family time and job woes

Saturday was my aunt Rhonda's funeral. It was sad, because we will miss her. She was such an amazing person and we are blessed to have known her. But it was not sad for her. She had a long life, much longer than anyone could have predicted. Now she is with God, with my grandmother and she can sing whenever she wants, as loudly as she wants and no will tell her to be quiet ever again. These are happy thoughts.

It was neat that nearly all my cousins were there. Even my counsins who live in BC and Florida made it. We don't see eachother all that often and we are not as close as we used to be, so it was really great to spend the majority of two days together. Families are really cool!

Today I spent time on the internet looking for jobs to apply for. What a horrible, tortuous job!! So, I have applied to a few places and will apply to several more. I hate being unemployed! I get very bored with myself very quickly. There is only so much scrapbooking, organizing and cleaning one can do before one completely looses one's mind!! Of course none of the jobs I have applied for are in my field. My degree is not at all helpful. This is partly because I am too broke to move to Ottawa, Toronto or wherever, but it doesn't really matter since nearly all the jobs require a Master's degree. That is ironic because most of the good Master's programs require three years of "field experience"... catch 22! So Laura is bored and frustrated and hiding in her room. Sigh

Sad news

My dad is the second oldest of eight children. I have a pretty large family! My dad's youngest sister, Rhonda, was born with down's syndrome. My grandparents were told that she wouldn't live to be five years old. This morning at around 4am she died, just a few days short of her 42nd birthday.

My aunt Rhonda was a lovely, cheerful and feircely loving woman. I remember back when my home church was really small, before we built the new addition she and my grandparents would sit at the back of the sanctuary. She would sing her heart out and loved hymns. At family gatherings she was always so excited to see all of us kids. She would grab us in big hugs and exclaim "You!!... Me!!" saying she wanted to spend time with us. She loved princess Diana and her room at the nursing home where she lived was full of pictures and books and nick nacks, all centering on princess di, or on disney princesses. I still have a hook rug that she made for me and every year at christmas she would pick out christmas gifts for all of us kids. For the past several years we have gotten different christmas ornaments. She loved crafts, time hortons, ice cream and her family. She loved going out to timmies or to macdonalds and at the end of any visit you could count on getting caught in a strong head lock of a hug with logs of kisses.

I visited her twice last week, and then again last night. She was quiet and her hugs lacked their usual strength. Last night she didn't even wake up. I am sad that she is gone. I will miss her enthusiasm and hugs. But she has not had an easy life and now she is with God, where she can sing praises without people snickering. She had a dream on sunday night about my grandmother, who died when I was ten. She's in a better place. Praise God, that even in the grief that comes with death we have reason to celebrate.

tree climbing

Today I spent most of the day in a tree. Now when most people think about me, they may picture me reading, or laughing or paragliding (!) but not hanging out in a tree. So why was I in this tree? I do it every year about this time. You see, in my parents yard there is a HUGE cherry tree. We get so many cherries every year that we sell some, give some away, eat lots and do lots of baking and by this time the next year we still have several bags of frozen cherries in our freezer. So I spent most of today up in the tree picking cherries. We never spray the tree with anything but our biggest pests are the birds. My dad has made an agreement with the birds that they can have the highest branches that we can't reach, but year after year the stupid creatures renag on the deal. In recent years squirrels have also gotten into the fray and the rukus that can be heard from the branches of the tree at any time of day or night is enough to make me wish for a bb gun! But the cherries are yummy so generally it is worth all the bother to pick them. Plus I have an excuse to spend the day in a tree!

Adventures in BC

I am in Vancouver with Steph White, staying with Diedre and Aaron. Vancouver is a fun city and we have had lots of fun!! Our trip down here was a bit of an adventure as it started with an inadvertent trek towards the Yukon. Anyone ever heard of Pink Mountain BC? No? that's because it is really far north. Two and a half hours north of Dawson Creek.... But we saw lots of beautiful things so all in all it was worth the detour. We camped outside of Quesnel our first night after leaving D.C. and it took us nearly 12 hours to get there!! :) Then we spent two nights at Nairn Falls between Pemberton and Whistler. We went hiking, made fires, slept and read and generally relaxed and had good times. We had lunch in Whistler on our way into Vancouver and then returned to Aaron and Diedre's apt. So far in Vancouver we have eaten lots of good food - yummy curry at Granville Island, Sushi and Gelato and now we are making a coconut chicken curry with ginger and eggplant. It has fun ingredients like palm sugar, galanga root and lime leaves. Lots of chopping! But it smells really good. Tomorrow Steph and I fly home to Ontario.

Oh, and Diedre found out her brother Tobin got engaged and was jumping up and down, skipping around the apartment chanting "what can we do what can we do what can we do what can we do!" We toasted to the happy couple with green tea during sushi and with our gelatos on the beach. Diedre is really excited and inserts random questions into conversations about where/when/how the wedding will be. It is funny and we are all poking fun at her a little :)

Overall it was a really great trip. Originally I had a comment here about how people need to comment on my blog, but it sounded a lot more bitter than it should, so instead I will just say "comment on my blog!!" But only if you are sane or not selling something. Jan and Paul are good friends. Vanessa is way ahead of anyone.
That is all.