Moving On

Today was moving day for my sister. I helped her pack for several hours yesterday, and she didn't call me today. That's great, because my day was already hectic with the kids home and cleaning up, etc. (I knew T's brother was coming here at some point too, but no idea when exactly. )

I am sad my sister had to move to the other end of town, and I am going to miss the closeness the cousins have had all going to the same school. Now they will be separated, in a different electoral catchment, let alone school catchment! I'll get over it, but for now I will morn..... no more spontanious coffee talk after dropping the kids at school, no more weekly playdates for the boys, no more evening walks up the valley to visit, she is elsewhere and a 25 minute drive away at the end of town that I generally try to avoid (shopping mall central). It's the "good" end of town, but it's never heald the least bit of attraction for me... all the houses looking the same on their little fenced lots with their little manicured lawns. All empty during the day because they are all 2-income houses (except the houses with nannies I guess will be occupied I suppose). They can keep it! My neighbourhood has character and lots of stay-home-moms and retirees.

I hope they are happy there for many years to come, I really do.

sigh.....

School's Out!

It's official, school is out for Summer.

I would love to report that my boys are star students, but that would be a lie. The good news is they are strongly in the "satisfactory" range.

Steve (who I was so worried about) got several C+, quite a few C and a couple C-, so he passed everything! It's strange that he can sometimes get the highest grades in Math and Science tests, but only pull off a C+.... well maybe not so strange, he doesn't do the assignments in between the tests very well. And his Language Arts C is not surprising - he hates printing an typing SO MUCH that minimum effort goes into any written answers and essays, even though the answers may be technically correct, they are too brief. Same goes for Social Studies. He messed up in Music (he genuinely despises the teacher and the feeling is mutual, she has a hate on for both my boys), and French (the teacher recommended he not take French anymore), c'est le vive...

Cami (who I only recently learned has problems) doesn't get letter grades yet. No outstanding accolades anywhere BUT, he consistently got "Meets expectations at a beginner level" in most areas, and "Fully meets expectations" in other areas. Only in writing fluency did he "not yet meet expectations" so I guess we need to practice that. Apparently he reads at a mid-Grade 1 level, not good, but at least he reads!!!!

Steve has really picked that up better lately, he will read some things on his own now... nothing complicated, but Calvin and Hobbes and Far Side are better than nothing! LOL.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, I am trying desperately to let go of my expectations for how well I think they should be doing. T insists they are doing better than he ever did, so I am trying to embrace that instead of dwelling on their POTENTIAL.

And here is Summer Holidays! I am looking forward to this! I really want to do right by my kids and set up a regular routine of academic practice and fun times with them. I will have to adjust my office hours to accommodate this. Maybe my office will not be open until 9:30, and that will give me 1/2 hour per child in the morning to work followed by 1/2 hour together to craft or do experiments with them..... I will have to work a little schedule out..... now that I know where they need help.

Fathers Day Activities

There is "free fishing" around here for Father's Day, so it's the one day a year that we are allowed to throw a line in the water without cost. So we returned to Westwood Lake, this time with out boat and oars (no gas engines permitted).

The boys were super-excited! And so was Max....

NOTE: small boat + lots of excited squirming = terrifying rocking, even on a calm lake


The novelty soon wore off for the dog, and soon he looked almost sea-sick trying to nap in the bottom of the hull..... kinda cute.

So the fishing continued.... uh, maybe "fishing" is not the right word. There couldn't have been a fish in a 50ft radius of the oar-splashing, line-tossing, excited-chattering cacophony we were making in that little boat!!! Poor T, he thought he was going to get a quiet fishing trip..... at least everybody looks HAPPY!

And to add insult to it, there were people catching big, fat trout all around the lake.... (quiet people)! As the sun sunk lower in the sky, we surrendered defeated and fishless, and Steve rowed us back to shore.


(Westwood is a man-made reservoir, so there are really cool stumps poking out of the water all around the perimeter, very moody looking in the low, evening light)

Small Perfection

Sometimes when tromping down the road I have a moment of inspiration where I look in the ditch. Usually the contents are mildly entertaining, sometimes disparaging (like the time I found the deer carcass), but SOMETIMES if I look closely I see tiny jewels that are so small that I have to get on my hands and knees to appreciate them:

itty bitty wild violets....
tiny white (sometime pink) blooms on the most delicate of stems....

stunning pink bells, again so tiny that they seem impossible.

even this wild rose was small, stunted and still so perfect, even covered in road dust.

Nature is amazing, big or small.

More about Books

I have been thinking about some of the books that have affected me.... I have mentioned some before, but I thought I'd mention one that I read a couple years ago... 2 actually. Memoirs of a Geisha reminded me of the historical novels, (they are my favourites... the ones that try to capture the hardships and essence of life in a time).

Girl With A Pearl Earring was good because I had no precontext for danish history of that time, but I had certainly been familiar with the paintings mentioned, by Johannes Vermeer's, so it was fastinating from a simple maid's perspective.... it's been too long since I read it and I have to go there again soon.

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Also Christ the Lord by Anne Rice, the religious parts were nicely done, and the childhood perspective and his own mysterious coming to terms with his destiny are great on top of the truly interesting discriptions of the day to day life of a young jew in the Roman Egypt. Very intersting and I think I have to read it again.

Decluttering secret

psssst.... don't tell anyone.... I decluttered Cami's room..... shhhhh......

(I got a nice sized bag of garbage out and a decent sized box of toys that are going to get a different home)

There is a bit of guilty feelings on my part... but only a little bit. After all he just had a birthday and got a bunch of new stuff. We aren't exactly ahead of the game, but we are no farther behind!

I still have more to go with Cami's stuff, and Stevie's stuff and I am revisiting MY toys too.

There are an impossible number of quilts and blankets! WHY?????? We use them all, so where do people usually put the bulky things? Or is it more normal to have just one warm weather blanket and one cold weather duvet per bed? (with the bedwetting I have always needed 2 for each season and one clean one for the "guest room") It adds up and there is no hope of them all cramming into the linen closet's top shelf!

On the bright side, my closet got some new summer shirts, so I had to cull more there (one-in-one-out)

our pets

Pets add something to life I think. Actually when I think about it too hard I get pretty weirded-out that we share our homes with these messy, expensive critters. Honestly, they are worth it in a lot of ways.... at least most of the time!

Other than the thousand or so stick insects in my bug tank, and 2 goldfish in a tub out back, we share our home with 2 warm, fuzzy mammals.

JET (She came with the name Jet after Jet Li's Kung-fu kitten moves apparently.... not that you can tell from her comfy-kitty pictures here) she is a feisty feline of unparallelled beauty (in my eyes). I love her dearly even if she isn't exactly "cuddly" most of the time. So independent and yet her curiousity and instinctive hunting behaviour is so easy to manipulate into getting her to make a fool of herself (the laser pointer is irresistable, or ruffling the sheets so that she'll pounce). It's great to have a cat to remind you that no matter how "cool" you think you are, there will be a time when you may fall headlong off the couch in front of everybody! When she does choose to seek affection, it feels very special indeed.

MAX is a typical dog. Disgusting, needy, high maintenance and the purveyor of unconditional love to everyone in this household. The kids love him and he is pretty cute when he's not barking, pooping, shedding,....etc.

I am being too harsh... he's about as good as a dog as I've ever had. And he loves us all so much!

Just look into those big puppy-dog eyes and see the warm affection!

He is happy MOST of the time! I don't know how he does it, but you can tell he just LOVES being a dog, from the romping with a stick to the snarfling of his dog food, he looks very very pleased with his lot in life, and that is a character traight we could all learn something from!

A few things

This weekend my baby turned 8!Time flies when you are having fun. The party had good timing, the weather has been painfully hot the last little while, but miraculously the temperature was very comfortable for the actual party. Including my kids there were 11 munchkins going crazy in my backyard and out in the cul-de-sac. Between the truck races down the driveway, the cake, presents, food and water saber fight, they didn't have time to come inside and destroy the house!!!! WOOHOO!!!! 3 hours was quite long enough thank you. Afterwards, the family came over to see Cameron for his birthday and we have a lovely dinner outside on the back deck with the cousins going again at the watersabers.
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Sunday the BMX races were cancelled for track remodelling, since we were already packed with the bikes and a picnic lunch we went for a lovely hike/ride around Westwood Lake. It is a gorgeous 6 km path that completely goes around the lake. Hills, woods, water, and just enough cloud-cover to keep it comfortable!

(That area is where T & I got married and it always holds a dear spot for me.)

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Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas..... (?)

Well, not really, it's just the cottonwood having a bumper year thanks to the unusually dry Spring we have been having. The effect on the BMX track was mesmerizing, drifts of white fluff stirring around as people walked by, it coming down softly on the breeze like snow..... very soothing, even as we were sweating in the heat of the sun and sneezing the fuzzy stuff out of our noses!

And this is the culprit here.... a huge tree (at least 50 ft tall) dripping with happy, fluffy pods!

PS Cammy did very well this race, he ended up placing 3rd in his new age group -- which is now EIGHT YEARS OLD!!!!

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I finally read it:

I am not much for reviewing books (I seldom read novels these days) But this is about as good as it gets. I devoured it in record time, and was very sad when it was done -- honestly I think the end crept up too abruptly. This book covered everything I love in time-period novels, a deep attachment for the characters, thoroughly believable surroundings described in intimate detail, and circumstances that I could sympathize with. All in all a delicious experience that I will be visiting again!

work work work

Hooray!

I had a pretty busy week with work!

Some interesting and pretty projects too.

----- see my portfolio blog called "jennesoncreatives" ------>

So a bit of money is coming in after all. Between that and finding out that T's extended medical should reimburse us for Steve's mouth-trauma expenses.... it's been a financially sucessful week.

Honestly, I was getting a bit worried.

Though our monthly costs haven't gone up significantly, it seemed our accounts were much lower than they have been. It was birthday season, but I have been careful about that. I quickly tracked it down to a lull in MY contracts, it seems the economy has finally hit the little at-home industries that I service with my design. Thank goodness I re-established relations with a past client to fill it in a bit!

It's funny, I never count my income as important to this household. Maybe because it is not stable, maybe it's because it is so part time, maybe because it isn't much, but you know it REALLY makes a difference when it's not there!

I was not focussed this last couple months... I wanted the garden going, I wanted to declutter, I guess I had Spring fever in a bad way! LOL

Then with Steve's tooth thing, that crashed my desire to work for a bit too. (Pun intended). Now that he has stabilized there is no excuses and that brochure or three was just the kick I needed to feel happy about designing again! (I really should do some more with the HVAC company's stuff too, I have let that slack even more than the design stuff!).

That's the thing about self-employment, you only get paid when you work, and you only work if you go out and get it!

I watch my sister fret and stress and really go through agony finding childcare that fits the retailer hours that her and her hsuband work (especially when they are sent out of town). And paying so much for it! I am happy that I get to work from home, very very happy. It is so much easier with the boys being older! There are no excuses, I could be full time by the time Cam is 10 (2 years to go).