Resolutions

Each year I resolve with the strongest intent

To be better this year than last.

I work very hard; but the rules get bent,

The discipline gets old so fast!

But with this new year I just know I’ll win out,

Just watch how I do and you’ll see!

I’m not going to have yet another blowout;

I’ll be good as I know I can be.

If wicked things beckon, and I’m not so strong,

If I weaken and fall on my ass,

I’ll be thankful again that you’ll help me along

As you have during all new years past

                                                                                             ~ Joanna Fuchs

Boardwalk: taken in Hendrie Marsh RBG, November 2010

New Year's Resolutions, as everyone knows, were meant to be broken. Statistics prove it. So why do we endeavour year after year, to promise to...............?

We make our resolutions with sincerity, faith and steely determination; but humans are weak in the willpower department - at least I know I am!

So my friends, as the poem above suggests, I am counting on you to help me be strong. Remind me of my resolve when you see that I am failing. Share your resolutions with me and we'll be stronger for the sharing.

My 2011 Resolutions:
I resolve to eat better and exercise more.
I resolve to skate or cycle every Sunday afternoon (and I welcome your company).
I resolve to get out with my Nordic Walking group every Wednesday evening.
And I resolve to participate in as many Saturday hikes as possible!

Happy 2011 everyone! May this be the year all your wishes come true! And may you be happy, healthy, satisfied and fulfilled! God bless you all, my friends!

Finding Balance

Problems arise in that one has to find a balance between what people need from you and what you need for yourself.

~Jessye Norman

Burrowing Owl: taken at African Lion Safari in September 2010

There are people who live to work and people who work to live. The problem is, the first kind of people believe that the second kind of people are somehow inferior. And the second kind of people feel resentment and pity for the first kind of people.

I belong to the second group. Work is a necessity. It is a requirement of subsistence. I do my job to the best of my ability. I strive to meet and/or exceed expectations. But, work is what I do eight hours a day, five days a week.

Living is how I spend the rest of my time.

Winter Solstice

"Yule is when the dark half of the year relinquishes to the light half. Starting the next morning at sunrise, the sun climbs just a little higher and stays a little longer in the sky each day. Known as Solstice Night, or the longest night of the year, much celebration was to be had as the ancestors awaited the rebirth of the Oak King, the Sun King, the Giver of Life that warmed the frozen Earth and made her to bear forth from seeds protected through the fall and winter in her womb. Bonfires were lit in the fields, and crops and trees were "wassailed" with toasts of spiced cider."-   Yule Lore 

White Cedars: Taken at Hilton Falls November 27, 2010

Winter Solstice...the darkest night of the shortest day brings hope for the return of the sun and its warmth. Without the Winter Solstice, would we continue on into infinite night? Perish the thought.

In some ways, I think December 21 is my favourite day of the year, for I know that each subsequent day will grow imperceptably, inexorably longer even as we face down a long, cold winter. Conversely, June 21 - Summer Solstice - the day that officially ushers in the lazy, crazy days of summer becomes a day of melancholy, for even as the sun grows warmer, each day is a little shorter than the one before it.

The cycle of life and death; warmth and cold; light and darkness....  

Mums

And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see -- or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read.
                                                            - Alice Walker

Brilliant Mum: taken at the 2010 Hamilton Mum Show.

Mums; moms; mothers - Most of us are blest to have had one mother; I have had three. Each has played a role in the person I am today - for better or worse.

Like everyone, I have a birth mother - from whom I was separated at a young age; our reunion was almost fifty years in the making. I had a foster mother - my father's sister to whom he entrusted my care till I reached the age of ten years; sadly, she has passed on. I have a stepmother - at age twenty-four, mother of an infant son, she found herself mothering a headstrong ten-year-old.

From my aunt, I was gifted with a fiercely independent spirit; from my stepmother I learned the strength and beauty of quiet dignity; from my birth mother, I have learned that Nurture cannot trump Nature!

Nature, in all its iterations is an unstoppable force...

December 2010 - Starting Out

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
       -- Joyce Kilmer

Autumn Maple: taken at Gage Park, November 7, 2010 

I've had a life-long affinity for trees - I admire their shapes, their strength, their determination and their silent observance of the passage of time. They provide us with so much and they ask so little in return - a little rain; a little sun. The photo above was taken with my friend, Tina, in mind - she who shares my love for these benificent sentinels.