Sisterhood of the Travelling Shoes

Mom wasn't a "whiz" in the kitchen. She tried hard but her failures outnumbered her successes on a regular basis. In that regard, she was a victim of circumstances. She had a brood of five to feed on a daily basis, a husband whose standards were beyond the pale and no social media to offer a plethora of recipes and ideas to make meals delicious and exciting. Each day of the week had its set menu. Saturday was Hockey Night in Canada and steaks, Sunday was a full roast beef dinner and Monday was left over beef and gravy miraculously morphing into roast beef hash. You get the picture.

If you follow our blog, you will know that of the five children in our family, four are redheads. I am the lone brunette with poker straight hair in contrast to my sisters’ naturally curly locks. So perhaps I could be excused for having just a teensy weensy obsession with hair. With that in mind, when I was looking for pictures to use in our blog I did notice some questionable hair themes which I feel I must address. Betty Set the Tone In her younger years mom had beautiful brunette hair. But, she went prematurely grey and so I don’t really remember her with anything but grey and eventually…

Like many of our generation, reading the obituaries is a regular occurrence....a daily ritual of sorts. Doing so, offers inspiration and encourages self contemplation. It perhaps provides a template for writing the inevitable obituary for loved ones and it prompts us to consider the content of our own obituary when the time comes.

I recently celebrated a landmark birthday and I am now feeling “officially old.” Up until now, birthdays have never bothered me much, but this one stopped me cold. I can no longer deny to myself or others that I am “aging” and to say that I was shocked and depressed about the situation is a bit of an understatement! Once I had a glass of wine and thought things over, however, I came to the only possible conclusion: There was of course, nothing I could do about it. You can’t beat Mother Nature, so there was no recourse but to put on my big girl panties and try to make…

I was a happy go lucky little girl, not a care in the world. In spite of the fact that Mom had an aversion to stylish hair cuts and a preference for odd shaped glasses, life was good. Almost all of my siblings ( Middle Sis being the exception) had red hair too, so I fit right in. These were my people! It wasn't until I started school that I realized I had red hair and I was different than the other kids. Suddenly, I was a redhead in a sea of blondes and brunettes and my world turned upside down in a heartbeat! This is the story of my…