Room For All

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Goodness and hope is a wonderful wish for the room.

I am taking a lunch break and checking in.

I am aware of the passage of time and focused on getting ready for 3 weeks off work.

Life is good
 
Well, I'm getting settled in. I've learned to change my password from the one assigned to me and filled in a bit of my profile. I left out the age thingie. I liked how the original café permitted a person to be in an age-range without giving the exact age. I miss my old Café where everything was familiar and I knew how to do everything. But I will get settled in here.

I promised to report on my week away. The Seminar was 'Hope and Compassion in a World of Fear'. In addition to all the things we generally have to fear (global warming, the situation in Palestine, Crimea, various African countries, North Korea, economics, changes in our churches) we had a shooting of five police officers locally - and while we were there facebook carried the story of a black boy in Newfoundland being bullied at school. Lots to fear! Our speakers were Walter Farquharson and Mayann Francis. Both very different; both very interesting. We also had a young woman from Halifax, a Lutheran priest, lead us in daily worship. It was a wonderful, uplifting, empowering, affirming experience. From the moment of arrival, walking in and seeing familiar faces from years past, excellent cafeteria meals, lots of singing, lectures, small group discussions - all well organized, planned, carried out. Informal discussions while walking between the residence, cafeteria and lecture hall. Informal gatherings in the evening with wine, cheese, and/or chips and treats in the one room that soon was designated 'the party room'.
Exhausting - I'm not used to that much activity five days in a row. But good. That is, everything except the bunks built into the walls of the residence in 1960 and not changed since - basically a mattress in a raised wooden box. I'm too old for that. Communal bathrooms and showers - ok for a week - but I could have used a real bed.
People were nice. Some quietly helped me - holding doors, taking away my dishes after the meals, pointing out where the elevator was when most people were taking the stairs. One woman noticed that I sat for most hymn (conserving energy and holding the hymn book on my knees) and she sat with me. Little things mean a lot.
I'm glad I went. I'm hoping that I'll be able to go again.
 
Glad you found this to be such a wonderful experience, seeler. Many, many, many years ago I heard Walter Farquharson speak (if it is the same one). I can't remember much about it, but I did remember his name. I hope all their came away with some good tools to combat fear. Hope you are catching up on your energy and rest.
 

That's an interesting choice of instrument. I'd likely just go for something familiar like piano (since we have one from when Little M was studying it) or acoustic guitar (one of my favorite instruments).


Many people play piano and guitar - and we already have piano and guitar players at my church. Hence - I was looking for something a bit more unusual. What do you appreciate most about acoustic guitar music?
 
I hope your energy level boosts overnight and that tomorrow is the best day you've had in a long time tomorrow.

Hey, Jae, how about a drum?


Good idea - Beloved. I thought of drum - but I'd like something that can carry the melody. I don't know exactly the kind of ministry that I'll be involved in in the future - so I want to be prepared as much as possible. Even now as a Sunday School teacher it would be nice to be able to play something when the kids sing.
 
Humidity is kicking in in Southern Ontario. Thunderstorms were called for today, but seems to have passed us by or maybe delayed as now they are set for tomorrow night.

Hopefully they will come tonight. I love to watch out the window at a good thunderstorm. One of my favorite things is to watch a storm over the Atlantic Ocean when I am at my mom's cottage in rural New Brunswick.

Pinga said:
Jae, do you have musical education already? I tried piano for a few years and hope to again, but dont' think that I will ever be able to sit down and play.

Because you don't have the time? I got up to grade 6 in piano - and grade 2 in music theory. I've also been in a number of choirs - both in the UCCanada and the FEBCC - and have led choirs as well. I've never tried to learn a stringed instrument before though. In school I tooted the clarinet to an average degree.
 
In school I tooted the clarinet to an average degree.

You, too, eh? Still own a clarinet though I have not been playing the last few years.

As for what I like about acoustic guitar sound, it is simply the versatility. You can play a melody unaccompanied or even accompanying yourself to some extent with the chords. You can use it to accompany singing or other instruments without having to worry about overwhelming them since it isn't an especially loud instrument (unless you amplify it using a mike). It is a great instrument for noodling around and improvising. It is perhaps the one instrument that you can find in almost every genre of music from classical (right back to at least the baroque period) through to modern alt-rock (though it is often used mainly for rhythm in rock, with electric guitars doing the heavy lifting).
 
For me, it is time. I love the sound of our piano (it is a wonderful piano that was gifted to us). I just find that I dont go and sit and do it. I am thinking some retirement mornings will be good for playing.
 
Good morning everyone!

It is a beautiful, sunny Manitoba morning. Not a cloud in the sky. The sky has been risen for awhile, but it is just peeking around the corner of my place and over the tall trees. The birds are singing in the bushes, seagulls are fishing in the bay, the mergansers are sitting on the neighbour's roof again (I'm assuming they have a nest in the end of my little bay as when I went outside to check out the morning the momma flew overhead to that side and the poppa sat on the roof squaking away), the honey bees are noisily buzzing in my flowering caragana bushes at the side (hundreds of them), and I am having chamomille tea and playing on wondercafe2.

In this room, a boiling kettle is on the cupboard and coffee is perking here in the room . . . a beautiful, calm atmosphere here. And scones and jam are ready for those who need to eat upon arising, and then I'm sure someone will come along in awhile and do the eggs and bacon.

On my mind today . . . the closing of original wondercafe - I still keep going in and posting on the LPT - it is so quiet over there . . . kind of sad . . . will it just stop one day, and we will only know by trying to sign in and won't be able to? Also on my mind, two persons I know from my church who are at end stages of cancer . . . thinking of their families who walk by them at this time. Thinking of my son, who turns 35 this week - where have the years gone? Thinking of the roomies - and hope the sunshine, and its warmth, fill your world this day.

What is on your mind?

(Hope all those who were weary this week from activity, health issues, family events, and other life experiences are rested and ready for the day).
 
Good morning all.

Things continue in the planning for the trip to the west from gearing up, to practice, to making plans for vancouver. just got off a phone call for the details on the transition from vancouver to penticton.

In an unrelated story, a distant cousin had stumbled across a blog that I had done which posted the writing of my paternal grandmother. She wrote a lovely comment on it. We have now connected on facebook and she is looking at old photos that i had posted of my grandmothers. Grandmother's house had burned and many photos are damaged. I dont' have many notes, as we dont' know the folks from Eastern Ontario much. Looking forward to any photos she might share of my grandmother or great-grandmother in a young age.
 
Pinga, glad to hear you're catching up with a cousin.

It's a nice day today, some rain on and off. Yesterday I was doing better, but just felt really lazy still. I did do a bit more in the evening. Hoping to be a bit more active today though. My appointment tomorrow is also really early, so maybe wearing myself out slightly during the day won't be a bad thing :) Chemguy will be gone for a while, which makes me a bit uneasy. He picks up quite a bit of slack when I'm not able to get things done and I feel safer knowing he can do an IV for me if I need it.

I feel pretty good though. My stomach is the flattest it's been for a long time (I know that won't last all day though!) thanks partially to the berinert I think, but I also get typical bloating. I have a few mosquito bites. They usually get quite big on me, but these are small. I think I had some earlier on my back but Chemguy didn't think so. I'm not sure if it's just the species that's biting right now, or if some of the swelling is HAE as well. Damage from the allergic reaction most people get + any scratching could easily lead to swelling. Just one of many discoveries of how this may have been effecting me for many years and I didn't realize it.

There was a shooting close to me this morning. It sounds like everyone will be ok. The quickest road out of my community as well as the main one outside of my community were blocked off, I don't know if that's over or if it's still there. It's a bit scary, this is an area with so many kids, it would surprise me less by where I rented. I think there is quite a bit of drug use going on around here though, the construction sites seem to attract it.
 
Oh no, chemgal . . . hope you keep safe!

Re: mosquito bites - I know your situation is totally different, but one thing I've notice for a few years now with mosquito bites, is that the first few I get don't seem to bother me . . . no itching or swelling, but as the season goes on, and more bites are got, I get more swelling and the itching is awful.
 
I think it was wee hours of the morning, and I slept through it all. I don't feel in harm's way or anything, it just feels really out of place that's all.

Beloved, I have always found some mosquitoes are worse than others, that's probably some of the issue. Having a bunch of bites already later in the season probably also makes it worse. I'm just hoping for me that some of it is HAE, so that hopefully I won't feel as miserable with them in the future!
 
I won't be alone for dinner. Chemguy forgot an entire bag (he always forgets something) and isn't working too far away today, so we'll have dinner together. He won't be staying though, he do the longer drive to the hotel tonight because he still has hours to go to get to the site in the morning.
 
I was disappointed today. I was just about to leave the house to go down to the church to 'feed the hungry' when I got a phone call. We've closed the service until fall. Last Wednesday was the last day for this service until September. We've run out of money in our benevolent fund. I'm sad because I really enjoyed helping out and felt that I was doing something important and meaningful But I imagine our clients are even more sad - and possibly hungry if they have come to rely upon us.
 
Seeler, sorry to hear that. I've enjoyed reading your posts and could tell how it was important to you and how others relied on it. Sometimes when one service decreases another picks up at least some of the slack. May you could look around and help out with a group that provides a similar service?
 
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