Easter

I hope you are enjoying a wonderful Easter week-end and spending time with family and friends.  I always enjoy the opportunity to get together with loved ones for special occasions. As well as the religious significance of Easter, it also heralds the start of spring.  The days are longer and warmer.  You can feel the changing of the season as we celebrate this holiday.

When my boys were little, our tradition was to decorate Easter eggs on Good Friday.  Every year, cousins and friends would gather at our house, we would mix different colours of dye in many cups and everyone could decorate as many eggs as they wanted.  It seemed that each year, something new was available for sale to create even better and brighter eggs: shrink wraps, hot colours, sparkles, special crayons – the list was never ending.  Many tiny hands created wonderful master pieces which were proudly used for decorations throughout the house when we gathered for our Easter dinner.  As I look back through photo albums, I have pictures of so many relatives and friends who took part in our Easter egg decorating day over the years.  The eggs never went to waste.  After Easter, the eggs were pickled and a week or so later, the adults (mainly the male adults) would enjoy pickled eggs.

            One of my favorite Easter memories is of the year my husband’s sister and brother-in-law were at our house with their two children.  Their son was around six years old and was starting to question the existence of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.  We tried to convince him there was indeed an Easter Bunny, but he went to bed still wondering  – although he did leave his Easter basket out,  just in case.  We lived in the country at the time and that spring there were a lot of rabbits going through our yard.  On Easter morning, he awoke to find his basket filled.  Shortly after breakfast, his uncle took him out for a walk and, sure enough, they found rabbit tracks!  He ran into the house and excitedly took his Mom that there was truly an Easter bunny because he had just seen his tracks!  It would be a couple more years before he figured out the truth, but it gave him two more Easters to enjoy the magic of the Easter bunny.

            Of course, the highlight of Easter has always been our family gathering on Easter Sunday.  When I was younger, it was at my grand-parents, then at Mom and Dad’s and now we have our own Easter meal with our children.  The generations come and go, things change, life goes on, but the one constant is the joy of getting together as a family to celebrate special occasions.

            I hope you creat new Easter memories this year and that your holiday week-end finds you surrounded by family and loved ones.

            Enjoying special times with special people . . .  it’s a good thing!

 

Your "Smart" House

Just when a person thinks technology has gone as far as it possibly can and there just cannot be anything new to develop and create, a trade show is held which proves us wrong.  There are many new things just around the corner, which we will find incredible at first and will be unable to live without six months later, just as we do with every new electronic gizmo and gadget that comes out.

               In a few short years, you will be brushing your teeth and decide to check your calendar to see what your day holds in store for you.  A tap on your mirror will bring up your calendar.  Sitting down at a laptop will be old-school.  As computers get smaller and screens more flexible, it will be possible to have alternative screens everywhere.  Almost any flat surface in your house will be inter-active.   Windows, wall and even appliances will have a computer brain with a connection to the internet and will be “smart” – much like our “smart” phones of today.  I’m not making this stuff up!  Steve Clayton is the editor of the “Next at Microsoft blog” and he assures readers that this and more is on its way into our homes.

               What else is Mr. Clayton talking about?  Well, how about a camera which is embedded in the door and has facial recognition?  This will make house keys a thing of the past.  This system will let you dog in and out, but not your neighbor’s pets.   If a family members brings someone home (ie. your daughter brings that “cute boy” home), the house will text a message to you and you can decide your next course of action.

               My favorite “coming soon item” is something which will replace bar codes used in stores now.  It is called RFID (radio frequency identification).  The tags will emit a radio signal and will be able to be read from a short distance.  So, you will be able to place items in a cart at your favorite store and simply walk out of the door.  A RFID scanner will read the tags as you leave and charge your credit card.  This technology will also be available for your home.  For example, by adding a scanner to your fridge, you can immediately know what is in inside.  In fact, medical labs already use this technology.   The tags are coming down in price very quickly and predictions are that we will soon be using RFID tags. 

               I remember watching the Jetsons on TV, those cartoon characters who lived in the future.  In their futuristic world they had many marvelous inventions, which we knew could never really be created in real life.  It turns out we were wrong and that  we are able to live like the Jetsons,  and maybe even better than they did.  

               So, bring on the future!  I can’t wait to try out all the new offerings.  I wonder, though, if they will ever invent a way for the dishes to empty themselves out of the dishwasher into the cupboard?   Looking forward to living like the Jetson Family  . . . it’s a good thing!

The River Lot

Nel and I have been friends for as long as I remember. Our families were friends before we were even born.  My mother’s family farm was next to Nel’s father’s.  My dad was friends with her uncle.  Although we lived on different sides of the river and went to school in different towns, somehow we became friends as young girls and the friendship has lasted all these years.  So it was that Nel and her husband asked me to be godmother to their son (admittedly, it was the fourth child, but they did finally get around to asking me).  They asked Nel’s brother, Terry, to be the godfather – and the gloves were off.  For over twenty years, we competed for the affection of our godson.

The competition began almost as soon as we accepted the honour of being godparents.  At his baptism, we fought over who would hold him during the ceremony– I did, for most of the ceremony, but then Terry insisted on holding him too.  We competed over who bought the most gifts – I did.  We fought over who visited him the most often – he did.  Terry accused me of trying to buy our godson’s affection with gifts.  I accused him of trying to turn our godson against me with all his visits. We had several discussions over which was more important: gifts or visits.  He insisted that gifts were an easy way out of taking the time to visit; I accused him of being cheap and getting free food and a bed by visiting without bearing gifts.   We kept careful track of how often our godson visited each of us.  It was a good-natured battle we both enjoyed over the years. 

That competition came to an end on February 7.  Terry lost a short battle with cancer.

When he wasn’t competing with me, Terry led a busy, full life and was an amazing man.  As a teen-ager, I watched Nel’s big brother become a married man and was in awe of how beautiful his wife was.  Shortly after they married, she was told she had MS and her condition quickly deteriorated.  I always quietly admired Terry for the way he stood by his wife through all her years of suffering.  In the final years of her life, she was mostly bedridden. Terry put his life on hold for her, although I suspect he would never have seen it that way.  He would have seen it as living his life with the woman he loved. 

After she passed away, Terry re-married and built a new life.  He was fortunate to have found another soul mate.  Then, twelve years ago, another woman came into his life: his beautiful daughter Kate was born.  Terry lived his life to the fullest.  He had a long career as a social worker.  He enjoyed being a pilot, gardening and golfing.  Terry took pride in his Métis background.  But likely the thing that Terry loved the most was the home he shared with his wife and daughter on a river lot by St. Laurent. It was situated very close to the home he had grown up in.  He loved that river and the serenity of living there.  In his obituary, it is written that he loved watching “the river flow and the St. Laurent ferry cross back and forth on lazy summer days”.  That is the way I will remember Terry: out on his long river lot, high above the river, the wind blowing through his hair as he took in the site he so loved – the Saskatchewan River and the St. Laurent Ferry.  

The next time I buy something for – or visit with - our godson, I will remember Terry and be thankful that our paths crossed and our lives touched.  Remembering a truly amazing man . . .  it's a good thing.
 

The Power of Touch

Did you know there is now scientific proof that touching someone or giving someone a hug will actually cause changes in your body which will make you happier, more relaxed and less stressed?  According to the Touch Research Institute in Florida, hugging and touching each other has more medical, psychological and emotional benefits than anyone ever dreamed of.

And, yes, there really is a Touch Research Institute.  It is located at the University Of Miami School Of Medicine.  It was established in 1992 and is the first center in the world to focus solely on the study of touch and its relevance in medicine and science.  Teams of researchers from the best universities in the world have come to TRI to gather information and gain a better understanding of the therapeutic value of touch.  Their findings have been amazing.

Dr. Tiffany Field has studied the power of touch for many years.  As the director of RTI since its inception, she has witnessed how touch, in many different forms, can reduce pain and anxiety, ease depression and aggressive behavior, and lower heart rate and blood pressure.  Dr. Fields states that touch can also promote immune function and healing. 

Touching, hugging and even a simple hand shake literally make you happier.  When you experience touch, your brain’s vagus nerve is signalled.  When this happens, cortisol is decreased in the body and your stress level is lowered. 

Studies are proving that touch can lead to changes in how people think and act.  For example, students who were given a touch on the back or arm from a teacher were twice as likely to volunteer in class compared to those students who had no contact with their teacher.  In another study, it was found that if a doctor gave his or her patient a sympathetic touch such a holding the patient’s hand even for a few seconds, the patient estimated that the visit had lasted twice as long as it actually had.  When patients who had not received physical contact from their doctor were asked to estimate the length of their visit, they guessed a shorter time.   

            In yet another study on touch, women with breast cancer and HIV patients had an increase in natural killer cells after receiving a massage, strengthening their immune system.  As well, their levels of anxiety and depression were decreased.  Studies have shown that premature babies in NICU who were touched often gained weight at a faster rate than babies who were not touched as often.  After receiving massages, adults completed math problems much quicker and more accurately than those who had not been given a massage.

            Touch is beneficial to both the giver and the receiver.  Dr. Field trained elderly volunteers to give massages to infants.  After three weeks, the infants were calmer and the seniors had less anxiety and depression, had an improved mood, had more social contacts and fewer doctor visits!

            Give someone a hug, or even a handshake – it just might improve the health of both of you! At the very least, it will make you both happier.   Hugging for the health of it . . .  it’s a good thing!