I think I'll stick with walking.

As my sister and I walked down the faded grey road we talked about normal things, normal for us anyway. We thought it would be a good day for a nice stroll down the road, so we geared up and started toward the street. After we got walking we were oblivious to how much exercise we were getting. After a while, we found ourselves gawking at a retired doctor's property. The landscaping around his enormous house was gorgeous but there was one thing in particular that caught my eye. A red paved square to the side of his back yard with a big grey fence around it. A tennis court. So, right away my sister and I turned around and walked home, we were pretty physicked after seeing two people running around hitting tennis balls at each other. When we arrived at my house I went straight to the garage and grabbed two tennis rackets and a green tennis ball. We were already geared up in sneakers and gym clothes so we got ready to play some tennis. After we found a good place in my drive way to play we realized a simple fact... neither of us have ever played tennis before in our lives. We decided that if we could play it on the Wii then it couldn't be too difficult, right? Wrong! We're not sport people so after a few blunt head injuries, a small encounter with the Atlantic ocean and a minor dent in mom's Nissan we decided to call it a day. Well, it was fun while it lasted.
Walking takes you places :) but just because it doesn't look like it requires skill doesn't always mean unskilled people can do it although we had lots of fun trying. We have both decided we're going to stick with walking and volleyball for physical activity.
-Sarah
Can you see the world from your car window?

Spring is here

Spring is here.

What are the signs? Kids playing in the water.( #s 1 & 3 were playing in the ocean this weekend) Ducks playing in the water. I caught a glimpse of these ducks in the ditch on the road by my house. Scared of the flock of Canada Geese in the lake perhaps?

Bees buzzing around the flowers. These croci were home to the first sighting at our house this year.

And I’m glad that the bees are back. Across North America over 1/3 of the cultivated populations are being hit with some sort of illness which wipes the colony out. What would we do without these industrious little fellows? Most of our veggies at the local markets are pollinated by these little fliers. They’ve had a bad reputation but really are so necessary to life as we know it.

And the true sign of spring. As I look out my window, my trusty better half is busily pruning (or slashing ) down my favorite smoke bush . One guy's pruning is another plants massacre.

Lucky Pennies

So, there I was walking with my head in the clouds making my way to work when my random thoughts about spring ran smack up against a more pressing thought about keys.

That's right, suddenly my tranquil thoughts about running a half-marathon were disrupted by more a more serious thought about whether I put my keys in my backpack.

Responding as I do to such immediate, annoying thoughts, I stopped to search my backpack. That's when a pleasant, soft-spoken elderly woman interrupted me.

"I have to give these to you," she says with her hand extended out to me with two tarnished pennies laying flat in her palm.

“What,” I ask staring at her, then the pennies, then at her again. “The pennies?”

“Yes, I have to give these pennies to you in order for it to be lucky,” she responds.

“Sorry,” I ask, not sure what act of superstition I am about to partake in.

“If you find pennies, you have to give them away for luck. And I found these ones back there” she tells me, pointing back to the sidewalk behind us.

“Okay, sure,” I say, “I’ve never heard of this, but I’ll take them, maybe they will bring me luck today.”

I thanked her, placed the pennies in my pocket, and returned to my search. She smiled and walked off relieved that she had passed on her pennies to someone. Finding my keys, I returned to my walk when my mind turned to thoughts about pennies.

Curious, I decided to find out more about pennies when I got to work. According to the Royal Canadian Mint, the penny is composed of the following: 94 per cent steel, 1.5 per cent nickel, and 4.5 per cent copper plating or copper plated zinc. It weighs 2.35 grams and is 19.05 mm in diameter and 1.45 mm in thickness. The Royal Canadian Mint minted 846,420,000 in 2007 and 928,434,000 in 2001.

On 10 October 2007, the Royal Canadian Mint released a study on the future of the penny in Canada. The findings show that most small retailers were slightly in favour of removing the penny while consumers were split on the issue.

You can find out more about the penny’s future at http://www.mint.ca/store/dyn/PDFs/FutureofthePennyENG.pdf.

I say we keep the penny. For, were it not for the penny, I would not have met this elderly woman eager to ensure I had a lucky day.