Sophie's Story

      It's 11 AM. The turkey is in the crockpot. The dishes are washed. C is in the kitchen preparing cornbread dressing with the cornbread I baked yesterday. This is something from his southern culture that we have incorporated into our meal. I wasn't sure I would like it as I was used to eating  traditional stuffing. This is baked in a dish in the oven and not put into the bird. Good for us, since we do not get a whole turkey, just a breast. It's become my favourite part of the meal next to the mashed potatoes.      The last week I noted that my Facebook memories show posts where I show pictures or write about things for which I am grateful. Some of them are pretty obvious like C, my job, the cats, our home and my coworkers. Some of them are a bit more interesting our like our furnace, cellphones and refrigerator.     Today I'm going to write about a few less obvious things that I'm grateful for.      Monday we went to Cannon...

           The weather app on my computer has something called E-Tree. I noticed it earlier this year. You get a seed. Then you are given a set of tasks to do daily that feed the tree. Whenever you do a task or access the app at certain times during the day you get points and the tree grows. When you get to a certain number of points a real tree is planted somewhere and you start over with another seed.          I know it's a ploy by the developers to get people to use the app more often. I'm not even sure if they really plant trees. The last pictures that show trees being planted were from over a year ago. Still I enjoy using the app and watching my E-Tree grow from a sapling into a proper little tree.          There have been some surprising side  benefits to doing this. I find that I'm learning things. Here are a few things I like about my E-Tree.          I discovered that N...

      Last week I harvested carrots from our garden. I filled two gallon sized bags with carrots and there are more carrots to harvest. One of the things I did was make carrot cake. I always wanted to make carrot cake with carrots I grew myself. I only needed to use one carrot. Maybe I'm a little biased, but it might have been the best carrot cake I've ever made. I may make more and freeze it. We've also been having stir fry about once a week. It's another good way to use carrots.      C and I went to a movie on Monday, The last time this happened was when we went to see the movie 'The Post' in 2017. I get motion sick in movie theatres so I have to take medicine if I want to see a movie. I wanted to see the movie 'Conclave'.       I forgot how nice theatres are now. The seats are armchairs where you can put your feet up. There's a place to put a cup of soda. The seats are far enough apart that you don't have to share an armrest with anyo...

     I wasn't planning on writing about the election but after waking up to find that Harris lost, I decided I can't keep my mouth shut. If you want to disown me, unfriend me or stop receiving links to this column, fine with me. Let me know and I'll take you off my list.    I went to bed last night hoping that some miracle would happen and we would have our first woman president. The miracle didn't happen. Instead the "Republican" won. It is deeply upsetting, hurtful and frightening. I'd like to explain why to you.    My father-in-law, and two great uncles fought in World War II. All of them were overseas. My father- in-law landed at Normandy on Omaha beach. He watched his buddies die in the water. That experience and others left him a changed man. He didn't do it because he had nothing else to do. He had a wife and daughter at home. He enlisted because he believed in America and didn't want fascism spreading to this country. If he were alive today...