Cremation Keepsakes

When Shelly was in high school she had a business, as she tells me, called Shelly's Shrubs.  She had her dad's truck, a shovel, and all the mini-shrubs one could ever want or need from the one farm of theirs' nicknamed "The Airport".  She drummed up business, and put in shrubs at houses and cottages in need.  In fact there is a nice Shelly's Shrub that is now 15 foot long, 8 foot high, and 3 feet thick at my old house on Quebec street that started off looking like a 15 year-olds' facial hair.  Beaser has a Shelly's Shrub to tie into an area in need at his house too.  By all accounts his is doing fantastically.  Now these were installed much later then her formative high school years, but the point is her work was pretty good.  Shelly has always been quite the entrepreneur.....  Why she toils at teaching is anyone's guess.  Well she is back into it again with a new business plan.

 

Shelly has been doing the lamp work beading for a few years now.  It is just a hobby, but puts together a necklace set, or some earrings for friends in need.  She has all the gear, and a kiln to set them just so.  I don't know how the idea came about, with whom, or how many glasses of wine she had, but a few months ago she took some cremated ashes from a friend who's dog had died.  It was a loyal pet of course and the family was quite sad. 

So one thing led to another and Shelly is firing up some beads with Rover's ashes glassed within.  The beads were going to go to the daughter who was away at school or whatever.  The daughter wasn't there in-the-end, if you will, when the dog died, and this was meant to be a little piece of memory I suppose.

Word gets out, Shelly is taking cremated ashes now from this dog, and that cat, and low and behold has even worked with ashes of a person.  So she is quite proud of her work and has since made a few logos to represent her craft.

At any rate - As I have been busy washing and vacuuming my new truck, Shelly has been holed up in the basement making memories and keepsakes.  I don't believe her new business is incorporated, registered, licensed, or insured - hell it may even be illegal?  But that is what's going on with her exploits these days....  I can tell you all of her customers have been very happy in the finished product.

I wonder when the next season's auditions for Dragon's Den will happen?

Half Attempt

Sorry and my apologies to my loyal followers; those who have been waiting for words or pictures for well over a month.  There has been enough happening, but haven't put the effort in - which I am a bit sorry for.  however....

To the middle and end of September I hosted a Windsor Lancer XC training camp up here as usual.  I said a few words at their Saturday night dinner and thought that this has been the 10 edition since 2002.  So it was great to see the new crew up here, and as it is/was the fellers finished second at the OUA race today.  They lost a close one to Western by ten points or so - not too much.  I also met up with them in London at a race on a sunny Saturday morning.  I had the bike out and despite it being a bit cool in the morning, the rest of the day was terrific.


During that first week of October I was in Windsor.  I went for just a night and crossed paths with a good buddy and his family.  It was another celebration of sorts for my former coach at Windsor, and I made it to the festivities.  And of course there were a tonne of other familiar faces to see.

On the Thanksgiving weekend we stayed around the greater Goderich area.  There was swimming lessons in the morning for Molly, then the customary get-togethers with family.  The weather was nice, and again we saw lots of familiar faces at the couple events we attended.

The next weekend after that I had a Richy Tremain and Mark Kiteley weekend up camping in a yurt near Norland, ON.  It was Mark's idea, and I guess Rich and I just tagged along and invited ourselves.  We had a blast, the weather was great, and the yurt was very comfortable.  There wasn't a whole lot to do, but we brought bikes and toured around that way.  We even went in a dingy for a row around a lake.  It was another good time.

Molly had a birthday party today, and tomorrow is Halloween.....

Work has been busy for Shelly and me - just regular stuff of extra school sports, some assemblies on the go, and the for-ever stack of paper work that is student generated, or ministry generated like report cards and other assessments.  I wasn't in the mood at all this year for the ministry documents; plus I had forgotten all the websites in which they get generated in, and I have forgotten the logins and passwords, and of course have forgotten how to do them properly.  No matter.  They all got done.

It is hard to believe that a year ago today we were in Virgin Gorda for the month.....