#MicroblogMondays: Personal odds & ends

• We took a drive up to Older Nephew's on Sunday with BIL & SIL for a few hours. There are still some lovely colours on the trees... but we had some strong winds late last week, and more and more trees now have bare branches. :(   November is coming... sigh... 
• Dh & I both had our annual checkups with our family doctor this past week. We both had bloodwork done in advance, and received the results before we saw the doctor -- so we knew a lecture was coming (erk!).  He was very nice about it (we love our doctor!) -- but he made it clear we both need to lower our cholesterol levels and lose some weight -- i.e., make better food choices, exercise more -- and indulge a little less during the Christmas holidays -- or else yet another prescription will be in each of our futures :(  -- something we would obviously like to avoid. (Both of us had higher cholesterol readings vs last year, but dh's was up significantly -- my HDL/LDL ratio was actually better than his!) We'll repeat the bloodwork in January to see if there's been any improvement.   
• Since then, dh has been going through our refrigerator & cupboards with the zeal of a new convert, lol. I've been trying to tell him for a while now that we need to be buying and eating more fruits & veggies. He's been doing most of the grocery shopping since the pandemic started (and he kind of likes doing it without me tagging along and slowing him down, lol).  I think he'll be making some different choices now...! 
• BIL introduced him to an app called Yuka. You scan the barcode on a food label and it will rate it -- which products are good for you and which ones you should avoid (on a scale from "bad" to "excellent"). (Sometimes that's fairly obvious, of course -- but there are some surprises, too!)  Apparently it also does cosmetics & skin care products too. (Haven't tried that yet!)  Dh has been having no end of fun scanning everything in the cupboards, refrigerator and on the supermarket shelves since then, lol.  
• Want to bet dh will drop 10 pounds in the time it takes me to drop 2?  :p  (Isn't that always the way with guys and weight?) 
• So far, we haven't done much in the way of intentional exercise, but we're going to try to remedy that soon with some walking, on days when the weather is decent.  We've been a little more active/out & about this past week than we have been. It all helps. 
• On the bright side, my other bloodwork results were pretty good, and my blood pressure was excellent, especially for me: 120/82.  :)   
• (Speaking of blood pressure...) Older Nephew's wife gave us all a bit of a scare this past week. :(  She's pregnant (with another great-nephew!) and due in mid/late December; she'll be having another C-section just before Christmas. At her most recent ob-gyn visit, though, her blood pressure was abnormally high, and her ob-gyn sent her straight to the hospital to get checked out.  Fortunately, all was well;  mom & baby are fine. The doctor offered to support her in leaving work early to reduce her stress levels, and we're all glad she took the doctor up on that. She's now off work, on unemployment/disability insurance until the baby is born and her maternity leave benefits kick in.  
• I can't WAIT until the U.S. election is over (while dreading it at the same time). It is SO close (HOW??!!) -- the tension just keeps on building, and it's exhausting.  (And I'm Canadian!! -- it's not even "MY" election! -- although it most certainly affects us too.)  
• I'm seeing lots of posts from U.S. friends mentioning how they are "doing their postcards" -- writing and sending postcards to encourage total strangers to vote in the upcoming election. It's not the first time I've heard people mentioning writing postcards during election season either. I have no idea when or how it started (and I'd love to know if it's actually effective!) -- but it must be an American thing, because I have never heard of it being done in Canada (or elsewhere), and I have certainly never received such a postcard myself. (Lots of flyers and other promotional material from candidates and political parties, yes. Postcards from total strangers, no.) 
• I saw my FIRST Christmas commercial this past week -- on Oct. 24th!  (From Old Navy -- I also saw one from Wayfair.)  TWO MONTHS out from Christmas Eve!!  Good grief!! -- It's not even Halloween yet, people!! 
• I know some people object to Christmas ads, decorations, etc., until after Remembrance Day (Nov. 11th). I think that's respectful -- but I recognize that ship has long since sailed...!  But waiting until after Halloween is over? I don't think it's too much to ask...!) 
• I finally booked our flights west for Christmas. Ridiculously expensive (travel within Canada always is, at the best of times), but what can you do?  I should have done it earlier, of course, plus we'll be heading there a little later in December (and staying a little longer into early January) than we have in recent years. Obviously, the closer to Christmas, the more expensive it gets. Also, we tend to travel on weekends, which makes it easier for my sister & her partner to transport us from & to the airport, neither of us particularly likes taking red eye-flights, which tend to be cheaper, etc. etc.  Oh well. 
• Does anyone else find booking travel as stressful as I do?? Actually travelling, not especially -- and dh's particular stress point is waiting to board, especially when we're travelling with carry-ons only (will there be enough room left in the overhead bins by the time we get in there??) -- but I get very tense while booking flights. Am I choosing the best flight? departure time?? seats???  etc.  Am I keying things in correctly?  Am I making a horrible error that will be difficult and/or costly to correct??
• Plus, honestly, EVERY TIME I book a flight or check in online on Air Canada, they've changed something about the process.  The options are presented differently, the screens look different. This time around, I got one email to print off. No online summary that I could print, no PDF to save (which I always like to do). Sigh.  
• Let the holiday shopping begin!!  lol  

No links this time around... more soon! 

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.  

#MicroblogMondays: I love October :)

If I hate November (as I have often moaned in this blog over the years...!), I think I can safely say that, on the flipside, I love October.  Especially when it's like this October has been (so far, at least!). The temperature late this afternoon reached 26C with a touch of humidity making it feel like 28C (78F & 82F, respectively) -- not especially normal for this time of year, perhaps, but nice, just the same.  We have had the balcony door wide open for most of the day. 

Overall, the weather this month has been pretty good. Even if it's been a touch chilly some days (and certainly in the morning, with the thermometer hitting close to freezing some days -- we've had to turn the furnace on, and yes, it HAS been running!), it's often been clear & sunny as compensation.  It's gloriously so today. :)   

And the colours! It felt like the leaves took their time to start changing colour this year, but this past week, they've started popping out, big time. Dh & I drove back to our old community on Sunday afternoon, to get our covid & flu shots at our family dr's office, and I was kept busy trying to snap some photos out of the (unfortunately dirty...!) car window. I've posted a couple below.   

October is also Thanksgiving for us Canadians, and with all due respect to American readers, personally, I think the timing is so much better than late November. It's closer to harvest season (hereabouts, anyway), the weather is better, it's not so close to Christmas, and there's no Black Friday the next day to send you rushing out to crowded malls.  ;)  (Not quite so much football, either, lol.) You won't see vast hordes of Canadians jamming the highways and airports to get "home" for the holiday, but if family happen to be nearby, they often do gather to share a good meal and visit. We got to spend the Sunday of the Thanksgiving weekend with BIL & SIL, our nephews and their families. We had the meal (mostly) catered, and a good time was had by all.  :)   

25 years ago, I'm not sure I would have written a post like this. October 1998 was the month I went back to work after the August stillbirth of my daughter -- only to have to leave work again, two days later, when my beloved grandfather died at age 86. Not quite a full year later, but still in October (1999), my wonderful Grandma followed him... and a few days after her funeral, while I was still at my parents' house, my aunt's husband died, less than a week after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. 

I'm thankful that, these days (and certainly right now), I can enjoy October again. 

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.  

I am (still) a Prairie girl at heart -- but I have to admit, 
autumn in Ontario is spectacular!

Oh, those colours!!  

Good news for bereaved parents in Ontario :)

Appropriately, during Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Month, too! 

For years now, I've been jealous to hear about loss mom friends in other provinces/American states/countries who have been able to obtain a government certificate of stillbirth -- official or otherwise  -- to honour the brief existence of their baby.  

So I was very happy to see this article in the Toronto Star today! (Hopefully not behind a paywall... if so, saving to the Pocket app/site and opening it there often works!) Those of us who have lost babies to stillbirth in Ontario, as far back as 1944, can now apply to Service Ontario for a commemorative certificate, at no charge. It notes that "British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba also offer commemorative documents for stillbirths, but Ontario is the only province to end fees for stillbirth registrations."  

I have a little certificate that the nurses gave us at the hospital, with Katie's tiny hand & footprints on it -- but something from the government seems so much more "official," if you know what I mean, even if it's only ceremonial. I just submitted an application online!  :)    

Here's a link to the Service Ontario website with information about the certificate and how to apply.

(I suppose I could have made this my #MicroblogMondays post, but I was so excited, I couldn't wait to share!)  

"Persuasion" by Jane Austen

"Persuasion" by Jane Austen is the November pick for my Childless Collective Nomo Book Club.  

In a previous book club novel, "Queen High" by C.J. Carey (reviewed here and here), "Persuasion" was the heroine's favourite novel -- and she's saving it to be "corrected" last -- i.e., rewritten/censored to make the heroine more docile and palatable to the Nazi overlords. She knows that, when her work is done, the final remaining original copy will then be destroyed. (Shudder.)  Part of the novel is set in Lyme Regis, the setting of another one of our previous picks, "Remarkable Creatures" by Tracy Chevalier (reviewed here). 

So when my co-host suggested we should read "Persuasion" together, it seemed like it would be a good fit.  

At 27, Anne Elliot is one of Austen's older and more mature heroines. She was briefly engaged when she was 19 to a young naval officer, Frederick Wentworth -- but her family disapproved of the match because of his lack of money and social status, and the relationship ended. 

Eight years later, the tables have turned:  Wentworth has made a name for himself in the navy -- and a lot of money -- while the Elliots have fallen into debt and been forced to leave their ancestral home and rent it out -- to Wentworth's sister and her husband. Wentworth is now home from abroad, and looking for a wife. And Anne has never forgotten him...  

"Persuasion" was the last of Austen's six novels to be published in her lifetime, in December 1817.  By today's standards, her books may be a little slow and wordy.  But human nature is still very much the same, and Austen is a keen observer. I especially love how she shows us Anne's inner turbulence when Wentworth reappears in her life -- watching him from the window of a shop in Bath, aware of his presence at a concert, silently willing him to come speak to her... I was reminded of feeling that same sense of excruciating longing and hyper-awareness of the presence of the boy I was interested in, when I was a teen/young adult... (There's a reason why Austen's books are considered classics!)  

I've read three Austen novels in the past -- "Emma" (studied at university), "Pride and Prejudice" (between terms) and "Sense and Sensibility" (around the time the movie version came out, starring Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet -- the one movie I dragged dh to that he didn't end up liking! lol). Needless to say, this was all some time ago (cough!), and I don't remember a lot of the fine details, although I do remember I enjoyed all of them (and, of course, I've seen several screen versions of these books -- albeit not the infamous version of P&P with Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy -- although of course I've seen the clips of THAT scene!  lol). (I know!!). 

I've also enjoyed several Austen-adjacent books, including "The Jane Austen Society" by Natalie Jenner (reviewed here), and "The Jane Austen Book Club" by Karen Joy Fowler, which we discussed as part of Mel's Barren Bitches Book Brigade, in the early days of this blog.  

I'm glad to add "Persuasion" to the list.  I think "Pride & Prejudice" remains my favourite so far, but this one would rank highly too. (And now I'm tempted to try to squeeze "Northanger Abbey" and "Mansfield Park" into my gargantuan To Be Read pile!) 

4 stars on Goodreads/StoryGraph.  

This was Book #30 read to date in 2024 (and Book #3 finished in October), bringing me to 67%  of my 2024 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 5 (!) books behind schedule to meet my goal. :(  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2024 tagged as "2024 books."    

Odds & ends

• I've whined -- umm, commented ;)  -- a couple of times in the past here about Kamala Harris's apparent reluctance to acknowledge the formative teenage years she spent here in Canada (Montreal, specifically), during the late 1970s/early 1980s (a turbulent time in the country/that province's history). She's still not commenting about that time in her life, but the Washington Post investigated and produced an interesting article about it this past weekend:  "These five tumultuous years in Montreal shaped Kamala Harris."  Here's a gift link, if you're interested!  
• My 2021 review of Harris's memoir. 
• From this past August in the Toronto Star: "Forgive Kamala Harris for downplaying the formative years she spent in Montreal. She has an election to win." (No gift links, sorry, but if there's a paywall, sometimes saving to Pocket.com and then opening it there will work.) 
• 2020 New York Times story: "In Canada, Kamala Harris, a Disco-Dancing Teenager, Yearned for Home."
• Speaking of the upcoming U.S. election (well, I was, sorta...), my 83-year-old American mother voted by absentee ballot in the last election for the very first time! -- she married my dad and came to Canada when she was 19, and the voting age back then was 21. (She didn't obtain Canadian/dual citizenship until she was in her 50s, I think? -- and so was not eligible to vote here either until then.)  
• She's casting an absentee ballot again this year, with the help of my sister, who (as in 2020) will courier the ballot to the courthouse in Mom's home county this week to be tabulated. I told her I'd gladly chip in for half the cost. :)  
• I enjoyed this chat (gift linked) among three Washington Post writers, revisiting Helen Fielding's  "Bridget Jones's Diary,"25+ years after its publication.  I first read "Bridget" back in 1998, I think -- not long post-loss, when I thought I might never laugh again, but desperately needed one.  This was pre-blogs or Goodreads, so I never wrote a full review of it -- but I've mentioned it several times on this blog over the years, most notably here and here. I still think of Bridget fondly.  :)  
• If you love books as I do, you will love Lyz Lenz's wonderful tribute to the power of books, reading and librarians: "I understand why people ban books."  (It's the text of her speech accepting a 2024 Iowa Authors Award from the Des Moines Public Library Foundation.) 
• To mark Baby Loss Awareness Week in the U.K., Jennie Agg, who Substacks (is that a verb?) at "Life, Almost," recently wrote a guest post for another Substack, "Books & Bits," about the books, poems and essays about pregnancy loss that have sustained her: "When a woman loses a baby, she is not transformed into an ethereal heroine." 
• Appropriately on Oct. 15th (Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Day), Sari Botton featured Colleen Long & Rebecca Little, authors of the new book "I'm Sorry for My Loss" on her Memoir Land Author Questionnaire #45 on Substack. (I really want to read this soon!)   
• The authors were also recently interviewed by Ryan Rose Weaver for her Substack, In Tending. 
• I've mentioned this book in two other recent posts, here and here. 
• A Latina woman writes in the New York Times about the unique pressures she faced until she decided to freeze her eggs:  "I Froze My Eggs to Reclaim My Right to Rest." 
• Mary Elizabeth Williams of Salon writes about family secrets, including an adoption:  "My mother's final secret: Searching for the little sister I never knew I had."  Sample passage (I love the image of "a tidal wave of skeletons shaken from closets"): 

I am now one of an ever-widening population of people whose lives have been abruptly upended by the revelations of long-held family secrets. The proliferation of at-home DNA tests has ushered in a tidal wave of skeletons shaken from closets, while generational shifts — and rising secularism — have made things that were once life-ruiningly shameful exponentially less taboo.

#MicroblogMondays: Thankful :)

Since we actually managed to make it "home" to see my parents this summer (after several years of not being able to get there then -- but usually compensating with an October visit to celebrate (Canadian) Thanksgiving), we reverted to the custom of previous years and spent Thanksgiving this year/this past weekend with dh's family, which these days means BIL, SIL. the nephews and their families. The official holiday is actually today, but we celebrated together yesterday (the nephews were with their wives' families on Saturday).  

SIL decided not to cook (much) this year and ordered a package deal from the catering counter at the local supermarket that was supposed to feed 10 people (we had 8 adults & 2 children). For $200 (Canadian) -- i.e., $20 per person -- we got: 

• 2 roasted boneless turkey breasts, 
• a choice of two side dishes (from a list of 13 -- we had mashed potatos and roasted root vegetables), 
• a large salad (choice of 3 -- we had Caesar salad), 
• 10 small buns, 
• gravy and cranberry sauce, and 
• 20 mini-cannolis for dessert (choice of 5 fillings -- we had ricotta/chocolate chip). 

SIL also made stuffing (from a boxed mix, which wasn't my Mom's, of course, but wasn't bad), sauteed rapini and a green salad, and the boys brought pies (apple, pumpkin and pecan).  It was all very good -- and, as dh said, "You would probably spend just as much or more to buy and cook all that food yourself!" Also, the portions were quite generous. We all took home leftovers! 

We had a good time, especially with the kids.  :)  The nephews took the great-niblings outside on the deck to play for a while, and dh & I took some really cute photos of them. :)  (A couple of non-human photos below.) 

Previous Thanksgiving-related posts here. 

SIL's pretty table centrepiece.
(Which we had to remove to make room for all the plates & food! lol) 

Part of the feast, before we all dug in. Doesn't it look colourful? 

Note the dog is sporting a festive Halloween collar.  :)  

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.  

"Miss Buncle's Book" by D.E. Stevenson (re-read)

2024 marks 10 (!) years since dh & I first ran into a group of women who turned out to be fans of the mid-century Scottish author D.E. Stevenson, a favourite from my teenage years. (Coincidentally, we were all touring the home of another lifelong favourite author of mine, L.M. Montgomery!)  As described in this 2015 post, they invited me to join their online group -- which I happily did -- and I have been reading and chatting about Stevenson's books with them ever since then.  

One of the first books on the agenda after I joined the group was "Miss Buncle's Book," one of Stevenson's early novels (first published in 1934), and probably one of her better-known works. (I reviewed that book in January 2015, here.) You know you've been around a long time when you start re-reading the books you were reading 10 years ago (!) -- and "Miss Buncle's Book" is (once again) our latest choice.    

Diminishing dividends (1934 = the Great Depression) have forced quiet, unassuming, guileless Miss Barbara Buncle  to look for ways to increase her income -- and so she decides to write a book. The cardinal rule of writing, of course, is "write about what you know" -- and Barbara's book, the aptly named "Disturber of the Peace," turns out to be a thinly disguised portrait of her hometown, Silverstream, and its residents (under different names).  To Barbara's surprise and delight, affable publisher Arthur Abbott agrees to publish her book (under the pseudonym "John Smith").  To her even greater surprise, it becomes an instant bestseller -- particularly in Silverstream, where the enraged residents immediately recognize themselves and set out to learn John Smith's true identity. Each chapter features a different Silverstream resident, his or her reaction to the book, and what happens to them after they've read it. 

"Miss Buncle's Book" has all the hallmarks of a classic DES novel.  They are very much products of the time & place they were written -- a little old-fashioned, perhaps -- but well-crafted, funny, charming romances, comedies of manners and family dramas featuring engaging characters and lovely descriptions of the natural world.  I can easily see this one as mini-series on PBS -- period appropriate, of course.  :) 

As is my usual practice, I read the book before our chapter-by-chapter group read & discussion on Oct. 7th.  Correction:  I TRIED to read the book before we started -- didn't quite make the deadline, but it's a quick, easy read and not very long, so I was done before we covered Chapter 3. :)  I'll count it as a re-read once we finish our group discussion, in mid-December.  

Stevenson wrote two sequels to "Miss Buncle's Book" -- "Miss Buncle Married" and "The Two Mrs. Abbotts,"  both of which are on our list of upcoming reads for 2025-26 (and both of which I previously reviewed here).  (My previous reviews of those books here and here.)  So is "The Four Graces," where Miss Buncle makes a brief cameo appearance. (My review.) 

I wasn't on Goodreads the first time I read this book, but I retroactively logged it and assigned it a 4-star rating. That rating still stands.  :)   

This was Book #29 read to date in 2024 (and Book #2 finished in October), bringing me to 64%  of my 2024 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 5 (!) books behind schedule to meet my goal. :(  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2024 tagged as "2024 books."