AhhhchiuNews!

2008 has been a very eventful year for the Chiu family. If 2007 was Ed’s year to have health issues, then 2008 has definitely been Kathie’s year. It started early in January with an ultra sound and led to major surgery in March. It was a difficult surgery with complications and she was discharged from the hospital with an infection and the Norwalk Virus. Yuck! Several antibiotic allergic reactions later she finally began to walk a bit every day and was barely ready for our big trip to Italy on April 24th.


However, nothing would stop her from being ready for that and so off we went to celebrate 25 years of marital bliss together (a year and a half late, but better late than never!) Italy was the trip of a lifetime and we will never forget. We arrived in Rome and spent three nights on our own. Our friends Sue & Alan Marola from England met us there on the 4th day and off we went in a rental car to Florence for 3 nights and then to Venice for 3 nights. The museums and history! The trip of a lifetime!


Our summer was spent at Camp Sunrise. We were all up for the July long weekend and aside from filling our trailer to the brim, we had two tents and rented a cabin to accommodate everyone. So we went and got a trailer with more sleeping space in it. It was a great summer in the new trailer. We hope to take it on the road, let’s hope gas prices stay down! Perhaps we’ll see some of you on the great big road trip – we plan to head back east - if not this summer, then next. However, we do love relaxing at the trailer, just hanging out with the kids and swinging on the swing, sitting by the water, it’s so nice and relaxing. We feel so much better after a long relaxing break like that.

Our ministry continues to do well. Ed is RCMP Chaplain here and enjoys that. This fall we hired a director, Darrell Pilgrim, to take over Kathie’s day to day responsibilities at The Caring Place and that has given her more time in pastoral role and more time to write. After a long recovery it’s great to have her back at the piano on Sundays and back in the pulpit with Ed. Manda, our admin asst and good friend, became our business manager. She moved up to the office beside Kathie and kicked Ed out! Those two get into trouble together. Ed’s office was moved and now he can hide and get his work done without distraction! Mike, who started out on the front lines on the midnight shift is now a supervisor and missing from the photo is Tim, our Food Services Supervisor, who is just wonderful in the kitchen and runs it very smoothly.









Evan and Nathan are growing like weeds. They are really delightful boys and we’re very proud of them. Evan has been receiving Neurotherapy for ADHD this year and aced his first report card in grade three. Way to go, Evan! Nathan is beginning to mature into a pre-teen – oh, oh! Some interesting times are a coming.


Sarah & Sheena are both expecting baby number four this year – Sarah in March and Sheena in June. That will make 8 grandchildren to knit for and play with. They are all so delightful and full of energy. Ed especially loves to visit with them and get his regular dose of cuddling! It’s just so much fun to be with them and then so great when they all go home at the end of the day!


Derek is doing very well for himself. He still lives in Langley (over the river) but works here in Maple Ridge as an outreach worker. He’s been staying with us for a few days during the storm we’ve just experienced and are enjoying having him around again. He’ll be 24 this march. Can believe it?

Kathie’s mom is still with us. It has been a real privilege to be able to look after her. If it weren’t for family helping we wouldn’t be able to have her here. She just turned 88 and her older sister Norah is still going and just turned 92. She lives with her daughter in Peterborough. We wish they could see each other again.

We want to wish you all the best in 2009. Although we’re terrible at keeping in touch, we think of you all often. Kathie continues to be challenged with health issues, however, we’re hoping they’ll be resolved soon. Keep in touch. We’re both on msgr. And facebook. Check out Kathie’s blog:

http://www.kathiechiu.com/
ejnc33@hotmail.com
kathie.chiu@gmail.com

Take care everyone and have a blessed 2009! We’re remembering you in prayer!

Luv always…. Ed & Kathie
& the ahhhchiugang!

Handmade

Has anyone mentioned to you that there is a financial crisis on right now? Well, apparantly there is. People are tightening their belts this year and I thought it would be a great excuse to do something a little different to cut costs. So I'm having a handmade Christmas. I love receiving handmade items for gifts. My daughter Sheena used to make all her own cards - well, before she had three babies! She still will make one for me each birthday because she knows how much I value them. I actually value the home-made card more than I do a store bought gift.

I've knit so many items for the kids and grandkids - but usually sweaters and blankets. However, this year they're all getting knitted toys. Now, I've got one done so far, Miss Ballerina Bunny - for either Sydney or Alethea. So, seeing as we're really getting on in the season, I'm going to be knitting my little fingers to the bone. I've been procrastinating. Thank goodness for the last minute! Or else I'd never get anything done.

I'll keep you posted on the toy parade and post some pics!

grace... kathie

An Eventful Season

Well, it's just about three months since I've been able to motivate myself to write. It's been so difficult to find the time to stop and reflect on what's happening in my life. That's because there is so much happening in my life. So much that I'm finding I can't breath, I can't stop to think and I can't remember anything.

Why is it that when I try to make changes to improve my life, remove stress and restructure my schedule - it becomes stressful and seems to backfire on me. I actually seem busier than before the changes.

I've done a lot of soul searching this year and know that changes had to be made. Did I make the right changes? Time will tell. In the meantime, there's so much happening in my life with health issues and family health issues, I wonder if the changes came at a bad time.

Well, one can only wonder. How do you know when to make changes? How much change can you take when there are other things going on that you have no control over?

Good questions. I don't know the answer.

Hopefully, I'll figure it out eventually.

We Rise Again

Her eyes are blue, just like mine. No, I mean really just like mine - with dark blue rims, green and yellow spots next to the pupil - just like mine.

I wonder at the truly gracious aspect of God. I moaned to him that my choice of husband would always bring me brown haired and brown eyed babies. Not that I didn't love the depths of their gazes and the lustrous tresses that I would run my hands through. I longed to see myself in them. I look at my children and stare sometimes for the similarities, the shape of the eyebrows, the little bump on the ear that runs in my family, the pointy nose and long elegant fingers. I have had to satisfy my longing to recreate myself in these small details.

Them came Sydney. My granddaughter.

Same blonde hair.

Same blue eyes.

Same personality.

What a thrill. What a sense of the eternal.

"We rise again in the faces of our children...."

There I am in her. There she is in me. There we are in Christ Jesus and bonded by something even stronger than blood, than genetics... we're bonded in Spirit.

God is very gracious.

grace.... Kathie

My Magical Place

Once in a while I enter into a magical place and then, and only then, am I allowed to dream wonderful things for my life. This is my truth. This is my place. This is my peace. Dreams don't come when I am in my daily routine, time limits me.

Time does not exist in my magical place. There I can create, colourful words, colourful yarns, beautiful patterns swirl in my mind begging to escape. This space is where I want to be.

Always.

Forever.

Lost in my own reverie of creativity, opening the door of mind, letting the ideas escape through my hands shaping the world around me.

Once in a while this happens. But for most of my days this is not my reality. How sad.

Tonight I will walk down this path once again. I will revel in the beauty of my space and allow its essence to inspire me. Tonight I will create.

Tomorrow?

We'll see.

K.

Ciao, bela!

It's almost time for us to leave for Italy - one more sleep! Well, if I can get to sleep! Since my surgery, I've been slowly recovering. It's hard to get better when you feel like you've been run over by a truck. Every day it's just a little bit better. Not a lot, just a little. Drives me nuts!

I'm almost ready. I haven't packed yet, but I had so much to do today - write an article, finish editing another article, finish sewing up a sweater I knit, finish up the lace shawl I knit - block them both - I didn't get to the packing because I ran out of steam.

I overdid it yesterday. I've learned my limit - no more than 2 hours without stopping for a rest! I was in pain and still am a bit today. I'm going to try to rest - how will I ever do that?

Well, it's time to sleep and dream of Italy and sailing down the grand canal in a gondola with my dear hubby! This is our 25th wedding anniversary to ourselves - even though we've now been married 26 years! Our flight leaves tomorrow night!

Excited - just only slightly!

grace... Kathie

Proud Mama!

This is Abigail's Shawl. My daughter Sarah designed and knit this for a mom's new baby. It was beautiful and soft. She made it out of Sirdar Snuggly DK in White and stitched Abigail's name on the bottom right corner.

Sarah picked up knitting really quickly. She has a slow but steady rythmn in her stitching and her work is always beautiful and even. Among some of her first knitting projects she tackled and lace and cable poncho for her little girl.

It's such an amazing feeling when your children like what you like and pick it up, following in what you've done. It's important not to force your stuff on them, but it is a good feeling when they appreciate what you do and try to emulate your efforts.

God is good and always surprising us with little delights that make up total happiness. I love that about Him.

grace...

Recovery, Recovery

Well, it's been three weeks and not an easy time. I should have been able to spend more time writing, knitting and reading. However, after norwalk virus, bladder infection, drug reactions and allergic reactions, fever, chills, you name it- I'm rather knocked over. I've been reading posts on Hyster Sisters and some women have had a much harder time than I have. Thank God for my family and their help.

It's a strange sensation to have a hysterectomy. With my main source of female hormones gone, I thought I would feel something. But nothing. No huge emotional swings, no hot flashes to speak of. Nothing. As a matter of fact at this point I should be in a huge emotional swing - getting ready for the next onslaught of PMDD. Ha, ha! No ovaries! No more emotional nightmare.

Perhaps this difficult physical recovery will be rewarded with relief from the stranglehold my hormones have had on me for years. Maybe I'll have a chance to spend time with my family without the exhausted feeling of depression and sadness. Irritability and anger can depart now - there is nothing to stoke the flames.

Keep calm, don't do too much, watch more HGTV. I can write now, with a little more concentration. Work on my course. Keep my mind busy.

grace, I need God's grace.

Two Weeks

I've been sliced and diced.  I've been slam dunked.  I am very tired.  Major surgery sucks, big time.  So I'm taking it easy, keeping the load light.  Some days the pain is hardly there at all, other times it's like a slow, dull ache that makes my tummy feel like a huge weight (which is really is!) and that I can't carry it.  The only thing to do is to lie down.

So, after checking out Hyster Sisters on my laptop in bed, I'm going to crash for the night.

I'll keep you posted.

ciao!

Not Really a Post

OK, so I'm trying out a new editing program for blogging from windows live.  Interesting, I don't have to go on the blog to do this, I can do it from my laptop and the program writer.  Seems a bit faster and easier.  Let's see, I've not got any new pics on this computer yet, so I'll try to add one I like from the samples. 

Wowwww! Look at that nice pic.  Orange, yummmm.

OK, so this works ok.  I'll have to get serious and write a real post to try it out.

Soon.

ciao!

So here you are, Garry!

Okie, dokie, Garry! Here you are. I'm writing in my blog. You know life is like a bowl of cherries... no it's not. Life is busy and you get tired and stressed. And even though you like to write, you get distracted by all the other people in your life who make constant demands on you. However, that's no excuse. The real problem is getting time on the computer!!!

So today I'll write about my excursion to Brantford, Ontario. It's really a wonderful thing to get into this monster contraption, experience it lifting off the ground (I still don't know how they do that) and a few hours later arrive on the other side of the country. What seemed so impossibly far away is only a little trip. So here I am with my friends, Garry & Dora and I'm staying at their house with their boys and April and the two dogs.

Life never changes. People don't even change much, although they do grow wiser. Underneath it all though, are the same people you knew and loved before. Too bad!!! hahahah that's for Garry if he ever reads this.

Marybelle Leach told me this morning that in 16 years I hadn't changed a bit. Isn't that funny. I know I have more wrinkles and I certainly have put on weight. I'm sure my hair is a different colour (well, that's normal for me!). And yet, she still sees the me that was there 16 years ago. A much skinnier me, a much younger me! However, I'm still a knittin gal!

I think that's because we look into a person's eyes and that's when you recognize them - even not seeing someone for 50 years and not recognizing the whole package, you would know them by looking into their eyes. And that's the thing - within them, the thing that makes a person unique - doesn't really change. The eyes are the windows of the soul they say. If that is true, then that is how we know each other.

We wrinkle, go gray and sag. However, our essence remains - and is the same.

So, no Garry, although you say you're a different person now - really, you haven't changed a bit.

And that's a good thing.

OK, so I'll write every day while I'm here since Garry was so good to loan me his laptop.

grace.

kathie

Wow! I've been a lazy blogger...

It's been a while since I've been blogging and I'll have to remedy that. So, here I am. It's been an eventful winter season. Christmas (or should I say all of December) went by in a blur. It's crazy having to get ready for your own family and personal Christmas, never mind it being the busiest fundraising month of the year at work. Lots, lots, lots to do. But it came and went and here we are facing 2008 - well, already a month into it.

Now that retreat and budgets are done it is time to settle into some more writing. I'm happy to say that I've taken the plunge and am enrolled in another writing related course. This time An Introduction to Editing at Simon Fraser University. I'll be going to their downtown campus for a few Wednesday nights - it will be exciting.

Here are some pics from Sydney's 2nd birthday - we had her party last monday. What a crowd!

Here is Alethea (weesha).

This is Sydney getting ready to blow out the candles.
Hosea eating his cake.

Great Grandma delighting in her children.

Mailea looking all grown up and mature!

Sean! Surprise!


Just missing Isaac! Getting him when he's sitting still is a challenge.

I'm also taking some time to plan our trip to Italy. There are some really nice B&B's that I'm looking at. Of course, I'm having to do this all by myself as it's difficult to get Ed to sit still and go through page after page of pictures and prices and maps. He keeps popping up and down and then ends up saying, "Whatever you decide, hon, it's all right with me" and then scoots off to do something else.

Here are some B&B's I'm looking at:

http://www.ancientromance.net/english/english.html

http://www.gondoletta.it/indexeng.html

http://www.therightplace.it/homeing.html

Check them out and if you begin to browse and you see anything I might be interested in, let me know.

I'm really excited. We're going to be leaving the 25th of April and will return on the 6th of May. What a wonderful time we'll have.

Tra la for now everyone!

Chat soon.

Much, much grace....

Kathie