Category: Hobbies

Posted on in arts, entertainment, Hobbies, humour, Technology and social media

Find out what you’re great at

Terrible painting of beach and palm trees

I’ve always been jealous of people who are really great at something.

I know I’ve been dealt more than a fair hand at life. I’m average-looking with average intelligence and am generally considered to be a nice person.

I was a good student but never Mensa or Harvard material. I can hold my own in most sports, but never competed provincially or at a higher competitive level. I can make a mean stew and banana bread, but would never cut it on Master Chef Canada.

I can write passably, but nowadays with ChatGPT, Bing and Gemini, any human and now machine can spew out the drivel I share each week in my little Crappy Act as Dave likes to call it.

The list of things I suck at is even longer. I can’t sew or hem, I wouldn’t know where to begin on any building or home renovation project and I’ve inherited my father’s innate inability at wrapping presents. (One of my favourite things to do on Christmas Eve was watch my father make a batch of wrapping every one of my Mom’s presents while drinking a few glasses of rye and ginger.)

It doesn’t help that the entertainment industry flaunts in our faces the many talents of celebrities who seem to be great at everything. Jim Carrey is an accomplished artist. Actresses like Anna Kendrick, Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson can act, dance and sing like songbirds plus have successful businesses on the side. Anthony Hopkins writes symphonies for gods’ sake. And those Helmsworth brothers, Chris and Liam. It’s not enough they’re gorgeous and talented actors, they can even dance.

When I retired, I hoped I would discover something I’m great at. I tried painting since my Mom was an accomplished painter.

I signed up for a 3-hour workshop where the theme was painting a beach scene, since it was the dreary winter months. Using a photo as our inspiration, my friend Angela and I spent the next three hours practising our brush strokes painting white sand beaches, blue waters and palm trees. While people ooh’ed and aah’ed over each other’s canvases, mine somehow ended up resembling L.A. after the wildfires. One guy actually said to me, “Yeah, those palm trees aren’t good.”

I tossed the finished painting on my dresser for a couple of weeks, trying to decide whether I should fix it, paint over it or just throw it out. One day I came home and it wasn’t there. Dave had hung it as a joke in the kitchen above the stove. It’s still hanging there. A true masterpiece. Judge for yourself.

Okay, so maybe painting isn’t my thing. But just maybe it’s not as important to discover what you are great at, so much as what you are most passionate about and love to do.

For now, I will keep searching for my greatness.

Posted on in community, entertainment, Historical, Hobbies, shopping

Going once, going twice, sold!

Auction sale sign and antique print

If you’re looking for a fun and interesting way to spend a morning, go to an auction.

Yesterday, Dave and I headed out under grey cold rainy skies to an estate auction on Maple Road, just north of Odessa. It was an antique and collectibles auction of a local farmer featuring horse gear and memorabilia, but with lots of interesting household antiques, prints, books, and tools.

The auction company was Snider and Sons, and what made this auction particularly interesting is it was their father who had passed away, so the sons who were the auctioneers had first-hand knowledge and commentary on many of the items.

Some people might balk at bidding on the cherished possessions of a family member who has passed, but I’ve always taken the opposite view, taking comfort in knowing these precious antiques and treasures will be loved and become a part of a new family’s home for generations to come.

There’s always so much to see at an auction, starting with the treasures themselves. There were antique baskets, cowboy and bowler hats, snowshoes, rugs, horse bits, drill bits and wrench sets, stamps, and books under the main tent, and more garden and farm tools on three wagons out in the yard.

I had my eye on a cast iron rabbit, a unique wood carving of an Indigenous chief and eagles, some signs, including a No Fishing sign I wanted for the lake where our geothermal coils are in the water, and some antique oil lamps.

Wood carving

I was bidding on this unique wood carving but it ended up going for more than I was willing to pay

Sometimes there are items that nobody knows what they are; sometimes there are items you haven’t seen in years, like the stoneware bed warmers called “pigs” that sold yesterday for $10.

Items bought at an auction

These stoneware pigs were used as bed warmers in olden days

Then there’s the people. You get “all kinds” at an auction, from serious collectors, to local farmers, and casual bidders like me who just love a good auction and turn up for fun. There was one couple who bid only on tire-shaped ashtrays and cigarette lighters (they had a whole box of them by the end of the auction), a younger woman and older fellow who got into a bidding war whenever antique horse bits were on the auction block, and a guy who wouldn’t bid on anything over $10.

The fun thing about an auction, unless you’re an expert or a collector, is you never know what price things will go for. Some box lots can go as low as $1, but then a pair of wrenches (these ones were rare Comet and Oxo wrenches) went for $75. I was surprised when two small sleeves of stamps went for $370.

There is a noticeable excitement in the air when rare or big ticket items come up for bid. At yesterday’s auction, the biggest items were Black Horse Ale collectible statues that went for $1,500 and a custom display of antique horse rosettes or pins that went for $3,100. The crowd applauded after the bidding ended.

If you’re new to the auction game, there are some things you should know. First, not all auctions are alike. The ones we like best are estate auctions, where you can get a glimpse into the person’s life and the contents are from one home (some auction houses will combine lots).

Always get a bidding number even if you’re not sure you want to buy anything. You don’t want to be unprepared if something comes up you want to bid on.

A good auctioneer will signal what an item is worth and what they hope to get in their opening chant. The first amount they say is what it’s worth, the next amount is closer to what they are hoping to get, then they’ll come down to where people want to start bidding. So they may say, “$100, do I hear $100, $50, do I have $50, $25…” and maybe starting as low as $10, but if the auctioneer started at $100 and dropped it to $50, there’s a good chance the item will go for between $50-$100.

In the end, I only walked away with my no fishing sign, $10 well spent for a morning’s worth of entertainment.

This week’s #HappyAct is to go to an auction, but hurry, before it’s going once, going twice, sold!

Antique sleigh in front of a barn
Auction in yard
Auction main tent
Posted on in arts, community, entertainment, Hobbies, relationships

Never stop singing

Audience at Choir Choir Choir event

Last week, I was lucky enough to attend a Choir Choir Choir performance at the Grand Theatre in Kingston, featuring the songbook of Queen and Freddie Mercury.

In case you are unfamiliar with Choir, Choir, Choir, it’s a performance where a duo called Daveed and Nobu sing and play guitar and conduct the audience in harmonies of their favourite songs. At a triple C performance, the audience is the star.

Choir Choir Choir is uniquely Canadian. It started in Toronto 14 years ago as a weekly drop-in for people who were looking for an outlet to sing. Since then, it has grown to be a popular mainstage show, the duo having performed at Carnegie Hall, Radio City Music Hall, and Massey Hall. They describe the experience as equal parts singing, comedy, and community building. Their motto is “Never stop singing”.

It was surprising to see how quickly the audience came out of their shell. As adults, we tend to be self-conscious when we sing, especially if we aren’t blessed with a great voice, but the sheer joy of the music and the experience quickly drowned out our fears and feelings of self-consciousness, and soon everyone was singing in full voice.

It is a powerful thing to hear voices raised in song, singing with passion and commitment. When the crowd sang the Canadian national anthem at the recent Four Nations Cup hockey tournament in Montreal, it was an incredibly moving and galvanizing moment for Canadians. I wish I had been there to experience it.

For “You’re My Best Friend”, they asked the audience to videochat a bestie during the song. My friend Leslie was laughing as I sang to her “been with you such a long time, you’re my sunshine”…

When it came time for the encore, Bohemian Rhapsody, Daveed and Nobu invited people to join them on stage to sing and dance along.

A few interesting facts about Bohemian Rhapsody, arguably the best rock song of all time. When it was first released in 1975, it immediately went to #1 on the charts in almost every country in the world, except the US where it climbed only to #9. The song found a whole new generation of fans and hit #1 on the charts again in 1992 when Canadian Mike Meyers’ Wayne’s World was released.

As we sang Scaramouche, scaramouche can you do the fandango, we were all on our feet, singing at the top of our lungs. Watch the video below to see the crowd erupt on stage during the guitar solo.

I walked out of the theatre feeling joyous and uplifted. People were smiling, laughing, singing and humming, with one lady singing Don’t Stop Believing loudly in a vestibule. Oh, what a night.

This week’s #HappyAct is to never stop singing. Let’s take a pledge going forward to all sing our National Anthem out loud at events instead of standing in respectful silence.

Posted on in arts, community, Hobbies, holidays, writing

So this is Christmas

Writers group at Kingston Seniors Association

So this is Christmas, and what have you done?

On Friday, at my last writer’s group meeting of 2024, one of our group members Joanne wanted to share something she had written in the spirit of the season. She called it “So this is Christmas” and started with the immortal verse John Lennon wrote more than 40 years ago during the Vietnam War for the song Happy Xmas/War is Over.

As Joanne read her heartfelt piece of thanks and gratitude, I looked around the room and thought about how grateful I was to be a part of this interesting group of people and how much I have learned from them in the four short months since I joined the group.

I’ve learned about botany, the undercover world of police work and drug busts, life in the Congo in the 1950s, the wild ponies in the New Forest in Hampshire, growing up on the Isle of Wight and so much more.

Some of us are writing novels, others short stories, and some their memoirs. All of us share a love and passion for writing.

But as much as writing brought us together, it is the people and camaraderie that make us come back each week.

There’s Franklin, our kind, patient leader who reminds us he will ring the bell if we go over time when sharing our work, but hasn’t rung it once since I’ve joined.

There’s Dorothy Anne, our skilled master, always with an encouraging word, tip or suggestion to improve our writing.

There’s Wayne, our pastry muse who scours the local bakeries to feed our minds and souls and lets us choose not just one, but two delectable treats, one to eat in class and one to take home.

There’s Sister Maureen, Greta and Pamela who honour us by sharing a glimpse into the fascinating lives they’ve lived each week.

There’s Mo, who shared such a moving piece a few weeks ago describing the sounds of a home filled with children, and the heartbreaking silence when they become adults and move out, that it took three members to finish reading it as each person welled up with tears.

As I was thinking about this group and Joanne’s words, she shared this, “It’s true we cannot change what is happening around the world and often not even in our own communities, so we may think, ‘Why bother?’ or ‘What can I do?’. The answer is plenty, and it all starts with kindness.”

So, this is Christmas. What have you done? Another year is over and a new one begun. Let’s all take a page from my writer’s group, and start the year with kindness.

Posted on in Food and drink, Hobbies

Hail to the mason jar

Grapes and beans in mason jars

Ever since I can remember, my chosen vessel of choice has been the humble mason jar.

My love affair with mason jars began in my university days, when my girlfriend Caralee and I would drive up each weekend to Kitchener Waterloo to stay at the Weber Hotel, the name we gave to the party central townhouse a bunch of our guy friends lived in going to Laurier and Waterloo.

When we arrived, the entire kitchen counter would be covered with dirty mason jars. It became a Friday night ritual to wash the jars and the rest of the dishes in preparation for the weekend party festivities.

It’s been a long time since my university party days, but my vessel of choice is still a mason jar.

The mason jar was invented in 1858 by a New Jersey-born tinsmith named John Landis Mason who was searching for a way to improve the relatively new practice of home canning. In the early days of canning, jars were soppered with wax and corks which was messy and didn’t have a tight seal. The revolutionary screw top lid of the mason jar created the perfect seal, keeping food fresh.

Mason jars are cheap, practically indestructible, and can be used for just about anything. Some of my friends they are the best way to keep berries and vegetables fresh. They’re also eco-friendly because you use them again, and again, and again.

Here are some things you can do with mason jars:

  • Store buttons, pushpins, and paper clips in them
  • Use them for crafts like candles and birdfeeders. See this website for ideas
  • Throw all your loose change in them
  • Fill them with ingredients for soup for a lovely homemade gift
  • Make rainy day (or retirement!) jars and put ideas in them for family trips and outings

And that’s just the beginning. The website Cotton Creations lists 60 different uses for mason jars.

It’s canning season. This week’s #HappyAct is to pay homage to the humble mason jar. Cheers!

Pink lemonade in a mason jar
Berries and grapes in mason jars

Ed. note: One of my Facebook friends posted the two photos above of the items she keeps in her mason jars in the fridge. I had downloaded the photos but can’t remember who posted them now, so whoever you are, I hope you don’t mind me sharing the photos and thanks for sharing your love of mason jars!

Posted on in environment, Hobbies, nature

Gardening on a shoestring

Ferns beside a bird bath

Gardening season is in full bloom, the time of year when seasoned gardeners and weekend warriors spend hours turning over soil, adding manure and mulch to patches of brown dirt, and combing local garden centres to find delicate flowers to create the perfect garden oasis.

Last week, we popped over to a friend’s house because they wanted some advice on how to spruce up the gardens at the front of the house to maximize their curb appeal before they put up their house for sale this summer. They didn’t want to spend a lot of money, which made me start thinking creatively about how you can create a beautiful, welcoming space without draining your pocketbook. Here are some tips for gardening on a shoestring.

  • Divide and conquer: if you have perennials, see what plants can be divided. Hostas, lilies, irises all thrive when split. If you don’t have perennials, see if any friends will give you some.
  • Go wild: look for ferns and wild phlox on the side of roadways or laneways. Just make sure you are not digging up plants on private property without permission (and watch for poison ivy!)
  • Use nature’s bounty: Go beachcombing and find a unique piece of driftwood to add interest to your garden.
  • Make it artful: Look for unique or interesting pieces that could be used for planters or to add a whimsical element to your garden, like old boots, bicycles, watering cans, etc.
  • Sow some seed: Scatter a pack of zinnia or wildflower seeds, an inexpensive way to create colour in a larger space.
  • Buy local—many fundraising groups hold plant sales this time of year to raise money—not only will you save money, you’ll be helping a good cause.
  • Come from good stock: If you are buying annuals from a gardening centre, make sure they are good stock and see if they can be split. The begonias I bought at my local gardening centre had two large blooms in a single pot, so I was able to split them, doubling my money.

I was always find this particular time of year a little sparse in my garden, after the spring bulbs have died off and before the roses, peonies, and irises bloom, but here are some pics from my garden this morning. Happy gardening!

watering can

Above: the ferns around this old birdbath we inherited were all dug up by the side of the road. In this photo, an old watering can adds colour to the pot by my front porch.

begonias lobelia and impatiens in a pot

The begonias I got from Sheila’s Greenhouses in Moscow were so big with two distinct plants in each pot, I was able to split them for my pots on the back deck.

garden flag and chicken sculpture

Dave and the girls tease me all the time about my garden tchotchke. This hummingbird flag greets visitors and the chicken we bought at a cool art studio in Brewerton, New York years ago.

Ferns, hostas and geraniums

More ferns from the roadsides, hostas which we’ve split over the years and perennial geraniums in bloom. I can’t even remember where we got the white cross statue.

Posted on in arts, entertainment, Hobbies, travel

A Shaggin good time

During our recent trip to North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Clare and I took shag dancing lessons at Fat Harold’s Beach Club.

Shaggin was born on the beaches of South Carolina and rose in popularity after the second world war as young people returned from the war and found a new outlet and zest for life, stepping and swirling to the boppy beats of beach music. North Myrtle Beach and Fat Harold’s Beach Club became the epicentre for shag.

The dance itself has been called the “swing dance of the south” or a slowed down jitterbug. It’s now the official state dance for North and South Carolina and Myrtle Beach and hosts the national competition every spring.

Lessons are free on Tuesday nights at Fat Harold’s. We pulled into a packed parking lot and sashayed across the dance floor to plant ourselves at a cocktail table at the back of the club on risers. Behind us was a beautiful mural of a sunny day at the beach to get us into the beach music vibe.

Fat Harold’s is “home of the shag” and it felt like we had stepped back fifty years. There was a pool table and burger counter as soon as you walked in (they are known for their cheeseburgers). Inside the main club, a long wooden bar and cocktail tables flanked the wooden dance floor. The walls were covered with funky old beach signs and pictures of celebrities who had visited Fat Harold’s and plaques listing all the shag dance champions over the years.

Dave and Grace sat on the sidelines and ordered a drink, while Clare and I took our places on the dance floor.

They lined us up, women on one side of the floor and men on the other and taught us the basic step of shag which is a six-step choreography, where the partners take three steps towards each other, three steps in the middle, then back two steps so they are constantly moving towards and apart in perfect flow. The goal is to dance as smoothly and synchronized as possible. The instructors took a bit too much time focusing on the basic steps for my liking. I would have liked to learn some of the fancy footwork and spins that shag is known for, but it was still fun.

I assumed most of the people taking the lesson that night came as couples, but it was surprising and fun to see how many singles there were in the crowd when they paired us up. People were laughing and smiling as they counted out the steps with their new dance partner.

We went to sleep that night with the basic steps refrain of “one-and-two, three-and-four, five-six” in our heads. It was a shaggin’ good time.

This week’s #HappyAct is to learn a new dance step. Here’s a throwback. One of the first blog posts I ever wrote was “Busta move” and I shared a link to the shag dancing championships! My friend Dianna who was pictured in that old blog post dancing with me dances four days a week. She was telling me recently that most of the dance classes she goes to are mainly older women, so any guys out there, if you’re interested in meeting women or just finding a good dance partner, go dancing!

Fat Harold's Beach Club in North Myrtle Beach
My family at Fat Harold's with a beautiful beach mural in the background
Fat Harold's dance floor

Posted on in environment, Historical, Hobbies, nature

Preparing for the apoco-eclipse

total eclipse graphic

Get ready, the apoco-eclipse is coming Monday, April 8. Here in southeastern Ontario, we are in the

….PAAAATH…..OOOFFF…..TOTALITY (said with a low booming echoing voice for maximum effect.)

For a whopping three minutes, the moon will pass in front of the sun and the earth will be in total darkness during the middle of the day, from 3:22 to 3:25 pm to be exact in South Frontenac.

From all the warnings and hype about massive traffic snarls and millions of visitors expected in the region, you’d think the world is coming to an end. My retinas are already burning from reading all the warnings about not looking at the sun directly and how to view the eclipse safely.

Granted this is a once-in-a-lifetime event. The last total eclipse in North America was in 2017 over the northwest US, but back then the eclipse’s path just 71 miles wide, compared to 122 miles AND the total time the moon completely covered the sun was just 2 minutes, 40 seconds compared to over 3 or four minutes this time depending on where you live.

I wasn’t sure just how big a deal this was, so I decided to ask an expert, my old high school buddy Brad Gibson, Professor and Director of the E.A. Milne Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Hull in England. Brad does presentations and TedTalks on subjects like will we ever live on Mars, the top 10 coolest things about outer space and are we alone in the universe?

Being the cool astrophysicist dude he is, Brad confirmed that “a total solar eclipse is always a blast”. He said they aren’t all that rare if you look at planet Earth as a whole since once every 18 months there is a total solar eclipse somewhere on the planet. In any given city, it’s more rare, like once every 300 years. I asked Brad what he’ll see in the UK and he said they’ll see a partial eclipse with about one-third of the sun blocked.

I also didn’t know that some weird and wonderful things can happen during an eclipse too. Animals can get confused thinking it’s nighttime, radio waves have been known to become scrambled, and seconds before totality, you may see shadow bands, or wavy strips of light and dark dancing on the ground like water at the bottom of a swimming pool. 

During the time of total darkness, you may also see the stars and planets, especially Venus and Mars. Now that’s cool.

Personally, I’m more of a northern lights, super moon, meteor shower kind of gal. The nighttime celestial shows outshine any daytime event, even the apoco-eclipse, throwing it into the shade.

This week’s #HappyAct is to get your ISO-certified eclipse glasses and get ready to enjoy the spectacle on April 8. And for those nighttime celestial lovers out there, they say tonight’s a good night to see the northern lights.

Posted on in arts, Hobbies, photography

An unexpected gift

artwork of trees

This week, I received an unexpected gift. It was a beautiful piece of artwork of red leaves in the fall sent to me by our good friend Jon Begg.

Jon lives in the Great White North but always comes for dinner and a fish whenever he is back in southern Ontario. On his last visit, we talked photography and he showed me pictures on his phone of images he had taken of the fall foliage that he had photoshopped to look like artwork. They were simply stunning.

Fast forward to this week, and I now have one of his beautiful creations hanging in my dining room. I’m not sure if that will be its permanent place of honour but every night at the dinner table, I find myself admiring this unexpected gift.

This week’s #HappyAct is to bring some joy to someone special by sending them an unexpected gift. Leave a comment and share what you did. Here’s another one of Jon’s treasured gifts, a mock magazine cover of one of the boys’ 2008 fishing expeditions on the Moira River.

Posted on in Hobbies, pop culture, shopping

Never Lego of your childhood

Lego Haunted House

Special guest blog by Ray Dorey

Before I begin, full disclosure. Although my passionate interest in what I am about to describe is readily apparent, I am not an employee of Lego, nor do I own any Lego stock – oh how I wish I did! I am only a happy consumer.

Without question, Lego building blocks were my favourite distraction – I hesitate to say “toy” – growing up. There was nothing I enjoyed more than to dump a box of Lego blocks on the floor and eagerly begin assembling my next masterpiece. Whether it was a sleek racing car, a futuristic spaceship, or some other strange contraption, Lego helped stoke and mould my imagination and creativity.

Some of my creations I would proudly display for weeks, while others I would immediately tear down and start anew. As much as I hated destroying some of them, I of course needed the blocks for my next project. And this remember was in a time before smartphones and social media when I couldn’t take a few photos and post them instantly for peer review.

Flash-forward to present day, and Lego has grown exponentially in popularity. It’s been enjoyable watching my nephew share the same excitement for Lego that I had when I was his age. I’m sure when he purchases his first home, he’ll need an addition just to store all of his Lego kits he’s accumulated through the years.

My only criticism – and it’s a relatively mild one – is that Lego has evolved to offer mostly custom-designed builds. When I was growing up – here comes my walking through the snow uphill old guy story – I don’t recall there being as many customized kits. I remember large miscellaneous boxes of Lego pieces, and it was left to my imagination what I was building. Today, most kits come with custom pieces and detailed step-by-step instructions, perhaps dulling the creative experience.

Today, there are many “adult” Lego sets, targeting older, nostalgic generations, who like me grew up with Lego. The adult sets have more pieces and detail, and are perhaps a little more complicated to put together.

Last fall, I tackled the Lego Haunted House kit, complete with a working elevator, and I’m about to start a new especially exciting build – one that was just released – a larger and more detailed model of the DeLorean time machine from the 80s classic movie, Back to the Future.

While you may not see me list Lego among my hobbies on my Tinder profile, it does bring me much enjoyment in the form of youthful exuberance, which is always a welcome and valued commodity.

Ed. note: Ray is one of two friends who are AFOLs, LegoSpeak for Adult Fans of Lego. A few times on our family vacations, we’ve been in Lego stores or malls where they have simply amazing Lego creations. Why not pop into a Lego store and check it out. Last year Lego opened a new flagship store in New York City on Fifth Avenue. Read more about the store and Lego’s success in targeting the adult fan market in this article in The Guardian.

Lego display in their new flagship store in New York City
Lego display in their new flagship store in New York City