Just two months!!!! eeekkkk….
Just 2 months until A & K’s wedding
in CUBA!
I’m so excited!!
Category: Family
The last day of the year
Whoa! The last day of 2015.
So much happened this year. So many things that I couldn’t have imagined. Good things…GREAT and Awesome things, but also a few very sad and heartbreaking things. That’s the way life is, you just never know what each year will bring.
This year, New Year’s Eve, we are having a quiet evening at home. Yes, I know…no exciting city to see how they celebrate New Year’s Eve. We just needed quiet and together. Sure I still have a Bucket List of ideas for other years…here’s hoping!
Tonight as 2015 passes to 2016, we are THANKFUL for having had another year and look forward to what a new year will bring! There are some exciting things already planned and here’s wishing for surprises and adventure along the way.
What are your thoughts and wishes as we celebrate this New Year’s Eve?
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!
A little puzzling…
Not puzzling as in confused.
Puzzling as in it’s the time of year when it’s snowy and blowing outside, and it’s Christmas vacay, and it’s time to stay cozy inside and do puzzles…LOTS OF PUZZLES.
This one posed a bit of a challenge. So many small pieces and too close to Christmas Day when I needed the extra table for Christmas Dinner.
But it got done!
It’s David’s thing to do and the kids and Mom & Dad will join in sometimes. He’s all stocked up with puzzles, so we should be good for the next few months…
especially when it’s a blizzard like yesterday’s snow outside!!!
WELCOME to your new home!!
Today is an exciting day!!!! Good Morning and Welcome to your new home! Welcome to Bridgewater!!
The first Syrian refugee family has arrived on the South Shore of Nova Scotia. Fadia Mekdad and her husband, Mohamed Al Kafri, and their daughters, Fatima and Farah.
( GAYLE WILSON PHOTO)
The family is sponsored by St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Bridgewater, which had raised $23,000 to bring the family in. In addition to the cash, there were numerous contributions in kind. Tim O’Regan of O’Regan’s Toyota, for example, provided a minivan to pick the family up from the airport, and Bridgewater’s Bulk Barn has invited them to come to the store to stock their kitchen with spices and other foods.For the first week or so, they will be staying at the home of parishioners in town. At the end of the month, after they choose from among furniture that was donated, they’ll be moving into an apartment in town. ( Lighthouse Now)
We hope you finally feel very safe and as you begin your new life, settle in, and learn some English, we hope and pray that you’ll feel welcome and it will be a smooth adjustment. We are so thankful to the BIG hearts of the families that have sponsored you!
Crazy and Fun Christmas Gifts!
I love Christmas! The holiday is over far too quickly and it makes me sad to see people commenting they are putting away Christmas on December 27 or 28th. But every one has there own preference. I just like these special things to last as long as possible.
We were so blessed at Christmas with wonderful thoughtful gifts. I just want to give you a quick snapshot of a few of the fun ones!
So James got a Chemex! Perfect for the coffee connoisseur that he is…
And Abby got a green and blue moose…
because every little dog needs a green moose with a blue beard for a friend!
I got some new Nova Scotia themed story books and Abby & I got sock monkeys!
David got Night Vision!
He’s been curious for a long time what other creatures besides deer are lurking in our backyard at night in the middle of town.
And the coolest thing…
I got a dumpling maker!
The dumpling cube presses out 4 at a time! But honestly David, how am I ever going to perfect my jiaozi making skills if I start using a cube? That just won’t do.
Lots of fun and thoughtful gifts this year!
What a difference a day makes as I sit here this morning blogging with my coffee blogging. Christmas Day and Boxing Day gorgeous warm temps and today everything is white and frozen, windy and cold! But the sky is blue and the sun shines!
It’s Christmas…My Heart is FULL
It’s Christmas!
I Love this special day with my family.
The kids are all home.
My parents and my sister and her family here. It is our family tradition and It has been a wonderful day celebrating together.
A beautiful afternoon meant family pics outside, a few minutes on my rocker ( a Christmas gift made by my Daddy), a motorbike ride and enjoying a beautiful sunset.
And this year…December 25th, there is a Full moon in the night sky. A beautiful conclusion to a wonderful day.
Christmas is a day of reflection, gratitude, togetherness, cheer, warmth, giving, and goodness. It’s unique for many reasons, one of them being that it happens one day a year. When a full moon occurs, there’s an overwhelming energy that arises. The sun and the moon are in opposite Zodiac signs. And while it proves to be a time of utter charge, it also brings about balance. The solar yang and the lunar yin are congruous.
It makes it even more intriguing that the last full moon we’ll see in 2015 happens to be on one of the most celebratory days of the year. People are enthralled with this idea, perhaps because it’s so spectacular that two big things are coming together. Bizarre and beautiful occurrences take place during full moons. Wonderful things happen on Christmas. The combination of the two is like a treat you never knew you needed until you’re informed of its presence, and suddenly the excitement consumes you.
The December full moon is special because it rises near sunset and then sets close to sunrise. This means that it is the only night in the entire month that the moon stays in the sky for the whole night. And even better is that a full moon on Christmas day hasn’t occurred for 38 years (1977)and the next one won’t appear until 2034.
As I gaze up at the moon tonight my heart is full, I’m so thankful and I’m thinking about family and friends all over the world that are seeing the same moon, and wishing them a wonderful Christmas and may all their dreams and wishes come true in 2016.
I am so blessed!
Merry Christmas From Nova Scotia ~ East Coast Style!
Nothing says East Coast and Christmas more than a great feed of lobster. After all, it’s Lobster season here along the East Coast and it’s time to enjoy our annual Christmas time tradition of Lobster ( a little extra seafood too)
Oh my darling…
Oh my darling, Oh my darling Clementine ♫♫♫
Here’s a Thursday Throwback! I remember singing this song on the tire swing growing up as a kid.
Yesterday I picked up a bag of clementines at the market ( I eat so many of them this time of year) and they made me smile and think of this!
Darling Clementines
So I HAD to do some research…does clementine oranges have something to do with the song? I didn’t think so
This is what Wikipedia had to say
While at first the song seems to be a sad ballad sung by a bereaved lover about the loss of his darling, the daughter of a miner in the 1849 California Gold Rush, as the verses continue it becomes obvious that the song is in fact a tongue-in-cheek parody of a sad ballad. For example, in the second verse we learn that Clementine’s feet are so big that she has to wear boxes instead of shoes (presumably because size 9 shoes are not available); hardly a detail that would be mentioned in a serious romantic ballad. Her “tragic demise” is caused by a splinter in her toe that causes her to fall and drown – clearly a ridiculous accident, but told in a deadpan style. Finally, at the end of the song, the lover forgets his lost love after one kiss from Clementine’s “little sister”.
Gerald Brenan attributes the melody to originally being an old Spanish Ballad in his book South from Granada. It was made popular by Mexican miners during the Gold Rush. It is unclear when, where and by whom the song was first recorded in English for others to hear but the first version to reach the Billboard charts was that by Bing Crosby in 1941 when it briefly touched the No. 20 spot.
And I also found some other interesting facts!
- An instrumental version was used in the movie Back to the Future Part III.
- The song plays during the opening credits for the John Ford movie My Darling Clementine, with Henry Fonda. It also runs as a background score all through the movie.
- It is used as background music in another John Ford film, The Grapes of Wrath, also starring Henry Fonda.
- A North Korean musical movie from 1972, The Flower Girl, used the song’s melody as its main theme.
- Scooby Doo whistled the tune in the episode featuring the Miner 49’er.
- A birthday version with Chinese lyrics is featured in the 2001 movie Quitting.
- The melody is used in “Xin Nian Hao Ya”, a Chinese New Year song. Ahh…yes…the Chinese New Year song, I knew it sounded familiar!!!
So it’s kinda funny…nothing to do at all with clementine’s.
And in case you don’t remember the song. Check this out while you’re enjoying some clementines today.
Happy Thursday!
Christmas Wish
Do you remember growing up waiting for the day when the Sears Christmas Wish Book would arrive? I sure do. Back when I was little my Mom did a lot of her Christmas shopping from Sears…for the bigger items. She was always busy working and found it hard to be out shopping.
My sister and I would anxiously wait for the “Wish Book” to arrive in the mail and then we would each have our turn to look. Mom always told us we could put a little mark beside a few items we really liked and she would choose what to get us for Christmas. It was so much fun and such a special memory from my childhood.
These days I rarely see a “Wish Book”. Mom still gets it. I stopped at Mom’s today for a visit, for coffee and for a quick peak at the Wish Book, for old times sake. Mom said, “What would like for Christmas this year?” My choices have changed a bit over the years…
What would I really like?
I would like PEACE and LOVE. No more world violence and catastrophes, no racism, and hate. Oh so many things…I could compile a long list…but that is not our world these days…it makes me sad.
1Corinthians 13:13~ Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.(NLT)
That is my Christmas Wish!
All Over The World
I have been so fortunate, so blessed and I’m truly thankful to have travelled to some really interesting and beautiful places in December over the last few years. I was thinking about that this weekend …missing some places, events, people.
The World celebrates Christmas! They light things up. It is a special time of year…
Here are just a few places I’ve been thinking about…
Bangkok, Thailand
Phuket, Thailand
Shanghai, China
Beijing, China
Of course Shenyang, China
Seoul, South Korea
And I can’t forget Brazil…
Wow, it was fun to look back a bit…
All these places are lovely, I am so happy I’ve been there…there are so many more places to see. I often said I would love to spend some time in New York City in December but then there’s places closer to home…maybe Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Niagara on the Lake. I have been to all these but not at Christmas time. BUT no matter where we are or where we travel, one very special place this time of year will ALWAYS be HOME!
Just An East Coast Girl 