Our great Pyrenees Bella likes to gnaw on the drywall in our sunroom in the middle of the night
It’s been almost a year since I started this blog. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my posts on Sundays, thinking more about what makes you happy and doing each week’s Happy Act.
After almost a year of happy acts, and being more aware of what makes me happy, I’ve also learned what doesn’t make me happy. Here is “the list”.
Eight things NOT to do if you want to be happy
Offer to drive four 8-year olds to summer camp for an entire week
Get a Great Pyrenees as a pet
Go bathing suit shopping unless you’re a size 6 or less
Leave your interior car light on at the Watertown airport while rushing to catch an early morning flight and coming home to a dead battery at 11 p.m. at night
Hang out with negative people
Pick white berries for your holiday wreath (I learned the hard way poison ivy has white berries)
Wear nylons
Challenge your kids to a farting or burping contest
This week’s #HappyAct is really easy—don’t do any of these things! Have a happy week!
We go big for Halloween at our work–the year we dressed up as QR codes
It’s Halloween, time of ghosts and goblins, spooks and spirits. A time when our imaginations run wild and fear permeates the soul.
Halloween is such a fun holiday. From picking the perfect pumpkin, to dressing up in costumes and trick or treating and all that delicious candy, what’s not to love?
If Halloween is so much fun, why do we make fear our friend for only one week of the year?
I read a blog post the other day by TV anchor Betty Liu about fear. In the post, she talked about Felix Baumgartner, that crazy guy sponsored by RedBull who broke the sound barrier doing a freefall jump from 39,000 feet from an airplane. Felix was torn between two types of fears: the fear of the actual act of jumping out of the airplane, and the fear of not seeing his dream through and not making the jump. At one point, he was apparently so scared about the mission he literally fled the project for several months.
Liu experienced something similar when she had to make a big career decision. In the end, she asked herself a very important question. If I was in the same spot as I was now, would I be happy?
This week’s #HappyAct is to make fear your friend. The next time you are at a crossroads or have a big decision to make, think of the consequences of not taking action. Will staying where you are make you happy?
Have fun trick or treating this week. This week’s tip: Make fear your friend at Fort Fright, on every night this week in Kingston—guaranteed a frightfully good time!
Clare “crossdressing” this year in her costume and hockey helmet
There are times when all you really need in life is a big ol’ plate of greasy food.
Last week, while waiting for my connecting flight in the Philadelphia airport, I dug into a heaping plate of eggs, bacon, home fries and rye toast. When you’re up at 4:30 in the morning, a big greasy breakfast really hits the spot.
A big breakfast is more than just a meal. It’s a cultural experience and has always been a big part of my life (I know that sounds funny so let me explain).
As a kid, I had a Sunday Sun paper route. After delivering all my papers, I’d crawl back into bed and would wake up to the smell of bacon frying through the house—a wonderful memory of my Mom. After my Mom passed away, my Dad, my brothers and I would go every Sunday to the Orchard Family Restaurant at Dundas and Highway 10 in Mississauga—still one of the best breakfasts around. In university days, Sunday greasy breakfasts became the culmination of a weekend of partying at my friends’ townhouse in Waterloo. Life is more sedate these days, and now my favourite big greasy breakfast (other than when I’m on the road) is camping trips with Dave and the girls.
This week’s #HappyAct is to chow down on a big greasy breakfast. Don’t count the calories; count the memories. What’s your favourite greasy spoon? Start a list by leaving a comment. If anyone knows of a good one in the Kingston area, let me know.
This is Thanksgiving weekend, a time when most of us will spend time with family, eat way too much turkey and give thanks.
My mother-in-law still writes old fashioned thank you notes. I wanted to send Donna a special thank you note this Thanksgiving, so I bought a pretty card and sent it to her. I thought I would share it with you too. This is what the card said:
Thank you for not making me name my daughters Gladys
Thank you for the gift of music, our beautiful old piano
Thank you for putting up with John for the last 59 years
Thank you for welcoming me into your family and always treating me like a daughter
Thank you for fixing the zipper on my favourite dress
Thank you for proving that you can have a successful career and be a good mother at the same time
Thank you for somehow being at the same time both the best and worst Cheat card player I’ve ever seen
Thank you for teaching your son how to cook
Thank you for making sandies at Christmas time
Thank you for your youthful giggle and smile that was probably one of the many reasons John fell in love with you all those years ago and still loves you so dearly today
Thank you for your unconditional love and support
Thank you for being the strength and soul of the Swinton clan
This week’s #HappyAct is to write an old fashioned thank you note. Send it to someone who holds a special place in your heart or share it at the table this weekend when you’re giving thanks. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
St. George’s cathedral in Kingston in full autumn glory
I was watching a biography on the great Robin Williams. They showed that memorable scene from Dead Poets Society where he stands on his desk and asks his students why, and he replies, “I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way.”
It’s easy to not see what is before our eyes. Case in point. I was driving home the other night and for the first time, saw a bright red roof of a barn shimmering in the late day sun. I had never seen that roof before even though I drive the same route twice a day, five days a week, fifty weeks of the year.
Sometimes we need to make a conscious effort to see things from a new perspective. The risk if we don’t stand on our desks from time to time is feeling uninspired, unfulfilled, bored and unhappy.
This week’s #HappyAct is to stand on your desk and challenge yourself to look at things with a fresh eye. If you’re not into standing on your desk, try this. Every day this week, on your daily walk or commute, pause and look at your surroundings with fresh eye. What did you discover? Leave a comment. Here’s what I found one day on a quick walk around the block from my office.
A limestone carriageway, from the days of horse and carriages.One of the many beautiful doorways of KingstonThe Frontenac Club Inn on King and William Streets. Note the plaque on the wall–this is the first time I’ve ever stopped to read it, even though I’ve passed it a million times. It is dedicated to the men of the Frontenac Club who fought in the second world war. I learned the Frontenac Club was made up of leading Kingstonians, garrison officers, faculty and officers of Queen’s University and Royal Military College and was closed in the 1930s when the depression hit.
Dazed and crazed in a maze. That’s how I spent yesterday, deciphering the corm maze at Wynn Farms and picking apples with the girls.
There’s something about getting lost in a maze that takes you back to your childhood. I remember my parents taking me to Centre Island in Toronto. Besides the petting zoo and the ferry ride , our favourite part was the maze. I think it was my parents’ favourite too since they could sit and enjoy a moment of peace and quiet while we raced through the paths, squealing every time we came to a dead end.
Here were just a few of the a-maze-ing facts we learned about farming in yesterdays’s maze.
The average farm feeds 120 families
One acre of soybeans can make 82,368 crayons (who knew?)
In a typical 10,000 item grocery store, a quarter, or 2,500 products contain corn!
This week’s #HappyAct is to do your own a-maze-ing race in a corn maze. Gaze at the fields ablaze with reds and golds and corn silk shining against the bright blue sky. Don’t get fazed. It’s the newest craze. Special note for those of you who love to Gaze at the Stars. This Thursday, October 2nd, Terence Dickinson the reknowned astronomer is putting on a free presentation open to the community at Prince Charles Public School in Verona from 7-9 p.m. Hope you can make it!
It’s fall, my favourite season. For me, the first days of fall are as bitter sweet as the orange-berried vine that grows in our fields this time of year. I am reluctant to bid summer adieu, but embrace the crisp days and cool nights and sweet smells of fresh apples and wood smoke in the air.
This is when I start counting down the days and hours before daylight savings time. I get home quite late, so I often only have an hour at home after work before it gets dark. This is my time to go roamin’ in the gloamin.
There is something very special about the light at this time of year in the evening–the way it shimmers and casts a soft glow over the landscape. It’s magical.
This week’s #Happy Act is to go roamin’ in the gloamin’. Having a lad or lassie by your side is optional (I usually just have my two big dopey dogs by my side).
About the song
I always thought Roamin’ in the Gloamin was an old Scottish folk song, but it was actually written in 1911 by Sir Harry Lauder. The song tells of a man and his sweetheart courting in the evening. Here are the words of the chorus:
“Roamin’ in the gloamin’ on the bonnie banks o’ Clyde. Roamin’ in the gloamin’ wae my lassie by my side. When the sun has gone to rest, That’s the time we love the best. O, it’s lovely roamin’ in the gloamin”
Co-workers Elaine Peterson, Jordan Grundy and Jessica Schonewille at the United Way breakfast
This week I attended the kick-off breakfast for the 2014 Kingston, Lennox, Frontenac and Addington United Way Campaign. The room was packed with more than 500 community leaders and volunteers who run campaigns in their workplace. This year, the goal for our region is $3,481,000.
Our company, Empire Life is a huge supporter of United Way and always runs a fantastic campaign. This year our theme is “Step right up and make a change”, and we’ll be planning lots of fun events based on a carnival theme to raise almost $300,000. That’s a lot of change.
Over the years, United Way has become a charity of choice for me. I’m personally invested for two main reasons. One, it is the one charity where my money goes directly back into my own community and is distributed across many agencies and areas of need to help my neighbours, my colleagues, my friends.
The other reason is I’ve seen first-hand the incredible work United Way agencies do. I’ve been on the Board of Kingston Literacy and Skills, volunteered with CNIB, have worked for the day at places like Kingston Interval House and Kingston Youth Shelter as part of the Day of Caring, and visited other agencies through the United Way Seeing is Believing tour.
There is a third reason, knowing some day that could be me. We are all one pink slip, one medical crisis away from our lives changing inexorably. Life is fragile. In a flash, everything you hold dear can change, as we heard firsthand at the breakfast when 15-year old Oscar Evans described how his life changed after a chemical accident at the age of 13 when he became blind. We may all need help some day. I, for one, am grateful the United Way is there when that day comes.
This week’s #HappyAct is to step up and make a change by giving to United Way. If you live in a community where you aren’t as aware of the incredible work United Way does, make it a point of finding out. Volunteer for an agency or ask about a Seeing is Believing tour in your community (there is one in Kingston on September 23, find more details here.) Special thanks to the Empire Life team who braved the miserable rain yesterday at our 6th annual Community Garage Sale for United Way. You guys are amazing!
There are times when standing on the sidelines is just as much fun as playing the game. Last night for Clare’s birthday, we took her and four of her friends to the Kingston Derby Girls end of season match. I’ve never been to the roller derby before. It was a riot.
They billed it as The Best. The Most. The GREATEST night of roller derby in Kingston–the fifth anniversary of Back to Cruel, when it all began.
It took us a bit to pick up the game and figure out the Jammers were the girls with the stars on their helmet and they got a point every time they passed members of the other team. It was a double header, the Kingston Disloyalists versus the London Timber Rollers followed by a hometown match of the Rogue Warriors versus The Skateful Dead. Our favourite skaters were Manic Breeze, Sewciopath and Banger Management.
I don’t know what was more fun, watching the crowd (which by the way included everyone from two-year olds with their parents, to a bunch of Queen’s students making beer statues on the sidelines to people in their sixties and seventies), or following the action on the rink, but it was rockin’.
This week’s Happy Act is to cheer from the stands. Get lost in the game, cheer loudly for your favourite team and have fun. Here are some more pictures of last night’s action. Become a fan—like the Kingston Derby Girls on Facebook.
The little kids and one big kid taking in the action
You must have been living on an iceberg this past year if you don’t know the song Let it Go from the movie Frozen. I was paddling on the lake the other day and heard a chorus of young voices singing it at the top of their lungs. My kids sing it so often, I know most of the words even though I haven’t seen the movie.
It’s a catchy song, but also a philosophy I’ve learned to adopt to be happy in life. It’s easy to let things get to you. It’s incredibly hard to let them go.
A couple of weeks ago I was talking to someone on the phone. The conversation took a turn into a contentious area and I realized I was starting to get upset and quickly steered the conversation to another topic. But as soon as I got off the phone, I knew the person had “gotten to me” and I started stewing over what they said.
As I walked out the door to head to the lake for a paddle with the girls, I knew I had to “let it go”. Easier said than done. My usual strategies are to take deep breaths, a brisk walk, or focus on something positive. At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself, is it really worth getting all worked up over this. And the answer is usually no, just let it go.
This week’s #HappyAct is to let it go. Maybe it’s something at work or home bothering you, or something someone said. Just remember. “One thought crystallizes like an icy blast, I’m never going back; the past is in the past…I’ll rise like the break of dawn. Let it go.”
Happy Act 