A year since my last post. I believe it - with all the other things going on and with a certain other social media sucking us in at every turn, well, I just have not come back here in a while! It is time to revisit at the start of a new year. Things I want to do today, while the one kiddo who lives at home is not yet back from a sleepover and the college kid who is home for the holidays is still visiting her grandmother: an update, and a gotta-get-er-done list for today. Update: I am still me, living in Canada, still striving to flex my creative wings (just did my 6th craft show, that was fun) and to keep my Etsy shop fresh, while undercover during the day as the managing editor of a weekly newspaper (that has its fun days, too!). The youngest is a freshman in high school. The middle girl is a young mother of a six-month-old adorable baby boy, making me a grandma, and engaged to a young man with a good heart. The oldest is in art college. The hubs works for the phone company, and we also have three furry friends that live in our house: two cats and a little black half-chihuahua, half-black lab. ... teeny background: Shiny the dog had been treated as a puppy-mill, on her fourth litter at age 6 when her owners abandoned her. After the puppies all went to good homes, a local shelter needed a forever family for her and I said hey, I'm an old

gal too and this old house has lots of room, send her over. :) I am also still living with some sort of absences and occasional dizziness that may be actual "absence" (say it like it's French) as in the kind of epilepsy that used to be called petit mal seizures, and now they call it "absence" (practicing your French yet?). Have been medicated for it with carbamazapine for a few years now, which makes the worst of it better so that I can drive. It's a day-to-day thing. Life goes on. :) So that's about it. To do today: -revisit old blogs I love -visit a couple of new ones I read about recently, including those geared toward thrifty living -freshen up my Etsy shop with a few new items today -take down the Christmas tree and put away decorations -and rest. Wishing anyone who stumbles onto this blog (it used to be quite busy! working on getting there again) a very peaceful and happy New Year for 2013. hugs all around, especially to those bloggers I used to visit far more often, T

Took a trip to NH to visit my sister last weekend - just the girls and I. We went tree picking, visited alpacas, had lots of fun, and my sister and I talked talked talked talked talked while the cousins (all girls too) caught up.
On the way home we saw the official truck of the Boston Celtics, so that was very cool!

Ah, another hot day in late September in eastern Canada - not that I am complaining.

Nature Girl, who is now 18, and I took a long walk through the woods that our backyard backs up to, down the four-wheeler / snowmobile trail and down to a little-known mossy place farther down, where the things that run on gas don't go.
It is beautiful there, with mossy rocks and babbling brooks and decades-old tree stumps covered with several types of feathery moss and sprouting plants. Mushrooms abound and golden sunlight filters in through maples and birches above, where the sun can reach its fingers, but it is mostly cool shade.
Thought I would share a photo (I took far more, but blogger is only allowing me one at the moment).
It is not far from home, and it is my children's special woody place to explore and I told her I won't tell a soul where it is, so the "magical" aspect remains. :)

Have a good weekend!
T

I heart summer.

Well, not the heat. But I love that the kids are home and there is no homework and the garden grows and we can take mini-vacations.
Just got back from Toronto, which I've never visited before in my life! Took the kids to Wonderland (it's cool and there are ways to avoid the tourist-trappy expenses, we did it on a good budget). We DROVE there (14 hours each way, oy vey, or as we say around here, AYOYE!), rode rollercoasters and bought little candies at a shop and watched a light show on the gigantic mountain in the middle of the park. Neat-o.
This week we also battled the jungle growing in our way-back yard square. Right in the middle of a square of pine trees, there is about a half-acre of grass and flower gardens and a fire circle etc... it had grown WAY too long and insane while the riding mower was out of commission, so we tackled that, including a raspberry bush roughly 16 times as big as me all around, and I trimmed and wrestled that sucker back to human-scale size so it doesn't take over the whole yard (a very real possibility). Much much better now! I even had to search for my tea roses that had been covered up by new raspberry shoots, and now they can see the sun again!!
Anyway, I have a few pics from our travels through Toronto (look for the glowing circle in the air, that is the Windseeker, and those little things in the white tent are |PEOPLE|, and the little black bumps up there at the end of the rods were our SEATS!!), and our garden strawberries and lovely wild flowers from the yard, to share. :)
Hope you are having a refreshing summer!
T

Well it's prom time! For me, that's a first - my oldest daughter is graduating this year and also going to her senior prom. SIGH! This is her dress, although she found it in a lovely bright lime green. Quite princessy and beautiful, no? :) She picked it out after trying on many, many dresses, as she probably had not put on a dress in 5 years or so, but wanted this one to be special.
It needs to be taken in a bit at the bottom, and requires a bit of, ahem, coverage in the low-dip v-neck, but luckily I can do all that. I went out to hunt for a good spool of lime green thread the other day (imagine, why in the world would I not have that on hand, har har) and my great friend had some at her house! So we ended up going out for mall-crawling and girl time anyway. A nice treat.

Thinks at work are super crazy and fun, and luckily (I mean, I consider myself blessed with a capital B) I still love going in to the office everyday. I recently made the change from reporter to managing editor, and am enjoying every whirlwind minute of it. I hope that appreciation lasts for decades! When I think about it, I've always been a newshound, and I've always loved to write (in fact, I've been armchair-editing the very paper where I'm now the managing editor since I was 10 or so, I find that very funny!!) so it's just a good fit, warts and all.

In other news (pardon the pun), the youngest girl just did her Confirmation at church. That's the last of the 3 girls to complete all their church stuff (I know there is a more respectful word for that, but I'm only on my first cup, OK??). So I'm quite proud of her. She was one of only 4 this year, and they also sang in front of the congregation. Her godmother (who also functions as her fairy godmother, and rescuer of people who need lime-green thread) was her sponsor. Although I'm not Catholic myself, it was a beautiful thing to see, and quite important to her as that's the church we go to.

Also this week I got to visit with a classmate who I had not seen in 20 years! She was visiting her mum and dad, so we went over for a cookout and got caught up. My 20th class reunion is coming up next month! Yes, I'm that old!!

Well off to pull the stove out from the wall - I've seen some ants, and need to find out how they are getting in ... and send a note home to their mother to tell them to stay out (or something to that effect).

Till next time!
T

WORLD CUP WOO HOO

Yep, taking my time with that 2nd cup of coffee... hee hee... but more specifically, we're right smack dab in the middle of covering a HUGE international World Cup Biathlon, and it's just a few miles down the road.
In addition to covering it for the paper, I'm also volunteering there!!! They asked me to help in "catering," which I found out today means "400 loads of dishes," but I had a blast anyway and met folks from all over, who were working, volunteering and competing. The festival and entertainment events started today; biathlon competitions start tomorrow. It's about 3 degrees outside, but I was working in a tent!
For those of you who don't live in the Land of Snow up near the very top of Maine like I do, Biathlon is a sport, beloved in Europe and popular in North America as well, which focuses on combined cross-country skiing and perfect rifle marksmanship (in other words, ski, ski, ski, then shoot!).
The World Cup is happening now in the St. John Valley. And it's VERY cool to have it here - the whole community is volunteering and coming together fantastically to make it happen. I'm not all that far away, and my office has encouraged us all to volunteer in the community this year, so I'm spending several of my volunteer hours at the World Cup.

More info: http://www.biathlonworld.com/en/

Better get to bed soon - gotta build up my energy, I'm volunteering again this weekend!! Stay warm!
:)
T

New year = less STUFF and better ME

Why is it that whenever a new year arrives, we want to organize everything in sight?! I mean really, it's a great way to ruin a should-be-slouching-on-the-couch day... but still, I want to!
I actually went out n New Year's Eve in anticipation of my upcoming neurosis this year, and bought me a 4-drawer wooden filing cabinet (which was wheeled up to the register unassembled, no-freaking-thank you very much!)
The Hubs put it together that night and I started Jan. 1 by sorting and labeling file folders - OMG it's kind of insane how much I love to do that - and today I'm emptying out the laundry basket full of paper documents (admit it, you've got papers stuffed somewhere too) with vicious objectivity.
Store, file, or shred/recycle - that's IT, no waffling.

Oh and I also am quite enjoying the Muppet "ANIMAL" PJs I got for Christmas, as well as a lovely stamper from my managing editor, who gave me that and an "Apples to Apples" board game. What a nice person she is.
But anyway, in addition to that, I am also strongly ready to get serious about dropping a few (like 80) unwanted pounds that have been hanging around way, way too long. I joined WW a few weeks ago and with the holidays out of the way, I'm ready to kick butt.

Happy first week of January!