True story.
Names hidden to protect the guilty.
Husband to wife, as he cuts a slice of homemade carrot, banana, pineapple cake with whipped lemon buttercream icing: “Are you fighting the urge for sweet things lately?”
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Wife, who has lost almost 30 lbs in the last year: “No. I’m not fighting…”
One of my former students, who was a beta reader for Grace Awakening, wrote me the other day to tell me how she was thinking about downloading some music for her iPod. She thought, “I should download that song Ben wrote for Grace” and then realised with some chagrin, oh wait. That doesn’t really exist.
The note has made me smile all week. I love that my characters are so alive! I love that Ben is so real that people want to find the music described in the book for their iPod.
Of course, there was music that inspired all the music Ben writes for Grace. I don’t think I could have written it without remembering the feeling of listening to a composition created just for me by a musician I adored. (See the blog entitled “Starry Night of Music” for a general sense of it!) When I find the missing cassette tape, I promise to post my Graduation tune (providing the composer gives permission, that is). Until then, perhaps you can find something inspiring among the demo reels at Bhatia Music?
I got my auto insurance renewal notice from ICBC the other day. As I read down to the bottom, I noticed a ‘clip off’ section with the note: “Don’t let this disappear under a pile of paperwork. Cut out the slip below and stick it on the fridge.”
I pointed it out to my husband and commented, “Hon, look! ICBC knows me!”
He snickered and said, “If they really knew you, they’d say, ‘Quick, give this notice to your husband.'”
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😉 All the sadder because it’s so true. I adore that man who keeps my world spinning by maintaining the mundane order of things. Whatever would I do without him? Someone recently asked me how I manage to keep a daily blog, teach, write a novel, and ‘all the other stuff.’ He’s why. He holds the string so I can fly.
prompt #61 What is the longest you’ve been awake?
The morning dawned with excitement. Today our exchange group was off to Quebec! Our Quebecois ‘jumelles’ had been in town for two weeks, I had celebrated my 16th birthday with them, and now it was our turn to explore a new community on the other side of the country. Of course, it was a red eye charter, but we were young and filled our jumelles’ last day with fun before heading to the airport for our midnight flight to Vancouver.
In Vancouver, several hundred teens were sent to an army drill hall to wait for our flight which was to depart in the wee hours of the morning. We were starting to get distinctly blurry eyed at this point, without much to do but visit. Some napped, some, like me, were still too excited about the cross Canada journey to consider sleeping. It was something like 6 a.m when the plane left the tarmack in Vancouver. We watched the sun rise across the country and landed in the very empty Mirabel Airport in Montreal. Some of the group left us in Montreal, the rest of us waited for buses to take us to our host communities.
My bus took us first to Quebec City, then another bus took us south into the Beauce region. It was now dinner time. My jumelle’s parents greeted us, fed us a lovely dinner, and then she told them about her adventures in the West. Somewhere around ten or eleven o’clock we crashed from exhaustion and I slept fourteen hours to recover. We had been awake for over forty hours.
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I have since had several other long trips with many connections and time changes. I have many times been awake close to this long (or perhaps longer), but this was the first such adventure, and it remains rooted firmly in my memory.
As my final thought on Guiding and Scouting Week, I think of the stories my dad tells of his days as a Boy Scout.
My father was a Scout in the 1920s and 30s and he has fond memories of camping in the then very rustic Tamaracouta Boy Scout Camp near Montreal. Tamaracouta is still running, and it is the oldest continuing Scout Camp in the world. We have a photo of my dad and his teen buddies posing on a bridge in their Stetson hats and hiking poles on their way to Tamaracouta. Each teen has laughing eyes, gleaming with the fun of Scouting adventures. It is extremely poignant that within fifteen years the majority of the group had died fighting in World War Two.
My dad is a whiz at knots and he taught me quite few of them. I was the fastest clove hitch tier in Guiding due to his training! Dad talks of hiking into Tamaracouta, swimming the lake and falling out of boats with great fondness for the adventures, but also for the great friends who shared them.
Dad is also rather proud that he saw Lord and Lady Baden-Powell when they came to Canada on tour. He thought the young lady was a daughter, and was surprised when I pointed out B-P was some 30 years older than his wife Olave Soames! Dad did his best to follow B-P’s lead on that score as well, though Dad’s beautiful young wife (my mother) was only 15 years his junior.
What are some of your Scouting memories?
Montreal scouts going to Tamaracouta c1930
The Boy Scouts are (L>R) Vincent Martin, Herb Duguay, Kenneth Dow, Hart Savage and Jack Dow.
Well, I am glad that Thinking Day occurs in Scouting Week, so I can carry on with my theme of Girl Guide memories with some impunity.
Another fun memory of Guiding is singing around the campfire. I even put a campfire scene in Grace Awakening to celebrate these moments. One of my favorite things is making up a verse of Quartermaster’s Store for everyone present around the fire.
Got a name? I’ll make you a verse! I’m serious! Send me the name (and pronunciation if it’s not a common name) in the comment section below and I’ll make you a verse for your personal use within Guiding (or wherever your campfire happens to be).
If you don’t remember the song it goes like this:
♪ My eyes are dim I can not see ♪
♪ I have not brought my specs with me ♪
♪I havvvvvve no-ot brought . my. specs. with. me. ♪
♪ There was Shawn, Shawn making out with John ♪
♪ in the store ♪ in the store ♪
♪ There was Shawn, Shawn making out with John ♪
♪ in the quartermaster’s stor-or-ore ♪
Come on- gather ’round my fire!
PS. My husband is John. My Guides loved the naughtiness of this! lol
When I was involved in Guiding, there was a need to create non-denominational graces for units to use at events. I had a lot of fun creating several graces sung to the tunes of popular songs of the time (e.g. “The Barbie Girl Grace”) as well as common Guiding tunes (e.g. “Shawn’s Grace” to the tune of “Fire’s Burning”). Some of them are still circulating at http://www.users.ms11.net/~gsong/Graces/nondom.html
I find it somewhat ironic that if you search Grace and “Shawn Bird” on the internet, these old graces show up, along with references to Grace Awakening. The graces are all given for free use within Guiding and I am thrilled when every once in awhile I stumble across some reference to one being used at a Guiding event. It’s kind of nice that my words are still being used within Guiding.
You’ll notice that my collection of Rotary Invocations follow the same model. I create non-denominational invocations for use in Rotary. If Rotarians would sing, I’d get them to use those Guiding Graces, but I just can’t see it happening. 😉
Every February 22 members of the Scouting movement celebrate the birthdays of Lord and Lady Baden-Powell. On this day, Guiding members are supposed to think about Girl Guides and Girl Scouts around the world. You may think of Girl Guides as a craft and camping club, but the fact is that Guiding is still a relevant and powerful agent for female empowerment around the world. See the World Association’s Thinking Day website here: http://www.worldthinkingday.org/en/home
In honour of Thinking Day, I’m thinking about Guiding. Excuse my rambles down memory lane. I spent many years gathered around Girl Guide camp fires as a girl and woman. The women I met in Guiding exemplified the idea that “you can grow older, but you don’t have to grow up.” These women know how to have a good time with a bag of bottle caps, tin plates, corks, and pins! They can make an oven from a cardboard box, tin foil and pop cans. They can make a toaster from a clothes hanger. This isn’t silliness, this is about thinking outside the box, using resources in creative ways; learning how to do such things empowers girls.
These women can teach a dozen or two 8 year olds how to make a bed roll in 2 mins, or set up a tent in 3 mins. One of my favorite memories of camping is when mothers dropped off their 8 and 9 year olds at our Guide camp site. One mother asked, “Do you want us to help set up the tents?” I replied, “No, the girls will do it.” The mother’s expression reflected her doubt that her little darling, who probably couldn’t pull up bed sheets would be capable of such a project. I smirked, clapped my hands and gathered the girls. “Do you know who your tent mates are?” I asked. The girls grabbed each other in tight little groups of four. I pointed to the pile of tents in their bags. “Set ’em up!” Girls flew to the tents, grabbed one and in under five minutes each group was proudly loading their bed rolls into their perfectly assembled tents. Mothers stood with mouths agape. Of course we’d practiced this skill in races at meetings over the year, so even though it was a first camping trip, the girls had developed skills. Girl Guides teaches life skills. In that moment they demonstrated independence, team work, organization. That’s real life problem solving and fun with a purpose!
The high point of my Guiding life was an international camp that I attended in Trail, BC. Over three thousand girls and women, mostly from BC, but also representing every province in Canada, several American States, and several foreign countries, gathered together in a most phenomenally well organized week of camping I’ve ever experienced. Girls participated in community service projects, athletic, artistic and craft activities, as well as hikes, outdoor cooking, and tent life. Friends were made. I wrote a British Guider for several years afterwards until we both moved and lost touch (Hmm. Facebook…). The event, The Spirit of Adventure Rendez-Vous or SOAR, still occurs regularly (every 3 years, I believe). It is hosted by the Girl Guides of British Columbia. This is a SOAR year, so I suggest if you’re in Guiding, that you get together a patrol and apply to attend for SOAR 2011! You won’t regret it!
Young people benefit from the character that is developed by this movement. The practical lessons, new skills and experiences they would otherwise not have all serve to expand horizons broaden minds. There are a lot of famous former Girl Guides and Scouts like Roberta Bodnar the astronaut, Phyllis Maundy the conservationist.
What famous person do you know who learned skills in the Scouting movement? What did you learn?
WordPress Daily Blog challenge. Day 46 prompt: What you learned recently
Between August 2009 and August 2010 I watched my sister-in-law shrink. She had been on stage receiving accolades for her Tupperware™ successes at the Jubilee in Florida and decided that the next Jubilee when she was on that stage, she would be slender. All year, with the support of her local Herbal Magic, she lost consistently, shedding basically 2 lbs a week for a year. The transformation was phenomenal.
I watched and I learned. I had researched Herbal Magic previously, and decided that it was not for me, but I learned about a program called Health Pointe 2.0 that seemed to follow similar principles but at a fraction of the cost, run by a lady I respect in our community. October 31 I signed up to reprogram my brain and body so I could get rid of the stubborn thirty pounds I gained during my teaching practicum so many years ago… (and 20 of their pound friends that joined them afterwards!)
What I’ve learned is that it’s possible to defeat the fat! I already had a bit of a fitness regime, dancing a couple times a week and getting out on long walks reasonably regularly. I amped that up by joining Curves, and getting there to work out at least 4 times a week. I basically have cut carbs from my life. I will occasionally have a bit of rice or potato, but not on a daily basis. I have doubled my fruit and vegetable intake. I made sure I’m never hungry by taking in a protein snack every couple of hours (cottage cheese, yoghurt, protein bar…). It hasn’t been difficult, and after the results became apparent the first week, it’s been easy to see the inevitable reward. Yesterday my husband tried to take me for lunch to A&W, but because I’d just had my protein snack, I was able to resist the temptation and saved myself a thousand calories I didn’t need. This morning I was rewarded with the lowest number on my scale in a decade.
It’d be great if it was a faster process. I’d hoped to be further along by this point, but I’m still two sizes smaller than I was in October and it’s very obvious. I bought size 12 pants yesterday and the size 16, 18 and 20s are off to the thrift store…
I’ve also learned that there are solutions for small issues. I am reticent to take vitamin pills for some reason. Perhaps because they’re so huge and nasty to swallow I manage to forget them all the time. This weekend I found adult gummy vitamins!! Mmmm! Oh what a wonderful invention those are! Problem solved. 😉
Following my week’s focus on gratitude, let me spell this out. I am thankful for the inspiration of Cindy Bird to begin this weight loss journey. I am thankful for the success I’m having and the support of Marie Kolenosky of Health Pointe 2.0. I am thankful for a very happy husband who celebrates the changes (even if he tries to tempt with pizza and burgers). I am thankful for gummy vitamins!
18 down- 20 to go!
At a ProD today they were laughing about this conversation between a student and a young teacher (who was one of my students once upon a time!)
A class was all busily working on an assignment but “Johnny” still hadn’t taken out his work to even begin. The teacher asked him to get to work.
Johnny replied, “Just a sec!”
The exasperated teacher exclaimed, “Johnny! I’ve already given you LOTS OF SECS!”
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By noon, the entire school was laughing about it, and the teacher was thoroughly red-faced. 😉
Shawn L. Bird 