Obscure CanLit Mama

The week in suppers

2012-02-21T08:45:00.004-05:00

bread dough rising

**Monday's menu** Sweet potato coconut soup (crockpot). Bread. Cheese.
**Veggies** I think there are enough veggies in the soup to skip the side. This recipe is a winner every time.

**Tuesday's menu** Chili in the crockpot (with hamburger and spinach). Baked rice. Tortilla chips.
**Rush, rush, rush** Eaten in the half-hour turnaround between swim lessons and soccer. I love the crockpot for it's ability to turn out hot meals on days when I'm out of the house from 9-5.
**re hamburger** I've been buying one package of local, organic, drug-free hamburger on occasion. I have no explanation/excuse. Clearly we are not vegetarian, at least not entirely. But we do continue to eat meat sparingly. She says, and then remembers Thursday's menu. Ahem.

**Wednesday's menu** Red sauce with basil and tofu. Spaghetti.
**Easy-peasy** Whipped this up after piano lessons. Thank you, home-canned tomatoes and frozen basil.

**Thursday's menu** Baked beans in the crockpot. Hot dogs. Store-bought buns. Confetti kale (fried kale with grated carrots).
**I know, I know** This is weird meal for us. We rarely eat hot dogs and when we do it's summertime and they're on the grill and they're local and nitrate-free. These were yer basic tube o' sodium & fat. Here's the story: AppleApple went to an outdoor education centre on Thursday, and the children were invited to bring hot dogs to roast over the fire. We bought last-minute grocery store dogs. She took two. Which left us with a package of hot dogs minus two. Just enough for supper, so I made a theme meal of it. I personally skipped the dog and ate beans on a bun with toppings. A couple of the kids tried that out for their third helpings, with ketchup, mustard, relish, etc. It was okay. But the confetti kale was fantabulous.

**Friday's menu** Church supper. Spaghetti with meat sauce. Green salad. Cookies and squares.
**No dishes** 'Nuff said.

:::

**Weekend kitchen accomplishments** Four loaves of bread. Batch of middling carrot muffins. Vat of turkey stock to freeze.

Fooey with her orange tea

**Cooking with kids** Fooey's menu for Saturday's supper: Chinese theme. Cod fish cakes (these were really good!). Orange tea. Miso soup (technically Japanese; but an easy favourite). Ginger and snowpea noodles. Ginger chicken. Fruit with chocolate sauce.

**Please help!** We have an excess of carrots in the crisper! In fact, carrots have entirely taken over the crisper. What's the solution? My carrot muffins were an utter failure (my muffins always are; maybe I'm over-mixing?). Carrot soup? Carrot cake? Tossing grated carrot into absolutely every dish? What's your favourite carrot recipe?

Juliet, out and about

2012-02-19T10:12:00.001-05:00

I was glad to have a companion for yesterday afternoon's rather odd errand -- I'd heard the book had arrived in our bookstore uptown.

"I'm feeling kind of silly about taking my camera into the store. 'Hi, can I take a picture of my book?' What do you think?"

"Of course you should! It's your book!"

I was surprised to find copies smack-dab in the front window, too. The article in the window is from yesterday's local newspaper; an interview. Inside the store there was a poster about the launch party this Saturday.

I'm trying to figure out how I feel about all of this. I'm not taking it for granted, not at all. It's lovely. That's what it is. It is a lovely experience running alongside the rest of my life.

Yesterday, the rest of my life revolved around selecting disastrous areas of the house (they are all disastrous, so I decided to make the job manageable by focusing on one at a time), and sorting through the accumulated minutiae, organizing, and then vacuuming.

before

after

Is it just me, or does "before" actually somehow look better, more welcoming, filled with life, etc., than "after"? Whatever. Those photos represent hours of labour. I was pretty grumpy by the time we got to the uptown photo errand. And I missed my chance to go to yoga class. And no make-up yoga today because Kevin's working in Toronto. And tomorrow is Family Day which means the pool won't be open early. And And And.

So, yes. It's lovely to find the mundane interrupted by the unusual.

Dreaming the house

2012-02-18T10:57:00.000-05:00

Short post this morning. Because I MUST CLEAN THE HOUSE. Someone has to do something lest the crumbs start plotting a takeover. And the house is on my mind. Or perhaps more accurately in my subconscious. In the last week I have dreamed about the house, in one way or another, every single night.

The dreams are all essentially the same, though the details change. But the essential thread holding them together is that our house is not our house. We have moved to a different house, inevitably a house in sad disrepair. We've sold our house and now regret it terribly but it's too late. We can never go home. Or, we return to our house but it is changed, and not for the better. We stare at the front window, broken and boarded up. We wonder why someone has torn the numbers off our house and spraypainted new numbers onto plywood. We feel desolate and confused.

In last night's dream the children had to go to new schools with crowded, noisy classrooms. They had to walk long distances to get there. They were struggling to fit in.

I'm no dream analyst (okay, I'm an amateur dream analyst; it's an unavoidable side gig as a writer), but this speaks to me as fear of change. Fear of the unknown. That sideways wandering into a life that is just a little bit different from the known, comfortable, and familiar. The way a seemingly insignificant change can tip us off kilter. Not all change is chosen. What happens when we come back to the house and discover it is not the same house? Remember that feeling of going home for Christmas those first few years after leaving home, as a young adult? Remember the dismay and sadness? Realizing we couldn't go home in the same way--also that we didn't want to, but that we missed what was gone forever.

This morning, CJ came into my bed to tell me another Cookie Monster story ("I think this will be a short one, Mommy.") And when that was done, he said, "I forgot! We need a snuggle." And when a snuggle had been had, he hopped down and headed for the door, paused, turned: "I will remember this snuggle forever, Mommy." Little feet trotting down the hallway. Stopping. Returning. His face suddenly sad. "I won't remember this snuggle forever," he said. "You can always come back for another snuggle," I reassured him.

Because that's what we do. We reassure our kids. Even while we're thinking, man, that is so damn true. You won't remember this snuggle forever. Neither will I. It's a pinprick of a moment in a wide life. I mean, it's a good pinprick. But it's here and gone. Change, change, ringing like a bell. And we're opening the door to a house that is familiar, but not ours.

A more cheerful post to come, very soon. Meanwhile, I will test out the theory that tidying, vacuuming, cleaning, and baking will put the dreams to rest, at least for a little while.

Today and yesterday

2012-02-17T11:41:00.003-05:00

my view, bedtime

I've been reading A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh to the kids before bed. Lights have to be out by 8:30 in the little kids' room, so some nights that means we don't get much read. When the big kids were little, we read through the classics before bedtime: the Little House on the Prairie series, Charlotte's Web, Roald Dahl, some Narnia Chronicles, the entire Harry Potter series (Kev read those to the kids), Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, and more I may be forgetting. The little kids are now getting old enough to hear these stories too, but our schedules are so different just a few years on. Evenings have shrunk to make time for extracurricular activities. Sometimes bedtime rituals amount to little more than toothbrushing and tucking in. Lights out.

So when I picked up Winnie the Pooh a few weeks ago, it seemed like the bare minimum. The bar was set pretty low. What I've seen is how all the kids crave this time. Crave being read to. It started with the two littlest. The older ones were just passing by in the hallway when they heard laughter: "What's going on in here?" Room was made in the bunks for them too.

When I looked up from the page last night I saw the most beautiful picture. The photos do not do the scene justice. CJ likes to lie facing me, hands holding chin. Albus brought homework, listening in with one ear. AppleApple was giddy with laughter. Fooey was half-asleep, content and warm under the blankets.

"What time does the clock say?" I ask the kids, and one of them will usually tell me honestly. At 8:30 the last paragraph gets read, the page turned down, the book set aside. Lights out. When we're done with Pooh, I will pick out another book, for sure.

Aside: Albus is bored with the books he's been reading and re-reading, and I want to tweak his interest again. Any suggestions? He's ten and a half and capable of reading quite complex chapter books.

:::

Today I spent an hour at physio, working on strengthening exercises. I also ran on a treadmill for 8 minutes and oh my goodness how I wished it were longer. But I'm supposed to continue doing what I've been doing -- slow, short runs -- for another week.

Today I did not get up early for a swim. I read for an extra hour last night, and slept for an extra two hours this morning (7am versus 5am; makes a big difference). While I regretted not starting the day with momentum, I need to get work done, and with physio knew I'd be hard-pressed to squeeze in a nap too. Brain must function.

Yesterday, I read this post from the Afterword on the fraught business of publicizing one's book, by fellow Anansi author Robert Hough (and now I must read his new book!). Today I am working on posts for the same venue, to run next month. Topics are wide open, which is rather daunting.

Also, today, I am thinking about the time I have to write. The actual literal time that is available to me. Next year CJ starts kindergarten. But it won't change my life very much. Except for Tuesday afternoons when the two of us are home together, he is either in nursery school (mornings) or with a caregiver (afternoons until 3pm). My work day ends at 3pm. That will change very little when school starts, or going forward for years to come. The school day is really very short. Several afternoons a week, I pick the kids up for after-school activities that require me to organize and ferry them around (swim lessons; piano lessons). On the other afternoons, perhaps I could shut my office door, lay out snacks, and let the kids fend for themselves until 5pm, in order to gain a full working day, but ... would that work? Here's the thing: by 3pm I'm revved up and working well creatively. It's painful to shut it down at that moment, day after day. Starting earlier is not an option, not if I want to work out before dawn and see the kids off to school.

How do people work full-time? How? I want to know. I want to be able to do it too. I'm sensing there are no easy answers, just more compromises. So I will count my blessings and be grateful for the time I've carved out. (This is worthy of a larger post. When I finish the biography of Mordecai Richler, which I continue to read as if mining for hints and clues to writerly success, I will get to that larger post.)

Things I am glad for this morning

2012-02-15T09:56:00.001-05:00

**My mom likes my book. Actually what she said was, "I love it; couldn't put it down." (I gave her a finished copy yesterday afternoon; I hadn't shown the book, in progress or finished, to my family before now.)

**Inspiration. While at soccer last night, I opened a message from my wise editor. She suggests I stop worrying over the launch of The Juliet Stories and get to work on the next book instead. I really really really like that idea.

**Valentine's day. Kevin surprised me. He pulled off a romantic evening despite swim lessons, soccer games, and me still doing the dishes at 8pm.

**Helpers. CJ helped me with those late-night dishes. It was his stream of cheery curious chatter that helped the most.

**Friends. Friends who plan parties. On my behalf. Friends who walk instead of run. On my behalf. Friends who get up early too.

**Naptime. What would I do without those twenty minutes of bliss every morning? The kids leave the house. The house is quiet. I lie down and sink into rest, I dream, and then and just as easily drift out of rest and dream, waking gradually, gently, fortified.

**Plans. A day in Toronto meeting old/new friends! An after-school forest program coming to our neighbourhood (maybe)! Friends who are planning big birthday parties! Overnight babysitting exchanges! Kundalini yoga! March break! Summer road trip!

That flying sensation

2012-02-14T08:47:00.005-05:00

suspense

Every Monday morning my alarm goes just after 5am and I wonder, why am I doing this? Less than two hours later, I'm showering after a good swim and the answer is loud and clear, because it makes me feel terrific. And just like that the new week begins with good energy and a sense of momentum.

This winter, I've really pushed the early morning exercise, aiming to rise early at least four mornings a week. Last week it was five. Surprisingly it was not that difficult, though it did result in an unplanned crashed-out nap on the counch at 7:30 on Friday evening. Still. Worth it? Yes.

I took this photo on Sunday afternoon following my second post-injury run: sixteen short minutes of snowy bliss. I felt just like this: like I was flying, like my feet weren't even on the ground. Monday morning, after the swim, I went for my first physio appointment and the news was good: dedicated strength work should balance out my muscles and make me faster and stronger in the long run (pun intended). I've been feeling rather down on myself, questioning whether I'm too old, whether my quest to become fitter and faster has hurt rather than helped me. But that wasn't the physio's take. She sees me as an athlete who needs to focus and hone my training in order to support the good things I'm doing for/with my body. It isn't silly to dream of getting faster. It's a perfectly natural goal, and achievable too.

I'm excited.

Momentum. Sometimes I think sheer will can get me anywhere. Sometimes I know that's bull. But will does wonders. Sometimes I feel arrow-sharp, aimed at a goal. Sometimes I feel indecisive and anxious. But even on the most indecisive morning I can get up early and swim, and I do. That's the sheer will I'm talking about. And if nothing else, it gets me off the ground.

The week in suppers: family time

2012-02-13T08:47:00.004-05:00

"Roman feast"

**Monday's menu** Corn and white bean chili (crockpot). Fried kale. Leftover rice and quinoa.
**Thanks to** the LCBO magazine for the chili recipe. Kale was supposed to be included, but I cooked it separately. It was delicious (the kale, I mean).

**Tuesday's menu** Beans and rice and tortillas.
**Swim lessons + soccer** This has become my go-to meal for our tripleheader evening of swim lessons, Soccer Girl's practice, and Coach Kevin and son's soccer game. Throw in some salsa and cheese and wrap it up, and everyone's happy. Well, as happy as everyone can be when everyone is being rushed about mercilessly.

**Wednesday's menu** Leftover soups (miso, chili, and harira). Toasted pita chips (homemade). Crackers and cheese. Green salad with mustard dressing.
**Family time** We always relax on Wednesday evenings. We have time. The pita chips were a hit: made by brushing stale pitas with oil and sprinkling with salt and paprika and cumin and baking at 400 until crispy. Good conversation.

**Thursday's menu** Pasta with pesto. Hummus, falafel, kim chi.
**Chef Kevin in charge** I took AppleApple to her goalie practice, which happens over the supper hour, so Kevin made supper using pesto frozen last fall. He kept it hot for us, and for me added a little side plate of kim chi, hummus, and falafel, which was crazy delicious. The kim chi is made by a waiter at our favourite restaurant -- he knows I love kim chi, so he gave me a jar the last time we were there. It is so good, I don't know what I'll do when I'm through.

**Friday's menu** Mashed potato soup. Roasted squash. Bread and cheese.
**Injury** I gouged myself whilst peeling the squash and cutting it into chunks. Just what I need, a cooking-related injury. However, the roasted squash with garlic was beyond delicious. Wish there was an easy route to peeling and cutting squash.
**Family time** Another memorable meal, with great conversation. It was fun to have Albus's friend join us, giving us insight into the social life of the grade five boy.

:::

**Weekend cooking accomplishments** Four loaves of bread. Potato tortilla (Spanish omelet) for brunch on Sunday.

AppleApple in her Roman toga (as made by AppleApple)

**Cooking with kids** AppleApple's menu. A Roman feast! Spiced grape juice. Cabbage salad. Barbequed chicken served on a platter with rice and cumin-spiced sauce. Grilled eggplant. Honey-soaked dates stuffed with walnuts for dessert. (Nobody else was required to wear a toga; and my God isn't she gorgeous?)

Better than bread

2012-02-11T12:49:00.001-05:00

snow kick

This morning started at an earlier hour and less pleasantly than anticipated. A certain small soccer player decided she didn't feel like playing for her team this morning. Too early, too tired. The Marshmallows would have to struggle on without her. Except her dad coaches said Marshmallows. And there are scarcely enough kids on the team to make a team when everyone shows up. She had to go. Team spirit. Letting her team down. Being a team player. All concepts not best discussed at 7 o'clock in the morning. The unhappy debate woke the house.

At last, small defiant Marshmallow off to play for her team, I returned to my bed, hoping for a wee lie-in. CJ followed.

"Come for a snuggle?"

He climbed in, sat up with blankets over knees, alert and happy. "Should we have a Cookie Monster story?" he asked.

"Sure."

"Do you want a long story or a short story?"

"Whatever you think." Eyes closed, hoping to drift back to semi-sleep.

"I think a long story."

"Okay. A long story."

He thought for a moment, and then launched in. "One day Cookie Monster didn't know what to do. So he was looking out his window. And his mom was baking something!"

"Maybe it was bread?" I suggested, thinking of the bread I planned to bake this morning.

"No. It was something better than bread."

"Ah."

"Like strawberry blueberry cookies!"

The story continued, with jumping garbage cans and birthday parties and magic birthday gifts and hiding gifts under the carpet, and lots of mms and ohs from the drifting audience.

I am baking bread right now, but maybe I should consider baking something better, too. The two littlest are playing in the snow (we have snow! it's cold! just like winter!). They'll be in before I know it, requesting hot chocolate with marshmallows (and not the soccer-playing kind). Strawberry blueberry cookie recipes, anyone?

Theme of the week: the free trial

2012-02-10T11:50:00.000-05:00

This week's unoffical theme has been the free trial. In order to fill holes in my exercise life, I tried out two different classes at two different gyms/studios. It was all about trying new things. I lifted kettleballs. I took an aerobics class. And my specific conclusion is that aerobics classes are not for me. Swinging kettleballs just might be. My more general conclusion is that trying new things is really not that hard. You just show up. You accept that you're the newbie. You might be wearing the wrong shirt (a touch too flashy for this morning's t-shirt-style aerobics class). You don't know where to stand. And apparently you can't get your arms to coordinate with your legs (aerobics class again; really really not for me). You look awkward. At least a little bit.

And that's okay. Just make the appointment, set the alarm, and show up. If it's a fit, you'll know it, and if not, it was a unique experience you'll never have to repeat.

What I learned in this morning's aerobics class is that looking fit and toned is not a powerful enough goal for me; I kind of looked fit and toned even before I was. The luck of genes. Nope, what motivates me is the desire to stay sane, to take the edge off, to channel my nervous energy and competitive nature toward semi-useful ends like marathons and triathlons. It is also a way to inhabit my body and to get out of my head.

Which I need. Pretty much daily.

A photographer came this morning to take a shot to accompany yesterday's interview (it will run a week from Saturday in the KW Record). He seemed slightly disappointed by my ordinary setup: desk, computer screen, chair. He said he'd imagined me scribbling into a notebook reclined in a comfortable chair. He did pose me with pen in hand, which happens next to never since I can't read my own printing. It got me thinking about how the writer gets imagined -- when you think writer, what do you see? Tortured soul? Drink in hand?

Running may be my version of drinking. Here's hoping kettleballs will suffice too.

Big sky over empty lot

2012-02-09T14:00:00.002-05:00

This morning I had my first interview related to The Juliet Stories. Because the book is so new, because I am not a workshopping writer, because these words have really only been read by my agent and by editors up to this point, I am awfully terribly anxiously hungry for responses. The interview was an early response, a hint at what might come.

And it was a kind response, and a generous one, and I am grateful.

Writers don't get to tell readers how to read the book; that's not part of the deal. But I can't help wanting to hear -- to understand -- how it's met a reader. What happened at that intersection. How the words were received.

Walking home, I passed this empty lot not far from my house. I saw how much sky there was over the lot, and how blue and clear it was. I don't often carry my camera outside with me. I wonder, will I see this empty lot differently for having seen it through my lens?

Over the past few nights and mornings I've watched the moon wax to fullness and begin to wane. In the evening, it stares in the back window of my office as it rises. It is setting as I drive to wherever that morning's exercise is occurring. I get to see the same moon twice, on different days. It's felt like an odd little miracle.

I'm not pulling my thoughts together this afternoon. I'm just writing them down.

And in that vein of randomness, good news to share: Yesterday, my sports doctor cleared me to start running again. Slowly. And in very small doses. I would have high-fived him but he was too busy impressing on me how short short is: ten to fifteen minutes, three times a week. Now that's short. I'm planning my first run tonight, during goalie practice. I will wear a watch. I promise not to push it. I can't promise not to high-five anyone who crosses my path during those fifteen minutes, however. You've been warned.

Momentous

2012-02-08T09:42:00.000-05:00

this morning

yesterday

this morning

yesterday

This morning a very loose tooth came out -- the first baby tooth lost from my little girl's mouth. She was thrilled and yet it was strange. When would the new tooth grow in? When would the next tooth come out? What to do with the teeny-tiny tooth? After some deliberation, she went back upstairs and put it under her pillow.

I felt something the same yesterday. My new book arrived in the mail. I wanted to celebrate. I took goofy photos. I was thrilled and yet it was strange. Part of me didn't want to read the words on the page. So final. So done. I think that publishing a book is the end of something. It's the end of what the book could have been (because isn't there always room for tweaks and improvements? though tweaks and improvements can so easily spin out of control and become hacks and confusions). But, still. It's the end of that singular imaginative process.

This morning, my little girl lost her first tooth. Momentous. This morning, I stood by the stove, hair wet from my morning swim, and I opened my book and I started to read the words on the page. Momentous. I didn't want to stop reading and the porridge was late getting made. I read with trepidation and some distance, wondering what the words would reveal that I never intended them to, wondering how to let go. Part of me wants to take the book upstairs and put it under my pillow. Oh, for the simple and magical exchange of tooth for coin, old for new. Gentle passage.

If publishing is the end of something, it is also the beginning of something else. Like Fooey, I am asking: What happens now? What happens next? What does the tooth fairy do with all those teeth?

Where I'm at, Tuesday morning

2012-02-07T11:09:00.000-05:00

muddy Sunday in the woods

Quiet house. Beans soaking on the stove. All children at school or nursery school. Empty coffee cup. Just breathe.

Every day holds so many in-between moments. January felt like an in-between month. February has the same feeling. Is it because I'm not working on a definitive project that will box up the scraps and tie things together? Last night I dreamed we owned two houses, an imperfect one in which we were living, and a perfect one to which we were thinking about moving. The catch was that the perfect house would take us away from our friends. In the dream, I kept listing off the perfect qualities of the perfect house -- on a lake; huge sweeping lawns; quiet street; a separate guest house -- but it always came back to not wanting to leave the imperfect house we already had.

Nothing about this year so far has been perfect. But it's a frivolous aim anyway, isn't it? Perfection. When I look at the photo above, taken on Sunday afternoon, I see an in-between moment. And I see the potential of the in-between moment. Balance is fleeting, but not elusive. Lift arms. Pause. Breathe.

Can you see this? Click on the link!

2012-02-06T16:09:00.001-05:00

It's my finished book!
Apparently it's in at the Anansi offices. Um, I really really really want to hold a copy. Suddenly Monday feels a whole lot less Mondayish.

The week in suppers: vegetarian fail

2012-02-06T08:45:00.000-05:00

peeling potatoes

**Monday's menu** All-you-can-eat sushi. Birthday cake.
**Mama's day off** All-you-can-eat sushi has become something of a family birthday tradition, and Kevin was happy to choose this for his birthday supper. Plus our friend Nath made him a Guinness cake. This saved me from sweating the impossible on a day spent waiting at dr's appointments and running errands.

**Tuesday's menu** Turkey soup (crockpot). Quinoa. Roasted beets.
**Leftover inspiration** We have a lot of turkey meat leftover from the crockpot turkey last Friday. Truth is, I don't much like turkey. Or meat. This soup was okay. People liked it. Just not me.
**Deep purple** A friend texted me to ask what greens would go with quinoa, beets, goat cheese and walnuts. After I stopped drooling I suggested spinach or arugula. And then I got the bag of beets out the cold cellar and roasted them on the spot--because I was already making quinoa (weird coincidence). So I ate a bowl of quinoa with sliced roasted beets and goat cheese and a dressing of vinegar and tamari sauce. Should have committed and made a real salad out of it. But it saved me from eating turkey.

**Wednesday's menu** Harira (lentil soup, crockpot). Leftover quinoa. Roasted beet salad.
**Family togetherness** We actually got to eat this supper together, sitting at the table. Everyone liked the harira and quinoa except for CJ, who ate plain quinoa with yogurt. I dressed the sliced beets with a grainy mustard vinegrette and everyone tried it. A few even liked it and asked for seconds and thirds. "It tastes pickled," said one child. (Pickled is a good thing at our house.)

**Thursday's menu** Mashed potatoes. Creamed turkey. Peas. Cabbage/rutabaga slaw.
**Plus a picnic for Soccer Girl** AppleApple had early goalie practice, squeezed in directly after all four kids had a dentist appointment, so I made her a pita pizza to go. The rest of us enjoyed the meal. It felt very old-fashioned. I'm personally thankful to report that this used up the last of the leftover turkey meat.

**Friday's menu** Mashed potato casserole. Hummus and pita.
**AKA "Leftover Surprise"** Last night's leavings made the perfect Leftover Surprise. I mixed together the mashed potatoes, the smattering of creamed turkey, the peas, added some milk, salt and pepper, spread everything into a buttered casserole, topped with grated cheese, and baked for 20 minutes at 400. Just add ketchup. Everyone loved it.

::::

**Weekend cooking accomplishments** Four loaves of bread. (That's all??? Uh oh. Zero treats. Sorry, kids.)

**Cooking with kids** Albus's turn. Sushi, maki, sashimi. With real sushi-grade raw salmon. Miso soup. (That's a look of concentration on his face, not displeasure. He worked really hard on this meal.)

Catch the light

2012-02-04T13:26:00.000-05:00

blue sky, yesterday afternoon

Yesterday I was writing to deadline, pulling together some notes on the context and writing of The Juliet Stories for the ebook version that will be published alongside the printed book. Ebooks offer flexibility, room for extra material, and mine will also include one of my character's songs. The essay is a short piece with photos scattered throughout. Distillation was key. I think you'll like it.

But this morning I came across a longer meditation on the same subject, written while I was in the middle of discovering this book's potential to be what it has become. So if you're interested in a more detailed, mid-process version, visit "Midwife to Stories." (Interesting also that the story I was in the midst of writing did not make it into book; goes to show how much gets discarded along the way; and how important it is not to worry about whether or not it will be discarded when you're working. You can't get at the story any other way. It all matters.)

:::

Yesterday evening, as promised, I went for a walk in the dark during soccer practice. I walked briskly for six kilometres, which took about an hour; I could run twice the distance in the same amount of time. The air was crisp and cool and more like mid-October than early February. I'd dressed differently than I would have for a run, and I regretted that; I was too cautious. When I go for another walk tomorrow, I will leave behind the heavy winter coat and the big boots. Both completely unnecessary. The good news is that I was able to march without pain; and that being outside had an excellent effect on my body and mind. I'm still finding acceptance difficult -- accepting that I can't run for now -- but there are alternatives and the alternatives can be good, too. Different, but good. If I had to give up running, I decided last night, I would get a dog. I would hike in the woods. I would hike long distances. One way or another, I would cover the ground.

After the walk, I got to watch my Soccer Girl scrimmage for fifteen minutes. As you may remember, she was a rep goalkeeper last season, and will be again this summer. But if you'd happened across the field yesterday evening, you simply wouldn't have believed it. She looked for all the world like a centre forward. She scored four goals, and came close to six. She handled the ball with such confidence, dribbling through defenders, keeping control, biding her time. She made lovely passes to teammates. She waited patiently, using the space on the field, knowing the ball would come to her. It was so fun to watch. Sometimes parenthood is sweeter than anything else on earth. (And it only takes a smidgen of sweetness to make up for the underlying anxiety and vicarious pain that is so much a part of parenthood too.)

Blogging under the influence

2012-02-03T15:34:00.004-05:00

one of my favourite places for a walk

I'm blogging under the influence of an excess of restless energy. I haven't exercised since this head cold knocked me sideways on Wednesday ... plus the cavity-filling during yesterday's potential exercise slot ... and deciding to stay up late to watch Groundhog Day last night and therefore sleep in this morning ... which really only adds up to three days of exercise-deprivation. Apparently, three days is WAY TOO LONG for my brain to be stuck inside a sedentary body.

I can see a real dip in my patience, in my frame of mind, in my focus in the absence of a) sunshine b) the outdoors and c) an endorphin-rush.

I can also see the less pleasant aspects of my personality poking out like sharp elbows. The all-or-nothing self. ie. I haven't run for almost three weeks and therefore I will never get back into shape ever again! The doom-and-gloom self. ie. This is worst winter ever. The snappish self. ie. The one slamming the office door.

I need a new go-to form of exercise. Nothing obvious has presented itself, and my attempts to fill the void feel slapdash and ineffectual, ie. I've found myself doing lunges in the kitchen while eating a hardboiled egg or even while doing the dishes (not a very effective way either to do lunges or the dishes; or egg-eating, for that matter). Anxiety is creeping in: What if I've lost my drive? What if I've lost my willpower and my determination? It's circular, of course. The less I exercise, the more anxious I feel.

I'm looking into a membership at a nearby gym. I've scouted another early morning spin class on Thursdays. And I'm open to suggestions.

My daughter has a soccer practice tonight. How I wish I could run in the dark. Okay, I have to accept that for now, I can't. But I can walk in the dark, right?* And I'm gonna. For the sake of everyone around me.

*This walk has been approved by Kevin and the rest of my dear sweet family.

Just a little midwinter freezing and thawing

2012-02-02T13:41:00.000-05:00

I've given up. There will be no writing this week. There will be, instead, a head cold, dental work, more tests on the creaky hip, appointments, and errands. There will be a PD day (no school for the kids). The laundry will pile up. The suppers will be uninspired. I will also decree some late-night tv watching. Why not?

As for today, as my face thaws nicely post-freezing-and-drilling, I'm going to recline on the couch under a blanket and sink into a book. It stops me feeling sorry for myself, which is the state of mind I loathe more than any other. Yes, it is February. Yes, the rain came and washed away the snow, and then the cold came and froze the slush into lumps of grey. And yes, the sky is the same colour as the lumps of grey frozen everything. And there are flocks of crows in the neighbourhood trees crying and calling. (Let's call them a murder of crows; let's put some poetry into our grey). It's Groundhog Day; I don't know whether the fat fellow saw his shadow, but if he did that means there was sun.

This too shall pass.

I can feel my cheek again. I can swallow this cup of coffee. I can read a good book. Oh, and it's fiction -- Let the Great World Spin. I'd forgotten (briefly) how much I need fiction in my life. Sure, I like learning new things and taking in facts and theories. But nothing is quite as true for the human soul as the world retold through the imagination. Bless the words.

Books, books, books, books, books and ebooks too

2012-02-01T12:08:00.002-05:00

I am not the only Carrie Snyder ever to publish a book. In fact, I'm not even the only Carrie A. Snyder ever to publish a book. Another Carrie Snyder published a book entitled Euthanasia and another on Death and Dying. Folks, that's not me. And Carrie A. Snyder published several books on drawing. How to Draw Horses. You Can Draw Funny Animals. Also not me. And, just speculating here, probably not the author of Euthanasia either. I wonder whether people who find us awkwardly listed together on Amazon or Goodreads assume that the Carrie Snyders are all one really weird person? As an aside, I used to spend a lot of time drawing horses. Badly. I probably could have used that book.

I am currently reading Let the Great World Spin, by Colum McCann. Stories to break your heart. They kept me up late last night even though I should have been resting my cold-laden head.

I finished The Tipping Point last week. An excellent marketing book, if only I could figure out how to put the ideas into play. How does one tip? How to tip The Juliet Stories from the somewhat echoing chamber of my circle of friends and family (yes, that's you!) and into the broader world? I thoroughly enjoyed Malcolm Gladwell's chapter on Connectors, Mavens, and Salespeople. I'm pretty sure my eldest is a Maven-in-the-making, and it was comforting to read about the upsides of this personality-type: Albus is the only person I've ever met who pores indiscriminately over any flyer that comes through the door; he also knows exactly what things cost, and if there's a latest new anything, he's onto it. The interesting thing about Salespeople is that they are able to change the moods of those around them. And their own moods are quite unaffected by those around them. This is what is known as charisma. Though I wonder--are you only charismatic if you're an upbeat person? Connectors are people who seem to know everyone. We all know people like that. I'd like to be a connector, but I'm probably not. I'm terrible with names for starters. If I forget your name, please don't be offended; I have a blind spot. I've forgotten names of people I've known for decades and see on a weekly basis. I wish I were exaggerating. This will be torture at book-signings.

I'm also still reading -- dipping into -- the biography of Mordecai Richler. In my defense, it's very thick! And the author, Charles Foran, is definitive in the extreme, leaving no cocktail party or early rejection letter unmentioned. I can see why he would choose this approach, given that he's writing about a very complicated person about whom others had vastly varying and polarized opinions. But it's a lot of detritus. Life is stuffed with minutiae and a writer's life may have even more, given the writer's penchant for writing things down.

Last bookish musing of the morning ... I had an interesting conversation this morning between a friend and a friend-of-a-friend about the shifts in the book industry, and how publishers are exploring the possibilities within digital publishing -- publishing children's books as downloadable apps for your iPhone, for instance, or creating a multimedia experience out of an existing children's book, again downloadable to your phone. What do parents out there think? Would you entertain your child with a book-app, or a book-related game?

:::

News: Confirmed Juliet-related dates

Feb. 25 Launch party at the Starlight in Waterloo, 7:30-9:30
March 7 Harbourfront reading series 7:30
May 16 TYPE books in Toronto with Heather Birrell 6-9

While I'm excited about the anticipated activity, it also gives me pause. Hurray! Readings! is followed quickly by faint queasiness: Gulp! Readings! A reading is like a race: I'm happy when I'm actually doing it, and I'm thrilled to have done it immediately afterward, but the lead-up is crazy-making.

Adventures in precipitation

2012-01-31T10:37:00.000-05:00

On the weekend we had snow. Yesterday more snow fell. Grand snow adventures were embarked upon in our backyard.

Tonight it is supposed to rain. Sorry, kids. (I suppose there could be adventures in a cold rain -- of the highly realistic, rather miserable variety. But who wants that?)

I'm throwing a party! You're invited!

2012-01-30T14:32:00.000-05:00

Come celebrate the launch of The Juliet Stories, the second collection by Carrie Snyder

Saturday, Feb. 25
7:30 - 9:30pm
Starlight Social Club
47 King Street West
Waterloo, ON

DJ: Kidstreet
No Cover
Refreshments

*

www.carrieannesnyder.blogspot.com |@CarrieASnyder
www.houseofanansi.com | @HouseofAnansi

RSVP: reader@houseofanansi.com

:::

House of Anansi is sending out invitations today!!!

You may be wondering -- what happens at a book launch? Basically, it's a party! My friend Z and I are concocting a colourful tropical theme, I'll do a reading, sign books, you can nosh on Latino-influenced snacks, and my sibs' band will DJ. The club opens for dancing at 10pm and we can stay and dance. RSVP if you can come.

The week in suppers: Robbie Burns

2012-01-30T08:45:00.007-05:00

I did not make this haggis, but it was good

**Monday's menu** Veggie Vindaloo (crockpot). Baked basmati rice. Leftover cabbage salad.
**Recipe-worthy** Veggie Vindaloo: Saute two chopped onions and four cloves of chopped garlic in 1-2 tbsp of oil. Add and saute 1 tsp cumin, 1 tsp ground coriander, 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (or less, to taste), 1/2 tsp turmeric, and 1-2 tsp salt (start with 1 tsp and add more later). Scrape into the slow cooker. Meantime, peel and dice six potatoes (more or less) and two large carrots. Add to slow cooker, along with 1 tbsp fresh minced ginger root, 1 tbsp brown sugar, 1 tsp dry mustard, and some chopped red pepper (frozen is fine). Add 3/4 cup red lentils. Add 8-10 cups of water (this is approximate; I check the slow cooker during the day and top up the liquid as needed), and stir the pot. I also added some leftover tabbouleh, and if you wanted you could add chopped tomato and parsley and a handful of bulgar to the mix. Totally optional. Cook on low all day, checking in to stir occcasionally. About an hour before serving, toss in 1-2 cups frozen peas. Just before serving, stir in the juice of a freshly squeezed lemon (note: several tablespoons of cider vinegar is a good local substitute). Taste for seasonings (salt, pepper). Serve over rice.
**Why we liked this** The lentils blended in and acted as thickener. It tasted delicious. Any veggie could sub into this mix.

**Tuesday's menu** Mexican red beans. Leftover rice. Leftover cabbage salad.
**Sorry, everybody** This was a request. But it was very ho-hum with the leftover rice. Somehow I'd managed to undercook the beans ever so slightly too. It was a rushed meal anyway, as we landed home from swimming and darted out again for soccer, with less than 30 minutes for turnaround time.

**Wednesday's menu** Coconut sweet potato soup made with squash, too (crockpot). Wilted tatsoi salad. Bread and cheese and hummus.
**Good food** I didn't follow the recipe for the tatsoi salad precisely, but it was a good use of the tatsoi, which apparently can be harvested from under the snow; that explains why I can still source it locally.
**Colourful** There was something so satisfying about eating this rich orange soup and the deep green tatsoi. Winter needs more colour. Two out of four children adored the soup. Zero out of four children tried the tatsoi. Such is life in the bread and cheese lane. Dinner conversation was brilliant and we had no conflict.

**Thursday's menu** Red sauce with hamburger (!). Noodles. Broiled tofu.
**Aren't we vegetarian?** Yes and clearly no. I bought one package of organic local hamburger. Everyone seemed tired and draggy this week. Extra iron?
**Secret veggies** I slipped a package of frozen grated zucchini into the red sauce (which made with my canned tomatoes). Zero complaints.

**Friday's menu** Turkey in the crockpot. Roasted beets, potatoes, carrots, and garlic.
**Total vegetarian fail** I ordered the turkey on a whim from Bailey's. What can I say? I can say nothing.
**Recipes by Facebook** I have very little experience cooking meat in a crockpot, let alone an entire (small) turkey, so I asked Facebook for advice. And Facebook replied. I stuffed the turkey with carrots, onion, garlic, and poured a bottle of Guinness over top along with some cranberry juice. I added some Dijon mustard, salt, pepper, dried thyme and rosemary. Then I couldn't get the lid to fit. I had approximately two minutes to prep the turkey before I needed to get out the door with the kids. So I covered the crockpot with aluminum foil to keep the steam in, balanced the lid on top, and left. And then I was gone for about five hours -- about three hours longer than I'd planned on being out of the house. I was kind of freaking out about the precarious state in which I'd left the turkey. But all's well that ends well. The alumimum foil worked.

:::

**Weekend cooking accomplishments** Eight loaves of bread (OMG we are eating so much bread! I can hardly keep up. I am baking two batches back to back some weekends). One batch of Really Good Granola. Double chocoloate cookie squares. And one giant pot of cockaleekie soup, made in honour of Robbie Burns day. Our family had our own tiny Burns dinner before Saturday night's scotch party. (Secret ingredient in cockaleekie soup -- do you know? Prunes.)

**Cooking with kids** Starring CJ. Who couldn't think of anything he wanted to make except for pizza. So Kevin made pizza (I made the dough).

Briefings from Recovery Sunday**

2012-01-29T12:42:00.001-05:00

This is just to say that I made it through Party Week*! Party Week is officially over, and we are now revelling in Recovery Sunday**.

*Party Week is defined, for this early-rising cougar-aged gal, as more than one late-night social event in a seven-day span. This Party Week included three late-night social events in an intimidating four-day span.

**Recovery Sunday involves me and my pajamas. Do not knock on the front door unless you want the visuals.

:::

Have to report yet another breakdown: first the tooth, then the hip, and now the camera! (Yes, it feels like a part of me). As of this morning, my camera refuses to connect with my computer. It looks to have broken bits in its USB port. The manufacturer does not answer the phone on Sundays. Photos of last night's address to the haggis are therefore inaccessible. You may or may not be sad about this depending on your feelings toward haggis.

And the winner is ...

2012-01-28T11:32:00.002-05:00

... "m" for Marita!

This was easy and fun. I'm tempted to do it again. I really like giving things away. (Would you come back and enter your names all over again for a second round?)

:::

AppleApple picked the name out of the basket because she and I had scheduled writing time together this morning. I wanted her help on The Big Fat Juicy Belly Worm story. She's got lots of top secret information about the BFJBW. So we found a pinch of time on Saturday morning, squeezed in between starting bread dough (me) and soccer game (her). She looked forward to it all week--and so did I. Except it wasn't as fun as we'd anticipated. Writing isn't really fun, exactly. There's a lot of erasing and starting all over again. Most ideas get chucked. Information has to be spun into plot. I'm afraid she found it all very tedious. I'm also afraid I'm very abrupt and business-like when writing, even when the subject is a fun children's story. And we didn't even finish the chapter.

Maybe I'm just not good at sharing?

Bits and bobs

2012-01-27T15:05:00.004-05:00

Neither time nor mental wherewithal to post a deep and thoughtful blog today. Nothing deep and thoughtful going on today. Today has been filled with uneventful events. Your curiosity is piqued, I can tell. And so I will elaborate ...

**Rushing. Slept in (til 7:30!). Therefore spent the first hour of the day madly dashing about. Turkey in crockpot! Breakfast in children! Signing various papers! Issuing various reminders! Big kids out the door! CJ to nursery school! Forgot to eat breakfast! Gobble cold porridge! Pour coffee in portable mug! Race out into snowstorm! Drive across town to dr's appt!

**Waiting. The result of all the rushing was a prolonged period of waiting at the sports medicine clinic, first for the woman who did the initial assessment, and then for the doctor, who ordered an xray. I'll see him again on Monday. Meanwhile, take-home-message: no running.

**More waiting. I followed up my first bout of waiting with more of same, in a different location. Upon arrival at the xray place, and without my first asking, the receptionist estimated the wait time to be 45 minutes. I heard her continue to estimate the same time to everyone who came through the door throughout my two hour stint in the waiting room. Maybe that's just the standard measurement she gives out. She should have mentioned she was referring to units of 45 minutes, of which I would spend about three. The xray technician, a sparkly former-long-distance runner, spent the entire appointment recounting her own running injuries. A decade of running injuries. Cheerful stuff, let me tell you.

**Texting. What would I do without texting? And my phone? The wait at the xray office was so long that I realized I would not make it home in time for the babysitter, who was picking CJ and a friend up from nursery school. Luckily, through the marvels of text messaging, I was able to arrange for the friend's mom to bring everyone to her house instead (God bless friends!). For less practical reasons, the texting also broke the intense tedium of waiting in perpetuity. When not texting, I read the book I'd brought along (The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell). Someone in the first office had read it too, so we had a conversation. Which also worked for entertainment purposes. No one in the second office cared to chat with me about the book. Most were too busy texting. Except for the friendly man telling everyone in earshot about the diarrhea he'd acquired on holiday in Jamaica. I sat extra-far away from him. What surprised me is that not everyone did.

**Overdue. Library book, that is. Thought I'd finish off my wasted writing day by stopping in at the library to discuss a book which has been lost, and has yet to turn up despite ample and dedicated hunting. It was due today. And cannot be renewed again. BUT it can be placed on some special library list which gives me another seven weeks to find the book, and the library will hunt for it too (because the kids think we returned it). I also learned that our library caps late fees. Did you know this? I will have to pay late fees on the book, even if I do find and return it, but it will cost me no more than $9.00. This actually sounded like such good news to my desperate ears that I high-fived the librarian. In my head.

**Home. When I opened the front door, the turkey in the crockpot had filled the house with comforting smells. The laundry basket was still sitting, full of dirty laundry, on the kitchen floor. I hadn't eaten since the cold porridge. I made myself a pot of tea, and warmed up some leftovers, and sat and read the newspaper. And that about sums it up.

**Aside. Does it strike you, as it does me, that none of this fits into either of my words of the year? It ain't work. And it sure ain't play. What is it?

::::

**In other news. The giveaway is now officially over! Thanks to everyone who entered. I will pick a name out of the hat, and announce the winner tomorrow.

From dancing to dentistry, just like that

2012-01-26T11:41:00.003-05:00

my 4:45am companion, with sound effects

I did not take photos at last night's show. It was late for mamas at mid-week, a decade and a half older than the kids who came out to dance. But we mamas came out to dance too. And we still know how, despite our complaints about the lateness (so late!) and the loudness (first band, so loud!), and the "Oh God, I hope my hip holds out" (so lame!).

The dancing. It was really fun. We danced for the second band, but the really inspired getting down didn't happen until Kidstreet arrived on stage. I love my siblings! Their sound is infectious, their performance is joyful and welcoming, and my sister is just the most gorgeous and composed creature on stage that you can possibly imagine (whether or not she can see it herself). As the set progressed, my dance moves got more adventurous, less fearful of will-this-hurt-my-hip? By the last song of the night, I'd shed that decade and a half, at least inside my own head. Walking home through the quiet of freshly fallen snow, I had to admit that I was limping ever so slightly. But when I woke up this morning, my hip actually felt years better.

Seriously. I could jog across the living-room without pain. How bizarre is that?

Let me tell you about the few hours between dancing and morning. I was gloriously asleep when the pitter-patter of feet woke me. CJ had gone to the bathroom by himself (yay!), returned to his bed and decided he didn't like the looks of it (uh oh!), and come into our room lugging his water bottle and a giant sheep stuffie (noooooooo!). "I had a bad dream!" he announced, which is his new code for "I don't want to go to sleep." He attempted to climb into bed beside me. The sheep didn't fit. Seriously, it's enormous. We could all see this wasn't working. I dragged myself upright, walked him back to his own room, explained about it being the middle of the night, sleeptime, etc., tucked him in.

Pitter-patter, pitter-patter. No sheep this time. "Is anyone downstairs?" he asks from the side of the bed. It's pitch black. 4:45am. "Nope. We're all sleeping. Because it's the middle of the night!" He climbs in beside me, snuggles up. I'm too tired to object. We "sleep" like this for an hour until I just can't stand the wriggling anymore. (I know lots of parents share beds with their children, and I just want to know: do those children hold still in their sleep? Because mine are like squirrels, if squirrels were much larger and not furry and had sharp elbows and hot breath and digging heels).

"Listen," I said at last. "I can't sleep like this. I'm going to your bed."

"What?"

"You can stay here, and I will go sleep in your bed. Or, you can go sleep in your bed and I'll stay here. One or the other. Because I'm not getting any rest and I have to get up in an hour for a dentist appointment."

"My blankets are too small."

"Not the green one. The green one is plenty big. So what you do want: should I go sleep in your bed, or will you?"

Surprisingly, he chose to return to his bed. And then he slept.

And much too soon after that I was sitting in a reclining chair staring at beige ceiling panels, listening to top-forty soft rock while a masked woman scaled tartar off my teeth.

If I were sketching a trajectory of pleasantness upon a graph, say, from midnight until nine this morning, it would look like a ski hill. High to low, baby, high to low. The nighttime bed-sharing was definitely several graph points above the hygienist prodding exposed nerve endings between my teeth. At least with the bed-sharing I got to snuggle up to a hot-breathed, wriggling, pointy-elbowed creature of intense dearness. With the dentist all I got was a return appointment a week from today to fill a cavity -- my first in TWENTY YEARS.

See. Straight down. Like a ski hill.

It's a life.

Wondering and wandering in Blogland

2012-01-25T11:38:00.000-05:00

I've been reading other people's blogs. I've been reading and wondering and wandering. My mind is impatient this morning, and more than a bit weary. Up early for a swim. Second swim in three days. I am fit, but I don't feel strong, not running. Which makes me wonder: what am I seeking in my quest to stay fit, if it isn't to be fit? My routine is fairly grinding, but I hardly missing a planned work-out. Why? I don't have an answer. I wonder if I will find one, and whether I will like it, or not.

Here's what I'm doing tonight. I tried to post the poster, but it didn't work: my siblings' band Kidstreet is playing in town. I am staying up late to go dancing!

More napping needed.

I'm trying not to think about the dentist appointment booked for tomorrow morning at 7:30 (who does that to herself?). Or the dr's appointment the next day. Or plans to go out Friday night, and to throw a scotch party here on Saturday night. Which will mean cleaning this whole disastrous kid-friendly house. Which means I'm trying not to think about the living-room, either, strewn end to end with the tiniest toys the children could find to strew about. I'm not thinking about the missing library book, due Friday, already renewed to the allowable limit of times, and nowhere to be blinking found. While I'm at, I'll try not to think about the half hour I already spent on my hands and knees this morning looking under things for this book while cursing the tiny toys strewn about everywhere.

Instead, I will think about lunch. And coffee. And napping. And blogging. I found some great posts out there this morning. My friend Rebecca blogs about taking a week off from blogging due to feelings of inadequacy. She ends with a quote from Marianne Williamson, which coincidentally my yoga teacher read out to our class on Saturday evening, and which I meant to share here, but it slipped away in my shavasana daydream: "It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us." And yet. My virtual friend Kerry blogs about Gabrielle Giffords, and how the miracle of her very survival is yet somehow not enough for the narrative of redemption that has been foisted upon it. How we crave the light of redemption and recovery, we want that story. "The narrative of her 'recovery' has been so remarkable for its falseness, for its abject denial of the realities of brain injury," writes Kerry; the piece is worth reading in full.

I have to tell you. My darkness frightens me. But maybe it's true that my light does too. Marianne Williamson's quote goes on: "We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world."

Can we play big, be our better selves, and be truthful about the darkness in each of us, the inadequacies, the mysteries, the wondering and wandering, the good luck and the bad? Well, yes. I think so. I think that might be why I blog.

A walk in the woods

2012-01-24T12:22:00.003-05:00

I am not running right now. My last attempt was a week and a half ago, a long weekend run of 15.5km on a bitterly cold and windy afternoon. The light was thin. My hip cried the entire time. That necessitated a frank assessment of my physical limitations, and a visit to my family doctor, and his request that I refrain from running. For now. I see a sports medicine doctor on Friday and the truth is that I'm holding out hope that his opinion will be otherwise: Go ahead and run! It can't do any harm! (Hope hurts.)

Meantime, I am getting by with extra yoga classes, which seem to be helping. At the very least, I am strengthening and stretching and practicing my breathing. I am also continuing to swim, though not quite to the distances I'm used to: I stop when it starts to hurt rather than pushing on (the opposite of my usual style). And there's spin class once a week.

But as mentioned in a previous post, none of those activities gets me outside. I'm missing not just the endorphin magic of a good run. I'm missing the bitter cold, the snow, the wind, the purposeful entry into the elements, even (and maybe especially) into the unpleasant elements. I've gone for runs in the dark, in cold rain, in hail, in blazing sunshine, in humidity. I also run in less extreme conditions, but it's those more adventurous outings that stick with me, that please me most, that seem like tests of will and determination; there is a thrill to just sticking with it, hanging in there, going on. I could see how that sounds psychologically revealing; and not everyone's cup of tea. And I accept that this injury may teach me many good things that I couldn't learn otherwise: such as the value of stopping rather than pushing through; and patience. That too.

On Sunday, I went to my daughter's soccer practice. It was a clear sunshiny afternoon, bright with snow on the ground. I could not run. But I decided not to sit by the sidelines indoors. Instead, I dressed for the weather, took my camera, and went for a hike in the woods. The trails were so familiar, trails I ran on all last summer and fall. And I was able to walk briskly without pain. It wasn't like a good run, no, but it's not fair to compare. It was exactly what it was: a walk in the woods.

Many of the photos came out with a melancholy feel (as above; do you agree?). I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the wintry landscape, the bare trees. Or maybe it's the eye that was seeing the wintry landscape and bare trees. Whatever was captured, melancholy was not what I felt upon returning home. I felt better. Just plain better.

The week in suppers: rush, rush, rush

2012-01-23T08:45:00.003-05:00

Cooking with kids: Fooey's turn

**Monday's menu: Falafels, pitas, hummus, and tabbouleh.
**Woot for Dad: All freshly made by Kevin (with the exception of the pitas). I was in Toronto, so he said he'd take care of supper. And he did.
**Must remember: Very popular meal. I added hot sauce to my stuffed pita.

**Tuesday's menu: Chili in the crockpot. Leftover rice and lentils. Leftover tabbouleh salad.
**Because: Brief turnaround time between swim lessons and soccer.
**Must remember: People are getting tired of Mom's chili. Sorry, people.

**Wednesday's menu: Pasta with pesto. Pan-fried shrimp. Turkey broth noodle soup. Cabbage salad.
**Happily: Used frozen pesto made last summer, but only had enough pasta to make half the portion I usually do for our family. Therefore, added the noodle soup to the mix. Used turkey broth frozen from Christmas, added some leftover pesto for flavour. Threw this meal together in under half an hour.

**Thursday's menu: Leek and potato soup. Roasted squash. Cornbread. Leftover cabbage salad.
**Tuber time: I have 50 pounds of potatoes in the cold cellar, so we brainstormed uses, such as this potato soup. It really could hardly be better. CJ devoured it. So did Albus. So did I! But we also thought up: oven fries and mashed potatoes. There must be more of a variety, right? Send suggestions.

**Friday's menu: Baked potato bar at church.
**Because: Community-building. And I don't have to cook or do dishes.
**Also: Speaking of other uses for the potato.

:::

**Weekend kitchen accomplishments: Four loaves of bread. Four loaves of banana bread (baked at 7:30pm on Saturday night, just before heading out poetry book club; they were still in the oven when I left, so Kev had to finish the task.)

**Cooking with kids: Sunday supper. Fooey's turn. Indian theme.
**Menu: Saag paneer. Tandoori shrimp. Homemade samosas. Basmati rice. Raita. Cabbage salad. Take-out naan bread and pakoras. Tropical fruit salad and banana bread for dessert.

:::

**One last thing: A friend I've made through this blog (a poet and writer and mother who lives on the other side of this country) asked whether I'd mind if she posted her own spin-off of The Week in Suppers. Of course I said yes! Check out her first installment. I was interested to see what her fall-back meals were. And I want the recipe for her lentil loaf!

**One more one last thing: My TNQ giveaway open until Friday!

Around the house

2012-01-21T16:15:00.004-05:00

Around the house, today ...

**The phone has rung about 16 times today for one child or another. The busy social lives of the ten-and-under crowd. CJ wanted in on the action and has been looking for a friend to come over. Problem is, he's three and so are his friends; so far we've struck out. "Would you be scared to go by yourself to [friend's name] house?" "Yes." "Well, he probably feels the same way." "But he's not scared at nursery school."

**I can't go for my long run due to injury (see my triathlon blog for the painful details). In fact, I can't even go for a short run just to blow off steam. This has made for a jumpy grumpy woman. Alternatives? What would you do if you couldn't run? Running has become such a huge part of my life, a major tool in my mental health kit; it isn't easy to replace, even temporarily. I'm planning to hit a yoga class this afternoon. But yoga lacks the adventure of running. Yoga happens indoors, as does swimming and spinning. Running outside in all weathers has changed my experience of the outdoor world and made winter a friendly place, for me.

**I am baking bread, doing laundry, picking up toys, and vacuuming. None of these activities are helping with my restlessness.

**It's a beautiful, cold, sunny winter's day. I am trying to convince my two youngest to go outside and build something in the snow. Hey -- looks like the promise of hot chocolate afterward did the trick!

**While vacuuming I finally swept up all of the white feathers on AppleApple's floor. When questioned about the provenance of the feathers, she posited that they were coming from her duvet. So I checked. And discovered a hole that had been patched with a scrap of cloth and pink thread. The child had attempted to fix the problem herself! Without ever mentioning it to me! I felt both proud and dismayed. What else is she attempting to fix by herself, without telling me? I had to rip out the stitches and sew the torn cloth together; no patch job was going to fix the problem. Oh dear, I am seeing nothing but metaphor.

**Speaking of metaphor, my poetry book club meets tonight. And now I can't even find the book. Last seen a week ago at soccer practice where, unable to go for my usual run, I was attempting to read and take notes by the side of the field; and failing pretty miserably. It all circles back to the running!

**Finally, if you haven't signed up for The New Quarterly giveaway, please consider it. My goal right now is to get at least ten people's names in the hat.

Friday giveaway: The New Quarterly, winter, 2012

2012-01-20T12:13:00.003-05:00

The latest issue of The New Quarterly (winter, 2012) featuring one of the chapters from The Juliet Stories. ie. your chance to get a sneak preview

Okay, friends, let's give the giveaway a shot. So, I'll offer up a prize, interested readers comment below, and a week from today (Jan. 27) we'll have a draw and announce a winner. Sound like a plan?

Yesterday I visited The New Quarterly's office and picked up copies of their latest issue. The New Quarterly is a local literary magazine with pedigree and staying power. They've published award-winning Canadian talent like Annabel Lyon, Erin Noteboom Bow, Douglas Glover, Stephen Heighton, Russell Smith, Diane Schoemperlen, Rebecca Rosenblum, and Andrew Pyper, to name just a few. A recent issue offered an interview with one of my favourite writers, ever, Alice Munro. Their issues frequently sell out.

Over the years, I've been blessed to be a part of the magazine, starting in 1991 when they published two poems that I wrote as a sixteen-year-old angst-ridden word-happy big-dreaming high school student. That kind of encouragement makes a huge difference in a developing writer's life, let me tell you. It was the beginning of a long relationship. And their winter 2012 issue, freshly mailed and on its way to bookstores, includes a chapter from The Juliet Stories. Here is your chance to get a sneak preview of the book, which won't be available until March.

The New Quarterly has offered me a copy of this latest issue to give away on my blog. Now, I'm a newbie at giving things away, but I like the idea. Heck, I'll throw in a copy of my first book Hair Hat for good measure. Why not.

(Speaking of giveaways, Goodreads is giving away ten advance reading copies of The Juliet Stories. And my husband has launched a website called "Help Make Carrie's Book a Bestseller," (hey, we can hope!), which will also be giving away prizes to participants. Consider joining.)

Aaaaand. Enough with the giveaways. To sum up: Prizes -- The New Quarterly's winter 2012 issue and a signed copy of Hair Hat. Comment below to enter. Deadline Friday, January 27th, noon.

:::

It's Friday, the kids are home from school, the sun is shining, there is snow on the ground, and here I am. Wondering: will I write more of The Big Fat Juicy Belly Worm today? My kids are wondering too. AppleApple keeps asking for chapter four. Truth is, it's been a scrambled week crammed with conversations and variety and plans and a whole lot of dashing thoughts and activities. Amidst the scramble I've yet to find a way to settle and sit and focus my mind and find words. But I still have all afternoon.

This is today's happy post

2012-01-19T15:54:00.001-05:00

My brother Los in his studio

Today was a good day. I want to remember that despite the grousing contained my previous post. Sometimes I need a grumble -- just get it out of my system.

But today was a good day.

Today I recorded two new songs. And for the second song, I played the French horn. My brother just happened to have a horn sitting there in his studio (you can see the case on the couch behind him). A loan from a friend's parents. It's a nice horn, too, a double horn in good working condition. I haven't played horn since I was 18. That was, oh, awhile ago. Could I still make it make music? Well, yes and no. I'm no professional musician and never was. But the fingering came right back and I was playing a scale before I knew it. It didn't sound half bad.

I was fooling around on the horn while Karl ("Los" is his nickname) was playing back my piano for the second song, and the horn was well-suited to the key I'd used, so I started playing along. Then we thought we'd record a bit and see if any could be used. So that was really fun. Really out of the ordinary. A treat. Music is sweet.

Also sweet: it looks like two or three of these songs are going to be made available on The Juliet Stories e-book, or as part of the e-book purchase. But that means we've got a deadline. Hence, today's studio session, smack-dab in the middle of a whirling snowstorm.

This is today's grumpy post

2012-01-19T15:37:00.004-05:00

My brother Los at his studio

It's only been a day, but I've missed tapping away at my blog. Yesterday, I had a sick kid home and was operating on interrupted sleep. In the afternoon, I looked after an extra child. There were piano lessons. Supper was prepped and eaten somewhere in there. I can't recall having lunch.

This week at Tuesday evening gym-time soccer (remember that?) I only had one extra child, so I took along my notebook and desk calendar and got busy. Topic: TIME ALLOTMENT. A friend had sent me a useful article earlier in the day (skimmed on my BB during swim lessons) that made me ask: How am I choosing to spend my hours? What if this crazy squeezed schedule is not a blip, but the new norm? If that happens to be the case, I need to set some boundaries and get some organizational strategies in order. Case in point: zero time this week for The Big Fat Juicy Belly Worm. Which I happen to think is an exciting project on which I should be spending some significant proportion of my writing time.

Do I still have writing time? Or is it all getting lumped into "work," with writing getting lost amidst the jumble.

So I sat in the noisy gym and made a list. Partly, I attempted to understand how much time I'm spending on Facebook, Twitter and email, and how much these are interrupting my work versus being useful tools. I also attempted to get a grasp on my projects currently underway, and which are one-offs versus those that are ongoing. I consider my blog ongoing. I don't write it because I have to write it. I write it because I want to write it, and it's now part of my writing life. Ergo, time for blogging/photos-related-to-blogging ideally happens every day.

Same with the long-term book projects, like The Big Fat Juicy Belly Worm. Every day work. If not every day, then two full days a week set aside to work on it.

That's a lot of time. Yesterday slipped away without doing either of the above long-term projects. Instead, I played and sang in preparation for this morning's studio session, and I ticked items off my to-do list. One-off items, you might say. Useful, but there was no time for anything else.

Today feels much the same, if for different reasons. Necessary errands. And studio time. And now school is almost out and children will be coming home, and supper needs to be made, plus several phone calls, and there's soccer tonight, and I've got an event to attend this evening at which I will attempt to look professional and not in the least bit scrambled. Good luck, Mama. Or, more like it: breathe, Mama. Breathe. Breathe.

Listen up y'all

2012-01-17T12:08:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, I pretended to be a commuter: so this is what it would be like, dressing appropriately, brushing one's hair, and slogging down the highway to the big city. Yesterday, I met with my publisher, the House of Anansi, one of the last free-standing Canadian independent publishing houses. Their office is large and bright and the hallways are lined with--you guessed it--bookshelves. I enjoyed imagining Juliet occupying space beside other Anansi authors like Rawi Hage and Lynn Coady.

Anansi publisher Sarah MacLachlan and publicist Kate McQuaid (yes, I took my camera along too)

The meeting was to discuss publicity plans for The Juliet Stories. Ah, the many stages of making a book. So I wrote a book, so I found a publisher, so it's going to print. What now? Indeed. What now is publicizing the book's existence and asking people to read it, and the next few months will find me absorbed in that pursuit. It's a real change of pace, that's for sure. And one hopes it will be a positive change of pace, as my book and I head out into the (largely indifferent) world to make connections. The glass-half-empty part of me made me add the paranthetical aside. Yes, that parenthetical voice hangs out in my head, mostly around 3 o'clock in the morning, but I'm working on suppressing her. Except part of me thinks a hairline of cynicism can be useful too; keeps me honest.

My publicist, Kate, says she hopes this stage will be a happy time, a celebration of all the work that's gone into making the book what it is; the glass-half-full part of me agrees. Here's the thing: Writers are not generally outgoing extroverts. That's why we're good at sitting for many longs hours with only our thoughts for company. Once upon a time, the mere idea of meeting new people overwhelmed me with conversational paralysis. But I've got a decade of motherhood under my belt, a decade of meeting a whole lot of new people--and learning how to ask for things on behalf of my kids, how to demand space and attention when needed, how to listen, how to assess situations quickly, how to problem solve on the fly, how to communicate clearly, how to pinpoint the crux of an issue, how to juggle different needs at the same time, how to be okay with not pleasing everyone. It's been eight years since my first book came out. Eight years. I'm ready to meet and greet and talk and throw a party or two. Thank you parenthood. I think I can handle this.

Out of our meeting emerged a few things I can share with you right away.

News, news, news

**Goodreads is giving away 10 advance reading copies of The Juliet Stories. All you have to do is visit here, and click on "enter to win"; (you probably need to be a Goodreads member too). Please spread the word.

**Also spread the word about the new Facebook page dedicated to all things Juliet. If you are a Facebook user, you can "like" the page and let your friends know about it too. (I always put Facebook "like"s into quotation marks, which basically gives it the opposite meaning, but you know, you're welcome to actually like the page too).

**If you're in Toronto, I will be reading at the Harbourfront reading series on March 7.

**News on the local launch party coming soon.

What else?

**Oh, yes, another reminder about Thursday night's launch of Storywell at Whole Lotta Gelata in uptown Waterloo, 7-9. This is a free event for writers, interested writers, editors, etc. I will be there. Being all extroverted and talking to my cup of gelato. Or possibly to you, if you come too.

The week in suppers

2012-01-16T09:35:00.001-05:00

**Monday's menu: Curried squash soup (crockpot). Cornbread. Cabbage salad.
**Ho-hum: Should have stuck with my sweet potato coconut recipe, because this new version was less pleasing. Not bad, just not fab.
**Happy crunching: A few of us must have been craving a mid-winter veggie crunch, because the cabbage salad was very popular. Chopped cabbage with grated rutabaga and carrot in a lemon dressing.

**Tuesday's menu: Red mexican beans. Baked rice. Tortillas. Cheese. Leftover cabbage salad.
**Super-flash turnaround: The food was prepped and waiting for us when we raced through the door at approximately 5:15. We ate tortillas stuffed with rice, beans and cheese in about ten minutes flat between swim lessons and soccer. It wasn't pretty. Everyone required a second supper when we all returned home around 8pm.

**Wednesday's menu: Rice pilaf (crockpot). Leftover cabbage salad.
**Epic meltdown: The mixing of leftover rice into cooked lentils in order to create the finished pilaf sent our youngest into full-on suppertime revolt. His revolutionary chant went something like this: "Not mixed together! PLAIN! Not mixed together! PLAIN!" He had to be removed from the table temporarily, until the revolt was quelled, though he never did try the pilaf, which was generally accepted by everyone else as satisfactory vegetarian fare.

Thursday's menu: Chili. Steamed brown rice. Leftover squash soup. Kale chips.
**Hello leftovers: Chili made of leftover beans, plus corn and roasted red pepppers from the freezer. One child preferred the squash soup.
**Rice fail: Should have baked it in the oven. Used the stovetop so the oven would be free for the kale chips, and the brown rice took much longer than anticipated. And was the consistency of porridge. Ugh.

**Mini-recipe: Kale chips. I used Smitten Kitten's recipe as inspiration (kale chip recipes practically infect the internet, all with different baking times, oven temps, and methods; allow me to add to the epidemic). Method: Rip kale leaves into chip-size portions (minus the thick stems). Wash and dry in a salad spinner (just because it's easy). Toss in a big bowl with 1-2 tbsp olive oil and 1 tsp salt. I added 1 tsp of red wine vinegar to make salt-and-vinegar kale chips. Spread on a baking sheet and bake at 300 for 20 minutes or until crispy. You're looking for a crispy almost translucent chip that reminded my kids of seaweed (which they love). This is far and away the best use for kale I've yet to discover, though it did taste best fresh out of the oven--delicious and salty and melting on the tongue. Liked by two out of four children and two out of two adults.

**Friday's menu: Pizza night at church. I made a sour cherry/plum crisp to share.
**Because Mama doesn't love pizza: My bedtime snack was a feast of pita bread, hummus with hot sauce, carrots, and pickled dilly beans. And a glass of white wine. Then I fell asleep while watching a movie with Kevin. Sigh. Friday night.

:::

**Weekend kitchen accomplishments: Four litres of yogurt. Chocolate sunflower cookie squares. (Opening photo--and hey it looks like a real food blog photo, doesn't it?!).

Cracks in the plans

2012-01-15T21:07:00.000-05:00

This week has not been the easiest. We're halfway through January and already I'm seeing cracks in my new year's plans. My hip creaks (literally) and I need a training plan that will accomodate returning me to injury-free status (no long runs for a little while? I'm ever so slightly panicked at the thought). I haven't taken a Sunday photo today. The weekends are proving more packed than anticipated. I sense the dropping of many balls. I'm probably dropping several right now as I sit and type in my dark office instead of heading for the dinner table.

....

And I'm back. Decided to head for the dinner table when the cries for Mommy grew too strident. They need me at the dinner table. I need to be there too, catching what's falling, in touch with the many moods.

And there are many moods. Disappointments to walk alongside. Hopes. Plots and plans. Energy that might be silly and outrageous or emptied out and low. Sadness. Grumpiness. Sibling unkindness. Siblings racing around and egging each other into greater and greater goofiness.

Tonight my mind is occupied, too, by tomorrow's publicity meeting tomorrow with Anansi. I hope to return with good news to share, and good energy to share, too. I'm entering into a new stage of this book's life, and I have very little control over what happens next: how the book is received. It's a tough stage for me. How to let go? How to be graciously accepting, no matter what? How not to dwell or muddle or worry or fret? There may not be an easy answer. Sometimes just gutting through is the only answer I've got.

Window on writing

2012-01-13T12:12:00.001-05:00

I've been reading Charles Foran's biography of Mordecai Richler. It's a fat book and I'm not even halfway through, but already lines are jumping off the page. I'm deeply intrigued by the portrait of the formative writer--the kid, no more than twenty, who set off to Europe cadging money from any willing family member or friend, working as if possessed, carousing, ambitious. That's what strikes me most about his formative years, when he was writing frantically and receiving nothing but rejection letters--the sheer volume of his ambition. Of course, in part what he displays is youth. And he had talent even if it was awfully raw at that point in his life. He had luck too. Just before he left Europe to return to Montreal, broke, just twenty-one, he found an agent who admired his potential, and helped him see his way into this life he was demanding for himself.

Charles Foran writes about what might have happened, had Richler not been found and professionally validated; he had a lead on a job at the CBC and in fact worked there briefly writing news copy; but not for long. "By 1952, CBC radio and the new television network were already the destination of choice for those with talent and culture who dared not risk seeing if they could really make a go of it as artists..." [my emphasis]

Guess what Mordecai Richler dared to do?

What elements make up the personality of someone willing, as Foran writes, "to hustle, do what was required. ... Henceforth, he would be freelance, his own master and servant. Without security. Without nets." Brash? Egocentric? Bold? Calculating? Intensely focused? In many ways, it's not the nicest personality, is it? It can't really be. You can't worry about pleasing others, or meeting conventional expectations. It helps not to be apologetic in your approach. Why apologize for being who you are?

(Side question: Does this apply mainly to male artists? Personally, I don't think so, though traditionally it's been less acceptable for women to be unapologetic in their ambitions. Now where the heck does motherhood fit into the bold/brash/intensely focused rubric?).

One more thing. Around this same time, Richler wrote to his editor Diana Athill: "Often I think I don't like or dislike writing, it's just something I've got to do."

I read those words and felt like something in me had been struck. Yes.

:::

This week has been a flurry. There's a lot of hustling going on. At various moments during any given day it feels like I'm keeping up; not keeping up; almost keeping up; hanging on by sheer will; taking a tumble; staying with it; losing track; back in the game; organized; overwhelmed. But mostly, okay.

I'm okay because I keep landing on this thought that completely amazes me: I'm doing what I want to do. No, you know, it's even more amazing than that: I'm doing what I've got to do.

Word of the year

2012-01-12T13:14:00.003-05:00

"there was such a moon"

I cheated. This year, I've claimed two words. My word-of-the-year friends were skeptical at first, but I swear I saw this online somewhere and it's allowed. (Are there actual formal rules and guidelines for word-of-the-year? I suppose it is right there in the title, singular, not plural).

Well.

My word of the year is work/play.

It was going to be work. Work grabbed me and shook me and said, hey you, this year, you're going to focus on me. And I replied, sounds good, I'd like that. So I walked around with Work for a week or more, quietly testing it out and accepting it as my word. Except it didn't seem complete all by its rigorous demanding lonesome. That's when Play jumped into the mix. Hi there, remember me?

Here's the thing: in my world, in my being, Work comes naturally. Work is Play. I am easily obsessed by the completion of goals. I like to do things. I throw myself in really deep and sometimes get lost inside of Work. Yes, I want this year to be about Work--about Working, to be precise. But I need to strive for some balance. I need to seek out Play, too, accept it when it comes knocking at my door.

For me, Play is sometimes more like Work. Not always, not precisely, but let me put it this way: I will beeline for my office at the mere suggestion that there's work to be done; it takes more effort, more convincing, to call me outside to play. Sad but true. It is also true that I could not create what I do without going outside to play. So my work stands to suffer and stagnate without making room, taking time, clearing space, to leap into the spontaneous, the adventuresome, the just plain fun.

One of my word-of-the-year friends told me I should make a "Playlist" (nice!). On the spot, I couldn't come up with much. Ask me for a Worklist and I'll get down to business. But what's on my Playlist? Truthfully, I don't know yet. Surprise me, Playlist. (For some reason, horseback riding was the one thing that leapt immediately to mind).

I also aim to combine Work and Play this year. They don't have to stand in opposition to one another. Where do these words align, in my life and yours?

Yesterday held a satisfying mix of work/play. I ran with a friend before dawn; served breakfast, plus made supper in the crockpot; got everyone out the door; napped for 20 minutes; worked on a new song at the piano for half the morning and worked at my desk for the other half; picked up my youngest from nursery school; ran errands; ate lunch; squeezed in a little more writing time while he watched a movie (and no, I won't apologize for the tactic); picked up the girls early from school for their piano lessons; visited with a friend who works at the same place the girls have their lessons; arrived home to finish making supper and hang laundry; parented some bad meal-time behavior; headed out for supper with my siblings, within walking distance; picked up Albus and walked him (almost all the way) home from his piano lesson; walked to meet with friends over tea to talk about word-of-the-year; and finally, at the end of the day, spent time with Kevin.

I was going to try to categorize each item above as either work or play or work/play, but realized I'm not sure where everything falls. Serving breakfast to my kids can be really fun when we're all talking together; or it can be a real chore when I'm hungry too and everyone's grumpy and wants something different and we discover homework that still needs doing, etc. I also realized that there isn't really room for the critical element of "rest" within work/play. I'm not going to add a third word. But it's there, lurking behind the scenes. The lack of it gets in the way of both work and play. I don't care to focus on it, but hope to get enough of it, both mental and physical, this year. (Play seems like mental rest, though, doesn't it?).

Hope for the best (the meltdown version)

2012-01-11T14:55:00.005-05:00

I was hoping for the best yesterday. Good to stay optimistic. Also good to set expectations LOW to MIDDLING. Yesterday, swim lessons began again, plus soccer, plus more soccer. The unpromising start to swim lessons included bringing the wrong bathing suit for Fooey (much much too large--her sister's, in fact), and CJ declaring he would NEVER duck his head under the water. ("Just tell the teacher no thank you," I advised. "But the teacher ALWAYS wants me to." "I get that. Just tell her no thank you, not today." "NOT EVER!") This led to full meltdown on the pool deck. Somehow, two kind lifeguards hauled him off me and got him into the pool. "Go! Give us five minutes!" By the time I got up to the seating area, he was fine. So fine, you'd never have guessed he'd recently been in full mutiny. We ended this fine opening swim session by losing one child's underpants. Found later in her pocket to everyone's amusement.

Remember how I'd planned to read to the little kids during AppleApple's soccer time? Turned out it was in a school gym, with loud music pumping--more of an aerobic workout than a soccer practice. The girls had a blast, including Fooey. Meanwhile, ever-jolly CJ made me cover his ears basically the entire time. We couldn't read anyway. Too loud. This is not a problem easily solved. No brilliant brainwaves came to mind as I contemplated another ten weekly sessions in this gym, staring at the little Canadian flag pinned to the wall, watching a bunch of lively girls leaping joyfully, whilst trying to remain compassionate toward a constantly-complaining three-year-old. Nope, not seeing the bright side.

At the end of that, we drove across town to pick up Albus and Kevin, who were at a different indoor field for their soccer practice (one-car family, remember?). CJ spent the opening minutes lying on the floor declaring life not worth living (to summarize), or at least not worth living given the lousy choice in snacks his mother had brought. Finally, I found a candy cane in my pocket. This proved to be "too spicy," but worked as distraction. AppleApple got some playing time with the boys' team; we all went in to watch. Fooey picked artifical grass. CJ complained about not having a ball to kick.

Basically, CJ is at a stage/age where he can effortlessly suck the fun out of just about any situation. For example, grocery store this afternoon. CJ in full tantrum seated in the cart wailing over and over the touching phrase: "Multi-coloured mini-marshmallows!" My skin must be elephant-thick by now, and thank heavens. Nothing draws the gaze of passersby like a screeching three-year-old kicking the sidewalk and declaring his lower legs--yes, the lower legs, to be specific--"too tired!" to go on. I'm not saying all gazes are critical. Some are closer to pitying, some to gratitude--thank God that's not me. Which is admittedly how I feel now when I hear a tiny infant wailing from inside a baby carrier. I know the mother's pain--how the baby is probably hungry and wants to nurse and she's pulling a toddler by the hand and they just need to get this one final errand run, please, please, please just make it baby.

This too shall pass, in other words.
This too shall pass.

Light and quick (plus news)

2012-01-10T11:57:00.000-05:00

Today I feel overwhelmed. Not by emotion, but by the sheer volume of tasks and appointments and activities, and by trying to keep on top of it all. My google calendar and desktop calendar and beside-the-phone calendar are all working overtime. I keep emailing my husband with more info, more FYIs. At spin class, to which I dragged my aching legs this morning, one of the instructor's favourite calls of encouragement is: Get on top of it! But as soon as you're on top, you're spinning back down and around again. Faster and faster.

I've already decided to drop my daily food photo. With early exercise and school and work and making supper before eating breakfast, there is no time to style a plate of leftovers in order to catch the best morning light (see above: waffles, so pretty on Sunday morning). And it can still be a weekend project, aiming for two photos/week.

Back to spin class. I used to hate the fast spins: light and quick. I preferred the seated climbs, digging down, adding resistance, slowing the legs, basically pushing weight with my muscles. But the faster my legs spun around, the more out of control I felt. Here's what I've figured out: the more engaged my core, the faster I can spin. With that central stability to hold me steady, my legs can whirl faster and faster while staying in control. I'm learning to like light and quick.

So what is holding me steady as my life begins to spin again, faster and faster? What's at the core? What brings me joy and energy and determination--and stability? A bunch of thoughts jump to mind.

* family
* friends
* time alone in a quiet house
* sleep
* exercise
* dreaming
* goals
* connections
* routine
* little adventures
* sharing
* creating
* feeding

None of these are going to be my word of the year (to be revealed later this week, after I've shared it with my word-of-the-year partners). But there has to be room within the crazy for all of these things. It might mean finding space in the midst of the hurry. It might mean turning inconveniences into opportunities. For example, this afternoon we go from swimming to a soccer practice. Swimming's for all the kids, but soccer practice is just for one girl; in other words, the little kids have to be dragged along. This could go badly. Bored kids, tired mom. Or it could turn into quiet time spent together, doing things we don't always have time for: snuggling and reading while we wait. That's my plan. I can hope for the best, as Albus would say.

:::

News! On the work-related front!

**I've seen the full cover for Juliet, and the book is being sent to print later today(!!).
**Next week I'll head into Toronto to plan publicity with Anansi.
**This week I'm working on a web site to promote the book.
**Last night I sat in my office and listened to the first mix of the song I wrote and recorded for one of my characters in Juliet--my brother, who is a professional musician and producer, did the recording and production. I'm hoping to find some way to connect the two mediums.
**And today I am going to spend my writing time with The Big Fat Juicy Belly Worm.

**Also, as some of you may already know, I've signed on as an editor/writer for Storywell, a new local business that launches on January 19th. If you live locally, and you are interested in writing, please mark your calendars (desktop, google, beside-the-phone) and come out. Info below. Spread the word.

Word-of-the-year-past

2012-01-09T12:56:00.000-05:00

It's almost time to talk about my word of the year for this year to come.

But first I want to reflect on the word I chose last year. It was HEART. Not a word you want to come across too often in a collection of poetry lest you begin to suspect the poet of being a) in need of a thesaurus; or b) someone who missed her calling as a composer of greeting cards. Yup. It's a word with the potential to be shallow, sentimental, Valentine-shaped. And yet it's also a word with muscle, quite literally. And that is how I used the word (or how it chose to be used by me) this past year.

When I chose HEART, I was thinking of yoga's chest-opening exercises, of being more open and more loving and kind. But instead I found myself, over and over again, thinking of the noun, of my actual pumping heart. This past year I made my heart work harder than it ever has before. I asked it to power me through training and races at distances I'd never imagined enduring. And my heart adapted. I don't know the mechanics of long-term training, but somehow over many months my body became more efficient at moving and using oxygen. When I began training, I didn't know what endurance really meant; all I knew was that I didn't have it. Over the course of the past year, I learned that endurance is mostly about the ability to recover quickly. In fact, as I've experienced it, endurance means many quick recoveries amidst ongoing hard effort. This is best understood in the context of a race, but if you're a naturally competitive person, like I am, you'll get a taste for it during every run, every swim, every bike ride. It means feeling spent, and discovering another layer of strength.

All of which also means that my word of the year was taken awfully literally. And that wasn't what I'd intended.

Surely there's a cliche in here somewhere, something we could put on a poster, perhaps? Yes, if I dig just a little deeper, I think there is. Because it came to me this morning that while strengthening my literal HEART, I learned about courage. I learned to see myself as courageous (on a small scale), capable of enduring despite momentary doubt or pain; and that in turn gave me courage--to dream bigger, push harder, attempt more, and above all, to trust myself. I may feel spent--speaking metaphorically--but if instead of giving up or giving in to the feeling I let myself breathe for a moment, I will find another layer of strength. How often do I feel discouraged? Tired? Doubtful? Uncertain? These are every day emotions. They aren't necessarily enormous or overwhelming, but even on a small scale, anxiety or doubt can nibble away at resolve. To live a full life, I want to take chances, to push the pace, to try things I've never tried before. I want to answer that voice in my head that is whispering "Can I do this??" with "I don't know, but I'm going to try."

I might fail. I might run out of steam and stagger across the finish line. It might not work out this time. But if I've tried, I've learned more than if I hadn't.

That's where HEART took me this year. So I suppose it has been an opening exercise.

The week in suppers: a new year

2012-01-08T19:09:00.000-05:00

**Monday's menu: Mac and cheese baked with ham. Leftover Chinese takeout.
**Because: Kevin was in charge today. Mac and cheese with ham was a meal specifically requested for a holiday treat.
**What I ate: Warmed up soup and leftover tofu and broccoli over rice. I don't like mac and cheese. See, we accomodate many preferences at our table.

**Tuesday's menu: Baked potatoes. Green bean hash.
**Bonus: We actually had sour cream as a topping for the potatoes (we usually use yogurt) because we'd gotten sour cream to go with chips and dip on New Year's. Turns out only me and AppleApple like sour cream. Lucky us.
**The side: The green beans were ho-hum. But it's my fault for buying green beans out of season. They were tough. This is the problem with local eating: one gets spoiled by the real deal, and the imported stuff does not pass muster. So it's back to beets and cabbage.

**Wednesday's menu: Kids at at grandma's house. Parents ate at a movie theatre.
**Why? The occasion was a sleepover at grandma's, which the parents celebrated by going to a yoga class together (seriously), and then out to a movie (The Descendents; not cheery). We got panini sandwiches and ate them in the theatre. A pretty good date.
**Next time: Choose a more light-hearted film.

**Thursday's menu: Risotto. Roasted squash.
**Uh-oh factor: I used nearly 3 cups of raw rice to make what looked like a massive cast-iron pan of utterly delicious risotto (with onions, garlic, turkey stock, wine, butter, grated parmesan, salt and pepper). Our eldest was at another sleepover. Our youngest thought it was yucky. Our second-youngest ate soup instead. The rest of us ate the entire pan of risotto. Vanished. Scary. Next time I'll have to use four cups of raw rice.
**Happy daughter: This meal was AppleApple's request for a special holiday meal. I don't make it unless I'm blessed with extra time. It's stand-and-stir cooking. But oh so insanely good. Thank you, Italy.

**Friday's menu: Sweet and sour chicken in the crockpot. (Actually leftover turkey). Steamed rice. Cabbage salad with tamari dressing.
**Finally: A Side! AppleApple and I could not stop eating it. Guess we were starved for the crunch of cabbage.
**The end: That's the last of the leftover turkey. I've got a few parts frozen to make stock, but we shall soon be back to all-veggie meals once again. Perhaps with the exception of "cooking with kids" when we will allow the kids to cook with meat if they so chose.

:::

**Weekend cooking accomplishments: Eight loaves of bread (double batch), plus homemade pizza on Saturday. Good enough.

**Cooking with kids (Sunday night): Albus's turn. (pictured above)
**On the menu: Garlic bread. Meat lasagne. Cababage salad with cooked dressing. Plus sparkling cider to drink.
**Reviews: Excellent.

Bedtime snack: the legal and binding agreement

2012-01-07T10:37:00.007-05:00

Ah, the dreaded Bedtime Snack. Arriving so soon after supper that I was often still elbow-deep in dishwater. Demands for variety, for a veritable menu of choices. Each child requesting something different. Spoons and bowls and crumbs and complaints. The growing suspicion that bedtime snack had become a more important meal, for some, than supper itself. Something had to give.

This was Kevin's solution.

I didn't post it immediately upon signing because I wanted to see whether or not it would stick. It didn't entirely work over Christmas, what with the endless parade of eating and the crazy party hours we were keeping. But it's been working pretty smoothly on more ordinary evenings.

Here is the full text:

BEDTIME SNACK AGREEMENT
This agreement is between "The Parents" and "The Kids"
Whereas, The parents agree to provide a substantial supper, NOTWITHSTANDING inedible suppers, the kids agree to receive a bedtime snack with no plate including but not limited to Apple slices and carrot sticks.
This agreement supercedes all previous agreements.
Signed at WATERLOO Dec. 21, 2011.

Aside from revealing my husband's predeliction for random capitalization and punctuation (and the fact that I, his loving wife, will not let such things just pass by), the agreement highlights several important points: 1. no dirtying dishes post-supper 2. eat your supper 3. inedible means actually inedible not merely inedible in one person's opinion.

For the past number of evenings, we've been snacking on apple slices and carrot sticks between episodes of Modern Family, which everyone in our house loves equally. Occasionally a cookie is thrown into the mix (no plate, ergo acceptable snack). We've even had several blissful evenings, post-supper, when all of the children have worked together with the parents to clear the table, help with the dishes, tidy the living-room and countertops, and vacuum--all in anticipation of the reward of sitting together as a family to watch Modern Family episodes.

We've never been a TV family, but there's something so deeply pleasurable about sharing downtime together. We work together, then we get to hang out together. There's a real connection to be made between effort and reward; and best of all, the work and responsibility is shared out, as in the snack agreement, not dumped on one or two in service to the rest. I don't know whether this marks a lasting change--whether it will survive the return to routine and busyness--but let us hope so (or as Kevin might write let Us hope so). Because it's been brilliant.

Sweet Keeper

2012-01-05T21:24:00.000-05:00

A sweet keeper is a squash (did you know that? extra points for you).

Here's another sweet keeper.

Write to me in poetry

2012-01-05T07:35:00.004-05:00

How about a post with no photos of food or flowers?

I'd like you to meet Sheree Fitch. She is a Canadian writer, an author of many books for children, young adults, and adults too. And though I only know her virtually, her wit and energy and radiant spirit bubble off the page and out through the screen as vividly as if she were right here. Over Christmas, my little kids got a kick out my performance of her picture books Mabel Murple and There Were Monkeys in My Kitchen--I read them standing up because Sheree's books are filled with words that whirl and spin and ask a reader to throw herself in. You'll see what I mean when you read the poem below. Sheree wrote it in response to my recent post on the quotation,"Who begins too much accomplishes little," and when I asked, she said I could share it here.

This is the first response I've ever received in POETRY! I love it. Yes, Blogland can be a most delightful world in which to dwell.

‎(once you begin

spin
spin
spin

get dizzy from the busy

let the outside in

the world whirls on

while the moon

beams

its munificent lopsided grin )

simply discombobulating
jumbled up and mumbling
topsy turvy tumbling
tipsy tummy tied in knots
spirogyrospiralling
swivelling like anything
ab-soul- utely apple carted downside up
simply discombobulating
jumbled up and mumbling
topsy turvy tumbling
teetertottery hurray

(Inspired by ......... http://carrieannesnyder.blogspot.com/2012/01/who-begins-too-much.html)

- by Sheree Fitch

Thank you, Sheree! (I'd like to hear you read it.)

Read the manual

2012-01-04T08:45:00.070-05:00

Let me summarize what I learned yesterday. Mostly about taking photos.

1. Read the camera manual. Why not? It will cost you a mere fifteen minutes of your morning and you've owned the damn camera for [whispered] two years.

2. Depth of field. Look look look, it's my blooming plants against a backdrop of window and beyond!

3. Compare the two photos. Can you spot the difference? This one is nice too, but this is what all my photos looked like before today. Apparently, my camera's aperture was auto-set to create a shallow depth of field. Who knew?

4. Now I can do what I once thought impossible: take pictures of condensation on windows even in brilliant sunlight. Just gotta slooooooowwwww doooooowwwwnnnn that shutter speed.

5. As all three photos of our living-room windows painfully put on display, housecleaning is not my calling. Have pity and wash us, they cry. In voices too spotty to be heard.

6. This post is getting downright silly, but wait until you see the next photo. That will sober us all up.

7. Hungry? Thought not. And this was the best food photo of the day. Green bean hash if you're wondering. Recipe not included. Yesterday's food photography attempt taught me mostly what not to do. Don't attempt to photograph food in artificial light. It gets dark early; photographing supper should really go on hold for a few months in favour of lunch or breakfast. Or mid-morning snacks. Also, don't go for candid in food photography. You know, don't start eating supper, then hop up and decide to photograph it. Trust me on this one.

8. Everything I don't know! Buckets and buckets! I've got a shallow depth of field when it comes to this subject and I'm not too proud to admit it. Practice seems the best route to remedy that. Blog readers may be in for more flower photos than they should reasonably be expected to tolerate. (This one's an orchid). Please accept my apologies. And some nice flowers to go along with them.

9. Finally, most importantly: What pleases my eye? Do I know? (For example, is this photo, unedited out of my camera, a touch too dark, or does it please, with what light there is catching the fingertips?) On automatic settings the camera tells me what to admire in terms of light and shadow, temperature and tone. On manual settings I have to puzzle beauty out for myself. You might call it the perfect challenge.

Who begins too much?

2012-01-03T11:12:00.003-05:00

Found this German saying in the newspaper this morning: "Who begins too much accomplishes little."

Uh oh. Is that me? As I woke at 5am, churned away at spin class, got home, ate breakfast, threw laundry in washer, thought about working on the writing project I'm developing, checked email instead, received message on how to use my camera better, spent next hour and a half playing with camera settings and taking random photos around the house, finally sat down at desk to work and started a new blog post. This one.

All the while, this is my morning to work while Kev hangs out with the kids. ie. my time is limited! And what have I done? Is it my habit to dart from project to project, from activity to activity, never fully developing the potential of any?

Maybe my word of the year should be focus. Or choose. Or limits.

Ugh. I don't want a word like that. I want to do too many things. Not just do them, but master them, become expert at them. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?

(Yes it is, at least all at once, if experience is any guide.)

But everything in me wants to deny it. Wants to embrace the opportunities, chase all interests, learn with a hungry and curious mind.

Look at it this way:

**This morning I challenged my body and put in time and effort toward racing goals this summer.

**This morning I ate breakfast with my kids.

**This morning I learned something new and useful: how to adjust the aperture and shutter speed settings on my camera manually, and what effect these previously mysterious numbers have on the outcome of the photos I take every day.

**This morning I recorded, briefly, where my mind is at.

**This morning I connected with friends in person and via email.

And now I am going to open a word processing file and spend an hour, **this morning, working on The Big Fat Juicy Belly Worm. Yup. My project in development is a story for children. I read the first chapter to my kids last night, and I think they'd like to hear another one. What could be more motivating?

Sorry, German saying. You're probably right, but I'm going with my manic energy this morning.

***

On a completely different note, this blog post titled "Read and Loved in 2011" by The Keepin' It Real Book Club reached out of the blue and touched me **this morning. Read it and see for yourself.

The week in suppers: festive edition # 2

2012-01-03T08:45:00.000-05:00

**Monday's menu: Sweet potato coconut soup (crockpot). Turkey slices. Cranberries. Mashed potato stuffing. Broccoli. Bread and butter.
**Best-of-all: Mostly leftovers. Super easy. Changed plans early on and did not make turkey pot pies, though they would have been lovely. This was so much less stressful and left more time for visiting with Kevin's family who arrived from north of Kingston to spend a few leisurely days with us and to celebrate our FOURTH Christmas of the season. We're a lucky family.
**Happy chef: I put the soup in the crockpot first thing in the morning and instantly felt prepared for the day.

**Tuesday's menu: Hot and sour soup. Ham. Cranberrries. Sweet potato/apple stuffing. Middle-Eastern herbed rice stuffing. Creamed leeks. (pictured above)
**The occasion: Christmas feast number two. I love cooking! But even better, I love cooking for an appreciative audience (no offense, kids).
**If-I-do-say-so-myself: This meal was a FEAST. A beast of a feast. I need to post recipes for pretty much every single side. After having done a more traditional meal on Sunday, I decided to be adventurous. I called this meal theme: Around the World. The flavours covered a lot of geographical territory.

**Wednesday's menu: Supper out at a Pho restaurant. A treat from my mother-in-law. Delicious and no dishes!

**Thursday's menu: Ham and cheese melts for the kids. Dinner out at Uptown 21 for the parents (birthday treat).

**Friday's menu: Pasta. Red sauce with hamburger (yes, hamburger: local and organic and bought for the guests, but instead we went out for pho, see Wednesday's menu).
**Somewhat lacking: A side vegetable.
**Sad vegetarian observation: Hamburger tastes good.

Snow falling on resolutions

2012-01-02T10:54:00.013-05:00

Resolutions. Do you make them? We went around the table last night and everyone had the chance to make a resolution for 2012. Not all cared to participate, but here's what we got:

**Albus resolved to finish his Perplexus game (at least it's not a video game), and buy two new ones and finish those too. (Inspiring ... sigh).

**AppleApple resolved to train for and complete a try-a-tri. Her dad wants to, too. We'll check age limits, but try-a-tris are short-distance triathlons with lengths I'm certain she could manage.

**In addition to the try-a-tri, Kevin resolved to dance more. He intends to practice with help from a wii game we played on New Year's Eve called Just Dance (we had a kid-oriented New Year's; very fun). I'm not sure whether a wii game will make him a better dancer, but it is good exercise. (Fooey said, "The best part is that you don't even have to have a wii remote--you can just dance!")

"all the little grains of snow," taken this morning, back porch

Today, I am pretending the holiday is over; Kevin is helping with that. Whenever the kids are off school or home sick, childcare coverage falls to me, and as I start both working more and wanting to take on more work the imbalance becomes more obvious. I'm thankful that Kevin came around to recognizing this himself, and offered, for this coming week, to share childcare and split the days. Today he's off anyway, so I get the full day. Friday I'd already arranged for babysitting in the morning, so he gets the full day. We're splitting the other days half and half. I'm already floating the idea of doing this for summer holidays too. Something's got to change this year.

I don't usually do resolutions because who knows what will come or how a year will change a person. But I love lists, and this is good place to start.

1. Share the childcare. Take on more work projects. Work more hours.

2. Explore work options. Take risks. Dabble. Whatever I do to fill my hours and earn money, may it be creative, and perhaps surprising.

3. Budget better. Needs no explanation. Kevin and I are already collaborating on this front.

4. Continue early mornings + exercise. On my race list this year (assuming no injuries): the 30km in Hamilton in March; another Olympic-length triathlon; another marathon; and maybe just maybe a half-Ironman triathlon. I'd also like to do another half and another 10km. But racing is expensive. See #3.

4b. (late addition) Stretch!!!! After all exercise. For at least five minutes.

5. Develop book ideas. Apply for grants. Write another book!

6. Promote THE JULIET STORIES.

7. Practice photography. Use my eyes. Use my feet. Find new locations and subjects.

8. Make music. Write songs. Record.

9. Do everything I can do to continue to be "a good model" for my children. Be forgiving. Be kind. Seek to understand. Love.

10. Go bravely forth.

"Desert in the snow," taken this morning, back porch.

*note: to see photos in full please click on them

Day of doing nothing, whatever that means

2012-01-01T16:37:00.006-05:00

There, I've caught up on sleep for 2011.

The house is full of kids, a few extras just for fun, and we're spending the day doing NOTHING, whatever that means to each of us. For me, that means sleeping in, not cooking a thing, and playing with my brand new portrait lens. It was a surprise Christmas gift from Kevin and this morning was the first opportunity I've had to open it. Well, there were opportunities earlier, of course, but not an expanse of hours to do nothing but take photos. Which is how I've spent this morning and early afternoon.

Ideas for new photo projects bound into my brain. I'm so excited to have a lens that allows me to photograph food properly. I love my other lens, but it is meant for panoramas, lovely sweeps of moments, and not for close-ups. All I need now is a good flash and I'm set.

So here are my spontaneous probably over-the-top ambitious plans for photo projects, 2012:

1. Sunday self: a weekly self portrait. Daily is too onerous given the other projects (not just photo related) I'd like to complete this year.

2. 365 days of food: Photographing food is a special art, and not easily accomplished as anyone who's tried can tell you. It's difficult to make food look as appetizing as it tastes. There is no better way to learn a new skill than daily practice. Ergo, a daily food photo. I use them on my blog, so it's practical too. And I'm rolling around the idea for a cookbook project which would tie in very nicely.

3. Portraits of strangers; portraits of friends. Or husbands, as the case may be. This makes me nervous, but is definitely something I'm interested in working on. My friend Nancy would like to attempt, with me, a combined project that would involve photographing our mutual Facebook friends (we have about 34 in common, living as we do in the same 'hood). More on this to come, if anything comes of it.

Okay, about four hours just slipped away there as I organized my photo files and played with post-processing. Good grief, digital comes with some drawbacks. But I'm good now. I'm ready for the new year, and for the pile of new photos to come--with places for every one. Exciting.

Now to order take-out Chinese for supper. It's been an excellent, chip-eating, stormy weather, movie-watching, Just-Dance-playing, nothing-doing first day of the new year here at our house. Hope yours has been just as fine.

The worst/best time to have a birthday

2011-12-30T13:30:00.001-05:00

Yesterday was such a perfect day. First thing in the morning, my friend Nath delivered a birthday cake that was just like my Grandma King used to make for me when my family happened to be travelling on my birthday (and which I remember eating for breakfast before getting in the car for a long ride home): angel food with strawberry frosting.

The kids and Kevin gave me the whole day off. I went shopping, an annual event, and refreshed my wardrobe for the coming year. (And, no, I'm not exaggerating; it really is an annual event. Lucky me, my birthday falls during prime sales time). Add to the list of happy happenings: yoga, naptime, dinner out, and late-night vegging on the couch watching episodes of Modern Family (why so funny? can't analyze it), and it was such a fine day.

When I came home from shopping, I found these messages on our chalkboard.

"Happy birthday Mom! why we love you."

"I love everything about you mom, the way you look smell and act." "I love how you'r a good role model to look up too. When I grow up I want to be just like you."

"She plays piano." "You are generous." "I love how she does everything." "She makes the best cookies." "She makes the best food." [this message brought to you by the fussiest of all my eaters!] "She gets lego for me." "She cooks for us." "You read bedtime stories." "Because you are organized and kinda bossy." ["Who wrote that one?" "Daddy!"]

When I was a kid, I was pretty sure my birthday fell at the wrong time of the year. Now I'm pretty sure it's exactly right. Just when I'm collapsing into the post-Christmas/pre-New-Year's slump, along comes my birthday to fill me right back up again.

Which is good, because today we return to our regularly scheduled programming.

Birthday girl

2011-12-29T12:08:00.002-05:00

Well, that's me. On my original birthday. It's been awhile since I looked like that. Soon after this photo was taken I developed a wicked red rash and all photos for the next few months (and there were plenty; I was the first child) show the homeliest infant you can imagine, though I did exude a lot of personality. I was not an easy baby: a screamer with stamina. In one of my favourite baby photos, I'm standing stiff-legged in the palm of my dad's hand, probably about six months old. Strong and determined. And grinning ear-to-ear.

I haven't had the chance to blog over the holidays, which is a good indication of an excellent holiday, and a busy one. The photos posted yesterday equal the sum total of decent photos I took this Christmas season. (With the exception of some adorable captures of my beautiful nephew, but I didn't want to confuse you by including him in my wordless album post--Hey, Carrie's got an extra kid, when did that happen?) I didn't take many photos, truth to be told. This year, I felt pulled to participate in the moments rather than record them.

My birthday falls at the perfect time for annual summations and dreaming ahead. On the night before my birthday, for the past number of years, I've stayed awake until midnight, and written something in my journal about the year past and my hopes for the one to come. Since I rarely write anything by hand anymore (and thank heavens for that--my printing is virtually illegible, even to me), the journal contains a series of snapshots, which I re-read every December 28th with a mixture of sadness and appreciation. It gives me a sense of movement and change. I catch glimpses of the groundwork being laid that allowed for major life shifts in attitude. Change is slow. And you never know what will actually change when you choose to do something different, or try something new, or leave something behind. Change is rarely predictable. We go where we're going, not necessarily where we point ourselves.

But it's helpful to point ourselves too--beyond helpful, actually. It's critical to be alert and reflective and not to avoid recognizing the things that hurt. I would never speak against plotting and planning and organizing and trying your best. Just leave plenty of room for free-form leaps in your carefully laid plains. Leave space for rest and enjoyment. Be kind--to yourself and to everyone around you. That's perhaps the biggest lesson I've learned over the years. And the best advice of all is To thy own self be true.

Christmas album

2011-12-28T22:23:00.000-05:00

The week in suppers: festive edition

2011-12-28T10:51:00.003-05:00

**Monday's menu: Cranberry-bean soup. Fried rice with kale.
**Because: The crandberry beans got very mushy in the pot and looked just like bean soup. I added carrots, roasted red peppers, fresh thyme, and pepper, and called it Little House on the Prairie Soup. (In those books, Ma always makes the best bean soups.)
**The reviews: Fair to middling. Who wouldn't love Ma's bean soup? Apparently several of my children wouldn't. Maybe Ma's wasn't so peppery. (Honestly, it's brothy, rich, and delicious.)

**Tuesday's menu: Dahl. Paneer with tatsoi. Baked rice.
**Because: "Paneer" was requested as a special holiday meal, but I had some in the fridge all ready to go. Made it an Indian theme overall.
**What is tatsoi? I don't know, but it looks a bit like baby spinach. It cooks up less delicate and more spicy than spinach, but it's locally grown and worked as a good green addition to the meal.

**Wednesday's menu: Black bean chili (crockpot). Leftover rice. Cornbread.
**Because: I love my crockpot. This entire meal comes from my freezer and/or cupboard and/or cold cellar. I am digging into the stores and making sure I use up every bit before springtime. That's what it's for! (Yes, I need reminding.)

**Thursday's menu: Soups (leftovers). Biscuits. Cabbage salad with tahini dressing.
**It-was-a-nice-thought: We ate by candlelight to celebrate the solstice. It looked perfect and beautiful for a moment, and then everything went rapidly downhill. Cranky children, complaints, "it's too dark to see my food," and bingo, the romantic plan crumbled.
**Quantities: I doubled the biscuit recipe, and had way too many leftovers. Never good to come out of a "leftovers" meal with more leftovers than you started with.
**On repetition: I made the tahini dressing because once I find something I like, I make it until we're all bored of it. This is also known as "getting into a rut." But it was still really good the second time around. I added grated carrots and rutabaga to the cabbage. Yum.

**Friday's menu: Devised, prepared, and served by someone else (my dad and my step-mother). Hurray! Happy holidays!

**Saturday's menu: Christmas eve at brother and sister-in-law's house, potluck-style. Meats, cheeses, crackers, olives, paella, cookies, smoked salmon, etc. etc. etc. until we've nibbled ourselves into a pleasant food coma.

**Sunday's menu: Eighteen pound turkey. Classic bread stuffing. Brussel sprouts. Mashed potatoes. Pan gravy. Pumpkin pie. (pictured above)
**Forgot: To cook up the cranberries.
**Achievement: Totally dairy-free meal.

Let it shine

2011-12-24T14:33:00.001-05:00

This is my favourite turn of the year: when the days begin to become incrementally longer rather than shorter, and the light is on its way back.

For a brief moment, I loved our family's attempt at a candlelit dinner on the eve of the winter solstice, several days ago. Light in darkness. Shadow all around. Soon after this photo was taken everything fell to pieces, of course, and I loved that quite a lot less; also it lasted much longer. But that seems the nature of the holidays: chance moments of calm, bits of brightness, shards of reflection.

Wherever you are, whatever you celebrate, and wherever you can find it, I wish you light, rest, and glimpses of peace during your holiday.

Mission impossible

2011-12-23T09:37:00.013-05:00

I spent an afternoon earlier this week attempting to sort through our six bins of Playmobil and reassemble castles and families and scenes. There's a reason I titled this post "Mission Impossible." I wasn't doing it because I'm short of projects, of course; I was doing it because CJ was home sick and desperate for someone to play with. So we dragged out the Playmobil. All of it. If you'd been listening in, this is how our "playtime" would have sounded: "Stop sorting, Mommy! Make your guy talk to my guy!" And then I'd make my guy say, "Let's find my missing candelabra base. We can go on a deep sea mission to the bottom of this bin and ...." Deep sigh from CJ.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm not good with the playing.

My proudest accomplishment of the afternoon was the completion of one room in a princess castle. One room. It is now on a high shelf and everyone who looks at it has to sing "Aaaaaaaah" in an angelic tone while gazing appreciatively. Or maybe that's just me. In any case, no one is allowed to touch it. Oh wait. Isn't that the whole point? Of having TOYS? Maybe Albus was on to something when he came into the living-room later that evening and began vrooming the newly restored Playmobil car (with doctor and doctor's teeny-tiny kit that includes a teeny-tiny flu shot needle) through my carefully sorted piles. Let's just say the doctor might be in the wrong profession. She should have been a smash-em-up-derby racer with jet-pack engines and maybe a flame-thrower or two. Can you hear the heart-breaking sound of plastic items being explosively scattered across a wooden floor? I'm sure it was fun on the pure level of play, but I become momentarily deeply discouraged. My carefully sorted piles! Tossed asunder!

There's a lesson in here somewhere, if I care to extract it. But is that the kind of day it is? A day for lessons? No, today, I'd rather skip the moral of the story, down my cup of coffee, gird my loins, and head out into the horror that is the streets of uptown: thick with people driving their cars around and around as they seek for a parking spot and grow increasingly grim and hopeless (and mentally act out the Playmobil doctor's wreckless acts of destruction). Merry Christmas! I'm going to walk instead. But wow. I need some girding, some serious girding. I'm in the homestretch of preparations. I can do this! I can find and assemble every piece of this Playmobil holiday!

Wait, what were we talking about?

What I've been up to ...

2011-12-21T13:48:00.002-05:00

What a weird and wonderful week it's been. I am positively bubbling with creative energy. And, right about now, caffeine. Which might explain the rapid-fire typing you're hearing.

Yesterday had a stinker of a start. Well, not the very early start, which was spin class, and which, though I never quite got into it, still kicked off the day with a rush of happy endorphins. But then I got home. And discovered that CJ was refusing to go to nursery school, again. And you know, he's been sick, so I wasn't sure. Maybe he was still a bit off? Okay, kid. I'll give you another day. Even though that means cancelling my morning plan to go record a song at my brother's studio. Fine. Except it wasn't fine, and I wasn't fine, and I had to go to the basement and throw laundry into the washer and yell things and slam the door and perform other unpleasant and completely immature venting activities. It put a pall on the general everyone-heading-off-to-school-and-work part of the morning. I have a rotten temper.

It's all about the expectations. I'd expected and planned to do one thing, and when plans suddenly shifted, I was disappointed. And frustrated. And facing another housebound day with a less than willing spirit.

But I came around, in a moping sort of way, to acceptance, and went on with the changed plans. When suddenly the phone rang--it was Kevin. His morning appointment had to be rescheduled. "I'll come home and look after CJ, and you can go and record." "Seriously?" "Seriously." Well, off I went, let me tell you.

Proof that a stinker of a start doesn't mean the whole is ruined. Remember this. Remember, and leap for the unexpected opportunities that parachute into your hours.

Why didn't I take my camera? My brother's new studio is filled with light. It's an old Mennonite schoolhouse, one big room, and I sat right down at the piano to get loosened up. And then we recorded. Just one simple song, a lullaby. I wrote it for a character in Juliet. In fact, I'm pretty sure I wrote it as my character. Because my brother Karl is such an amazing and talented producer, as well as a musician, I know we're going to have a beautiful song at the end of the process. It's exciting. And I found myself up late last night perfecting more songs as my character. It's weird, but I can write songs as her better than as me. Maybe it gives me the distance necessary to be vulnerable, to allow myself to tap uncritically into emotions and even a particular style that I can ascribe to her. Maybe it's like writing a poem in a persona. I won't question it. It's working.

This morning, I surfed the creative wave toward a different shore. It helped that CJ trotted merrily off to nursery school--unquestionably healthy again. PRAISE BE. This morning, my friend Nancy arrived with coffee to share, and her camera. She is working on a new project that she calls "ipowr," or "Intriguing People of Waterloo Region," and she chose me as her first subject to interview and to photograph. I couldn't resist photographing her too, plus it put me at ease to stand behind the lens. A nice way to warm up, perhaps for both of us. Less pressure. The photo above makes me think of a villa, a place both stark and soft, and somehow old-fashioned. The crop doesn't quite do it justice. You can see the original here.

And so that is my yesterday and my today. I am basking in creative activities that would seem outside of my comfort zone. But neither feel like a stretch. Instead, both are extensions of what I'm already doing. And I'm brimming with appreciation for this quiet time between major projects, when I can do and try anything.

The world is full of beauty and light.
I am teetering on the brink of over-caffeination.
It's all good.

A good day: holiday preparations underway

2011-12-20T09:22:00.001-05:00

Oh what a good day was Saturday. Ambitious cookie baking plans. One ambitious cookie baking helper.

Rolling out the dough.

Cutting out the cookies.

Decorating.

And everyone's favourite step in the process.

Hurray! Treats to share!

Meanwhile, collaborators work on Christmas gifts in mama's new office.

And one child plays contentedly with Lego.

Evening. Christmas carols being practiced. (Okay, confession time--this started to grate upon the nerves after an hour or so.)

But I was still one happy woman at the end of the day. I wanted to give my kids (and myself) a weekend of holiday preparation in the lead-up to Christmas, into which we will slam at the end of this week--a week in which the kids are still slogging off to school every day. Honestly, I think we're all a little worn out. In need of a change, a holiday from the routine. Craving downtime. And cookies.

Piano recital: read the subtle changes in mood

2011-12-19T17:05:00.003-05:00

Before. Studying his music. Looking a little ill.

At the piano. Rising the occasion. Playing even better than in a million practices at home.

Forgot the bow. Shoulders back. Subtle pride. He knows he did well, but he's not going to smile too broadly.

Just the hint of a smile. Done. And breathe.

The week in suppers, plus Christmas baking!

2011-12-19T11:13:00.002-05:00

**Monday's menu: Black bean chili (crockpot). Steamed rice.
**Circumstances: I had to skedaddle to Toronto, so this was set on the table at about 4:56pm (it's already dark anyway). I wasn't here for the eating, but the leftovers are fabulous.
**Veg quota: No need for a side. There were plenty of veggies in the chili: corn and red peppers frozen this summer, and home-canned tomatoes.

**Tuesday's menu: Curried lentil soup (crockpot). Leftover rice.
**Circumstances: This was the evening we went Christmas shopping WITH the children. Arrived home and ate supper out of the crockpot. Should have added a vegetable side, but it was too late by then.

**Wednesday's menu: Pasta with roasted red pepper sauce. Napa cabbage salad with tahini dressing.
**The reviews: It's a hit! Mama has a hit! This meal debuts at number one on the charts!
**Mini-recipe: Tahini dressing: Whisk the following ingredients together in a bowl. Half a cup of tahini; 1/2 cup of oil (olive or canola, plus a smaller amount of sesame); the juice of one lemon; 1/4 cup of tamari sauce; salt to taste, plus a sprinkling of sugar if that's your thing (yes, it's mine).

**Thursday's menu: Roasted root veggies (pictured above). Roasted breaded fish. Quick cheese bread.
**Chef's complaint: Those beets were all about two inches in diameter. I had to wash and peel each one by hand. It took me as long to prep a bag of beets as it did for the cheese bread to bake. Forty minutes of my life!
**Caveat: But the veggies were delicious, especially the beets. Worth it?

**Friday's menu: Black beans. Baked rice. Tortillas.
**Because: In a rush, of course.
**Awesome leftover meal: Tortilla lasagne. Whipped this up on Saturday, with layers of corn tortillas, black beans, feta cheese, shredded mozzarella, and leftover roasted red pepper sauce. YUM.

**Weekend kitchen accomplishments: Ten dozen ginger snaps. Eight dozen cut-out cookies. Two pans of krispie squares. Four loaves of bread.
**Monday morning addendum: Home with sick son, so putting houseound time to good use and making one batch of really good granola and four litres of yogurt.

A hint about our day

2011-12-17T21:36:00.000-05:00

The creative life: dig in

2011-12-16T10:21:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, a reader commented on my Green Dreams post, which was written about a year and a half ago. This morning, I read that post again and found these words, which feel like a wise reminder from my (slightly) younger self:

I would like to offer my time--because I have it, and I'm grateful for that gift--to living creatively. Anyone who's ever made anything knows that there is a great deal of invisible work behind what's created. There is the original vision, changed and altered and made deeper by reflection and time, there is work, there is error and recognition of error, and incorporation of error, too, and there is luck, happenstance, improvisation. There are bursts of production and activity, and lulls of wondering, daydreaming, even doubt. There is sacrifice. You have to figure out if it's worth it to you--figure out what you're sacrificing, and why you want to.

Mostly, though, you just do it: you do the work you've chosen to do.

Living creatively, improvising, digging in, committing, taking risks, messing up, pausing to reflect, continuing, trying new things and rediscovering the tried and true: that pretty much sums up my life at present--or at least, the life I'm aiming for, every day. Yours, too?

::::

On that note, I'd like to tell you about a few projects I'm currently digging into.

* increasing subscribers to my blog: If you look on the right-hand side of the blog, I've got links to a variety of extras, including a new feature that allows you to type in your email address and receive blog posts in your inbox. We're still tinkering with this (and by "we" I mean my techie friend Nath is troubleshooting for me), but I'd be happy if you signed up. And then please let me know if it's working for you.

* Storywell: My friend Susan has launched a business aimed at helping people tell their stories: "Whether you are writing for your own family and community, aiming at publication, or needing help in telling your company or organization's tale, we can help you tell your story well. We offer you a team of professional writers, editors and proofreaders whose goal is to help you develop as a writer." And guess what? I'm one of the professional writers on her team. Interested, or know someone who might be? Get in touch.

* a new challenge: "Make Carrie's Book a Bestseller." Okay it's a crazy challenge over which I have no real sway. Even publishers don't know how books make it onto bestseller lists, the compilers of which seem to collect data from a variety of unpredictable sources. But I think it will be fun. Kevin is the brains behind the idea. He created and hosts a flexible web site for his business that can be used by personal trainers as a forum to run challenges. We're using that forum to create a challenge called: "Help Make Carrie's Book a Bestseller." The site is still under construction, but I plan to have it ready to launch in the new year, and you will be invited to join. I only have one hope for my book, and that's that it will get read. Then it can speak for itself.

* early to rise: This isn't really a project, it's just something I want to continue whether or not I'm working toward a particular race (my next one is in March, which still seems too far off to be highly motivating). I like the ethic involved in getting up early. I like that it's not easy. It's not easy, but it's ALWAYS rewarding. This morning, my internal alarm woke me up for yoga. I'd planned to sleep instead, but when my eyes saw 5:48 on the clock, I recognized that it was a little gift, and I accepted it. Few of my evenings are free. My only guaranteed alone time is in the early morning hours. I've never been a morning person and even now do not consider myself one; but that doesn't mean I can't rise early and move my body and stride confidently into the day.

(Just realized that this looks like an early New Year's resolution list. It's not meant to be. I'm very ho-hum on resolutions. I prefer big picture overviews of the past year combined with swooping excitement and energy beamed at the year ahead. Every year on the eve of my birthday--which is Dec. 29th--I write just such an overview in my journal, by hand. Very old-school. Very satisfying.)

Ring your bell, ring it loud

2011-12-15T10:46:00.003-05:00

Good morning. Good rainy dark pre-solstice morning. So dark, the bus picked up AppleApple in what appeared to be the pre-dawn. At our house, at this time of year, everyone takes vitamin D and fish oil. Yes, I make my children take fish oil. Nobody objects. CJ actually came running for his fish oil this morning. Here he is, waiting patiently to ring his bell during his Christmas concert yesterday.

He's not the only one in the family ready to ring some bells and make some noise.

At supper last night the conversation ranged. It started with the weather. Albus and friends had rescued their snow fort from the rain, but it was dwindling. "It's going to be 11 degrees tomorrow," he reported. "Why is this happening?" "Climate change?" I mentioned an article I'd read about giant plumes of methane gas bubbling out of the Arctic Sea. We talked about Canada's government withdrawing from the Kyoto accord. We talked about the oil sands. We talked about the power of money. We talked about weather versus climate. AppleApple worried: what could she do?

My suggestion: start by sending a letter to our federal environment minister, Peter Kent, a former television journalist who in fact reported in great detail on the emerging science of climate change way back in 1984 (the internet is useful for so many things). I write a lot of letters. It's one of the few things I can think of to do and I've been doing it since childhood. In fact, in 1987, aged twelve and in homeschool, I was upset and disturbed about the effects of greenhouse gases on our environment, and wrote to then-environment-minister, also in a Conservative government, Lucien Bouchard. I received in return a large package in the mail some little while later: glossy pages of activities and suggestions (turn off the tap when you brush your teeth!). No actual response to the questions raised in my letter. I was disgusted by the obvious waste, and the irony: the ministry of the environment producing glossy reams of paper, essentially propaganda. (My parents were peace activists, so yes, I knew about propaganda.)

And so, our dinner conversation turned to propaganda. We talked about how we humans like to fool ourselves. We like to comfort ourselves, and distract ourselves from news that would make us sad or worried. (Which would explain why celebrities are a bigger "news" draw than actual news.) And then the conversation got really funny. Albus didn't get the concept: How could we fool ourselves?

Hm. Pretty sure you're a master at it, Mister "It Was an Accident" Albus. We all admitted familiarity with that sickish feeling when you know you've done something wrong. Around the table, almost unanimously, we discovered that that feeling arises more often when we've done something wrong by accident, and less often when we've been deliberately bad. (Maybe when we do something deliberate we've already built up the rationale around why we're doing it; we've already bought into the wrong-doing; cough-cough "ethical" oil sands cough-cough.)

AppleApple decided to research climate change--what we can do, what the government could be doing. She wants her ducks in order before she writes her letter. She wants INFORMATION and FACTS. Maybe we'll all write letters (you, too?). Albus also suggested that we could have a protest. Hey, good idea, grandkid of activists. Protests are in the air. The Protestor was just named Time magazine's Person of the Year.

But as I watch cars stream past my house this morning, as I myself turn to my vehicle in the cold and the rain, as I consider how we are creatures of cultural habits and patterns (currently reading Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers), as I tap out these words ... I wonder how to answer AppleApple's anxious question: What can she do? Is there anything we can really do? Really? Beyond hope and pray and protest and write and try and hope some more? Life is so damn short. A second ago I was twelve; blink, and my daughter is nine--and what's changed?

But that's not how the conversation ended last night. Somehow, it ended with us going around the table taking turns trying to fake laugh. You should try this at home. In fact, you must. Don't think about it too hard; just give it a shot. It will give you hope. Because even the most ridiculous half-hearted attempt will turn genuine in about two seconds when everyone else joins in.

Christmas shopping: Is there a lesson in here somewhere?

2011-12-14T10:46:00.004-05:00

"Is there a lesson in here somewhere?" I asked the general cacophony yesterday evening. "Are we really teaching you anything about being generous or being giving or how to think of other people? What is this all about?"

You guessed it. We were about to go Christmas shopping. For the past few years we've let the kids choose small gifts for each other, though CJ has been too small to really participate. Turns out, he's still too small. We have a favourite store we go to that the kids call "The Castle Store." It used to be oriented toward gamers--Dungeons and Dragons figurines and whatnot, but it's expanded successfully into board games, crafts, puzzles, Lego, Star Wars figures, and some other toys. Walls of puzzles. I love this place. So does CJ, but he really couldn't think of anyone but himself. Nor could he think past the present moment to Christmas morning.

I want what I want and I want it right now! could have been his motto.

But that was at the store. Back at home, as I attempted to prepare for our shopping venture, there was covetous CJ, but there was also Fooey, recovering from pneumonia, well enough to head back to school, but pretty much pooched by 4pm, and in a generally surly and screamy state, perhaps a sign of improving health, or a sign of being spoiled by a week at home watching movies and being catered to by her loving mother, but really, who cares why? It's virtually intolerable. The bossy-Fooey-screams send AppleApple into fits of indignant rage, while Albus's response is to poke rational holes into her (il)logic. Helpful.

Toss in the much-anticipated trip to The Castle Store, and our after-school scenario yesterday resembled nothing more than a miniature civil war battlefield. I remained the voice of calm, but you know, no one's listening to the voice of calm in the middle of a bloody battle.

Which brought me around to my rhetorical question: "What is this teaching you guys?" Okay, not so rhetorical because I really didn't know the answer. Still don't. I was about to give up when Kevin called and said he could come along too (this was planned as a me-and-the-kids outing; short-sighted planning right there). With another parent along, we were able to manage. Plus, aside from CJ wanting everything right now, the other kids turned angelic in the Castle Store aisles as they thought about their siblings, consulted their siblings, and secretly made choices.

So what's the lesson here? I really really really don't know. At various points in the venture I would have said it was:
*Don't take your three-year-old Christmas shopping! (And really, if you have the option, just don't.)
*Don't go Christmas shopping, period!
*Materialism sucks!
*And: Can't we shove the toothpaste back into the tube and everyone will just get a nice big orange in their stocking and that will be plenty?!
But I guess I came around to this:
*Give your older children the opportunity to choose thoughtful gifts for each other. They might surprise you.

Right now I am ...

2011-12-13T11:53:00.003-05:00

... still buzzing after meeting all of the Anansi staff at their sales rep party in Toronto last night. I was so nervous. So nervous! I put on mascara while Fooey writhed on the floor and screamed in her bossiest voice, "You will not be going to this meeting tonight! They can do the meeting tomorrow! You are not going!" It brought me closer to the reality that, for my little kids at least, this Mommy's publishing a book thing is a major inconvenience; they really can't understand what it means to me. Mommy's publishing a book and she's not tucking me in tonight! Not: Mommy's publishing a book, yay for Mommy! I set supper on the table, set the table, and as soon as Kevin walked through the door, peeled two desperately clingy children off my legs and made a run for it.

Then I had a pleasant (not) leisurely (not) drive down the 401. The traffic! Plus, the closer I got to my destination, the more nervous I got. I got so nervous I was having to remind myself to breathe. It's been awhile since I've schmoozed. Thankfully, as soon as I walked through the door, I was in good hands. My former boss from, oh, a decade or more ago, is married to Anansi's publisher. I think he knew I was nervous. I kind of had the same expression on my face that I had at the beginning of the marathon (but with better hair and a nicer outfit). He got me a glass of wine and took me outside to meet his dogs, and I was soon feeling much better. Just like reaching the 10km mark. Before I knew it, I was cruising.

And I got to meet everybody! I mean, all of these people who have been working with me from afar (not so very afar, but far enough that we've never met in person). I got to meet them! I met my editor! It was like meeting an old friend, except I had imagined her looking just a little bit different. I'd imagined everyone differently, come to think of it. Everyone looks different over email and the telephone. It was like meeting the people behind your favourite radio voices. Without even knowing it, you construct these imaginary faces.

Anyway, by 34km or so, I was one happy writer. I'd been fed a lovely dinner. My sister's red shoes looked great (thanks again, Edna!). Best of all, I wasn't schmoozing, I was just getting to know people. Hey, I like people! And come to think of it, I like talking too! Not so nerve-wracking after all.

At the end of the evening, I mentioned that I was kicking around for a new challenge this coming year--thinking of a running challenge or something like the 365-day photo challenge--and Sarah, Anansi's publisher, said (and I paraphrase): "How about publishing your book!? Forget the other challenges. This will be plenty. This year, you'll launch a book!"

I like that. I might have to go with that.

(Oh, and I got up early for spin class this morning and I was still buzzing ... still am ... floating on an evening out of the every day.)

(And, no, that photo does not relate. It's just a purty picture of some berries in the snow in front of our house.)

The week in suppers: enter the root vegetable

2011-12-12T10:47:00.001-05:00

**Monday's menu: Split pea soup in the crockpot. Quick beer bread. Baked squash.
**Because: We have a whole lot of yellow split peas. We also had no bread. Quick breads can save a meal.
**Recipe for Beer Bread: Set oven to 400 degrees. Grease a loaf pan. Whisk together 1 cup whole wheat flour, 1 cup white flour, 1/2 cup large flake oats, 2 tbsp sugar, 2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, and 1/2 tsp salt. Add in one freshly opened bottle of beer (any kind!). Fold together until just mixed. Scrape into pan. Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Important: Let cool completely in pan before unmolding and serving. (Why I know this: Hungry children + hurrying to get food on the table = somewhat crumbling very hot beer bread. Still good, however. Made good toast the next morning too).

**Tuesday's menu: Pasta with pesto. Fiery fried cabbage. Broiled tofu.
**Because: Something for everyone. Except there was still a lot of complaining. Why? Oh why?

**Wednesday's menu: Sweet potato coconut soup in the crockpot (pictured above). Bread from City Cafe. Cheese.
**Because: So good! Visit here for the recipe. Best use of a yam, ever.
**Random kitchen accomplishment: Made yogurt. Kevin's been eating a lot of it atop the really good granola, as a bedtime snack. He likes that everything in that bowl is made by me. I like that too.

**Thursday's menu: Black beans. Baked rice. Tortillas. Cut up winter veggies: carrots, rutabaga, daikon radishes.
**Because: Today was a tough day. But this meal is easy. Popular, quick (just takes advance planning), satisfying. Good conversation around the dinner table.

**Friday's menu: Pizza night at church.
**Confession: We haven't gone to church all fall, but when info on pizza night arrived in my inbox, packaged with the promise of gingerbread house decoration, we were in.
**Extra confession: I didn't even go. Pizza night overlapped with AppleApple's goalie camp, so I dropped everyone else off, drove AppleApple to the sports complex on the other side of town, and went for a run (our Friday night ritual), while Kevin managed the kids, the pizza, and the gingerbread decoration. Bless him.

Photos for the Christmas letter: the outtakes

2011-12-11T15:21:00.003-05:00

Let's begin by gathering together the joyful participants in this afternoon's all-family project. Joyful, I said. Joyful participants.

Kevin (silently): What the hell, son? What the hell?

It's always thrilling to discover new talents in one's offspring.

Apparently, we have a natural born ham. Please, sir, may I have some more?

CJ acts out another scenario unseen by the rest of us.

Giant robot coming! Must defeat it with laser eyeballs!

I include this just because it's so supremely awkward. CJ is about to do a runner. I'm, you know, smiling! Fooey's vogueing. Enough with the jazz hands. And we're done.

It would be nice to report that the photograph chosen to grace our Christmas letter (yes, we're going to do a Christmas letter this year!) is far superior than these. It would be nice.

What's blue and red and makes you wonder: who's that girl?

2011-12-09T12:06:00.000-05:00

This is what my book looks like!!!!!! (Insert full paragraph of exclamation points.)

You can even pre-order it!!!

But this is what it looks like!

(And, no, I don't know who the girl is, though she does look weirdly like my own AppleApple. The publisher designed the cover, not me.)

Dreamy, dreamy.

This was not the post I began writing this morning. That post started like this:

"Long week. General gloom. Set alarm, rose early. Glad for that.
Snow falling. Cough cough cough from my constant companion."

And went on in the same vein. Which is true enough. But I'm glad the cover popped into my inbox and interrupted my cranky, restless mind with a splash of colour. And, oh, that dreaming girl. I'd like to just go be her for a little while.

On the seventh day of Christmas ...

2011-12-08T12:21:00.000-05:00

... the kids made decorations for the front window. We didn't have time to get to it until after 8 o'clock last night, but with everyone working together helpfully, I didn't want to crush the creativity for bedtime purposes. CJ made a snowman that we hung on the wall rather than the window--he found sticky-tack on the back of a fish he'd made at nursery school and hung it himself. Fooey made a snowflake and a Santa. AppleApple made red and green holly to frame the corners, and Albus made blue snowflakes and a line of people holding hands.

On the eighth day of Christmas (ie. today), I've promised to make caramel popcorn balls. Maybe we'll use the recipe in our Little House on the Prairie Christmas recipes book. It would be appropriate because AppleApple is attending a Victorian classroom today--a field trip for her enrichment program. Here she is all dressed up and braided.

Yesterday was the kind of day that defines relentless. I received the final questions on the proofs for Juliet while sitting in an xray office with Fooey and CJ, having just dropped AppleApple at piano lessons, and while waiting for Albus to call my cell so I would know he was safely home. I was thinking today how strange it is that you can't always have your kids with you. Hm. That doesn't sound very profound. I was thinking of how strange it still feels to let them go and be independent, to know that they are capable of being out there in the world, without me. Same for my book--can it fend for itself? Is it ready?

(Oh, and the results of the xray came back positive for pneumonia. Which would explain my poor girl's endless nighttime coughing.)

Rearranging the furniture

2011-12-07T11:01:00.001-05:00

Who's house is that? We pushed the sofa away from the wall for a poetry book club a couple of weeks ago, and never pushed it back again. Furniture in the middle of the room ... who knew? It makes for a cozy seating area with space for piano practice and the art table behind it. I still don't have a decent location for the piano books, but someday. Someday.

I'm operating on a hopeful mission to sort out and tidy every drawer and surface in the house. And also to keep the bathrooms/kitchen clean. My strategy involves doing it when I see it needs doing. In practice that means I was cleaning out the bottom drawer of the fridge on Monday evening while unloading our Bailey's food. The idea, borrowed from my friend Rebecca's blog, is to ask: Do I have five minutes? Usually these minor cleaning tasks take only a few minutes. And I almost always have five minutes. I also found five minutes, which stretched to a few more, to scrub mold off the grout in the shower one evening last week. Just what one feels like doing after tucking the kids in, let me tell you, but that's when I noticed the mold. Did I have five minutes? I did. We use baking soda and vinegar as cleaning agents, and as I scrubbed and scrubbed (using an old toothbrush) I found myself reminiscing about the Old Dutch cleanser my mom used to use, which would remove a layer of skin from your hands but sure got the tiles sparkling in a jiffy. Advice from fellow green-cleaners out there? Is the secret all in the elbow grease and the lowered standards?

If I'm talking a lot about the house, it's because this has been a housebound week, high on domestic necessities. My girl is still sick. We will be heading to see the doctor shortly.

I don't function well in housebound mode (and for the record, yes, my office is at home, but my office does not make me feel housebound). I don't function well on interrupted sleep. I get grumpy. It's fair to no one, but by 6pm, on a day when I've been doing nothing but scrubbing grout with a toothbrush, preparing meals, cleaning up from meals, entertaining sick children, worrying about sick children, and ferrying other children with sick child in tow to after-school activities -- by 6pm I'm liable to bite someone's head off. Usually my husband's. Because by 6pm he's around, that's why. And he's not a kid. Yup. Totally unfair.

I've been enjoying reading the latest issue of Brain, Child magazine, which has a piece on whether or not mothers complain too much about motherhood these days. Do we? Do I? Or should I really be complaining more? I wonder sometimes whether I get the balance right: truth-telling, accurate reporting of on-the-job realities mingled with gratitude. I do feel some discomfort about being a "mommy blogger" ... about presenting my family's life in some ideal package or inducing guilt in any other mother out there who doesn't have time (or the interest) to make homemade food or who drives instead of making her kids walk to school or etc. I think we're all trying our best. We have good intentions. We make mistakes. Life isn't perfect. And "mother" might just be the most judged and criticized role any of us could have chosen to take on, but that didn't stop us, so there's bravery right there.

And I'm rambling.

And it's time to go.

AppleApple's Singer's Theatre show, reprised for the home audience

2011-12-06T17:18:00.004-05:00

Very serious production, as you can see. You can't see the parents in stitches over the seriousness, though we tried to keep our faces straight. Fooey earned a walk-on role.

Spot the sick child

2011-12-06T09:43:00.007-05:00

She slept in late after a restless night. She still has a fever, so I kept her home sick. But as soon as she got up, she saw the snow. She's been playing outside for over an hour. I just peeked, and she's working on turning the snow fort into a snowperson. Nope, make that snowpeople! "I made a snow angel, too."

Making peace with the last-minute scramble

2011-12-05T11:22:00.001-05:00

There is no snow. This is a photo from last week, when ever so briefly snow fell and stayed. Now it has rained for days. The wishful thinker in me imagines the piles of snow that would have accumulated between then and now had the temperature been lower, the possiblities for snow forts and snowmen and seasonal festiveness. The practical thinker in me says: Remember shovelling? And scraping the windshield? Remember bad drivers?

Ah, but remember the sound of the snow, the muffling effect, the crunch underfoot, remember crispy eyelashes after a long run.

This morning was one of those mornings when I spent about ten chaotic minutes wishing things could go more smoothly. The obvious every day things like: getting all of the children out the door, along with all of their possessions, and their homework completed. But maybe that last-minute flurry is just the way that it is and ever will be. Maybe I should apprciate all that we managed to accomplish this morning, despite the last-minute scramble.

- I swam 2.5km
- Kevin and Albus swam for half an hour (AppleApple was too exhausted from her multifaceted weekend to get up early)
- supper was started in the crockpot
- six people ate a healthy breakfast
- a load of laundry went into the machine
- Albus completed homework that was due last Wednesday and only discovered at 9pm last night (well, at least he did it; I hope there's a lesson in there somewhere)
- Fooey practiced piano
- the after-school walk home was arranged
- everyone took their vitamins
- Fooey took her medicine (she's on antibiotics for strep)
- I talked to FedEx to arrange couriering the page proofs to my publisher
- everyone except Fooey got out the door; most were even wearing appropriate footwear
- I remembered to call the school re Fooey's absence today
- no one was late

And it wasn't even 9am.

Is there a better way? It's so tempting to think that there must be, that life can always be improved upon (and I'm not advocating staying in a rut of obviously wrong behavior). But maybe sometimes there actually isn't a better way. Maybe sometimes I need to take a deep breath and gut through those ten minutes of chaos, and appreciate everything that is working.

The week in suppers

2011-12-05T10:54:00.002-05:00

**Monday's menu: Tandoori vegetable soup. Baked fish. Rice.
**Inspiration: This recipe in Saturday's Globe and Mail. Except I used my own mixture of spices, threw it in the crockpot, and skipped the shrimp. I suspect the recipe would also make an excellent base for a fish stew, but my kids prefer their food options separate, so I baked the fish separately.

**Tuesday's menu: Beans and rice and tortillas.
**Because: Easy and good.
**Totally lacking: A vegatable. Oops.

**Wednesday's menu: Saag paneer. Baked potatoes.
**Because: Discovered a bag of russet potatoes in the cupboard. And a package of paneer. And some spinach! And threw them all together into one fantabulous meal.

**Thursday's menu: Black bean chili in the crockpot. Cornbread (pictured above). Leftover rice. Retro-cabbage salad with broccoli and carrots.
**Because: Leftover beans + new vegetarian crockpot cookbook + slug of balsamic vinegar = really fabulous chili.
**Reviews: "I'll take the cornbread in my lunch tomorrow, Mom."
**Note to self: It might be time to double the batch of cornbread from an 8x8 pan to a 9x13 pan.
**Note to reader: In many instances, including this one, "retro" actually means "mayonnaise."

**Friday's menu: Leek and potato soup in the crockpot. Steamed broccoli. Biscuits.
**Because: Feeding MIL who loves leek and potato soup. Also, accumulation of excess leeks in fridge. Suspect they may be producing offspring. Generations of leeks! In my fridge!
**Sigh: I may be lactose intolerant. The biscuits were light, fluffy, and loaded with butter, and my stomach was heavy and puffy. This has been happening every time I eat butter! Life without butter? Throw me a lifejacket.

**Weekend kitchen accomplishments: Nary a one. Such is life.

**Vegetarian confession: I am craving meat! I almost ordered ten pounds of hamburger from our local food buying club. Somehow stopped myself. But I can't wait for the turkey I've promised "the children" for Christmas day. The guilt!

Extravagant life, the pack-it-all-in-dance-it-all-out version

2011-12-04T10:19:00.000-05:00

It is raining when it should be snowing this morning. I am wearing pajamas and listening to Christmas carols being played on the piano. That probably sounds more romantic than it actually is. Life often does in Blogland. But that's another topic for another post.

Yesterday's going to take some recovery time. But I don't mind. Welcome to our recovery Sunday.

Yesterday was a long and well-coordinated day right up until our youngest daughter had a nosebleed while we were out at a restaurant. Suddenly it got a whole lot longer and slightly less coordinated. On the way to the hospital, Kevin reminded me to drive safely and I assured him it was fine because "I always tail-gate slow drivers." (I was ever so slightly resenting how calm he remained -- not that that's a bad thing in such situations, but I kind of wished I weren't the only one freaking out, if you know what I mean. It would have made me feel less like I was freaking out.) The good news is that her nose bleed had stopped by the time we got to emerg, and lest you think we're alarmist parents, we sat at the pho restaurant for about 15 minutes waiting for it to slow, which seemed negligent, until the nurse at the hospital told me we could have waiting 45 minutes. Did you know that?? I mean, the nose was pouring. I hope you're not eating. Luckily both grandmas were with us at the restaurant so Kev and I were able to depart quickly and together and know the other kids would be fed, and that the performer would get to her performance. Because yesterday was AppleApple's Singer's Theatre show. I'm sad to say her dad missed it altogether due to the medical crisis. I'd gotten to see the afternoon show, and it was so good. Those sweet sweet children. And my dancing daughter in her soccer head band. She'd come to the show straight from soccer (grilled cheese sandwiches eaten in the car on the way to the curtain call) and the head band stayed on. She was the only child on stage who looked like no one had bothered to brush her hair. No one had. It was beautifully brushed for the evening performance, which Kevin and I both missed, but thanks to quick planning and cellphones, both grandmas were able to attend.

And after all that, after a day that included a visit from the washer repairman, and two birthday parties, and bowling with Grandma Alice, and taking a cab (due to having only one vehicle), and two soccer games, and carpooling, and two performances, and a spot of Christmas shopping, and supper out, AND a trip to emerg, Kevin and I made it at last to the first holiday party of the year. Thank God for Grandmas. We were able to stay out as late as we wanted. And so we did. Ergo, today's slow recovery.

I wore red high heels, borrowed from my sister Edna (come to think of it, she might not know I borrowed them from her ... uh, thanks, Ed!).

There was a lot of dancing. It's really the point of the party, which has become an annual tradition. This might be the fourth year we've gone ...??? And every year it seems impossible that another year has passed and we're back in this house crowded with friends, getting down. It's kind of a good marker, the way birthdays are. You can remember yourself from year to year, note the changes. The first year we went I was nursing an eight-month-old. I was timid on the dance floor. Clearly timidity was a passing phase.

Not to get too philosophical, but dancing, oh, so good for the soul and the body. Every once in awhile you hit the perfect song, the perfect rhythm, there's a mindless and perfect connection to the beat, and you're just lost to the world. It's a gift when it happens. If you feel like dancing, try this. And happy kick-off to the holidays, everyone.

Advent: celebration and anticipation and hot chocolate for breakfast

2011-12-02T11:43:00.002-05:00

I got this advent calendar several years ago from Ten Thousand Villages.

I wanted to mark the days of advent without the excess of, say, the Star Wars Lego advent calendar. (Not all of my children agree, and in fact last year we had both this calendar and the Lego calendar, which is the most secular calendar you can hope to find: last year's version had Santa in what looked to be a Speedo taking a shower. Not even kidding. This year's, according to those in the know, ie. my ten-year-old, features some kind of car chase or bank robbery. Just the thing to get you into the seasonal spirit.) However, who am I to talk? The advent calendar pictured above has been, for the past couple of years, nothing more than a repository for a daily dose of candy. Something small and sweet. I didn't have the energy to fill the little pockets with thoughtful activities, despite having greater intentions. I just didn't. So, candy it was. And Speedo Lego Santa.

This year I discovered a new cache of energy and resolve. And I started early, BEFORE advent season (ie. last week). I think the energy comes from this new office, and from having every weekday morning to myself. Have I mentioned how lovely these quiet mornings are? Five mornings a week! Sometimes I write, but sometimes I don't. Sometimes I dream up advent calendar activities for my children. It feels decadent.

And it may be decadent; but then again, maybe not. This is a larger question for a very different blog. In any case, this year, with these quiet peaceful spacious mornings to myself, yes, those little pockets pictured above are filled with activities. One per day. I have extra ideas stashed. I didn't want to overload my every day with a mandatory activity that I would be unable to pull off. So right now a few of those pockets have "hot chocolate for breakfast" as my fall-back option. That I can manage; if it turns out I can manage more, I'll make a swap.

My activities spring from a larger theme of celebration and anticipation, and not so much (I'm afraid) from a theme of giving and community. Visit my friend Rebecca's blog for more community-minded advent activities: she has some terrific ideas.

Here are mine:

- Hot chocolate for breakfast!
- Bring down Christmas books and CDs from the attic (Which we did today! Hurray!)
- Candy canes!
- Put up the Christmas tree!!!!
- Set up the creche
- Celebrate last swim lessons with ice cream
- Make snowflakes for front window
- Write Christmas letters to Santa
- Pizza and movie night (Christmas-themed movie)
- Write family Christmas letter to send
- Plan and make homemade gifts for each other
- Everyone wear green and red
- Look at old photo albums
- Christmas concert/singalong (at home)
- Make Christmas cookies + gifts for aunts, uncles, grandparents
- Deliver Christmas treats to friends and neighbours
- Pick up Christmas turkey and plan menu for special Christmas meals: everyone choose a favourite food!
- Christmas cookies for breakfast!
- Read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
- Celebrate winter solstice: eat supper by candlelight!
- Grandpa Arnold’s Christmas party
- Hang stockings + Christmas eve party

(Why the random exclamation points, Carrie? Your copy editor would not stand for this!)

Extra ideas, not currently in pockets
- Volunteer (ideas, anyone?)
- Decorate a tree for the birds
- Make popcorn and cranberry strings
- Skating at the rink uptown
- Make decorations for the tree
- Night hike with hot chocolate
- Sledding (oh, let it snow, please!)
- Family games night
- Bowling (we've never tried this, but who knows?)
- Family art night
- Dance party

Proofing the page: reading Juliet

2011-11-30T14:10:00.003-05:00

I am thinking about perfection. I happily admit to being a perfectionist. Not about everything, mind you. But when it comes to writing -- and writing fiction, particularly -- I obsess. I consider myself a technician, deeply interested in grammatical construction and the very tiniest of word choices. You would not believe how long I can suffer over the inclusion or removal of a "the."

But as I read these page proofs, I'm starting to question my obsession with perfection. I mean, for me it's the way I do it and I'm not likely to change what's working. But I'm seeing that it may not be that important in the end. In the end, a story, a whole book, it works because it leaves the reader with an impression, an emotional impression, something intangible that exists because it exists. Not because a "the" was removed. I'm not speaking against a careful craft, please understand.

I am speaking against perfection.

Sometimes, the imperfection of my creations bothers me. I've worked so hard and yet I know here and there is a paragraph too many or a flabby word choice that I cannot budge. But when I let myself sink into what I've made and forget about how it could or should be perfected, I am moved by what is being offered. To do this requires me to place a layer of distance between myself and my words, almost to read as if I were someone else.

When I consider my favourite books by other people, none are perfect -- and I couldn't care less. It's how they make me feel when I read them that matters. It's that they make me feel. They catch me off guard. They push me. Or they lift me. And though these books almost all display technical accomplishment, it is not for their technical accomplishments that I love them. I love them for existing.

That is the kind of book I hope to write; I hope to have written. Imperfect. With feeling.

I am loving this quiet week in my office, reading words on the page that I've written, gathered into a whole. I am loving being pulled right through the book from beginning to end and understanding its wholeness differently, in a new way. This feels like a special and unusual experience. I don't expect to have it again anytime soon. I am savouring it.

:::

P.S. The photo is a detail of a photo that depicts me posing in costume to look like a very old family photograph of my Great-Grandma Carrie Anne, my namesake. (A little more about Carrie Anne here.) The photo was taken for a photo project by Ilia Horsburgh.

Right now I am ...

2011-11-29T13:17:00.002-05:00

home with a sick child
reading page proofs
cooking supper
watching the rain,
and the wind.

The week in suppers, with recipes!

2011-11-28T09:54:00.000-05:00

**Monday's menu: Baked fish. Baked squash. Gallo pinto.
**Inspiration: Fish to feed a guest who has yet to like anything I've made for her. Luckily, she liked the fish. Unluckily, her best friend AppleApple can't stand fish. So for AppleApple, I made beans fried with rice, aka gallo pinto, which is the Nicaraguan term for this fast and easy leftover dish. Gallo pinto means painted rooster. Don't ask me why.
Mini-recipe, Gallo Pinto: I start by frying onions and garlic in oil, adding a touch of cumin and coriander and salt. When the veggies are soft, I toss in the leftover cooked rice and break it up with a wooden spoon and get it all coated in oil. Last, I add the beans and some liquid, and heat, stirring often. Voila. Serve with tortilla chips, feta cheese, crema or sour cream or yogurt, and hot sauce.

**Tuesday's menu. Dahl in the crockpot. Baked rice. Carrot bake.
**Inspiration: Carrots rotting in crisper. But this carrot bake was a retro-bust. It called for milk, eggs, margarine (yes, margarine) and bread crumbs. I should have known better. It tasted about as good as it sounds. Next time I'll make a ginger-carrot soup.

**Wednesday's menu: Chinese hot pot in the crockpot (say that five times fast.) Pad thai with fried tofu. (Pictured above.)
**Inspiration: Splurged on a new vegetarian crockpot cookbook.
**The verdict: Crockpots prove good for making a vegetarian broth. (But I still like chicken broth better. Wah.) The pad thai recipe adapted from my Joy of Cooking uses no ketchup and lots of fish sauce. It's pretty legit.
Bonus recipe, No-Ketchup Pad Thai: Cook a package of rice noodles, drain, and set aside. Meanwhile, do your prep work. Chop green onions and 2 cloves of garlic and set aside. Chop a block of tofu into nice little squares (optional); if you want to get fancy, toss tofu with a mixture of 1 tsp cornstarch and 1 tsp sesame oil; set aside. In a small bowl, stir together 1/4 cup fish sauce, the juice of one lemon, and 3 tbsp sugar. Beat three eggs in a small bowl. Have ready: 1/3 cup chopped peanuts, a pile of chopped cilantro and basil (if available). Heat oil in wok (amount of oil at your discretion). Begin by frying onion and garlic and toss in some hot pepper flakes if you'd like. Add and fry tofu until crispy. Add and fry eggs until scrambled. Add cooked noodles and pour fish sauce mixture over top. Stir until coated. Remove from heat, place in serving dish, and top with cilantro and peanuts.

**Thursday's menu: Egg fried rice and warmed-up hot pot.
**Inspiration: Leftover rice. Home late from volleyball game after school. In a hurry.
**The verdict: Quick and dirty. Skipped the tofu after a request from my eldest. Added eggs for protein. I love my wok.

**Friday's menu: Send children to CJ's nursery school's "date night" fundraiser for pizza and snacks. Send selves to fancy restaurant for something much tastier. Start selling contents of attic on ebay in order to afford the extravagance.

**Weekend kitchen accomplishments: 4 litres of yogurt; waffles (to eat, plus some to freeze); 8 loaves of bread; double batch of double chocolate cookie squares. Those cookie squares are really good and deserve a recipe-posting too. Remind me later. I considered this the kick-off to my holiday baking.

Weekending

2011-11-27T15:10:00.001-05:00

I'm not done yet!

But here's our weekend in a few snapshots ...

Pajamas, chess, movies, a sleepover. Oh yes, don't forget date night and a special meal out. Gorging on old episodes of Modern Family. And tonight, hosting a poetry get-together.

But also: Two rooms painted, lots of baking, and two piles in the kitchen organized into oblivion. I took a photo, but it wasn't very impressive. Absence rarely is. Just the toaster and the kitchen counter. I also organized one junk drawer, cleaned three shelves in the refrigerator, and filled three bags with baby and maternity items (attic) to donate. It's not everything, but it's something.

Next up: Soccer practice and a run in the rainy dark.

And then: Supper? This week's chalkboard schedule? Going through the kids' school bags and starting a new pile?

The minutiae and me

2011-11-25T12:58:00.002-05:00

Am I organized?

I could claim to be. I don't drop the ball on too many things. Library books are almost always renewed or returned on time. I check the kids' backpacks and agendas every night before bed. Each child has a file folder for projects that are keepers. I know where my chequebook is. I write down reminders on my desk datebook, on the big calendar by the telephone, in the google calendar I share with Kevin, and the weekly family schedule you see on the chalkboard above is currently accurate.

But.

I also keep several stacks of paper on the kitchen counter. The one beside the toaster is current-and-important. It contains information like this: "On Wednesday, your child needs to bring in materials for a science project. The list of materials is written in your child's agenda. Please inform the teacher if you need help finding any of these materials." Message sent home well in advance to assist parents in finding materials and asking for help. Great. Thanks, school. I'll just put the message into my current-and-important messages pile. And then I'll forget its existence. And then I'll find it, when looking for something else, on Tuesday night. "What? You need six jagged rocks? For tomorrow??" Child puts on coat: "I'll just go look in the back yard." "It's two degress and pitch black. How are you going to find anything?" Etc. There goes half an hour and bedtime is deferred and the dishes still aren't done.

On the same stretch of counter, I have a second pile of papers stacked beside the radio. Because one pile is not enough. This is my to-be-filed pile. When it gets so tall that it blocks the electrical outlet things get filed. Some stuff goes into a shoebox in which I store my special keepsakes. I have five shoeboxes in the basement, stacked on top of a filing cabinet. I never look in those shoeboxes, or that filing cabinet. But they're full of special keepsake memories.

In my office, stored out of sight, I have a plastic container to keep Juliet-related papers and documents. So far, so good. I have another container in which to keep copies of articles I've published. Not bad. But it occurs to me that no articles published online are in there. I never print them for my records. Should I? Additionally, my current-projects-and-ideas add up to yet another stack. I want to keep it visible because otherwise it gets forgotten. But it looks messy.

How to keep the minutiae contained yet accessible?

In our front hall stands an Ikea unit with bins for seasonal accessories. This is an example of good organization, if only I could convince the kids to return their seasonal accessories -- yes, I'm talking about you, mittens! -- to their bins. The unit also has file folders screwed to the side, and a key basket on top. The file folders have over the years organized themselves thusly: Top file is Kevin's papers. He periodically empties his folder into another folder. Middle folder is take-out menus and letters from charities I intend to donate to. Bottom folder is info on upcoming school trips. Except I've started hanging that info on the fridge using a handy clip magnet. So the papers remaining in that folder are completely out of date. I should empty it.

Just think what it could hold.

Oh God.

I am swimming in a sea of papers and dates and out-of-dates.

In my head, I am calmly and steadily working my way through each section of the house, each pile, each shelf, each drawer, each box in the attic, and I am making sense of it all. I am throwing out and giving away and cleaning and recycling and we only have what we need. Only that.

In reality, I can barely get the dishes done before bed, and my kid is hunting for jagged rocks in the dark back yard. You know?

"You're always grumpy in the morning, Mom"

2011-11-24T11:31:00.005-05:00

What to do, what to do?

What do you do when you're feeling less than inspired?

This morning was my "sleeping-in" morning; naturally Kevin decided he'd get up early and spend about five minutes rustling around in the dark looking for his clothes. I stayed in bed until 7:15 but shouldn't have bothered. It's not like it made me happier. Downstairs, AppleApple greeted me with beautifully brushed hair and a packed schoolbag: "You're always grumpy in the morning, Mom, so I decided to try to have everything ready to go, so you wouldn't be so grumpy."

Gee, thanks, kid. A hint: don't tell your mother she's grumpy if you're trying to lift her from her grumpiness.

Truth is, it's probably more anxiety than grumpiness. Is it the lack of light? General Novemberishness? The sudden onset of Christmas? Whatever it is, this is not my best time of year; never is. As the light recedes, I'm dark with indecision.

**What thoughtful and possibly homemade gifts can I devise to spread cheer and joy this season? Can I find stress-free ways to fulfill our family's seasonal rituals and traditions and meet everyone's expectations?
**Should I skip supper and try out that running club tonight? How can I fit a club's schedule into my own? Maybe that's why there are no women my age at running club -- maybe we're all at home eating supper with our families and trying to keep a finger on the pulse of each kid's well-being.
**What the heck book am I writing right now? I keep finding characters and abandoning them: sorry, don't want to spend the next six years with you.

I'm thinking in massive chunks rather than manageable morsels. I'm thinking an entire book rather than a page or two.

Know what I mean?

As if every tiny individual choice has to fit into a larger whole, has to be a stone in this solid structure I'm building, this thing called Life. And if I go off piling stones in the wrong place, the whole thing is going to be ruined. Hm. Office as metaphor: Remember how the windows were the wrong size? How upset I felt? And how unexpectedly easy they were to change? It took some work, for sure, but it wasn't impossible or disastrous, and ultimately only cost a day's labour.

So what to do?

Today, I've set myself a small task. I am writing a song for a character in The Juliet Stories. She'd probably write a much better song herself, but that's okay. My brother Karl has a new recording studio and when the song is ready, I can go and record it, which is pretty cool. It doesn't add up to anything particular. It doesn't fit anywhere else. It doesn't answer a single question. It's just something I want to do.

It's just a little pile of stones I'm making in the middle of a field I happen to be passing through.

Just like a rockstar cowboy

2011-11-23T12:16:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, after running errands and going to the library, CJ fell asleep on the couch listening to a CD he brought home from his grandma's house when we visited over Thanksgiving. He picked it out based on its cover art: two shaggy Scottish cows. An artist I've never heard of. A bunch of cover songs. Grandma didn't seem sad to see it go. I was upstairs hanging laundry while he was listening, and I heard him chiming in with the first song on the words "Just like a rhinestone cowboy!" Except he was singing "Just like a rockstar cowboy!"

Better, hey?

Another funny misheard lyric: on Monday evening I was driving four girls to their theatre rehearsal -- there is always singing from the back seat. One girl had just seen The Sound of Music, and at least one other girl knew all the words to all the songs too. So I was treated to "I am sixteen, going on seventeen." The funny part was when one girl sang the line: "Fellows will fall in line," as "Pillows will fall in line."

I can just picture it.

What was I going to blog about today?

Somehow, I think there was another topic in mind when I began.

Oh yes. One boy sleeping on the couch yesterday afternoon = one mildly sick boy at home this morning -- my rockstar cowboy. I pictured us spending the day doing fun activities together -- crafts, puzzles, baking, reliving the days of yore. But instead he just wants to watch movies and lie on the couch, and I've had a nap and read the newspaper. And now I'm blogging. And it's a beautiful day. My plan is to coax him off the coach (he's really not that sick) and get the two of us outside to walk around the block ... or something ... outside.

I'm amazed at how uninspired I am to do anything. How did I ever get anything done when I was home with kids full-time? Well, I never let them watch movies like this, that's for sure. I should be filled with guilt except I'm uninspired even to do that.

Except for sleep ...

2011-11-22T10:37:00.000-05:00

I think I've got it figured out. Except for sleep. I just don't seem to get enough of that. Mornings are best when I'm up early, out of the house, doing something -- swim, spin, run, yoga. I come home to breakfast and morning madness but my mind is clear. I feel good. I'm more patient than when the kids and I roll out of bed around the same time and grump around together in the same sleepy blur.

But then comes the crash. By 9am, my eyes are heavy and I'm moving slowly. So slowly. I slip into a 20 minute nap, get up, pour that treasured cup of coffee (I only drink one cup a day, but it's a hefty cup.) But I'm still tired. The nap takes the edge off, but my brain still feels only partially operational.

Yesterday afternoon, a writing day, I lay down on my new office floor (yes -- on the tile) and took a quick nap. And then I napped again at yoga class during the opening shavashana. In fact, I went early knowing I would nap, so I could nap longer.

Before bed, no matter how tired I am, I have to read. I'm reading a really good book right now: Half-Blood Blues on a borrowed Kindle. (Read it! Read it!) I rarely turn off the light until my eyes are literally crossed with exhaustion. And then I sleep instantly, and deeply, and often right until the alarm sounds to start the cycle all over again. (Last night I was woken at 1:45am by a little voice across the hall calling "Mama!" When I came, he said, "I need a kiss and a hug." I didn't even mind being woken up for that.)

Here's what happens when I don't get up early: within a day or two, I'm sleeping less soundly. I'm prone to the 3am wakeful worries. And so I keep getting up early -- three or four times a week. And taking naps. And planning to crawl into bed earlier. And not. And sleeping deep. And waking again.

One small note on naps: I keep them short. And I consider them to be part of the creative process. It probably sounds crazy, but I get some deep problem-solving done during naps. The stuff that's too complex or troublesome or bound up with emotions to figure out by just sitting and thinking or trying to write through it -- that's the stuff that gets treated during a nap. I'll wake recognizing something I couldn't before. I'll wake feeling soothed. I'll wake with a brand-new angle.

But I'm still tired. My nap hasn't figured out a solution for that.

No such thing as too much fun

2011-11-20T12:31:00.000-05:00

This has been a weekend and a half. If only every weekend could be like this ... but then nothing would get done ... but then I might not care that nothing is getting done ...

It all started on Wednesday with the first birthday event, chronicled in a post below. Thursday we threw together a slumber party. Albus's version last spring had been so easy, I had no qualms. Turns out, five girls make a lot of noise. There were moments when I was standing in the kitchen going I can't stand the squealing. Will they just stop giggling? Kevin found my response very amusing: You're not much of a girlie girl, are you? The pillow fight first thing in the morning just about did me in. But in the end, I could stand back and laugh and appreciate their energy and excitement.

The irony of it all was that I spent Friday night at my own version of a (non-sleepover) slumber party when my darling little book club got together in a hot tub. Yes, you read that correctly. Let's just say it was a book club for the ages. It's not often I'm still awake at 3:30 in the morning. Though I suspect the neighbours might have been having their own moments of will they just stop giggling already?

Friday was also AppleApple's actual birthday. She celebrated with three hours of soccer. But we also had a surprise for her: her own writing desk for her new room. Thanks once again to kijiji. We'd been storing it in the basement, and post-slumber-party Kevin hauled it upstairs and set it up in her room (all while the birthday girl herself was sitting at the counter, completely oblivious, absorbed in a new book). We then coaxed her up: "Let me get a photo of you in your new room." The first attempt was a bust. She went into the room, posed, and walked out. Kevin and I just about died laughing. This pretty much sums up our AppleApple: she lives deep inside her head. So we coaxed her back up a second time, she sat down in her reading chair, looked across the room and -- at last! -- spotted the writing desk. Reaction above. Sweet.

Now, just to put the icing on a truly terrific weekend, last night also featured our turn in a babysitting exchange. Have you heard of the overnight babysitting exchange? If not, may I highly recommend such a venture to you. First, find a willing family of equal size. Second, set two dates. Third, drop your kids off with their sleeping gear. Fourth, thank me later. (And thanks to Tricia for introducing the idea to us.) I didn't mention step 2.5, in which the other family's children are dropped off at your house with their sleeping gear. Yes, in our case, it means having eight children in the house (we took our turn last month.) But let me just shout: Totally worth it! Completely. Absolutely. I say we book dates on a quarterly basis. Seriously. Just for example, we spent on dinner what we usually spend on babysitting. And we went out for brunch this morning. Brunch!

Ergo, on this Sunday noon, I am so ridiculously relaxed I can't remember all those things I should be doing. I'm going with it. Everyone needs to let down the hair from time to time. Forget serious. Get silly. Empty the mind. Inhabit the goofy happy happening. It's good for the soul.

2011-11-18T10:34:00.000-05:00

**Found at Kristen den Hartog's Blog of Green Gables.

Recipe for a party

2011-11-17T09:39:00.001-05:00

Forgive the 60s-style photos. I just discovered my photo editing software has special features. And there's something about a family birthday party that cries out for instant nostalgia. AppleApple turns nine tomorrow. Due to a manic week, we scheduled a little party for her yesterday evening.

**Party menu: Baked russet potatoes. Steamed broccoli. Cheese sauce. Roasted curried cauliflower. Sauteed onions, peppers and mushrooms with thyme and reduced wine. Green salad. Condiments: salt, pepper, butter, marg, crema, plain yogurt, salsa, grated cheese. With cake for dessert, of course.

I love planning a menu. And when planning a menu, I love a theme. I hadn't done baked potatoes as a theme before, and it did require giving phone instructions to my ten-year-old so he could turn on the oven for me at the right time (the rest of us were at piano lessons; the scrubbed and prepped potatoes were already in the oven.) I whipped up the rest of the meal in under an hour upon arriving home, save for the cake which I'd baked earlier in the day. Phew. But when it was done, it was done. I poured a glass of wine and relaxed. Bowls were passed up and down the table. I was able to keep this meal vegetarian, and those of us who are lactose-intolerant could customize with vegan options.

AppleApple invented a game for the party. A Quidditch board game. It was pretty fun.

Obligatory puffed-cheek candle shot.

A few more parties to go. I'm not complaining. I wouldn't organize all these celebrations if I didn't secretly enjoy them myself too.

Motherhood: the good years

2011-11-16T09:58:00.002-05:00

These are the good motherhood years. Not that they haven't all been good years. But I'm telling you. These are sweet. For starters, I sleep through the night (I mean that literally, as all mothers of infants and toddlers will understand.) But then, my eldest is not so old: he still likes doing things with the whole family. And my youngest is not so old either: he still asks to be carried downstairs in the morning. All appreciate bedtime hugs and kisses goodbye in the morning. All are developing characters with funny thoughts and quirks and individual interests. Bursting with potential. Ages 10, almost 9, 6, and 3. This time is a keeper. Can I bottle it?

:::

A random conversation between CJ and Kevin this morning, on their walk to nursery school (as reported by Kevin):

"Dad, Christmas is on the street now."
"Are you excited about Christmas?"
Little dance with punches - "Yes! All the presents! How does Santa get all the gifts into the house?"
"Magic."
"How does Santa do magic without a magic wand?"

Sigh, this is embarrassing, but it's all I've got this morning and I promise to shut up already, soon

2011-11-15T10:59:00.000-05:00

As I look out my window I see

leaves in the street
almost bare branches
pale blue sky
a white apartment building with green trim and crooked window blinds
passing cars
a recycling truck

sometimes, people
people walking dogs
people running
people pushing baby strollers
people alone
in pairs
talking
thinking

the floor is warm under my stocking feet
shadows move on the white bare walls
there is an echo

I want to keep this room
bare
echoing
spare

I did not know what I was craving
until I sat down in the quiet of this room
my own room
I did not know how much I longed
to be alone
for a little while
every day

The week in suppers: short and seasonal

2011-11-14T10:57:00.003-05:00

Monday. Baked macaroni and cheese, by request. With peas, not by request.

Tuesday. Mashed potato soup (with leeks.)

Wednesday. Potluck birthday supper at my bro's. I brought quinoa salad and old-style coleslaw.

Thursday. Sweet potato curry with brown rice. Bad recipe. What are we, hippies? Won't repeat.

Friday. Potatoes, yams, and beets cut like french fries, tossed with olive oil, and roasted with rosemary. Chicken noodle soup, minus the chicken, by request.

**Weekend cooking accomplishment: Baked four loaves of bread. I bake bread by rote. I can bake bread with my eyes closed. I can bake bread in a deconstructed house that teeters on the edge of revolution. All I need is yeast, and an oven.

:::

This is a much-foreshortened week in suppers post. I am grappling with how to present these posts, and would appreciate feedback. Do you groan when you see it's a "week in suppers" post? Too long? Too detailed? Are the menu ideas useful? I plan to continue doing them in one form or another because it's easy to forget what's working (or not), and I need constant reminders. But I also need to find the right format.

New rooms, day one, take a look

2011-11-13T11:34:00.000-05:00

**Notes on the rooms.

My office has nothing on its walls. And we're using my old crappy furniture. But it's serene, austere, and dare I say perfect as is. I may not change a thing. Yesterday as we worked to move and rearrange four different rooms, I found myself taking moments to sit in my great-aunt Alice's rocking chair and look at the brick and the lights and the height, and to breathe.

AppleApple and Kevin created a bookshelf from the old costume bureau. An awesome repurposing project. I love that she has The Bible arranged beside other favourites like Bone, Misty of Chincoteague, and Children of War (the latter being a wonderful book that she keeps recommending her big brother read, as way of encouraging him to stop playing imaginary games with exploding bombs.)

The new bunk bed in the little kids' room is a marvel of design. We found it on kijiji, and it's not of the best material, but heck, it was available and in our price range. It's a t-shape, and CJ sleeps in what amounts to a little cozy cave. On one end is a desk with shelves and a built-in light. Bureau drawers are built in to the other end, along with a set of deep shelves. I still can't believe how different that room looks.

My step-mother figured out how to make a comfy couch out of the guest futon under Albus's bed. We've had the darn thing for about a decade and never knew it was possible. Neither Kevin nor I could understand her explanation (apparently it was very simple.) We've decided she operates on a higher level than us. My dad also loaned his muscles and back to the moving. It wouldn't have gotten done without their help. I've gone all wimpy now that I'm running. I keep telling Kevin, I'm a runner, not a weight-lifter. I don't want to injure myself.

Yet to be done today: painting, or at least prepping for painting; cleaning; and our living-room. I stole that beautiful wooden cabinet for my office from the living-room, and somehow that had a domino effect of toppling the entire room into a disaster zone. You know it's a disaster zone if the smallest members of your family tell you: "This room is a mess!" Uh, yeah. We're making use of kijiji to source a few more items. Kijiji is my new favourite virtual place. I've been inspired to post a few items for sale, too. If I get organized, I'll post the entire contents of our attic. My inspiration, in part, came from this blog on the zero-waste home. (And no, we're nowhere near zero. But hope springs eternal.)

In the new office ...

2011-11-12T12:00:00.001-05:00

A little glamour for your snowy Friday morning

2011-11-11T10:51:00.002-05:00

What happened to the past two days?

Well, yesterday was spent organizing digital photos for the year. Ugh. It's one of those things that has to be done that didn't used to have to be done. Remember film? Remember prints? Here's my digital method: I order prints of, say, the top 300 photos of the year right around now, in time to be put into albums for Christmas. It's tedious work, but someone's got to do it. If we want to keep these photos, that is. Poor Fooey's babyhood is essentially unrecorded due to an awkward family switchover from film to digital. And she was the cutest baby ever. I don't want any more eras to disappear; or at least not due to negligence on my part.

So that was yesterday.

Today, I'm going to post the blog I should have written on Wednesday. Yes, I'm behind the times. This is yesterday's news. But what lovely news it is: on Tuesday evening, Canada's literary scene got all glammed up for the biggest literary prize we've got going on here. The Giller Prize! And my publisher, Anansi, was there with TWO books on the shortlist. They posted a behind-the-scenes slideshow if you want a peek inside. Ah. It will make you want to drink champagne while wearing something sparkly.

Once upon a time, I got to attend the Gillers. I was 24. I dropped the better part of a pay cheque on a glamorous outfit, arrived early, sat at the back with fellow books section types and drank and ate and had so much fun. A little glamour goes a long way, especially in an industry not really renowned for the glitz. Let me tell you, sitting here in my sweater thinking about semi-colons: nothing but hot.

Now, I'm not super-connected to the CanLit scene, having spent the past decade being mostly-mom-at-home in the wilds of Waterloo, but still. The CanLit scene is like Six Degrees of Separation minus a few degrees. So I can say that my editor edited two of the books on the list (that's pretty sweet.) And I can say that I read at an event with this year's winner, Esi Edugyan, back when we were both promoting our first books. If I say I knew back then she'd win prizes someday it will sound less like intuition than hindsight, but man, I just knew she'd win prizes.

Anyone else looking forward to reading through this year's nominees? Any books you wish would have made the list? Got any six-degrees-of-separation connections you'd like to share?

:::

Oh, and on a side-note: I'm developing a weird hankering for an electronic reading device. Anyone? Anyone? Kindle? Kobo? I do love books, the objects themselves, don't get me wrong. But I keep having thoughts like, wouldn't it be cool to, say, watch a video about an author after reading a book? Do e-books have features like that? They should. I so often finish a book and want more. I want to hear the author telling me where she got her ideas, or where she grew up, or how she feels about her characters. Know what I mean? That would be a very appealing addition to any book.

:::

PS Yes, that's a photo of my new office!!!!!!! Electrical work needs doing today. I'm moving in on the weekend. Can you believe it?! Me neither.

Ode to the old office/baby room/playroom/guest room

2011-11-08T10:48:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I sent the last of the copy edits back to my editor. "We're really working at the fine details, here, aren't we," I commented as we mulled the addition of a "now" here and the removal of italics there. It's very satisfying to know that a project has been carefully shepherded all the way down to the finest nuance. And just like that, the builders are also dotting i's and crossing t's in the new office space. The tile floor has been laid and grouted. Today the electrical work gets started, and tomorrow the trim is installed. Kevin has worked hard to paint walls, ceiling and boards. By the weekend, I will be moving this desk and this computer and this chair downstairs, to my new room.

So it seems fitting to thank this makeshift space in which I'm sitting right now. This is the room where the bulk of The Juliet Stories were written. This is the room where I started my blog. Over the years that this room has served as my writing space, my desk has always been right here, facing the wall nearest the door. I can turn my head to the left and look out the window at power lines over the street, which doesn't sound very poetical until you consider the birds I've seen gathering there, and the squirrels dashing like high-wire artists. One of those squirrels made it into the very last paragraph of The Juliet Stories.

My desk has always been here, but the furniture behind me has changed over the years. Not so long ago there was a crib and a change table and a rocking chair. Now there is a pull-out futon for guests and/or for cozy reading before bed (Albus's favourite spot.) The closet is crammed with Playmobil. There is an ugly chest of drawers from Ikea to which I cannot wait to bid adieu. (Filled with dress-up clothes.) There is a homework desk, now, too; and homework gum in the tiny set of drawers that serve as my office storage area.

As we look at reconfiguring the rooms, we still have some unsolved problems. Albus will be moving in here, and AppleApple will be claming the boys' former room, with the two littlest moving in together in what is now the girls' room. Where will the guest futon go? Will we miss having a communal playroom with shared toys? What will our family policy be on privacy and open doors? Is it time to set up a shared computer space downstairs for homework purposes?

Furniture we're lacking as we prepare for the move this weekend includes: a bunk bed for the little kids; mattresses; desks; storage cubbies and/or shelves. I've been hunting kijiji listings. It's going to be a busy weekend, a messy weekend, a weekend of playing around with space and imagining and painting and cleaning. It likely to be an unfinished weekend. This won't all get done in one fell swoop. But it feels like an early Christmas gift, and everyone is excited. Change is exciting. It's the act of imagining oneself into the future, imagining what might be, what could be. It's a good time of year for this. We'll stir things up.

And then we'll settle in for the winter.

:::

Also, total aside, but did I really used to have straight hair? Like, just a few years ago, as shown in that top photo? Because it's pretty curly/unruly these days.

Last week in suppers: Halloween hangover

2011-11-07T15:15:00.000-05:00

**Monday's menu: Sweet potato chili with cornbread.
**Original plan: I'd scribbled "red sauce" onto a notepad for Monday after discovering a half-basket of soft tomatoes. But then Kevin read this recipe in the Globe and Mail, and it called for tomatoes, too.
**In the kitchen: Soaked and cooked black beans first thing in the morning. Chopped veggies and prepared the chili in the afternoon, while simultaneously carving pumpkins. Easiest cornbread recipe ever.
**At the table: Who's hungry? Who am I kidding? It's Halloween. We're about to gorge on candy!
**The reviews: Only one child out of four loves cornbread. A second child will agree to eat it when it's smothered in chili. And the littlest only wants bread with jam and honey. Ever.
**The verdict: This recipe is a vegetarian keeper. But I skipped the cinnamon sour cream called for in the original.

**Tuesday's menu: Beans and rice, tortillas, chips, toppings. Retro broccoli salad.
**Original plan: Can't read my writing. Does that say Mashed Potato Soup?
**In the kitchen: Lots of leftover black beans, reheated after swim lessons. I baked brown rice in the afternoon and also whipped up the broccoli salad.
**At the table: Very hungry active children devour gigantic servings. Two reject broccoli salad. One demands a tortilla with jam and honey. And then he learns a new word: Protein.
**The verdict: I could eat this broccoli salad all day long.

**Wednesday's menu: Being fed by Grandpa.
**Original plan: Something in the crockpot.
**The verdict: It's nice to be fed by someone else (hamburger stew with bread and cheese, and ice cream for dessert.)

**Thursday's menu: Baked potatoes. Cheese sauce. Brussel sprouts and broccoli. Sweet potato soup.
**Original plan: Lentils. But when I saw big beautiful russet potatoes in the grocery store (shopping while hungry for lunch), I had to have them.
**In the kitchen: Scrubbed and baked potatoes after kids arrived home from school. Made soup. Whipped up cheese sauce. Sauteed veggies. Got a little frantic from the multi-tasking; caved and let little kids watch a movie.
**The reviews: "Don't worry. That's not squash soup. I watched Mom puree it. It's probably carrots."
**The verdict: Didn't even need the soup. Baked potatoes are the ultimate comfort food. I love you baked potato.

**Friday's supper. Gallo pinto (beans fried with rice.) Leftover sweet potato soup. Steamed green beans (the last of the local beans, I am sure.)
**Original plan: Leftovers. That's my plan and I'm sticking to it.
**In the kitchen: Fried chopped onions in oil, added cumin and ground coriander seed, and then stirred in leftover rice and beans. Nothing could be better.
**The reviews: I was not home to receive compliments because AppleApple had her soccer marathon, and I went for a short run in preparation for Sunday's actual marathon.
**The verdict: I love leftovers. Especially on Friday evenings. Who has the energy for anything else at this point in the week?

:::

**Weekend kitchen accomplishments: Four loaves of bread. One batch of waffles (no leftovers.) Really good granola.
**Weekend non-kitchen accomplishment: One marathon.

What I did this morning: Hamilton marathon

2011-11-06T17:12:00.000-05:00

Before.
Oh man, I look nervous. This is a totally unconvincing smile. You can see it in my eyes: Do I really want to do this?
Someone stop me, please.

Hours later, only 200m left to go. Fooey removes lollipop to cheer her mother's approach. Her mother is feeling, oh, a million bajillion times better than she did in the previous picture.

There I go down the homestretch. A huge feeling of wow. Forty-two point two kilometres completed. Time on the clock: 3:42:13.

"I still can't believe you ran a marathon today, Mom." - AppleApple

Yeah. Me neither, kid.

(For the completely and totally unabridged version, please visit my triathlon training blog.)

A checklist of housecleaning chores ... prepare yourselves for a thrill-a-minute post

2011-11-05T09:22:00.003-04:00

Yes, I like checklists. Don't you? Checklists are a more routine form of the to-do list, of which I am also very fond. And, yes, I like routine too. Let's hope my family agrees, because this checklist is meant as a guideline for a weekly all-family all-in housecleaning project (or perhaps bi-weekly or tri-weekly; we'll play it by ear, or by dust, crumbs and debris, as the case may be.) I hope to offer some reward beyond a clean house, lovely though that is, such as Family Housecleaning followed by Family Movie Night. This idea remains, at the writing of this post, a dream yet to be implemented. I will let you know what happens next.

Checklist of chores for Family Housecleaning

Every room
1. pick up toys, books and oddments off the floor
2. find homes for toys, books and oddments (on the nearest surface does not count)
3. dust
4. vacuum
5. check windows: do any need to be cleaned?

Bedrooms
1. organize toy boxes, book shelves, and the stuff that collects on top of dressers
2. check under the beds
3. change sheets and pillowcases and check blankets (do they need to be laundered, too?)

Bathrooms
1. clean toilets
2. scrub shower doors and bathtub
3. clear all counter tops and clean
4. clean sinks
5. clean mirrors
6. check under tub for toys
7. mop floors
8. check: do soap containers need to be refilled? toilet paper restocked?
9. check shelves for clutter and dust, and tidy/clean if necessary

Kitchen
1. clear all counters
2. organize and find homes for everything cleared off of all counters
3. wash counters
4. wash sink
5. wash cupboard doors and backsplash
6. check inside cupboards: any spills? anything need to be cleaned?
7. wash stovetop
8. check oven and fridge: do either need to be cleaned?
9. mop floor

Dining-room
1. clear dining-room table
2. wipe down table and chairs
3. clear buffet surface and wipe clean
4. tidy games-and-puzzle cupboard (optional)
5. mop floor

Living-room
1. find homes for random piles on homework table and on tv cabinet
2. clean piano
3. water plants
4. tidy toy cupboard and art section
5. mop floor if necessary

Front hall
1. put away shoes and boots and jackets and mitts

Hallway and stairs
1. vacuum stairs (including basement stairs)
1. mop hallway if necessary

Basement
1. to be cleaned and tidied as needed

:::

Question: Anything you'd add to the list?

How much do you care about a question mark (?)

2011-11-04T09:34:00.000-04:00

Ah, the best laid plans. I am sitting at my desk and working, and sat and worked most of yesterday too, but I'm not writing reams of words into a new book; instead I'm going over the final copy edits for The Juliet Stories, which arrived on Wednesday afternoon. I was almost afraid to open the file. When Hair Hat was being published, lo these many years ago, I enjoyed every stage of the editing process ... right up until we got to the copy editing. Suddenly, I disagreed with the editor, and strongly. You'll remember that my one real job was at a newspaper where I worked my way up to being a copy editor. So I was feeling pretty confident that I'd turned in a clean manuscript to my publisher.

But the copy editor didn't think so.

And, listen, she was right and I was right. We were both right. The copy editor's job is to use a fine-toothed comb and to insist on grammatical correctness and stylistic consistency, by which I mean adherence to the style guide used by the publisher, and not style as in stylish. And that was where we disagreed. I wrote Hair Hat in a deliberately flat and uninflected (stylish) style. I didn't even use question marks. I wanted the reader to arrive at conclusions without being dragged there by me, the author. The copy editor wanted all questions to end with a question mark.

I just couldn't do it. It sounds ridiculous to get upset over punctuation, but by God, I just could not compromise. And it pained me. I like to make people happy (even more so at the time than I do now.)

So when the copy edits landed on Wednesday afternoon accompanied by a long message from my editor explaining the process, I went all fear and trembling. It's been a fabulous editing process up until now. Would the copy edits do me in? Well, I'm only about halfway through them now, but the answer so far has been a gentle, no. These copy edits will not do me in. Am I a more relaxed person, now, than I was before? Is my (stylish) style in The Juliet Stories more compatible with traditional grammar? Or have I just accepted that some disagreement will be part of the process, and conflict doesn't upset my stomach in the same way that it once did?

I have to go with door number three. I'm still a pretty finicky person. I can get very excited over a semi-colon, let me tell you. And my (stylish) style in The Juliet Stories, though different from Hair Hat, is unique, and sometimes idiomatic rather than grammatically correct. I don't always agree with what the copy editor has suggested, but I'm okay with that; we don't have to agree about everything, and I get that this time around. She's done a bang-up job on this book. The fact checking is amazing. And I'm taking notes on her highly effective use of italics.

I'm back at it again today. Thankfully without dread.

Where does that leave my ambitions for a November writing month? I'm sticking with the original plan, just pushing the start date back by a few days. The copy edits are due back at the publisher on Tuesday morning. The amazing thing is that the builders say my new office will be DONE by Wednesday. In some strange confluence of otherwise unconnected endings and beginnings, that means that I will start my new book in my new office, having dotted all i's and crossed all t's on this one.

It's too much to think about. So I'm off to think about italics instead.

2011-11-02T11:15:00.003-04:00

Yes, this photo is blurred. But within the blur, the colours seem brighter, and the body positions more expressive. I should make something of that. Observe that it mimics our perception of time when mothering small children, the way the days disappear into a blur, and some small detail remains in memory, a flash of colour, a story that gets passed down and requested at bedtime.

Today, I am thinking about motivation. I am thinking about sitting down at my desk and writing into a story that may or may not become a novel that may or may not succeed. What keeps me sitting back down and writing more, not knowing what may come of it? I think it must be hope. I've read that people with depression have an inability to imagine the future; instead, they see an unchanging blank. I've got whatever is the opposite, though it's got its downsides, too. Let's call it an over-active imagination. I get excited about the future based on the slimmest of evidence. My happiest daydreams fling me far and wide through adventure and thrill and accomplishment. "What was I just thinking about?" I'll wonder, returning to earth with a glowing feeling, and then I'll remember, oh yes, I was thinking about being interviewed by Eleanor Wachtel. Or about training as a midwife and travelling to Central America to practice. Or about recording myself playing an original song on the piano and becoming a star on YouTube. Heh.

Is it healthy to daydream such big, such ridiculous, such clearly out-of-reach dreams? I'm not sure. But some of the things I've dreamed have come true. I dreamed of becoming a published writer, long before anyone else would have dreamed it of me. I dreamed of motherhood. I dreamed of completing a triathlon before I could even swim. Of course, the original dream was that I could become an Olympic triathlete, and reality whittled that fantasy back down to size. But that's okay. Even if the original dream was wildly over-ambitious, it sent me on a path toward actual achievement.

Almost always (or is that always always?) the daydream is realized in watered-down and compromised form. Reality has mosquitos and critics and temper tantrums. It has limitations. Daydreams don't.

Lately, I've been daydreaming about writing this story. I would like to sit down and just do it, but I seem to need the daydreams to carry me over the fear of failure, the doubt that it will add up to anything special. I also need tangible goals. So I'm going to do something I've never tried before. I'm going to write in volume. I'm going to participate in November's National Novel-Writing Month, even though I've disdained it for years (who can force the muse to show her face?) It's abbreviated as Na-No-Wri-Mo for the hashtag on Twitter, and I'm going to tweet my progress. My goal is 30,000 words by the end of the month.

Because daydreams are shiny happy places in which to linger, but you have to get to work if you're going to leave a flash of colour in the blur of reality.

The most anticipated evening in their year

2011-11-01T10:36:00.000-04:00

2011-10-31T10:10:00.002-04:00

This isn't a Halloween post, though it falls on Halloween. I have a difficult relationship with Halloween. It seems a strange holiday, making light of death and darkness. Maybe I should just accept it as being another way we humans try to make sense of mortality.

It's been four years since my father-in-law passed away. He died on Halloween, and Kevin's mother telephoned late that afternoon, twice, first to tell him to hurry and come home, and then, not long after, to tell him, yes, please come home, but it's too late to make it in time. But we felt fortunate. We'd been to visit just two days earlier, and knew that goodbye was coming. Still, we wondered what to do. The kids were dressed up and excited about trick-or-treating. How to give them this news? "Take them out," I said, "and I'll stay home and pack." And so that's how we told them, after trick-or-tricking: when they arrived home with bags full of candy, our bags were packed. There were wrenching sobs, and we changed them into pajamas, hopped into the van, and drove away, letting them eat all the candy they wanted. I don't suppose we'll ever forget that night, or that drive. It felt like an adventure, momentous and sad all at once.

A year ago, my grandma passed away on Remembrance Day. Last week, my grandpa, her husband, also passed away, and our family travelled across the border for another funeral, on another autumn day. As we drove to the graveyard for the burial, it was raining and the sun was shining. From our angle, the rainbow that emerged looked like a column of magic dust rising out of the earth, colour, shimmering. We all saw it.

I don't know what everyone else thought. I don't even know what I thought, exactly. Just that it was a rare and ephemeral sight, and I was glad for it.