6. Have Fun With Your Loved Ones
Whatever you do make time and enjoy it with the people you love. The picture below I took during LaRue's 50th Anniversary on Shuswap Lake. Family members had taken the opportunity to have potato sack races and then came the aunt's turn. They created their own race. They do that often, change the rules and have fun together. You are lucky if you get to watch and even luckier if you get to participate.
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| Arta, Wyona and Moiya |
7. Read
Read extensively.
Read often.
Read widely.
Read the same thing twice and even three times.
Underline and highlight the important bits.
Share what you read with others.
Listen to others when they share what they have read.
Read more.
8. Enjoy Being An Aunt
No matter the age of the niece or nephew, get to know them, talk with them, share your wisdom with them. After a time you will have built relationships with some of the most interesting people in your life. Just ask Arta, I am one of those interesting nieces. :)
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| On Shady Beach having fun. |
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| Parents (Wyona and Greg) and Aunt Arta spending time with us. |
9. Send People Emails That Build Them Up
I thought I was the only niece she sent emails to telling me how great I am. In conversation with my sisters, I found that Arta was cheating on me! She sends loving emails to multiple family members. Lucky us! Here is one she sent me after I posted several pictures on Facebook about my mother. She shared love with both of us:
"I tried to post a comment on facebook. I don't think I got it there. I did have it copies and pasted. Maybe i will use your pics and put it on the family blog.
Tonia, you have captured your mother in 4 photos. I would have tried to write a whole essay and not caught for us what you have presented. Smashing! Few will ever know this amazing woman's talents -- extra-ordinaire school teacher of the disabled, water-color painter, jewelllery designer, seamstress (who has altered more clothing than I have ever purchased), quilter, cheese-cake cook, and oh, what about the 5 star zuchinni cakes, master bridge player, and now on-line bridge with her family, dancer, a woman who is longing for the cruise ships to open up again."
10. Look For Beauty Everywhere
Look for wonderful things everywhere you look. Whether a small mushroom in a forest, a stunning piece of art in a gallery, a delicious cookie, a game of bridge. Enjoy the wonderful parts of everything. Most importantly enjoy the view in your life, even if it is a tough moment, find the beauty.
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| The best view of Shuswap Lake |
70 more to go!
i agree with you re the capacity to build people up. sweet!
ReplyDelete6. have fun with loved ones
ReplyDeleteYes to having fun with your loved ones and with others. The first tine I ever saw a three legged race done was probably at a mormon church picnic when I was about 4 years old. Pretty dangerous, I can see now. They must have taken somebody off for a broken leg. That was when Charlie was the Bishop. Brothers Walter and Cal Pitcher were there and just about any other old family names that are now ringing back into my head.
7. Read
ReplyDeleteThe Calgary Public library is where I got most of my books. They provided a small set of books for every class room -- probably 30 -- hoping the children would read them. And sometimes I got to the the lucky person who got to be the librarian of the month. When I look at your list Tonia you have listed 8 things. I wonder if they would be called the 8 articles of reading, or the 8 tenants of faith, or the 8 commandments of reading. They are all written onto my heart. Just Beautiful Tonia, to us book lovers. Yesterday Richard told me that Michael is a bookworm. That made me laugh because I had to figure out what being a bookworm means. A worm doesn't always have pleasant connotations. But in this case I knew what Richard was saying.
8. On being an aunt
ReplyDeleteIn this picture I am both a grandmother and a great aunt. The people in the photo of left to right, Betty Johnson, Audra Treleaven, Alice Johnson, and Piper Hicks. And yes I can tell you at the outset -- interesting people to have in my life. Really interesting people to have in my life.
More on 8
ReplyDeleteI do want to add that Audra's mother asked her if she wanted to go into acting and Audra said no she just wanted to take classes on how to direct. There's a girl who know how to skip a step. That really made me laugh.
9. send e-mails building people up
ReplyDeleteThis is on Wyona but if I didn't say her name, people would think I am talking about Moiya. Both equally talented women. With such interesting in-laws. Every time I try to figure out what it is about them that I find so attractive, I go back to the idea that it might be because I have spent so many years with them, watching them, driving with them, going to classes with them. Creating my own strengths on top of theirs. Studying their technique. I think yesterday I was telling Mary and Richard that I rarely find anything negative said by Moiya about one of her relatives of in-laws. Moiya builds people up and I never find her being negative. There is one thing about working this skill at a basic level but Moiya does it at another level.
10. Look for Beauty
ReplyDeleteI do find myself a bit irritated about how often we have to stop the car to catch a picture of the most perfect view of the sky. Wyona can see it everywhere. A certain colour of grey around a cloud, or a hue of pink in the sunset. Or that iris-shattering spark of an early sunrise. She says she can never capture on her camera what she can see with her eye when she is making us stop to take a picture of this view of the world. For me when the human eye catches a tear rolling down a child's cheek I can hardly stand to see it, both the pain of the child and the beauty of being able to stop in the moment where i might be able to fix something.
Tonia, I am loving your 80 things about Arta series, just loving it. I saw this yesterday but didn't read it because I was afraid I would cry. Today I read it and every section made me smile. Yep, you are capturing Arta to a "t". Your writing and your photography are beautiful. Thank you for sharing your gifts.
ReplyDelete