Engaging news

Well, an eventful weekend but in a positive way. And having a second weekend in a row with beautiful summer weather was a real gift. Today was one of our warmest yet with temperatures in the 30s, positively tropical. Had to wait until 8 p.m. to take the dog for her walk, but that is a statement not a complaint with all the yucky weather we’ve suffered.

Saturday morning brought a call from daughter # 2 announcing that she had accepted an engagement ring and congratulations were in order. I told her that our future son-in-law who was at first painfully shy when he started coming to our house in grade 10 but over the past 7.5 years has become a part of the family used the wait and see strategy versus having to ask her father for her hand in marriage. Needless to say she was ‘pumped’. Will await further details and follow instructions as any good mother of the bride should.

I made a brief appearance at a neighbourhood wine and cheese party on Saturday night, bringing back goodies for the shore captain who was chasing boats. And today we had one of our summer neighbours over for supper and introduced her to the delicacy of smoked haddock. Tried out the maple syrup on apple pie suggestion on the side of her generous gift. Interesting.

And of course managed to sleep in and read my library book and think about doing other things but not do them. Ah, summer weekends.

But on a less selfish level….Not sure if you’ve ever heard of the micro lending organization called KIVA but here is the link:

http://www.kiva.org/

A letter to the editor in the paper called my attention to it with a story about having lent $25, having it repaid many times over and assisting + + people so I plan to check it out further.

And as well in the newspaper, but on a very different topic is this link:

http://hellofromearth.net/

A site where you can send a text message of 160 characters which will be broadcast by NASA into the universe. Extraterrestrials apparently will be looking for independent thinking humans so try to think of something edgy to say.

While browsing the cruise speaking offerings for the upcoming year I found a great gig which was roundtrip out of Buenos Aires (great for visiting in Mar del Plata) and included Falkland Islands and over to Antarctica the first two weeks of February but the shore captain didn't bite. I explained this was just to show him what was available but he wandered off in case I got that gleam in my eye and started looking for flights....one of these years.

Well, I must head off to bed as I am covering for everyone in my both of my work groups tomorrow and that’s really something to look forward to.