I live on a dirt road on the outskirts of the largest city east of Montreal. It is a fishing village by some standards, an artists colony by others, and a tight-knit community all around. An evening stop into the one store within a twenty minute drive will get you all the gossip you need for weeks, and then some.

There are five houses on my road, including mine. Today, one neighbour, a woman studying for her PhD, invited myself and the women from two of the other houses over for afternoon tea. This is not a regular occurance, but she thought it would be nice to have us over before school began and things became hectic again. Her house is an architectural wonder of the world. Beyond my ability to describe, but needless to say, it has been showcased in television shows and architecture magazines. Her husband is an art historian who teaches at a local college. They are warm and welcoming people, with two children.

I arrived with my son, who quickly took off with theirs, scurrying into the basement to do who knew what.

The next woman to arrive is a Sunday school teacher, a deeply religious woman who has a daughter packing to leave for university and an autistic son who is going into junior high. She is a delightful and warm person, someone you can talk to forever, listening to her calm soothing voice. She brought her photo album of the things that they had done over this past summer.

The other woman to arrive is recently separated from her husband and it shows. Bitterness dripped from her being for the first two hours she was there, but it slowly slipped away, and her honesty came to be a breath of fresh air. Her children are teenagers, and staying with her husband for now. She is an artist, with a studio set up in her house.

We ate sweets and drank cupfulls of coffee and tea. Every one of us has children moving into new stages of their lives...this will be the first year of elementary school, of junior highschool, of University. We spoke of art and travel, of family and the relevance of different aspects of education. We watched the children as they swooped in to snatch a cookie, our friends' autistic son, who without notice, plucked a banana from the woman's kitchen, practically sat on top of me on the couch and munched loudly while we talked.

The children ran on the beach, finding crabs and countless other treasures, my son slipping in and getting soaked to his waist.

Beach, sand, ocean, ho hum...wagon...YIPEEEE!!!

ENOUGH of this stuff, mum!

The only photo of me from our trip (only because I am possessive of my camera).

We went to the south shore of Nova Scotia for our vacation last week (White Point Beach Lodge). It is a beach "resort", but I use that term loosely.

I really don't know what we were thinking, actually. We have spent so much time at the beach down the road from us this summer, when we got to this one, my sons could have cared less. So we spent a lot of time at the playground and the indoor pool. No more sandy beach photos, blog friends. Promise (unless you venture over to my Flickr site, that is)...

So, that was that...

I am back from vacation. I will be posting about it through this week. In the meantime, we were back for a birthday dinner at my mum's. My birthday is actually tomorrow, but since Mr. C goes back to work, and the rain is on it's way, we will really celebrate next weekend. So now...so soon back to reality again. Huge sigh. I will be by to visit your sites as soon as I get the chance. I hope you've all been well.

Summer Vacation breakfast: diet coke, blueberry pie, and fresh picked "flowers" from my son. Weird, I know....healthier fare for September again.

It feels like I have been on summer break forever, although I have been "technically" working. The past few days we have been to the beach (yes, again), to the summer fair, to more family birthdays, bookshops and more.

The fact of the matter is that I am terribly behind in my research and writing, but Mr. C has this week off, so I am off as well. And we are going to go away by Thursday, to a beach lodge on the south shore. I will be back, to visit you all, by next week.

In the meantime, stay well. I'll "see" you again soon. xo

My son and my parents and I took a road trip today, to visit the places where my mother spent her childhood time. The same waters where she learned to swim and the house she was born in and the lanes she walked to school on. Unfortunately there are many places that have changed in significant ways. Some in deleterious ways.


She shared many happy memories, while creating new ones for my son. She chose to move quickly past the bad ones. We didn't stop at her parents grave, for example. She didn't want to do that, and spoil the niceness of the day.



It was a memorable day. How was yours?

I received a wonderful parcel in the mail today, from my dear friend Chloe . She knows me so well and chose things that she knew I would love. And I do. And I love her for our friendship even more. She was so sweet to have thought of both boys as well and sent them each something. I wasn't able to get a photo of those things in the boxes with my things, because they were off and playing so quickly.

My son made sure that we got everything out, and then he proceeded to play with the packaging. The cats even got in on the fun.

The babe also thought that the box was great amusement.

My son wanted to know why we'd never met Chloe before. She lives far away, across the ocean, I explained. Well, we should make her a video and say thank you, he decided. And so we did. I will try and post it here some day, after is has been shared with her.

What would it be?
Nothing lofty allowed, like world peace or the end of AIDS and wars and such. These are perennial wishes. What would you wish for yourself?

I wish that my children are always safe and happy, kind and considerate. That they grow up to be people that I am proud of, and that are proud to have me for their mother. This is more than a wish; it is a job that may lead to a wish-come-true. But my God, it's a hard one.

You never know what combinations of toys the babe will come up with; transport trailor taking sheep for shearing (not NOT to the slaughterhouse, Mr. C).

Mr. C and our son slept outside last night in the tent in the backyard. I had the evening to myself since the babe went to bed by 7:30 pm. I ended up working until midnight (on a Saturday night!)...but accomplished a lot and it felt good to get so much done.

Today was my favourite sort of Sunday...Starbucks, bookshops and puttering, plus learning some fun new things on the computer. I have gotten into making slideshows with my photos, and am loving it. I have too many hobbies, too many fun things to do...why do we humans have to sleep?...

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Have you ever wanted to explain something to someone, but known that it would fall on deaf ears, or the matter of explaining it would end up lost somewhere in their cerebelum?

That saying I told you so would be meaningless? Pointless? So you are left frustrated and annoyed, with nowhere to place these feelings?

Have you ever been treated with great disrespect? So disgraceful that you almost can't believe how disrespectful the whole entire situation was? But you know that there is no way to explain this? People don't usually like to have it pointed out to them, how disrespectful they behaved.

We are at the beach again today. My son loves it and I enjoy watching him enjoy himself. I have a draft post that I wrote the other day that sits in waiting. It may be posted some day. But not today. It's too sunny and beautiful and I am enjoying my family. We are really having a good summer and look forward to some time away the week after next.

We went with friends on a fishing boat today, touring around some of the prettiest stretch of Nova Scotia's coastline. I took hundreds of photos. I'll post more on my Flickr page. My son drove the boat almost the entire time, with some help from our friend D, and his father.

We had a go at jigging for mackerel (no luck)

and saw many nice sights...it was a perfect day. Tomorrow we will be going camping overnight; it's a long weekend here, so we are making the most of it.

This blog is getting downright drippy with happiness, which is a good thing because the latter half of my week was the shits. Nothing serious, friends. Just life.

But seriously, I have some really great news to share. One of my first blog friends just made a huge announcement today; Jase just got engaged! Congratulations, my friend. Now go on over and tell him congrats!

I know I do.
Here's a little.

I've had one of THOSE days. Has anyone read the Dr. Seuss book "Because a little bug went Ka-CHOO", which illustates the chain-of-events phenomenon? I had a chain-of-events kind of day. Because a heat wave hit California...
Thunderstorms came across North America...
And struck in my backyard late last night...
Which woke up my child...
Who came into my bed...
But couldn't get back to sleep...
So we all were awake by 5 am...
Which made us all cranky...
Which caused the day to go very badly...

Would you like for me to be specific? No, on second thought, I've lived the day and am here to type about it, so now I think I'd rather not live it all over again by explaining it.

We're supposed to have more thunder and lightening tonight. God help me.