Flowers for Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day has come and gone but the true spirit of the day must continue and flourish, growing stronger and gentler, with every passing day.

Just before the 14th my dear husband arrived home with a gorgeous bouquet of red and white flowers, an enormous white hydrangea in the center, topped off with a red heart.  Very spectacular even today as I glance over at them on the center of our dining room table.

  

 

 On Sunday, February 14, some of my extended family met for lunch at my sister Erica's favourite local restaurant -The Rendezvous.  Here is where I enjoyed my last lunch with her as she insisted on still celebrating my birthday, although two weeks early, since she knew she was getting weaker.  She passed away less than three weeks later.  What a brave, loving soul she was. 

After we had ordered Wilf quietly left the table returning about ten minutes later with a bouquet of three red roses, greens and baby's breath.  Taking two of the roses out he presented the rest of the flowers along with a kiss to his wife, Hedy, then a red rose for Peter in honour of Erica and one for me.  This was a beautiful symbolic act which I really treasure.  After our wonderful meal and time of interacting and bantering we left for the cemetery not far from there and watched as Peter gently laid the rose onto Erica's headstone.  It was lovely. 

Earlier that week my niece Bonnie came for tea and brought me a beautiful bouquet of coral coloured carnations.  It still is beautiful today. 

 

  

  

Picture of Bonnie taken at our extended family Christmas dinner.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.  

But the greatest of these is love.  

1 Corinthians 13:13

 

"Cultural Olympics"

Yesterday was the day!  Hedy and I boarded Westcoast Express at 7:28am, surprised to see a long line of people with the same idea.  Effortlessy we arrived at the Waterfront Station an hour and fifteen minutes later where we met Ingrid, who arrived on Seabus from North Vancouver and Herta-who in great patriotic fashion, and sisterly love, outfitted us with these red Olympic mittens- arrived from Richmond via the Canada Line.  It was fabulous!  First off, of course, the briefing session aka coffee time!  With Starbucks nearby in the Pan Pacific we enjoyed our brew and goodies.  Then headed upstairs to see a First Nations exhibit.

 

The Olympic cauldron was just down the street along the waterfront so that was our next site.  Hedy and I had been to the Rotary Stadium in Abbotsford, along with about 20,000 other locals, to welcome the Olympic flame as it arrived in our city on its way to Vancouver.  

Now I put the lens of my camera through the mesh in the fence surrounding the site, zoomed in and here's the result.

                              

 

     

Below you can see how far away the cauldron actually is from the street. 

  

The Art Gallery was resplendent in this gorgeous floral mural.  A few trees nearby were already sporting real pink blossoms.  We lined up along the front of the building and snaked our way to the entrance at the side.  It was more than an hour wait before we got to see some of Leonardo da Vinci's drawings of the human body.  On the fourth floor was the BC exhibit.  They had done a great job of simulating  a real forest.  Below we are standing inside a huge refurbished tree salvaged from Stanley Park after it fell in the storms of a few years ago.  The yellow neckbands were our free ticket into the display.  I proudly wore mine all day.  It simply read: You Gotta be here British Columbia Canada.

Although we had stood in line for more than an hour we only spent 20 minutes inside the exhibit.  Ingrid had arranged and hosted a lunch at a nearby restaurant where two of our cousins joined us, Caroline and Elaine who is with CTV and gave us each a souvenir pin.  It was great to connect with these two younger cousins of ours from Winnipeg, although Caroline recently moved to Vancouver.

We were really  surprised at the crowds of people downtown.  We spent a bit of time around Robson Square hoping to catch some Olympians somewhere.  All we saw on the ice was the Zambonie.  We decided to head down to Yaletown, a great walk after our tasty lunch.  From here we walked along the water until we caught the Aquabus which scooted us across the water to Granville Island.  This delightful center was jam-packed with people and we were hard pressed to find a place to sit down to enjoy our coffee and dessert - great assortment from which to choose.

The above picture is on the aquabus and below we've finished coffee-ing and have walked a few blocks further to catch the Olympic Line which is a new kind of street car they're trying out here during the Olympics.  It uses an old streetcar track from days gone by.  We were hoping it would take us to the Olympic Village which is what we wanted to see.  We still had to walk up along the Cambie Street Bridge and from here could over look the complex. 

We're on the pedestrian section of the Cambie Street Bridge which overlooks the  Olympic Village in the distance.  This was the final shot of the day and so decided to show our true colours.   We barely scraped the surface of things to do, places to go and people to see.  But we got a feel of the excitement in the air.  It was a beautiful day and we were so blessed to be together.  From here we said our farewells to Herta who rode south on Canada Line back to Richmond and the three of us rode the Canada Line North where we exited once more at the Waterfront Station.  We had come full circle and now the packed Westcoast Express took Hedy and me back to Abbotsford catching the 5:30 train while Ingrid returned via Seabus to her home on the North shore.  What a privilege and pleasure it was to spend this time with my super sisters.  I am so grateful. Thanks gals!

Go Canada Go!  Two golds already...

The Olympics

The Olympic torch will be passing through Abbotsford next Sunday.  For the next two weeks the Japanese Speed-Skating team and the Russian figure skaters will be practicing at one of our great local sports complexes.

So this morning Al and I explored what this might look like.  This just shows how naive and unsuspecting I still am - thinking we'd sit in the bleachers and it would be come-and-go as you like.  Not so.  The whole ice area was locked down and all the windows curtained with black.  Of course that made sense.  Looking about and asking a few questions, we noticed a line-up outside at the opposite entrance.  So we also took our place in the queue wondering if it would be worth  it.  There were a number of friendly guides around to inform us that they were letting people in in groups of 150 at a time to view the practise from up on the mezzanine floor for 20 minutes.  We waited about 20 minutes and then followed the lead for our turn to observe.

The mezzanine is a glass-enclosed area overlooking the olympic-size sheet of ice.  We were allowed to take pictures, but no flash.  I had only taken a short video clip when my batteries died.  I was prepared and hastily exchanged them.  But now to get that stubborn clip back down to keep the battery chamber closed was the hurdle that practically ate up half my viewing time and got me frustrated.  I so wanted a few pictures.  I did get a lot but oh my, they aren't good.  Way too far away for my  little lens and far too much speed from these fabulous skaters.  I'm going to have to learn to use some of my setting options.  That might have helped some!

It was exciting though to see these super skaters jumping and spinning and flying through the air at such incredible speed.  I'll be watching for the couple below to make it to the podium in the pairs event - they were phenomenal...but then...all the others will be looking mighty fine as well.  No wonder there's always so much controversy surrounding the skating events.

 

The pair below were smaller- she was just so tiny it seemed- but also extremely talented.

  

As we left we saw more skaters and a coach in the lobby.  It was exciting.

 

My sisters and I are planning to take the train into Vancouver two weeks from today in order to wander around downtown where dozens, possibly hundreds of interesting events, displays and shows are available to the public - many of them free of charge.  I think that, like viewing the practise sessions, is a great way of engendering enthusiasm among the locals for this great attraction, the Olympics, that is bringing people from all over the world onto our doorstep.

I'd love to know how I could incorporate a small segment of a video clip here from this morning - it was so beautiful.  Yes, it definitely was worth it.

Lifting the Load

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I had set this photo as my screensaver on my 21" screen but found it just too overwhelming as it jumped up at me when the screen lit up.  It's such a spectacular sight! * Our last visit to Niagara Falls was almost five years ago.  It was a perfect day and we could feel the spray form the Horseshoe Falls, the Canadian falls, and it felt great - cool and refreshing on a very hot day.  However, I wasn't able to get a good shot of those gorgeous falls since there was so much spray.  These are the falls on the American side.
*click on icon above photo to fill the screen

It's been a practise of mine to read through the Bible in a systematic fashion, usually one Book following another beginning at the Beginning - Genesis.   The last couple of years I've mixed it up a bit by adding a chapter a day from the Book of Psalms and then one from the Book of Proverbs.  It's so much more meaningful to read these Books one chapter at a time over the course of half the year simply adding it to my regular reading.

So today I finished the Book of Proverbs which concludes with the "Hymn to a Good Wife" in chapter 31 - to coordinate with the 31 days in this month.  It's a big stretch for me, this "virtuous woman" chapter"...but placed in there for very good reason I know.  Here's just one small segment about how a good wife should treat her husband, taken from "The Message":

Never spiteful, she treats him generously all her life long.

Wow, I need to improve here.  I remember my Mom lamenting quietly at one point in her grieving after my Dad passed away:


Ich konnte Papa besser besorgt haben...I could have looked after Dad better.

Wow!  My mother was exemplary in her devotion and attention to my Dad.

My good hubby came over to where I was working a few minutes ago.  He knew I'd been trying to come to grips with a few things dancing around in my head over the past little while.  So sweetly he  placed  his hand on my shoulder as he re-assured me that God's love for me was great quoting from Psalm 103-

For as the heaven is high above the earth, 
so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. vs 11

Now that was the greatest load-reducer I could have imagined!  Thanks sweetie.  Here he was looking after me so well.  I guess that's what a good  marriage is all about - a team effort.  When one gets weary, physically or emotionally, the other one picks up the slack.  What a great design the Lord laid out for us humans, marriage.  Through all the ups and downs God is faithful and keeps us on this pilgrimage - sometimes dancing, sometimes plodding, sometimes just enduring.   With His help we find our way through.


I've been spending a lot of time getting my photos into iPhoto and editing them.  When I came upon this shot of Niagara Falls I couldn't get it out of my mind.  A picture can be so powerful in its image and we can draw a lot of analogies from it.

It's difficult settling into this post today.  I don't know why.  I've been wanting to post for quite sometime and now inspite of the "scramble" of ideas, here goes on this last day of January, 2010.  God bless us all!

Snowdrops and Parsley

Coming home from an afternoon walk I was floored to see the snowdrops bursting forth through the rocks.  Where had they come from?  I had been looking for tulips in the front flower bed but had neglected to check the rocky area near our front door.  I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed them when I left the house an hour earlier.  But here they were... not quite open yet but with more mild weather in the forecast they'll just keep pushing upwards.  And so the cycle continues...amazing!

 

I checked back to last year's photos and to my surprise found that I'd taken pictures of the snowdrops on January 13 then as well.  They were only buds last year on this day but then we'd had record snowfalls and extended periods of cold weather earlier.

Taking my veggie scraps out to the compost later today, I stopped to check the parsley and there, sure enough, was plenty of fresh parsley to add to the soup.  On the somewhat protected bank along our backyard I noticed the grape hyacinths already long and leggy...and there were the bluebells and dwarf daffodils and crocuses all showing up at once.  I hope we don't have a severe cold snap to dampen their efforts.

My friend Hazel next door has lent me a book on gardening: An Ecology of  Enchantment - A Year in the Life of a Garden by Des Kennedy.  It begins with this month, January.  It looks like it will be worth the read one month at a time.  When I come upon something really "enchanting" I will try to include it over the course of the coming year.

Puzzles

I love puzzles!  That's good, since life presents itself in a kaleidoscope of puzzles it seems.  But the puzzles I like to escape to for relaxation or taxation are fun kind of puzzles to solve, like crosswords and sudokus...and maybe once a year a jigsaw puzzle.

This year I thought I should get a 1000 piece puzzle and leave it out for all who passed by to put in a piece or two.

I never anticipated doing almost all of it by myself.  I've never done this large a puzzle before.  Two of my sisters are avid jigsaw puzzlers and wouldn't even begin with anything less than 1000 pieces.  So after opening up the sealed plastic bag in the evening of Christmas Day after things had quieted down, I began the conquest.  Yesterday, I placed the final piece into place and was quite proud about it.  To be fair there were a few others involved briefly and I must say even Big Al humored me by sitting with me to painstakingly get that sky done.
Al thought it would be fun to take a picture of me so that I could post our accomplishment!  So he did...

Happy New Year!

Al and I wish you all a wonderful new year; a year plump-full of love, joy and peace coming to you from our loving, all-knowing, gracious, compassionate, never-tiring Heavenly Father; pouring into your life in the right amount, the right consistency, the right texture to embolden, strengthen and refine you and to fill you up in the way best suited for you so that you can become the whole, complete person as God has specifically designed you.

May it be a year full of just enough adventure, excitement and challenges to keep you alert and focused on the real reason for our existence right here on planet earth.

Revisiting favorite places from our travels via our photos, prompts me to include some on this post.  Here is an image of the beautiful Sea of Galilee, the Sea around which and on which Jesus taught so many lessons and healed so many people. 

In my Bible reading today I focused on the following thought-provoking Scriptures, Jesus' own words while teaching around this remarkable setting:

But the seed planted in the good earth represents those who hear the Word, embrace it, and produce a harvest beyond their wildest dreams.
Mark 4:20

Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity. Stinginess impoverishes.
Mark 4:25

Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am.

Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self. 

What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What could you ever trade your soul for?
Mark 8:34-38

This is once again the Great Reversal:
Many who are first will end up last, and the last first.
Mark10:31

…hmmm, so much to think about…please help me, Lord Jesus.
(Scripture References taken from The Message)
 
Along a similar vein of thinking, I came across this inspirational article in the Abbotsford Times today, written by Alice Maryniuk.  I've enjoyed her writing in the past and always find it well worth reading.  Please check out her column today at the following site by copying it into your browser:


http://www2.canada.com/abbotsfordtimes/news/faith/story.html?id=42e29d75-5ccd-429c-94bb-784245dad6be

Al and I enjoyed a pilgrimage to the Holy Land four and a half years ago.  Here I am walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee.  I'd love to go back.

Remember this good old song:

"In fancy I stood by the shore one day,
Of that beautiful murm'ring sea.

I saw the great crowds as they thronged their way.
to the Stranger of Galilee...."

-I couldn't find a good clip for it on You Tube but if you like you can check the words and "midi music" just by typing the title into the browser.

ps the photo of Al and me was taken in our computer room with our iMac-
Photo Booth