It has been a terrific week because both of our daughters have been home. How fabulous to have all four members of our family under the same roof! For us, family time these days is precious—something to be savoured!

Welcome to the 70^th edition of The Sunday Spark, a series with weekly thoughts and highlights, nuggets of learning, and a decluttering challenge for the week. In addition to celebrating family time, this week I look at rising coffee prices, environmental justice, soaring temperatures and china cabinet decluttering.

On my mind this week: Family time is rare and precious

It’s interesting how something I once took for granted has now become so precious. I’ve written before about the struggles of having faraway relatives. Our daughter Laura made a big move across the country to British Columbia last summer. And while our younger daughter Colleen still technically lives with us, she has been working in Prince Edward Island since the beginning of this year.

So, with one daughter on the east coast and another in Canada’s westernmost province, my family is separated by 4 time zones and over 5,000 kilometres. I’ve said to my husband, as the song goes, “Here I am. Stuck in the middle with you.”

But this week both of our girls have been home. Laura has been back in Ontario for two weeks for a work conference in Toronto. On Saturday, we met her at the train station, and she came home to spend the week with us. Colleen arrived home from PEI the same day.

It has been a busy activity-filled week, and we’ve made some new family memories. Even so, I can’t help but be reminded of how often I’ve taken family time for granted over the years. When our kids were small, we fell into the busyness of life and didn’t always savour our time together.  

A highlight of the week was a belated Mother’s Day celebration on Friday. Since the girls were both away for Mother’s Day, they picked up food at a local tearoom and treated me to afternoon tea on our deck. Of course, the biggest treat was having them both home.

Sadly, Laura will be flying home to BC later this morning, and Colleen returns to PEI on Wednesday. So that’s all the family time we’ll have for a while.

Safe travels, girls. Until next time.

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Three highlights of the week

It was such a fun-filled week that I had a hard time choosing just three highlights. Here are the winners…

• On Saturday, we went to the Toronto Blue Jays game. They beat the Cleveland Guardians 5-0.
• We took advantage of having the family together to go out for a nice dinner at The Keg. In addition to simply celebrating us being all together in the same province, it was a celebration of birthdays, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and retirements. Add in our 30^th anniversary coming up in early July and we earned that complimentary slice of Billy Miner pie!
• Laura and I made a trip to the record store on Thursday so I could spend the gift cards I got from my co-workers for my retirement. I added several albums to my collection including Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell which replaces the first LP I ever bought that I loaned to a neighbour and never got back, and David Bowie’s Let’s Dance which I owned on cassette back in my Sony Walkman days. I wandered all over town listening to that album. Ahhh…there’s nothing like musical memories.

Things I learned this week

Life is all about learning. Here are three things I learned this week:

What’s behind rising coffee prices?

I’m not a coffee drinker but I’m in the minority. In fact, 71% of Canadians love their coffee. But that morning cup of joe is getting more expensive with coffee prices jumping 30% in the last two years.

What’s behind those rising coffee prices? Coffee travels long distances to our Canadian supermarkets and coffee shops, so much of the increase relates to higher costs across the supply chain. But climate change also plays a role. Coffee is vulnerable to extreme weather which has affected coffee crops in recent years. Some estimate that by 2050, land suitable for growing coffee will be cut in half. So we can expect further price increases. 

(Source: MoneySense.ca)

Canada passes environmental justice law

It’s a well-know fact that climate change doesn’t impact everyone equally, with the most vulnerable groups in our world feeling the effects more than others. This week, Canada’s Senate passed a historic bill that will address that inequality.

The Environmental Justice Strategy Act will require the government to examine the links between racialization, socio-economic status and environmental risk. It will also lead to Canada’s first national strategy on environmental racism and environmental justice.

(Source: David Suzuki Foundation)

Record-breaking temperatures

Summer arrived this week. Ahead of the summer solstice, this week was unbelievably hot and humid here in southern Ontario and across much of North America. Add in a few severe thunderstorms and torrential rain and it has been an unsettled week weather-wise.

And it’s not just us. Earlier in the week, New Delhi, India saw record-breaking temperatures of 49.9 C (121.8F). (Source: CNN)

Unfortunately, these extreme temperatures are becoming the norm, and they disproportionately affect vulnerable populations like seniors and lower income people.

This week’s decluttering challenge – China cabinet

In 2024, I’ve been revisiting the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge I completed in 2021. This week was an exercise in sentimentality vs. practicality as I tackled my china cabinet. I’m happy to report I decluttered 11 items. You can find the details, along with my tips and learnings, in this week’s decluttering post.

If you’d like to join the challenge, visit this post to download your free checklists and jump right in with this week’s task.

I’d love to hear what you think about any of this week’s topics. Drop me a comment below and let me know your thoughts and ideas.