This is what earth hour looked like at our house

We did observe earth hour, with the exception of the tv (blame it on the husband). We figured that as long as we turned all the lights out and shut the computers down (trust me this was difficult) we we contributing.

End of an era

This weekend the pool closes at the YWCA. This follows the fitness center closing a while ago. They just weren't making enough money to stay open unfortunately. This is sad for us. I used to work out at the fitness centre eons ago before I had the wee man. I loved it there. Made lots of friends there that I will remember fondly.

They kept the pool open, renovated it for family swims, swimming lessons and as the hotel pool (the hotel at the Y remains open).



When the wee man was about 2 he was taking swimming lessons at another pool. There was a little mishap (nothing serious) but it frightened him and he didn't return to swimming lessons for a while. I knew that I had to get him back in the water, but he was now nervous and needed more individual attention. I phoned my friend who was the director of the swimming program at the Women's Y and explained to her the situation. She said she had just the instructor.

Sure enough, Sylvia helped the wee man overcome his fear of the water and made him into the little fish that he is. He's an excellent swimmer and has no fear of the water. He's even starting to do a mean front crawl.

So the closing of the pool makes me sad. Now we have to look for a new pool and a new instructor. I am confident we can find something to suit us, we will just miss the calmness of the Women's Y. I enjoyed his weekly lessons.

Time to move on.

That's me

Yup that's me. We had a rough morning this morning.

Six year olds are very slow. They eat slow, they dress slow, they move slow. Why can't they move a little faster in the morning, especially when mommy is running late and has to get to a meeting on time? When I make my job sound more important than it is. When I make it sound like my job is more important that he is.

Anyway, I did not deal well with slow this morning. And when he got upset about not having time to do something, I said something I shouldn't have (ok in the grand scheme of things is wasn't so bad, but we have rules in our house that we don't say certain things to the people we love, even if they are acceptable elsewhere).

Wow. I can't believe I broke a promise. I can't believe how angry and hurt he was. And how justified he was at his feelings.

Wow.

We both took a step back. Lots of tears. I'm so sorry wee man.

I'm reading it too

In all fairness to myself I did buy this book a long time ago before I heard all the hype, but just never got around to reading it. I picked it up at Costco one day because the price was right, and I was curious. I guess I felt that we were around the same age and, if the truth be told, I've not been feeling myself for the last little while. I guess I wanted to see what someone actually did about the crap in her life.

Then while I was at karate with the wee man, lots of the moms were talking about their favorite sections in the book. My curiosity was peaked, then I finished the last 2 books I was reading (The Bridge of Sighs (amazing), and The Garneau Block (which I surprised myself by liking) and needed something to read. I picked it and, and even though I have just started it, I like it. I'm trying to block out that the karate moms said that they really only like the Italy section (which is the first section), so I hope I like the rest of the book. I am one of these people who has to finish the book no matter how bad it is. There have been 2 exceptions in my life that I just couldn't get through.

So here I am looking for some enlightment, or failing that, just a good read. If anyone has read this book and would like to share what they thought of it, I would love to hear.

Happy Easter

Picture of Peter Rabbit from Little Elfs Toy Shop that the wee man found in his Easter bucket this morning.

I hope everyone is enjoying the long weekend. I know I am. It's been great being off for the last 3 days. I wish I had tomorrow off as well, but there is a looming deadline at work and well, somebody has to do it, right?

It has been busy and there are a few things that I promised friends that I would do that I haven't gotten around to yet. I will I promise, I just have been a little overwhelmed lately organizing my life.



The wee man started the day off on a good foot with a lollipop in one hand and what's left of a chocolate carrot in the other. All before breakfast. This only happens twice per year: Christmas and Easter. Now I'm trying to get his spinach/rolled oats breakfast bars into him. Wish me luck with that. They are good, but can't compare to Lindt chocolate bunnies and carrots.

The wee man and I are going to take a walk into the Village this morning (this is a strip of cafes and boutiques that is the central focus of our neighborhood and we all refer to as the Village) to return the movies, get bagels at St. Viateur, and coffee at Starbucks. Then it's home to bake pies and put a ham in the slow cooker for dinner tonight. The husband has invited some of his co-workers who are visiting from Italy for Easter dinner this evening. These are people who are used to 10 course meals served on VERY fine china and using real silver (not to mention driving very expensive Italian cars). I think dinner at our house will be a very humbling experience (although I'm not sure for who).

Here's a sneak peek of a couple of new items that I added to the store yesterday. More to come shortly.

Japanese Themed Weekend

I think that if our weekend had a theme it would be "all things Japanese". And not intentionally, it just happened that way.

I think it started off with the wee man having a craving this week for sushi. He's addicted to it and we had sushi twice more this weekend.



Then Saturday morning Martin came home, after being out buying catfood, with these Japanese treats from a store on Victoria Ave. The candies are sooo good, but the fruit wrapped biscuits are addictive. We had strawberry this week which put us over the moon, but this weekend we found them in mango and I think I like mango better. Not that I got to eat more than one. Next up is the green tea flavor.

There was also a big karate competition this weekend and Friday night Martin went to a special class offered by a sensei from Japan. This was followed by attending the karate competition most of Saturday.



This weekend I also received these gorgeous ribbons from etsy seller, Matatabi, from Japan. They are so beautiful and delicate. I am planning on sewing them into some bags that I will be putting in my etsy store before too long. Although, something weird. It took 2 days for the package to arrive from Japan. Two days. Two days. When I order a package from the US it usually takes 3 weeks. What gives?



Then it was followed by more sushi today. I love these little chopsticks that belong to the wee man. They are not terribly easy to use, but they are really cute. But he prefers to use regular chopsicks.

I've kind of enjoyed our theme weekend.

After the storm

I promise this is the last blog about the storm. It was massive. I couldn't stop watching. Last night I was still in the window watching the wind blowing the snow around at 1:00 am. At one point I even contemplated going outside just to see if I could stand up to the wind.

Around 1:30 a tractor came to plow out our neighbors.

This morning we all got up a little later and decided to skip the wee man's karate class so we could have a nice breakfast and go out to shovel. The husband whipped up omlettes and sausages. While we were enjoying our breakfast, our fabulous neighbor, Joe, came over with his snowblower and shovelled us out.



Thank you Joe, it's neighbors like you that make it a neighborhood. We went out after breakfast to shovel the walkway and to shovel out our neighbor, Jennifer, who is supposed to return from a cruise today or tomorrow.





The sun is out now and the weather is beautiful, but I think the city is going to be a standstill for a good week.

I'm sure the sun is shining somewhere

It sure isn't here.

Snow started late this afternoon and it is a blizzard like I haven't seen in a long time. We are expecting anywhere from 30-50 cm of snow.

This is on top of the over 300 cm we've already received this winter.

Right after I had the wee man I became obsessed with the weather (but for different reasons). The husband banned me from watching the weather channel for a while. Unfortunately, my obsession seems to be rearing its ugly head again. Only this time it's snow instead of heat.

Time to batten down the hatches and make sure that we have candles and the flashlights are in working order in case the power goes out. The wind is so strong I'm not even sure we can light a fire.

I swear I just saw a snow tornado in the street in front of our house. Maybe it will lift the house and we'll land somewhere in Kansas. Might not be a bad idea.

Dreaming of summer

Wishful dreaming.

Yesterday we had 18 cm of snow.

Saturday we are expecting another 20 30 cm.

Enough already!

Sneak peek of "le petit sac" now in my shop

I just added this today. I listed it in the children's section, but now I'm not sure.



The other side of the bag.