Martha Mihaly

I never could have imagined what an exciting and growing year 2007 would be.  From a new career for me, to a company closure for my H.  From one child being accepted into a gifted program, to the other excelling in piano.  From being sued for $575K to H being rear ended twice on the freeway, and having to testify at a criminal trial against a habitual drunk.  From securing $22,000 in grant funding for the local school to losing my favourite garden shears.  From having a furnace kack off in March, to quitting my job in November.  From family holidays camping, hiking and skiing, to a work trip to California for me, and 27 work trips for H.  From making a new good friend (that’s you Richard) to getting to know old ones better.

Wow.  Did I mention someone hitting the garage?…..

It’s been rich, and wonderful.  I’d be lying if I said that I wouldn’t trade any of it, but I know I am stronger and better for all of it.  We’ve had our health and humour to carry us through.  As a family we’ve become closer than ever, and the kids are still thrilled to hang out with us.

I hope that you’ve all had a good year, and that you’ve managed to tackle your challenges wearing your rose coloured glasses. 

Happy New Year Friends.

I am so excited! Santa is coming to our house tonight. NORAD says so, and we can track him on the web. Check it out, you’ll know exactly where he is. I listened to an interview with his fighter pilot escort through Canada. The only way they can track him is via the heat signature that comes from Rudolph’s red nose.

Today we are going skiing, then coming home to a nice dinner, we’ll listen to a reading of The Sheppard as read by the late Alan Maitland, go to church, open some presents, and then both of the families and some dear friends come tomorrow for late lunch. It will be great.

Merry Christmas from our house to yours.

I came upon this from thenextweb web site. Thanks for highlighting it Boris.

If you go to Free Rice you can play word definition games. You are presented with a word and a variety of definitions. Select the correct one and 20 grains of rice are donated to the United Nations World Food Program, and you get a new harder word. Select the wrong answer and you get an easier try. They have donated over 10,000,000,000 grains since October of 2007. This is brilliant. Give it a try, and tell all of your friends about it.

Have you ever been really cross about something, but didn’t realize it?  I can’t say that this has ever happened to me before, but it did today.  I just got it.  How bloody angry I am.  Somewhat resentful too, but mostly just kick me in the ass mad!

It’s been brewing for months. I knew something was pissing me right off, but honestly didn’t have the time to think a lot about it.  If you’ve read my blog posts you’ll know I am kinda busy!

H is away again for a few days on business, and that has given me the time to think.  Well, that and the fact the local ski hill’s been open and I’ve found my way there a few times…okay daily… for the last week (I bought the cheapie $99 season’s pass but that’s a different post).

So, I don’t really want to go into details about what has got me stewing in my boots, but it’s a delicate situation.  Alas, I may have acted in haste and let the offender know how mad I am.  But I think not.  I don’t think it’s worth it at this point anyway.  I think I will just fantasize about revenge what should have happened, have a drink, and hit the hay!

One thing for sure…I won’t be making that mistake again.  Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

The title really says it all.  This past weekend we were pounded with another storm.  Not since my childhood have we had snow from mid November on.  It snowed 30cm at least on the weekend, and we’ve gotten at least another 10cm today in the form of a lovely light snow.  Very picturesque, unless you live in the boonies where the wind whips up whenever you want to drive somewhere!

We had a friend stop in this weekend, and he backed his big F250 into the driveway, so that if the road plow came by he’d have  a chance to get out.  Unfortunately, he misjudged the length of his bed and hit our house.  He hit the post between the two garage doors and pushed it in, cracking the brickwork, skewing the post,  bending the garage door rails, and snapping the trim work.  He felt horrible.  So did we.

We roped the post and pulled it back to level, but man there’s a lot of damage.  I’m waiting for repair quotes today and tomorrow since this is WAY beyond our handy capabilities.   Oh well, what’s life without another hassle!  As I said to our friend F, no one was hurt, that’s all that matters.  I suspect he’s not too happy with the expense it will be, however, on the upside his F250 didn’t have a scratch on it.  Makes one wonder doesn’t it?

Often we get caught up in anger over things we can’t control.  This was a simple accident.  I took a deep breath when he told us what happened at the front door, and laughed.  So, here I sit.  Waiting for the trades man to come, watching the fluffy stuff fall, drinking a coffee, taking a break from all the hectic activity that I seem to be drawn to.  Perhaps a forced rest isn’t always a bad thing.  Having and being a good friend is a good thing too.

I got asked some interesting questions this week by Patrick de Laive, a contibuting editor at TheNextWeb.org. 

Patrick wants to know why there aren’t more women using/designing in web 2.0? What is keeping us back.  I think it is a very relevant topic, boiled down to two questions: 

Why are women content to be the consumers of a product, rather than designers of the product? 

Would more women be using the internet for social interactions if they themselves designed the product?

I thought I would share my ideas with anyone reading my blog, and perhaps get your feed back.

(more…)

The snow started early here this year. We got the first on November 18th and it’s still going. We got upwards of 20 cm last night, and now we are waiting for the freezing rain/sleet. It should be a ball.

We are house bound. The kids and H went to church on the unplowed roads, fortunately it’s less than a kilometre down the road. We’ve decided not to drive into the city to go to a long planned Christmas party. It’s just not safe. Instead we will do some more baking and finish decorating our tree.  Here is a picture of our budgie on it.

We got our Christmas tree. Friends have a tree plantation on their farm, so we took advantage of yesterday morning’s nice weather and went out to cut one. It’s a lovely little (2.5 metre) spruce, and once again we made new family memories…not the least of which was H cursing as he tried to trim it to size.

I hope that you all have a chance to take stock of what you have in your lives, and to take time to show thanks by giving back to others. I loved what I read on Bill’s site today, I hope that it touches you as it did me. Thanks to Bill for bringing this to my attention.

So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart.
Trouble no one about their religion;
respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours.
Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life.

Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people.
Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.
Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend,
even a stranger, when in a lonely place.
Show respect to all people and grovel to none.

When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living.
If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself.

Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools
and robs the spirit of its vision.

When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled
with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep
and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way.
Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.

Chief Tecumseh