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Kathy Stinson at age 70

“How terribly strange to be seventy”

April 6, 2022

… as Paul Simon wrote in the lyrics of “Old Friends” while still in his twenties. My birthday is this month. Friends older than I am smile or even laugh when I say how strange it feels to be on the brink of seventy. “You’re so young,” one said to me recently. I suppose in…

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Are You an Echo? by David Jacobson and What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad

Pandemic Connections

November 24, 2021

What do these books have in common? 1. Both were signed to me personally and mailed to me from the US by their authors. 2. I value both books highly, and even moreso the connections I’ve made with their authors, whom I have never met. This would not be the case, were it not for…

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What you focus on grows

What You Focus On

April 14, 2021

There is much to love about spring in Canada: longer days, warmer temperatures, trees budding, flowers blooming. This year it may be harder for many to find or hold onto hope in the season than other years, with all that has been lost by so many since last spring, and with so much uncertainty about what the…

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Christmas 1945 by Humphrey Carver

Season’s Greetings

December 16, 2020

Like many, my partner and I send out fewer cards than we used to. We may not have sent any last year. We are sending out a handful this year, but I wanted to share our card with all who read my blog as subscribers or as occasional visitors. The message inside reads:   As…

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hello summer

A Summer for “Goodbye…Hello…”

July 1, 2020

When I was a teacher (eons ago), one of my favourite writing assignments to give students came with the change of seasons. The idea was to write a “Goodbye…Hello…” piece based on things they were leaving behind and things they were looking ahead to. Something like, depending on the season: Goodbye hockey. Hello baseball. Goodbye sandals.…

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In the words of the late Jean Little

April 12, 2020

I feel like the ground in winter, Hard, cold, dark, dead, unyielding. Then hope pokes through me Like a crocus. — Jean Little If you’re feeling at all these days like the frozen ground in winter, my wish is that hope will soon come to sit alongside your fears, your sadness, your despair, your numbness, your…

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Kathy Stinson website

KathyStinson.com — 20 Years Already?

May 1, 2019

The World Wide Web was invented by an English scientist, Tim Berners-Lee, in 1989. Through the 1990s, it became increasingly useful and popular. Thanks to my tech-savvy sister, Janet Barclay, www.kathystinson.com came into being in 1999.   Janet wrote about last year’s total makeover of my site (after many updates along the way) on her own site: Janet Barclay:…

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Crossword puzzle

25 Random Things About Me

February 6, 2019

A friend recently sent me a “Memory” of hers that popped up on Facebook. It was something I’d tagged her with ten years ago. What’s still the same? she asked me. What has changed? Here’s my answer. THEN: I am going to Liberia in February. NOW: One of the writers I worked with there has…

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Spring Gardens

June 14, 2010

When I’m not juggling writing, editing, and time with my family, one of my favourite pastimes at this time of year is gardening. Gardening is a lot like writing. How? When you make a change to solve one problem, it often creates a new problem to solve. You often have to yank out and discard…

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holiday

A Holiday in Your Honour

July 1, 2015

This summer my blog will feature of series of posts inspired by my sister. (This is not the first time she has inspired me.) In a recent blog post of her own, she mentioned a question she posed to her followers on Facebook: If a holiday was named in your honour, what would it commemorate,…

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