A Declaration

One of my girlfriends sent me a book that encourages one to do a declaration each day. The declaration is actually in the book so I have been doing a little coaching to myself on positive declarations which is not so very difficult for me. It seems simple, even trivial, to tell yourself that you are going to overcome this or that and yet when you say it out loud it does have power.

Declarations, affirmations, positive waves, whatever you want to call them are not new ideas but it is amazing how often we can sink into the negative side of thoughts. It is all too easy to give up and that is what I believe the majority of people do. They give up on themselves.

If there is one person on earth that is worth something it is yourself so be kind to yourself on a daily basis. Don’t beat up on yourself. If you set goals and don’t reach them today, forgive yourself and try again the very next minute. Whether we believe in a higher power or not is not relevant when we endorse ourselves as spiritual beings. We are worthy of all that is good and bright in this world.

Believe in yourself!

A Meeting of the Minds

I enjoy getting together with friends and family and getting into deep discussions rather than daily trivia. We are not a family that likes to gossip about other people and this stems way back to my great grandparents at least. It is one thing to do “catch up” news about one’s friends, what they are doing now and how they are faring with their job, life and family but it is quite another thing to talk about random people around town. Generally the nature of these talks is not on the nice side, let’s just keep it at that.

I like to talk about ideas and we can sometimes get pretty loud, even when we are agreeing with each other. That is a definite paternal habit we have acquired from our Dad. Sometimes? Well, almost always, actually. My poor in-laws and even some of the grandkids find it a little intense sometimes but others get right in there with us.

Not for us the taboos of other folks. We thoroughly enjoy politics, religion and any other hot button topics which is one of the reasons I so enjoy The View. I like my book club when we get a controversial book and can go for it with our opinions, which often are not aligned with each other. My friends know that when it comes to adultery I am going to go wild on the discussion. My mother will literally crack up when I talk about adultery and how I would deal with it (it’s not pretty).

Some of my family members are so opposite in current topics that we can almost get hostile and certainly impatient with each other. However at the end of the discussion we agree to disagree and there is no harm, no foul. In some ways I believe we refresh each other with these very opposite opinions.

It’s not for everyone, I know. Most people are rather uncomfortable with disagreement and also with loud voices. My friend Marie’s husband Paul is slightly deaf and (I think naturally) has a loud voice. She was very anxious once when we were visiting and Paul and I were going at it in great style. She was so worried that I was getting upset and I said “What, Paul is an amateur compared to my Dad! I am used to loud voices and love to be in disagreement. Paul and I are having a great time!” Which we were.

Maybe not a meeting of the minds, but a meeting of lovely “discussion”. J

Poetry is it Sophistication?

Yesterday we went shopping for our big (and we hope) final run of groceries for the holiday season and I am very proud to say that I only did one tiny indulgence in Costco, buying one book for myself. What was it? Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” which is a book I have been wanting to read for a long time.

Last night I read the introduction and then his preface and found myself dubious about his greatness. Then I mulled it over some more and realized a few things that sort of eased my anxiety a little bit about this fellow who has been lauded as perhaps America’s greatest poet.  While he was not a man of his time in the sense of being in step with the norms of the day he still had a very egotistically American outlook. They are the greatest poets on earth, they are the most innovative, creative, accepting, etc. I can hear so much current American jargon in his extremely long and quite boring preface!

Today I will take a dive into the actual poetry and try to keep an open mind since the poems are in fact the whole point of the book. But when I lay the book aside last night I pondered my non-love affair with poetry and wondered if poetry is an acquired taste or if it comes naturally to some people. Is poetry the pinnacle of fine reading, this prose lover asks? I certainly believe that really good poetry is very difficult to write whereas prose seems to me to be more streaming.

I am beginning to appreciate poetry despite struggling with memorizing but the point really is to enjoy the content of the poem and then ponder about what the poet meant to convey. Despite my best efforts to keep an open mind I can already predict that I will be unchanged in one year with respect to who my favorite poet will remain.

Emily Dickinson, I understand your poetry and will always love your tempo.

Baking a Danish Coffee Cake

Yesterday Mom and I were doing some low key Christmas decorating, placing runners on tables and staging candles and other Christmas knick knacks. As I pulled out all the different runners and tablecloths I discovered a plastic bag of mini booklets from Mor’s favorite magazine “Familie Journalen” which is now an infamous magazine in this house! (another story). One had breads and cakes for the Christmas season and I discovered this one (hoping I am translating properly):

2 eggs

200 g sugar

100 g flour

1 dl (deci-litre) fine rasp (bread crumbs, be sure the breadcrumbs do not have any spices or flavours – you can make your own with a dried French bread for example, if you can’t find good bread crumbs, the crumbs should be made fine with a rolling pin)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 dl coffee cream

75 g melted butter

Rind of one large orange, grated 

Almond - orange Icing:

40 g butter1 gr icing sugar

1 ½ tablespoon flour

1/d dl coffee cream

Juice of one orange (about 1 dl)

½ cup of sliced almonds (or as needed to cover the top with some spaces, in other words don’t overload it but don’t be stingy either) 

First blend eggs and sugar until well blended, then add cream, flour, rasp and baking powder slowly into mixture. Then add orange rind. Pour into rectangular pan about 30 x 40 x 45 cm. Line the pan with parchment paper and you can also sprinkle some rasp on bottom for a nice bottom crunch but not mandatory. Bake at 350 degrees F for about 20 minutes.

Icing: add all ingredients except the almonds in a heavy bottom pot and boil up until a somewhat think mass. Add to cake and then return to oven, raising the heat to 375 degrees until golden brown, approximately 12 minutes. Sprinkle on almonds and let cool before removing from pan. 

NOTE 1: the name of the cake is Svigermors Kaffekage translates as Mother-in-Law’s Coffee Cake.

NOTE 2: a decilitre is just shy of a ½ cup

 

Just as I was putting my boots in preparation for another appointment I hear this crash. There was our little Kitsy jumping on a shelf with a bunch of potted plants, three of which are super heavy pots but somehow she was fat enough to suddenly make everything crash to the floor pots, shelf, the whole shebang.  Good night, several branches of the jade broke off as well as 20 or so leaves. Mercifully the pots did not break. While I was gone Mom managed to sweep everything up and when John got back he helped set the shelf back up as well as putting the pots back on.

My task was researching how to propagate jade from broken branches and fallen leaves. It is quite the process, simple enough but it takes at least of couple of weeks to see if the branches and leaves will form a dry end with roots coming out. I had rooting compound which helps the process so we are anxiously watching the plant to see if anything is coming but of course ‘the watched pot never boils’. Early days, I know and I will have to patient.

I just hope that some will take root and we can have a bunch of nice little plants to start a new generation. Interestingly enough the big jade plant I have was a gift from my girlfriend and it was just a wee think amongst a number of other small plants in a big urn. It has really thrived.

I will keep you posted.

Examining One's Thinking - again and again

My readers know that I love John Maxwell and regularly use his workbook Jumpstart Your Thinking so I can speak with some authority on Thinking.

Yesterday I wrote

I believe that one should examine one’s personal thinking on a daily basis and as one ages it is vital to do so because it is so very easy to fall into grooves and patterns of thinking.

Here are some of the reasons why I suggest this examination. The other day on The View they discussed Kevin Hart’s situation with respect to his withdrawal from being the host of the Oscars because the producers were asking him to apologize for homophobic comments he made in 2009. He refused to do so because he said that he had already apologized many times over the years and he did not think he should have to go through life apologizing over and over again. The discussion essentially came to the same conclusion as both Kevin Hart and I – that people evolve, people change their opinions as “issues” become more normalized and understood.

Homosexuality has been condemned for 2,000 years at least, in large part due to Christianity’s view. During the AIDS crisis a more compassionate view of homosexuality began to emerge and over the past thirty years the western world at least has essentially accepted homosexuality as (an appropriate word is failing to come to me, so forgive me) normal, valid and right for certain individuals. True there are still many people who cannot overcome their prejudice against gay people but overall acceptance is there and laws are in place to protect their rights.

So people’s thinking evolved and can accept something that was considered wrong once upon a time. Another reason for examining one’s thinking is to keep current with what is happening in the world today. Countries change, politics change and people’s attitudes change. In order to stay current and fresh it is important not to fall into the groove of bemoaning “the good old days”. The fact is that the good old days are largely a myth in your own mind. When my mother starts harking back to 1936 I ask her “Mom do you want to wash diapers by hand again?” When she gets on her favorite treadmill talk, bemoaning that there is no bus service to my house, I cut her short and simply tell her I am not going to go over the arguments for the 500^th time. Then I ask her “where do you want to go?” and she says nowhere. Case closed.

My mother is my cautionary tale to myself and I remind myself that one of the joys of thinking is to stay creative and curious and being open to possibilities. It’s important to listen to world renowned figures, to read good books and to talk to those around us to get their views. I am always questioning my cousins in Denmark about what is going on because Mom only talks with her sister who is also an octogenarian and believe me it is so worrying to have them go over the same subject, every week and never come up with any conclusion except that they shouldn’t be letting foreigners into the country. I shake my head and tell Mom “I don’t want to hear it again unless it’s something new”. Sadly it never is.

The other day I made her listen to Louise Arbour, Special Representative for International Migration, who spoke most reasonably about international migration. She listened with full attention, I thought, but two hours later in a discussion with my brother she said precisely what Arbour said WAS NOT TRUE – that migrants come with their hands out and not willing to work. I was so angry with her in going back into the same old groove but she stayed Jacobsen Stubborn. John says be patient you can’t teach an old dog new tricks but I am stubborn also and I refuse to let her get away with talking such piffle!

So there we are . . . do what I say and also do what I do . . . refuse to listen to piffle! J

Climate Change is Real

The other day I listened to THE pre-eminent scientist Martin Rees being interviewed by one of my favorite journalists Christiane Amanpour discussing among other things climate change. Among the majority of scientists climate change is a FACT and to doubt that it is not is simply behaving like an ostrich (my words, not his).  Below I have a link to Amanpour’s various interviews, you will have to login but it is worth watching if you are interested in any of the subjects I will now refer to.  As well I include the Wikipedia article on carbon footprint and a website that answers / refutes climate change deniers arguments.  I don’t want to waste my time re-writing so provide these links for your edification.

The concern I have is trying to understand why individuals wish to deny that climate change is real. I can understand why corporations would want to deny it because they are concerned only about their bottom line (i.e. financial gains) and like Ebenezer Scrooge are reluctant to spend one grout on anything as altruistic as the environment. But are they the ones who have induced some sort of algorithm into ordinary people’s mentality to make them hypnotized into believing that we humans can go willy-nilly along, cutting down forests, burning fuel at unreasonable rates and generally acting irresponsibly to the detriment of this Earth?

I would ask these people to examine their reasoning and perhaps delve more deeply into the true science of climate (not to be confused with weather).

I believe that one should examine one’s personal thinking on a daily basis and as one ages it is vital to do so because it is so very easy to fall into grooves and patterns of thinking. More on this tomorrow. 

https://www.thirteen.org/programs/amanpour-co/

https://grist.org/series/skeptics/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_footprint

Who'da Thunk

The other day I wrote a blog on stupidity and I was astonished to see that it had 152 hits in one day! Normally I get between 20 to 30 hits a day. I think it was because the title I used has been used by others (it’s a common enough phrase, after all). I am only hoping that those who travelled to my blog actually read it and got some amusement out of it, as well as some enlightenment.

I know what you all are thinking “is she going to start using phrases to get hits”? Well, it did cross my mind but the truth is I like to be original. To quote from a Georgette Heyer novel “she does have an odd kick in her gallop” is more in my line!

Tomorrow I am going to write about Climate Change but for today I want to make a suggestion for my readers – ask yourself and do some research into what an individual can do to make a difference. I say this because I have been listening to some eminent scientists with respect to climate change but they speak on such a high level (and rightly so) that they do not get into the nitty gritty of every day lives and what we can do.

I recognize that there are plenty of books and others (not scientists) who make suggestions which is all very well and good but what I would like to know is this – what things can people do on an annual basis that would show how significant those changes were. In other words if I, for example, chose to not drive at least one day a week what would that do annually with respect to reduced carbon emissions? If a whole nation made that choice how soon would they reach the Paris Accord targets? Then let’s say everyone chose to have at least one plant based meal per day, how would that add up? (and plant based meal means, unfortunately, that you cannot have Havarti on toast for breakfast because cheese is not plant based, darn it all!)

If people opted out of driving trucks and chose smaller cars instead how much would that improve our score? I can remember how amazed we were when we moved from Kitchener to Calgary back in 1976 to see so many pickup trucks in a city. We could not get over it and to this day I am puzzled as to why city dwellers think they need a truck.

Well, that is the creative question of the day – find out what you can and consider what changes you are willing to make of your own accord. You will surprise yourself in realizing it is not as inconvenient as it may first appear!

FYI – I chose to park my car once a week 10 years ago; I hang dry my laundry all summer; Mom breakfasts plant based every day (jam on her own homemade bread) and since my illness driving is reduced to “as needed” only. My vehicle is also considered “green”. All my lights are LED in the home. But where I fail, I do run my furnace a lot since I am very vulnerable to cold (even before my illness). So I am not a saint, but I try. J

Daily Creativity Can Be a Challenge

I must say that unless you watch DIY shows all day long it can be a challenge to come up with your own versions of creativity! Once again I ask myself “where do you get your crazy theme ideas from” but wisely I refuse to answer myself.

Of course creativity is not all about crafts or making things. I already made an attempt at memorizing a poem (and what a bosh I made of that). During the night I thought “why don’t you go back to writing a Haiku” then spent most of the night awake refining some gibberish Christmas Haiku which I naturally forget the moment I woke up!

I am looking somewhat sceptically at a piece of crochet work that my sister in law started for me and which I have already unravelled twice wondering if it should be my next project. It is supposed to be a baby blanket and once upon a time I could make a blanket in a couple of days but today I can barely get 4 inches done and not very tidily at that. Ah for the use of one’s hands again!

So today I am going to use “fig nut” as my moment of creativity. When my youngest brother was young ( J ) he once was in a store and looked at some fig newton cookies and went “fig nut”! He suddenly realized he hadn’t had these cookies for years and had a craving for them. When he brought them home he told us the story and we were all enraptured by his word “fig nut” and to this day whenever we get a brilliant (or not so brilliant) idea we say “fig nut”. 

And that’s the way it was!

Ballerinas and other crafts

Yesterday’s One New Thing was research into stupidity but now let’s get on with something a little more creative.  I still haven’t worked out my camera problem (essentially how to get one or two photos added to my album; it wants to download all my pictures again and again!) so I cannot currently put up what I made yesterday.

I watch the Marilyn Denis show in the mornings and they often have folks on who show DIY projects; the other day was one on creating inexpensive “filler” decorations for the Christmas tree. One of them was a ballerina with a snowflake for a tutu simply made of stock or construction paper and the snowflake from regular paper.  I upgraded my tutu by using Origami paper stock and also made my ballerinas pale blue instead of white. My idea is to make them into a wind chime or window charm since I will not be putting up a tree this year. They turned out really well. All you need to do is find some clipart ballerinas, trace them on to the stock paper and you are good to go! It was a soothing little craft.

The other craft will have to wait until tomorrow because I don’t have any Modge Podge (not even sure what it is!) but John has agreed to take me to Dollarama tomorrow to get some – fortunately we have to go anyway as we need more chicken feed for our girls.

This other craft requires some 4x4 canvas which you can get at the dollar store in a package; you then modge podge the canvas (using the modge podge with sparkles is best) and then you adhere the desired picture onto the canvas. The lady on Marilyn (whose name I forget at the moment) used musical sheet paper from The Nutcracker since her tree was themed that way but she said you can use any sort of picture you like, from old time Christmas pictures to Merry Christmas messages. Once added then you modge podge again and add your own glitter for that extra something. Again, I am thinking of doing mine double-sided so they can be chimes rather than just ornaments for the tree.

Once I get my camera working properly I will take photos of the projects and post them as a special blog!

Aren’t you excited to see them. J

You Can't Fix Stupid . . . You Have to Walk Around It

I am sure there are many people who are extremely annoyed by the amount of absurd posts that occur on social media. As Proverbs says “against a fool even a wise man fights in vain”. I thought I would venture into the world of Google to try to discover if indeed this is so. I have been stopped in my tracks by the remarkable article in Wikipedia which is both funny and dismal at the same time. I attach the link at the bottom of the blog, I think you will find it interesting to say the least and let me say a certain person in a big white house crossed my mind as I read it!

Along with the legions of stupid people we also have an alarming number of sociopaths who are manipulating our world. In particular I refer to the creator of Facebook who is defying social order deliberately and helping to create a world of chaos and hatred. I do not say this lightly but following the news closely in recent months I find myself puzzled as to why Zuckerberg refused to attend various inquiries and even more puzzling why the authorities did not insist on that attendance. A simple correction in algorithms would prevent people from going down dark gopher holes into a world of misinformation and malevolence.

I am an optimist in the long run but in the short term I am a worrier and it is very concerning that the world is racing along willy-nilly without remembering 2 axioms from 2 world wars “lest we forget” and “never again”.

This blog is written to the readers who are bright, have common sense and perhaps can make their world positive and strong by their own initiatives. Little circles eddy outwards. We can always hope.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stupidity

Fifty Years of Friendship

Today is my best friend’s birthday and 50 years ago I attended her Sweet Sixteen. It is hard to believe that 50 years have gone by but the mirror tells a different story.

I am sure there are other Fifty Year Friendships but few have the unusual twist that ours has. Ninette and I met in high school while my father was transferred by Burns Foods to Montreal to trouble-shoot at the plant there. We were only there for 9 months (July to March). Ninette and I only knew each other for 7 of those months, sharing the same home room and art class. But she sat across the aisle from me and we smiled at each other and that was it. We would have lunch together with some other friends but Ninette and I shared a sense of humour that could make us laugh at the most peculiar stories. She is a wonderful storyteller and I would listen to her enthralled by her tales. I would repeat some of my father’s hilarious anecdotes (past and present) which had her in stitches.

Then we got the news that we were being transferred back to Winnipeg and Ninette gave me her address so I could write to her. Which I did. A letter from her quickly followed. We have shared nearly 50 years of correspondence most of which happened on a weekly or bi-monthly basis. Seldom did two weeks pass without a letter, in all these years. And that is what is amazing. We have been through thick and thin, travels abroad, children, illness, anxiety, job loss, family woes, business crises, you name it and we have been through it. But never, ever has there been a cross word, a misunderstanding or anything of a negative nature that could have jeopardized this friendship.

Truly God smiled down on us the day we smiled at each other.

My cup runneth over in gratitude and love for this lovely, charming woman who is my FRIEND.