Sophie's Story

     Today was the last practice in the 30 day yoga journey. Earlier this month I had decided I was going each practice every day. I've never done that many days of yoga that many days in a row. This year I wanted to try it.    It wasn't as hard as I thought to fit them in on the days that I usually don't work out. On the days that I worked a morning shift, I did the practice after dinner or before bedtime. On Thursdays I did the practice before my Toastmaster's meeting. The fact that the practices were 20-25 minutes long helped a lot.     Some of the practices were pretty challenging and I learned to modify things to make them work for me. I think that they are set up for people with some experience and who are more flexible and in some ways stronger than I am. The leader uses very non judgmental language which helps me to feel better. I look more like Hilda the Dancing Hippo than a lithe and graceful yogi, my tree poses are more like shaking tree or crashing tree. Sti

     Former host of CBS Sunday Morning, Charles Osgood, died recently at age 91. I've spent many Sunday mornings, virtually, with him and have fond memories of those days.    My mother got me interested in the show back when Osgood's predecessor, Charles Kuralt, was the host. Until then I never watched TV on Sunday morning because we went to church. After I graduated from college, on weekends I wasn't visiting my parents, I watched Sunday Morning now and again.    I didn't become a regular viewer until I moved into my first house in Faribault. Every weekend off that I spent at home I watched Sunday morning. Charles Osgood was the host.     I liked to watch Sunday Morning while drinking a pot of freshly brewed tea and eating pastries from a local bakery. I always bought the pastry on Saturday. I would sit on the couch, pot of tea on the coffee table and pastry on a plate, cats curled up nearby ready for the first sounds of the trumpet that began each show.    For the nex

     Last summer my Uncle James had lunch with my parents and me. Uncle James and my Dad are brothers. I asked them about food that they used to eat when they were younger. One of them mentioned something called "slop". It was a dish made of hamburger, elbow macaroni, mushroom soup and tomatoes. They told me that my Aunt Ann would have the recipe.    I emailed Aunt Ann. She had the recipe and still made it. It was a favourite of her family. She it to me. It was something that Aunt Carol, found on the back of macaroni box. She was helping their uncle on the farm while their aunt was in the hospital and found the recipe. They didn't have the tomatoes called for in the recipe so they used a quart of home canned tomatoes. They didn't have mushrooms either so they used mushroom soup. When they made it at home they used both mushroom soup and canned mushrooms.     Two weeks ago Dad sent a text telling me that Uncle James would be coming for lunch and that we should have slo

   Last week C and I had a few errands to run on the east side of town after I got my hair done.  On the way home we stopped off to grab some lunch at a fast food restaurant. When we walked in I saw that they had a Freestyle soda machine.    A Freestyle soda machine is one that has several basic sodas with optional flavorings for each basic kind. For instance you can get a cherry cola from a Freestyle machine. I really like these machines because I can get different kinds of flavours.     After we put in our order and got our cups, I walked over to the machine to explore my options. They had caffeine free diet cola, which I prefer because normal cola is too sweet for me. (Yes, I am aware it's not healthy.) I looked at the flavoring options and chose vanilla. There is something about vanilla and cola flavor that I really like.    I took my drink to our table while C went back to get our food. The first sip was wonderful. I savored my drink along with the burger and fries that I orde

     It's January and I've been hit with my yearly desire to be more organized. Usually this manifests itself as a desire to empty every bookshelf and closet and then put everything back hopefully more neatly and getting rid of things I don't want or need.    My first targets are going to be the three bookshelves we have in the living room and the bookshelf in our bedroom. The living room ones are seen by anyone who visits our home and I want them to be neat. I also want to be able to find what I want without having to dig around for it.    We have one whole bookcase dedicated to church books. Some of them are ones I do not think we will ever use again. Others are paper copies of things that can be accessed digitally. My goal is to have all the church books in that one bookcase and in order so we can find what we want easily. We have another bookshelf with other books that is messy, there are papers and other items laying all over it. I want to straighten it out and maybe p

     Every January for the last several years the YouTube yoga teacher I like does a 30 day yoga journey. This is the second one I've participated in. (I have gone back and done past ones before.) I usually don't work out on Sunday, Thursday or any day that I work the day shift so I was not participating in classes on those days and would have to do two classes on one day to catch up. This year I decided I was not going to skip days and make them up. If that means I'd do some classes after work, then that's what I would do.    I wanted to try doing the yoga journey as it was intended. There would be thousands of other people doing the same thing. The thought of being a part of this community even though I don't know any of them and would never see them interested me. I also wanted the feeling of taking on the challenge, small as it is and completing it. Starting the year with a completed goal  is always a good thing to do.    The physical challenge is also something

     Today I had a early appointment with my audiologist, which  took about 45 minutes. The only other errand we had to complete was to take my glasses in for an adjustment. Today is also date day. I gave C a couple options. The first was that we go to breakfast and then stay home for the rest of the day to do the things we needed to get done at home. The second was to go home do what we need to do and then go out to lunch. C thought about it for a few minutes. I suggested a couple of  breakfast places. One of them is  OPH. OPH is short for the Original Pancake House, a breakfast restaurant that I was introduced to last summer.    C perked up when I suggested OPH. We decided we would go home to get my glasses (I was wearing an old pair), have breakfast at OPH and then go to get the glasses adjusted.     The parking lot looked crowded so we thought we may have to wait for a table. I went inside while C parked the car. Once I got inside I saw that there was plenty of room. I was seated a

     Anyone who has been reading this column know that yesterday and today are my favourite holidays. Having the clean slate of a new year in front of me is my favourite thing to celebrate. The added benefit of a day to eat junk food without guilt is an added bonus.     I like looking ahead too. I don't make any new year resolutions. I do think of some things that I'd like to do this year and plan for how to get them done. C and I try to set a few goals as a couple like doing certain house projects, cleaning up our diets or managing our finances differently.     2023 brought a few changes to our lives. The biggest was losing Scamp in May. For the first time in nearly 30 years. I did not have a cat to take care of. I had completely underestimated how devastated I was. So much of my time had been spent caring for Scamp especially as he got older. I felt very lonely and bereft when he was gone. In July we had an opportunity to help someone out by babysitting a young kitten. It mad