Eighty-Three

One of the items on my life list is to give at least 500 dollars a year to charity. Earlier this year I made a donation to the Red Cross for Haiti, and this morning I made a donation to UNICEF fund for flood relief in Pakistan. I'm still a ways away from reaching my goal, but the year is far from over.

The flooding in Pakistan is the worst in the country's history. According the the BBC, up to 3.5 million children are at risk of developing deadly water-borne diseases because the flooding has badly contaminated the water. Sadly, donations to the relief efforts have been very low.

Here is a link to read more about the situation in Pakistan.

Life List Update

This summer I have managed to cross a few things off my life list.

I went to the rodeo at the Calgary Stampede and it was an experience that I thoroughly enjoyed. I have never really been enthralled by the cowboy mystique nor did I go through a horse phase as a young girl, so I wasn't sure about the whole rodeo thing. I turns out I was entertained from start to finish. I was impressed by the physicality of the animals, who it turns out, are bred for rodeos, the bucking horses and bulls as well as the horses ridden by the "cowgirls" in the barrel racing event. The men and women who took part in the events displayed remarkable skills in accomplishing their tasks. I haven't done any reading into the ethics of rodeos, and I'm sure that there are a large number of people who would argue that the rodeo constitutes cruelty to animals (on the day we were there, 2 bucking horses were euthanized, and Alal was quite concerned for the welfare of the animals throughout). In addition, traditional gender roles were clearly promoted throughout. Competitors who chose to wear pink shirts to compete were gently chided by the announcers and there was much emphasis on the cowboys winning enough money to "feed their families", though I don't recall this being mentioned during the women's barrel racing event. All in all though, for the $15 price of the ticket though, it was a great afternoon of entertainment (some of those cowboys were hotttt).

I also managed to get to the hot springs in Banff. It was a gorgeous day and the setting was spectacular. The kids however, were less than thrilled with the experience as they found the water to be too warm, expecting more of a recreational pool. Coming in the middle of 5 days of camping when the temperature during the nights dipped to close to 0, , on the other hand thoroughly enjoyed the hour of warmth and relaxation.

Finally, I visited one new province, Saskatchewan and five new states (Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota and Montana). The states that we drove through on our way to Alberta were all quite lovely, though we only saw a very small portion of them. We were quite impressed by the fact that the two state parks we stayed at (in Minnesota and North Dakota) had free wi-fi. Unfortunately, by the time we reached Saskatchewan we were all exhausted, so I'm afraid that we did not really appreciate the Prairie province as we might have. We did end of having to visit a medical clinic in Saskatchewan, so after 15 years of teaching about the birth of Canadian Medicare in Saskatchewan, I got to experience it first hand.

# 85- Take a Family Vacation Every Year Part I

When I included this on my life list, it wasn't because we haven't been going on vacation, because we have. We had gotten into a bit of a rut in our vacations. For many years our summer vacations have consisted of going to visit the in-laws in Quebec City and a couple of days of camping with friends.

Last summer during our rainy visit to Quebec I realized that we had been visiting the same places with the kids every summer for what seemed like forever. Time for a new plan, time to see new places, have new experiences, make new memories for the kids. I began planning our 2010 summer vacation to Alberta immediately. Our plans were ambitious, involving long driving days in the car, taking us through 5 states and 4 provinces in all. We planned on camping for the majority of the trip, with a few nights in hotels to break things up. I anticipated that it would not be a relaxing vacation, in fact, in the weeks leading up to our departure, I expected the worst. In some ways I was right, but in others I was happily proved wrong.

Packing the car proved to be our first challenge. Our rooftop carrier, which had always proved to be perfectly adequate to our normal travelling needs, holds a lot less stuff than either I or Ylal anticipated. This meant that there was way more stuff in the car itself than we had planned, which placed the kid in the back row in the precarious position of having plastic boxes full of food or camping gear, beach towels or sleeping bags fall on them as we rounded tight corners.

notice the precariously balanced pile in the back right corner of the van

The next set of problems presented itself on our very first day of camping. Although I had made list upon list of necessary items we were missing a couple of essentials for camping, namely a jug for water and a tub for doing the dishes. Not a big problem, since there seemed to be a Wal-Mart in every town and village we travelled though in our first few days. Later, water jug and dish washing tub acquired, as we prepared to spend our first night in the tent in Bemidji Minnesota, the thunder began. It continued, accompanied by heavy rain, wind and lightning all night. I awoke the next morning, thankfully dry, but very uncomfortable...the Aerobed that I had borrowed from my parents had sprung a leak. This necessitated another trip into town, where we found an outfitter and I came to be the proud owner of a camp cot, or the princess bed, as it came to be known for the rest of the trip.

Surprisingly, not a problem, were the long days of driving required to get to our western destination. For this I have to thank J.K. Rowling, as the Harry Potter audio books provided us with hours (we listened to 182 chapters, all of books 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) of bicker-free and whine-free driving time as well as providing bedtime relaxation every night of the trip.

Next post...our favourite places...

#18 Start a Blog

One month from today is my fortieth birthday. I have never really thought much about my age. Turning thirty wasn't particularly significant or traumatic for me. But there is something about turning forty that has me taking stock of my life thus far and thinking about the future.


I have led a charmed life. I live in a country that is (generally) peaceful and prosperous. I have access to clean water, food in abundance and free, quality health care As a female, I have been free to pursue an education and a job in any field; free to marry or not to marry; free to enjoy the same rights as my father, brother, husband and sons. By the simple fate of my birth I am better off than many hundreds of millions of women around the globe. I think about this fact often.



I am fortunate in many other ways. I have never been hungry nor been without a roof over my head or a bed of my own to sleep in. I received an excellent, free elementary and secondary school education, thanks to the government of Ontario. I have a degree from a prestigious university, thanks to the hard work and generosity of my parents. They are approaching 70 and are in good health. I have a husband and three children who, although they are not perfect, are also healthy and happy. I have good friends and a job that is interesting and challenging. In short, life has been good to me.



In my first forty years of life I accomplished many things. I fell in love, I married, I gave birth, I travelled to various places near and far, I learned new skills, both useful and not so useful, I enjoyed many new experiences. In the second forty years of my life I would like to continue to learn new things and have new experiences. I have been inspired, reading Maggie Mason's blog about her Mighty Life List, to create a list of my own.



My list has no timeline and is in no particular order. I expect that it will be added to and changed things as time goes on. Some of the items on it are fun and some will require considerable resources, financial or personal, to accomplish. The purpose of this blog is to record my successes and failures and in doing so continue to lead a vital and interesting life.