There are two sayings we bandy about at this time of year: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
This year as I was writing out Christmas cards, I found myself naturally avoiding those usual seasonal sayings and writing sentiments instead like, “Joyous wishes” and “I hope you can find moments of joy” for friends who had lost loved ones in this particularly difficult year.
Alan McPherson, a retired minister with the Central Presbyterian Church in Hamilton says there is a difference between happiness and joy. “Happiness is an emotion. Joy is deeper, more long-lasting. It is based more on inner certainties, not external events.”
Who knows what the new year will bring. With the second wave of COVID-19 still having an icy grip on the country and most regions in lockdown, happier times seem a way off. But we can always find joy each day in simple acts. Curling up with a good book. Catching up with an old friend. Going for a walk on a bright wintry day and hearing the snow crunch underfoot.
Yes, we can always find joy. And we always have hope.
A new year is upon us. A time for hope, setting goals and envisioning a new future.
This year, I believe one of our greatest challenges will be to have a vision for the future for our towns, cities and communities in a post-COVID world.
Life will get back to normal as the vaccine rolls out, but things may not look the same. Businesses will have closed, for rent and lease signs may become permanent fixtures in downtown cores, and we may see an exodus from cities as people now have the choice and freedom to work from anywhere. Which leaves us to beg the question, how can we keep our cities vibrant and relevant in a post-COVID world?
I was thinking about this today while walking along the waterfront behind our new hospital, Providence Care in Kingston. On a cold day in January during lockdown, there were runners jogging through the grounds, families toboganning on a popular hill, and people walking their dogs along the trail by the water.
This particular area of Kingston is interesting because there are many old beautiful abandoned limestone buildings on the property near the waterfront. I started imagining what the scene could look like six months from now when COVID was under control and the weather was fine.
This is what I saw: waterfront galleries, stores and craft cooperatives in the limestone buildings along the water.
Outdoor patios and seating like in the Distillery District in Toronto and nice restaurants extending out over the water like the pavilion at Dow’s Lake in Ottawa.
An area where street musicians and performers could play like The Forks in Winnipeg or Jackson Square in New Orleans.
Miles of boardwalk with lookouts and views where you could watch the sailboats go by.
Kingston has an astonishing 280 km of waterfront. It sits on Lake Ontario, is at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River and is bisected by the Cataraqui River which feeds up into the Rideau Canal.
There’s Fort Henry with a magnificent view of the river, lake and city, our historic downtown with market square, City Hall and Confederation Basin where the tour boats depart from, the entire Kingston Penitentiary site, and miles of parks and trails.
We are water rich, but to a large degree our waterfront is still largely dispersed. You have to hop, skip and jump like a stone skipping on the waves to get from one waterfront trail and park to another. We also have huge tracts of land and buildings that are sitting idle, just begging to be developed.
In 2014-2016, the City of Kingston developed a master waterfront plan that identified hundreds of projects over a 30-year period. There has been a lot of terrific work that has already been done to make our city the gem it is, but there is so much more to be done.
For all of Kingston’s parkland, we also do not have a single stand-out, signature garden, maybe not quite on the scale of Butchart Gardens in Victoria or the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington, but a garden that would attract people to our city and become a place of natural beauty, peace and a place for the community to gather.
This week’s #HappyAct is to envision how our communities will look like post-COVID. Then ask, what can we do to make it happen?
This abandoned pier is the ideal location for a pavilion style restaurant extending over the water in KingstonThese abandoned buildings would be ideal for retail, craft cooperatives and art galleries
Each year at this time, I select my top ten favourite blog posts for my annual year in review.
I was a bit worried this year that pickings would be slim. Truth be told blogging about happiness during a global pandemic is a bit of a tough slog. With little prospects for fun excursions, and at times struggling with my own mental and physical health, there were many weeks when I wondered what simple act could I share this week to make the world a happier place?
But as I re-read the posts two things hit home. You can feel moments of happiness and gratitude at the most unexpected times and by doing the simplest of acts.
The other realization was happiness cannot be viewed in isolation. We are vastly impacted by events happening around us. My blog this past year has been as much a reflection and chronicle of the times as anything else.
Here were my favourite happy acts from a year that will go down in the history books as a year to remember:
Food and drink became a panacea in 2020. Guest blogger Jill Yokoyama took us on a visit to Sunshine Donuts in Burlington in Treat yourself to a decadent donut, and I paid homage to the healing powers of garlic in Ode to the stinky bulb.
Stories of resilience and humour provided inspiration in a bleak year. I introduced my readers to the incomparable Pearl Killingbeck in Pearl’s Coronavirus Diaries and shared uplifting stories and my favourite social distancing pick-up lines in Putting the social in social distancing.
While COVID-19 dominated the news, the U.S. Election and Black Lives Matter also captured our attention in 2020. In Sleeping with an elephant, I shared how I was never more grateful to be Canadian and my personal thoughts on systemic racism in Start with the main in the mirror.
One of the first blog posts I ever wrote when I started sharing a happy act a week to help make the world a happier place was, “Hug a dog”.
There is nothing like the love and licks of a furry four-legged friend to make bad days better and good days epic. When our two large dogs passed away within the same year, we held off getting another dog. Our schedules were hectic and we thought we’d just look after friends’ dogs when they were away.
Then COVID hit and everyone got a dog. Friends who have never had a dog before were getting puppies. We started searching for the right dog online but even mutts were going for $1,200 and pickings were scant.
We were dogless in lockdown during a pandemic. It just wasn’t right. We wrote out our Christmas lists and each made the same wish to Santa: please bring us a puppy.
Our wishes came true this week when we adopted a one and a half year-old golden retriever rescue dog from goldenrescue.ca. He flew all the way from Cairo, Egypt and already has nuzzled his way into our hearts and his furever home.
He is a big, gentle loving soul who loves to play, walk and snuggle. We can’t get over how good he is already. His worst habits are stealing the toilet paper roll off the holder and picking up Dave’s socks from the floor which he always brings and presents to me proudly. My goal is to teach him to put the socks in the laundry basket—one less chore in the house.
But we need help with a name. He came with the name Bailey, but I had a dog for 17 years named Bailey and every dog has their own unique personality. Here are some suggestions that have already come in from friends on Facebook.
This week’s #HappyAct is to make someone’s Christmas wish come true and give the best present ever, or at least help us name our newest family member. I hope everyone has a wonderful and joyous Christmas. Be sure to read next week’s annual year-end wrap up of the best happy acts of 2020.
Beau
Cairo
Tucker
Harley
Jasper
Red
Rusty Griswold Swinton (since we got him at Christmas)
Nugget (like a gold nugget)
Elvis (my choice, the rest of the fam are nixing this one)
December is always an interesting time on our lake because we get unique guests: migrating birds and ducks heading south as the northern lakes freeze.
This year we’ve had some very special visitors. For the past week, we’ve had five bald eagles take up residence on our lake. Now even if you aren’t a “birder”, spotting one of these magnificent raptors is considered a “feather” in your cap. I’ve seen bald eagles many times in Red Lake Ontario, and in British Columbia, but I’ve never been able to see them so close and watch their daily antics and habits.
We saw the first eagle last Saturday—it was literally sitting outside our sunroom windows and it was MASSIVE. We thought at first it was a golden eagle because it was all brown with a hint of gold on its neck, but we are now pretty sure it was a juvenile bald eagle. Many people may not be aware that only mature bald eagles have the white head—juveniles are nearly all brown.
Then the next day a magnificent adult bald eagle landed on the same perch off our deck. All week they’ve been soaring from treetop to treetop, looking for fish and having a grand old time. There are three adults and two juveniles, and what’s interesting is the adults don’t seem to have much to do with the youngsters—kind of like us and our teenagers right now.
I especially like to watch the eagles terrorize the flock of common mergansers on the lake. They like to dive bomb the ducks and let out a few high-pitched chirps. The ducks get all upset and flap their wings and take off. I swear the eagles are actually laughing at them.
They have been a marvel to watch. Here are some pictures I’ve managed to take this week although they are quite shy.
This week’s #HappyAct is to keep your eye out for a different type of raptor in the next few weeks instead of the ones that usually play in Toronto at the Air Canada Centre.
If you are interested in birds, why not join the annual Christmas Bird Count in your region?
The CBC is the largest citizen science project of its kind. It started in 1900 and happens between December 14 and January 5 across the country. Local groups choose a single day during that period and conduct the count—counts are carried out within a 24-km radius. The information is fed into the National Audobon Society which uses it to track species and impacts on bird populations.
The South Frontenac and Kingston bird counts this year are on Saturday, December 19. With COVID this year, they are hoping more people will come forward to simply count birds at their backyard feeders. Here’s where you can find out more information on the Frontenac bird count or message me and I’ll send you the info. Happy viewing!
I was walking in the village of Tamworth the other night, waiting for Clare’s hockey scrimmage to begin when I stumbled across a beautiful Christmas window display at the real estate office on the town’s main street.
It was a miniature wintry scene of a mountaintop village with many moving figures. There were children tobogganing down a tube run, skaters gliding in circles around a pond, skiiers swishing down a slope, even a child making snow angels. The village had a popcorn shop, and there were little buckets of popcorn moving on a conveyor belt as the popcorn popped with twinkling lights.
I must have stood there for ten minutes looking at the window. Each time I looked, I saw something new: two lumberjacks ice fishing under a full moon, a mountaintop lodge near the ski hill with an apres ski bar, people walking their dogs and beautiful birch and pine trees framing the whole scene. It was truly magical.
I remember as a little girl my Mom taking me out of school to spend a special day together before Christmas. We’d go to downtown Toronto to go shopping and see the Christmas windows on display at Simpsons and Eaton’s department stores. They were always magical and each year had a different theme. The window displays were so popular that they’d plan school trips for schoolchildren to see them and skate at Nathan Phillip’s Square.
In a year when we won’t be able to enjoy the many traditional holiday gatherings and celebrations, this week’s #HappyAct is to enjoy the magic of the season through your favourite Christmas window.
Some other towns where the downtown shops have their windows done up beautifully this year include Perth and Napanee. What’s your favourite Christmas window? Leave a comment.
Sometimes when I can’t make head or tails of what’s happening in my life or the world, I look to the most scientific, reliable of sources: my horoscope.
This weekend my horoscope was “If you don’t like what’s going on around you, remove yourself from the situation and do your own thing.”
Good advice, which I plan to follow.
It’s also not surprising that 2020 is the Year of the Rat in the Chinese Zodiac. To be exact, the Year of the Rat doesn’t end until February 11, 2021, but just like the year of Covid, most of us can’t wait to kick 2020 to the curb.
Rats are tricky, deceiving creatures. If you were born in 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, 1986, 2008 or 2020, you are a Rat (with apologies to all you lovely rats out there).
In the Chinese Zodiac, the Rat is the first of all zodiac animals. According to one myth, the Jade Emperor said the order would be decided by the order in which they arrived to his party. The Rat tricked the Ox into giving him a ride. Then, just as they arrived at the finish line, Rat jumped down and landed ahead of Ox, becoming first.
What’s more, according to Chinese astrology, the year of their birth sign will bring people nothing but bad luck because it is believed that people will offend Tai Sui, the God of Age. Rats needed to be extra careful to avoid misfortune in 2020 since it is the year of their birth sign.
The last year of the rat was 2008, the year of the financial crisis.
Rat also rhymes with bat. Coincidence? I think not.
If I haven’t convinced you yet this year was destined to be a dirty, dastardly disaster of a year, read the Rat horoscope for 2020:
“Rats are destined to experience a lot of challenges and ill fortune due to being in opposition to the Tai Sui star (or God of Age). Rats will now and then feel exhausted. Life will be easiest in the middle of the year. In autumn and winter, they should pay attention to their skin and respiratory protection. Vulnerable to sicknesses, like colds and fatigue, the Rat will have to be extra careful in 2020. At the first sign of symptoms, head to your general practitioner immediately. The faster you get medicine and the treatment you need, the quicker you will heal.”
There you have it. The good news is, the Year of the Rat is almost over.
This week’s #HappyAct is to join me in saying good riddance to 2020.
Let me introduce you to Pearl Killingbeck. Pearl lives in Mississippi Station, a community of just 12 people north of highway 7.
Pearl writes the column for Mississippi in our local newspaper, The Frontenac News. The News is in itself a little gem. It’s privately owned, independently run and features weekly local news, events and columns from reporters from all the different hamlets in our area. It’s also free.
Pearl has been writing the column for Mississippi Station since 2002. She doesn’t own a computer, so she writes every column by hand. Before the pandemic hit, she’d write about local events and happenings, but when events dried up, she came up the idea of writing “Pearl’s coronavirus diaries”.
She shares funny things that happen to her through the week, and little “pearls” of wisdom, jokes and stories to give people a smile or make them laugh. Early on after Day 21 of isolation, Pearl wrote, “New things I’ve learned in 21 days: throwing kisses, air hugs, knuckle bumps, air high fives and stump bumps. I use the phone more than ever. My house is cleaner. I found out my treadmill is for exercising, not for holding clothes or piling stuff on; that Meals on Wheels is like going to a restaurant only a lot cheaper.” Recently, she celebrated her 82nd birthday with her boyfriend, “Johnny Walker” who she calls her happy hour beau.
Here’s a chuckle from Pearl’s column this week:
“A husband and wife, Ron and Alice were sitting at home, when the husband suddenly said, ‘Darling, just so you know, I never want to be kept alive in a vegetative state, having to depend on machines and fluids from a bottle. If that ever happens to me, just pull the plug.’ So the wife got up and pulled the plug out of the TV and threw out all his beers.”
Her stories grew in popularity and soon she started receiving letters from fans across the region.
Pearl’s local celebrity status skyrocketed when a listener emailed the CBC with some of Pearl’s clippings and interviewed her on Ontario morning in October. Here is the CBC episode, Pearl’s segment is about half-way in. The Frontenac News also published links to many of her columns here.
In a time when many people are struggling to find lightness and laughter, Pearl is a shining example of how to live your life: “Always have a sense of humour no matter how bad a situation is, and laugh once a day even if you’re alone when you’re laughing.”
In an era when traditional media outlets are struggling, this week’s #HappyAct is to support your local newspaper and columnists like Pearl and to keep laughing.
If you are like me, then you’ll remember how a donut used to be such a treat when we were young.
In high school, it was fun to drop by Donut Man on Lakeshore Road in Port Credit for a donut, and how many times have you ever stopped in for a coffee and donut at Tim Hortons? But the quality of Tim Horton donuts has taken a nosedive since they are no longer baked fresh on the premises. Eating a Tim’s donut became a disappointing experience and I stopped buying them.
Plus when you get to a certain age eating a donut becomes a big deal because it settles around your middle like a …. well, like a donut!
Thank goodness 2020 is not a complete washout due to the rising popularity of gourmet donut shops. I had the pleasure of visiting Sunshine Doughnuts in Burlington, Ontario on one of the bright, sunshiny days we had recently.
It is a delightful walk through the downtown and the décor is colourful and happy, like a frosted confection. Donuts are made fresh each day in all kinds of exciting flavours and designs, with lots of yummy fillings. I tried a classic apple fritter. It was enormous and so delicious, with soft, chewy dough, bits of real apple, and a sugary coating. If not for Covid, I would have been licking my fingers. I don’t know how many calories were in that donut and I don’t care, it was worth every calorie!
Speaking of donuts, Melbourne Australia has just come out of one of the strictest Covid lockdowns in the world after 111 days. On October 26, 2020 they declared their first “double donut day” with 0 new cases and 0 deaths. They are now at their 11th day of double donuts – woo hoo! I am so happy that my friends and relatives in the state of Victoria are able to resume their normal lives after such a long period of severe restrictions.
The choice of donuts as a symbol of their happiness makes perfect sense.
If you love a sweet treat and maybe want to reward yourself some time, indulge in a gourmet donut. Guaranteed to lift your spirits in the sweetest way!
Thanks to Jill Yokoyama for guest blogging this week. To learn more about how donuts became Australia’s symbol of hope in the fight against Covid, check out this story from The Guardian newspaper. What’s your favourite donut shop? Leave a comment!
While November is often thought of as a drab and dreary month, there is one redeeming grace. As a blanket of leaves forms on the ground, light floods into spaces that were previously dark or shadowed from canopies.
Let there be light. We need more light right now.
The psychological benefits of light are well-known. Increased hours of sunlight heighten the brain’s production of serotonin, which improves mood, alertness, productivity, sleep and mental wellbeing.
Recently, we redecorated our sunroom. We love how the light fills the room. It is a very happy room in our house. But you don’t need to redecorate your house to find more light. Here are some simple things you can do to take advantage of the limited light in the darker winter months:
Go for a walk each day at lunch or rearrange your schedule to do at least some form of physical activity outside each day in daylight
Change your window coverings or clean your windows to let in more light. Using mirrors or rearranging your furniture can also result in more indoor light.
COVID is a perfect excuse to keep extending patio season. Visit a local brewery and have a pint outdoors or have your morning coffee bundled up on the front porch. On Saturday, we watched the sun go down sitting on a hay bale in front of a fire at Slake brewery, a new microbrewery in Prince Edward County. It was spectacular.
If you can, move your workspace to a place by the window or with better light. If no one is home, I often will dial into meetings from my sunroom.
Take Vitamin D during the winter months if you suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder or try a light therapy lamp.
This week’s #HappyAct is to let the sun shine in and keep smiling.
Happy Act 