Are you Cyrious?

A before and after story

2011-10-31T09:06:00.000-07:00

There was a woman in the school district where I grew up who subbed in my classes occasionally, Mrs. Hocking-Grant. She had crazy long hair. Like past her bum. She often wore it in a long braid down her back that swished and flicked and made me think of a horse's tail when she walked up and down the rows of desks. Sometimes she wore it down and when she'd bend over to help a student at their desk a curtain of thick blonde hair would swing to one side and fall in rippling waves over her shoulder till it was almost touching the floor. My 13 year old self found it repellant, gross even, that a grown woman could have hair that long. In the 90's long hair hair was the providence of the young. (And to 13, 30 is positively decrepit.) None of the adult women I knew had hair past their shoulders, nevermind past their bum. Adding to my disgust was the fact the last few feet of her hair was completely dead and hung in lifeless, uneven, wispy scraggles. Even now I shudder remembering the look of those multiple feet of dead hair. Whenever she was in my class I alternated between watching her hair in fascination and watching it in a sort of sick horror. I remember being especially afraid that it would touch me as she walked by.

What does this have to do with anything? Well about a month ago I blow-dried my hair for the first time since before last summer.

I opened my little compact mirror and turned so I could see the back of my head to make sure it had all been blown in the same direction. My stomach turned in revulsion. All I could think was "Mrs. Hocking-Grant! Mrs. Hocking-Grant! Mrs. Hocking-Grant!" I had no idea my hair had gotten that long at the back. I'd never looked! It literally grossed me out.

So last Thursday night I cut it.

And I don't miss it at all!

Part 2: A tale of high finances, high stakes, sister adventures and kitchen appliances

2011-10-27T07:17:00.000-07:00

It’s still surreal to me that I even have a Vita-mix to experiment with while my whole food, natural-everything-eating, domestic goddess of a sister returned hers. Jane made a shift to cleaner eating about five years ago and has been a huge source of inspiration for me as I’ve started making the same shift. It seems wrong to me that she doesn’t have this miracle of green goodness machine and I do. But have it I do, at least for now, so let me tell you about my Monday Prep Day/Vita-mix Experiment Day.

For breakfast I made the kids a piece of toast (not in my Vita-mix) and a smoothie (in my Vita-mix). The smoothie had hemp protein, spinach, greek yoghurt, banana and frozen berries. It was delish! The kids loved it. Well, Sebastian loved it until he found out there was a vegetable in it because Tristan asked me point blank and I didn’t want to lie. On hearing the word vegetable Sebastian suddenly decided the smoothie was gross and he wouldn’t drink another sip even though it basically tasted like blueberries. So I told him the same thing I tell him every night at dinner while he’s gagging on (and sometimes puking up) his veggies, “It’s all in your head! Mind over matter kid!”

The smoothie was yummy but I was still chewing on berry seeds which did not happen for Vita-mix demo guy who assured me, and proved to me, that the Vita-mix pulverizes the berry seeds down to nothing. I can chew on berry seeds from my own blender thank you very much! Check in the “take it back, not worth the money” column.

I drove the kids to school and then came home to really get my Vita-mix on! To get it ready for the next usage I cleaned out the dried smoothie gunk by adding a drop of dish soap, filling it with warm water and blending it on high for about 30 seconds. Rinse away the suds and presto super cleano! Check in the “keep! keep! keep! this thing is awesome” column.

Now that my container was clean I was ready to get started on a recipe I found a while ago but couldn’t use because I didn’t have a food processor or equivalent. These Autumn Cookies are made with the teensiest bit of flour, no sugar, no dairy, no eggs, no oils. First I had to mix two grated carrots, one grated apple and one mashed banana with 1/2 cup of brown rice flour, a tsp of baking powder, a heaping tsp of cinnamon and a 1/2 tsp of ginger. I threw 1/2 cup of regular old brown rice into my dry blend container and watched the little grains become soft powdery flour. It was beautiful! Another check for the “keep! keep! keep! this thing is awesome” column.

Into that lovely fruit and veggie mash I needed to add a walnut paste. Into my wet mix container went 1 cup of walnuts, 1 combo cup of raisins and dried cranberries, 1 cup of oatmeal and 1/4 cup of water. Blend, blend, blend. This was more difficult. There wasn’t really much in the way of liquid and the Vita-mix likes a bit more liquid to work optimally. I did finally get it into a smooth paste but it had been heated to the point of warm by the time I was done. (Remember this thing can make soup too!) The paste was delicious but very sticky and trying to get it out from underneath the blades was an exercise in patience. I couldn’t help thinking that making that paste in a food processor would have been much easier. Also it was really, really hard to clean out. The dish soap and water trick didn’t work entirely for the gunk stuck under the blades. I tried getting a toothpick down there but it just broke. One of the selling features of the Vita-mix is that it’s all one container, you don’t remove the blades so you don’t have to wash a ton of little pieces. I wished I could remove the blades to get at the that gunk. Another check for the “take it back, not worth the money” column.

Once I combined the paste with the mash I rolled the wet dough into balls and baked them on a parchment-lined cookie sheet for 25 minutes at 350. Also into the oven I threw two foil-wrapped potatoes so I could try making soup in the Vita-mix at lunch (recipe from the Vita-mix cookbook you get with the machine). An hour later all the dough had been turned into cookies (which were delish by the way) and my potatoes were baked and it was lunch time.

At this point Sebastian started crying and asking for a nap. Itty-bitty, underweight child of mine, no lunch for you is not an option. “But Moooooooom, I’m so tiiiiiiiiiired. I just need a naaaaaaap.” Give me five minutes darling boy. I quickly threw chicken stock, white wine, a celery rib cut in two pieces, 2 whole apples (not chopped, cores, seeds, stems), my two baked potatoes, nutmeg and thyme into the Vita-mix (it was full to the very top) and turned it on and blended away. It demolished the ingredients and literally five minutes later the vented lid was letting off heavy steam. I turned the speed down, took out the center plastic thingy, and dropped in a large handful of grated cheddar and continued to blend for maybe 20 more seconds. I’m not sure which column gets a check for this adventure.
Pluses: 1) Hot, homemade soup ready in a short amount of time with hardly any effort. 2) It made a ton. I could have easily fed my whole family. 3) The soup was pureed to perfection. It was smooth as silk. 4) It got rid of the last little bit of walnut paste under the blades without affecting the taste of the soup.
Minuses: It tasted AWFUL!!!!! I used two Honeycrisp apples instead of the recommended Granny Smiths because that’s what I had on hand. Honeycrisps are so much sweeter that the soup basically ended up tasting like rotten apples. I found it completely inedible. PB and honey it was! Sebastian instantly stopped crying. Funny how that works...

Since the soup was inedible and I’m not much for PB and honey I made myself a greenish smoothie for lunch. Cranberry juice, carrot, celery, spinach, banana, frozen strawberries and hemp protein. This time I processed it a bit longer in the blender and it came out smooth and lovely and exactly as demo-man promised me it would. Check in the “keep! keep! keep! this thing is awesome” column.

Dish, soap, water, zip, zip and I was ready for some more Vita-mix action. This time I threw in 1/2 cup of raw almonds, 1 1/2 cups of water and a squirt of honey and blended on high for about a minute and made my very own almond milk. Hello! It was awesome! And I didn’t have to soak the almonds overnight like you have to for a food processor. You want almond milk on a whim? I can make it for you! Check for the “keep! keep! keep! this thing is awesome” column.

I used the almond milk in a cherry almond muffin recipe. For that recipe I also used my dry blade Vita-mix container to grind my own brown rice and quinoa into flour which I combined with my whole wheat flour. I have discovered I LOVE being able to grind my own flours. Definite check in the “keep! keep! keep! this thing is awesome” column. Later that evening I used the rest of the almond milk to make a cold cook oatmeal for Hugh and I to have for breakfast the next morning. You put some oatmeal in a bowl cover it with milk of your choice, mash a banana into it and then I added a bit of vanilla extract (I ran out of almond extract making the muffins), a small spoonful of unsweetened cocoa and some rinsed cherries from my stash of frozen Okanagan cherries from this past summer. Stir, cover, refrigerate overnight. ENJOY!!! The possibilities of variations are endless.

My next Vita-mix foray was going to be into the world of nut butters but there I ran into a snag. The Vita-mix recipe book calls for oil to be added to the roasted almonds before you process it. Uh... that sort of defeats the purpose in my opinion. I googled it. Turns out in general nut butters are extremely difficult to make in the Vita-mix - that whole needing liquid to work optimally thing. A food processor works so much better and you have the option of making raw and roasted nut butters. Check in the “take it back, not worth the money” column.

So where did my columns stand at the end of the day? If I counted correctly I ended up at 5 to 3 for the “keep, keep, keep! this thing is awesome” column. However, that being said, I’m still not totally convinced. I don’t think I would make pestos and hummus and paste-y things like that in my Vita-mix. I think a food processor would work better and it would be easier to get the stuff out of the bowl. Although I can make Almond milk in my Vita-mix on a whim I can technically make it in a food processor too. It just takes some advance thought. Is not having to think about it in advance worth $600? I don’t know. The food processor I was eyeing up before the Vita-mix came into my world is 50% off on Amazon.ca until Monday.

Besides being a super-duper-rocket-booster blender the thing I love most about the Vita-mix is the ability to grind my own grains. It’s so much healthier to grind your own and so so easy in the Vita-mix. However, it would be equally easy to grind them in a good grain mill which you can get for about $250. At the end of yesterday, after obsessively googling food processor vs. Vita-mix all evening, I had all but decided to take back the Vita-mix and get a food processor and grain mill instead. But then today when I made a smoothie with spinach and hemp protein and berries - in seconds - that my kids slurped up for their afterschool snack and which prevented Ava’s usual afterschool crash, and which was a snap to clean up, I felt like I was back to square one. I really, really, really like this blender. Adding it’s two cents into my “Vita-mix or not to Vita-mix” debate was a homemade butterscotch pudding recipe I came across today that blended a can of butternut squash, a splash of almond milk and a melted banana in the Vita-mix until warm and thick and wonderful. Ummm... yes please!

Final verdict? I DON’T KNOW!!!!!!! I don’t have one. I don’t want it to be food processor OR Vita-mix. I want to employ the genius of the and. I just don’t know how wise that would be on the old pocketbook. You know? I’m in indecisive hell right now. What would you do?

A tale of high finances, high stakes, sister adventures and kitchen appliances. Part 1.

2011-10-26T07:58:00.000-07:00

My sister Jane and my nephew Felix came to visit last week.

Isn’t that the sweetest little face you have EVER seen???? I die a little every time I look at him. His cuteness is killing me!

Anyway, one of the many adventures my sister and I had was at Costco. Jane was looking for a specific carseat, Sebastian was looking for samples and Felix was looking for kisses from Sebastian. I was just along for the ride. And ohhhhh what a ride! The first sample we came across happened to be at the Vitamix Blender demo booth. While Jane and I were firmly becoming convinced the Vitamix would be the answer to a brand-new lifestyle Sebastian was getting more veggies in all the Vitamix samples - juice, smoothie, ice cream, and hot soup - than he has had in the entire last year of his life. (Seriously, the kid would eat peanut butter for every single meal if I let him. Dinner time is F-U-N!) Seeing Sebastian down all those hidden veggies was enough to convince me. Nevermind watching demo-man make all those things in under 15 minutes. By the time he was turning rice into flour I was SOLD. Until I looked at the very hefty price tag.

Jane and her husband, Nathan, had been talking about getting a Vitamix for a while so she seized the opportunity and bought one. And then after sleeping on it she returned it the next day unable to justify the price no matter how amazing the blender is. I didn’t even entertain the idea of getting one. Until I described it all to Hugh and he said we should get one if I wanted one, if it would help me on my quest to get our family to eat better, healthier, cleaner. When I got back off the floor I had to ask him to repeat himself because I was in such stunned disbelief. Since who has an extra $600 on hand for a blender we decided it would have to be bought under "investments in the health of our family”. Even with Hugh’s green light I didn’t want to buy it. $600 for a blender on steroids just seemed ridiculous. And then suddenly, two days later, on the last day the Vitamix was going to be in Costco at a price cheaper than the Vitamix website, it didn’t seem so ridiculous. I made it to Costco with minutes to spare, and came home the proud new owner of a miracle machine. I mean how do you put a price on your family’s health? (I said that very sarcastically in my head. Did I really just spend $600 on a blender?)

Once I got home I did some happy jumps in my kitchen (literally) and then prepared to awe and amaze my family with homemade coconut ice cream. No recipe? No problem! How hard could it be? I watched the demo guy throw a carrot, a stick of celery, a whole apple - seeds, stem and core included, and frozen berries into his ice cream concoction. It was amazing! (The Vitamix even pulverizes berry seeds so your blends are smooooooooth.) My concoction of coconut milk, shredded coconut and ice was horrible. Didn’t work at all. Didn’t blend properly and we ended up dumping the whole thing. Fine, I thought. I’m a Vitamix newbie. I don’t know the machine well enough yet to be able to make things up as I go along. I’ll follow a recipe. I followed Vitamix’ recipe for vanilla ice cream to the letter. Total bust. It froze and formed itself properly but was full of ice chunks. I wanted to take it back right then and there. Which I actually can do according to Vitamix’ 30 day trial guarantee. I didn’t take it back though. Costco was already closed. And Monday Prep Day was coming up and I wanted to test it out.

And that is my really long intro into Monday Prep Day. More details to come!

Here's a bit more gratuitous cuteness to leave you with.

Thanksgiving Weekend in Pictures

2011-10-12T11:09:00.000-07:00

I wish I had pictures of our actual dinner but after 6 hours of cooking it only took 10 minutes to devour so... there wasn't really a whole lot of time to take pictures!

Thanksgiving Monday was a glorious day. I grabbed my camera and we picked up coffee and took Wayne and Laura for a walk in Strathcona Park along the river. It was a glorious Fall day.

Wayne & Laura. You'll notice Laura is holding a Tim Horton's cup. We love her anyway.

Wayne and Hugh: Don't you like Hugh's bike?

The last day of Ava's cast. She got it off yesterday. Those 5 weeks flew by! (At least for me, Ava thinks differently.)

Boys, sticks, rocks, and river. Can you say dream day?

Laura and me:

Lesson 1: Find a smooth flat rock...

The girls:

Hoods are a handy handle when you're going down your first hill on your first bike.

I hope you all had a great weekend. We sure did!

Desperate times...

2011-10-06T12:59:00.000-07:00

These last few weeks have been hectic. I have often felt like I’m on the edge of spinning out of control as I navigate school and preschool drop-offs and newsletters, home reading, spelling words, Ava’s cast appointments and the myriad other things that make up my life right now. In fact I just got a note home saying we missed Tristan’s sharing conference at school on Tuesday night. How? How, did I miss that? It was on my calendar! A few weeks ago, in desperation, I asked my highly organized, scarily efficient best friend, Michelle some of her secrets.

Thanks to the conversation I had with her I have now implemented a “Monday Prep Day”. This is now the day I do any baking that needs to be done and as much advance cooking or prep as I can do for dinners for the rest of the week. I started two weeks ago. How’s it been going you ask? Remember how in my last post I said if everything always went according to plan I wouldn’t have anything to write about? We-eee-lllll, let’s just say after two weeks the kinks are not entirely worked out.

Week 1: I woke up in the morning with my game face on ready to tackle my kitchen and bring a whole new level of peace into my life. I made a pot of tea, I cleared off counters, I got out recipe books, I started lining my island with ingredients.... and realized I had left all my meat in the freezer. So I made a batch of clean eating Pumpkin Applesauce Muffins and called it a day. I spent the next few hours drinking tea on my deck, reading and talking to my sister.

Actually now that I think about it. It was kind of an awesome day. Except I still had to make every part of dinner every night that week.

Week 2: This past Monday I woke up at 6:00am so excited about having a day to putter in my kitchen I couldn’t fall back to sleep. I decided then was as good a time as any to do a workout video so I actually got up and did one. I’m still in shock. After I dropped the kids off at school I made a pot of tea, cleared off counters, got out recipe books and lined my island with ingredients and cranked Harry Chapin Live. The meat was even defrosted in my fridge! I was all set. I was ready to OWN Monday Prep Day. I got my bread machine going to make dough which I was later going to turn into Cheddar Dill Onion Buns. I mixed up a double batch of Ginger Molasses Cookies and rolled them all into balls and then rolled the balls in sugar. While the first tray of cookies were baking I mixed the batter for some healthy Cherry Almond Muffins. (Which psychologically counteracts the unhealthy cookies.) As I opened a new box of baking soda to use in the muffin batter I was thinking about the cookies. They always bake consistently for 9 minutes in my oven - just until the tops crackle. 20 minutes in they still hadn't crackled. I took them out anyway because 20 minutes is a ridiculously long time to bake any cookie, but I was perplexed. I make these cookies so often throughout the fall and winter months I almost have the recipe memorized. They always turn out. What on earth had I done? It was as I glanced back over the recipe it registered. If I had had to open a box of baking soda for the muffins I certainly hadn’t used 2 tsp of it in the cookies! Ergo, really, really nice-smelling hockey pucks. Yeah... So... That was a do-over.

The other thing that didn’t go quite right was the Cheddar Dill Onion Buns. I made these all last winter with soups and stews but I hadn’t made them yet this year so when I pulled the lovely, yeasty, onion-y smelling dough out of my bread machine I couldn’t for the life of me remember whether I used my 9x11 or my 9x13 last year. You wouldn’t think those two inches could make so much of a difference. The first batch I made was to go into the freezer to be pulled out over this Thanksgiving weekend along with some Sausage Lentil Soup which I made and froze Monday afternoon. I closed and my eyes and picked my 9x11. I rolled my lump of dough into 6 balls and let them rise. The buns ended up enormous. Like elephantitisly (if I can make up a word) enormous. Seriously. I almost could have hollowed them out and used them as soup bowls. I was making two batches anyway so we could also have buns with our chilli Monday night. I decided batch #1 would be for dinner and batch #2 would be made with significantly smaller balls in my bigger baking dish and be saved for my Thanksgiving company. Batch #2 turned out fantastic. I took ten beautifully golden, perfectly-sized buns out of the oven and turned it off. I set them on the stove to admire them. They were perfect.

Except...

The chili suddenly started to bubble over while I was trying to spice it up and I totally forgot about the buns. By the time I remembered them, the golden crusty tops had started sinking into the now-spongy bottoms. I immediately took them out of the pan and put them on a cooling rack to try to salvage them. And then I cried a little and seriously considered making a third batch after the kids went to bed. Because I’m really a perfectionist at heart. Though you wouldn’t know it by Monday’s little shenanigans (or the state of my kitchen floors on any given day)! I didn't end up making a third batch. It was already 5:00 and I was exhausted. I had been in the kitchen since 8:45am.

On the plus side, it was so great to have chili made and then have leftovers and so nice to have all my veggies chopped and my peanut sauce already made for my stirfry. I think I’m going to love this system once I get all the kinks worked out. So, last week I learned to take the meat out the night before. This week I learned to read recipes thoroughly and take myself a little less seriously. Those shrunken buns may not look quite as picture perfect as usual but they won’t taste any different. And when we’re sitting around the table this Thanksgiving weekend with our good friends Wayne and Laura, who we rarely get to see, dunking those buns into steaming hot soup, I really don’t think it'll be the shape of the buns we’ll be focusing on.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Happy visiting, happy prepping and happy decorating (if you do that kind of thing). I have a handmade cornucopia on my table from Ava and that will be the extent of my decor. Did I mention it’s Sebastian’s birthday tomorrow and the kids don’t have school we’re having his birthday party tomorrow night? What was it I was saying before... oh yes, “I am slowly going crazy 1-2-3-4-5-6 switch.”

What's your problem?

2011-10-03T20:59:00.000-07:00

So I wrote a blog a few weeks ago. Three to be exact. All I needed to do to post it was send the picture via bluetooth from my phone to my computer. But I couldn't remember how and I kept forgetting to ask Hugh about it. And then I lost the post on my computer. It just disappeared from the desktop. After searching all my folders and not finding it and finally googling how to find lost documents I found it in one of Hugh's folders. His sheet music folder actually. I just reread that last sentence. If you could see me right now I'm shaking my head, holding my hands palms up above my keyboard and making an "I don't know" sound without using actual words. Some things are beyond my understanding.

However, the good news is I found it. And since I found it I'm going to post it. But since I'm also lazy I'm not going to go back in and change all the tense's and yesterday's and things like that to make it chronologically make sense. Just know that when I say the first "Last Tuesday" I'm actually referring to the Tuesday after Labour Day.

And now without further ado I give you... A NEW BLOG! Finally! (Sort of...) Anyway, here it is in all it's unvarnished glory:

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

If life always went according to plan I really wouldn't have much to write about. Good thing it doesn't then, right! Right?

Last Tuesday after lunch I put Sebastian down for a nap and tidied the kitchen so I could spend a lovely quiet afternoon in the sunshine with my book, guilt-free. I had just filled my water glass and picked up my book when the phone rang. It was Ava’s teacher saying she had fallen off the monkey bars at lunch and could I come down to the school and take a look at her arm. I woke Sebastian up went to the school and sure enough Ava’s wrist was oddly swollen and definitely needed an xray.

After a return trip home, (to get my phone which I’d forgotten and some snacks and books to survive the long hospital wait) several phone calls (one to Hugh and one to a friend), a return trip back to school to drop off Tristan’s booster seat (so said friend could pick him up after school) I finally headed to emerg with Ava and Sebastian.

Three hours later Ava’s arm was being wrapped in hot pink cast material which we were told would need to stay on for at least six weeks while Ava kept saying to me, “Why? Why? Why did this happen? Why did I do those monkey bars?”

There is a a Bible verse that says, “Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.” I truly believe that the trouble that comes into our lives builds our character in ways that it’s not possible for us to grow in when everything is going according to plan. In what other circumstances can you really learn to appreciate as truth what the great Chuck Swindoll says about attitude? Life is only 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it.

I’ve had many many conversations with Ava since last Tuesday about attitude and perspective. We’ve been talking about focusing on all the things she still can do (colour, play toys, go to school, cuddle with mom and dad) instead of what she can’t do (run, ride bikes, do the monkey bars). “I know Mom,” she’d say. “It’s just that I wish it had never happened!” Don’t we all wish that when life gets derailed? But that statement has opened up opportunities for conversations about how when we change our words we change our world. What we think and what we hear ourselves say has direct power over our feelings. Our feelings then dictate our attitude. If we actively change what we’re thinking or saying we can completely transform the level of joy we live out of - no matter what our physical circumstances are. I’ve been encouraging Ava to look on the bright side and speak out loud the still-innumerable blessings in her life whenever she’s feeling down about her situation. And I’ve seen a shift in her.

I can honestly say that I have seen such tremendous personal growth in Ava over the last week that I wouldn’t trade this experience. If she can learn to shift her attitude and see the blessings in the middle of hard times now as a child she will have the tools to thrive as an adult when faced with much more difficult challenges.

And now I need to tell you about the other thing that did not go quite as planned last week. Ava’s birthday present from us (Tristan and Ava turned 7 last Friday which I canNOT believe) was to get her ears pierced. She’s been asking to do it for almost a year so we thought it would be the perfect birthday gift. Hugh got off work just after school let out so the kids opened their presents and then we piled in the van and headed to the Mall for Ava’s appointment. I figured the best thing was to get it over with before she had too much time to think about the potential pain. I learned this is not a good approach with Ava. She needs time to process. She got to Merle Norman, picked the studs she wanted and then chickened out. So we went to the pharmacy got some numbing cream, waited 40 minutes for it to kick in and went back. She was so thrilled after it was done saying over and over, “This is the best birthday present ever!” and stopping to look at her ears in every store window we passed. The only thing she was worried about was whether or not the studs would poke into her and hurt her when she laid her head down on her pillow later that night.

It was during our birthday celebration dinner at a restaurant near the Mall when Hugh and I both noticed that one earring was significantly higher than the other. When we pushed the studs forward we could see that the girl who did the right ear had done it exactly through the mark and the girl who had done the left had completely missed it, going entirely above it. With dread in our hearts we told her we had to take her back to get it re-pierced.

That was my turn to say, “Why? Why? Why did that happen? Why did they get it wrong?” First the cast and now this???? Are you kidding me? She absolutely did NOT want to get it redone. And though it went against every parenting instinct we have to protect our children and shield them from pain Hugh and I insisted she get it done. Hugh has a small bald spot low on the back of his head from when his brother threw something at him when they were kids. It needed stitches but Hugh was scared and threw such a fit his mom let him have his way. He has regretted not getting those stitches all his adult life. I knew this would be one of those things, that it was momentary pain and then it would be done and fixed and that later on she’d be so glad she did it. But I actually couldn’t go in with her. After already doing the broken arm thing with her earlier that week I just couldn’t stand to see her in any more pain. So I chickened out and Hugh took her in while I waited in the van with the boys. She came back out 30 minutes later with red-rimmed eyes, a red left ear sporting a new - and different - stud because they didn’t have another pair of the flowers she’d originally picked, and a Strawberry Shortcake doll. “Because,” Hugh said, “her birthday present was supposed to be fun and that was torture!” He’d ended up having to literally hold her down so they could re-pierce the ear.

After hugging her and kissing her and oooohing and ahhhhing over her new doll I asked her rather tentatively how she was feeling about the whole thing. “Well, Mom,” Ava said to me. “The good news is at least it’s the ear that’s on the same side as my cast so I won’t have to lie on it tonight when I go to bed! And now I get to have two pairs of earrings instead of just one!”

Life really isn't about the 10%.

Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life...

2011-08-31T16:37:00.000-07:00

There is a line. On one side of the line is the way things were. On the other side of the line is the way things are now. Sometimes we can see the line a long ways off and we eagerly anticipate it - the moment we get to throw our caps in the air, the moment we get to say I do, the moment we get to here it’s a ....! Other times we don’t see the line coming at all, slipping from one unchanged moment to the next, until suddenly there it is and we’re caught with our arms wind-milling, teetering precariously between what was and what is. Sometimes the “lasts” come and we don’t realize it was the last until it’s too late to mark it, too late to make it significant and meaningful.

Tristan and Ava started Grade 1 yesterday and today I bought myself my own alarm clock. I feel both like I’m teetering between what was and now is, and a kind of grief for the lasts I didn’t notice. Monday was the last weekday morning Sebastian would crawl into bed with me and the last time I didn’t have to set a regular alarm. And I didn’t even realize it. I knew school was coming. I knew the kids would be going everyday but for some reason that fact didn’t hit me until this morning when I woke up to Hugh’s alarm for the second day in a row and then reset it for tomorrow morning. For 7 years - since I went on maternity leave with Tristan and Ava - I have woken up to my kids and not an alarm. This morning after resetting Hugh’s alarm I realized with somewhat of a shock that I have forever left behind that world of babies and slow days and weekday morning snuggles and staying in my pj’s for as long as possible. Just that quickly I am entrenched in a new phase in our family’s life. School.

This year at school has brought another separation besides just mine from the majority of the kids waking hours - which feels huge enough. This year Tristan and Ava decided they wanted to have their own stories to tell at the end of the day and chose to be in separate Grade 1 classes. It was so strange dropping them off in different rooms. Tristan walked in as confident as anything but Ava walked in to her class and there were no girls from her Kindergarten class last year. She had a white knuckle grip on my hands as I walked her over to a table of girls and introduced her. Her good-bye hug was desperately fierce and her little face as I turned for a last look just about broke my heart. Even as I walked away fighting tears I knew Ava would be okay. I knew she would make new friends in this class. I knew God’s perfect plan for her was being worked out in this strange new situation she found herself in. But she wasn’t okay when I left her so I wasn’t okay. And I knew I wouldn’t be okay until I could hear from her that she was okay. Sure enough when I picked up the kids at the end of the day Ava was bubbling over with information about her new friends and her new class and her new teacher. Just like that she was walking confidently on the other side of the line she had been teetering over only that morning.

As for me I’m still teetering trying to navigate my way through agendas, homework, class notes, reading programs, making lunches every single day without peanut butter. I’m sure by the end of the week I will be firmly and confidently in “what is” but today I can’t help missing what was. Oh what I would give right this minute while I’m trying to find my balance on that line for one more Wednesday morning snuggle in my bed, one more moment of being able to make it all better with a kiss. And yet, I think I lived those moments of babyhood, toddlerhood and early kidhood as fully as possible. I can honestly say I have no major regrets about the last six years. Minor ones like why didn’t I let Ava cut her hair sooner? Or why did I waste so much energy being frustrated with pee accidents? But those are all par for the motherhood course. That thing they say about hindsight is so true. Do I wonder if I’ve done enough? Absolutely. I don’t think you can help wondering that as you send your kids off into the next phase of their life equipped with only a backpack, a Hello Kitty or Spiderman water bottle and a pair of indoor shoes. But, as Hugh said to me last night, it’s not about parenting so that your kids don’t make mistakes or never get hurt. It’s about teaching them what to do, how to handle it, when they do make them or it does happen.

Wise words. Freeing words. Words I totally agree with and will live by as soon as I get sorted who needs what for which class, where the kids are supposed to put their indoor shoes since they don’t have cubbies like Kindergarten, and what exactly I’m supposed to be writing or signing in each agenda.

Parenting in our head vs Parenting in real life

2011-08-18T16:00:00.000-07:00

I have a friend who runs the art camp at our local arts and heritage centre. Last week she told me that the centre has been running "tunes at noon" every Thursday throughout the summer. Come, she said. Bring a lunch, bring the kids. Today while packing up our lunch I told the kids we were going to have an adventure. We were going to take our lunch down to the Esplanade and listen to a concert and it was going to be so much fuuuun! Tristan promptly threw himself on the floor kicking and screaming, "I hate concerts! I hate concerts! I hate concerts!" Naturally.

"How can you hate something you've never done!" I yelled back. Yelling to be heard over his screaming of course. Not because I was mad that Tristan's Mr. Hyde - Mr. Contrary - had reared his ugly head again. Of course not. I am calm, I am zen, I am supreme motherhood.

"AND WE ARE GOING WHETHER YOU WANT TO OR NOT AND IF YOU HAVEN'T CHANGED YOUR ATTITUDE BY THE TIME WE LEAVE YOU'LL BE SORRY!"

On that auspicious note we headed off for our grand adventure. The performer today was a guy and his guitar. He had a wiry grey beard that dusted the top button of his Hawaiian shirt and he sang everything from The Hokey Pokey to This Old Man to The Twist to Blowin' In The Wind with his head tipped back to see out from underneath the brim of his old straw hat. Thankfully Mr. Contrary let us have Tristan back and we had a great time singing along to the songs we knew and dancing to The Hokey Pokey and The Twist. The guitar man started to lose all the kids - and the crowd was mostly kids - during "Blowin' in the Wind so he gave them all a 10 second waltz lesson and the next thing I knew Tristan and Ava were "waltzing" around the little dance floor giggling like crazy. It was adorable. At the end Tristan even admitted he like concerts after all.

Another thing I learned about Thursdays at the Esplanade is it is also free admission into the gallery and their current exhibit is all about glass. I love glass so I really wanted to take a look. I'm not one of those moms who does a lot of museums and galleries with my kids. In fact I've barely done any. My kids are exuberant and curious which is my euphemistic way of saying they never walk if they can run, they talk at a yell and they want to touch everything they see. I've always wanted to be one of those moms who were exposing their kids to culture and art from a young age, instilling in them the importance of history and a love of creative expression but the reality of walking slowly and talking quietly and and looking without touching was always just way too stressful to contemplate.

On the heels of the concert success I was feeling brave. So I took a deep breath and we entered the double glass doors of the gallery. We wandered by display cases of original AltaGlass and a reproduction of a glassworks forge/studio and then watched a whole bunch of videos of artists blowing glass into vases, goblets, tumblers and pitchers. The kids were as fascinated by it as I was. We wandered into another room which held two sections of glass art installations and free form glass pieces like vases and towers - none of which were behind protective glass. Gulp. I felt a lot safer when all the glass was behind glass! I reminded the kids to look with their eyes not their hands but still had a moment of total terror as we approached an enormous tower of glass discs. My shout not to touch died in my throat as I watched my kids stop a respectful distance away. I decided I could trust my big kids but that for my own sanity I would hang onto Sebastian's hand. We were all amazed by the incredible glass creations and we talked about which ones we liked and why. It was so interesting to hear the kids perspectives and I felt like we were being so artsy. Sebastian did have a moment when he decided he didn't want to hold my hand anymore. He tried to pull away but I managed to catch him a split second before he hit a stand that had a glass treehouse on top of it. Other than that I was amazed at how well behaved the kids were. They didn't run - or even make any sudden movements! I didn't have to remind them not to yell even once. And they didn't try to touch a thing. They were so in awe of what they were seeing they forgot to be their normal exuberant selves. As we were walking back toward the exit a gentleman wandering through the same exhibit said, "I can't believe you have your young children in a glass exhibit, I'm impressed." Thanks I said proudly. I was suddenly imagining a whole new life with my artistically inclined, historically knowledgeable kids who might say to people things like, "Isn't it interesting how glassworks has evolved over the centuries and yet how much of it remains the same?" Which is the moment Tristan decided he couldn't go one more minute without doing a handstand. In the middle of two glass installations.

Nothing happened, thankfully. Note to self: In a museum or gallery short = sweet.

When love turns to hate

2011-08-10T16:00:00.000-07:00

At 10:00 this morning my next door neighbour knocked on my door. I wished frantically for a sweater that was handier than one floor above me and then opened the door in all my schlumpy pajama'd glory. Hey, she said. Did you notice you have a police sticker on the window of your truck and camper? Uh no. No I didn't notice that. Which then required me to walk outside in all my schlumpy pajama'd glory. Sure enough there was a bright yellow sticker letting me know that if the vehicle wasn't moved in 24 hours it would be towed. It was time stamped at 1:16 yesterday. We had 3 hours to move it. No problem right? Did I mention that the last time we tried to move it the wiring caught on fire and it hasn't run since?

Here she is parked at our duplex a couple of years ago. The truck was brand new in 1979. It runs on propane. Have you ever heard of such a thing before? The camper has avocado green and mustard yellow lino so I'm guessing it was new in the 70's sometime too. I love it. I love everything about it from the musty smell of the drawers to the ugly curtain fabric that I never wanted to change. My parents and me and my two sisters drove this baby from Northern BC to California one summer. Cray-zay! The truck and camper hold a lot of great memories for me and I was thrilled beyond thrilled when my parents gave it to us. (They upgraded to a motorhome.) We used it twice the first summer we had it when our twins were 10 months old. We then decided twice was plenty of times to camp with two crawling babies. It then came with us to Alberta where Hugh used it as his commuter vehicle for the first bit we lived here. Imagine driving that to work on the first day of a new job in a new career! After retiring from active service it sat variously in the driveway of our duplex, in the yard at Hugh's shop and then back in our driveway before being moved to the curb of our new house after great effort was expended getting it to start. Over the first four years we owned the truck and camper we spent a lot of time talking about it, moving it, and fixing it but not actually camping in it.

Then last year we had a brilliant idea to meet my parents and Hugh's parents in Banff over the May long weekend. Which meant we had to get the truck going for real. We drove it with fear and trembling all the way to Banff willing it to run until we got there. It did. We even made it home again. And then it died. And it has sat on our curb out front for the last year and a half. After our Banff drive Hugh decided he didn't trust the truck enough to really take it any distance and that it was time to sell it. I have great love for this battered old truck and camper and was trying to think of anyway we could salvage it. Until the wiring caught on fire when Hugh turned the key in the ignition last Fall. A few weeks ago Hugh got serious about wanting to put it on Kijiji so he replaced the burnt out wiring and got it to the point where all he had to do was charge the battery and we could move it/sell it. It's been sitting on our curb for almost two years and now, when it's days away from running, and we actually intend to move it we get this stupid notice.

Is anyone else suddenly singing Alanis Morissette?

Accompanying that lovely little notice was a fine for $280. I called Hugh at work and told him the good news and then I went to my chiro appointment and did a desperately needed grocery shop. When I got home at 1:30 the truck and camper were gone. Hugh called me a little later and told me that he had rushed home with a battery charger from work and tried to get it started when, wouldn't you know, it was out of propane. He ended up having to pay $80 to get it towed to the yard at his shop. So now this whole adventure has cost us $360. We should be able to recover that cost when we sell the blasted thing but seriously! There is so much I would rather spend $360 on!

Like this:

It calls my name. And it's been calling for a ridiculously long time. sigh. Someday this pretty lil' thing will be mine. Just...not right now I guess!

What would you do with $360?

U8 Soccer: Blood, Sweat, Tears, Glory

2011-07-22T09:37:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago Tristan and Ava had the privilege of playing soccer in the under 8 category in the Southern Alberta Summer Games which were held in our home city. I had two “games” experiences myself - one as a dancer in the Opening Ceremonies of the Northern BC Winter Games and one as an athlete, (I skied) in the BC Winter Games. Oh wait, I also have a vague memory of doing something with ribbons and glow sticks in the Yukon Winter Games when I was in Grade 4. Which makes me think of Cherry Pie. Not sure why... Anyway, I was super excited that my kids were getting to have their own Games experience.

Day One they played two games. Both games their team got absolutely smoked. Like 8-0 smoked in the first game and some other high number - 0 in the second. When the first team ran onto the field in their proper jerseys I looked at our little peeps in their matching t-shirts and thought, “uh-oh.” At the beginning of the second game the ref said our goalie had to wear a different colour shirt than the rest of the team. No one had anything extra so Sebastian sacrificed his size 3 shirt to a very slight seven year old girl. It was obvious the other teams had practiced quite a bit more than our once but each half saw our team play better and better. It was so much fun watching the team come together and improve so dramatically each game. I cheered till my throat hurt.

That evening was a community bbq and the Opening Ceremonies. Tristan and Ava marched in the parade of athletes and Tristan got to carry the Redcliff/Cypress County sign. (Which I realize is not technically we live, long story.)

On the way home after all the speeches and a couple of Bollywood numbers I asked the kids what they thought of being part of it all. “Oh, Mom!” Ava said, “I felt so proud!”

Day 2 of soccer began with a warm up at 7:45am. Their team lost again that morning 1-0, the goal coming late in the second half. It was such an exciting game to watch and though it was a bit of a heartbreaker for us parents the kids were thrilled that the game had been so close.

On their second and final game on Day two our team scored a goal. All the parents on the sidelines went nuts. I was literally jumping up and down cheering. And I was not alone. Three goals later I said to one of the other moms jumping beside me, “The other team probably thinks we are so obnoxious!” But they didn’t know the journey our kids had gone through in the tournament. These kids never got down that they were losing, they didn't get upset they hadn't scored a single goal in three games, and they never gave up - even if they were down 4-0 in the first half. They played as hard in the last five minutes of a game when they were were losing by eight goals as they did in the first five minutes when anything was still possible. (Canucks? Are you paying attention?) It was not the goals that made me jump up and down on the sidelines - it was the indomitable spirit of these six- and seven-year-olds who played with such determination and perseverance and joy no matter what the numbers were - and then saw it pay off.

At half-time of that game Ava came to me with a tomato-red face and said, “Mom, I don’t feel very good.” Did I mention that the kids were playing in 38 degrees weather both days? I doused her head and face in water and pumped her full of a combo of water, gatorade and orange slices but she was still falling apart as the second half began. The rule for co-ed soccer is that every team needs to have at least two girls on the field at all times. Our team only had three girls and, as I said, it was 38 degrees. Ava had no choice. She had to play. The coach let her sit out the first shift while I talked to her about how sometimes when we think we can’t do something if we try really hard we find out we can. And also she didn’t have to really run she just had to be on the field.

Ava was still teary when the coach called for subs but he gave her a little pep talk and managed to get a slightly-more-than-half-hearted high five from her. I and the other parents were cheering her on as she took to the field but I was biting my nails on the inside hoping she wasn’t going to run off the field crying. Was I in for a surprise. She didn’t just stand around on the field being the token girl. She didn’t even play half-heartedly. She ran her heart out, got right into every play and in fact, played the best soccer she had played all tournament. She ended up playing the rest of the half and when the final whistle blew she ran off the field, threw her arms around my waist and shouted, “I did it! I did it, Mom! I dug deep and I did it!”

I could stand to take a few notes from this girl.

Lessons from the Calgary Zoo

2011-07-21T09:47:00.000-07:00

One summer I was an intern at my home church. One of my “duties” was to take a turn in the dunk tank during a particular summer event. Which is how I found myself sitting on a little wooden platform, on an unfortunately cool summer day, suspended over a tank of cold water basically waiting to fall in. Every time someone new stepped up to the throwing line I would tense in expectation. Sometimes the throw went wide and I’d exhale, shoulders slumping forward in relief. Sometimes the throw would hit the target but without much force and I’d turn to look at the bulls-eye out of half-closed eyes, holding my breath, waiting to see if the balance had been tipped. And then there were times the throw was straight and true and forceful and the floor was yanked out from underneath me. Even though I was braced for it, even though I knew sitting on that platform meant I’d be dunked, somehow, as my stomach flew up into the back of my throat, it still came as a surprise to me. Every time.

Life is a little like that I think. We know trouble is going to come. The Bible says we are guaranteed it. Sometimes we tense in expectation of it and sometimes the floor just drops with no warning at all. Either way we are always surprised, every time, that it has happened to us.

Which is exactly how I felt when we lost Tristan at the Calgary Zoo over the Canada Day weekend. In some ways I was tensed in expectation of trouble. It’s a huge place, height of the tourist season and we were a large group. Plus when you’re with young kids in a crowded place I think as parents you’re always a little bit tense, you always have an eye out for the wanderer. On the other hand we were six adults to eight kids and the rest of the kids were all older than mine so I didn’t expect anything to really happen.

A short way into the Zoo, nearish one of the entrances, are the elephants. We got to them just as a woman began an informational session. We stopped to listen for a bit but it was actually quite boring so the adults turned into a circle to discuss where to go next while the kids kept watching the elephants from the fence. We broke to gather everyone up and when I did a quick head count I realized Tristan wasn’t standing with the rest of the kids. A little alarmed, but not really panicking, the adults dispersed with strict instructions to the rest of the kids not to move. After a quick walkabout didn’t turn Tristan up I scanned the crowd sitting in the bleachers watching the elephant demo. I was getting shakier but still not fully panicking. I felt more like I was holding my breath, eyes half-closed, watching the bulls-eye, waiting to see if there was anything to truly panic about.

When I couldn’t see him in the bleachers my panic climbed to reach my tear ducts. The other adults in our group were still combing the walkways near us without result so I interrupted the elephant lady and asked her to call Tristan’s name over her speaker system in case I just wasn’t seeing him in the see of people in the bleachers. She called. And the floor dropped out beneath me. No Tristan. The elephant lady stopped her demo and called security while I tried to keep breathing in and out. The time spent waiting for security to come felt interminable. Every minute that passed made Tristan feel farther and farther away. I was choking on my fear, drowning in it. Hugh decided to run back to the entrance in case someone had taken Tristan and was trying to leave the Zoo with him. I couldn’t even process that thought. Couldn’t even begin to imagine what might be involved in trying to find him if he wasn’t even in the Zoo any longer. I was just describing Tristan’s striped shorts and blue t-shirt to security when I saw them come towards me slumped in Hugh’s arms. Hugh had found him crying and terrified wandering around the entrance looking for us. Somehow, when Tristan looked up from the elephant demo he didn't see us and had gone looking.

I can’t begin to describe the look on Hugh’s face as he carried our lost boy back to us. There are no words for how I felt looking at the back of Tristan’s tousled head, seeing the curve of his cheek as he pressed his face against his dad’s chest. As I watched Hugh carry Tristan towards me I lost all feeling in my limbs and could only stand and wait for them to reach me. When they did I fell against Tristan’s back, wrapped my arms around him and Hugh and started sobbing - great big heaving convulsive gasps of relief that left no room to be embarrassed about making such a display in public. I felt Ava collapse against my legs and I reached a hand down to smooth her hair as she sobbed out her own relief that her brother had come back to us.

Losing Tristan reminded me again that life is fragile, uncertain, tenuous.
Losing Tristan reminded me of an author I’ve read who writes a little blurb about each member of her family in the dedication then adds “and to God who has, for now, blessed me with these.”
Losing Tristan reminded me that life is fragile, uncertain, precious.
Trouble is going to come but I choose not to live constantly holding my breath bracing for the ball that will hit the bulls-eye with enough force to dump me into the freezing water. I choose arms wide open, twirling in the sun, wiping up the third spill of milk at dinner without yelling, kind of living. I choose, consciously, to enjoy all the moments, ordinary or extra, with these precious gifts God has, for now, blessed me with.

Calaway Adventures

2011-07-20T09:28:00.000-07:00

During the Canada Day weekend we met some good friends in Calgary and spent the weekend camping at Calaway Park which is a permanent amusement park with a campground attached. My kids had never been on rides before and I couldn't believe how much Tristan and Ava loved them.

Even big rides. Scary rides. Rides that I, um... cried on. Like the swings. True story, I cried on the swings. It was the first ride we did and I thought Ava was going to freak out. She doesn't even like an underduck at home. I knew she was going to freak out. And then it was me who cried - seriously those swings are really high! - and she loved it and wanted to do it again.

They even liked this big boat thing that swung back and forth like an enormous terrifying pendulum. This picture does not do justice to how big the pendulum arc is.

Tristan and Ava really wanted me to do this one with them. As the pendulum swung higher and higher I could hear a woman screaming and screaming near me and thought yep, that's how I feel too. And then I realized the sound was coming from me! As the day progressed I got much braver, pat on the back for me. I still can't get over how brave Tristan and Ava were! Sebastian on the other hand...

This little balloon ride started out so well. We went up, we went down, we were very happy. All was well. And then the balloon started to spin... And I spent the rest of the ride trying to calm Sebastian down while strong-arming the little disc in the centre in an effort to keep the balloon from spinning. It's incredibly difficult to be soothing when you're gritting your teeth. I think the only ride that didn't end it tears was this one:

Along its track is a speed sign that says Alberta 1 1/2. As in Kilometres per hour. So much more his speed than say, the kiddie roller coaster. After which he refused to go on anymore rides. This is him and Tristan before it started.

I so wish I had gotten a picture of his face after the ride was over... Is it bad that Hugh and I laughed?

Dog Days of Summer

2011-07-19T10:42:00.000-07:00

The past two weeks were as busy as the two weeks before that. So busy in fact that I managed to get myself not one, not two but three, that's right three! coldsores. I only ever get coldsores when I am worn out and/or stressed. I have never ever in my whole life had more than one coldsore at a time and I have been plenty worn out and/or stressed lots of other times in my life. The time I brought twin babies home from the hospital sort of comes to mind...

Anyway, we were supposed to go away this past weekend but I decided to listen to what my body was saying and we stayed home so I could catch up and try to prevent another three month crash. The nonstop-crying? That was also hard to ignore.

We had a great weekend at home and after days spent in the sun and the water and evenings curled up on the couch I feel incredibly refreshed and ready to face the world again. And I feel like summer in all its glory is finally here and I have time to enjoy it. Is there anything better than sweating glasses of Italian soda and fingers and faces sticky with the memory of sun-warmed cherries?

I'm also ready to tell you some stories of our past couple of weeks. Rather than try to cram it all into one post I'm going to tell you over the course of this week. For now I will leave you with the conversation we had in the van on the way home from dinner at a friends last night when Ava said, "Mom, guess what? I know the "s" word and the "c" word."
Hugh and I exchanged shocked glances before I cautiously said, "You do?"
"Yep! Snow and cold."
And then my heart started beating again.

An evil mastermind in the making

2011-06-29T09:29:00.000-07:00

Sebastian: Tristan I want you call me stupid.

Tristan: No.

Sebastian: Tristan, pleeeeeease call me stupid.

Tristan: No.

Sebastian: Triiiiiistan! I said, I want to you to call me stupid!

Tristan: Sebastian! NO! No, no, no. I won't.

Sebastian: Awwwwwwwww! But I want you to call me stupid so you will get in trouble.

Why I'm so glad summer holidays start soon

2011-06-27T15:08:00.000-07:00

Last week. Ready? Go!

SUNDAY

Wake up at 4:45am jittery with nervous anticipation. Drink first cup of tea at 5:20am. Do make-up for a very special bride and two of her bridesmaids. Wedding. Buy gift (classy right?). Reception. Fall into bed.

MONDAY

Wake up at 5:15am to catch a 7:00am flight out of Kelowna back to Calgary. Drive home. Reunion with our sweet babies. Make school lunches and dinner (scrambled eggs. Did I mention I was up at 5:15am?), get ready for a crazy week. Fall into bed.

TUESDAY
AM: Staff meeting at the Dream Centre Church while all my peeps are in school. Sebastian naps in the afternoon. Wrap teacher gifts. Make list of supplies to get for Ava’s tea party on Saturday.

PM: Sebastian’s Preschool Grad-Which-Is-Not-A-Grad as he’s returning next year.

Also the return of the hellish event I call “let’s take a family picture!”. Here's a tip: If you spend less time whining and more time looking at the camera it will go SO MUCH FASTER!

Don't do a photo shoot for Sebastian like we did for Tristan and Ava's preschool "grad". Be the stereotypical parent of a third child. Take a post-event-everyone's-miserable self-portrait with Mom instead and tell yourself at least it's documented. Put cranky kids to bed. Put cranky self to bed.

WEDNESDAY
AM: Big kids go to school for the morning. Take Sebastian to his Penny Carnival Preschool Wind-up. Quickly drive across town to get lollipop sticks and melting wafers for cake pops for Ava’s tea party. Hit the dollar store to get tea party craft supplies. The problem with planning something in January that won't happen until June is it starts to get a bit out of control. The original "tea and scones" tea party became, over many conversations during our cold, grey winter and our wet, grey spring, cake pops and crafts and tea dresses and a treasure hunt.

AFTERNOON: Bake mini lemon tea cakes and the cake for the cake pops. Make the sugar cookie dough and refrigerate it. Make another dessert (orange marsala frozen cheesecake with gingerbread crumbs) for my Thursday night small group which is my turn to host.

PM: Make and eat dinner in record time. Run out the door to Tristan and Ava’s last soccer game of the regular season. Come home. Wipe the kids down with facecloths because bathing takes too long and too much parental energy. Fall into bed.

THURSDAY

Make a cup of tea. Watch it get cold on the counter. Eat breakfast standing up. Reheat tea. Make little cake balls and freeze them. Reheat untouched tea. Roll out sugar cookie dough and cut out little hearts, tea pots and tea cups which go on a never-ending rotation through the oven. Dump out cold, still-untouched tea. Melt chocolate wafers, take cake balls out of the freezer, stick lollipop sticks in them and spoon chocolate over them until covered. Pass them off to the kids for sprinkles. Make pink icing and set the kids up at the table to smear the heart cookies with icing and dust with white sugar sprinkles. Make dinner. Leave the teapots and teacups to cool.

PM: Do a quick clean and tidy. Throw a bottle of wine into the fridge to chill before my twisted sisters small group arrives. With their help, ice, outline and decorate the teacups and teapots while talking about our personal declarations and areas we want to grow in. Watch the storm roll in. Take a quick moment to dance in the warm rain. Say goodnight. Fall into bed.

FRIDAY

Tristan and Ava’s class “family welcome” water park day (which is why I needed to get all the tea party things made by the end of Thursday). Drop Tristan off at school. Take Ava to the doctor to check out the sores in her mouth she's been complaining about for two days. Turns out it's Hand Foot and Mouth. Doctor assures me she’s not contagious and prescribes tylenol and slurpees as she can barely swallow it hurts so much. Stop at Macs for slurpees, meet class at water park at her insistence that she feels “fine, Mom! I feel fine! I promise!”. Play with friends for a bit until I see her sitting listlessly by herself in sweatpants and a hoody shivering in the hot sun and take her home to sleep.

PM: Soccer wind-up barbeque. Ava insists on coming to see her soccer friends. Stay just long enough for the rest of us to eat a hamburger while she lays limply against my arm. Tell ourselves we're still sane. Take a picture to prove it. Bath the kids. Make a stiff martini. Make up the tea party treasure hunt clues. Watch a movie with Hugh. Stay up way too late for how tired I am. Fall into bed.

SATURDAY
Tea Party

The tea party Ava has been looking forward to since January, the tea party that we have been collecting tea cups for months for, the tea party that all week has had Ava exclaiming “I can’t believe it’s finally here! I can’t believe it’s finally happening!”.... is cancelled. Her poor little mouth in so much pain she can't even try to pretend she feels okay enough to have the party.

Call all the moms and let them know we have to reschedule. One mom drops off a slurpee for Ava. Grieve for my girl. Grieve that she’s sad and hurting and I can’t fix it with a kiss. Or even a slurpee for breakfast.

On the plus side Hugh's "boys only" fishing trip gets put on hold until the tea party is rescheduled and he finishes the playhouse instead.

How was your week? Come for tea and tell me all about it. I have cake pops and lemon tea cakes and sugar cookies....

Blog Material

2011-06-17T06:00:00.000-07:00

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but I haven’t been blogging very much lately. Yes, I’ve been busy. Yes, I’ve been tired. Yes, it seems like the minute I sit down to put my fingers to keyboard I’m jumping right back up again. But mostly? Mostly I just feel too boring to post anything. I’ve been approaching everything in my life as potential blog material and nothing seems interesting enough to say. It’s just same old, same old. This is not to say that I’m bored with my life. I find my own life quite enjoyable and interesting. I just haven’t had anything to say I think anyone else would be interested in. The last blog I posted felt dry and dull and I was bored and thinking who cares? (except me) even as I was posting it!

Shortly after posting that last post an old friend I haven’t talked to in eons called. “I read your blog this morning,” she said. “I could so relate.” She was in the middle of a situation where she desperately needed groceries but her youngest had just gone through a few days of diarrhea and she didn’t trust that he was really over it and was sure that at the most inconvenient moment possible (and don’t we know moms, it’s always at the most inconvenient moment possible) he’d have a relapse. While we were discussing how glamorous it is to be a mom, two of her kids were decorating the peanut butter jar with Canuck logos in anticipation of Game 7. Fifteen or so minutes later Jaime interrupted me with a gasp. Unbeknownst to her, those two darling little boys had wandered away and managed to cover themselves and their entire bathroom in Canuck peanut butter. Jaime walked in to a peanut butter-crusted sink one inch from overflow. “Uh..... can I call you back later?” she asked.

As we hung up the phone I thought, oh wow. Poor Jaime. That would really suck. Jesus please give her strength and grace to get through this. My next thought was, that would be a seriously good blog. And I’m not kidding, for a moment, I wished my kids would do something like that so I’d finally have something good to write about. And then I remembered that when it’s your own kids you don’t just get to write about it you actually have to clean it up. And do you know how hard it is to get peanut butter out of hair? Or out of sink drains? The only reason it would be a good story to write about is because it absolutely SUCKED to live!

I talked to another friend today whose husband is breeding his German Shepherd. Oh.my.word. I told Heidi that she needs to write a book or a blog or something. You would not BELIEVE how expensive it is and all the crazy things that have gone down in this process. One of the least crazy things was having to pay to get the dogs sperm counted... which... umm.... you have to get the sperm before it can be counted. So many times through this process Heidi or I have said, “Seriously! This is real life. You couldn’t write stuff like this!” It would be great blog material but again, it’s stuff that SUCKS to live through.

So instead of feeling like I have nothing interesting to say because I don’t have a lot of crazy drama in my life right now, I’m taking a moment to say a heartfelt thank you to God that I don’t have any crazy drama in my life right now. There is nothing going on that is SUCKING to live through. Do I think we will never have crazy drama in our house again? No. But I’m not living in fear wondering when it will come. Instead, I’m doing laundry, going grocery shopping, refereeing kid arguments, washing dishes, making meals, cuddling my babies, cheering at soccer games, laughing with friends, and catching up on all the So You Think You Can Dances I missed because they got trumped by basketball and hockey play-offs, and you know what? I’m LOVING my life.

A list of random things

2011-06-15T08:37:00.000-07:00

1. It is 8:44am. I haven't had breakfast yet but I have stripped the beds and thrown in my first load of sheets and put away a load of laundry that has been sitting on the floor for two days. I haven't had my first cup of tea yet but I've written my to-do list for today.

2. As the school year is winding down we're in the middle of a last gasp of busyness. It's like they just want you to be really, super-duper, extra-glad it's finally summer holidays. I'm glad! I'm glad!

3. My vow to watch every Canucks game of the finals has been a bust. Life has just been too busy. So far I've only sat down and watched one game start to finish. Tonight will make it two. I'm nervous already. They have to win. They just have to. And it can't go into overtime or I will lose my sanity.

4. Watching the kids play soccer this year has been so much fun. This is their second year and I can't get over how much better they are this year than last. Last year Ava was totally the girl who sat in the goal picking flowers until the ball came her way. She was the girl who twirled and sang on the field until the combined shouting of her team and parents broke through her consciousness and she'd realize the ball was pretty much at her feet and she'd run it toward the goal and kick and score.... on her own team. This year she is a fireball! She is right in the middle of all the action and consistently gets the break-away. She hasn't quite figured out her timing once she's within striking distance but has still managed to score 4 goals this season. Tristan last year was just average. This year he is unbelievable. He is ridiculously fast, can outrun anyone on the field, has incredible ball control for a six year old and is a goal-scoring machine (also a ball hog which we're working on). A few games ago our team won 7-1. Tristan scored 4 goals, Ava 2. On Monday night they won 5-1. Tristan scored all our goals. It is so much fun to watch your kids excel at something you didn't know they were good at. They're both playing soccer in the Southern Alberta Summer Games in July.

5. A friend gave me an Amish Friendship Bread Starter. It's a 10-day process! I'm on Day 8 today. After looking at this bag of mush sitting on my counter for a week Hugh thought I had forgotten about it and was about to throw it out until I very vocally rescued it.

6. Hugh and I are flying into Kelowna on Saturday at 5:00pm, going to a wedding on Sunday where I'm doing the make-up for the bride and bridesmaids and flying home at 7:00am Monday morning. So much to do/arrange for 38 hours of being away but I'm so looking forward to this wedding. It's going to be a great chance to catch up with a lot people I haven't seen in about 5 years.

7. I need to make my kids breakfast. I need to eat breakfast. My washing machine just beeped so I need to throw another load in. And then I can tackle the rest of my to-do list. At least the sun isn't shining and calling for me to come out to play. I always believe her when she says there will be time "tomorrow, tomorrow". She lies.

Heal the Past. Live the Present. Dream the Future.

2011-06-10T08:58:00.000-07:00

I head up an incredible team of women at the Dream Centre Church and together we plan events and dream for and pray for the women of our church. Last Saturday we had a ladies breakfast where one of the girls on my leadership team spoke about freedom. I wrote a blog about the event and my own personal revelations about spiritual/emotional freedom on the Dream Centre website.

If you're interested you can check it out here.

Happy Friday everyone! It's a glorious sunny day, my big kids are in school, my not-such-a-baby baby boy is asking for a cuddle and there is a deck chair calling my name.

A picture may be worth a thousand words but I still had to write a few

2011-06-08T11:04:00.000-07:00

I finally got my vacation pictures off my camera. In the process I got distracted looking through the folder of photos taken in the month before our holidays. Want know how to make your baby grow up overnight and make yourself wonder if that vasectomy your husband got three years ago was such a good idea after all?

Give him a haircut.

And then go cry yourself to sleep because your baby's babyhood is gone forever and the baby era in your family is gone forever and then torture yourself wondering why-oh-why you didn't have another baby when babies are so delicious and wonderful and perfect in every way...

And then after a good nights sleep, when peace of mind and perspective has returned, remind yourself how awesome it is that you get to have a good nights sleep because you don't have any babies anymore, that you don't miss diapers or strollers or diaper bags, and then have your little man wrap his arms around your neck and say, "Oh mom, you're my best friend."

The end.

This just proves you can't ever count on the Canucks

2011-05-25T13:21:00.000-07:00

We drove 12 hours and got home from 10 days of vacation in the Okanagan at 2:00am Monday morning. I then did 75,000 loads of laundry. Or, well, 7. Close enough. I want to blog about our holidays but I have to upload all the pics. I hope the stories don't get too stale to tell by the time that happens. In the meantime I feel a burning desire to tell you two things.

1. Sebastian has been sitting at the kitchen table in front of 2 squares of a roast beef sandwich for 2 hours and 18 minutes. I will win this.

2. When the hockey playoffs began Hugh asked every game if I would come downstairs to watch with him. I told him if the Canucks made the finals I would happily sit and watch every single game with him but until then I would happily watch none. Who knew they'd make it to the finals for the first time in 17 years? Apparently I have a promise to fulfill....

Reasons to twirl with my arms wide open

2011-05-09T07:56:00.000-07:00

Tea in bed.

Polka dot mug.

A new first page.

Gadget for the garden I dream of.

Songs by little voices.

Kisses from shiny little faces.

Hugs to go all around.

Worship in the House.

Lunch out.

Value Village adventure.

Backyard wiener roast.

Setting Sun.

Sipping Tea.

Crackling fire.

Softly-picked guitar

Cuddling under blankets.

Good-night kisses.

Thankful heart.

Perfect day.

AOGG Girls Weekend By the Numbers

2011-05-02T16:06:00.000-07:00

3 - days spent shopping/lunching/talking/laughing/crying.

194 - dollars spent at Value Village between the four of us.

3 - extra suitcases the girls needed to buy to bring everything home.

3 - historic events that we got to watch unfold together - the wedding of the century, the death of Osama Bin Laden, and Tanya wearing a proper bra.

1 - brunch/royal-wedding-watching tea-party that took 4 hours, 6 bodums of coffee and 2 trips to the grocery store to make. PS. So glad we PVR'd the wedding instead of watching it live. It was so satisfying to be able to fastforward the boring parts.

2 - times we asked Hugh to take pictures of us on the porch till we got a good one.

2 - times Hugh died a little on the inside.

8 - Anne of Green Gables pins we wore over the course of the weekend to commemorate how our friendship began.

13 - hours of sleep over the first three nights combined.

1 - night we were up so late we were minutes away from watching the sunrise.

1 zillion - gallons of coffee/tea/coke needed to function each day.

4 - girls who still never run out of things to say even after 15 plus years of friendship.

Playhouse Project: A week in review (and a good distraction)

2011-04-28T10:32:00.000-07:00

My girls are coming this weekend! Today in fact. They will be here in 8 hours, 5 minutes. I'm so excited! These three girls are my oldest and dearest friends. They came last year and surprised me. You can read about it here. I know the word epic is so overused but it truly was an epic weekend. I can't wait for this one to start! 8 hours, 4 minutes...

I always work better with a little pressure and it still feels like forever till they get here so to kill some time and distract myself from making an eggplant lasagne, washing my kitchen floor and making up the beds downstairs I thought I would post on our playhouse progress. Last week Hugh did a bit of work on it every day after work. I meant to post this at the beginning of this week so when I say Monday I don't mean Easter Monday, I mean the one before.

MONDAY: We dropped the height of the lookout deck (on the right) because the kids really really really wanted monkey bars over a suspension bridge and monkey bars at that height would have literally been a death-defying feat to get across. Hugh also built a step up to the slide since the slide we bought was for a higher deck.

TUESDAY: Hugh installed the slide, climbing wall thing and some stairs.

WEDNESDAY: It took us (and by us I mean Hugh, my only job was to hold stuff again) forever to get the braces for the monkey bars up. It's still a bit on the high side but we tested it out on the kids and no legs were broken. WINNING!

THURSDAY: Finished the monkey bars and framed the roof of the playhouse deck.

FRIDAY: This would be Good Friday. I had been up all Thursday night with a puking girl and when she got up at 8:00am to puke again I said to Hugh, "You're going to have to get this one." And then I went to the bathroom and started my own hours of torture. Not exactly how I planned to spend the first warm sunny day of Spring. A good friend came over and helped Hugh do both roofs and the railing on the lookout deck.

It's starting to really come together! The kids are loving it. They spent 8 hours outside the other day. I couldn't believe it! Speaking of 8 hours, the countdown is now at 7 hours, 5 minutes till the girls arrive! Guess I better make that lasagne and wash my floor. Thanks for the distraction! Have a great weekend everyone. I know I will.

Passing on the LOVE

2011-04-26T17:04:00.000-07:00

Please, please, please click here.

This is my friend Simone's blog on her photography website.
Scroll down.
Almost to the bottom.
Did you see it?

Tell me that didn't make you happy sigh and I will call you a LIAR! Or Soulless. Either or. But I know I won't have to. You'll see it, you'll sigh and we'll all agree that this woman is a brilliant, brilliant photographer. Take a few minutes, go through her archives and you will be amazed at how beautifully emotive her photos are.

PS. Simone doesn't know I'm writing this.
PPS. If you stop by her site leave her some love, she'll be so glad to meet you.

Talks I never imagined needing to have with my children

2011-04-21T12:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was at Wal-mart doing a return. I was digging my receipts out of my wallet and glanced up to do the automatic child scan. I only had Sebastian with me and he's pretty easy to keep track of so I glanced - he was just standing a couple of feet beside me - and went back to digging. And then my mind registered what I had seen. I gasped in shock and yelled, "SEBASTIAN! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

What I had seen, and was still seeing, was my three year old son standing very calmly beside me with his pants and underwear at his knees giving everyone a full monty. HELLO! I raced over to him and pulled up his pants, then alternated between asking him what on earth he was doing and telling him that pulling his pants down in public is not okay. So. not. okay. His response? "But Mom, I had to scratch my bum."

Errr...

Officially had the talk that you don't need to pull down your pants to scratch your bum? Check.

Playhouse Project: Day 1

2011-04-18T10:11:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned last post, this was a project weekend for us. Hugh borrowed a truck from work and went to pick up the wood for the playhouse on Friday evening. When he got it home we had to clear a space in the garage for it as the garage is currently junk central. This is where we stored the entire contents of our basement during our reno and we haven't brought anything except toys back into the basement since it's been finished. We have a ton of sorting/organizing/purging to do but in the meantime we just shoved everything over to make room for the wood.

Saturday morning was crisp and cool. When I walked outside I felt like I was camping. The air had that tang of Northern BC mountain air and the pre-Saturday activity stillness on the street was very reminiscent of hushed mornings around a campfire sipping tea and coffee.

Speaking of tea and coffee, rather than linger over ours, as is our usual Saturday morning tradition, we put them straight into travel mugs so we could get an early start. Ridiculously early in my opinion. Until Hugh told me the forecast for later in the day was snow and rain and wind and that we were working till we got done up to a certain point no matter what the weather was. Suddenly I couldn't wait to get outside!

The building process started with digging holes for the posts. Because of the crazy prairie wind that has tossed our trampoline around our yard like a rag doll we decided to cement our posts in. If we're going to all this effort we don't want to have to reassemble the playhouse every time the wind kicks up. We dug those holes deep! And by we I mean Hugh. Someone had to take pictures and keep our travel mugs filled...

While we were busy so were the kids.

This is just for gratuitous cuteness. I love those freckles!

Sebastian was so much more interested in the building process than the other kids. He watched Hugh very intently and then copied whatever he did. It was very sweet but I had to put my foot down when I saw him making a run for the table saw.

Once we got all the posts in and level we had to cement them into the ground. Again by we I mean Hugh. Those bags of cement are heavy! My contribution was to take pictures and man the garden hose, making sure the cement was the right consistency as Hugh stirred it with a shovel.

Did you know that water out of a hose tastes better than regular water?

The weather held off for most of the day - the snow had only just begun to fall as we were cementing our last two posts. Wasn't that good timing? And this is where we finished out Day 1.

The vision is the big deck will be the house part of the playhouse. It will big enough for a kid-sized table and chairs and big enough to have sleep-overs once they're a little older. That's the place where I will attempt flower boxes and curtains and "housey" things like that. The slide will come off the taller "lookout" deck and the plan is to have a suspension bridge or something connect the two play decks. We are also going to have swings coming out the left side of the playhouse deck but they won't get done until last as we have to prep the ground still.

It was good to get all this work done and Hugh definitely couldn't have done it alone but as I stood there holding posts level I felt profoundly bored with my jobs. Hugh was shoveling and drilling and sawing and cementing and I pretty much stood around and held things up. At about 1:00, after I put Sebastian down for a nap, I hit a fade - partly out of boredom and partly from all the years of napping while my kids napped my body is now conditioned to shut down at 1:00. I decided to pull a chair out of the garage so I could sit down until being called into action. As I was sitting with my eyes closed I heard Ava say to Hugh, "Oh Dad, look! Mom's sleeping. Oh, poor Mom, she's been awake all day!" Hugh, who was in the middle of wiping the sweat of hard labour off his brow, started killing himself laughing while I laughed so hard I cried.

We ended the day with friends over for dinner. The evening didn't go late and by 9:00 Hugh and I were cuddled on the couch while I fought to stay awake and watch a movie. At 9:30 I decided to give up and just go to bed. "After all," I told Hugh, "Being awake all day is exhausting!

Catching Up

2011-04-15T14:03:00.000-07:00

Hey! Did you miss me? I've missed you. What a crazy busy two weeks I've had! I haven't been able to check in but I've thought about you a lot. I did sit down a few times to say hello but my attention kept getting hijacked. How are you? What's new?

My sister, Erin took her brand new car on it's very first road trip and drove here from Vancouver to spend a week with us. We had such a great visit. I feel so blessed that I got to see both my sisters within a month of each other, AND I get to see them again over the May long weekend for our family camping extravaganza. Erin jumped right into all the chaos and craziness that is our household and was a really good sport about getting up early and doing whatever was on the agenda for that day, including helping me and my team pull off the largest women's event our church has ever had - which just happened to be on the Saturday she was visiting. You can read about our Fierce and Fabulous event here if you're interested.

Erin was so great about playing with the kids and the whole time she was here Tristan called her "Aunt Friend". When Ava asked him why he kept calling her that he said, "Because she's my aunt and my friend." He doesn't call me Mommy Friend! The morning Erin drove away my kids were sobbing messes of devastation. Only Sebastian, the littlest one, was able to pull it together to pat Ava gently on the back while, "Shh, shh, shh'ing" her.

Before Erin arrived I had read the first two books of The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. I loved them! I was obsessed with them. (Kristina, thanks for the recommend!) I needed the third book but our library had to order it from another town. It didn't come in until the middle of the week Erin was here. I was dying to read it but if I'm really into a book I cannot function. I can't cook, I can't clean up, I can't take care of my kids, I can't shower. Nothing can be done until I've finished. It's a good thing I inherited my dad's fast-reader gene. Knowing this about myself I was waiting until after our event was done and Erin was gone to read the final book. That day came, I was exhausted from the previous week, had been looking forward to this moment for days, had my cup of tea and my spot on the couch all ready and then I looked at my calendar... and realized I needed to spend the day prepping for a class I was teaching the next night. Foiled! I did my best and got through the day but the minute Hugh walked in the door I started crying. I had reached my limit. My brain, my body and my spirit were all completely depleted and I just couldn't focus on my prep, couldn't think about making dinner, couldn't stop crying. My wonderful, wonderful husband ran me a bath and told me to cocoon. He went on to make dinner, play with the kids and put them to bed while I laid in the tub, on the couch and then in bed. I ended up blitzing through the final book during those hours, went to bed early and woke up feeling like life was worth living again.

I had a great idea for a blog post this past Wednesday but after checking my email and catching up on a few things I put the computer away, decided not to blog or clean bathrooms or tackle my mountain of laundry and went for a long adventure walk with my kids who have only had my left-over, distracted attention for the past two weeks. They biked and I pushed Sebastian in a stroller and the wind at our backs was so strong the kids literally didn't have to pedal to move. Fun right? So much fun. So much laughing. On the way there. And then we had to turn around and come home. The kids literally had to grit their teeth while pedaling to get their bikes to move. Sebastian was terrified of the wind and he kept trying to climb his way up the back of the stroller to get to me while crying and yelling, "it's going to take me away, it's going to take me away!" And I kept yelling (wind like that is loud), "ISN'T THIS AN ADVENTURE!" It's amazing what hot chocolate and marshmallows can fix.

So here we are about to start the weekend. YAY! I love the weekend. Saturdays always feel so magical to me, like anything is possible. It's a project weekend for us. I'm going to help Hugh build a playhouse/structure for the kids. We talked about building a playhouse for the kids during the winter. When we sat down a few weeks ago to finalize our plans I realized we both had very different ideas of what a playhouse is. I was picturing doors and windows and window boxes where they could plant flowers. Hugh was picturing the park. We're basically going for the park idea with an expanded floor size and ceiling height. I'm still thinking I'll be able to put curtains up somewhere and I should be able to get flower boxes that can attach to the railing and most importantly (to me) I'll still be able to paint it!

What are you doing this weekend?

Sometimes "stuff" isn't just stuff.

2011-04-04T09:09:00.000-07:00

This is my table.

This table is the first piece of furniture my husband and I bought when we got married. Because we were moving right after the wedding we got mostly cash as gifts - which I so thankful for once we got to Fort St. John and looked into the back of the u-haul at all the heavy lifting we had to do by ourselves! The only major item we didn’t own at all - not even a reasonable facsimile - was a table. So we immediately hied ourselves down to the local United Furniture Warehouse and bought ourselves one. I had absolutely no sense of my own personal style at that point but I grew up with a wooden farm table that still holds a magical place in my heart so my only requirements for a table (then) were solid wood and square. Hugh wanted to get something with leaves but I didn’t want the surface of my table marred by the line breaks necessary to accommodate leaves. We ended up with a rectangular solid oak table that came with 4 chairs and no leaves. 11 years, 3 kids and countless dinners with friends and family later, oh how I have regretted that stupid “no leaves” stipulation!

Anyway.

Eight short months after we unloaded our u-haul in Fort St. John we loaded our table and everything else we had accumulated over 8 months, like dishes and mugs and queen size mattresses, into another, bigger, u-haul and drove it to Vernon to begin our next adventure. For our first anniversary my parents bought us the bench that went with our table. Then after five years in Vernon we loaded our table and chairs and bench and all the other things we had accumulated, like a canopy bed frame, proper couch and coffee table, cribs and baby paraphernalia times two, into yet another u-haul and drove it here. Which is a story in and of itself. After 11 years of life with us our table has lived in 2 apartments, 1 townhouse, 1 rental house, 1 duplex and is now in our current home.

Around that table we have played games, celebrated birthdays, milestones and anything else we could think of to celebrate. We have made friends and created memories. We have laughed late into the night and we have cried deep, chest-heaving, grief-filled sobs. We have nursed three babies while trying to eat one-handed for the sake of getting to eat something hot - for once! Those babies have grown into children who create artistic masterpieces - sometimes in permanent marker, sometimes in non-washable paint (why do they even sell non-washable paint for kids?) These chairs have been dragged around to create the audience seats for a show, they have been stood on, knocked over and fallen off of. There is gorilla glue holding together more than one chair back. The varnish on the table top is worn from sun and constant scrubbing. There is a knot in front of where Ava sits that has turned black and created an actual divot.

There’s a Johnny Cash song that I think about when I look at my table. It’s about an old flag pole that’s leaned a little bit and a ragged old flag hanging on it. This flag goes on quite a journey - with Washington across the Delaware, the Alamo, WW1, Korea, Vietnam, the list goes on. It gets cut by swords and shot by muskets and cannons and is generally in pretty rough shape. When I look at my table I think of my favourite line from that song “she’s getting threadbare and she’s wearing thin but she’s in good shape the shape she’s in.”

If I could take my design aesthetic of today back to United Furniture 11 years ago, I probably wouldn’t choose this table. It’s an orange-y oak colour for one thing which I do NOT love. The chairs have no softness to inspire lingering (though we definitely do anyway), and it has no leaves. Ideally I would love a table that could seat 10 or 12. I know I could paint my table. I could get different chairs for it. I could scour kijiji for a fixer-upper replacement that seats more. But you know what? I love it the way it is. When I look at my table I see our family history. I love the patina of worn varnish and permanent marker that has been achieved over our life together. As is, this table really doesn’t go with my style now but it’s rubbed shoulders with us long enough that it’s no longer discordant; it works somehow. And it wouldn’t feel like home without it.

I think he could smell the Try

2011-03-23T16:50:00.000-07:00

My sister and my nephew are safely (and sadly) returned home. And I am now fighting a cold. We just never seemed to be able to make it to bed before midnight, not wanting to waste any of the precious hours we got to spend together doing something as mundane as sleeping. It was such a great visit. Felix is... words fail me here - delightful, delicious, amazing, gorgeous, miraculous. I love him so much. Every time he sat in his high chair and brought his chubby fists up to his pursed lips to shove something else in to his mouth I wanted to nibble on his chipmunk cheeks. All I wanted to do was cuddle him and kiss him to bits and pieces.

Unfortunately I was barely even allowed close enough to peck the top of his head. He was so taken with my kids (and of course my kids with him) that he had zero interest in anyone taller than 3 feet. He happily let my kids maul him - they carried him, rolled on him, kissed him and even pulled him by his feet down the stairs while he lay on his stomach and his head bounced off each step - and he giggled like a maniac! Though, after two rounds of watching his head "thwump" on each step the adults put a stop to that particular game. With all the adoration happening between the kids Felix had no time for me. Every time I picked him up he squirmed like a fish on a line to get away from me, reaching his arms imploringly out to whichever of my kids was nearest to come and rescue him.

At one point during the week Jane and I were at Starbucks with our little-littles while Tristan and Ava were at school. Jane had gone to the bathroom or something and Felix started to wander away and I said, "Felix! Come to Auntie, Felix!" And then I thought, oh! I get to be someone who says come to Auntie! So many people I know here who have kids also have family and I'm always fiercely envious of the in-and-outness of their shared lives. It was so nice to get to experience it for myself. Felix didn't come to me of course, not until Sebastian called him, but that's besides the point.

In the evenings after all the kids were in bed, Jane and I immersed ourselves in the film extravaganza that is Bollywood. Oh. my. word. I LOVE Bollywood movies! The campier the better. I love the how they throw random English sentences into their Hindi conversations. I love reading the English subtitles and how the Hindi has been translated into things like "why are you doing time pass at work?" or "Her good self is coming over soon." I love the song and dance numbers, the colours, the costumes, the longing glances and ultra-dramatic, ultra-cheesy 360 degree slow-motion circles the camera takes around the actors. Bollywood makes me jumpy-clap happy. We started doing our own versions of Bollywood songs for Felix and one day when he was in his high chair I put my hands over my head, palms together, and moved my neck from side to side while making vaguely (VERY vaguely) Hindi-like sounds and Felix started copying me! After that every time I'd raise my arms over my head he'd start moving his neck side to side in anticipation. Adorable! And another reason to love Bollywood even more - that was the only time Felix paid any attention to me whatsoever.

Once when we were downstairs I pulled him onto my lap and he rested against me for about 30 seconds then abruptly sat up, looked back at me in horror, and promptly slithered off my lap to find Ava. When we went to the ballet (we saw the Royal Winnipeg Ballet perform Wonderland) the babysitter said Felix gave her really nice cuddles. Oh, it was on! I was bound and determined that Felix was going to give Auntie some love. On the last day they were here, Hugh took our kids to church and I stayed home with Jane while Felix napped. When he woke up I went to get him thinking, there's no kids here and I'm rescuing him from the playpen he's hated and resisted all week long, he has to love me. He was standing up in the playpen when I walked into the room and, I am not exaggerating in the slightest, as soon as he saw me he threw himself back down into the playpen, backed himself into a corner and threw one of his stuffies at me. Really? Even the playpen you hate is preferable to me?

I picked up his wriggling good self and took him upstairs. Jane was hiding in the bathroom to help my cause figuring if there were literally no other options Felix might take to me. I offered him milk. He tossed his head away from it. I offered him a snack. He batted my arms away. Finally I couldn't hold on to his squirming little body anymore. I put him down and like a radar he ran straight into the bathroom where Jane was hiding. How did he know??? Also? Seconds later when Jane offered Felix his milk he took it and drank like a man who'd been surrounded by nothing but salt-water for three weeks. Stinker.

It was a perfectly lovely visit and I was very sad to say good-bye. But next time, Felix? Oh, I'll get you next time! You're gonna love me...

The Sister Adventure: Day 1

2011-03-16T10:08:00.000-07:00

My baby sister is here! She and the most adorable baby boy in the world arrived yesterday. I love, love, love having them here. Our kids are absolutely enamored of each other. On the way home from the airport Sebastian acted as Felix's tour guide, "This is a train. These are signs. That is a puddle." It was adorable. Jane and I spent the day drinking tea and laughing and talking a mile a minute with periodic breaks to go gaga over each others kids and watch them lavish each other with hugs and kisses and giggles.

Late last night when Jane and I had momentarily talked ourselves out we got into our comfies and took the laptop up to my bed to watch a movie together. While we were watching the movie Jane suddenly startled, sure that she had heard Felix crying from two floors below. We paused the movie, she went to check and he was sound asleep - she had just been hearing phantom baby cry. If you have babies you know exactly what I mean by "phantom baby cry". For me it used to happen every time I got in the shower. Without fail, as soon as my head was immersed under the water, I'd hear a baby start to cry. I'd shut the water off, jump out of the shower and run frantically into my twin babies' room to find my sweet babies fast asleep. I'd stand there stark naked, shivering cold and dripping water all over the brand new carpet, my heart racing with adrenaline and stare at their peacefully sleeping faces in disbelief. It got to the point that as soon as my head went under the water and I heard the cry I knew it was phantom, I knew it wasn't real and yet, I couldn't not check. Just in case.

By the time my twins were about two I only heard the phantom cry occasionally and by the time they were three it was gone altogether. Then I had a another baby and it happened all over again. Though we are generally past the age of phantom baby cry Jane hearing Felix's phantom cry reminded me that just the other day it happened to me again. I had slept in a bit so I dropped the big kids off at school and then came back home to shower. As soon as my head was under the water I heard a baby cry. I hadn't heard phantom baby cry for a long time and I thought, I guess you really never do get away from it. I didn't turn the water off though. Three kids later I'm kind of a pro at phantom baby cry. After the initial startled rush of adrenaline I talked myself back down and washed my hair ignoring the crying baby in my head. I shut the water off with a sense of impending relief. Whether it's phantom or not, hearing a baby cry endlessly is wearing. But when I shut water off the crying didn't stop and I realized phantom baby cry was actually Sebastian wailing uncontrollably outside my closed bathroom door. In horror I flung open the door and rushed to my baby. I picked him up and frantically examined him to make sure he hadn't cut off a limb or swallowed poison or something equally horrible. Turns out he couldn't open the bathroom door because his hands were full of toys and he didn't want to put them down to turn the handle. As I stood there stark naked, shivering cold and dripping water all over my carpet while my adrenaline surged I thought, now is this ironic or just Murphy's law?

A recipe for sunshine on a cloudy day

2011-03-11T12:03:00.000-08:00

One enchanting story...

Plus three little imps...

Plus one cozy hideout...

Equals one magical afternoon...

The difference a year makes Part 2

2011-03-09T10:26:00.000-08:00

I meant to do this post a couple of months ago. It was going to directly follow Part 1. Makes sense right? But then I never got around to posting it. The last five or six days have been incredibly full and I've hardly been home. Then when I am home I'm exhausted. I set out to write a different post today but I'm having a hard time forming coherent sentences. Ergo, videos!

This first video was taken November 2009. Sebastian was two, talking was still pretty new and everything he said sounded like a curse.

That's talent! One night when I was tucking him in I almost had a heart attack. He was saying "f**k-it, f**k-it, f**k-it" over and over and over. And then I noticed he was tugging on his BLANKET. Whew. This second video was taken almost a year later in September of 2010. See how much has changed?

Or then again, see how much has stayed the same...

A List: Things that are making me smile today

2011-03-03T14:41:00.000-08:00

These sandwich plates that have an oil spill sheen to them. My kids call them pixie plates. Perfect for a Peter Rabbit lunch. (Which in case you haven't read any Beatrix Potter recently is bread with butter and honey, blackberries and milk.)

This sunshine-y yellow roasting pan. This was a gift from my lovely mother-in-law many moons ago. It is one of my all-time favourite pieces of cookware. Under that lid, waiting to be transformed into culinary goodness, is a chicken stuffed with garlic, orange wedges and fresh rosemary.

So many things about this picture make me smile. The colour of the roasting pan. The fluted edges. (HELLOOOOO gorgeous!) The carrots that came out of someone's garden somewhere proving that Spring, in fact, does exist.

Even if all I see around me is a cold barren wasteland.

These seed packets propped up in my kitchen windowsill. I bought dill, oregano, basil, rosemary, thyme, mint (hello mojito's!) and chives. I can just imagine all the lovely fresh food I will be able to make with herbs from my very own herb garden.

Assuming of course that any of them survive my tender loving care. I'm so much older and wiser than I was last year when I killed all the rootlings. I'm sure this year will be better. Except... I still don't know why they died. Hope springs eternal as they say!

What makes you smile today?

Hello.... Spring?

2011-03-01T09:20:00.000-08:00

When it's March 1st and what you see outside your front door is this...

And it's -27 so to stay warm driving your kids to school you have to wear one of these....

It's time to dream.

Of seedlings poking up through the dirt in sun-drenched pots.

Of a chair in the sun, a glass of cold tea at your elbow, the prickle of grass on your bare feet.

Of a saturated, cloudless sky, a warm breeze whispering in your ear, the rustle of pages in a good book.

It's time to dream big.

Beyond the borders of your life as it is today. That frame is too small for the greatness on the inside of you anyway.

Dream Bold.

This is your year.

Dream.

Because dreaming is good for the soul.

As are these olive oil cakes with lemon and thyme.

They taste like Spring.

PS. They also make a great addition to an extremely-late-but-finally-delivered thank you card. Are you as relieved as I am?

Accountability. Also good.

2011-02-24T12:02:00.000-08:00

Are you wondering? Are you curious? Are you just dying to know if I cleaned my bathrooms?

I am here to proudly tell you yes, yes I did.

It only took me 10 days of avoiding them. Don't you feel relieved? I feel relieved.

As for the other things on my list:
* Check for washing my hair.
* Check for tracking down my Chiro/Physio receipts. I thought I'd try my filing cabinet first. Makes sense, right? Then I thought I would try my folder titled: Chiro/Physio. No-brainer, right? Ummm.... I found them in the Tool Receipts folder. And no, it's not the folder directly behind the Chiro/Phsyio. Really not sure what I was thinking.
* Check for cooking the roast. Although...

Okay here's the story. I thought I'd follow The Pioneer Woman's Pot Roast Recipe. Looks good right? The directions look easy right? It started off with me turning on the burner so my pan could warm a bit before I put the oil in. And then the phone rang. And the kids kept asking me questions while I was trying to work out a calendar issue with who I was talking to on the phone. And I had just thrown a cheese sandwich into my frying pan on another element. I ended up badly burning the bottom of my pan and my sandwich. I do not multi-task well in the kitchen.

I regrouped. I took both pans off the heat, made a new sandwich, decided my roast pan was going to survive and started over. I added the oil to the pan, while it was warming this time, threw my new cheese sandwich in the frying pan and then helped Ava bring her dollhouse upstairs. This was followed by 5 minutes of waving a tea towel like a truce flag while standing beneath my clanging fire alarm. Hey kids, Mama's in the kitchen again!

Though it was a rather rough start, in the end it all turned out. Minus another tea towel waving episode when I took my smoking hot (literally) muffin tin out of the oven to pour in the Yorkshire Pudding batter. And now my freshly washed hair smells like smoking hot oil. You just can't win 'em all! I wish I had a picture of my roast to show you but I didn't have enough presence of mind to be pouring batter, making gravy, sauteeing zuchinni and pulling out my camera.

So that's that.

The only thing yet to do on yesterday's list is take over that dang thank you card. It will be the death of me I'm sure! It's been so long now I feel like I need to take it with cookies or something. One more thing to avoid.... At the rate I'm going I'm going to have to buy them a cruise next Christmas!

Are you an avoid-er? Do you have lists? What are you avoiding today?

Revelation. A good way to start the day.

2011-02-23T08:39:00.000-08:00

I am an avoider. You could probably also call it procrastination but it's more than just putting things off for another day. I avoid in the hopes that it - whatever it is - will go away, disappear, cease to need doing. I know it doesn't work that way. I know that not doing something equals it not getting done. But somehow I always try to convince myself otherwise. Maybe, just maybe, this will be the time that avoiding works. It's kind of the same theory I apply to seeing if a bruise still hurts. Does it hurt? *press* Yep! How about now? *press* Yep, still hurts! I can't help myself. I keep pressing on the discoloured circle thinking maybe, just maybe, this will be the time I press it and it doesn't hurt. Because a lot can change in 30 seconds.

Here's what I have been avoiding the last few days:

1. Cleaning my bathrooms.
2. Tracking down my Chiropractor/Physio receipts for our income tax return.
3. Walking a thank you card over to my neighbours for the gifts they gave us at Christmas.
4. Cooking the roast that has been defrosting in my fridge for 3 days.
5. Washing my hair

Here's my rational behind the avoidance:

1. The longer I go without cleaning my bathrooms the longer it will take me to clean them. Therefore I haven't cleaned them.
2. I have no idea where my Chiro/Physio receipts are so it will take some work finding them. Therefore they can't be found.
3. We made the thank you card at the end of January. It was embarrassing at the end of January that it took me so long to get make the thank you card. Now it's the end of February and doubly embarrassing that I haven't walked it over yet. Therefore I don't want to walk it over.
4. Hugh loves roasts but I never cook them. I have no idea how long to cook a roast for and I don't want to wreck it. Therefore, I haven't cooked the roast.
5. I did plan to wash my hair yesterday but then I remembered I had Zumba when Hugh got home from work and I didn't want to sweat up freshly washed hair. Therefore, I still need to wash my hair.

Wow.

These are really stupid reasons. I didn't realize how ridiculous until I said it out loud. Or, well, wrote it.

Huh.

Guess it's time to just get things done.

This too shall pass

2011-02-22T08:35:00.000-08:00

This is the part where I tell you I actually have nothing to say. I had grand plans to show you all my new fun bangs and the cowl I knit but I forgot to take a pic on Friday when my hair was freshly washed and I can't do it today as that would require A)having clean hair or B)having semi-clean hair. Neither of which I have.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

The stomach flu gave way to colds and it has been one big cough fest over here. On Sunday, Hugh took Ava to church and I stayed in my pj's on our lovely downstairs couch sandwiched between two limp boys who took turns coughing endlessly on my face. Did you know that listening to an endless symphony of coughing can actually make a person insane?

No? That's just me?

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

In times of sickness our house copes by watching TV. Which means it's been on A LOT over the last week. At one point on Sunday morning I thought, enough with the TV already! and we shut it off and pulled out stories. I couldn't even hear myself read over their coughing so then I thought, screw it, and turned the TV back on. Did you know that He-Man and She-ra are on back-to-back on Sunday Mornings on Teletoon Retro? "For the honour of Grayskull!" You know how sometimes you watch an old movie or TV show that you loved as a kid and you find you still love it, that it still has the same magic you remember? He-man and She-ra absolutely are not that. They are terrible!

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

At the end of last week I decided that any time I said, "But I don't feel like....(cleaning the bathrooms, getting dressed, washing my hair)" it meant I absolutely had to make myself do it. I figured this would be a really good way to make sure I wasn't living based on my feelings. How's it going so far you ask? Well my bathrooms still aren't clean, I have spent twice as much time in jammies than jeans and I haven't washed my hair since Friday. So....Awesome!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I know I said I didn't want to use books as novocain but I'm going mental from the coughing! I need to escape from this sick/mad house even if I can't physically leave. Help a girl out will ya? Is anybody reading anything great right now?

Learning something new isn't always a good thing

2011-02-17T11:45:00.000-08:00

I did a bad thing yesterday.

I did not clean bathrooms. And I certainly did not iron bedding thanks to you my lovely commenters for helping me let go of the guilt.

Instead I made dough. Lovely, cinnamon-y dough with little chunks of apples. And then...

I fried it.

Yes you heard right. I dropped it by spoonful into hot oil in a pot on my stove and watched them sizzle and spatter and bubble and turn golden brown. And then, after draining on a plate of paper towels I dusted them with icing sugar.

And they were good (even if the picture quality isn't). Oh so good.

In fact, I've eaten three in the time it's taken me to write these few short sentences. And they're cold. And now I'm in trouble.

I love fried dough and various fried fair foods (fried fair foods, say that five times fast!). Confession: more than once I have paid the gate entry fee just to get a bag of those mini cinnamon donuts and then left the fair. Though I have this love in my heart I have never in my life fried anything. I always thought it was too difficult, too time consuming, not worth the effort required. Um.... turns out it really isn't difficult at all and it's SO worth it.

I have had my eye on this recipe for fried peach pies since I discovered it last Fall. I thought it would be amazing. I thought it would be a revelation. I also thought it would be way too difficult so I've never made them on the basis that A) I didn't know how to make pastry and B) frying is too difficult. And then I went ahead and made the mistake of learning how to make pastry for these butter tarts at Christmas.

Um... obstacle number one out of the way.

And now.... Oh help me. I know how to fry.

The definition of setback

2011-02-16T06:48:00.000-08:00

Staying up all night both Friday and Saturday with puking kids, taking care of a sick husband on Monday, waking up Tuesday with a heaving stomach and then waking up today to see the fallout: desperate need of groceries, dishes overflowing in the sink, baking soda on our carpet leftover from cleaning up puke that still needs vacuuming, bedding still in the dryer that will probably now need ironing (which, let's be real I won't do but will feel guilty and lazy for not doing), a whole bunch of sheets to wash, all the bathrooms to clean.... And it's snowing.

Can I just crawl back into bed with my book while the kids are in school this morning and let the real mom deal with it?

My slump: mid-mortem

2011-02-11T11:26:00.000-08:00

Thank you all so much for your meaningful responses to the questions I threw out into the void last post. It is so nice to know that I'm not alone in feeling this way sometimes. Based on your responses and my own processes here's what I've come up with for how to de-slumpify:

1. Exercise. A friend posted a question on her facebook page not too long ago asking how to get addicted to working out. I have NEVER been addicted to working out. I didn't respond. Whenever I have done things for "exercise" like running or the gym or whatever I've always hated every minute of it. I like how I feel after but hate every minute I'm doing it. Until now. Until Curves + Zumba. I have been to 6 combo classes and I absolutely love every minute I'm doing it. I even look forward to each class. This is absolutely unheard of for me. I also notice an immediate and positive shift in my attitude, energy and outlook on life after a class.

2. Stop Comparing. I am a chronic comparer and I find I always come up short in the comparison. The other day when I was bemoaning my current "lack" to Hugh he said, "Heather, you have to stop this. You are meant to be you and no one else. God will bless you where you are meant to prosper and maybe your blog is like the artist who sketches out an idea in pencil first before taking up their brush to create a masterpiece." Isn't that a beautiful image? New goal: stop looking at how I lack compared to all the nebulous "others" and declare that I will prosper where I'm meant to every time I feel doubt or a sense of failure creep back in.

3. Get dressed. Living in slumpy clothes always makes me feel slumpy. And make sure there is some colour and vibrancy somewhere in what I'm wearing. Colour makes me happy even on grey days.

4. Stop bolting. I don't mean physically, I mean emotionally. In the book I mentioned in a previous post, "Women, Food, and God", the author says, "Eat what you want when you're hungry. Feel what you feel when you're not." I've discovered I don't just hide behind food, I use books and movies too. When I feel the urge to lose myself in a reading binge or find myself wishing I could just watch movies all day or wanting to bake so I can eat what I'm not hungry for I now recognize it for what it is - the desire to bolt, to hide, to avoid. New goal: Don't run. I don't need to avoid anything. I can intentionally allow myself to feel what I'm feeling because God is bigger than the pain and it does not have the power to annihilate me.

5. Pay attention to what is happening in my life so I can identify what triggers these slumps. For me I know this one was caused by sheer exhaustion - the fallout of the most insanely busy, stressful December I've ever had.

6. Read books that will stir my soul.

7. Make an effort not to isolate myself from my friends. I find when I'm slumpy I retreat from relationships. This doesn't exactly help the whole feeling alone thing!

8. Daily declare creativity, motivation, increase and inspiration over my life. Let that declaration be the soundtrack of my thoughts that plays throughout my day.

So there it is. Nothing earth shattering, nothing I haven't heard or said before. It's so simple really. It's just not easy. It means doing the hard work of self-evaluations. It means getting dressed when I don't feel like it. It means actively and intentionally carving out some time for me to exercise. These simple, non-earth shattering ways to live life fully are easy to do when I feel like it but the whole point is not to live based on my feelings isn't it? Especially since negative thoughts and feelings give birth - not to motivation and creativity - but more negativity, apathy, and despair and all the moaning and groaning in the world will only result in a frozen, still-born existence.

So how do we live fully when we don't feel like it? We get honest about our avoidance. We refuse to be ruled by the whims of our emotions. And we take it one day at a time, one positive choice at a time, one "doing it anyway" at a time. Eventually all the single, individual good choices we make will add up and equal breakthrough.

This is my declaration today: I have a life that is only mine to live by the grace of God. No one can live it for me. I cannot live it again. I will make the most of it. I declare an increase of energy and inspiration. I declare my faith is rising and greater revelation is on it's way. I declare life and life abundant and I thank you God for the new things that are getting ready to blossom in my soul.

I don't necessarily feel this. My slump is not over but I declare it's on it's way out. And if you're feeling slumpy today too declare it with me. Though it still feels like the dead of winter in my heart I know spring is coming. It always does.

This is why I can't quit blogging. I need you.

2011-02-07T10:51:00.000-08:00

Well let's just get the obvious out of the way shall we? I haven't written a blog in over two weeks and here's why:

1. It was grey and windy and cold and I stayed in my pajama's (as I've been doing for most of January) and threw myself a pity party because I felt like I had nothing to say and why would anyone care if I said it anyway?

2. I got together with Britni from a life well knit and she got me started knitting a cowl. I obsessively spent my spare time watching old 90210 episodes and knitting.

3. My best friend's Grandma died. Her family came from all over and surrounded her bedside praying, singing, crying and even laughing together. The stories Michelle has told me from that night sounded so beautiful and lovely they gave me goosebumps even from over the phone. I can just imagine what it would have been like to be in that room. So what does this have to do with me not blogging you ask? I've known their family for a long time and Grandma and Grandpa Richmond are the head of a very tight, very close-knit family rich in faith and love and connection and after having nothing to say for so long I had nothing to write as I was reflecting deeply about heritage and family legacy and couldn't articulate my thoughts.

4. My parents came for a visit. I love it when my parents come, we always have such a good visit. This one was no exception. I almost peed my pants laughing while Hugh, my parents and I canoe raced on the Wii. We also took the kids 5-pin bowling and Tristan came in third behind Hugh and my mom and his technique was HORRIBLE! He'd hold the ball and shuffle sideways up to the lane and then do a sideways 2-handed toss and he got a strike! I was terrible, gutter ball after gutter ball just alternating sides. After watching Tristan get a strike I decided to copy his technique for fun. Wouldn't you know it. I got a strike. I'm not even kidding.

5. I got caught in a fire at Winners. Actually it was my Mom and Sebastian and I. We were in Winners and Mom and I were each trying on a pair of jeans in the family fitting room when we heard this weird noise. Mom wondered what it was and I answered that it was probably a truck or something doing a warehouse delivery or something like that and we continued commenting on the jeans we tried on - how I thought the knees of the jeans I was trying were baggy and how the bum wasn't great on the pair my mom was trying. In the midst of these critiques there was suddenly a knock at the door and voice urgently telling us to get to the front of the store because the fire alarm was going off and they weren't sure why. In our defense can I just say it didn't sound like any fire alarm I've ever heard before? Neither my mom or I recognized that annoying noise as a fire alarm. The lady sounded pretty frantic so we quickly gathered up our clothes and our coats and wearing the jeans we were in the middle of trying on walked to the front of the store. When we got to the front of the store the news came that it was in fact a fire in the backroom and everyone had to vacate the premises immediately. "But," I yelled over the clanging noise, "We're wearing your clothes!"
"Oh great, you've got your clothes on!"
"No! No! These are YOUR clothes! YOURS! We were trying these on!"
"Okay.... Well I'll just quickly ring them through for you."
"But I don't want them! I don't like them!"
In the end they took my name and phone number and we walked over to London Drugs (first setting off the security alarms leaving Winners) wearing jeans with tags hanging out and stickers on the thigh and basically looking like petty thieves. Nothing all that new for me really.
This actually has nothing to do with why I couldn't blog but when was the last time you were in the change room of a store that caught on fire? We ended up changing into our own clothes in the London Drugs bathroom and walking our pilfered items back to Winners.

I think that's all. Mostly why I haven't blogged in a while is I have been so discouraged these past few weeks. I have felt quite listless and slumpy (if that can be considered a word). I've been struggling to find purpose in my everyday life and struggling for fresh creativity and inspiration. I haven't wanted to cook and I'm sick of everything I make. I've wanted to hide behind books and movies in my spare time. A few weeks ago one of my friends posted on her facebook status: I will not slump into a snow dazed haze of hibernation. I will awake and create. I will live like today deserves... It deserves not to be overlooked.

My question is: How? How do I not slump? How do I awake and create? How do I not overlook today? I started a dialogue with another friend of mine who is a photographer. She is very inspiring and has consistently pushed herself to stay creative in the often lone venture of photography and creating art. One of the things she did when she was going to school in Vancouver at Emily Carr and spending all day in a 4x3 foot darkroom was to fill her outside life with colour - the clothes she wore, her home environment, as much as possible she filled her life with colour to compensate for the days spent in the dark. I have been trying to do this. On the days I get dressed I have been purposing to leave the white, the grey, the beige and the black on their hangars. It's been surprisingly helpful - I just need to get dressed more consistently. Not helpful is I crouched down to help Ava with something the other day and I split the inner thigh of my favourite jeans (hence the Winners jeans episode).

So what's the point of this wandering and random blog? I need your help my friends. I have felt alone and isolated in my slumpyness. I know it's not the truth. I know I am not truly alone but sometimes it's really easy to believe. I also know that feelings lie and I don't want to live based on how I feel. So I'm reaching out. I want to be renewed. I want to be fueled by a new passion and verve that does not depend on the weather or my feelings. Yesterday at church our pastor asked us what we're believing for for this year. Honestly? Right now I'm not really believing for anything, halfheartedly hoping maybe, but not believing with faith and conviction. Our pastor also said that we need to make room for the new - we need to say no to some things, clear out some things emotionally, eliminate some things physically to make room. So I want to take some time to think about what some of those things might be in my life. He also said to thank God in advance for the new. Today that's my tool. I am choosing to thank God in advance for new hope, new vision, new inspiration. This is where you come in. My question is how do you do it? How do you fight these low times? What sparks your inspiration or creativity? What makes you want to live like today deserves?

Not exactly Zen

2011-01-20T20:00:00.000-08:00

I've been reading a book by Geneen Roth called, "Women Food And God". Near the end of the book Roth recounts the story of when Mahatma Gandhi was shot and the first words out of his mouth were a Hindu name for an incarnation of God, "Ram, Ram". She compared this to what we in North America first say when faced with a difficult situation like a car crash, a crisis, a death, or anything unpleasant, "Oh Sh*t!" She calls it our North American Mantra. I'd never really thought about my first response in those kinds of situations before and I wondered if I fell into the "oh sh*t!" category too. I didn't have to wonder long.

Yesterday I was driving home after picking the kids up at school and I was approaching a red light. I wasn't going fast (I swear!) and I was well back from the car ahead of me as I applied the brakes. Unfortunately when I pressed the brakes I didn't slow down, I slid. My van started picking up speed. I could feel my ABS trying to kick in but there was nothing to grab hold of. We slid about four or five carlengths and the back of the car ahead of us was getting closer in a hurry. There wasn't even a snowbank I could drive into because it was a residential area and parked cars lined the street. It was dead silent in the van. I turned my head to the right to brace for impact as an "OH SH*T!" involuntarily escaped out of my mouth. A split second later I saw a gap between two parked cars. I drove straight into it. In the end I had avoided collision by about one metre. As I tried to collect myself I thought, well I guess that answers that question...

Besides being shaky for the rest of the drive home I kept expecting my kids to comment on my swearing like, "Mom! You just said a bad word!" but they continued chatting happily like nothing had happened. I decided the lack of reaction was because they have no idea what a "bad word" is. They're not exactly exposed to them at home after all. Well, not usually. Since they didn't know what I said I decided not to talk about it figuring if I don't make a big deal about it they'll just forget I ever said it. Which I felt good about until a few hours later when Ava was walking downstairs with an armful of toys and I heard the thump-thump-thump-thump sound of toys rolling down the stairs and a very annoyed, "oh sh*t".

Did I just induct her into that category? Apparently I have a lot more meditation to do.

Lessons in totally missing the point

2011-01-17T20:29:00.000-08:00

Tristan has a fairly obsessive personality. From photos taken three summers ago, I give you example A: (Also, I'm pregnant in the last pic just, you know, in case you can't tell...)

Tendency towards obsession + Wii for Chrismtas = kid who eats, sleeps and breathes all things Wii, especially Mario. When we first got the Wii and all the cousins were here over Christmas everyone just kind of went to town. Now that real life has resumed limits for gaming are back in place. I have watched Tristan's obsession progress with some concern. Every conversation I have had with him over the past two weeks has been about Mario - the worlds, the powers, yoshi, how much he loves playing, how he beat this level or that level, yoshi, the worlds, yoshi, the levels, the powers, yoshi.... It's driving me insane! I thought if he knew he had 30 minutes every day to play he wouldn't think about it for the other 23 1/2 hours. Wrong. On Saturday after his 30 minutes of play he looked through the Mario instruction book. For two hours. TWO HOURS spent looking at the same four pages in English, French, Spanish and Chinese. The kid can't read in English nevermind other languages. What could possibly have been that interesting for that long? I can appreciate the focus he showed in sitting still for that long but why can't I channel that into looking at non-video game related reading materials or activity books meant to help him with his pencil-holding skills? I know this is an increasingly digital age but being able to hold a pencil and draw a line without it looking like it was drawn by a 90-year-old grandmother with shaky hands is pretty fundamental.

At dinner the other night we were having general conversation and I was asking the kids a bunch of questions about school and friends. Tristan had been pretty quiet so I asked him what he was thinking about. He perked right up and got super animated as he told me how he was going to beat the ghost house in World 5 in Mario. Which is when I freaked out and told him I was worried he was going to grow up and be 35 and still living in our basement and he'd never get married and he'd never have kids and he'd never have a job and his whole life would be lived online or through a game and do you really want that kind of life, DO YOU? Apparently he does. Apparently to a six year old that actually sounds like the best life ever.

I tried again. I said, I thought his passion was great, his focus was amazing that I loved the perseverance he showed but that I wanted him to have more balance. I told him no one in a job interview would ever ask him how many levels of Mario he beat and if he saved Princess Peach or not. He's the kind of kid who wants to quit if he doesn't get it on the first try and I told him I wanted him to put the same kind of focus and determination he puts into the Wii into actual life skills like learning how to tie his shoelaces or sound out words. His eyes were looking pretty blank by this point so I tried speaking his language. I said it's kind of like when you were trying to beat the first Bowser castle and you kept dying and dying and dying and dying but you didn't quit, you didn't give up you just kept going and then you finally.... "I beat him!" he interrupted me. "And I used the fire power and then I lost it but got an ice power and I picked up the guy and threw him. All you have to do is press 1 and wiggle the remote Mom and you can pick up anything! I can't even believe I beat the Bowser castle! I can't wait to play it again. I'm totally going to beat the next level. I'm going to win every level because I'm the best at Mario."

Sigh.

And that was right about the time the calm, patient mother exited the building. "AAAAAHHHHH!!!! STOP TALKING ABOUT MARIO! ALL YOU TALK ABOUT IS MARIO, MARIO, MARIO! NO MORE MARIO! IF YOU DON'T STOP TALKING ABOUT MARIO I AM GOING TO LOSE IT!" And that was the end of dinner.

One thing we're trying to do more of with our kids is have one-on-one time even if it's just taking one kid on an errand while the other kids stay home. I had a chiro appointment this morning and Hugh had the day off so I asked Tristan if he wanted to come. After my quick appointment I took him to Starbucks for a little date. It was so nice to have some time with him that had nothing to do with disciplining him, worrying about him, arguing with him or being exasperated by his contrariness. He has always been the kid who seems to have the most issues, who requires the most patience and hard work from his parents.

Right from womb-hood when the x-ray tech told me Twin B (which turned out to be Tristan) had a Down's Syndrome marker on his heart he has been the one I've agonized most over. He is also the most stubborn and likes to learn every lesson the hard way which means we've had some pretty intense battles of the will. Maybe it was because I never thought I'd have sons, or maybe it was because I had been so worried about him in the womb, but as I held all five perfect pounds and one marvelous ounce of him, he crept into my heart and created his very own room.

Sometimes at night when I look in on him and I see him so peaceful and relaxed in sleep, I smile. Sometimes I see that peace and I pray. For a future bright with possibility, for the bigness of God to be on him, for the strength to endure when trouble comes. And then other times I see that peace and I cry. Because maybe it's been a hard day and I feel like all the interaction we've had has been discipline-related and the only peace we have together is when he's asleep. I cry because I wish he wouldn't make everything a battle of the wills and I wish I knew how to channel that stubbornness into a strength he can use for good. I cry because I don't know if I'm helping him do that, I don't know if I'm failing him, I just know I love him so much it makes my chest ache. I see his long legs draped over the bed you could barely see him in three years ago and I cry because we don't get to keep our sons in the same way we get to keep our daughters and what if I haven't done enough, given him enough, shown him enough? What if how much I love him gets lost in our battles over his stubbornness?

I need to clarify here. I love all my kids. I pray for and smile over and cry over all my kids. They all have their own special places in my heart, it's just that the sweetness and ease I often get with the other two is more rare with Tristan and therefore all the more precious when it happens. Today on the way home from Starbucks, a time when we got to laugh and be silly together and there was no whining or arguing and all the attention I gave him was entirely positive, I made sure I looked Tristan in the eye and told him I loved him, that he had a very special place in my heart. He gave me a slow bashful smile that grew to a brilliant grin and he said, "Is there a Wii there?"

Things I noticed while watching 90210, Episode 2

2011-01-13T11:13:00.000-08:00

1. Brandon has lost his mullet. His bangs are still feathered though. What a relief.
2. Brenda now has a little fringe of baby bangs. I think they look ridiculous. I had those same bangs in Grade 8. They looked equally ridiculous on me.
3. David Silver's voice is still shockingly high-pitched. Also he's a freshman. I thought he and Donna were in the same grade? Did they change this or do I just forget the details?
4. Speaking of Donna. In three hours of screen time over two episodes she has only had three short appearances and two lines and yet she's billed as one of the stars in the opening credits. Thanks Daddy! When does she become a real character?
5. Speaking of characters, Dylan has finally made an appearance. 1990's Dylan is HOT! I forgot that.
6. Speaking of hot, Brandon really has the most gorgeous eyes. Totally makes me forget how short he is. Until I see him walking away with his arm around Brenda....on tiptoe.
7. Even though he's short Brandon gets the girls. Two episodes in and he's already loved and lost twice, seen past the shallow/party girl facade and the bimbo/surfer girl facade into the inner person of both girls and even managed to save one of their lives in an alcohol/surfing related accident which just happened to wake her up to get the help she needs. Brandon = saviour.
8. Also, every time Brandon says Andrea's name he pronounces it Andrea not On-dreya. And she never corrects him! When does she become Ondreya?
9. It doesn't seem like it's possible for the series to be so old but there is nary a cell phone to be seen, portable phones have to have the antenna pulled out, and mail comes as actual letters on paper.
10. Dylan wears a lot of denim overalls with one strap undone. Was that really cool? It seems the antithesis of the bad boy to me now, did I think it was cool then?

If you want to relive your past, enjoy the opening credits of Season 1 courtesy of YouTube.

Nothing overwhelmingly important or exciting. Don't you want to read it now?

2011-01-12T12:00:00.000-08:00

Every Monday night Hugh has a music practice for the upcoming Sunday morning. For whatever reason this week Tristan and Ava were inconsolable that he had to leave. They tearfully watched him through the slats in our living room blinds as he got into his car and drove away. When he was finally out of sight they collapsed sobbing into each others arms. They were really working themselves up, each feeding off the other, cries getting louder and louder and more hysterical. It was quite comical really and then Sebastian - the younger brother - pipes up and says, "Guys! Guys! Don't worry, Daddy will be back. Daddy will be back guys. Don't worry. It's okay, it's okay."

********************

I watched Beverly Hills 90210 religiously when I was in highschool. Just for kicks I watched the series premier the other night. It was hilarious. The clothes! White shorts and white socks on girls... and guys - Steve Sanders I'm looking at you - was quite the trend. The hair! Brandon seriously rocked the mullet. The synthesizer in all the mood music. The fat girl no one wanted to be chemistry partners with which is how Brenda and Kelly first meet. SO not an okay story line! Brian Austen Green. Is so wee in the first episode his voice hadn't even dropped yet. Also, Dylan? Where was Dylan? Why wasn't he in the two-hour premier? I need to know when he shows up. I guess I'll have to keep watching...

********************

Tristan hates change. Last week I took the kids to the video store to rent a movie. It was a cold grey day and nothing appealed to me more than gathering my little chicks under my arms and cuddling all up under a blanket and watching a movie. After ix-naying a Power Rangers we've already seen, and a Justice League we've already seen, and another Power Rangers we've already seen, and a Barbie I didn't want to see I used my parental rights and decided to rent Nanny McPhee. Oh the tears! Oh the wailing and gnashing of teeth! If there had been sackcloth and ashes handy my kids would have walked out of Blockbuster wearing them. Can you say no concept of real suffering?

After declaring my intention of watching the movie by myself they all caved and sat and watched it with me. Surprise, surprise, they loved it. And watched it at least three times over the week we had it. Today it's -26. It's cold and grey and snowing. On the way home from Costco I decided to whip into the video store and pick up another movie. Since they liked the first one so much I thought renting the second one, Nanny McPhee Returns, would be a hit. Oh right. I forgot who I was dealing with. The first thing Tristan said was, "But I wanted the other one! I only like the other one!" This is also the kid who will not try chocolate cake if it comes in any other shape but a square, chips other than Creamy Dill, and generally anything he doesn't recognize or hasn't tasted before. He is a walking catch 22.

********************

I am making my kids popcorn for lunch. Don't judge. We just got back from Costco and there were a lot of good samples today. So many that we don't actually need lunch. I told the kids I'd make popcorn for the movie but they can't quite wrap their heads around the fact that 12:00 has come (and almost gone) and they haven't had lunch. So I told them we're having popcorn for lunch. Which I better go make before they decide to mutiny.

How do you survive grey days with kids at home?

Life on the Prairies with Prarie people

2011-01-10T10:04:00.000-08:00

Saturday night was our 11th wedding anniversary. We celebrated in flannel. We've been recovering from the Holidays and I was fighting a cold and it was blizzarding outside. Here's a short video Hugh took Saturday night.

It really doesn't do justice to what it was like and you can't see the trampoline at the end because it's too dark but you get the idea. When that big ol' Prairie wind is combined with a whole lot of snow you get drifts. Really, really, really big drifts. The kind that buries the trampoline that the wind tossed across the yard like a rag doll. The kind that strands vehicles in back lanes and in front of your house. The kind you have to literally dig yourself out of. Hugh did a whole lot of shoveling yesterday morning so he could get the van dug out and take the big kids to church. (Sebastian and I hung out at home in our jammies. The cold I was fighting Saturday took me down yesterday.) Then later that night he went out with the kids again and dug out our sidewalks, the walk up to our house and all the snow that had built back up between our van and the road.

This morning I woke up feeling way better so I pulled on some workout clothes and went to go start the van. I opened the front door and all I could see was snow, snow and more snow. Gone was the walk up to our house. Gone were our sidewalks. Back was a huge mound of snow between our van and the road. For a minute I thought I was living the movie Groundhog Day. Didn't Hugh just shovel? I dug out my Sorels got the van started and tried to plow through the huge hill of snow. Now I'm sure this will come as a big surprise but try not to be too shocked, it's not good for the heart. I got stuck. High-centered to be exact. Hugh came out and tried to push me out with no success. And then we were surrounded. Not one, not two, but three, trucks stopped to help. Three!

With all that help I was out in a trice (sorry, while I was sick I reread Pride & Prejudice and Persuasion) and on my way to Curves. Several hours later I am still amazed at how many people busy with their own lives and their own errands and their own reasons for why it would be inconvenient to stop, stopped anyway. To help out a stranger. It challenged me. How often am I so caught up in my own life and my own concerns that I see a need and literally, or figuratively, just keep driving?

I'm not really sure where this post is going except I felt a sense of community, of pulling together, this morning and it touched my heart in a big way and I just wanted to share. Also, Hugh has a whole lotta shoveling to do again today!

There's always tomorrow

2011-01-07T13:08:00.000-08:00

I mentioned in my first post of 2011 that I'm feeling just a bit, well, "meh" about this year. Normally I'm really excited to start a new year. Everything feels so fresh, so new, so possible. Well, it's Friday today and I haven't got more dressed than Lulu's since last Sunday afternoon. It's been a pretty steady rotation of getting up and exchanging my pajama pants for Lulu's to work out in and then having a bath and putting on fresh Lulu's. I almost wore jeans a couple days ago. I even got one leg on and then I felt the restrictiveness of the denim and was suddenly all, get it off! get it off! get it off! get it off! The denim meant I had to move on, get things done, be all productive, clean my bathrooms. I frantically kicked my leg until the jeans flew off, grabbed my Lulu's and slipped, with great relief, back into slow motion.

Yesterday I tried again to come back to life. I was feeling chilled so I set the kids up with a movie and went to have a bath. I wanted to spend some time connecting with God and get some fresh vision and inspiration for this year. About 15 minutes in I had two little boys hanging out in the bathroom with me. Don't you want to watch your movie, I asked them? Nope. They wanted to feel how hot the bath water was. Well then their sleeves got wet so they had to take their shirts off. Then they wanted to sit on the edge of the tub and dip their feet in. Which made their pant legs wet. And they had to take those off too. Had to. Apparently. And then suddenly instead of having some alone, refresh time I had two little boys in nothing but briefs wading in my tub and putting their faces in the water to see where my legs were so they wouldn't step on me. Cuz Mom, they said, WE DON'T WANT TO INTERRUPT YOUR BATH.

Sebastian makes an announcement

2011-01-05T21:06:00.000-08:00

Excuse me everyone! I said excuse me everyone! I have something to say.

I'M POTTY TRAINED!!!!!

And you know what? It was soooo easy!

(not at all like my older brother, shhhh.....)

Not exactly starting with a bang

2011-01-04T12:39:00.000-08:00

January 4th huh? Hard to believe we're already four days into 2011. I usually take time each January 1st to transfer birthday and anniversary details from the previous year's calendar to a new one. As I go through each month and reread all the appointments and details that made up my life last year I remember what was good or hard or sad, I think about what worked and didn't work, I recognize that I will never get that year back and then I journal a bit and spend some time in reflection thinking about what I want the coming year to look like. I give myself a little check-up about my relationships, health, writing goals, the womens ministry I lead at our church and I make some intentional decisions about how to make each area better.

Sounds good right?

Well, December passed in a blur of tradesmen and Christmas prep. Then the Holidays passed in a blur of company. Hugh's brother, sister-in-law and their two youngest children (8 and 6) and Hugh's parents were all here over the Holidays. It was crazy!

And oh so much fun! Lots of laughing, lots of bonding between the cousins and lot's of co-op Mario - for the adults. Hugh's brother and fam left on the 28th (I think...days had no meaning over the Holidays!) and his parents left on Jan 2nd. And then I crashed. As soon as the door closed after waving them off I changed into my pajama's and went to bed. And stayed there for the rest of the day. Yesterday we were finally able to take our tree down and get our house de-Christmased and last night we were finally able to go downstairs and take a moment to say, hey guess what? OUR BASEMENT IS DONE! And then we fell onto our couch, which quite literally is the most comfortable couch I've ever sat on, the way it envelops you and makes you never want to move again, (though that could be the exhaustion talking) and basked in the glory of a finally finished project. Minus a few pictures to hang and all the boxes we've never unpacked in the five years we've lived in Alberta.

The point is, although we stayed up till 12:01am New Year's Eve, although I technically know it's a New Year, it just hasn't had a chance to register yet and I feel like I'm starting 2011 a bit wrong-footed. Though I did finally get my calendar details transferred today. And found out my kids first day back to school is not Friday, it's tomorrow. They alternate Wednesdays with the other Kindergarten class and I had it in my head it was the other class this Wednesday. Apparently not. Which means I have a bunch of laundry to do and I have to find their water bottles and lunch kits and other assorted school paraphernalia so my journaling and all that other reflective stuff will have to wait. Also? When I got to June and wrote down that Hugh is turning 37 this year I felt a terrific jolt of panic. 37 is old! We're not old! When I picture someone 37 I picture my parents and their friends like they were when I was in my teens. They were old! We are not old!

Hey did you hear that?

The chaise on our couch downstairs is calling my name. It's quite insistently really. I should probably go see what it wants. And I should probably take my tea and a book. You know, just in case.

My Christmas House Tour

2010-12-21T14:08:00.000-08:00

Welcome!

Come in! Come in!

I'll take your coat while you turn to your immediate left and step into my living room:

Feel free to wander.

These berry sprays were used on our wedding cake almost 11 years ago.

This is my attempt to make our built-ins more festive:

Feel free to touch the shells. There's a few already being held together with tape.

This TV is getting moved downstairs, probably tomorrow, once Hugh finishes building our basement entertainment unit. What to fill this big huge gaping hole with...?

(The swoopy thing is strands of Capiz Shells, just in case you were dying to know.)

If you look to the left of our mantle you'll see our family. The pictures were taken two years ago by my friend Simone but they're my favourite pictures ever so we haven't had new ones taken. Oh, and the white ball lights up. It's so pretty at night.

Directly opposite this dresser is our tree:

We've had the same strands of lights for 10 years and last week one of our strands burnt out. If Christmas were perfect we'd be in the movies. I'm just sayin'...

Come closer:

Seeing the kids handiwork beside my glass balls and grown up ornaments makes me smile.

Really close:

The glass waterfalls are new to my tree this year, a gift from a friend.

We got this Santa as a housewarming gift in our first house. He's come a long way with us.

Come into the kitchen for some tea. You'll notice we hang our stockings on our staircase:

We've never hung them on our mantel because Hugh hasn't wanted me to put nail holes in it and we've never had room for stocking hanger things with the tv et al. I'm thinking I'd like to try to knit some stockings for us next year.

As you take a seat at the island look behind you. This is me keeping it real.
My tins of baking are thrown haphazardly on the top of our hutch from getting the teacher gifts ready last night and I haven't touched them since. The lamp base has been sitting there for months. I'll get to it eventually.

Alright now come sip your tea while it's hot and let me tell you about Tristan and Ava's first school Christmas Concert. It was adorable and out of tune and hot in the gym. The grande finale at the end was The Hallelujah Chorus. Let me just say it was fitting....

Wallpaper Sneak Peak

2010-12-20T10:48:00.000-08:00

Hey do you know what's a good idea? Take on a major reno right before Christmas! It's super fun! Thank God the end is in sight. Well minus the tub/shower. Hugh was going to install the tub surround yesterday but when he opened the box the corners were broken and when he took it back they didn't have any more. He's actually relieved because now he's off the hook for getting it done.

On the plus side our wallpaper is going in right now. It looks fantastic! In the end we decided not to attempt putting it up ourselves. We've never put up wallpaper before and we didn't think five days before our company arrives for Christmas was a good time to learn. Between the pattern repeat and walls that aren't straight the ladies installing it, who are professionals, are having a difficult time and seeing their frustration makes me so glad we decided not to tackle it.

Here's a sneak peak:

I love it! (Sorry for the picture quality. I ran downstairs with my camera while they went for a smoke break so I had to be quick.) The only potential hiccup is they said they may need one more roll of the paper. It takes two to three weeks to come in... While I'm making more Christmas cookies (Chocolate Mint Truffle Cookies!) and washing bedding and towels and getting the kids' teacher gifts ready for tomorrow and making sure the kids school concert clothes are clean for tonight, I will also be praying we have enough paper.

This is how I cope

2010-12-16T10:19:00.000-08:00

I am so overwhelmed this morning.

It's coming down to the wire in terms of having our reno finished in time for our company. Painting is finished and the redo colour I picked (called Wintry Sky, by Cloverdale) for the bedroom/bathroom is fantastic. It's the exact grey-blue I was hoping for and I'm so glad we repainted it. Flooring and baseboards were installed Tuesday and wallpaper is going in on Monday. I ran downstairs to get some meat out of the freezer last night and it was so weird to step off our carpeted steps onto more carpet instead of a cement floor. It feels like a real living space now and it's exciting to see it coming along. Hugh still has a huge check list of lighting/plumbing fixtures/building cabinets etc to get the bathroom done. Plus we have an entertainment unit to build, pictures to hang, and all of our stuff in the garage - like the spare bed - has to get brought back in at some point before everyone arrives. Not to mention the whole basements needs a good cleaning.

Last night after doing my holiday grocery list I wrote a list of all the things I have to do between now and Christmas. Every moment of every day, including Christmas Eve, is accounted for. And I don't have anything basement related on my list. I am feeling very overwhelmed. And whenever I feel this way I crave tea and shortbread.

I have a pretty large, pretty eclectic collection of Christmas mugs. Hugh and I have been married for almost 11 years and every year for Christmas and sometimes for my birthday too he has bought me a Christmas mug. This year when I was unpacking them I realized they all have dates on the bottom so I lined them up on my counter according to year, a sort of Christmas mug timeline of our marriage. Each mug has a memory or feeling attached to it and one mug in particular I use whenever the busyness of the season threatens to consume me.

The Christmas I got this particular mug my twins were 4 months old and Hugh was still youth pastoring. That Fall had been difficult for us both. I had always been a very active part of Hugh's ministry and literally overnight I was cut-off and thrown into the confusing, emotional, exhausting role of new mother. And I had twins. Meanwhile Hugh was trying to find a way to cut down all the nights out (before babies he was literally out 4 or 5 nights each week) and still be effective while also being exhausted. When you're just learning how to nurse and then you're nursing two babies at once, everybody gets up at 5am to help!

I think we were very naive about the toll having two babies was going to take and so we didn't plan for it. We tried to do all the same things we had done in previous years which meant by the time we got to Boxing Day I was so beyond tired all I could do was cry. To be fair by the time Boxing Day came each year we youth pastored I pretty much felt done with Christmas and just needed some time to decompress - which we never got because we had to be gearing up for our New Year's Eve event and there was always a church service or two between Christmas and New Years and it was people, people, people, event after event after event with no room to breathe.

The Christmas the babies were 4 months old I stayed home from church the first Sunday after Christmas Day. I hadn't yet figured out how to nurse two babies in public without being arrested for public nudity and the babies had recently changed their feeding schedules so I stayed home. I stayed in my cozy Christmas flannels, made a cup of tea in my new Christmas mug put a few shortbread cookies on a plate and curled up under a blanket on the couch with my book. Miraculously the babies napped all morning. I still remember every detail of that morning six years ago. It is so crystal clear how quiet and still my house felt. I remember the feel of the warm cup cradled in my hands, the sounds of the pages of my book turning. I even still remember the book I was reading - Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley. I didn't move all morning except to make a fresh cup of tea. It was the most glorious day of the entire Christmas season.

When I hold this mug, which fits so perfectly in my hands, I feel like I hold the peace of that morning six years ago. Today, as I look at my list and think of all the things I need to do/make/get ready, I really need that peace. And also a shortbread cookie.

Smiling is Buddy's favourite

2010-12-13T12:55:00.000-08:00

It was my birthday yesterday. I turned 33. It was a lovely day. I came downstairs to a perfectly prepared, steaming hot cup of tea and a gift bag on the table. Hugh bought me a great pair of heeled black ankle boots. I thought I might want to try the next size up so in the afternoon I went shopping with a friend. Once we got to to the shoe store (there were a few diversions along the way) just for fun I thought I'd try on a few different styles of boots. That was a really bad idea. Or good, depending on how you look at it. I left the store with the boots Hugh bought me in their original size. And two more pairs of boots. I don't usually like to spend my birthday money the day I get it. There is something so delicious about having that money to spend on whatever I might care to spend it on and I usually like to savour the feeling but I was standing in the store wearing one flat black boot and one flat brown boot and agonizing about which one to get when I decided that birthday money meant it didn't have to be either/or. It could be the genius of the and! Thank you Mom and Jay.

We got home from shopping just in time for me to brush my teeth, change into my new ankle boots and head out for dinner with Hugh. We walked into the restaurant and I stopped dead and took a step back. In the middle of the room was a huge long table full of people. And I recognized....all of them? In fact I was going to be at a Christmas party with most of them the next night and I wondered if I had gotten my dates confused. As my mind was occupied trying to decide, my eyes were unconsciously taking in the chair draped with a white feather boa and a cluster of balloons and a pile of presents in the middle of the table. My mind felt very slow as it raced around trying to figure out what was going on and then the table full of people I recognized starting singing. To me. And I realized I had walked right into my own surprise party and all those people were there for me. And then I burst into tears.

December birthdays can be hard. How do you ask people to add one more thing to their to-do list at an incredibly busy time of year? How do you even find a date to get together? I think the the last birthday party I had was the year I turned 16. Or maybe it was 14 or 15? I can't remember exactly. What I do remember is Disney's "Beauty and The Beast" had just come out on VHS and it was a really big deal that we could rent it for my birthday. Before watching the movie we went sledding at the elementary school and one of my friends wrapped herself around the steel base of the swings and ended up with a broken tailbone though it wasn't discovered until the next day. Can you believe she managed to walk back to my house and sit through the movie? I'm telling you Beauty and The Beast was a big deal! That was definitely a memorable birthday. As was my 30th when we met up with my best friend and her husband in Calgary for the weekend. Such a perfect way to celebrate that milestone. And now I can add another one to the list of memorable birthdays. Walking into that restaurant last night, seeing everyone sitting there, knowing they had all shown up for me (my friend Tabitha actually switched a nursing shift so she could be there) at this crazy, busy, expensive time of year? I will never forget that feeling as long as I live.

Now before you go and give Hugh a pat on the back for his awesomeness, and I know you want to, I need to give credit where credit is due. The surprise party wasn't actually Hugh's idea, it was my friend Rebecca's, who I did all my Christmas baking with. During the course of that weekend my birthday plans came up and I told her Hugh and I would probably just go for dinner, that December birthdays were tricky which was why I hadn't had a party in so many years. She told me last night she decided that was just not okay so she got on the phone to another friend then asked Hugh what he had planned and then told him about the surprise party idea which, again, giving credit where credit is due, Hugh was all for. Rebecca's husband said at dinner, "You knew right? You had to have known." Are you kidding? Once I stopped crying it took me a good hour to stop shaking from the shock! My friend, Mir, who I had been shoe shopping with that afternoon and who had dropped me off at home on her way to a friend's for dinner said, "I told everyone if you cry when you come in you didn't know." Rebecca said, "You looked like you didn't recognize anybody when you walked in the door." I absolutely did. I just couldn't figure out why they were all there!

When you don't live near your family you have to create one. There were 18 of us around the table last night and as I looked at each face I felt so grateful to God for giving me this amazing family. If you were there last night and you read this, thank you, thank you, thank you. After dinner most of us went back to Marc and Rebecca's and at the end of the night my cheeks were aching from laughing and I had laugh/cried all my make-up off. I fell asleep last night with a very full heart, waking up every few hours to pinch myself and make sure I hadn't dreamed it all. I can now say with good authority, SURPRISE PARTIES ARE MY FAVOURITE

The best laid plans

2010-12-08T21:21:00.000-08:00

We chose two paint colours for the basement. The green - #7824 that I have since discovered is called Garden Promenade - which I severely agonized over before choosing and is going in the living room/playroom. The other colour we chose is called Rainwater by Martha Stewart and it's going in the spare room/bathroom and I did not agonize over it for one second. There was nothing to agonize over, it's a lovely grey-blue and it's perfect.

Or not.

Or maybe it was painted today and ended up not being grey-blue at all but more like green-blue. And by green-blue I mean more like green. I hate it. HATE it. Being more green than blue means it's going to severely clash with the green I did agonize over. Which, by the way, is doing nothing for my confidence levels about #7824. Rainwater is going to have to be re-painted. Painted what, I don't know but looking at that hideous colour downstairs I don't feel like I can trust myself to fix it.

On another note, I've decided to replace the logs in our fireplace with money. I think it'll do more for us in the long run.

The difference a year makes Part 1

2010-12-06T14:12:00.000-08:00

On Friday night I went to my second annual Purse Party. It's a party that is now in it's fourth year and began with a circle of girls who wanted to buy Christmas presents for each other without breaking the bank buying a gift for each girl. Instead everyone brings a purse - limit $30 - and the purses are exchanged via Chinese gift exchange. Both years I've attended I've been amazed at the purses everyone has found for $30.

Last year was my first year and I was feeling very anxious while I was getting ready for the party. I was only on a surface acquaintanceship with most of the girls in the room and I just felt like I didn't belong, that I didn't fit. At the party I chatted and laughed along with the others but I wasn't quite able to shake that lonely feeling of being separate from the crowd. I did however go home with a fantastic purse! It was this one, which just so happened to be the one I brought:

The beginning of 2010 was a bit of a starting over for me as two of my go-to girlfriends with kids moved away. I have always thought the hardest part of starting over is the amount of time it takes to build relationships. Strong friendships are built over time and shared experiences, neither of which can be shortcut. This year, after a year of coffees, girls nights out and dinners at my house, as I sat in the circle of girls waiting for the game to begin, I felt like I was home. Over the last year these girls have become my people, my family since I have none here, and I felt exactly as if I belonged. The other difference this year is I didn't take home the purse I brought. I took home this one:

Isn't she purty?

Snippets

2010-12-02T09:26:00.000-08:00

I found a small black chandelier with black crystals to hang over the kids play area in the basement. I tried to find a link for it but apparently it doesn't exist anywhere except in the box in my house.

We got our tree on Tuesday night and now our house smells like Christmas. Tonight we're going to decorate and I'm going to try to contain my control-freakishness in the midst of three very excited children.

I heard our front door open and close the other night and Sebastian came to me smelling of winter and carrying the cold from outside. “Mom!” he said. “It’s winter! I just checked!”

Ava has a thing with her wrists and ankles. She rolls up her pants when we’re at home because she doesn’t like feeling her pants brushing against her heels or ankles She constantly looks like she’s about to go wading. She also doesn’t like to feel the sleeves of her shirt on her wrists so she rolls those up too. This has made the process of putting on snow gear rather unbearable. Every time she’s put on her winter coat she’s cried. Literally. And snowpants? When the pants she’s wearing ride up inside and she can feel the elasticized lining on her ankle? Whoa.

Tristan recently learned how to snap. The End.
Of my sanity that is. He worked so hard to learn that he created an unconscious habit. He gets up from the table after a meal, he snaps. He heads upstairs to get dressed, he snaps. He walks towards the bathroom, he snaps. He reaches for another Ninja Turtle, he snaps. You ask him a question and while he's thinking about the answer, he snaps. You tell him something exciting, he snaps. I sat beside him at dinner the other night and it was a constant snap! snap! snap! in my ear. Oh. my. lord. This Mama is about to snap!

When we did our baking, Rebecca and I split a quadrupled batch of butter tarts. Yesterday I realized that in 5 days we’ve gone through half of our double batch and that means I won’t have enough tarts to have one for breakfast everyday between now and New Years. I already know that I will be starting 2011 like I started 2009. Just, instead of Burpees you can insert Curves. Today I got an email from Rebecca asking for the recipe. The butter tarts are disappearing at an alarming rate in her house too. And she’s not sharing with any kids! Well, I’m not really either. I keep offering my kids the almond crescents trying to sell them as “moustache cookies”. It’s not working. I would call those the flop of 2010. I won’t be making them again. Today I actually broke down and let my kids each have their own butter tart. I know. The generosity is killing me too. Literally. It’s killing me to share. Maybe it won’t hurt so much if I have a quadruple batch on hand.

And this is what my kids are doing right now while I'm writing this. At their behest I zipped two sleeping bags together so they could make the biggest bed ever, Mom! I wonder how long it will be before someone goes exploring and gets stuck at the bottom. Did you ever do that as a kid? It's terrifying. I'm pretty sure I can trace my adult claustrophobia back to a childhood sleeping bag incident.

Neither Hibiscus nor Mimosa

2010-11-30T21:15:00.000-08:00

Remember how I had definitely decided on the paint colour Mimosa? Well....

As you know I've been looking for a yellowy-green. I found Mimosa. Hugh has never been a fan of it. He refers to it as "that yellow one" whereas the other samples on the wall are called by their names: hibiscus, lime twist, pear etc. Whenever I'm looking at our paint chips fanned across our island or taped up on the wall, my eye is always drawn to the Mimosa. But it is a bold colour so one night we decide to paint a few test samples of a few colours on the wall downstairs. When we finish and the paint is dry I decide against it. In the dark with our room lights on it's almost neon. Like 80's yellow neon. We try switching out our lights from soft white to bright white which actually makes it worse. No question, Mimosa is not what I'm looking for. I'm definitely decided against it.

And then I wake up the next morning and go back downstairs to reassess the other colours on the wall in the natural light. And then I love the Mimosa. It's an acid yellow-y green and perfect. So I decide that's the one I really want. Then Hugh comes home from work and I tell him I've definitely decided on Mimosa and we go downstairs to look at it and the sun has gone down and we flip on our lights and...we're back to fluorescent. And this goes on for a few days and every time I decide yes, Mimosa, Hugh says, I trust you, which somehow makes me feel less confident rather than more. On Friday I email our contractor and give him our paint colours and Mimosa makes the final cut. Then on Sunday I email him again to say I'm having a mild panic attack about Mimosa and can we have a bit more time. Then last night it's back to the paint store for more samples. We get another sample on the wall and decide finally 100% against Mimosa. Hugh is relieved. Now he feels free to tell me how much he dislikes that colour. Although on Sunday when he didn't know that I was late because of sheer klutz and he had convinced himself I was late because I had rolled the van and wasn't coming at all, ever, he did decide he would paint the basement Mimosa for me, since that's the one I had really wanted.

The point to this entire post is after many paint chips, several paint samples and much debate I'd like to announce we have finally decided on a colour. Drum roll please.... We picked #7824! That's kind of anti-climactic isn't it? I can't remember the name on the paint chip and I'm too lazy to get up to check. It's from Cloverdale. The colour is a bit less yellow than I was originally looking for but I'm exercising my womanly prerogative and changing my mind.

It reads a bit darker on the wall sample but I'm happy with it. I am. I've even made it official by emailing it to our contractor. It's just...I'm kind of wondering if I should have gone with the one that was one lighter on the strip. I can't go back and get another paint sample because technically Cloverdale doesn't do samples anymore and they only gave me this sample as a one time deal. It's okay. I'm sure this one will be fine. I like it. I really do. Do I love it? At this point, I've lost all perspective. I have never been this indecisive about a paint colour before but I've also never paid someone to paint so the pressure not to screw it up is enormous. If I paint and don't like it I'm only out the cost of the paint. If they paint it and I don't like it it's a way more costly mistake. I really hope I haven't screwed it up.

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

2010-11-29T10:06:00.000-08:00

Christmas baking this weekend was a success! We started Friday night and made Parmesan Bread Knots and Butter Tarts. I've always used my mom's filling recipe for butter tarts but I've used pre-made tart shells because in our first year of marriage I tried to make a pumpkin pie and a "never fail" pastry recipe failed dismally. Last year when my parents came out for Christmas my mom brought her butter tarts with homemade pastry. I bit into the slightly sugar-crystallized top and flaky pastry arms into a gooey centre - it was almost a spiritual experience.

This year I baked with my friend Rebecca. She is a newlywed and a self-proclaimed disaster in the kitchen. (She lied, she's fantastic.) We got together one night and sipped candy cane tea and sorted through recipes to come up with our final baking list and split the ingredients list. One of the recipes I was responsible for was butter tarts and I bought pre-made tart shells. And then I got to thinking about last Christmas and my mom's butter tarts and I went out the night before our baking extravaganza began and bought Tenderflake. When I was going through the till the cashier exclaimed, "Oh this is the absolute best for making pastry. It's no fail. Seriously you can't mess this up." I didn't have the heart to tell her I was the one person in history who already had.

I made the pastry the day of and put it in the fridge to let the gluten (or whatever) settle. And I put the tart shells into the fridge to defrost. Just in case. Later that night we rolled out the pastry and it seemed to be okay. We popped our first test batch in the oven. My mom's instructions are to bake until the insides are bubbling and the pastry is browned, 12-15 min. The insides bubbled at about the 15 min mark but the pastry took forever to brown. By the time the pastry was brown the insides where very dark. Darker than I remember my mom's being. But by the last of our four trays we had got the timing figured out and they were perfect. We called it a night at 11:30pm.

We were back at it 9:30am Saturday morning. Well I was. Rebecca slept in (the joys of no kids) and came at 10:30 but she came bearing Starbucks and Spiced Rum so who's complaining? The coffee got our morning off to a great start and the rum, which we added to eggnog, helped us get through the end of the night when we felt "all done" but weren't. We broke for sandwiches at noon and I helpfully cut Rebecca's into fourths. Having kids changes you. I'm just saying. At one point in the afternoon the combination of an endless amount of two double batches of shortbread and Sarah Mclachlan's Christmas CD were lulling us into a kind of dull autopilot. Talking had ceased altogether and I felt like I was asleep on my feet. A few bars (and several sips of Pepsi) into Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas Is You and we were revived! Caffeine + Mimi = Magic.

Hugh had to work Saturday and Rebecca's husband had other things on the go but our men arrived in time for dinner and hoping for some samples of our hard work. It's always good to hope, isn't it? After dinner Rebecca and I were back at it. By 10:00pm we had finished:
4 pans of Cherry Slice,
3 pans of Toblerone Mousse Squares,
2 pans of Orange Chocolate Biscotti,
4 loaves of Eggnog Bread,
2 double batches of Shortbread Cookies,
2 trays of Peppermint Bark,
2 pans of Pecan Bars,
6 sheets of Almond Crescents,
2 batches of Porcini Mushroom Phyllo filling,
2 batches of Spinach Feta Phyllo filling.
We were exhausted. Our feet were killing us but all we had left to do was assemble our two different kinds of phyllo. We poured ourselves a rum and eggnog and invited our men to help but they had both fallen asleep on the couch already. I would have said they were pretending if it weren't for the snoring. By the time we finished and everything was packed up and washed up it was 12:30am. Which just happened to be when the guys woke up from their naps. Aren't coincidences crazy?

Hugh had to be at church early on Sunday morning because he was doing sound so he took the big kids with him and Beesh crawled in bed bedside me and let me sleep in. I dragged my tired self out of bed around 9:00am and drifted into the shower where my arms felt like they each weighed a tonne when I was lifting them to wash my hair. I felt like I was moving in slow motion all morning and then finally I looked at the clock and realized I was going to be very late if I didn't get a move on. Church starts at 10:30 and at 10:29 I was running out the door with a cup of tea I hadn't had time to drink and a butter tart since I didn't have time for breakfast. My foot hit the first of our front steps and then I was launched into the air, tea and butter tart going in two different directions, and landed two steps below. I sat in the snow for a while to assess the damage. Tea? A few sips left. Me? Okay I think. Butter tart? I looked around and saw it lying in three pieces upside down in the snow. I had grabbed that butter tart off the top of my tin so it was one of the really good ones from the last tray when we finally figured out the right baking time. I was not letting it go to waste! And you know what? Even covered in snow it was amazing. I think I'm going to have a butter tart for breakfast every day.

A season of...receiving?

2010-11-26T09:36:00.000-08:00

We're going to do it. We're going to paint our basement Mimosa. I am 90% confident and 10% crippling anxiety. Good thing I'm Christmas baking this weekend. If it ends up horrible at least I'll have a lot of sugar on hand to cushion the blow.

Also in the spirit of Christmas our downtown had it's annual midnight madness. So. Much. Fun. I didn't get home until almost 1:00am. That's late for an old girl! Best deal of the night was at our fancy name brand store. Every year they turn their upstairs warehouse into deal central. Most things were 75% off the original price which sounds great but when a skirt is $275 to begin with it's still pricey. They did however have one wall of things that were between $1 and $10. That's the wall I shopped. Here's what I walked away with:

Basic cardigan. Retailed for $79. I paid $1. I'm not even kidding.

French Connection top. Retailed for $108. I paid $3.

Black top with ruching down the side. Retailed at $160. I paid $2.

Grey pencil skirt. Retailed at $95. I paid $2.

Lastly, a black pleated crepe skirt. Retailed at $109. Again, I paid $2.

Total original retail price of five item? $546.00.
Total price I paid: $10.

Merry Christmas to me. Or Happy Birthday. Or Happy Anniversary. Take your pick. They're all within a month of each other. I don't even know how many percent off that is. What I do know is that the other stores who were offering 10% off or even 30% just didn't seem like deals after that!

Mimosa or Hibiscus?

2010-11-25T07:51:00.000-08:00

We had our first report cards and parent teacher interviews this week. Everything was good and I'm so proud of how well the kids have settled into school. The only little blip was Tristan: "Tristan sometimes has trouble focusing in small and large group activities. He can do the work but he likes to socialize." Welcome to every report card I ever had!

Anyway, what I really wanted to talk about today is how picking paint colours for the basement is stressing me out. Remember how I said I wanted a citron-y green? For the first time ever Benjamin Moore has let me down. But I did find one, it's called Mimosa and it's by Martha Stewart for Home Depot. It's shocking. It's vibrant. It's bold. It's exactly what I want. I think. I don't know if I'm gutsy enough to take the plunge. I think with all the black and white it will look amazing but what if I hate it? What if I only think it will be great but really it will be a big hot yellow mess and make our whole basement will look a flu-sick version of itself? It's all well and good to say it's just paint you can always repaint it but the whole point of having someone paint our basement is SO I DON'T HAVE TO DO IT! I am not one of those people who finds their bliss in a paint roller. My painting bliss only goes as far as opening the can of paint and pouring out the liquid loveliness. What if I hate it???

I think with a colour like Mimosa painting a test strip still isn't enough to get a good idea of how it will look overall. I tried to take a picture of it so you could weigh in but, bah, that was a waste of time. I can't get it to translate well from chip to camera. So. What should I do? Risky and possibly what I really want and equally possibly a total mess? or safe and "fine"? (Can I just say that being chronically indecisive is really not an asset?)

What would you do?

There's a hole in my pocket

2010-11-23T12:45:00.000-08:00

We bought a couch yesterday. A great big sectional for the basement. It's not leather and therefore super cozy. Wait, let me qualify that. We have leather couches in our main floor living room and I love them. They're comfortable and every time one of my children has vomited on our couches I have been thankful for our long ago, before we had kids, decision to buy leather. It's just that in the winter when it's -32 plus prairie windchill which is more like -50 (literally) leather takes a while to warm up. Our basement is cold. At least it is right now. It's hard to tell how cold it will be once we have walls and carpet but I still figured a soft, cushy, cozy fabric sofa was better than cold leather and if anyone is sick they can lie on the upstairs couches that wipe down easily. We - and by we I mean I - even managed to like one that was not $7 million dollars and get this, it's even in stock! Here's the picture off the store's website.

The toss cushions are dead ugly but it's nothing a little black and white fabric and my seldom used sewing machine can't fix! Don't you want to curl up on that chaise with a cozy blanket and a cup of hot cocoa? And if the cocoa just happens to have Bailey's in it? Well it's very warming I'll have you know!

We also thought we got our carpet sorted yesterday. Turns out...not so much. We're trying to match the carpet that the builders installed to the bottom of the stairs in the basement. It takes two to three weeks for carpet to come in once it's ordered so we really needed to get it done as the clock to Christmas company is ticking. After hitting multiple (4) carpet places we picked the best match at the best price with the store who could guarantee an install before Christmas. We then went to Starbucks very relieved and much poorer than when we woke up that morning.

We got home several hours and multiple errands later to this message: "So the carpet you wanted is on back-order at the manufacturer's and won't arrive until December 23rd at the earliest." Did I mention we have a pretty small window of time to complete this reno? December 23rd is when Hugh's brother and sister-in-law arrive. We had just taken our coats off when we had to put them back on and head out into the cold again.

We went to one of the other carpet places that also had a great match but was a bit more expensive to see about their carpet availability and likelihood of a pre-Christmas install. Seriously, I'm not sure if the guy who helped us had ever talked to a customer before in his life. He looked at us from out of the corner of his eyes and often talked to the ceiling while brushing his hands over his receding hairline. This flooring place priced their carpet by the square yard with the price including underlay and install. Our guy didn't know how to tell how much just the carpet price was. (Divide it by 9, he said. I didn't want to know the price per square foot but um, thanks?) He didn't know how much they charged for underlay. He didn't know how much they charged for install. (Ummm, I think it's maybe about 7....ish...I think.) He didn't know where the carpet got ordered from or how long it would take to get here and he didn't know how to find out. During his fifth absence to ask another associate one of our extremely complex questions Hugh looked at me and said, "I bet his kill score for Call of Duty is insane." I hope his mom doesn't charge too much rent because I'd be willing to bet being a salesman isn't exactly making him the big bucks.

We left taking their carpet sample with us and called our original flooring place to see if they carried this same carpet. They did. And at a better price. Hello! It will officially be here December 7th and installed shortly after that. And now I can go back to breathing a sigh of relief. We will have floors, and walls and a couch by Christmas. This is a very good start!

Here's what I have left to do:
1. Find a great light fixture for over the kids play area.
2. Nail down exactly what colour we're painting our walls. I want a kind of citron-y green but it can't be too yellow and it can't be too blue.
3. Buy fabric for toss cushions.
4. Sew fabric for toss cushions.
5. Get a sink and vanity and faucet for basement bathroom.
6. Shelving unit of some kind for towels.
7. Buy towels.
8. Find and purchase TV stand and surrounding storage units.
9. Buy a kids table and chairs that can also be used upstairs so we have enough places for everyone to sit during mealtimes over the Holidays.

Hugh and I already agreed we weren't going to buy Christmas gifts for each other this year because of the basement but it looks like we won't be buying anniversary gifts, mother's day gifts or father's day gifts this year either!

Snow, Snow and More Snow. And some pictures.

2010-11-18T10:26:00.000-08:00

On Monday we had green grass. And brown trees. And blue skies. And then it started to snow in the wee hours betwixt and between Monday night and Tuesday morning and it hasn't stopped snowing since. Our town has been officially bleached. The kids are thrilled and they've been outside multiple times everyday to play in the snow. This was their first play in the snow. I didn't actually want to go outside to take these pictures (Hello! It was snowing!) so I took most of them through my kitchen window. The quality isn't that great. Because of the window. It has nothing to do with the fact that I don't know how to use my stupid camera at all. Simone! Help!

So what do you do on the first snow play of the season? Teach your little brother the ropes.

Lesson #1: How to make a snow angel. Ava first because she's bossiest.

Then Tristan.

Did you see how we did that Sebastian?

Good form. Good form.

Lesson #2: In a snowball fight it's always boys against girls.

Lesson #3: Mom always has hot chocolate ready when we come inside

The kids want me to take them sledding today but I'm waiting to hear from the carpet people about coming to measure up our basement so, darn! I can't. I'm really disappointed. Sigh. I guess I'll just have to drink endless cups of tea by the fire as compensation.

Hello Winter

2010-11-16T13:23:00.000-08:00

Two years ago Hugh wired half of our unfinished basement. Then he got laid off for four months and then we never got back to it. Until this September when the already-extended-once building permit was suddenly only 6 months away from expiring and causing us to be hugely fined. We also wanted to get it done before Christmas and all Hugh's family arrived for the holidays. Hugh finished the wiring, installed whatever we needed for central vac, and learned enough about plumbing that he was able to successfully plumb the bathroom. At which point Hugh ran out of energy and time as Christmas is suddenly just around the corner. Christmas busyness + learning new trades (drywalling and finishing) + having a full-time day job + a tight deadline = !!!!! We decided to give ourselves the gift of sanity this Christmas and contracted out the drywall, finishing and even painting so it will be done for when the troops arrive.

Which brings me to the fun stuff. Wallpaper! Paint! Furniture! The main part of our basement is going to be a combined kids play area and Hugh's media mecca. This has been a challenge from a design perspective that I've solved by going black and white. In the kids area there will be a small white table and black chairs and I've picked a playful black and white damask to go along the toy storage wall. The toy storage is white with multi-coloured bins for some colour. Opposite the play area will be tv and components and extra storage which will all be black and white and then I'll get some pops of colour on the couch - which we haven't found yet - with pillows.

Since everything else from a building perspective is now going to go so much faster we need to get our wallpaper and carpet ordered and line up some painters. Oh and find some furniture we can sit on. Today is Tuesday. My one morning a week when all the kids are in school. The one morning a week I get to be gloriously alone. This particular Tuesday is the day I planned to get the wallpaper ordered and hit a few carpet places for price quotes.

And it's a snow day.

The schools in town are still open but I kept the kids home today. Hugh made me. Something about the roads being super icy? and not having our winter tires on yet? They're All Seasons! And I am a Northern girl! I learned to drive in the dead of winter. I can handle ice and snow that comes down sideways! What's that? You just want us to be safe because you can't imagine living life without us? Well when you put it that way, wallpaper can wait.

Winter tires, however, cannot. I thought I could at least get that done today. Turns out everyone else in the city had the same thought. Walmart had three vehicles outside when I called and their tire place hadn't even opened yet. A local tire shop that's slightly out of town had 20 people waiting by 9:30am.

Instead we stayed in and made cookies and watched the snow fall sideways. Kids are now napping and I'm about to enjoy an eggnog steamer and some peace and quiet. Well, comparative quiet. There's a whole lot of banging and drilling going on under my feet right now while my basement is getting sheeted. They're going to do it in one day. Our entire basement will be sheeted. Today! Mudding will start tomorrow. That, my friends, is what keeping my sanity sounds like!

This is why the English language is so hard to learn

2010-11-10T07:05:00.000-08:00

Last night I told Hugh I wanted a Dutch Oven for Christmas.

Yeah...

Not going to live that one down for a while.

This is what I meant.

I err on the side of justice.

2010-11-05T15:44:00.000-07:00

Not strange.

Saw a lady coming out of the grocery store today.

Strange.

She was wearing shorts.

Also strange?

That the temperature gauge in my van said 21 degrees today. Global warming? Or compensation for last May?

I wrote a story about today. But now it's after midnight so technically I wrote about yesterday. But I haven't gone to sleep yet so it's still my today. Time is weird.

2010-11-03T23:25:00.000-07:00

I spent two hour hours in the grocery store today. Oh yes, you did indeed hear me right. I said two hours. In a grocery store. Through lunchtime. With my two six-year-olds and my three-year-old. How do you define fun?

I really dislike grocery shopping at the best of times. If I was given the choice between grocery shopping or cleaning up my child's vomit. I would choose the vomit. For one thing it doesn't happen very often and for another thing I only have to touch the puke once as opposed to the four times I have to handle each grocery item (into the cart, onto the belt, into a bag, out of the bag). I try to spend as little time as possible in a grocery store so when I go I am super organized. I menu plan two weeks of meals and then write out my grocery list in the order I will hit the aisles at the grocery store to streamline the whole experience. Our big President's Choice store is undergoing a massive renovation and they're staying open for the duration. What this means is that my list is basically worthless because nothing is in the same place from one week to the next. I spent half my time today back-tracking because the olives this week are in the same aisle as the bleach. And the spaghetti noodles are with the Indian spices which is not where I found the Japanese bread crumbs. And why did I not check the chocolate and popcorn aisle for toilet paper? What was I thinking???

Normally grocery shopping takes me an hour and a half, 40 minutes of that is driving to and from the store. I knew when I left at 10:30am this morning I was pushing it, that we would probably run into lunch, so I was prepared. I had water bottles filled in a bag for the inevitable, I'm SOOO thirsty. The kids had each just had a piece of fruit and I let them take a mini bag of chips out of their Halloween stash to eat in the car along the way avoiding the inevitable, I'm SOOO hungry. Plus I was keeping the free bakery cookie in my back pocket in case I got desperate. I was SOOO ready.

I made two quick stops before hitting the grocery store so we didn't actually get inside until 11:30am. It was 1:30pm when I was pulling out of the parking lot to head home. Near the end I finally had to ask where the toilet paper was and the lady I asked ended up being an absolute Godsend. Seriously. In a place that is not exactly known for their costumer service she was a downright miracle. She stayed with me and helped me find the last six items on my list, held my kids' hands down the aisles, played games with them to find the things we were looking for and then rewarded them with cinnamon hearts when we found them. Chips, cookies and then cinnamon hearts... I was past the point of caring about sugar and just grateful my kids were getting lunch! She leaned over at one point and asked in a whisper if I knew about their free cookie program. "Oh yeah," I said. "It's just that we've been wandering these aisles for so long we've already been there and eaten that!" While I was putting my groceries on the belt at the checkout she took my kids to get one more cookie and then... And then? you say. I know. You're thinking how could this woman get any more awesome? Well... and then she kept them corralled and entertained while I was bagging.

!!!!!

I swear I heard the angels singing in sweet sweet relief. It sounded an awful lot like the Hallelujah Chorus actually. I don't know if you shop somewhere where you have to bag your own groceries but this is always where my kids get possessed by the spirit of wild animals and they start climbing up things and throwing candy on the floor and pushing each other. I end up taking three times longer to bag my groceries because I'm trying to yell at my kids quietly, but firmly enough to make them listen, out of one corner of my mouth, while seeming charming and gracious under pressure out of the other side, and feeling so agitated I can't think straight and sweating so much I could swim down my own back. How do you define fun?

I had actually planned to grocery shop yesterday while everyone was in school but the big kids really like it when I help out in their class so I did that instead. Groceries were getting dire. We were completely out of bread and didn't even have enough milk left for cereal never mind my morning cuppa. So not only did I spend two solid hours inside the hated grocery store, I DID IT WITHOUT CAFFEINE. Mama stopped at Starbucks on the way home to get her own treat!

Well, that's another grocery shopping trip down. I'm done. At least till next week when I'll have to get more bread and milk and fruit. I did have a little revelation today at the grocery store but that's a post for another day. For today, please tell me, am I alone? Do you hate grocery shopping too? Or do you love it because shopping is shopping no matter what kind?

(That last line sounds very Suessical don't you think? A Who is a Who no matter how small? ... Someone? ... Anyone?)

Something new for me to obsess about.

2010-11-02T13:43:00.000-07:00

My sister recommended a website to me the other day saying there was a killer French Onion Soup recipe posted. I am starting to feel very soup-y and stew-y as the Fall progresses. Although when the sun is shining and it's 16 degrees and you can go outside without your coat on and it's NOVEMBER! I'm feeling a bit more for tzatziki and grilled chicken.

The point is, I wandered over to The Pioneer Woman to look up this killer soup recipe and ended up spending every spare minute I had over the weekend reading through archives. She is a city girl who ended up a cattle rancher's wife. She has photos of her kids, one of them around Tristan and Ava's age, on horses, wearing mini wranglers and hanging onto calves legs. The legs and hoofs. Of real live baby cows! I look at these photos and I look at my kids playing Power Rangers or Justice League or whatever is the current obsession and just cannot imagine them sitting in a cattle pen using their whole bodies to hold onto a calf's legs. I can't even imagine them wearing cowboy boots unless it was for a costume. So, of course, I'm totally obsessed.

Go check it out. And then come back and tell me if you think I'm nuts or if you're just as fascinated as I am. Also, I'm totally making her French Onion Soup. It looks divine!

Effort is effort. And should be appreciated. That's all I'm saying.

2010-11-01T13:03:00.000-07:00

Hugh was away for most of last week on a course for work. Something to do with engines. He lost me right after the part where I heard the words combustion and cylinder in the same sentence.

Did you miss me? he said when he walked in the front door.

I thought back to the three movies I let my kids watch. In a row. I heard myself yelling. Alot. I remembered sleeping in the middle just so the bed wouldn't feel so empty.

I'm so happy you're home I washed my hair and put on mascara!

Wow, he said. You realize that's your equivalent of saying you put on your good sweats, right?

My mom didn't teach me that kind of behaviour. Also, Happy Birthday Sebastian!

2010-10-20T21:11:00.000-07:00

On the docket while my sister, Erin, was visiting was to get ready for Sebastian's third birthday party. Being an October baby means that there is always a plethora (Heffy. Do you know what a plethora is? Am I the only one who thinks about the The Three Amigos every time she hears the word plethora?) of pumpkin and or Halloween paraphernalia. What better time of year for a pumpkin party for my little pumpkin?

One of the mornings Tristan and Ava were in school Erin and I dedicated to getting everything I needed for pumpkin-themed goody bags and pumpkin shaped cupcakes. First stop, Starbucks. Second stop, dollar store right across from Starbucks. Wasn't that convenient? What better way to browse through overwhelming amounts of things made in China than with coffee in hand? We even got Sebastian a hot chocolate hoping it would keep him happy and occupied while he sat in the cart. We walked into the dollar store with our drinks and an employee came over to us and told us they had a no food or drinks policy in their store and that we would have to take our coffees outside. What??? No food or drinks in a dollar store? I can understand it in a clothing store but even Winners lets you shop with your coffee. Come on! I was very indignant and I must admit a little rude when I said, "Are you serious? We can't bring our coffees in here? Why? Most stores let you bring drinks in." And then, just to really get my point across and really make them sorry they had that stupid policy, I said very coldly, "Well. I guess we'll be taking our business elsewhere then."

Which is the exact moment Sebastian dropped his hot chocolate. While I watched the dark liquid ooze into an ever-widening puddle on the floor I had a revelation. It is impossible to maintain any kind of self-righteous indignation when you are completely mortified. Heh heh. Ummm. Right. So, I guess that's why you don't allow drinks. Right. Okay. We'll just go then.

The next dollar store we tried didn't have that same policy so we shopped and sipped and picked up everything I needed for the party. Somehow, though, it wasn't quite as satisfying as I thought it would be. Humble pie anyone?

Here's a picture of the jack o' lantern cakes I made for the party. In theory they're dead easy - just two cupcakes stuck together with icing and then iced all over - but I've never really mastered the art of icing a cake. The perfectionist in me is cringing that I'm about to show you these but they were made with love and that has to count for something.

Happy Third Birthday Beesh! There is nothing that makes me smile wider than watching the way you run when you're excited. It's somewhere between a run and a skip and ends up looking like a prance. It is truly delightful to behold - as are you. Your joy makes our home a brighter, happier place to be. I feel so blessed that God entrusted you to us.

6 Degrees of Separation, sort of.

2010-10-18T12:22:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! Sorry for the little blog hiatus. My sister, Erin came for a week and then I was rereading Harry Potter. Need I say more? I can barely get dressed and feed my children when I'm reading nevermind trying to pull my brain away from Hogwarts long enough to string coherent sentences together. I do have a few posts up my sleeve though so stick around.

As I said my sister, Erin came to visit for a week. While she was here we went to go see The Town. (This is not a movie review. We enjoyed it.) If you've seen the movie, or even the previews, you will know it's a movie about a group of bank robbers and how the bank robber falls for the girl they use as a hostage. At one point during the movie I found myself harking back to Beverly Hills, 90210.

Huh? you say.
I know. Stay with me.

In the good old days of 90210 - not the dismal 90210 of today which I've only seen five minutes of- Donna got herself a stalker or something. I can't really remember the details, just that there was a guy and he was bad. This bad guy was at Donna's and he was going to rape her then David knocked on the door. David and Donna had gotten into a fight earlier in the episode and he had come back to apologize but she wouldn't let him in and just kept telling "Dave" to go away. He, who was only ever called David, thought the Dave thing was weird so he stormed in with a baseball bat (of course), knocked the guy out and saved Donna.

This episode prompted my 17-year old self and my 15- and 13-year old sisters to come up with our own "danger names". We couldn't use nicknames we actually called each other by so Jane's, Janie became Jan-ey (rhymes with fanny), Erin was Wren - or as she later became jokingly known, L'il Wren Wren, and I was Helga - something only my Mom ever called me, who knows why. If we were ever in a situation where say one of us had a stalker who came over to rape us we were supposed to use our danger names. This would then cue the other sister(s) to GET HELP NOW! Or at least a baseball bat. Not surprisingly - our small hometown being somewhat low on stalkers - life did not reflect art and we never needed to use our danger names.

I hadn't thought about these names in many years and then Erin and I went to see The Town and, ready for it? I'm about to finally make the connection between Ben Affleck and David Silver. We're watching away and (Spoiler alert): we're at a part where it looks like the FBI are finally going to get the robbers and the main girl in the story is on the phone with Ben Affleck's character and she uses a phrase that means something other than what she's saying and it tips him off and he escapes. Which is when I thought of 90210 and Donna Martin and "Dave" Silver. It's a totally unrelated, random connection, I know. That episode of 90210 aired in 1995 and I can't really remember ever thinking about it since. I was lost in the randomness of my brain processes thinking Erin would get a kick out of it on the car ride home when she leaned over and asked if Helga could pass her some more Nibs.

Would I have made the same connection if I had watched that movie with anyone other than my sister? Who knows. What I do know is no one else (with the exception of my other sister) would have taken the same path with me down the rabbit hole. And isn't that what makes family so special, so unique? I may be somewhat random, but I'm not alone.

Jane Austen would have been horrified

2010-09-28T11:42:00.000-07:00

This morning while Tristan and Ava were at school and Sebastian was at preschool I was attending the school of life. Today's lesson took place in the Wal-Mart parking lot. It actually began inside at the vitamin aisle where I had gone to pick up some more Vitamin C. We are all struggling with colds and had eaten the last one yesterday. This had to be remedied immediately. As Ava told me last night after she had eaten her daily dose, "Mom I think my sore throat feels better. The Vitamin C must have kicked in." If she thinks Vitamin C kicks in, if this causes her not to whine incessantly about her so-oh-ore thro-oh-oat, who am I to argue?

Anyway standing in the Vitamin C aisle I noticed I could get 500 Equate tablets for the same price as 120 Jamieson tablets. No brainer right? I learned that lesson ages ago. Walking to my car, I happily swung my bag. The next stop on my agenda for my glorious morning alone was Starbucks where I had a date with a 2-pump white mocha americano misto and my book. Since I'm trying to get on top of this cold I thought I would take two Vitamin C's now and then two before bed. I opened them up popped them in my mouth and started chewing and that is when I learned today's life lesson: tablets aren't chewable unless they actually say the word "chewable" on the bottle. I had already swallowed a bit when I started to gag. There I was standing beside my van, doubled over, heaving and gagging and praying so hard that I wasn't going to throw up in the Wal-Mart parking lot. That's classy right? Equally classy was finding the dregs of some stale water in an old water bottle and swishing it in my mouth before spitting it and the powdered tablets out on the ground. In my defense I crouched down really low to try to spit under my van.

A spectacle you say? Me?
Never.

Thankfully all's well that ends well and I ended up in a squashy oversized chair sipping a perfectly made coffee reading a perfectly delicious book. Next stop, Costco. For an extremely oversized bottle of chewable Vitamin C. By the way does anyone know anyone who wants 498 Vitamin C tablets? I should warn you, they're not chewable.

It's Friday. Who can think of a witty title on a Friday?

2010-09-24T11:57:00.000-07:00

This week it finally happened. The things I've been dreading about sending my kids to school. Ava came home Wednesday crying because nobody wanted to play with her at recess. My heart absolutely sank to my toes. I may have even been stepping on it, it hurt so much when Ava first told me while crying her heart out. Of course the tired didn't help the crying (She is SO my daughter!) and boy are my kids T-I-double ERRED these days. After a lot of hugs and a bit of gentle digging it turned out to be not exactly the case. It was more a mix-up that became a misunderstanding that turned itself into hurt feelings and a case of amnesia about the kids she did play with (Oh, yeaaaahhh I forgot I played with them!).

Once we got to the bottom of it all she felt better, I felt better, Tristan suggested we make Ava her favourite lunch and told her she could play with him anytime she wants and then we talked about being proactive. What? That's a big word for a Kindergartener you say? I thought so too until they came home using it! Their school teaches the students Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and the first principle the kids learn is to be proactive. I am a very firm believer in being proactive and we teach our kids about making good choices with our attitudes and not falling apart when things don't go our way because it doesn't solve anything etc, etc. Are you remembering how I completely fell apart over my washing machine right now? I told you, the tired doesn't help the crying! Obviously I'm not perfect at being proactive but it is something I strive for and something I've been teaching my kids about. I hadn't actually used the word proactive before because Hugh always accuses me of using words that are too big when I talk to the kids but how else do you describe "fundamentally opposed to your course of action and if you persist you will reap the consequences"? Kidding!

Anyway, during Ava's favourite lunch (KD that particular day) we did some "what could you do next time?" scenario conversations. I asked her what kinds of proactive things she could do and together we brainstormed a few different action plans. "Because," I said, "it's better to be proactive right? Sitting on the playground crying doesn't fix anything does it?"
"No, Mom," Tristan said with the tone I use when I'm trying to patiently explain something I think they should already know. "That's being very REactive."
Well thanks for clearing that up for me Stephen Covey Jr.

Today we had another thing I've dreaded about school. Crazy Hair Day. Okay it's not crazy hair day I've dreaded exactly, more what it brought up and what it brought up was a boy who only wanted to have normal hair. The unspoken part being, he didn't want to look different, didn't want kids to laugh at him. Honestly as a parent I had to struggle with it too. What if no one else does their kids hair crazy? What if I'm setting them up to get teased? I came to the conclusion that now was as good a time as any to encourage my kids not to care what people think, not to just blindly follow the pack and be suffocated, repressed by fear. God hasn't given us a spirit of fear! Ava, of course, was totally into it but at the last minute Tristan changed his mind and my kids went to school looking likes 80's punk rockers. I told the kids if anyone says, "Whoa. That is crazy hair." they were to respond, "THAT'S CUZ IT'S CRAZY HAIR DAY!" We got to the kids class and almost all the girls had crazy hair but only one other little boy. One kid looked at Tristan and said, "Oh my god! Look at your hair! My mom wanted to put mine in ponytails but I said NO WAY! I didn't want to be laughed at." At which point Tristan looked at me and said, "Mom, don't leave me. Please don't leave me." This from the boy who has yet to say good-bye to me in the mornings because he's so excited to get to the welcome circle. My heart sank but I smiled big and said, "Crazy hair day is going to be awesome! Why don't you go sit by the boy with bright green hair? You guys can be crazy hair buds today." Thankfully Tristan thought that was a great idea and perked up but honestly? I wish it were already 3:00. I just want to know he's okay. I guess if he's not I can remind him not to be so reactive.

It is possible to change a first impression. Just not always for the better!

2010-09-15T11:20:00.000-07:00

Guess what I did yesterday? I sat on the floor of my laundry room and watched the very first load of my brand-new, front-loading washing machine wash my clothes. CAN YOU STAND THE EXCITEMENT? I kept watching one particular pair of jeans. The denim is a light wash and about 10 minutes into the wash cycle still wasn't completely wet. I was very dubious. I kept watching. I didn't believe they would get clean. It took yet another 10 minutes for them to get fully wet. Do you realize that I sat for 20 minutes on the floor looking through the glass of a washing machine? And they say stay-at-home moms have no life!

I'm not sure if you remember from a couple of weeks ago when I had the day from hell, well maybe not hell, maybe more like middle school, which could have also been named hell for all the hell I went through and some of the hell I caused. But I digress. My point is I had a bad day. Which probably, in hindsight, wouldn't have been quite such a bad day except I was tired. So. Very. Tired. I was anxious about the kids starting school, had a major checklist of things to do, hadn't slept in about four days and hadn't washed my hair since I last slept. And I was PMS'ing. I felt gross, I looked gross and I had pretty much wiped out my emotional reserves. And then my washing machine broke. In the middle of washing a duvet cover and sheets while the tub was full of dirty soapy water. I completely broke down. Like fell to the floor crying hysterically broke down. I called Hugh at work and cried/yelled, "Just tell me what to do! JUST TELL ME WHAT TO DOOOO!" That day was the day I had set aside to do my 5 loads of clothes laundry and then had the added surprise of an extra three loads of bedding thanks to an accident in the night that was attempting to be covered up. I hadn't even got to the clothes yet and school was starting the next day. We needed clean underwear!

I got off the phone with Hugh, calmed down, and before starting to bail the water out of the machine went to check on the kids, who were playing outside. They were standing on the trampoline eating cookies I hadn't given them talking to the neighbour girl over the fence. Wearily and with a very irritated tone in my voice I asked them what they were eating. The neighbour girls mom answered from her back deck, "uh...cookies?" I then realized her daughter was probably eating cookies and the kids either asked or she offered to share and the mom was just trying to be nice. "Should I not have given them cookies?" she asked. I broke down again. Standing on my deck still wearing pajamas at almost noon with my greasy hair scraped roughly into a ponytail I broke down. Like couldn't talk, ragged-gasping-for-breath-between-sobs, kind of broke down. It took me several minutes to get myself together enough to explain all the while my neighbour was asking if I was okay, if I needed help. I was finally able to tell her about my washing machine and she so kindly offered to let me rinse the duvet cover and sheets in her washing machine. "In fact," she said. "I'm going out this afternoon, I'll just leave the door unlocked and you can come and go as you need and do all your laundry here." Thank you God. Talk about a saving grace!

She has only been my neighbour for about six weeks and that's twice she has rescued me now. Between the hysterical crying over the laundry on Thursday and locking my keys in my house and having to take her car to get the kids to their first day of school on Friday I'm sure she thinks I'm completely stable!

Is it just so I'll have something to write about?

2010-09-09T13:49:00.000-07:00

Guess what I did yesterday? I bought myself two brand-spanking-new hide-a-keys. Contrary to what you might be thinking right now I did not go and get them as a result of last Friday's key debacle. I should have. I meant to. I thought about it several times. But I didn't. Which meant that yesterday when I was sitting with Sebastian on the front steps of my porch waiting for Hugh to come home from work to unlock the door for me for the second time in under a week I was seriously kicking myself.

Since last Friday I have been very aware of where my keys are, paranoid about getting locked out again. Yesterday after dropping the kids off at school I came home to get Sebastian (for the record he was home with Hugh not alone making martini's) and headed out to do some errands. Before leaving the house I made sure I had my keys. I took them out of my purse and held them in my hands so I could know with absolute certainty that I had them before locking the door. Just as we were about to cross the threshold I noticed Sebastian wasn't wearing any shoes, that I had forgot to put some on him. I put my stuff down, put his shoes on, grabbed my purse and walked out the front door locking it behind me.

In one of those slow-motion moments you are powerless to stop, the front door slammed shut as I realized the keys I had been holding in my hands, the keys I was determined to be aware of at all times, weren't actually in my hands. Of course not. I had put them down with my purse to get Sebastian's shoes on and only picked the purse back up because, as mentioned yesterday, my keys are always in my purse.

Except for when they're not.

The first thing I did after Hugh came home and unlocked the door was drive to a key-cutting place and get myself two keys. One is hidden outside the house and the other is in the change purse of my wallet. My keys may not always be in my purse but at least my wallet will be! On the plus side, as of today we are the proud-ish owners of a new front loading washer and dryer (which is a whole other story I will tell you about) and my firstborns turned six and each got a free birthday drink today at Starbucks. Things are looking up!

It Started Off So Well

2010-09-07T12:33:00.000-07:00

I always keep my keys in my purse. I mean always. When I come in my front door I hang my purse on my entryway chair and slip my keys into the inside pocket. I've tried a few other systems for keeping track of my keys but I could never remember what new system I was working on (vintage mailbox in the back entryway or dish on the console?) and was always looking for my keys. This is the system I developed that works. And it does work. I never have to look for my keys. I mean never. They are always in the inside pocket of my purse.

Always. Always. Always. Always. Always.

Except for last Friday. When they weren't.

Do you remember last Friday? Tristan and Ava's first day of school? It was such a great morning. It was calm, it was smooth. We were dressed and ready in plenty of time for me to torture my kids by taking tons of pictures. And when we were done that we still had time to kill! So I wrote a blog about how the day had finally arrived and I was finally ready for it. Then we calmly got our coats and shoes on, I calmly locked the door behind us and I sauntered to the van, kids skipping beside me chattering away. Approaching our van I reached into the inside pocket of my purse for my keys and discovered my morning really had been going too smoothly.

I didn't panic. Not then. I knew my keys had to be in my purse somewhere. My keys are always in my purse. They probably just fell into the main compartment. Do you ever feel like your life is like a sitcom? After a few minutes of calmly searching I looked at the time on my phone and panicked. I dumped the entire contents of my purse on the sidewalk and frantically started rifling through it. No van keys. No van keys. NO VAN KEYS! I shoved everything back in my purse and ran to the front door just in case I hadn't locked it properly. I had. I raced around to the back door because that door is almost never locked. It was. Have I mentioned that Hugh and I have been meaning to get a hide-a-key for the house?

I called Hugh's work and while I was on hold for him I kept thinking, are you kidding me? Is this seriously happening? This is not happening. It's the first day of school. This is not happening!
"Yes I am still holding for Hugh. Hold again? Sure." ARE YOU KIDDING ME? As I was holding for the second time my next door neighbour drove up. She had just finished dropping her son off at the same school I was trying to get my kids to and she knew it was Tristan and Ava's first day. "What are you still doing here?" she asked. By this point I was hot and agitated and sweating waterfalls. My purse was laying on the ground and I was pacing our sidewalk with only one arm in my coat holding a phone to my ear in one hand and holding my hair up off my neck with the other. I explained and she offered me her car and said she'd watch Sebastian so I could run Tristan and Ava to school. Which is when Hugh finally came to the phone and I had to explain everything all over again.

While I was taking the kids to school in my neighbour's car Hugh came home from work and unlocked the house door. We ended up being fifteen minutes late and the kids had to get late slips their very first day of school ever. That's one way to start the year! The plus side is by the time I dropped them off I was so relieved to finally be there that I didn't have any room left to feel sad. Four days later and I'm still not sure what is more shocking to me; that my keys weren't in my purse (I found them randomly in our junk drawer. WHAAAT?) or that I didn't cry when I dropped the kids off.

It's All Over But The Crying. And I'm not talking about the kids.

2010-09-03T07:08:00.000-07:00

This is it. Today is the day. After a week of no sleep the first day of school has finally, thankfully, arrived. I woke up at 5am today. I had an alarm set for 6:45am and then at 6:00 thought who am I kidding? I'm not falling back to sleep. I got up, got ready and came downstairs for a cup of tea and asked Hugh how I looked for my first day of school.

There has been much anxiety, many tears cried, and many prayers said over my kids as this new chapter of our lives has approached. Now that we are here, and their backpacks are loaded up and the kids are dressed and ready, I'm ready too. And though I may cry - will probably cry - after I drop them off today, they will be happy tears for the grand adventure ahead.

Second Verse Same As The First

2010-09-02T07:35:00.000-07:00

I'm still not sleeping well. I couldn't fall asleep last night and then woke up at 5am this morning. I am tired. So, so tired. Can't keep my emotions together, feel tears welling all the time kind of tired.

I spent literally all day yesterday going through the kids clothes - what to put away for next year, what to give away, what to pass down to my nephew - and I finally managed to get the kids fall clothes out. Just in time for it to be 26 degrees tomorrow. This makes me want to cry.

Also, I finally got the kids their new socks. We took them all out of their packages yesterday and put them away. This morning I was barely out of bed when Ava came to me fully dressed and said very seriously, "Mom we have a problem. My new socks are too big in the ankle." Not only are they too big in the ankle they are too big in the foot. The heel hits halfway up the back of her leg. So now, she needs another set of new socks. This also made me cry.

Also, Tristan was fully dressed this morning which at first I didn't think anything of. Then I noticed his pajamas on the floor of Ava's room and the bottoms were different than what he had gone to bed wearing last night. From past experience I know this means he peed his bed. Instead of telling me though, he tried to hide it by making his bed all nice. Which meant that when I noticed the pj bottoms and asked him about it and went to look at his bed what could have been just a quick sheet wash ended up an also soaked duvet and cover and basically added two more loads of laundry to a day already chock full of it. This made me cry too.

I'm drinking a cup of really hot tea right now while I type and just writing this out is making me feel better, giving me some perspective. Things don't feel quite as hopeless as they did half an hour ago. Even though Sebastian just spilled his bowl of cereal. For the second time this morning.

Edited to add: Also, my washing machine broke this morning. During a load of bedding right before the rinse cycle. It was my third of 7 loads I have to do today. Do you ever wish you could have a do-over? I would like to have a do-over of today.

At least when this is all over I'll get to sleep again

2010-09-01T08:13:00.000-07:00

This morning it was 3:37am when I startled awake. This time it was about indoor and outdoor shoes. See I bought the kids indoor shoes that aren't runners because I wasn't really thinking about things like gym class. I was thinking about style. I got Ava a pair of black ballet flats and Tristan a pair of grey flannel plaid loafers that just need an elbow-patch blazer and pipe to complete the look.

Yesterday when we went to school for the meet and greet the kids had to wear something other than flip flops for the first time since last spring since it all of a sudden got COLD here, and wouldn't you know it Tristan has outgrown both pairs of his outdoor shoes. I thought I would pick up something at the "super" grocery store yesterday but the only pair that I really liked were black hightops that were kind of hard for Tristan to get on and which I thought would be frustrating for him to deal with when he just wanted to get to the playground at recess. As a final fling before school we are spending a night this weekend in a hotel in Calgary that has a couple of huge waterslides and comes with zoo passes for us all. It's going to be a very fun weekend and I thought yesterday at the "super" grocery store that I'd just pick Tristan up some shoes in Calgary.

This is a great idea in theory. What woke me up in the middle of the night was the fact that he needs something to wear for his half-day Friday and his options are flip-flops - but then does he wear his inside shoes without socks? - or shoes that hurt his big toe - could he be fine enough for one morning? And then to really make me lose all hope of going back to sleep I started to think through the pros and cons of having his indoor shoes be outdoor shoes and buying him something more runner-like for inside. Which also made me do an inventory of Ava's shoes and made me wonder if she also needs something more runner-like for inside.

Mom's I need your help. What do you do? What works for your kids? Also, Mom's with daughters tell me this, what do you do about all those cute little shoe options like boots and ballet flats? Do you let them wear that kind of thing on the playground? Don't they just get trashed? Should I care if they get trashed? Also what do you do when your daughters wear dresses to school? Do they just wear them with the indoor running shoes?

I feel stupid even asking these questions and like I'm really worrying too much about something that is not really that important. It's just... you know what it is? It's the grown-up version of wanting to fit in at school.

Checking Off The List

2010-08-31T14:38:00.000-07:00

I woke up at 4:18am again this morning. Thankfully this time I fell right back to sleep. I was startled awake again at 7:04am by the sound of laughing happy kids - such a lovely way to start the day. I jumped out of bed thinking about getting out the door for 8:15 so we could be at school in time for the kids meeting with their teacher and I realized that the days of waking up without an alarm are almost at an end. For six years I have been basically alarm free. Sigh. One more change in this season of changes.

Anyway. On a positive note, the kids' teacher seems great. She was kind and engaging with the kids and seems like she'll be a lot of fun. I feel good about leaving my kids in her care. It was also nice to be able to have the answer to some of those questions that were keeping me up yesterday in the wee hours. I now know which door to drop them off and pick them up at. I know what time school starts and ends. I know which door they will use to go outside at recess. I know they do in fact need a snack for Friday. All this knowing is very relieving. So relieving that I have a massive pounding headache from the emotional letdown. Though I'm pretty sure the headache started in the middle of the grocery store this morning.

In hindsight, planning to do a big grocery shop after the kids' first meet and greet with their teacher was probably not the best idea. Which I decided in the middle of my shopping trip after Ava had spent 10 minutes hugging her stomach and crying, Tristan had been arguing with me for about 10 minutes about lunch snacks and Sebastian had been crying because I said no to gum since we were so close to the cookie aisle. I haven't been that hot in a store in a long time! You know the kind of heat I mean right, moms? That agitated, need-to-remove-extraneous-clothing, lost-control-wish-you-could-make-your-kids-stop, wish-you-were-anywhere-but-here kind of feeling. I admit it, I caved. I gave everyone a piece of gum to make them be quiet so people would stop glaring at me. Shortly after the gum we got to the cookie aisle. I could see the light at the end of the hellish shopping trip tunnel. And that was when I ran over two sets of toes with an overflowing cart because the kids kept darting in front of me while I was pushing.

And then we had to pay.

Do I need to say more? While I was bagging my groceries - can I just take a minute and say how much I HATE bagging - Tristan climbed up onto the metal bag holder things at the end of the checkout lane and was balancing precariously on them. Ava bumped into a lady with a walker because she wasn't watching where she was going and Sebastian was crying because he lost one of his Littlest Pet Shop characters somewhere in the store. I asked the kids if they wanted to retrace everywhere we had been in the huge store to find it. They choose a moment of silence. I'm sorry you got left behind Pet Shop Pig but in every war there are casualties. I honour you for your commitment to the battle of staving off boredom and tears and I thank you for your sacrifice. May your new home treat you well wherever it ends up being.

So here we are. First school experience done. Next on the list is their half-day Friday when I will drop them off and leave. Weird! All I need to do before now and then is pull out their Fall clothes, quiz them on our street address and tell them where babies come from. Piece of cake right?

Somehow my stomach wasn't getting the message.

2010-08-30T08:16:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow morning is Tristan and Ava's Kindergarten orientation. They start on Friday.

4:12am
I haven't pulled out their fall clothes yet! "Do not be anxious about anything...."
I haven't bought them new socks yet! "Do not be anxious about anything..."
I haven't put their names on their backpacks yet! "Do not be anxious about anything..."
I don't even know what time school starts! "Do not be anxious about anything..."
I don't know what time it ends either! "Do not be anxious about anything...."

5:07am
I don't think the kids know our phone number! "Do not be anxious about anything..."
I have never taught the kids our address! "Do not be anxious about anything..."
Sebastian doesn't have a backpack for preschool! "Do not be anxious about anything..."
What if Tristan pees his pants at school? "Do not be anxious about anything..."

6:22am
What if the kids don't like their teacher? "Do not be anxious about anything..."
Am I supposed to send a snack on Friday for their half-day? "Do not be anxious about anything..."
What if Tristan poos his pants at school? "Do not be anxious about anything...."

7:03am
I haven't had the sex talk with my kids yet! They still don't know where babies come from! "Do not be anxious about anything..."

7:12am
"Morning Mom! I am so hungry! I want peanut butter and jam for breakfast. No! I want just peanut butter in bread not toast. No! I want cereal with blueberries and bananas. I am SO hungry!"

In the Book of My Life this chapter is entitled "I'm Not Ready!"

2010-08-23T09:03:00.000-07:00

In the week leading up to the birth of my twins I was hit by a sudden attack of nerves. What had we done? Were we really prepared to be parents? Really prepared for life as we knew it to change and change forever? Once you bring a child into the world you can't just send it back saying, oh sorry, this crazy exhaustion? this greasy hair and these spit-up stained sweats? this feeling of isolation and constant sense of guilt, of not being enough? Yeah, that's not what I ordered.

I always say that I like change. And I do. Right after the blisters of breaking it in have all healed up into nice strong callouses. In the week before the babies were born I had the terrifying realization that there would be no "getting back to normal" after they came. We were going to have to find a new normal and I just couldn't picture it. I had so many questions. How was I going to breastfeed two babies? How was I going to go grocery shopping? When would I make dinner? When would I sleep? What were my days going to look like? What if I didn't like being a mom? What if I wasn't any good at it? When the glow of delivery wears off and people stop bringing meals and gifts and your husband goes back to work you can't pass off the babies to their real mom and say well, that was fun, what should we do next? This was it, life permanently and irrevocably shifting. I was terrified.

Fastforward six years.

Tristan and Ava will be starting Kindergarten next week. They will be going two full days a week and an additional half-day every other week. Life again is permanently and significantly changing. This shift feels more momentous than adding another baby to the mix. That was a change. That altered our family dynamics. But the fabric of our daily life remained largely the same. I was still at home raising small children. I had done the baby thing before. I knew what to expect. I could picture what my days were going to look like. As I look ahead to next week I realize there will be no "getting back to normal". We will again have to find our new normal and I just can't picture it. I have so many questions. Where will I park to drop them off? Who is their teacher going to be? What am I going to make for lunches? What will their days look like? Are they going to like it? What if someone is mean to them? What if they get hurt and I'm not there to kiss it better?

Last Spring when we went to our Kindergarten orientation the three Kindergarten teachers did a little presentation about "A day in the life of your Kindergartener". It was adorable and I walked away feeling so good about the upcoming year, so excited for the kids because of all the new and wonderful experiences they were going to have. Now that it's a week away I am realizing what this change really means. It means that our small little family circle of influence will have to increase and I will have to share my kids with new friends, teachers and coaches and that I won't always like what those influences will say to my kids. It means I will no longer know everything that happens during their day and that I will know less and less the older they get. It means a growing number of backward glances over their shoulders as I stay behind, waving them off.

I realize they are only just starting school, that we will have thirteen years of it before they fly the coop. I also realize that this new phase of life means I will have one morning every week (Sebastian will be going to preschool one morning a week this year while the kids are in school) entirely and gloriously to myself which I'm definitely not sad about! It's just that this shift signals another permanent shift, one where the end goal is not just to have well-mannered, well-behaved kids. The end goal of this phase is to have raised strong, confident and independent individuals who are ready to take on their own grand adventures, make their own life decisions and live with those consequences. The days where I can make them do anything will be long gone. Which is as it should be. Which is what I want. Tomorrow. Today, looking at Tristan and Ava's open faces unmarred by the pain of a friend's betrayal; their bright eyes not carrying the shadow of hurtful words; today, hearing the pure joy in their laughter, I just want time to stop.

Where to begin...

2010-08-17T10:57:00.000-07:00

So we went on holidays. But before we went on holidays my rash and whatever it was did settle down. Not so much Tristan's stomach. I ended up cleaning up having to clean puke off Tristan's bedroom carpet, his bedding and his bedside table. He had had cheerios with blueberry yoghurt, blueberries and raisins for breakfast. Need I say more? He puked one more time just after getting out of the tub, had one episode of explosive diarrhea and then slept the rest of the afternoon. We threw an extra pair of jammies (and underwear) in my purse and gave him a plastic bowl with lid just in case and headed out. We got into our hotel that night at 2:20am and were on the road again by 8:20 the next morning. And that's how we began our "restful" vacation. In 16 days we drove 4500 km, slept in 6 different cities, 1 hotel, 1 tent trailer, and 4 different houses.

To start, we camped with three quarters of the AOGG club. at Tchesinkut Lake near Burns Lake, BC. (Thanks Billie for the loan of the tent trailer!) Tanya and her fam were VERY missed!!!

We visited Hugh's brother and family.

Cousins

Brothers

Beesh cuddling with Auntie Cara

Do you think he did it?

When you're out of colouring pages Uncle Aaron is very handy.

We had a 60th birthday party for Hugh's dad and spent a lovely afternoon on their sailboat.

And finally we visited my parents.

By this time all the kids had been sick. Nobody but Tristan threw up but Tristan went from throwing up sick to sore throat, cold sick. Beesh got such a bad cough that everytime he coughed he would wince and cry and Ava got a really bad sore throat. At my parents house it was Hugh and I who got sick. Despite the sickness that sort of followed us around we still had a really fun vacation with lots of good visiting and great weather all around. Now all I need is a vacation from my vacation so I can actually get some rest!

The Best Laid Plans

2010-07-23T07:16:00.000-07:00

We're heading out on our summer road trip late this afternoon. As always it's been a flurry of laundry, packing and cleaning. I love coming home to a clean house. However not all is smooth sailing.

Yesterday Tristan went to bed early with a fever, sore throat and a puke bucket because his tummy hurt. Thankfully we had no middle of the night clean-up calls and I'm hopeful he'll wake up this morning feeling great. Then last night as I was watching the results show of So You Think You Can Dance I started feeling itchy. A little behind my knee, my arm, behind my other knee, my stomach, my thighs, back to my knee, back to my stomach back to my arm, other arm, top of my foot, knee, stomach, thighs, thighs, stomach, knee, other knee, stomach. When I finally looked I saw that I had been scratching at a raised red blotchy rash. I took some Benadryl, went to bed and woke up in the middle of the night with itchy palms and feet. Definition of insanity!

After a terrible sleep I woke up very groggy this morning and feeling panicky about the length of our day. We won't be getting into our half-way point hotel until about 2am tonight and I'm supposed to be all rested up so I can do some of the driving and Hugh can get some sleep after working all day. As I was getting out of bed I did a sort of body inventory. My thighs, where the rash was worst, felt sunburned, my eyes were puffy, my head achy and as I stumbled into the bathroom trying to open my eyes I realized one of them wasn't opening. I looked in the mirror and said, "AAHHHH!" out loud. It was like that scene from the movie Hitch when Will Smith has that allergic reaction and his eye swells up like a balloon. I don't know if I'm having an allergic reaction or pink eye or what but I'm still a bit itchy, Ava said my eye looks like vampire eyes and Tristan just came down the stairs burning up with fever. Good thing I cleaned and packed yesterday since it looks like I'll be spending my time today at the doctor's.

The middle of an emergency is perhaps not the best time to come up with an Emergency Response Plan

2010-07-19T14:18:00.000-07:00

On Saturday Hugh called home from work and said that funnel clouds had been spotted in an area about an hour or so North of the city and was headed our way so could I please tie down our lawn furniture and do our general storm prep of the yard. Big storms are not new experiences for us, neither are big winds as storms here often produce winds up to 100 km/hr. We also get extreme storm watches on the Weather Network fairly often though we don't often get the full extent of the forecast. Sure, I said, no problem.

Before heading to our back deck with the bungee cords we have on hand to keep our deck furniture together I decided to check the Weather Network online to see what it said. It did not say we had a severe thunderstorm warning. It did not say we had a tornado watch. In big red letters it said we had a tornado warning for our city and to also expect golf-ball sized hail with the storm. Underneath that, also in big red letters, was an advisory about putting your family emergency preparedness plan in place. Uh. Come again? You said a what now?

That's when I started panicking.

I ran out to our back deck to secure our patio table and chairs together.
Then I saw our Adirondack chairs so I started to run down the stairs towards the lawn thinking I'd better put them under the deck.
Then I remembered about my pots of herbs up on the deck so I did an about-face and ran back up the stairs to get them and take them inside.
When I picked up a pot I saw our trampoline - which had already been tossed by the wind across the yard once this year - so I put the pots down, turned and ran back towards the stairs thinking I better wedge the trampoline in deeper.
Just as I got to the stairs I remembered I had originally come out to bungee our patio chairs to the table so I came to a dead stop and turned again to look for the bungee cords.

All through this back and forth across my deck I was thinking about the fact that Hugh was at work and that we would be separated when the funnel cloud hit and how was I going to keep the kids calm and were we supposed to sit in the bathtub or in a doorway or was that just for earthquakes and if the power goes out I can use the candles around my tub and should I fill our tub with water? I don't have emergency water. I don't have emergency rations. I'm completely out of rice! It's on my list for my next Costco run and what am I going to do with the food in our freezer if the power goes out? And how am I going to keep the kids calm? And isn't there something about hiding near a west wall? Where is my west wall? Which way is west???

In the midst of my mental anguish I noticed my neighbour calmly chatting to a friend while grilling chicken on his deck so I yelled over the fence, "Did you hear about the tornado warning? We're going to have to tie everything down, batten down the hatches, bunker in!

My neighbour and his friend - who turned out to be his step-dad - had both been bush pilots for many years in the Yukon and Northwest Territories. They had both looked at the system coming in and felt very confident that despite the Weather Network's advisory to put our emergency response plans in place the whole storm was going to miss us completely (which it did). "But don't worry," our neighbour said. "If it changes and does come our way I'll give you an hours warning so you can still run around on your deck."

Obviously I can't wait for Breaking Dawn

2010-07-14T10:20:00.000-07:00

Have you seen Eclipse yet?

My sister was visiting last week and we went to see it. I had heard that it was the best of all the Twilight movies, which I know, isn't saying much. It was all going along about as well as could be expected with Bella's awkwardness, Edward's painfully embarrassing to watch intensity and Jacob's strange diction (woun'nt, din'nt) until the scene in Edward's bedroom when he looks at Bella with burning eyes and says something like "you'll always be my Bella." The theatre was dead quiet taking in this supremely romantic moment.

Except. Well, the cheese. The absolute cheesiness of the moment and the movie in general was too much and Jane laughed. Out loud. Which made me laugh. Out loud. And then with shaking shoulders we were both pressing our faces into our sweaters and scarves trying not to be murdered by the Twi-hards. For the rest of the movie anytime Edward pulled out his constipation/agonized face or it got even a little romantic our clothing was back in our mouths. Jacob's little cartoon-legged run with Bella into the forest nearly did me in and the little scene between Jacob and Edward in the tent pretty much finished me off. At one point I was literally writhing in my seat.

So we laughed through the movie, laughed while we stumbled out of the theatre looking over our shoulders for a girl in a prom dress or a cast or any other Twilight paraphernalia identifying murderous Twi-hards, laughed most of the way home and then once home read a movie review of Eclipse and laughed some more.

All in all Eclipse = fun.

Sunshine Days By The Numbers

2010-06-30T13:11:00.000-07:00

After the longest winter (see: snow in May) and the wettest Spring (see: flooding) we have had 9 of the most gloriously sunny days and I can't bear to waste a minute more than necessary inside. So here it is quickly:

2 - books finished: "Excuses Begone" by Dr. Wayne Dyer and then to combat all that inner soul contemplation, "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" by Ann Brashares.
1 - book in the works, "The Second Summer of the Sisterhood." Once I start a series I have to finish it. Also, if someone has a bowl of assorted candies I either have to have one of every kind or none. I realize this is mildly OCD.
18 - popsicles eaten (between three kids, not each!)
12 - garage sales. Purchases included: gladiator sandals for $2 and a vintage steamer trunk for $5! This brings my vintage trunk acquisitions to four in the last two months.
3 - gallons of homemade iced tea
1- litre of homemade lemonade
2 - cuttings of mint from my pots for the homemade lemonade.
6 - mornings I have done a 10-minute Trainer workout. I haven't even looked at them since last summer but I'm back on the wagon.
2 - hours I spent sanding down one Adirondack chair before quitting.
1 - screen door installed.
6 - coats of paint it took to get our front door painted.
3 - family bike rides.
2 - hours spent shooting hoops in the back lane. I officially now how to throw (shoot?) a basketball. Thank you Hugh.
1 - Summer Solstice spent staying up late to enjoy the longest day of the year.
1 - missed Summer Solstice since I thought it was Monday when it was really Tuesday.
9 - days the kiddie pool has been filled.
3 - sun-kissed children.
1 - hot husband.
1 - happy mama.