Hearing Aid Miracle

My husband got hearing aids not long ago. It took a while to learn how to drive them, but they've made a huge difference in both our lives.

Yesterday, he went out to cut some volunteer maple trees out of our privet hedge, and I went out to assist. As often happens when my husband gets stuck into something, it turned into a five-hour project. It was extremely hot, I could feel the sun baking my skin, and the work involved a lot of scratches and punctures as we tried to remove an astonishing amount of weed trees and dead wood out of this massive hedge. Also a couple of spider bites. A lot of the job involved lying on my back, shoulder deep, trying to reach shoots right at the back. My husband got out a stool so he could attack from the top, reaching down into the hedge with an assortment of clippers and secaturs and pruning snips.

Anyway, we finally finished, cleaned up, set the bins at the side of the house, and went inside two hours past lunchtime, exhausted. All I could think about was jumping into the cold pool and having something to eat. And then my husband realized, to his horror, that one of his hearing aids was missing.

A) These things are not cheap. B) He had a bagpipe competition the next morning (this morning, as I write this), which required he be able to hear. C) He had no idea when he lost it, so it could be anywhere in the house or yard or in one of the many tall bins crammed with yard waste.

We called the cavalry (sons) out of the basement, went back out into the furnace, and started crawling and poking gingerly around the yard, hoping not to step on the hearing aid, wondering if we had any hope, and then my husband remembered his phone had an app to help locate lost hearing aids. It proved to be a difficult thing to use, giving very vague readouts. It was a bit like playing that game we played as children, where one kid tries to find a hidden object while his friends shout "You're getting colder!" "You're getting warmer!" It would have been more helpful if the app worked like Marco Polo, with the hearing aid giving feedback, but no. It gave us a general location, though, at least enough to let us know we didn't have to dig through all the bins.

An hour later, after raking under the hedge, gingerly sifting through everything, standing on the stool and peering down into the foliage, Son #3 had the idea of sticking his head under the hedge and looking up instead of in or down. And there it was! This tiny little comma-shaped electronic device, spluttering and annoyed, hanging from a twig deep inside the hedge.

You have to understand, my yard is big, the hedge is a monster, and my husband had been all over it for five hours. That thing could have been anywhere. It was literally like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack. And we found it. We're bitten and bleeding and burnt red, our backs may never be the same, I ripped my best pants, but we found it. I hugged my son and told him he was a hero.

Prayer works, folks.

Where to Find My Books

I've consolidated all of my new releases in one "bookstore" page on Lulu.com. Here you can find my latest novels (more on the way!), my gardening e-book, and the workbook that accompanies the workshops I offer on simple living. Please give it a look, and if you've enjoyed any of my books, please consider leaving a review on Goodreads. Thanks!

Kristen's Bookstore on Lulu

For my older novels:

Deseret Book offers the audio or ebooks. In the near future, Desperate Measures, The Governess, and The Song of Copper Creek will be available in paperback on their website as print-on-demand. You can also find secondhand copies of all my books online. 

For my novel All My Loved Ones, please see Cedar Fort.

Enjoy!

Just Some Pretty Things Seen on My Morning Walk

Raising Money for Charity

I'm looking at how many people are reading this blog each month, and people have told me I should monetize it or add a "Buy Me a Coffee" kind of button. But I'd feel much better about raising money for a charity instead. Readers would be given the option of voluntarily supporting the chosen cause through a link, and I'd never know who donated or how much money was being raised. The donations would be handled entirely by the charity. 

The question is, which charity? There are so many good organizations, and so many people in need. I thought I'd ask for some feedback from you. My personal inclination is to address food insecurity (after all, I'm a vegetable gardener). With all the mess going on in the Middle East, on top of weather and climatic conditions, they're predicting a global famine. While that may not impact Canada as much as many other places, it will still mean raised prices, and over a million people in Ontario alone already access the food bank. Humans can get along without a lot of things, but food isn't one of them.

I don't want to choose an organization so local that readers from around the world will feel less attached to it and therefore less inclined to donate. At the same time, I don't want to choose an organization so vast that it feels like our small contributions won't make a difference.

So...any suggestions? 

Service in a Small Town -- a Shoutout to Brooketel

Did I ever tell you about our experience with our Brooketel internet service? No no, stay with me, this is interesting, I promise. Heartwarming, even.

As you may know, we lost our minds and bought an old church during the pandemic. This was partly to satisfy a long-held dream of renovating an old church, partly to add to our property portfolio, and partly to create a peaceful space where we could retreat (or quarantine) when things felt too crowded at home. Possibly even live in upon retirement, though so far that hasn't panned out. 

In addition to needing an almost complete rebuild, it is located in a small village half an hour from a large town, in farm country. No pizza delivery. No grocery store within walking distance. No anything within walking distance except a gas station, a fire hall, and a little conservation area with a lake. We struggled to find an internet provider for our area. Back in the city, we have Rogers, which I have a love/hate relationship with. Their service is generally okay, but not always reliable, cutting out frequently, and it takes forever to get them to come out to do anything. I think it took over a year to get them to come bury a cable. Regardless, Rogers didn't cover the area where the church is. We needed good service, because at the time I was working remotely, with lots of video calls.

Almost by accident, we landed on Brooketel, a local co-op based in Watford. The service has been reliable, FAST, and unlimited, and the monthly price has even dropped over the years. But above all, the customer service is the best I've encountered. They don't just respond, they initiate!

Example: one day when we were back in the city, Brooketel called us to report that their system showed our internet service was off at the church. They offered to go figure out what was wrong. I gave them the lockbox code. Fifteen minutes later, they called me to report they'd gone to the church, found a loose plug, fixed it, and internet was restored. No cost, no fuss, and I felt instantly reassured I was in good hands. At a time when I was drowning in electricians, plumbers, drywallers, painters, and engineers, it was nice not having to worry about one thing.

We Were Supposed to Go to Norway

Today is what should have been the 59th birthday of my friend Sheri. We met at age 5, had chicken pox together, were in school together right up through high school, went to the same church, were baptized on the same day. We had sleepovers and illicit cookouts on makeshift stoves in the backyard (I still have bacon-grease scars on my shoulder from that one). We made up plays, hiked, read Archie comics, and threw balls for her poodle. She served at my wedding reception and helped me conquer the ivy at my parents' house.

We remained close even after I moved to Canada. Sheri would come up to visit almost every year, her aim to see Canada in every month of the year. When she came, she would always want to help with a project of some sort---digging up rocks, helping host a book-signing table, whatever---she was always up for an adventure. I took her to Highland Games and Mennonite markets, a cement bunker, and our crazy old church. She took me on adventures to New York City, to Park City. She liked to walk and explore, and we'd pick out which house we'd each buy so we could stay neighbours forever. She was always content to do puzzles or watch old movies or just sit and read, which is a lovely trait in a guest. You never felt you had to entertain her, but could just be yourself. When someone is that low-maintenance, they become an integral part of the mesh of your life. They become a sister more than a friend.

Last April, Sheri came to visit and we stayed at the church, taking long walks along the lake and throwing the ball for my dog Brio. She spent a lot of the week feeding me, teaching me to eat healthier. I'd envisioned going grocery shopping with her, but she arrived with her rental car already stocked with food (so that I couldn't insist on paying for it). She was a night owl and I get up at ridiculous hours before dawn, so she slept in the upstairs vestry, and we could each keep our own hours as we liked. The perfect person, in other words, to hang out with.

Our birthdays are close together, and we were cooking up ideas for a grand adventure for our 60th birthdays next year. We'd landed on the plan of going to Norway. But shortly after she returned home, Sheri was diagnosed with cancer and passed away just a few weeks later. Knowing that her 60th birthday wasn't going to happen, I whipped out a PowerPoint "documenting" our trip to Norway as if we'd gone, with pictures off the internet and stick-figures of me and Sheri drawn into them with Adobe. She reported that she and her husband went through the slides and laughed, especially over the picture of the two of us running amok through the streets of Stavanger. My personal favourite was the one of us doing swan dives off a lookout point into a fjord.

Sheri had the ability to make people feel loved, remembered, and seen. She had the uncanny ability to remember things (whereas I struggle to remember my own name on occasion). She could recall everyone she ever met and what they liked and the names of their grandchildren, and she was generous with the gifts that perfectly matched the recipient. She devoted her life to service, throwing herself into her church callings, taking care of the people around her, making me realize how narrow and self-centred my life sometimes is. Even in her last days, she made sure the quilt she'd started making for her daughter was finished by a friend. She doted on her family, turning every occasion into something memorable and special, and making each person feel treasured.

Sheri has gone on her next great adventure without me, but wherever she is, I'm sure she's serving and laughing (and talking) and putting together fishponds for angels and planting lemongrass and coaxing God into trying kelp in His pancakes. And likely throwing balls for Brio. Happy birthday, my friend. Miss you.

Introducing Detective Inspector Gor Manookian

Well, I'm on a roll now, cleaning up my filing cabinet of manuscripts. I've decided to publish one of my novellas, a Manookian Mystery: Monk with the Steel-Toed Boots, which you can find at the link below.

When a guest is murdered at a meditation retreat in the Canadian forest, Detective Inspector Gor Manookian is on the case.

As if a homicide isn't enough to deal with, he also has to juggle a critical captain, a troublesome brother, a cast of quirky characters, a fat cat named Benzo, and his own growing suspicion that he's in the wrong line of work.

What does the Buddhist monk who runs the retreat know about the murder? Who may be the next victim? And can Manookian hold it all together long enough to catch a killer?

Watch for the next upcoming Manookian Mystery, Tiny Little Murder, out soon!

Monk with the Steel-Toed Boots