Elisa’s Day

first things first, thank you for the birthday wishes very much. they were much appreciated.

the laptop seems to have healed itself…..very odd. it just started working properly again, all the sudden.

we had a nice and productive weekend. ryan built the girls a sandbox, a little project that has been on tap since we moved in two summers ago. and it got put to good use for sure. saturday was a beautiful day. some friends came over with their sons and we had a bbq for lunch and the kids played and rode their bikes around and the grownups talked and much fun was had. the sandbox was built before they came, and garden and yard work was done after they left, big accomplishments for a single day.

sunday was sadly cool and crazy windy. so our outdoor plans were switched out for indoor plans. i am knee deep in my most hated of chores, the dreaded clothes switch out. huge sigh. i started with miss molly, because at least with molly, even if her drawers and closet are packed with summer clothes, she will not constantly beg me to wear them no matter what the temperature outside might be,  like a few other girls who will remain nameless. so let me tell you how ludicrous it is, at this age by girl number four. at this age, where you stull can’t resist the odd new cute outfit. at this age where people still want to give you the cute outfits, even though they must know you have countless cute outfits all ready…….molly could, no word of an exaggeration here, wear a different thing every single day of the summer. there is a double bed in her room right now, literally covered in various shirts, shorts, capris, dresses, one pieces, skirts…….probably anywhere between 15 and 30 of each thing……..it’s completely ridiculous. and that doesn’t even count the two new little jumpers still hanging in her closet i picked up at costco because i couldn’t resist the cuteness, or the new things her grandma brought back from her trip south. but anyway……it is what it is. i do believe i have made it through the baby stuff anyway. next is the other girls. it’s much less ludicrous. one tub, packed full, for all three of them, plus a few new hand-me-downs from a friends sister ( the above mentioned friend, who with two boys, has no use for her nieces hand-me-downs ) and a few new things also brought home from grandma’s trip. i think we’re good for this year. sidney usually gets two years out of her summer stuff before she grows out of it and i’m pretty sure last year was a “shopping” year for her.

today is a swimming day, with hannah having a lesson at 1pm and olivia having one at 5:15. and today is an olivia home day, which means that i have the pleasure of dragging not just molly to the pool for hannah’s lesson, but also olivia and the little girl i babysit, joy joy. and i desperatly need to do some picking up/cleaning. which it seems like i always say, but it is always true. i have got to say, that i can barely stay on top of it these days. 4 kids under the age of 8. that is a full time job. that is why people don’t have more then a couple kids, because who can do that and work like it seems everyone feels they must. like i feel i must. i have no idea how i’m going to work and keep up on the house, the laundry the cooking/baking. it’s a daunting thought every time i think about it. i may have a line on a job at a new bar in town. if i could work friday and saturday nights, i think i could make enough in those two shifts a week……the most amount of money for the least amount of disruption, that’s what i need. of course that main obstacle is miss molly. for me to do that she needs to start doing one of two things, sleeping more then 2 hours at a time at night, or taking a bottle. neither of which she seems to have any interest in. but we’re working on it.

speaking of that can i say, oh how i long to sleep. to go to sleep and then not have to wake up until morning. it could even be 5 in the morning, as long as i was asleep the whole time in between. molly is by far the happiest baby i’ve ever had. she laughs more then any of the other girls did. so much hilarious baby laughing going on. she plays happily. she shops happily. for hours i might add. she just doesn’t sleep. ever really. i mean, she naps during the day, but a nap is supposed to be 2 hours long. then she stays up all evening with us, happily. never tired. then she sleeps for 2 hour stretches most of the night, once in a while going for a longer 3 to 4 hour stretch in the early am. it is literally torturous. all i can do at this point is tell myself over and over and over again that eventually it will end. and then i will sleep. and there will be no more babies to get up with. molly’s hideous sleep patterns have definitely helped me along this whole “last baby” journey. like ryan said yesterday morning  “you’re lucky you weren’t the first bay or you might have been the only baby”

but if anything can make life seem that much nicer it is a mild winter and an early spring. it is amazing how uplifting an early spring can be after several brutal and never ending winters. i’d say we are a full month ahead of last year. amazing. this is the first year i can ever remember since having kids, that the girls could actually wear little easter dresses on easter. we went for brunch and everyone had bare legs and arms and it was so warm that day.

eta: after looking at this picture a little, i have to say that hannah’s resemblance to sidney bordering on freakish there……….

lots of black coffee and home made brownies. so good.

3 kids are playing a board game together and the smallest worden girl is pounding out her little baby heart on the piano. it’s a little melissa and doug mini piano. it’s a big hit with the nine month old set as i remember from my niece’s visit last summer, and molly agrees.

it’s been cold here the last few days, which sucks. but apparently it’s going to be very warm by next weekend so i’m holding out hope. ashley posted a picture of a tulip, it’s been too yucky to go on a search for green here, but i wonder if we did, would we find any? from the window it’s a sea of dreary brown.

had some friends from the city here yesterday for a visit which was awesome. although i did feel a little like all we did all day was eat. they brought lunch and then there was the above mentioned brownies. and grandma’s spaghetti sauce with homemade french stick. and apple pie. so good. and i sent them home with some homemade raspberry jam. because once you’ve tried homemade i don’t think you can ever eat weird gelatinous store jam ever again. the girls had a blast with their three little dogs. three of the best behaved little dogs i have ever met i might add. my grandma was also here, at my mom’s, with her new little dog. plus my mom’s dog. for a brief moment in time the dogs outnumbered the children.

molly did not go down for her regular afternoon nap though in all the excitement, which is probably why she woke up at 2:30 am all bright eyes and “da da da”s. never a good sign when that happens. good thing i always have some movies pvr’d for just such and occasion. nothing like being up for a couple hours in the middle of the night.

nothing exciting on tap for today. some cleaning up, maybe i’ll pull out the easter stuff. i can’t believe easter is already next weekend.

ryan and i have a huge cleaning and organizing job to do in the basement this spring, during which i hope hannah’s missing birth certificate turns up. though i am not holding my breath at this point, you never know.

lets just see if i can bang out an update while the kids are playing outside and the baby is sleeping. that’s right……playing outside because it is beautiful and spring like out there. it’s going outside with no hat and mitts weather out there. it’s the sun actually feels warm weather out there. it’s a beautiful thing. i mean sure, the kids play outside in the winter too. but there is only so much fun to be had with the mobility of the michelin tire man. and it’s always a race against the clock, how long can you play before your numb fingers, toes and nose force you back inside? on a good day it might be 45 min, but more often then not it’s about 20 minutes. so it is a happy day when i can kick the kids outside sans hats and mitts and they’ll stay out there a good hour or so.

last week was a crazy one. i was on the go all week. which means my house is trashed in a serious way. i can generally keep on top of the mess (to a reasonable extent anyway) but if too many other plans start creeping into the picture, well, something has to give. so mess was left. laundry was not done. it all spirals out of control pretty quickly believe me. so today was spent cleaning. though sadly, not much laundry has been done yet, but i still have the afternoon.

and now i hear my baby crying, so off i go to get her, feed her etc. and will have to finish this later

okay, two hours later. baby is playing on the floor with the kids. roast is in the oven. ryan made our very first successful pie for dessert. we have both tried pie crust before and it always ended badly. but he did it !! yay. also the house is reasonably clean again and we even made bread. a productive day.

yesterday we spent the day in peterborough shopping. my grandma was nice enough to escort us to costco ( membership required ) and we even got to leave the kids with my cousins so we could shop in peace. i have had to start shopping at costco. it’s kind of annoying to drive to peterborough to do it, but the kids are getting bigger, they eat a lot and there is still one more to add to the collective appetite. imagine you buy on bunch of banana’s and then you doll them out three ( soon to be four ) at a time ( let alone if you want one ) well, one bunch doesn’t go too far. i need the giant bag of grapefruit. the giant bag of oranges. the huge box of granola. the 44 pounds of flour. the six pack of whole wheat spaghetti, because everyone here loves spaghetti and one box of noodles is barely enough. if we want leftovers i need to make a box and a half. you get the point. ryan says our basement is starting to look like a bomb shelter with all the overflow storage in addition to the home canned goods. what i really need now is a second fridge for the basement. ryan has a little bar fridge down there that is packed, but i’m going to start watching the classifieds for one. and i definitely can’t wait to get some new egg layers in the spring. ( or sooner ) we go through 2-3 dozen eggs a week. we’re also getting a freezer pack of local beef from a guy up the road to go in the deep freeze with our chickens this year.

not much else going on. another round of swimming lessons over with. and a few extra weeks in between this time, as the pool closes for some much needed renovations.

other then that, march break, no real plans, but we’ll head up to my dad’s for a few days just to get out of the house. i’m working on ryan’s sweater. it’s coming slowly, but coming along all the same. i finally got around to reading the Lost Symbol. it was fine. a more formulistic writer there may not be, but entertaining all the same. then my mom brought over Year of the Flood. i’m just trying to decide of i should read Oryx and Crake again first. i also have a few easy patterns and some fabric i picked up for next to nothing at our fabricland, soon to be closed. i’ll give sewing another try and see how it goes. i’d like to be able to make things for the girls.

and there you have it, the mundane minutiae of my life, but now my baby wants me and i need to switch the laundry.

haven’t really updated much about miss molly ( or missy molly as hannah calls her ) but she is so amazing. i can’t believe she is already 10 weeks. already my infant is a baby. and the easiest baby ever to boot. she is a good sleeper, with long naps during the day and usually sleeping from 8ish to 3ish at night, nursing once and back to bed for another few hours.  i know this could all go away once teeth start, but for now i’m loving it, especially since hannah was more one of those up to nurse every 1.5 hours types. and when she’s awake she is so easy going all around. she’ll happily be carried or worn, but also will happily lay in the pack n’ play with her mobile to look at or chill in the swing, which not only gives me much needed time for all the baking that goes on around here, it has eased most of my fears about how i was going to get the girls out the door in the morning for school. she’s even a good shopper, sling or stroller, if she isn’t asleep right away she just looks around, taking it all in until she does quietly nod off. she loves her baths and attention from her sisters. she is full of ridiculous huge smiles and so very close to laughs.  she is such an easy baby that it makes it hard to imagine this as the last time. so i remind myself that not all babies are so easy. and like jerry told george, you want to go out on a high note, so really, i’m just thankful that my last baby has turned out to be such an easy and 100% enjoyable experience. so far our biggest issue is a bit of walking/rocking to sleep sometimes and that she sometimes wakes up when i put her to bed, so instead of bed we just chill with ryan on the couch, the baby burrito asleep on my chest, and really, who doesn’t love a sleeping baby on them? this is our biggest “issue”?? LOL

i can’t believe school starts on tuesday. i am so not ready. i did make bread last evening, mostly because we have plans with friends this afternoon and tomorrow afternoon so i wouldn’t have had time otherwise. and i am making two lasagna’s for this afternoon and still need to find time to make cookies and rice krispie squares to freeze for the girls lunches. plus they all need a bath and hair wash, and to get their backpacks and other school stuff organized. yikes. i am looking forward to it though. sidney and olivia are played out. they are bored of each other and everything else.

i am taking advantage of a situation this year, a friend mentioned how her daughter was really hating daycare. she is olivia’s very best little friend, so i offered for her to come here on her off days. so that’s a bit of extra cash for us and i’m hoping it helps to amuse olivia on the days she’s home, since i’m still pretty occupied with molly in general. my only concern is that they play nicely with hannah as well, and don’t exclude her too much. we shall see. the crazy thing is that next year, kindergarten is supposed to go full time. which means that all the sudden i have three kids in school full time and it’ll just be me and miss molly all day every day. that seems crazy.

i am dreading winter. i can feel it already, in the cold mornings. i am dreading getting up in the pitch dark, and being cold all of the time. and getting the kids to the bus in -30. hopefully the really brutal weather holds off until ryan is home in jan. and feb. to do bus duty until the bad weather though, i’m looking forward to the walk to the bus every morning because i am hopelessly out of shape from a long, miserable, pregnancy. luckily the driveway is long and up hill, so a couple daily treks up that will help.

so i guess we’ll just have to enjoy fall as much as we can since there was no real summer. ryan’s been stacking wood and trying to finish off as many little out door jobs as he can. we have been doing the birthday thing so very much, ah sept. and all your birthdays. and i am looking very forward to the fair in a couple weeks. i only hope it is as much fun as it was last year, and that it becomes a much anticipated family tradition. and we have my cousins wedding the weekend of sidney’s birthday, so although it is an unusual birthday, i think it’ll be a fun one for her. i made reservations for about 20 at a fun restaurant ( the wedding is in the evening so no dinner ) and we’ll get her a cake, and then she gets to dress up, stay up late, and dance…..sounds like a good birthday to me.

that all makes for a crazy september though. and before i know it, we’ll be into october.

“how old is she?”

“3 weeks”

but as i say it, i think….huh, i’m pretty sure i’ve been saying that for at least a week now…….

“no…four weeks……already”

it’s crazy. and crazier yet, how can it seem like i just brought her home but that she’s always been here all at the same time.

all is good here. aside from the weather of course. worst summer ever. i could complain in great detail about everything from single digit temps at night to seemingly constant cloud cover and rain. we’ve slept with our comforter on the bed for most of july. but i won’t. why bother.

the kids are good. there are moments of course. it wouldn’t be parenthood without those moments. the ones that make you want to scream, or pull your hair out. or drink excessive amounts of alcohol or chocolate milkshakes, whatever your preference is. but over all, they are great.

sidney is big, a real big kid. and although she isn’t generally the most helpful around the house she’s taken to other chores with much enthusiasm. like collecting the eggs and letting the layers out in the morning, and tonight she put them away in the evening too. and after about 20 minutes of instruction with dad she has learned to ride her bike without training wheels, which she now spends much time doing. many, many laps around the big circular driveway.

olivia is my helper extraordinaire. overly helpful sometimes. but much appreciated help mostly. always the first to volunteer to help with dishes, laundry or baby. if only she and hannah could come to a truce. they spend more time battling then playing these days.

and hannah, sweet hannah. it’s hard to still not see her as “the baby”, she was for so long it seemed. but she’s getting so big. and she is a force to be reckoned with. all unbelievable cuteness one minute and all volatile, tantruming 3 year old the next. and she’s funny. and she knows it. a seriously well developed sense of humour for a not quite 3 yr old.

sidney and olivia are in the middle of their summer session of swimming lessons. every day for two weeks ( not weekends ) and as much as having to go and sit in the hotter then the surface of the sun pool area for an hour every single day for two weeks, with a sweaty little baby sucks really a whole bunch, it’s going great. they are definitely learning so much more when they go every day then once a week. and on friday as a break from the same drills, the older class played a game with balls and goals, and my clumsy sidney was surprisingly adept at getting the ball and throwing the ball and participated 100%. dad and i were both impressed. and olivia, who spent the first 10 minutes of her first class refusing to go in, and then sitting in the corner of the pool giving me her very best stink eye, is now diving for rings and mastering her floats ( front and back )

i keep waiting for nice weather, for you know…..summer to start…..so we can head to the cottage or my dad’s place and they can do some actual swimming in an actual body of water……but sigh…..it just isn’t coming. i really hope august is nice. i plan to head up to the cottage next week anyway, if my uncle is still there so we can have some boat rides.

and molly is a baby. i dislike when people ask if she’s a “good baby” because it seems to insinuate that there is a “bad baby” . babies are babies. they’re good when they’re sleeping and when they’re awake and even when they’re fussy and will only stop crying if you walk them. none of that standing still and rocking them either, but actual walking around, because there is clearly some difference between the two that only a baby can detect. but her fussy times are few and far between and she sleeps a lot and for good blocks of time at night, so really she is about as easy a baby as you can hope for. that’s a better distinction i think. easy or hard baby?

she’s already loving to look at her sisters, and half smiling and making little baby talking noises. it’s already slipping away. but please don’t take those type pf comments for any kind of uncertainty. no matter how sad i am that this is the last little baby face i’ll look down at, asleep on my chest, little tiny mouth open, so relaxed, you couldn’t pay me enough to be pregnant again. or to fill my basement yet again with baby stuff. stored away again for more years. or to add another few years onto the time it is before ryan and i might again get to go out alone. there are as many things i’m looking forward to as i am sad to see for the last time.

and there it is, the big update. probably won’t be another one for weeks. especially if summer actually starts.

a very nice chocolaty long weekend all around. lots of family and treats and good food. can’t really think of a better way to spend a long weekend.

unfortunately it was still cold, and is going to be cold until the end of april seems like. i’m not sure i can handle these new seasons. you know, the new winter that starts in november and ends in may. and the almost non-existent fall and spring. and the never long enough summer, 3 months of semi hot weather if we’re lucky. any progress on canada acquiring one of those tropical type islands or what? seriously………

trying to wade through taxes, which will be so much easier once we wrap up all the loose ends and finally close our corporation. although, i have to say, the audit that started almost 2 years ago was finally closed last week, and that is a huge relief. not because i was ever worried, because we always always operated on the books 100%, but more it was just a huge hassle. the auditor was very nice, constantly thankful of our politeness and quick compliance ( obviously no point in blaming her )  and was always complimenting us on our organization and professionalism, which was nice. it was also very encouraging to know that i, never ever a big fan of math or numbers, did a very good job with the book keeping. she said the discrepancy, for the 3 years they audited was so low it was considered by the government as negligible and there would be no adjustment at all required. nice. anyway, after years of the government breathing down our necks ( the full audit of 3 fiscal years, was only the last in a string of annoying government interferences )  for no real reason other then we operated a business they didn’t really understand, it will be a huge relief to be 100% done with it. ryan and i are both looking forward to spending at least a few years at regular ol’ jobs, where someone else is accountable to the government, and all we do is work, get paid and go home and about our lives otherwise. we’ll revisit in a few years and see if we’re ready to try something else new. plus after years in front of a computer, ryan sure is enjoying getting out and doing some actual labour, he’s going to be in great shape by the end of the summer that’s for sure ( if not horribly sunburned, getting him to wear sunscreen is going to be the challenge )

i am dealing with going from a WAHM to a SAHM, which let me tell you, is quite the pay cut ! luckily i’m a whiz with a budget. and it’s pretty easy to live on a budget if you know how, but more then anything else, i miss getting my nails done. not because i’m particularly vain, but because i am a compulsive nail and cuticle picker/chewer. acrylic nails actually physically stopped me from doing it ( ryan didn’t get that until i finally explained it to him a few months ago, he thought it was more of a mental, oh my nails look nice so i won’t pick them, thing ) because acrylic nails are so thick they are useless for picking at my cuticles and keep me from being able to chew as well ( literally to thick for me to be able to reach my cuticles to chew )  and as it is i just can’t stop myself. i mean it’s crazy. i quit smoking cold turkey 8 years ago, but this……nope.

so, oh how i miss them. but i’m working on a a new, more  budget conscious solution, but we’ll see if it goes anywhere or not.

i entered the illustrious third trimester while i wasn’t looking, seems crazy, but i knew it was true, when the energy i was enjoying so much from the second trimester faded into a overwhelming need to lay down in the afternoon ( again ) and it became literally impossible to sleep in any kind of comfort. sleep is now an act in futility mostly involving trying to be somewhat comfortable and endless trips to the bathroom.

two days until my birthday.

well, good old “spring” is upon us. saturday we woke up to a light snow covering, which did melt off quickly, but although none of it stayed on the ground, it continued to snow and gale the entire day.  which brings us to sunday, sunny and beautiful, the older girls spent a good part of the day outside ( with no coats ) playing with the soccer ball, hanging with the chickens, i saw some hula hooping and some skipping as well. good thing they took advantage. because now we’re in a full on winter storm. none of this melt off stuff, it’s coming down and staying on the ground. and it’s supposed to keep coming for at least the next 24 hours. sweet.

surprisingly the buses still ran, so both sidney and olivia are off to school, and hannah is down for the day with a mystery fever, so it’s a quiet day around here for me. hannah is in day two of said mystery fever. no other symptoms, but it’s a persistent fever, that has her pretty miserable. so she’s in my bed, watching some blue’s clues. and if she still has it tomorrow i’ll call our doctor.

so i guess i’ll spend my day cleaning, possibly baking….but our freezer is full to the brim since ryan and i spent our last day before his new job started making muffins and cookies and brownies to freeze for his lunches. and then i made my first batch of bread by hand ( our favorite recipe, which makes three loaves, is too big for the kitchen aid ) and i definitely need to work on my kneading technique, but it came out pretty good for a first attempt. so any baking i do today will have to be for the here and now.

maybe i’ll finish off the baby blanket, i kind of stalled on it, but my grandma was by for a visit yesterday, and she’s knitting socks for the girls and wanted to measure feet, and i was re-inspired i guess. plus she showed me how to measure it properly ( i’m trying to make it square ) and there isn’t much to go.

and i was inspired my ashley to finally get together a cd of pictures to print for albums. the last time i had some done, hannah was 10 months old. hahaha. it’s fun going through all the old pictures though, i’m up to june 2008 now so i’m getting there. so maybe i’ll finish that off today as well. totally unrelated, but looking at old pictures made me miss our old house. i wish i could have picked it up and moved it out here. don’t get me wrong, there were times i loathed that old victorian, but it was getting so much closer to being “done” and looking so nice. staring over again sucks. and more snow isn’t getting me any closer to being able to start painting here since i won’t start until i can open the house up for ventilation.

lots to do, as always, but i think i’ll start with checking on the poor hannah bun.

it’s march break time around here, which means all the kids are home for the week. thankfully ryan’s mom is also here, because they appeared to have big plans to spend the entire week fighting. but with that new distraction, the fighting has mellowed (a little).  also, i am sick again, so having some extra hands around is nice. sickness while pregnant is truly a crime of nature. instead of a weakened immune system, pregnancy should offer a super duper boosted immune system that no germs can penetrate. in fact, it should extend through motherhood. no one gestating or caring for kids should ever have to do so while fighting a flu or cold. but alas, it is not the case, instead my compromised immune system has had me sick, what, four or five times now since i first saw the two pink lines.

on the plus side of the equation, the long term forecast for the next 7 days only has one day in the negative. that is something. i’m sure this hideous time of year isn’t helping my cold and flu status. when it can literally ( and was last week ) be +12 one day and -14 the next day, it’s just no good. so a few days of consistent, above zero weather sure sounds nice. there is nothing better then the kids being able to just throw on their rain boots and go outside. no 10 minute struggle with snow suits and fights over which hats and mittens everyone is wearing. just boots and out. beautiful.

the kids are all very very big. sidney is just barely going to make it through the winter in her current wardrobe. she is all ankles and wrists hanging out in most of it. yet i refuse to buy her new clothes now for a season that will soon be behind us, so we’re just going to have to manage a little while longer. olivia is the same, but of course that mostly means digging through the bins in the basement. not quite as horrific a task as the actual swap out, and storage of seasonal clothes. but not enjoyable whatever the case. our basement is a right mess, my bins are as well. no well organized, well marked collection of clothes and shoes right now.

olivia is going to be five this summer. that seems just crazy. she is stuck right now, between big and little. sometimes acting so big, other times clinging to being “little” ( right now we’re battling a bad bout of baby talk with olivia ). sidney will be seven in the fall. man. she is like a real big kid now. not like “big kid” like you say to kids just leaving toddlerhood behind them to go off and start kindergarten and such. but a real big kid. or just a kid even. sometimes i imagine her as a baby and it seems so very long ago and just yesterday all at the same time. hannah is talking in real sentences now. and saying the funniest things. when she’s not having a huge meltdown over the most minor of things of course. it’s a two year old thing, we wouldn’t understand.

a friend asked me a few months back if i felt that “i’m done” feeling that women claim to, when they decide to not have any more babies. i did not. at the time i was all too aware of the sadness and regret i’d eventually feel at the truth of no more babies. but i feel it now. i’m tired of being pregnant.  i have spent approx. 40 of the last 84 months pregnant. 4 pregnancies, each one less enjoyable then the last.  i will have had four babies in the last 7 years. that is pretty much constant nursing, night waking, and diapering. well over half of our basement is crammed with storage of baby stuff. in the midst of that mess the other day, i said to ryan “well, no more baby stuff is ever coming back into the basement at least. it can go right from baby to the consignment store” and that seemed like a truly great truth. so yeah. i guess i do know it now. i am. so. done. i am still well aware of the future twinges of baby lust that are to come. since most my friends are either done, not having kids, or far away, i’ll stick with hope some of my older cousins will start having babies that i can hold (and smell) to fill that gap. but for now i’m just looking forward to last baby.

it’s pretty bizarre to me that i can surf the web ( well, on dial up, can we call it surfing? more like doggy paddling ) while the power is out ( crazy winds i think ) but the laptop is running on battery and the phone lines are still working, and with no fancy router or dsl box or anything…… here we are, old school.

it’s very dark in here. i really need more candles.

eta: after about 1.5 hours the power is back, yay. i only went online this morning in the dark, to see if my friend hillary had her baby last night, which she did !! so congrats again hillary

well it just wouldn’t be february in canada without the few days of faux melt off. you can almost taste the spring. the sun is shining, and for the first time in months you can feel the heat off it. and there are birds singing. and everything is melting away at an alarming rate. but alas, it is canada, and it’s only february, so unless you’re new around here you know that it’s all an illusion of spring,  just to make then next 6 weeks of winter in your future seem all that more hellish.

this is never a good time of year for me anyway, under the very best of circumstances, and, well,  raging hormones, a poorly heated house and cluster flies, even in the depths of winter, let alone the ever multiplying numbers the false spring has brought……well, those are so far from “the very best of circumstances” i can barely wrap my head around it. my point being, that i expect to be a more pleasant person again, once spring comes around, i just have to survive until that point.

and the february tease isn’t helping any. i mean i am basking slightly. how could you not. for the first time in months, it’s possible to go outside without being physically uncomfortable. because lets face it, no matter how well clothed you are, there is still some part of you exposed to the minus 30, and even if it’s only your face, it just doesn’t feel good. but i know it’s all going to fade back into minus 30 soon enough and that is so sad. plus i also know that there will be more snow. likely into april. depressing.

if canada had a warm place to call it’s own, i would live there ( and i said warm not slightly less cold and extra rainy, so please don’t suggest moving to the west coast )

next update will be about babies, i promise. but for now i’d really like some book recommendations ( hi lara ) because reading Twilight made me realize that i can and will find time to read, if the book is enjoyable enough, which i think the last few i read before that weren’t, so i just didn’t instead. ( not that they were bad books really, just not captivating enough to make me find the time when the time is so hard to find )

i just finished Water for Elephants too, from my mom.