Anyone who does not know that we are living in rapidly uncertain times, is living in a bubble.  We see stores that we thought were family staples, closing.  We make calls to dry cleaners to pick up our clothes, only to find that the numbers have been disconnected.  Our friendly banker is no longer our friend, but someone who greets us with trepidation and hesitation.  In the past recession, the banks remained strong, and businesses and individuals could count on their support for refinance and help.  I personally had quite a senior employee in private banking at the Toronto Dominion Bank tell me that this was a good life lesson to be learned.  Life lesson?  How do we deal with an attitude that condescends to us as a population when we are already feeling the pinch?  The only life lesson I drew from his ’paternalistic’ unhelpful and condescending wisdom, was that the banks don’t seem to want to hear about  their constituents, and clients who are are suffering, and need guidance.  I would love to be proven wrong.

People love to pontificate and say that they “saw this coming”.  Well, good for them  Why didn’t they tell the hundreds of thousands of people and companies who have been so devastatingly affected.  Why didn’t they sit down with the CEO of General Motors and tell him that his company would be on the verge of complete closure?  That no bail out plan could be but a short term band aid solution, and that for every major lay off at a facility such as that, at least 10 sub trades would also be laid off.  A year ago, people who did not seize opportunities to make money in industry, stocks and business, would have been ignoring opportunity  As citizens of a free world, we are taught to embrace opportunity and make the best life for ourselves that we can.  When I hear people voice an echo of shadenfreunde about someone who has fallen, it upsets me enormously.  It should upset us all.

As part of the new face of The Perfect Connections, we will not ignore what is happening in the world now.  We want to hear from you now more than ever.  As a nation, as a world, we can not afford to crumble.

What we can do is begin by taking baby steps and cut corners that we didn’t think to as much before.

I have gathered several tips from people as to how they are structuring their own personal bailout plans.

I will share them with you, and look forward to your additional feedback.  Also, ad prices for The Perfect Connections have been reduced dramatically, and we have enabled google on our site (for which you have to actually go to www.theperfectconnections.com and click on the ads to support our sponsors).  If we can help you, we want to.  If people are offering their services to the general public, no matter what corner of the world you are in, we will promote you for free.  Is that fair?

We all have something to give and something to share, and now more than ever is the time to do so.  We need to recognise that recession breeds isolation.  People are afraid.  People also feel a sense of shame and a loss of pride.

Depression is prevalent and anxiety is a new societal norm it seems.  At times I feel like I am in bad Jim Carrey movie.. all I want is a break from panic talk.  I do not need to avoid it or not acknowledge or feel personally what is happening, but rather I just want to hear a Beatles song, or escape into a good movie.

Every newspaper, every television show and every radio station talks of impending doom.  Excuse me Mr President Obama, but I can barely listen to you right now.  You sound like you care,  that is clear, but when are any of your well spoken plans going to make any difference at all to the crisis that the world finds itself in?  Keep in mind that I write this as a Canadian and have no political affiliation with any political party in the USA.

So, no cute pictures in this article, I’m sorry.

Over the course of the next few weeks I will be compiling a list from my readers of what they are doing to remain healthy, and strong in this tunnel right now.

Please do not hesitate to write and to share, and remember, one thing we can all do is help.  That is the immediate action.  If you know someone who is in need, do not make them grovel .  They are already low.  If you can help, and we all can somehow, we will help you get the word out there.  If you choose to do it privately, good for you, and feel proud of yourself.

I wish you strength.  I wish us all strength.

Mary Katherine Webster, your editor.

  Most of us were expected a to understand and compete in complicated card and board games that were at some point way beyond our cognitive abilities.  Competition was fierce in some homes. Short of watching television there wasn’t much else to do on cold winter evenings.   Boardgames were fun, great family time with lots of excitement and emotion.

 Because of the abundance of stimuli that the current generation of children is exposed to, card and board games simply don’t appeal  as much as they used to. Childrens’ attention spans are short but their competitive fervor is still there and they love spending time with parents in the same way their parents loved spending family time with their parents and older friends.

Recently I’ve discovered a new game. It’s apparently made for children and adolescents. Since I fall in neither of those categories, I’ve been wondering why I enjoy it so much. I have asked my nine-year-old son to help me understand the game, which includes collecting coins and opening up new levels. These were all new concepts for me to grasp. Not being satisfied with just understanding the game, I then asked him to watch me play and assess my abilities.

 Before long, this game became our family game just like card and board games were the games of my childhood.

  The joy and excitement that I remember from my youth continues with my children, in my family thirty years later.

Wii Fit is one of the latest and most fabulous video games created. I vaguely remember the first home video game that I bought for my now twenty-year-old son when he was four years old. How simple and obsolete it seems.   Video games in general have come a long way. They are creative with incredible graphics. Now a family can sweat while playing a game. This game is enjoyable for the whole family and has become the twenty-first century equivalent to the basic card and board games we enjoyed as  children.

 The media is filled with all sorts of references to the breakdown of the traditional family. Mothers and fathers are busy. Children are overscheduled with extracurricular activities as well as having an over abundance of homework assignments and projects. Family life today is hectic and exhausting, much more than in past generations. Playing games brings families together and builds stronger family units.

This particular game has the added bonus of allowing the players to move and develop a love of exercise.  We also know that people living in the twenty-first century are more sedentary than any other generation before them. Our family game includes aerobics, strength training, balance and yoga. All four are important for growing bodies and grown ones as well.

 It addresses the physical, mental and spiritual needs of kids and adults alike. Mastering a level in any of these categories allows the player to open new exercises and challenges. I am the hoola hooping champion in my family (Very good for my oblique muscles)  My sons each are champions of boxing, push-ups and tightrope walking. 

 It becomes clearer and clearer to me,  that I love these activities because I love watching my kids laughing and spending time together with us, doing something that is healthy for them.  I love that I have found an easy way to jump and run like children with my own children. Most importantly, we’ve found a way to spend family time and relax from the stresses of life together.

 Family time with a little edge of tempered competition has never been better.

Shari Krieser,is a mother to 4 children–ranging in ages 9-20! 

She loves playing all kind of interactive games with her kids!

We wish you all a safe , healthy and happy new year.

This year many people extended themselves to help others during the holidays.  As you know, I am a big fan of Camp Cucumber and what it has done for so many mothers and children. 

I  wanted to share some photos with you from the evening that was the Camp Cucumber Christmas dinner.   Volunteer chefs cook the turkeys in their homes and deliver them to us, and Enville Catering donates all of the other food and preparation .  The Magen Brothers donate all the music and the dancers so that  you can not help but want to get up and boogie!  Frischkorn AV donates all the audio visual equipment.

The Camp Cucumber Christmas dinner has been hosted for 18 years.  The families who attend are sourced through the Jane Finch Community Centre,  Ernestines Womens Shelter, and individual social workers in the Jane Finch community.

We were delighted to see some volunteers who had read about Camp Cucumber in a previous piece on here.  Please consider helping out next year, or picking a needy cause, and telling us all about it.  If we learn about it, we will write about it.

A picture is worth a thousand words.  We hope you enjoy these.

If you have any difficulty seeing these images, please click on www.theperfectconnections.com  where the photos display optimally.

WWW.CAMPCUCUMBER.CA

I spent the morning walking one of the city’s mega-malls recently trying to catch up on some Christmas shopping.   There was lots of seasonal eye candy.  And yet, by noon I found myself feeling isolated and low.

It dawned on me that amid the people and things and bustle, I was merely one more anonymous shopper with bad hair and a clueless look.    Far from the festive pictures we see in ads, no-one was skipping from store to store joyfully plunking down money for the perfect gift.  In fact, there was a general air of solitude and quiet – even in the busiest stores. 

So what’s with that?

Everywhere we go, we’re inundated by stories of how the holidays should be: colour-coordinated, romantic, filled with good cheer, good food, good smells, good presents, good will and good fun.  It’s hard not to want to be a leading character in the Christmas cards that start to arrive at this time of year.

Implicit in the world around us is the message that most people have their act together and can create the kind of magical holiday we see splashed in front of us.  Every picture, every ad, every store tells us a story of how the holidays should be.  Faced with our own reality of imperfection and struggle – divorce, illness, economic situation, family dynamics – we’re often left feeling frustrated and depressed when our real lives don’t measure up to the stories around us.

Personally I often find myself quite literally buying into some of these stories.  Today for instance I stood contemplating spending $32 on peppermint bark until I realized the absolute absurdity of it.  Astronomical price aside, with my daughter out of town and the household now consisting of me and two aging cats, a box of peppermint bark will be consumed by only one person: me.  Likely in front of the TV!    Health and body-wise, the last thing I need to eat is a box of edible sugar and oil.

So what was I thinking?

It didn’t have much to do with peppermint bark at all – enclosed in that festive tin was a story about people cutting their own Christmas tree, stringing it with handmade popcorn garland, tobogganing down pearly white hills and laughingly tossing gloves, coats, mitts and hats aside to consume hot chocolate and peppermint bark by the fire.  I wanted to have homemade popcorn garlands! I wanted to go tobogganing! I wanted to toss my mitts and coat in a pile and drink hot chocolate by the fire! And for a few glorious and entirely delusional moments, $32 peppermint bark was going to give me just that – even if I don’t own a toboggan, I live in a second floor walk-up apartment downtown and , furthermore, the closest thing to a fireplace around here is two beeswax candles and a box of matches.

As human beings we are outstanding storytellers.  And certain times of year – like the holidays – are ripe for our best stories.  We tell them to ourselves and to each other, and stores and advertisers know all about this and build their sales strategy around it.  To be clear here, I’m not ascribing blame, just pointing out that we’re surrounded by stories of what an ideal world should look like. 

Even more insidious though, are the stories we tell ourselves.  These are the stories that inevitably and almost invariably tell us how things – and we – ought to be.  They scan our current reality and tell us what’s missing in us, in others, in the life we’ve created for ourselves.  Most of the time we can manage these stories.  Held up against those of good will and good cheer that inundate us at this time of the year, the gap between them and our own reality often becomes unbearable.  It’s no surprise that the holidays see spikes in depression, anxiety and stress as we struggle to make our lives conform to increasingly unattainable ideals.

If this is our natural state of being, is there any hope for us?  Is it possible to have a truly happy holiday in spite of the rampant imperfections in our life?  The answer is yes.  And salvation may start in exactly where the problem is: our own stories.  Here are some steps to help deal with seasonal blues.

Our first task is to think about what it is we want. That is, what we really, truly want.  It helps here to start with our ideal story.  For example, my story starts with a big Christmas morning surrounded by laughing family.  The reality, of course, is that my daughter will be with her father that morning and I will be home alone.  Instead of telling myself how much of a failure I am or sobbing about how it should be different, I can get curious.

That’s step two in the process: once we’ve identified our ideal story we then move to a series of questions: what is it about having people around Christmas morning that’s really important to me?  The answer is celebration.  Next part of the exercise; probe a little more: and what’s important about celebration?  The answer is for me, celebration is about really enjoying and appreciating life.  Now we’re getting to the core of what I really, really want.   Just keep asking the question ‘what’s important about that’ until it feels as though you’ve hit solid ground.  Remember, it’s not about judging what you hear, it’s just about learning what’s important.

Once we’ve got to the core of what we really want, then we can start to brainstorm ways to get it within our current reality.

So, back to my example: given my situation, what is it I can put into place that will enable me to enjoy and appreciate life Christmas morning?  Clearly family members are not going to come over for breakfast.  So what are some other options?    I could make myself some Christmas tea and take it back to bed; I could walk to a local church and attend a service ; I could play carols and snuggle up to a good book after a delicious breakfast; I could volunteer somewhere… The big difference is now I know what I’m after in these experiences.

When it comes to brainstorming new ideas, challenge yourself to come up with at least four.  Ask friends for their ideas (note: ideas, not advice!).

Martin Seligman who founded the Positive Psychology movement has done extensive research over the last 40 years on happiness.  One of the key factors in being happy is our level of gratitude for what we actually have.  Yes, this does sound like something your great-grandmother would have said over tea.  Her folk wisdom is now backed up by solid scientific research.  So here’s one final exercise based on gratitude to help grow that happiness muscle.  It comes courtesy of Adler International Learning.  Sit down and think of three things for which you are truly grateful today.  Write them down.  Now write down how you contributed to making them happen.   What does that feel like?

Finally, when we surround ourselves by people who support our goal to find ways to create a meaningful and happy holiday experience based on where we are, our chances of attaining that goal rise dramatically.  Who in your life can partner with you?  It may not be everyone in your life, but even one person can be a monumental support.

Elizabeth Lancaster is a certified professional coach who works with individuals and teams to help them turn their dreams into action.  She is a faculty member at Adler International Learning, an international coaching and communication school based in Toronto and Director of Context Management Consulting.  www.contextconsulting.com

elizabeth.lancaster@contextconsulting.com

Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail on the head with this!

To anyone with kids of any age, here’s some advice.  

Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

Rule 1: Life is not fair – get used to it!

Rule 2: The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $40,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

click to hear more   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0ywSURFxtg

My grandmother was a foodie of sorts. Growing up in Lodz, Poland in the early 20^thcentury didn’t mean your tummy was always full.

When she immigrated to Canada, she appreciated the variety and abundance of food that today we take for granted. She relished in making her own noodles from scratch and baking unbelievable treats. But one recipe that has been enjoyed for four generations is her cholent.

Cholent has a unique history. In essence, it’s a traditional Jewish stew. Most Jews in Eastern Europe at the time were observant and did not light their ovens from Friday at sundown until Saturday evening. In order to have a warm meal on Saturday afternoon all the villagers took their pots of cholent to the village bakery. The baker kindly left his huge oven flaming all night so everyone’s cholent could be cooked overnight and ready for lunch on Saturday. After synagogue on Saturday morning, the whole town trudged down to the bakery to pick up their pot. The recipe for cholent depended on economics and would change weekly.

 If money was tight, cholent was made from potatoes and onions. If money was flowing in that week, cholent was made with beans, barley and meat. Ironically, in 2008 when my children can eat anything their hearts desire their favorite meal is cholent. How happy would my grandmother be to know that my children’s favorite meal is a basic stew that her own mother taught her to make and costs next to nothing?

Poor Man’s Cholent

8 potatoes, grated       

2 large onion, grated

Salt and pepper, to taste

A little bit of oil

Put a little oil in bottom of crock-pot; add potatoes, onions salt and pepper. Cook on high for a few hours. (This must be started in the late afternoon). . Cook on low overnight. Continue cooking for the next day. Enjoy it for lunch or dinner.

Rich Man’s Cholent

1-cup lima beans                     

2 pieces beef short ribs

2 onions, grated

½ cup barley

4 potatoes, cubed

4 cloves fresh garlic

2 pieces smoked turkey (I use turkey legs)

Salt and pepper to taste

Water

Soak 1 cup of lima beans in water night before making cholent.

Heat oil in crock-pot. Add short ribs and onions. Cook for 5 minutes. Add lima beans, barley, potatoes garlic and turkey. Season to taste.  Add water to cover, (not overflowing) Place on high for a few hours and then low overnight and the following day. Enjoy for lunch or dinner.

www.myjewishlearning.com

 cholent video