If the stars align, I’ll be off to Ireland tomorrow night on a trip that’s turning into an adventure before it has even started.

Welcome to the 76^th edition of The Sunday Spark, a series with weekly thoughts and highlights, nuggets of learning, and a decluttering challenge for the week. This week’s edition is a little lighter than usual but read on for weekly highlights and an update on desk drawer decluttering.

On my mind this week: Off to Ireland…I hope!

If the stars align, I’ll be off to Ireland tomorrow night with my Mum and one of my sisters. I say, “If the stars align”, because this trip is proving to be an adventure…and we haven’t even left home yet.

My 91-year-old Mum was born in Wexford, Ireland. As one of the oldest in a very large family, Mum left home as a teenager to make room for her younger siblings. After living in Dublin for a couple of years, she moved to England where she met my dad. My three sisters and I were all born in England where we lived until 1973 when two of my sisters and I came to Canada with my Mum, Dad, and Nanna.  

Although Mum hasn’t lived in Ireland since she was 18, her entire family is still there.

A long overdue trip

Because of the pandemic, it has been seven years since Mum has seen her family. When we visited my sister in England last year, we made plans to travel to Ireland this year. Everything was all planned, but unfortunately my sister isn’t able to make the trip. Cancelling wasn’t an option because, at Mum’s age, this could very well be the last opportunity for her to see her brother and sisters. I was very determined to make it work!

So, this week I’ve been busy pulling together “Plan B” … the one where we get around by bus, taxi, and train instead of hiring a car.

I had everything all worked out and was starting to relax and feel okay about the trip again when I got an email from WestJet with the subject line “Severe storms cause hail damage”. Uh oh. This can’t be good news. The email reported 16 of their aircraft had been grounded because of significant damage from a major hailstorm that ripped through Calgary airport on Monday.

Tennis-ball sized hail?

Apparently, this storm came with tennis-ball-sized hail. I can’t even imagine what that would look like or the damage it would cause.

Now, I could go off on a tangent about climate change and extreme weather, but you already know how I feel about that, so I’ll spare you the rant and get back to the email.

The email warned that flight cancellations were inevitable and would continue “for the foreseeable future”. I’ve been on pins and needles ever since. So far, it seems cancellations are mostly happening on routes to and within Western Canada so we might be okay for our flight to Dublin from Toronto tomorrow night. I’m crossing my fingers and hoping the luck of the Irish will be with us.

Assuming the trip goes ahead, The Sunday Spark and my Friday decluttering posts will be taking a break for the rest of August. As the song says, “I’ll see you in September”!

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Three highlights of the week

It’s important to celebrate big milestones and simple pleasures in life. Keeping the trend going, here are three highlights and simple pleasures of the week gone by:

• On Wednesday, I went to a cat birthday party for three of my sister-in-law’s six cats who were born one year ago. It was a fun afternoon with cat-themed snacks and a cat cake.
• Our daughter Colleen arrived safely home from PEI on Friday night.
• It’s hard to top a cat birthday party, but on Saturday we went to our niece’s place to celebrate the first birthday of their twins, and their daughter’s third birthday. Another fun afternoon. There’s nothing like watching two one-year-olds devour their birthday cake.

Things I learned this week

There was not much learning happening this week because the Olympics are still on, and I’ve been glued to my TV in between making travel arrangements.

Regular learning activities will resume in September.

This week’s decluttering challenge – Desk drawers and office supplies

In 2024, I’ve been revisiting the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge I completed in 2021. This week’s decluttering task was desk drawers and office supplies—a timely task given my recent retirement. I’m happy to report I decluttered 28 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.