I have a different relationship we my mom.
No memories of cookie baking, nor brushing my hair or getting me ready for school.... but that doesn't really take away from what we have.
You see, "Mrs. B" held that special warm fuzzy female icon place in my heart.
My STEPMOM had the "what I refuse to grow up to be" place in my life.... scary woman, just scary.
My actual MOM was something else. Beloved fun Aunt role maybe? Favourite weekend babysitter? I am not really sure what place she has, be she is comfy there and so am I so I haven't tried to analyze it too deeply. (The exception to that however, was when I had kids and she crossed the line giving me advice on raising kids. I refuse to take child-rearing advice from someone who found the job too tough to stick around full-time for her own daughters). Ugly but true. Like I said, I am comfy with what we have (other than the advice) and my mommy is in town right now and staying in my guest room (AKA unfinished-basement-laundryroom). I am delighted to have her here and haven't seen her in quite a while!
Hooray! The kids like her and she always gets take-out dinners (that's a treat for us). It will be good to catch up with her.
7.30.2007
7.25.2007
Random Ramblings
I was lying in bed last night eyes wide open seeing nothing but a uniform grey of the darkened ceiling listening to the rhythmic snore of my hubby and the tinkle of the fountain outside and I was thinking.... I need to BLOG something tomorrow.
Should I blog about the mega-rain and opressive humidity we have been getting after the sweltering record-breaking heat of the week before?
NOPE. The rain is over, it's old news. It looks like it might be nice for a couple days at least. My lawn looks pretty good actually and its been a bumper crop of rasberries from my little canes.
WELL, I am reading the latest H*rry P*tter book (impulse buy) mainly because I really liked that last one so much... I figured I better read this one too!! And so far (up to page 294) I am not disapointed.
I have a busy week this week. My babysitter FORGOT to tell me she was going to camp this week. So I go to confirm my schedule with her and she wasn't there! Left me in the lurch, apparently it is a good week for camping because I had a heck of a time finding a sitter to replace her, and ended up having to piggy back my kids onto Sharon's sitter. The poor dear will have SIX kids all together for a few hours today. GAAACK
So what do I write about?
I made a nice Back-up data DVD of all the Italy photos. Problem is my DVD player doesn't recognize it, so I can only see the slideshows on my computer. I started sorting through the ones I wanted to get printed for a photo album and it was torture! We all took terrrific shots and 99% of them mean something to me, but I certainly can't have 2000+ prints made! So I will have to pause that project for a bit.
Speaking of backing up data, I had to back up the files on my hard-drive. Nasty chore that is. And I am always afraid that after I burn the DVD and delete the files off the hard drive, then a kid will come in and scratch the disk and all the files will be lost forever!!!! Woah is me! Paranoid fear -- I had to face the fact that my computer was too full to function and I had to back the stuff up and clean out some space!!!!
Anyways, I need to get steel toed boots today for a site visit on my new job, I guess thats after I take Steve to his doctors appointment but before the site visit.... sigh, a full day of driving around.
I will write more when my thoughts are together.
Meanwhile have a nice Wednesday everyone!
Should I blog about the mega-rain and opressive humidity we have been getting after the sweltering record-breaking heat of the week before?
NOPE. The rain is over, it's old news. It looks like it might be nice for a couple days at least. My lawn looks pretty good actually and its been a bumper crop of rasberries from my little canes.
WELL, I am reading the latest H*rry P*tter book (impulse buy) mainly because I really liked that last one so much... I figured I better read this one too!! And so far (up to page 294) I am not disapointed.
I have a busy week this week. My babysitter FORGOT to tell me she was going to camp this week. So I go to confirm my schedule with her and she wasn't there! Left me in the lurch, apparently it is a good week for camping because I had a heck of a time finding a sitter to replace her, and ended up having to piggy back my kids onto Sharon's sitter. The poor dear will have SIX kids all together for a few hours today. GAAACK
So what do I write about?
I made a nice Back-up data DVD of all the Italy photos. Problem is my DVD player doesn't recognize it, so I can only see the slideshows on my computer. I started sorting through the ones I wanted to get printed for a photo album and it was torture! We all took terrrific shots and 99% of them mean something to me, but I certainly can't have 2000+ prints made! So I will have to pause that project for a bit.
Speaking of backing up data, I had to back up the files on my hard-drive. Nasty chore that is. And I am always afraid that after I burn the DVD and delete the files off the hard drive, then a kid will come in and scratch the disk and all the files will be lost forever!!!! Woah is me! Paranoid fear -- I had to face the fact that my computer was too full to function and I had to back the stuff up and clean out some space!!!!
Anyways, I need to get steel toed boots today for a site visit on my new job, I guess thats after I take Steve to his doctors appointment but before the site visit.... sigh, a full day of driving around.
I will write more when my thoughts are together.
Meanwhile have a nice Wednesday everyone!
7.18.2007
In a word.... paradise!
We just got back from a camping trip. I am usually pretty uptight about the extreme levels of dirt, discomfort and bugs, but somehow it was all really great this trip!
It started feeling rushed on Friday and the long traffic lines on the Cowichan Highway didn't help.......
..... we rolled into the forestry site around 6pm, and that turned out to be a great thing as the people that had been there for the week had rolled out of the best possible site in the whole park and we got it!!!!!! And as if to seal the deal that it was going to be a great weeken, a little bird literally dropped onto our doorstep and said hi!
Gorgeous lakeviews, a private little gravel beach behind the tent spots, a stiff breeze off the water to keep the bugs down at dusk, not too far from the outhouse and breathe-taking forest all around with tonnes of trails and a feast of berries!
The boys were hard to keep around the whole time, but we knew exactly where they were... on their bike practicing jumps around the park, visiting their new friend (9 year old boy in a site around the corner) or chucking rocks into the water with the slingshot.
They spent a great deal of tie IN the lake too (much too cold for me, but they were undaunted).
The first couple nights were with my friends' family from Duncan. They have a 14 year old boy, a 9 year old boy and a 3 year old girl, so there was lots of entertainment. The weather was cool and it even rained a little bit (not enough to spoil the fun, just enough to keep the dust down).
We also lucked out in that they still let us have a small campfire in the pit, YAY and the men kept it going very well indeed. It was so ideal, I can't begin to tell you! We had hotdogs roasted on sticks, we had toasted marshmellows and jiffypop over the fire. We ate very well indeed and played on the lake and in the woods and still had plenty of opportunities to just r-e-l-a-x, it was terrific.
My favourite part was the woods. If I got to design paradise it would be almost identical to where I got to spend this weekend. Lush woods, towering trees, moss covered stumps and fern carpeted floors. Huckleberries, salmon berries, blue-huckleberries, thimbleberries ripe and all around. The forest was alive with birds and bats and squirrels and more. Cool enough to wear clothes and not enough bugs to be called a nuisance, just enough to grab the bug identification book a couple times (A really cool deceiver called the hornet moth landed on T -- that was fun!)
Anyways, the view from our tent trailer was to die for and the situation was ideal.... it was a great trip.
7.12.2007
Its just this hot
Record breaking temperatures around here the last couple days....
It's way higher than the average, not by just a couple degrees mind you, but by a whole bunch.
Normal high for July 10th: 28 degrees C
Actual temperature July 10th 2007 : 37 degrees C (in the shade, not in the blistering skin peeling sun).
** Tee, that is 98.6 in the shade, I don't know what that means to you, but for here it is really too much. Great white North indeed! (We didn't even get the worst of it. The interior of BC got it even hotter, and I hear Ontario's weather was killing people with the heat.)
My plants are literally cooking beside the rock wall, they look terrible. And I picked HOT rasberries yesterday!They tasted like they had already been baked in tarts! Really very strange. But yummy
I hope this weekend is better, I want to go CAMPING with the boys.
So to my hot friends I say "stay cool sisters!"
7.09.2007
The ups and downs of a hike
We went for a family walk today...
It started off rather well actually. The boys and the neighbour's kid grabbed their bikes and T and I tried to keep up on foot. We headed into the bush (surprisingly deep puddles still in there) and I kept getting distracted by EVERYTHING edible. Sure we had just finished a fine dinner, but wow!
Thimble berries, juicy and red and literally falling off the plant
Salmon berries in the characteristic orange and a really neat orange with purple highlights, fat and tart and a little meally.
Bramble berries, the tiny cousins to blackberries, all shiny black and bursting with sweetness.
On we wandered with the kids complaining about how slow I am .....mmmmmm.
I refrained from eating the bounty of our rainforest summer for a bit and we made excellent headway. While winding up a particularly dense trail through some trees, we had to pull off to the side to let a dirtbike pass. I was expecting the typical smarty box of colours -Red, Yellow, Green or Blue bike.... I was a little surprised to see a black helmet with tinked shield, a black leather jacket and an older black motorcycle climbing the trail and passing. The driver rumbled by without acknowledgement for us, and tied to seat behind him, a book (ornately covered black leather with silver embossed plate, red leather accesnts and a medieval sword in the center) hmm... a goth dirtbiker! Or maybe a vampire or werewolf going out for a putt? mooo-a-ha-hah-ha!
On we went.
At the bottom of a hill, while the boys had stopped to wait for T and me, Steve had a hissy fit at the neighbour's boy and reached down for a handful of rocks and whipped it at his head!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now this boy knows where Steve's buttons are and how to press him into a rage faster than anything I have ever seen. I think he revells in how fast and how furious the reaction can be, and the resulting CRAP Steve gets in for losing it on someone that much smaller than him. He is an 8 year old that is in size 4-5 clothes.... tiny body but a big sh*^ disturber.
That set the tone for the rest of the hike home. Steve was in serious doodoo. Cammy was on edge from the tension, the neighbour boy was gloating and T and I were disapointed. The mosquitos had found us and the hills suddenly seemed steeper.
The berries were still there though! While helping the boys haul there bikes up a particularly nasty gravel hill I nearly fell over and saw a familiar leaf. HEY! Its a strawberry plant! Mmmmmmm! (If you have ever tasted a wild strawberry, you know why I am so excited) Sure enough 2 absolutely minuscule red berries were hiding under the leaves. One for me and one for Steve. (drool) They were at the peak of ripeness and their tininess was like an explosion in my mouth. yum, yum, yum!
A few more handfuls of other less amazing but still delicious berries made it out of the bush in my tummy on top. Evidence of the other wildlife was in every muddy patch. Deer, bunnies, a bear, little rodents and all the civilization tracks too, poeple, quads, bikes, feet, dogs.
The end of the hike was a little too dramatic.
The boys were going over jumps in the dirt. It was bound to happen.... Cammy wiped out face first on a rock. Bloody nose and lots of tears, T rode Steve's bike back to the house to get the truck. And I held Cam on my lap trying to calm him down and assess the damage.
Good news, nothing is broken this time and his teeth are all still in his head!
He cleaned up fine and went to bed. This morning he looks no worse for wear (not even a bruise).... phew.
Now I want to go back for more berries.
The boys were
It started off rather well actually. The boys and the neighbour's kid grabbed their bikes and T and I tried to keep up on foot. We headed into the bush (surprisingly deep puddles still in there) and I kept getting distracted by EVERYTHING edible. Sure we had just finished a fine dinner, but wow!
Thimble berries, juicy and red and literally falling off the plant
Salmon berries in the characteristic orange and a really neat orange with purple highlights, fat and tart and a little meally.
Bramble berries, the tiny cousins to blackberries, all shiny black and bursting with sweetness.
On we wandered with the kids complaining about how slow I am .....mmmmmm.
I refrained from eating the bounty of our rainforest summer for a bit and we made excellent headway. While winding up a particularly dense trail through some trees, we had to pull off to the side to let a dirtbike pass. I was expecting the typical smarty box of colours -Red, Yellow, Green or Blue bike.... I was a little surprised to see a black helmet with tinked shield, a black leather jacket and an older black motorcycle climbing the trail and passing. The driver rumbled by without acknowledgement for us, and tied to seat behind him, a book (ornately covered black leather with silver embossed plate, red leather accesnts and a medieval sword in the center) hmm... a goth dirtbiker! Or maybe a vampire or werewolf going out for a putt? mooo-a-ha-hah-ha!
On we went.
At the bottom of a hill, while the boys had stopped to wait for T and me, Steve had a hissy fit at the neighbour's boy and reached down for a handful of rocks and whipped it at his head!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now this boy knows where Steve's buttons are and how to press him into a rage faster than anything I have ever seen. I think he revells in how fast and how furious the reaction can be, and the resulting CRAP Steve gets in for losing it on someone that much smaller than him. He is an 8 year old that is in size 4-5 clothes.... tiny body but a big sh*^ disturber.
That set the tone for the rest of the hike home. Steve was in serious doodoo. Cammy was on edge from the tension, the neighbour boy was gloating and T and I were disapointed. The mosquitos had found us and the hills suddenly seemed steeper.
The berries were still there though! While helping the boys haul there bikes up a particularly nasty gravel hill I nearly fell over and saw a familiar leaf. HEY! Its a strawberry plant! Mmmmmmm! (If you have ever tasted a wild strawberry, you know why I am so excited) Sure enough 2 absolutely minuscule red berries were hiding under the leaves. One for me and one for Steve. (drool) They were at the peak of ripeness and their tininess was like an explosion in my mouth. yum, yum, yum!
A few more handfuls of other less amazing but still delicious berries made it out of the bush in my tummy on top. Evidence of the other wildlife was in every muddy patch. Deer, bunnies, a bear, little rodents and all the civilization tracks too, poeple, quads, bikes, feet, dogs.
The end of the hike was a little too dramatic.
The boys were going over jumps in the dirt. It was bound to happen.... Cammy wiped out face first on a rock. Bloody nose and lots of tears, T rode Steve's bike back to the house to get the truck. And I held Cam on my lap trying to calm him down and assess the damage.
Good news, nothing is broken this time and his teeth are all still in his head!
He cleaned up fine and went to bed. This morning he looks no worse for wear (not even a bruise).... phew.
Now I want to go back for more berries.
The boys were
7.07.2007
green with envy
I was SO jealous when I saw this picture posted on my darling friend's blog a while back...
Beautiful little representative to our fragile ecological health -- and posing so pretty in that nice flower too! I didn't know we had such jewel-like amphibians around these parts.Now I am happy to say I discovered one of these marvels of nature in my own back yard!!!!!
Why it was cooking in the sun, I'll never know, but I am very happy to have had the time to run and grab my camera.... I literally squealed with delight when I say the shiny metalic critter in my ivy. And hopped up and down a bit too (I am surprised all the pictures aren't blurry).
sigh.... happy day.
sigh.... happy day.
7.04.2007
7.02.2007
Canada D-eh
It was a picture perfect Canada Day! As a family we enjoyed all the liberties that I find the quintessential joys of being Canadian!
Started the day by sleeping in a bit.
Had French Toast for breakfast with (what else) maple syrup!
As noon approached we loaded up the dirtbikes and explored our free and wild back woods (crown land) for hours and hours! Forests, lovely meadows, babbling brooks and commanding vistas over the Georgia Strait, to the Coastal Mountains beyond! I kept being awestruck over and over how BEAUTIFUL this part of the world is, and how blessed I really am to be born into such a wonderful country where recreation like this is accessible and safe from harassment.
No bear sightings, but lots of eagles and turkey vultures, ravens and deer. A family of quail was flushed out and wee tadpoles did their thing in the calm parts of the creeks. (Its really amazing we see anything at all with the dirtbikes braaaaping along). We weren't the only ones with the idea for motorized exploration, we saw a bunch of quads, dirtbikes and mountain bikes on the same trails.
Now that is the life! Eating fruit leather and drinking water from a canteen at the top of a mountain, watching life unfold all around.
By the time we got back to the truck we were all kind of hot and definitely muddy, life is good.
And I had the happy knowledge that I did NOT have to cook dinner! We had been invited to my step-dad's for dinner! Hooray! So a quick clean up at home and then we packed the family into the truck to go out for dinner.
The company was nice, the food was good and the kids tired out their jackrussell terrier. Then we were invited to soak in their hot tub for a while! WooHoo this Canada Day just gets better and better! Then after the muscles were thoroughly relaxed we went for a walk down to the beach and gazed in wonder at the family of sea otters frolicking in the slack tide. They are curious energetic creatures, and I couldn't help but thinking they were taunting the little dogs to jump in (I am happy to say the dogs did not accept the challenge).
A small hike back up to my step-dads and a glass of wine more and we came home at nearly 10PM.... very late for us.
The kids crashed easily and so did T and I. What a nice Canada Day!
PS, not everyone was as peaceful as us, unfortunately someone in my Father-in-law's neighbourhood thought it would be fun to celebrate our national freedom by spray painting his truck! I wonder about people, gaack.
Started the day by sleeping in a bit.
Had French Toast for breakfast with (what else) maple syrup!
As noon approached we loaded up the dirtbikes and explored our free and wild back woods (crown land) for hours and hours! Forests, lovely meadows, babbling brooks and commanding vistas over the Georgia Strait, to the Coastal Mountains beyond! I kept being awestruck over and over how BEAUTIFUL this part of the world is, and how blessed I really am to be born into such a wonderful country where recreation like this is accessible and safe from harassment.
No bear sightings, but lots of eagles and turkey vultures, ravens and deer. A family of quail was flushed out and wee tadpoles did their thing in the calm parts of the creeks. (Its really amazing we see anything at all with the dirtbikes braaaaping along). We weren't the only ones with the idea for motorized exploration, we saw a bunch of quads, dirtbikes and mountain bikes on the same trails.
Now that is the life! Eating fruit leather and drinking water from a canteen at the top of a mountain, watching life unfold all around.
By the time we got back to the truck we were all kind of hot and definitely muddy, life is good.
And I had the happy knowledge that I did NOT have to cook dinner! We had been invited to my step-dad's for dinner! Hooray! So a quick clean up at home and then we packed the family into the truck to go out for dinner.
The company was nice, the food was good and the kids tired out their jackrussell terrier. Then we were invited to soak in their hot tub for a while! WooHoo this Canada Day just gets better and better! Then after the muscles were thoroughly relaxed we went for a walk down to the beach and gazed in wonder at the family of sea otters frolicking in the slack tide. They are curious energetic creatures, and I couldn't help but thinking they were taunting the little dogs to jump in (I am happy to say the dogs did not accept the challenge).
A small hike back up to my step-dads and a glass of wine more and we came home at nearly 10PM.... very late for us.
The kids crashed easily and so did T and I. What a nice Canada Day!
PS, not everyone was as peaceful as us, unfortunately someone in my Father-in-law's neighbourhood thought it would be fun to celebrate our national freedom by spray painting his truck! I wonder about people, gaack.
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