Happy New Year

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate

Merry Christmas

May your troubles be few and may you enjoy great company

Three Word Wednesday -Sean the Leprechaun~ A Christmas Story

I was going across some of my beloved mother's papers yesterday, (the first time since she died) and I found a surprising thing she too had written about the Christmas that stuck in my mind when I was young. I think it's my Christmas present from her and now you can read it.My story is included in my new paperback and e-book Visions of Sugarplums. http://amzn.to/1ROfgLL

In the story  she wrote of my imaginative nature;  she also included details I forgot.  It  did happen as she wrote them (in true fact I love her story)so I am going to give you another Christmas treat and post my mother's story for you. The only change to her writing? The Three Word Wednesday words included. The twist? It begins with a leprechaun. Yes, you read that right. Read on and enjoy. 

Three Word Wednesday -Sean the Leprechaun~ A Christmas Story

Savage, adjective: (of an animal or force of nature) fierce, violent, and uncontrolled, cruel and vicious; aggressively hostile, (chiefly in historical or literary contexts) primitive; uncivilized, (of a place) wild-looking and inhospitable; uncultivated, (of something bad or negative) very great; severe; noun: (chiefly in historical or literary contexts) a member of a people regarded as primitive and uncivilized, a brutal or vicious person; verb: (especially of a dog or wild animal) attack ferociously and maul, subject to a vicious verbal attack; criticize brutally.

Tense, adjective: (especially of a muscle or someone's body) stretched tight or rigid, (of a person) unable to relax because of nervousness, anxiety, or stimulation, (of a situation, event, etc.) causing or showing anxiety and nervousness; verb: become tense, typically through anxiety or nervousness, [with object] make (a muscle or one's body) tight or rigid.

Vengeful, adjective: seeking to harm someone in return for a perceived injury.

Sean the Leprechaun~ A Christmas Story

             Sean was leprechaun. Actually to be completely honest he was just a stuffed doll. He’d been in the family for years and the children had never been allowed to play with him. He was hung in the window by a safety pin through his hat. Because of the children’s love of fairy tales over the years many tales had been made about him consequently the children began to believe he was a real leprechaun. In appearance he was quite ugly; about twelve inches tall; had long spindly legs, a sharp pointed nose and a tense disfigured face that had aged and discoloured to an ugly mahogany.

         For some unknown reason every time something bad was going to happen we would find him turned inward. I always blamed it on air currents but the children insisted he was warning us and that the pin hurt. Sean had tried to warn us when we travelled out to British Columbia that something was wrong by turning around in the car window and then we’d blown a tire. After that he also turned around when the car almost went over a cliff. My oldest son joked that the leprechaun was vengeful and the younger kids believed him.

            My husband insisted that the leprechaun wasn’t warning us Sean wasn’t vengeful or a savage, but a doll. That the tire had just blown and he’d made a mistake in geography getting too close to a cliff; but my young daughter, Sheilagh as she said her prayers that night said ...”and please tell Sean will get him a new suit if the car doesn’t break anymore.”

She then said to me. “We can, can’t we Mommy?” I reassured her we could; then realized he was faded. I promptly forgot about it.

                 Over the next few months we settled in and Sean was installed in the front window with a beautiful view of the mountains but he insisted on facing in. nothing went right the job my husband was offered caused allergic reactions and asthmatic attacks and then the old injury that had caused us to relocate reared again and my husband was hospitalized.

               During a family conference I explained how there wouldn’t be expensive presents and my oldest daughter blurted out to the younger ones there was no Santa and I had to admit that was true. My youngest daughter insisted with the surety of youth a child there was a Santa. That in fact she believed Daddy was sick because I hadn’t made Sean the suit I promised him and then of course she started crying about not getting a Chatty Cathy. She finished all of this with tears flowing down her face.

           The next day I took Sean down from the window and searching throw my scrap cloth and wool box. I found enough to make a new suit.

When the children came home from school they noticed right away that Sean was missing. Wanting to surprise them I told them Santa’s elves had the flu and Sean had gone to help him in return for a new Christmas suit. This made them happy and reaffirmed their belief in Santa. Even though they somehow understood even Santa didn’t have a lot of money either. They not only accept this idea but demanded bedtime stories of Sean and Santa.

         That Saturday I turned on a Santa television program for them and imagine my surprise when I heard Santa say,” All my elves are down with the flu and my friend Sean has come to help me.”

The camera panned to a doll that was the spitting imagine of Sean.

Muttering “I don’t believe it I went upstairs to look for Sean in my scrap basket. I took everything out piece by piece but I couldn’t find Sean. Following a sleepless night after sending the children to school I wondered where I could have lost him. I searched again and found Sean under a sock that needed darning. How I missed him the first second and gazillion time I don’t know.

         The next day my husband was released from the hospital came home and getting a licence shot a deer for Christmas dinner even though it hurt him to kill such a magnificent animal. We were happier. there was food for Christmas dinner.

Christmas morning Sean was back where he belonged in the window facing out, in his brand new suit. The doorbell rang at five a.m. and I found gaily wrapped presents outside the front door with the children’s names on them.  There had been a light snowfall overnight but the only tracks were hoof prints and two straight lines like those of a sleigh.

         We all stammered “What? Where? Why? How?”, as we looked  at each other in wonderment at the lack of human footprints and the two long lines where something big had rested.

The parcels were opened and to sounds of delight as it revealed a Chatty Cathy doll cuddled tightly, a pair of figure skates, a Bowie knife and a make-up mirror, a large toy crane and a model airplane.

         I found out later that the toys were supplied by an elderly lady who befriended the neighbourhood children and who had given all the children a Christmas party’ but neither she, nor anyone else could explain the lack of human footprints. Sheilagh was sure that she was Mrs. Santa Claus and had brought Sean back with her and the presents.

        Was Sean really a magical leprechaun? I am no longer sure. some things maybe coincidence but others have no explanation . The only thing I’m sure of its that it was the best Christmas ever.

THE END

I hope you enjoyed my mother's story.  My daughter now has Sean and has promised him another new suit not bad since his last one was so long ago.

Merry Christmas!! Happy Holidays!!

Whatever you celebrate enjoy. I’ll be back here to my blog on December 30th.

Dreams Can Kill & Visions of Sugarplums now available in paperback

Celebrate the season with a paperback book for  a gift or for you

My books Visions of Sugarplums 



http://amzn.to/1ROfgLL


& Dreams Can Kill


http://amzn.to/1m2DEgs

Are now available in ebook and paperback

HappyThanksgiving To All My America followers and friends

The Second World War and my Dad #Howwillyouremember

Re-post from from November 2011

 

     My father was a history buff and his favourite field of studies were strategies of war. He often told us stories of Canadian battles and other historical battles. Canada was at war when he was a pre-teen and during his teen years. He trained at school every day as part of his studies, to go to war. A crack shot, my dad excelled at all to do with war; after all his older brother had become a Special Forces soldier and his sister also taking part working as a CWAC and was aboard a ship. He wanted to go one day too. His brother came home, drank and told of fun with comrades, but never really talking of the troubles of war. It all sounded wonderful to a lonely boy. His mother worked long hours in the airplane factory, so my father too wanted to do his part. So he went down to the local recruiting centre and signed up to muster off to war while his mother worked one of her very long shifts at the factory.

     His father and stepfather were both fighting overseas. He was thirteen years old, but very big for his age. Looking at him he may have appeared to the recruiter to be sixteen, but no one would have taken him for only thirteen years old.

     My grandmother meanwhile frantically tried to find out where her son was, getting nowhere. She told the recruiter her son was only thirteen years old and he didn’t believe her. Maybe, it was just he was worried about his mistake; after all he had just sent a thirteen year old child to war, but he demanded she bring back proof. My grandmother had moved several times since my father was born and she was not sure where she had put his birth certificate. She found it after frantically searching and brought it back to them, only to be told that my father had been trained and shipped off to Halifax to board a troop ship which would take him overseas. My grandmother didn’t hesitate she boarded a train to Halifax went straight to the harbour. She told them proudly how her son fought overseas, her daughter was a CWAC and that she herself worked in an airplane factor, therefore they could not have her thirteen year old son, not yet anyway. They demanded proof that my father was thirteen and she produced it. The ship then sailed, without my father who went home. That ship my father always told me went to sea, without him and later a German U boat  torpedoed them , all about 200 souls or less aboard died. (I’ve been trying to trace the ship, but I'm not sure of the name only that it sailed from Halifax.)

     My father was always grateful that he wasn’t on board that ship. He mourned the loss of those lives and taught his children to remember those who had given their lives for our freedom and peace we enjoy. As he said he could have been one of those who perished and then we might not have been here. We appreciated that and always remember how fortunate we were, to have our father.

      Less than a year later my grandmother had a knock at her door receiving a telegram that her oldest son  had been listed as missing in action and presumed dead. A soldier in his unit that was wounded came a month later and told her he was sure her son was dead; but that he had died valiantly saving many of his troops. My grandmother mourned, devastated that she had saved one son to lose another. After three long months she received a phone call and rejoiced her son was alive. He had been in a coma for three months, injured so badly they had not been able to identify him as he had lost his dog tags. They had thought they might lose him from his injuries; but he survived. He came home for some time healing and then went back to war; just before hostilities had ended.

©Sheilagh Lee  November 9, 2011

We shall never forget their sacrifice. We shall remember.

Happy Independence Day Weekend

To my American followers on July 4th, 2014 on the occasion of America's 238th Birthday of  Independence Day


Have a great holiday and enjoy the fireworks 

and enjoy..

Ray Charles singing America The Beautiful

and Mariah Carey singing The Star Spangled Bannner

Happy Birthday Canada

2015

Canada a mosaic of people

Standing proudly free

Celebrating 

The one hundred and forty-eighth birthday

Of confederation 

When we all came together

At first under the flag of Britain 

Then finally to be one under a flag

With a field of red on each side

A red maple leaf

 In a subject of white

In the centre

A symbol of our hearts

We love our country

Its people and traditions

We love the freedom of speech

Movement and freedom to vote

Some days just quietly

Thinking we are Canadian

How we are so lucky

To be in this country

To live strong and free

To enjoy our country

So beautiful far and wide

Riches of nature to behold

We love our symbols such as

The beaver and the moose

Hockey, toques, Timmies coffee

Butter tarts and maple syrup

To name a few

But most of all we love that

We can raise our families

In peace and tranquility

Proudly saying we are

CANADIAN

So we raise our flags today

And celebrating proudly our birthday

Shouting

Happy Canada Day!!

Smiling at our neighbours

Offering thanks to the heavens above

For peace as we

Get together to party

As one

Singing

¸¸.•*¨*• ♫♪Oh Canada we stand on guard for thee ♪♫ •*¨*•.¸¸¸¸. 
and ¸.•*¨*• ♫♪Happy Birthday♪♫ •*¨*•.¸¸¸¸.•*¨*• 

©Sheilagh Lee  July 1, 2015

♡ Happy 148th Birthday Canada! ♡

July 1st, 2015

This video was made a few years ago by some of my hometown people the song is 'Canadian Please'. I love this video.

Song & video produced by

Julia Bentley & Andrew Gunadie

Birthday Week Giveaway Contest

It's my Birthday Week my birthday is Thursday May 28th and I'm in the mood to celebrate so I'm having a Twitter giveaway contest each day May 25 to May 29 I will ask a question about me or another question with an easy answer (other answers are below) to enter follow me at
@SweetSheil   https://twitter.com/SweetSheil    

and answer the giveaway question the first person to answer each day will receive a copy of one of my e-books. the books are below the answers to the questions I might ask below that in the five facts about me. If you're here and reading this leave me a Blogpost below and I'll put you in a raffle and you might win a e-copy of one of these books.

Christmas is Calling, The Christmas Card , The Christmas Angel

                                                                               A Penny Saved A Murder Earned, A Diller A Dollar A Really Dead Scholar, Betty Blue Lost Her Holiday Shoe

                                             


                             

Five facts about me:

1.) My name, Sheilagh comes from Irish Gaelic and means musical or blind. I prefer musical, as I love to sing. My dad always said it was pronounced She-log though I go by Shee-la.

2.) My favourite musical movie is Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

3.) My favourite childhood book was What Katy Did.

4.) My favourite animal is an elephant. I love elephants and collect elephant figurines.

5.)  My writing career was born in grade six when a story about my mother’s talking crow Doc and I won for the junior trophy at my school.

N.B. You can only win once

Today is May 12th - International ME/CFS & FM Awareness Day

Like a lot of Fibromyalgia, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis  and multi-chemical sensitivity patients, I hate talking about it. We suffer in silence (after all who wants to hear someone complain day after day, that they are in  pain/and or are tired, or breathed-in/ ate / were exposed to something that made them feel sick.  Or all three? The days we complain are usually the worst days when we feel if we don't say anything will explode from the extreme level of pain/or tiredness that feels like it's taking over our every waking moment. stealing our life away. The word we hate to say most CANT. Sooner or later that word is uttered and we hate to say it.

Have you ever had the flu? Think of your flu at it's worst and double or triple that, sometimes that is our good day. We try hard to appear normal and do normal things like everyone else so we don't often appear sick. Others are worse off and can not even get out of bed/ eat/ or live any type of normal life.

Millions of people around the world suffer in silence,we don't want sympathy we just want to be heard.This disease needs research, so they can find the roots of this disease and cure it, for more info on this disease.  http://www.disabled-world.com/health/fibromyalgia/

Fibromyalgia Quick Facts

• Affects 3 to 5 percent of the general population
• Occurs in people of all ages, even children
• Men develop fibromyalgia too, although more women are diagnosed with it
• Symptoms are chronic but may fluctuate throughout the day
• Roughly one-quarter of people with fibromyalgia are work-disabled
• FDA approved the first drug for fibromyalgia in 2007 and more treatments are being developed but most find no relief.

 Top Twelve Fibromyalgia Symptoms    

     

• Pain all over
• Fatigue
• Sleep difficulties
• Brain fog
• Morning stiffness
• Muscle knots, cramping, weakness
• Digestive disorders
• Headaches/migraines
• Balance problems
• Itchy/burning skin
• No relief from symptoms
• Chemical sensitivities

                                                                          

I wrote this poem about the monster I call Fibro.

The Monster Within

It calls to me, it’s breath blowing

It calls to me, it’s tendrils showing

It calls to me, and speaks in sweet whispers

It calls to me, and shows sweet lures 

Promising if I listen it will subside 

It lies, it lies!!

I give it none. no smile no wave

But it looks at me, as if it can’t behave

I turn my head, acknowledge it not

For life, its battle I have fought

The normal things that others do 

They are not for you

It shouts and screams and screams

But I listen not.

Through distant cries it calls to me

But it’s lies, do not get to be

I close the door, heed not it’s siren call

For in my heart and body it dies

Or simply lurks in a dark corner today

I hide it away, not letting it out to play,

It is not here, I tell myself

It won’t come in and ruin my day

It shouts, it pleads

Ignoring would be a sin

But I will not let it in

I battle on and this time I win

But the battle is always nigh

And my attention will not die

Pain and strength weakening

I fight on the good fight

This battle will be won

The monster’s tendrils extend it’s reach

Fighting I move into the breach

For it’s me who will teach

The monster it is no more!

If only for today, for 

Now the monster's gone away

I can come out to play.

 ©Sheilagh Lee  May 12, 2015

Three Word Wednesday- Pet

Three Word Wednesday-  Pet

I'm stepping away from 'Home for Christmas' this week, but I'll be back with the next installment, next Wednesday.

Flimsy, adjective: comparatively light and insubstantial; easily damaged; (of clothing) light and thin; (of a pretext or account) weak and unconvincing.

Hungry, adjective: feeling or displaying the need for food; causing hunger; having a strong desire or craving.

Tense, adjective: (especially of a muscle or someone's body) stretched tight or rigid; (of a person) unable to relax because of nervousness, anxiety, or stimulation; (of a situation, event, etc.) causing or showing anxiety and nervousness; verb: become tense, typically through anxiety or nervousness; [with object] make (a muscle or one's body) tight or rigid.

My Pet 

     I was born with two litter mates. Bigger than the other two I got lots of milk and affection from my mother. Then the people came children adults and others peering at me. When the children came I’d run and hide while my litter mates would play with the children and purr up against them. First one and then the other disappeared with people. It was then that she arrived, a single woman alone. She coaxed me out from under the sofa I hid.  She spoke to me softly and held me close up to her chest and I liked it. I began to purr and she said I’ll call you Tuxedo.

    She took me home to what she called an apartment, a small space where I could run and peer out a window way up high. I thought that she would always be there, but every day she left for hours at a time and I wait watching out the window looking at the sky until she come home and fill my dishes again. She seemed unhappy that I’d claw her furniture and put rents in the flimsy material. Didn’t she understand that need? Silly human. One day she took me to a man, a vet she called him and I grew tense and very scared. He plunged a pointing thing into me and it hurt my bum. When I woke up she wasn’t there I was in a cage and my back feet hurt. I my claws and panicked they weren’t there. What had this vet done to me? When the man came hissed and bit him. He snarled. Still no sweet lady. Had she forgotten me?  

    She came and took me home; but not for long soon she took me to another place where there were many animals in cages. I cried and whimpered for her to come back but she didn’t.

    I was taken home with another lady who kept me four years then returned me to my cage.  When people came, I decided I would not be friendly. Why should I?  Attached to a human, I thought I owned them and then they’d return me like a sweater, or something brought home in a bag. I deserved better; but then she walked in an older lady with waves of sadness and loneliness coming off of her. She needed me I could sense it. She seemed awkward at first not knowing how to communicate with me. I could tell she’d never been around cats but that was okay. Trainable might be a better choice. Look at those humans that took me home they thought they knew all about cats but condemned me for being me. She would make a better pet.

    I sauntered up to the front of the cage and purred at her and she was hooked. She then passed some paper over to the people who help him in the cage and they took him out and passed her to the lady. I purred in her arms and I felt her melt. 

    She took me home and with her there was no silly baby talk. No, she talked to me like I was rightfully her companion. She called me Rudolph Valentino, a fitting name much better than that silly Tuxedo name. She shortened it to Rudy and I responded to it. We became the best of friends as I taught her how I always sat where I liked whether it was in her lap, in her favourite chair, or under the covers in our bed. I even nibble at her toast out of politeness. I would greet our guests at the door or by joining them while they sat at the table jumping up on the table and accepting their petting me.  I turned on the light on the table with my paw when it grew dark; my pet was well cared for.

    Two of her frequent visitors came every week and when they left they take her out of the house; but they always brought her back with food for her and me. They never let us go hungry, so when they came I always greeted them and let them pet me.
   She’d notice when I didn’t feel well and take me to a nice lady vet who’d make me feel better.  She allowed me to race back and forth in her house and  when her two frequent visitors brought a fireplace for her and me I lay before it basking in the warmth meant for me. A King of all I surveyed, she was my captive audience; she talked to me and I’d answer back making her feel better and alive for I had grown to love my pet. I soon found that years had passed. I was still pampered by her, but I felt the pain in my joints and the quickening of old age but then so did she. We conforted each other in our joint pains. My stomach wasn’t what it once was so she had the vet put me on special foods easier to digest. I was happy and I showed her that. I pounced on her lap when she sat to watch the funny box with the pictures on it. I crawled under the sheets and blankets and cuddled up sleeping at her side.

     This morning I awoke cold and not feeling myself. I felt the quickening and knew I didn’t have long. I hid under the dresser, but my pet found me. She pulled me out and then seemed scared understanding what occurred to me. She rushed me to the vet but the doctor didn’t understand; not like my pet and she sent me home. When we arrived home I couldn’t get out of the carrier. I felt weird as I shook and my face contorted. This was my time. I had a wonderful life with my pet this eleven long years, but it was my time. The time everyone gets on this earth, for I lay dying. I wanted to comfort my pet who had suffered so many losses, but I could not. I looked at her my pet and wondered how she would go on without me? Who would greet her in the morning? Get her up to see the sunrise? Who would she share her breakfast, with lunch, dinner? who would play with her and pat her face? I gazed up into her face with love and then glanced at her child who had come in my hour of need. She had her children that would have to be enough. At peace, I closed my eyes one last time and embraced the light.  Goodbye my pet.

RIP Rudy 04/22/2000- 07/04/2015

©Sheilagh Lee  April, 8, 2015

Happy Easter or Happy Passover

 Happy Easter or Happy Passover 

 From my house     to yours 

Have a blessed Weekend whatever you Celebrate! 

Have a wonderful Weekend

Beannacht Lá Fhéile Pádraig -(Happy St. Patrick's Day)

Happy St.Patrick's Day - 

Beannacht Lá Fhéile Pádraig

There's a dear little plant that grows in our isle,

'Twas St. Patrick himself, sure, that sets it;

And the sun of his labor with pleasure did smile,

And with dew from his eye often wet it.

It grows through the bog, through the brake, through the mireland,

And they call it the dear little Shamrock of Ireland.

(From an Irish song unknown author)

Madainn mhath  -(Good morning)

Feashar math  - (Good afternoon)

Oidhche mhath -  (Good Evening)

Céad míle fáilte romhat!- (A hundred thousand welcomes)

Dia dhaoibh  - (Hello to all)        

Is mise Sile~  (Sweet Sheilagh is my name)

Go raibh maith agat, a chara ceilidh

(Thank you my friend for visiting and sharing) and

Beannacht Lá Fhéile Pádraig  (Happy St. Patrick's Day)

And

Saol fada chugat~(Long life to you but remember if you drink today take a cab or use a designated driver)