How Can We Slow Down the Holidays?

In this month’s column Starting the Conversation, I started discussing different ways my husband and I have adopted to try and de-stress the holidays, such as shopping all year for Christmas (especially on our vacation) and to switch our annual Christmas letter to a Happy New Year’s letter.

I also mentioned that we budget specifically to include the convenience of eating out. In particular, we enjoy both the Walnut Grill and the Wexford Ale House where we can relax, try some holiday features and even pick up some gift certificates.  WalnutGrill Wexford features two party rooms that can accommodate 15-50 people which really saves on the time, energy and expense of in-home entertaining.  These mini-holiday parties to enjoy their great happy hour specials that include $5 appetizer, $3 draft beers, $3 house wines, and $3 Pinnacle vodka drinks.  Be sure and ask for Vanessa Steele at the Wexford location to book your party or catering!

We also really enjoy sampling the variety of holiday and seasonal craft beers and ales at the Wexford Ale House located on route 19 on the Wexford Flats.

Just click on the highlighted names in this blog and you can go direct to the web sites for Walnut Grill or the Wexford Ale House.

What do you think? How do you and your family de-stress the holidays?

Because It's a Tradition

This month’s article on Starting the Conversation is all about family traditions – particularly those around the holidays. I mentioned in the article that my nephew Patrick quoted the musical Fiddler on the Roof regarding the importance of tradition. Here is the clip from www.youtube.com if you are not familiar with the scene or if you would just like to enjoy it again.

Traditions, both old and new, are very important to me and my family especially those that came with my family from the old country, those that we have shared from childhood and even the new ones we have introduced – of course some attempts at new traditions take-off better than others. For example, we always get together to decorate Christmas cookies for as long as any of us can remember but one year I thought I’d change it up and we would do gingerbread houses instead – oops. My icing was too soft, we didn’t have enough icing to go around so we started using peanut butter, the candies kept slipping off the roof – all-in-all it was a disaster. Fortunately my brother Michael kept it fun by having his house land on the Wicked Witch of the East and used red M&M’s for the ruby slippers.

So even though our attempt at a new family tradition never went beyond the first try, the point of spending time with family and creating memories that last a lifetime was still golden. So after that I just went back to having us all decorate Christmas cookies but of course, if first you don’t succeed…so who knows maybe we’ll try again.

What family traditions do you enjoy in your family? Have you ever had one go horribly wrong like my gingerbread houses?

Is it Real or Surreal?

In this month’s issue of Northern Connection magazine, I started the conversation on whether I was experiencing a haunting or was I in fact just dreaming. What do you think?

Once my husband and I were traveling in the Pacific Northwest and stopped at the Oregon Vortex. The vortex is a sphere of force that also bends and refracts light and so during your stay, the tour guides demonstrate the phenomenon with a series of unexplainable parlor tricks. Very fun and very cool. They say that the Native American Indians and early settlers alike avoided the vortex as a place of strong magic since horses completely and utterly refuse to enter the vortex. My husband, a scientist and zoologist, thought the visit interesting but a little hokey – at least up until we noticed the popcorn.

Someone had spilled a whole box of popcorn on the ground inside the vortex. The vortex is located within a heavily wooded and forested area. And there the popcorn sat on the ground undisturbed – not a chipmunk or squirrel or bird anywhere, no chickadee, starling or robin partaking in all that popcorn. If you recall the story of Hansel and Gretel and the breadcrumbs, this fact is more than a tad unusual. Then, as we looked up and around – there were no animals anywhere. The forest was completely silent.

My husband simply said, “This is incorrect. Time to go.”

So we left and left quickly. Just too spooky for us.

Have you ever experienced something strange that seemed to define explanation? I hope you’ll share it your experience or thoughts of strange experiences with me and our fellow readers.

Bullying Advice

In this month’s issue, we published articles to raise the awareness of cyberbullying and bullying in general. In the tech article, we pointed out that if you are a victim, then you are not alone. Teens, pre-teens and adults can sometimes, through no fault of their own, become the target of someone’s venom. On the one hand, this can happen over social media, making it in actuality “anti-social” media. Fortunately, as American citizens, we have rights against such harassment, strengthened by new anti-bullying legislation and the hosting sites are more aware and are willing to take down negative content and bar negative people from using their services.

In my editorial, “Starting the Conversation: Bullying Advice”, I mention that I have also been a victim of bullying but I received help and advice from several places including my mother, who intervened; the Sisters of St. Benedict where I went to High School (unfortunately that school  is no longer open but take a look at the many schools advertising in this month’s issue and the school directory to find another wonderful school and academic program); and even years later, my husband’s philosophy that there are some people that mistakenly think that their candle will burn brighter if they blow out everyone else’s when, in reality, they will eventually just blow out their own.

Other great advice I received was from a very hard-nosed businessman from Uniontown, who insisted that I always remember to never let anyone know that they can upset me or make me angry – he said, the trick is to never react in any way because if bad people know they can make you react by “pressing your buttons” then they will, just because they can. If someone already thinks they can, then the best thing you can do is stop reacting and just shake your head. It is surprising how well this works. A good friend of mine does the head-shake at aggressive drivers and it always seems to work to calm them down and make them drive more sensibly – not sure why this works, I’m just happy it does.

Do you have any bullying advice? If you do, please enter it into the comment section below. 

A Lifetime of Learning

In the August issue of Northern Connection magazine, I started the conversation regarding my desire to embrace a lifetime of learning. In the article, I mentioned that I’ve noticed that it has been awhile since I have learned anything totally new and outside the realm of my job and so I intend to go in search of a new learning challenge.

One of the things that I have been considering learning is a foreign language. I’ve noticed that when I travel to foreign countries, the citizens appreciate any attempt at the language no matter how badly it’s butchered. So, I’ve decided to take a look into learning conversational French since my husband’s company is in Canada and I had some French in High School. To get started, I looked up some software and had a bit of sticker shock – Rosetta Stone® software, designed to teach you the foreign language of your choice is almost $450 – ouch. So I asked around and my father-in-law has been teaching himself Spanish through “Instant Immersion”® software which he thinks is phenomenal and only costs $50 and there are frequent sales for less at Amazon.com. Also, dear friends of mine are planning a vacation to Paris for their twentieth anniversary and they really enjoyed their French class through CCAC and they practice together as they sit on the porch every evening after dinner. How romantic is that!

                Another thing I’ve been considering is to attend more guest lectures. It is just an evening out and not a huge commitment so it should fit conveniently into my schedule. My local library is Northland Public Library and it has has lots of interesting events and lectures, one of particular interest to me is an up-coming presentation about the Battle of Gettysburg in honor of the 150^th memorial anniversary.

                Do you have any other suggestions for me and our fellow readers, to help us embrace a lifetime of learning?

New Beginnings...

Welcome to Continuing the Conversation – the new official blog of Northern Connection magazine. I am Marianne Reid Anderson, the new executive editor of the magazine, and I have begun an editorial column called “Starting the Conversation…”  In the editorial, I will start a different topic every month and then encourage you to write back to me here in this blog or on our Facebook page, where we can continue the conversation.

In the first issue, I write about new beginnings and ask for any advice that you may have when taking on new challenges. For example, a professor of mine use to begin every class with the Latin phrase “carpe diem” which means “seize the day”. I have always thought this was very good advice. What do you think?

The thing I like most about new beginnings is that they can really get a person out of a rut. In the article on “Being Social inspite of Social Media”, I recommend several ways to stay social, but they can also offer ways to embrace new beginnings as well. Specifically, I recommend www.meetup.com. It is a non-dating site. Instead “Meetups are neighbors getting together to learn something, do something, share something”. There are meetups for every interest and hundreds of people that sign up; for instance, there are meetups of kayakers, golf players, hikers, tennis players, and just about every other sport you can imagine. There are foreign language meetups so people can either speak in their native tongue or practice a new language they are learning. There are book clubs, dining clubs, urban gardeners clubs and the list goes on and on. One meetup called “Grapenuts: Pittsburgh’s Wine Tasting Group” has over 1200 members.

Another website that I recommend in the article is www.livingsocial.com because of the amazing array of special offers and coupons available to get a person out and about and possibly trying new things. Current offers include special deals on spa treatments, dance lessons, excursions to Philadelphia, learning to paint pottery and even the opportunity to drive a race car, to name only a few. Personally, I would prefer painting pottery over driving a race car but maybe that’s just me. 

What’s your opinion? Do you have any recommendations for new beginnings or ways to be social? Let’s continue the conversation, just type your advice or recommendation in the “Comment” section below: