow house) disappeared and rusts and greens took their place. She brought in blankets and pillows for the couches, baskets and boxes for shelves, pictures for the wall, cushions for the beds, fake plants and candles as accents. The result is quite impressive.

I offered to do the photos myself and borrowed a wide-angle lens from my friend. That was Sunday. On Tuesday the listing became live. On Wednesday the sign went up as did the lockbox. And Karen showed our house to her partner in this area. On Thursday we looked at homes in Airdrie.

Today - Friday - the actual photographer will come to shoot the virtual tour of the house.

I'm very optomistic that the house will sell fairly quickly. It will be interesting to watch the rest of the progress. We have managed to keep the house showhome ready for a week. I like the uncluttered feeling, though sometimes it is a bit inconvenient to have to put things that I use daily, under the counter.

I know that Einar is hoping for one thing - that my restlessness will disappear for a long time after we move. Actually I hope so too - and am keeping that in mind when looking. I do want a house that I'd be happy retiring in... Have I ever said that before???

Volunteers

"Volunteer Petunias" is what she called this mass of purple, pink and white flowers. My friend's mother says she can't grow them in her garden, but here, in the rocky soil of the driveway, these petunias thrive.

I've never heard the 'volunteer' term in reference to flowers before, but it fits. They have come up on their own, exactly where they want to be. Not in the garden, where life should be much easier, but here in the gravel of the driveway. They add an unusual beauty in an unexpected place.

I was so intrigued by this that I quickly shot a few pictures in the fading light of the evening. Surely there is a life lesson here.

I work with volunteers a lot and am incredibly grateful for them - most of the time. Every once in a while a volunteer shows up with a mind of their own. They want to do things their own way, which isn't always convenient. Their ideas may not mesh with the rest of the garden plans. They may even cause inconvenience, and make it difficult to use the driveway as a driveway is meant to be used.

Do I see the beauty of the volunteer even in this situation? Would I allow a garden of volunteers to thrive even if it inconvenienced me to this extent? Would I insist on gently pulling each of these petunias and moving it back to the garden where it 'belongs'? And if I chose to do that, so that the driveway could also serve its purpose, would that be wrong?

As you can see, I'm not even sure what the lesson is in all of this. But that mass of flowers growing where they didn't belong was a bright spot in my day. As were all the other more conforming flowers in that garden!!

Weather

Living in Calgary means every other blog could be about weather. The only consistent thing about Calgary's weather is that it is inconsistent.

It is news when Vancouver has +30 degrees (Celsius) heat for more than 2 days in a row. It is news when Toronto or Winnipeg have a cold wet summer. Calgary's weather is never news - or always news, depending how you look at it.

Today we have a rare 30 degree summer day. Beautiful! (Too hot, says my husband.) But we are so unused to this that an hour of biking wiped us out. We'll take a picnic to the river for dinner tonight.

July was our first month this year without snow. I haven't bothered to pack the winter clothing too far away.

But on one of our rare really summery days, I'm counting my blessings. The smell of the clover beside the pathways. The sight of petunia's in full bloom. Friendly northeast neighborhoods with a variety of ethnicity's. A handful of raspberries and strawberries each day from my tiny garden plot. Picnics by the river. And a wonderful husband with whom to share the blessings.