For some reason, this spoke to me this week.
Be bright
Be kind
Be sunny and positive
Spread seeds of happiness
Rise, shine and hold your head high
Have a happy week and smile if you see a sunflower.
Author: Laurie Swinton
Blogger, writer, interested in communications, social media, lakeside living
The end or the beginning
Special guest post by Dave Swinton
Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the end. How will it unfold? How will people remember me? Will people remember me at all?
What will be my most remembered quality? Hardworking, caring, empathetic, or just a latent comedian telling lame jokes to captive family members.
I have also been thinking about some other people near and dear to me who are also thinking about the same subject.
For me it is only about retirement; for others it is a different beginning.
I am always in awe of how my father at 91 views his future as not an end but rather a new beginning. An ascension from his earthly form to something much better.
Always a deeply religious person, he sees a new beginning with my mother and all the benefits of a life deeply rooted in faith.
For me it is much simpler. Puttering around my gardens, cutting firewood with the odd day of fishing sprinkled in. Long walks with our dog and of course spending endless days travelling with my loving partner.
The point is to think less about the end of one chapter and more about the beginning of the next.
The legend of the jacket
A few years ago, we were sitting in a restaurant when I happened to overhear the conversation at a table next to us. The person was telling the story of a time when he was on vacation, and this group of golfers came in to the restaurant, and did a special jacket presentation like they do at the Masters. I smiled, because I knew he was talking about my brother. The story was the legend of the jacket.
For the past 15 years, my brother Don has organized a guys’ golf trip. It started out as The Boys Weekend, an exclusive invitational of three or four days of golf, with a bit of drinking mixed in for good measure. In the last decade, TBW has morphed into The Boys Week, an annual event where Don and 11 buddies rent a villa somewhere in North America and golf for seven days straight to see who reigns supreme on the golf course and wins the coveted jacket.
There is a trophy. One of the guys stole an old trophy out of their Board Room and every year, a new plaque is added with the TBW Champ’s name. But it’s the jacket that is the true prize and symbol of victory.
The jacket itself is an old brown herringbone blazer Don found in a thrift store years ago that mysteriously has the ability to fit every winner like the old pair of jeans in the movie The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants.
Each year, it is handed over to the champion to wear with pride. The keeper of the jacket is responsible for getting their name and year embroidered on it. One of the boys fell down on his duties one year, so the new reigning champ kindly embroidered it for him—on the inside lapel.
My brother has won it three times. The boys just got back from TBW in Prince Edward Island this year and I asked Don if the jacket came home with him this year. Sadly, Don said his game “fell apart like a cheap suit on the final round” and Bubba won it this year. Here’s a picture of Bubba in the jacket sporting his Anne of Green Gables look.
Congratulations, Bubba, and the entire TBW 2022 crew!
Lick a beater
There is nothing more comforting than doing something that takes you back to your childhood.
One of my favourite childhood memories was when my Mom baked, and called us into the kitchen as she was putting a cake into the oven to lick a beater.
Licking a beater is a bit trickier than you think. You have to wrap your tongue around the curved edges of the beater blades, twisting it like a corkscrew to make sure you lick every last morsel of cake mix or whipping cream on the blades.
When I bake today, it astonishes me that neither of my kids want to lick the beater. But that makes me happy–all the more for me. As they say in the Swinton house, you snooze, you lose.
This week’s #HappyAct is to do something that takes you back to your childhood.
Signs of happiness
We were driving to Georgia this spring, and one of the billboard signs on the side of the highway said, “Put your positive pants on”.
I didn’t get a chance to take a picture, but it made me smile and laugh and think about all the wonderful motivational signs on happiness.
Here are some of my favourites. You can buy most of these from etsy.com or Amazon. Have a happy week!
A community success story
This week I want to tell you about a community success story.
For the past few days, I’ve been working at an amazing facility here in Kingston called the Community Food Redistribution Warehouse. The warehouse officially opened its doors in March and has quickly become a critical hub for collecting and redistributing food to those in need in our community.
I was at the warehouse all day on Wednesday. It was a constant hub of activity with trucks delivering entire skids of oranges, fresh berries, bread and other perishable supplies. I watched a truckload of milk being wheeled into their massive industrial freezers, ready to go to places like the Boys and Girls Club of Kingston and other agencies serving meals in the city. On Tuesday nights, they have a “bread group” that collects all the leftover bread from Cobb’s Bread and brings it to the warehouse.
The warehouse was the brainchild of a dedicated group of partners in Kingston which included the City of Kingston, United Way, Kingston Community Health Centres and Lionhearts who recognized the growing risk to food insecurity during the global pandemic.
I talked to Shawn Seargeant, Manager, Operations at Lionhearts when I was there. Lionhearts was founded in Kingston in 2014 by a group of community-minded individuals who wanted to help marginalized people in our community. They started serving 50 meals a day which quickly multiplied to 150 meals a day, then 400 meals a day at four different locations during the pandemic.
Shawn said the warehouse has been a godsend. They now have the facilities to take in excess food from restaurants and suppliers across the city, store it properly and redistribute it to agencies and programs in our community.
I asked Shawn and a few other people working there if other cities or centres had a warehouse like this. Guelph, with its large agricultural base has something similar, but for the most part Kingston is one of the few cities on the leading edge of solving the problem of food insecurity and providing universal access to food.
Before I left on Friday, I wandered into another section of the 11,000 square foot warehouse and found my friend France sorting vegetables and fruit with two other dedicated volunteers. France told me she loves working at the warehouse a few hours, three times a week—the volunteers there are a big family. I thanked them for making a difference in our community.
This week’s #HappyAct is to learn more about food insecurity in your community and help be a part of the solution. Here are a few ideas:
- Grow your own fruit and vegetables in patio containers—donate extra produce to a neighbour, colleague or local charity.
- Make a food donation to your local food bank. Summer is typically a time when the shelves start to empty out.
- Build a food lending library in your neighbourhood. Stock it with extra fresh produce, or dried goods, free for the taking.
- Roll up your sleeves and spend an hour or two working at your local community garden. Most neighbourhood cities have community gardens now that grow and supply fruit and vegetables to local food banks.
- Support your local farmer’s markets—buy and shop local.
- Be grateful every day for the food on your table and reduce food waste in your household.
If you’d like to learn more about the incredible work Lionhearts is doing, watch this video…
You’ve got a friend
There are no words to describe the comfort of a friend. Friends console us when we’re down. They are a sympathetic ear when troubles weigh heavy on your heart and the first person to say I believe in you. You will overcome this.
They share in life’s joys, sorrows and celebrations. They are the person you turn to when you need a hug, or someone to listen without judgement, or just want to share a laugh or what’s on your mind. They love you unconditionally, warts and all. Without them, we’d be lost.
It’s a scientific fact that having one good friend has a significant impact on happiness. It’s not surprising having a friend increases your happiness in good times, but it’s been proven that having a friend is critical during times of stress when you need help.
In his New York University course The Science of Happiness, Dr. Alan Schlechter lectures about the “tend and befriend” response. The cousin to the fight or flight response, the tend and befriend response is when the hormone oxytocin, induced by stress tells us to reach out for help. When we reach out to a friend, our cortisone level goes down and we feel better.
They say you’re lucky to have at least one true friend in your lifetime. I’ve been fortunate enough to have two, my best friend Leslie and my husband Dave. Thanks for being my rock, guys. I love you both.
This week’s #HappyAct is to tell your best friend how much they mean to you.
Explore a new neighbourhood
About a month ago, I started a new job. One of the perks of changing jobs is I’ve been able to explore a new area of Kingston on my daily walks at lunch.
This isn’t the touristy part of the Kingston. You won’t find photos of the north side of Princess Street in the glossy travel brochures, but I‘ve found my new little neighbourhood has heart and soul in spades and is full of hidden gems.
My first stroll took me down the Waterfront Trail along the Cataraqui River near the old Woolen Mill. There were dozens of swans gracefully swimming in the river, and turtles basking in the sunshine on the shore. A group of school girls were having their photos taken on the big grassy area by the water and people were out jogging and walking their dogs.
Across the trail was a street art installation with the most amazing graffiti. The sign said people were free to paint over any of the sections, but you could tell the graffiti had been there for some time.
The next day I walked up some of the back streets, past brightly coloured orange, yellow and green houses like you’d find in Newfoundland or Nova Scotia, and homes with kiosks out front saying, “Take what you need, leave what you can”. I found a poetry garden with a poem by Lorna Crozier and sidewalks with chalk signs that offered up lemonade and free dog biscuits.
Another day, I was walking along Rideau Street and saw a young woman walking a dog with gorgeous black, brown and white markings. The dog promptly stopped and sat down at the corner. I was curious why the dog stopped so I stood and watched. The girl looked over and smiled and waited.
The door to a house across the street swung open and another young woman emerged and crossed the road with a plastic bag full of dog treats. It was clear this was a daily routine. It was a beautiful moment that I felt lucky to witness that showed how deep and caring the connections were in my new neck of the woods.
This week’s #HappyAct is to explore a new area of your city. You never know what hidden gems and stories you may find.
Spend time with a different type of screen
I’ve always loved a screen porch. There’s just something special about feeling like you’re outdoors, in nature but without the bugs, and spending quality time talking, playing cards, reading or doing puzzles.
The other night after dinner, I wandered into the front room and asked Dave where the girls were. He said he thought Clare was in the screened porch doing school work.
I went to join her and found Grace sitting on the futon, gently strumming her guitar while Clare sat in the lounger under a fluffy duvet writing out an assignment. I joined them and we just sat there for about an hour, listening to the chords float into the air, the birds chirping outside and watching the cotton candy sky swirl above the leafy treetops as the sun went down.
It was a special moment in a special place and I was so grateful to be able to spend time with my girls, with no phones, computers or devices to take away from the peace, serenity and tranquility of our beautiful surroundings.
This week’s #HappyAct is to spend some time with a different type of screen. Here’s a picture of Bentley after a swim in our screened porch.
Immerse yourself in art
Last weekend, my girlfriend Leslie and I went to the Van Gogh Immersive Exhibit in Toronto.
It wasn’t at all what I expected, but was quite interesting. I expected to walk through a gallery of rooms of Van Gogh’s art projected on walls, but you actually enter one room and stay there the whole time as the theatrical experience engulfs you.
It was a massive space—the exhibit is showing at The Toronto Star building at 1 Yonge Street and I suspected the space on the first floor was the former printing plant.
The first time we watched the 35-minute production, we simply admired Van Gogh’s masterpieces paired with classical music as they surrounded us in 360-degree views projected on the walls and floor.
Van Gogh’s famous sunflowers, lilies and almond blossoms surrounded us, followed by a starry night, scenes of fields and cafes, and portraits of courtesans, farmers and compatriots of his day.
The second time we watched it, the images transformed in a new way, dancing across the walls, rising and falling, coming to life. The smoke from a cigar billowed upward, a steam train rolled across the countryside, and a windmill slowly turned amongst threatening clouds as the animated images immersed us in their beauty and brushstrokes.
Art aficionados and purists may balk at commercializing works of art and masterpieces, but for me it created a new and wondrous appreciation of the work of Van Gogh.
Here are some pictures of the exhibit. The Van Gogh 360 exhibit is on until May 30 in Toronto and this summer at Lansdowne Place in Ottawa. Be sure to put it on your summer vacation happy act list.
Happy Act 