Multitasking- Wisdom From A Former Student

Jenelle Law one of my former high school students has made a great video about multitasking. Jenelle is currently studying graphic and media design at the University of the Arts in London. Her video really struck a chord with me. It catalogs the downside of multitasking.  Click here to view the video.

I’ve been doing lots of thinking about multi-tasking lately because there are so many things I want to accomplish- things I want to write, study and do, new things I want to learn.  Jenelle is right.  

If I flit from one thing to another I don’t get nearly as much accomplished as I do if I tackle one task at a time. It’s tough though because while I’m writing a series of devotionals my middle-grade novel manuscript is calling out to me. When I’m working on an assignment for my online art education course I’m also itching to get at another blog post.  As I hurry to get my newspaper column in by deadline I wish I could be working on the latest story I’m writing for my grandson. So I tend to dabble in too many projects at once and since I’m working on my computer I check on Facebook and my e-mail in between. Not very productive!

I read a book a few years ago called Women Food and God. Author Geneen Roth provides seven rules for healthy eating habits. One of those rules is to eat without distractions. Distractions include radio, television, newspapers, books, intense or anxiety-producing conversations or music. In other words, don’t multitask while you eat.  Jenelle discusses this as well in her video and it’s wisdom that is hard to follow but really does help you to eat in a much healthier way.

I’ve always said that one of the reasons I loved being a teacher was because I learned so much from my students. Now I realize I’m still learning from them even when I am no longer their teacher. Thanks, Jenelle!

A photo I took of Jenelle when she was in my class

Other posts about my former students……

So Proud of Them- Visiting my Students in New York

It’s a Small World

ICS- Honolulu Connection

Visiting ICS Students in Toronto

Flooding At Birch Point

Many campgrounds in Manitoba have been impacted by flooding this year.  I saw evidence of that first hand last weekend when we drove out to Birch Point.  It is only a few miles from our family cottage at Moose Lake. A trip out to Birch Point to walk along the shore and collect driftwood is often a part of the vacation ritual. There was no shore to walk along this year. I went to Birch Point with my Dad, my brother Mark and my sister-in-law Kathy.My nephew who has a summer job with the conservation authority in the area says that at times this summer the water from the lake has washed right up over this road. 

The campground is closed since many of the campsites are under water.You can’t use the boat docking area. They haven’t even put in the dock. Mark and Kathy were able to walk all the way out to that rock in the lake last summer. What a difference!

Mark found one piece of wet driftwood along a shore that is usually littered with thousands of dried pieces of driftwood.It’s hard to find a place to roost mid-flight when the lake has expanded so much.Summer is more than half over and there are still some twenty Manitoba campgrounds closed or partially closed due to flooding. Travel Manitoba authorities say if you plan on camping this summer  you’d better check to see if your campsite is open before heading out. 

Other posts about being at the lake……

Eagle Inspiration

Lord You Have Come To the Lakeshore

Tubing

 

 

The Amazing Race Canada – Where They SHOULD Have Gone in Hong Kong

My international readers might not know that here in Canada we have our very own Amazing Race television show. It started last year and all the race challenges took place in different parts of our own country. This year the show’s gone beyond Canada’s borders and the first stop was Hong Kong!  I was excited! I lived in Hong Kong for six years and was curious about what places the contestants  would be sent to in this wonderful city I once called home.The Amazing Race show sites included the Big Buddha, a wet market, the walled city in Kowloon, a restaurant that served snake soup and the walk of fame along the harbor. Those weren’t bad choices but I couldn’t believe the producers hadn’t chosen two spots in Hong Kong that clearly have a strong Canadian connection. One is the Chi Lin Nunnery. It is the site of sixteen beautiful halls each containing a statue of Buddha. The halls were all built with thousand-year old Canadian cedar and you can smell that wonderful Canadian cedar the moment you step onto the site.  The grounds of the nunnery are stunningly beautiful……

I think the Chi Lin Nunnery would have been a perfect site for one of the challenges of the Canadian Amazing Race. 

At the Sai Wan War Cemetery in Hong Kong you will find hundreds of graves belonging to Canadian soldiers who died defending Hong Kong against the Japanese. Many were part of a regiment from my home city of Winnipeg. All the graves of the Canadian soldiers bear the maple leaf imprint. 

It would have been great to use either the cemetery or the nearby war museum as a site for a race challenge so more Canadians could learn about the involvement of Canada in defending Hong Kong.

This week the Amazing Race contestants are off to Macau. It is also a place I have visited many times. I’m curious to see what sites will have  been chosen there for filming. 

Other posts about Hong Kong…..

Chi Lin Nunnery

Sai Wan

Hong Kong Wet Markets

Davey At the Bat

We spent this past weekend in Bemidji, Minnesota where Dave was playing in a slow pitch ball tournament. I was experimenting with the sports action setting on my camera and took this series of photos of Dave up to bat. He hit a triple!

 

Other posts about  baseball…..

Baseball in His 60th Year

Take Me Out to the Ball Game- Osaka Style

Tigers Baseball

Driedger Reunion- Spring Training

 

Eagle Inspiration

I just spent a couple days at my brother and sister-in-law’s cottage at Moose Lake, a cottage which has been in our family for three generations. Taking the boat to the north end of the lake to search for the bald eagles that nest there, has been a ritual during cottage visits since my childhood.   I took these photos on Friday. 

Four things I do not understand….. the way of the eagle in the sky, the way of a snake on a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas and the way of a man with a woman-  Proverbs 30

The Eagle   by Alfred Lord Tennyson

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Who satisfies your years with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. – Psalm 103:5

Other posts about nature….

Georgia O Keefe Inspired Me

Swimming with Manatees

A Christmas Day in Hell

Visualising God’s Creation Gifts in Sculpture

Why Did The Creator Make Mosquitoes?

 

 

Weighty Matters

I’ve struggled with maintaining a healthy weight since I was a teenager, so I’ve been an avid reader of all kinds of material related to diet and exercise and weight loss.  Research is constantly unearthing new things about how our genes, activity, environment and food consumption impact our weight.  How to keep up with it all?  I’ve found a blog that offers a short, daily post with good, thought-provoking information about diet and nutrition. It’s called Weighty Matters and is authored by Dr. Yoni Freedhoff. 

I’ve been reading Dr. Freedhoff’s blog ever since and here are just five of the many interesting things I’ve learned in recent weeks.

1) While exercise can make you a whole lot healthier physically, emotionally and mentally it doesn’t really help you lose weight. 

2) Fruits and vegetables aren’t equals. Fruits have way more calories, but are still a far better food choice than many other things.

3) Low calorie sweeteners have gotten a bad rap but in the end they are probably healthier for you than always eating the real thing. 

Enjoying grilled chicken, grilled vegetables and lavish bread in an outdoor cafe in Lviv Ukraine

4) There are many different ways to lose weight and what works for one person doesn’t work for another. BUT the only way to be truly successful  and maintain your weight loss is if you LIKE AND ENJOY the lifestyle and diet you use to lose weight ENOUGH so that you can keep on living that way forever. 

5) Environmental changes can make a difference.  A chain of British supermarkets has removed all candy from their checkout lanes. Loblaws in Canada is experimenting with this as well and Indigo Books has removed all candy from checkout areas. ( I have a weakness for buying M&M’s in the checkout line)

Other posts about diet and exercise……

Super Foods

Beet Leaves

Food Rules

Quo Vadis- Talk About a Perfect Setting!

The  St. Boniface Basilica was a brilliant choice as a setting for the musical Quo Vadis. I attended the performance on the night of  July 22 which just happened to be the forty-six year anniversary of the tragic fire that nearly completely destroyed the huge Winnipeg cathedral in 1968. All that remained of the old church after the fire was the majestic front piece. That stone facade which is now more than a century old, provided the backdrop for the Fringe Festival production of Quo Vadis. 

This was not your regular fringe play. It had a huge cast with many trained and talented musicians among them. The story is taken from a Polish novel by Nobel Prize winner Henryk Sienkiewicz. It is set in 64 AD during the reign of the Roman Emperor Nero. It recounts the love story of a military man and a young Christian woman, who along with others of her faith, is slated for death because of her beliefs.

The musical was written by Olaf Pyttlik. Olaf and his wife lived in my condo building this last year while their home in Wolseley was being completely gutted and renovated.

Not only did Olaf have that project on the go, but in May he opened a new restaurant in the Exchange District called Across the Board. Pyttlik also owns and operates a  successful audio production company called daCapo.  And somewhere in between remodeling a house, opening a restaurant and running a business, he found time to write a musical and stage it at the Fringe Festival. Does this man ever sleep?

The performers in the Quo Vadis production obviously loved what they were doing. The music was beautiful and inspiring.  The storyline was easy to follow. It was a great evening of entertainment made all the more special because the music we were hearing was brand new and was having its debut at the Fringe Festival. An added bonus was that we were outside on a lovely Manitoba evening. The breeze was dancing in the actors hair and birds were calling and winging overhead. 

If you haven’t already seen Quo Vadis- go! If it’s sold out, you can just sit down on the Basilica grounds and listen to the wonderful music. 

Note: The musical mentioned Christians being devoured by wild animals in the Colosseum.  When I toured the Colosseum in Rome our guide told us that never happened.  Quo Vadis also made reference to Christians hiding out in the catacombs.

Our tour group in the catacombs

When we visited the catacombs in Rome our guide told us that’s just a myth too. 

Other posts about the Fringe Festival……

Small Affair A Big Success

Godspell and Shadow Spaces

Not So Dandy

Godspell-Third Fringe Play- Shadow Spaces- Fourth Fringe Play

Godspell was a very entertaining show. Definitely worth the admission price. Enthusiastic talented young performers. I’ve seen Godspell many times. Both my husband and son have been in community and school productions in the past. I know the music well and this show had me wanting to sing along. I have a feeling Godspell songs are going to be queued up on my I-Pod this week. 
Maybe not as polished and professional as other productions I’ve seen- some singers struggled a  bit with diction and pitch- but still a very enjoyable 90 minutes of theatre and music. Highlight for me was Sam Plett’s rendition of On the Willows. Sam played Judas and he has one heck of a beautiful voice!

 

We went to see Shadow Spaces at 10:30 last night and I have to say it is not exactly a put- you- to sleep bedtime story. In fact the plot kept me awake last night.  As the poster states it is about three lives, two lovers and one murder but  things turn out differently than you might intially expect. 

The play was written by Jeff Kowerchuk who is from Winnipeg and I believe this is the first time the play is being performed. The Free Press reviewer praised the ‘taut and stirring’ performances of the actors and called the play compelling and well written. The CBC reviewer found the dialogue too intellectual and wasn’t taken in by the acting.  I certainly was. I was up waaaaay past my bed time and was wide awake and engaged throughout by the dramatic story. 

One of the reasons I wanted to go to Shadow Spaces was because Grant Burr my editor at The Carillon, the paper for which I’m a columnist, was one of the two actors in the show. I saw Grant last year at the Fringe in a one man show called Thom Pain. I had enjoyed that performance and so was looking forward to this one.  I wasn’t disappointed.

Other Fringe plays I’ve seen this year……..

Small Affair a Big Success

Not So Dandy

A Small Affair is a Big Success

I loved my second Fringe play of the season A Small Affair. It was funny and fast paced. The story takes place in a rehearsal space where actors in a new television drama are preparing for the filming of their show. 

We meet the stressed out television director, the self-centered female star, and the laconic maintenance man who wanders in and out of the rehearsal space to make comments while fixing an electrical problem in the bathroom.

Two of my colleagues at the Winnipeg Art Gallery were in the play. Tiffany played a confused newspaper reporter and Rhonda was a feisty and outspoken cleaning lady. They both put on great performances and gave their characters such distinctive personality. I heard someone behind me say as they exited the theatre, “the cleaning lady was the best!”

These three white-haired women stumble into the rehearsal space by mistake and capture the audience’s hearts with their humour. They are potential contestants on another television show called Make A Fool of Yourself. There are plenty of other off-beat characters who entertain the audience with their antics – an aging actor struggling with alcohol problems, a no-nonsense stage manager, a jealous co-star and an emotional actress with a difficult husband.

This was a good performance of a well written play. I laughed out loud several times as did many audience members. A good drama needs quirky, interesting characters who change. Plenty of conflict is required and of course humour always helps! This play had all three ingredients in my opinion.

A Small Affair is a big success!

The photos in this post are courtesy of the Shoestring Players Facebook page

Other fringe plays I’ve seen this year……

Dandy

Letter From the Mother Of A Gay Son

My cousin’s wife Laurie Wiens recently wrote a thoughtful, moving and articulate letter to the editor of the national magazine of the Mennonite Church in Canada. 

Here is one paragraph. 

Our oldest son recently was baptized after doing some intense soul-searching about his faith and his commitment to the church. I am proud of him for taking this step and so happy that he is part of the Christian community and part of a loving and supportive church community. My son is also in a serious relationship with someone who loves him. It is a pleasure to see them together and see how close they have become. They are both at a great stage in life—still studying and figuring out what their career paths will be, both committed to the church, both with their whole lives ahead of them and countless opportunities. My son is also gay.

I encourage you to take the time to read the full letter at the link below.

http://www.canadianmennonite.org/articles/letter-mother-gay-son

Other  posts about Mennonites……..

Some Mennonites But Not All of Them

The Constructed Mennonite

The Disappeared