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Here are a few of my favorite online haunts:

REALTOR.ca
[This is the site I visit to fantasize about living in Toronto again, which is almost every single day during the winter]

Jonathan Cainer's Zodiac Forecasts
[This is where I visit in the morning, when I need a positive spin on things past, present and future.]

Living Local
[This is where I go to see what Canadians are up to, sometimes I even buy things from the businesses listed there.]

Environment Canada Weather
[This is the site I visit every morning, and before every road trip during the winter]

The weekend has been a busy one.

Yesterday, Saturday, Attila and I spent the morning turning the soil and planting dozens of pepper and tomato plants. Each year, migrant workers arrive in Canada to work the land and harvest the crops. Our planting this morning will augment the diet of a group of these migrant workers. The garden is beside the house where they will live in during their stay in Canada. Several years ago Attila thought that it would be nice if these workers had a garden of their own so that they could enjoy free and fresh vegetables. That is what we did Saturday morning, we planted the garden for the migrant workers.

We spent Saturday afternoon cleaning our deck thoroughly so that it could be stained. The deck is showing its age, which is unknown to us. We do know that it has been neglected for the last seven years, our tenure here. After we cleaned the deck, Attila began to stain it. It is Sunday evening as I write and he is nearly finished. He is optimistic that he will complete the project today. It looks wonderful.

Last night I felt bone tired. Suddenly, at 10:30 p.m., I felt an overwhelming urge to lie down, to sleep. "The Teenager" had not arrived home at that point, so that I was loath to retire for the day. Attila offered to remain awake until she arrived home, releasing me from my worldly responsibility and allowing me to seek rest. I fell asleep immediately and slept in this morning. My definition of sleeping in is arising at 7:00 a.m. I still felt weary.

"What is the matter with me," I thought.

"Am I ill?"

Then it occurred to me that what I was feeling was good old-fashioned exhaustion from hard work. I had to laugh at myself. I am so unused to physical labor that I mistook the effects of hard day's work for illness. There was a time when I felt this terrible all the time.

Attila was running low on stain, so I decided to drive to the nearest Home Depot to pick up another gallon. "The Teenager" wanted to accompany me. This request was so unusual that I had to wonder at what might have motivated it. The trip was successful and uneventful. I was still suspicious of "The Teenagers" motives. As well I might have been.

Tenderly, sweetly, she asked me if I would go shopping with her. She said she wanted to spend time with me. "Ah ha," I thought! You see, I knew that her plan was to shop with her girlfriend today. I also knew that they wanted to shop at a mall some distance from here. I also knew that she and her girlfriend do not like using up their bus tickets unless they have to. If I went shopping with them, well, of course I would drive, saving bus tickets and expense.

Tenderly, sweetly, I said no thanks.

Send a comment to Maggie at:
maggie@maggieturner.net

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RECIPES :: Cast

Dogwood by Maggie Turner

Page by Page: A Woman's Journal
Photography
Poetry
by Maggie Turner

Canadian Maggie Turner writes and publishes poetry, photography, and a personal journal online. Her work reflects the current way of life in Canada, embracing Canada's past, present, and future in a unique portrayal of everyday life. Maggie's voice is one of the many that actively depict the rich diversity of Canadian culture.

Photography: "a term which comes from the Greek words photos (light) and graphos (drawing). A photograph is made with a camera by exposing film to light in order to create a negative. The negative is then used in the darkroom to print a photograph (positive) onto light-sensitive paper.
Source: University of Arizona Glossary

Poetry: "a form of speech or writing that harmonizes the music of its language with its subject. To read a great poem is to bring out the perfect marriage of its sound and thought in a silent or voiced performance. At least from the time of Aristotle's Poetics, drama was conceived of as a species of poetry."
Source: Creative Studios

Journal: " "Though a journal may be many things - a treasury, a storehouse, a jewelry box, a laboratory, a drafting board, a collector's cabinet, a snapshot album, a history, a travelogue..., a letter to oneself - it has some definable characteristics. It is a record, an entry-book, kept regularly, though not necessarily daily.... Some (entries) will be nearly illegible, written in the dark in the middle of the night.... Not only is it a record for oneself, but of oneself. Every memorable journal, any successful journal, is honest. Nothing sham, phony, false...." (Dorothy Lambert from Ken Macrorie's book, Writing to be Read )
A journal is a way to keep track of your thoughts about what you read... as well as what you did on any given day."
Source: Journal Writing

A Blog is an online journal created by server side software, often hosted by a commercial interest.

"The term "weblog" was coined by Jorn Barger[4] on 17 December 1997. The short form, "blog," was coined by Peter Merholz, who jokingly broke the word weblog into the phrase we blog in the sidebar of his blog Peterme.com in April or May 1999.[5][6][7] Shortly thereafter, Evan Williams at Pyra Labs used "blog" as both a noun and verb ("to blog," meaning "to edit one's weblog or to post to one's weblog") and devised the term "blogger" in connection with Pyra Labs' Blogger product, leading to the popularization of the terms."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_blogging

Painting the Deck Green

Page by Page: A Woman's Journal Photography Poetry by Maggie Turner

Page by Page: A Woman's Journal
Photography
Poetry
by Maggie Turner