Still rambling

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Train up a child......


I have to tell you how proud I am of my brother Bruce ..... and of Tanya, of course...


and the job they have done raising their kids..... they are polite, kind hearted, organized ( you should watch Eva packing stuff up to get ready to go home....at TWO, she is more organized than ME... good grief! )


Those kids are the life of the party.....


and the job they have done, in all seriousness, in raising those two kids, is phenomenal. I'm very proud of you Bruce and Tanya...


never, though, was this proven more clearly than it was yesterday....


As a joke, I bought Isaac a Toronto Maple Leaf's tooth brush.... and I re-gifted some Toronto Maple Leaf's Kleenex ( lovingly left at my townhouse this summer by my friend Bill Finch!!! ) ......


I thought I'd get a reaction from Isaac.....


and I did.............


I believe Isaac's words were......
" NOT THE LEAFS... I don't LIKE the Leafs!!!! "
Way to Go Bruce and Tanya..... you have modeled Proverbs 22:6
"Train up a child in the way he should go, And even when he is old he will not depart from it."

Sunday, December 23, 2007

The Price of Freedom

I was watching a documentary this morning on the Discovery Channel .... they were showing F15 fighter planes in the Oregon Guard ... the military unit that patrols the airspace along the West coast of North America....

In an interview, one of the F15 pilots said that before 9-11 .... people in that Oregon community used to complain about the noise of these planes while doing excercise maneuvers.....

but AFTER 9-11 people have begun to realize the importance of Homeland Security ....and are accepting the costs and sacrifices.....money, lives, effort, and noise....

He ended with these words :

" The price of freedom is not free.... the sound of freedom is not quiet"

As I thought about that... I realized that it's like that in life too....

the price of my freedom is not free ..... it came at the expense of a loving God who sent his only son....

for us.... for me

for our freedom....

and dare I say.... the sound of freedom?

Is it quiet ? Nope......

it started with the sound of a crying baby.... and culminated with a crowd shouting "Crucify Him"


From where I sit today..... I don't hear F-15s...... nor can I physically hear a baby crying..

but in my spirit there is a peace today..... a quiet freedom.....

and for that, I am very thankful!

Friday, December 21, 2007

Making Christmas better.....

the older I get... the less I've been liking Christmas....

sometimes reading other people's blogs with photos of all of their family time together just hurts...

it reminds me of a time in MY life.... when Christmas morning, the kids would wake up to having dad and mom both in the same house.....

there was no " hurry up and eat, I have to take you home" on Christmas.......

There was never the sad dread of having to say goodbye to your kids as you dropped them off at their "other" parent's house......

there was never the thought of comparison... wondering if what YOU got them was equal to what their other parent got them....

there was never a tussle for time with the kids..... we lived together... we WERE a family....

so when things like this, start to threaten the thread of happiness that Christmas brings...... or used to bring, a sadness settles in on your soul that pretty much blackens the joy...... it takes away from the celebration of Jesus, and makes you grumpy.... frustrated..... sad..... miserable.... lonely beyond belief..... and really wondering how God is ever going to make Christmas happy again....

my friend Tom is going through his first divorced Christmas this year..... as he and I were emailing back and forth today.....he said something very profound....

This is my first"Divorced" Christmas and I probably need to make concerted efforts to ensure it's a good one...I think the Lord wants that from me. Pray for me, would Ya?

Then he shared this quote with me......

"The years that lie behind you, with all their struggles and pains, will in time be remembered only as the way that led to your new life. But as long as the new life is not fully yours, your memories will continue to cause you pain. When you keep reliving painful events of the past, you can feel victimized by them...."

Henri Nouwen, (The Inner Voice of Love)

Tom, quite obviously.... is gonna make it!

Thank you Tom .... you just made Christmas better for me!

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Happy Birthday Mom!


So.... Today is Mom's birthday... she is 39 !!!!


For all of our growing up years, we never knew how old mom was.... it was a huge secret..


nor for that matter, did we ever know how she voted !! mom is a very private person that way!


When I started working for my dad, I looked up her driver's licence number and found OUT how old she was...... but I've long since forgotten!!


So I'm sticking with " Mom's 39"


Here are some random pictures over the last couple or three years....


in honour of my favourite woman in the whole wide world!


I love you lots Mom.... Happy Birthday!!!





































































































Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Candy Cane Chocolate Fudge Crackle Ice Cream


Hi .....

My name is Paul

and I'm addicted

Monday, December 10, 2007

Monday.... ugggggggh

so then....... don't you just love Mondays???

me either!


Today was brighter than some.... Anna spent the night here last night.... she came over to work on a project, and needed some pointers on Power Point ( no pun intended ! ) .....

it was fun having her here......

I was away Saturday for most of the day.... I sang at a Christmas banquet in Amherstburg ( Tim Jupp's church ) and got home quite late.... so was dragging my keister yesterday ....

I am heading north in a few minutes, going to Pefferlaw, then Woodville, and then stopping at Steve and Dawna's to watch the Leafs lose to Carolina ( Ok, maybe they'll win.. but I can still HOPE can't I ?!?!?!? )

anyway, happy Monday!

oh....here's some photos from last week.....



There were wild turkeys all over the place last week.... saw bunches of them several times.... I guess they figured that Thanksgiving was over, so it was safe to show their faces for a little while...

I hollered out the window though... " CHRISTMAS IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER YOU DUMMMIES....... GET OUTTTTTTTA HERE......"


but they didn't hear me.... or maybe just didn't want to.....
.....to quote my mom.... " That turkey never listens to me "

not sure if she was referring to Bruce or Dad!!!


This was on a little back road between Pefferlaw and Leaksdale ....reminds me of the back roads in Quebec.....






This photo really reminds me of my Grampie.... he could pile wood like nobody I ever knew.....

Dad was a close second!!

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Pretty ice pictures near Woodville today...




























Some pretty ice pictures today near Woodville....













Sunday, December 02, 2007

30 years ago today......

30 years ago today, we moved from Quebec to Ontario...... it was a life changing move, for a 14 year old kid... probably was for an adult too....

I remember for weeks before we moved, I would cry myself to sleep, dreading leaving my friends, and my grandparents, whom we lived next door to...... dreading leaving the only life I'd ever known....

for weeks AFTER we moved, nearly every night I would dream about the impending move, only to wake up and realize we'd already MOVED .......

it had a huge impact on our lives..... ironically though, mostly all for the positive...

we missed our family a lot and still do..... though Grampie and Grammie are both gone, all of my uncles ( and aunts ) still live in Quebec .....

The cousins are scattered all over the place.... 2 in Alberta, one in South Carolina, 4 of us in Ontario, 1 in New Brunswick; only one cousin is still in Quebec.....

interestingly enough, when Christmas rolls around, that is when I REALLY remember living in Quebec....nearly all of the Christmas memories that I have, are from my childhood in Quebec.....

I have so many memories .....

Memories of the Spring program at the elementary school in Sawyerville, and every year, the river flooding over the top of the road.... one year, the flooding was so bad, we had a school bus come and get everybody in Randboro..... I remember the bus having to take the dirt road home because of the flooding .... and then the bus getting stuck in the mud .... I remember standing out in the mud with my suit on, and the pants rolled up above my socks, helping the other men push the school bus out of the mud....

I remember the huge amounts of snow we used to get..... and all of my birthday parties every january and ALWAYS my birthday party included toboganning down the monstrous hill by Billy Graham's house ( no really, that was his name!! )
I remember getting big bags of candy as gifts at the Christmas program at the church.... and sometimes there would be an orange with it... compliments of my grandparents store, I think....

I remember singing Christmas Carols using a little green Christmas Carol book....

I remember that big curtain they would use for the stage at the front of the church, the tallest member of the youth group getting conscripted to be stage crew to help pull the curtain shut....

I remember us getting stuck on French's hill in a snow storm, and Mom backing the car down to the bottom... and me, the brave hero, standing on the side of the road, too chicken to ride down with her!!

I remember Christmas Carolling with the youth group, and Gordie Hughes going into the ditch, I remember that same night pushing people up the hill by Wesley Bowker's farm in a snowstorm...... I remember us pushing someone 3/4 of the way up that hill, and their car slid off to the side.....and would go no further....

and a couple of seconds later, we heard the hum of a little green Datsun as Bruce Kaiser blew past us.... FRONT WHEEL DRIVE ... pfffffffffff!!!

I remember skating outside on the rink behind the old bowling alley.... I remember calling Bailey's meat market, from the elementary school, to ask them if the rink had been shovelled off... ( I mean, there's no point in staying after school to SKATE if the rink hasn't been shovelled off! )

I remember getting my hair cut at Zeph ( ZEF ? ) Rousseau's barber shop down near the river in Sawyerville..... I remember going to LOTS of church suppers, turkey suppers, ham suppers, pancake suppers, strawberry suppers, it would seem people back then didn't like having supper at HOME! ( I'm just saying! )

I remember biking to school past Tommy Nugent's old farm.... I remember the Dowd's house, with the chimney that was falling down... I remember going to swim at the river in Randboro, and often having to leave early cause one or other of us ( usually Carol ) got a blood sucker... ewww!

I remember riding my bike over to visit Leslie McCallum, and then stopping by John Jones' house...... he would always comment on my WHEEL ..... he never did call it a bicycle... always a WHEEL!

I remember riding in Grammie and Grampie's truck to go to Sherbrooke.... to go to the wholesaler's to get supplies for their store.... I remember having lunch at Louis' with them... best greasy fries in the WORLD!

I remember the Cookshire fair..... I remember signing up for the 4H club one year, so I could show a calf at that fair....I came in third place, somewhere in my boxes, I still have that ribbon!!!.... Was I EVER glad only 3 people entered that year, cause there was no ribbon for fourth!!

I remember Dr Lowry.... an icon in Sawyerville.... if I shut my eyes, I can still see the wooden cupboards going down the hall to his office, and him opening them up, and there being a veritable pharmacy in those cupboards.... and I STILL remember the smell of his office...

I remember going to J.A. Lowry's store.... it was a hardware store, grocery store, clothing store... you name it, they had it..... I think every elementary school boy bought his shoes at Lowry's ..... my favourite were those shoes with the little rubber studs on the bottom.... you were elevated 3/4 of an inch off the floor on those little rubber things, but BOY could you get traction playing floor hockey!!!

sigh.... I remember a LOT of things.....

but most of all, I remember a mom and dad who followed God's leading in their lives, and took us where they believed God wanted us to be....

After living more years OUT of Quebec than I spent IN, I can still truly say that I am thankful for my heritage.... and I am thankful for God's leading in my parents life, and for the new life we found in Ontario and the myriad of people we now call friends....

To quote Wayne Watson...."In spite of distance unexpected" .....I am thankful for a season in your path....


Sunset on Thursday.....




Pretty sunset in Napanee on Thursday.......

My day Thursday.....


Need I say anymore?????