Erin's Journals

Today’s is a Video Journal and I’ll transcribe it here, but please do watch for a whole lot of fun pictures and even a little puppy video at the end. 

You can watch it on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube. Thanks!

I just thought that since I was dressed in something other than pjs or plaid – I got dressed up for a video and audio interview with Jann Arden to which I’ll link at the end (you’re going to want to listen; we talk about EVERYTHING) – and I was all made up, why not shoot a video journal?

There’s been a little change in our family and I wanted to tell you about it, without going into too many details. But let me just say I know a whole lot more about how puppies are made than I ever have in my 61 years! And it’s not how you think – oh, no! It’s not the “dirty dancing” in the street, it’s a 20-minute ordeal in which he does it THREE TIMES, each visit!

Dottie went away for her “dirty weekend” last week and I’ll take you back a bit. Our little Havanese (who’s 1-1/2 years old) is part of a breeding program – I think, a Swedish model – which is what she looked like, and oh, so did he.

He’s a #1 Havanese in Canada and his name is Radar and he’s gorgeous.

Dottie went into season, or heat, about two weeks ago. So we called Bev, our breeder at mistytrails.ca, and had her blood tested and she was ready! So up we went to Cobble Hill, about a 45-minute drive from our place. As we drove, we explained to her the facts of life, and sang “Girl, you’ll be a woman soon…” (thanks Neil Diamond). So the metaphorical candles were lit, the lingerie laid out and, well, we left her there with Bev and Radar’s mom Trudi for three days.

There was no encouragement needed; she was all in (and so was he, if you catch my drift). Friday we went back and picked her up and she was so thrilled to see us that she was jumping up and down so hard we were worried about her undoing all of that passionate play of the previous days!

So, did it take? Well, Bev is 95% sure the visit was effective. In about two months (just around Christmas time) Dottie will be expected to have puppies. Here’s the strange part: we won’t know if she’s pregnant for another month or so – or halfway through her gestation period, if you can believe it – as her body hardly changes. There are ultrasounds and blood tests available, but that’ll be up to us.

She might have five or six puppies and we’ll get a little bit of money from each one, and it means we’ll be without Dottie for about eight weeks in the new year, which is fine because that means no dog walks for much of our rainy season. She’ll be a wonderful and caring mom because she’s just so chill, this light and love of our lives. So now, we hopefully go through pregnant Dottie-hood.

You may be wondering if we’ll take one of Dottie’s puppies and I think we get first pick, but as much as I’ll whine like Dot did leaving her boyfriend, I’m sure, we’re pretty adamant that we are not going to mess with the domestic perfection of our situation with one dog at home.

Speaking of home, my bestie Lisa Brandt is back from her three weeks in Italy and we’re sitting down this week to do our first fully-new podcast in a month. I cannot wait for her to share her stories as we launch into Gracefully and Frankly episode 43. Jann was so generous to talk about G&F and also about Drift with Erin Davis, my sleep stories podcast that is reaching a worldwide community now with close to a quarter MILLION downloads! Both podcasts are free, thanks to Kim & Kathy at enVypillow.com. Click the links, subscribe and you’ll never miss an episode of either.

Thanks for coming by and it’s good to have done a video journal again – hope you watched it. And to listen to quite an amazing chat with Jann Arden, here’s the link.

Just a thought…

It all seems so…immaterial, so unimportant. When I sit here with my fingers poised over the keyboard, I want to share thoughts on our lives, our days, our highs and lows and yet, in the shadow of the tremendous suffering happening in Israel and neighbouring Gaza, as well as in Ukraine, of course, and too many other countries to list here, I wonder: how? How does any of this matter when so much pain and terror have gripped our fellow humans?

There’s no more that I can say in the support of innocents and victims of senseless violence and predictable retribution; people with more experience, perspective and wisdom than I have already taken space in every possible corner of the written and visual world. And so I stay quiet and wonder what else I can possibly add.

The only perspective I have for you, my friend, is that out-of-step feeling so many of us have when our lives go on. When we observe with awe a sight like this one out of our window…

…or the simple peaceful play of bright leaves dancing in the wind or gently clinging to trees. The glorious contrast of yellows and oranges against dark wet tree bark. The sparkling sights over our nearby Gulf Islands as the sun rises on a turbulent world.

It all feels so damned normal. And that is the jarring, incongruous fact of life when suffering abounds: anyone who has lost a loved one or endured a tremendous personal trauma is jolted, almost insulted, to observe life around them going on as if nothing happened. The seasons still change, the sun still rises and if we didn’t know what was happening in other parts of the world or in our own lives, we would never see that things have been altered forever.

I recall the evening of that day after Lauren died in 2015, remarking to Rob as we saw a glorious sky and the leaves and blossoms making their May arrivals in Ottawa. I said to him, “How can the world be so beautiful and so awful?” and he said, “This is how it’s always been.” And he was, and is, right.

In motherhood, like the old saying goes, your heart walks around the world outside of you. And it’s not unlike being a caring citizen of the world, worrying for the peril and suffering of those you have never met, but whose stories you’ve read, whose faces you’ve seen, whose pain, loss and terror you can barely comprehend, even on the most basic level.

So many posts call for prayer and I think, Aw, come on…if prayers worked, no one would suffer. But then I reconsider, keeping in mind how it changes me. Prayer brings peace to the one who is quietly sending thoughts instead of opinions, grounding them in their intentions and giving them consolation in the hope that their efforts may have some effect. There is so little we can do but to show and share love, compassion and to embrace our common humanity, rather than focussing on our differences. Why, oh why, in the 21^st century is it still over religion? Why so much suffering in the name of a god?

And so, with or without us, and as it always has and will, the world goes on. May peace be with you. And may we continue to be grateful for it in a world where it is but a prayer.

Just a thought… The most important things in life are the connections you make with others. [Tom Ford]

I hope you had a good Thanksgiving and that you were able to gather with those you love (and some you can tolerate for the holidays)! We were fortunate, as always, to be surrounded for our Thanksgiving dinner by those we love.

This year, the holiday didn’t coincide with our grandson’s birthday; it comes tomorrow and wraps up the Birthdaypalooza that begins with mine in September, is followed by little Jane’s (4^th this year) and then ends tomorrow with Colin’s. It’s like the 15 Days of Cakemas with a little pumpkin pie thrown into the mix. Is that a Hallmark Movie yet, Brooke?

Speaking of our daughter-in-law, as I hope you you saw on Facebook last Monday with October’s start, Brooke is reminding you that she’s taking last orders for her Christmas in Heaven lanterns. I put together a short video where Brooke describes in her own words how making these lanterns touches her own heart. You can view it at the end of today’s blog.

The next ten weeks or so include myriad celebrations (including the solemn observation that comes on Remembrance Day, of course) during which we are reminded that not everyone is fortunate to be with family or loved ones. It’s something that’s amplified when the table setting is for one, and I get that. And it’s why I wanted to share something I spotted the other day at a coffee shop in the sweet little nearby town of Sidney, BC.

As I stood near the counter, waiting for my friend to pick up her bagel, I noticed a little card. Behind it was a stack of pamphlets.

They’re pretty self-explanatory: you put the little card on your café table and hope that perhaps someone will stop by, take a seat and ask how you’re doing today.

I’d like to think that if I found myself with a coffee in my hand and some time to sit, I’d do just that; probably not putting out the card, but pulling up a seat. I’m not sure I’ve ever just gone into a shop and sat by myself unless I was waiting for someone else; I saw a meme from Thinking Minds that said, “Eating alone in a crowded restaurant is the highest level of self confidence a person can have.” Is it true for you? It certainly is for me. I think Lisa and I will discuss it on our podcast Gracefully & Frankly in weeks to come.

In the meantime, that little card was a lovely reminder to me of how making a connection can be so important. And who knows what gifts – friendship perhaps – might come our way just from saying “yes?”

Enjoy the rest of this shortened week and thank you for coming by. Tonight, a certain little Ugly Duckling (said to be an autobiographical story of sorts from Hans Christian Andersen) returns to Drift. Perhaps you’ll enjoy it on a different level now that you know that; or maybe – and this would be the best of all – you’ll just fall asleep. That’s the plan!

Be well and as promised, here’s that Christmas in Heaven lantern reminder for you.

Just a thought… Coincidence is God’s way of staying anonymous. [Author also anonymous; quote often misattributed to renowned smarty-pants Albert Einstein]

Welcome in – and thanks for sharing a few minutes here. I had to share with you a coincidence, a godwink if you will, that happened to me last week.

Around my birthday, I’m always hoping that Lauren will send a message. Sometimes if she does, I miss it; I’m usually looking for an antler-man (what I call the rare deer in our area with a lovely headdress) but sometimes it comes from someone with a big heart. In this case, it was our daughter-in-law Brooke. And it brought great big tears and took our breath away.

First, a pic I shared on social media from the party Brooke and Phil and the kidlets threw for me last Tuesday.

And here’s Hurricane Jane turning into a Category 4 on Saturday! It was wonderful.

You know by now that Brooke’s family, and Rob’s and mine, share “sisters” from the same breeder. Dottie and Sammy are three months apart in age and not from the same parents, but they’re sisters to us, and to each other. Their antics are hilarious and Dottie and Sammy both whine when their playdates are over.

Brooke is interested in their parentage and lines, easily found on the internet. It was she who learned that the two Havanese up the street from us – literally two blocks away – are Dottie’s mom and grandmother! But what she found last week was something else.

Dottie’s grandma has a half-sister (one of the same parents). When Brooke messaged me, “You’ll never guess what Dottie’s great-aunt’s name is,” I guessed Molly, a rather common name and that of a previous beloved pet of ours, and then Jane, unusual for a dog, but the middle name of one on our block and, of course, the name of Colin’s little sister.

Wrong on both counts.

Because here’s what that great-aunt’s name is:

Coconut is the nickname we all gave to Colin when he was born; Lauren was Peanut when she was a baby, and Coconut was derived from his name, Colin. It was shortened to Coco as time went on and he occasionally answers to it, even approaching nine next week.

And our daughter who gave birth to him? Lauren.

Just…wow.

This little dog of ours, born on Lauren’s birthday in 2022, has brought such laughter, love and pure joy to Rob and to me, as Sammy has to our grandkids and their parents, that it’s hard to imagine better fits for our family.

It’s almost as though it was meant to be.

Have a lovely week, and always pay attention to signs. Sometimes they are put there to keep us moving in the right direction.

Just a thought… It does not matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop. [Confucius, as chosen today by Taylor Kaye]

Hello – and welcome in! This year I’m doing something I’ll only ever do once, because it matters this much to me. Today is my birthday. I’m not telling you that for the warm wishes; please read on.

While Sept. 26^th brings back wonderful memories for me: my 60^th last year getting into the ocean in Hawaii, my 50^th when Lauren surprised me by showing up all the way from Ottawa, making me full-on BAWL like Lucille Ball. I recall much of my 40^th dancing on a revolving floor in the Rainbow Room of 30 Rock. Maybe it was me spinning – wish I’d been sober for that!

Anyway, the point is, September 26^th has been beyond wonderful for me. Which is why I’m turning the spotlight away from someone who’s had more than her share of happiness (me), to someone for whom this very day is one clouded in darkness.

It was on this day one year ago that everything in a joyful life changed. A dear man, a fit man, a young man who is a friend to many, but especially at CHFI and Rogers Radio where he created brilliant and funny ad campaigns, was slammed by two strokes. Today, in his early 60s, Greg Stevens remains unable to walk, to speak his beautiful mind, or to move half of his body.

Taylor Kaye, Greg’s wife, is also a close friend. She’s warm and wonderful and wacky and you probably know her name from TV and Toronto radio: after years in the Rogers fold at KiSS and CHFI, she’s doing afternoons temporarily on 104.5 CHUM-FM. As you can imagine, she and Greg’s three teen daughters are struggling.

After nine months in hospital, Greg was moved to rehab and now he’s in an assisted living facility, a modest one closer to the Stevens’s house. It’s anything but cheery: he’s surrounded by elderly and incapacitated people, and the costs of trying to get him speech therapy, physical therapy and the many extras that our health care system doesn’t cover are taking Taylor out at the knees.

It’s all so disheartening, and Rob and I aren’t even a part of the family’s day-to-day. Just three weeks ago, Greg was rushed to hospital, unconscious after a seizure and when he awoke the next day, he cried as he learned all over again about the strokes that had taken away everything but his mind and his great big heart.

And so today I’m appealing to your big heart. There is a gofundme for Taylor and her family. If you want to give to help Taylor and Greg and their three daughters, however much you can, and anonymously if you’d like, I offer this gift today, my birthday gift to Taylor. She is drowning with twice-daily visits, trying to buoy Greg’s spirits amidst her own devastation. I figure that the least I can do is reach out a hand, right?

The family’s friends set up this account and it’s totally secure and above-board. I promise you that. It’s been helping the family in many small ways and how I wish the Let’s Talk folks at Bell had therapy for Taylor to access to help keep her sanity, but she’s considered part-time at Bell Media. 10 years and part-time. Sigh. Let’s Talk, indeed.

But one year in, donations are waning and their need for help has grown; if Greg is going to have any semblance of a life, the path stretching out ahead is long and arduous with plenty of detours and roadblocks, as Taylor has endured in the past month.

Pray if you do, but please give if you can. Both are appreciated! Here’s the link. From the bottom of my heart – and Taylor and her Special Kayes – thank you. Love you, Taylor, Greg and girls.

Love you, too. Thanks for sharing this day with me.