More 365 pages

Clearly I'm not finding/making the time to post regularly to this blog. I am up to date on my Project 365 though, so here they are:

Thanks for looking and thanks for your patience. Have a great day.

M.

3.6.5.

Guess what? I am totally up to date on my Project 365 pages. I just finished last weeks' page but I’m not going to post it yet. I have so many to posts to catch up, I thought I’d do it a few at a time. That way, I’m guaranteed at least a couple of day's worth of blog fodder.




Thanks for looking and I hope you and yours had a great Thanksgiving weekend. It’s back to the real world tomorrow.

Gobble. Gobble.

Thursday Thirteen

My friend Barb does the Thursday Thirteen most weeks and in my new found desire to blog more I thought I’d try it. If you’d like to participate, go here.

This is a list of 13 things that are on my Never Ending To Do List right now (in no particular order). Most of them have been there for some time.

1. Paint all the hallways in the house. It’s been a few years since we did this last and I’m starting to be quite annoyed by the gouges, scratches and little fingerprints that just won’t wash away.

2. Replace the pot lights in the kitchen and paint the ceiling. We have just recently evicted our little squirrel friend who decided to make our ceiling its home and munch away on the wires for our pot lights. We are left with a patchy ceiling and lights that no longer sit nicely in their holes. Plus one light works some days, but not on others.

3. Tile the backsplash in the kitchen. It can’t be that hard, can it? I know Home Depot offers seminars on various DIY projects for women. I’m hoping to take one of those.

4. Go on a hike with the girls and Dave. This one isn’t actually on my To Do list but I really want to do it.

5. Finish the half completed albums in my drawer. I’ve got an "All About Me" album, one from our trip in 2001 to St. Petersburg Florida, and both of the girl’s school albums which have not been updated since Grade 3 and JK. They are in Grade 7 and Grade 3 now.

6. Order and do pages from Donna Downey. I love the fabric, dimension and colours in her kits. Just yummy.

7. Try my hand at a mosaic page. I’ve carefully collected all the required supplies. Now I just have to do it. You can see some examples here.

8. Rip all my CD’s onto my computer so I can play them through iTunes and on my iPod. I’m going to need to get myself an EHD before I can accomplish this one. My computer is getting quite full.

9. Steam clean the carpets. It’s gotta be done.

10. Catch up on my Project 365 pages and all the digi pages I’ve got planned out and ready to go. I think I need more hours in the day.

11. Get to the LCBO to stock up on wine for the Holiday Season. You just never know when you’ll need to go somewhere and bring a bottle with you, or when someone might drop by for a Christmas drink. Right now, we are totally out of wine, so don’t drop by for a drink. We’d have to pull out the hard stuff.

12. Clean the stovetop. I did some serious ‘boiling over’ yesterday and haven’t managed to clean it yet.

13. Paint the door to the basement. We have a french door at the bottom of the basement stairs that opens up into the playroom. About 3 years ago I carefully taped each and every window in the door so I could paint it. I don’t know what happened but I never got around to it and I notice the tape is all gone. I guess I’ll have to start all over.…

Well, that’s my 13. Most of these have been on my list a long long time. I’m skeptical I’ll ever get all of them done. I was going to say if I won the lottery, I’d have the time to do them but quite frankly if I won the lottery, I think I’d pay someone to do most of them.

I'm Back . . . Again

Well, I’m back.

I think.

For today, anyway!!

It’s been a long time but I’ve been quite busy. School is back in and I’ve been struggling with establishing some kind of regular routine. I’m determined to increase my activity this year and am either walking or running 6 days a week. It’s a lot to fit in and I’m convinced that’s why I’m having such a tough time carving out time for things like this blog, but I know it’s the right thing to do so I’m not giving it up.

Briefly, here’s what’s happened here over the past couple of months:

We went to Lion’s Head for a week and had a great time. We hopped on the Chi-Cheemaun for a day trip to Manitoulin Island and enjoyed numerous beaches including Sauble Beach and Singing Sands. It was a great trip.

We went to the Ex before school went back in. I always have a great time there.

Both girls are back at school and settling in nicely. It seems to be a bit harder this year to get the older one up and out of the house in the morning, but we’re getting there!! They are in grades 3 and 7 this year. I find that remarkably hard to believe.

Dave and I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary and his 41st birthday.

Isobel celebrated her 8th birthday with a party at the Airborne Trampoline Centre. We had 15 children in attendance and they jumped almost non stop for an hour. It was great. After the party our good friends Emma and Megan spent the night. It’s always good to have those girls over.

Isobel got a Chinese Fighting Fish named Fisher Jack for her birthday from Meredith, who has already died. (The fish, not Meredith!!) It was quite traumatic and I didn’t even manage to get a photo of him. He has since been replaced with Swimmer Leo.



Meredith seems to have had a growth spurt. None of her clothes from June fit her now. Even the pants I got her in late July don’t fit so we’ve been doing some shopping.

I’ve been working hard on my 365 pages. Here are a couple of them:

It looks like I’m going to be doing a bit of paid work again. Yay me!!! I’m going to do my best to keep posting.

Thanks for putting up with me and checking back here regularly.

A Project Completed

I don't have any Project 365 pages for you today - no whining please!! BUT I did complete my Lion's Head album from our vacation last summer. It only took a year. Not bad for me, I'd say. LOL.

Here it is and as always, thanks for looking.

Gimme a 3 and a 6 and a 5!!!

Here's my Project 365 page from last week. Can you believe I'm still doing these? I certainly can't.

They are all I've got time to post these days, but I think they keep you up to date with what's going on here.

Have a great day, week and summer and thanks for looking!

3.6.5.

This seems to be all I have time to post these days. I'm actually quite amazed that I am still managing to get them done and posted. Thanks for looking. Here's last weeks page.



Have a great weekend!

365 Pages

Well, I can’t believe that I got them done, but I did. Here are 3 more 365 pages.

Thanks for looking.

An Update

I’m not going to post photos and I’m not going to do any links. I’m just going to do a quick post to keep this blog up to date.

My time is not my own right now. We’re having a great summer and, as always, I wonder how I got things done when my girls were home with me all the time. It seems to be that back then, I didn’t have quite as much to do. And I don’t mean things I NEED to do, but rather things I WANT to do.

Anyway, so far this summer, we’ve gone to Wonderland, the AGO, the Science Centre and the Royal Botanical Gardens. We’ve got together for play dates with the Roberts, spent some time with Grandma and had a week of swimming lessons for Isobel. I’ve managed to still crop most Tuesdays for a couple of hours and we’re planning a garage sale for this weekend.

Last weekend we were away at a friend’s cottage. It was 100 years old and had boat access only. It was absolutely beautiful and we all had a great time.

The summer is only a few weeks old and we’re doing well so far. The girls are enjoying their ‘old fashioned’ summer without camps to amuse them every minute. We are playing with friends, reading, swimming and spending time outside. We are doing chores and watching TV. We are just hanging out and sleeping in.

Thanks for reading. I’ll post again when I can.

Look What I Did

I was on Jessica Sprague today and saw a link to this tutorial.

I turned this photo:

into this watercolour painting:

(Click on it to see the detail)

I'm very impressed with myself. I'm off to see what else I can do.

Mmmm.... Food

Pastor Ryan's Bolognese Sauce

Photo Courtesy of Pioneer Woman

Does anyone out there follow the Pioneer Woman? I’ve read her blog for over a year now and I do enjoy it. Some of her posts are long, some are short but all of them are accompanied by some very beautiful photographs. Her life is so very different from mine, and I look forward to reading about her family’s exploits in their daily life.

She is putting together a recipe book and has a whole section of her site dedicated to cooking. Her recipes are neither low fat nor simple, but they all look delicious – and of course are all accompanied by the most mouth-watering photographs. When this recipe was posted I wanted to try it out so badly, but I’m not a very adventurous cook. I put it on the schedule many times but always managed to find a reason not to make it. This weekend it dawned on me – Dave is a great cook and he loves to try new recipes. I really think the harder and more challenging they are, the more he enjoys it.

He made it for us last night for dinner. I’d done the shopping for the ingredients, but wouldn’t you know it, all the staples we generally keep in the house that the recipe called for were almost out, so I had to rush out not once, but twice during the cooking process for red wine, Worcestershire sauce, parmesan cheese and milk.

It was, by far, the best Bolognese Sauce I have ever had. Even Isobel, who doesn’t normally eat ‘red’ sauce, loved it. The recipe made enough for us to freeze two more meals, so we get to enjoy it again in the future. So, if you’re looking for something special to make and you’ve got the time – or better yet, someone else to make it for you – I highly recommend it.

And check out these little lovelies:

Chocolate Cookies Dipped in White Chocolate and Rolled in Candy Canes
Photo Courtesy of Pioneer Woman

I think I might have to attempt them at Christmas!

Random Thoughts

I haven’t had the time (well I have, but that’s a whole other story) to post all the random thoughts churning through my brain. So here they are, in no particular order:

Report Cards – The girls’ report cards came home on Wednesday. I’m not a particularly ‘type A’ parent. I don’t need my kids to have straight A’s but I do need to feel they are doing their best and trying their hardest. Their report cards this year definitely represented that. Meredith gets the award for most improved. She has had such a good year – both socially and academically. And to think, I was worried about the move to a new school. What a difference a little confidence and a good, caring teacher can make. Isobel gets the independence award. I can honestly say the marks on her card totally represent work done by her. She did her homework and her projects this year entirely on her own. Way to go girls.

School’s Out For The Summer – Yee haw. School is out for the next two months. Whatever will we do? Ha ha – not to worry – I’ve got lots of ideas. For the most part, I’m going to expect them to entertain themselves and help me out during the day. If they tell me they’re bored, I have a list of things to help occupy their time. Things like ‘clean out your night table drawer’ and ‘pick up 10 pieces of garbage in the yard’. I don’t think they’ll be telling me they’re bored too often!!

Canada’s Wonderland – We took the girls on Friday. What a blast. I went there a lot in my teenaged years. Some of the rides I remember were still there plus a whole slew of new ones. I knew I wouldn’t be able to go on the rides that spin or go backwards but I was sure I’d be okay on the roller coasters. Hmph. Little did I know. The first ride we went on was a stunt car roller coaster ride. We weren’t even halfway through it and I felt my neck go ~CRACK~ and the pain started. Ugh. And today I have the resulting migraine! I did manage to go on one other roller coaster – Dragon Fire – but that was it. However, it was a great day!! Here are some photos:

Michael Jackson AND Farrah Fawcett On The Same Day? - I have to admit I’ve never been a huge MJ fan. I’ve certainly enjoyed his music but I’ve never actually owned any of it. I think he would be happy with his death. In a way it mirrors his life – secretive yet full of controversy. I am a little disappointed to see how little press FF’s death is getting, though. I think she deserves a little more air time. It was tough to see her battle with cancer and I hope she’s at peace now. You know you’re getting old when the icons of your youth start dying.

Last but not least are my 365 Pages. Yes, I’m still managing to get them done. Thanks to Dave taking the girls out to play badminton this afternoon, I got these two completed.

Thanks for looking and have a great day.

Free? Photo Editing? I'm in!!

I just signed myself up for this lovely little FREE class over at Jessica Sprague.com. I've taken many of her digital classes and loved every single one of them. This one starts on July 6th. The kiddies will be home. I will be distracted. Am I crazy? Probably. But they're good kids. They'll understand!!

Care to join me? It's free. There's nothing to lose, but so much to gain.

I'm Back (I think)

So, I’m back.

I just can’t make up my mind about this blog. On the one hand, I don’t always feel like I have anything very interesting or thought provoking to say, but on the other hand, since I made the decision to discontinue it, I’ve thought of all sorts of things I could have been posting. I just find I spend so much time on my computer. Between the day to day emails, the newspaper, the message boards I like to follow and all the blogs I read, I feel like I’m on here all the time. I’ve got a few friends who are dedicated Facebook users and I thought perhaps that would be a better use of my time, however, I find Facebook doesn’t give me enough room to say what I need to say. So, here I am. I’m back.

I cannot promise to blog every day or even every week. I can’t promise that it will always be interesting – in fact, sometimes it might be downright boring. I think when I started this I thought I would amass a following and that hasn’t happened. I stopped posting because I figured if I couldn’t do it right, I wouldn’t do it at all, but now I realize I really don’t do this for other people, I do it for myself. Sometimes the words and the thoughts race through my head and I need somewhere to park them. This blog serves that purpose for me.

So, now that I’ve gotten all that off my chest, here are my most recent 365 pages – yes I’m still managing it!! Some weeks the photos aren’t taken the days they say they were taken, but that’s okay, right?

Thanks for looking. Please be sure to check back here again. You might find a post from me and you might not.

If you’re in my neck of the woods, I hope you’re enjoying this rainy Saturday.

See Ya Later

Well, I think this is it. My last blog post. I haven’t done a very good job of posting regularly lately and that seems to be happening more often than not. I’m running out of things to say and don’t feel like boring you all with the minutia of my daily life, so I’m hanging up my bloggers hat. That doesn’t mean I won’t put it on again one day, but for now, I’m putting it away.

I’m going to try to post photos, layouts and updates on Facebook, so if you will, please follow me there.

See ya later everyone, and thanks for looking.

M.

Manic Monday

Another meme. That’s all I seem to have to write about these days. This one is the Manic Monday.

1. Imagine you're packing a picnic lunch. What would be in your basket? In my basket would be flat bread with artichoke and asiago dip, cut up veggies and fruit, perhaps a shrimp ring and a book.


2. If your life were a weather vane, which direction would it be pointing right now? It would be pointing north because I’m cold today.


3. What's something that people do in traffic that really annoys you? Turn into my lane when they really don’t have enough space, pick their nose, and creep along slowly looking for a parking space.

Oh, and here’s my 365 page:

Friday Fill In

In an effort to blog a little more, I think I might try to participate in more memes. This one is called the Friday Fill-In and you can find it here.


Here it goes.

1. Moving my body always makes me feel good and glad I’ve done it even though getting to it, is always the most difficult thing I will do each day.

2. If you look around you, the things in life that you really and truly could not live without are are free - the love of friends and family.

3. My best quality is my ability to be organized. Sometimes it is a fault, but most often it gets me through the day.

4. I love the details.

5. In nearly 10 years, I have not put on a suit and ridden the GO train to work. Over 10 years, actually. And they’ve been the best 10 years of my life.

6. A cleaning lady is what I need right now!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to going to a friends’ house for a BBQ, tomorrow my plans include spending time with my girlies and hopefully getting a bit of scrapping done and Sunday, I want to work on my tennis serve.

That’s it for me, people. Have a great weekend.

Our First Long Weekend

Well, it was our first long weekend of the season and I have to say, it was a good one. We took advantage of the rain on Saturday and went into Toronto to . . . you guessed it . . . the ROM – again. I think we’ve gone 7 times with our membership. What a great investment that was.

We went specifically to see their new Bio Diversity exhibit. It was spectacular. I’d like to go back again when it’s not quite so crowded. Each display has its own touch screen where you can choose various videos. Some are things like ‘Animal Cams’ where they’ve attached a camera to a duck’s back, for example. There was one that showed a decomposing fox. Yuck. But they were all interesting. I’d like to have had the time to see more of them. They were all informative.

After that we hopped on the subway – the girls love the subway – and went down to the St. Lawrence Market for lunch. Then we got back on the subway and up to our car. It was a simple day, but a really fun one.

On Sunday, we got lots of gardening and chores done around the house, played a little tennis and kept the girls up way too late for fireworks in the school yard. It is amazing that we can buy fireworks at the local Mac’s Milk and the kids are all as enamoured with them as they would be if we were to go to a professional display. I suppose it’s a good thing we haven’t yet been to a professional display!! Maybe we’ll be brave enough to do that next year (or the year after).

Today, we have two very tired girls here at home. Plus, Meredith has a cold. So, we hung out around here, baked some cookies and met Dave’s mom for lunch. I managed to get my 365 page done:



Thanks for looking. I hope you enjoyed your long weekend too. What did you do?

I'm Rambling

You know what the weirdest thing is about giving up the land line (see my last post)? It has made me hyper sensitive to the phone. I carry it around with me religiously now. I worry about not answering it. I worry about missing a call.

BUT IT NEVER RINGS!!

I’ve had about 5 wrong numbers over the course of the 10 days since The Switchover – someone seems to have moved and is giving our number to contractors – but other than that and a couple of really annoying telemarketers, nobody calls me.

It’s a good thing, though. It really reinforces for me our decision to do this. I’m not a phone person. I’m much more likely to email you, than I am to call you. But I think I need to stop carrying it around so much, don’t you?

Oh, and here’s my 365 page for last week:


Thanks for looking!!!

No More Land Line

Well, we finally did it. We got rid of our land line. We ported our home telephone number to a cell phone and cancelled the home phone service. I got myself one of these cutie pies:

The best part? The phone was free. And, even with our long distance charges, our monthly phone bill shouldn’t cost us any more than it was before, in fact, it might even be cheaper.

It’s very liberating somehow to get rid of the land line. It’s weird to look around the house and not see a single phone, but it’s good too.

You can still reach me the same way, because my home number hasn’t changed, but you’ll never know where I am or what I’m doing.

Monday

I had an awesome Monday. It wasn’t anything spectacular and I didn’t do anything unusual, it was just really good. I got the house cleaned, I got the bed sheets changed and washed, I rode my bike downtown and went for a swim and I ran some errands. I watched Oprah while I folded laundry, I taught Isobel a little bit about digital scrapbooking and I got my Project 365 page done:

I have not felt very productive lately and I need to feel productive. Today I felt spectacularly productive and it’s a good feeling. Plus, I went swimming. Swimming is one of those things I really enjoy but the process of getting myself in a bathing suit usually stops me from doing it. I love the smell of chlorine on my skin – weird, I know – plus, everyone there is way older than me and they’re not interested in what I look like in my bathing suit.

I think I need to swim more often.

Spring Concert

Last night we attended Meredith’s first Spring Concert at her new school. We knew she was in the Grade 6 Band (flute) and we knew she was in the choir.

What we didn’t know was that she was 1 of only 3 girls in the choir.

Yes, you read that right – 3 girls in the choir.

3 girls in total.

No boys.

No other girls.

Just 3 girls - all from her Grade 6 class.

They sang a song thanking the volunteers. I so wish I had videotaped it, but I just wasn’t ready. And by the time I realized it, it was too late.

The three of them did a great job. An amazing job. A stupendous job.

I’m proud of them all, but as Meredith’s mother, I’m particularly proud of her for getting up there and doing it. This is the kid who doesn’t participate enough in class. This is the kid who struggled in Grade 4 to say her speech in front of her class. This is the kid who used to get nervous doing presentations in class.

I’m so proud of her, I can barely stand it. She did a great job.

I just can’t believe she didn’t tell me ahead of time.

Go figure.