Hello. My name is Ken David Stewart. I am 70 years old, and presently I am self-employed as a self-published author, blogger and podcaster. I started writing fiction when I was employed as a life skills worker at the Salvation Army. For several decades I was employed as a schoolteacher in Winnipeg, Canada. After I retired, I continued my work in the education field as a substitute teacher.
I have self published three books to date and am currently working on two other writing projects. One is named Winter Dreams and the other is titled Street Dreams. My self-published work includes a play called the Wild and Hilarious World of the Roswell Gang, a novella titled Summer Dreams, and a novel known as the Lake Demon. All titles are available in the Kindle format@amazon.ca and in a hard copy version@amazon.com.
I have a variety of hobbies including playing bass guitar, reading and listening to audiobooks as well as rock music from the classic rock and the grunge and punk eras. I also enjoy watching NFL football, training with my bullworker and free weight workouts. I live with my wife and animals in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
From grade one to grade eight I attended Nordale School. I enjoyed grade eight except for one issue. I hated shops or as it is known now, industrial arts. I was not born for building things or fixing things. To this day there are still things that I cannot repair. I just found out that I have a condition called dyspraxia. Anyone who is unfortunate enough to have this condition will eventually find themselves totally frustrated when they need to assemble anything or do any repairs.
When I attended shops class every Friday afternoon, I lived through a type of hell on earth. Every other boy in the class appeared to be able to put together a dado joint with ease. Everyone except for me that is. I struggled and struggled with the projects to which I was assigned in woodworking class. I couldn’t make a proper dado joint if my life depended upon it. My shops teacher, Mr. Larson, was of no help whatsoever. He had absolutely no sympathy for any student who had difficulties with their projects. This teacher didn’t think that it was his job to assist students who struggled with their assignments. The only way I passed this course was to have some of my fellow students finish my projects for me. Even still, I just passed woodworking class by the skin of my teeth.
My future with shops class didn’t appear any brighter for the upcoming year. My industrial arts teacher for grade nine metals would be Mr. Miller. He struck me as being even meaner and less helpful than Mr. Larson, if that was possible. The very thought of taking metals class with Mr. Miller made me sick to my stomach.
Thank God, Miss Winters, our principal, came to my grade eight class to make an important announcement. Our principal told the class that there was a way to be exempt from taking metals class with Mr. Miller in grade nine. This was the offer. If a student could maintain an average of 85% or higher until the end of the school year they would have the opportunity to take Latin class at Queen Elizabeth School next fall. The only drawback was that Queen Elizabeth School was a long walk from where I lived.It would be at least a forty-five minute walk one way to school every day. This could be a real hardship in the winter months.
For me, this was a small price to pay for avoiding another painful year of humiliation in shop’s class. Fortunately, I had very good grades in every class except industrial arts.
I managed to get a few of my friends to agree to go with me to Queen Elizabeth school next year.
My friends and I’d heard some rumours that there were some very tough kids who attended QE, the abbreviation for the school. We all decided that we would take the risk anyway.
When we arrived a few QE the next September we were placed in room nineteen, otherwise known as the Latin room. We quickly learned that our class room was considered by the other kids to be the room for the sucky students. In other words, the kids that were good in school and actually listened to their teachers.
What’s Up? November 2019 Edition by Ken David Stewart
As a Christian one thing is very apparent to me. When you really start pressing in or basically step up your game for Jesus, the devil will retaliate. This form of retribution appears to be in direct proportion to the degree one attempts to know Jesus intimately and tries to follow his example and teachings. If you are active to any degree in a ministry, it’s like Satan has put a target on your back. The key is not to let him defeat you. If one gets serious about his walk with Jesus expect backlash.
For the last few years my life has followed a pattern that I want to break. My life has been a series of extreme mountains and valleys. From August to the beginning of November 2019, I felt greatly blessed and highly favoured. I just recovered from a two month period of being so depressed that I could barely function. I was not quite bedridden, but I was definitely couch ridden. About the only time I vacated the couch was to go upstairs to use the bathroom. Now that’s what you call clinical depression. During June and July all I could do was watch television. For the Christian who suffers from depression the battle is also one of intense spiritual nature. The devil loves using major affective disorder or clinical depression as of mighty and effective tool in his arsenal. He wants to keep the Christian down. Once he has you functionally out of commission, you can no longer do him any damage. When I am stranded on the couch, my spiritual life dies. I no longer read the Word, spend time with Jesus, pray for myself, my family and others. In other words, my ministry and spiritual life has been halted dead in its tracks.
Looking back on it, I think I may know part of the reason I fell into such miserable state. But what I’m not sure of is what brought me back to the land of the living once again. Certainly it was nothing that I did because I wasn’t capable of doing much of anything. One day I simply woke up and started to feel a bit better. Within a couple of days, I could feel my depression start to break and I actually felt like doing a few small things. Within a week or two, I was finally back on my feet. What I was not expecting were such great compassion from the Lord. I’m a part-time substitute teacher and I experienced the best season I had ever had up until the beginning of November 2019. I was being very well received by the students and was asked by several teachers if they could request me to substitute in their classrooms. Although I’m still experiencing some pain in my left knee it was manageable and allowed me to keep working.
After many years I found a church that I enjoyed attending. This was quite an experience for me as most of my life I didn’t like attending church. I would only go to a church service on rare occasions.
Overall, I was enjoying every day of my life during this three month period of God’s extreme favour. During this whole time, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. I was feeling uncomfortable. This felt too good to last much longer. I almost felt high every day for three months.
During this season I was really pressing in with my spiritual life. I started to pray for people in the church that I was now attending.
Aout the second week of November I felt that my overall mood was starting to decline and even get a bit low. I was very afraid that I was starting to go down into another depressive cycle. During this time, I caught a bacterial infection that was very severe. As of this writing, I’m still not fully recovered from it. To make matters worse, the pain in my left leg and the was becoming intense. It seemed that every time I got up and moved around, even a little bit, the pain would start to escalate. How was I going to go to work when I was in constant pain?
During this time I continued to keep up with writing my blogs, and working on my fiction writing and podcasts. During periods of clinical depression,I am usually unable to write all. My writing was going very well for a while until I started running into many technical challenges. My computer was on its last legs and was not functioning properly. I purchased some new video equipment as I was interested in starting up a YouTube video series again. Whatever I tried, I couldn’t seem to get my new camcorder working.
I am now fully aware that I was under spiritual attack. I decided to take some actions. I told myself that I was not going to sink into another severe depression this time. The vicious cycle would need to be broken, once and for all. I began to decree this in Jesus name. I started to read my God’s promises books on my Samsung tablet. I also started listening to my God’s promises audiobooks. I have started to speak the promises out loud and include them in my podcasts. I put God in remembrance of his promises. I made a decision to remain optimistic during this time of spiritual attack.
Hey, welcome to my new blog. My name is Ken David Stewart. I live in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. I decided to return to blogging after leaving the blogosphere for a few months. After a time of discouragement with my past results with both blogging and creative writing, I now have the desire to get back in the saddle. I guess I missed the writing process more than I thought.
Over the years I have authored, and self published three books on amazon.ca and amazon.com. None of my books made me rich and famous, but I enjoyed writing them. It was fun.
I am 67 years old and live with my wife, two dogs and
a cat. I love animals; all animals.
I am a semi -retired teacher who now works as a
substitute teacher. I have a wide variety of interests. This becomes obvious when
you’ve read some of my fiction writing blog posts.
Unfortunately, I suffer from a chronic and persistent
affective disorder that for periods of time, puts me on the sidelines of
life. Fortunately, I also have periods
of mood stability that allow me to be surprisingly productive. For about a decade I was employed as a mental
health worker. Consequently, I know more
about mental health than the average person.
My experiences as a life skills worker has provides me with a unique
base of knowledge that shows up in my writings.
Along with mental health, my other interests include
watching NFL football, professional
wrestling, practising my bass guitar, blogging and fiction writing and watching
videos with my wife. I work out at the
gym when my arthritis and fibromyalgia pain is only of moderate severity.
In this new blog my subject matter may include
excerpts from my fiction writing, current affairs issues, excerpts from my
personal journal, and reviews of music, videos, books and audiobooks. I hope
you enjoy my blog.
The Weird and Fantastical Writings of Ken David Stewart now includes Ken's Rock Music Blog 
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