Monday, December 31, 2007
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
A happy new year hello to all of you from Moorish Mansion on New Year's Eve! The bunch of us in the video - Ian, me, Hayley, Scott, Justin, Jill and Keith - are the die hard partiers!! Well, as much as us all party these days! Family and friends that mean just as much as family... my dear, dear friends Jill and Keith are in the video with us, and I cannot think of anyone I would have rather had with us tonight!
Loads of love, lots of light and laughter, and here is to another year together my darlings!
love love love,
Stevie
xxx
Saturday, December 29, 2007
fun in the snow... toboganing up Forster Creek Road....
explanations and more pics tomorrow... mostly wanted to give Rache a glimpse of H's hair!
xxx
Friday, December 21, 2007
hee hee!
My darling Miss Margery and I are just now having a brief visit before she is off to Winnipeg... and we've gotten a little silly, very happy, and taken a picture of my lovely witchy boots and tights... I had to pull up my black velvet witchy skirt in order for you to see them!
Happy Winter Solstice to all, and to all, a good night!
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Tag!
All righty... a Christmas theme tag: Gypsy, Margie and Mary-Beth
1) Best present ever as a child: A Wonder Woman doll with hands that really moved!
2) Best present ever as an adult: there have been lots I've loved, but short of getting #3, my favourite is always new socks!
3) The one gift you've always hoped for and not yet received: A proposal
4) Your favourite part of Christmas dinner: turkey sandwiches on while bread a few hours later...mmm....
5) Favourite Christmas movie: Love Actually. It is a holiday tradition for my darling Margery and myself.
6) Most lusciously shameful holiday indulgence: doing NOTHING for a couple of days!
1) Best present ever as a child: A Wonder Woman doll with hands that really moved!
2) Best present ever as an adult: there have been lots I've loved, but short of getting #3, my favourite is always new socks!
3) The one gift you've always hoped for and not yet received: A proposal
4) Your favourite part of Christmas dinner: turkey sandwiches on while bread a few hours later...mmm....
5) Favourite Christmas movie: Love Actually. It is a holiday tradition for my darling Margery and myself.
6) Most lusciously shameful holiday indulgence: doing NOTHING for a couple of days!
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Holy holly bells batman
My Christmas column for the Christmas issue of The Echo, which because of press schedules, is always done the week prior...
This year is going to be a very special Christmas in my and Ian’s family.
This year, for the first time in 10 years, Ian’s daughter Hayley will be with us.
And this year, we celebrate in our own home.
To say we should always count our blessings seems almost too cliché.
But as I wandered around my house this morning, frowning at the clutter that arrived in the living room yesterday when we had to empty out a room that needed some minor renos, I realized hey, this is our clutter, in OUR house.
So I scrapped the column I had originally written for this issue and started anew.
Our house. Our own piece of land, our own little space in the world to call our own.
And somehow ‘blessing’ seems too small a word to describe just how that makes me feel.
I feel like we had to make a choice a while back: not a conscious one, perhaps, but one that made all the difference in the world.
I have always tried to look for the positive in things, to see the bright side. It takes a concerted effort sometimes, but I’ve tried.
But while I am a positive person, there was still a tiny part of me that sent out a constant stream of negative: I was convinced we would never own a home here. I verbalized that sentiment. I believed it. It was a pathetic, self-serving, self-pitying emotion, a self-fulfilling prophecy. And hence, we did not own a home.
That little thing, that one conviction, can change everything, no matter what the focus of that negativity is.
I can’t tell you the exact date when I became aware of what I was doing. I can’t give you an exact time or place I decided that enough is enough. But I do remember making a conscientious effort stem that negative stream, to eliminate it from my being. And then on the drive home to Wilmer one afternoon, I saw a for sale sign. And here we are. In our home.
It is like we reached the crest of a mountain, and though there is plenty of journey left in front of us, with that negativity out of the picture, I feel stronger, ready to tackle the ups and downs ahead. Not because we bought a house, but because I stopped defeating myself.
Christmas is not something to take for granted. Food, gifts, warmth of home and warmth of heart are not common in the world. For some families it means nothing at all. For some children in care facilities (often there through no fault of their own), some as young as seven, it is “just another day in lock down,” to quote a friend. He, and others like him, do what they can to make Christmas happen for the children at one Calgary facility in particular, with gifts not just of the wrapped variety, but the gift of their time on Christmas day.
“It is such a privilege to be able to be with them while they open those presents, some of them children no one else wants…” His voice wavered at the end of that sentence, any words to follow left unsaid but understood.
Here in the valley, there are families who do without. Not always enough food, not always a gift to give or receive… but we have the Christmas Bureau and Angel Tree help those who reach out.
There are those here who do not for whatever reason access that help and if you know someone like that, please reach out to them. If you know of someone with no one to spend Christmas with, whether their family is far away or simply gone, invite them in.
This Christmas, our tree will shine extra bright.
Each friend that comes by, each family member we have with us, every morsel of food, every gift, every moment we have…none will go unnoticed.
Christmas is truly, in my heart, a time to be glad for all we have, for our family around us, and family far away (and my beloved bloggy family!).
Christmas is about love. And I have more love in my life than I could ever wrap in boxes and put under a tree.
Merry Christmas. Indeed.
S.
This year is going to be a very special Christmas in my and Ian’s family.
This year, for the first time in 10 years, Ian’s daughter Hayley will be with us.
And this year, we celebrate in our own home.
To say we should always count our blessings seems almost too cliché.
But as I wandered around my house this morning, frowning at the clutter that arrived in the living room yesterday when we had to empty out a room that needed some minor renos, I realized hey, this is our clutter, in OUR house.
So I scrapped the column I had originally written for this issue and started anew.
Our house. Our own piece of land, our own little space in the world to call our own.
And somehow ‘blessing’ seems too small a word to describe just how that makes me feel.
I feel like we had to make a choice a while back: not a conscious one, perhaps, but one that made all the difference in the world.
I have always tried to look for the positive in things, to see the bright side. It takes a concerted effort sometimes, but I’ve tried.
But while I am a positive person, there was still a tiny part of me that sent out a constant stream of negative: I was convinced we would never own a home here. I verbalized that sentiment. I believed it. It was a pathetic, self-serving, self-pitying emotion, a self-fulfilling prophecy. And hence, we did not own a home.
That little thing, that one conviction, can change everything, no matter what the focus of that negativity is.
I can’t tell you the exact date when I became aware of what I was doing. I can’t give you an exact time or place I decided that enough is enough. But I do remember making a conscientious effort stem that negative stream, to eliminate it from my being. And then on the drive home to Wilmer one afternoon, I saw a for sale sign. And here we are. In our home.
It is like we reached the crest of a mountain, and though there is plenty of journey left in front of us, with that negativity out of the picture, I feel stronger, ready to tackle the ups and downs ahead. Not because we bought a house, but because I stopped defeating myself.
Christmas is not something to take for granted. Food, gifts, warmth of home and warmth of heart are not common in the world. For some families it means nothing at all. For some children in care facilities (often there through no fault of their own), some as young as seven, it is “just another day in lock down,” to quote a friend. He, and others like him, do what they can to make Christmas happen for the children at one Calgary facility in particular, with gifts not just of the wrapped variety, but the gift of their time on Christmas day.
“It is such a privilege to be able to be with them while they open those presents, some of them children no one else wants…” His voice wavered at the end of that sentence, any words to follow left unsaid but understood.
Here in the valley, there are families who do without. Not always enough food, not always a gift to give or receive… but we have the Christmas Bureau and Angel Tree help those who reach out.
There are those here who do not for whatever reason access that help and if you know someone like that, please reach out to them. If you know of someone with no one to spend Christmas with, whether their family is far away or simply gone, invite them in.
This Christmas, our tree will shine extra bright.
Each friend that comes by, each family member we have with us, every morsel of food, every gift, every moment we have…none will go unnoticed.
Christmas is truly, in my heart, a time to be glad for all we have, for our family around us, and family far away (and my beloved bloggy family!).
Christmas is about love. And I have more love in my life than I could ever wrap in boxes and put under a tree.
Merry Christmas. Indeed.
S.
Sunday, December 02, 2007
oh ebay, my ebay, where for art thou ebay?
Shoozzz!!
Hee hee! I love these, and they're MINE MINE MINE! Or will be as soon as they are shipped to me!
LooK:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130178033542
ps:
I HAD to add this... I looked at a little bookshelf (which was described, I believe mistakenly, as one inch high), but nearly peed when I read the description from the seller... bablefish anyone?
"Exquisite Tibet rosewood bookshelf
Hello my friend: The thanks sees my item. all they are good. Very lifelike! If you win the item, it will bring you is in fortune with your family and wish! Please don't miss the a fair show to take it! Own your bid !The astonishing felling is start because once you bid. Your contented is my happiness.
I wish you will like it and don't lose the chance to get it. Good Lock!"
And now for something completely different... a photo one of my energetic YC kids...
Hee hee! I love these, and they're MINE MINE MINE! Or will be as soon as they are shipped to me!
LooK:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130178033542
ps:
I HAD to add this... I looked at a little bookshelf (which was described, I believe mistakenly, as one inch high), but nearly peed when I read the description from the seller... bablefish anyone?
"Exquisite Tibet rosewood bookshelf
Hello my friend: The thanks sees my item. all they are good. Very lifelike! If you win the item, it will bring you is in fortune with your family and wish! Please don't miss the a fair show to take it! Own your bid !The astonishing felling is start because once you bid. Your contented is my happiness.
I wish you will like it and don't lose the chance to get it. Good Lock!"
And now for something completely different... a photo one of my energetic YC kids...
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