![]() |
The dead of winter in Muskoka (A 6am pic snapped from our kitchen) TAKEN: JANUARY 16th, 2025 |
Ya Gotta Laugh About It
Because life is too short to let the "glass half empty" crap win!

Friday, April 4, 2025
D IS FOR DARKNESS
Thursday, April 3, 2025
C IS FOR CHAOS
![]() |
Image downloaded from Facebook |
The Oxford English dictionary describes chaos (noun) as complete disorder and confusion.
In keeping with that definition, my mind immediately offers the perfect example of it in, "the sweeping new 'Liberation Day' tariffs are causing total chaos."
I have said it here before and I will say it again, I am not a political person looking to stand a top a soap box and pontificate my opinions. What I will say is that I am generally an intelligent person with a keen grasp of common sense, that follows the political climate. And I can't seem to figure out what the hell is going on!
I am confused at the rhetoric that is perpetuating that Canadians are nasty.
In all the decades I have been crossing into the United States, I have never had a bad interaction with our neighbours (yes that is the correct spelling) - and it is to be hoped they can say the same when visiting us.
I am generally sad that I won't be crossing the border to visit my friends next-door for the next four years. In fact, the thought in general makes me anxious.
Though I will concede that the comments on our becoming the 51st State have calmed since a new Prime Minister was named - I don't think the back and forth surrounding a lot of silly political stuff will stop anytime soon.
...Which is just simply unfortunate, and definitely something I never want to laugh about.
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
B IS FOR BRUTAL
![]() |
By mid-afternoon, the tree in the centre of my photo filled the driveway with fallen debris. TAKEN: MARCH 30th, 2025 |
Tuesday, April 1, 2025
A IS FOR AUDIO
![]() |
Allow me to introduce you to Blue TAKEN: MARCH 31st, 2025 |
Today is day one of the annual April A-Z Challenge. You know the drill, I muse about a letter a day for 26 days of this month; with Sunday's off for good behaviour.
Well, this post marks my fourteenth offering of the letter A, for the April A-Z. I still find it hard to believe that I have been taking part in this challenge since 2013, and I have never used the same word twice. My, how time flies when you’re having fun.
Entering 2025 brought a big change to my wee electronic journal. Toward the end of last year, I commented to my son that I thought I may want to connect with a podcast platform and start recording my offerings. You know, so that followers could listen rather than read if that was their preference.
Low and behold, Jukebox bought me a microphone for Christmas and something that was just a passing thought, became a reality over the December holiday break.
Now, what I thought would be fun has turned out to be far more challenging than I ever expected. With no skill set in recording, nor software to edit the audio, I find myself doing multiple takes so I stay at a steady pace, without screwing up the entry I’ve written.
I am not sure how this will work for me mid-challenge, because I always travel for the second week for my birthday. I'll definitely write and post while I am basking in the sun but I have decided not pack my blue snowball mic for I fear I will put too much focus on recording rather than rays.
That said, I have decided to record after the fact and add link to the offerings from my PodBean site once I get home and continue on from there. At least that's my goal.
I can only imagine how hectic it will get, now that I have doubled the work for each letter.... Because I know first hand, that this annual posting ritual is going to take a toll on me.
Just like it has every other year!
#yagottalaughaboutit
Wednesday, March 19, 2025
WALKING ON SUNSHINE
![]() |
Miss Katie Kate embracing the double digit sunshine today! TAKEN: MARCH 19th, 2025 |
CLICK HERE: To have Rhondi read you this post on her new podcast platform
Even though it isn't officially Spring for a couple of days, the massive amount of dog crap land mines that have suddenly appeared in my yard have me feeling like it is already here. I don't know about you but I'm elated; about the warm temps, not the dog crap.
The last month or so had been brutal for me. Had a bit of a meltdown at work last week, as I can't seem to stay caught up, and in the background I am fixating on what is happening to us politically. That said, the state of world affairs, and my heightened anxiety isn't my point here today.
As I was basking in the sunshine this afternoon, enjoying the last doggie daycare break of the day, I was lucky enough to snap this amazing photo of Katie Kate. As cute as she is, she isn't the reason I wanted to capture this specific musing.
Today, I thought I would hop and share an important realization that crossed my mind as I entertained my pups.
I literally chuckled to myself when I suddenly realized, what a sad state the world we live in is... when the weather man (who can never get it right) is the most reliable news source we have!
#yagottalaughaboutit
That is all. Thanks for checking in. Seacrest OUT!!
Tuesday, February 25, 2025
FOUR YEAR HIATUS
![]() |
TOP: South Carolina x's 2 (2014), NOLA x's 2 (2017), Miami (2018) MID: NYC (2019), Key West (2022), Woodstock NY (2022) LOWER: OBX (2022), Vegas (2023), (Nashville 2023) |
CLICK HERE: To have Rhondi read you this post on her new podcast platform
If there is one thing I know to be true, it is that once my travel buddy hubby and I decide on something, it is in the past and not the direction we are going. That was until Donald Trump (Part Deux) happened.
Thanks to his executive orders, we decided to unexpectedly cancel
our trip to Red Rock Amphitheater, and to tour Colorado this summer. That said, in the back
of my mind I felt there may be hope in the cross-border travel department.
I was hopeful that severe looming tariffs
and general uncertainties may get settled amicably between our countries. And our personal choice to boycott American travel may see reprieve. Well, the announcement yesterday that they will move forward no matter what, has proved me wrong.
So, it is official. For the next
four years, we will not cross into the United States and spend any of our hard-earned
money on their soil.
Now, some may say that won’t
matter, as we’ve only spent a little over $50,000 USD in the last decade in
cross border travel into the United States (which includes the two years of being grounded for COVID). BUT, according to the National Travel and Tourism Office, Canadians
spent $30.5 billion in our next-door neighbours’ yard: last year alone.
I will share that I am not a political person trolling to have my opinions heard. I have my beliefs and outside of trying to get my husband to engage in the dialogue, I generally keep my thoughts to myself.
That said, when trying to re-plan my husband’s milestone birthday in July in Canada it's presented challenges. Even though it is only the end of February, we’re simply late to the planning party. Outside of a long weekend in Old Montreal, I feel I may need to bribe him to stay home and renovate the cottage.
In doing do, we are extremely committed that all items will be manufactured by Canadian companies.
I feel this is a time (just like when I was bullied in my tween-hood) where we need to hold our heads high, prove our strong resilience, and leave those doing the bullying in our rear view mirror. (An ode to the fact that none of my
bullies ever so much as graduated high school.)
Even worse, I hate that I have to entertain this orange bully in my home for more four years, rather than the fifteen minutes they say he was entitled to a little over eight years ago.
Monday, February 17, 2025
MY KINDA BLING
![]() |
I wish I would have had this wee beauty back in December! TAKEN: FEBRUARY 7th, 2025 |
CLICK HERE: To listen to Rhondi read this post on her new podcast platform
Before we got Old Bessie (our used snow blower) I would do the bulk of the snow removal with my big scoop. We have always shared the chores, but I have always enjoyed doing yardwork, no matter what the season.
With the last few winter seasons
being so mild, I specifically took on the clearing of the decks, doors, and dog trails,
while my travel buddy hubbly cleared the drive. I never needed my scoop as I
could easily manage with a shovel.
When Snowmaggedon hit the first
week of December, all bets were off. My scoop was stranded at the cottage, as it had been used the shuttle supplies in, during the December cottage holiday break in 2023.
What complicated things even more, was that the snow was so wet and heavy, I could
only manage to clear with a small shovel.
Well, as fate would have it, my
hubby bought me this 60 volt battery powered snow shovel for the bargain basement price
of $100 cash - which was crazy bananas amazing. So amazing, that I can move
more snow, even faster than our beloved Bessie.
Now, I know what people say when their
husband buys them a new vacuum for their birthday – but this gift was really
and truly appreciated.
Seriously... who needs diamonds when a really great
battery will suffice? Not this cat!
Ya gotta laugh about it!!
Saturday, February 8, 2025
INSIDE THE LIFE & MURDER
(c) The Toronto Star - All rights reserved Article published February 8th, 2025 |
COLLINGWOOD, Ont.—Ashley Milnes Schwalm’s family and friends say they now recognize the warning signs.
There was the controlling behaviour, such as how James — her ultra-fit firefighter husband — made her follow his own strict diet. When friends brought groceries for a weekend stay, their food would disappear and on the dinner menu would be extra lean turkey chili. The fridge was stocked according to his meal plan, and nothing else.
And the isolation, how he insisted on the move from Toronto to Collingwood — a place they both knew well as longtime members of Craigleith Ski Club, where they had married in 2012. Ashley missed her close-knit circle of family and friends. While James was gone three or four nights a week to work at a fire station in Brampton; she stayed home to look after their children.
On the surface, James, they acknowledge, did not fit the stereotype of a domestic abuser. He cultivated an image of a selfless and loving father, husband, active volunteer and successful firefighter with Brampton Fire and Emergency Services. Police were never called to their home, and if Ashley knew the danger that lurked, she never said.
Still, looking back, her friends and family tell the Star they now think of James Schwalm as a cold, narcissistic, “control freak.” His true nature, they believe, came out the night of Jan. 25, 2023, when he strangled Ashley at home with their son, 9, and daughter, 6, nearby in their bedrooms.
That night, Ashley called to her son to get her cellphone so she could call the police; James ordered him back to bed. James then dressed his wife’s dead body in hiking clothes, drove to the ski hills and doused the Mitsubishi Outlander with gasoline before sending it off the side of the road down an embankment. He then lit it on fire, fled into the early morning darkness and began preparing himself to perform the role of the grieving husband.
Across Canada, scores of women are killed by their intimate partners each year; abusive men are often at their most dangerous when the relationship is about to fall apart.
Few cases, however, involve the level of planning that’s detailed in the evidence of what James Schwalm did that night and in the days after, when he tried, and failed, to enact an elaborate coverup.
On Monday, Justice Michelle Fuerst will sentence him to an automatic life sentence for second-degree murder. Last year, he pleaded to the charge rather than face trial for first-degree murder. All that’s now left is for the judge to decide how long Schwalm must spend in prison before he can apply for parole. (He will have no guarantee of parole upon his first eligibility date, nor ever.)
Since Ashley’s murder, her family and friends have declined media requests for interviews. But as her killer’s sentencing day approached, they agreed to talk to the Star — because “someone needs to be her voice.”
In interviews, they say they hope speaking openly can help raise awareness of the fact intimate partner violence can be covert and take many forms.
How they remember Ashley
Ian and Shelley Milnes raised their four children, Lesley, Lindsay, Ashley and Ian David in tree-filled, picturesque Hoggs Hollow near Yonge and York Mills. Ian thrived in finance and could afford family memberships at some of the city’s most exclusive clubs, such as the Granite Club. The family’s retreat was a chalet, near Collingwood, with a tennis court on a large corner lot.
Ian called his youngest daughter “Boo Boo,” after Yogi Bear’s sidekick. The name stuck, and loved ones today still refer to her as “Boob.”
When Ashley was having fun, “you were getting pulled into the dance.”
Ashley went to Havergal College and the School of Liberal Arts, a small, independent high school where she met Laura Stavro-Beauchamp. When she thinks of her friend, Stavro-Beauchamp can “hear her squealing and giggling and having fun. That was a huge part of her.”
On a quiet weeknight together at Dalhousie University in Halifax, they’d grab teas, jump in Ashley’s Toyota Celica and drive to the airport singing along to Whitney Houston, she recalled.
If you were around Ashley and she was having fun, “you were getting pulled into the dance,” Stavro-Beauchamp said.
“She was very good at putting people at ease because she was so warm, and caring.”
Ashley left Dalhousie to be with her mother when she was battling cancer. Shelley Milnes died at 55 in 2004, leaving behind a shattered family.
Ashley’s parents had been together for 31 years — for her, it was proof a couple could stay happily married.
In her interviews with the Star, Ashley’s sister Lindsay stressed the importance of ensuring the privacy of the couple’s two children, now being raised by her brother and his wife.
But she wants attention on her sister’s murder — “If boob’s story can help one person I … want to help,” she said.
She also wants to dispel “the narrative,” in letters the Schwalm family submitted to the court, which describe James as a “doting husband and father” — but for the monstrous act he committed.
“It certainly wasn’t the person I saw,” Lindsay said in an interview from her Toronto home, remembering one instance, around 2017, when she heard him call Ashley the c-word in an argument. She remembered looking at him and saying, “If you ever call my sister that again — I don’t care how pissed you are, you never use that word.”
The full, intimate details of what happened during their relationship will only ever be known by James and Ashley. However, court records and the accounts of those close to Ashley paint a portrait of a relationship that, despite a couple’s efforts to keep up an outward image of happiness and success was draped in troubling signs of abuse.
James’s parents, Dianne and Peter, through their lawyer, Joelle Klein, declined to comment. In their letter to the court, they wrote that they “never expected him to act in a way that was so counter and polar opposite to our beliefs.”
The firefighter with a ‘megawatt smile’
James, born in 1984, is the oldest of the Schwalm’s three children. The Lawrence Park family owned a cottage in the Kawarthas and a ski chalet a few minutes’ drive to the Craigleith, one of several private ski clubs in the Collingwood area.
Peter was an accountant; Dianne worked her way up to be a senior marketing executive at Warner Brothers. In 1998, she co-founded Canada’s Walk of Fame.
The job brought cool perks for her kids. In his late teens, James pulled into local events behind the wheel of the Warner Brothers’ Hummer to promote summer blockbusters.
His aunt, a retired Toronto police officer, told court in a letter that her nephew grew up admiring her profession, “and often wished he could do something to help the public.” So, in his early 20s, James signed up as a volunteer firefighter, which eventually led to a full-time position in Brampton.
A close friend of James, who asked not to be identified, recalled how he was over the moon after meeting Ashley at a party when they were in their 20s.
“She was just that girl, so for James it was like: ‘She wants me? She loves me?’ (The friend said she never saw an unpleasant side to Schwalm, describing him as charismatic with a “megawatt smile.”)
As friends remember, Ashley loved what James represented — a future with a stable household and the potential for family.
On Sept. 15, 2012, they married in a lavish ski-hill-side ceremony. They arrived in a horse and carriage, and staged a game of tennis in tux and wedding dress. Each room at the Craigleith Ski Club was decorated so their 160 guests would have a “taste of all four seasons.”
“I’ve been picturing that moment since I was a little girl,” Ashley was quoted in a wedding magazine. “I truly felt like a princess and isn’t that how you’re supposed to feel on your wedding day.”
By 2018, the parents of two young children had moved into the family-friendly Lockhart neighbourhood. James enlisted firefighter buddies to help with a home renovation; throughout, he kept his social media followers updated with the progress, along with photos of himself doing firefighter training, while Ashley’s online postings prominently featured their kids.
In one photo, from 2019, James and Ashley can be seen smiling at the fire station over his promotion to platoon captain — the children climbing over their dad in front of the big red fire truck.
Online and in person, the couple was keen for people to think they were a happy family, and that the kids were healthy and well cared for. But beneath the perfect surface, there were cracks.
A friend remembered feeling “uncomfortable” watching James “study” his wife closely when she talked to other people. She remembered, too, how he resented that she solicited advice from her dad, who lives in Nassau.
When the Milnes family gathered, James made little effort to join in, Lindsay said of her brother-in-law. “We’d all be in the kitchen, talking or cooking whatever, and he’d be sitting on a couch and turn over and look, with a magazine in his hands … watching and listening to what everyone was saying.”
In the spring of 2022, while working as a project co-ordinator for Patty Mac, a luxury home and chalet builder, Ashley and her boss had an affair. For her family and close friends, it was out of character — a sign of how desperately lonely she must have been.
That holiday season, Ashley told her family she was contemplating leaving James. She sent her sister a message — “all out of love” — quoting from the Air Supply song, but they never discussed specifics of her affair before the murder.
When a man kills a current or former partner, the warning signs are often missed — but when many men kill many women over many years, the patterns of violence tell a chillingly consistent story.
Ontario’s chief coroner has tasked the Domestic Violence Death Review Committee to probe every death by intimate partner homicide, and find ways to help prevent future killings.
Since 2003, the committee has reviewed nearly 400 cases, involving 434 victims. On average, about 27 people die in an intimate-partner homicide each year in Ontario; 85 per cent of the victims are female.
From these cases, the committee has prepared a list of dozens of risk factors for intimate-partner homicide: They include a history of domestic violence; obsessive or controlling behaviour; alcohol and drug use; depression; sexual jealousy; access to guns; and more — in most killings, several factors are present simultaneously.
And, in two out of every three intimate-partner homicides in Ontario, the victim is killed at the end of a relationship or as it is beginning to fall apart.
The year of Ashley
In 2022, the wife of Ashley’s boss found out. She called Ashley at her dad’s place in Nassau, where she was celebrating her 40th birthday, giving a two-hour ultimatum: Tell James, or she would. So Ashley did.
(Ashley’s former boss and his then-wife did not respond to the Star’s requests for interviews.)
The Schwalms’ home life soon became toxic. James had surveillance cameras installed and insisted Ashley surrender her phone to him for inspection. She changed jobs and began working for another builder.
The couple agreed to try and rebuild their marriage through counselling, but James turned elsewhere. According to an agreed statement of facts read out in court at his guilty plea, he began “nurturing a relationship” with the now-separated wife of Ashley’s old boss.
The two were regularly in touch by text; James even gave her a cover name in his phone to hide the relationship from Ashley. And, on Jan. 21, 2023, he sent the woman a text message letting her know it was over with Ashley, and he was resolved to do what would make him happy.
At the same time, James was telling anyone who would listen about Ashley’s affair, her friends and family said.
Lindsay recalled telling her little sister she would spend the rest of her life “paying for this” — he would never let it go, she explained. Ashley “had embarrassed him in front of his friends, her friends, the whole Craigleith community.” (Lindsay’s voice filled with anger as she remembered the last year of her sister’s life; how James was “painting himself as this victim of this affair, meanwhile he’s doing the same thing.”)
Christan Bosley, one of Ashley’s oldest friends, was so alarmed in the final months that she asked countless times “if James was abusing her.”
Bosley declined the Star’s request for an interview but wrote of that time in one of many victim impact statements read out at James’s sentencing hearing. “I still spend days, hours and minutes haunted by the many warning signs missed along the way,” she wrote.
Ashley downplayed the worry, but “I shared my concern for the control he so clearly demanded over her and her children.”
A few weeks before James killed Ashley, she told Bosley: “I am choosing my happiness and the safety of my children. It’s going to be the year of Ashley and I can’t wait.”
She’d also told her friend she was working on her will.
Looking back, Lindsay emphasizes that Ashley was not herself in the last year of her life. She believes James “caught wind” of her plan to leave, which is why she believes he made a plan to kill her.
What they suspected
Before murdering Ashley, James pre-positioned his mother’s borrowed car as a getaway vehicle. He then drove his wife’s body out to stage a fiery crash. His movements that night were caught on surveillance footage. He sparked the blaze using a lighter bearing his own initials.
To try and cover his tracks, he faked a text conversation using Ashley’s phone. To explain why the gas was inside the SUV, he wrote: “Eww I left the gas cans in my car and it smells.”
When he returned to the house, he told the kids their mom had left to go on a hike; he repeated the lie to police.
When Ian Milnes called Lindsay from Nassau to tell her Ashley had died in a car crash, she suspected James was involved — but not to the extent to which he was.
Ashley loved to hike, she reasoned, but not pre-dawn after heavy snow, 20 minutes from home.
"There’s no way Boob was hiking at 5 a.m., at Craigleith by herself,” Lindsay said. Still, she remembered thinking, perhaps, they’d had a fight; that Ashley drove off and got in an accident.
But as the week went on, his stories weren’t adding up.
As the Craigleith community was rallying around the grief-stricken firefighter and children — as friends and neighbours delivered food and flowers and messages with their condolences — Lindsay heard him say something that left her dumbstruck: “I’ve got an alibi.”
“I looked at my husband and said this isn’t right … and made him take me back to the police.”
Soon, the investigation revealed a mountain of evidence — life insurance policies, footprints leading away from the crash, incriminating internet searches and the manufactured text messages.
James Schwalm was arrested on Feb. 3, 2023. He is set to learn his fate on Monday.
“I hope he spends the rest of his life where he is,” Lindsay told the Star.
“Her life is over; why should he get to live his?”
The Milnes family has requested that donations can be made in Ashley’s honour to My Friends House, a non-profit agency offering support for abused women in the Georgian Triangle.
The website is www.myfriendshouse.ca
All writing credit granted to Betsy Powell
Betsy Powell is a Toronto-based reporter covering crime and courts for the Star.
Follow her on Twitter: @powellbetsy.
Wednesday, February 5, 2025
CHANGE OF PLANS
CLICK HERE: To listen to Rhondi read this post on her podcast platform
As I mentioned in my Month of Mondays post in January, my upcoming milestone birthday trip was set, and my travel buddy hubby’s was still in the planning stages. Well, he’d decided he wanted to go to the world famous Red Rocks Amphitheater, just outside Denver Colorado. (If you're not familiar with it, l suggest you look it up.)
Tickets were purchased, hotels and an AirBnb were booked, for
us to enjoy a concert and a weeklong road trip through the state. Well,
as Canadians know, last Saturday night, all hell broke loose. This three-word
disaster is best known to the world as President Donald Trump!
By Monday morning our dollar was worth a whopping .49986
cents to the US dollar, and a conversation over lunch had my husband and I decided to sell our tickets,
cancel our lodging for refund, and scrap his bucket list trip.
![]() |
Top - Proof of Purchase - screenshots Bottom - ZBB Budweiser Stage TAKEN: July 14th, 2023 |
Then, out of the blue, we discovered the Zac Brown Band was coming back to Ontario. I immediately got on the alerts list and registered to become a member of Zamily - a member of the the Zac Brown Family; to have a two day jump on the sale of the tickets.
When my husband called to remind me that tickets when on
sale at 10am this morning, I immediately confirmed my intent. “I’m going for the front
row, Baby!!”
Well, you can see by the photo, I was successful of snagging
two front row tickets. Which makes me think it is a little bit of karma playing
in our favour.
I have only ever been lucky enough to see one other amazing
artist at this venue and snag the front row.
It was Sheryl Crow.
The tickets I had to sell
that we were going to see perform at Red Rocks.
Though we had to restart planning for his 'Canadian' bucket list birthday trip, I can't help but think about the ticket thing.....
Kind of a full circle moment, wouldn’t you say?
Sunday, February 2, 2025
STYLE OF WHITE
![]() |
For the last 2-1/2 years I have rarely allowed my photo to be taken. That has ended. TAKEN: FEBRUARY 1st, 2024 |
CLICK HERE: To listen to Rhondi read this post on her new podcast platform
My travel buddy hubby and I
headed ten miles south with the pups yesterday, simply to get me out of the
house. I’d worked thirteen of the last fourteen days and needed a serious dose
of the bright chilly sunshine mother nature was serving up.
Once in the car, I started to
take some fun pics with the pups to show how they were 'helping me' ride shotgun. You can see the
outline of Katie next to my right shoulder, though she was cropped out of the selfie I am sharing. A selfie highlighting (no pun intended) my
current style of white.
Not looking to open the “you’re
lucky to have hair” dialogue again, as I was seen as a whiner when I posted
about my broken-hearted smile after Edwina Scissorhands had done the deed. I simply
wanted to share where I landed and say that this journey wasn’t an easy one.
It’s hard to believe that it has
taken me thirty months to get the point where I no longer add toner to my hair
or use root touch up. No matter what one does, when growing a colour out of
your hair, there is no easy short cut.
I have tried a few times to get
where I am today, but the line of demarcation has always had me folding like a lawn
chair and add a rinse to buffer reality. Though still blonde in hue, the white
has most certainly shown up to the party in a big way; and I am okay with it.
The truth is, last week, I opened
a box of that miracle box of goo, that miraculously blends away gray for about twenty
washes. As I finished my personal prep to start my anti-aging façade, I looked
in the mirror and put everything back into the box and back into my bathroom cabinet.
As I prepare to turn sixty in about sixty days, it is time to embrace a couple of realities that are surrounding me.
One, you’re only as old as you feel. And two, just in case I decided waffle on my decision, I have still have that opened box of goo to remind me that I promised myself not to hide anymore.
The third is critically the most
important of anything I have written here today.
When I flipped that box over, I
was elated by three amazing words…
MADE IN MEXICO!
Suck on that Donald Trump, you crazy, 'manifest destiny' chasing, kook!!
Wednesday, January 22, 2025
FROZEN FRISBEE FUN
![]() |
Getting the doggo's some exercise ...during a Polar Vortex TAKEN: JANUARY 22nd, 2025 |
CLICK HERE: To listen to Rhondi read you this post (via her new podcast platform)
This morning, I was on my socials, and a photographer friend of mine posted a pic of a photo shoot his was doing. His caption read, "it sure is a chilly shoot this morning! Brrrr!!"
His buddy comment immediately and pointed out that he had spelt chilly wrong. Then corrected it by saying that this
week it should be spelt “F’n cold!”
I literally laughed out loud and instantly
liked the comment.
Running a doggie daycare, which touts
a strict schedule of daily activities, does not bode well during a Polar
Vortex. Suffice it to say, the show must go on.
As you can see by the photo I am
sharing, Katie and Miya were making the best of it this morning.
I don’t think I have ever shared
here, that we have an older home. Though well built in the 1980’s, we are at
the mercy of electric baseboard heat. So, all of the oversized windows have insulated
windows coverings to help mitigate the winter expenses.
On a day like today where the
mercury is stuck at -25C, I keep the curtains closed. When our 9:30am break
rolled around, I knew it was too cold for my pups. So a quick zip to do their business
and I got them back into the house at once.
By lunch, my app read it was a whopping -22C outside.
With the girls very antsy, I decided to try some of our regular activities to
burn off some of their energy. First try, I threw the frisbee three times and
got them back into the house to warm their paws.
Half hour later, I gabbed my camera
to show just how obsessed these two are with retrieving.
Miya, whose rubber frisbee matches
her fur coat, was all in. Katie, seen bringing up the rear in my photo, just
carries her favourite pig after she retrieves. She chases Miya, bouncing and slamming her pig into her, producing a very loud series of ‘oinks’.
This week is the first time I wished I would have trained them to wear those stupid looking booties I see dogs wearing. Only booties, no coats.
If they will swim in ice water at the cottage in the fall, the last thing I need to spend money on is a wardrobe.
The purchase of toys at WalMart and Pet Value? ABSOLUTELY.
Fashion - NEVER!
Heck, they have a fur coat... Just how many do they need?!?
Tuesday, January 7, 2025
MY MONTH OF MONDAYS
Officially in my fourth year with my employer, I must admit, I have a great gig. I primarily work from home, have a
synergistic relationship with my boss, and truly enjoy what I do for a
living.
The only way it could be any better is if when sipping my morning coffee, I was looking out at beach sand rather than snow. As I sit and sip my morning caffeinated concoction, I am excited to write that I am really looking forward to what this new year has to offer.
My travel buddy hubby and I booked a bucket list trip to celebrate my milestone birthday in April (his is in July and still in the planning stages). I don’t know about you but there is something really special about looking forward to a new bucket list destination and ultimately another passport stamp.
This one in particular, was a decade long decision for me, as this was the only sun soaked destination I recall my mother ever mentioning
that she always wanted to go. So, I’m going.
Flight is just under six hours in length and takes off out of YYZ in 89 days. It’s a Sunday departure, so only thirty-three more
Mondays until we leave.
...With twenty-four of those accounting for every
single day left in the month of January!
#yagottalaughaboutit
Tuesday, December 31, 2024
REMEMBERING 2024
As I have shared here several times before, because I lost my
mother in her fifty seventh year, I have promised myself that I would never wish away time. That
said, this past year has been so devastating on so many levels, I cannot wait
for the clock to strike twelve at midnight; so that I can tightly slam the door and throw away the key.
In contrast to all of my other year-end offerings, I don't want to thank 2024 for the memories. What I will do is punch it in the throat and thank it for proving to us that we are stronger than we ever imagined we could be.
Let's all raise a glass and get ready to welcome a new year. All the best to you and your loved ones in 2025, and thanks again for reading.
~ Rhondi
PS: As you reminisce with me electronically you can click links to journal offerings that you may have missed, or wish to revisit.
PSS: This offering closes out my year with a total of 52 posts. An average of one a week, which has always been my goal.
Here we go.... Keep your hands and feet in the ride at all times!
Most Impactful Moment (centre - His start of week three, still immobile, chatting with his dad): The Wednesday after the May 2-4 weekend, my travel buddy hubby rolled his ATV down an embankment and into the lake at the cottage and spent seventeen days in St. Michaels Hospital in Toronto.
His three brain bleeds, emergency surgery to repair internal bleeding, and his suffering a stroke only scratched the surface of what he endured while confined to a hospital bed.
(LINK TO RE-READ: BORINGLY NORMAL NO LONGER)
May: We moved to the cottage for the summer the weekend before the long weekend. There was no one around. It was at dusk, when I spotted what I thought was an otter moving in the lake. It turns out it was a moose. Less than two week later, everything changed.
June: My travel buddy hubby arrived home after seventeen days in a Toronto Hospital. I swear the dogs figured he was never coming back. They never left his side for the three months following when he was healing at home.
(LINK TO RE-READ: STORMY WEATHER REFLECTIONS)
July: I was devastated by the sudden death of my cousin Denny. So grateful for all the social media sound bites of his voice and singing. Such a talented and wonderful person. Will miss ya, always, Den.
(LINK TO RE-READ: MY FAVOURITE COWBOY)
August: I was happy to host my sister for ten days at the cottage. As we do for anyone that visits, she had to have a drink with our Dad.
(LINK TO RE-READ: CHEERS FROM ANDY GIRL)
September: Unexpectedly, we lost my beloved Annie to an aggressive brain tumour. Only seven days from the time we discovered her drooling, to her no longer know how to eat and drink. I loved her for her entire life and will love her the rest of mine.
(LINK TO RE-READ: REST EAST MY ANNIE)
October: For the first time in almost two decades, my travel buddy hubby and I hosted Thanksgiving dinner. So thankful for all those that attended. Their unconditional support during this very trying year meant the world to us.
(LINK TO RE-READ: A TABLE FOR TEN)
November: We managed to get in a week long vacation to the Mayan Riviera mid month. In keeping with the theme for the year, we were not even remotely surprised to be absolutely hammered by Tropical Storm Sara.
(LINK TO RE-READ: PONDERING REALITY)
December: Snowmageddon 2025 rolled into town, and stayed over a week. Lake effect snow off Georgian Bay had the Town of Gravenhurst under a state of emergency, reminding us that our town was in the same state fifteen years ago to the day.
(LINK TO RE-READ:SNOWMAGEDDON SUCKS
Sunday, December 15, 2024
THE 6AM SNOW SHUFFLE
![]() |
Trying to dig out from the overnight storm after the plow passed. DECEMBER 13th, 2024 (Shortly after 6AM) |
Yesterday marked more than two weeks since I’d left our house.
Technically, it was since I had left our yard - but I think you can catch my drift. Which is not be confused with those drifts that have been freshly fallen snow since Snowmageddon 2024 roared into Muskoka on November 28th!
Though we did get a bit of reprieve during those calendar days, because I work from home, I simply stayed home. With each work break including the movement of snow around the yard. The dog trails seemed to occupy the most of my time. But that's the household deal we agreed to. I run the manual shovels and my travel buddy hubby navigates old Bessie our blower.
The snow accumulation was getting to be so much, that we found ourselves going to bed early, so we could clear required snow for the car, and get it the hell up the driveway before the snowplow passed.
For whatever reason, the eve of Thursday the 12th had me the most concerned with the new storm front that arrived. Our largest dumping came that day, with another 40cm expected overnight. The photo I am sharing above is what we woke up to.
The photo came to fruition because less than a minute before the car was going into reverse, the end of the driveway was filled. The pups and I hauled butt up to the top to assess the situation. There was no way we could push through the bank without damaging the under carriage of the car. So, out came old Bessie to the rescue.
I shoveled most of the morning to clear the doors and decks, as well as widen the dog trails. Old Bessie was back in action at lunch time, when her operator returned home to blow out the remainder - as only the top was cleared before he had to head to work.
My morning photos illustrate a couple of thing that I know to be true.
The top photo proves to me that this was definitely the one day a year when winter is really pretty.
So, what does photo two (below) illustrate?
...That WINTER FREAKING SUCKS!
![]() |
Old Bessie doing the 6AM snow shuffle TAKEN: DECEMBER 13th, 2024 |
Wednesday, December 11, 2024
DECEMBER 11th, 2009
In preparing for another possible 40cms of snow, I have spent my home office breaks clearing the overhanging white stuff with our roof rake. In the twenty plus years we have owned our home, we’ve never had to shovel our roof.
If we get the next dumping of snow they are predicting, I am going to have to hire someone to do it. With my travel
buddy hubby having balance issues, it will be the first chore we haven’t been able
to do ourselves; yet another reminder that getting old really sucks!
Nonetheless, while I was eating
my lunch and checking my socials, I clicked to take a look at my online memories. You know, where Facebook shows you something you posted on this date, and how many years
ago it was.
Well, today I was reminded that it was eleven
years ago today that I had lunch with one of my closest clients, sharing my intent to quit my job at MWDC.
Thirteen years ago, today I posted, "Leadership is about influence and impact, not title and accolades." (Something I still truly believe.)
And, that fifteen years
ago today Bracebridge was under a State of Emergency.
I really like checking out my memories. It gives me a chance to download pictures I may have lost thanks to the many 'blue screens of death' I have experienced. I can recall two desktops and a laptop that I never fully recovered from.
Today's memories helped me recover about a dozen pics from varying years. Now safely stored on an external hard drive, that I also back up.
The photos I am sharing today were taken with my Blackberry - no clue which version.
Not only do the photos bring back great memories, like when the kids still living at home, when the house had green trims, and that we really DID shovel before old Bessie.... It shows me just how far digital photography from a phone has progressed.
Stay safe and warm everyone. Winter is here to stay!!
![]() |
Taking a break from shoveling in the whiteout TAKEN: DECEMBER 11th, 2009 |
![]() |
Before we got rid of the trees TAKEN: DECEMBER 11th, 2009 |
![]() |
Goob in a cape and shorts! TAKEN: DECEMBER 11th, 2009 |
Thursday, December 5, 2024
KATIE LU IS TWO!!
Woohoo… Katie Lu is two!
And to celebrate her arrival into the world, she lit up all my socials, to a plethora of heart felt birthday wish across numerous platforms.
That said, I don’t like to think of my dogs as 'Facebook famous', but I will admit that they all have acquired their own hashtags and are never camera shy when duty calls.
Note: The word cookie may have been used to achieve her beautiful birthday portrait this morning. #yagottalaughaboutit
PS: A happy 63rd birthday goes out to my big bro
today as well.
PSS: Cheers to these two beauties having a great day!
Wednesday, December 4, 2024
SNOWMAGEDDON SUCKS
![]() |
...It is beginning to feel a little lot like Groundhog Day. TAKEN: NOVEMBER 30th (left) DECEMBER 1st (right) |
White out conditions started early Friday November 29th, but by the time guy got home it has slowed, so we decided we would tag team our snow shoveling/blowing efforts first thing in the next morning.
Up bright and early, we discovered
the snow was so wet, the blower struggled to move it. With me working the clearing of the decks and stairs, I could only use a small shovel as the saturated weight was
simply more than I could manage.
Slowly and steadily we moved snow off the driveway,
decks, and doggo trails for the better part of Saturday. By sundown it was a
total white out and by 8pm the hydro was out. And it stayed out for more than
14 hours. In all our 22 years here, this is the first time the hospital grid
(which we’re on) has been out for more than a few of hours.
By morning we were ready to start
again. I boiled water on the BBQ for coffee, then we headed outside. My travel
buddy hubby mentioned that he was going to head across the street to get the
intel on the neighbourhood blower guy.
In the bitchiest tone ever, I
asked why was wasn’t going to fire up old Bessie, “...because the snowblower is
an electric start” he replied in the same tone I came at him with. Which was deserved. It was just one of the things you
never think of, nor have impacted us previously.
Tired and spent, mid afternoon Sunday brought the sun out and our accumulation to date was about 52 inches.
That said, I have
been shoveling though the day today and Bessie our blower is back at it as I
type, as we received another good six inch dumping today.
I have always been proud of our
efforts to do our yard chores, when everyone else on the street has hired help. It has sort of been a badge of honour.
That said, I now understand first hand the reason why pride is classified a deadly sin.
Because without our old Bessie, this specific 2024 storm front feels like (if we would have had to deal with it old school)…. It might have killed us!
Monday, November 25, 2024
COURAGE FLAG RAISED
I woke this morning to a calendar alert from my phone simply labelled JS sentencing. Originally set for this day is September, it had be postponed two months until today.
As you know, I don't mention is name here but it is hoped that his sentencing today offers #JusticeForAshley. My beautiful coworker he murdered in January 2023.
I tried to log into the courtroom hearing this morning, only to discover that his sentencing would not be issued virtually. In turn, I have been checking Collingwood Today, every fifteen minutes, in hopes of finally hearing his fate.
At about 2:45pm, reporter Erika Engel reported the following. Another milestone for Ashley.
This is her article, and photo credit and (c) belong to her.
Courage flag raised in Collingwood while sentencing begins for local man who murdered wife.
![]() |
Photo credit and (c) to Erika Engel of Collingwood Today |
Sunday, November 17, 2024
PONDERING REALITY
![]() |
Tropical Storm Sara letting her lingering presence be known. TAKEN: NOVEMBER 16th, 2024 |
I took the beautiful picture I am sharing mid-morning yesterday. About twelve hours after Tropical Storm Sara hit our large resort compound with some serious authority.
Now, some may ponder the odds of heading to a resort in the Mayan Riviera and getting hammered by the weather like we did. Not us. When we began getting the alerts, we simply felt it was an extension of the storm that has surrounded us this entire year.
Feeling a tad exhausted and somewhat defeated, I wandered down the beach and I posted a social media video story. I scanned the miles of high waves, to which I opened with... "Oh 2024, how you've challenged me."
Now, you know I am all about the optimistic thought process of, 'when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.' But this has been such a crap year, I am almost ready to hold our next citrus offering up and squeezing the juice into my eyes; it may be a tad less painful.
Though I kid, my thoughts and glass half full of lemonade is focused on the up coming November 31st.
That will be the day that my travel buddy hubby's brain will officially stop trying to heal itself. Whatever stroke symptoms he has will remain and be a part of our day-to-day reality.
At this point the right arm seems to have corrected itself but there are still lingering speech issues.
His right-side leg is the one he had emergency surgery on to stop his internal bleeding, so I don't think we will ever truly understand which percentage of his challenges will be accident related vs. stroke related. What we do know, is that he will never walk as he did before.
Anyway, as I sit and type and ponder in Mexico, I feel I can sum up everything I know about life.
Which is the fact that will always be always be tough, right up until the minute it isn't.
Friday, November 15, 2024
SILENT DANCE PARTY
![]() |
We felt like teens sneaking out the window after Mom went to bed! TAKEN: NOVEMBER 13th (pm) & 14th (am), 2024 |
Thursday, November 14, 2024
TRAVEL DAY DROWSY
![]() |
The three of us, in the air mid flight. Just look at my sister on the end. Adamant that she was unable to sleep on a plane! TAKEN: NOVEMBER 13th, 2024 |
When it comes to taking a vacation, coordinating great flight times has become an obsession of mine. Simply because we discovered more than a decade ago, arriving into YYZ in the middle of the night was a hard NO for my travel buddy hubby and I; no matter how big the savings were.
Now, when my sister decided she wanted to join us at our favourite Mayan Riviera resort for a week, I warned her of our early departure intentions, which in turn secured us a midday return flight the following week.
Her big concern was, "...I can't sleep on a plane." In her defense, we are far more seasoned travelers than she. We can fall asleep as soon as those booming jet engines are engaged before we back away from the gate.
Staying at a hotel close to the airport the night of the 12th to be ready for a 5am Air Canada check-in, her travel anxiety was firing on all cylinders and she was up all night.
When we woke early on our travel day morn, she was curled up in the TV room with a blanket. Once again anxiously reaffirming to us, again, "...I can't sleep on a plane."
Knowing we were dealing with her lack of sleep, her next hurdle was to adjust to the fact that the Toronto airport is one of the most technically savvy in the world. Your cell phone and your airline app, have essentially replaced paper for a swift progression through check-in, customs, and security.
Not to judge, rather paint a digital technology picture, my sister has an old school flip phone. One she is very proud of I might add. So, we hooked her up with an older android phone we had, and as uncomfortable (and overtired) as she was, she was good to go.
So much so, that as soon as we checked in to our very large resort, I made sure she was comfortable calling us using a VoIP app I had set up for her. As I wanted to make communication between our rooms worry free.
On a final note. I wanted to touch on the fact that the word 'can't' has never been one I have ever embraced. For me, my mantra is really 'die trying...' and I always seem to figure it out!
That said, I wish my sister would delete the sucker from her thesaurus, or at least aspire to try to minimize its use.
Because, as you can see in my photo above... She really CAN sleep on a plane!!