MRB's Talking Fingers

  Our Canadian Thanksgiving has come and gone, November has arrived, and we've just experienced our first snowstorm of the season. It has been quite a year, and Christmas is just around the corner. This year, we are being encouraged to shop early because supply may be a challenge. I am so happy that I don't have to go shopping. Years ago, our two adult children suggested that we should find a Christmas project to donate to, because none of us needed anything. We agreed with their request that if we wanted to gift the children, one gift for each was enough. One gift didn't mean one big box with six items in it... it meant ONE gift! During the year, we could still remember birthdays with cards and gifts, and “just because” gifts were always acceptable. We also stopped sending piles of Christmas cards with just a salutation, but send a New Year’s newsletter to our friends. It was not our original idea, but when we started receiving letters from friends that included their spec...

 I don’t have to check my calendar … I just have to see the department in my chosen shopping location, to see the massive displays of Halloween costumes and other paraphilia to prepare for the end of the month. It seems that the majority of costumes are for adults. I grew up in a time when Halloween was a school party and a tour of the rural neighborhood, to sing a song or recite a verse at a neighbor’s front door as payment for a treat that could have been made in the their kitchen. There were a few pranks, instigated by some young adults, and most were accepted in good humor. There were no injuries, no food poisonings, no razor blades in home-made popcorn balls, and no defacing of personal properties. Our costumes were put together at home, often using clothing from our own closet or our parents’ work closet. Most of the time, we used face make-up instead of masks, and often wore a warm coat and boots if there was a layer of snow, suggesting that winter was coming early. For th...

What happens when it's time again to celebrate your birth date. Are you as excited about it as you once were? Are you disappointed because the family didn’t come up with a ‘surprise’ party like they did ten years ago? I hope you answered ‘NO’ to both of those questions, and have filled your heart and mind with grateful and thankful thoughts… for another day, for loving family and friends, and acceptance of the challenges that all of us are experiencing this year. September was my month, and I had prepared myself that whatever happened, I would be thankful and content. There were wedding plans for our only grandson and his fiancé, and the anticipation for several family birthdays, including my own. In the meantime, I had time to think about lots of things that have changed in my lifetime. Who would have thought that we would be able to experience a plethora of experiences that were so different from what we thought were normal. I’m hoping that when you continue to read, it will br...

The summer of 2021 has created a lot of questions in “face-to-face” and “cyber” conversations with family and friends … ‘ Who are you visiting these days?’, ‘ What is occupying your time?’, ‘ When  were you bored with nothing to do?’, ‘ Where are you most days?’, ‘ Why have you stopped writing blogs?’ Here comes my attempt to answer as best that I can, and if this gets too long, take a break or find something that is more interesting to read. 1.        WHO am I visiting with these days? - My husband any time of the day - Chats with neighbor over the back fence or on the road - Anyone who calls me on the phone or accepts my telephone call 2.        WHAT am I thankful for? - The day my husband came home from the hospital after open heart surgery and complications - For the love and support of our adult children and their families, even when we couldn’t be together. - The circumstances in my life have increased ...

I hear that song many, many times because it was our daughter’s favorite song that she learned on a visit to Disneyland. She loved the dolls and music, and her record player in her own room. Some unexpected events recently have brought back that song… and for me, music sticks very hard in my ‘memory bank’. It has been quite a summer for us, some events were not pleasant but surprising, and some events were surprising AND pleasant. Being that I haven’t been ON THE HILL very often, I decided that it was time to write an ‘update’ blog, to let you know that we are still on the right side of the grass. My husband is on a great road of recovery… and our hearts are filled with thankful thoughts and prayers from the ‘army of friends and family’ who were standing with us. Little did we know that this was the season for both of us to recover from successful surgery. I must say that both of us are grateful for the wonderful medical community available to us, but tired of all the medical appoi...

  After some discussion in recent blogs about our use of the English language, it brought to mind one of the major projects that was presented to me some twenty years ago. My abilities on the computer were being honed with persistence, and my first two major contracts were to design and print “advertising cards” for companies who wished to advertise through Welcome Wagon, and announcement cards for Christian Women’s Club. Being a home-based business in a rural setting added a lot of road trips to my adventures. On one occasion, I received a phone call from a gentleman who said that he had received my business card from the Welcome Wagon representative, and wondered if I did proof-reading and script preparation for publishing; did that fit into the job description of “Your Choice Designs”? He was looking for someone to review his autobiography and ready it for printing. No, I had never done anything like that before. I told him that I was a retired nurse, I loved to read, and now wa...

How many times have you said that you didn't want to be a bother” to a friend, when you know they are going through an unusually busy or stressful time. You would like to do something to help, but then wondered what you could do that would be helpful. Even a phone call would interrupt their busy day, and that could just be annoying. Many years ago, when your children were quite young, we had an experience that I’ll never forget. My husband had a serious accident at our new home under construction. I had just returned home to put our children to bed, when the doorbell rang. I didn’t want to see or talk to anyone, especially someone who would be trying to sell me something that I didn’t need. However, after about the fourth chime from the door, I opened the door a wee bit and recognized the callers. The gentleman worked in our office, and he and his wife had travelled across the city to bring us a box of homemade cookies for the children’s lunch bags. They told me that they didn’t kn...