I Bought It!

No don't worry, not the farm, but I did turn another year older. Thank you to everyone who called and everyone who thought of me and sent a birthday wish my way.

I bought the Red Table I eluded to a post or two ago. I am not sure the pictures do it justice. I love the piece so very much that I spent the better part of my weekend in The Cave with PJ teaching me how to make friendship bracelets. (I caught on quickly, it seems it's like riding bike you don't forget all the things you knew in grade school)

The boys would pop in The Cave now and again and join us for a while then they would run around outside and come back and play with PJ and I.



It is 120+ years old, made of Elm and even has the wax seal on the back that authenticates that it is indeed significantly older than I am.



I think I only need one more piece of furniture to make The Cave complete, I just need to decide on a colour. I have been thinking a bean bag chair in there would be perfect for the kids, it would give them a place to flop when they come down to chat with me, a good way to make them feel like they can join me anytime with a book or a craft project. Any ideas on the colour? Can you have to much red?

Got Bumped?

I have been having some problems with my left shoulder for a couple of years now. I could not tell you what triggered the whole thing but it has been a hell of journey.

It started as tendonitis and bursitis. That in and of itself bugs me as these are both symptoms that Drs. like toss out there like they are a diagnosis. Tendonitis simply means inflammation of a tendon, likewise bursitis means inflammation of the bursa. I always ask my patients what caused the inflammation? Over use? Poor bio-mechanics? Trauma? I wish I had an answer.

Eventually my shoulder simply started to seize up, the up side of this was the tendonitis and bursitis eventually settled down (it turns out if you can't get enough range of motion to use the involved tendon and bursa they become far less angry) the down side of this is really poor range of motion and therefore a decrease in overall function.

I started treatment with the easy stuff, chiropractic and massage therapy. When those things did not work I tried acupuncture and did a spiritual workshop in an attempt to hear what my body was trying to tell me with all this pain and dysfunction. I have worked with people and their bodies for 15 years and in that time have learned so very much, I understand that pain is not just physical but that it can be emotional as well. I see many patients that I believe get something they need out of their pain experience and I wanted to explore the idea of this being the root of my shoulder dysfunction. I wanted to know if there were emotions in my life I had chosen to ignore until they decided to make themselves known with physical pain. With all this work I had still come up with no answers and no relief.

As I traveled this road of treatment protocols my thoughts have always been of working from the least invasive treatments and gradually into more invasive treatments if the less invasive stuff did not work. At this point the next up was seeing a pain specialist who injected lidocaine into the joint space to numb the entire shoulder and have Paul attempt to move my shoulder through the range of motion and break up some of the scar tissue thereby increasing my range of motion, breaking the pain cycle and putting me on the road to recovery. No go. In fact we were never able to numb the shoulder enough to increase the range of motion more that maybe 10 degrees, and that improvement only lasted days.

Next up was cortisone injections, some would put this under less invasive than the last procedure, but in fact the long term damage from cortisone shots can be quite severe. Most medical practitioners do not use cortisone as it is meant to be used. The idea of cortisone is to turn off the pain response so you can rehab an injury. Today most Drs. use the shot as the treatment protocol by itself and leave the rehab portion out, I believe this is one of the reasons why some Drs. find themselves giving cortisone shots every six months or so for the same injury. They have in essence used the cortisone to shut down the pain, but have not taken any advantage of that period of pain relief to change the function of the injury they are treating. The cortisone did give me temporary pain relief but by this time I had so much scar tissue in the shoulder my range of motion was very poor and limited my rehab, so this was an unsuccessful treatment protocol for me. I have wondered if it may have worked if I had been less stubborn and tried it before I lost so much function.

This has left me with no options except surgery. Over a year ago I saw a surgeon who said I was one of the worst cases of frozen shoulder he has ever seen and that I was indeed a surgical candidate. He put me on his wait list.

A year and a bit later and I had my surgical date. Until yesterday I was scheduled for surgery Wednesday June 29th. Yesterday I got the dreaded phone call from the surgeons office. I got bumped! After all the planning, organizing and time booked off work I got bumped!

I should not be so dramatic, I am very lucky that only got bumped a week. My new date is for July 6th. I am so thankful that I am not the emergency that someone had to bumped for, I am thankful that I got bumped only week and not three months. I am thankful for the fact that they tell me they are not allowed to bump me again.

Random photo: I was downloading the pictures off of PJ's camera for her and came across this one, they clearly took this one of themselves. I love it, it made me smile so big I thought I would share it with all of you. That is PJ, Paul's mom Judy and Paul 's sister Jodie. Aren't they beautiful!

The Cave

Months ago I told you I planned to show you the craft room. I am so happy with the room that I have been spending time down in my Cave instead of on my computer. There are even several finished projects I should show you soon.

You may remember the naked pine cabinets I showed you many moons ago. Here is one of them all loaded up with yarn. I have to say I don't know weather to proud or embarrassed about my stash. There is quite a bit of yarn on display in this post. When people walk into the Cave and gasp, "You could open a yarn shop!" it makes me wonder if should be seeking out a some sort of ten step program for fiber addicts.



I love my red tool box. That is a hand me down from Paul. Years ago he bought a bigger one for his tools in the garage and I asked him if I could have the small one for knitting tools. The thought just occurred to me that I may feel slightly less sheepish about showing you my Cave if I did a post on Paul's garage. He has a wonderful collection of stuff it would put my hobby to shame.



Here is my project desk, where all the ideas happen. I love sitting here with my iPod on the dock listening to an audio book while I swatch or work on a project. Shannon you may recognize the little desk, I think it is a drafting table, Shannon and Will were kind enough to pass it on to me when they no longer had a use for it.



A place to spin and read:



The white cubes you see are the cubes my yarn lived in under the stairs, in a space we called the Kissing Cave. I would ask the kids to come down and help me pick out yarn for projects and then I would shower the kids with kisses and tickle them once they were under the stairs with me. That is how the craft room got the name "The Cave" I am thinking maybe "The Room of Good Intentions" might be better. Maybe we test drive calling it "The Room of Requirement" What do you think?

One last photo of the second yarn cabinet and bit of mess. The wire rack with the cloth bins on it is soon to be moved. That is where the kids put there winter boots when thy are not on their feet and each kid has a bin to put there mitts and toques in so they don't get lost. I will move that soon as I have been eyeing up an antique red table to put there. I have been eyeing up the table for months, I think I need to bite the bullet and buy it before someone else does. Maybe for my birthday.



A huge hug to Aunt P for sending me the nudge I needed to finish the post that has been half written for months.

Festival and Spring in BC

I keep seeing the lovely California spring pictures you are all posting, Aunt Patricia with her blooming plum trees, Shannon posted pretty pictures of the lush greenness while she was doing some yard work a while ago, and quick peek at Mom's blog showed me blooming Almond trees.

I thought I would show you what last Sunday mornings spring rain looked like around here.

A look down the street:

And our house. It was a good snow, you can see how wet it is by looking at the shovelled driveway. It was 1C at the time, so just above freezing. Big fat wet snowman building snow flakes.

Every year there is a Festival of fine arts here in town. Kids prepare pieces and perform in front of adjudicators who give them feed back. Kids of all ages perform anything from memorized poems, pieces of plays, all sorts of dance and musical instruments.

It so happens that my kids have a wonderful teacher, who has a huge fear of public speaking. She feels it is an important skill to learn and insists that the children in her class take part in the poetry portion of the festival. She has a speech trainer come into her classroom as part of a class project and has the entire class perform a group piece together.

In her classroom it is mandatory that all her 2nd and 3rd graders perform at least one solo poetry piece. It is optional for the 1st graders but many choose to do it. SeaBass is no longer in this class room any more, but he chose to do two poems and spent a lot of after school time with the speech coach memorizing a preparing his speech.

I broke the rules and recorded the kids during their performances. Here is Q with his first poem. I will post the others soon.

That was so cool

I thought I would try it again.

There should be sound, Paul was not able to get the sound on his computer, can you?

Testing 1...2...Testing

Just a quick test to see if I can upload some video.

I have Mac and I am not sure if all the software will work and if the video will work for you guys so let me know in the comments please.

New Books

When mom blogged about the high-lighting tape I went online to see if I could find some. The best price I found was amazon.ca. If you have ever ordered off amazon you know if spend enough you get free shipping. (They really know how to suck me in)

Of course the tape was not enough to earn me free shipping but I since I have been doing a bit of crochet I had noticed the distinct lack of any crochet books in my library. I was not really looking for a pattern book, but just a good crochet book that would give me some good stitch patterns with clear directions and good pictures. I came across this one and I am already so glad I picked it up. The pictures are great and the directions are good, the stitch patterns are labeled from easy to experienced. The book is good for even a beginner like myself.

I have been sucked into the blocks so I picked this one up as well. I am looking forward to trying some different blocks.

I am seem to have been bit by the same bug that mom has been bit by. I am having a bit of startitis. I finished my hockey knitting (plain sock) and need another one on the go for the remainder of the hockey season. I was feeling a bit bored with plain socks but Q picked this yarn out the stash and asked if I would knit him a pair of socks out of it.

I am going for plain vanilla socks but I am trying a different technique. I am knitting the sock in the round on one itty bitty circular needle. I think the needle is a new one out by Addi for just this purpose.

I am not sure how I am liking it yet. It was an easy start, you don't have to worry about moving the stitches to other needles and there was no trouble with twisting the stitches or anything. I found the ribbing a bit fussy, but I find socks are always easier when you get about inch on the needles anyway.

I think it is faster that using the five needles, but I it may be hard on my hands. I have fairly big hands and the yarn seems very slippery on the needles so I am having to pay a bit more attention to a plain sock than I usually need too. I figure now that I am starting the leg it will get more comfortable and I wont have to pay as much attention to my work.

I am wondering what happens when I get to the heel flap and picking up the gusset stitches, but I am going to just enjoy a slightly different technique and cross that bridge when I get to it.

I just realized looking at these pictures that mom and I are now knitting socks pretty near the same colour yarn. Q picked this yarn because he wanted 'Army Socks' and this colour fit the bill for him. It is Socks That Rock yarn, but I am not remember the colour way off the top of my head. I will check the label later. It is from last years sock club.

Weight and Balance

You remember the crochet squares I have been working on? They are still coming along. I needed only 12 for the bag I had planned for them but I still have yarn left so I am well over 12 by now. Mom had a great a idea that I use to make a baby blanket for a friend of mine that is expecting baby number four. I am thinking that idea is looking better and better with every square.

I had three small balls of of some yarn I have been using for the stash busting project. I was sure the balls were just a little a to small to t make a square, but I thought it would be close. I decided to get out the scale and check it out. First I weighed a completed square:

Then I weighed the green ball:

Then I weighed the last of the pink:

Then a weighed the small ball of yellow:

I could not believe that all the bits of leftover skeins weighed the same. It made me laugh.

I am late in writing the post so you will be happy to know the balls are all crocheted up into little squares already and there was of course, just of enough of each colour to complete a square. It was destiny from the beginning.

(I don't really know where the balance comes in as far as my title goes, I just thought it would give mom some flashbacks from her old job)

Hibernation

I am sure you noticed (or not) the Traditional Danish Shawl listed over there on your left in the "On the Needles" portion of this blog. Has been sitting at 99% done for ages. In a very mild case of finishupitis I pulled it out of the basket to have a look. I thought it half way bound off and needed to be finished up. I was surprised to see the only thing it needed was crochet ties on it. Less than 5 minutes worth of crafting!

I finished it up and have been wearing it every evening since. I love it. It is warm and soft, perfect for keeping my shoulders warm while I knit in the evenings. I don't know if you remember but it is knit out of the hand spun that Shannon gifted me for my birthday. Which makes it more delicious.

I tried to use every yard of the yarn she spun up and I came pretty darn close:

On another note we have had the flu bug on and off, PJ had been feeling very poorly for weeks maybe even a month, complaining of abdominal pain and general acheiness. She was also extremely grumpy and very sensitive, I was quite worried about her. I am glad to report that she is back to her normal cheerful self. I think it was a combination of things, and am now left wondering if this lingering flu bug was a big part of it.

Q and I have it now, he has missed 3 days of school this week and I missed two days of work. I understand how PJ felt, I swear this thing just makes you feel all around crummy. The stomach ache I can handle, but the headache is nasty and it has generally made me sensitive and crabby to boot. I put everyone on Vitamin D to help the winter Blues, we have not seen the sun around these parts for ages. The Vitamin D made an immediate difference everyone's mood and energy levels. I am calling it the happy pill.

Everyone seems on the mend, but this is a bug that seems to come and go for weeks at time. I am hearing lots of people say it has taken them three weeks to a month to really feel good again. That appears to be the pattern I am seeing around our household, so I am making sure everyone is getting some extra rest and eating well. On that note, I was sick on grocery day so I need to get off to the store before I meal planning with only a can of coconut milk and black beans left in cabinets. Ick

Hockey Hockey Hockey

I worry that you must get tired of reading hockey content on this 'knitting' blog, but here goes. (by the way these are some of the pictures I told you I would show you when I got around to downloading them) PJ and Q played one another in a league hockey game a weekend or two ago. They had a great time and I did not who to root for so I rooted for everyone. That is Q in the above photo, a rare shot of him with his stick actually on the ice waiting for pass. He has a bad habit of skating with his stick up off the ice, making it very had to get that pass. He is working hard it, I love this picture, to me it is a picture of his improvement.

PJ shocked us all by volunteering to by goalie for this game. She is on the only all girls at her age level and they rotate goalies so that everyone who wants to try the position gets a chance. Last year she opted to never try the position, had no interest in it at all.

Her coach was shocked when PJ asked to play goalie as was I! I had no idea PJ was even entertaining the idea let alone ready to don the gear. I think the coach was almost disappointed when PJ volunteered. PJ usually plays rightwing, is one of the older girls on the team, she plays position well and is a strong skater, I think the coach missed having her in the line up.

I am thrilled she has developed the confidence to try the position and she had a great time in net. I also a bit glad she is not in love with the position. Goalie gear is very expensive!!!!

On another note, she played in her first all girls tournament this past weekend and scored 5 goals and had 2 assists. She won the award in her first game for the player with the most heart and won top gun for her team.

The girls very rarely get to play against an all girl team, all the teams they play here are boys teams. It was cool to see the girls play girl teams and have success.

Pictureless

I have been meaning to post for days but have not gotten around to downloaded some pictures I want to post. I still have not taken the time to download my photos so I thought, duh, post with no pictures.

SeaBass celebrated his 10th Birthday on Monday. I can't believe my oldest is ten! It is so cliche that it goes by so fast, but it sure does. He is closer to being a legal adult than to being a baby. I can't imagine how Shannon feels with Morgan being almost a full grown man now. (Happy Birthday Morgan)

We had some surprise company for SeaBass's birthday, Paul's dad arrived on Monday and brought his mom along with him for a quick visit. PJ had the idea to keep it all a surprise for SeaBass and we managed to pull off a small surprise party for him on Monday evening.

He had no idea! We even decorated the downstairs and the whole bit. He said it is the best birthday he has ever had. So we have been kept busy this week enjoying the company and keeping up the kids, it has been a good week.

They will heading home on Friday morning, I really enjoy having company. The house alway seem to empty when everyone heads home.

Happy Hooking

I posted a little bit about moving rooms around in the house. I am still in a state of juggling, but things are improving.

I finished the cabinets (I have not taken photos yet) and have been moving yarn around. I am to the fun part where I get to fondle the stash and wonder how I have so much lovely yarn that I have knit up yet.

I came across a fair bit of left over yarn from other projects and as I moved things around new and old projects came to mind.

I stumbled across some Knit Picks Shine that is left over a baby blanket I made at least 3 years ago and immediately a pattern I had seen in one of my books for a tote bag came to mind. I dug out the book and pulled out the pattern...only to find it was a crochet pattern!!!

Mom reminded me how to crochet again when she was here for a visit in the summer. So I decided I would give the pattern a whirl. The first results were not pretty at all and I was doing was getting frustrated. I decided to take the pattern to work and ask around to see if anyone one who dared came in the door to be adjusted that day knew how to crochet and could answer some questions for me.

I remembered when I got to work that our newest employee is a knitter and the more I thought about the more I was sure she crocheted someone a toque for Christmas. She took about 15 and gave me a refresher and TADA! A square.

At the time of the photo I had not finished the top corner, but now trust me it's a square. Tonight I think I will try to do another one. I am surprised at how much faster crochet seems to be than knitting, and I am still poking along on the learning curve. I don't think it is made a hooker out of me, but I think I may dabble for bit.

Snowball

You will have to forgive me, my pictures are loaded out of order but you will get the idea and nod your heads with me as you read, I know this happened to all of you.

We have basement suite which we have rented out to help out with our mortgage the entire time we have lived in this house. Our tenant moved out the last week in December and as part of another snowball I will share with you in another post we are going to remodel the kitchen in May.

There is full kitchen in the basement suite so naturally I was thinking I would not rent the suite again until after the remodel of the kitchen upstairs (or never rent out again, we will see). I can move into the kitchen downstairs, move our dining room table downstairs and not go crazy with my kitchen torn apart for a month while we all eat take out.

This whole plan began a complete juggle downstairs. Here come the out of order pictures, the one below is a photo of where the guest bed once was. I am hoping this room is destined to be my craft room or the crazy cave, whatever you want to call it.

This is the downstairs bathroom in which I have stolen Shannon's brilliant idea and have taken this over as my own. I can't even tell you how lovely it is to not have a sink full of toothpaste looking back at me every morning. I never realized how much bathroom mess I cleaned up every day that was not mine. It is such a treat to have a clean washroom all to myself.

This is the bed from the soon to be craft room moved into the bedroom of the suite, it is covered with everything out of my linen closet because of course during the juggle the closet took a nose dive and starting caving in on itself.

Paul kindly repaired the linen closet for me. I don't know why they built a 4 bedroom home with a little tiny linen closet upstairs but they did. So long ago Paul put cabinet this in laundry room for me, it works well, I just fold the sheets and pop them in here without a trip up the stairs. Now my linen closet is all cleaned out, tidy and off the bed.

The whole idea of craft room means I need a lovely place to store my yarn. I found some great pine and glass cabinets that were pretty inexpensive, but I did not want to leave them nude so that turned into another project. I am staining them with a 50/50 mix of white wash and black stain, trying to get a pewter sort of look. The first picture is closest to the true colour. I plan to finish them off with a couple of coats of semi-gloss clear coat.

They are coming along, but moving a bit slowly for my tastes, I only have evenings to work on them. Once I get everyone settled into bed I will see if I an make some progress tonight.

Hockey Tournament

We are just getting back into hockey season after a little break for the holidays. We have started with a bang with SeaBass in a tournament in Salmon Arm. He played two games today and I think has two games tomorrow.

His team has lost both games, but not for lack of effort. SeaBass was selected for team MVP for the first game today. I think the smile here says it all.

He was a bit upset half way through the second game he was called for a tripping penalty that he did not do. This is not just the parent talking, he was coming up the ice with the puck on a break away and a player from the other team took him out trying to stop the play. The referee (kids that are learning to ref as much as the other kids are learning to play hockey) called Sebastian for tripping. The call makes no sense to me, the player with possession of the puck would not trip the other player.

I find sometimes when watching it is so hard to keep in mind that everyone out there is learning. Sometimes the play gets to rough because the young refs are not confident enough to make a call. There was a player on the other team actually trying to instigate a fight and he never got called for his rough play the entire game.

We are all having a great time and are about to head off to a bowling alley with an entire hockey team and all their siblings. I plan to drink a beer, knit and watch the kids bowl. Sounds like a great way to spend a winter afternoon.

6:30 PM edited to add:

Bowling alley was not licensed, this means no beer at a bowling alley. Who would've thought?

5 people in hotel suite, hockey gear airing out in washroom of said suite; I really wish I had a scratch sniff blog to share with all of you.

Sun and Socks

We are supposed to have more snow this winter than any winter in the past 100 years. Everyday the forecast calls for snow and so far we have only had one really good dump of snow and a couple of lighter snows.

I am in Mom's camp on the unproductive cloud cover, if we have clouds they should be either dropping rain or snow. We are sitting at -7C (19F) this morning with flat grey lighting that makes the whole world look black and white and the weather report is calling for snow. I would love to have some snow!

So for everyone that needs a bit of sunshine: Here is a picture I took of a sunset in Hawaii from the ship we had dinner cruise on. Click on it to make big and fill your day with tropical sunshine.

PJ's mitts are just about done, in fact she is wearing the other one as I finishing up the thumb on this one. It took her two years to lose one of the mitts from the first pair I made her. When she misplaced the mitt she went downstairs to the yarn cave and picked out some yarn she liked. She brought it upstairs and put it on the counter and explained she could not find one of her old ones and asked if I would knit her new pair out of the yarn she chose. Smart girl how does a knitter say no to that request.

She managed to get a pair socks, a pair of fingerless mitts for her best friend and pair for herself, I apparently can not say no to an eight year old with sock yarn in her hand.

Snowman

Saturday night we had the most beautiful dump of snow of the season thus far. It was only about -1C, which means you get big fat wet flakes of snow that stick together perfectly to make the perfect snow balls and snowmen. (I tried to make her snow girl, but the boys would not let me)

I have to be honest even after living in Canada for almost 11 years (WOW) this is the first snow man I have ever made. The boys did a whole lot of the work and Paul had to pitch in and lift the middle ball on the snowman, you would be surprised at how much it weighs. There is no way I can lift it, I am quite sure the snowman out weighs me.

The snowman stands only few inches shorter me, Sebass comes up to my chin these days so that should give you an idea how tall the snowman stands. The weather is sitting at 1C today and calling for snow, PJ and I have decided to make a snowwoman if we get some good snowperson snow. She tells me she think we should do a whole family this year.

Could you all do a snow dance for us?

Beautiful Bang (Summer Vacation Part II)

The last post left you at the Canada/US Border. We had to cross at the peace arch as we were in Vancouver. We never cross at the Peace Arch due to the long line ups, we waited two hours to get across. Thankfully we left in plenty of time.

The kids and I were headed to Bellingham to fly out to Las Vegas to visit with Paul's parents. Paul dropped us off at the airport and he drove back to Canada via the Sumas crossing and only had to wait for two cars in front of him.

We had just the kind of flight you want, totally uneventful, we landed in Las Vegas around 11:30 Saturday night. Paul's parents picked us up and we off to their house to tuck into bed.

The next day we hung out around the pool and relaxed. As the afternoon went on SeaBass was not feeling well, he had a fever and was tired. He ended up sleeping the afternoon away and only getting up for about an hour to watch the 4th of July fireworks from the front yard.

The other kids walked around the block for a better view, but it was all SeaBass could do to sit on the front curb and watch them. He ended up going in and going to bed.

The fireworks were amazing. They live only a few miles from the strip and all the major hotels seemed to be competing with one another to see who could out do whom. They must have lasted hour or more.

Our Summer Vacation (Part I)

We have been on a bit of an adventure, we started on Thursday July 1, Canada Day. We traveled to Vancouver for the long weekend to visit Ranj and Susan and their kids (they just had another baby boy)

Paul and I took the kids the space centre and had a blast. I could not figure out why the space centre has a huge crab outside but here you have it. It is really cool looking, but nothing spacey about it.

Inside there was a planetarium much like the one in the Bay Area. We watched a couple of shows about stars with the kids. They really enjoyed the one about the planets but I think the second one may have put us all to sleep. I am not really sure as I was one of the ones nodding off.

Photograph of blurb above goes with the picture above it. I only took the photo because I though it was pretty.

In addition to the shows in the planetarium they had an area that reminded me a lot of the exploritorium but with a focus on space. There was a lot for the kids to see and do there. The kids all climbed into this space suit for photos but Sebass had the funniest picture so it's Sebass you get for this one.

I was surprised they had this space suit there. It is the one the astronaut Collins actually wore into space. I was surprised because as far as knew it was an American mission and the suit does have an American flag on it. I know many of the missions were done jointly with many other countries so I am not sure why I was so surprised to see this there.

I was not aware that the Canada is so involved in space research and had such a big space program.

We got to sit a bit and listen to a guy talk about rockets. He was pretty good, he taught the kids the three laws of motion in a way that was really easy for them to understand. He got the kids involved in his demonstrations and used a hockey analogy to explain the science behind rockets.

Below is a photo of one of the rockets used to propel Saturn IV into space. (1969?) I should check the date for you but I am to lazy to look it up (I am on vacation after all)

Saturday all the kids had a swim in the hotel pool and we loaded up the van to scoot across the border. More on that in the next post.

Spring

Spring is doing it's best to come to our neck of the woods. I think the day I took these photos was the only sunshine we have seen in weeks. We are getting rain the past two weeks, which is good, we are in desperate need of it.

Last fall I was in some store and they had a big bag of 40 or 50 tulip bulbs for something like $5.00. They were clearing out the last of the fall bulbs. I have always wanted to plant bulbs in the fall and have always been to done with gardening at the end of the season o bother.

When I saw the bulbs so cheap I thought, "For that price I can't be lazy" This spring I am so happy I planted them. They make me smile every time I am in the backyard.

The yellow ones all came up first, but now (I took these pictures a few weeks ago) there are some red, pink and white mixed with purple.

I don't think things have changed much around here, but for some reason I feel busier that usual. I keep telling myself I should feel less busy as the kids are long done with hockey and power skating wrapped up a few weeks ago. Sebass is the only one that decided to play soccer he has practice once a week and a game once a week, he is really enjoying it and seems to be a natural athlete.

Work has been busy, we added another massage therapist to the office and have now officially outgrown our space. Paul has spent all his spare time (haha) putting up some more walls in the office, turning some of the waiting room space into another exam room. He is in the process now of moving an existing wall, ripping out a sink and trying to magically make our office bigger.

We did our first camping trip of the season last weekend and went up to Wells Grey Park, we had a lot of rain up there, so we spent a lot time warming ourselves by the campfire and playing with the kids. It is always so good to get out and away from things for a bit.

Double Edged Sword

I have been a quiet again, I know.

Two of our staff members lost their husbands to cancer last week. A bit of a rough go around here. It was crazy how it all occurred:

Both of their wives work for us (we only have 4 employees)

Both men worked for local car dealerships

They were diagnosed within weeks of one another

They moved into hospice care within 3 days of one another

They passed away only 18 hours apart from one another.

I am so thankful they did not have to suffer any longer.

The only thing I know to do is love my family like there is no tomorrow. The only lesson I can take from this is to let go of all the little crap I tend to hold on to and live life as fully as I can.

I love you all and fuck you cancer.