If you can’t be with the one you love . . .

Posted on 08 October 2026 by Isabel Gibson

. . . love the one you’re with.
– Stephen Stills

Are we being exhorted to cheat on an absent partner or to appreciate what’s in front of us? Opinions vary, just as people do. And leaves, for that matter.

For the last 18 years in Ottawa, I waited for the fall colours with great anticipation — browns and earth tones, yellows and golds, oranges and bronzes, reds and purples — but especially the last two. As my circumstances permitted, I observed them in passing while driving around town, planned photo shoots at city parks, made day trips to local viewpoints, and inveigled someone to drive me along backroads in maple country. Even in below-average years with faded colours on stressed-by-drought trees, it was glorious. It wasn’t just a tree here and there: whole valleys, whole hillsides were lit up.

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Posted in Appreciating Deeply, New Perspectives, Photos of Flora, Photos of Landscapes | Tagged , | Leave a comment

A Year and a Half

Posted on 03 October 2026 by Isabel Gibson

ADQ73214408 (Filter assembly, air)
AGF80300705 (Filter replacement cartridge, water)
(the latter aka LT1000P/PC/PCS)

This week I’ve learned a few things about the above-noted air filter and water-filter cartridge in the refrigerator in our new-to-us house:

  • the specifications for them
  • the method for replacing them
  • the indicators and default schedule for replacing them
  • the local suppliers of them
  • the seductiveness of generic options, given the cost of factory-authorized replacements, drat them

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Posted in Feeling Clearly, Laughing Frequently, New Perspectives | Tagged , , | 14 Comments

I Can’t Tell

Posted on 26 September 2026 by Isabel Gibson

Is it full? I can’t tell.

I don’t think so. The left side looks a bit flat.

How many times have I had this conversation or its rough equivalent while staring at a full-ish moon? A few dozen times, at least. Unlike those who know the moon’s phase for spiritual purposes, unlike those who know the moon’s phase for scientific/meteorological/navigational/calendrical purposes, I just go by what I happen to see. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t lay out the moon’s phases in order, and for sure-sure I never know when a full moon is coming. This is, perhaps, one of the costs of living under a roof rather than under the stars.

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Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Feeling Clearly, Photos of Landscapes, Through the Calendar | Tagged , | 14 Comments

The Things You Learn

Posted on 19 September 2026 by Isabel Gibson

Q: What’s 200+ pounds, a cardboard-brown (soon to be a Pantone® Color of the Year, I’m sure) rectangular prism of ~12 cubic feet, and appears on your doorstep under cover of darkness?

Last week I couldn’t have answered this question, but this week I can. The things you learn.

A: An unassembled BBQ in a box.

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Posted in Laughing Frequently, Photos of Built Stuff | Tagged | 6 Comments

Hello!

Posted on 12 September 2026 by Isabel Gibson

Five years ago I was surprised, not to say ambushed, by the Jewish New Year in early September, when I expected it in October. What the heck? Honestly, even with all that I’ve done since then, the Jewish calendar is still a mystery to me.

I know *something* about it, of course. I know (because I just looked it up again) that it’s a calendar with 12 months of 29 or 30 days. I know that it’s somehow based on both the moon and the sun, although I haven’t cared enough to learn exactly how it does that. I know that it syncs with the Gregorian calendar only once every 19 years. Well, sort of syncs:

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Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Feeling Clearly, Through the Calendar | Tagged , | 10 Comments

Between the Idea and the Reality

Posted on 05 September 2026 by Isabel Gibson

I feel as if I’ve been MIA on this front for a few months, but the Official Record shows two posts in August and a steady-ish supply in July. I’m surprised: It feels much spottier than that. My head has definitely been elsewhere. Herewith, a non-chronological summary of the last few months.

In Ottawa, we decluttered, cleaned, prepared/staged, listed, showed, and sold our abode of 18 years. We arranged movers and de-arranged existing basic house services. We executed an extended Farewell Tour. We cleaned our abode again, decluttered again, organized our stuff for packers/movers, hosted said packers/movers, and cleaned our abode again. And we left.

In Calgary, we searched for, bought, and interim-financed a new abode. We arranged new basic house services. We cleaned again. We hosted movers again and began unpacking boxes, placing items in spots both hoped-to-be permanent and known-to-be temporary.

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Posted in Feeling Clearly, Photos of Landscapes, Through Canada | Tagged , , , , | 11 Comments

Tooth and Tail

Posted on 16 August 2026 by Isabel Gibson

Scotty, the world’s largest T. rex, was discovered in Sask. 35 years ago today.
– Headline from CTV News article

Isabel, the world’s scattered-est blogger, was sighted in Ont. today.
– No headline, ever.

No, my daily trials and achievements don’t often rate a headline, but they’re my life, so there’s that. As we slog our way through the moving-preparation work and hug our way through the Farewell Tour, there has not been much time for blogging. Or, for that matter, for field trips to discover “the base of a tooth and a piece of a vertebra from the tail”, later determined to be from a T. rex.

It took them 10 years to dig out the rest of the skeleton after that initial find. Talk about your slogging. It took another 10 years to clean up the bones so they could make a cast for display, the actual bones being too heavy, one of several things I learned from this article.

There must be several metaphors possible at this point, but the one that seems apt this morning is that tiny things that are easy to overlook can lead to great discoveries. The high-school principal who joined the expotition and who found “the base of a tooth and a piece of a vertebra from the tail” might just as easily have passed them by. Maybe more easily, no? I’ve been in the badlands of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and the Dakotas: They’re big. Vast, even. And yet buddy found “the base of a tooth and a piece of a vertebra from the tail” in that vastness. Amazing.

And wonderful to think what finds await us as we wander through our own lands, bad and good.

 

Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Through the Calendar | Tagged , | 11 Comments

Just Because

Posted on 01 August 2026 by Isabel Gibson

As the Farewell Tour continues — as we say goodbye to old friends who, unaccountably, choose to remain in Ottawa rather than to move en masse to Calgary — my phone also continues to capture moments that lower my blood pressure. May at least one of them be therapeutic for you, also.

First up, a bee methodically coating itself in hollyhock pollen.

Next, an in-traffic study in red and yellow . . .


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Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Laughing Frequently, Photos of Faces, Photos of Fauna, Photos of Flora, Photos of Landscapes | Tagged , , , | 16 Comments

A Task That Must Be Done

Posted on 24 July 2026 by Isabel Gibson

The choice of coffin is often a task that causes emotional reaction among the bereaved. Most large funeral homes have a “casket room,” a display area filled with the variety of available coffins. For many, walking into this room brings the bereaved into stark confrontation with the reality of death facing them. For some, it can be a terribly disconcerting experience. For others, it brings a sense of peace and relief. Whatever the reaction, it is a task that must be done.
 – My Jewish Learning

As you see, the excerpt is from a site called My Jewish Learning, but this bit about choosing a coffin is not, in fact, a specifically Jewish learning. Nor is it religious in any sense, really.

For some, it can be a terribly disconcerting experience. For others, it brings a sense of peace and relief. Whatever the reaction, it is a task that must be done.

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Posted in Feeling Clearly, New Perspectives, Thinking Broadly | Tagged | 6 Comments