Harbor Pilots

Hello, Cadre. Guess what? It's my birthday. I'm spending time later with family, but I can't think of a better family to share a birthday with than the Cadre family. And my dog wants to chip in. I tell you what, everybody. It's been a morning. I agreed to drive over and take care of my grandkids so that my daughter could go to a very important doctor's appointment. Her husband's at work and I said I would, I would come over. 6:30. Still. Still dark out. 3 years old and 8 months old. Lovely kids.

Love them. Good morning, Jules. Hi. So, trying to think of what I might ask you to put in the comments. Well, since Jules chimed in with good morning sunshine and a picture of a sun, could you pop in? And. Oh, and a happy birthday. Thank you so much for my birthday greeting, Jules. So could you help me celebrate with the sunshine? It's a cloudy day here or any birthday stuff. Let's just celebrate together. It's cloudy here and I would like a wee bit of sunshine. So I am all kinds of disorganized this morning.

My phone is barely charged, so I have it plugged into the charger as we speak so that it can carry my Cadre message to you. I don't know if I mentioned it, but my name is Kathy Joy. My Cadre handle is Harbor Pilots, and I come to you on caregiver day each week on Thursday. And I just wanted to say a couple things before I plunge into my very not planned message, because I didn't plan one. That's what it's like to be in the Cadre and to be amongst family. We can be comfortable, prepared or not prepared.

Right. Warm, sunny vibes. Thank you so, so much. Yeah. So January 30th is my birthday. I share it with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the late president. So it's nice to hobnob with the, with, with a past president. On my birthday, two things I wanted to mention of a more somber nature, and that is if you've heard the news or seen the news. C. it looks like all souls are gone. And so they're actually saying it's not a rescue, it's a recovery. Don't have a lot of details because I've been babysitting this morning, but I do know there was a tragic accident.

People are receiving the news or have received and there is shock and grief all of a sudden. So my heart goes out and my prayers go out to the families who are getting that news. And it's really hard to grieve when the nation is mourning, too. I think it must be super hard to hold space for grief when it's very public. I don't know what that experience is like to have a loved one who's gone and the public is also grieving. Just pray for that whole situation. It's tough, you guys. I also Remember back in 1986.

Okay, so this happened today, of course, the 30th of January, 2025. In 1986, the space shuttle Challenger broke apart. Upon launch. All seven souls aboard were lost. And that was at Cape Canaveral. They plunged into the Atlantic. All the parts of that craft after the explosion in the air. And that was an image that is seared into my memory, perhaps yours, depending on if you're old enough. Some of you weren't born in 86, but I was born in 1959, so you do the math. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna give it to you.

You have to work for it. If you want to know my age, how do we coexist with tragic news? Airplane crashes, Space shuttles blow apart. I don't want to list all the bad things that are happening in the world, just two that are prominent on my mind. One that just happened and another event that happened many years ago, but right around my birthday as well. And I don't have an answer. Why do these things coexist? Why do we have celebrations and cakes and balloons and family side by side with desperate situations and loss and grief?

I think in its own ecosystem, that's what caregiving is. Depending, of course, on what kind of caregiving you're involved in. I like to say we're all walking each other home. So in some way, shape or form, we're taking care of one another. When we take care of an elderly, we know that we're walking toward an ending, toward a goodbye. My mom is 93. She'll be 94 in May. And I get to go see her today at the nursing home and celebrate my birthday with her. And also a very good friend of mine is coming along, so I have cool plans.

And I'll be spending my special day with somebody who is my mama, who is certainly not at end of life, but she's at an age where it's all. It's on our radar. She just had a pretty intense hospital stay, but she's come round and she's all right. I have in my journal, I've written a couple of words. Adapt and pivot. Isn't that what we do when we dwell side by side with something imminent or something sad, and also celebrations. I don't think that we need to cease celebrating in the midst of sorrow.

I think the celebrations give a layer of life in the here and now and survival and resilience. So along with Pivot and Adapt, which I wrote in here, I also wrote something a coach said recently. And it's reframe your expectations. And that's not the same as lowering them. To reframe our expectations is to find another template and put that over the situation. And it can still be called good. It might be not, it might not be what you expected. Today I'll be taking a German chocolate cake around, Layer cake to celebrate with mom and her friends at the home and my friend who's coming along, because traditionally, when I was growing up, mom would bake a three layer German chocolate cake for me on my birthday.

And to celebrate that tradition, I did the Pivot and Adapt. I reframed my expectation and I went and ordered a cake and picked it up yesterday at the local bakery. And it's German chocolate, my favorite. Looking forward to that celebration. Pivot and Adapt. My daughter, who had a very important doctor's appointment this morning, had the presence of mind to still celebrate me and my birthday. Despite the fact that she has two very active children and very little opportunities to get away and go shopping.

She had to stop for milk at the store. Before she did that, she picked up a cup of coffee for me. Tim Hortons Coffee is a chain out here. I don't know if you have them where you live. Really good coffee. But she took the time to ask them to write Happy Birthday on it. And there's a heart and there's a. I believe it's a birthday hat and confetti. So whoever wrote that in Sharpie on the lid of my coffee took some time. And Andrea said, this is in lieu of a birthday card. This is your birthday card.

It works for me. Pivot and Adapt. Also at the store when she did her milk run, she picked up something that she immediately apologized for because she said it's rather ordinary, but I think it's a lovely gift. First of all because of the giver. Gracie, you can calm down now. But also because of the gift itself. It is. Let me see if it says it right here. Overnight oats container with a spoon. I haven't even taken the packaging off, but it comes with a spoon. It's kind of a wooden top with a seal and it's just right.

And the reason this is such a special gift is because I love overnight oats. I know you might not like refrigerated oats, but I do. I think they're great. Super source of protein and I have them often. And she found a bowl that will suit that, that thing that I like to do, which is to have overnight oats. And it's pink. I tell you what, I just am delighted because, because of the giver. The gift itself is lovely too. And the fact that she knows that I personally like that item and that this bowl would suit me, well, it was not a random gift or a nondescript gift.

It was a special hand picked gift. So yes, Jules, you have to cross into Canada to get your Tim Hortons. Now that is of course, where it originates. I'm sure you're aware of that. And in this part of Pennsylvania Northwest, we do have Tim Hortons. We affectionately call it Timmy's or Timmy Ho hos or Tim's. And of course they have Timbit, which are donut holes Timbits. Well, they have the chain going down into parts of New York State and Pennsylvania, but not much further south. So, yes, Canada is your go to and your place of origin for Tim Hortons coffee.

Look, here's the maple leaf. Go Canucks. Those intrepid Canadians. Some parting thoughts. As I shamelessly tell you, it's my birthday and I make you guess my age again. Born in 59. I come from the 1900s, y'all, and Barbie was born the same year as me. Yeah. So another really cool gift are these earrings. It's a book. It's a teeny tiny book. It's made of paper, it's handcrafted, and it's a children's book. And this is the children's book. Will you hold my story? It's a book that I wrote and it's about the protagonist, Maggie Beth, a little girl who's grieving and she just wants somebody to.