Trip Reflections

The most amazing thing about our trip was that we were really glad to get home. I was worried when we left for B.C., becuase I was feeling like I had finally settled in Saskatchewan. I was afraid that going back to see all my friends and all that beauty would lead me to become dissatisfied when I got back. But it didn't. I realized that where you are at personally and in your family life is way more important to happiness than where you live geographically. I have really spent the last year and a half trying to learn how to live a life of order, discipline and contentment, to make my years as a homemaker and mom somewhat monastic in nature. And although I miss my friends, and Starbucks coffee, and Olympic organic French Vanilla yogurt and the mountains, I don't miss eating at least a meal a day in the car, driving for 2 - 3 hrs a day, and feeling hurried and hectic all the time. I rather like the slow, meditative pace of my life here.

This was something that I had to work through, though. I had a few days of mourning for my old life, where I was running an all different directions, and had the freedom to pick up new activities and hobbies and friends whenever I wanted to. I miss being able to run or excersise every day or two. I miss having the time to act and direct. I miss my summer Mondays, when I used to bike 40 min. across Langley to see the 2 pm matinee (whatever it was that day), then bike to Chapters and have a coffee and read books, then wander around the mall (while trying to avoid the fact that I had to go back up the killer hill to get to my house), and finally going home. I miss trekking down to Ethical Addictions (a fair trade coffee shop) to soak up the alternative youth culture and write or draw or just sit and listen to whoever was playing on a Thursday or Friday night. I miss just being able to go somewhere and do something fun without having to make sure I have diapers, wipes, food, toys, appropriate clothing and footwear for my child, and then chase a boy around the house trying to get him ready to go and possibly squeak in a moment to brush my hair and put on mascara before I run out the door and off to whatever. I miss having my fully functioning brain. But this is a short and precious time in my life and I have decided that the best thing I can do is savour it, just as I did that time of freedom and fun.

The other cool thing was that with most of my friends, it was like I had never left. I just walked right backinto these wonderful relationships with people as though I had just seen them yesterday. I was sad that I had missed some really exciting and some really sad events in people's lives, but I appreciated the fact that I still had the same friendship with them.

The third thing that really struck me is how little time I've been spending in meditation and prayer since I moved out here. I know this largely has to do with having a child who doesn't sleep much. But I feel like I've lost my close connection to God, and thus a lot of my impact on other people. So one of the goals that comes out of my vacation is to set up my Jesus corner again somewhere in the house and spend time there at least twice a week.

This is just for Shawn

All right, so I am home from my holidays. Its just that I"m going away again in 4 days, and I have a tree full of apples to pick and do something with, and zucchini (oh, the zucchini -- they deserve and will eventually receive a post all to themselves) to eat / bake up and unpacking and re-packing and youth group stuff to attend to before we go (I should really be making newsletters right now, Shawn) and so I don't have time to do proper justice to the adventure that was my month long road trip / visit to B.C with toddler in tow. And I really must do it proper justice, because so many fantastic and funny things happened. So stay tuned, when I get a chance to breathe I will write more. But for now I must make apple butter and youth group newsletters. I've been blogging in my head all month, and I shall commit some of those fascinating thoughts to . . . paper? . . . as soon as I get the chance. Promise.

Jill's Not In Right Now, But Please Leave a Message . . .

Well, my faithful readers ( all four of you -- its so exciting when you can double your readership), I am off on holidays. In just one day we will be setting out on a month long adventure to British Columbia. It should be great to reconnect with friends and family out there, and I can't wait to see the mountains and the ocean again, and introduce my son to tide pools and beach combing.

It will be kind of strange, becuase I've changed so much since I was last there. I've grown my hair, become a mom (I was technically a mom when I left, but 6 weeks into momhood does not equal identity change, it just equals a blank, bleary-eyed stare), a minister's wife, and a resident of Saskatchewan. How can I possibly sum up my experiences in a few hours' visit? Especially since many of my friends have had similar changes -- some have moved, others had more children, or become pregnant, or changed jobs or left a marriage. It makes me sort of nervous.

But then I remind myself that true friendships are based on something simultaneously more solid and more insubstantial than these things. They are based on a connection of two souls, a delight and interest in another person, and a desire to enter into their world: their thoughts, experiences and emotions. And this connection will still be there, no matter how we change on the surface, no matter what happens in between visits.

And then I am excited to go back and rediscover the parts of myself that I left with these people and totally fogot about. For me, visiting old friends is like going to the Lost and Found. I always realize "Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about that . . . that is a part of me. That is how I was, how I still am somewhere in here. These are the things I liked to do when I was here or there." Its like picking up lost fragments of your past and clicking them into place, seeing yourself through the eyes of the past. And I love that.

Also, generally speaking, it is like going to the Lost and Found because I have inevitably left something at their house . . .

Have a good month, everyone. Talk to you in Sept.

Favorite Things About Late July

Coming from British Columbia, you get used to seeing an array of exotic plants blooming all through the year from Feb. right through to about November. Here in Central Saskatchewan, the variety is more limited. There are blooming things from about May to September or maybe October, and then there is snow. But to compensate for this, there are some really beautiful things that bloom in those months. Here are a few of my favorite Saskatchewan perennials:

The Lilly. The reddish orange lilly is Saskatchewan's provincial flower, and a version of it grows wild in the bush. I've seen them around Emma Lake and they are lovely. These domesticated ones do well, and are spectacular for several weeks.

The Hollyhock. These particular ones were about 7 ft tall, and the flowers are bigger than my hand. I know they came from England, but they always look to me like they arrived from another planet.

The daisy. Not an exotic or rare plant, but here they grow in huge, glorious wild mounds. Our entire front garden consists of mounds of daisies, a peony and a wild pink rose. The dasies bloom atleast twice if they are cut back, need very little care and zero extra watering, except during heat waves. What could be better for a sad and sorry gardener like myself?

Exciting News!

Before I get to the exciting news, thanks ladies for your nice comments about my blog. I was so flattered I couldn't write anything for a week (so much for me being such a regular blogger, Anna!). Also Andrew is still not sleeping and Dave is thinking of buying a motorbike, so all the free evening computer time is taken up with "research".

All right, drum roll, please . . . .

I am expecting baby #2!! Some in late Jan. or early Feb. I will be parenting two children. A newborn and a 2 and a half year old.

Am I terrified? Yes. I keep thinking, "What if its twins? What if this baby is also colicy / fussy / demanding like Andrew was? Will I survive? Will Andrew survive? How will I deal with a newborn when it takes 3 hours to get my toddler to sleep at night?" and on and on and on.

Am I excited? Yes. I wanted to have my children close together (possibly even closer than this) so that they could grow up together -- something I didn't have a chance to do -- and so that I would get all the baby and toddler insanity over with in one fell swoop and then go back to work when they're all in school. And the thought of bringing another amazing person into the world and watching them blossom into this fascinating and unique individual is thrilling.

So I am scared and excited and , well, very tired all at the same time.

Adventures in Marinating

At the grocery store on Wed, I bought some Ziploc bags to marinate some marinating steak to put on the bbq. Yesterday, I thawed out the steaks, and mixed up the marinade (lemon juice, canola / olive oil blend and chopped garlic -- delicious). I slid the steaks into two bags and in a moment of unusual fortune and foresight, decided to pour the marinade into the bags over the sink. I poured it in, and noticed that the oil was leaking out everywhere from one of the bags. I quickly tossed it in the sink and started cleaning up the mess. Which is when I noticed that the OTHER bag was also leaking. To have one Ziploc bag leak is unusual. To have two leaking from the same box is almost unheard of. It wasn't just a little leak -- it was almost as though the marinade was sweating off of the bags. Quickly, I grabbed a reasonable sized container from my plastic cupboard and dumped the steaks and the remainder of the marinade into it.

I wondered what was happeneing, but I didn't really have time to check at that moment becuase I had an awful lot of oil to clean off of the floor, the dishes in the sink, the sink, the counter, and myself. Today, however, I checked the box of "Double Zipper Vegetable Bags", It has the following helpful explanation on the side: "To keep vegetables fresh, you need to maintain the right amount of moisture. Otherwise, they get too dry or soggy. Ziploc Vegetable bags help maintain the right moisture balance. There are hundreds of freshness vents (micro holes) on every bag. They are designed to let excess moisture out while holding the right amount in, so your vegetables stay fresher, longer." Oops.

Things I'm Loving about Summer in Saskatchewan

(in the order they occur to me, not in order of importance)

1. Feeding the birds. Our neighbourhood birds are now tame enough that they will land on our feeder even if we are sitting 3 or 4 ft away. Its pretty fun to watch them.

2. Feeding the red squirrel. The squirrel actually gave Andrew and I a lecture the other day for being in his way when he was trying to get to the food. There is nothing quite so amusing as watching your toddler watch a squirrel perched on an 8 foot fence post chatter and squalk at him. I explained what I thought the squirrel was trying to say, and now whenever Andrew sees the squirrel he says "Squirrel wants eat!"

3. Building castle walls. We bought a big bucket of sand toys this spring for Death's Sandbox (see post of that title). I bought this particular bucket because it has molds for a castle wall, a round turret and a square keep. Its pretty cool. I showed Andrew how to build castle walls. Once every couple of days he wanders over to me and says "mommy build castle walls". I go and attempt to construct a castle out of the sand molds. Andrew helps me pat the sand down, watches with delight as I pull the mold off the wall, and then crushes it. Its a pretty fun game.

4. My garden. I am actually growing vegetables. I am sure this amazes you all, but I ate spinach out of my garden tonight, my carrots have leaves, my sunflowers are about a foot high, and my zucchini plants have about 5 or 6 leaves each. I was really excited the other day and said to Dave, "look, Dave, my garden is growing!". He responded, "That's what happens when you actually plant one, Jill". Ha ha.

5. The mosquitos. Who doesn't appreciate this fine insect. I love the humm of them as they swarm around my head. I love watching them land on my son's face so that I have to rush over to him to try and smack it away, and instead end up making him nervous. I love the constant burn of mosquito bites on my legs because, while I am very dilligent about putting bug repellant on my son, I tend to foget myself. (um, yeah, this one is meant to be sarcastic).

6. The park. What a brilliant way to amuse my child. I wander around after him and comment on his activity, and he wears himself out. Its great most days. His favorite activity at present (ironically enough) is the swings. He likes them because they are facing the four way stop just outside of the park, and a fairly major (by our town's standards) road -- not Main St, but a fairly main road -- intesects there. So he gets to have a ride and watch all the cars and trucks and people go by. Its perfect. And a great arm workout for me.

7. The barbeque. My husband eagerly offers to cook on it. Everything tastes great grilled. THere are no pots and pans. How can I not love that?

8. I can wear shorts and no socks without social ridicule or risk or frostbite. I really am not a big fan of socks. Unless someone is expected at out house (in which case my husband likes me to be civilized and wear socks) I go barefoot in the house all winter long. I have really hot feet, and they like to breathe. I also hate having my legs covered. It aggrivates me. I can't really explain this, but it is a fact. Also, I love my ankles -- I have decided I should have been born in the Victorian era because I have damn good ankles.

9. Walks. Walks keep my son and I on good terms. He gets a much needed break from activity (which he will only otherwise take in front of the television or when I'm reading to him) and I get a break from his constant need for attention and stimulation. How can this not be a win-win?

10. Hair. My hair looks redder from all the sun in the summer. I know most red heads hate this, but I love my hair. Since the birth of my son, the middle of my body is all squishy, but at least I have great hair and great ankles.

11. Hats. Okay, so I wear a variety of hats all year, because I have a number of very cool hats. But summer sun mixed with fair skin is a particularly good excuse for a great hat.

12. Watermelon. Nuff said.

Hope you are enjoying summer as much as we are.

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream . . .

When will my son learn to sleep? Many people I know with almost - two - year - olds have children that sleep. Some of them even have kids that put themselves to bed at night, or tell their parents when they want to sleep.

We had about 2 glorious weeks of sleep, when my son would say "go sleep now" and we would happily go off to bed and "quickly" (for Andrew that means in under two hours) fall asleep. Unfortunately Dave's watch broke. And we were invited for two evening visits in the same week. And since he had no watch and he was busy being interested in the people we were visiting, our whining son and my many reminders of "we really need to be going" just didn't sink in. So he stopped beleiving that mommy would put him to bed when he was tired and he could peacefully fall to sleep. So he stopped sleeping again.

Now, instead of Andrew falling asleep right around 9 on the dot, he is falling asleep closer to 11. This is after the usual bath - stories - nursing and songs and backrubs routine, followed by any number of other "essential" bedtime things, such as the backpack ride with mom when she needs to get things done, the car ride with dad, the stroller ride if Dad has the car, the cuddle stories in bed, the late night snacks, the "I give up just go and play while I ignore you and do something on the internet" times, and, my favorite -- the time when I marched our bleary eyed but not sleeping son into the study and passed him off to Dad, saying "I have put this child to sleep for 21 months now. I have woke with him in the middle of the night and every morning. It is your turn to deal with him." Its one of those times when you have a nice, peaceful night and you think "aha! I have it now!" only to find that it only worked that night . . . and never works again.

Ah well, in a few years I can just put him in bed and he can pretend to sleep when he thinks I'm there and read in bed with a flashlight or the light from his closet which is cleverly attatched to a long string so that it can be activated from his bed . . . not that I have any experience with such things. The point is, eventually he can not sleep and bother no one but himself. Inevitably by that time I will no longer have babies and toddlers in the house and so I will also be prowling around late at night sewing, writing, emailing, and otherwise getting up to mischeif. Hey, wait a minute . . . maybe there's something to that whole genetics thing.

Graham Crackers

My friend Lisa sent me this email today (this was the whole thing) and I thought it was so great I had to post it for all to enjoy:

I got these No Name graham crackers, thinking they’d be inexpensive replicas of the Mr. Christie brand or whatever the usual brand is. You know, the nice dense crunchy ones that are hard enough that when you dunk them in milk they retain their solidity long enough for you to eat it? How can you go wrong saving $0.75?! So you know how some crackers like Stoned Wheat Thins have perforations to make it easier to break them? Well, these ones are about 2”x5” and the perforation is down the length of them, so I tried cracking one in half and it turns out the “perforation” is fake! It’s just a line they impressed lightly on the surface to fool the consumers and the cracker, being inferior quality, actually shatters and you get cracker crumbs in your keyboard and all over your desk and clothes when you eat it at work! And dunking is out of the question because it instantly disintegrates and falls apart into your milk! So the moral of my story is, don’t waste your time or money on No Name graham crackers. Or Select brand sweetened condensed milk vs Eagle brand, but I won’t go into that story.

Land of the Very Late Night Sun

It is 10:30 as I write this, and the sky is still the deep blue you get just after the sun has set. Although we are not far enough to get the midnight sun, we come pretty close at this time of year. Yesterday morning, when I was awake with my toddler at 3am (don't ask), the sky was a rosy pre-dawn colour. This means that at present we are getting about 5 hrs of night time and 19 hrs of daylight. You can imagine how difficult this makes it to put young children to bed, or to think of going to bed "early" at 10, when it is still light.

My Favorite Recent Kids' Book Anacronism

For those of you who did not have teachers that made you look up and memorize common literary terminoloty in highschool (if you're taking an English degree, boys and girls, learn them. Being able to properly use the term "anacronism" will wow an English prof even more than actually knowing what "nihilism" is. Of course, regularly referring to nihilism will impress your fellow first year students, so I guess it all depends on wether you want university street cred or just good marks.), anacronism means something that is out of context chronologically. For example, Shakespeare has a character who is supposed to be in the dark ages referring to spectacles in one of his works. In this context, I am using it to mean something slightly different -- something that would have been normal in the time the book was written but is out of place when we read the book now. Is there a word for that? If so, someone please tell me and I will eagerly add it to my list of words I now use to impress highschool English students with my scholarlyness (since I obviously can't count on my spelling to do the job).

Anyway, all that to say that we just got a book about trucks from the library yesterday. There is this one page, where a woman is driving a pick up with a plow on the front, and she is driving past the guys who are grating the roads after a snowstorm. In the first picture they are all just driving, pushing snow. In the second picture she is winking, and the guys are grinning. It totally cracked me up. I love picture books from those crazy '60's.

Sunflowers 1

On the May long weekend we planted sunflowers. It was pretty fun. I spent a few days digging up the soil while Andrew followed after me insisting that he needed to "see shed! see shed!" "After mommy digs one more row of dirt we will see the shed".



Then we got out the sunflower seeds and planted them along the edge of the garden. I made holes for the seeds and tried to convince Andrew to put the seeds in the holes. Some ended up in the garden. Some are in the decorative brick that lives mysteriously next to the garden. Some are in the lawn. Some, I am sure, are in the shed. But about 8 are in the garden. Updates will follow when we see some action.

The Shed

My son's latest obsession is our shed. At least twice a day we have to unlock the shed, open up the doors and look at all the tools. We pull out the rakes, the shovels, and the spade and try them all out on the lawn. We identify the clippers, the lobbers, the gas can, the power trimmer and the lawn mower. We once more affirm that the axe is too sharp to be held by 21 month old boys. He pulls out assorted bits of wood and bangs them on things. Then we put everything back, and close the doors. As the doors are just about to be locked, my son stops, turns around and demands "See Shed Again", and we do it all over again. And again.

A related obsession is the one with cutting grass. When my husband mows the lawn, he must be in our sight at all times so my son can watch the power trimmer and lawn mower. If a power trimmer is heard, we must find it. My son is starting to learn that if we can't see it, it is "too far 'way". Any long stick-like object in my house (brooms, poppers, window scrapers) has now become a power trimmer. The other morning, after the lawn had been mowed, we had a lengthy discussion about the process (I have cut out my "yes"es for brevity):

"Dad use power trimmer."
"Dad use power trimmer cut grass."
"Dad put gas in lawn mower."
"Dad use lawn mower cut grass."
"Dad cutting the grass."
"Power trimmer go "voom, voom"".

I hope and pray that Chapman's Lawn Care is not hereditary.

Masterpiece Picturebook Theatre

You know how when you watch some of those old movies on Masterpiece theatre, you realize how times have changed in the last 40 or 50 years? Well, I'm finding that the same is true of kids' picture books. Let me give you a few examples of classic moments I've discovered in classic picture books.

"Madeline and the Bad Hat" -- what would you think this book would be about? Perhaps Madeline's fashion faux pas? Madeline's adventures shopping in Paris? No, sir. The Bad Hat referred to in the title is Pepito, the bratty son of the Spanish Ambassador who moves in next door. I guess a Bad Hat is someone who misbehaves.

"Madeline and the Gypsies" -- aside from the fact that you would never find a modern book with this title, there is the plot. Madeline and the now reformed Pepito (see above) are kidnapped by gypsies. When Miss Clavel finds out and tries to rescue them, they are sewn into the skin of a lion. Which would be very uncomfortable, impractical and well, wouldn't really work. The gypsies, although not particularly villainish are well, gypsies, and so are simply doing what gypsies do -- steal small children and tour around the country using them as circus perfomers.

"Curious George" -- have you looked at this classic from 1947 recently? I'm amazed animal rights activists even allow it to be reprinted. No only is George stolen from the jungle by the Man with the Yellow Hat, he is then left to roam about and jump off of a steamer ship. When he gets back to the city, he and the Man with the Yellow Hat have a meal (including wine) and a smoke. It seriously says something along the lines of "After some supper, and a pipe, and a good night sleep, George felt much better". After this George creates untold mischeif and chaos in the city (of course) and is then placed into a happy place -- a zoo.

"Curious George Takes a Job" -- after escaping from the zoo (he steals the zookeeper's keys while the zookeeer is -- you guessed it -- lighting his pipe), George finds himself a job washing windows. Essentially, because he is a monkey, he has no need of a scaffolding or safety belt -- instead he just hangs off the sill with a squeegee in one hand and a bucket hanging from a belt around his waist. After getting too curious and doing the George version of "While You Were Out" on a lady's house (he paints a jungle in her living room while the painters go our for lunch) he jumps off the fire escape and breaks his leg on the pavement below. Then when the story breaks in the newspaper, the Man with the Yellow Hat finds him. But not before he has an interesting experience with a bottle of ether (George felt dizzy. Then he saw stars and swirls. After this George felt like he was flying. Then everything went dark.). The Man with the Yellow Hat decided that he has not capitalized enough on his stolen imported monkey, so he signs a movie contract on George's behalf and makes a movie about his life. My favorite picture in this part of the book is one where George sits, blissfully happy and unaware, on the lap of the MWTYH while he and the movie producer smoke fat cigars and smile contentedly.

"Curious George and the Animal Rights Activists" -- oh, sorry, this book wasn't really written. But I'm sure we can all imagine what adventures that curious little monkey could get up to with his new friends, the animal rights activists, who rescue him from his new home, the cosmetics testing laboratory, where the Man with theYellow Hat has put him when he imports his latest pet -- Annie the Lemur -- and pays for his expenses by selling George.

These are my favorite examples of very dated, but still delightful, children's literature. My son LOVES these books and asks for them every time we go to the library. And I oblige him, because I like them better than the insipid childrens' books from the 80s with titles like "Jackie Learns About Sharing" or "The Bully". And after all, the first time I read the Old Testament as an adult, I was way more shocked by what I found than these few tidbits I've discovered in these classics. Seriously, read the whole book of Judges some time.

Kraft Dinner

So, I'm just doing some nutritional slumming today and eating kraft dinner for lunch (for those of you in the US, that would be the inferior non-Kraft brand maccaroni and cheese), and it reminded me of a funny story. I think of this every time I make Kraft dinner.

I used to work at this garden centre, and I was the only white employee there (and the only one born in Canada). The family that ran the place was from Taiwan, and the other employees were all from India. I usually made and ate my lunch in the office with the Taiwaneese family.

One day I was in a hurry, and didn't want to bother making a sandwich, so I grabbed a pot, a box of KD, and a little container with some milk and butter. At lunch time, my boss was curious because I was boiling some water on her hotplate. She became even more interested when I took out a box and dumped some noodles into the pot. By the time the noodles were boiled, she and a family friend who hung out at the garden centre when he was in Canada came to watch what I was going to make. I explained to them that this was the Canadian version of instant noodles, and they ooed and aahed as I took out the butter and the milk, and they watched me mix it all together. I told them I had enough that they could try some, and you could see them getting more and more excited.

Then I took out the instant cheese packet and dumped it into the pot. Their faces fell. They were dismayed and a little bit disgusted that I had put powdered cheese on the noodles. I asked them if they wanted any.

My boss shook her head and said, "Ah, Jill, you forget. I'm a good Buddhist. I don't eat cheese." She and her friend walked away, shaking their heads and chatting in Mandarin. So much for intercultural understanding and experimentation.

The Tally

Yesterday, my son managed to waste quite a lot of food. Aside from the food that he requested ("I need 'nanas"), carried around the kitchen and left in unusual places (on the bottom shelf of the fridge just next to the yogurt -- "I need yoegurt"), he also managed to squander food as a result of general toddler curiosity. This peaked during the time I was trying to make supper. He pulled the apple juice out of the fridge and I grabbed it and put it on the counter. Then he knocked his booster seat off of its chair, climbed onto the chair and then onto the table. He emptied about 4 Tbsp of salt onto the table before I caught him mixing it with the juice left in his sippy cup. After I removed him from the table and cleaned up this mess, he pulled a chair up to the counter and, you guessed it, grabbed the juice container and emptied it onto the counter. I took the hand tea towel and mopped up the apple juice. I went to throw the soaking tea towel into the laundry bin in the laundry room (10 steps away from the kitchen). By the time I got back, he had managed to get the eggs out of the top shelf in the door of the fridge, remove two eggs, crack one on the floor and open the top of the other. He was poking the contents of the egg in his hand. He looked up at me happily and said "egg". I removed the egg from his hand, trying to remind myself that he's just being a healthy, curious toddler, and snatched the placemats off the table to mop up the other egg. By the time I had come back he had managed to smear the second egg all over his hands, the floor, and the nearby stack of empty yogurt containers he had tossed out of my cupboards earlier in the day. It was at this point that I decided that I was not making a stir fry after all, but rather baking some chicken, putting some rice and some frozen vegetables in pots to boil, and reading "Richard Scary's Busiest People Ever" for the thousandth time that day. After all, reading about Huckle and Lowly's busy day AGAIN was easier than cleaning up after Andrew's busy day.

Someone Please Explain . . .

I walk by this trailer once or twice a week as I go to the grocery store. And I always wonder: Is this mysteriously cloaked figure death? If so, why is he holding his head in his hand? And how is he looking at it? Or if he is a non-skeletal, etherial death figure, who is he talking to? Is he supposed to be holding the skull in a threatening way? He looks more like he's having an amiable chat. Is this his friend? His cute sidekick, Skully? Maybe he's looking at it in surprise or curiosity. But surely this is not the first skull he's ever seen. After all, he IS death. Perhaps this skull is the missing evolutionary link. Or has gold teeth. Or a particularly interesting eye socket.

In any case, I always have a little chuckle when I pass by this terrifying visage. I think his brother probably drew it for him, or his best friend in highschool. And they had been talking about getting it painted on the side of the trailer for years before they actually had the extra cash to do it. And he's probably really proud of it and thinks its the best thing ever.

Its like those vans with the unicorns and mermaids painted all over them, or the majestic elks staring at the sunset on the back window. You have to wonder: are they for real?

You Thought I Was Joking About the Snow . . .

Here it is. This was two weeks ago. I posted this earlier, but it was consumed by the blogmonster. Its worth posting again, though. And for the record, it was 27 degrees Celsius today. I love Canadian weather.

Steven Burns -- Yes, the Blues Clues guy.

I watch a lot of Blues Clues. In fact, I generally watch one episode a day, after nap time. If we wake up before 6am, I watch two episodes a day. Because I have an theatre background, I often wonder what Steve is thinking. I wonder if he's "on" today because he's flirting with someone in the studio. I wonder if they wrote the episode around such and such a weird thing he can do (tap dance, impersonate Elvis, etc), or if he just added it. I wonder how many of the asides are pre-written and how many he adds as he goes. I wonder how he maintains a personality while interacting with all those non-existent characters in a blue screen bubble. I wonder why he quite the show -- was he bored? were there irreconcilable differences between him and the writer / director? I wonder what happened to him -- did he go on to have a career on broadway? As a character actor? Did he burn out?

So, to satiate my curiosity, I decided to google him. And I found his website: www.steveswebpage.com. Its actually kind of cool and funny. It turns out he's become an indie musician. I guess he can probably live off of the profits of Blues Clues reruns indefinitely, so he can basically do whatever he wants now. And he actually does have the kind of sense of humour and personality that I thought he did. He's the kind of guy I hung out with in highschool. Kind of quirky and off the wall, but in a good way, not a scary way (okay, Benji was scary, but the rest of my friends were just . . . interesting).

The question now is, when I next watch an episode of Blues Clues, will I be more or less fascinated by Steve? I'll have to get back to you on that one.

The People Living Inside My Head

No, this is not the post where I admit that I have multiple personalities. Honest. But despite not having that bizarre and fascinating disorder, I do have a number of people living inside my head. They are the characters that inhabit the worlds inside my imagination. Let me explain.

I have an overactive imagination. Ask anyone who has known me for more than, well, for a while, and they will tell you that this is the case. Some members of my family use this to reinvent reality in truly unique and startling ways. I prefer to use this skill to produce fiction.

Unfortunately, for several reasons I have lost my mometum. I have stopped writing or drawing. I can tell you the reasons for this. One, I have no time. Two, I have no space in my house that is appropriate for my writing needs (in order to write well I must have tea, candles, sheaves of paper coverd in scribbles and sketches and maps, and assorted interesting bits and pieces of debris I have picked up from various people and places that I find interesting. No, really. I do.) and contains a computer (I share my computer space with my husband who can only think effectively if there is nothing on the desk but the computer and the phone). Thirdly, I am discouraged by all my rejection slips. Forthly, I am stuck on a tricky bit of plot in my novel that I have been writing and re-writing since I was 16. Fifthly, I have stopped drawing because someone important to me made a foolish off-hand comment 12 years ago and I took it to heart (as I tend to do).

But the problem is that I haven't lost my imagination, nor have I stopped having new characters pop into my head. So all these people are waiting for me to get my act together and start or continue their dramas. Because I write out of my subconcious and intuition rather than being a plan-it-all-out-before-hand kind of writer, they can't do anything until I figure out who they are / what they are doing / what is going to happen in their story. So they stay there, looking slightly dejected. Let me tell you about them.

There is a middle aged man, sitting in an empty appartment, save for a very impressive leather chair and a phone. He is arguing with him mother.

There is a girl who has just graduated from highschool and travelled from Ontatio to B.C.'s lower mainland. She is about to start a new summer job and discover something surprising in an abandoned goat barn (the suspense of this one kills me. I always want to peek in the barn, but its very dark).

There are the four intrepid heroes stuck in the middle of their quest to recover an ancient relic. They are just about to be attacked and make a daring escape. If I can figure out how they will be discovered. And how they will escape. And how the character that keeps wanting to take over the story who is half way across the island fits into their story.

There are the two pre-teen kids who live in the Luddite colony. They are staring over a newly erected fence at the shiny, white, cube-like house that has been deposited next to their land and throwing leaves at the robotic yard keeper / guard dog.

There is the girl who works in the bazaar in a middle-easternesque part of the world. She is a white woman in a sea of brown, and she is very talented, but has yet to discover that. She just wants to buy a parrot. There is the woman who will teach her to use her gifts, fuming away at the TaleTeller, because he is late. And there is the Tale Teller, trapped in a cave. By who? Where? When? We do not know. But the small creature that is his companion does. Unfortunately, she is trapped in a cage down at the rare animal market on the other side of the bazaar.

The problem is, there is also my toddler, grabbing onto my leg, calling "mommymommymommymommy" whenever I leave his sight. There is my husband, busy with his career, needing a peaceful house. There are my friends to keep in contact with, and a new life to start in this new place. Not to mention all the quilts to be sewn, all the curtains and cushions to be made, and the wood furniture to be painted. These people live and breathe and shift around me. And I need to live in their world, the real world that surrounds me.

But in my head, its getting hard to think a clear thought anymore. The people are all clammering to be written, interrupting my thoughts and life with their assorted dilemmas. I suppose I shall have to write. One day. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the next day. Soon. Someday. . . . okay, okay, sooner than that, alright?

Garage Sale Season

This weekend was the season opener of garage sale season. The Catholic, Anglican and United churches all had rummage sales (ie: whole church garage sale) and there were about a dozen garage sales happening around town, as well. Now, I'm new to the whole garage sale curcuit, so I don't know if this is normal, but the competition for cheap crap is fierce in this town. There are three open air bulletin boards for people to post their garage sale notices on. On late Friday afternoon and early Saturday morning you can see people lurking around these boards with little notebooks. I am sure they then sit in their car with a map of the city and strategically plan their route. Then as soon as a site opens and the balloons are placed on the street corner it is swamped with cars -- seriously, cars down the street. If the sign says "4 pm", and you want to get anything good, you'd better be there at 3:30. Otherwise its stained baby clothes, musty sweaters, well used footwear of every description and tacky housewares for you.

I did have one woman set aside some Fisher Price Little People stuff for us, which Andrew has been playing with all weekend. And I got a bunch of farm animals and a wooden pounding set for .50 cents. My best score of the weekend: an ochre cannister and bread box set, circa 196?. After I finish scrubbing years of kitchen grease off them, they will be beautiful.

Adventures Bowling in Saskatchewan

I decided to organize an afternoon of bowling for the people in our church. I phoned the bowling alley several weeks in advance to check when they were open, and the owner said they were open from 2 - 4 for non-leauge bowling. When only about 10 people were talking about coming, I didn't worry too much about making reservations. I called once on Saturday, but no one answered, so I just let it be. I figured there would surely be two lanes open.

When I got to the bowling alley at 2 pm on Sunday, everyone from the church was sitting in their cars outside the bowling alley. This was because the bowling alley was LOCKED. After a few moments, one of the women who knew the owner phoned him up to see what was happening. He said that he would be there in about 15 min. or so. I thought I must have got the time confused and was feeling a bit anxious. No one else seemed worried.

At about 2:30 the owner arrived to open up the bowling alley. He told us he was busy putting a roast on the barbeque. He didn't seem to worried. Neither did anyone else. One man said, "oh, you know how it is. It happens". To which I responded (before my internal censor kicked in) "Around here it does".

Quilt Top

Here it is, my finished quilt top. I still have to get the backing and filling and quilt it, but that has to wait until Dave's next paycheque. As you can see, it looks kind of cool. I'm pretty happy with the final product when I see it in a picture, even though its sort of a weird colour combination. I think I'm going to call in "Saskatchewan Gothic".

Don't blink or you'll miss spring

In some parts of Canada, spring slowly, sensuously unfolds over the months of March to May. The West Coast of British Columbia is one of these places. The temperatures gradually increase, the rain slows, the days become a little bit more sunny and bright. The forsythias and crocuses bloom, then the cherry blossoms and the rhodedendrons, and the tulips and so on and so on for months at a time. The leaves langourously stretch themselves open. You can actually watch the leaves uncurl from day to day. It is a long, beautiful process.
Not so Central Saskatchewan. One day there is snow. A week later there is none. A week later people are wearing shorts, cutting their grass and getting bitten by mosquitos. April 4: Notice the snow.
Today, two weeks later, Andrew and I went walking in shorts, because it was 22 degrees C. We saw a ladybug and a butterfly. Tonight I got my first mosquito bite. Summer is here.
















Well, okay, until we get a surprise snowstorm.

Happy Canadian Novels?

I recently finished reading The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields. I read it because i was looking for something interesting and well written that might sweep me up into a different world. Well, it did sweep me up into the life of Daisy Goodwill, orphan, whose tragic first marriage ends on the honeymoon, whose second marriage is to a man 20 years older than her who was sort of her uncle, and who ends her days realizing no one has ever told her that they love her. It was not a good time for me to read such a novel. I have felt achingly depressed and lonely all week, and it is in part because this novel was so well written and so sad.

This left me asking that age old question: Are there any happy Canadian novels out there? Was the first half of this century really THAT depressing? Did everyone, especially women, really live lives that were as terrible, depressing and soul killing as all that? I don't think I have ever read a happy novel written by a Canadian woman. Seriously. The Handmaid's Tale? No, I don't think so. Stone Angel? Apparently Hagar finds some redemption at the end, but happy is not a word I would use for it. Fugitive Pieces? The haulocaust was not a particularly happy subject, so no. Concubine's Children? Nope.

I suppose there are a few happy novels out there. Robinson Davies' satires are pretty funny. And there is this B.C. author . . . Jack Hodgins, whose book The Macken Charm was happy, but also had a suicide in it. And Will Fergeson's Happiness. But all of those books are written by MEN.

I am a Candian woman, and my life is not that bad. I have a sense of humour. Why don't the rest of the women living in Canada share this with me? Why are we all so busy feeling sorry for ourselves? Its like a bad hangover from the early feminist movement or something. That's it. I have decided that it is my patriotic duty to start writing a happy, uplifting novel about a woman in Canada. I'll let you know how its coming as soon as I get out of this funk and think of something happy to write about . . .

My Latest Harebrained Scheme

As I spelled, rather than said "harebrained" scheme, I wondered: Does that refer to it being an idea that a rabbit would think was clever? If not, what exactly DOES it mean?

That, however, was not my scheme. So, this is my new idea: I have now met a number of stay at home type moms who have young kids. It seems to me that a lot of these women are in the same situation as me -- they spend a lot of time by themselves at home with their infant / toddler being bored. But I am really terrible at actually phoning people up and inviting them over. I especially hate the pressure of having to think of a "fun" thing to do with them, or a reason to invite them over.

What if, instead, I just had a drop in morning. I just told everyone that I would love to have them come over and visit on, say Friday morning between 9:30 and noonish. I will have coffee on, and if they hit me on a good week, I might even bake something. Then people can stop by when they have the chance, and I have made a general invite. I think it might be a fun way for me to get to know people, and for other people to get to know each other, too.

But it seems like a kind of odd thing to do, you know? Like I'm trying to start some sort of club or organization, but I'm not actually associated with any club or organization. Will people think I'm crazy? Will it work?

So, I actually expect some responses. Especially from all you local Saskatchewan lurkers (I know you're out there -- I have sitemeter). Make it anonymous. Just tell me if you think its a good idea or not.

Death's Sandbox

Those of you who are familliar with Terry Pratchett will know that in his books the anthropomorphized figurehead "Death" has a house, a yard, and a garden. He also has a grandaughter (by adoption) who has inherited some of his skill set. When regular humans come to his house they see it in a scale that makes sense to them, and they think that everything is "human" sized. But Susan (death's grandaughter) sees that there are actually vast, empty voids around the edges of all the rooms becuase try as he might, Death doesn't really understand human things like dimensions.

Our sandbox is like this. When our parishoners (who own the house I live in) put up the fence, they also decided to build a sandbox. The sandbox is 10' X 10'. It is a vast and measureless void of sand. It is Dune in minature (minus, I hope, the large carnivorous worms). I placed my 19 month old toddler in it today, about a foot from the corner. He sat with his little shovel and pail and dug up all the sand around him. He put it in the bucket. When the bucket was "too full", he stopped, and asked to be removed from the sandbox. In his own little world, he had fully experienced the sandbox. In reality, he hardly left a footprint in the savannah.

Assumptions

On "As it Happens" tonight they interviewed an evolutionary who stated many times that the theory of evolution was science, but the theory of intelligent design was pseudoscience. His rock-solid evidence included the fact that there are chairs in evolution at universities (thus it must be scientific), that there are no supernatural assumptions made in evolution (thus making it scientific) and that a judge in the US has declared the theory of intelligent design to be a pseudo science.

The thing that bothered me the most was not the CBC would never interview a Christian or Moslem who was equally certain of their belief system without accusing them of fundamentalism. The thing that bothered me the most was that the scientist was not showing all his cards. He was saying that intelligent design must be wrong because it incorporates elements of philosophy and faith as well as science into its theory. But that evolution was true, hard science because it only looks at natural phenomenon. But he never actually states that there are two assumptions underlying this assertion. The first is atheism. The second is naturalism. And these are, I hate to tell the man, philosophic stances -- they are belief systems. Thus, his evolutionary theory is based on certain philosophic assumptions, just as intelligent design is based on certain philosophic assumptions.

One of the things that aggravates me about much of modern thinking is that we have put science ahead of philosophy. The reason why Philosophy is the Queen of the Sciences and academic disciplines, is because all other disciplines rely on unspoken, mutually agreed upon philosophic assumptions. If these assumptions are not examined and understood, we take things for "truth" based on the narrow perspective of our own academic discipline or belief system without really knowing why we do so. This creates narrow thinking and aggressive fundamentalism of all kinds. Including the evolutionary kind that will neither listen to nor allow any theory that differs slightly from their own.

The thing I find most bizarre in all of this is that the theory of intelligent design does not claim to be a science, nor is it in particular conflict with evolutionary theory. It is simply a way of allowing what modern scientist have found to be evident to co-exist side by side with what thousands of years of humanity has found to be equally evident -- that something greater than ourselves exists somewhere within and/or outside of the universe, and may have been involved in the process of creating the universe. Perhaps if the evolutionist was less of an atheistic fundamentalist he would have been able to see this critical point.

The Co-Op's Touchless Car Wash

I don't know if you're familiar with the touchless car wash. Well, its a drive through car wash where this big water gun/wand thing moves around your car and washes it without actually touching the car. This is to solve the problems of former mechanized car washes with fabric picking up rocks from one car and scraping them along the side of other cars. This is also to stop much older brothers (not mentioning any names, Derrick) from telling their tiny, overimaginative siblings that the long fabric things are actually tentacles and are trying to get into the car and eat any small girls they might come across.

Well, the Co-Op gas station in town has a touchless car wash. I think it must be the only one in about 30 min. drive, because its very popular. No matter when you go to get your car washed, you can be assured that there will be at least 2 - 3 cars ahead of you. Since the car wash takes about 10 min, this means you will wait about 30 min. to get your car washed.

Today, Andrew and I went to get the car washed. My husband suggested it as a fun activity that my toddler might enjoy. He thought he might like the big machines. So, off we went to line up in the car wash, armed only with a bag of chips (Andrew's latest thing is to get the "whole bag" of whatever we have, so any packaging with a few remnants of food is grand entertainment in his mind). And we sat in line. And sat. And ate the chips. And dumped the bag on the floor. And sat some more. And sang that old car wash song. And since Andrew liked the part where the song goes "OOOH!", we sang "oooh" back and forth to each other.

Finally, we got in the car wash. My son was afraid of the touchless car wash machine. "Too loud. Too loud." Apparently it exceeds his safe decibel tolerance level. So much for attempted fun toddler activity number 58. Failed again. I should have let him play with the legs off the baby swing again.

This got me thinking. I waited for a "convenient" car wash for 30 min. I could have poured a bucket of water, soaped my car down, and sprayed it with a hose in the amount of time it took me to sit in line for the car wash. I am such a North American.

Fear of Rubber Boots

Apparently, my son has a rubber boot phobia. I bought him the best pair of little blue, shiny boots with red soles. Every time I try to put them on his feet, he screams in shock and dismay and yells "no!no!no!" as he shakes them off his feet. I think I am going to have to slowly desensitize him to them. You know, mention them when we walk by the shoe rack. Put them next to his winter boots so he sees the old and new together. Serve him snacks out of them . . . well, okay, maybe not.

He doesn't like the new velco fastened runners I got him either. I can see that these probably just offend his fashion sense. They certainly offend mine, but in a town like this you get what you can find.

The Lambiness has arrived!

March has gone sauntering out as gentle as a lamb. The birds are singing in my back yard and examining the real estate possibilites for the summer. There are rivers of rushing water flowing down the curbs next to the bare concrete of the road. And the air has that sweet scent tha lets you know that the big thaw has come. I love this time of year. It makes me so happy.

Four things quiz

I'm sure you've seen this floating around the email / blog world. Well, I got it emailed to me, so here are my answers:

Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. Highschool Teacher
2. Garden Centre Worker
3. Baskin Robbins ice-cream scooper
4. Janitor

Four nicknames I've been given:
1. Jillieth (well, actually Pterajillieth)
2. Antface (don't ask)
3. Jo
4. Grandma (again, you really don't want to know)

Four movies I would watch over and over:
1. LOTR trilogy extended edition plus all the special features
2. Zoolander
3. Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail
4. Princess Bride

Four places I have lived:
1. Thunder Bay
2. Cambridge, ON
3. Abbotsford, BC
4. Melfort, SK

Four TV shows I love to watch:
1. Seinfeld
2. Survivor
3. Corner Gas
4. When Fun Turns to Fear

Four places I have been on vacation:
1. West Virginia
2. West Coast of US
3. Ireland
4. Grand Rapids, Michigan

Four things I could NOT live without:
1. my heart
2. my brain
3. my lungs
4. food

Four of my favourite foods:
1. Vietmianesse noodle soup
2. My bbq kebabs (I'll serve them to anyone who visits me -- they're awesome)
3. chocolate -- esp this organic save-the-zebras chocolate they have a nutters right now -- its SO GOOD
4. spring rolls

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Winnipeg
2. Sudbury
3. napping with my son
4. at the secret headquarters of my new think tank that will soon be taking over the media and, consequently, the world

Spring Festivities

Well, yesterday was the first day of spring. In honour of this momentous occasion, my husband decided to pull out the barbecue. Or should I say dig out the barbecue?


In any case, he and Andrew had fun cooking pork chops and sweet potatoes, enjoying the extra hours of daylight (it really is noticable this far north) and listening to the returning birds singing.

The sign says it all:

Tisdale is not my town. But in an attempt to get away, we went to the glorious metropolis of Tisdale. This sign alone is an insight into Saskatchewan culture. We went to A&W, checked out all 10 stores in the mall (including the Fields and the Extra Foods), drove down "the strip", and took these photos. Tisdale is the home of Brent Butt, creator and main writer on Corner Gas. If you keep up with the show you might be interested to know that this is the world's biggest bee,


and that pretty much every Grad class in the last 15 years has spray painted "Grad Fill-in-the-blank" on the water tower. We were also taken with this fine establishment here. The sign says "Making yours tay a continental experience". Ah, Saskatchewan at its finest.

And then it snowed some more . . .

Here are some photos to give you an idea of how much snow we've had. The one above is the snow in the middle of the first snowstorm we had on the first day of March. The one below is after the snowfall last week. Remember, too, that we've had warm days in between that have melted some of the snow. Crazy, eh?

Quilting Update

So, my new hobby has taught me several things. First, never rotary cut and drink wine at the same time. There have been some issues with my fabric being a bit crooked. Oops.

Second, I realized that I like ideas more than reality. Since I started working on my quilt, what, two months ago?, I have spent almost as long looking online for quilting patterns, sample fabric, design ideas, etc as I have quilting. I have bought three quilting magazines full of patterns and examples of quilts. I have bought some fabric for future quilts. I have not, however, finished my first quilt. Not that I haven't worked on it. I'm just more excited about other projects that I"m not doing right now. This is pretty typical for me. Its all about what might be. The future is such an exciting place.

Thirdly, don't try to lay out your finished blocks to see what your quilt is going to look like while your toddler is around. I put a block down, he picks one up. I put one back, he picks up another one . . . what a fun new game!

Fourthly, maybe the lady at the quilting store was right to be sceptical of my fabric choices.

Fifthly, why didn't the lady at the quilting store EXPLAIN to me why my fabric choices weren't going to work rather than just giving me sceptical looks? I suppse because she's interested in selling fabric rather than in teaching me about quilting.

Sixthly, and finally, I like the sense of accomplishment you can get from quilting. YOu can FINISH a block and then its done. That never happens in my life in any other area right now. So I really do like it, even though my first quilt is going to be a bit , um, gothic.

"I'm SO sick of you people!"

Thus shrieks Blue Lazer as the Cheat Commandos corner him in the checkout lane at PricePlus grocery store. Then Fytgard says "Blue Lazer, this is the express lane -- 10 items of less. You've got two too many". And Blue Lazer responds (I love this line) "Those are the twins!".

Anyway, enough! Stop! NO MORE CHEAT COMMANDOS.

Don't get me wrong. I love the Cheat Commandos. There are a ton of hilarious lines in the 3 or 4 Cheat Commandos cartoons on Homestarrunner.com. But I have made the unfortunate mistake of using Strongbad, Homestar, the Cheat and all their friends as a soothing tool for my son. Now that he is at that obsessive toddler stage I get requests for "O's!O's!" two or three times a day. This means he wants to watch the Cheat Commandos O's Breakfast Cereal commercial ("Those Aren't O's!"). I could quote you every line from this 3 min. cartoon. EVERY ONE! Please someone make it stop!




I must say, however, it doesn't get much more amusing than Blue Lazer declaring "The Cheat Commandos will never find our secret desert hideout since we relocated it to my nanna's back yard!"

Oh, and if you have NO idea what I"m talking about, check out http://homestarrunner.com, but be warned. Its highly addictive stuff.

Its still snowing.

Remember how I mentioned that it snowed on March 1st? Well, it snowed on March 2nd. Then we dug ourselves out, and Dave got sick. On March 4th, it started snowing again. On March 5th I underestemated the depth and thickness of the snow and overesteimated the amount of driveway available and got stuck. Chruch was over before Andrew and I got ourselves dug out. On March 6th, Andrew got sick. On March 7th, I got sick. On March 8th, we were all miserable and sick together. On March 9th, we started getting better. On March 10th, it started to snow again. Now, it is still snowing. Hopefully tomorrow morning I will wake up in time to dig myself out before church.

So I must say that the end of March had better have some damn fine lambiness about it or I'm done with Saskatchewan.

The Swen Cafe

Two weeks ago (I know, I'm sorry.), Dave and I went out for a Valentine's dinner at the famous Swen Cafe in Kinistino. Its just 20 min. down the road and it is a local institution. It is a phenomenon in Canada (is this north american? worldwide?) that every town, no matter how small it is, has a Chineese-Canadian Food Resteraunt. This resteraunt doesn't serve the kind of Chineese food that would been served in, say Richmond B.C. or in any Chinatown across the country. It serves deep fried chicken balls with gloopy orange sweet and sour sauce, sweet and sour pork, chop suey, egg rolls, and an assortment of fried rice. Most of the stir fries available in such a resteraunt are guaranteed to contain baby corn and canned water chesnut, just to prove it is CHINEESE. Generally the most adventurous thing avaliable on these menus is "Beef with Seasonal Vegetables"-- after all, you just never know what's going to be seasonal. For two days before we went I was joking, "Sweet and Sour Chicken Balls, here we come!"

We drove down the bustling main strip of Kinistino, and past a tall, neon sign declaring "Swen Cafe. Chineese-Canadian Food. Tiger Room. Licensed Resteraunt." Other than this it was a plain store front, like any other along the street. Through the large picture window we could see farmers in baseball caps and skidoo suits drinking Pilsner. Could this really be it?

We went inside to discover that the side we could see was the lounge, while the resteraunt was on the other side. We were greeted by a small resteraunt with plain tables. They were, of course, adorned with the traditional Chineese zodiac placemats. The walls were covered in warm, bright wood. The traditional large silk fan decorated the wall by the coat rack. Further inside the resteraunt two jigsawed and painted wooden tigers leaps dramatically on either side of the air conditioning unit. On the opposite wall it declared this to the the "Tiger Room". All in all, the effect was cozy and not unpleasant, so we entered.

We were handed menus. The first page was drinks, the second Chineese Food, the third Canadian Food. The Canadian Food consisted of what I like to call classic truck stop fare -- hot beef sandwiches, clubhouse sandwiches, fries and gravy, burgers, steaks and fish and chips. One knows, with such a menu, that any salad you order will be white iceberg lettuce with little strips of carrot and purple cabage. Its inevitable. The Chineese food was similarly typical -- much what I had guessed it would be. With one notable exception -- no sweet and sour chicken balls.

We did what we usually do and ordered tea (they brought us Red Rose), and two dishes and rice to share. One item on the menu caught our eye. Imperial Chicken (or something similar). We decided to ask what it was before we ordered it, along with some Beef Chop Suey.

When we asked what the Imperial Chicken was, the woman started to explain very carefully, certain we must be unfamilliar with asian fare, "Well, it is chicken with a light coating that is deep fried. We serve it with a special sauce that is mostly sweet, but a little bit sour, too . . . ". We nodded, and I smiled. No Imperial Chicken for us.

Instead, we ordered Ginger beef, which was quite good, actually. It was gingery beef version of sweet and sour pork. We soaked in the atmosphere, ate our Chineese-Canadian food. It was all good. Maybe we should have had the sweet and sour chicken balls . . .

It came in like a Lion

Well, March certainly has kept its tradition. I woke up this morning and had to drive to playgroup in at least 15cm of snow. It took my husband 45 min. to shovel the driveway and deck becuase it was thick, heavy snow and had blown in drifts around our car. If this keeps up I can count on being stuck in the house for another month at least.

On the bright side, Andrew's bottom eye teeth have finally broken through the gums, so I no longer have a total cling-on on my hip. Now I just have a normal, demanding, high strung toddler, which is much more manageable.

Crest Solves Marital Crises Everywhere

Crest has finally come out with a position on that ancient co-habiting dilemma. To quote the back of the tube:

FOR BEST RESULTS, SQUEEZE TUBE FROM THE BOTTOM AND FLATTEN AS YOU GO UP.

Just thought you might like to know.

How I'm Getting Through Today

I must admit that I had a two fisted breakfast this morning. The tall cup was full of Tetley Orange Peakoe tea. I got about a third of the way through it and realized that was not going to be enough. So I made myself a latte with a double shot of espresso. Um, yeah, that was breakfast. Its 9:30 am and already one of those days.

Walls in Children's Books and Shows

Here is the question. Have you ever, in real life, seen a brick or concrete wall standing in the middle of a field? I know I haven't. Yet they are a really common feature in kids' books and tv shows. On old school sesamie street they were a common setting. Everything interesting happened over the ledge of a waist height brick wall. In Hop on Pop, many tall and small people play ball on a wall and then, inexplicably, fall off of said wall. Charlie Brown and Linus' classic place to talk is while leaning on an elbow height wall. Where do these walls come from? What are there purposes? Do they exist in the United States? Is Canada just behind in its field decorating decor? What's with all the extraneous walls?

He's going to be one of THOSE boys.

I grew up as that girl that always got pestered by the boys in school. Perhaps it was the irresistable long red braid. Or the adrenaline of ducking when my feirce temper took hold and I swung around to confront my adversary with flashing green eyes. Or perhaps it is the unfortunate fact that I emit a small, high pitched "ah!" when poked or otherwise startled.

My son, at the ripe old age of 15 months, discovered this entertaining feature of his mother's reflexes. He poked the bit of skin sticking out between my pants and my shirt and I shreiked "ah!" He was exilerated. He ran around to the front of me, eyes ablaze with mischeif and giggled. Then he poked me in the arm and said "ah!". For the last two months, this has been a regular part of our day. Sometimes he actually surprises me. Sometimes he prompts me if I forget to exclaim properly when I see him coming.

I have started telling him that he is a tease, but I didn't really think he understood what I meant. Last week, I was sitting in the computer chair, typing, and he snuck up behind me and poked me in the back. I gave an obligatory startled "ah!". He ran around the chair, grinned and said "Tease."

W . . . W . . . W . . . Willy Waterloo . . .

Okay, so I hate Dr. Seuss' ABC book. Although I enjoy many of his works, this particular book leaves me cold. And do you want to know why? Because the metre is inconsistent, and often aukward. I know that the man wrote a million books, so I should really give him some slack on this front. But his is presently my son's FAVORITE book (next to the evil Disney ABC book I was given "A is for Ariel, buy the Little Mermaid. B is for Belle, buy Beauty and the Beast, too, and the special edition DVD, the Christmas special, the matching stroller, chair, backpack, read-along book, doll, playset and fly to Disneyland to meet the princesses for yourself"), and so i read it a thousand times a day. I was seriously SO annoyed with this that I was thinking about it while sewing last night after my son went to bed.

I think that if you are going to write nonsense verse and take the liberty to invent half of the words and creatures in your work, you should be able to fit them into the metrical structure you have set out for yourself. Its only fair to parents everywhere.

Elizabethtown

If I was still 16, I would rent this movie once a month and watch it with my friends at a sleepover until I had every line and scene memorized. It is that kind of a movie. For those of you who are not that familliar with me, other movies that have had this honour have been : Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the Matrix, Zoolander, the Royal Tenebaums, Mystery Men . . . a pretty quirky lot of films. It is what Owen Wilson would write if he was a little bit less nihilistic and wanted to do something "cute".

The movie stars Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst, as a couple who serendipidously meet on an airplane on the way to his dad's memorial service. He must wade through family politics to get his dad cremated and brought back to Oregon instead of buried in the family plot in Louisville, Kentucky. On top of this he is dealing with the humiliation of utterly failing to design the next big shoe, and staying at a hotel that has been invaded by a week long frat-style-pre-wedding party. Kirsten Dunst is just a good old southern girl who steals his heart with her charm, her winning smile, and her down to earth take on life.

It has classic scenes, like the one where the main character's cousin's band reunites for his dad's memorial service and releases a giant paper mache bird which lights on fire and sets off the sprinkler system in the hall. Or the scene where the main character becomes buddy buddy with the guy who is holding his week-long pre-wedding bash at his hotel (Chuck and Cindy -- Live Life). Or the one where he shows a room of disobedient children a video in which a brawny construction worker asks "If I blow up this house, will you listen to your mom and dad?"

It is not roll on the ground funny, but it is a quirky and enthralling film. I really enjoyed it, and I'm picky about romantic comedies. So give it a try, you just might like it.

Oh, and if you want to do a double feature of Kirsten Dunst romantic comedies, rent Wimbledon, also a great film. With a great leading man whose acting I love, but whose name I can't remember. Anyway, enjoy.

Saskatchewan Temperment

About a week ago, there was a major fire in a potash mine in southern Saskatchewan. Fortunately, all 72 miners found their way to safe haven areas within the mine and waited out the fire. This was quite an amazing and dramatic story, so of course the media wanted to interview the miners and hear their stories.

I listened to several of these interviews throughout the day on CBC. One was on the local afternoon show and the other was on As It Happens, and as I listened to them, I marvelled at the level headed and relaxed Saskatchewan temperment. Here is an example of my paraphrase of part of the interview:

Interviewer: So, how did it feel to be caught in the mine for 22 hours, waiting to be rescued?

Miner: Well, you know, we knew that we were in a safe place, so it was okay. We got kind of bored after a while, so we played some cards and talked a lot. We weren't that worried.

Interviewer: What about your wife? How did she react?

Miner: I'm on the mine safety board, so she knows all about the safety procedures in the mine, so she wasn't too worried. We could phone out to tell everyone we were okay.

I had to laugh a bit. This was such a dramatic and exciting story, but they couldn't get any juicy emotional tape from anyone. It was all calm, levelheaded responses. No choking back tears. No harrowing stories. Just some guys who happened to make it through a major fire and come out alive. But that's their job, eh. Its not like anyone died or anything, and we get a week off work. Why don't you all calm down and go have a beer already?

I love Canada.

The sum total of my creative output for the week.

I would just like to announce to you all that I have once more begun my quest to be creative. I will attempt to post some of my creative endevours on my blog every week to motivate me and to receive your wonderful praise and adoration (ready Shawn and Kris and Anna? I'm counting on you, my ONLY commenters). Okay, you don't have to actually give me huge accolades or anything, but I think this week you will be amazed at my creative output. I have been SO productive. Who says that having a toddler reduces your time to be creative. Ha. Ready? Set? Here it is:

Avian Acrobatics

There is a small airshow taking place in my back yard the last few days. I don't know what is happening, but the birds are going crazy. There are several hundred of them sitting in the trees all around my neigbourhood. Then as if on cue, they will all start flying around and around in circles back and forth from one tree to another. Its as if they are playing some sort of mysterious bird game, or casting a spell on the trees, or trying to keep the planet rotating properly. I couldn't get a picture of them in mid-flight, because there are too many trees in the background for you to see them, but here's a few shots that will give you an idea of the number of birds I'm talking about.

The Woman I Swore I Would Never Be . . .

I Swore that when I had children I would never be that woman who:

- sits in the back seat of the car with her child
- has nothing interesting to say at a party social function, but just sort of stares at her child
- takes her child out with a sticky face and hands
- opens packages in the grocery store before paying for them to feed her child
- forgets to bring the baby and extra set of clothes
- lets their child go out in stained clothing
- wipes snot from her child's nose with her fingers
- lets her child run around at other people's house in just a diaper on a hot day
- breastfed in public
- yelled at her child
- lost her temper over petty things
- stopped doing things she loved just becuase she had children
- wished that someone else would take their child for a few hours
- complained about how little time they had when they were at home all day

I am sad to report that my son in only 16 months and I am that woman.

A Beautiful Moment

Every night, I change the cat's litter. I take my little bag of remnants outside and place them in the garbage bin on my back deck. And that's when it happens. The moment. I close the garbage lid and I look out at the sky, the trees, and my backyard. I take a deep breath and smell the air. I experience peace and calm, with abseloutely no responsiblility or pressure to do anything except enjoy the beauty I find around me. It truly is a beautiful moment.

My Grandmother's Quilts

While I was visiting Winnipeg I spent time with my sister Donna and with my brother Derrick. As is usually the case in such situations, I was loaned the spare bed and some extra blankets to sleep myself and my toddler (isn't he cute?). In and of itself, this is a wholely unsurprising turn of events.

But a cool thing happened. Both of the quilts I was given to sleep on were ones that had been hand made by our grandmother. The quilt to the left belongs to Derrick. The one below and to the right belongs to Donna.

They are not particularly remarkable quilts in any other way. Neither quilt has the kind of complex pattern or artistically chosen colours that would win a quilting contest, or land it in a heritage quilt museum. They would never be pictured in a quilting magazine. They are importatnt to me, however.

It was the memory of these quilts (as the youngest sibling by many years I never received one) that sparked my own interest in quilting. These quilts reach across time. When I slept with them wrapped around me, I felt as if I was wrapped in my grandmother's embrace. Her hands spent hours carefully stitching each square together, and then joining those squares and quilting through all the fabric. She must have thought of each of her grandchildren as she made their quilt, perhaps praying for them as she worked. These quilts contain her time, her prayers and her love.

These quilts also reminded me of something that is important to me right now. I am seeking a new creative outlet, something that is feasable as a stay at home mom to a busy toddler. Quilting is something I can do bit by bit, square by square, stitch by stitch.

I realized, as I looked at these quilts, that my grandmother has her own quirky eye for colour and pattern. You can't see it, but each fabric in Donna's quilt has a different texture. She was not a great artist, but she expressed her creativity every day of her life. She did not feel the pressure to do something that would be placed in a museum. It was enough to simply make something that she thought was nice and servicable. This is the kind of practical creativity that was common in past generations of women. The kind of creativity that I can embrace, and hopefully enjoy.
One day, as each of my children leaves my bed and graduates to their own room, I hope to be able to send a quilt of their own with them. One that they can use and enjoy. Maybe one day they will cherish it, and feel my embrace as they wrap it around them each night.

Not a SINGLE message while I was gone!

Oh well. Stay tuned for the new and improved Life and Times of Jill with PICTURES! Now, all I have to do is load the software that came with my camera and figure out how to use it . . .

We're not in right now, but please leave a message . .

. . . after this post and I'll get back to you just as soon as I can.

Well, my few and faithful readers, I'm going to Winnipeg for two weeks. I may or may not get a chance to post while I'm in the Peg, so I'll probably talk to y'all in a few weeks.

Have a great New Years!

Christmas and Labour

About a week before Christmas, I began to think of the Christmas story in a new light. I was thinking about what it must have been like for Mary to be in labour that night. Was she already having contractions as they went from Inn to Inn? Was there an edge of desperation in this search? Was Joseph just hoping she could hang on a little longer, stay on the donkey long enough for them to find some place to stay? Did Mary's impending birth and the mess and noise involved suddenly change Innkeeper's minds, so that they had "no room"?

Who delivered baby Jesus? There is no midwife, or other female mentioned in the story, so one must assume that Joseph the humble carpenter delivered the baby of his bride-to-be in a stable surrounded by horses and cows. I suspect that neither of them, especially Joseph, had previous experience with childbirth. It must have been a somewhat harrowing experience.

And then, after all that, when Mary was exhausted and elated and trying to figure out how to nurse the baby, there were shepherds and sheep everywhere who wanted to see the baby. Did she want them to go away so she could get some sleep? Was she strong enough to greet them? Were the shepherds loud and boisterous or gentle and respectful? Did they help Joseph clean up the stable and get everything sorted out?

All these questions have started bouncing around in my head. But the image that stays with me the most is one of a young girl, in labour, riding a donkey. She is trying to stay calm and focused. She knows they will find a place to stay soon. She trusts that God will not allow his son to be born in a ditch or the middle of a city street. But it is looking more and more hopeless as time goes on. And the pains are coming faster, and she is trying to contain the pain and not be overwhelmed by this full body experience until they get to a safe place.

There is all this unspoken fear and suspense and determination behind the story. All this pain and mess and reality behind the simple words, "While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn."

My Two Cents on the Child Care Issue

We here in Canada are in the middle of an election right now and one of the issues on the table is a proposal for a National Child Care Program. The former government, the Liberals, were planning to create a national subsidized Day Care program. Now that they are electioneering they are calling it and "Early Learning and Child Care Program". They are saying that they would like all Canadians to have access to the best quality care for their children.

As a stay at home Mom, I find this slightly offensive. Are they suggesting that a paid government employee can give my child better quality care than I can? That just because he or she has a degree in Early Childhood Education they are more qualified to raise my son than I, his mother? That he will learn more being in a regimented programmed environment with multiple children his age than he will spending time dialoguing and reading one-on-one with me, or helping and observing me bake, clean, cook, socialize and shop?

I am not saying that it is not important for there to be good quality day care for those who are interested in going back to work. I am just wondering why it is fair for billions of dollars to be put into a child care program which excludes those who choose to care for their own children. It seems to me that this is yet another way in which parents who choose to care for their children are subtly demeaned by Canadian society. If we were really "good" people we would want our children to be a part of this "early learning" program and get back to being productive members of society by rejoining the workforce.

Doesn't this suggest an underlying social agenda? One that encourages all Canadians to have families where both parents work and the children go to state run Day Care and then to state run schools. An agenda that teaches children from one year of age onwards the norms and values that the state desires to promote, as opposed to any ethics or beliefs a parent might wish to pass on to their child.

Personally, I am not up for this agenda. I think it is silly of Paul Martin to accuse the Conservative Party of having an "hidden agenda" when they offer to give all parents of children under 6 money to spend on the child care method of their choice. Parents can use the money to subsidize their Day Care expenses, to pay a babysitter, to enrich their single income family standard of living, or, if they really want to, to buy beer and popcorn. It seems to me that giving every family money means giving every family a choice. Yes, such a plan does support stay at home parents. But it also equally supports parents who go back to work and want to pay for another child care alternative. In my mind that is a equitable system. It is a system that supports authentic diversity as opposed to covert hegemony.

Snow Days -- Part Two

DO NOT READ THIS POST UNTIL YOU HAVE READ PART ONE! IT WILL RUIN THE PUNCHLINE. CLOSE YOUR EYES AND SCROLL DOWN TO THE LONG ANECDOTE UNDER THE TITLE "SNOW DAYS - PART ONE". THEN RETURN AND READ THIS SAD AND SORRY CONCLUSION.

So, my husband goes to get the hood of the car unfrozen and get the car started. You know what happened? He got someone to drive him over there. He got into the car. And it STARTED! No need to pry the hood open, no need to get a boost . . . some people have all the luck!

What Kind of Princess are You? - Beautiful Artwork (Original Music is BACK!!!)

The Warrior PrincessYou are strong, courageous, and dynamic, a woman of action. You have an iron will and a sharp tongue. Indecisive, weak, or wishy-washy people test your patience. You tend to grow bored quickly and yearn for excitement.Role Models: Brunhilde/The Valkyries, XenaYou are most likely to: Lead your people to victory against an army of orcs.
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Snow Days -- Part 1 -- Wednesday Morning

Remember my post yesterday about the snow? Well, it is still snowing. The roads are a mess. You can only drive in the tracks of other vehicles, and then only if you can manage to get out of your driveway without being stuck, because there is over a foot of snow now. The roads in town haven't been cleared yet because the plows are still busy trying to get the highway cleared.

Today was our playgroup's Christmas party, and the last playgroup until January. I decided that I had to go because I missed last week, and if you miss too many weeks you get out of the loop. So my intrepid son and I drove to playgroup with no problems. We almost got stuck backing out of our driveway, but with just a bit of a kick at the packed snow around us, I got us free. We just didn't stop on the way there, and we kept the car in second gear.

Everything was all good. We had fun at the Christmas party. Andrew wandered around and enjoyed to toys for once -- he is really just getting old enough to have fun. I sat and drank coffee and visited -- I am just really starting to get to know people.
Santa came, and he got a book wrapped up so it seemed "new". He only tried to unplug the christmas tree twice, and didn't try to steal anyone esle's presents, so it was a succcess.

Until we got out to the car. Then I realized I had left my lights on, and the battery was dead. So I found another woman who offered to jump the car. At which point I discovered that the hood was frozen shut. No matter how much I chipped away at the hood, I could not get it to open enough to actually pop the hood and get at the catch that opens the hood.

So the woman offered to give me a ride. Which I thought was cool, except that she was also giving another woman and her child a ride, and there were no back seats in her van. So Andrew and I got the seats, and both of their kids sat in the back without seatbelts. I didn't feel very comfortable with that, so I ended up walking. Yes, WALKING, with my 25 lb toddler who was not wearing his full snow gear and had exposed legs. I tucked his legs into my jacket and waded through the foot and a half of unplowed snow on the four blocks home. It was my workout for the day, I tell you!

Now I and Andrew are at home and warm, and the problem of our car has been left with my husband. We'll see what happens.

Corner Gas

I don't have tv, although I own a television set and a DVD player, it is not hooked up to any means of receiving a television signal. But I have been hearing about this show called Corner Gas, which is about Saskatchewan. When I was in the video store the other day, they had last season's episodes on DVD, so I decided to rent one.

My husband and I wathced all 6 episodes in a day and a half. It is such a funny show, and so many of the details are so true of Saskatchewan. It is sort of like a Canadian version of Seinfeld. There are 8 main characters who all live in Dog River, Saskatchewan. The main place of action is the gas station and attached diner. It is basically just about these quirky characters lives.

Brent Butt, the producer / writer / main character is brilliant. The show is full of funny plot lines, quirky characters and great dialogue. One of my favorite techniques that is used by the show is the "flashback" or "dream sequence". It is used to flash to what the character's are thinking, or to what else is happening in town. There are also some great cameos, like when Brent kicks the Tragically Hip out of his garage when they are pracicing. They say, "But we were just working on lyrics" and he replies "Don't tell me what the poets are doing".

I also like the Saskatchewan humour that is added into it. For example, in one episode Brent's mom makes nanaimo bars. But she insists on calling them "Nanaimo - type Saskatchewan bars". That is Sasktachewan through and through. Or when the police officers pretend not to know that the rest of their baseball team is drinking, and the team pretends not to know that they know that the officers know, just so no one will have an akward moment. It's pure Canadian, especially prairie, politeness.

If you have never seen this show, all I can say is get a hold of a copy and watch it. It is so funny that we have now watched the entire first two seasons in the last week. Out of all 26 ish episodes, there was only one we didn't think was hilarious. This is Canadian humour at its best. Enjoy.

We've got SNOW!

It is SNOWING. The capitals have to be there, because it is not just snowing. It is SNOWING. I shovelled about 20 cm of snow out of the driveway around 1:30 and two hours later you can't even tell that I did anything! I guess our white Christmas has come.

Is this accurate, or what?

You're A Prayer for Owen Meany!

by John Irving

Despite humble and perhaps literally small beginnings, you inspire
faith in almost everyone you know. You are an agent of higher powers, and you manifest
this fact in mysterious and loud ways. A sense of destiny pervades your every waking
moment, and you prepare with great detail for destiny fulfilled. When you speak, IT
SOUNDS LIKE THIS!


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Food for Thought

This great quote was tagged onto someone's signiture on a message board I post on a lot:

"When a man steals to satisfy hunger, we may safely conclude that there is something wrong in society -- so when a woman destroys the life of her unborn child, it is evidence that either by education or circumstances she has been greatly wronged." M. Brinkerhoff.

There are huge issues to explore in this quote, but right now there is one thing that comes to my mind. When I was taking my "Ethics in the Classroom" course at SFU, the whole abortion / keeping the baby issue came up. And I noticed something: young pregnant teens are presented with the above false dichotomy: you can have an abortion or you can keep the baby and take care of it yourself. I rarely hear anyone anywhere in our society mention the third option: you can give the child up for adoption.

I think this is because in many ways this option is the most difficult. First, you have to carry the baby to term and deliver it. Then, after this, you must give that baby you carried for 9 months, your own flesh and blood, to someone who you do not know, and ask them to care for and raise your child. After this, you must go through the greiving process of losing that child, even though they are alive and well in the world.

But on the positive side, you gain much, as a young woman, from taking this route. First, if you are not in a condition to raise that child well, you have ensured that your child will be raised in a more stable environment than you might be able to provide. Second, you do not have to live with the knowledge that you have chosen to end a human life. Although you may not see that child, you know that they are alive and well and that you have given them that life.

I think this third option is healthier both physically and emotionally for said teen mom. But I have never seen or heard of it mentioned in any curriculum or program or video relating to teen pregnancy. Like abstinence, adoption is one of those things we think is too noble a choice to be "realistic" for teenagers. If only we had the courage to entrust our youth with hard but virtuous options.

Happy "Holidays"

I heard on the CBC this week that the governor general is going to put up a "Holiday" Tree rather than a "Christmas" Tree this year, so as not to offend anyone.

I have two questions: 1. Is she also going to light 8 "Holiday Candlesticks", or would that be mildly offensive to certain religious groups?

2. Why is it okay to believe anything you want to in Canada as long as you don't actually believe anything? As long as you don't make any absolute truth claims, you are okay. But say there is something called truth out there and everyone will jump down your throat for being a bigot.

Personally, I am going to have a Christmas tree, open Christmas presents, and sing Christmas carols. If my friends choose to celebrate other feasts and festivals this time of year I will not egg their houses or call them names or expect them to celebrate Christmas. But if they put up a tree, can they call it by its proper name? I've never heard of a Diwali tree or a Hanukkah tree or a Solstice tree. So can we call it what it is? Please?

It is so dry that . . .

the pictures of my friends' children that I keep on my refrigerator are curling

running a bath feels like walking into a rainforest

the moisture from your breath is stolen by the desperate air before it turns to steam

it has been below freezing for a month and there is only an inch of snow

you feel like a raisin when you wake up in the morning

your hands a feet look like raisins

Ah ha! Now I know why everyone in Saskatchewan lives so long! The dry winters preserve them like fruit or fish!

Like this is a surprise?

Your Personality Profile

You are sexy, powerful, and bold. You're full of passion and energy... Sometimes this passion has a dark side. You feel most alive when you're seducing someone. You never fail to get someone's attention. Quick minded, you're also quick to lose your temper!

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