I just wanted to post a quick thank you to my family for the most wonderful birthday.

I can't remember a year when the weather on my birthday was crummy. Imagine my disappointment this morning when I woke to grey skies and rain. Lily looked out the window and said "Oh, the rain. It's raining." And it was. After taking Lily to Buppa's, I went for my pedicure. It was a nice relaxing couple of hours, but the best part was walking out of the salon to pure blue sky and sunshine.

I spent the afternoon shopping, and then headed home to Mom and Dad's for dinner. Just as I arrived in the front, my mom arrived in the back. We had a simple family dinner, no dessert. (I get ice cream cake with the in-laws on Sunday.) I kinda knew what my gifts were beforehand, but there were some great surprises. My sweet hubby showed up with 2 dozen roses, and a handful of scratch tickets. In true Carbol fashion, I only won on one ticket - a dollar. Whoopee! My brother always manages to find the neatest gifts. He found me a lovely bag that will be the purse I use for outings with Lily. It has 4 pockets on the outside (for snacks, according to Lily) and will hold all sorts of guess-what-mommy-has-in-her-purse gear without screaming "I have a sippy cup, raisins, 4 broken crayons, 2 diapers and a change of clothes in here!" He also included a pair of moss green mittens on a string. But the best part is they have appliques of Frankenstein on them. I will take a picture and post later, because if you google "picture of mittens with Frankenstein", you get this.






The rest of my gifts included 2 new shovels (thanks Bryan!), a tree that still needs to be picked out and planted, a day or 2 of labor to build my new lattice panels, a cast iron chameleon to attach to said fence panels, and a beautiful glass pendant that my mom had my aunt bring back from Italy.

As we wound down the day, I remarked to Bryan that in my 36 years I have yet to spend a birthday without my family. And that's the greatest gift of all.

Another year, another birthday blog.



Lily is off to her Buppa's today, so I can go to the spa for some much needed pampering.


Lily was over at my parent's place earlier this week. I don't usually work during the day, but Dad was available and the Despot needed me to help sort out some orders that were 3 weeks behind in follow up.


It was sweet - Dad had the basement set up like a classroom (missing school Mr Carbol?) with stations for reading, coloring, hiding, Fisher Price animals. They had a great day playing and eating and playing and going for coffee and more playing and eating. Toddlers and the retired really do have a great life.


I have myself booked in for a 2 hour pedicure. Yes, 2 hours. I can't wait - a summer of gardening, flip flops and rubber boots have left my feet in quite the state.


This birthday puts me on the other side of 35...I'm not sure how I feel about it, but then again, there is nothing I can do to change it, so right now I'm just going to comtemplate and reflect.


Here are some of the things floating around in my mind right now:


I'm nervous about the upcoming house projects. To get started, we have to do some fairly major mechanical stuff like replace the main electrical panel and arrange for a new furnace and water heater. Once this is done, we can get a bit further into the planning stage.


I have my fingers crossed that I will get a call about Lily's co-op Daycare program, soon. I have her on a (short!) waiting list to get into a FANTASTIC once a week daycare co-op. This will give me a blissfully child and worry-free day once a week to do whatever I want. It will probably be after Christmas, but sooner would be such a treat. I love the time that I get to spend with Lily, but in all honesty, I have forgotten what it is like to spend time with myself.

When I was single and completely oblivious to the demands a family puts on one's self, I used to spend my days off baking at home, (I can still do this, but it's hard to get cookies out of the oven with a suddenly clingy toddler that yells "Hugging!" at the exact moment the oven timer goes off.) or going to a movie by myself, or sitting in a coffee shop with one of the following a trashy magazine or a good book. It will be nice to go out and relax, knowing she's in good hands, and not worrying that I'm putting my mom or dad out. (Even though I know they love having her over - I still feel like I'm imposing sometimes.) Oh, and Lily will have a blast with the other kids. I will be the first to admit that my reasoning for putting her into the program was selfish on my part - I'm doing it for me first, and her second. We will both benefit, so it's a good kind of selfish.

My birthday list this year consists of 2 new shovels and a tree. That's it. I am happiest when I am outside in my garden with my girl. I am sad that I won't be able to play in the garden much longer. I am babying some new shrubs, and looking at what needs to be moved, but other than that, my garden is done for the season. I can't wait until spring to see how the new plantings look - dad and I eliminated half of my front lawn earlier this summer, and the transplanting is almost done. I scored amazing deals at the store - we're talking rosebushes for $1.75 and other shrubs for $.75. Yes, 75 cents. All guaranteed for a year. I love the end-of-season 75% off sale!

So Happy Birthday to me! I plan to have a lovely, relaxing day.

A maze-ing!

Lily and I joined Keltie and Evan on a trip out to the Bon Accord Corn Maze. It was so much fun!

The weather was gorgeous; a perfect sunny fall day. The kids ran around and Keltie and I got to gab all day. Keltie was awesome and offered to drive, so for a rare treat, I was able to be a passenger. This post is pretty picture heavy, so I'll keep the writing to a minimum. Enjoy! (Click on pics to make bigger.)

Watching ducks.

At this point in the kid-sized mini maze, Lily decided she was a cat, and was on the path on all fours.

I love this one of the two of them.

Lily was happy just to watch them eat. They were pretty tame, and didn't bother her at all. To me, well, they just smelled sheepy.

This little goat was so sweet. It stood there for me for about 5 minutes, and let me scratch his horns.

An alpaca. Apparently they spit. We didn't get to find out. I was OK with that.

They had a giant playpen made of hay. It had a tunnel to get in, and was full of large balls for the kids to toss around. One way in, one way out. Ingenious! Keltie and I wondered how many bales of hay would fit on top of her tiny car.

Lily being silly.

Keltie on the tractor ride to the big maze.

Snacks on the way.

Messy girl.

For perspective: Lily is 35" high. It was a BIG corn maze.

I asked Lily what she was doing. "Pooping" was the answer. Ah, the honesty of a toddler. She wasn't pooping, just tooting. I know, thanks for sharing. Actually, once we arrived at the farm,I realized that I had tempted fate by not remembering extra clothes, diapers or wipes. Between Keltie and I we had a single size 3 diaper and brand new newborn clothes (a present for baby O), but nothing else. Well, we had snacks.

Note to self: green t shirt on toddler in corn maze = camouflage. Camouflage on toddler in corn maze = visible kid. Who knew?

View from the top of the maze.

Evan running about. He's two, but in this picture he seems older. You can see the boy he will become.

Thanks Keltie, for suggesting this outing. It was a perfect day!

New coat!

Since our little miss has grown a ton, most of her winter gear from last year won't fit. I found the cutest coat for her yesterday. It seems silly to buy winter gear in September, but you have to or there is nothing left but sparkly princess Disney stuff. We don't do sparkly princess here. Lily loves to have pretty things in her hair, and has fun dressing up, but isn't really girly-girl. Her favorite things for dress up? Her dad's stinky work ball cap, oven mitts and what ever shoes she can steal. Occasionally she grabs things from the clean laundry basket to add to her ensemble..

That's when we see outfits like this. Yes, she is wearing 2 hats, and has another 2 shirts around her neck.

I can't wait to see what she dresses herself in, once she is able to do it all herself. If we leave her to her own devices, she still puts pant legs on her arms and socks on her hands. She gets her own shoes on, on the correct feet, most of the time.

When her dad dresses her, well, that's always another story.

I need a magic wand.



I have been in my house for 7 1/2 years, and now that I have the outside looking close to what I would like it to look, it's time to move to working on the inside. I did some cosmetic work when I moved in; painting and replacing some closet doors and hardware. This past fall I replaced the kitchen and entrance floors with tile, eliminating some of the ugliest vinyl floors I've seen in a while. I'm still baffled as to why anyone would install cream vinyl in a vintage BLACK & WHITE bathroom. I hate that floor. Did I mention that the bathroom has blue fixtures? Would a piece of white vinyl been so hard to find? Sigh.

We were just approved for a home equity line of credit that will allow us to do some work around the house without costing us an arm and a leg. It'll still cost us, but maybe only a foot. The LOC will also allow us to get a new (to us) vehicle. We're trading in the Focus for a Mazda Tribute. My dad just bought a fancy new Accord that does everything except make a latte. Now he has a car, an SUV and a gas guzzling truck. It's pretty much a law in Alberta that you need to have a truck of some kind, so he offered us the Tribute. This leaves my mom with a truck that she doesn't like to drive, one that costs $42 dollars in gas just to drive around the block. (I don't understand why gas is $1.30/litre in Alberta) So, in a strange trade that I think will work, we are 'selling' dad the Focus when he sells us the Tribute. Let's just call the Focus a $3000 off coupon on wheels.

The truck will live at the lake unless someone needs dirt or lumber hauled. Wait, the truck needs to live in the city...

About that magic wand...


We want to, make that need to, renovate the basement. That was the main reason we applied for the LOC. If we want to expand the family any time in the next few years, then we need to add rooms. (Before anyone gets excited, focus on the 'in the next few years' part of the last sentence. Sorry, you'll have to wait a while longer.) We can't afford to go up, so we will go down. Our plans are to add one bedroom downstairs for Bryan and myself - one with a master suite and walk in/through closet. Further plans include a family room with a kid's corner (library/toy storage), a big kid's corner for Bryan's computer and Lego, and redoing the laundry area to include a craft/sewing/silversmithing spot for me to play in. Gotta do something in the winter if I can't play in the garden.

But, to start, we have to do some demo work. Since it's only partially finished right now, it won't take a lot of time to demo. I think. That's where the wand would come in.Wave wand, say the magic word and poof! Basement stripped back to stud walls. Wave it again and poof! New furnace installed. Once more and poof! New electrical panel.

I need the truck to get stuff to my house from Home Depot. Yes, the Depot delivers. But I don't want all the stuff at once, and even if I did, where would I put it? I'll bring in what I need when I need it, and have the big stuff delivered as needed.

So here is the beginning of the list:

Step One: Demo
Step Two: Furnace and tankless water heater
Step Three: New electrical panel
Step Four: Apply large rolls of masking tape to floor to decide where walls will go, and hope that the Framing Fairy takes the hint and surprises us with walls while we sleep.