January...

 January 7, 2026

For many of us, the holiday season has come to a close for another year. For some, this week of getting back into the routine of living is welcome relief. I know that everyone in this house is grateful for the “pieces of quiet” that are now ours—for the most part.

Of course, the dogs are still barking and the unplanned and inconvenient will still happen. Such is life. But if one is unused to large gatherings and lots of noise and activity, then one is grateful for the afterwards. The good thing is that the noisier and more chaotic those few days of celebrations were, the more calming seems this return to the “boring norm”.

It was a lively and fun season for us. We got to see all but three of our grandchildren – and when I use that word it includes our “in-law” grands—we have two granddaughters-in-law. One of our granddaughters and her wife are now in another province. This makes getting together en masse very challenging and thus rare. The one grandson we didn’t get to see, we’d hosted the month before for a few days. He couldn’t make it here during Yule and again, that’s just life.

So far, the winter of 25-26 appears to be what I would call a more traditional winter. This is the first year in a few that the snow that fell in early November has remained in place without melting. The cold has been pretty solid, too, not deviating much except to the degree of cold we get to enjoy—alternating between bone-chilling and bone-shattering.

I checked the weather for the next few days. To go along with the theme of “traditional winter” it appears that we are about to have a true January thaw. The temperature is slated to hit 50 on Friday. And because it has been pretty solidly cold since early November, I’m thinking that 50 is going to feel like a 70 in early spring.

In case y’all have forgotten what a “traditional winter” entails, after the January thaw there should be another deep dive into the world of sub-zero temperatures by next week. And it’s possible that this plunge will last the entire month of February.

This is the reason, I believe, that February is the shortest month. My father, I’ve been told, used to refer to the second month of the year with a prefix that was a hyphenated epithet. But I digress.

It’s generally in February that I go into semi-hibernation mode. I hunker down, because for me this time of year—when nature is getting ready to hold its nose and dive deep into the sub-zeroes—is a time of year to be survived, period.

I really don’t mind hunkering down. I have my writing, and there are always books to read. There can be nice, quiet afternoons spent in comfort heaven, with a heating pad, a warm blanket, and a much-loved recliner. Sometimes I put music on my television, as a just-able-to-hear background sound. Cap it all off with a nice cup of decaf, and I’m good.

I suppose that’s all part of the grand plan, when you think about it. Nature herself tends to have a period of dormancy, a time to rest, to prepare for the growing season to come. Many of her wild critters do the same.

So keep warm, my friends. And after the hustle and bustle of the last few weeks, make sure you take time for yourself. If you can’t hunker or hibernate, at lease schedule some quality self-care time. Pamper yourself.

You deserve it!

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

New Year's Eve...

 December 31, 2025

Congratulations, you’ve made it to the end of 2025! 

Do you ever think of making it to the last day of the year as an accomplishment? Maybe that’s something we should do, each New Year’s Eve.

I think that too many of us tend not to give ourselves enough credit for the work we do, day in and day out. We can buy into other people’s less than stellar opinions of us; we can succumb to some of the mass-marketing campaigns and believe we are nothing without product X, Y, or Z; we can, in other words, find ourselves thinking that we are just not enough.

We are enough, my friend. Each and every one of us is enough.

So congratulate yourself for a job well done. For the last three hundred and sixty-five days, you arose, went through the day, handled umpteen challenges, worked, endured, went to bed at night and got up and did it all over again the next morning. Three hundred and sixty-five days. 8,760 hours. 525,600 minutes.

You are amazing!

New Year’s Eve, and more, the celebration of that one moment when the old year passes and the new one arrives, is such an ingenious idea. To make a definitive end of something, immediately followed by the beginning of something new is a triumph of its own, don’t you think?

Over the years David and I did celebrate this moment a few times. There were a handful of New Year’s Eve parties we attended. I think the last time we did, though, was in the 1980s, and that last party was at the home of a friend. Not being party animals by nature, we were always more content to say home and watch the ball drop. Much happier to spend our extra money—what there was of it—on our children.

When we finally got to the point that we could, with careful planning, celebrate the new year, we simply weren’t interested. As I said, we really aren’t party animals at all.

We don’t tend to make New Year’s resolutions, either, because in the past we rarely were able to keep them. Decisions of that sort made in the emotional soup pot of New Year’s Eve are rarely decisions we are truly ready to stand by.

But we all need the sense of possibilities that this one moment gives us. Out with the old, in with the new has a sense of hope about it. We need that. We need to have our hope tanks filled every now and then, so that we can give ourselves some much needed stress relief. I hope you’re able to do that tonight.

David and I wish all of you a wonder-filled and Happy 2026. Be kind to yourself—and to one another.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

Christmas Eve...

 December 24, 2025

It’s Christmas Eve, and the world around me is a bit white here and there, but the cold is just about everywhere.

Our short tree is up, with lights and bulbs and a few little figurines as well. The older we get the more we conclude that less really is more.

We had our days of running around, doing all we could to make sure our children always had the best Christmas we could give them. We felt compelled because other than their birthdays, we were rarely ever able to treat them. We did of course surprise them, on a couple of occasions, and I think that we got a bigger kick out of those times than our kids did.

I once asked each of them, separately, if the Christmases of their memories were always good, and I got three enthusiastically positive responses. That was at the time and is still now, all these years later, important to me.

I hope it’s important to you, too.

I remember Christmas mornings when we needed time, just a bit of time, to make that first pot of coffee, to get comfortably seated where we could have them all three in our sites as they entered the room. We’d usually finally get to sleep sometime after three a.m. the night before and they’d be awake usually somewhere between five and six, so we needed that minute. Then sip, sigh, and give the “ok” for them to come downstairs to see what Santa brought to them.

Man, that Santa always brought just the perfect gifts for them.

Our best gift every Christmas was witnessing their joy. David always caught a nap later in the day, but I had to produce a huge breakfast and a large Christmas dinner, so there was no napping for me. Except for those times when we would go to my in-laws for Christmas dinner. On those occasions, Mom caught a nap. It was wonderful.

The traditions I grew up with—that big Christmas breakfast, and the big fat orange in the toe of the stocking were two of the traditions I grew up with, and the ones I provided for my own children.

And tonight, for the second time, a new tradition—the lighting of my father’s—our family Christmas candle during dinner—a soft light flickering from the past, a flame of hope for the future. A moment to pause, to remember, and to dream.

We wish you all peace, love, and joy during this season, and in all seasons to come.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

 

 

Lessons...

 December 17, 2025

We’re fully into the last month of this year. Thousands of people are already celebrating Hanukkah, and Christmas Eve is a week from today. The past weekend was one filled with heartbreaking news from across this world of ours. News that made you stop while you tried to breathe and tried to make sense of it all.

One can easily become jaded. One can wonder, well, hell, what’s the point, anyway?

The point could very well be that from the dawn of time when we humans first walked the surface of this earth, life has proved, time and again, to be short and uncertain for us all. Over centuries we have learned through trial and error how to grow, how to change, and how to survive, thanks to the varied devastating and sundry twists life can throw at us.

Survival is a multi-faceted concept. It doesn’t just mean physical survival. There are emotional, spiritual and intellectual aspects of surviving. But we’ve discovered, over time, that we also need to do more than just survive. We yearn to do more than just survive.

We need to thrive.

Life doesn’t give us very many hall-passes. It doesn’t often make it easy for us. Life is doing its job, fulfilling its purpose to try us, to teach us, to shape us. Life is the road we must travel in order to become the best people—the best us—that we can be.

Nothing in this life is a given, not even the next moment. Life will make you or it will break you.  If you learn the lessons given, that will help. Generally, you won’t have to repeat the exact lessons. And while life may not become a whole lot easier with each lesson mastered, it will become a bit more manageable.

Just don’t give up. Don’t quit.

I am pleased to report that we have a drop curb installed now, so that when, in the spring, they return to do the landscaping to restore my original walkway (or a reasonable facsimile thereof), I will have a nice, unfettered way to get from my house to the street.

I understand how hard it is for those who are not personally affected by mobility disability to wrap their heads around just how profound can be the challenges of those who are. Sometimes fate offers up a helping hand in this regard.

This past week, the machines and the road crew returned to “finish off for now” that gap between the end of the pavement and the curb. There was at the beginning of the week a deep, though somewhat narrow chasm between the two. When they arrived to do the work, it was this past Monday which is my daughter’s day off. A crew chief knocked on our door and David went out on the porch to see what he wanted—which was for our daughter to move her car so they could do that bit of work. As the gentleman left our porch, he walked down our temporary walkway (leading to the neighbour’s driveway), and thanks to a bit of ice, darn near ended up on his butt on the ground.

When he regained is balance, he looked at my husband who proved eloquent in the moment. David said, “Just imagine how difficult it is for a disabled woman to walk that path.”

It seemed, David said, to impress upon him the state that they had left us in. I absolutely don’t doubt my husband’s assessment.

I’m not sure what all they’re going to do beyond filling those two abysses on either side of the curb. But by the end of day yesterday, there was a gravel path taking shape between my house and the road, and it was aligned with the drop curb.

Looking ahead at my social calendar, the only day I’m going out in the next few days is on Saturday, and with my daughter. She can “spot me” on our makeshift path and get me safely down to her car.

And to prove that I am not always as logical as I would like to be, I can tell you where we are going on the 20^th, just five days before Christmas. As we did last year, we’re going to a very large mall in a city about a half hour away. Why, you may ask? Well, because it’s nearly Christmas.

And they have a Cinnabon store.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

Choices...

 December 10, 2025

Forgiveness isn’t a gift that you give to others. Inasmuch as someone you forgive to their face may be surprised, or moved, or perhaps even eventually changed by the grace you display during the course of offering that forgiveness? Well, then that might turn out to have been a gift to them.

But in fact, even then, that gift isn’t given to them by you.

No, as in all other cases with forgiveness, that gift is given to them by themselves.

Forgiving others who have wronged us is a gift we give to ourselves. This kind of gift doesn’t come under the heading of “luxury item”. No, it’s a necessity of life, one vital to the maintenance of a healthy psyche, spirit and soul.

When you forgive someone for something they have done, for some hurt or injury that you suffered, that forgiveness is a blessing to yourself.

You lift the burden of that hurt from your soul. The negativity of that past injury no longer weighs you down. Your forgiveness of another mends your heart and restores your spirit. It even makes room for more love!

Unforgiveness, on the other hand, has nothing whatsoever to commend it.

All this I know from my own personal experience. I have lived a life of bitterness where I held closest to my heart all the horrible, bad things that had ever happened to me. And I have also (and am now) living a life of forgiveness and self-care.

Please believe me when I tell you the latter feels so very much better and lighter and happier than the former.

Christmas time is approaching. And while we call it the festive season it, like many occasions that are important to us, is far more complex than that.  We human beings are more complex than that.

Many people find Christmas very difficult. It’s difficult for the homeless, and for those who are alone in the world. It’s difficult for those whose means are spare. And it’s difficult for those who have lost loved ones—parents, children, grandchildren, life mates. Christmas is one of those occasions when the sorrow of lost loved ones seems to be the heaviest to bear.

Scripture tells us to be kind to one another. That simple message is one that doesn’t contravene any “ism” you may believe in. It should be the easiest of all concepts for humans to embrace. Despite recent examples to the contrary humans have a strong bent toward being kind, doing good, and lending a helping hand.

I truly believe there are more people in the world who would rather do good than there are those of ill will. It would be a lot easier for more people to know that as fact if the “rotters” out there weren’t so loud all the time. But it is what it is.

Being kind isn’t hard once you get the hang of it. It doesn’t have to cost money, though it can. It mostly, however, costs a thought to be so, and a moment to do so. But those two things are easily afforded by most everyone.

And here’s the best thing of all. In fact, it’s great news!

Being kind is a choice that anyone and everyone can make. It’s not hard. The only raw ingredient needed is the deliberate thought to choose to be kind. Period.

This is a busy time of year for so many people. But if we take a moment to simply open ourselves up to the desire to be kind, we’ll find something almost magical. Before we know it, there will be an actual opportunity to do so—by holding a door, or letting someone precede you in a check-out line, or even something as simple as offering a smile to let someone know it’s all going to be ok. Because it will, you know.

And that nice, warm, inner-peace-happy feeling that comes in the wake of that simple act of random kindness?

Well, that’s just one of the many cherries on top of life’s cake.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

December....

 December 3, 2025

Congratulations, you made it through to December! There was a time when my making such an announcement might qualify as pure silliness.

These days, not so much.

Many of us here in North America are about to experience the coldest temperatures of the year, to date. Yes, we’re entering into a period of what I call “the sub-zeros”. And before you ask if I mean Fahrenheit or Celsius, don’t. Because when it gets this cold, it doesn’t really matter the scale we use to measure. Teeth-chattering is teeth-chattering, in both of them.

Our latest grocery run saw us stocking up on a few “oven ready” freezer meals, some family sized and some individual. We don’t eat a lot of processed foods in this house. We just never have, really. When we do purchase some, we are careful to pick ones with the fewest unpronounceable additives.

In recent years, both David and I have found that on any given day, and at any given time, one of us might feel a bit chilly and in need of a hot meal. Now sometimes, I can whip that up without difficulty. But then, there are the other days when I simply can’t.

Before daughter and I headed out to get our groceries, David asked me to add one more item to the list: Red River Cereal.

For those who don’t know, it’s hot cereal—cracked wheat and rye and flax—mixed together that you then measure out, add water to along with the proverbial pinch of salt, and simmer until it reaches a state of “doneness”. It’s served usually with milk and a bit of sweetener, the same as those more common hot breakfast cereals: oatmeal, oat bran, cream of wheat, and cornmeal.

As a child I’d never been offered this particular porridge. It never graced my mother’s kitchen shelves. Once married, of course, we had it then because it was my husband’s favorite. I recall the first time I bought it and was getting ready to make it. I opened the box and poured out a cup of it. I stared down at the raw cereal for a long moment. Then I looked up at David and said, “I now understand the name.”

He asked me how so. And I told him that what I was looking at looked like what one might dredge from the bottom of the Red River.

Yes, friends, I have always been a smart ass. It truly is in my genes.

In fact, the cereal is named for The Red River of the North, that flows through Winnipeg Manitoba, which is where this cereal was first created in 1924.

I told David, of course, that I would be happy to add it to the list, but with a caveat. I didn’t know if I would find it as I hadn’t seen it in some time. However, while it wasn’t at the store where we get most of our groceries, it was at one of our alterative stores.

And now I’m shortly going to make a pot of this porridge up, as we are entering into those damned sub-zeroes—and because my husband asked me to.

And after that first pot, I will set about experimenting on how David can easily cook it for himself in the microwave. Yes, there are microwave directions on the package, but they didn’t look convenient.

By that I mean, and for example, experimentation with oatmeal showed me that three tablespoons of regular three-minute oatmeal (we don’t get the instant stuff because, well, processed) and a half cup of water, stirred together in a microwave safe cup requires one minute and four seconds on high in our microwave to render a cup of oatmeal ready for milk and sweetener.

It will likely take a few tries before I find just the right formula to produce a satisfactory cup of hot Red River cereal that David can make on his own.

But that is the very definition of time well spent.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

 

 

Freight trains and what ifs....

 November 26, 2025

Time, that erstwhile lazy creature of hot summer days, often seems like a freight train rushing to the station come the end of November, doesn’t it? That rush begins with Thanksgiving to be celebrated tomorrow by my American friends (ours was in October).

And what with the Macy’s parade earlier in the day Thursday and Black Friday beginning at the crack of dawn the day following it, the race is on toward Christmas.

Like I said, a freight train rushing to the station.

Different areas of North America are already reporting the end of autumn storms and the beginning of winter ones. On any given day watching the weather forecasts, one might encounter thunder, lightning and tornados, and then just a hundred or so miles away, heavy snow with whiteout conditions.

Last night, the outside temperature rose a few degrees to almost 50 Fahrenheit, and that’s always a blessing. This old house of ours has basically no insulation in the outside walls. There is some upstairs, because that was all renovated a few years ago. But downstairs, and in my office that has two outside walls, moving into winter means keeping a good blanket close and occasionally using my electric heater.

The cold seems colder these days, but I know that’s just a trick of my age and less than stellar circulation. I don’t personally see it being of any use for me to subject myself to the outside without a darn good reason. Therefore, I don’t. I’m happy to go out if I have an appointment, or if there are errands to be run. But come this time of year, I begin to layer when I dress for going outside. And if necessary, I simply accept the help of others to fetch what’s needed.

Our street has been absent of construction vehicles for the last week or more. And that’s good, I suppose, when one doesn’t consider that my curb has still not been set to rights. Neither has my walkway been restored.

They did dig it up some in the process of having to install a new water shut-off valve near to where my walkway was. I have been promised that all will be seen to. There was, however, no promise given as to when, exactly that would happen.

Now, my walkway extended from the bottom of my porch steps straight out to the sidewalk. There is, of course, no longer a sidewalk on this side of the street. However, we have a bit of lawn right next to the place where I stand once I am off the little staircase. And that lawn stretches to my next-door neighbour’s driveway. My neighbour who, fortunately has a drop curb and a bit of asphalt connecting her driveway to that drop curb.

While I couldn’t see a way for us to easily fix my own walkway (which really is for the landscapers contracted by the town to do as they tore it up), I could get someone to build a small safe path between my porch steps and the neighbour’s driveway.

This past weekend, one of my grandsons arrived to do just that.

My worry was that once the snow begins to fall, I can no longer keep my car in the small driveway off the cross street. That is a very steep hill, and the first road to be plowed in every snowfall, which means if my car is in the driveway when the plow passes—well, good luck digging it out. None of the three of us living in this house are truly capable of that. Plus, one needs to keep in mind the “what ifs” of life. What if one of us needs to have an emergency evacuation from the house, in the form of an ambulance? If I who am disabled cannot make it from house to our street, no one with a stretcher can make it from the street to our house to help us.

But I am pleased to report that my grandson was able to install the patio stones from our original walkway, on a bed that will work and is solid, so I am no longer feeling trapped. Nor do I have to worry about when the promised work will be completed.

I’m free to move and free from worry. I will, therefore, just set the entire unresolved situation on the back burner and get on with things. And if anyone reading this essay has just had one of those pesky little “what ifs” pop up into their thoughts, well, just let it go.

Because the answer is I still have all those emails between the town and myself—and I know where they work.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury