it was a walk in the park.

today smelled like camping. does anyone else out there do this? associate a smell with something more tangible. i do it all the time. it isn't the smell of a bonfire, it is the way halloween smells, and chistmas...well don't even get me started on all the smells that bring me there. i can't really describe the way camping smells, but if you have been, it is that smell in the morning when the ground is still damp from the night and it is early (in fact camping smell is very close to paper route smell, only older i suppose), it is the smell of newness, of nature. it is fitting that i smelled it today, the day which for me officially marked the beginning of spring. oh sure it was nice yesterday too, but today it was warm, take off you jacket and sit with the sun on your face warm. no false alarms, no thinking it is warm and then being frozen out at the park. no, today was perfect, and so to celebrate cohen and i ended up spending most of it outdoors. the morning was coffee with my friend sharon and her daughters imogen and genevieve followed by a trip to the park and then in the afternoon, after our midday siesta, we were back to a different park for swings and hanging out with atticus and marita. i may have spoke too soon, but perhaps for now the rainy days are behind us (knock on wood).

here are some pictures from our day, you will notice that cohen refused to look at the camera, he also has a bit of a rash from teething on his face, i think the two might be related. vanity, a babies best friend. that is okay though as atticus was cute enough for them both.

happy birthday to you little atticus

wow! i can't believe this day is here. has it really been a year? i remember that night one year ago. i didn't know marita well, but i had heard through others that her water had broke, that she hadn't gone into labour but was doing everything to get there. marko and i were in the middle of a move from the sixth floor down to third at the time, all of our stuff was out, but the old apartment still needed cleaning, and so my mom was over late helping marko clean the apartment as i, quite pregnant myself, slept in our new apartment three floors down. it was late when marko came in and woke me up, he looked concerned and i sat up. there are ambulances here, he said. my mom was upstairs with her neck craned out the window trying to see something, anything so that we wouldn't worry. i wanted to go up and make sure, but i didn't know them well enough and even if i did now wasn't the time. my mom didn't see anything and eventually the ambulances left and they seemed to be empty, a good sign, but we still didn't know. so that night we all went to sleep filled with worry, and in the morning i woke early, much too early to be phoning laisha to see if she had news (sorry). she didn't, but she took pity on my worrisome soul and got some for me. everything went well, it was a boy and he was born here at home after all. relief and then joy settled in. it was a couple of weeks before i finally met atticus george, but soon he became a regular part of mine, and cohen's life. he was so tiny that first time, so fragile in my hands. it made me nervous to think that soon i would have a small human of my own, would i know better how to hold him when he is mine?

little did i know that time would make both of us an expert at all kinds of things, sleeping and eating and walking and laughing and of course crying. for atticus i suspect that today is just another, one of many in a line. he might wonder what all the fuss is about, although he will hopefully like the amazing cake his mom is making, but in the end i think today will mean the most to marita. it's huge, a day full of nostalgia for what has come and hope for that yet to be. i hope the reflection is peaceful and bright, although i suspect there will be some kleenex moments as well. in honour of you, my friend, i will spend my day celebrating being a mother in the way that you have done all year long, and cohen and i will raise a glass and toast both atticus and his wonderful mom who persevered through much to bring him here to be with all of us. if you are reading this then go here and wish them a happy birthday! what a glorious day indeed.

pearly white and quite alright

here it is, as promised one more photo of the little man, this time with teeth! so what do you think? does it make him look older, feistier, more able to eat a sirloin?

this one is for marko. he says that i only ever post pictures of cohen smiling and laughing which is how he is most of the time, but of course not all the time. so here he is soggy eyed and whiny, looking to be rescued from the perils of nap time.

speaking of nap time, it was only twenty minutes later when i came in to check on him and found him hanging out.


so that is a little of what we have been up to, that and finally repotting the plants and doing some serious spring cleaning. there have also been walks in the sun and family get togethers, but we will save those for another time.

i'm gonna brush her mane and feed her sugar cane

saturdays often mean a trip to the salvation army up the street. it is true that i also sometimes go during the week, if i happen to be passing by or am looking for something in particular, but on saturdays i go alone. once cohen is down for his morning nap i set out for a coffee and some thrifting. today i was hoping to acquire some new pots for some plants that i have been meaning to repot for oh ummmm about two years now. surprisingly there were no pots to be had, so i got a pony instead.

he may not look that happy although in a certain light i swear he looks like he is about to smile. i assure you though, he loved that thing and immediately knew how to rock him self back on forth on it. of course it only took him about half a minute to realize that the handles would be good to chew on, but that is okay as i gave it a good scrubbing when i got home. the big question was, how would he get out of it?


the answer was this, which was much more fluid and gentle then the picture shows, it was afterwards when he tried to climb back on and ended up stuck straddled half way across when things got ugly.

we all live in a yellow submarine

today is marko's birthday. apparently it is also rosie o'donnell and kevin federline's, which i think, for those of you who know marko, is evidence enough that astrology isn't all it's cracked up to be. he isn't much of a birthday man, preferring to let the day pass mostly unnoticed. i tried to oblige but i couldn't let it go completely. you see, for many years i have always fantasized about one day having children that would colour me pictures and make me birthday cards, there would be macaroni and sparkles everywhere, but the result would be perfect to me. i clung to this idea so strongly that i kept many of my nieces masterpieces and hung them on the fridge, dreaming of the day. so now that we are here and it is marko's first birthday as a dad i couldn't resist the opportunity to create with the little creature. i can't wait until the day when him and i can sit down and colour together, but until that day a washable ink pad and his hand prints will have to do. so, happy birthday to you!

oh, and happy spring everyone, may all of your days be sunny from here on out!

tuesday night fever

this is maude, she was supposed to be a rabbit, but somewhere in the seams she became something slightly off kilter. marko thinks she looks like a tree branch, but it could be the fabric that is throwing him off. either way, she seems to like the 70's and disco and can often be found hiding behind books shaking her tail button. she is on her way to spokane (where i hear disco is still all the rage), that is if the good people of spokane are willing to take her in?

i'm counting down the days tonight

there are only sixty nine days left before i go back to work. may 28th is the day. it looms around the edges of the room lately, it is something i try not to think about. a friend of mine, thea, offered up some advice on the activity of "going back to work" and it was this, don't let the worry and fear ruin the last bit of time you have together, it will all work out and everyone will be fine. she had only recently gone back and felt that her pre-return anxiety was ill founded. i saw the logic, but also thought it was fine for her to say, she had childcare!

for me the single biggest worry i have is daycare. this city has a serious shortage of facilities, with many having waiting lists two and three years long to get in. oh sure, i got on the lists as soon as we conceived, but i knew there wouldn't be space by the time i had to go back. so then what? i would hear rumours that you needed to look at least three months ahead of time, that you need to be phoning around all the time. diligence is what will prevail. however, i am not so great at the diligence and i hate phoning around, so instead i put word out with everyone i knew asking them to keep their ears open and letting them know i would welcome suggestions. the messages coming back were clear, be worried and hope for some good luck. however, it was in a reply that i first heard about nanny sharing, and the writer told me that this may be the best way to secure a decent place, albeit slightly more expensive. the idea behind nanny sharing is that one family has a nanny that cares for their child in their home (sometimes live in, sometimes not), and they choose to take in one more child to help lessen their financial burden.

so i began checking craigslist daily looking for something that might work. i wasn't married to a nanny share, but admitted that it sounded like a best case scenario. for almost two weeks there was nothing and then one morning i saw this and got more than a little excited. so i wrote back and hoped that not too many others would respond. it couldn't have been more perfect, only five blocks from our house and on marko's way to work and a boy close in age!

as it turns out she did have four responses, but she would love to meet us, and so we all went over on saturday morning to say hello. their son dante was incredibly cute and developmentally similar to cohen, the two of them hit it off right away each banging away on a toy drum and staring pensively out the window. the apartment itself was a beautiful loft in a building that boasts an enormous courtyard complete with a garden. the energy in the apartment was so positive and bright with 16 foot ceilings and windows from top to bottom, wood floors and big play mats. we knew right away that this would be a good fit (they even have a tropical fish tank with the same fish as us!), and hoped they felt the same. luckily for us they were taken with cohen and told us straight out that they would like for us to be the ones to enter in the nanny share! the nanny lives out so we have not met her yet but from everything we are told she sounds amazing. her and dante go to music class every week and walks everyday (they even have a double stroller just waiting for cohen), so we will meet her sometime next week and then sometime in may we will slowly get cohen used to leaving home during the day (although he is likely going to love it, it is me that is going to need the getting used to).

as the ad indicates, it is part time, which is what we were looking for as my mom has been hired to come and be with cohen two days a week (mon-tue). i wish i didn't have to go back to work, and hopefully one day soon i won't need to anymore, but in the meantime this is one less thing to worry about, which means i can go back to enjoying these last sixty nine days without interruption. so i guess she was right, things do have a way or working out, sometimes sooner than we expect.

tackling mediocrity one project at a time

so it is done and i don't think it will fall apart the first time i wash it! below is the finished stroller blanket. i was looking for something that

a. wasn't some pastel baby pattern
b. could be attached to the stroller (as cohen loves to kick off his blanket)
c. was warm
d. had a bird (because really, everything should have a bird)



so i bought 200 polartech fleece and some corduroy (the fabric that is commonly known to make me swoon) and made this complete with snaps to fold the bottom half up and make a pocket for little feet and the straps to fasten it to the stroller, plus it has three buttons! buttons and birds, it almost makes the hand stiching irregularities unnoticeable. almost.


excuse the strange expression on his face, it is somewhere between a sneeze and a smile...a smeeze?

so now the machine is away for another week, but i do plan on attempting a creature for klay who made me this amazing bag. i am filled with ideas, we will see how they translate to product (practice makes perfect, right? although i am starting to think sewing lessons might be more useful).

in other news, cohen has two white edges poking through his lower gums, finally! one of which has broken skin and the other just taunting right under the surface. this means that soon i will be able to bombard you with toothy grin photographs, and if there is one thing we need more of it is photographs of cohen (to add to the well over 1000 i have already....seriously).

i have more to say about daycare and nannies and all of that stressful stuff, but that will get it's own post i think, this one already has too many words. have a good night!

nine months

have you ever wondered what a day with cohen is like? if you have then today is your lucky day! as a way of celebrating his nine month day i bring you "a day in the life of..."

today we woke up late, close to nine actually. well ok, maybe that is when i woke up. cohen and i have a little deal going where i put toys in his crib and open the blinds so that he can play/ stare out the window while i get another forty five minutes. it doesn't happen all that often, but sometimes i just need a little more time!

so we woke and ate breakfast which today was a slice of toast with cream cheese cut into bite size pieces, half a banana cut into chunks and four grapes peeled and sliced. i love this kind of breakfast because all i have to do is put it in front of him and he does the dirty work himself. this allows for me to make tea and eat cereal, oh and watch him with amusement.

(i would have a picture here if i thought of doing this earlier today and had taken one).

after breakfast there was about half an hour of playing and then nap time. on a good day the nap lasts an hour and a half. today it was closer to forty five minutes.

then we were up and dressed and out the door. our adventure took us to science world for the first time where we bought a membership, and then went in and played for an hour. i regret not going sooner, there is so much for little ones to do (and way more for the older kid set). he had a great time watching all of the other kids and crawling around playing with foam blocks and mirrors. there were a lot of kids there and so it is certainly not a quiet day activity, but it was a ton of fun none the less.

next up was a walk back home to get changed and relax for an hour before heading out to meet our friend dreena for lunch. we decided to go to locus up at main and 25th, thankfully cohen slept the whole walk there and for the first twenty minutes in the restaurant. then we enjoyed some potato bread and soup of the day (roasted onion apple) together.

afterwards we meandered back down towards home stopping at the consignment store where we scored a pair of see kai run shoes, which i have always admired but thought outrageously priced. the ones we got hardly looked used at all and were half of what they are new, an opportunity i couldn't pass up. besides, i think it is about time he had a pair of walking shoes to help him on his way! we also picked up some fleece from the fabric store so that i can attempt a stroller blanket. then we were home.

next up? playing in the corral while i got dinner ready.

then dinner.

then a bath.

then a story.

and now bed.

my day will be finished with some amy's broccoli pot pie and a beer and hopefully watching this and this.

now be honest, you wish we could switch jobs, don't you?

i will leave you with a video of cohen demonstrating his newest milestone, standing on his own (albeit for only a second). have a good weekend!

you say you don't want to run and hide

today was swimming thursday (we went last week on thursday as well, so now, with little to back it up, i am declaring thursday swim day). this week we went with marita and atticus. it was his first time in the pool and i must say he did very well. very well indeed. there may have been moments of hesitation (or was it meditation?), but they quickly faded into glee. i hope that our future holds many more swim thursdays (or wednesdays, or fridays...well you get the point).

in other news, yesterday morning cohen and i went out for a walk to the store, and a bit of a strange thing happened. i should preface this story with the fact that i have never been stung by a wasp. honest. never. as a result i have an unusual fear of them. in theory i realize that a sting wouldn't hurt that much (i mean i did give birth after all), but it is the not knowing that freaks me out. maybe i am deathly allergic? remote, but still possible (and yes i know i get one freebie before i swell up to the size of a grape and burst). oh sure, there have been moments where i have considered just putting myself in harms way to get it over with, but those moments almost always end with me changing my mind and then running around in circles waving my arms in the air and breathing short quick breaths.

so what does this have to do with our walk? well, there was this moment along the way when a wasp landed on the arm of the stroller, just inches away from cohen's happily flailing arm and instead of my usual instinct (which is to start the circle running and strange breathing), i was filled with this desire to grab it, to have it firmly in my grasp, to make it impossible for it to hurt him. i had absolutely no fear of the wasp, but only this deep rooted need to protect at all cost. as i reached down (and really i would have shooed it away first, i mean i am not a madman) it flew away on it's own. it left an impression though. in that small moment i understood a little deeper what it means to be a mother, how far i would go on instinct alone just to ensure safety. i am not sure parenting changes you (although i may be wrong yet), as much as brings to the surface these things, things we all carry with us yet have never known. everyday is a discovery.

also, thanks to everyone who chimed in with your humour and support of the cage. it softened the edges of my guilt and made me thankful for friends.

casa de cohen

i thought it was a tad more appealing than cohen's compound...no?

although perhaps the later is more accurate, at least until we have the marble columns installed.

so what is this thing?

well to be completely blunt it is a cage and it is where cohen lives now. ok, maybe not.

it all started a couple of months ago when we were in toys r us looking at baby gates and happened upon this contraption. we laughed in wonder, and contemplated who would ever purchase such a thing, isn't it wrong, i mean unless you have a big backyard and need a place to put junior while you sip pina coladas? we ended up purchasing our baby gate, installing it, and not giving the matter another moments though.

then he became mobile, not in the meandering around the room at a snails pace mobile, but the variety that facilitates him snatching and promptly inserting into his mouth an array of no-no's. i foolishly thought that if i was there beside him watching i would be immune, but cohen just isn't that kid. he knows how to grab quickly, almost without notice, and he knows how to scan a room and pick up on the one spot that contains something that could harm him. as a result, i have been daydreaming lately about living in an apartment that could have a cohen room, a place where the edges are rounded and the furniture plush. i would sit in there with him and read while he just existed, doing as he pleased. instead, i have been spending my entire day following him around, pulling him back, retrieving things from his mouth, sweeping the floor. even reading a book was becoming inconceivable. it was starting to take a toll, but that is what motherhood is about right? all the jokes about chasing a toddler, and the more experienced with their jeers about waiting and walking and i know nothing.

then i remembered the cage. i hesitated to bring it up, scared that bringing it up might mean doing it and doing it might be wrong. but, the thing is, our apartment has the space for it and it folds right up and puts away when company is over, and most of all it guarantees safety and sanity. now don't get me wrong, i know that he needs to learn what he can and can't touch. i know that shielding him isn't truly protecting him in the long run, but for right now, while he his need to explore far outweighs his ability to understand, he has this, a palace all of his own.


so how does he like it? luckily for us he seems to think it is pretty great. there is a wall he can use to cruise around the whole thing, something he didn't have before, and there is that great roof on the back (founded in my childhood love of building and playing in tents). he can play without my constant mumbling of no, and i can play too, which for us makes this a pretty great solution.

and now back to our regularly scheduled program

alas we woke to rain again today. it was to be expected i suppose, yesterday simply a treat for all our good behaviour these last three weeks. truth be told i don't even mind the rain, and in fact when pressed as to what i missed the most when i lived in toronto the answer would have invariably been the rain and the ocean. when i was just a me, the rain meant staying in bed with a cup of tea reading a book or watching a movie, the sound of the drops hitting the pain lulling me into a peaceful moment. since cohen doesn't yet drink tea or read (we're working on it!), and can only contain himself for three minutes of peaceful moments at a time, the rain means restriction (yes i have a rain cover for the stroller and i really should be more motivated to step out into it, maybe i will, but it is the lazy rainy day me that resists).

still, the rain seems to make him a little more sleepy, a little more willing to lie his little head down (and stick his butt in the air, feet firmly tucked underneath) for a nap. yesterday he wouldn't. nap that is. thirty minutes in the morning, thirty-seven in the afternoon and then bedtime came like a hurricane, so much twisting and screaming. he eventually did settle, only to wake one hour later and then after that one more hour. thankfully he settled easily each time, a pat on the head and a whispered i love you seemed to be enough. sometime around six this morning he woke again and seeing the rain i decided to pull him into bed with us. we didn't wake up again until nine. this wouldn't happen on a sunny day. after breakfast we went down to the coffee shop in the bottom of our building and sat right by the window watching all the people hurrying by, umbrellas in hand. all the smiling and clapping and grey tired him out, and he is morning napping right now. as for me? i have had so much sleep i feel slightly giddy (and hopefully a little crafty). so there may not be sun today, but things are still pretty bright around here.

oh mr sun, sun, mr golden sun, please shine down on me

what a wonderful day! the sun finally came out from behind those huge wet clouds and for several hours in a row the sky was blue. it was the sort of day when everyone is so joyous for the change that they wear inappropriately summery clothing while their teeth chatter in the shade. cohen and i, although not wearing summery clothing, ventured to the park and put a blanket down (who cares if it is still damp, ok wet, the sun deserves a blanket). our basking was short, but incredibly satisfying none the less.

i wish i had pictures to share with you, i had the camera, but cohen had plans of his own. unlike the last time we put a blanket down, this time he was on the move. what is that green stuff growing after the blanket? wow, is that dirt? isn't spring great mom? so there were many pictures taken of him crawling away with his head down. i don't blame him, this may be the only day we get of it for weeks, who has time to look at the camera when there is an entire world outside waiting for us to explore?

lookin' for a place to happen

today was swim day! our trip to prince george and seeing just how much cohen loves the pool renewed my interest in finding a place here in the city for us to go. i found this which it turns out is only one bus ride and a short walk away for us. not only does it have an amazing kids pool, complete with a little river that has a current running through it and an area for little little ones where the water is only about a foot deep, but it is uses an ozone system for filtration which means less chlorine in cohen's eyes.

i was excited to check it out, but thought i should go alone to see how far it was to get to, so one night last week after cohen had gone to bed i made the trek over and had a swim. it wasn't too far, only about twenty minutes on the bus. the pool itself was great, and i knew right away that he would love it, so today we went together. uncle elton and cohen's cousins reidun and kyla also came along. there was a lot of splashing and laughing and then a lot of sleeping. i was able to keep him awake to eat dinner but come 6 he was fast asleep and that is where he has been ever since. i look forward to making it a regular outing for us, so much fun!

now i am off to read the end of my book. it is often sad, but also deeply satisfying to come to the end of a book i enjoy. it will be the perfect end to a perfect day.

rubber ducky you're the one

tonight i am bringing you another video, a little lazy i know, but still who doesn't like a video now and then? this time it is cohen enjoying his bath. the original clip was over eight minutes, which was even too much for me and i am his mom, so to make it easier on us all i gave the clip a large dose of caffeine and this came out. pay attention to the splashing (the floor became a small lake by the time we were done) and cohen's constant need to be in motion, it is really quite amazing how little he actually sits still.

we've got it hard, second floor living without a yard

last night we watched pan's labyrinth and the night before that the last king of scotland, that makes three movies in three nights, none of them particularly spectacular. interesting that they all have a character that is a tyrant who gets his comeuppance at the end, and i don't just mean the villian, literally all three were tyrants (although i suppose nicholson isn't technically a tyrant in the political sense, still).

scotland had some pretty great acting, but then i am probably bias as i happen to love forest whitaker (ghost dog...who didn't love that?), and the scottish lad in there was quite impressive. marko was frustrated that it deviated from fact for the sake of fiction and i was frustrated at how completely unbelievable some of the scenes were. it wasn't a terrible movie but it didn't leave me impressed much either.

labyrinth was actually quite similar. the acting didn't stand out as much in this one, but the cinematography, sets and costumes did, which i suppose is why it won so many oscars. again marko was frustrated that a spaniard would make a movie about the spanish civil war and yet fall so off the mark. if one is going to make such a violent movie (and yes, like scotland, it was quite violent) then should it not be to help us learn from our mistakes of the past? why create so much fiction when the fact was story enough? tough questions for sure (and ones that i think should be asked about both of these films). it didn't help that about two thirds of the way through characters started acting out of character and making strange and glaringly obvious mistakes, presumably so that the narrative could continue. i hate it when that happens. it is particular evil when it happens in a book, you know the "great book, terrible ending" syndrome (i am looking at you murakami), at least with a movie i didn't invest hours and hours into it. so again it was alright, probably worth seeing, but there was no wow! when was the last time i felt the wow? i can't even remember. perhaps my standards are getting too high (or i need to start renting international flicks from the local indie video store again).

speaking of wow, to compensate for my long movie tirade i offer up this movie of my own. it is of my boys singing me a song before bed...enjoy!

monkeys jumpin on the bed

as some of you know, we have been using a soother with cohen since he was pretty little. he never really did take to it all that well. it first introduced as a way to prevent him from gorging and then throwing up (a problem he was prone to as a newborn), and for that it did the trick. for the last couple of months though, it has been used almost exclusively as a tool for sleep, and even that has had a few glitches. you see, he knows that when i bring it out and try and get him to suck on it, it means i am trying to get him to sleep and so if he isn't in the mood his lips become firmly locked. it is how we communicate with each other.

then surprisingly in the last few weeks he has been getting into bed, rolling over and closing his eyes without the soother at all, and so i have started thinking it is finally time to retire it. when he does take it these days he almost always ends up throwing it on the floor or behind his crib anyway. i like to think it is his way of saying "i don't need this anymore mom!".

this brings us to last night when at 3am he woke up and started moaning. naturally i picked him up and fed him and then tried to gently place him back down hoping he would fall into slumber. it wasn't to be, and so i groggily felt around in the dark for the soother, hoping it would be my magic tool so that i could go back to sleep. it wasn't around him in the crib, and it didn't seem to be on the floor. i turned the light on only slightly and pulled the wheeled crib away from the wall to see if it had landed behind, but it wasn't there either. i was perplexed and tired and to be honest a little frustrated and then i finally looked over at him and asked "where is it?", to which he looked me dead in the eye and pulled his hand from his side so that it was straight out in front of him, the soother in his hand, a enormous smile on his face.

dearly departed

it will come as no surprise to those of you that know me in real life that i don't much care for violent movies. i can often be found turning my head away or covering my eyes like the sissy pants that i am. horror movies are something i can no longer even fathom, a genre completely lost on me and my wimpy ways. the only exception to all of this is gangster movies (and the occasional kurosawa).

i don't know why they appeal to me, but they always have. i suppose it is the attitude, or maybe the accents, but my teenage years were filled with them and with me fantasizing about growing up to be a gangsters wife. hard to imagine i know and yet still it is true. like many others of my generation reservoir dogs was probably my favourite, but goodfellas was only slightly behind. so when i heard that scorsese had finally won a directing oscar i was filled with glee. sure it would have been nice if it had happened earlier, preferably before he started making credit card commercials, but he deserved it after all these years.

then i saw the film.

i am not going to try and be jennica (although i do wonder what she thought of it) as i am not only lacking the wit, but alas the movie intellect as well. still, something ought to be said. some of you may remember my opinion about crash where i suggested that it was perhaps my high expectation that ruined the movie for me. in retrospect i was too kind. i won't make the same mistake twice. so please someone tell me, what exactly was the departed about and why is it i cared? i mean there wasn't even a bank robbery...sheesh. oh, and the rat scurrying along the ledge at the end was such a nice finishing touch, so subtle and "artistic".

in other unrelated news, i just read my last post and i want to clarify that "better" does not mean that here is bad, just different didn't sound right. i love where i am and how things are going, it is just taking some getting used to is all, the loss of one thing in order to find something new. this having faith in faith.

let it ride, let it roll, let it go

i am wasting time in an incredibly impressive way this evening and in my travels i came upon this which i wanted to share here because i think it is great and well written and speaks to me in a very familiar way.

"I’m not sure what advice I would have for our friend. Maybe none. Maybe just the acknowledgment that some decisions are a bitch, and that’s the truth. That you can’t really be sure that your feelings and choices won’t change from one day to the next, because that’s what life is all about, growing and adapting, hopefully for the better. But if you’re really, really lucky, the hardest choices you ever make will pay out, like some great fucking slot machine hitting all three winning reels, raining joy and laughter into your life."

these days it is easy to focus on the difficulty of the change, the pain of growing, even when the slot machine is preparing itself for alignment. it was nice to have this reminder that feeling like that is ok, it is all part of the journey from here to somewhere better.

ah hey ma ma ma

we're back! did you miss us?

i have spent the better part of the evening weeding through over 450 pictures to come to a final number of 225 that passed the keep test. of those i have fixed up and deemed flickr worthy around 80. the task has been arduous and my back is now throbbing under the weight of my poor posture. what i am saying is, this may be brief.

let's do the 11 o'clock highlights version of the trip, shall we?

we had a wonderful time on our northern vacation! there was snow and of course snowsuits. there were beers in the sauna and walks to the park. we went swimming and took naps and in between did lots of eating (mmmm birthday cake). then we flew home over the mountains and bid adieu to our lovely northern home.

as usual, for all the pictures go here.