Saturday, November 5, 2011

Lull in the Whirl - Back in Touch




Expo 150 - Grandmothers' Necklace selling sites, local contributors and some of the press clippings.





Before the big rush, 100th Caroline at Fall Showcase 2011
Birthday Party


GranAfriCan Tea, 2011, Jean LeBreton and other Drummers


Drumbeat Literary Issue








Here comes the bride... Shall we dance?













EXPO 150 -

Shows the reason for the Petawawa Grannies'

displays & work


Greetings!
EXPO 150 came and went...a very successful happening overall, despite being a tented event with some rain and wind. As I promised eons ago, here are a few pictures from our display. As you will soon discover, this is a form of editing in which I've never engaged before: On-site with photos. Learning... Please, "bear" with me.









Pet-Gran,

Mascot








First shift on duty at the Petawawa Grannies booth


Another event which kept family busy preparing was my mother-in-law’s 100th birthday event in Sarnia. She is Jean Elford, a Grandmothers’ Necklace contributor, an author of two books and writer of many, many, many articles. We family members arranged to have the party catered in her own home and, despite the muggy 100 degrees F heat, friends and relatives kept the house active for some time! All of us, led by our daughter Alexandra, had gathered photos and web images which related to Jean’s 100 years of a very active life. Even the Google map photo of her home includes her image returning from a daily walk!!

Kind persons bought copies of Grandmothers’ Necklace from me and asked Jean to sign it. Jean, a little horrified that I might have been actually flogging the book at her birthday party, was, nevertheless, gracious about signing. (In fact, people had recognized the opportunity themselves and had asked me about getting a copy at the time.)

Despite car challenges, we were back in Petawawa for a local event called Showcase where the Petawawa Grannies had a display and an opportunity to sell the Grandmothers’ Necklace book, jewellery and pashminas for the Stephen Lewis Foundation.


NOTE: In my original set-up for this blog entry, I had lovely photos interspersed among the lines of writing. Some of them were framed in different shapes. However, as I haven't a single clue about how to anchor the photos properly, and refuse to waste any more time on that fruitless effort, I will put the rest of them at the bottom or top of the text and hope that they will at least co-operate with that approach.

September 11th was Petawawa Grannies’ popular GranAfriCanTea with drummers, market stalls. A beautiful quilt as one of the prizes.

I had the honour of being guest editor for the literary edition of Drumbeat, September issue, the newsletter for the Ottawa-Gatineau Grandmothers Network.

October brought two special events on the same extended weekend for us. Our niece, Mary Ann Wilson, my brother Bill’s daughter (a journalism graduate who contributed a touching and amusing piece “Grandmother’s Necklaces”, to Grandmothers’ Necklace) married Neil, in St. Jacobs, ON.

We hurried back the next day, topped up our own partially pre-packed car and drove to Sands on Golden for a reunion with a group of friends (and their spouses) all of whom had graduated from Ottawa Teachers’ College at the same time. We’ve been having reunions regularly, narrowing the number of years between them as we creak into old age.

This was another happy experience AND several copies of Grandmothers’ Necklace were sold and signed AND the hospitable Sands, with its delicious food and modern accommodations, has now been added to our list of places carrying the GN book!! See:
http://www.valleyartisans.com/grandmothersnecklace.htm

Before the sun sets on today’s entry, I’d like to share the news that, thanks to the help of a family-tree tracing cousin and the kindness of the editor of the Biggleswade Chronicle there, I’ve been contacted for the first time by Haddow relatives in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, England.

If you read my little piece, “Daisy Chain”, in Grandmothers’ Necklace, you’ll know that my mother was orphaned by eight. Her older brother was sent to English relatives and she was raised by an aunt and uncle here. Biggleswade was the name on a wedding photograph I found in my mother’s belongings.

It has felt as though I’ve suddenly become the central character in one of the mysteries I enjoy reading, and the clues are opening up. In England I’ve now been identified as the daughter of the sister of Art, the brother who was sent there. I’m excitedly looking forward to seeing photographs of the family and hearing more about them.

If you’ve stayed with me this long, thank you for reading. The Word Guild, an organization for writers and editors who are Christian, http://www.thewordguild.com/ is posting some information about me on the parts of the site that are for editors and professional writers.


Potential clients will be encouraged to look here. Eventually, this blog should become more of a showplace for some of my skills and years of experience.


NOTE TO BROWSING POTENTIAL CLIENTS, PLEASE don’t judge my editing or writing work habits by the length of time that passes between my entries on this boggy blog. If I’m working for a client, I can’t always be working for me at the same time. That is a choice I make.


In addition to the above, I’ve been nursing a sick cat, tutoring a CFB Petawawa officer in English, dealing with some of my own and my husband’s ailments, editing a YA novel, scanning and organizing a zillion photos and objects, and (gasp!) WRITING, refining, organizing and submitting ms. on my own behalf (e.g. one poem was in the October issue of Drumbeat. Another small piece won me a promo position for GN on the radio.)

During this brief ( ?) hiatus, I have hopes of getting more of the W.O.R.S. completed as I await/seek the next editing/writing contracts.


I'll save the picture of sunset on Golden Lake for the next entry.