Life is an adventure

The beautiful colours that carpet the forest floor.

That is lived one moment at a time and you maybe asking yourself what does this have to do with anything.  Great question and the answer is reflected in the lack of blog posts over the past number of days.  

One of our favourite activities is walking Toaster at sunset.

In the moments between the last post and today we have done many things.  We explored Victoria BC, spent wonderful evenings with our son and daughter-in-love, flew home, visited with our children, had a plumber come in and fix a leaking pipe, enjoyed the company of our youngest granddaughter three nights in a row, went walking with our oldest son here at home, delivered a gift from our son in Victoria to his sister here in Ontario and took personal time for pedicures and I had a manicure. 

Everywhere we look there are signs of fall 

And when I thought about writing a blog post or catching up on my 5 Minutes Of My Day the activity did not bring me joy so I turned to something that did.

Father and son engaged an evening game together

I think for the next few month while we spend time at home the blog will be posted when the activity of sitting at a computer brings me joy, until I organize my retired life and find that sweet spot where sharing through pictures does bring me joy.

Paul and I enjoyed the cultural variety of foods and we tasted many this Trip.

Fall is my favourite time of the year to walk , nature has clothed herself in abundant colours and she dances with the wind.

Found enough fabric to make the dress that Rylee needs.  Rylee learned how to carefully ripe out seams so that the fabric can be used,  A $4 find at Salvation Armyu

Thank you for dropping in to read this post and we hope you enjoy the images I have explained the pictures in the captions below.

Grandma Snyder

2013-2019twosnydergirls 

Aunt Marjorie

Aunt Marjorie

Chocolate chip cookies

Sock monkeys

Raggedy Ann Dolls

Grape juice and Niagara Dry Ginger ale

Singing

Practical lace up black shoes

A speeding ticket for driving too slow

Blond hair pulled into a bun lowered in prayer

Celery de-stringed

Onions and cabbage diced so fine all done by hand

Chocolate everything

Painted cards and pictures

Love and marriage at 65

Handwork the finer the better

Dusty rose

Licking her tasting finger

And so much more.

She played a large role in my life and while we did not see her often over the last years we knew she was there and now she is gone.

Aunt Marjorie is featured often in our blog for her recipes, and my childhood memories 

Angels

Great Great Aunt Marjorie's Chocolate Chip Cookies

Home Made Mayonnaise

Four Generation Dresden Plate Quilt

and many more.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2018 twosnydergirls

Change

‘No one puts new wine into old wine skin lest the wine skin burst’ Mark2:21-22 destroying both the skin and the wine and yet we do this over and over again. 

A conversation took place today that brought this saying to mind.  A young woman was romanticizing the day she would retire. 

“When I retire I am going to learn to play the piano, I’m going to downsize my life, I’m going to play cards and I’m going to lose weight!” 

A good-natured poke was made at her retirement plans 

“Do you do any of that now do you even own a piano?” “No when I retire I’ll have all the time I need and to buy new piano” and with that everyone laughed and moved on with their day.

Dreams are important to have and if we want to live without being consumed by disillusionment when dreams do not come true, we need to be prepared to make changes.  To be free to let go of habits, personal possessions and to be open to gathering new habits and possession so we can realize our dreams at some future date.

Far too often we set goals based on an unrealistic view of a future, on a future that cannot be created unless we are prepared to embrace change now.

How will we learn to play the piano if we never own a piano? 

How will realize living with less when we continue to collect and gather items to us?

Or

Be healthy at the point of retire without paying attention to in now?

No amount of time will at the point of retirement will ensure dreams will be fulfilled if we do not embrace change now.

Too often we expect our future dreams to fit into our current way of life we attempt to put new wine in old wine skins when we can put new wine in a new wine skin and enjoy the fulfillment of dreams.

Begin today to make small changes that will ensure future dreams are positioned for success.

This is the challenge and I have for myself as I prepare to retire and for my children and grandchildren as they set the paths that they will take through their lives.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2018twosnydergirls

Life five minutes at a time

“If you've gotten so far behind on posting your five-minutes-of-the-day why don't you just give it up?”   

If Grandpa Snyder had asked me that seven days ago I would've considered giving up this project of four years.  Life was too hard at that point and the tasks before me overwhelming.  It was all I could do to get through each day as I walked slowly towards the final event in saying goodbye to my beloved mother.

I am thrilled to say that today posting five-minutes-of-my-day, a photographic journey is once again a labor of love and an unexpected path to healing the emotional wounds grief has left behind.

Since May 24, 2014 I have been posting a picture a day representing five minutes of that day and I capture are for the most part images that brought me joy or were beautiful moments in-and-of themselves.

At the beginning of 2017 we started to post a daily retrospective - January 1st over the past four years and so.  It has been interesting to see that over the years I’ve captured similar images, a favorite flower’s first bloom or spring runoff flooding our local rivers and images of things that bring me joy, ice cream, our grandchildren, drives through our rural community.

2016 was a difficult year and as the images that were captured remind us it was also a year of joy and I found joy again as I took the time too catch-up on my posts for the past two weeks.  Through this exercise I came to the realization that while life at times is very difficult these difficult events are not the totality of our lives - the things that define our lives.  That over the past two weeks I still found images of joy to capture through the camera lens and as I looked back over the past four years joy shines brightly in remembered moments.

I will keep taking one picture a day and posting it on our blog my Photographic Journal so that I never forget that life is not made up of events big or small but of moments, moments I choose to captured and remember in images representing 5-minutes-of-my-day.

Grandma Snyder

©2013 - 2017 twosnydergirls

Reflections on 2016

2016 started ominously with Great Grandma finding a lump on her breast and ended with us turning in the keys to her on vacant home.  

Was everything about 2016 bad of course not. 

There were many happy moments throughout the year, times that we laughed until we cried.  Great Sunday dinners shared with Great Grandma and Great John, road trips to take in the beauty of the Ontario country side, family gatherings, and vacations.

The rest our family experienced good health in 2016 and we gathered together for Christmas Eve and shared memories of Great Grandma, face-timing with Great John sharing as much of our experience with him as we could.

What have we learned from our experiences in 2016?

1.      Never pass on an opportunity to visit with family too soon the opportunity will no longer exist.  Thus it is that in 2017 we want to continue the tradition of inviting family and friends to Sunday dinner and with each meal we will keep alive the joy that breaking bread with family after church brought to Mother.

2.     We have no control over the future.  We can make all of the plans we want too and believe with all our hearts that positive outcomes will result only to experience the unexpected and tragedy.  We watched helplessly while too many moments in 2016 were wasted in worry, planning, anxiety, and anger.  These were moments that robbed life of joy and happiness unnecessarily.  In 2017 we desire to live in the moments life gives us, to seek joy in the face of tragedy and let tomorrow worry about it’s self.  We will make plans and once they are made relax back into the moment we find ourselves in.

3.     Our stuff is not necessarily important to the next generation.  You only have to dispose of the beloved objects of a family member to realize that what they held as precious, important, worthy of handing-down does not necessarily have the same value to next generation.  What held value were small things that evoked memories of Grandma/Mother, a picture on the wall, a piece of costume jewelry she worn all the time, hand written recipes that she would make when you visited.  In 2017 we will declutter our home asking our children if pieces of furniture, picture … hold value for them these we will keep.  Before we send family heirlooms to a second hand shop we will reach out to extended family to see if value can be found there.

4.     We all have too much clutter in our lives.  We are not referring to items spoken of above, no this is just stuff.  Papers we filed away 10 years ago and never looked at again, cleaning supplies with an inches left in them, old glasses, clothing … just the general accumulation of daily stuff.  In 2017 we are going to declutter our home systematically going through every closet, drawer, cedar chest, book shelf and cupboard.  We started on our pantry and to our horror we found things that were best before dated in 2012!  They had been pushed to the back forgotten for four years Yuck!

5.     The importance of looking after yourself.  Never forgo taking time out of each day for yourself because other need you.  If you are needed then you must keep yourself healthy, well hydrated and rested. We took three weeks in the fall and travelled to Utah those memories held us together during the hardest times of 2016.  We both have daily routines that renew us and in 2017 we plan on moving these forward.  Never underestimate the importance of kiss every morning before you part or holding hands when walking beside someone you love.

6.      We are not indispensable that being part of a family means that others will step up and fill the breaches your absence creates.  The strength of a family can be measured by the flexibility of the members to step up and change roles.  In 2017 we will continue to travel knowing that our children will support each other and as their parents we will start to step back letting them shine as competent adults making new tradition for this family of ours.

So as 2016 slips away quietly in our home, was 2016 a bad year… no it was a normal year made up of moments, new experiences, joy, sadness, family, laughter, fear, work, play, sickness, health, anger, forgiveness, friendship, love, birth and death.  

What will 2017 bring, well more of the same and for this we are grateful.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2017 twosnydergirls.

Closing Doors

We are proud people who spent our working lives garnering respect, trust, and building our personalities ~ building the facades that we project into the world.

Then we retire, our children move away and we hold even tighter to the facades until our bodies that betray us.

It’s not the wrinkles, the grey hair or even our stumbling gaits.

It is our bladders, our bowel, and the total ruin of our facade.  

We lock ourselves in our homes, our apartment, in our aging care rooms.

We don’t come out and we don't let them in we are embarrassed, we're ashamed 

we have come to believe that the facade is all that we are.

We have not prepared our egos to age.

Be mindful of the facades you are building and what they will mean to your ego as you age.

Keep all of the doors in your life open so that love, family and opportunity can come in.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2016 twosnydergirls

Recipe for getting through a difficult week.

8 hours of sleep every night.

30 minutes to wake up slowly enjoy that transition period from sleeping to waking you know the time when the bed is just the right temperature and reality has not yet crashed into your consciousness. 

1 hour to shower, and dress, while enjoying a good cup of your favourite hot drink.

30 minutes to eat a healthy breakfast.

Now is the time you go to work either at home or outside the home.

Stop for both a morning and afternoon break – get outside and walk finding joy in the sounds of life all around you.

Eat a healthy lunch and spend 10 minutes mediating on something that makes you happy.

Once home prepare supper and eat this meal at the kitchen or dinning room table.  

Even if you live alone you are worth it take the time.

Clean up the kitchen right away.

Take 30 minutes to lay out the clothing you will wear tomorrow.

45 minutes to soak in the tub.

Get to bed early.

Forgive yourself for any sharp words you directed at others or yourself.

Affirm that you going through a stressful period and acknowledge that it will also come to an end.

Create for yourself an emotional first aid kit.  

This is a small container that you can carry with you.  In your emotional first aid kit place pictures of people and places that make you happy.  Quotes that remind you that this too will pass.  A photograph of you smiling.  

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2016 twosnydergirls