Decks in bloom

When we lived in the Blue House, we had a super large deck - it was awesome. The deck was off the kitchen and we used it all the time. We were super spoiled at the Blue House; we had three eating areas in good weather: the kitchen, the dining room, and the deck.

I loved it. Okay fine, I loved the whole Blue House.

But the deck. The first summer we were in the house, I knew I had to do something with it but I had no idea where to start. My friend Chandra gave me an early birthday gift of plants and planting materials and we spent a very pleasant day making the deck look beautiful.

The deck became a central part of our life that summer. It was home to a big table with an umbrella, a bunch of solar powered lights (there was no power on the deck), an awesome park bench and our bbq. We played board games out there. We ate our meals out there.

We often had friends over for meals and of course we ate out there. We had birthday cake for breakfast out there.

We had parties out there, lots of deck parties. We had birthday parties out there, more than once.

We had an upstairs neighbour and a downstairs neighbour in the Blue House and they both had their own small-space gardens. Water our respective gardens became part of our evening rituals. After the sun had set, the crows had flown home to Burnabye and I had taken down the ugly sheets on the kitchen windows (I finally made and hung the curtains before the second summer) and opened the windows and doors in the house to cool it off, I'd head to the deck to water my plants.

Around the same time K and R would both be out doing theirs. We liked our neighbours and we saw them often and this became a time, just before bed, for the three of us to exchange pleasantries and stories. By that second summer, K was preparing to move out and R and I were on tenterhooks because we didn't know when/if the house was going to be sold and we'd be looking for another place to live. The second summer I pretty much only had volunteers and herbs. I didn't want to leave much behind if we did end up leaving. And the deck had started to rot. K probably would have replaced it for us, but she no longer owned the house and the new landlords were...difficult.

Moving into a condo was a huge adjustment for us. We downsized tremendously. Our outside space shrunk. We lived in close proximity to a whole bunch of people, not just our beloved neighbours K and R. Oh and we had a brand new baby.

But I still wished for a garden and a green space and some plants. And this year, I finally figured it out. It's not as spacious as the Blue House. There's no grass. I can barely fit a kitchen chair out there, so it's not exactly a comfortable place to eat or read or do much of anything. But it's ours. And it's pretty.

And J is so excited about it...and that makes it 100% worth it! Oh, and I'm excited to what the plants will produce...looks like lots of strawberries and herbs, a few tomatoes and some beans...which is way more than we've ever had before!

In an instant, it all changed

Tuesday, September 11, 2001 was a beautiful day in London, much like the beautiful day we're having today in Vancouver. When I got up that morning, I never, ever would have thought the day would end with such sadness.

I was off work that day and had gone into London with a friend who was getting ready to leave London, go on a trip through Europe and then head home to Mexico. I don't remember much of the morning, but sometime after lunch, around 1:30 or 2:00, we were in a tacky gift shop on the Strand. And over the chatter of the tourists in the shop, I heard something about a plane hitting the Empire State building.

And that was it. I didn't think much of it, in my mind it was a small, personal aircraft that must have made some kind of navigational error. The person reading the news was pretty calm and matter of fact and moved on to the next news story. Sad, but what do you do, right?

Not long after that we decided it was time to move on to our next destination - I'm not sure what it was, we never made it there. When we stepped out onto the street, something was wrong. It was quiet. Very quiet. It's never quiet like that on the Strand. And there was a lady on her cell phone in the middle of the street, sobbing. And a man next to her, who obviously knew her, but not well, awkwardly patting her on the shoulder.

As we walked through the streets, we could feel the mood thickening and the city getting quieter, but we didn't know why. I had forgotten the news report and didn't make that connection until later.

We decided that we were just going to go home. We didn't like the way London felt and we had tickets to the theatre that night, so we thought we'd go home, drop our purchases off, get changed, have dinner and come back.

The underground was eerily quiet. Everyone was very subdued. Every once in a while we'd see someone who had obviously been crying.

When we got back to Pax Lodge, it was a little crazy. We were hosting a seminar and there were American participants who were trying to connect with their relatives. We still weren't sure what was going on. Everyone crowded around the tv, but the news hadn't become huge yet...most stations were showing regular programming. The internet was nothing like it is today and in the entire building there were two computers (maybe four?) that were connected to the internet...nothing would load because the demand around the world was exceeding most sites' bandwidth allowance.

Eventually the UK caught on and all five stations that we got switched to newscasts. And it was devastating. There was huge concern about where terrorists might strike next. There was talk of shutting down the underground. The City was evacuated. All of our international guests and staff just wanted to go home. Of course, we knew that wasn't going to be possible.

Edna and I weren't sure if we should go to the show that night. We were scared that we'd get there and then the underground would shut down and we would have to walk all the way home. We waffled for hours about going and finally our boss told us just to go. That's what we needed to do, keep living and not let the terrorists scare us into staying home, even if we were terrified. She even offered to drive into London to get us if the underground did get shut down.

We went to the theatre and Oxford Street was almost empty. There was two minutes of silence at the beginning of the show and the theatre pretty much stayed quiet throughout the show. The show was great, but the collective sadness of the audience was so heavy. I have no idea how the actors managed to put on such a great performance.

My tv, which pretty much lived in a cabinet, came out of storage and for the next few days there was almost always someone in my room, even when I wasn't there, watching the coverage. I don't think I've ever cried so many tears. I don't think I've ever been so homesick either. Not that being home would have made the reality of it any less, but being home would at least give me the comfort of knowing my family was okay. I figured the world was ending.

The world didn't end.

My parents flew, very safely, to London a few weeks later to visit me and do some travelling. I flew to Finland and flew back to London with two pairs of scissors in my carry-on luggage and no one stopped me. I figured an armed guard would be waiting to arrest me when the plane touched down at Heathrow. Edna didn't get to go on her trip through Europe. Her mom was so concerned she asked her to come home right away.

Things changed. People seem to be more cautious. I need a passport to cross the 49th parallel. I can't carry a water bottle with me on the plane anymore. Thousands of people lost loved ones on September 11. Thousands more have lost loved ones in the years since in London, Iraq and Afghanistan and in other terrorist attacks. But the world has carried on.

This morning when I got up, my thoughts immediately went back to that day ten years ago. I hugged J a little tighter than usual. Then I turned the tv on and saw that the three year old from Sparwood had been returned to his family. And I hugged her again. She looked at me like I was crazy. Then she saw the tears glistening in my eyes and she gently patted my shoulder and told me "It will be okay, Mommy. I love you."

And I think she's right.

It will be okay. The world didn't end. It changed.

A look back...

Back in 2006 I filled this out...and because I have nothing better to do tonight (like the dishes or sleep...ahem) I thought I'd see what my answers are now like (sisters, I know you drop by occasionally...you both answered the questions in 2006 too...) Green ones stayed the same, blue ones are new answers.

1. WHAT COLOR ARE YOUR KITCHEN PLATES? plain white

2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING RIGHT NOW? The Disappeared

3. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? red stuff

4. FAVORITE BOARD GAME? trivial pursuit

5. FAVORITE MAGAZINE? Real Simple

6. FAVORITE SMELL? J after a bath

7. LEAST FAVORITE SMELL? the asbestos building I work in

8. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING? really? morning already? please let it be Saturday

9. FAVORITE COLOUR? I like blues and purples and pinks

10. LEAST FAVORITE COLOUR? yucky orange (there is nice orange too)

11. HOW MANY RINGS BEFORE YOU ANSWER THE PHONE? no more than four, because that's when the answering machine picks up. no one ever calls me anyway!

12. FUTURE CHILD'S NAME? There's going to be more than one?

13. WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT IN LIFE? living

14. Uh...there is still no 14?

15. CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA? vanilla

16. DO YOU LIKE TO DRIVE FAST? sometimes

17. DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL? I have a teddy who sits on my bed during the day, but usually sleeps on the floor at night

18. STORMS - COOL OR SCARY? very cool

19. WHAT TYPE WAS YOUR FIRST CAR? Alex's Honda Civic

20. IF YOU COULD MEET ONE PERSON DEAD OR ALIVE WHO WOULD IT BE? my grandma

21. FAVORITE ALCOHOLIC DRINK? what is alcohol? I think it makes me sleepy

22. WHAT IS YOUR SIGN AND YOUR BIRTHDAY? cancer - July 3 - odd that this is the same...

23. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS OF BROCCOLI? yup

24. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY JOB WHAT WOULD IT BE? I have that job - I'm J's mommy!

25. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY COLOUR HAIR, WHAT WOULD IT BE? I like my brown hair even though it's got golden highlights right now (yellow according to J!)

26. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN LOVE? mmmhmmm

27. IS THE GLASS HALF FULL OR HALF EMPTY? half full

28. FAVORITE MOVIE? love actually

29. TYPE WITH YOUR FINGERS ON THE RIGHT KEYS? yup...I was forced to take grade nine typing and as much as I loathed it, typing has probably done me more good than the table I could have made in woodwork.

30. WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED? under the bed storage boxes filled with towels and sheets

31. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE NUMBER? 13

32. FAVORITE SPORT TO WATCH? hockey

33. WHAT IS YOUR SINGLE BIGGEST FEAR? something happening to Alex or J

34. FAVORITE TV SHOWS? I have too many...Bones, Rookie Blue, Criminal Minds, NCIS, NCIS Los Angeles, Law & Order (the original and SVU)...

35. KETCHUP OR MUSTARD? ick..neither

36. HAMBURGERS OR HOTDOGS? burgers! but sometimes hot dogs are the right thing to eat (usually those times involve a campfire and burnt marshmallows too)

37. FAVORITE SOFT DRINK? San Pellegrino - limonata

38. THE BEST PLACES YOU HAVE EVER BEEN? home, London, Italia, Copenhagen

39. WHAT SCREEN SAVER IS ON YOUR COMPUTER RIGHT NOW? ummm...the screen goes blank after a few minutes of being ignored

40. BURGER KING OR MACDONALD'S? neither

Okay, now I'm going to do what I should have done an hour ago...I'm going to bed...good night!

The end

Today we got rid of a piece of furniture that has been with us for the last five years. It was a key table in the Blue House and held our keys plus other random stuff that came into the house (cell phones, mail, apparently if you take a peak at the picture, miniature Christmas trees). It was a bedside table in the ghetto Pink Palace. And here it was also an entryway table/recycling station until it got repurposed into a side table in the living room.

But then we got new tables. And the sewing table had to go. There was no room for it. I liked the little table. I had great plans to refinish it and fill the sewing machine hole and then take out the sewing machine holder stuff and put a shelf behind the door. But that wasn’t really ever going to happen.

So we put it on craigslist and made a few dollars and put them towards the new storage for the living room (I hope by the end of the summer we’ll have it!)

But that’s not all we got rid of today. Alex helped me carry the table out to the waiting car and send it off to someone else’s home and continue its life. I wasn’t sad to see it go, but when I walked in the house, I felt a lot lighter. It took me a minute to know why I felt lighter and then I realized: I hadn’t just said goodbye to a table, I had released an old relationship. That table was the last remnant of that relationship.

Five and a half years ago a friend of mine came to Canada from far away and lived with me. For many reasons it didn’t work and she left early. There were unhappy words said and not said. There were hurt feelings. There was resentment. There were unmet expectations (often because they were also silent expectations) and there were unmet responsibilities. I ended up inheriting some furniture and other bits and pieces as part of my “compensation” for a few things…

Over the last five years we’ve had two moves and three or four big clear outs of our stuff. This is the last piece of that relationship – the rest of the things were either donated or thrown out or accidentally left behind.
When I came back in the house I realized that the lightness I was feeling came from getting rid of that last piece of furniture. Sending it off to a new home allowed me to stop mourning a long dead friendship. I realized that even though the hurt, sadness and anger are long gone, and even though I know things are best the way they are now, and even though our friendship breathed its last breaths back in 2006, and even though I knew it could never be, some piece of me longed for the friendship we had before she came to Vancouver. And that piece of me left with the sewing table.

One of the questions that you can ask yourself when you’re decluttering is “Does this item make me feel guilty?” Maybe instead I need to ask myself “Is this item giving me a [negative] reason to live in the past?” I never would have thought a simple table could hold so much power over me!

So tonight I said goodbye. And I think that’s it.

Playoff time

Well, round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs starts tomorrow and for some reason this year I can't help but thinking of a certain Canucks playoff run 15(!) years ago. I was away at boarding school on an Island in the Pacific where most people had no idea about hockey and couldn't figure out why I was so excited about it...I spent the first half of the playoffs cheering for the Canucks all alone.

We had some strict rules surrounding television viewing which included no TV between the hours of 8:00 pm and 9:30 pm and 10:00 pm and 5:00 ish pm. Being a few hours behind the west coast this meant that a lot of the Canucks games where during class time, especially once they started playing on the East Coast. And since TV time was limited and there was only one TV in the dorm, I had to get creative on how I was going to watch these games.

It turned out I was in luck! The son of the teacher who lived at the end of my hallway watched hockey! All I had to do was convince him to watch the Vancouver games. Now, he seemed so old to me then...I'm thinking he was, oh, 24 at the most, but when you're 16...Anyway, long story short, many afternoons I could be found in their living room watching hockey while other students got help with school work in the dining room or made long distance phone calls from the phone in the kitchen.

It was a relief to get home not only have clear and easy access to the Canucks games, but also have a whole family (not to mention friends) who would cheer along with me! That I was a hockey fan was a source of great amusement to some of my boarding school friends. It just made me more Canadian than they already thought I was. One friend in particular tried to claim that since it is the NATIONAL Hockey League, all those Canadian teams, past and present, must actually belong to the USA. My counter - since Lord Stanley gave the Stanley Cup with instructions it should be presented to the top team in Canada, cities like New York, Boston, Detroit and Chicago must have ceded from the Union to join Canada.

No such bantering this year, but I'm happy to be in a hockey friendly place with people to cheer with me...and maybe, just maybe we'll have even more to cheer about than we did in 1994!

Twenty-five random things about me

As posted on Facebook

25 Random Things About Me

1. I ignored this note thing until Minda harassed (okay, gently prodded) me about it!

2. I love staying at home with Baby J and would like to be able to do it all the time and never go back to work, but part of me is actually looking forward to going back to work...I may not feel the same way in September, but we'll see.

3. I have a serious book addiction. I have put myself on a book diet which means I am not allowed to buy books for myself unless someone gives me a gift card to the bookstore. I've been borrowing books from my aunt and uncle's collection instead. I tried to pare down my collection when we unpacked this time, but I only managed to find three books I could bear to part with.

4. I have a love-hate relationship with our new place. I'm hoping the hate part will go away once we paint and maybe get a couple of pieces of new furniture...

5. The smiles I get first thing in the morning from Baby J make getting out of bed worth it and bearable...even when she decides to wake up before 6:00 am.

6. I only lived in London for just over 1.5 years total. I've lived in Vancouver for 10+ of the last 13 years. London feels more like a second home than Vancouver. I still feel a bit transient in Vancouver. I have good friends and family in Vancouver, but I feel like many of the special people in my life are scattered around the world...probably because of the time I spent living in Hawaii, London and Switzerland!

7. When I'm working, I only get to see Alex for about an hour, maybe an hour and a half everyday - it's hard and we try to make up for it on weekends. That's part of the reason I'm enjoying maternity leave so much - now I get to see him for four or five hours a day and we even get to eat together!

8. I love going to bed early and getting up early, but I also like staying up late and sleeping in. I need 8-9 hours of sleep to function...unfortunately it usually works out that on the days I stay up late, I need to get up early. Not so good for the sleep quota.

9. I worked in an industry that required talent and skills that I know I don't possess. Thank goodness I was in administration not production, because I have those skills. When I told people where I worked, the looks of disbelief I got from the people who knew me were great. The looks of relief when they heard I was in administration were even better! They made me smile every time!

10. I have an irrational fear of birds. All birds. Alive birds, dead birds, stuffed birds, photographs of birds in books.

11. When I was a kid I thought there was a monster/bad guy/bird living under my bed. I'd turn the light off and take a running leap from the door to my bed so the monster/bad guy/bird couldn't grab my ankle. Good thing my bedroom was tiny.

12. We shared the Blue House with at least two ghosts.

13. I learned more about the Bible from my AP Lit class than I did from Sunday School.

14. When I was in high school, I used to go camping at least once a month. I miss it and I'm trying to convince Alex that camping is fun.

15. I don't like condiments, but our fridge is full of them because I married a condiment fiend.

16. I love that my family is large and that we enjoy spending time together.

17. I had my first migraine when I was ten or eleven. At the worst, they were coming every seven to ten days. My usual trigger is abrupt changes in barometric pressure or altitude. Sometimes lack of sleep, too much sleep, dehydration or food can also trigger them. They have varied in severity and frequency since I started getting them. One of the best side effects of being pregnant was the complete absence of migraines, even when the Vancouver weather was crazy!

18. When I was admitted to the hospital three weeks early to have Baby J, our coworkers knew, but we didn't tell our families until she had arrived safely.

19. I'm a pack rat. Really and truly a pack rat. It's mostly organized, but I know I don't need all that stuff. I'm trying to be more ruthless at getting rid of stuff. It's working better in some areas of my life than others (see #3 above and #20 below).

20. I also have an addiction to stationery and all things related to it. I have three drawers and a bread box full of stationery. I have more pens than I could possibly ever use. But certain types of paper demand certain types of pens. Too bad we're no longer a society that uses the postal service much. I'm kind of on a stationery diet too, but it's not working so well.

21. I have a big postcard collection that started when I was seven.

22. When I was at boarding school I got so much mail that they were surprised at the bookstore when there was nothing for me to pick up from my mailbox. Even when I lived in London I got lots of mail. Not so much now...but that's okay!

23. Maybe my addiction is to all things paper - books, stationery, postcards, letters? Hmmmm...

24. I love having an empty laundry basket but I hate doing laundry, in particular the folding, hanging and putting away part. I never iron, but when I lived in London, I found ironing sheets to be very relaxing and a good time to think!

25. Everyday I look at Alex and Baby J and I can't believe they're my family or how happy they make me! I think I'm pretty lucky to have both of them!

I miss it...

Tonight I spent a few minutes checking out some pictures from the last couple of years and rereading some posts about the back episode of 06/07.

And I decided that I miss the Blue House.

A lot.

I love our new place and I love that we own it, but the Blue House had character that the Lyons' Den just doesn't have...something to do with being a good 80+ years older than the Lyons' Den I think. We had a lot of big life events happen in the Blue House - the most significant being our engagement and the big bad back episode mentioned above.

It's hard to believe it's been a year since we packed our boxes for the first time...and that we'd be doing it again a few months later. Our new place has been good to us, but I miss the little office, the sun coming in the living room. A dining room and eating area in the kitchen. The basement with all its storage right there. But really, the new place...it has a dishwasher. It has way more closet space and two good sized storage spaces that are probably as big and definitely way less dusty than in the blue house. We didn't really use the dining room, so it's probably okay that we don't have one right now!

I guess I'm just being a bit nostalgic and that's probably a sign that it's way past my bedtime!

That's all.

Good night.

Pink Palace

A long time ago I promised pictures of the pink palace...where we haven't lived for almost two months now! So, here they are...and hopefully soon I'll get some pictures of the Lyons' Den posted.

Pink Palace entrance way

Pink Palace kitchen

Pink Palace teeny-tiny bathroom

Pink Palace living room/dining room from the kitchen

Pink Palace living room/dining room the other way

Pink Palace bedroom

Pink Palace guest bedroom (which did eventually get unpacked, just to get packed up again soon after!)

Pink Palace kitchen from living room/dining room

Smells like Pax Lodge

You know how you can smell a smell and it immediately takes you to some other place or time? I know I've written about the Pax Lodge smell before and how it's one of the things I really like. I don't think I've ever smelled Pax Lodge outside of Pax Lodge before. I have smelled London outside of London, but not Pax Lodge.

Until today. Today I was in the little coffee area at work boiling some water and washing out a mug to make hot chocolate (because it's WINTER here again...what's up with THAT?) and the dish soap fairies bought a new brand of dish soap. It's some environmentally friendly something or other. And it did a nice job of cleaning out my mug.

And then, well then, I felt like I should be running Tilly and cleaning out Oscar and ironing to Classic FM and making endless beds and hoovering at 7:00 am and putting the flag up before breakfast and after putting in an hour and a half of work already and drinking wine on the Heath and vodka and tonic in the pubs and buying huge cans of beer, 3L bottles of Strongbow or individual Archers cooler drink things at the off license after last call. Yeah, if you lived or worked with me at Pax Lodge, you'll know what I mean.

Turns out, it was all because of that new dish soap.

Crazy.

And yes, yes I am procrastinating.

Camden Town is on fire

No way! I just turned the radio on and heard the news that Camden Town is one fire...sure enough, a quick search of the internet reveals it's true. Camden Town is one of my favourite places in London and by the looks of these pictures, the stalls and shops along the Camden Lock are gone...Pax Lodge was just up the hill from Camden Town and I went there often - it was a great place to spend some time, find a crazy gift or people watch. I wish Alex and I had time to visit when we were in London in November. Good thing I have some pictures!

miserable

ugh.

That's how the weather has made me feel today. Grey, closed and ugh. And wet. I was dripping when I got to my one hour meeting that lasted 2.5 hours.

grumpy. I guess that's really how I'm feeling.

at least tomorrow is Friday.

and at least it's not 2006.

I just checked back on November 15, 2006 and discovered that this isn't so bad. Last year was way more miserable. We had a broken water main on our street, very little sleep due to the crews fixing said water main, and no water in our house.

Okay, I feel better now!

Remember When...

playing in the park was what kids did?


Big, old tires, partially buried in the dirt made fun playground equipment!!!

Remember When...(we had to go to flag every morning before we could eat breakfast)

I was talking to my friend Paula today and she was telling me that she is putting her photos from when we worked together at Pax Lodge in an album. So, that was eight years ago...anyway, that has meant a lot of remember whens for her as well as exclamations of WHAT THE HECK WERE WE DOING!

After talking to Paula and visiting with Heather and Virginia this week, my brain is totally in Remember When mode! And the three of them (and especially a conversation with Heather) made me think of...remember when we had to go to flag every morning before we could eat breakfast...

Morning Flag - October 2001
Three unknown guest Guides, Doreen, Paola, Shannon, Nadya, Suzanne, Astrid

Some things should be taken as signs

Like this picture of 18 month old me...


Guess that's why the camera that's always in my bag (or my hand) shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

Main Library

When I was seven my Mom took me to UBC to see the libraries. We saw Main Library and Sedgewick (which no longer exists). It was a sunny day that day, unlike today when we have a rainfall warning, and that was the day I decided this place was where I *NEEDED* to go to university.

That's right, at age seven I'd already decided where to do my post secondary education. I didn't have a clue about high school, heck, I was still in awe of the "Intermediates" (also known as all those cool students at my little elementary school who were in grades four through seven), but I darn well knew where I needed to spend four years learning...something.

I was taken by the huge library, with its stone front and dark entrance hallway. There were more books in that one library than my little brain could fathom. As a student, I even discovered the old children's books hidden deep in the stacks. The basement of the stacks, in the very back, by the window was my favourite studying place. Level 6 was home to the cleanest bathroom on campus, probably because no one could find it. I got lost regularly looking for it and I knew where it was. I spent hours in that library. It was my refuge between classes when Gage Towers seemed too far from Buchanan to walk in the rain (hello, three blocks), it was a quiet place to study and sleep the year I had a room over the boiler room and something was wrong and it emitted a high pitched whine at all hours of the day, and it was a good place to go when I just couldn't get motivated. I loved it!

When I started working on campus, the north wing of the building had been torn down and they were building a modern structure. I mourned the loss of the computer lab with the high ceilings and soaring windows where I spent hours researching on the internet and sending email to my high school friends scattered around North America (this was the dark ages - my personal computer, an unheard of laptop, did not have the ability to browse the internet using a browser with fun stuff like graphics and colour...I only got text).

The new addition is kind of cool. It has a big archive room where everything is stored in boxes and retrieved by robots. It is somewhat mesmerizing to stand outside and look in while the robot does its thing. I will admit, I have not yet set foot inside this lovely building.

Once the north wing had been torn down, the east and south additions were removed and new glass structures are being built. But they kept the main part of Main Library. My beloved stacks might be gone, but the part that first drew me to the university is still there...

When I walked past today, I couldn't believe the progress. And the clock tower was playing music. I've heard it once or twice since I started working on campus, but only once while I was a student. I was trying to write an exam in Buchanan B Block and I couldn't concentrate on my exam because the tower was playing Christmas Carols!

Oh, Main Library....

One year, three hundred and thirty-one posts...

and people are still reading this??!?!?! and I'm still updating this?!!?!?!

It's been a year since I was apparently bored beyond boredom and Heddy decided to introduce me to blogging. This is post 331, so I guess my thought that this might not last was WRONG! That's almost, but not quite one post a day (0.91 to be exact)...not bad considering in those 365 days I spent a night in the hospital, a number of days in k-town, Cobble Hill, and Victoria without a computer, my computer died and was resurrected a number of times, I went to Girl Guide camp, and I was forbidden to use the computer during the early days of my recovery. Or maybe that is bad...maybe I shouldn't be telling the world so much about my life...sorry if my boredom remedy is in turn boring!

I'm not entirely sure why I was so bored. I'm deep into the paper demons I whined about last year again this week...year end is so much fun. Anyway, I think I wasn't bored as in "There's nothing to do, so I'm bored," but more likely I was bored as in "I've been doing the same thing for days on end and there's no end in sight and the elves keep breeding paper overnight and it has totally taken over my life and I'm sick of it. So because I'm sick of it, I must be bored."

So, to combat my boredom (which really means, to give me something to do that wasn't PAPERWORK) and to help me learn some basic html so that when the PAPERWORK went away I could concentrate on building a website for our department, Heddy convinced me to start a blog.

Apparently I can focus on something for longer than two nanoseconds, because here I am a year later, still updating my blog...It's interesting, as I go back and read what I wrote because I discover some things I'd totally forgotten about, some things I wish I could forget about, and some things I never want to forget.

I was never good at keeping a diary as a kid...I'd do well for a few days, or even weeks as I got a bit older, and then I'd get bored and the pages would read fun stuff like:

Monday, April 10, 1989
Today I went to school. It was boring.

Tuesday, April 11, 1989
Today I went to school. I don't like my sisters.

Wednesday, April 12, 1989
Today I went to school. Tonight was Guides. It was fun.

psst...do you think, just maybe, I was in school in 1989???

Thursday, April 13, 1989
Today I went to piano. Mr. Welsh says I'm almost ready for Kiwanis.

Friday, April 14, 1989
Today I had to take the bus to school. YUCK. Fiona is spending the night.

Saturday, April 15, 1989
I don't like Fiona. She's mean.

Sunday, April 16, 1989
Today I did my science homework and we had roast beef for dinner.

Monday, April 17, 1989
Fiona ignored me today.

Tuesday, April 18, 1989
Today I went to school. It was boring. I'm going to spend Saturday night at Fiona's.

And the three sentence diary entries would continue for a few weeks and then there'd be nothing. Not that the entries tell anyone much...why didn't I like Fiona? What did she do that was mean? What did I do to deserve the silent treatment (and I'm CERTAIN I deserved it!)? What made us decide to be friends again on Tuesday?

For the record, these diary entries are fake. The real diaries are in the basement and the basement is a scary place. Also for the record, Fiona and I often hated each other after we had a sleepover, but it was most often forgotten within days if not hours. Something to do with not enough sleep usually...Sometimes we'd hate each other and fight all day on Saturday and then ask our completely baffled parents if the sleepoveree could spend the night for a second night...go figure! But we must have done something right, because after all those years and all those sleepovers, we're still friends...

Anyway, I have managed to be more consistent with my "diary keeping" since I start the blog...I don't necessarily write every day, but I do a fairly good job of writing often!

On my blog you can learn all kinds of things about me:

• That I like to knit and knit and knit, a lot
• That I'm a klutz
• That I love books and what I've been reading
• That I miss London and Pax Lodge
• That I'm a big whiner sometimes
• Alex and I love our house
• That I like lists
• That I take pictures of strange stuff
• That I have a big family and I like my family a lot
• That I like paper...pretty paper and postcards
• That my cakes all look the same
• My sister, aka Team Hardcore, is hardcore!
• Alice is my goddaughter
• Lots of people got married last year
• There are "pets" at my house
• There are ghosts at my house
• Alex makes me happy!
• And to make me shut up, just let me be a klutz (see link above) and then I won't be able to use the computer...but I can still take pictures...January and February have fewer entries than the previous months...March doesn't count yet cause we're only half way there...

Okay, that's all...I could be here for a long time and you don't want that!

itsy bitsy spider

November 2005

patience and loneliness

This soft, shiny wool has been sitting in my living room, calling me to it all week, but I've avoided the temptation to create a warm nest of blankets and pillows and tea made with water boiled for a long time and wool and never leave the warm, dry house again.

But at work we have a water cooler. So we don't have to boil the water. We can just drink it straight from the cooler.

I'm patiently waiting for the weekend and the creation of my little knitting nest so I can work with that pretty shiny wool and make even more itty bitty, teensy tiny, cute hats.

Last night was I walked across campus to my class from the SUB, I looked over and saw Gage Towers (yes, that is Gage Towers) all lit up and thought for some reason that it looked SO LONELY...maybe the streaks are what it would look like if you were lonely too? I don't know...it just seemed lonely to me. I don't remember being lonely when I lived there, but last night, it was a lonely place.

The other inhabitants of the Blue House

the blue house

Alex and I live in the Blue House just steps away from everything we could ask for in a neighbourhood - a giant grocery store, six or seven produce stores, two Greek import delis, a used book store, a kids book store, a craft shop that carries emergency knitting supplies like needles, stitch markers, and wool, the doctor's office, a pharmacy, a camera shop, three Starbucks in two blocks, countless other neighbourhood coffee shops, three bakeries, a Cupcakes shop, a library, major bus routes, a gas station, restaurants, clothing shops, card shops, dollar stores, pubs, a movie theatre...well, you get the picture, except to go to work, we figure we can do everything else we need to do (and somethings we didn't think we needed to do or didn't know we *could* do) on foot except visit the dentist...

Before Alex lived with me in the Blue House, Roslyn lived here with me. And before that, I lived in the Hobbit Hole...You might have known all that.

hobbit hole

But did you know about the occupants of the Blue House? No, I'm not talking about our WONDERFUL landlady, K, or the downstairs tenant, R. Nor am I referring to the various creatures who thought they should inhabit our back deck all summer long. I'm talking about the other inhabitants of our suite.

When I first moved in, one morning I made my bed, fluffed the bed garnish pillows and turned my back to the bed to do something else. When I turned around, there was an indentation of a head on one of the pillows. I ignored it.

The taps in the bathroom kept being left on, except, sometimes the last person in there was CERTAIN the taps had been fully turned off. K called a plumber.

The tap problem disappeared after the bathroom fiasco this summer was over...

Then there was the tapping that came from no where and went away when we said things to it like "Go away, we can't sleep." It stopped not long after Roslyn left and we forgot about it until it started up again a few weeks ago. It's not as loud or as frequent, but it's there.

Then, one night, a few weeks ago, I woke up to Alex making a very scary sound. Seems he had woken up and seen a man at the end of the bed staring at us.

Yeah, I ignored that too.

I guess I'm a bit skeptical...But I often feel like there is someone in the house with me when Alex is at work. I'm never frightened, but I don't feel alone...

So the part that made me really believe there are at least two other inhabitants in our house was when I came home last week. I was at one of my classes and it's a later class and sometimes Alex beats me home. So I peaked through the window as I was opening the door. And there was a girl/young women staring back at me. She had long straight hair with bangs and a poofy old fashioned blouse on.

I didn't tell Alex right away...he gets a bit weirded out by that kind of thing, but I told Stacey. She said that ghosts only show themselves when there is something big happening in the house...a big change of some sort...who knows what's afoot in our house, but it's kind of interesting. I told Alex yesterday and he didn't take it too badly...he said I should write about it...so I am...and that's our ghost story...

If they appear again or if strange stuff happens, I'll let you know!

same day, another time part 2

2001 - Mom and Dad came to London and we went to dinner with Persis and George...

2005 - how many cooks does it take to make marinara sauce in the Pax Lodge kitchen? Apparently three: Liz, Shannon and Vibeke...