Welcome to my updated website and blog. Template changes were long overdue! I hope you like the new look.
Last Monday was Canadian Thanksgiving. We, in Canada, certainly have a lot to be thankful for. My personal list includes continuing gratitude for health during this pandemic and the fact that we can again attend church in person and be with friends and family.
Another item is in-person art shows are opening up again. Last Friday the ARTSPACIFIC exhibition began with an in-person gallery opening at the Langley Arts Council Kinsmen Gallery in Aldergrove. This B.C.-Wide juried competition features over 100 paintings from artists around the province. I was totally thrilled to have two paintings accepted into the show! You can view the entire exhibition online HERE.
“Oregon Grape” 
Happy to attend the ARTSPACIFIC opening in person! 
“Rosehip Line Dance.”
Continuing with the Thanksgiving theme, I leave you with a poem I wrote a few years ago, recalling the Thanksgiving celebrations at our little Mennonite church on the prairies. Does it twig any Thanksgiving memories of your own?
Thanksgiving Lunch at the Mennonite Church
We’ve been smelling coffee for a while now
as the sermon drones on and on but finally
it’s benediction time and “Thanks
for the food we are about to partake. Amen.”
Old and young crowd down the stairs
to the warm, fragrant basement
claim chairs at the long table
where we usually have Sunday School.
The food committee hovers in the kitchen
as we start filling plates with potato and jello salad
zwieback and butter, sliced tomatoes, cheese
homemade dills, platters of cold pink ham
roast beef, plump fried chicken.
Soon they come with coffee and tea in steaming kettles
then serve plates of pie—apple, cherry, chocolate
lemon meringue, peach, rhubarb, raisin.
Chairs push back. Farmers swap stories
of combine breakdowns and how many
bushels of oats and wheat to the acre.
Women tell of covering the tomatoes
before last Tuesday’s frost, how Suzy’s not liking school
and did you know Adilman’s has a sale on winter coats?
Kids play tag, hide-and-seek
dash between legs back to the table to snitch
sugar cubes, pickles, pieces of cheese
while the food crew clears the end of the table
nearest the kitchen, gathers up
their twelve basketfuls of leftovers
and lingers over their Thanksgiving lunch.
© 2014 by Violet Nesdoly – All Rights Reserved
Violet Nesdoly 