Don’t Miss the day

Posted on February 24, 2020 by dfolstad58

Every home should have a batpole to the garage!

Instead of checking my email first thing this morning I took the time to examine the horizon, the clouds broken by the lighter blue of sunlight just over the valley side. 

Clouds have settled in now, and if I hadn’t done that I would have missed the sunny blue sky.  I would have missed the moment.

Okanagan lake

Don’t miss your day! 

The risk I have, and you may share is that I sometimes fail to take note of my day, I fail to wake up curious about how the day in nature will unfold.  Rushing off to some task down the batpole, or turning on my computer then I am missing out on what normally would make me smile.

Devices like phones and laptops

are stealing the time we enjoyed as youngsters, and appreciate as adults.

Moments like hearing the birds twittering in the morning, why do they chatter so much then?  Spring is coming, I want to sit outside and have that chatter as my focus, along with two cups of coffee of course. Certainly those those moments in the morning are certainly good medicine, even if I need a sweater for awhile.

In the stillness, there is discovery

My son stood outside on our front deck the other night, and he spotted two raccoons in the yard. Furtive like the owls, you need to find the quiet time of the day to discover the raccoons, and owls in our lives.  If he had been talking, or looking at his phone – he would  have missed seeing them.

Mainly this post is just me talking to myself,

while my devices are a boon to communication, they also are a distraction from life around me.  I think that is why getting out of my house for a bike ride, or a walk helps my balance.  I want to see the light reflecting on the lake. I want to see a bird on a wire, admire it and wonder what kind it is.

I won’t remember how many emails I delete today, but I will remember how nice the fresh air felt, and enjoy seeing the neighbourhood deer.

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too cold for snakes now, had a fun hike though at Skaha Bluffs – Look at that smile !

Don’t miss your day my friends. – David

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” – Dr. Seuss

Posted in okanagan related, Thinking Out loud | Tagged , , , , , , , | 27 Comments

Curling Day in Canada 2020

Posted on February 22, 2020 by dfolstad58

Curling has been a part of my life always,

there was never a decision to like curling, it has always been a part of my life.  This post today includes some links, including the Scotties, the Briar, Curling Day in Canada and I invite the reader to learn about curling in Canada.

There are over 1500 curling clubs in Canada, and over a million curlers, 800,000 active annually and curling in families is a multi-generational phenomena.

In my mind, as much as Canadians do love and play hockey – Curling is more Canadian than hockey.

Canada has 35% of the world’s hockey players but 90% of the world’s curlers! 

As a youngster, my parents and grandparents were curlers and I have curled with them. Longer than I have been taking breaths, my Dad has been sliding down the ice to throw his rocks, and call out “Sweep!”

As a teenager, I played second on our family team, my brother Jim was lead, my Mom was third and my Dad was skip.  Sundays we travelled the length of Vancouver to different curling clubs to play in different leagues. I learned to drive on Sundays driving to curling when I had my learners license. 🙂

My son-in-law Tyler, my daughter Mandy are active curlers and Tyler has had his picture taken with curling celebrities multiple times and I shared in his excitement.

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Tyler and Brad Gushue, Gold Medal Olympics Curling Champion

This last week has been taken up with the “Scotties” – every day for hours, my son David, my patient wife Susan, and I have been cheering on our favorite women teams as they have congregated in Moosejaw, Saskatchewan this year to compete and decide who can be Team Canada until 2021.

Soon it will be the “Briar” in Kingston, Ontario and more couch time as I watch the men’s champions from across Canada compete to be Team Canada.

Then there will be the world championships and so on to watch.  The world comes to Canada for coaches and competitions because in Canada we know curling. 90% of the world’s curlers are in Canada. Now that curling is an Olympic sport, some countries station teams in Canada for full-time training as some countries has no clubs. In order to get better, you need to practice and play and in Canada these teams find coaches, ice, clubs and bonspiels!

Hockey is huge here also, but curling has a special place in Canadian hearts.  If you take the time to read the stories in the link provided HERE, you may have a sense of how curling is part of the Canada’s culture.  Canada’s new immigrants often share that playing curling made them feel Canadian at heart when they began.

Curling Etiquette

“Imagine if everyone respected their teammates and opponents in life, shook hands after every confrontation and bought each other a drink. Imagine if we all stood still while others were concentrating on their life’s work, offering encouragement, not distraction. Imagine if we celebrated our opponents’, as well as our own accomplishments. No, it’s not a perfect world, but it could be. And it is – on a sheet of curling ice!”
….. Jean Mills

 

I love curling,  I have enjoyed playing, and with pride I see my son and daughter enjoy the game, the culture also.  Perhaps I will resume playing now that my health is better, but regardless I will always support and love the game.

It’s more than a game, there is etiquette, a respect between teams, the social aspect on and off the ice.  There are terms and language in curling – learn here.

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Curling is for men, women, juniors, seniors, and even people in wheelchairs can curl in Canada! I have met a gold medal wheelchair champion who lives in the Okanagan valley.

Please help me celebrate Curling Day in Canada today,

** I am also celebrating curling internationally because  now it is an international men’s and women’s sport.  The competition internationally is intense now,  competitive curlers come from Norway, Sweden, Korea, Italy, Switzerland, China, United States and so on! While Canada continues to be a constant in international playoffs, the podium now is shared with teams from around the globe! 

I loved reading some of the individual stories including this one. click on link here

If you take the time, the curling bug might infect you too !  – thanks for reading 🙂  Dave

Some international curling shots in the video below!

 

Link here to lessons for new curlers 🙂

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Libraries have changed, but still Terrific!

Posted on February 21, 2020 by dfolstad58

Libraries are not the same 

from when I was a child, and I think you will be pleased with the changes.  Technology has arrived, and libraries are still so easy to use, easy to join and benefit from – but one thing that hasn’t changed is that they are still FREE.

Libraries are cool – in fact my son coined the phrase that the library is the original YouTube. It’s true, whenever I wanted to learn something, and my earliest entertainment ; I went to the library.

Nearly every community has one branch or more. Libraries are free to use regardless of gender or status. ✨

Easier to use than ever

DID you know you can browse your local library catalogue online, reserve books online, and EVEN get email notices to remind you to renew or return your books. Stressless 👍

New books, fiction, mysteries, movies, graphic novel, dvds, ask-a-librarian. Reference information, and it’s free!

A personal question here ……., are you a member of your local library? 🧐🧐 I sure hope you are. Libraries exist for use, and if the public stops using them…..

If you are a library member, when was the last time you checked out a book? Or picked up a magazine? borrowed a movie? borrowed a game?  Time perhaps to check out (pardon the expression) your local library?

Row of Books in ShelfI invite you to VISIT your local library this week, free, there is nothing to buy, and if you want a book recommendation- ask your friendly librarian

😃😃 They will be happy to explain to YOU how your local library has changed and improved.

Libraries are there for you,

just like when you are a youngster, and they offer more than ever – easier to use, and still free !

Support your local library !

“Develop into a lifelong self-learner through voracious reading; cultivate curiosity and strive to become a little wiser every day.” — Charlie Munger

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The Things that Money can’t buy

Posted on February 21, 2020 by dfolstad58

Valentine’s Day is past but here I am, LATE, adding my thoughts – thanks for your patience. 🙂 

heart-snowValentine’s day for my mind is a cutesy day invented by card companies, florists, and restaurants in the name of romantic love.

Valentine’s day is also about chocolate – but any day in my opinion is a good day for chocolate.

In North America it is the tradition for men to shower their beloved with chocolate on Valentines but it is the opposite in Japan – read here.  There the ladies do the gifts of chocolate to the men and there are two types of chocolate giving. I like it! – equality!!

Listening to the Beatles –

Can’t Buy Me Love is a song I was listening to on  Valentines Day this year and a certain line struck my attention – I don’t care too much for money, money can’t buy me love.

Too much  is key in my mind. Money after all is important, but by itself, it’s not much at all when it comes to buying the most important things in life

Too Much Money also doesn’t buy health 

MONEY or HEALTH – all of us, myself included would choose health in a microsecond, especially if we have experienced poor health.

Ironically many people are at their wealthiest stage of their lives when their health takes a serious downturn – if they could trade money for health,  they would.

Gene-Kelly-1Too Much Money can’t buy happiness 

I think most of my readers will respond that their happy memories of their life don’t revolve around money.

Happy memories and the stories that I treasure the most revolve around people and experiences with people.

I am thinking about moments that I will never forget with my parents, my wife, daughter, son and now my son-in-law.

An adequate amount of money, and a positive attitude takes you further towards happiness in my mind that just a plum bank account.

The ironic thing is if you have health and money- you can overlook their importance but if that changes negatively- you might have trouble thinking about anything else

rhino artist

perception 101

Unpack that smile in your heart and be happy every day.

Happiness is said to be a choice, and based on the posts that I read regularly, and some wonderful comments from readers over the years – most people do their best to make the choice to be positive, to smile, to be kind, and see their cups more than half full when they wake up.

Certainly there are tough patches always in life, but there is more miles of smooth road trips than flat tires I hope in your life, and hopefully even better roads ahead in your journey.

I don’t care too much for money
For money can’t buy me love
Can’t buy me love, oh
Everybody tells me so

Thanks for reading, and commenting – I will continue to try to post a few times a week. Each time I post I hope I on the right wavelength with you – your comments and suggestions are appreciated. 

In today’s post, this is what I was thinking on Valentines Day and it’s just my out loud thoughts,   – David

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Surprised at the front door

Posted on February 11, 2020 by dfolstad58

I’m thinking out loud today, 

I stood at the front door two days ago, and staring back at me, from my neighbour’s yard was a brown doe, her neck twisted back and staring at me with those big deer eyes, she seemed to be saying “yes?”

Deer in our yards along the street is common, and with snow on the ground, they frequent yards with the evergreen bushes.  Seeing deer sashay across my driveway, is normal but this deer was alone and different.

She stood there on only three legs, her right leg off the ground and sticking backward parallel to the ground.

Stunned I could see her right rear foot was missing, self amputated?

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frequent visitors

 

Possibly it became frozen to the ground and she was forced to break her foot off to escape.  I don’t know why…. but it was absent.

The deer showed no distress, merely mild interest in me, then she turned her head and resumed her chewing.

But I was surprised at my front door and the image of this contented deer would not leave my mind.

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Laying awake later, I envisioned this deer and how placidly she accepted her three legged situation.  I am definitely reading into it, I know, but it’s how I felt.

I believe that nature instinctively know what people call the Serenity Prayer. 

God, give me grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.

It’s all about how we respond, read about the Cockroach Theory here. 

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“Do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do”

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow.  Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever in whatever way they like. – Lao Tzu

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Dave – thanks for reading.  This post was how I interpreted that beautiful doe as she calmly ate her lunch; despite her missing foot, she showed courage and acceptance.

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Against the odds, time for a trip

Posted on February 10, 2020 by dfolstad58

A celebration trip with family took place recently,

but then I came home and got sick – I have been UP and Down.  My chest has been sounding like a dog’s squeaky toy, but no more fever.

Why celebrate?

I have wanted to celebrate because I am again healthy enough to travel, thanks to a miraculous gift.  For a few years my health has been rescinding, forcing me to stay at home, and then worse forcing me to resume dialysis, but April 2019 I was blessed with a new kidney transplant.  (fireworks!)

Against all odds – read link here.  Please investigate. 🙂

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Leaving this behind, not that hard.

After waiting an appropriate time since my surgery,  it was time to celebrate with the ones who are the closest to my heart when I am lying in the hospital. So I flew away to Hawaii with my family.

I had a great time together with them, enjoyed warm weather, took family pictures, and was astonished by unexpected close encounters with Maui’s humpback whales, and a water snake!

The pictures right now are recent and I like them, but in ten years when I pull them out, they will be priceless.

It was fun to be together!  A special gift.

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All that will be left is the stories, is a recurring theme of mine and I hope that I will continue to make new stories for awhile yet!

Mark Twain said ” Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.”

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Thanks for reading, as always I enjoy receiving your suggestions and feedback. Sorry no pictures of whales, I could have got some great photos but I was busy being blown away with the happiness of the experience and sharing it with family- Dave

 

Posted in family, health, travel | Tagged , , , , , , , | 22 Comments