Category Archives: Blessings

Weekend Update, Concert Reminder, Etc

Back home safe and sound from our clan gathering in PA. There was a five year hiatus between the last gathering and this one, and we missed that thanks to a little man who was overly insistent on getting involved in the world, so it’s been six years for us. We saw much-loved faces, made new friends, and are revitalised. I’d like to try to do a point form roundup so as not to forget some of what happened, but that will probably have to be tomorrow. I’ve spent today so far unpacking and handling the pile of correspondence and house chores that accumulated over the past five days, including the e-mails from one work department that got more and more frantic when I didn’t respond. (I promise, I did notify the appropriate people; apparently no one else checked to see if I was on vacation.)

We picked the boy up this morning and I got lots of hugs. Not clingy hugs, but very-glad-you’re-here hugs. Like us, he had a great time, but it’s always nice to be back with one’s family in one’s home. We promised that he gets to come with us in four years’ time for the next gathering.

And now: Concert! (Did I remember to post this here? I know I did in a couple of other places.

Canada Day! Thursday! 20h00! St-Joachim in Pointe-Claire Village! Free admission! Freaking awesome music!

I should leave it like that. Heh. But here’s the more dignified version. No, wait, I’ll make it its own post.

Five Years Old!

Five years ago today, during a humid heatwave that was nothing like the cool damp weather we’re having these days, we unexpectedly found ourselves with someone who wasn’t scheduled to arrive till after the Wicca book proofs were handed in um till after the first draft of the green witch book had been handed in er till the nursery was ready well till we were fully unpacked from the move for another nine weeks.

One…

Two…

Three…

Four…

FIVE!

Last night after he went to bed I put up some of his party decorations (we’re doing a space theme this year, since he is newly obsessed with the space shuttle) and got his present ready by the side of our bed, because in the past he has bounded into our room for a first-thing-in-the-morning birthday thing. Today HRH had to go scoop him up out of his bed, although I think he was already awake, and carry him to ours, where he burrowed under the covers for a moment before popping upright and saying, “I’m five now!” We sang Happy Birthday to him and gave him his present, and he hugged us both before unwrapping it. Lo and behold, there was the Lego Atlantis submarine he had repeatedly told us he wanted. “You got me what I asked for! Thank you!” he said, and gave us both another huge hug. (The original plan was to get him the Playmobil police station, but he had stuck to the submarine request for a month, so it was clear to us that it was what he really wanted. The station can wait till Christmas.) Then I made pancakes for everyone as a special weekday treat, and I put a birthday candle in the boy’s buttered and maple-syruped stack, which amused him.

His building skills are extraordinary. The educators at school kept a biplane he assembled from Lego, but he can do pretty much anything with any kind of set like Knex or Tinker Toys. It shouldn’t surprise me because HRH is really excellent at three-dimensional modelling, too, but when I get comments from educators I listen a bit more closely. I’m also impressed at how he can follow the instruction booklets, something else HRH has taught him. (I will, however, be the one to teach him how to read the instruction booklets that come with video games, because HRH doesn’t even look at those.) Seriously, I’m going to start hiring him out to assemble Ikea furniture for people, because if he can assemble advanced Lego sets by reading the pictorial instructions, then Ikea furniture should be a breeze.

He has decided that perhaps he will not play the cello after all; perhaps the violin is where he wants to go instead, which is fine. He will probably never know how much of a gift he gave me when I met him after his kindergarten orientation day two weeks ago, and he said, “Mama, I have to show you… there’s a whole music room in this school!” He showed me the piano and touched the keys gently and lovingly, and he would have stood there for an hour with it if HRH hadn’t herded us out. I’m thankful that he loves music enough to want to play anything. The excitement on his face when I told him about the little strings-only music school that runs in the area in which we’re house-hunting was wonderful. Whether he ends up playing the cello like me or a violin, or even branching out into wind or brass instruments, or chooses piano or guitar or percussion, I will support him with love and find the necessary equipment and education. And again, just as I’m not surprised at his three-dimensional modelling and building skills, his love of music doesn’t surprise me either; you learn what’s around you. He makes up songs that are make rhythmic and make metre-sense, knows how to insert words or sounds into existing songs and match the beat, and loves to sing along to soundtracks.

Reading is coming along. He knows how to spell out the word he sees, then sound out each letter (if we can break him of the habit of sounding each letter out twice the way they do on Super Why, it will make hearing the word in his head much easier for him), and he’s starting to break the whole-word pattern down into smaller patterns to sound out. This morning he looked at the Atlantis logo on his Lego box and said, “That almost looks like it spells ‘Atlantis.'” And I give him full marks for that, because the font is highly graphic and the letters don’t look like the ones he’s used to. We had this problem with the Via train logo a few months ago because the A doesn’t have a bar across it, so he knows now that sometimes letters don’t look exactly alike all the time, depending on their design. We’ve been working on sounding things out and recognising repeated words or patterns (like ‘ch’ makes its own unique sound, it’s not ‘k-h’, and the word ‘the’ spells ‘the’ no matter where it is on the page), and he ran to find HRH one day when he read a whole sentence from a Mr. Putter & Tabby book ( “It was summer and the weather was very hot”, just for the record).

Recent films he has been into include The Lion King (and believe me, you haven’t lived until you’ve been in the car with the boy singing ‘I Just Can’t Wait to be King’ at the top of his voice, something that makes HRH want to burst with joy) and Atlantis, which has initiated a whole discussion about the Atlantis myth. He looked at us this morning and said, “You mean it’s a real place?”, to which we responded with an explanation of what a legend is. He decided we should build a three-man sub and go looking for it ourselves.

He’s pretty open to any kind of food, except when he’s not, which is typical of any kid, I think. The big stumbling block seems to be tomato sauce. I made him a bechamel-based lasagna that he ate with gusto and complimented me on; the recipe needs refinement, but we’ll work on it. He also has a thing about onions, and doesn’t want them anywhere near his plate. He loves pasta tossed with garlic butter, likes the idea of lobster but passes on it every time, and no longer is interested in salmon or shrimp. He gets excited about pork chops, and has lately been manfully eating the salad we put on his plate. I don’t know when we stopped preparing a separate meal for him in certain cases, but we haven’t done it in ages; he eats what we eat, or he doesn’t eat at all.

We haven’t had a doctor’s appointment since December, but we know he’s about 42 lbs and about a metre plus eight centimetres tall. He wears size 4 or 5 shirts, size 4 pants, and size 11 shoes (!!!). He sleeps about ten hours at night; naps officially ended a month or so ago, although we still suggest one on hard days or when he’s sick and he’s usually willing to do it. Otherwise, quiet time is good.

He’s five now, and as I have previously mentioned I’m going to officially cease the monthly posts here. They’re great records for me, but they take a lot of energy to assemble, so from now on I’m going to do boy-themed posts as they come up instead. I wanted to end this monthly review series with some kind of huge flourish, but instead there’s just the figurative bang of the back door as it closes behind our boy, who has run out into the backyard looking for adventure, leaving us inside with a cup of tea, wondering where the past five years have gone and what the next five will bring.

Good Things

1. The leaves on the lilacs out back are ready to pop. They’re so excited about spring that even the branches have a green tinge to them.

2. This morning, thanks to a post on a weaver’s Yahoogroup I belong to, I followed a link to an Etsy listing, and I FOUND OUT WHAT MAKE MY LOOM IS! Yes, those are all caps, and no, I didn’t think I would be this excited about it, either. Turns out I have a Structo Artcraft 600 loom, probably from the late 1930s judging from the iron levers, when they stopped making toy looms and started making real ones. And just with that wee bit of knowledge I tracked down some Structo history, a Yahoogroup devoted entirely to Structo looms (where I found the original owner’s manual in pdf form with the original patterns done for it by a well-known weaver of the time), and had the excitement of adding my loom’s specs to my profile on Weavolution (sometimes referred to as “the weavers’ Ravelry”). I am so thrilled. There’s a whole subculture of Structo loom owners out there, and they’re considered sturdy workhorses with flexibility. Hmm, sounds like my Louet spinning wheel…

3. The taxes got done on Friday. It didn’t take as long as I expected it to because I had fewer receipts and such to sort out than previous years. I made more than I thought I did last year (the Canadian equivalent for my anthology editing fee was more than I remembered it being) and I spent much less, mostly because I wasn’t working on an original contracted book and so didn’t need the research materials. (Well, there’s also the fact that my two major purchases were a cello and a spinning wheel, neither of which qualify as work expenses.) I’ll probably break even, which is no fun because I was hoping for a couple of thousand back to dump on my Visa, or into my very empty ING account. But bundled together with HRH and with the RRSP tax credit, we’ll probably be okay. It’s done, which is the main thing.

4. My mum goes in for hip replacement surgery today. Keep her in your thoughts!

5. I have a pot of beautiful purple hyacinths that the boys brought home for me last week. They bloomed and now the entire house smells like spring. And I saw two little crocuses (crocii?) just about ready to open up in the front garden yesterday.

6. The concert rocked! More on that in the weekend roundup, which is next.

Monday!

Yes, it deserves an exclamation point. It is Monday, my son is at school for the first time in seven days, and it’s gloriously sunny out there. Lovely things happened this weekend, although it was much too closely scheduled and stressed me out that way, and I’m thoroughly drained from the week of dealing with a boy who was home only so that he wouldn’t pass his cold along, because he certainly had the energy to go.

The roundup will follow at some point. I hope everyone has a fabulous day.

It’s Imbolc today/tomorrow/when the sun hits 15 degrees of Aquarius, however you celebrate it. I’m going for a week-long thing, myself. We started with pagan playgroup yesterday, and lit candles to Brigid this morning and read about the things she’s associated with with before the boy went to school. So a blessed Imbolc to one and all, or Candlemas, or la Feile Bride, whatever you call it. May all your groundhogs assure you of an early spring.

2009 In Review

Better late than never. I’ve had this sitting in a file on my desktop, and I haven’t posted it because I was sure there was something I was forgetting. (There was: Neil Gaiman. Only the most exciting assignment I’ve ever been given, ever. Duh.)


Things I Did In 2009 That I Have Never Done Before:

Bought a brand-new cello.
Bought a spinning wheel and started spinning.
Joined a third social networking site (Twitter, which I vastly prefer to Facebook; I find FB very annoying, with a heck of a lot more noise than actual signal).
Canned a whole pile of garden tomatoes.
Performed a spiritual handfasting ceremony for two dear friends (not the same as legally marrying a couple, which I did for t! and Janice).
Sold my primary musical instrument (to someone very deserving!).
Bought my first Apple product, a Mac mini.
Interviewed Neil Gaiman in person.


Things I Did in 2009 Of Which I Am Proud:

I bought a new cello. If you follow my journal regularly you were privy to the angst I felt about the whole buying a new 7/8 cello when the 4/4 I had was so very excellent an instrument. This was a huge issue for me, because I had to deal with my preconceptions regarding thrift and what I deserve versus going overboard, and what constitutes any of those things. I am very, very happy with my choice to sell my first cello and buy this brand-new 7/8. The sound is evolving nicely and we play well together. We’re a good fit. This was HUGE for me. I am so very proud of myself for taking this enormously weighty step.

I am very proud of not quitting my cello lessons. As of mid-October it was one full year of lessons down, and I can tell that my technique has improved by leaps and bounds. I wasn’t ever really in danger of quitting them entirely, but I came close to asking to move to a biweekly schedule for the sake of finances, a move that would have had negative repercussions on my development.

I am proud of sticking it out in second chair at orchestra and not asking to be moved. I really, really struggled with the music this past fall, and I came very close to asking to be switched. Actually, I did ask, indirectly; I told the section leader that if she wanted to rotate me to the back to give someone else a chance, I’d be fine with that. She immediately vetoed that idea, which felt nice on one hand, but made my heart sink a little on the other. I’m sure this is very character-building for me.

I am thrilled with, and proud of, switching to a Mac computer. I’m pretty set in my ways (mainly because it takes energy to learn something new and there’s not a lot of that to spare) and learning a whole new interaction with a computer system was a bit intimidating. Apple made it very easy for me, though, and I’m terribly pleased with the whole affair. I vastly prefer it to Windows machines.

I am freakishly proud of stepping into the spinning hobby. Like the 7/8 cello and the move to a Mac, I researched exhaustively for months (rash is nowhere near my middle name) and finally decided to buy a spinning wheel. I thank Ceri form the bottom of my heart for giving me the early birthday present of a spindle workshop last spring.

And finally, I am also proud of the interview with Neil Gaiman. Not only did I step up to the plate and take the assignment from the lovely and talented Tamu at fps magazine instead of backing down because it would have been easier, but I actually got through it without fainting or choking or forgetting how to speak English. It was also just a pleasure to meet him and talk for twenty minutes. He is a wonderful person.

Good Things About 2009:

Taking up spinning. I can’t communicate how deeply this has affected me. It relaxes me, engages a part of my mind that I haven’t often engaged, and occupies my mind just enough to let everything else settle. Plus I get pretty yarn out of it.

Like last year I’m sure there’s more, of course; a lot of this year was good. But these are what stand out in my memory. I am still thankful for my friends, appreciative of them and their strengths, proud of their accomplishments and successes, and love spending time with them. I’ve also further refined my stop-spending-time-with-people-who-drain-me technique, with excellent benefits to my psyche and physical health. And I’m still working on the maintaining a decent balance as regards my physical energy, too, which goes well enough now that I understand I have to manage the energy carefully thanks to fibro.

Not-So-Good Things About 2009:

Scarlet fever. Come on. I mean, really. (Not that it was bad, just annoying. It was nowhere near as awful as the time I had it as a kid. I was fully operational and non-delirious the entire time. But still – scarlet fever?)

How Did I Do With My 2009 Wishes?

Further refine and develop my cello skills
Yay!

Finish and polish and start querying Orchestrated
Finished writing it and did a full edit on it, which is two out of three, anyway. Then the last quarter of 2009 happened and bam.

Keep on writing
Um. My writing has really, really, fallen by the wayside. I’m so tired that I can’t think ideas through any more. This really upsets me on one level, but on another I don’t have the energy to be upset. I suspect I’m shifting into a more editorial phase of my career, and you know, that’s just fine right now. After five books for the publisher and two and a half for myself over the past six years, I figure I’m entitled to some down time.

Start making all our own pasta
Fail! And all due to the unwillingness to invest in a pasta maker or attachment for the KitchenAid.

Plant, harvest, and preserve more vegetables from the garden
Win! We enlarged the garden by a quarter this year and got a really good crop of tomatoes, lettuce, peas, and carrots. We had a surprise cucumber plant emerge three months after we’d planted the seeds. The potatoes really worked well this summer, too, and they were delicious, although we didn’t’ get anything like a big yield (better than last year’s afterthought experiment, though). Our green onions did well too, but they were so small that it was hard to use them. It felt like I was wasting more than I actually got into the pot. Perhaps not the most efficient of crops; maybe full-size onions next year.

Save more money
Well, debt accumulation has been stopped in its tracks, but paying it off is happening very, very slowly. Part of this has to do with my income readjusting, since I no longer consult with the publisher and get large chunks of money as a result; I get smaller amounts trickling in on a pretty regular basis.


Wishes for 2010:

1. Further focus my energy on a smaller group of friends. This means narrowing my online circles as well as real life. I just don’t have the energy or the time; I can’t help or support everyone. HRH has already begun doing this in his own way. It’s not that I don’t like certain people with whom I’m easing myself out of a closer sphere of interaction; it’s mostly that I can see there are people who end up causing me exhaustion both mental and emotional, whether I enjoy interacting with them or not (and that covers both online and/or off).

2. Focus on my spinning. I going to let this be my relaxing thing for the year, and I’m not going to worry about using what I spin. A couple of months ago I decided that in early 2010 I’d open an Etsy shop and list stuff there as I spin it, and hey, if it sells, then I recoup the money for the fibre and some of the time, and I get to do more. It’s the process I love, not the product to be used for a specific project of mine. (Actually, I do love the product; I adore looking at skeins of yarn I’ve spun, and petting them, too. I just don’t want to be saddled with piles of them that I’ll never use.)

In Summary:

If I had to assign a value to 2009, I’d say that again, it’s been an overall good year. Watching the boy grow and develop in leaps and bounds (if one more person tells me that he’s ahead of his peer group in language, social, and physical terms I may pull my hair out) has been fabulous. HRH got his permanency, which means barring humungous disaster, we’ll be okay for the next twenty-five years as pertains to his career. We’re looking at a move to the south shore in 2010 as well, to be closer to HRH’s job and the boy’s kindergarten. I hate moving, but I’m actually looking forward to this because eof what it means to us.

So here’s to a quiet, successful, fulfilling 2010.

Nowell!

A lovely, lovely carol singalong tonight with the Preston-LeBlancs, marred only by the boy’s meltdown when it got to be an hour past his bed time (first because he wanted to go home, then because he wanted to stay). We did get there later than I wanted to, because the boys got home later than I expected, but we had a wonderful time when we settled down at last. We had a lovely buffet of hot hors d’oeuvres and cheese and nummy little things, and drinks, and opened presents before turning to the music. Both sets of children were enchanted with their respective gifts, and other than the same CD we exchange every year (no, it’s not like regifting fruitcake; every year we buy one another a specific CD so we both have a copy), they gave me a print of one of my favourite Waterhouse paintings, St. Cecelia, which positively glowed in its heavy gilt frame when we saw it in person last month at the MMFA exhibition. The reproduction is surprisingly good, much better than most of those done of Waterhouse’s other works.

We were a guitar, a recorder, and a cello, each sightreading; always interesting! The adults gamely improvised Jingle Bells and Frosty the Snowman for the kids, and we had lovely versions of Away in a Manger and Silent Night, and courageous attempts at other carols. The boy squeezed in between my oldest goddaughter and myself and we sang Silent Night together (this version was all open strings on the cello, so I didn’t need to actually read the music), the boy looking up at me with a smile and copying the shapes of my mouth to sing the sounds. With his quickness at absorbing music and words, it ought to be easy to familiarise him with the traditional carols like the Gloucestershire Carol, Coventry Carol, and the Holly and the Ivy. I foresee a proper Solstice mix CD next winter.

I love this tradition our godfamilies share. Most of us could have kept on playing for a good long time, but small persons have their limits. Next year, we’ll definitely do this on a weekend afternoon in order to have more time to actually play and sing, although there’s something special about doing it at night, with the midwinter darkness outside the snow-framed windows that reflect the twinkling lights on the tree.

We’ve been back for a couple of hours, but I’m still wide awake. I should make warm vanilla milk and curl up in bed with my current book, Pamela Dean’s The Secret Country. It’s a reread, as I am completely out of new books and have not had the opportunity to get to the library for a month. We are hitting the local Indigo a day or so after Christmas for their annual thirty percent off all hardcovers sale, and the new Charles de Lint will be mine. I’d buy the new Elizabeth Bear hardcover too, but none of the shops in that area have it in stock, for some reason. (Our local Chapters claims to have two in stock, but I looked for it when we were there last Saturday, and it wasn’t on the shelf in either the fantasy or SF sections. You fail yet again at matching stock and inventory, Chapters store 00794. I give up on you.)