Tag Archives: tradition

tradition…

02 Thursday Jan 2025

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on New Year’s day in the morning, I went out the patio doors and shovelled the decks…

then I walked around to the front and did the sidewalks and steps…

I used the shovel by the back door and it was very noisy, lol… it has a metal piece along the front and makes a scraping noise as it is used…

the one I normally use is plastic and much quieter…

I started at the back because I was waiting for my first-footer to arrive so didn’t use the front door…

twice during the day people commented that I was the only person they knew who followed this tradition, and also that when I was gone, the tradition would probably go with me, lol…

available…

18 Wednesday Dec 2024

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picked up candy canes and more oranges…

makes a lovely display on the table in the living room and ensures I have treats available whenever someone stops by…

I also picked up unshelled nuts (much harder to find these days) which have been a long time family tradition;-)…

brown…

01 Monday Jan 2024

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New Year’s Eve hasn’t been a big deal for the last few years… in fact, I’ve slept through it a few times, lol…

usually I’ve had a dark haired person to first-foot the house on New Year’s Day, but this year no one with dark hair was available… currently my hair is gray but in my earlier days it was a dark brown;-)…

I did some research and discovered I could first-foot myself as long as I was out of the house before midnight…

I also learned about the tradition of opening the backdoor to let out any bad vibes and then opening the front door to let in the good…

so I packed up my little bag of goodies, opened the back door to leave the house just before midnight and left it open for a few minutes…

then I went into the garage and out the big door, walked up the driveway and watched some fireworks across the creek for a few minutes before entering the house through the front door… the doorbell camera caught me as I entered;-)…

the tradition is supposed to be a tall, dark haired man, but really, I have had a few women do this cause why not…

my bag held a candy cane, heel of bread, an orange, 3 pieces of charcoal, a little bottle of Baileys, and a cookie…

it was fun to have the actual charcoal, because that is what my dad procured just before New Year’s each year to add to the little bags that he distributed to family and friends just after midnight;-)…

I did laugh when I discovered that I did the same thing last year, although on New Year’s Day morning, lol…

thawing…

26 Tuesday Dec 2023

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I found out in the morning on Christmas Eve that we were going to have lunch on Christmas Day between trips my grandson was making between his various family clans;-)…

it was a quick trip to the freezer to pull out a beautiful chicken and get it thawing… I had been planning on a Cornish hen, with all the fixings, so it wasn’t a lot more to do to cook the chicken;-)…

a turnip was peeled, cut, boiled (so that the water would be available for the chicken gravy), and mashed…

mashed potatoes were also prepared and put into the fridge which helps with making a resistant starch…

stuffing was made and packaged, ready to go into the chicken…

took most of the day to thaw the chicken, lol, but it was ready for the oven in time…

everything turned out beautifully and we had a delicious Christmas lunch…

possibly a new tradition;-)…

viper…

04 Monday Dec 2023

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tonight we had supper with my son-in-law in Ottawa… earlier today my daughter, on vacation in Europe, texted me that she’d had a burger for her lunch, in memory of her dad;-)…

we tried a new app called Viper, and it worked great… think I will use it again…

burgers were had by all… ours came from one of my beloved’s favourite burger places… and we even shared a chocolate milkshake here… it was delicious…

birthdays often seem hard, but coming together to share a meal is a lovely tradition to remember him…

and it is always such a delight when the technology works, lol…

Audubon…

02 Monday Jan 2023

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January first was new calendar day…

for many years we have had Chihuly calendars… either my daughter or I would get two and give one to the other person;-)…

one year I even made one filled with photos from our trip to see his installation in Atlanta…

this year I changed it up…

I found an Audubon calendar online that shows a different bird each day… ordered two and sent one off with the other Christmas presents…

took down the old one and put up the new one…

I think I will learn a bit and maybe it will even help me with bird identification in the garden…

first-footing…

01 Sunday Jan 2023

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we have done first-footing since I was a little girl… for us, it meant that just before midnight on New Year’s Eve my dad, who had dark hair, would jump in the car and drive around to all our aunts and uncles and grandparents’ houses and take them an offering – it always included coal, bread and sometimes oranges and a little drink of something… I also remember how my dad would have to search out new coal every year because no one ever kept it from year to year, lol…

from Dalhousie Castle:

“Stemming back to the time of the invading Vikings in the 8th and 9thcentury, it is believed that the first person to enter a house, the “first foot”, can bring luck – or misfortune – for the year ahead. In Scottish tradition good luck comes in the form of a tall, dark-haired man being the first footer.” Dec 7, 2020

I spent time this morning looking back at some of the different ways it has happened for me…

my daughter being the first female to cross the threshold first when she was here in 2017…

my middle grandson taking home a bag and making sure to bring it and be the first one to cross my threshold…

my daughter arranging for friends to come by with a box of items she had sent to them…

while visiting the kids in Ottawa, having a diamond necklace in the bag because there wasn’t any coal, lol… and I did have to give it back🤪…

this morning I went out the back door in my housecoat, walked around to the front door, and first-footed myself…

those big girl pants 😂…

official…

31 Monday Oct 2022

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walking in the neighbourhood I’ve spotted a few cool Halloween decorations…

and came across a few fun memories from Facebook…

for many, many years, the kids came over on Halloween before heading out to collect candy, so we could get official pictures… too old for that now, lol…

no snow this year, and it is a balmy 8 degrees Celsius…

tradition…

27 Saturday Jun 2020

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many years ago, when the girls were little, I started the tradition of singing happy birthday to them, the number of times as they were old… so if you were ten, you would get happy birthday sung to you ten times…

might have been a mistake, because they still expect that even when they are turning big numbers, lol… and they still ask for it…

last night I set an alarm for this morning so I could sing before the birthday boy headed to work, lol…

this past year, I have sent emails and texts with pictures and just a few calls…

might not have been my most brilliant idea, lol… but it has been fun…

birthday…

18 Tuesday Apr 2017

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today is my birthday;-)…

I love birthdays, mine and everyone else’s… I like presents too… they don’t need to be big or expensive… 

I enjoy the birthday song being sung over the phone, or in person, or nowadays by text… when my kids were little I’d sing it to them the number of years they were turning… eventually you can’t sing it enough times in the day, lol.. 

last night my BS friends brought birthday cherry pie and presents… so this morning I enjoyed the last piece of the pie with my breakfast…

I’ve never been a cake lover…

busy at work but there was time to spend with visitors, who also brought treats – chips and a lovely purple water bottle… and answer some of the birthday calls and texts that came throughout the day…

purple tipped flowers from my colleagues with a fun balloon and card… one of our traditions is to circulate a card that everyone adds comments to for the celebrant… always a gift to read the kind notes included…

was going to order from SkipTheDishes but made leftover turkey dinner instead, one of my favourite meals…

then had a treat, lol…

had some loose tea in my new left-handed the wall tea cup… works really well and the tea I’d picked up recently at one of the Farmers Markets is delicious – it is similar to one of our all time favourites that was discontinued a number of years ago… and chips with two types of chocolate bars – my favourite Aschenti Cacao 79% with Sea Salt, and one of the bars we picked up in Mazatlan – a Ritter bar that had rum, nuts and fruit in it…

I mean, I’d been good all day, and it is my birthday, lol…

thinking back to a delicious piece of chocolate cake we found and shared by the Flatiron building in New York last year on my birthday…

really was one of the best pieces of cake I’ve ever eaten…

a great day to be alive…