Sharon's Blurb

  Non. Exercise. Activity. Thermogenesis. That's my kind of health and weight maintenance plan. Essentially it means that you burn calories throughout the day just by puttering around.   And I am the Queen of that!  By simply getting up off the couch and straightening this, cleaning that, dusting the other, emptying the cat litter, feeding the bird, watering the plants, making the bed, toasting some bread, pouring a coffee, rearranging the pantry, reorganizing the office, decluttering the linen closet, vacuuming the living room, sweeping the floors, filling the outside bird feeder, pulling some weeds, etc.   I could go on and on.   I am sure you get the idea. By doing all of these things, we are keeping our metabolism revved up.  We are burning calories.  We are avoiding the gym.  Yay! We no longer have to get hot and sweaty in a spin class.  We can just keep our homes and gardens clean and tidy.  ...

  There seemed to be a flurry of activity on our back deck. Random strings of dead grass and weeds were being strewn across the wooden planks. I realized a bird was trying to construct a nest on the top of our back deck light. A nice, convenient flat top, sheltered under the eaves, a perfect spot. Or so Mrs. Robin thought. I questioned her judgment, given that it was right next door to a sliding patio door, that would open and close any number of times on any given day, especially now that the nicer, warmer weather was here. And so I helped her to make another choice. I taped a red plastic cup to the top of the back deck light. Now it would hopefully no longer seem as hospitable as it once was. I was wrong. Mrs. Robin still approved of the location, however the next day there were still strings of dead grass and weeds now being tucked behind the bright red cup. I had to think fast. How to deter this lovely, beautiful bird and yet not offend her or affront ...

 Have you ever noticed how some people seem to have all the bad luck in the world? If they didn't have bad luck, they'd have no luck at all? There always seems to be a little grey cloud looming above them. Just as Pigpen, of the Charlie Brown stories, has a little cloud above him, so do some people. And it seems as if the bad luck perpetuates itself into more bad luck. And just like the chicken and the egg, I am not sure which come first. Do bad choices create a little grey cloud that follows them wherever they go? Do they have a perpetual bad luck angel on their shoulder? Has their guardian angel given up? It seems some folks just can't catch a break. I have seen it first hand among family and friends. One problem seems to follow another, on a continual, spiraling basis. Along with that I also see negativity, drama, and chaos. Do they all go hand in hand? I believe that they do. I do believe that whether you think you can, or you think you can...

  My day timer these days is filled with this and that. A Meals On Wheels delivery for the Red Cross. A Seniors For Seniors companion caregiving visit. A Communities In Bloom meeting. A Seniors Wish event. Duty at the real estate office and perhaps a showing or two.  A brokerage Zoom meeting. And so on and so forth. Just like a beautiful patchwork quilt. A little of this, a little of that. It is something I have taken a long time to learn to relish. Something that has not come easy in the last few years, as I entered my sixth decade on this planet, most of which had been spent working full tilt at a full time job or two. I had learned young, from age 13 or so, that working meant money, and money meant freedom to some degree, to buy what you want and do what  you wish. And so, from babysitting to delivering the Sunday Sun newspaper, to dusting furniture to bagging plastic urine sample cups, to going to college to become a legal secretary and t...

  "My kitchen, my rules!" Such was the battle cry that came out of my mouth anytime I was making dinner. And so it came to pass that no one came to help me anymore. Sometimes they offered. "Is there anything I can do to help?" came the half hearted query. "No, it's alright!  It's almost ready!" I would always respond. Partially to allow company to continue kibbitzing. Partially to allow me to finish what I started. A meal from beginning to end. If someone so much as put the salad bowl on the table before I was ready, they got the sideways stink-eye glare from me. And of course, the unwritten rule was that whoever cooked didn't have to cleanup. So there was that. But awhile back I became obsessed with the Danish culture. They kept making the news headlines as one of the "Top 10 Happiest Countries in the World." What was their secret? What were they doing that no one else was doing? What did the Danes h...

 It will be my Mother's 91st birthday tomorrow. Would have been. She was born on Saturday May 20th, 1933. She died two years ago. She had just turned 89. I still miss her. I had a dream about her last night. I was visiting her in her nursing home. I was sorting some laundry for her. I didn't actually see her face. But I knew she was there. It would be fair to say we had some turbulence over the years. There were months we would go without talking to each other - some perceived slight taken way too far. It's funny what you remember. And what you don't. Our last tiff ended in early 2015. We hadn't spoken for several months before that. Turns out she had fallen, broken her hip, and wound up in the hospital. She had not called me. Nor my brother, Wayne. It was the hospital that finally called me directly; the social worker there determined to build a bridge, be the olive branch that was so desperately needed between a mother and h...

  I used to despise salespeople.   Always thought they were scheming in some way.   Never thought they were trustworthy individuals.   Always figured they were aiming to take or get something from me. But since I became a realtor 25 years ago, oh, how the tables have turned! The main goal of salespeople, I have learned, is to help people solve a problem.   If someone doesn't have a problem, you don't have a job! In real estate, a person may need a bigger home to accommodate more family.   A smaller home to accommodate less family.   Need to move because their job has been relocated.   Or need to sell their home because of a tragedy such as a death in the family, job loss, or a breakup. It's our job as real estate salespeople to help people solve their problems. In the retail world, a person may need a new cell phone or computer or television because theirs has broken or become outdated....

 I can count on one hand the number of new tech items I have purchased in my lifetime. A desktop "Compaq" computer in the late '90's. A second desktop computer, a "Dell", in the mid-2000's. A new laptop "Acer" computer in the mid-2010's. And most recently, a laptop/tablet combo, a "Microsoft Surface Pro 7+" in late 2023. It was a floor/demo model that was on sale at Costco. I had driven all the other models into the ground; had them until the very end.  Their OS (operating systems) had all reached end of support and life.  They had all become grindingly slow and worryingly unreliable. It was them or me. After backing up all important documents and photos, they went to the great beyond. In the interim, I have taken on some scratch and dent computers and refurbished second hand models too. In the interest of upcycling, recycling, saving the economy and money too. Someone, a wise person, once said, you get what ...

  We were zooming northbound towards home, on the I-65 through Michigan, when the car's battery light came on. Then we noticed smoke billowing out the back. I thought for sure the batteries were on fire, as they are located in the trunk, and that we were all going to go up in smoke and flames right there on the highway. We immediately pulled off at the next exit, at a small town called Capac. We thankfully made it to the parking lot of a Love's Gas Station, complete with McDonald's, Chester's Chicken, and convenience store. There was a dark, rusty brown fluid leaking from the engine and pooling beside the curb. It looked like our car had popped a vein and was bleeding out. We didn't know what to do. There we were, just after 3 o'clock in the afternoon, virtually stranded in the parking lot at a Love's Gas Station. It was a freezing cold, windy, grey November day. We called our trusty friends, the CAA, or the AAA stateside. We had ju...

We love it. We hate it. We need it. We eschew it. It was first invented to help us. To help mankind to hold things, preserve things, carry things. In fact British scientist Alexander Parkes won a bronze medal back in 1862 at the International Exhibition in London, when he developed the first man-made plastic. But now, more than a century and a half later, it has become one of the most controversial inventions on the planet. We are now finding it in the oceans, reportedly in more quantities than there is marine life. Along once pristine and uninhabited island beaches. Midway Island Atoll for one, in the middle of nowhere. Situated in the North Pacific Ocean halfway between North America and Asia. The Atoll is home to the Battle of Midway National Memorial, a tribute to one of the most decisive battles of World War II. It is also home to the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, the world's largest albatross colony, and other wonders including sea turtles, dolphins, seals and fish. ...

  While negotiating my way through the fairly crowded aisles of the local grocery store the other day, I apologized to a lady as I passed in front of her while she was perusing the canned vegetables.   "That's alright!" she laughed. I said "Sorry!" again as I passed in front of an older gentleman as he stood back to decide on a particular flavour of ice cream. "That's ok!" he chortled. Another lady was examining the various types of yogurt with her young daughter.  I really needed a tub of sour cream that she just happened to be standing in front of.  I could have waited.  Perhaps should have waited.  Instead, "Sorry - could I just grab that sour cream there!" came out of my mouth.   "Absolutely!" she replied.  I was taken aback. I had half expected all of them to not respond at all, at the very least. Perhaps even give an annoyed chuff or tsk. But no. This continued several times throughout my shopping excursi...

  My chakra bracelet came in the mail the other day. Special delivery from an online store. I had been searching for one for what seems like years. Always checking out the jewelry stores and gemstone shops for what would be the perfect chakra bracelet. A quick search online found me the perfect one. Separated by a metal band, there are seven sets of stones, all different gemstones, representing the seven colours of the chakra. There are supposed to be three of each set of colours, but there are four in the purple, amethyst, chakra colour. An extra spiritual blessing perhaps? There are three red onyx, for the root chakra, for the bottom and core of our being and representing grounded-ness. There are three orange amber stones, for the sacral chakra, situated just below our stomach. There are three yellow tigers eye stones, for the solar chakra, located just above our stomach. There are three green imperial stones, for the heart chakra, the place of love. The...