Hospice Care

Time has passed and I finally have time to reflect on the passing of a number of older friends. One of aspect of care that I learned about was hospice care at home. Hospice care sounds wonderful until you become involved. Volunteers and staff provide practical, emotional, and spiritual support in collaboration with family caregivers, health care providers and community support agencies. This sounds wonderful . Hospice volunteers give an average of 4 hours care a week. How many hours of hospice care is a patient allowed? A question, I would love to have answered by various Hospice associations. In a week, I don't think that the hours amount to very many. I have a feeling that all the other agencies mentioned in the list are expected to come to the table and provide the majority of care. Someone or some agency is still expected to provide coordination. In many cases, the coordinators will be the family. In the situation that I was involved in, it was a team of care givers. Three of us coordinated care on a 24 hour basis. What a learning experience. After a period of time, we had a greater appreciation of what agencies are able to offer and how much must be paid for.

Not far from the tree

Last year, I found an article about the organization "Not Far from the tree". www.notfarfromthetree.org. This started as a volunteer gig for Laura Resinborough as the article in the paper said with Laura and others picking fruit at Spadina House and other gardens and then selling the fruit at Green Barns in Wychwood. The crop has grown to the tune of 3,000 pounds of fruit. Reinsborough and friends would gather each Saturday morning during the harvest season, collecting apples in the morning for sale that afternoon.
Reinsborough found Not Far from the Tree to pick neighbourhood fruit in Ward 21 area of Toronto. In the first year, they had interest from more than 100 homes across the city and it has grown.
What a wonderful venture. Wonder how many can be started and how many exist but they just don't have the publicity?

Beads

On Friday, when I went out to find a yarn shop, I passed an area that was fascinating;there were at least 5 bead shops if not more. I lost count. Each of the shops had its own specialty. One of the shops was the Beadery. www.thebeadery.ca. A friend of ours who lives in Florida loves beading and even teaches courses. She would love these shops.
In addition to the yarn shops, fabric shops were situated in between them. Again, I took time to go into one of them and discovered exotic fabric that would make a wonderful jacket or some special outfit. Wonderful to discover that these shops exist since fabric departments are no longer part of department stores. I still remember in my teens being able to go to the department store and hunt for a pattern, fabric, and accessories in the department store. One stop shopping at its best. This is no longer the case. Good to know that there are still people sewing and creating interesting things.

Romni Wools

As you might know, I love knitting scarves. I might branch into hats next. A friend showed me a hat that she had knit and it looked like fun.

Yesterday, I went exploring and discovered Romni Wools. It has taken me a long time to get to this part of the city which seems to be undergoing gentrification. A mixture of new and old stores coexist on Queen Street. I suspect that this is like Cabbagetown which two economic groups try to co-exist. I hope that they manage.

Now back to my main point, Romni Wools was a revelation. There was wool from floor to ceiling. I was glad that what I wanted Ribbon Yarns tended to be on the lower levels and there was plenty of it. I will be busy for quite awhile. I managed to find a number of manufacturers and colours. Now, that I am going to be knitting with the intention of selling my work, it is time to be more systematic about what I am doing.

Those of you who love knitting, Romni is a great source of yarn and knitting supplies.

Plastic Shoes

For years, I have maintained that if you keep something it will come back in style. Styles are recycled. The recycle time is getting shorter as we have greater media coverage. What used to take years and at one point decades now just takes years.

I have friend who is a vegan, so she is going to be ecstatic about this fashion statement. Apparently plastic shoes are in! Wow, whoever decided that does not live in a hot country. Plastic does not breath. Apparently, the Brazilian shoe company Melissa has been designing and manufacturing plastic shoes for the past 25 years and is their products are sold in over 80 countries. This eco-friendly company believes that plastic is the best medium to communicate technology and renewal. (My mistake-Brazil qualifies as a hot country.)

An interesting trend, I will watch to see if it catches on. I try to be eco-friendly but plastic shoes are a problem. Will check them out when I buy my next pair of shoes but must admit that there are issues. I think that there is a deodorant for feet? Hopefully the quality is better than it appears in the pictures that I looked at and posted since the prices shout quality!

Sewing Club

We all know that many people have turned to vegetable gardens to expand their groceries but how many people have noticed that children at least are starting to sew again. What a wonderful skill! How many people can not even mend their clothes because they were not taught how to use a sewing machine and then second factor do not own a sewing machine. (There is a shop in Toronto that offers use of sewing machines and also classes in sewing.)

Dixon Grove Middle Grove under the leadership of a grandmother offers sewing to students after school, 10 at a time and many have to be turned away. These students are learning how to alter clothes, remodel and hopefully even make new clothes from patterns. 10 years ago Design and Tech shops and Family Studies were closed down in most schools. Administrators decided that it was more important for students to learn science and computer skills. Please understand, I believe that they are important- I am using a computer to enter this blog and have been at this computer since 7 a.m. Time for a serious break. This is just one tool that we can use. We also need life skills. Sad that sewing now is taught as an after thought and by an volunteer. I am sure that she is doing a wonderful job but why did we end up in this situation?

http://www.thestar.com/article/625378

Work? Projects?

Wow, I could not believe that I have not posted anything since Sunday. Time does move too fast.

It is at times like this that I wonder how I get anything done when at work. Summer holidays are wonderful but I am still very busy. Now I admit tennis a couple times a week does eat into my time but I need the exercise. I also organize my Sunday group. Just sent out requests for players for the long weekend. (Going to a wedding on the long weekend and I will not be able to play Sunday morning.) This Sunday is done!

Gardening when I get to it also gobbles up major chunks of time but I love the results. Going to try to get out later this afternoon. There was a chance of rain so I decided to do work indoors and not do any drop offs today. Will do a driving drop off tomorrow.

Getting a lot of computing done- finished an article and I am working on a couple more-I am in the editing phase- I have not done much writing lately- just on my blog. Unfortunately, unless I find a fantastic theme like "Julie Julia" and get a movie deal, the blog is for my own amusement and those people who are loyal friends and check what I am up to or others who happen to find the blog when a topic that they are interested in finds my entry when they google the topic.

You would think that I would be spending time cleaning but no that is low on my list of priorities. That will get done starting today: I am going to take a box of things to Crippled Civilians- the aim will be a box a week until I get things cleaned up. As I mentioned many entries ago, I will not take a photograph of the pile things that are crying out for attention.

Time to clean, knit, read,practise. Oh the list goes on. Life is exciting.