Someone to Care

We can do no great things; only small things with great love.

We realize that what we are accomplishing is a drop in the ocean. But if this drop were not in the ocean, it would be missed.

Let no one come to you without leaving better and happier.

Go out into the world today and love the people you meet. Let your presence light new light in the hearts of people.

- Mother Theresa

These quotes by Mother Theresa indicate the way I feel this morning as I reflect back on the last few weeks.

As a freelancer I have to accept contracts when they become available and sometimes it’s feast or famine – contracts are either not available or coincide and overlap. Such has been my experience in the past few weeks. I have been teaching at the college in North West River during the day and running some evening classes at the college in Happy Valley-Goose Bay at the same time. Prolonged, it would be a surefire recipe for burnout!

But I have much to be thankful for. I’m thankful that despite my physical ailments, I rushed to the finish line with gusto. I’m thankful that I found somebody to car pool with so I only had to drive the 89 km return trip over icy roads half the time. And I’m thankful for the wonderful people I’ve had to work with.

What strikes me the most is the many people I meet – rich or poor, married or single, native or non-native, young or old – who just need to know that somebody cares. We all have to deal with life, the ups and downs, the trails and tribulations that come our way. Sometimes life is just not fair. But a burden shared is a burden halved. Sometimes there is nothing we can do to help the situation but to accept the person, listen to their concerns and love them anyway. People just need to know somebody cares.

A baby is born with a need to be loved - and never outgrows it. ~Frank A. Clark

Driving home one day I found myself singing the chorus:

“Love through me, Holy Spirit, love through me.
Let my hands reach out to others, love through me.
There’s a needy soul somewhere, needing just one friend to care.
Love through me, Holy Spirit, love through me.”

Having finished my contracts last night and a few weeks of burning the candle at both ends, I promised myself I would sleep until daylight this morning, but the house was still dark when I got up at 7:30 a.m. It’s snowing a lot and before I went to bed last night the weather channel said we were to have 25-35 cm of snow in the next 24 hours with winds gusting to 90 km/h this afternoon and blizzard conditions. To me this sounds like the perfect time to put on a Christmas CD and clean and decorate the house in preparation for my daughter’s return home for Christmas on Tuesday.

Having my gift for a child ready for the Community Christmas Hamper and donations to several charities is certainly only a drop in the bucket of what needs to be done, but if it were not there it would surely be missed. Now I’ll concentrate on Christmas preparations for my family.

Merry Christmas!

It's Winter

Wow...have I ever been busy! Freelancing can get hectic at times. Then there's the volunteer stuff. Sometimes it all comes at once.

Winter's finally here. Since I last wrote we had a nice snowfall - about 15 cm on one day and flurries here and there. This is how it look when it started on Remembrance Day, November 11th:

Since then we had a mild spell with temperatures hovering just above and below zero. yuk! This is more like St. John's weather. We're not used to it being so mild this time of year. Today we have a temperature of 11 C with winds of SSE 54 km/h with gusts to 76 km/h. Very unusual!! Since I took this snap about 30 minutes ago the sun has come out but it does look rather bleak ( like winter!?):

With winter comes the wardrobe change. I've shifted around my closet and packed away my 'summer' clothes. Wouldn't you know that I've added a few extra pounds, so I'm faced with the dilemma of either buying new clothes or shedding a few pounds. Now I'm not a dieter and have never been able to stick with the new fads, but I like to eat healthy. Since I'm supposed to be on a fat free, no caffeine diet anyway, it's not a major adjustment except for one thing - Chocolate!! I'm a professed chocolaolic! Believe it or not, I haven't had any chocolate since September and a lot of my meals look like this these days:

It looks like a summer meal, doesn't it? When I think of fall and winter, I think of rabbit stews, caribou soup, moose roast, fish and brewis, and all the wonderful breads, doughboys, drawn butter and pastries that go with it.

Now we're entering the chocolate season. First there's my birthday, then Christmas, Valentine's, Easter, Friday, the weekend, tired....and all the excuses to have a nice creamy milk chocolate bar....maybe something very sweet like a 'S'mores' bar...(drool)!

Sorry, I'm not posting any chocolate pics today but I'm sure you can visualize them! Now to stop my chocoloate craving I think I'll go have a bananna :)

First Snow!

Yep! We've been expecting it any day now - the first snow. But we've had beautiful fall weather. Yesterday I wandered about my garden drinking in the beauty of my few fading flowers and admiring the colorful leaves as they begin to fall from the trees. Petunias and nasturtiums seem to be the most hardy. This is what I saw yesterday:

Petunias...









and...

Nasturtiums...

the dying embers...

of summer...




Green leaves...

turning brown...

and red...

to golden...

...now covered with snow!

Fall Colors

I'm absolutely amazed with the colors of fall! Aren't they beautiful?! This morning while I hung out my clothes I had this over-the-fence view:
Then on the other side I had this view:

When I backed out on the road I had this view:

As I drove up the road, it looked like this:

The leaves are just beginning to turn now. In another few days it will be even more beautiful.

This afternoon my friend and I went partridgeberry picking (known as redberry picking in Labrador). It was a beautiful sunny day, little breeze, no flies and lots of berries. This is what they looked like:

I love Fall!

Fall Plant Rescue

I have finally brought all my house plants in for the winter. Last night the weather was clear and we had (almost) a full moon - actually it will be full by tomorrow night. This morning at 7 o'clock it was 1 degree celcius and a white sparkling frost covered everything outside. Now in mid-afternoon it is 22 degrees celcius with only scattered clouds in a clear blue sky. What wonderful weather we've been having! Here are the last two beauties I rescued from Jack Frost:

On The Line

We have just completed how many weeks on the picket line? CBC management has locked out its Canadian Media Guild employees for 35 days now!! Walking the picket line is harder than a days work because it's frustrating and futile. We've been pounding the pavement in front of the building waiting for management to open the doors and let us go to work. The weather is getting colder each day and this week we acquired a large drum in which we light a fire to keep warm. Our union rep visited us on the picket line this week and he says "the goal posts are in sight." Well the main issues have yet to be discussed. Despite the smiles, we're disgusted!

God's Faithfulness!

"They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness."

Lamentations 3:23 KJV

I've been picking these little beauties in my back yard for about a month now. I pick them all one day and when I go back a day or two later, there's a fresh supply of raspberries - just like the fresh manna God supplied to the Israelites every morning.

When I opened my patio blinds this morning I was surprised to find everything covered with a layer of sparkling white frost. It was 1 degree C. There is not a cloud to be seen in the clear blue sky and the sun is gradually melting the frost to a heavy dew.

Of course this means that the redberries (a.k.a. partridgeberries) will now be ready for picking. They are best after a good frost. It kills the worm in them and makes them sweeter. Another example of God's provision.

Gas Prices

I was at a meeting on Thursday evening when somebody mentioned the price of gas going up again. It usually goes up a couple of cents a litre at a time. I made a mental note to get gas on the way home. As it turned out, I brought somebody else home so I didn't think of it. After I came home and got ready for bed, I decided to check my email to unwind after a busy day. There was an email from a friend reminding me of the gas price jump. I jumped in my car, pj's and all, and went to fill it up. There were four line-ups at the pumps and people were filling up gas cans in the pans of their pickups. Wow! I got inspired so I went home and got my husband's pickup truck and went and filled that up as well. He was pleasantly surprised when I told him the next morning (brownie points!!). The gas went up 19 cents a litre the first night - then low and behold it went up another 13 cents the very next day!! The reason: there's a gas shortage on the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland! Go figure! Why make the people in Labrador pay for that? We pay the highest prices in all of Canada as it is!! I heard somebody say the other day the government should be called the Government of St. John's instead of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. Maybe they have a point. Separation sounds better all the time. The good news is the gas price may go down 12 cents a litre...and we're supposed to be happy with that?...up .32 and down .12? And oh yes...the price of groceries and utilities, etc. will be going up as well. What does the bible say about a loaf of bread for a days wages in the last days?
Amazing!

The Weekend - Hurray!!

It's the first day of Labour Day Weekend - considered the last weekend of camping for the year, especially tent or RV camping. In Labrador lots people head off to their cabins just as they would any other weekend throughout the year. It's also harvest time. Already we have picked blueberries and raspberries and had some new potatoes, carrots, turnip greens and fresh cabbage leaves, but in September most people dig their potatoes and bring in any vegetables that would be damaged by frost. I usually pick the last of my rhubarb and bring in my houseplants. The lawn will probably get its last grooming for the season and the yard will get tidied away before that huge blanket of snow hides everything for the long winter. It's not that it needs to be done right now, but it's the last holiday from work until November 11. By then it's plenty chilly.

Summer is still here though. We have a beautiful sunny day with 20 degrees celcius at 8:45 am. A gentle breeze blows the aspen and birch leaves with just a few spots of yellow amidst the green. My empty clotheslines lurk outside my patio waiting to be filled, my barbecue and picnic table wait invitingly on the patio and my shasta daisies beckon me to the garden for one more look. It promises to be another beautiful day.

Company's Coming....again!
Well I shouldn't say company. Let me rephrase that. We're having house guests this weekend. Company is when somebody is coming to spend time with you. House guests is when somebody uses your house instead of a hotel! Either way, schedule is out the window for a couple of days.

I've had a real busy week with work and volunteer stuff. Tomorrow I'll be Cindrella for a while. (You know the story of Cindrella! She was left home to do the housework, while everybody else went out to enjoy themselves.) I'd just as soon be left alone to putter.

We're promised the sun and temperatures in the 20's again tomorrow. What a beautiful week we've had. "Shine on me sunshine, walk with me world, it's a ....zip da doo de day.....I'm the haaap-p-iest girl in the whole USA." Well it's a fine thing you can't really hear that - but you get the drift!

Have a good weekend everybody!

Company for Supper

While we ate supper this evening, this perky little bird and some friends kept us company just outside the window. This was the only one brave enough to face the camera:

The Sun

I listened to CBC radio as I got ready for work this morning. They played the Beatles song “Here Comes the Sun….it’ll be alright!” Most times when we think about the sun it gives us warm, positive feelings. The images that come to mind may be a day at the beach laying in the sand, cruising down the highway with the air-conditioning on, puttering in solitude of your garden, reading a book while lying in your chair on the patio, a family barbecue….. Not often do we hear people say, “OnNo! It’s going to be sunny today!!”

Sometimes we say, “It’s your day in the sun!” In other words, “the spotlight is on you,” or “it’s your special day.” It’s a day when the outlook is bright, things are going your way, you’re warmed by what’s going on around you (the atmosphere), and you have great opportunity for growth.

Look up. Here comes the sun…it’ll be alright! May this be your Day in the Sun!

The Weather Again!
What wind and rain we've been having! I don't think we've had so much rain since the flood! Of course there's a benefit to that too. I don't have to water my garden these days, the berries will blossom nicely again when the sun comes out, and it gives me time to get things done in the house.

I love sleeping when it's stormy outside - or curled up in a comfortable spot reading a good book - or spending time on my computers. It's a wonderful time to catch up on all the projects I've saved for a rainy day.

When we say "saving for a rainy day" we think of saving money, don't we? And that's good too. But there are other things that need our management besides money. One of them is time. These days aren't we just sooo busy. I know I am. However, I'm learning to say "no" more now to things that are going to overtax me. I'm setting a priority with what I want to do and what needs to be done. For instance, housework has moved far to the bottom of the list. It will be there long after I'm gone - nobody seems to notice when it's done anyway. When I'm no longer here, what will people remember about me...a clean house?....a story I wrote?....my smile? ...how friendly I was or wasn't? or the time I spent with them? The days go by so fast and once they are gone, they are gone. Tomorrow for us may never come. We have only today to work with. What can we do to make a difference in the lives of those we love today?

Often when people are not sure what to talk about, they talk about the weather and stay away from subjects like politics and religion (that’ll come later!). So to begin my blog I will do just that – talk about the weather.

God has blessed us with a wonderful summer. In May, long before the first official day of summer in June, we had temperatures reaching 30 degrees Celsius. The hot dry days have balanced out the warm wet days enough to keep the forest fires in check and the berries growing. However, just as summer was early, so comes the fall. This week we had a good shower of hailstones. The sun comes up later and the evenings are closing in fast. A walk around my garden after supper confirms this when I feel the cool damp air, smell the earth in the evening dew and the hint of wood smoke in the air.

A few days ago before I went to work I took another walk around my garden to admire its fast fading beauty. Too soon the frost will stiffen and wilt the remaining stems and they will be covered in a blanket of snow. I caught a few of the images in megapixels to help me remember and prolong their beauty.

I think there may be an old wives tale or folklore that talks about when the squirrels gather food and hoard it away during the summer; it will be a hard long winter. Well this little fellow that I found eating from my bird feeder on the back patio wasn’t hoarding any food away – he was living for the moment! When he heard me, he turned around and posed for the camera.




You may have noticed that I mentioned God, yet planned to stay away from politics and religion today. Well, I kept my promise. God is part of everything. We cannot go anywhere that he is not. Religion on the other hand… ok...ok. Maybe another time!