Officially winter!

It's now officially winter and I am on my Christmas holidays for two weeks. Hooray! As usual, although it's lovely to have a break from the pressures of work life (mostly self-imposed), being on vacation often creates a separate pressure - the pressure to make certain that this precious time off is milked for all it's worth. On top of this, Christmas preparations are not complete. Ideally, I would like to just do fun stuff. I think I should probably stop creating an inner measure of whether or not I've made the best use of my time off (i.e. "this vacation will have been enjoyed and used to the best of my abilities if..."). What will likely occur is that I will make yet another to do list. Two weeks always sounds like a lot of time, but in fact, it goes by incredibly fast. Real winter has been around since sometime in November. However, since the weather this year has been mercurial, our entrance way is packed to gunnels with a variety of footwear and coats. A day of -20 degrees C can be followed by a day of rain and 4 degrees C.

Christmas cookies!

Christmas cookies I decorated! Christmas time is near!

Still tired a lot!

I think that when the girls were younger, I imagined there would be a time in the future where I would feel less tired. It's true that Rebecca, being a teenager, can now execute a pretty epic sleep-in, and Lucy never had any sleep issues. They are both fairly responsible and follow a routine. The thing is though - life has just become challenging in different ways. Teenagers might sleep more soundly (sometimes), but they also have a natural tendency to stay up late. Problems are more complex. Homework is more time consuming. Hobbies and interests are more pervasive, and the balance is more insane. I think this is the busiest time of my life and feeling tired has become my default. Every summer, when things ease off, I marvel that as a family, we are able to cope with the rigours of the school year. Last year, my Mom and I went on a trip to Halifax together for a week and stayed with my Aunt. It was laid back, and I got lots of sleep and lots of chillaxing. It was such a break. Every day I grapple with my work to do list and my personal to do list, and trying to shrink them both. Some days, things go off the rails in one but not the other. Sometimes neither. Sometimes both! I think I am better able to go with the flow now than I could eight years ago.

Rebecca turns 14!

Today Rebecca turned 14. It's a weird experience when your child turns an age that you remember distinctly. We showered her with attention, presents, affection, and tasty treats. I'm hoping the next year will be filled with happiness and joy for her.

Murdoch fans

The girls and I watch television series together. This is something that happens when all homework has been completed, lunches made, activities finished, and pj's donned (provided it's not too late at night). It's a fun way to relax. While we always invite Greg to join us, he usually declines. One summer we got through all the episodes of Star Trek Voyager. One of our favourites is CBC's Murdoch Mysteries. We've watched it in non-sequential order - starting somewhere in the middle, getting to the most recent episodes, then happily going to the beginning once Netflix saw fit to make all the early seasons accessible. We are almost caught up to where we started, but have now also fallen behind on the most current episodes. Greg and I never had television in the house for the girls when they were little, although we had videos and movies, and they had television exposure at my parents' house. I have never regretted this, although I realize it was not the norm. The only television show that we watch in "real time" is Frankie Drake - another CBC series - which we stream off the CBC website on the nights it airs.

It's startin' to look a lot like christmas

So, I play this game with my friends where one person taps out the beat of a christmas song with their hands and the other people have to guess the song. When the tapper reveals the song, they sing it out loud. I was revealing my song, Last Christmas I gave you my heart~ And the guessers started singing. Normal. Until we all start singing at max volume. The class was dead silent except for a couple whipers from the people beside us, so all anyone could hear was: LAST CHRISTMAS I GAVE YOU MY HEART, BUT THE VERY NEXT DAY YOU GAVE IT AWAY. THIS YEAR TO SAVE ME FROM TEARS I'LL GVE IT TO SOMEONE SPECIAL... It was really fun. Note we were doing this in the middle of lunch. And no teacher, not even one, complained about the noise. It was awesome!

Third year of guides

I am also in my third year of guides!

Return of the dino-lover

Hey, everyone! Rebecca here. Last night, we visited this blog for the first time in a while. Though I knew it existed, I didn't know that it had so many posts! To give an introduction, I'm in my early trete and one of my passions is writing. Other than that, I really love drawing, singing, and a few different sports. One thing that never ceases to amaze me is my knack for getting in weird situations, like the time I took the wrong bus, ended up at downtown and met one of my current friends there. I think it would be fun to post things on here and document the mishaps in my life, so it's less of an inside joke with myself, and more like an inside joke with whoever reads these. Maybe it will be a future inside joke with my future self, who knows.

Anyways, I really like writing poetry, so I might end up posting my good poems here when I'm in the mood.

Not too many things have changed since my parents started posting. I'm still dramatic and love dinosaurs, but I have definitely matured since then.

Hope this is enough writing for now!

Return to the blog

It's been 8 years since I've posted anything to this blog. However, Lucy has convinced me to start writing again. When I read my old posts, I am amazed that I ever found the time to produce them, and I am also amazed by the sheer volume of details that I had forgotten. I'm not going to try to recap eight years of my life, especially given the fact that the past eight years have been exceptionally eventful. So here we are - starting anew. I am 43 years old. Rebecca is turning 14 in two days, and is in her first year of high school. Lucy is 11 and in grade 6 (also a new contributor to the blog!). Greg is 42 and has begun working as a flight instructor. I will be making short daily updates.

8 years!

Hello, Lucy writing here! It's been eight years since the last post, and the last time you checked in on our family I was three and didn't even know my mom had a blog. Actually, I didn't discover she did until this year. Anyways, she has granted me permission to write on here, so you'll get to hear about me and possibly my sister, too. Where to start? I'm eleven years old. My earliest memory is probably going to the park with my Dad, and pretending to be a baker and make cakes out of sand. My first day of kindergarten, I walked up to the first girl I saw and asked to become friends with her. She's my best friend to this day. In kindergarten, I had a half day, and would only start school at noon. it was like this for all the kids in my class. My dad and I would drop off my mom at work, eat at a diner for breakfast, go to the park, eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch and then he would walk me to my bus stop. We ate at diners so often, that i was friends with the waitress at the diner we most frequently visited. A lot of chocolate chip pancakes and chocolate milk in those days. Tons. In grade two, I met my English teacher Mr. White (I won't say his full name due to privacy reasons.). He was goofy and very kind. However, if you disrespected him, you would be lectured. That barely happened to anyone though. In third grade I had Mr. White again. On the day of my birthday that year, I walked in and said "It's my birthday today!" Mr, White said, "No, it's mine!". Now, I thought he was goofing off, but as it turns out we actually had the same birthday. That year, I had a french teacher that I had in kindergarten. She liked me very much and teased me a lot. Fifth grade I had some trouble with my friends, as they never seemed to take interest in me and never payed attention to me. However, I resolved those problems and felt happier than ever. It also made me much more considerate of people's emotions and feelings. I actually learned quite a bit from it. Fast forward to now. I am in sixth grade, my favorite sport is fencing and as for hobbies, I love anything artistic from dancing to painting. Sadly though I lack confidence in singing and dancing in front of other people and i hope to overcome that at least partially this year. That's all for now, Lucy.