{ pinnacle of the week }

Well, it's 12:30 am and I am still awake and am nowhere near approaching bedtime for tonight. I've just put in the second load of laundry and I'm just starting to pack our personal belongings for Wilderness Camp. We leave tomorrow for literally the middle of nowhere (we will be 2 hours from the closest town). Today Derek, Stephen, and I went out to do a major Walmart run--we absolutely filled the car from top to bottom with all the necessities--cheap metal tongs, first aid supplies, and, of course, T.P. Tomorrow we leave the house by 8am, do our Costco food run, pack the trailer with all the gear and coolers of food, and leave by 1pm to get out there at least 4 or 5 hours ahead of the 60 others! That is what has been on my mind all day! I am overwhelmingly excited and overwhelmingly stressed. My mom compared it to planning a wedding! How true!!

In other news, aside from planning the most complex trip of my life, today I also celebrated my 22nd birthday! After we took care of all the camping concerns, we met with my family to celebrate. I was overwhelmed by so many gorgeous and thoughtful gifts!! (And frankly, I can't wait to get back home next week to put some of them to good use!!) After opening gifts and visiting with my grandma, we headed out for dinner at my favorite local Italian joint. All the food was made fresh--the warm rolls that welcomed us, the most amazing zucchini sticks you'll ever taste, and, of course, the steaming plates of assorted pastas that left us all grabbing our bellies in contented distress. It was the perfect evening.

And now, as the perfect evening progresses into a mostly sleepless night, I have nothing but the open road to look forward to tomorrow morning ...

See you all on Monday!

{ my camp experience }

Well, we just got back from our annual church family camp experience yesterday afternoon. We spent all of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday out of town at a gorgeous and very well-kept camp tucked along the shoreline of a peaceful (but weed and algae infested) lake.

I was so excited to get away and to spendtime in this camp atmosphere mostly because I remembered how amazing the camp had been last year. We had had a huge turnout, everybody was excited to plan and to be involved in all sorts of daytime and nighttime activities, we had an interesting guest speaker, and handfuls of wonderful memories were made and stored away in my mind for dull city days.

This year was an entirely different atmosphere: very few people came out, there was no guest speaker, about half of the small crowd had to come and go due to other committments, and, because of this, most of our activities were either cancelled or just not even planned in the first place. It definitely made for a dynamic different than the one that I had remembered (and had inevitably built my expectations around).

I think the most valuable moment of the camp for me was on Saturday night when a group of adults had planned to set off some fireworks over the lake. I was excited to take in the amateur show, and so I went around asking other people if they wanted to come outside to watch the show with me. Derek was busy helping someone else out, and everyone else from the group was either busy or just disinterested in the low-budget production. So, a little sulkily at first, I ventured outside the main lodge to brave the abnormally large lake mosquitos and to observe the show by myself. Just outside the lodge, directly overlooking the placid lake, was a brand new swingset that the camp had just installed. This became my perfect viewing point. I planted myself snuggly within the swing just as the bright display got underway. Of course, the show was nothing compared to the city fireworks shows for Canada Day or other holidays; nevertheless, it was exciting on a humble scale, and I was reminded of a similar show that my tiny community put on after we had all finished building a brand new playground for the school.

I pumped my legs and rose higher and higher on the swing, soaring up to the thick black sky filled with nothing but stars and the occasional bursts of the fireworks. It was silent, the lake was still, and the only wind was the breeze that my swinging had created around my face. I was alone, and I did feel truly alone. But it didn't bother me as much as it had initially. I smiled to myself in the dark of the night and leaned back as the swing took me even higher. I widened my eyes at the most colorful bursts of light and grinned as the Screamers squealed through the air. It was quite a nice little show, considering. And I had quite thoroughly enjoyed my quiet time, blanketed by such a weighty sense of peace and security all around me. In that moment, everything seemed right in the universe.

When I walked back into the lodge, my cheeks rosy from the crisp air, some people mocked the modest fireworks show. I merely shrugged and said, "It was pretty good. You should have come to watch it, too." They couldn't say anything to that.

The next day we had a time of sharing and bonding just before our hamburger lunch. Eric, a guy who is always encouraging people, shared his thoughts on each one of us in turn. When he got to me, he said, "Lisa, you are a strong woman. You are stronger than everything thinks you are. Don't forget it, and don't let other people overlook it, either." I was surprised he saw that in me, because there are so many times when I can't even see it in myself. But as he spoke those words, I remembered the night before, when I had sat alone on the swings and breathed in the beauty of the lonely night. While before that experience may have left me terrified or sullen, it had taken on a new meaning. I could do things on my own, when I needed to. I could be alone and enjoy it. I had found a slice of God as I overlooked the lake, and I didn't need any other solace than that. When push came to shove, I could do it. There was a strength flowing through me and in me that was strong enough to carry me through life, and I had tapped into a tiny trickle of it.

Sometimes I wonder if Eric knows the truth in his own words.

I was thinking about what he said, and thinking about my swingset experience. This upcoming weekend we are all heading to Wilderness Camp, where my crazy husband will lead people to scale up sheer rock walls, to white water canoe down the river rapids, to hike up to the peaks of mountains, and to delve into the heart of those mountains on a caving expedition. I had promised Derek that I would go, but I informed him sharply that I wouldn't be participating in any of those activities. After all, I couldn't. I couldn't, and I wouldn't. I just wasn't strong enough, good enough, brave enough, independent enough. He would be looking out for 65 other campers--who would look after me? No. It couldn't be done.

Those were my thoughts up until yesterday evening, when I began turning all my newfound thoughts around and around in my head. I'm not quite sure how far I will venture into the caves, but at least I will bring my flashlight and enter into them. I'm not quite sure if I'm brave enough for the canoes, but I will make a go at the eight hour trip down the river in a rubber raft, at least. I have found my confidence again. I can do it.

{ down time }

Well, the server is down for the time being, but I thought I'll write a post anyways and then y'all can catch up on reading later on (likely in early July).

Today we're headed off to Weekend #1 of camping--we are having our church's annual family camp retreat. We are headed out to a cute and very well maintained camp about 2 hours west of the city. It's a gorgeous drive out there that I only get to take once a year--I am so excited, and have been for a few weeks!

This weekend will be full of singing, swimming, canoeing, playing, and resting. What more could I ask for? What a wonderful stretch of down time to just rejeuvenate and recharge! And when I get back it's a fun-filled day of shopping with Mom and Grandma all day Monday. Tuesday is my only day of work next week, Wednesday is my birthday, and Thursday I leave with Derek and his cousin for Weekend #2 of camping--wilderness style! This will turn out to be the best week of my summer, I just know it! And that, my friends, is what you call anticipation.

"We usually get what we anticipate."
-Claude M. Bristol

{ a "shocking" night }

Was woken up around 4 am to probably the worst electrical storm I have ever witnessed in my life. We had left all the windows open because of the extremely high temperatures yesterday, only to awaken to all the blinds slamming back and forth and to the sound of all the patio furnature skidding back and forth in the wind. I shook Derek, who is the heavy sleeper between us, jumped up and ran out to close the windows. I got all the little ones closed just fine, but when it came to the big west-facing one in the living room, I chickened out. I had grown up with my mom telling me stories of people who had been electrocuted during lightening storms because they (a) had stood too close to the window or (b) had been touching metal when a bolt struck. I still, to this day, don't know how much truth these statements hold when referring to merely closing a window. If you're an expert, please let me know.

The storm blasted us with full strenth wind and rain, thunder and lightening for about twenty minutes. Our power went out twice, but luckily Derek and I had thought to unplug the laptop and expensive stereo system. We sat on the couch and stared out the patio window as my little baby lilac nearly leaned sideways. I thought for sure that it would break clean in half. But there was nothing I would do. I was not venturing out there to stand next to that metal railing. No, not I!

Just woke up and ventured outside. My lilac is fine and so are all the little flowers, thank goodness. They have all just started to bloom and I was certain that they'd lose all their glorious petals, but somehow they must have persevered and held onto them in the midst of last night's chaos.

In other news, I think I am severely allergic to something in my house? bedroom? I can't exactly be sure what it is. I thought it was hayfever (and perhaps it still is), but we're going on day 12 now and it is continuing to get WORSE instead of better. My eyes are itchy and watery all the time. I went through half a box of Kleenex again this morning. And the worst part is that this morning I woke up with a terribly itchy throat, which I have never had before. The sensation is a little spooky, actually, mostly because I know it's an abnormal and potentially dangerous one. After I post this, I will go for a walk outside to try and assess whether the sensation gets better or worse with fresh air. But, I am highly suspicious that I am allergic to something actually in my house, possibly dust or feathers (in my bedding). So, I'll have to wait and see what my informal test results yield! Will keep you posted!

{ this morning's forecast: puffy eyes and a drippy nose }

I went to bed early last night (11:00 pm is early for me) and Derek came to "tuck me in". When he did, I started sniffling and then crying, and I couldn't seem to stop, for nearly 40 minutes. He sat with me and held my hand, patient and tender dear, despite his lack of understanding. When he finally asked me what I was upset about, I realized that I couldn't tell him. In fact, I couldn't tell myself. What was I upset about?? (Girls out there, have you ever had this type of mindless blubbering experience?)

I thought about it. Why was I crying? Well, we have two very exciting camping weekends coming up over the next two weekends. This upcoming weekend we will have our annual church retreat at a gorgeous nearby camp. I am nearly jumping out of my skin with excitement--I, and I alone. No one else seems to care about anything lately. Everything is just so ho-hum. This weekend is always one of the best weekends of the entire year--we all get along well, we play games, stay up late around campfires, go canoeing, and just have a generally fun and carefree time. I can't understand why no one else even cares!!!!

"I wish other people would get as excited about things as I do ..." I whispered. "But maybe I get too excited about things and then I just let myself down." Both thoughts were hanging over my head. But at their root was just a genuine excitement for what was coming up.

In two weeks, on Canada Day long weekend, the same group of us--63 people in total, are taking over an area of the bush to go wilderness camping. Derek is organizing a caving excursion, white water canoeing, hiking, campfires, and lots and LOTS! of food. I've never camped in a tent before. I've never been in the "wilderness" before. I've never done a real mountain hike before. I AM SO EXCITED! Who else is excited?? There must be someone, but I can't seem to find them ... sigh.

Once again, though, at the root of my emotional distress is simply a nearly unbearable excitment for what is upcoming.

Then I thought about meeting Sohee, my former Korean tutoring student (adult student, I should say) turned sister-like friend, earlier in the day. I hadn't been able to meet with her for about a month because of various things going on in both of our lives. She is seven months pregnant now. The bleeding problem that she had been having has stopped, and she has been taking her rest. Her hair was down for the first time, left naturally curly. Her face glowed with a new depth of joy and wisdom. She was so beautiful, even in the midst of a foreign country, alone, abandoned by half of her family members. I felt such a swell of pride for her. I think no one could be more excited about her baby being born that I am! I will buy her anything she needs, and more! Her soft humility and newfound sense of easygoing strength astounds me. They have no money, no plans for the future, and yet their life is being blessed. In my mind I replayed our little meeting over coffee, and my love for her just swelled.

After rolling all these emotions around in my mind, I, teary-eyed, looked up at Derek and said, "I don't think I'm upset, actually. I think I'm just overwhelmed by emotion--and most of it is good. I'm so excited for the trips we'll have this summer, I'm so happy to know that Sohee is okay, I'm so excited to meet her baby this August. Why am I crying, anyways? I'm such a silly girl!"

"No, you're precious," he reassured me. Then, knowing that I was okay, he gave me a peck and darted out for a few more minutes to finish up some things on the computer.

I rolled over and let the tears keep dribbling off my nose. Thinking again about the reasons propelling the droplets out of my eyelids, I decided to dedicate each tear as a thanks offering to God.

"Lord," I whispered, "My life is full of nothing but joy and beauty and excitement and love right now. I am overwhelmed by good things and by thankfulness. Each of these tears belongs to you."

{ i'll pass along a funny story }

I am a collector of good anecdotes. I love to eat them up as other people tell them, and then I pass them along like a well-loved, dog-eared book (oftentimes to my preacher husband who sometimes works them into his Sunday sermons!). Today's passed-along story didn't make it into his sermon, but it did work its way up to my mouth to create a smile several times throughout the day. So here is the cute story:

My sister, Amy, has a good friend by the name of Julian. Both of them are studying to become Medical Laboratory Technologists in various fields. While they are going through their non-paying practicums, they both have had to get part-time jobs elsewhere. Amy works at a local hospital as an assistant in a lab while her friend Julian works at a local nursing home as the guy who puts together the senior citizens' lunch trays. For health reasons, he is required to wear a white labcoat when he works in the kitchen.

Yesterday when my dad got home from a family reunion, we got to talking about the health and circumstances of my Baba (grandmother), who is currently in a high-care nursing home and has been stubbornly refusing to take pills from anyone who is not my father. While on the topic, Amy was reminded of a related story.

"You know my friend Julian?" she asked us. We all nodded.

"Well, he works in a nursing home putting food on the lunch trays. But every once in a while, the nurses will run into the kitchen and ask him if he can come to help them with a patient. He'll follow them into the patient's room where usually a stubborn, little, old lady sits on the edge of her bed.

" 'Mrs. So-and-so,' they'll always say, 'The doctor is here, and he says you HAVE to take your pills, dear. Isn't that right, Doctor?' And then they'll look at Julian and he'll just nod very silently and thoughtfully.

" 'Oh, all right,' the little old lady will usually oblige. The nurse will hand her the pill which has just so recently been the cause of so much arguing, and she'll swallow it obediently in the 'doctor's' presence."

In the meantime, "Dr." Julian steals back to the kitchen to finish placing Jello and tea bags on trays.

Amy laughed as she told the story. We all laughed once she had finished. Twice, I laughed out loud today when I thought of the situation again.

Did it make you chuckle, too?

{ another rainy day }

Today I can see actual, significant puddles forming outside my window. And they're not just any puddles--they're mostly mud puddles in that empty lot next door. Despite my recent escapades in the mud, I have no desire to go romping through mud puddles today. It is entirely cold and dismal out there.

Last night I returned to the junior high where I taught from February to April for my 9 week practicum. The kids were excited to see me!! The minute I walked up to the front doors, I got the hand-punch-greeting (it has replaced high fives amongst the coolest kids) from my favorite student. I didn't let on, but I was thrilled! Most teachers cannot be sure if their students actually liked them.

I clapped for every student during their little awarding-of-the-scroll ceremony. They had put together a really nice slideshow and had themed the whole evening around "Classic Hollywood", so it was really, well, classy. All the kids looked amazing. Another of my students, a boy who always reminded me of "Boston Rob" off of Survivor, dressed in a white tux jacket with black pants. Man! These kids sure clean up well! Although not one of the "cool" kids, he had his share of attention from the ladies at the dance! Hee hee!

The one thing I really couldn't get over, though, was how sexual these grade niners are nowadays! Maybe I was a tad "out of the loop" when I was in grade nine, but still! The way they grind each other and wiggle around in their boob-popping dresses blew my mind! If I was like that in grade nine, trust me, I can be sure that I would have been killed multiple times by multiple people! Yikes!

As for the rest of this weekend, many plans have been put off by the rain--we were supposed to have a fundraiser carwash and BBQ at church, but obviously it's been cancelled now. So perhaps Derek and I will take a drive to look at some expensive homes he found out near the country (we're such dreamers! haha!) and maybe I can sip a Starbucks cafe au lait, courtesy of my gift card. Mmm!

{ pensively pondering }

What does it take to be a writer?
And do I have it?
And when can I start?
And how do I start?
And where do I go?
And how big should I dream?

How big should I dream?

{ mud. }

Memories of Saturday night include me collapsing on the couch while Derek went to worship band practise and his return home when we didn't have anything creative to do together. So we went out, venturing to do what we love doing most these recent late nights: we went for a walk. Since the area we live in is new, it has quite a good mix of perfectly boring and perfectly adventurous. There are few to no trees because for some reason all these new developers think that trees are unimportant. Thus, they cut down all the forests in their way and replant only the tiniest saplings which never seem to amount to much more than just saplings. But I digress. The neighborhood is boring because it is treeless, nearly yardless, and quiet--we hardly ever see children, even though we see traces of them (a bicycle thrown down on the grass, fading sidewalk chalk drawings beneath our feet, a jungle gym in an open garage).

But I can't complain about the stillness. At night around here, everything is perfectly still. It feels like Derek and I are the last humans alive on earth, wandering around in some type of post-destructed world, alone, but in love.

The adventure is there because despite the stillness, our neighborhood is still more dynamic than static. Things are changing all the time. Yesterday our neighbors had no fence. Today they have a fence! Garages pop up in a period of 16 hours or so. The developer comes to plant beautiful potted flowers at the entrance way. People lay sod and things suddenly seem brighter, more alive. A whole street that was empty last week now has six houses standing in a row. Our curiosity gets the better of us at night and we go investigating.

The other day we discovered that just behind our neighborhood is a tiny remnant of a farmer's field. There were no crops, but only long grasses and hay bales dotting the landscape. Naturally we climbed to the top of the only hill in sight and attempted to climb atop the hay bale on its peak. Derek hoisted me up, but I wasn't able to pull him up after me. He tried pulling himself up, but was left with handfuls of hay. He tried getting a running start but only managed to nearly roll the thing, which left me emitting girlish shrieks while he returned mishchievous, boyish giggles.

Saturday night, however, we walked a different way. We left the confines of our little neighborhood and ventured out to explore the new overpass that they just opened. We walked on the smooth new sidewalk and peered down over the edges of the steely railing to the freeway construction site that sat silently far below. We marvelled that the workers just left everything out when they left for the day. You could almost tell what people had been doing at quitting time. That guy had been putting bolts in a section of the railing (the bolts now sat on a slab of concrete, waiting for his return tomorrow). A bobcat was perched in almost mid-shovel position. Tomorrow its worker would return to shovel up that last bit of earth. The fluidity between days struck us as funny for some reason.

We walked over the entire overpass (which, we decided, seemed much longer by foot than by car) and then decided to walk on the old road which we had been driving on up until last week. We walked down a small path and reached the road only to discover that it had already been destroyed by the crews; they had chewed it up and dug it down at least ten or fifteen feet! I, who, as you know, don't handle change well, just sat and stared, marvelling in the fact that a few days ago we drove on this tiny country road every day to get to our house, and now it was nothing. It was smithereens! It blew my mind.

"I can't believe it's gone!" I said. "It's a little ..."

"Sad?" Derek finished for me. I nodded. "You're funny," he said. "It's just a road."

But in his eyes I think I saw a twinkling of understanding.

We walked where the quaint old road used to be. We thought it looked crusty and dry but we neglected to consider the day's worth of rain that had fallen only hours before. We started walking and were maybe a hundred feet in when everything turned to mud. Derek was wearing sandals and I think he was a little annoyed. I was wearing clean white shoes. Normally, I would have been more annoyed than him, but for some reason I found the whole situation hilarious. I started to laugh and prance around like a little kid. Mudcakes grew and grew on the soles of my shoes until my feet were so heavy I could hardly take my next steps.

"Look at my shoes!!" I shouted! Derek laughed. His were not nearly as bad as mine. "My feet are so heavy!"

"It'll fall off when it gets too heavy to support its own weight," he stated, always seeming scientific and knowledgable.

Able to do nothing about the muddy situation, we pressed forward (it was too late to turn back). The mud kept getting worse, my feet kept getting heavier. I commented to Derek that it was like being on the surface of the moon. There were all these craters and pocks all around us, we were the only two around, and I was wearing these heavy moon boots to keep me weighted to the moon's surface, lest I floated off into deep space.

"You have such a crazy imagination," he said. But he smiled.

That was my favorite weekend moment together. Just us, just a crazy mini adventure to discover together. And a lot of mud to work off our shoes once we got home. We stood on the grassy meridian of the main road and did the moonwalk and the twist to try and get the mud to cling to the grass instead of our shoes. People in cars drove by and gave us funny looks.

"We probably do look pretty funny," I giggled, as we twisted and slid back and forth on our slimy shoes.

Yesterday I folded down the cuff of my pants to get ready for my horrid eight hour shift of making tacos and scooping ice cream. I was depressed until the cuff came down and a huge chunk of dried, caked mud landed on the carpet. I started giggling all over again. That memory would be enough to get me through another dull day, until we could venture on another one of our walks.

{ movie meme }

This movie meme was passed along to me by Amy.

Total number of films I own on DVD and video:
37, all DVDs.

Last film I bought:
Derek and I bought Finding Neverland and The Terminal last Friday at Blockbuster. We make it our new habit to look for good previously viewed (read: cheap) DVDs whenever we have a hankering to rent something.

Last film I watched:

On a couch? Finding Neverland. We all watched it together at the marriage retreat last Friday night.

In a movie theatre? The Interpreter starring Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn. Derek and I went to a movie last Tuesday for our anniversary. We originally sat down in Madagascar but we got up and left 15 minutes into it (we've never done that before) because we weren't laughing at ANY of the parts we were supposed to be laughing at. We still had half an hour to spare so we went to see The Interpreter across the hall instead. It was a really great film, for its type (suspense, thriller).

Five films that I watch a lot or that mean a lot to me (in no particular order):

Little Women, starring Winona Ryder, Kirsten Dunst, and Claire Danes. I love this timeless classic. It was always the movie that my sister and I would watch whenever we were sick, sad, bored, or stuck in the basement on a rainy or sweltering day. However, I usually want to stop watching after the first half (when they are young)--I wish Jo would have married Laurie instead!

Jurassic Park. I always wanted to be a palaeontologist as a kid, so when this movie came out, I was wide-eyed the whole way through. I also remember that it was the first PG-13 movie that I ever saw--in fact, I was the only one of us three kids that was allowed to see it. I went with my mom and grandma to see it in this old-fashioned movie theatre that we have in town. I think I clawed the armrest to death as I attempted to sit through it without closing my eyes in tremulous fear. But as soon as it was out on video, my parents bought it and I watched it again and again and again, marvelling at the fantastic concept of the whole thing every time.

Under the Tuscan Sun. I just love how empowering this movie is. After I watch it, I just feel like a woman who can go out and take on the world, and who can make it in this life no matter what comes my way. I also love the exotic charm of Italy, a place where I myself dream of visiting one day.

The Sandlot. Another one of those movies that I grew up watching nearly a million times, huddled together with my brother and sister as we laughed our heads off and anticipated all our favorite lines. In fact, we watched it so often that I remember when, one time when there was a power outage, we sat and recited probably a good 85% of the movie from sheer memory.

Return to Oz. No one I know has ever heard of this movie, much less seen it. It was created as a sequel-type movie to the original classic, the Wizard of Oz. Some of the characters are altered and some are new altogether, but I adored this movie growing up. I still like it! And there are a lot of inside jokes that my family has taken straight out of this movie (making references to "the wheelers", for example). It's old, but if you can find it at a movie rental place, it's a lot of fun.

I hereby propagate this meme in the direction of...

bellechanson
Just a Feeling

{ an old homestead, purple phlox, and a memory }

Yesterday my mom and I went out and about, running errands and treating ourself to little goodies, thanks to our loaded Starbucks gift cards. After another stop at Canadian Tire for some more nice, black earth, my mom began to head home. At the last minute, she drove straight past the turnoff to her house.

"Where are you going?" I asked her.

"There's one more thing that I wanted to look at today. It's not far."

We drove back into the hub of the commercial and retail business sector, passing McDonalds, Wendy's, and Mr. Sub on our way. Finally my mom took a back route and pulled into a parking lot behind a car dealership and across the street from a Tim Horton's.

"This is the spot," she declared.

"The spot for what?"

"This field has the most beautiful perennials come up every year and I'm going to dig some out for my garden."

I squinted across the huge field which looked mostly full of waste-high dying grass and wind-strewn garbage from the fast food joints. But nearer into the middle of the field I could see what she was talking about. The most brilliantly purple flowers were standing tall and healthy, swaying in the breeze. My mom got out to explore while I stayed in the car to calm Josie, our frenzied half poodle, who has a severe and lasting case of separation anxiety.

I watched my mom root around in the tall grass for a few minutes, inspecting the soil and the flowers themselves. Finally, she came back with just a cutting off the top of one of the plants. "I want to see if it's the flower that I think it is. If so, it'll match some that I already have at the back of the yard."

So, off we went, for the time being. On the way home, Mom started to explain to me how she knew about those flowers. We'd driven by that field literally hundreds of times before, and I'd never noticed them.

"That used to be an old homestead, you know. One of the original houses in this neighborhood. It was still there when you were little--right in the middle of all these other businesses, but they let it stay. Sometimes we would go get dinner at that McDonalds and then come park over here with you and Amy, just on the edge of that house's property. We would watch people come and go, because there were always people milling around. The people who lived there were probably partiers and drinkers because you never knew who would be coming and going.

"Do you know when I was out there picking those flowers I looked down to see the soil and there was a little plastic toy horse right by my foot? The kind that you used to get in the Cowboys and Indians sets they used to have. It was missing its tail, but otherwise it was in fine condition."

"Somebody probably chewed the tail off it like Dad used to do when he was a kid," I said. I've seen my dad's childhood toys and that is the exact state all of them were in. Poor, tailless creatures.

Mom continued, "So I bet that little horse has just been lying there since they tore the house down years ago. Do you know why they tore the house down? Somebody was murdered inside of it. Stabbed or shot, I can't remember. But they were murdered on exactly one of the nights when we happened to grab McDonalds with you kids and come park out here, just watching the people come and go. We left, and a few hours later we heard the breaking news. It seems we had only missed it by a few hours."

I got a bit of a shiver. It was a little creepy, to be hearing this tiny fragment of my childhood life that existed, until now, nowhere in my memory or consciousness. Creepy, but a little cool. I'm a little like my mom in that way.

Just as she wrapped up the story, we pulled up onto our street and made our way into the house. My mom got out her gardening book with the glossy color photos and she began flipping through it until she landed on phlox. The variety she later returned to dig up is Garden Phlox, or phlox paniculata. Although they come in a variety of colors, I think purple is the most stunning (and believe me, I'm not a big fan of purple, ordinarily).

I had to head to work after that, and my mom returned to dig up several plants without me. I called her at 11:00 last night to ask her if she had been successful.

"Did you dig them up?" I asked.

"Dug them and already planted them with the others," she said.

Another topic we had discussed that afternoon was the concept of flower sharing. I had recently read a topic on another blog where someone has a living iris in her garden that came from her husband's great-grandmother, all the way from Canada to a quaint garden in New Hampshire. This concept of flower sharing intrigued me. What a way for a memory to live on. And now to think, a tiny piece of that antiqued homestead is living on in my mother's garden. Maybe when I have my own house with a tiny garden, I can share in a piece of it, too.

{ redirection }

I would like to point you all to this intriguing and possibly "summer-changing" entry by Andrea at Superhero Journal. Try out what she has in mind; I think I'm going to.

{ so seventeen years comes down to today }

This morning in approximately two hours time I will be officially convocating and thereby graduating from University with my Bachelor of Education degree (with Distinction). I couldn't realize the reality of it until just last night when, around midnight, I had to iron my own grad gown. This was my grad gown that I would be graduating in! After seventeen consecutive years of school, it's finally finished. It was both surreal and real, joyful and a little sad. You know my personality from previous entries--the finality of anything, even when I have been looking forward to it, is twinged with a certain sadness and nostalgia. I love school. I could go to school my whole life, study, learn, write papers, run the whole gamut. So who knows, maybe I will go back one day--who ever really knows what the future holds?

For me, all I know is that my immediate future includes brushing my teeth till they shine, loading my camera up with film, wrestling my flat and pleated gown gently into the car, and getting ready to walk across that stage for my moment of glory.

When I post later today or tomorrow, I will have my degree! See you on the flip side!

{ what would our disney team name be? }

Picture this: last night we headed into our fifth softball game of the season (my first, due to work). The sky is overcast and is looming just above us, threatening rain any minute. As Derek and I pull up, the other team, all seventeen of them, is getting ready to pummel us--they are the city champions four years running. They have uniforms and tapered, spandex baseball pants with cleats and a small travelling crowd to cheer them on.

I shift my glance to where our team sits: there are five of them, one of whom I don't recognize. I later find out that he is our coach's co-worker who was begged out to the game. Derek and I make seven and a few minutes later our man number eight shows up. Can we really play baseball with just eight people? We are all a little dubious, but Peter, our coach, is determined not to back down. The other team offers to lend us one man, so we accept and are glad to have him (especially because he's such a good sport).

At any rate, even with our loaner team member, we were still severely short-handed. The coach's co-worker who showed up to help us out? He had never played baseball (or even catch) in his life. He turned to me two minutes before the game started and said, "I don't know if I can catch. I don't know if I can throw. What position should I play?" We just looked at each other and laughed. I assured him, "Don't worry, you're probably better than me!"

We were quite the sight, the nine of us. We managed to pull off all the vital field positions. I can honestly say that we all tried our hardest; nevertheless, I still found myself giggling at all the worst times. I asked Dennis where I should stand in the field (because I didn't know). "Here," he instructed me, "Just stand near this patch of dandelions and you'll be fine."

We were straight out of a Walt Disney underdog movie! We were like The Mighty Ducks when all they had was one or two whiz kids, a handful of people who didn't really know what they were doing, and a couple of girls! And as if that wasn't laughable enough, we were playing the city champions who were all decked out in every kind of professional gear they could lay their hands on, who could catch and throw like superstars, and whose coach could have been the charming-looking bad guy.

Honestly, you had to be there. You would have laughed as much as I did.

Anyways, we lost the game, but surprisingly, we did better than we did last week when we had a full team and played against a team of our own skill level! So, in our own little way, I guess we pulled it off after all!

{ june: experiments in eating }

Seeing how June has Derek and I forcasting the tightest budget we'll have ever had to live on (even that is a severe understatement), we would like to try something new with our eating habits: we will plan our meals in advance. I have always heard of people who did this, and they have always raved on and on about how much money they save, but I still never was willing to give it a whirl for myself. But this month, the time has come.

We usually waste so much money eating out or grabbing ready-made things when we are too tired to cook. I have already looked ahead and planned out nine SIMPLE recipes with SIMPLE ingredients that I can make. I typed out all the recipes to keep them on hand, and then I compiled a very concise grocery list of the things I will need to pick up (that way I can just stick to the things I need). I have tried to order things so that I will put recipes with similar produce items close to each other (that way I can use up all the green onions before they rot).

So--are any of you up for a challenge? I have planned out nine of these simple recipes (many are stir-frys, and other simple "one-pot" dishes). I still need to find some more great (yet simple) recipes to use this month. Keep in mind that the objective is to save money, so they need to also have cheap and accessible ingredients. If any of you have a recipe that fits these stipulations, then I am totally up for cooking it and trying it out! Drop a comment or email me if you'd like.

This month of June will be an experiment in eating, and this blog will be here to record the progress of that experiment (and the success of all of the recipes tried). Tune in next week for the earliest results (I am out of town this weekend, so the experiment will have to wait 3 more days!)

{ something interesting i overheard while eavesdropping }

Said Lady A to Lady B: "My mother always had a cleaning lady, but she would do most of the cleaning before the cleaning lady even got there. I mean, she would get on her hands and knees with a toothbrush around the base of the toilet and scrub it all clean. She didn't want the cleaning lady to think she was a dirty person."

{ my thumb is not yet green }

For the past two afternoons I have been following my mom around like a bit of a lost puppy trailing after her as we hit up Rona, Home Depot, Canadian Tire, and a couple smaller-scale greenhouses for bedding plants and flowers. My mom keeps several glorious gardens every summer and I never quite understood her love of gardening until last year when I started a tiny garden of my own.

The patio of our condo is really quite large--probably somewhere in the realm of 8 feet by 6 feet. Last spring and summer I spent all the extra spending money I had stocking up on pretty planters, pots, and flowers. I even bought myself a mini lilac tree (which, although very late, it is just starting to come alive again! I am so excited!). Having my own little piece of land, even if it was only potted land made me realize the joys of gardening. There was something so fulfilling about taking off all my rings, putting on some of my scrubbiest clothes, and working in the earth with my hands. It felt like some primitive re-establishment of the age-old bond between man and nature, and I had never felt anything quite like it.

This spring I have been itching to restart my garden and to get out there and look for some beautiful annuals to fill my pots up with. So, trailing after my mom, who kept filling up flats and flats with flowers to cart home, I began to plan things out in my head. Around my little lilac I would love to love to plant scotch moss--I am assuming that it will spread nicely and fill in the space around the trunk. I will also plant some snapdragons, some portulacas (mixed colors), some pretty varigated leafy plants, and, well, whatever else my heart desires!

Once my garden is finished this year, I am looking forward to having an old fashioned English Tea Party out on my patio, complete with fancy teas and lemonades in fancy cups, dainty little cucumber and egg salad sandwiches, and small homemade squares and cakes. It would be so much fun on a warm summer day, with all us girls wearing our prettiest sundresses, don't you think?

Anyways, by the end of the week I will "prepare my dirt" (as my mom always says)--I will break up the hard clods left behind by a dry central Canadian winter, add some fresh new black dirt, and I will be ready to create my favorite outdoor summer space.