Canadian Rockies Art

In memory of Callie’s passing…

My beautiful sister Callie

This morning marks the 1 year anniversary of the passing of my beautiful Sister Callie. I can’t even type these words right now without shedding tears :(

For those that do not know, my very best friend passed away ‘on the spot’ tragically in a car accident in Miami a year ago today… I am so very grateful that she didn’t suffer… if you’re gonna go, might as well make it real quick… that’s all I’ve always said.

This past year has been extremely difficult for me. I really miss our daily chats by Email or by phone. There was basically not one day that we didn’t keep in touch for the 15+ years that we were friends. I first met Callie in an online community, talking about Barbados and the Caribbean, discussing rum cake recipes, macaroni pie and flying fish. It’s a region that I love and where I ended-up living for a few years. I have to say that this woman had a lot of class, and the drive to live a happy life despite the many challenges she faced throughout the years. Callie never gave up and she never let me give up either. She was the “tough” that kept going when the going was tough. She was full of spice and buzzing with energy, always inspiring me to keep my chin up and to live my dreams.

I still have some of the emails she had sent me during the past year before she left this Earth, and I go back and read them from time to time. It’s as if she’s still there, alive and well, and just for a moment I forget that she is no longer there and the pain goes away for a little bit.

One of my very sweet customers sent me a prayer last night. We had talked about Callie a bit (for those that do not know, the ‘ghost’ butterfly in my Blog and my website banner represents Callie – she loved butterflies), and so she wanted to share this prayer with me.

I want to close this post by sharing it with you, in memory of my sister Callie, and in the memory of all those you may have lost over the years:

We Remember Them

At the rising of the sun & at its going down
We remember them.
At the blowing of the wind & the chill of winter
We remember them.
At the opening of the buds & in the rebirth of the spring
We remember them.
At the blueness of the skies & in the warmth of summer
We remember them.
At the rustling of the leaves & in the beauty of autumn
We remember them.
At the beginning of the year & when it ends
We remember them.
As long as we live, they too will live; for they are now a part of us,
as we remember them.
When we are weary & in need of strength
We remember them.
When we are lost & sick at heart
We remember them.
When we have joy we crave to share
We remember them.
When we have decisions that are difficult to make
We remember them.
When we have achievements that are based on theirs
We remember them.
As long as we live, they too will live; for they are now a part of us,
as we remember them.

Callie, I remember you every single day.

You were a very important part of me before, and still are just as much today.

May you continue to delight in your journey with the Angels...

Love,

Your ‘Sis’ Nath xoxo

Under the weather and eye pain

I said I would start posting again once things got back to normal here (with family visiting from overseas), but I wanted to pop in and say hi in the meantime.

I've been feeling tired and under the weather these past 4-5 days and today the pain in my eyes (the pressure from the glaucoma) is really nasty. It hurts to have my eyes open and closed, so I'm not sure what to do with them now. I wish I could take them out of my head and let them rest on a shelf somewhere.

I'm going with my father (he has glaucoma too) to the Glaucoma specialist here in town on November 10th, so I'm hoping that he can prescribe the drops that will bring down the pressure in my eyes and not have to do laser surgery. Dad is not in pain (thankfully), but I am.

I think I will take some tylenol and try to take a short nap before dinner time. Hopefully my eyes will feel better then.

I've got the spaghetti squash baking in the oven (I'm having spaghetti squash with home made spaghetti sauce, loaded with mushrooms and a bit of low fat cheese for dinner tonight. Yummy! The rest of the gang is having 'pasta' instead of squash). 

Just wanted to drop in here to say that I'm still around, just not feeling very good at the moment.

Mini break for a few days...

Hi everybody!

We've got family visiting from overseas at the moment, so time is short for online stuff and we're out and about a lot... so I'll be back to posting on my blog once my schedule has returned to normal.

Toodles!
Nathalie :)

Happy Thanksgiving Canada!

 

I want to wish a very happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow Canadians today...

Peace, blessings, health, happiness and love to all!

Cheers,

Nathalie

Giveaway - Happy Thanksgiving Weekend Canada!

We reach! We finally reach!

We've had snow (yesterday again), high winds, the whole kaboodle, but.... we've finally reached the Canadian Thanksgiving Weekend & my SPECIAL THANKSGIVING GIVEAWAY!

Christina of the famous Down and Out Chic blog is kind enough to host a giveaway for me this holiday weekend!

This is so exciting - I LOVE her blog!

So go check it out now & follow the instructions on her blog if you want a chance to win and also take advantage of a couple of great discount codes applicable in my Canadian Rockies Art Artfire shop throughout the weekend and for the rest of 2009!

Good luck!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING CANADA!

Bundle up! SNOW has arrived!

It started last night…

We were looking at the glow of the street lights and there they were…

Big fat snowflakes zooming by in the wind, only staying visible for a moment under the man-made lights.

This morning, we woke up to this:

A very similar scene to the one we saw in early June… but it’s a different picture, this one has indeed been taken this morning, October 4th 2009.

The snowflakes are still falling gently right now (less wind than last night). It’s very pretty to watch these little flakes dance around. I love snow (when I’m watching it from the comfort of my warm home, that is!)

Bundle up my fellow Canucks, winter is moving in! Happy Sunday!

Glaucoma, eye health and a bit of everything

Yummy healthy cranberries!

Yesterday I went grocery shopping and found truckloads of fresh gorgeous cranberries from Nova Scotia in our store, so of course, my dehydrator popped in my head and said “Grab lots! Let’s dehydrate them!” – I couldn’t resist of course. I love cranberries and I want to make some tasty breakfast muffins with mixed fruits in them and Cranberries and Orange or Cranberries and white Chocolate just sounds too yummy to pass up :)

So they’re doing their thing now in my dehydrator.

It’s very quick to prepare them:

You just need to wash them and remove any stems that might have been left behind when they were cultivated (I found 3 stems out of two bag full, so it’s not bad). I washed them in a warm bath of water with a big splash of vinegar. They were not dirty, but it’s good to give them a wash like that before processing them.

Then, you just plop them in boiling water on the stove so that their skin will break (you hear a popping sound, it’s kind of musical and neat –it only takes a couple of minutes), and once they’ve all popped, you scoop them out with a spoon with holes in it to drain the water out and they are ready to go on the dehydrator shelves.

It takes a few minutes and a bit of patience to separate them so that each cranberry dries on its own and it’s not touching another one or not lumped up together (they won’t dry well if they are lumped together), and 2 packs of cranberries nearly gave me 4 shelves full on my dehydrator, so that’s pretty good. I made some apple leather on the 5th shelf that I placed on top with unsweetened apple sauce. I’ll let you know how I like it. I’ve never tried that one before.

Eyes & Glaucoma:

I’ve been quite busy this past week with various appointments for my father, my mom (they live with my husband and I), and for myself. Dad needed to see the chiro and get some xrays done, so we took care of that, and mom needed an eye exam as we figured she was developing cataracts (it runs in her family – her sisters all have them, and so did her mom/my grandma), and mom could see her vision changing lately and wanted to get that checked. So I figured that since I hadn’t had an eye exam for over 3 years, I should get one done too while we were at it.

It’s a VERY good thing that I did – The optometrist that we went to (they have 4 doctors there and lots of specialized machines to do really thorough eye exams) discovered that I may have Glaucoma (permanent/irreversible optic nerve damage that can lead to blindness).

I say *may* because we are going to do further tests on Wednesday. But right now, the pressure in my eyes is higher than the highest normal range and the drop in my vision since my last eye exam certainly shows that losing so much of my eyesight in that time-period is not normal. So, as far as we show so far, it looks like I have Glaucoma. If that’s the case, I’m glad we’ve caught it now, so that it can be controlled/stopped at this level and not do any further damage to my optic nerves.

Having lost my tunnel vision about 18-19 years ago for several weeks (I was legally blind) from a chemical reaction to an antihistamine built-up in my system (according to the eye specialists I saw back then), I can tell you that this is no laughing matter. The current specialist here thinks that this may have done some mild permanent damage back then, and that over the years, it’s finally catching up with me.

I certainly have no intention of letting this damage go any further than it already has. Read the link on Glaucoma to educate yourself on this – it can go undetected for many years (because one eye can compensate for the other, so by the time you realise your vision is changing enough for you to notice, it may be too late).

Most of you that visit my blog are artists and rely on your eyes obviously a lot to do complex delicate work, etc… after the age of 40, if you are not at risk and age 35 if you are at risk (see the link to see some of the risks factors listed), you need to get an eye exam EVERY SINGLE YEAR.

So please, take care of your eyes. Get them checked once a year. We only get one pair of these precious eyes, and we need to treat them with great care.

I’ll let you all know what we find out during Wednesday’s tests. I will also be picking up my pretty new pairs of glasses as well.