Today is Remembrance Day in Canada and Veteran's Day in the US. Most people were very young or not even born when the old World Wars happened. To us, it can't have the same meaning as it would for our grandparents. So, we wear a little red plastic poppy and spare a couple of minutes of silence to those young men who fought a war and never came home again.

Is candy really the best part of Halloween? I think the best part is really dressing up in a costume and being out late at night, long after dark, trick or treating. It was exciting to be out in the dark, sometimes feeling your way around cars to walk up a driveway to the house where warm lights and candy are waiting.

My brother and sisters came along with me, we went out as a group. That was a lot of fun. We would all yell "trick or treat" together at each door. It didn't matter if we were cold, or if some of the candy was stuff we didn't like or how far we walked around the neighbourhood, it was all so much fun. I liked the dark especially. Halloween just wouldn't be the same in the daytime.

Happy haunting to all of you. Trick or treat!!!

One birthday a year isn't really enough. Birthdays are such a lot of fun they need to be multiplied and spread out over the whole year. That's why I think the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland had it exactly right.

There are three hundred and sixty four unbirthdays in a year. That's a lot of cake and ice cream you're missing out on. Of course, some days are school days and some days are party days for other kids or even Christmas and Halloween. So you can cut out some of the unbirthdays. Still, that leaves you with several possible unbirthdays.

I'm not sure what people do on unbirthdays. Maybe you have to walk backwards all day or wear your clothes inside out and backwards because its the opposite of what you usually do on a birthday. Maybe you make three wishes, write them on a piece of paper and hide them under your pillow until your real birthday comes along. Maybe you try something new like flying a kite, phoning your Grandparents by yourself or making the biggest sandcastle anyone has ever seen. Or maybe you just call your friends and have a lot of fun at the park.

So what will you do with your unbirthdays this year? What kind of adventure can you plan?

This was posted to a newsletter I wrote for BackWash Kids Sandcastles and Dreamcatchers - Exploring, discovering and creating for kids. Build sandcastles, catch dreams, smell all the roses in your world.

Getting tired of winter? Then haul out some Spring!

Rake in those seed catalogues. Start your Spring cleaning. Get into craftiness. Find new unique ways to reduce, reuse and recycle and be generally thrifty.

Many companies will send you free seed catalogues. You can look for your favourite flowers, herbs, vegetables online and find someone shipping seeds. You may have to pay for a catalogue but most of the time that's just a way to coax customers to order. If you make an order you get your catalogue money back. Just imagine, you could have sunflowers in your mailbox!

But, why be satisfied with pictures? Here and likely wherever you are, there are tulips, daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths, miniature roses, cyclamens and so on available in a grocery store near you. I've already bought one white cyclamen and 2 pale roses. One is cream coloured and the other blushing pink. Very pretty sitting all together on the kitchen table. Usually I would have bought a hyacinth, but the last few years those just seem to look sadder and sadder. The blooms are so low on the stem they hardly have room to bloom at all. So, I've gone to roses instead. They can also be planted outside in the Spring. I have a few from last year. I'm eager to see how they will do in their first Spring as an outdoor plant.

Spring cleaning. Not my favourite thing. But, it does make you feel better to get rid of the clutter. It's so easy to build up piles of stuff over Winter. But, don't sit back and settle with stuff around all around you, packed in every available space and under that table you hardly ever use. Instead, pack it all into boxes, recycle the papers, ship off whatever is usable to GoodWill and toss the rest. Think how much better you will feel to have all that clutter out of your life. I'm not saying it's easy, I'm a huge clutter bug myself. But, I know how much lighter I feel when I do manage to get rid of some excess stuff.

It's a good rule of thumb to look at how often you have used something in the past month. Don't think "I might need that someday..." That's just a way of hanging on to everything. Have you really used it? If not, why give it space? If it's not paying rent, just collecting dust, toss it.

Do you feel Springy already? Well, get working on it! Personally, I feel warmer already. Of course, it could be that the heater is finally kicking in.

Happy Groundhog Day!