peachmanstewart

There’s someone new in our house, and he’s turning it upside down. Literally. Our new ten-week-old beagle puppy is energy, fun and affection personified. Yes, he’s a lot of work, but so much joy, too. He’s snuggled beside me as I write, making sleepy puppy noises (which sound so much like meows, they make me […]

Have you ever walked into a raging windstorm? Swirling debris pelts you, and you close your mouth and even your eyes at times in defence. Step by step you go forward, but your one thought is, “When will this be over?” This week was a bit like that. Crisis after crisis (some of my own

I can’t remember. I wasn’t there. For those of us born in the generation after World War II, the best we can do is actively listen to the stories, and try to imagine how it felt. But is it even possible to imagine the horrors of war, or the agony of waiting at home? I’ve

I’ll never get a good neighbour award. Not that I’m a bad neighbour. I’m a quiet neighbour. I live my life side-by-side with people in my townhouse complex and smile shyly at them as we put out our mutual garbage. We all hibernate in the winter, emerging in the frozen night to go to work.

It looked like a gentle breeze could blow it over. The old barn had seen many harvests, been a safe house for cattle, and stored hay and corn husks. It was leaning to the left, and shivered as if it wouldn’t make it through another winter. Rather than pulling the sorry building down, the farmer

Have you ever had a branding moment? Something so catastrophic happens that it marks you for the rest of your life. You remember what you were wearing and the smells and sounds, and especially how you felt when it happened. Thinking about it makes those same emotions spring to life, and you are suddenly right

I love to accomplish things. There’s no better feeling for a person with my personality type than to make a long list of tasks, and then begin to cross them off. When I was a mom at home with small children, I would make my ILT ever day. That stood for my Impressive List of

It was a sight so arresting, it halted my journey up Christie Street. From the side of the curb, only inches from the street, were flowers growing from a minuscule break in the concrete. Beautiful purple cosmos bloomed where there should only be rock and pavement. There is a lesson here. More than “Bloom where you are

August 20, 2012 You and I may be the only people who remember the significance of this day. And you are gone, so there is only me. Thirty-five years ago, this day changed my life. Today my mind traveled winding paths of memory, thinking about you and us and what was and is. Of course, we thought

In 2003, I took gerontology online. Other than that, I haven’t been in school for decades.I still have two children finishing university degrees, but neither of them has lived at home for years. So why do back to school ads still make me edgy? As a kid, those ads meant an end to the fun