Odds & ends

• Anyone else feeling overwhelmed by the sudden onslaught of prom, graduation and last day of school photos on social media this week??  (In Canada/North America, anyway -- I know different countries have different school year calendars!) It's been going on in dribs & drabs over the past month or so, as the school year wound down, and I've been doing OK so far -- but today/tomorrow is the last day of school hereabouts, plus lots of grads & proms this week, and it's like I've reached the saturation point…! 

• Mel is marking a big milestone over at Stirrup Queens! Go over and congratulate (and thank) her!  

• Sue Fagalde Lick at "Can I Do it Alone?" recently landed in the hospital :(  Go wish her well and read some of her posts from the past month about what happened and what childless seniors living alone can do to better cope with these crises. 

• On a related note:  Jody Day was interviewed about her Alterkin project, aging as a childless person, and aging generally, as part of an article on aging in The Atlantic! Here's a gift link for "Americans Are in Denial About Elder Care." (Not just Americans...) 

• Jody Day also flagged this thought-provoking article from "The Shift by Sam Baker" -- a guest post from Kim Willis:  "Stop calling me 'child-free'." 
• I wrote a similarly themed post in the early days of this blog, almost 19 (!) years ago (and have returned to the subject several times since then):  "Am I childLESS or childFREE?"

• Nora McInerny reminds all of us who take photos to "Get in the picture." (That includes those of us without kids -- a subject I have written about in the past -- here, for example.)  

I’m only asking you to consider that with the exception of the worst people in the world, life is tragically short. Someday, you will look upon this version of yourself and see yourself through new eyes. Eyes that might need bifocals or cataract surgery, but eyes that still work well enough to see that you, with that rogue chin hair or the jeans that Gen Z TikTokkers are trying to bully you out of wearing are more beautiful than you know.

Someday you will long for the version of you that exists today, however flawed you believe her to be. Give future you something to marvel over, grab your Cybershot, and get in the picture.

• “Everything happens for a reason.” Or does it?  Lexi Weber Johnson at "Not Expecting" explains why this is not a helpful thing to say to someone who is grieving. 

Underneath the “everything happens for a reason” line is something more universal: a discomfort with uncertainty. We want life to make sense. We want outcomes to add up. We want suffering to belong to a larger story. Because the reality that some things simply happen, full stop, is harder to bear.

• Jennie Agg at Life, Almost says "I can't keep up." (She is singing my song...!)
• Jennie also has thoughts on "Trimester Zero" (!). ("Let's not do this.") 
  

• I haven't quite lost all my elders yet -- I still have my dad, and most of my dad's siblings, and my maternal uncle's wife, and several of my mother's cousins (and am thankful for every day I still have them all in my life). But I found myself nodding vigorously as I read Cyndie Spiegel's post from "Life, Created" ("v. 70 One Day You Realize That There's No One Left to Ask"). 
• I have been feeling this keenly since my mom's death in January, and the task of sorting through several generations' worth of possessions. More and more, I feel my past slipping through my fingers and receding into the distance. And I'm mourning that loss alongside the loss of my mom.  

Odds & ends

• Personal note:  10 years ago today (!), we took possession of the condo where we're now living, and moved out of our home of 26 years, on the other side of the city. (We spent the night at BIL's and moved our stuff in here the next day.) 
• "Boy, that went by fast," commented dh, when I reminded him. No kidding. 
• At the same time, what a lot has happened in those 10 years!:  our nephews' weddings, the arrival of three great-niblings (and a dog!),  the deaths of both FIL & my mom, as well as several other people we've loved, BIL's transplant surgery... 
• I've hashed out the pros & cons of condo living and of moving here several times before on this blog, so I won't go into those topics all over again here. Suffice to say, I'm still not wild about the community itself, but overall, we do love the condo and being closer to family.  :) 
• Mom stuff:  
• I had my first dream about Mom since she died, last week. I don't remember much about it, but she was there. I like it when the people I've loved and lost show up in my dreams. It's like a little visit from them. 
• Dh was looking for a newscast the other night, and landed on ABC World News Tonight with David Muir. Which got me teary, because my parents always ate supper late -- partly because Mom insisted on watching "her" news (on ABC -- the network broadcast, followed by the "local" news, from Fargo, ND -- although she almost always fell asleep before the end...!). She really liked David Muir and how he delivered the news as well.  It's the little, unexpected moments like that that catch me off guard and set me off (very similar to after we lost Katie).  
• Vision update:  We went into the city today for follow-up visits with our optometrist, following my opthamologist appointment earlier this month. The opthamologist determined that surgery was not necessary at this point, but there's still a small patch of developing nodules on my left cornea (as well as the small beginnings of a cataract).  Even so, my vision has not changed significantly since I last changed my glasses almost 12 (!) years ago (although both my regular and computer glasses have some scratches on them. The optometrist didn't think the scratches were that bad, though?). 
• The optometrist gave me an updated prescription for my glasses, but suggested it might be worth waiting a while longer to get new ones. We have a number of large expenses right now -- current, upcoming and anticipated:  we just paid our taxes (ouch), paid for flights to visit Dad soon (and will be going there again this summer and at Christmas), possible purchases for his new apartment to fund, as well as subsidizing his rent until he sells the house -- and we still need to purchase a cremation niche or plot at the cemetery for both him and Mom, and inter her ashes at some point -- etc. etc.... So I've decided to hold off on new glasses for a while longer.  (Dh's glasses are about the same age as mine! and he'd like new ones too, but agreed we should both wait.)  We'll be back for checkups again in six months, so we'll see what the situation is then... 

And now a few links to share: 

• Non-ALI/CNBC-related, but I thought it was worth sharing:  Canadian Returnee explains Bill C-18, Meta's response (why I'm unable to see or post news links on Facebook or Instagram), and "What Facebook's News Ban Taught Canadians."   
• I see posts on social media -- from both Americans and Canadians! -- claiming that the Canadian government is "censoring" news.  Not true!  News (actual news, from actual journalists) is readily available, online and elsewhere -- you just can't find it or share it on Facebook or Instagram. And that's because of a decision made by Meta, not the Canadian government. (The article explains more.) 
• (For some reason, Meta's ban doesn't apply on Threads??  But shhhhh, don't remind them of that...!  lol)    
• Great news:  One of the "OG" voices in the CNBC blogging world is back! Welcome back PJ at Making Sense of It All. 
• I love, love, loved this blast from the past via Tracey Cleantis Dwyer (another longtime blogger who recently launched a Substack): "The Hardy Boys and the Mysterious Case of the Magical Meeting." (Featuring Parker Stevenson, Shaun Cassidy, and an older/childless woman role model who changed Tracey's life.)  
• Speaking of Shaun Cassidy, Alan Osmond, oldest of the performing Osmond Brothers, died earlier this week at age 76, after living with MS for 40 (!) years.  Another brother, Wayne, died in early 2025 at age 73.  You know you're getting older when your teen idols start dying...  :(  
• Katie Dunn at Afterglow writes about whether children give your life "purpose" -- something that many childless women struggle with, when parenthood doesn't work out for them ("what's my purpose now?"). Part of the post is paywalled, but what's free to read is worth a look!  
• Another brilliant post from Ali Hall at Life Without Children:  "When Women Supporting Women Defaults to Mothers Supporting Mothers." (Subhead: "Compassion is never found in comparison.")  
• I vividly remember the story about the doctor whose daughter asked her that painful question -- and her response (or lack thereof) -- and posted about it at the time (during the height of the pandemic). 
• Ali is offering half-price annual paid subscriptions during the month of May. 
• Also from Life Without Children, childfree Rosie Diell ponders "What fence sitters can learn from the childless community." 
• Lana Manikowski at "Infertile and Childless. So Now What?" looks at "What Happens to Your Marriage When IVF Doesn’t Work?" A couple of excerpts: 

...for many couples, IVF doesn’t work.

And when fertility treatments end without a baby, you are left with more than grief. You are left with questions about your marriage that no one prepared you for.

I remember thinking very clearly, is this going to be enough?

 

...a marriage without children is not a lesser version of life. It is a different version of life. It can still be connected, meaningful, and something you feel proud of.

Not because you convinced yourself to be okay with it, but because you built something real together after infertility.

• Poorna Bell dismantles "the myth of grandmotherhood" (and why it's important for everyone, whether or not you have grandchildren).  Most of the post is about grandmothers, but near the end, there's this: 

What about the women who aren’t grandmothers? Where is their place in society? Most of these women will have experienced a sense of isolation and an erosion of community the first time round, when it came to not having children. Having spoken to a number of women including Jody Day about this, it appears there is a second wind in one’s 60s, around grandmotherhood that raises the same issues.

(Bell muses that this particular issue "may merit a spin-off Substack" -- I would love to read that!)  

2025 Blogging Year in Review

A hat tip to Mali, whose post "2016: Looking back on the blog" has inspired me to do the same for the past several years. Also to Mel, whose Crème de la Crème lists from 2007 to 2012 prompted me & other bloggers to review our posts from the year past & pick out our favourites to share.  (There was a list in 2006 too, but that was before I started my blog.)  If the Crème de la Crème list still existed, one of these posts would probably be the one I would have submitted. :) ) 

*** *** *** 

2025 was not as prolific in blogging terms as the past several years have been. 2021 was my best year ever in terms of numbers of posts (213). I ended the year with 132 posts, the fewest since 2016, when I published 133 posts.  

That's (still) an average of 11 posts per month (one fewer than my average 12 of the past few years). My least-chatty month was July, with 6 posts. My most verbose was September, with 15 (thanks in large part to daily posts during World Childless Week 2025!  lol)  Not bad, especially after 18+ years of blogging!  

I don't check my blog stats very often, but I had a look at the ones for the past 12 months (which now includes part of January), and (as of today), I had 1.76 million views (!) 71,000+ views and 185 comments this year (page views more than doubled over last year (!), but comments were down). As I noted in this post from September, I suspect that huge spike in views was due more to some kind of bot activity than actual eyes on screens. :p  

The top-viewed post of 2025  that was written/posted IN 2025 -- was this "odds & ends" post from Sept. 2nd, with 431 views to date. (Not sure what was so attractive about it??    

In addition to posts about or related to childless/free issues or other adoption/loss/infertility issues, I tried to do a "Right now" post at the beginning of each month, participated in 38 #MicroblogMondays this year, and reviewed all 38 books that I read in 2025.  

I also wrote a lot about other things going on in my life, including aging, retirement, memories of the past, being an auntie & great-auntie, and condo living. There were lots of "odds & ends" posts, passing along and/or commenting on news items, blog & Substack posts and podcasts, etc. (usually ALI-related) that piqued my interest,.as well as lists of recent "small pleasures & annoying things."  I stopped doing monthly pandemic updates in my Right Now posts in May, and mostly stopped masking by summertime. Which is not to say that covid isn't still out there...! 

Normally, I would choose a few favourite/noteworthy posts from the past year to highlight here -- but in the interests of time and getting this (finally!) published, I'm going to skip that this time around.  (Did any of you have a favourite or memorable post from here this past year?)  

Pre-Christmas annoying things (and a few small pleasures)

 Annoying things: 

• I was trying to comment on a WordPress blog recently -- and when I hit "publish," up popped a note from WordPress:  they had blocked my password and I had to create a new one?!  This took some doing, but I finally managed to change my password (grrr...). 
• Related annoying thing:  My comment disappeared into the ether, and had to be recreated.  

• I went to the nail salon last week to have the gel/shellac polish on my toes removed. I've been going there for occasional manicures & pedicures since we moved here, almost 10 years ago now. My SIL goes there too and suggested it to me when I asked her for a referral. It's near where she & BIL live, and the prices are pretty reasonable.  (She & I ended up in pedicure chairs side by side the day before Older Nephew's wedding rehearsal, totally unplanned!) 
• Back story:  I'd had a pedicure in late September, just before we headed to dh's cousin's cottage for the weekend. I had asked for just a regular pedicure with regular enamel polish  -- but the nail tech pushed (hard) for me to have a shellac/gel pedicure. "It lasts much longer! You don't have to sit under the dryer for as long!"  she pointed out brightly. 
• (What she didn't point out:  it was more money, and thus = potentially a larger tip for her.) 
• I didn't really CARE if the polish lasted longer;  I just wanted it to look decent for the weekend. I don't get pedicures very often, and I like being able to remove the polish myself once it starts to chip and look ragged. Plus I am not entirely comfortable with the unnecessary UV light exposure. 
• Anyway, she talked me into it (eyeroll), and brought out a polish that she said was very close to the regular polish I had already picked out. Annoying thing/Spoiler alert:  it was not. I had picked out a teal blue;  the polish I wound up with was more of a teal green. It was nicely done, but not quite what I had wanted -- and obviously more expensive -- and I left feeling a little annoyed that I hadn't stuck to my guns and gotten what I really wanted. 
• While at the cottage, I stubbed the toes on my right foot on the leg of our bed -- TWICE.  
• I didn't think much about it until about a month later, in late October, when I was in the shower. My nails had started to grow out from the nail bed, and while I was lathering up my feet, I noticed a black spot on/under the nail of my right second toe.  I have no idea how long it had been there -- I mean, how often do you look closely at your feet?  Plus I obviously didn't have my glasses on in the shower. Most of the spot was (of course) UNDER the polish -- which I could not remove myself (grrr....). 
• The logical explanation, obviously, is that it's a bruise from when I banged my toe on the bed leg at the cottage a month earlier. (I had a previous black toenail after hitting my toe on the corner of a wall, some years ago. It turned totally black, lasted for months before eventually fading away -- and my nail eventually fell off. Thankfully, it did eventually grow back.) 
• EXCEPT.  I couldn't help but think of the younger brother of my best friend from high school. He died of melanoma at the far-too-young age of 40, leaving a wife and two young boys, as well as his parents & four sisters. It started -- you guessed it -- under the nail of one of his toes. He thought he just had some weird sort of nail fungus. By the time he checked it out with his doctor and they figured out what it actually was, it had spread, and it was too late. :(  
• We had checkups scheduled with our family doctor in late October, and I showed the spot to him. He was pretty sure it was a bruise too, but since he was referring me to a dermatologist (for other reasons), he suggested I have that doctor check it out. (And that I should get the polish fully removed before I went.)  
• So last week, I headed back to the nail salon. I explained, both over the phone and at the counter, that I wanted my gel/shellac polish removed. They could trim my nails, remove the dead skin, etc., but I did not want more polish, even clear. 
• Wouldn't you know it? I got the very same nail tech. And this time, she started in on the hard sell for a paraffin wax treatment. "The skin on your feet is very dry... the paraffin helps seal in the moisture. I really recommend it,"  she said. 
• I've had paraffin treatments before, and I knew she was going to keep pushing, so once again I caved and said yes. 
• She brought out a plastic bag filled with liquid wax. It was HOT, As she squished it over my foot and slipped a terrycloth bag over the plastic, I felt like the bottom of my foot was burning. "It's HOT... please, take it off!" I said.
• She did NOT take it off. "It won't burn you, the temperature isn't hot enough," she assured me brighly, as she put the other bag of liquid wax over my foot -- which was also hot. 
• I was honestly afraid my feet were going to be burned. They weren't -- my feet are fine -- and she did do a nice job on cleaning up my feet and smoothing down the rough spots -- but I wasn't particularly happy. I didn't have enough change to leave even a 10% tip  (I had enough for a larger tip on the regular pedicure I thought I would be getting...!), and frankly, I didn't feel like she deserved one.
• The girls there don't wear nametags, so I'm not sure who else I could ask for. I'm debating whether to ask my SIL, or just try to find a different salon, maybe one closer to where we live. I've been happy with the service and the results in the past;  I just don't appreciate the hard upsell.  :p   
• The kicker?  When I got to the dermatologist's office this week, I COMPLETELY forgot to ask him about it!  (eyeroll) 
• In my defense, he was a busy guy & spent no more than five minutes with me before sailing out of the room and on to his next patient. Sigh. 
  
  
• I found a typo in this year's edition of the annual Christmas letter that I send out with some of my cards. (I mean, I used to be my department's go-to editor & proofreader...!) 
• Related annoying thing:  Of course I found it AFTER I had put the cards into the mail...!  
• Not only that -- what I THOUGHT I had written ("The trip we’d hoped to take didn’t materialize, but maybe next year…!") turned out to be "The trip we'd hoped to take didn't maternalize...").  Freudian slip??  :p 

• You may or may not recall that we had some plumbing repairs done in late August that turned out to be far more complex (near-disastrous, in fact) -- and WAY more expensive -- than we had anticipated. 
• I wrote about this in brief, general terms at the time. To summarize briefly: We wanted a few things done, but my main concern was the water spout in the shower cubicle in our master bathroom. (Like the water spout in a bathtub, but in a standalone shower cubicle. Apparently it's a Canadian thing:  a lot of people refer to it as a "toe tester," lol.)  It had been dripping for months. The dripping sound was driving me crazy, and it was a constant battle to keep the mildew at bay. I figured all that was needed was likely to replace a rubber ring behind the tap handle. 
• I'd mentioned the issue at least twice to the plumber recommended by our property manager, who does the general plumbing repairs & maintenance for the building, both in person and in an email, but annoyingly, he never got back to me. I asked dh if I should try one more time or try someone else, and he said to try someone else. I did a bit of Googling, read some reviews, picked a name and called them up. 
• As I said above, what we wanted done turned out to be a LOT more complicated (and the bill was MUCH higher) than we'd anticipated. We weren't very happy with how it all unfolded (let alone the bill!!) -- but the good thing was that they did fix the dripping. (Eventually!) . 
• Since then, however, we've noticed the water runs nowhere near as warm/hot as it used to. Even when I crank the tap handle all the way over on the "hot" side, the best it gets is just nicely warm. Some mornings, it's just lukewarm. Also, the water pressure seems a lot weaker.  
• Note:  We have no issues with the warm/hot water anywhere else in the unit. 
• One recent morning (less than a week before we leave on holidays), dh emerged from the shower to tell me the water was cold.  Not freezing cold (yay?), but not even lukewarm -- like, barely tepid. 
• I got in the shower, turned on the water and stuck my foot under the spout (without turning on the actual shower). "Oh hell no," I said.  
• Luckily, we have a second bathroom, with a regular tub/shower unit. Dh had taken a few baths in there, and I'd used the tub to fill buckets and wash large items (like window screens), but in the almost 10 years we've lived here, we'd never tried out the shower...!  
• Well, no time like the present...!  
• The water was wonderfully warm and the spray was strong.  
• His cold shower was the last straw for dh:  he's resolved to call the plumber -- the building-approved plumber -- when we get back from Christmas holidays, and ask them to come have a look. They may be hard to get hold of sometimes, but they have done a good job for us before, and their prices have been very reasonable.
• We are definitely NOT calling the other guys back -- even though it's really their issue to fix...!  
  
  
• A to-do list that never seems to get any shorter...!  (especially as we head towards Christmas...!) 

Small pleasures: 

• The decorated Christmas tree, especially the lights.  
• Little Great-Nephew #2's first birthday party on Saturday!!  :)  
• I'm still lacking some stocking stuffers, but the great-niblings and Little Princesses are well taken care of.  :)  
• Heading west for Christmas in a few days' time too!  :)  

My blog is an adult :)

Where I grew up, you were considered an adult at age 18, able to drink, vote and enlist in the armed forces without parental permission, among other things.  

Today, my blog is an adult.  :)  18 years ago tonight, after the last trick-or-treater departed and we turned out the porch light, I hit "post" on my very first entry here. 18 years and more than 2,600 published posts later (!), I am still here, still writing about pregnancy loss, infertility and childlessness -- which is why I started my blog -- but also about books, getting older, dealing with aging parents (from a distance), being an aunt and great-aunt, living in a condo, living through a pandemic -- in short, life.  

The Internet, and the blogosphere, have changed dramatically over 18 years -- but there are still many of us out here, writing about and connecting over our shared experiences -- if not always in old-style blogs these days, then on Substack, on social media, through podcasts and through private communities such as the Childless Collective. The childless-not-by-choice segments of the infertility and non-parenting communities have grown by leaps and bounds. There's always room for improvement, of course! -- but the progress has been unmistakeable for those of us who have been around a while. (Long may it continue...!) 

How long will I keep writing here?  Who knows?  I never would have imagined, 18 years ago tonight, that I'd still be here. Never say never (either way), right? Granted, my output has slowed a bit in recent years, after hitting an all-time high of 213 posts in 2021 (146 posts last year, 113 to date in 2025, including this one -- last year at this point, I reported 123, versus 146 in 2023, 163 in 2022 and 178 in 2021 -- which turned out to be my most prolific blogging year so far).  But still, not too bad -- and right now, at least, I have no intentions of closing up shop. 

Whether you've been here from the early days or just found this blog recently, thank you all for reading and commenting. :)  

*** *** *** 

Blogging stats, 18 years later:  

 
Number of years blogging: 18

Published posts (including this one): 2,631

Average # of posts per year: 146

Average # of posts per month: 12 

(So far in calendar year 2025, I've published 112 posts -- 113, including this one -- a minimum of 6 posts (in July) and as many as 15 in September (thanks to World Childless Week and its daily themes!).

Published comments: 12,649 

Page views (all time, as of yesterday): 3,608, 027 (!!).  (Last year, I noted  1,959,495 -- i.e., I received as many page views this past year as I have in the previous 17!! -- clearly, something weird is going on, as I noted in this post here -- Infertile Phoenix wrote about the same phenomenon then too.)  

Followers (on Blogger):  155 

Past blogoversary posts here.

First blog post ever here! :) 

#MicroblogMondays: Odds & ends

• 
  "I had an accident," my 86-year-old father sheepishly confessed over the phone on Sunday afternoon. (!!!)  VERY thankfully!! he's fine!  
• However! -- the wall between the garage and the laundry/mud room of the house is not. :( 
• He was bringing the car into the garage when it started raining on Friday. His foot slipped on the brake and the car crashed into the wall. (!)  :(  There is a sizeable dent in the wall that I am told you can see daylight through. (My sister was there this weekend, and has promised to send photos.) 
• Funnily enough, the car came through with barely a scratch too. 
• It will probably cost several thousand dollars to repair the wall -- money that my parents do not have to spare. ("Dust off your chequebook,"  my sister told me grimly.)  My sister's partner has boarded up the crash site to keep out the cold, rodents, etc., until it can be fixed.   
• The potentially good (?) news to come out of this is that my parents have agreed to add their names to the waiting lists for seniors housing in several different places in town this week -- something we've been wanting them to do for several years now. 
• I always thought it would probably take a crisis of some sort to get them to move. I'm just glad it wasn't something worse! 
• Big changes to come in the next few months/year, I think...  :(  
• World Childless Week is over and (sadly, as is often the case for me), I still haven't read or watched very many of the wonderful offerings now available on the WCW 2025 website. If you haven't yet done it yourself, go have a look! 
• I did manage to post something every day during WCW about the daily theme and any relevant posts I've written, all tagged "WCW 2025." 
• Seasonal allergies haven't bothered me much in recent years -- and when they have, it's usually in late May/early June. But this past week or two, I've been suffering through violent sneezing fits, scratchy throat & ears;  itchy, burning, sticky eyes; fatigue.... ugh. I've been taking Claritin daily since this started, which usually does the trick... I'm feeling somewhat better this weekend (fingers crossed...!), but it sure took its time kicking in...!  
• I know everyone advises you to close the windows & run an air purifier, but I hate to do that when it's been so nice outside (and the time that we can do that is rapidly dwindling, as temperatures start to drop...!). 
• I was so sad to hear that Robert Redford died this past week. (How was he 89?!!).  
• I fell in love with Redford at age 12 when I saw him (and Paul Newman! -- were there ever two more gorgeous men on screen, together or separately??) in "The Sting." (I didn't get to see "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" until several years later, on TV.) 
• My sister & I saw it with our two cousins, while our parents watched "Blazing Saddles" -- rated R -- in an adjacent theatre. And "The Exorcist" was playing in the theatre right next to ours.  I remember my cousin pressing his ear against the wall to see if he could hear people screaming, lol. 
• A few years later, my mom took my sister & me to the drive-in theatre -- on a school night! (such was the power of Redford back then...!) -- to see "The Great Gatsby." (But first, we had to sit through "The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad" -- what a double bill!!)  
• We saw "The Way We Were" around the same time.  And, in the years that followed, "The Great Waldo Pepper," "All the President's Men" (which I wrote about here), "Three Days of the Condor," "Sneakers," "The Natural," "Out of Africa" (saw that one on one of my birthdays), "The Horse Whisperer," and so many more -- not to mention the amazing movies he directed -- among them "Ordinary People," "Quiz Show," and "A River Runs Through It." 
• I was reminded of a popular dessert from the 1970s (which my mom still makes from time to time). It was commonly known as "Better Than Sex"(lol) -- but on my Mom's recipe card, it's called "The Next Best Thing to Robert Redford" (or simply "Robert Redford"), lol. 
• I realized the minute I mentioned this dessert, someone was going to ask for the recipe -- and while I think I have a copy somewhere, I took the easy way out and Googled, and sure enough, up it popped. If this isn't the exact same recipe my mom had, it's pretty close!  Enjoy! 
• ALI note:  Did you know Redford and his first wife Lola lost their first son Scott to SIDS in 1959?  He was just two months old. :(   (His parents were in their early 20s.) He also lost his second son, James, in 2020, to cancer, when James was 58.  
• They don't make 'em like that anymore... 
• While dh watched the first NFL game of the season on a recent Sunday afternoon, involving his beloved Pittsburgh Steelers, I blocked out the cursing and yelling (lol) by catching up on some podcast episodes, including a couple from The Full Stop.
• I also listened to episode #71 -- the one I appeared on with Sandra McNicol in February, talking about childlessness and pregnancy loss. (I posted about it here.) This was the first time I'd actually listened to the finished episode on audio only, although I'd watched a video recording the day after we recorded it. Maybe it was because I was actually just LISTENING and not WATCHING myself on a screen too, or maybe enough time has passed, but it was (thankfully!) not as difficult to listen to at this point..
• Y.L. Wolfe muses "This Is Why We Hate Childfree Women"  ("we" = society). (The answer is in her subhead:  "They represent everything the patriarchy fears.")  
• British podcaster and author Elizabeth Day had an article in The Guardian recently about a life-changing call with a psychic. (There's an ALI angle.)  
• I've been following Charlie Angus's Substack, "The Resistance," for a while now. Charlie is a year or two younger than me, a punk rocker in his youth (!) who still plays in a band, and who was, until recently, a member of Parliament from the New Democratic Party (NDP), representing the riding in northern Ontario where he was born. He's been one of the most vocal and effective advocates for a strong, independent Canada in recent months. 
• This particular post is about the Group of Seven (a group of influential 20th century Canadian artists), and how Tom Thomson's famous painting "The Jack Pine" personifies and symbolizes the country and our spirit of survival and resistance. 
• As a proud Canadian, and a member at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, which has a large holding of Group of Seven artwork, this one struck a chord. ;)  
• I appreciated this Substack post from Garrett Bucks at The White Pages about social media and the role it plays in building community, for good and for bad:  "The Internet is Killing Us." 
• In a similar vein:  I'm an unpaid subscriber to Katherine May's Substack "The Clearing," and while most of this post -- also about social media -- is paywalled, I completely agree with her thoughts in the portion that's visible (particularly the second paragraph I've quoted here):  

I was one of the true believers in the early days of Twitter, and I’m still grateful for so much of what I’ve found and learned across the various platforms I’ve been on. But I think, on both a personal and professional basis, social media has become unmanageable. It’s addictive by design, primed to draw us into tribalism and conflict, and - unless your creative practice is making short videos - a major distraction from the work that matters.




And yet; and yet. I’m averse to the view that social media is uniformly evil or dangerous; I still believe that it can bring isolated people together in a way that we’ve never seen before. I don’t think I’ll ever be the kind of author who does no socials at all. I love the opportunity to be in contact with the the people who read my books and with other authors. I often think of how unnerving the author’s life must once have been before we could do this: sending out books into silence, and perhaps waiting months for any response.




So I remain on social media, but in a far more controlled way than I once did... 

I've been trying (trying!) to wean myself away from social media a bit, especially the mindless scrolling. I still have a Twitter/X account, but rarely go on there. I'm on Bluesky & Threads, but try to limit the time I spend scrolling there. I am not on TikTok. 

On Facebook, I generally just go straight to "Feeds/Friends," where I only see content posted by my friends. (There's a feed for "Groups" too.)  Depending on the friends (lol), I may not may not be interested in or agree with what they post (but that's where the "mute" button comes in handy, lol), but the "Friends" feed is much more curated than just scrolling through the random stuff in the general feed, and I get to see more of the stuff that matters to me -- i.e., my friends' posts -- which is what I came to social media for in the first place.  

• Infertile Phoenix has noticed a substantial increase in the number of views her blog has been getting lately, and asked readers to indicate if they're human (or bots?).  
• Someone commented on Phoenix's post to say it was probably "'referral spam—fake visits that try to show up in your Google Analytics so you’ll click the link or buy their “traffic” service. It’s noise, not real customers.'" That's good to know. 
• I don't often look at my stats -- I've never been one to worry about increasing readership and getting clicks, etc; I'm just happy if people who are looking for support and want to feel less alone find my blog. 
• But I was curious, so I had a look. Sure enough, there's been a SUBSTANTIAL spike in page views recently. If I look at the trends over time, there was a small spike in mid-2023, a larger spike in early 2024, and then a HUGE spike this past month, peaking at almost 86,000 views on Sept. 19th alone (an all-time high)! That's BONKERS!! (compared to what I was getting in years gone by). 
• The U.S. is still a top source of viewers, but I've had a huge uptick in viewers from Hong Kong, Singapore and Brazil, among others.  
• "Referral spam" or not, it's a bit creepy. I wonder if AI is scraping my blog (our blogs?) to fuel its databases... or possibly (even worse) whether childless women are being targeted and monitored in some way for political purposes?    
• I try not to get too overtly political here -- but it seems like everything is political these days, especially when it comes to women, reproductive matters, and those of us who have deviated from the "norm" (even when that's been despite our desires and best efforts). 

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

#MicroblogMondays: Annoying things, small pleasures, and other odds & ends

(A multipurpose post...!  lol)  

Annoying things: 

• It's been a busy week!  It feels like there's never enough time to get everything done on my daily to-do lists (especially with a vacation coming up soon...!)  I have days of unopened emails. (I have been checking, in case there's something truly important.)  
• I just got back from the dentist (boo, hiss...). We went for checkups about two weeks ago, where I discovered I had at least one cavity and likely two (the tooth beside it). Oh joy. :p  So it was back to the city this morning.  I barely felt the freezing injection (yay!), but the procedure itself was rather arduous. :(  Not painful, but a lot of tugging and pressure involved.  I felt limp as a rag but glad when it was over (at least until I saw the bill...!  -- thank goodness for dental insurance...!).  As I type, I'm still waiting for the freezing to wear off (it's almost gone!) to try out my new bite (i.e., lunch!).  
• Our building's air conditioning system decided to conk out last Tuesday during a recent heat wave -- one of the hottest days of the year so far (35C/44C humidex), amid record temperatures for June. Temperatures inside reached 80F (about 27C)(normally we keep the thermostat set at 74F. Our HVAC unit WAS running, but the air it was blowing was not very cool/cold. :p  We both felt pretty wilted (especially after three days of high temperatures and humidity, even when the a/c was running!), but ran the Dyson purifier fan, drank lots of fluids, and went to the mall for a few hours for respite. 
• Related small pleasure:  We bought a yummy rotisserie chicken at the supermarket on Sunday so that we didn't have to cook, and used the leftovers with salad to make light no-cook meals for the next two nights too.  

Small pleasures:  

• Kobo has been making some changes to its website recently... I'm not sure I like all of them, BUT I recently logged on and noticed changes to my wish list:  it's now sortable!  Newest to oldest added (which is how it was organized previously), alphabetical by title (but sadly not by author -- A to Z and Z to A), most to least expensive and vice versa. If I choose the "least to most expensive" option, I can see right away if any books on my list are on sale cheap, instead of having to scroll through the entire list. (And I have a very LARGE wish list...!)  
• After complaining (ummm, WRITING! lol) about my futile search for a pair of sandals to wear to a family wedding in August, I found (bought!) not just one but two pairs on a recent expedition to the mall! Both are silver (or silver-ish), flat or low-heeled, wide widths in my size, and feel relatively comfortably on my very wide foot! (I could actually get my foot into them!  lol) And both pairs were fairly reasonably priced too.  This one is silver with a one-inch chunky heel -- so it's not flat, but the heel feels substantial enough that I won't be teetering precariously in it. The other one is completely flat, but I think it's just dressy enough (particularly with the floral print dress I bought). It's "nude" -- gold-ish overtones vs pure silver, but I think it's silver-y enough. Anyway, that's a load off my mind!   

Personal stuff: 

• I recently, mostly, stopped wearing a mask in (most) public places, for the first time in 5 (-ish) years.  (Fingers crossed...!)  Dh has been foregoing masks for a while now, and I will admit, after five years, I was a little tired of putting on a mask and dealing with foggy glasses and a sweaty face -- especially at the mall, when (on a Tuesday or Wednesday morning, which is usually when we go) there were so few people around anyway. 
• I still keep a couple in my purse just in case, and I still put one on if I'm somewhere where there's a lot of people and/or the air circulation doesn't seem very good, etc. And we'll definitely be wearing them at the airport and on the plane west to see my family in a few weeks' time!  
• I found out this week (via my high school graduating class's Facebook page) that our English teacher (in both Grades 10 & 12, as well as our yearbook advisor) passed away last week. Mr. P. was 80. Not only was he our teacher, he had been a student at the same high school himself in the early 1960s, and later went on to become principal -- essentially devoting the better part of his life to the school and the community. He was an excellent teacher -- as evidenced by the hundreds and hundreds of comments on a community FB page I joined, and on the funeral home obituary.  He taught several generations of students from the same families -- their parents, their kids, their aunts, uncles & cousins.  Decades later, he still remembered their names, their stories, their family members. He was, in short, legendary. 
• I added a comment myself, and enjoyed scanning the others, and seeing many familiar names from my past. 
• I didn't know, but learned from one commenter, that Mr. P. was reluctant to accept the principal's job, and only did so on the condition that he could still carve out some time to continue teaching.  
• One former student recalled running into Mr. P. at the grocery store -- who glanced at her shopping list, and pointed out that she'd misspelled an item. (I'm sure she made his day, lol.)  
• And I was particularly amused to read one from a former student (obviously younger than me) whose first year of high school was Mr. P.'s last before retirement in 2010. He recalled Mr. P. addressing a student assembly on the first day of classes, and compared him to Dumbledore at Hogwarts, lol. 
• My class is collecting money and will make a donation in Mr. P.'s memory to one or more of the charities mentioned in his obituary, and/or plant a tree(s) in his honour. 
• The memorial service was held Friday afternoon, and I watched the livestream (three cheers for the Internet!). It was held at the big church where my graduation took place (I don't know if that's still the venue these days). 
• One of the speakers was one of his four (!) sons -- who is also now a teacher AND a vice-principal at the same high school!  
• (I'll admit, as a childless person, it was a little tough hearing all the talk about children and grandchildren, generations of students from the same families, etc... It also stirred up a lot of memories from my school days. Most parents get to regale/bore (lol) their kids with those kinds of stories.  Who do I get to share those memories with??) 
• I've mentioned Mr. P, in several previous posts here -- in particular, this one from 2010 (in which I named him as one of the people who had the biggest impact on my life, outside of family), and this one from 2019, about memorable teachers in my life. 

 Recent reading/viewing: 

• Going through my archives, I stumbled onto this post from June 2015 -- 10 years ago. Very timely, given the recent death of musical genius Brian Wilson, and I decided to share it again. I'm betting you will want to listen to some Beach Boys music after reading it!  
• There was a fascinating/disturbing story in the New Yorker recently about children adopted from China, reconnecting with their biological families through DNA testing.  (I found the link in an ad post on Facebook, and was able to access it without a subscription.)  
• Jody Day's quarterly/seasonal Fireside Wisdom Zoom discussions with a fabulous panel of childless elderwomen (the "Nomo Crones") are always interesting and worth watching!  The topic this time around was menopause. The video of this session is now available on the Gateway Women website (under the "Childless Elderwomen" tab). Just be aware there is some frank/explicit discussion about sex.

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

#MicroblogMondays: She'll be missed :(

When you've been around the blogging community as long as I have, sadly, inevitably, you wind up saying a permanent goodbye to some of the friends and acquaintances you've made along the way. 

(I still think about Emilie of Lemmondrops, whose husband made a final, poignant post on her blog to announce her death at a far-too-young age on Christmas Eve 2008, early in my blogging career.  Her baby would be would be almost through high school now -- yikes!) 

Earlier this week, I learned (via Facebook) that fellow blogger and CNBC friend -- known to many of us here in the CNBC corner of the blogging world as Bamberlamb from "It's Inconceivable" -- died on Valentine's Day (Feb. 14th), after living with cancer for the past several years.   

I got to know Bamberlamb via her blog, and also through Mali at No Kidding in NZ, who knew her for many years, pre-blogging, through their volunteer work for the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust in the UK. (She's written her own lovely tribute on her blog, here.)  When I joined the Gateway Women online community about 10? years ago (now called Childless Collective), I was delighted to find Bamberlamb there. When Jody Day created a sub-group there for Childless After Babyloss in 2021, and asked me and Bamberlamb to co-host, I couldn't think of anyone else I'd rather share the job with. 

(I was curious just how long I'd known Bamberlamb -- I thought at least 10 years, possibly longer. There wasn't an easy way to see just how long she'd been writing her blog -- no complete list of blog posts to click on, as there is on mine. I wound up clicking back and back and back on individual posts -- hitting "previous post" on each one! -- until there were no more. So far as I can tell, she started her blog in/around January 2016 -- and I found a few of my own comments on those early posts too. So it hasn't been QUITE 10 years that I've known her, more like 9, but that's still a long time!)   

Bamberlamb was feisty, funny, frank, and often hilariously profane. She loved her husband, their "tin tent" (camper trailer, or "caravan," as the Brits call it) and animals. (I knew things were not going well when she had to rehome the little dog she'd been fostering and then adopted.)  I had a standing invitation to visit her, if and when I ever got to the UK. She promised to take me to Stratford-on-Avon to see Shakespeare's cottage, and on a tour of traditional British pubs.  

Sadly, that's not going to happen now. But if/when I ever find myself in England, I'll be sure to raise a glass at a pub in Bamberlamb's memory while I'm there.  

Bamberlamb was proud of her Irish roots. Her funeral will be held on St. Patrick's Day. Her husband has asked her friends to wear her favourite colour, purple.  I won't be able to attend the funeral, but I will be wearing purple (instead of the traditional green) that day for her. 

There's a saying in the Jewish community, when someone passes away: "May their memory be a blessing."  In response to Bamberlamb's death, I saw someone posting simply, "Her memory is a blessing."  

Yes, it is.  She will be missed.  

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

Odds & ends: Canadian edition

• I had to change the title of a recent post ("Dodged that...")(although the original is still evident in the post's URL...!). (Admittedly, I could have chosen a better title to begin with...!  But headline-writing was never my forte in journalism school or at work, lol.)  I was horrified to check my comments the morning after I posted, only to find a spam comment offering guns for sale (!!).  It was written in Spanish (!), but I got the gist of it (and deleted it immediately). (For one thing -- handguns are illegal in Canada.)  
• I got a letter in the mail from Service Canada recently. Wasn't sure why, until I opened it and started reading -- and got the giggles. I recently celebrated my 64th (!) birthday, and the letter was informing me that my Old Age Security payments will begin in February 2026, one year from now, i.e., the month following my 65th (gulp!) birthday. I guess that makes me officially old??  (Almost, anyway...!)  
• I WAS expecting to get a letter/notification -- dh got one before HE turned 65, a few years ago -- but I thought it would come later in the year.  
• I have ZERO interest in the Super Bowl, and I wasn't really paying attention while dh watched. But I did catch a few of the ads. ;)   We don't get to see many of the (in)famous U.S. ads here, because of Canadian content regulations -- the broadcasters substitute ads for Canadian companies instead, even if you're watching a channel/network from the U.S. (Although we can view most of the U.S. ads on YouTube and elsewhere online, of course.)  I must say Canadian companies have really stepped up their game -- there were some really good ads from them this year (and a few questionable ones...!).  A few notables: 
• Doritos (which is, of course, an American product, by an American company) did an ad obviously specifically produced for the Canadian market, poking fun at the Canadian penchant for saying "sorry."  (Personally, I'm not sure whether I like it -- but, nice try!)   
• There was an ad for Rogers (telecomm company) starring Keanu Reeves (! -- he is, of course, a Toronto boy!).  (Couldn't find a clip for that one, though.) 
• There was a hilarious Crown Royal ad starring Dave Grohl. (I think that's an old one, though?) 
• And there was an ad for Tim Hortons (coffee/doughnut shop chain, founded by and named for a hockey player -- how Canadian can you get, right? --although it's now owned by a Brazilian conglomerate)(!!), set to the tune of Stompin' Tom Connors's much-beloved anthem "The Hockey Song" -- but instead of "oh, the good old hockey game," they were singing "oh, the good old football game." 
• I was HORRIFIED:  "For an AMERICAN FOOTBALL GAME?? WTAF, Timmies?? (Where was this ad when the Grey Cup was on??)"  
• Then I saw the ad a second time -- and realized:  instead of "Oh, the good old hockey game/It's the best game you can name/And the best game you can name/Is the good old hockey game" the words were now "Oh, the good old football game/It's the second-best game you can name..."  The frame at the end reads "Sorry not sorry. (We're Canadian.)" (Inside Canadian joke there.)  
• I did have to chuckle at that. (Although I do think you could have made it third-best -- there  IS the Grey Cup, after all...!)  
• Needless to say, we Canadians are just a LITTLE sensitive when it comes to Americans co-opting our culture at the moment...!  
• The YouTube clip of the song I linked to is a live performance Stompin' Tom gave, near the end of his life, on a 2012 episode of the Conan O'Brien show shot here in Toronto in front of a cheering, standing crowd. (I have to admit, I got a little misty-eyed!)  
• Here's another great clip of Tom performing the song at the 1999 closing game at Maple Leaf Gardens (before the Leafs moved to the new Air Canada Centre, now called the Scotiabank Arena).  The song gets played at every Leafs home game. 
• In a slight twist, the province of Ontario (where I live) ran an ad on U.S. networks during the game, touting our longstanding relationship, which Yahoo News Canada described as the "most politely aggressive Super Bowl ad."  (This ad/Similar ads have already been playing frequently on network TV, including CNN, for the past few weeks.) 
• In a similar vein -- I was amused, earlier in the month -- following certain-- ahem -- statements about my country from the new U.S. president -- to open the Kobo.com/ca/en home page (for ebooks) and discover a raft of new featured categories that include: 
• eBooks made in Canada: The True North strong and well-read – show your true patriot love and dive into a homegrown read.
• Finished Onyx Storm? Try these Canadian authors next:  Find your next Canadian read full of romance, magic, and fantastical creatures.
• Top Canadian eBook Pick (there were several of these) 
• Best Canadian eBooks of the Month
• Homegrown stories with glowing hearts: Learn about the experiences of being Black and Canadian.
• New Canadian authors we can't wait to read
• Made in Canada: Audiobooks by Canadian authors.

You might expect to find something like this in/around early July, i.e., Canada Day -- but February??  My reaction ranged from amused -- people think Canadians aren't patriotic?? -- to slightly annoyed at this blatant corporate attempt to cash in on the current surge of patriotism.  Although I guess if people are looking for more Canadian authors to read...! 

2024 Blogging Year in Review

A hat tip to Mali, whose post "2016: Looking back on the blog" has inspired me to do the same for the past several years. Also to Mel, whose Crème de la Crème lists from 2007 to 2012 prompted me & other bloggers to review our posts from the year past & pick out our favourites to share.  (There was a list in 2006 too, but that was before I started my blog.)  If the Crème de la Crème list still existed, one of these posts would probably be the one I would have submitted. :) ) 

*** *** *** 

2024 was not as prolific in blogging terms as the past several years have been. 2021 was my best year ever in terms of numbers of posts (213). I ended the year with 146 posts -- ranking #8 (of 18!) in terms of numbers of total posts for the year, just below 2015 with 150 posts. 

That's (still) an average of 12 posts per month. My least-chatty month was February, with 8 posts. My most verbose was September, with 20 (thank you, World Childless Week 2024!  lol)  Not bad, especially after 17+ years of blogging!  

I don't check my blog stats very often, but I had a look at the ones for the past 12 months, and (as of this afternoon), I had 471,000+ views and 242 comments this year (page views way up from last year, but comments down). The top-viewed post of 2024  (that was written/posted IN 2024 -- was this one, with 300 views since it was posted on Nov. 6th (less than two months ago!).    

In addition to posts about or related to childless/free issues or other adoption/loss/infertility issues, I tried to do a "Right now" or "The Current" post at the beginning of each month, participated in 39 #MicroblogMondays this year, and reviewed all 37 books that I read in 2024.  

I also wrote a lot about other things going on in my life, including aging, retirement, memories of the past, being an auntie & great-auntie, dealing with service people, and condo living. There were lots of "odds & ends" posts, passing along and/or commenting on news items, blog & Substack posts and podcasts, etc. (usually ALI-related) that piqued my interest,.as well as lists of recent "small pleasures & annoying things."  And the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic (now in its FIFTH year, and heading into its SIXTH) continued to provide PLENTY of fodder for blogging!! 

Here are a few of my favourite/noteworthy posts from 2024, or ones that say "2024" to me -- in more or less chronological order (from oldest/earliest in 2024 to most recent): 

January: 

• Holiday rehash
• #MicroblogMondays: Busted?
• No grandkids? (Welcome to my world...)

February: 

• #MicroblogMondays: Define "regular"...!
• #MicroblogMondays: What's saving my life right now?
• #MicroblogMondays: You never know who's reading your blog...!

March: 

• It's International WOMEN's Day
• Four years (!)

April: 

• #MicroblogMonday: Eclipse!
• #MicroblogMondays: See you in my dreams
• The invisible load
• #MicroblogMondays: Oodles and Caboodles

May: 

• #MicroblogMondays: Did you see them?
• #MicroblogMondays: Information overload vs creativity

June: 

• My happy place (well, one of them...!) ;)
• #MicroblogMondays: Three's company :)

July: 

• #MicroblogMondays: Recuperating!
• Childless? Ummm, I don't think so...

August: 

• #MicroblogMondays: An "interesting" weekend...!
• 26
• "Childless cat ladies" claw back :)
• #MicroblogMondays: Coming soon to a screen near you...!
• There's something happening here...
• #MicroblogMondays: Online friends are real friends :)

September: 

• Here we go again...
• Childless/free Seneca Falls?
• #MicroblogMondays: It's World Childless Week! Day One: Our Stories
• Plus ca change...

October: 

• #MicroblogMondays: Thankful :)
• Good news for bereaved parents in Ontario :)
• 17!

November: 

• "Phantom" turns 50?!!
• A howl in the darkness
• #MicroblogMondays: "Does motherhood have a PR crisis?" (Seriously??)
• Do our stories matter?

December: 

• Advent calendars
• Pre-Christmas annoying things & small pleasures

2024 Year in Review

Last year (2023), I tried a new "Year in Review" format. It was shorter and easier to write than what I had done in previous years, and felt fresher -- so I decided to keep it for 2024.  :)  The format/list of questions came from the long-gone scrapbooking magazine Creating Keepsakes, January/February 2013 issue (!). 

*** *** *** 

1) What was the coolest thing you did or that happened to you last year?

Getting to meet and have dinner with Mel and her family in August. :)  

Having a patio lunch with five other childless/free women from the Childless Collective on a lovely Saturday in mid-September. :)  

Appeared in a World Childless Week webinar with Michael Hughes, chatting about our mutual love of genealogy and why we as childless people might find their family trees interesting. (You can view it here!) 

Read  "War & Peace"!  :)  One chapter a day for an entire year! (Check out the link for details -- you can do it this year too!)  

Connecting with a new friend via Ancestry -- not a relative of mine, BUT we share a family connection and distant cousins through marriage. We were born in the same town, a few years apart, my parents knew her parents, she knows several of my aunts, uncles & cousins -- AND she now lives in the same town where my parents live!  We met for coffee a few days ago & had a lovely chat about genealogy and people we both knew. (The world is much smaller than we think sometimes...!) (Bonus:  she's childless too!)  

2)  What major milestone(s) did you or a loved one experience last year?

My dad celebrated his 85th birthday in July -- and we got to be there to help celebrate!  :)  (See #3, below.) 

My sister got a new job (one with a significant pay hike) -- just before her 62nd birthday!!  Go, Sis!! 

Little Great-Niece celebrated her first birthday with a big party last spring.  :) 

AND -- we got a brand-new great-nephew just before Christmas!  A little brother for Little Great-Nephew (hmm, I'm going to have to rethink those pseudonyms, lol -- LGN #1 & #2?  Older & Younger??).

3)  What was your favourite celebration last year?

My dad's 85th birthday party. We just had a few neighbours in my parents' back yard for cake & coffee, and it was horribly hot, but (after not being able to spend time there or be present for any of his birthdays for the previous five summers) I was just so happy to be there!  (Also: thankful to celebrate another year with him, when so many of my friends have already/recently lost their parents...) 

Also: 

• Little Great-Niece's first birthday party (in early March) was fun. :)  I got some cute photos, especially of her and Little Great-Nephew sitting on the sofa together! (One of them has been my cellphone wallpaper since then!)  
• We had a "sprinkle" on Nov. 9th to celebrate the impending arrival of Little Great-Nephew #2/Great-Nibling #3 (who was born just before Christmas -- see #1). Great food, good company, fun spending time with Little Great-Nephew #1 (his older brother) & LGNiece. :) 

4)  What was your most memorable holiday of last year, and what made it special?

Christmas with my family is always memorable. I am well aware that my time with my parents is not unlimited, and so I appreciate the opportunity to spend time with them while I can -- especially for holidays like Christmas!  (Even when they drive me nuts sometimes...! lol)  (We're still here, and they've been bickering a little less than they were this summer, which has been nice...!  lol) 

Easter and (Canadian) Thanksgiving with BIL, SIL, the nephews and their families, were very special too. It's always fun just to be together, eat good food and see the kids. 

5)  What family vacation or activity was the most memorable, and why?

Being back "home" to visit my parents (and help celebrate my dad's 85th birthday) in July was memorable, particularly because I hadn't been there in the summertime since 2019!  

Our annual cottage weekend in September with BIL, SIL and dh's cousin & his wife was fun (as usual), even if with weather didn't co-operate. 

Here's to (hopefully!) travelling further afield in 2025...!! 

6)  What big goal did you or a loved one achieve or work toward last year?

We had new vertical blinds installed on all of our windows this spring!  (I know -- not really a BIG goal, but something we've been talking about doing almost since we first moved into our condo -- and we finally got it done!)  

7)  What's something that changed in your life last year?  (something new, a loss, etc.)

Both dh & I were told in late October by our family doctor that our cholesterol levels had reached concerning levels. (I'd been warned last year that my numbers have been trending upward over the past few years --but dh's ratio was actually higher than mine!)  We've been trying to eat better and get a little more active since then (although our exercise efforts have been derailed lately by colds, etc.). We'll redo our bloodwork in January to see if there's been any movement in the right direction... fingers crossed and knocking wood! Neither of us wants to add yet another prescription to our daily meds. (I'm already taking prescriptions to address my sluggish thyroid and high blood pressure.) 

8)  What was your favourite movie, book, album or song from last year, and why?

Haven't been to the movies (in theatre) since before the pandemic  :(  and I don't follow music the way that I used to either. I will be posting my 2024 Reading Year in Review shortly, and as I say there, it's hard to pick one favourite book -- but I've listed a few! 

9)  What world, national or local event or news story affected you most?

World:  The U.S. election. (Yes, I'm Canadian. It still affects us, big time.)  'Nuff said.  :p  

National: There will be a federal election in 2025 -- which the Conservatives are heavily favoured to win. I'll admit the current Liberal government has been disappointing in many ways -- but I am not (at ALL!!) convinced the Conservatives (whose current slant is MAGA Lite and whose leader I absolutely loathe) will do any better.    

Local:  I'm (still) furious about our provincial government's decision to close (and eventually move)  the landmark Ontario Science Centre (where dh spent hours & hours as a kid), then raze the original building (!)(no doubt to build more condos on the prime real estate) -- and the related push to redevelop the prime parkland/public space of Ontario Place, including a new/downsized version of the Science Centre and add a luxury spa with a massive underground parking garage (!). Dozens (hundreds?) of trees, carefully chosen & planted by the original site developers more than 50 years ago, have already been cut down. In general, the indiscriminate destruction of designated greenbelt lands, heritage buildings and well-established neighbourhoods in the pursuit of growth (and development dollars) has been a disturbing feature of the past several years.   

10)  What life lesson did you or a family member learn and take to heart last year?

Same as I wrote last year:  Life is short, and tomorrow is not promised. I am more aware of this with each passing year...!