Monthly Archives: December 2008

Funny Hospital Signs Hospitals generally try to be professional, useful, and sometimes informative. When this fails, they sometimes end up being funny or just plain creepy. Here are a few amusing examples.

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Mark and I went to a Christmas Candlelight Memorial service tonight at Foster’s Funeral Home in the NW of Calgary. They put on a giant, free service every year at the beginning of December. When we arrived, I thought that I must have had the time or day wrong. There were cars and people everywhere — it was much bigger than I expected that it would be. We walked into a huge chapel with hundreds of people. Many more were put into overflow rooms around the funeral home or lined the hallway outside.

The Calgary Boys Choir was there, singing Christmas carols and songs of remembrance. At the front of the chapel, there were two huge Christmas trees lit with clear bulbs and loaded with glass angels. There were also two huge candleabras flickering in the dim light. Each person received a candle when they entered and after a few songs and prayers, they were lit. The lights were turned down and the funeral home staff lined the aisle to pass the flame to each row of pews. Each candle was lit from the one before it, symbolizing the common humanity among people suffering from grief which can be overpowering, especially at Christmas.

There were more psalms read and more carols sung and then there was a slide show of all of the people that the funeral home buried this year. Our baby boy Kye was not one of the pictures shown. We have no pictures of him except for the precious ultrasound pictures taken at 12 weeks. By the time we had our 18 week scan, he had passed. It was heart breaking to see the pictures of everyone else’s loved ones and have nothing to show for our loss. I often wear his ashes around my neck in an infinity symbol and rubbed it during the service. I’m sure that he knows just how much he is loved and missed.

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Home theaters have become increasingly popular in recent years with many families devoting an entire room of their house to at-home entertainment.  I think with the global economy bottoming out the way it has in recent months that home theaters are going to become even more popular.  A big screen television, home theater lighting and sound system can easily pay themselves off in the savings for a family going out the movies on a regular basis.  I think that it’s also a great way to promote family bonding by spending more time together.  I know with our family, the kids tend to go to one movie and the grown ups to another.  However, when we watch movies at home, we all gather round with our big bowls of popcorn together.  Maybe the lousy economy will actually have a side effect of bringing families closer together as they stick together to save money.  That would definitely be a huge bonus and maybe a silver lining to a very gray cloud.

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It’s that time of year again — Christmas shopping!  I tend to think of it as a challenge more than something to be dreaded.  What exactly would everyone like for Christmas?  I find that guys are much harder to shop for than girls — probably because I’m a girl so I understand them.  Girls like things that are pretty, soft, or smell good.  What do guys like?  I guess it depends on the guy.

I’ve found that most of them have an interest in tools of some kind.  This can be tricky though if you don’t know what they already have.  Tape measures are good as stocking stuffers though because they just can’t seem to get enough of them for some reason!  How about a tie for that business minded guy on your list?  Pretty boring but useful certainly.  Maybe golf clubs or golf accessories would be a good idea, if your Dad or man is into that kinda thing.  Or maybe some clothes if they’re “fashion challenged” or even worse, metrosexual.  If they have a mustache, I discovered this weird thing online — mustache cups!  They’re like a regular mug but it has a ceramic part across the top that holds the mustache in place.  Google it to see what the heck I’m talking about.  It’s sort of hard to picture until you see it.  I hope this gave you at least one idea for that hard to buy for guy on your list!

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Kids always say things in different ways when they’re little and just learning the language. For example, my oldest kid, Kris used to call chicken noodle soup “Doodledos” and tomato soup was “ketchup soup”. Sometimes it can be pretty hard to decode what they’re actually saying. Emma, my younger child, has some pretty funny little sayings too — she calls ravioli “Rollie ollie” and eats pretty much a whole can everyday right now, usually for breakfast if you can imagine! Chocolate is “kalockalick” and backpack is pretty universally with all kids called a “pack pack”.

I’ve also discovered that you need to really watch what sayings you use around kids. They tend to take them pretty literally. A few days ago, I said “That was so funny, I peed my pants!”. My toddler gave me the most disgusted look (she’s potty trained). She said “Oh no, Mommy had an accident!” and reached out to touch the crotch of my pants to see if I was really wet. I started laughing and said that I didn’t mean it. She told me I was really gross! Too funny!!!

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With everything we’ve been through as a family lately, I feel very blessed to have insurance there to cover us when we needed it.  Between being on a medical leave from work and having a car accident, money has definitely been tight.  Insurance can be so complicated — it’s hard to know what’s covered, for how much and under what circumstances.  Sometimes just getting a quote can be pretty complicated.  I’ve found that term life insurance quotes are confusing especially.  But just because something is hard to figure out doesn’t mean that it’s not worth it.  Sometimes those most confusing things can be the most important!  I think it really helps to have an agent sit down and really explain insurance policies to you in a way that is actually understandable.  Once it’s been explained, hopefully it will be less confusing!

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