It's my week of appointments; saw the physiotherapist, who feels I've regained full range of motion and strength in my arm after surgery. She's recommended a compression sleeve as a precaution when flying, to prevent lymphedema (painful persistent swelling of arm which can occur as result of removal of lymph nodes).
Also saw my GP, who recommends continuing a part-time schedule at work for another three months, with some increase in hours as I continue to build up stamina. My mother figures will be pleased to know that she stresses balance and moderation.
Today is my monthly bone strengthening treatment. I'm armed with recent issues of The Walrus and Macleans since it takes several hours and one wouldn't want be dependent on hospital magazine selection.
Quite cool this morning so not much progress on the snow melting front, but the sun is shining.
Wendy
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
Lots of snow
Photo Credit: Roving Photographer Jack HillShovelling Credit: Harvey Smith
Our house after the most recent snowfall on Monday. It has melted some since then; rain is forecast for today and then more snow. Nothing better than more layers of snow covered icy crust.
Wendy
Sunday, February 22, 2009
No News- Good News Part 2
Made my way over to St. Joseph's in the middle of a snowstorm this week for my mammogram (seems like it should have a different name when they only have to do one!) Anyway, it was fine and I have my appointment to go back next February.
We're having a weather pattern of days which feel like spring - like yesterday - alternating with blizzards. Another is forecast for tonight. But the days are getting longer, and when the sun shines it really melts the snow.
I've recovered from the cold that is going around (knock on wood) but appear to have passed it on to Harvey. He was feeling so miserable that he let me help shovel the driveway the other day!
And we've become addicted to another word game, introduced to us by Dale and Lynn. It's called Up Words - played like Scrabble except that you can also build on top of words by changing them into new ones.
Wendy
We're having a weather pattern of days which feel like spring - like yesterday - alternating with blizzards. Another is forecast for tonight. But the days are getting longer, and when the sun shines it really melts the snow.
I've recovered from the cold that is going around (knock on wood) but appear to have passed it on to Harvey. He was feeling so miserable that he let me help shovel the driveway the other day!
And we've become addicted to another word game, introduced to us by Dale and Lynn. It's called Up Words - played like Scrabble except that you can also build on top of words by changing them into new ones.
Wendy
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Reading Group
As winter entertainment, we've started a reading group which recently had its first gathering. To make it guilt and anxiety free, it's not a book club where we all read the same book each month. We have a theme, novels of place, and each month one or two of us will read and report on novels which are rooted in a different part of Canada. February was Northern Ontario (notes below) and March is Montrea.
If anyone in the Saint John area is interested in joining us, please let me know.
Wendy
Novels of Place
A quality of good novels is that they pay attention to place.
Noah Richler
This Is My Country, What’s Yours? A Literary Atlas of Canada
Northern Ontario
Canadian shield, rock outcrops, thick forest, clear lakes, swamps
Resource based, one industry towns, masculine, tough, gritty
Loners, eccentrics, escapees, places to come from
Long distances, takes forever to drive across
Isolated, marginal, far from the mainstream
Dangers of getting lost, cold, blackflies, long snowy winters
Beaver, moose, loons, great blue herons
Canoeing, cross country skiing, hockey
Small cities with relatively short histories
English and French but limited aboriginal presence/contact
General Fiction
Crow Lake
This award winning first novel is set in a small farming community in northern Ontario and narrated by Kate, the family’s only daughter.
The Other Side of the Bridge
Mary Lawson
Three Day Road
Boyden, who has some Ojibway ancestry, worked on reservations in northern Ontario and spends time there regularly. His first novel’s principal characters are 2 Cree snipers returning after WW I.
Through Black Spruce (No one had read yet)
Joseph Boyden
Summer Gone
David Macfarlane
This first novel by a prolific magazine writer and columnist, set among the islands and lakes of cottage country, centres on a divorced father and his son. One of the most memorable things was a description of cigarette smoking so vivid it almost made me want to try it.
(This one is clearly set in cottage country, which doesn't really meet our definition of Northern Ontario.)
The Retreat
David Bergen
An urban family spends the summer of 1973 in a compound outside Kenora, where the mother is under the spell of its leader and an unhappy 17 year old gets involved with an aboriginal boy.
Bear
Marian Engel
A spinsterish librarian/archivist heads north from Toronto to catalogue a bequest, housed on an island in the vicinity of Sault Ste Marie, and meets a tall dark haired stranger.
The Line Painter
Claire Cameron
A road trip novel. A 30ish woman whose boyfriend has died suddenly tries to leave her grief and guilt behind. Heading from Toronto to Vancouver, her car breaks down, leaving her stranded by the highway in a remote part of northern Ontario. She meets locals, has a close encounter with a bear and demonstrates her lack of woods smarts before completing her journey.
The Dominion of Wyley McFadden
Scott Gardiner
Another road trip novel. This time the destination is Alberta and the goal is quixotic. A girl mysteriously emerges from the woods and is picked up by a Toronto self-styled urban trapper; we gradually hear his story and eventually hers. More than half of the book is set in northern Ontario.
First novel by the author of The King of Canada
Lost Girls
Andrew Pyper
Two teenage girls have disappeared from a small community just beyond cottage country. There are no bodies and the Toronto lawyer protagonist is assigned to defend their high school English teacher, the presumed murderer.
Young Adult
The Sundog Season
John Geddes
First novel by this journalist who grew up in a small mining town in northern Ontario. A new police sergeant arrives in town, takes over as coach of the 13 year old narrator’s hockey team, and rumours circulate in this portrait of small town life.
The Maestro
Tim Wynne-Jones
A boy escaping from a bad home situation in a small hamlet encounters a recluse, modeled on Glenn Gould, who changes his life.
Science Fiction
Hominids
Humans
Hybrids
Robert J. Sawyer
Neanderthals are still among us in this trilogy, which begins at the Neutrino Observatory in Sudbury.
Mystery
Forty Words for Sorrow
The Delicate Storm
Blackfly Season
By the Time You Read This
Giles Blunt
This screenwriter grew up in North Bay, which he thinly disguises as Algonquin Bay for this series featuring relocated Toronto policeman John Cardinal. Of particular note in these well plotted and paced mysteries is his treatment of Cardinal’s wife, who struggles with mental illness. His fictional location bears many similarity to the real thing, in setting and street layout, although all names have been changed.
Blunt’s newest novel, No Such Creature, is not part of this series.
The Tenderness of Wolves
Stef Penney
This debut novel begins with a murder in an isolated community on the shore of Georgian Bay in the winter of 1867.
Author to Watch
Tristan Hughes
Revenant and other novels set in Wales
Born in Atikokan, interviews indicate his next novel will be set in Northern Ontario
Resources
Bibliotravel.com
Northern LIT Awards, Ontario Library Service North
CBC Radio North – Read Northern Ontario
Talk by John Geddes at Nipissing University, “Cold Towns, Hot Novels: A Writer’s Thoughts on Northern Ontario in Contemporary Fiction”
If anyone in the Saint John area is interested in joining us, please let me know.
Wendy
Novels of Place
A quality of good novels is that they pay attention to place.
Noah Richler
This Is My Country, What’s Yours? A Literary Atlas of Canada
Northern Ontario
Canadian shield, rock outcrops, thick forest, clear lakes, swamps
Resource based, one industry towns, masculine, tough, gritty
Loners, eccentrics, escapees, places to come from
Long distances, takes forever to drive across
Isolated, marginal, far from the mainstream
Dangers of getting lost, cold, blackflies, long snowy winters
Beaver, moose, loons, great blue herons
Canoeing, cross country skiing, hockey
Small cities with relatively short histories
English and French but limited aboriginal presence/contact
General Fiction
Crow Lake
This award winning first novel is set in a small farming community in northern Ontario and narrated by Kate, the family’s only daughter.
The Other Side of the Bridge
Mary Lawson
Three Day Road
Boyden, who has some Ojibway ancestry, worked on reservations in northern Ontario and spends time there regularly. His first novel’s principal characters are 2 Cree snipers returning after WW I.
Through Black Spruce (No one had read yet)
Joseph Boyden
Summer Gone
David Macfarlane
This first novel by a prolific magazine writer and columnist, set among the islands and lakes of cottage country, centres on a divorced father and his son. One of the most memorable things was a description of cigarette smoking so vivid it almost made me want to try it.
(This one is clearly set in cottage country, which doesn't really meet our definition of Northern Ontario.)
The Retreat
David Bergen
An urban family spends the summer of 1973 in a compound outside Kenora, where the mother is under the spell of its leader and an unhappy 17 year old gets involved with an aboriginal boy.
Bear
Marian Engel
A spinsterish librarian/archivist heads north from Toronto to catalogue a bequest, housed on an island in the vicinity of Sault Ste Marie, and meets a tall dark haired stranger.
The Line Painter
Claire Cameron
A road trip novel. A 30ish woman whose boyfriend has died suddenly tries to leave her grief and guilt behind. Heading from Toronto to Vancouver, her car breaks down, leaving her stranded by the highway in a remote part of northern Ontario. She meets locals, has a close encounter with a bear and demonstrates her lack of woods smarts before completing her journey.
The Dominion of Wyley McFadden
Scott Gardiner
Another road trip novel. This time the destination is Alberta and the goal is quixotic. A girl mysteriously emerges from the woods and is picked up by a Toronto self-styled urban trapper; we gradually hear his story and eventually hers. More than half of the book is set in northern Ontario.
First novel by the author of The King of Canada
Lost Girls
Andrew Pyper
Two teenage girls have disappeared from a small community just beyond cottage country. There are no bodies and the Toronto lawyer protagonist is assigned to defend their high school English teacher, the presumed murderer.
Young Adult
The Sundog Season
John Geddes
First novel by this journalist who grew up in a small mining town in northern Ontario. A new police sergeant arrives in town, takes over as coach of the 13 year old narrator’s hockey team, and rumours circulate in this portrait of small town life.
The Maestro
Tim Wynne-Jones
A boy escaping from a bad home situation in a small hamlet encounters a recluse, modeled on Glenn Gould, who changes his life.
Science Fiction
Hominids
Humans
Hybrids
Robert J. Sawyer
Neanderthals are still among us in this trilogy, which begins at the Neutrino Observatory in Sudbury.
Mystery
Forty Words for Sorrow
The Delicate Storm
Blackfly Season
By the Time You Read This
Giles Blunt
This screenwriter grew up in North Bay, which he thinly disguises as Algonquin Bay for this series featuring relocated Toronto policeman John Cardinal. Of particular note in these well plotted and paced mysteries is his treatment of Cardinal’s wife, who struggles with mental illness. His fictional location bears many similarity to the real thing, in setting and street layout, although all names have been changed.
Blunt’s newest novel, No Such Creature, is not part of this series.
The Tenderness of Wolves
Stef Penney
This debut novel begins with a murder in an isolated community on the shore of Georgian Bay in the winter of 1867.
Author to Watch
Tristan Hughes
Revenant and other novels set in Wales
Born in Atikokan, interviews indicate his next novel will be set in Northern Ontario
Resources
Bibliotravel.com
Northern LIT Awards, Ontario Library Service North
CBC Radio North – Read Northern Ontario
Talk by John Geddes at Nipissing University, “Cold Towns, Hot Novels: A Writer’s Thoughts on Northern Ontario in Contemporary Fiction”
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Portraits of Saint John
Reversing Falls Lynn WiggintonA new exhibition which just opened at the Museum includes 12 panoramic portraits of Saint John painted by Lynn Wigginton. You can see them at the Museum (general admission is free throughout the month of February) until April 26 or on her website www.lynnwigginton.ca/ and click on CURA.
Wendy
No News - Good News
Had the 3 month check-up appointment with my oncologist this week; nothing new to report, which is good.
Harvey dug us out of yet another snowstorm this morning so I could get to the hospital for my bone-strengthening treatment. There is no room to shovel any further snow, and the folks who own the house next door, which is divided into apartments, seem to have given up on trying to keep the driveway cleared.
My part time work schedule of 20 hours per week is going well so far - we review it again in early March.
And I've agreed to be a Reach to Recovery volunteer with the Cancer Society - that's their one to one support program, which I found very helpful - and will be receiving some training for that.
Wendy
Harvey dug us out of yet another snowstorm this morning so I could get to the hospital for my bone-strengthening treatment. There is no room to shovel any further snow, and the folks who own the house next door, which is divided into apartments, seem to have given up on trying to keep the driveway cleared.
My part time work schedule of 20 hours per week is going well so far - we review it again in early March.
And I've agreed to be a Reach to Recovery volunteer with the Cancer Society - that's their one to one support program, which I found very helpful - and will be receiving some training for that.
Wendy
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Book Report - In Defense of Food.
In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollen
Key Points
Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants
Key Points
Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants
Eat Food
- Don’t eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food
- Avoid foods that contain
o Unfamiliar ingredients
o Unpronounceable ingredients
o More than five ingredients
o Contain high fructose corn syrup - Avoid any food product that makes health claims
- Shop the peripheries of the store and avoid the central areas
- Get out of the supermarket.
Mostly Plants
There are an astonishing variety of traditional diets, some low fat, some high fat, but always built around whole foods - Eat mostly plants, especially leaves.
- You are what you eat, eats: industrial meat production is bad for animals and for the creatures that eat them. Cattle fed on grains sicken and require antibiotics. Meat has naturally occurring Omega-3 fatty acids and conjugated Linolic Acids (which are very good for you) but the only souce of these nutrients is green leaves, i.e. grass and other browse.
- Buy a freezer and purchase PASTURE fed animals in bulk.
- Eat like an omnivore
- Eat well grown food from healthy soils.
- Eat wild foods, including wild animals if available.
- Take supplements
- Eat like the French, Italians, Indians or Greeks
- Regard non-traditional foods with skepticism
- Don’t look for the magic bullet in traditional diet.
- Have a glass of wine with your dinner.
Not Too Much - Pay more, eat less. Cheap, industrialized food is low in nutrients
- Eat less: 3 meals a day is plenty
- Do all your eating at a table (a desk is not a table)
- Don’t get your fuel from the same place your car does.
- Try not to eat alone
- Consult your gut.
- Eat slowly
- Learn to cook or plant a garden.
I highly recommend this book for its thoughtful analysis of what constitutes food (as opposed to nutrition) and how industrial food has removed us further and further from healthy diets. Yoghurt is a simple product - milk and a bacterial culture - but look at any container of yoghurt in the dairy case.
Joining the CSA in 2008 was prescient; we're sticking with them and hoping to increase our green leafy ingestion.
I read "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by the same author while spending long hours in waiting rooms this past spring and it's a good read too. It's just that "In Defense of Food" offers some solutions to the Omnivore's dilemma.
Buy this book if you can afford it or borrow it or get it from the library. It could change your life.
Harvey
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