Wedding Day

It’s the big wedding day of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.  I thought to celebrate I’d post some photos of weddings in my family.  Perhaps not as grand as the weddings of the royals but still special. Our wedding in August of 1973. My parents Paul and Dorothy Peters at their wedding May 1952

My husband’s parents Cornie and Anne Driedger at their wedding in September of 1942.

My paternal grandparents Margaretha and Diedrich Peters at their wedding in July 1925.My maternal grandparents Peter and Annie Schmidt leaving on their honeymoon in January 1917.My husband’s maternal grandparents Gertrude and Heinrich Enns pose for a wedding photo in January 1903.

All the couples pictured here had lasting and loyal marriages despite the inevitable challenges they faced.  I wish the same for the royal couple. 

Other posts……….

Anne Driedger 

A Community Affair

A Honeymoon Adventure

A Hat for Mothers Day

Check out our classy hats!  Last Friday I was at a lovely Mother’s Day tea in Saskatoon with my 95 year old Aunt Viola.  She is my mother’s oldest sister and the only member of her family still living.  I visit her regularly and help take care of her affairs. The personal care home where she lives has a great activities program with special features for the residents both morning and afternoon.  The afternoon activity on Friday was a Mother’s Day Tea.  Fancy tea cups and a selection of hats were provided along with lovely tea sandwiches, fruit, vegetable trays and cake.   Aunt Vi has been the lynch pin around which my mother’s extended family revolves and she has also been a keeper of its history.  So it is always great to chat with her and learn new things about my mother’s family.  

Aunt Vi visits with her friends Ruth and Louise.

I also enjoyed my time with the other women at her table.  One hailed from Altona and another from Morden Manitoba and one of my aunt’s long time friends Louise, another retired teacher like my aunt, was seated right beside her.  It was nice to visit with them and get to know them a little better. Since I no longer have a mother of my own I appreciate being able to celebrate the Mothers Day holiday with my aunt.  I always feel my Mom’s presence and blessing in a special way when I am with her sister. 

Other posts……..

Happy 95th Birthday Aunt Vi

Aunt Vi’s Autograph Book

Why Was This Special? 

 

 

A Chicken Soup Story For Mothers Day

Years ago someone critiquing my writing style told me I should try to make my pieces less “chicken soupy”.   That critic was right on the money.  My writing does have a certain “chicken soupy”  quality and to prove it I’ve just had my fourth story published in one of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. 

This time my story is in a book called My Amazing Mom and I’ve written a story about my own amazing mother.  I am grateful to my Mom for so many things but my story is about the wise and gentle way she introduced my sister and me to the ‘facts of life’ by reading us the book Susie’s Babies which tells the story of a mother hamster giving birth.   My sister and I were ages nine and seven at the time and after she read us the book Mom told us she was going to have a baby too and we could ask her any questions about it we wanted to.  She also explained what would happen to us as we became young women .  It wasn’t till I was older that I realized not nearly all mothers in the 1960s were so open and honest with their daughters and how very lucky I was to have a mother who was.   

I enjoy writing Chicken Soup stories and usually have at least one I’m in the process of working on.  Not all of them make the cut from the thousands submitted for each book, but Susie’s Babies is the fourth one that has and that’s enough to keep me penning in my “chicken soupy” style. 

You can buy the books from Simon and Shuster   or Amazon   or Barnes and Noble 

My Other Chicken Soup Books…….

I’m in the Latest Chicken Soup Book

In Chicken Soup Again

Back in Chicken Soup

 

 

My Social Butterfly Gets To Fly After All

Approaching this past weekend my husband Dave was glum.  He is a true social butterfly and likes to have his weekend evenings jam-packed with activity.  He mentioned several times during the week that he wanted me to plan some fun stuff for the weekend.

When I still didn’t have anything lined up by Thursday he wasn’t very happy.  Sure he was golfing Saturday morning, coming along to hear me speak in a rural church on Sunday morning, and was volunteering at the West End Cultural Centre later Sunday night, but that still left huge empty swaths of time in his weekend calendar.

Then friends texted unexpectedly.  They were having dinner down on the waterfront at the Forks on Friday night.  Did we want to join them?  We hopped on our bicycles and did just that.  

Saturday morning new acquaintances from church phoned.  Did we want to come to their off Broadway carriage house to watch the Jets Game and have supper that night?   We happily accepted their invitation.  

Then Sunday afternoon we got a text from my sister.  It was so lovely outside did we want to join her and her husband on an outdoor patio for supper? 

Just like that Dave had something to do every evening on the weekend.   He was a happy guy!  

I did point out to him that if I had made plans for all three nights we’d have been unable to accept any of the delightful invitations that came our way.    My social butterfly grudgingly agreed that maybe my lack of planning had been serendipitous.  

Other posts…….

I Am Married to A Social Butterfly

Pyjamas All Day

The Missing Wife

A Pun From My Grandfather

Peter and Annie my grandparents

I am currently working on the second draft of a middle years novel in which my hero is based on my grandfather Peter Schmidt. I didn’t get to know my maternal grandfather very well because he died when I was only seven years old. So I relied on stories from my Mom to learn more about him. Grandpa was gregarious and loved to make jokes. One of his frequently used puns according to my mother was that he wanted his children to have ‘a good understanding.’

This had nothing to do with their minds or hearts but rather their feet. My grandmother’s feet were misshapen and sometimes painful for her because she had frequently worn shoes that didn’t really fit her as a child. Grandpa didn’t want that to happen to his children so he spared no expense when it came to buying them shoes.  Check out the nice shoes my Mom and her siblings are wearing in the photos above and below.

My mother (second from right) and her siblings in 1933

When Grandpa said he wanted his children to have a good understanding he meant he wanted the shoes ‘under’ the feet on which they ‘stood’ to be ‘good’ shoes. A good under standing. Get it?

I haven’t woven that pun into my novel, but maybe I’ll have to find a way to fit it in.

Other posts………

Whose Shoes? 

Almost Touching Justin Bieber’s Shoes

The Goddess of Running Shoes

 

A Study in Contrasts

This is me walking home after work yesterday on Portage Avenue in Winnipeg.  I’m taking a photo of a snowflake artwork featuring the Provencher Bridge on the windows of the Portage Place Shopping Center.  If you look at my reflection I’m wearing my winter coat.  I needed to because the temperature was -7 degrees. 

This is my husband Dave yesterday riding his bike and golfing in Gold Canyon Arizona where he’s on a little holiday with his friend Rudy. Notice he is wearing shorts and sandals and the flowers are blooming and the grass and trees are green. The temperature is 24 degrees. 

A study in contrasts. 

Other posts……..

Widow For a Week

Streets of Gold Canyon Arizona

Gold Canyon Days

Can Your Marriage Survive Lollygagging?

Dave checks out the menu at yet another local restaurant

We were looking for a restaurant to have supper one cold and windy night here in Praia da Luz, Portugal where we have rented a house for six weeks.  I was hungry and freezing but Dave insisted on touring around our whole area, stopping at every restaurant to read through the menus posted outside.  He just couldn’t decide where to eat. I finally lost my patience and shouted over the wind that he needed to just pick a place for goodness sake.  He retorted that he had only been trying to kill time so we could have dinner at exactly 7:00 as we’d discussed at home and then he added……….  “and you should be patient because I certainly didn’t get upset when you were lollygagging on our hike this afternoon.” 

I had never heard Dave use the word lollygagging before.  Perhaps he’d heard it in conversations between the many British residents in the area, but he was right.  I had lollygagged on our hike that afternoon.  I had stopped to take photos……. of flowersand plants and trees and the ocean and the cliffs and our path and interesting graffiti and Praia da Luz in the distance.  At one point I had been lollygagging so much I lost Dave as he entered a gully.   and because of that I headed off in the wrong direction and had to backtrack when I finally spotted him climbing up a steep hill. 

Dave waits for me to catch up

It started me thinking that having patience with your partner’s lollygagging is important if you want a relationship to be successful because I suspect often couples don’t share common lollygagging tendencies.  On hikes Dave focuses on getting to our destination.  I lollygag because I’m focusing more on our surroundings.  

Lunch of pizza, beer and sangria after our hike to Lagos

When we go out to dinner Dave lollygags because he focuses on looking at all the choices and enjoys the whole process of picking the perfect spot to eat. I focus on the food and having a meal.  I tend to lollygag in book stores and jewelry stores and Dave in sports stores and clothing stores. I lollygag more in art galleries and Dave more in history museums and zoos. 

I think over the many years we’ve been traveling together we’ve become more patient with each other’s lollygagging.  But every once in a while we snap. What lollygagging differences do other couples have to work on I wonder?

Other posts……..

Plumb Tuckered Out in Lisbon

Real and Messy and Honest

What Should I Take A Picture Of?