Reading, writing and photos

Here's the next installment in my journey of making icicle dolls. She is hanging from a twig tree that I use in my kitchen. It is expandable and collapsible. I have not yet decorated it since I haven't found the little lights and balls for it.

This morning I was reading the local newspaper online. It's my homepage and I keep up-to-date with what's going on. It's quick and I can just skim the headlines. I decided to check the latest additions to a section they have called "Acts of Kindness." It's truly uplifting and I always enjoy reading what little things my fellow Torontonians and Canadians are doing to bring a little joy into the life of a stranger. Well, today, as I was reading, there was a letter (a note really because they are all small entries) from a soldier stationed in Afghanistan. It seems he wanted to publicly thank a lady who wrote to him. Through doing a little research (I am a librarian after all), I found out that anyone can write a letter to a soldier. I found a discussion group and there was an address where you send your letter and the letters are then distributed randomly to the troops. The letter can go anywhere a Canadian soldier is stationed. Since my son Eric is now teaching as a long term occasional (the regular teacher is on maternity leave), I thought it would be a wonderful thing for his grade 8 students to do. It is probably too late for a Christmas card but a letter would be nice to receive at anytime. Apparently, you can even send them a Tim Hortons gift card since there is a Timmy's in Kandahar. (don't know how that would work if the letter went elsewhere.) The postage is free until at least January 2010!
Here's the address: "Any Canadian Forces Member"
                               Op Athena
                               P.O. Box 5058 Stn Forces
                               Belleville, Ontario K8N 5W6

This is a wonderful thing to do and takes so little time. I will be getting down to some writing later today. While reading some of the other entries, I found that there were some really wonderful Acts of Kindness stories - especially done by the youth.

And now another photo. Since it is my daughter-in-law's 30th birthday today, there was a party to celebrate on Saturday to which my husband and I got invited to - along with all the young folk. She is the last of the group who was born in the 70s to turn the BIG 30 and so she had to wear a banner that said OLD. What a great sport!

This had been worn for one whole day by the person whose 30th birthday it was. It has now been retired (as you can see, it has been around the block) and there will be something else for the people born in the 80s to wear when they turn the BIG 30.

This is the cake that she picked out. Multi-coloured meringue - delicious. Happy Birthday Kate!