Friday, March 31, 2006

Spring has sprung

The tulips are coming up in the garden, and, while snooping around, I found my first crocus. They seem slower to come up then those of my neighbor down the street.

Spring though definitely is here. The Spanish fellow on our block has removed the winter wrappings over his garden, and Perpetual Chocoholic and I have started up our spring wanderings and neighborhood beautification projects through some of our favorite neighborhoods.

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Spring in my step

And a melody in my heart

What a weekend. It was beatuful. Sunny after several greyer days. Though the weekend had it's own shadows (CU1 and 2 were with their father), CU3 worked very hard to be sunny and busy.

This weekend we saw the award winning installation on the front garden moved to the back yard. CU3 watched the major move (complete with Maman singing the theme song of The Jefferson's (clue: we're moving on up to a de-luxe apartment in the ska-a-a-a-i) and put on a new foundation that was ice free. She's spent the better part of Saturday moving the kitchen supplies to the new location while Maman chopped ice from the driveway. Sunday, she spent the day moving kitchen supplies back to the previous location. I guess she doesn't like the new spot.

She also didn't like seeing some of the very early spring installations and decorations, robbing the yard of its train, and distrubing the dinosaur cemetary.

Maman's working on making a garden sea serpent for the yard for installation later in the spring when the ground thaws a bit more.

Speaking of which, the first tulip bulbs are coming through. How exciting. Within the next six weeks, they should be up and blooming. Pictures will be added to the gallery for viewing pleasure.

turnipy goodness


During the Fall Good Food Box allotment, I received not one, but two large turnips (one was a bonus from a friend’s food box).


As I could not possibly absorb both turnips into the household food cycle, I gave it to an artist with the challenge to do something creative (in addition to eating it).


Recently, during an open studio show where I got to see the fruits of her labour, I was rewarded with two creative outputs from the turnip challenge; she'd made cards from a turnip print, and, from the turnip top, she got a lovely plant to add some green to her studio this spring.

Friday, March 24, 2006

Stop cooking with cheese

CU-1's idea of a joke is to hide a snake in my lunch box.

He'll be home for April 1 and I've had a whole week to plan ...

Sunday, March 19, 2006

Rule #1

Rule #1 is a very simple household rule that DH was told when he met me. I'm posting it more as a refresher to anyone reading, as it is probably THE MOST important rule ANYONE can learn.

Rule #1: Never wake a sleeping woman.

Codicil to Rule #1 ... if Maman's not happy, NO ONE is happy. (And the changes that Mama is happy after a night of broken sleep is pretty slim.)

Saturday, March 18, 2006

Corned beef hash

I word. Eww.

Going back to my childhood days, I still feel a rush whenever I see the Bull's head from the Chilian version of the canned product.

My DH on the otherhand has much happier memories. His mom ran a deli for a number of years and this activity seems to have shaped his life in a profound and meaningful way that I have yet to comprehend. Many, many stories from the kitchen start with "when my Mom ran the deli" and his eyes glaze over while he's taken back in time ...

So DH's having a smack-his-lips fest this weekend as he's brought home not just one, but TWO corned beef briskets. He's been calling up extended family, and now is moving on into the neighborhood to see if he can find some one else to sit with him and keep him company. I've volunteered CU-3, whom I have affectionally nick-named "the goat" (that's for another day, another entry). We'll see if she's up for it.

For any other volunteers, show up at 18h Sunday night.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Maman, where are you?

I wake up in the morning to these words. Frequently, I'm hiding under the covers, in the shower, and occassionally in the broom closet. Such is life in this clownish house. Check your shoes for dinosaurs. Check your lunch box for migratory cows. Chech your pockets, you'll never know what you find.

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

McCartney's are gone



It's back to the ice flows with you!

The marks are in

For better or for worse, I remember being my children's ages. I can sympathize with them as they prepare for the combination of happiness and dread. Happiness because Spring break is at the end of the week. Dred because they first have to run the gauntlet of report cards.

CU2 came through with nice strong marks - two As and many Bs. She's done a nice turn around since first term where she got pretty close to the edge with a couple of dud marks on key tests.

CU1 continues his wrestling match with school. Smart enough to do be able to do the work. Smarter still to complain and whine so much that the adults get to a point where they want to through their hands up in the air because they don't know how to motivate this otherwise capable kid into doing something brilliant. He slides through with a solid row of mostly Cs.

I dread the three time a year these evaluations come out. So much can ride on the results of a single test that culminates into a letter on a report card.

Each year I join my children in the struggle to surmount difficulties in various subjects. It’s as if I’m their age again. How’d I do it when I was there age? That’s just it. I don’t think I did.

I see a lot of me in CU1. I’m not saying that I’m smart – at least not book smart. I had troubles with just about every subject they offered. I lacked motivation to study. I still distinctly remember a period during my 16th year when I must have mouthed off to my mother something awful. She with held everything she could think of – the car – that was ok, I was on a learner’s permit at her insistence, the TV – that was ok, it was broken anyway, and the list went on. I remember how I thought “Woo hoo! Grounding! What a great excuse to get my history assignment done!”

When I wasn’t hammering at the boring assignment about Mesopotamia, I would lie on my bed and day dream, much like Anne Shirley did, up under my own gabled roofs.

It wasn’t until I hit university that I kind of caught myself. All that time, I plodded along. I remember being in grade 2, then in grade 3, counting off the years between me and the end of high school. Is this what CU1 has in store?

Sunday, March 05, 2006

Spring back, Fall forward


We're getting a teaser day weather wise in my community. It's bright and sunny as I sit and glance out the window. The sky is blue, a real ozone friendly skyish kind of blue. No clouds anywhere. The sun is shining as hard as it can.

Then there's the wind. A wee bit breezy. Fresh. Brisk. Bracing. One of those days where you think It's a good day to fly a kite if I could just keep warm enough.

Thus the reason why I am inside and not outside playing in the sun. I did half-heartedly spend 15 or 20 minutes outside poking at the small hill of snow in the yard.

I know that I lecture the children about the importance of learning patience, and that different life activities are just exercises and opportunities to practice patience. When it comes to Spring, I become 5 years old again. It's like waiting for Christmas eve, after mass, when Santa would have made his first pass through the neighborhood to let the good girls and boys have their stuff first.

I want the smell of spring. I want to see natures surprises as each layer becomes unveiled as the sun melts away their winter sarcophaguses. I like squishing around in the mud.

I may get my wish soon too. The long range forcast is for 7 C on Friday.

Alas, I know we're going to get one more big snow fall before the end of the month. That's the reality of living in this environment.

Oh Canada.!

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Happy trails to you, until we meet again

With this end of the winter season, it seem seems that it hasn't been without loss. Two friends lost faithful family friends (their well long lived companions of 13 and 14 years respectively). Good bye Pandora, good bye Blue - you were comforts to those who knew you.

Migration

The Partridges are back from their flight South. Could it mean that Spring is not that far?