Month: June 2017

Happy Father’s Day!!

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Hi Folks:

Today is Father’s Day, and as such today we celebrate fathers, step-fathers, grandfathers, as well as all of those men (and women) who have stepped in as surrogates to fill the roles left open for them. We salute you all. Being a dad isn’t an easy prospect…nor is it meant to be.

Today is a bittersweet day for us as both Marcia’s father and Mike’s dad passed away last year, within a couple of months of each other. As such we were struggling a bit to come up with a way to honour our dads and all that they’ve given us over the years. We came across the following poem from Terri St. Cloud and it says it better, perhaps, than we could:

honoring you

honoring you

We do our best, every day, to do just that. Embrace those you love, today and every day. Let them know how important they are to you!!

With love and hugs,
Grandy and Grandalf

Hidden (photo by Marcia)

P.S. We live in a society where people are fearful of death, and (unfortunately) where the last act for most people is toxic to the planet on which they lived their entire lives. There’s an interesting TED talk on the subject, here: When I die, recompose me

Hugs With Brad

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Hi Folks:

Well, it’s only mid-June but we’ve already done eight hugging sessions this year! We started on April Fool’s Day, after all. As we’ve mentioned, this is our 8th year of doing this, and so far we’ve hugged ambassadors from 57 countries (that we know of), including 21 countries so far this year! Every hug is unique and special to us, but we continue to have new experiences, like our first 3-time hugger, random hugging experiences (two strangers hugging each other, spontaneous group hugs, someone making an image of someone they don’t know hugging us, etc.)

In our last hugging session on Sunday we had two women tell us that they had already been hugged by someone else! Curious, we had to check this out for ourselves, so one at a time we went down along Wharf Street, around the corner onto Government and there we met Brad with his own Free Hugs sign! Such a treat! Brad’s been traveling to different places around the world, and wherever he goes he creates his own Free Hugs sign. At the end of each session he leaves the sign behind as incentive for someone else to pick it up and continue the tradition. We’re not sure how long Brad is in town, but we’d be more than happy to see him again and share more hugs!

Today is Victoria’s Ska & Reggae Festival, and last year it was our busiest hugging session of the year. We had line-ups of people wanting to share hugs… it was wonderful! Looking forward to a repeat this year. 🙂 Tomorrow is Car Free YYJ; maybe we’ll bring our posters down there as well! 😉

Remember to hug someone you love today. Or a stranger. Or, preferably, both!!

Hugs,
M&M

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Hi Folks:

We’re stealing this short video link from Kalebra Kelby’s blog; we do so unabashedly for two reasons. First, it’s a wonderful  film, and well worth 8 minutes of your time. Make sure you watch to the end of the credits. 🙂 Second, it gives us the opportunity to introduce you to Kalebra’s blog, which is filled with insight, humour and warmth (to name a few).

Enjoy!

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Hugs,
M&M

P.S. After viewing this you may wish to visit our ‘Finding Validation‘ post for more feelinggoodness. 🙂 (that may not be a word, but it should be)

Flowers are Red fits in here too.

P.S. II, the sequel. Mike’s sister Liz passed away 22 years ago today. She would have Loved this movie!

Photo of the Month – Big Skies

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Hi Folks:

We thought we’d do a themed post for May’s images. Although Marcia is mostly renowned for her flower photography, she does in fact shoot a wide variety of other work as well! As we’re both big fans of clouds and cloud watching, we thought we’d use clouds as the basis for our photos of the month. Marcia’s first.

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