It has been a good day

This morning I walked down to the post office in the glorioius sunshine.  There was quite a line up but I had a lovely chat with the woman behind me and the 35 minute wait flew by. 

Advent parcel in the mail - and I started to walk home.  I passed the Christmas tree sales and there were the cutest little Charlie Brown Christmas trees for sale - only a few left. 

I decided to buy one and carry it home.  I texted my husband as I headed up the last hill to our house and told him to get the camera ready. 

After lunch I decided to make some nuts and bolts, a family tradition in our house, and since they take two hours in the oven with stirring every 15 minutes I decided to write my Christmas cards. 

It has been a pleasant afternoon, sitting at the kitchen table in the sun, watching the hummingbirds flit to and from the feeder and writing to old and new friends. 

Now the sun has set, the advent candles are lit, my husband is making homemade pea soup for dinner and all is right with the world. 

Tonight there will be knitting as I am about to cast-off my Spice Market shawl, and then work the next ripple on my Peace shawl. 

Tomorrow I will walk back to the post office to mail all my letters. 

I am feeling good and strong and dare I say, happy. 

Yes.

Happy. 

It has been a good day. 

Yopping Update Numero six

So the socks are done.

and the unicorn is all sewn together.

I finished the 15th square of the Iona and for a brief moment in time I had nothing on my needles!

Ack!  That wouldn't do so I started another stuffed toy.  A bunny that was in the spring Simply Knitting insert called Quick and Easy Toy Knits.

It is the perfect pattern to use up some brown alpaca I have for the body and I have some white cascade for the tummy and inside of the ears and paws.  It is going to be very cute.

I can't post a picture of it because at this point I have a head and body, two arms, the tail and one leg. So be patient dear readers as I am sure he/she will be on show next week

The big news of my week is that a dear dear friend of mine gifted me with 1625 gms of fibre!!!! Yes, that is correct.  Some is in the fleece stages, some is undyed fibre and some is dyed fibre.  There is even some silk hankies or mawatas (which I had to google).  Oh my goodness I was so excited that I decided to organize my craft room so I could find places for all of it.

Organizing my craft room somehow led me to cleaning out the carport and taking two loads to the recycling depot and one load to the dump.  Only one item from the craft room was in those three loads - but it seemed that the de-cluttering on the one room got me going to others.  I have another large box ready to send to goodwill as well.

Yesterday I finally dismantled a broken double bed that has been half dismantled for quite some long time, and I set up the good double bed and re-arranged the downstairs bedroom into quite a lovely
guest room space.

Now the carport has a broken bed, broken bedside table and other assorted bits and pieces to go out with the next dump run.  I even organized all my gardening tools and swept the carport!

As my husband would say:  "I think your new meds are working!"

Yesterday I started to wash some alpaca fleece for another friend who is going to pay me in something yummy from her copious yarn stash.  I can't wait to go 'shopping' at her house.  I already received two partial skeins of Plucky yarn from her that were leftovers from two of her latest projects. I think there is enough to make another pair of socks from the Op-Art book.

I bought a sweater drying rack on Friday at Bed, Bath and Beyond which will be perfect for drying fleeces as it will allow airflow from the bottom and the top.  The alpaca will get the first go at it.

On Thursday at my knit group I learned that some wool stores rent out their drum carders.  This is fantastic news because I have soooooooo much fleece to card and hand carding it would take be forever.  I will keep you posted on my investigation into this possibility.

So that has been my week.  The smoke is pretty bad here on the westcoast and my dh and I both seem to be experiencing headaches from it but at least today the temperatures were much cooler.

If you want to check out what the other wonderful yoppers have done in the past week head here.

Waking up from a dream

It was one of those awful early morning dreams: conflict, misunderstanding, loss, sadness.....

and then a knock on our camper door.

Two little girls, four and seven, scampered in, chattering away, shaking off winter boots, crawling up onto the bed with me.

My eyes opened to their smiling faces, their questions, their simplicity, their innocence.

The dream tried to linger with me.

The seven year old said I had tears in my eyes.

"Just morning tears", I assured her as I tussled her hair.

The dream tried once more.

But there, on that bed, that morning, there was only love, and happiness, and innocence, and questions.

Lots of questions.

And playing with the fan and the lights.

And coffee (for me).

And cookies (for them).

It is my favourite way to be woken up.

I look forward to more mornings just like them.

A Perfect Day to be married

February 29, 2016

Your wedding day.  We saw you just before you went to meet your future husband to exchange your vows and you looked radiant and happy and beautiful.  We could feel your excitement and joy.  It was palpable.

It is auspicious that you are being married on a day that only comes around once every four years.  It is a unique day, as you are unique, as your husband is unique.  As your love is unique.

I don't have any wise words.  I suppose a mother should.  No words other than to treat each other with respect and love the moments you have together  and not to take each other for granted.

I will share with you the words that we chose to be spoken at our wedding, almost 39 years ago. They have served us well.


Listen!  I will be honest with you,
I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes. 

These are the days that must happen to you:
You small not heap up what is called riches,
You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve. 

Come, we must not stop here,
However sweet these laid-up stores,
However convenient this dwelling, 
However sheltered this port and however calm these waters.

We must not anchor here,
However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us
We are permitted to receive it but a little while. 

Come, I give you my hand:
I give you my love, more precious than money,
I give you myself before preaching or law:

Will you give me yourself?
Well you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?


(excerpts from (Song of the Open Road by Walt Whitman)

Blessings on your marriage.  Blessings on this day.

BE - Your initials together says all that needs to be said.

Throwback Thursday - Happy 38th Anniversary

It is our 38th Wedding Anniversary today.

Here are some words by Walt Whitman that were part of our wedding vows.

Listen, I will be honest with you
I do not offer the old smooth prizes
But offer rough new prizes
These are the days that must happen to you:
You shall not heap up what is called riches,
You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve.
However sweet the laid up stores,
However convenient the dwelling, you shall not remain there.
However sheltered the port, however calm the waters, you shall not anchor there.
However welcome the hospitality that welcomes you,
You are permitted to receive it but a little while.

Come, I give you my hand.
I give you my love more precious than money;
I give you myself before preaching and law:
Will you give me yourself?
Will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

Every year on our anniversary, at some point during the day, my husband declares that he will renew my contract for another year. Usually it happens towards the end of the day.

Today I received this when I awoke:

As I hugged and kissed him good morning I said, "Let's do another 38."

He said,

"We'll see how it goes."

He pointed out he hadn't signed the certificate yet (but I know verbal agreements are binding ;)).

He is such a romantic.

A house full of memories

We are cleaning up, fixing up, painting up in preparation for Christmas. It is kinda fun, in a weird way, and my husband and I make a good team while we do this.

He does one task, I take on another - and when one of us gets weary, or discouraged, the other encourages or helps out.

As I move from one task to the other I am confronted by so many memories.

Here in the kitchen is where my dear border collie, Maggie, chewed off the corner of the cupboard while she was teething.

Here in the bedroom is the water mark left by the steamer I had going day and night when my daughter had croup.

Here on the doorway between the kitchen and living room are the marks of my growing children - 1999, 2003, 2014.

Here near the kitchen ceiling are the tape marks from a sign the hung for years that said 'Mary's Cafe.' My kids and husband made it one weekend while my father-in-law was recuperating at our house and I was making homemade bread, and soup and even sushi.

There is more tape residue from birthday streamers, mistletoe kissing bugs (don't ask), a poster from the Yukon, and a pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey birthday game.

I have taken down pictures to wash walls, one of them that my father made for his mother in 1937. He was thirteen.

One my aunt gave me (in an attempt, I think, to make me feel not too bad for my messy, messy house.)

check out the price..... $1.47!

I have decided to move the dulcimer that hangs on the wall, a gift from my husband years before I had children. I need to change things up a bit.

I have decided to eighty-six the elephant-pocket wall organizers that kept odds and ends in the kitchen and by the front door.

I have recycled (or thrown-out) things that don't serve me anymore, following my colleagues advice to only keep things that a) are useful, b) are beautiful, or c) I Love. (Luckily my husband fits all three categories.)

Today we are washing ceilings and removing wall-paper, working as a team despite sore shoulders (me) and tweaky knees (him).

We have colours to pick before the painting begins, and that is an issue because neither of us has any kind of colour sense. Ideas welcome!

Despite removing the tape residue, sanding the chewed cupboard, and washing away the grime of raising children this house will still hold the memories.

Because those memories are locked tight in my heart.

And I am ready to make some new ones.

Harmony and Peace award

I would like to thank Edwina, who writes Edwina's Episodes for nominating me for the Harmony and Peace award. I am tickled pink and excited to accept.

This is a relatively new award created by the Idealistic Rebel

She states: “I created this new award to celebrate all those who promote Harmony & Peace, and who add Love & Beauty to the world through their Blogs and through their lives. Their Positivity makes the world a better place for all of us.”

~The Rules~

1) Give this award to seven bloggers who have added Harmony & Peace, Love & Beauty and Positivity to the world you live in.
2) Let them know that you nominated them.
3) Acknowledge the blogger from whom you received this award
4) Display your award on your blog, because you have earned it!
5) Continue to live in Harmony & Peace

These are the blogs that bring me harmony and peace so I hope you check them out:

Diary of an Intuitive - this woman writes about a life infused with love and connection to spirit.
Life with Roozle - this blog allows me to follow a wonderful journey of a LGBTQ mother raising her daughter in this beautiful, and sometimes crazy world of ours.
Project Project - I discovered this blog during NaBloPoMo and it is a wonderful window into a young mother raising her children with love and pride and some knitting projects thrown in for good measure.
MSathlete - this blog is written by a woman with Multiple Sclerosis who challenges her diagnosis with long distance swimming and rowing. She was on my brother's team of swimmers who attempted the English Channel this summer, and although their attempt wasn't successful they are going to try again in 2016.
LupeyLoops - this is an inspirational blogger who lives her life optimistically (and with crocheting) while she deals with her diagnosis of Lupus.
Le Blog Itinerant - I love this blog - she is honest about her challenges with mental illness, inspiring, and a fellow fibre artist!
Momastery - I am new to this blog, and she has a large following, for good reason with so much inspiration and hope in her posts.

Put and Take

Anyone who knows me well knows that I hate to pack for a trip. I get anxious, cranky, weepy...well, you get the picture. However, I LOVE unpacking once I get home. I love to 'put and take' as my mother called it.

When I was a girl, the day after we got back from camping (an ordeal of packing I am sure with six kids) my mother would engage me in the 'put and take' of it all. I loved helping her do this. Running up and down the stairs - to the basement with laundry, upstairs with books and toys, to the kitchen with food and pots and pans. Putting away the suncream, the polysporin, the curlers and comic books.

So I am home after seven glorious weeks away on three different gulf islands. I think I have found my next home, but that is a topic for another day.

Today I happily unloaded the camper, putting away food, doing five loads of laundry, filling the bird feeders, dead-heading the mimulus and marigolds on the back porch, picking the tomatoes, admiring my jade plant, sorting the mail, changing the calendar to a new month, putting away my new treasures and finding some hidden ones, re-charging the batteries on my phone, camera and laptop, and sweeping and dusting my little house back into order.

It makes me happy to do these chores, and then once done, it makes me happy to sit on the couch and knit. As I was finishing up this afternoon the sun came out and filled my house with light. It was that kind of day. Light filled.

My back is a bit sore from all the stairs involved in 'putting and taking' but it is a good kind of sore. One that will be gone tomorrow after a good night's rest.

Oh there are still some chores to be done, but the last load is in the dryer, and a new box has been started for goodwill.

It is the little things, sometimes, that make me the happiest.

Putting and Taking.

Thanks Mom.

Where is the happiness muse?

It is interesting that when I am happy and life is going well I have less inclination to write. My daughter says the same thing about composing songs. It seems like the writers' muse is a melancholic one.

Perhaps this is my challenge today, to find my muse in the blue sky, the singing birds, the peace in my heart.

I wrote this poem when I was 15:

Take me
Not as I could be
Not as I would be
But as I am.

Care for me
In later years
With all behind us still

And no regrets or wishful hopes
of what I wasn't then.

Mary-Anne Taylor
1970


I have loved this poem all of my life. I recite it to myself from time to time. It has stayed with me. Become my mantra of a sort.

It has manifested in my life.

Later this summer we will have been married thirty-seven years. This past Easter weekend marked our thirty-eighth year together. We started out as friends. We are still friends.

Morning.
Sitting quietly by your side
you, watching the river
me, reading a book.

The sounds of nature surround us
the promise of another day
unfolding in its own time
in our own time
in this place
together.

Campfire.
Sitting by your side
you, playing guitar
me, singing
the same songs we have song
for thirty-eight years.

We could learn
some new songs
but the old ones
have served us so well.


Mary-Anne Taylor
May 31, 2014

What a difference a year makes

A year ago I was sitting at my kitchen table wondering if we would ever get away on our holiday to the Yukon to visit our son. I was not happy.

I think an email showed up about Weight Watchers online having a special - free to join and a deal for three months.

I signed up.

I have since lost the equivalent of a five year old child.

My knees don't hurt anymore when I go up and down stairs to do the laundry.

My feet don't hurt anymore, and I can walk for an hour easily.

I can swim a mile at a time.

I am wearing clothes four sizes smaller.

I am more content with my life as a retiree, although since September I have worked quite a bit with subbing, and mentoring and tutoring. The extra 'pin' money, as my dh calls it, is a nice side benefit.

We were away for two months in Yukon and Alaska and saw bears and mountain goats, moose and elk, lynx and porcupines. We lived for a time in the land of the midnight sun.

I milked a sheep, saw baby geese swim for he first time, and planted seedlings in my son's garden.

The year had some surprises. I broke my arm on our camping trip, and spent the next three months recovering and having alot of physio to avoid frozen shoulder syndrome. Except for a wee bit of numbness I consider myself totally recovered.

Then emergency gall bladder surgery in late November. That took a good eight weeks to recover from and quite a few visits to my naturopath afterwards to figure out how to live without my gall bladder. It is all good now.

I joined a choir, attended three wonderful anthroposophical conferences, and enjoyed my weekly knit group with a wonderful bunch of new friends.

I saw a dear old friend much more often this past year, enjoying movies, lunches, and dinners.

I attended my forty year high school reunion, and it was lovely.

I helped my sister pack up their house of twenty six years and move to their new life.

I have done alot of de-cluttering in my house and in my life: getting rid of stuff that does not serve me anymore.

There were a few camping trips - the most memorable in the snow on the Duffy Lake Road.

I am writing more, reading more, and still knitting, and yes, probably knitting more.

My daughter visited twice from back east, and so did my son and his new love from across the Rocky Mountains.

I saw my brother successfully undergo chemotherapy. I prayed, and am praying, for those who are undergoing treatments now.

Birthdays were celebrated, holidays feted, festivals were attended and the cycle of the year unfolded.

It has been a full year.

God-willing, I look forward to at least forty-two more.

I am happy.

Spiders (Happy ending, I promise)

I have been gardening this spring. I have planted six flower boxes, one herb garden, and with the encouragement of my son I planted a little tomato plant. Grape tomatoes to be exact.

I had to wait a couple of weeks between purchase of the little plant and putting it outside because the nights were still too cold. So the tomato plant and the basil plant waited patiently in the kitchen until the Victoria Day weekend.

Here it is on May 2, 2014












But now it is outside, and thriving. It has fallen over, been staked with a big wooden spoon (until my husband, the cook, noticed and suggested the spoon had other duties), and then re-staked with a large dowel. It was a dowel that I used to hang the children's advent calendar....but I digress.

Yesterday I decided to photograph said plant to send to my son for approval.





Looking pretty good, eh?








Then I discovered this:

Baby spiders!

Now, I have never been a fan of spiders, but this time of year we get these little guys hatching on the back porch and floating in their little parachutes to start their new lives. (Insert metaphor here...)

It was a Charlotte's Web moment for me, and so I had to share it with my kids thousands of kilometers away.

"Bet there are no aphids on that plant now!" my son messaged. (He is the practical one).

"Woah!!! Awesome!" texted my daughter. (She is the exuberant one).

I just sighed happily and watched the little spiders sail off into the backyard.

(I am the happy one.)

getting things done

My son and his new love are coming to visit tomorrow. In preparation for their arrival we have been getting things done around the house. Things that needed doing, but the arrival of guests have kicked us into gear. So far: put cupboard door back on in the kitchen, re-hung door to basement bedroom, fixed hall closet door, fixed rust in downstairs bathroom, vacuumed, dusted, swiffered everything (in the process fixed vacuum cleaner), recovered dining chairs, cleaned both bathrooms and kitchen top to bottom.

There are still things to do - another basement door to hang, tack down the loose carpet on the basement stairs, more vacuuming and swiffering (where do all those cobwebs come from?)and more dusting. I have made up two more boxes for goodwill in the process and cleaned out another junk drawer in my bedroom. I guess you could say we have been spring cleaning. I even managed to rake up the front yard and take a saw to the bush that has been encroaching on our driveway. So thanks to our son we are getting stuff done. This is good because next month our daughter will be visiting and the downstairs bedroom will be all nice for her too.

I am not sure why inertia sets in around us so hard and fast at times, and then with enough motivation we can get a lot done in quite a short amount of time. Of course in the doing we realize how many more things need to be done but that is a topic for another blog another day.

We are not as young and spry as we once were. My husband's knee acts up and he gets into positions sometimes that cause him much pain. My back can't take too much raking, or washing of ceilings at any one time, and I have to learn to say - 'For today, this is enough'. But still we soldier on, because it is important to do so. To not give in to the aging body, but to be mindful that we are not in our 20s, or 30s, or even 40s anymore. In fact in a year and a half I will join my husband in my 60s, and then in a couple of more years, God willing, he will be in his 70s. Where does the time go?

But for now, the house is quiet, and I am sitting on the couch with the sun streaming in. I feel like a cat curled up basking in the sunbeams. My daughter just phoned, my husband is off doing errands and it is just so quiet. Except the clacking of the keys as I put my thoughts down for today.
There is a new book to open, new words to discover and, yes, the sun to enjoy.

It is a good day.
I got some things done.

Why is it so hard to be happy?

Last Friday night, as I sat around a warm campfire, surrounded by sparkling snow, and a sky full of bright stars, I wept. I was unhappy. No reason, really. Just unhappy. And my thought was the title of this post. Why is it so hard to be happy?

The next morning it was all ok. I had a good day, and I was happy. A mere eighteen hours later and it seemed the fog had cleared. But why had it settled in the first place?

I could blame it on low blood sugar, on bad planning, on disappointment in things not going as planned. But really I had nothing to be sad about. And yet, sadness often hits me, hard, suddenly, inexplicably.

And not just me.

A woman I greatly admire said to me a few months ago. "Why can't I wake up happy? At my age I feel the moments from waking up to the realization of happiness can be hours apart." I realized she had spoken aloud what I felt too. I don't think it was always so.

Happiness can be elusive. But then it can arrive inexplicably as well.

I don't know why it is so hard to be happy, but, today, I feel that I need to look at happiness like the hummingbird that comes to my window. It comes when it comes and I have to stop and appreciate that moment. Stop and recognize that moment of happiness. I have to learn to not take happiness for granted, to be thankful for it when it appears, and to look forward to its arrival again.

Maybe it isn't that it is hard to be happy. Maybe it is that it is hard to take the time to recognize it, appreciate it, and acknowledge it when it lights upon your shoulder.

And perhaps that is why I have a hummingbird tattooed on my shoulder. She isn't just my totem. She is my reminder that I can be happy.

Progress

Well I have been working on the list, and walking everyday so both are good things. Here is my progress:

Buy new mattress and get rid of old one
Get piano tuned
Get rid of old piano
Get rid of dish set - done
Find missing piece of wood so I can get piano stool repaired (I have been looking for this piece for a year)
Repair or throw out old chair from my mother's house
Get rid of old rattan chair on back porch
Sort out son's clothes in basement room - done
Finish my brother's sweater - done
Finish my sweater - done
Finish that stupid sock I started last spring (I might just frog this and let it go)- done (frogged)
Find turkey platter to match dish set I just bought
Recover kitchen chairs
Get rid of my aunt's, grandmother's and mother-in-law's furs - done

And, on top of that I organized all my mentoring papers which were definitely getting out of hand.

So, progress, although I still am feeling kind of manic. I often feel like this right before a migraine attack. But then I realized. Maybe this is what happy feels like?

Happiness

Yesterday as I was driving to look at dishes with my dh it struck me. I felt happy. It was probably the third time this past week that this feeling of happiness washed over me.
I haven't experienced this in some long time.

I feel chattier lately. Also something I haven't experienced for a long time. There is a lightness to my being.

I have reduced my meds back to one a day, and even though sleep is still not so easy in the middle of the night, the days contain more contentment.

Maybe it is fall. The cool, sunny days. Even the rainy ones. Maybe it is just the top of another peak and the bear will have another mountain to climb someday in the future.

Maybe it is that my arm is almost fully healed and not getting in the way of things (like climbing on top of the camper to fix a broken vent - yes, I did that this weekend).

The thing is. I am not going to worry about the why, but enjoy the now.

Piglet (which was my nickname in highschool - my good friend was Pooh) and Pooh sum it up nicely:

56 going on 28

Sometimes I have to be brave. Sometimes I have to forget I am 56, achey, chubby, and an introvert. Sometimes I just have to let it all go.

So, four times I went to the ticketmaster site and searched for a ticket to see Prince in Vancouver. I kept talking myself out of it.

Fourth time - I pressed go! Me. Alone. 2nd Row. On the floor.

So there I was. Me. Alone. 2nd Row. Feeling somewhat conspicuous, but excited

And then? The concert started and I was up. Cheering, clapping, singing along, dancing. Oh, yes, I was dancing. For 2 1/2 hours. Dancing, hooting, singing along. And, at times merely feet from Prince himself. It turns out, no-one was sitting in the front row, so as the concert started we all moved up. And of course then when it started we stood up! And there I was dancing and singing and clapping right in front of the stage, as close as the security would let me be. In fact most of the night I was only a few inches away from this lovely, smiling security guard. I think he was a Prince fan too!

Two and a half hours of forgetting my sore legs, sore back, forgetting I have a chronic illness. Just forgetting. And being in the moment. Remembering other Prince concerts - when I was pregnant with Ellen sitting with my sister, when I was in the same arena as my sister and her son, but they were sitting somewhere else, when I went to the Orpheum, alone, in the fifteenth row, and he did an acoustic set on the piano.

Remembering road trips to Vernon, with my kids, singing along to Little Red Corvette, and Money don't matter tonight. Remembering working out at Fitness World with my earphones in, singing along to Sexy Mother f***er.

Remembering the first time I saw Purple Rain, I was only a few weeks pregnant with my son.

So, really, Prince and I have grown up together. But, last night, I felt 28. It is nice to grow up with someone and still feel as young as you were when you first met them.

As I left the concert last night I caught the eye of another woman, about my age. I smiled and said "Now we go back to our real lives".

Real life. I am glad the Prince concert was part of it last night. So glad.

cheerful and stupid

I know, I know. I have used this quote before. Sometimes in the midst of other peoples' anger, and mis-trust, and unhappiness, I just act 'cheerful and stupid' and I purposefully don't acknowledge their behaviour, or their mood.

Maybe it is a preservation tactic. Maybe it is how children of alcoholics cope with tension in daily situations. I don't know, but I do know that I can make a choice.

I can be a thermostat, or a thermometer. I can allow others to influence my mood by their mood, or I can set my own mood. Sail my own ship.

Sometimes people behave badly. Sometimes people disappoint each other. Sometimes people are just down right mean. But that doesn't mean that I have to reciprocate the behaviour, or always be on guard for disappointment.

I can choose to do my best. Breathe. Surround myself by good friends, good colleagues, good situations.

I am so in love with my class of 13 grade eight students right now. They are silly, and fun and good willed and hard working. They are delightful. I am spending alot of time in my classroom with them. It is fun just to be in their presence, around their antics.

I have a number of wonderful colleagues. It is so interesting that, as it has been in all my jobs and professions, I always get along better with my male colleagues. Their friendship is warmer somehow. It seems more 'true'. I don't know if that makes any sense, but there are more than a handful of wonderful male colleagues that support me, make me laugh, make me think, converse with me (not at me), and whom I trust. Yes, that's it. I trust them. I know they would be there for me if I needed it.

I am working hard on my resolve and I am working hard in my classroom. I am working hard on my administrative tasks. I am doing a good job. I am doing the best I can.

I am happy.

Jello?

I am spending ten minutes a day, first thing in the morning, journalling with my Grade Eight class. I am using Natalie Goldberg's book, Old Friend from Far Away. Today the exercise was write everything you know about Jello. 10 minutes. Go!

First of all, who knew we all knew so much about Jello? Second of all, you could hear a pin drop for 10 minutes. This is the fifth day of pin-drop silence in Grade Eight. Gotta love that!

Then, we discussed their homework. Their assignment? Read Rocking-Horse Winner by DH Lawrence. They came into school bursting to talk about it. "I didn't like the mother", "My Dad was so happy you assigned this story", "Mrs. Taylor, I am so glad you assigned this story, I really enjoyed reading it". "Mrs. Taylor, I didn't get it, it was confusing", "It was disturbing, a boy his age riding a rocking-horse", "I thought the whispering house was disturbing", and we were off.

After a discussion of the story we talked alot about horse racing, and tote boards, and odds (a mini math lesson), handicapping, and gambling. It was so alive and exciting in that room today. I segued into talking about another favourite book of mine, "Man o war", and at the end of the period a overheard a student saying, "I am going to read that book!". Such a wonderful day.

And, it continued. I got prep down, emails answered, agendas prepped, feathers unruffled.

I headed home after this brilliant day with the thought, "I am probably going to get a migraine". It is not that I am melancholic, it is just that often my euphoric moments precede a migraine.

So far so good. I have been reading, and casting my Grade Eight Play. I am awaiting a wonderful dinner that smells amazing bubbling on the stove (thanks, dear husband). I have my knitting to get to after dinner.

I am just happy. In every respect. Happy. Me. Who would have thought it?

what a difference a day makes....

With some trepidation I entered into a meeting yesterday, and voila, everyone arrived, we sat down, got to work, had a great meeting, and the mood that had existed a few days ago has dissapated. Consequently the rest of the day was very productive.

I am in the classroom now getting ready for Monday. Thirteen students. Thirteen thirteen and fourteen year olds. H E L P (insert Sid the Sloth voice from Ice Age here). Actually I am excited and looking forward. The classroom is taking shape, and I am throwing out stuff that I have carried around for eight years (well probably truthfully twelve). Simplicity is my motto this year, Simplicity (for me) and independence (for them).

I am starting with a Life and Times of Shakespeare block and taking the class to Bard on the Beach the second week of school. I am still pondering my class play this year. I am thinking Cyrano, or Charlie Brown, or, yes, maybe even Shakespeare. With a small class, casting can be difficult. Suggestions?

Also, I want to do a short story block this year, so any suggestions of Grade Eight short stories would be helpful. Ok, this blog is starting to sound like I am asking you dear readers to do my work for me.....

Let's see, what else. Oh yea, I am happy as I write this. Happy is good. I told a colleague that my motto this year will be 'cheerful and stupid'. You have to listen to Joy Brown on the radio to understand this reference, but it basically is a way to 'behave' when others around you are behaving badly. Or, when there is the potential for personal conflict. When I am nervous I tend to babble on aimlessly trying to diffuse tension. So, this year, less babbling, more breathing, and with my Thumperism in my back pocket (If you can't say anything nice....) I will face the days ahead.

It is already making a difference. At least for me.

So, September is here, one hurdle met. Bring it on!

perfect endings - Bliss

I spent all day Tuesday reading a book. When I say all day, I mean ALL day. I started reading as I chased the sun around the yard with my morning coffee, and finished my book about 5:30pm. Bliss.

Then we made supper, and headed down to the beach to watch the sunset. I put on my bathing suit, but wasn't really intending to go swimming. However, as soon as I got to the beach the tide was up, the sun was glowing, the seals were splashing, and I just walked right into the water and floated away. Bliss.

After my swim we sat and watched the sun almost set, and continued to watch three seals splashing. It was quiet. And beautiful. Then we headed back to the camper and started a fire. Just a simple fire. No guitar. No talking. Just burning all the random pieces of wood that were around the fire pit as the sun set and the stars came out. Bliss.

To bed. Crossword puzzle, podcast of Q. Bliss.


After we locked up the cabin this morning, we headed for the ferry with no idea when it would be leaving and how long a wait it would be. Got to the ferry slip. Ferry was just arriving. Probably the eighth car in line. Ferry loaded us. We were off. Next ferry, next sailing. We were off. Drove the lower road - no traffic, and arrived at the terminal at 2:15. We were boarded on the 3:10. Home by 6. Bliss.

All day I have been feeling good, peaceful, relaxed, happy. Bliss.