this morning, snow

I'm cozied up by the fire, catching up on work while Anna and Tim are out. My body is blissed out from the run in the woods this morning. I ran with the pack of women from East Sooke through Coppermine Trail to the coast and back, just like the old days. It started to snow when we reached the coast, just a few light flakes, as we paused amidst the unmatched beauty of the end of that trail, the water swirling below us, arbutus and hemlock around us, seagulls dancing above us, the giant uprooted stump still in its resting place in the bay below. I forget how elemental it is to go running through the woods in a pack, how right it feels.

Now the snow is falling thickly, and I'm watching it, and roofers, through the big window in the living room. I'm happy here, even if homesick for the trails and how easy it used to be to head out and do that every Saturday morning. I don't miss the old house. But I'm so thankful that I did live there for those years, and met my friends from there, and learned to run and drink in the beauty.

Friday Five

Friday Five. Hey, why not?

What is your favorite experience in your life so far? Birthing Anna.
What motivates you to keep going every day? A desire to continue to see my dreams realized, and to spend another day with Tim and Anna and the other wonderful people in my life.
Where do you want to go in life? What do you want to accomplish? Wow, big question. I want to continue to become a better writer. I want to raise a happy and healthy and emotionally well-adjusted daughter. I want to write poetry, fiction, and one day be fully happy with a completed novel, instead of redrafting a few times and shoving it in a drawer or box in my closet. I want to live in a happy, fun, and nurturing, loving relationship with my husband for our lifetimes. I want to share the findings of the girls' diary project in some kind of helpful way with adolescent girls and those who care for them. Oh, and one day I'd like to make enough money to give a signficant portion of it to climate change research. And I'd like to finish Anna's baby book before she starts Kindergarten.
Is there anything that you regret? Do you try to change it? Yes: not going away to University for my undergrad, but living at home those four years. Too late to change that! Ah, well. Next lifetime.
What is your most cherished gift you have received? Why do you cherish it so much? Easy. My wedding band. Why? Self-explanatory, really. :)

Happy weekend, and Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate this week as opposed to last month!

editing oddity

Funny experience this afternoon. Editing the tests for the Grade 10 package for Open School when I come across my own stories, written under a different contract. I now get to copyedit them. That was only partly odd. The real strangeness came when I read the answers to the multiple choice questions, and discovered what others thought the themes were, what the characters were thinking. I think I would have passed the test on my own writing, but I don't know if I would have got 100%. I mean, they ask if the character in my second piece made the right decision at the end of the story. Man, I don't even know. I pity the poor sixteen year olds who have to answer that.

Happy Hallowe'en!

A wicked evening.







And the trip to the pumpkin patch earlier, on the weekend:



Goodnight!

Cycles

So I'm about to become one of those people who will openly talk about menstruating, so if that's too much for your Tuesday, skip this one.

I had this revelation today. Usually I get pms. It usually manifests itself as extreme job dissatisfaction, some cramps, and a good deal of exhaustion for a period of 3-4 days at the end of my cycle. Well, this time, I had NO pms. And today, I was surprised to find myself at the beginning of my cycle. Wow! I quit the ft library job and cured myself of pms. I'm so pleased. But more to the point, I'm clear that anything that feels pressing and overwhelming at the end of my cycle should not be written off as hormones and therefore to be ignored. No, it's hormones, and it's telling me something of utmost importance. Act!

Yes, I've cycled around to where I was last winter - working on Paper Hat contracts, full time, from home. Life is more relaxed. Still plenty to do, but it's relaxed. I'm very pleased. And calm, and secure in my knowledge that this is really it, and at peace. Happy. A little while ago I put a book on hold at the library called Stumbling on Happiness. The title was intriguing. I think now I'm going to go cancel the hold...

Thanksgiving

a new tradition... thanksgiving milkshake.





Thankful for so much, really. New, lovely home. Wonderful family. My health. Friends.

September was a blur. Here are a few images from last month.



Anna turned 3.
then Everett.

And we danced at Tikki's wedding!

feeling better

Seems that blackberry scones and the knowledge that this too (uh, work) shall pass is making me feel much better.

Here, I'm going to try to post a movie again (last time didn't work, so that's why the slideshow by link last post) This was from July this year:

uh-oh, sinking...

I feel myself sinking into feeling very sketchy health-wise. Hope this doesn't last.

I meant to post this earlier, but Tim gave me this for my 8th anniversary.

Yesterday, my pen pal from Washington was in Victoria, and we took our girls to the Miniature World, and out for coffee. It was nice to see them. Melissa has a new baby, Bryce, and it was the first time I got to hold a baby in quite a while. Found myself feeling awkward at first, if you can imagine. I mean, it hasn't been *that* long since I held a little one, and yet there was that little uncertainty about how to hold someone with little head control. One child just doesn't give you oodles of experience, I guess.


Got some things organized for Diary Project work today. Had too many versions of too many things in too many places on my computer. Now to invite Anna to bake some blackberry scones. Long overdue. I've only been talking about these scones for weeks... maybe they'll make my tummy feel better.

title

This is a repurposed blog. It used to be called "My Baby Hates This," and was going to blog all the home made baby food dishes Anna refused, complete with pictures of her cute disgusted face as she was rejecting the item, and recipes. Well, chalk that one up to yet another project that I had an idea for an abandoned in the years since Anna arrived on the scene. So now this spot has a different purpose, and a new name.

The title this blog is part of a song by The The, from one of my all time favourite albums. The song lyrics that speak to me: The only true freedom/is freedom from the heart's desires/and the only true happiness/this way lies... I'm trying to find freedom from the daily discontent, the nagging part of me that thinks, almost constantly, that I should be doing something else - wanting something else - wanting to realize goals sooner, or just the constant second guessing - stay home with my daughter? Hmmn. I really want to be working, too. Back to work? Damn, I want to be staying home with Anna. I'm really very interested in contentment. I think part of that is to keep track of life, take pictures of the everyday, write journal entries - then I've got proof of the good life I've got, right in front of my eyes, and that will help me realize there's so much there to appreciate, that I have so many of my heart's desires right here, right now - and that should bring some freedom.

Some images from August:

84 days ago

We moved!

"So, are you settled, yet?" people keep asking. Yes, I guess so. It took me way longer than I figured. But we're almost 100% unpacked, and the fence is up, and there are things on the walls.

97 days from now

we move!

Yup, the chain reaction happened. We sold Coppermine. Now we just have to find a new abode. Cinch, right?

I am so looking forward to life being no longer on hold, though.

Oh, and they're going to send me to Sidney for a training session for the library.

Balls roll. Just, slowly sometimes. I should be okay with that, right? Considering how fast things have been moving for the past three months.

if/then

So if this other place sells before the deal done date is up, we've sold our house!

Anna keeps saying "I live here?" when we drive around the neighbourhood that her daycare is in. She also says "it's too far," when we're driving home (about half an hour). We agree with her, so we're moving. Soon, I hope. Anna, being 2.5, only has so much patience. And I'm so tired of driving so much, and watching the needle on the gas tank plummet to empty every three or four days.

Apparantly she bugged Tim after daycare today saying "buy this house?" and pointing to sunriver homes along their walk. She's such a sweetheart. I haven't even been prompting her.