Gratitude & Glimmers #107

The significance is hiding in the insignificant.

Appreciate everything.

—Eckhart Tolle

Welcome to my post of glimmers (of joy and wonder) and gratitude for the month of March. You can find links to more posts like this one at LeeAnna's blog, Not Afraid of Color. My apologies that this was not out on Thursday, but where did May go?

1. For the third year in a row, we attended a couple of Jane's Walks in Windsor. Jane’s Walks celebrate our local communities: "neighbourhoods, and the people who live there.” This year Windsor’s festival, the last weekend in April and the first one in May, was the fourth largest in Canada, pretty good for a smaller region. One of the two we did was in Butterfly Lane, a nondescript back lane in Walkerville, which is a neighbourhood in the east end of Windsor.

Homeowners gave permission for artists to paint on their fences or garages.

Local artists did the beautiful butterfly artwork in the lane to raise awareness of brain injury in their community. There were many beautiful pieces.

Isn’t this garage wonderful? I especially love the tree on the left!

Some of the artists were in attendance, so it was really neat to hear their thoughts on what they had painted. Another one we did was a walk along the Detroit River in the west end of Windsor, the Sandwich Town neighbourhood. It was fascinating to hear and see all that has been done to restore habitat,  shoreline, and improve the space for wildlife and people on the Windsor side. It was pretty neat for my husband, as it was his old stomping grounds from when he was a kid.

2. This story about the opening of Saskatchewan’s first traditional birthing lodge on a First Nation is just so good. I first read about it thanks to Tod Maffin’s Saturday newsletter where at the end he gives a whole slew of good news articles in several categories. This is Truth and Reconciliation in action: funding has come from the federal government, though more is needed. I love that the only registered midwife at the lodge is from Ghana. (sidenote: Tod Maffin is an excellent follow on Instagram/YouTube, and a worthwhile subscription to his weekly newsletter. 

3. I just love redbud trees. I think they look like fairies decorated them. Ours seemed to last longer than usual, maybe because of the rather cold spring.

One of the neighbours has a beautiful big one, alongside a jaw-dropping gorgeous dogwood.

Look at the truck for a size comparison!

4. Many of you will remember how I celebrated for several years my quilt distractions, aka squirrels, which I coined a DrEAMi (Drop Everything And Make it) with the graphic depicting a squirrel. Well, I think squirrels are pretty amazing little buggers. Yeah. Amazing. Also annoying. Hence the oxymoron term! This bright girl from Guelph, ON, took her family’s fascination with squirrels to another level, and has now made it to the Canada-wide Science Fair happening in Edmonton.

5. When I read this piece of incredibly good news in another of Tod Maffin’s Saturday newsletters, not a glimmer, but a veritable fireworks went off in my heart and soul: Ontario has become the first province in Canada to ban the cruel practice of doing invasive medical experiments on dogs and cats. Rufus and Zora approve. Now they would like the BSL (Breed Specific Legislation), specifically against pitbulls, struck down.

6. I had my yearly ophthalmologist appointment this month, and seeing this Canada flag proudly displayed at the entrance gave me a glimmer of pride. It wasn’t there last year! In the constant musings about taking us over, these quiet Canadian displays of pride (not normal—we aren’t a flag-waving/bearing/ fixated country) in our sovereignty are wonderful and needed. My ophthalmologist used to have offices on both sides of the river, but now just practices in Windsor. Eyes all good once again, hooray.

7. Every once in a while I walk through the empty lot at the end of my street to gaze at Lake Erie. What a little hit of joy to see these tulips this spring! I wonder who planted them there... 

I’’m so grateful I have this view at the end of my street, off a fairly decent bluff, a mere ten houses away. The colours that evening were pretty spectacular.

8. Speaking of flowers, my pink columbine is pretty gorgeous! It was a little too shaded last year, so although I haven’t moved it, MacGyver has cleared out a little bit around it, so hopefully it will continue to be a happy little camper.

 9. Speaking of happy little campers! Zora has placed herself for a morning nap a few times now in my yoga/reading room. She’s a sun-loving doggie, reminds me of my beloved pitbull, Rocco.

10. Speaking of reading…you’d think I planned these last few segues! I’m reading the 19th book of the year, so I’m a bit behind in my goal of four per month. Two stand out from this past month: The Black Wolf by Louise Penny (it took a long time on the waitlist to get it!) and The Astral Library by Kate Quinn, another that took a long time on the waitlist. If you love books and all that they hold, then you will love this book. As for Louise’s, just wow. She wrote it before that orange shrivelled apricot and his morons were in power; she even prefaced the book with that statement, and, like Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, it is chilling. I am looking forward to reading the one she’s co-written with Mellissa Fung, The Last Mandarin. It will be a wiat—I’m #45 on the list! Another I read was We’ll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida. Although I loved the premise and the touches of fantasy in the book, I had a hard time with following the emotions, or lack thereof, and abrupt emotional changes of the characters. I think it’s a cultural thing, but I’ve now read a couple Japanese authors withint the past few months, and felt the same with both.

Last of all, but most important, I’m so grateful for the means to fly to Alberta to see our beloved Brady graduate from grade 12 (note: one graduates from an institution; the institution, be it a university or high school, graduates its students. This grammatical lapse drives me insane these days). I’ve finished his lion quilt, and its wrapped and ready to fly with me out west!