Families make the quiet woods louder

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Sherry

When I walk the dog in the woods with no one but me, her, and whomever is singing on my iPod, the woods are a quiet place. When I walk in the woods with just Breanna, it’s mostly quiet with the silence peppered with questions here and there. Breanna is a little version of me in that sense, she loves to be in the woods.

When I walk in the woods with Breanna, Hayley, and George… well, then the woods aren’t very quiet at all. Still, it’s a nice way to pass a Sunday afternoon. The weather today was ridiculous. At one point I debated taking off my coat but decided against it since I didn’t want to have to carry it. It was sunny and warm and just beautiful. It’s November and I’m in Canada. I know very well that it’s not going to last so it was great to enjoy it.

I also got to prove to the kids that I wasn’t lying when I said I found an old rusted-out car in the woods last Spring.

The bonus of course, is that Breanna crashed at bedtime, taking no more than five minutes to fall asleep. Hayley… well, Hayley is still awake at just past 9 pm, but at least she’s reading quietly in bed. I’m hoping she’ll drift off soon since she has to be up early tomorrow.

I don’t think it will take me long to fall asleep either. I think I’ll kick back with a glass of wine and some television and call it a night. Let’s see if I can start my week off without being completely exhausted!

Low-key weekend

Posted on November 7, 2009 by Sherry

Our weekend really started yesterday. I finished my work up early and took Breanna and the dog for a long walk in the woods. That’s a pretty nice way to end the week – a little communing with nature and all that. We won’t be able to do it much longer so we made the most of it.

Then we had the movie night that I mentioned. Once the kids were in bed, George and I decided to unwind with some Shiraz and a movie together. I always equate movies with the weekend because during the week there’s always something on television that one of us (usually it’s me) wants to watch.

This morning I actually slept in until 10 which was awesome. I had spent the entire week in a state of Perpetual Tired ™ so I really needed that. Hayley ended up being invited over to visit with a friend for the entire day including lunch and supper so Breanna played with some toys and had a long bath all by herself (or well, almost all by herself if you don’t count the 16 dinosaurs that joined her) after I spent some time trying to tame the mess in the bedroom.

George was going to a friend’s birthday party for dinner and the evening; I was supposed to go too but it was adult-only and his parents were busy so I couldn’t make it. Breanna and I ended up ordering Chinese food which we ate by candlelight. She thought that was pretty fancy.

Usually Breanna is depressed when Hayley goes out without her (other than to school) but she had a lot of fun. Aside from her bath and candlelight dinner she also played Wii with me for awhile, then two rounds of Candyland. She didn’t mind too much, though she did mention missing Hayley.

By the time Hayley got home at 7:30 she was pretty tired, but she insisted she could stay up a bit longer to join Breanna for another movie. She managed, but she’s going to bed in 15 minutes and I think she’ll crash fast and hard.

Once they’re out for the night I can relax with some inappropriate-for-kids TV. I think tonight will be perfect for catching up on Vampire Diaries with some wine. The show rips off a lot of Twilight and it’s pretty cheesy so naturally I love it.

Hope you’re having a great weekend too – what are you up to?

Igor! Pull the switch!

Posted on November 6, 2009 by Sherry

Quite some time ago George and I started doing Friday evening movie nights with Hayley. We’d either get a movie we hadn’t seen before or just watch an old favorite, we’d have some snacks, and we’d let Hayley stay up a bit later.

We lost movie night for awhile and I don’t really know why. I’ve done them several times with either both the kids or with just Breanna if Hayley is out somewhere but it had been quite some time since we did the full family movie night. Somehow it came up yesterday so I suggested that we do it this week.

We popped some popcorn for the kids and put on a new-to-us movie. If you haven’t seen Igor yet and you have kids in roughly the same age range (or even a bit older, there’s some good humor that younger kids don’t really catch), I strongly suggest you give it a try.

Basically it’s about a land of evil scientists and all their Igor assistants and how one Igor learns that you don’t have to be evil to be successful. It sounds saccharine when it’s put that way but it’s a bit spooky (not too scary though – even at just shy of four years old, Breanna wasn’t afraid), it’s fun, and George and I both laughed more than just a few times.

I love movies that are good for kids but even more than that, I love when kids’ movies are fun for us too!

No snow just yet please and thank you

Posted on November 5, 2009 by Sherry

Repeated pretty much every Thursday night at 10 pm…

The scene: Grey’s Anatomy has just ended and George has walked into the living room to see if something he deems better might be on now.

George: Sigh. Stop crying.
Sherry: Sniff. SNIFF. I’m not. I have… a cold. And a lot of dust in my eye.

Funny how I get dust in my eye every Thursday night, isn’t it?

*******

Today Breanna asked me if we could go to the park for a picnic like we did back in July (even if it was short-lived thanks to the rain that came along). I had to gently break it to her that it’s now almost Winter and it’s far too cold to be sitting around having picnics in parks right now.

She was disappointed but I built her a fort and she was happy with that. Later in the afternoon I asked her if she wanted to come with me to walk the dog and she brightened up right away. After bundling her in a warm coat and a hat with the hood pulled up over it, we grabbed the dog and headed outside. Immediately she turned around in circles a few times and then looked up at me in confusion.

“Where’s the snow Mommy?” she asked with her eyebrow cocked at me. I explained that there wasn’t any snow yet, it was just cold. She was so annoyed with me for mentioning Winter when there wasn’t a single flake of snow to be seen. She cheered up quickly though, walking beside me and telling me all about how she was going to run and jump in the snow and make a ton of snow angels.

At one point she tipped her nose up into the air and said, “I can smell the snow! I think it’s coming soon!” And then she skipped along as she held my hand, smiling at the thought of all the snow she would roll around in as soon as possible.

I’m happy she’s happy. I’m just not happy at the thought of snow. Please don’t tell her, but as much as she wants to keep sniffing for snow, I’ll be spending just as much time crossing my fingers and hoping it holds off a few weeks longer.

Besides, the leaves are SO hard to find under 20 centimeters of snow.

Light and dark, dark and light

Posted on November 4, 2009 by Sherry

November is one of those months that always feels like it’s going to drag on forever. I go through this twice a year. Now and in March. In March it’s because by then I’ve definitely officially had enough of Winter thank you very much, and yet any Canadian can tell you can the season most definitely does not wrap up in March. In fact, you’re lucky to be rid of the snow by the end of April.

For November I think it’s the whole early darkness. I’m lucky in one way since the time change happened over the weekend. During the week I’m outside at 6:30 am with the dog. I get up and take her out to pee before I get Hayley up because otherwise she would just whine at me the entire time I’m trying to get the off-to-school routine done. For about the last two weeks it was incredibly crappy and depressing to go out with the dog because it was so dark out there. I would take her out at 11 pm and at 6:30 am and it was really hard to tell the difference because it looked pretty much the same.

Now that the clocks have gone back it’s light out when I walk out the door and that helps a bit. I’ve still been overly tired so far this week, but it does make me feel a little better to see sunlight out there.

Of course the drawback is that the sun then goes DOWN earlier at the end of the day. For the past four days I’ve taken the dog for a walk (it’s all about the damn dog apparently) in the late afternoon only to notice that the sky is getting dark faster and faster and the temperature sinks down with it.

It’s all a reminder that Winter is coming and you’d think a Canadian who has spent all 35 years of her life living here would be used to it by now but I’m just not. Forget heading East to Halifax, I’m starting to think I need to move a little further South instead.

How many days until Spring?

Culture for the elementary school

Posted on November 3, 2009 by Sherry

Being a member of the Governing Board at Hayley’s school, I received an email one day asking us to vote on approving a last-minute field trip for grades one through six. The trip was to go see a play called “Simon and the Egg” which is about the environment, climate change, and how we’re all responsible for doing our part to help out.

I immediately said yes because it sounded like a good idea – many kids haven’t seen a play at that age and anything that brings about awareness for environmental causes is okay in my book. When I received the permission slip, I signed it, slipped the small fee into an envelope and sent it off with a little note telling Hayley’s teacher to let me know if she needed a volunteer.

The trip was divided over three days with grades one and two attending the play on Monday. First I received a call at 9 am and her teacher told me that she had received confirmation from one of the moms and she wouldn’t need me this time. No problem. Not five minutes later she called back to tell me the other grade two class had no volunteer because the mom was at home with two sick kids, and would I mind going with them?

Well, no I wouldn’t mind one bit. I know most of those kids by this point anyway and was happy to go with them. The best part was that Hayley didn’t even know I was coming so she almost fell over in shock when she passed me in the hallway and saw that I was there. She was a little annoyed that I wasn’t volunteering for her class but we were all on the same bus and the theater was very small so it didn’t make much difference in the end.

The theater we went to was incredible because it’s an very small venue. There isn’t even a stage for the play, it’s performed directly on the floor, right in front of you. You get to sit so close that you almost feel like you’re a part of the play itself. It was also a one-man show which – as a person who took acting classes once upon a lifetime – always impresses me. Monologues are incredibly scary since you have no one to play off but yourself, your imagination, and your audience, so I give massive props to actor Michel Lefebvre for doing a fantastic job.

The play was probably a little over the heads of the kids because of their ages. The story wasn’t blatant in-your-face “save the environment!” in its message, it was more abstract and I think that they probably didn’th catch all the nuances that the adults and older kids would. Still, it was a totally stunning visual experience which had the entire audience of children enthralled. In all honestly, my own mouth was hanging open more than once just because it was all so beautiful and so well done.

In the end, what I loved most was that it didn’t preach – no one tells you what you need to do, you’re left to figure out for yourself where your responsibilities lie. I like that, especially from an educational viewpoint because it lets you ask the kids questions. On the way back I asked Hayley what she thought we needed to do in general, and she said things like more plants and trees, no littering, picking up garbage… Kids are often more aware than they might appear on the surface.

Overall though, even if the kids didn’t catch as many things as I did, I’m just ecstatic to know that they saw a play. One boy on the bus asked me what a play is when we were driving out there and for this generation to understand, I had to tell him that it’s similar to when characters on television tell you a story except in a play you get the story right in front of you. I don’t think he really got it until he saw it for himself.

Arts aren’t necessarily a top priority in the education system anymore, so knowing that the kids at Hayley’s school are getting to experience some culture and theater made me very happy. It was nine bucks well spent and I’m glad that we, as a board, unanimously voted our approval because I think it was really beneficial.

If you happen to be from the Montreal area, I urge you to check it out yourself, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

I may have to tape open my eyelids

Posted on November 2, 2009 by Sherry

Due to my night owl nature combined with having young kids, I am frequently more tired than I would like to be. I always mean well and do try to get to bed at a decent hour, but it’s hard because my second wind kicks in. More than any other day, though, I hate to be tired on a Monday. It just feels so wrong and depressing to start the week off exhausted.

Unfortunately for me, I didn’t get to bed until about 12:15 am which was already starting things off on the wrong foot since that meant I had all of six hours before my alarm would go off. Yikes. On top of that, I woke up at 4:15 this morning by Breanna hacking and coughing. I did sort of doze on and off but I woke up every time she coughed again (luckily for her, she didn’t seem to really wake up, although she is a bit groggy this morning) and I also had trouble getting back into a deep sleep because in the back of my head I knew I didn’t really have that much time before I’d need to get up.

So I’m running on a little more than four hours of disrupted sleep which is bad enough in and of itself. However, I also got a call from the school; the grade one and two classes are attending a play about the environment today and I had asked if they needed me to chaperone. It seemed they were fine but Hayley’s teacher called me back to say that the other grade two class is missing a parent and they wondered if I could come after all. Of course I said yes because it makes me feel better to be there while Hayley’s being shuttled about. I was considering lying down for an hour or two but I’d rather go help out.

On top of that, when we get back home I’ll have to slam through whatever’s left in my work load and eat supper at a decent hour because I have a Governing Board meeting back at the school this evening. Judging by the amount of topics listed on the agenda I’m betting it’s going to be a long one and I’ll consider myself lucky if it’s wrapped up by 9 pm. I can’t complain too much though, because one of the other mothers going on the field trip is on the board and even Hayley’s teacher is on the board, so we’ll all be tired tonight!

I think that by the time I get home for the last time tonight, take the dog out for her last pee, get myself a cup of green tea and a treat from the Halloween bag, I’ll be more than ready to crash and crash HARD in bed. Here’s hoping I get a good solid sleep throughout the night so that I feel more awake than I do right now.

Hoo boy, it’s going to be a long day.

The bats have left the bell tower

Posted on November 1, 2009 by Sherry

Halloween of 2009 ended up being far better than I originally anticipated. For one thing, I felt like absolute crap on the 30th and most of the day on the 31st. I was really worried about whether I could actually manage to walk around with the kids trick-or-treating. The thing is, Halloween is and always has been one of my favorite days of the year. Christmas and birthdays are great what with all the presents and family stuff but for me it’s far more fun to get dressed up and eat obscene amounts of candy. Because of that I was actually pissed off that my body would dare to fail me by being under the weather on Halloween of all days.

Maybe it was adrenaline or something but I managed to perk up once I started gathering everyone’s costume pieces – including my own. George doesn’t dress up but Hayley went as a vampire, Breanna was a wee pirate, and I was the usual witch. Next year I might change it up and bring back the Catwoman costume (original Catwoman in purple, not Michelle Pfeiffer’s leather Catwoman – I’m not THAT brave!). We met up with our friends who were escorting their daughter-turned-devil for trick-or-treating.

We were also really lucky because it had poured rain for most of the morning and afternoon and I thought it was going to be a pretty soggy Halloween while awkwardly trying to hold an umbrella over everyone, but as we got in the car to go meet our friends, we were greeted with this beautiful sky.

That was really lucky.

We went to our usual trick-or-treating location, a nice big housing development where most doors are wide open with candy offerings. Our own area pretty much sucks, so we avoid the neighborhood altogether. We were out for about an hour and collected quite the haul; I think that for the sake of our kids’ teeth, we’ll have to step in and uh, “dispose” of some of it ourselves. I’m just thinking of their health of course. Really.

We ended the night by going to George’s parents’ house. They don’t get many people at the door so they usually divide up the leftover candy between the two kids and we know that they can eat them without inspecting them first.

Luckily, they were both tired enough from all the walking around and excitement that they both fell asleep within about 15 minutes of bedtime, sugar high and all. George and I intended to watch a horror movie, most likely The Last House on the Left but we were too tired so we’ll give it a shot tonight if bedtime goes smoothly (and early) enough. I don’t want to traumatize anyone by having one of the kids walk into the living room right in the middle of a scary scene.

I hope everyone had an excellent Halloween with lots of candies!

By the way, if you’re wondering about the title, it comes from this.

Total classic from my good old goth days, dancing beside the smoke machine!

In other news, I’m – as usual – participating in NaBloPoMo so you can expect a post a day for the month of November. Maybe that will kick-start my creativity again!

Stories that stick – a meme

Posted on October 28, 2009 by Sherry

I don’t normally take part in memes over here but if Kate asks me to do one then you’d better believe I’ll do one! Besides, this one’s literary so it’s different! Besides, I could win an advance copy of her new book and I really want to read it, so here goes!

1) You are facing an epic journey. You may choose one companion, one tool and one vehicle from any book or film to accompany you. Or just one of the three. It’s up to you. What do you choose?

It’s probably just begging for trouble but I’d say a time-turner, such as the one that Hermione Granger uses in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. A time-turner can wreak havoc if used incorrectly but if my journey is indeed epic then I want to make sure I have one in case I make a really bad mistake so I can go back and fix it.

2) You can escape to the insides of any book. Where do you go, and why?

This was easy – I apologize for using the same series two answers in a row but I would absolutely put myself into the Harry Potter series. The magic, Hogwarts, the excitement, I’d love to be a part of it all. I never had much interest in the whole concept of wizards really until I read those books and I’m hooked.

3) You can bring one literary character into your current life. Who do you choose, and why?

Severus Snape. *eyebrow wiggle* Okay, I’m kidding. Maybe. Laura Ingalls just because she would be so much fun. Or well, now that I’m a mother maybe she’d be a bit much to handle. If I was still a kid myself though. I always wanted to be friends with her when I read the books as a kid.

4) _________________ is my go-to book. I could read that book fifty-seven times in a row without a break for food or a pee and not be remotely bored. In fact I’ve already done that but it wasn’t fifty-seven times. It was sixty-four.

Ah. My go-to book is The Night Inside. I know vampires are all the rage now thanks to Stephanie Meyer but I’ve had a fascination with vampires for decades now. This particular book is written by a Canadian and it’s not all ooey-gooey vampire stuff like Twilight. I read it so many times I broke the spine and had to buy a new copy.

5) Of all the literary or film characters that made an impression on you as a kid, who was the most enviable?

As a kid it probably would have been Atreyu (did I even spell that right?) in “The Neverending Story”. I watched that movie an embarrassing number of times.

6) Of all the literary or film characters that made an impression on you as a kid, who was the most frightening?

Oh hi there freaky-ass clown in Stephen King’s It. If I hadn’t already been freaked out by clowns that certainly would have sealed it for me, thanks.

7) Every time I read _________________, I see something in it that I haven’t seen before.

Well, I’ve only read it twice actually, but Not Without My Daughter. There’s so much going on in that book as she tries to survive as a hostage to her husband in Iran and makes continuous plans to escape the country and get back home to the U.S. that it’s one of those stories that made me read faster than I should have. In my second run through I found all kinds of little things I missed the first time around.

8 ) It is imperative that _________________ be made into a movie. Now. I am already picketing Hollywood for this—but if they cast _________________ as _________________, I will not be happy. I will, however, be appeased if they cast _________________.

Assuming that they don’t totally fuck it all up, Ender’s Game would be insanely amazing on a big screen. I can’t think of anyone that they could cast since the main character is a kid, so I think the best choice would be to choose someone brand new to the film making world.

I’d also really like to see The Night Inside as a movie (and it would do well since vampires are all the rage). If they cast Jessica Alba as Ardeth I’d have a fit, but wouldn’t mind if it was Katie Holmes just because Katie in a vampire movie would give TOM a fit.

9) _________________ is a book that should never be made (or should have never been made) into a film.

The Other Boleyn Girl was a fabulous book and a mediocre movie. They should have just left it alone.

10) After all these years, the _________________ scene in the book/movie _________________ still manages to give me the queebs.

Oh man. When the guy in the courtroom near the end of Gerald’s Game squeaked out, “I don’t believe you’re real, you’re just made of moonlight” I think every little hair on the back of my neck stood straight up and it still completely freaks me out.

11) After all these years, the _________________ scene in the book/movie _________________ still manages to give me a thrill.

This may make me lame, but even as an adult, I love the scene in “E.T.” when they go flying on Elliot’s bike. I was five when I first saw that movie and it was so excited that I spent a lot of time riding my own bike, pretending I was flying along with a little bug-eyed alien.

12) If I could corner the author _________________, here’s what I’d say to them one minute or less about their book, _________________:

If I bumped into Anne Rice I’d say, “Look Anne. I really wanted to like your books. Honestly. I tried to read several of your books on numerous occasions and I just couldn’t get into a single one of them. I liked the IDEA of your stories but good lord woman, you can go on for pages about a window frame. While I admire detail, there is indeed a time when you can get too damn wordy.”

13) The coolest non-fiction book I’ve ever read is _________________. Every time I flip through it, it makes me want to _________________.

Technically it’s a memoir – Eat, Pray, Love. Each section made me want to do something different. When she was in Italy all I wanted to do was eat delicious pasta. When she was in India I wanted to pack up and fly to India too so I could find an Ashram and learn to do yoga. Then when she was in Indonesia I wanted a quiet little cottage on the beach. Overall, the whole book made me desperately want to travel.

Some creativity break-throughs

Posted on October 27, 2009 by Sherry

Despite the fact that I just wrote this morning about how I’m suffering from a bit of creative block, luckily I have managed to get some writing out there anyway.

Over at Canada Moms Blog I wrote this post explaining about how the lack of volunteers has postponed Hayley’s school from opening its much-needed Breakfast Club – and how I’m pitching in by offering to set my alarm a bit earlier so that I can go help them out to keep feeding the hungry kids in our community.

In some very exciting news, I also have a post up at Digital Photography School which you can read here. In it I explain some tips you can use to take self-portraits that go beyond the often-seen method of holding your camera in front of your face and pressing the shutter. I read DPS religiously so it’s a huge deal to me to have an article posted over there!

I am thrilled to have two things posted to two great blogs all on the same day!

Chaos Theory

Author Archives: Sherry