Cooking

Wish I could develop this attitude towards meal preparation:

"During the entire cooking process, it’s very important to have a positive and loving attitude – so we consciously do things that will help the cooks become more calm and centered.
We always offer a simple prayer before cooking and I never cook when angry or upset, as these vibrations will go into the food and the guests will feel it.
We treat the food with respect, love and focused attention. The way we handle it, the way we wash it – the whole process is done with care.
We play only soft and calming music.
I have a little altar in the kitchen with some flowers and maybe a candle burning to keep the mood sacred.
I allow Spirit to flow through me, through my hands and heart and into the food I am preparing.
Together with the guests, we bless the food before we eat as an act of appreciation and gratitude. We sing the prayer all together so the entire meal becomes an uplifting experience.
The most important ingredient for successful cooking is your own “vibration” If you cook with focused attention, joy, kindness and love, this will be reflected in the appearance and taste of the food and in the compliments you receive." Blanche McCord

Daily Record Book

Remember those old Green Daily Plan and Record Books that teacher's kept on their desks. I keep one on my computer desk to keep track of what has sparked my interest on the web. I don't keep track of dates or everywhere I've surfed but it is a type of log. The reason I prefer the teacher's record book is because it is fairly big, a colour with associations and a big spiral binding so it doesn't disappear in the midst of the rest of the stuff.

Disney Couples

I'm a big fan of youtube because it condenses long movies into 3 minute music videos. Well I just discovered that if you type Disney Couples into the youtube search box, up comes the sound track of modern love music with video clips of the most romantic pieces from a jumble of disney princess movies. There are an amazing number of these videos and I'm sure there are countless more being compiled as we speak. Stephen and I didn't date long enough to have an "OUR SONG" so I'm researching possibilities. Thanks to weddings, I'm sure we have memories of dancing to just about everything. My favourite clips are alway the ballroom dance scenes. I don't know what other girls were looking for in a man but I was determined to never marry anyone who would prefer sitting and talking to being on the dance floor."

Financial Considerations

Financial planners aren't talking so much about getting your house into financial order during the empty nest period leading up to retirement. Instead they are writing articles titled, "So Your Kid Wants to be a Rock Star" or "When Mom and Dad go to Iraq, Grandma and Grandpa live on Base" or "Who is the Alzheimer Patient and Who is the Caregiver - the 90 year old mother or the 70 year old daughter". There is an unanticipated trend for the snowbirds to fly back to Canada once their golfing days end which hasn't been budgeted for by municipalities. And with big student loans, the high cost of housing, the instability of relationships and the disappearing jobs, adult children and their offspring are either moving home or the parents are giving them financial aid to stay wherever they are.
So the talk around the baby boomer watering hole these days isn't about freedom 55. The Ontario Government has released a paper by LeRoy O Stone "New Frontiers of Research on Retirement" which is worth a look. When my friends began retiring, I stopped thinking about "What I want to do when I grow up". However, that might have been short sighted on both my part and those who retired early. http://www.publications.gov.on.ca/english/pubonweb/alpha_list.html

Weird Hair

What do you think of red hair with pink streaks or blue hair with purple highlights? Well I have very little hair on top and I think it's great when the young with their beautiful skin tones experiment and have fun with their hair. How long does youth last anyhow- maybe a minute and a half. Today on the internet they listed jobs that you can do with weird hair. So in case you're thinking that job hunting might be a bit of a challenge with weird hair, a stud through your tongue and all those tatoos, here's the jobs to consider: Barista, Cosmetologist, Massage Therapist, Server, Copy Editor, Theatre Worker, Softwear Developer, Web Designer, Art School Instructor, Photographer, Chemist and Sports Mascot. Basically they are either jobs where the artsy, edgy look is what they're after or jobs where most of the work is done behind the scenes so you're not a reflection of company image.

Young Creative Moms

At the end of the day, I like to check out a couple of creative young mom blogs. I start with this list http://www.bealivebelievebeyou.com/connections/ and randomly select a blog. If I like that blog than I check out a couple of the favourites posted there.
The major problem young moms have is that they are a bit invisible as unique human beings deserving recognition and enthusiastic response for their activities. So I'm all for it if they want to post a picture of that nutritionally balanced with kid-appeal school lunch they prepared and packed. They post a picture of their first attempt to knit a scarf or the picture they just painted or a card they made for a friend. It's easy to lose the individual, creative aspect of life when there's so much effort required to hold the whole good wife, good mom thing together. So I look at a couple of these "show and tell" blogs and I'm the silent cheerleader saying "You go girl!" I don't have much of an appreciation for art gallery stuff but I do get mommy creativity.

re: Interview David & his dad

http://www.achannel.ca/windsor/news_43886.aspx

There are 2 seaman from Windsor interviewed. My son is the second one. Stephen is talking a about how important it is to stay in communication. The Halifax isn't David's regular ship. He went on the recruitment cruise along the Great Lakes in order to get an extra trip home.