OFF with the old and in with the new ...

my bangs

All the hair was prepared for and is going to Locks of Love a public non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children in the United States and Canada under age 21 suffering from long-term medical hair loss from any diagnosis.

To learn more about the organization click on
Locks Of Love

The donated hair has to be at least 10" minimum and have been cut off in a prescribed manner to be accepted.

And so, add some age-lines and more grey hair and I look like this again ...

 

and boy does it feel good !

Displays of ...

As I travel through the years, more and more, I am seeing festive-competitiveness with the main purpose being to-impress. More, bigger, better (supposedly), prettier, most, shiniest, and on-and-on the superlatives roll.

And, in my wanderings, I observe and wonder ...

Many times, displays, reveal much more than they are ment to show.

Memories that warm ...

Today I happened upon one of my mother's coat corsages and it got me remembering ...

Some fond memories from my childhood during the Christmas season are:
• The custom of wearing those lovely Christmas corsages on our coats
• My mother wearing tinkling real little bells as earrings
• Christmas aprons
• Handmade stockings
• Making Spritz cookies with the hand-crank Spritz maker
• Orange rind bits in the fireplace scenting the room
• Carolers coming to the door
• The smell of real mulled wine to warm the carolers for on their way to the next house to sing at
• Salvation Army singers singing under the nearby corner street light
• Having everyone know where our house was, as we were the last in the neighbourhood to have a bin of ashes (from our coal furnace) outside and the curb for people who got stuck in the snow
• My sister and I hand-painting reverse murals on the inside of our front windows as decoration
• Going house to house in the neighbourhood the week before Christmas hand delivering handmade cards to their door
• Real homemade eggnog

And my all time favorite memory and custon, which I still do to this day, is frying almonds. I truely LOVE the aroma as it wafts through my home, and the devine taste ... I just can-not-resist!

To make, take whole blanched almonds, and in a large frying pan melt a generous supply of about ¼" deep of butter, in a pan, add almonds and over medium-high heat stirring them constantly so they don't burn, fry them until they are golden to dark-golden brown, quickly turn them out, and salt to taste. When they have cooled just enough, devour them. The aroma from them is (I find) complety intoxicating.

You are invited to share some of your fond memories in comments ...

My Friendship Shamrock

First I want to thank Cindy for hosting the 'Show and Tell' at http://romantichome.blogspot.com/2009/11/show-tell-friday.html

This week I am featuring

My Friendship Shamrock

    A few years ago a friend insisted on stopping by for a visit on her and her husband’s way to Nevada for their winter stay-over. They had to come way out of their way. I was wondering why they where coming and I was soon to find out.

    As she walked up my front pathway from the gate I could see she had something behind her back which she soon revealed. Around came her hand holding a potted shamrock.

     “Do you remember this Lynda?” she asked.

“You gave this to me 31 years ago.”

I was shocked warmed, then tickled ...

    Yes ...she was correct, I had given her a section of my shamrock that I had in my living room, back then. I broke off a section, potted it and gave it to her as a friendship plant. And, through all the years she had kept it alive and took it when ever they moved.

    Now, she and her husband Bruce travel to Nevada every year, and the previous year they had tried to take it across the border where upon the border guard would not let the shamrock cross, so to keep it safe she asked if she may go and have someone take care of it, until they returned. She somehow found someone. If memory serves me correctly, kind strangers (I think); they just stopping at a house along the roadside and after telling them the history of the plant asked if they could leave it in their care until they returned in the spring.

    Spring arrived, Kathy and Bruce crossed the border back into Canada, returned to the kind peoples home, and retrieved the shamrock on their way back to Alberta..

    Well … that fall she wanted to make sure of shamrock’s care so she brought it back to me. Over the years, she told me, it had had many many babies given away to friends and relatives, but she assured me that the main plant that I had given her was somewhere in the middle still, it had remained, just like our friendship had through all the years …

    So, to this very day, now, my table is graced with a beautiful display our wonderful friendship, sweet little white flowers with broad emerald three petal leaves that open every day and close up at night.

    Things are not really possession, but instead, (the way I see it as) we are stewards of them, and among all the things I have stewardship over, this is one of my fondest …

Thank you Kathy and Bruce for being my friends,

I love you.

"Who's that old lady in the mirror?"

I do not know the date of the original publication of this, but a copy of the following was send to me a while back; I loved it so much I framed it and it is hanging on my bedroom wall:


Dear Readers: My cousin Ruth Davidson sent this to me. I have no idea who wrote it, but I laughed a lot.

     Senior Sentiments

A very weird thing has happened. A strange old lady had moved into my house. I have no idea who she is, where she came from of how she got in. All I know is that one day, she wasn’t there, and the next day, she was.

She manages to keep out of sight for most part, but whenever I pass a mirror, I catch a glimpse of her. And whenever I look in the mirror to check my appearance, there she is, completely obliterating my gorgeous face and body.

I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but I thick she is stealing money from me. I go to the ATM and withdraw $100.00 and a few days later it’s all gone. I certainly don’t spend money that fast.

Food also seems to disappear at an alarming rate — especially in the good stuff like ice cream, cookies and candy. She must have a real sweet tooth, but she better watch it, because she is really packing on the pounds. To make herself feel better, she is tampering with my scales to make me think I am putting on weight, too.

For an old lady, she is quite childish. She likes to play nasty games, like going into my closet when I’m not home and altering my clothes so they don’t fit. And she messes with my files and papers so I can’t find anything. She also fiddles with my VCR so it doesn’t record what I’ve programmed.

She gets into my mail, newspapers and magazines before I do, and blurs the print so I can’t read it. And she has done something really sinister to the volume controls on my TV, radio and telephone. Now all I hear are mumbles and whispers.

She has done other things — like make my stairs steeper, my vacuum cleaner heavier and all my knobs and faucets harder to turn. She even made my bed higher so that getting into and out of it is a real challenge. Lately, she had been fooling with my groceries before I put them away, applying glue to the lids, making it almost imposable for me to open the jars.

She has taken the fun out of shopping for clothes. When I try something on, she stands in front of the dressing room mirror and monopolizes it. She looks totally ridiculous in so of those outfits, plus she keeps me from seeing how great they look on me.

Just when I though she couldn’t get any meaner, she proved me wrong. She came along when I went to get my picture taken for my driver’s license and just as the camera shutter clicked, she jumped in front of me. No one is going to believe that the picture of that old lady is me.
----------------------------------------------

Ann Landers’ column appears in the Life section Monday through Saturday and in the At Home section on

Sundays.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~end of copy.
 For more information on Ann Landers'  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Landers
or Google her name http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=Ann+Landers&meta=&aq=f&oq=

An important history lesson !!!

I received this as a forwarded email today (original email authour unknown).

An important history lesson!

This is the story of women who were ground-breakers. These brave women from the early 1900s made all the difference in the lives we live today.

Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.

The women were innocent and defenseless, but when, in North America, women picketed in front of

the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote, they were jailed.

And by the end of the first night in jail, those women were barely alive.

Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing

went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of

'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'

(Lucy Burns)

They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above

her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping

for air.

(Dora Lewis)

They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her

head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate,

Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack.

Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging,

beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917,

when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his

guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because

they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right

to vote.

For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their

food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.

(Alice Paul)

When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a

chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited.

She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

All women who have ever voted, have ever owned property, have ever enjoyed equal rights need to remember that women’s rights had to be fought for in Canada as well. Do our daughters and our sisters know the price that was paid to earn rights for women here, in North America?

2009 is the 80th Anniversary of the Persons Case in Canada,

which finally declared women in Canada to be Persons!

Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know, so that we remember to celebrate the rights we enjoy.

“Knowledge is Freedom: hide it, and it withers; share it, and it blooms” (P. Hill)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I honour the hight price others paid so we can live the life we now enjoy ... LMM
There is a movie about this, the title is "Iron Jawed Angels" an HBO movie, but I watched it on YouTube ...