Ah-Ah the Blue Monkey

Yay, technology! And yay for moms who know what really matters to a little boy. Thanks, Yutha, for the link.

Kick Your What Ifs In The Butt

Always go out there

fearless,

without hesitation,

and

give it

everything you've got.

Because if you don't,

you will always ask yourself,

"Did I do enough?"

As long as you can answer

yes, yes I did,

then it's okay.

AddendumdumDUM: I'm putting my answer here instead of the comment section because I want to make sure a certain someone sees it.

As long as you give any effort everything you have, even if you fail, you will be able to say at least I tried and I did my best.

The worst thing, the absolute worst, is not to try at all, or make a half-assed attempt because you're afraid of what people will think or you convince yourself you can't do it.

Go to the edge and jump.

GO TO THE EDGE AND FUCKING JUMP!

Do not listen to other people. Most people are cowards. And those cowards love to tell others "you can't do it" because they're too afraid to try themselves, and pulling you back justifies THEIR decision not to try.

Failing is not something losers do.

Failing is something winners do, repeatedly, until they succeed.

Real failure is not trying.

21 BALANÇOIRES

I read and hear a lot in the news about how people in Quebec are always fighting and how no one gets along, but then I see something like this and my faith in Montreal is restored. I am having such a blast walking around the city seeing the good, bad and yes, even the ugly. Maybe even especially the ugly. But somehow, it all works. And it makes for joyful days of discovery.

Gives new meaning to the word "swingers" doesn't it?

21 Balançoires (21 Swings) from Daily Tous Les Jours on Vimeo.

Why Big Dreams Matter

"Everything is incredible and people don't accept it."

No one has the right to tell anyone else that what they're doing is unimportant.

If it matters to you, then do it.

Stay with it.

Never give up.

Meet Agustin, from Siguatepeque, Honduras.

Ravaged by childhood polio.

Confined to a wheelchair.

Lived his entire life in poverty.

Worked as a shoemaker.

He decided to build a helicopter using pieces of scrap metal collected at the dump.

And pieces from his new wheelchair, sent from the U.S.

He began in 1958.

1958.

When you are tempted to give up, think about Agustin.

Cicada

Last week, while walking Buddy, I came across a dead cicada, mostly intact. Thinking I'd like to photograph it, I eased it into one of the bags set aside for Buddy's ejectamenta putidus and carefully carried it home. It wasn't easy. The wings were fragile, Buddy was frolicking, people in the city were jostling, oh, the jostling...

I got it home and gently placed it between two sliding windows in the kitchen so it could dry out, undisturbed.

I figured it was safe there. No one goes in that corner of the kitchen unless they're cooking.

And I am the only one who cooks.

The other night, as I sat at the kitchen table talking, I glanced over just as Doug opened the windows and surreptitiously tossed my cicada clear out the window. He looked over at me, puffed out his chest and said, "You are so lucky you didn't see that thing. That sucker would have freaked you out!"

Sigh.

A common bumblebee instead which, trust me, isn't nearly as interesting

A Little Visit to Halifax

Lighthouse

Maritime Museum

Storm is coming

Chester, where I'm going to live some day (though I hope it's not this exact spot)

Check out the skull and crossbones to the right!

A nice chat with the craftsman who makes custom, hand-thrown, hand painted plates from Nova Scotia clay

Lunenburg

Halifax

Lunenburg Academy atop Gallows Hill, used in the movie Simon Birch

Outside my hotel

The boat I want

The boat I can afford

What happens to pirates

Used in a movie with Sandra Bullock

Halifax Harbour

Doug had a conference in Halifax last weekend so while he talked teeth and gums with all his pals, I got a chance to wander around Halifax and the south shore of Nova Scotia. And I met Eldest's boyfriend's parents, who are the nicest people you could ever hope to meet. And really, would you expect any different? The Boyfriend is a sweetheart and the east coast is one of the friendliest places on the planet.

I have always loved Nova Scotia. I put in a request with my beloved to move there thirty years ago but Dr. Doug wouldn't budge. He'd just bought his practice right before we met so he couldn't go anywhere but Montreal. We were staying at a B & B in Annapolis Royal and the two ladies who ran the place invited us to stay for a lobster dinner, even though it was not included in the price (see, I told you they were the nicest people!) And over dinner, they pitched the idea of us moving there because the town dentist was retiring and they thought Doug would be perfect. (They're nice and they're smart.) The practice even came with a house "and a crystal chandelier" (important in a dental practice) but it didn't pan out.

That summer before we got married, we took two weeks to drive around New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, along the Cape Breton Coast and all the way over to P.E.I. (back in the days when you had to go by ferry) and it was one of the best holidays we've ever had. Doug ate chowder every day, literally every day sometimes twice a day. You can't find better chowder than east coast chowder. Ditto fish cakes. And hodge podge, ooh, that's good. Do you know hodge podge? A lovely lady in Chester Basin made it for us for lunch. It was another B & B, an old frame house looking over the sea, with a garden buzzing with hummingbirds. Hodge Podge goes like this: you take as many fresh vegetables as you have on hand, and you layer them in a pot with cream and butter. You start with the veggies that take the longest (e.g., new potatoes, carrots) and you add the others (green beans, yellow beans, turnip, etc.) and you cook them for about 45 minutes until the vegetables are tender, then you spoon them in a bowl with the cream and serve it with crusty bread. Voila, a dish that "feeds the soul" as they say in N.S.

So this time around, I walked along the new (well, to me) boardwalk in the city, dined at the local restaurants, visited the Maritime Museum (exhibits about the Halifax Explosion in 1917 and the Titanic recovery) and watched Canada's only handblown crystal makers at work. Originally from Ireland, these Irish crystal makers decided after their Waterford factory closed that they would keep the tradition alive, so they moved to Nova Scotia. These men (they were all men) had to apprentice at for at least 8 years before they got to the master craftsman stage. They moved like athletes, everyone knowing their place in this choreographed dance with molten crystal. I was awestruck, and that was before I walked in the shop! I bought a little wedding gift for some friends and a birthday gift for Doug - single-malt glasses in the "Titanic" pattern, inspired by the light fixtures in the 1st class cabins. (No worries, he doesn't read this blog so the secret is safe until this weekend.) And I may have bought a teensy piece of something for moi.

If you want to read more about this Most Excellent Crystal, go HERE.

The Big Move

I've been getting some mild flak from some readers over my absence.

These are people who clearly have never moved, nor have they purged and packed twenty-four years worth of crap treasured family heirlooms in a matter of days. We sold our house in eight days, then my husband said, on a Wednesday, "let's move on Saturday." And we did. And we survived. Just.

And while I know my eensy little blog is not making huge waves in the web 'verse, I know from your emails that you do miss it, and I appreciate your patience. I'm back now. Soon there will be exciting new photos of my new Montreal neighbourhood. Buddy and I have been exploring and there is all kinds of awesome just around the corner, both figuratively and literally.

For now, let me share our little adventure with you.

Lifestyle gurus call it downsizing, but that word is too uninspired to describe what we did. In essence, we said goodbye to our suburban home in exchange for a city pad and all that it entails.  It wasn’t an easy decision. We lived in our house almost 25 years. My eldest daughter was a toddler and I was heavily pregnant with our son when we moved in, and a third child was born before we could say Bob’s Your Uncle And Maybe He Babysits. (Or in our case, Happy 5th Anniversary!) In that time, it transformed from house to home, right down to a penciled wall of names, dates and growth spurts.

 

That little stone house was only supposed to be our starter home. It was quite modest, with a tiny yard and a one-car garage that has never actually held a car. Most importantly, it only had one, full bathroom. But we came to love it, and decided to stay, a decision we never regretted. Okay, maybe we questioned it with three teenagers and that single bathroom. But our kids learned some valuable lessons along the way, like cooperation through example. More or less.

 

Some of our holiday rituals were tied to the house. Every Christmas morning, my children waited for each other at the top of the stairs until my husband and I staggered to the bottom looking for coffee and a camera, in that order. They sat side by side and slid down each stair together, creeping ever closer to Santa’s bounty while we snapped photos. Even when they hit their twenties, they still squeezed together shoulder to shoulder, a solid block of squirming siblings with bed head, moaning about needing caffeine.  It was a bittersweet moment when we all realized that 2011 was the last time we would do this, unless they decide they want to shimmy across the floor in our new flat or move the process outside to the front steps of the building.

 

 

Those walls held our stories, from skunks under the porch and raccoons playing with sheets on my laundry line, to ice storms, burst pipes, and the morning mom slept in and the kids played zoo using the ash-filled fireplace as a cage. There have been memorable birthday parties, including one where wee guests stood timidly in party dresses and braids on our back deck as I handed them loaded water pistols. See the dad on the lawn right there below you?  I explained it was okay, nay encouraged, to let loose and blast that dad, really blast him with cold water.  And just like that, they morphed into GI Janes and bombarded my husband as he raced back and forth like a cornered rabbit. Themed parties may be de rigueur, but these tiny warrior princesses declared this one the best one ever.

My husband once hosted a stag in our home for his younger brother. I was escorted out the front door with a toddler on each hip and returned to what can only be described as bacchanalian carnage. There were hamburger buns glued to the wall with condiments, male bodies strewn on the floor like pick-up sticks, and the family goldfish flopped around in a mug of beer. The fish recovered quickly, but it was touch-and-go for my husband.

The kids grew into teenagers and invited friends over to hang out in the basement to play video games or as in the case of my eldest daughter, drink Cosmos and hold Sex And The City marathons while they discussed their own dating foibles. Oh, if walls could talk, I’m sure ours would stammer and blush.

As I sorted through immense piles of stuff, I came to regret how casually I tossed it all in cupboards thinking I’d deal with it later. Later arrived, and while the task felt Sisyphean in scope, I made slow progress. The piano sold, the drum set too, off to torture entertain new victims another family. As I went through it I was overwhelmed emotionally; it’s not a cliché to say life flies past at lightening speed. Those school essays, travel photos, hand-painted cards, handmade Hallowe’en costumes for tiny people in innocent times, they all mocked me, and whispered, where did the time go? 

 

And as I dug through a drawer in the kitchen, that ubiquitous one that holds pizza folders, twist ties and old pens, I found a small business card at the bottom. It had a simple message, nothing more than this:

“Faith is the Beginning and Love is the End.”

I realized that it was faith which brought us to that house as a growing family; faith that we would be happy there, and raise good kids who would become conscientious adults, faith in each other, that our marriage would be strong and withstand the storms like our little stone house has done. 

What we have left in the end, just as we had in the beginning, is love. Well, love, and a whole lot of boxes.

Technically we may have downsized, but the opposite of downsize is expand. In physics, to expand means the universe is undergoing continuous change, opening up, increasing in scope. 

Seems that’s a better word for what we’re doing.

We are expanding our lives, our choices, and by extension, ourselves. 

But I will miss that little stone house.