Lori Cartmell

Posted on February 21, 2020 by Lori Cartmell · 1 Comment

Life Lessons from Driving in Snow

Oops! A pickup truck loses control in snowy conditions, colliding with a state trooper.
Photo by Washington State Department of Transportation on Flickr
CC BY NC-ND-2.0

Do you live in an area with a snowy climate? Then you’ll know the sheer joy of trying to drive during a heavy snowstorm.

The snowplow hasn’t come by yet, so for starters no one can see the lane markers. Cars start to slip and slide into the wrong lane. Drivers become less able to stop their vehicles in time at red lights, or to get up large hills. Cars might be stuck at the side of the road, wheels spinning fruitlessly. The number of car accidents skyrockets, and everyone is late for work.

It’s delightful, isn’t it?

But there are a few tricks to driving in snow, and they also apply to navigating through the difficulties of life.

Posted on February 17, 2020February 14, 2020 by Lori Cartmell

An Unexpected Friend

Last summer, I had an unusual visitor. A lady I didn’t recognize came to my front door and rang the doorbell. I’d never seen her before, but she was clearly from the neighbourhood, as she had come on foot.

She said she had come to apologize to me.

I was mystified. This lady was a total stranger: why would she need to apologize to me?

“What on earth for?” I asked her.

Posted on February 13, 2020February 13, 2020 by Lori Cartmell

What Does Love Look Like To You?

The Taj Mahal, in Agra, India, is considered to be one of the world’s most beautiful buildings, and rightly so. Built from white marble, it was commissioned in 1631 by Shah Jahan as a memorial to his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died that year giving birth to their fourteenth child.

For many in India and around the world, the Taj Mahal is an iconic symbol of love. Every stone and jewel used in its construction speaks of the tremendous affection the Shah had for his wife, and his grief at her passing. To many people, the Taj Mahal is the embodiment of love.

What does love look like to you?

Posted on February 10, 2020March 23, 2020 by Lori Cartmell

World’s Strangest Collections

Assorted Stamps
Photo by Frantisek Krejci on Pixabay

Do you enjoy collecting things? Many of us do. Perhaps you collect stamps, vintage baseball cards, Barbie dolls, movie memorabilia, autographs or folk art.

Or maybe your hoard is a little more esoteric. You might specialize in collecting Cracker Jack prizes, Coca-Cola ads, thimbles, snow globes, or vintage fountain pens. These interests may be a bit more off the beaten path, but still within the realms of normal.

But it’s possible that your collection veers into the truly strange and oddball, like the following:

Posted on February 6, 2020March 23, 2020 by Lori Cartmell

Need a “Stop-Loss” For Your Life?

Stock Market Correction
Photo by Rafael Matsunaga on Flickr CC BY-2.0

If you’re familiar with the stock market, you probably know what a “stop-loss” is. It’s an order whereby your shares are automatically sold if their value drops to a predetermined level. This prevents your losses from becoming even greater if share prices drop further.

It’s a handy tool to set in place when trading on the stock market. It locks in your profits or limits your losses in a down market, and helps preclude financial catastrophe.

But don’t you wish we had a “stop-loss” for real-life problems?

Posted on February 3, 2020February 1, 2020 by Lori Cartmell

Stay With the Tried and True

My Mom’s and Dad’s 1915 Five Roses Cookbooks:
They each brought a copy into their marriage.

Do you have a collection of old family recipes or cookbooks? Many of us are fortunate enough to have such treasures, lovingly passed down to us. They’re worth hanging on to.

The recipes might be contained in a cookbook, or written down on index cards and filed in a plastic or wooden box. They may be handwritten and neatly organized in a binder, or simply clipped from the newspaper and stuffed haphazardly into the pages of an old cookbook.

But no matter how the recipes are filed, there’s an easy way to tell which ones are the best:

The pages they’re on are a bit of a mess.

Posted on January 30, 2020 by Lori Cartmell

Spring Is On Its Way

Stonehenge, site of solstice celebrations for millennia
Public Domain photo

The shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere is the winter solstice, which occurred last year on December 21st. From that day on, the days begin to lengthen and the sun’s position in the sky begins to rise from our perspective.

But if the days are now getting longer and we’re getting more sunlight, why does it keep getting colder and snowier here in January and February?

Where is spring?

Posted on January 27, 2020March 27, 2020 by Lori Cartmell

Are You At The Breaking Point?

Trees bent over by ice storm
“Ice Cathedrals” photo by Daryne Rockett on Flickr CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0

If you live in a cold climate, have you ever woken up to discover that there had been an ice storm overnight? You look outside to find the bare branches of the trees are encased in a thick layer of ice.

The effect can be absolutely stunning. The branches glisten and sparkle in the sunlight. People rush outside to take photos of the ice-covered trees.

But the beauty masks a danger: those bare branches are at risk. They were never meant to carry the weight of so much ice. The branches may break off, and the tree can be left devastated.

Do you ever feel like you’re carrying too much “weight”?

Posted on January 23, 2020January 22, 2020 by Lori Cartmell

The Only Horoscope You Need

Signs of the Zodiac on an Astronomical Clock

What’s your astrological sign? Are you a Libra or a Leo? Do you read your horoscope daily and make life decisions based on that advice?

Or maybe you follow Chinese astrology, which is based on the year in which you were born rather than the month. The Chinese are about to celebrate the Lunar New Year, heralding the beginning of the Year of the Rat.

Both of these systems teach that the time cycle in which you were born determines your personality, and to some extent the course of your life. But this might leave you with a sense of being powerless, at the mercy of impersonal forces beyond your control.

Isn’t there something better to help you navigate your way through life?

Posted on January 20, 2020January 16, 2020 by Lori Cartmell

When Words Fail Us

English Dictionaries. Photo by John Keogh on Flickr. CC BY-NC-2.0

Sometimes there’s something we want to express, but we can’t seem to find the right term for it. There’s a feeling or situation that we just can’t put into words. Or maybe the precise word doesn’t even exist in English.

On occasion we have to turn to words and phrases in other languages to describe exactly what we’re trying to say. For instance, in English we often borrow the German word “schadenfreude,” which means “pleasure at the misfortune of others”.

Maybe we should consider borrowing a few more foreign words that have no English equivalent. I suggest the following:

The Faith Cafe

Author: Lori Cartmell

Chief blogger and bottlewasher at The Faith Cafe, a Christian blog about everything from baking to nature, but mostly about our relationship with God.