X is for

x marks the spot.



The Christmas after Lily was born, my Auntie Barb sent my mom and dad a giant red wooden ruler that fits perfectly on the main support pillar in the cabin. We've been recording Lily's height on it since she was able to stand still enough for us to do the measuring. If you peek around the other side of the pole, you will also find a series of lines measuring the heights of my cousins, and if you were feeling a bit destructive, you could pull off the cedar board surrounding the support pole to find the lines my grandpa etched into the studs while measuring my brother and I.

At our home in Millwoods, we marked our heights on the wall in the kitchen. This was in the 70's and 80's, the height of bad wall paper and earthtones. When Mom and Dad decided to eradicate the decor of the era, dad carefully peeled away the strip of brown floral patterned vinyl wallpaper, preserving our growth charts in the family photo album.

We have a similar spot in our kitchen, where we have been measuring Lily's growth. Since December 3rd, our little Lily has sprouted up an inch in height, half of that in the last week. This would explain some of the extreme crankiness exhibited by our miss. It's how we know she has grown - if the girl is grumpy, we measure her. Usually we find that she has grown a bit. I wasn't expecting an inch in just over  a month though.

I would like to repaint the main floor rooms once the basement is done, but I think that there is one spot in the kitchen that will stay just as it is.

The only question is, how do you put a piece of a wall into a photo album?

Project 365-24

W is for

Photos by Buppa today

Winter fun.

We stopped in at Mom and Dad's yesterday to borrow the roof rake so we could take some of the snow off our roof. When we arrived, we found that my dad had made a snow fort for himself and the dog Lily.

Lily had her afternoon snack on the deck while Mom and I had coffee.

Project 365-23

V is for

Verbose.

Lily should be a play by play announcer when she grows up. She carries on a never ending dialog with anyone that will listen, about what she's doing that very moment. She will also tell you what she will do next and what's happening after that. It's exhausting to listen to. It's also one of the reasons I love Mondays.

Monday? Yes Monday. Monday mornings at 9am I drop Lily off at South Side Mother's Day Out and enjoy a full day (ok, 6 hours) of being Carrie. It is the best part of my week. I get to talk to adults, run errands and do the things that I like to do. Sometimes I run around, and sometimes I come home and read a book in the bathtub. It's the only time I have that is just for me, and it's peaceful and quiet and I love it. I will really miss Mondays next year, as this is Lily's last year in the SSMDO program.

I can't wait for tomorrow. No kid, no contractors and no bad weather. This means I will enjoy my day of running around. I think I am going to look for some cabinets for the Batcave.

Project 365-22

U is for

This is known as the dark look at our house.

Umpire. I could have used one today.

This is a face I saw a lot of today. There was a lot of harrumphing and foot stomping. We were both guilty parties. If there had been a base to throw, it would have been thrown; dirt definitely would have been kicked.  The day ended with Lily in bed early, a Bounceback Racer in toy jail and no bedtime story. Yep, I'm that mean mom. Tough love at 4 years old. It wasn't fun, but I stood my ground. 

Now to locate all the items she has relocated, 'borrowed', re-purposed or otherwise pilfered from the bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. I don't want to know what or who she used my deodorant stick on. Rosie Raccoon and Beary Bear got married today, so it's possible one or both of them wanted to be spring fresh for the big event. Parenting is always a challenge - it's never boring, that's for sure.

But, tomorrow is another day. To quote one of Lily's favorite books:

"Today was a difficult day.

Tomorrow will be better."

Project 365-21

T is for 

Turkey

As in my kid. This is what happens when you try to blog, and leave a 4 year old to their own devices. I have to learn to not look when Lily calls to me to say "Mumma, what do you think of my outfit?"

Apparently it's a space suit. Who knew?

What can't be seen or posted is the atomic wedgie created by a size 2 float suit worn over size 4 pajamas.

Project 365-20

S is for

Selection

This is part of the pile of magazine clippings, color swatches and ideas I have on my desk right now.

 Now that the basement is walled and ready for priming, I have some color selections to make! Time to buy some samples and look at them for a while. I know that our floors are going to be a warm walnut engineered wood - not super dark but not too red. Something like this one.

Trillium Imperial Walnut

I want the walls to be a warm color, but not a brown. All the built ins, doors and trim will be white. Benjamin Moore makes some really nice paints and I love their colors. Greys are really big right now, but if we go that route, I want to make sure the color I choose is classic and will look good 10 years from now. I don't want to paint it over again! I'm leaning towards a palette of greyed blues with some richer dove greys. The colors out at Restoration Hardware are amazing.

(Check it out here)

So, over the next couple of weeks I need to choose a tile for the bathroom floor, wall colors for the bathroom, the Batcave, the living room and our bedroom. I have to decide if we are buying new bed linens for our room. I bought a new comforter set this spring, and while I really like it, it's pretty bright. (This one) I needed to match something to my ochre yellow walls, which is similar to the dark orangey yellow in the comforter. We are not afraid of color at our house! There will be tons of light in the basement, as we have tried to maximise natural light where we can, and have put in lots of lighting zones. I might just donate the comforter to our room at the cabin and start fresh.

This is fun!

Project 365-19

R is for

Ready or not? Lily is almost 4 1/2. While we never intended for her to be an only child this long, life and work got in the way. It's been a struggle financially, for the past couple of years. We could not have done it without the  love and support of our families. A lot of things had to be delayed. Our renovation project, travel, and having a second child.

First, we don't have the space in the house for 2 kids. It's a 2 bedroom house. The basement reno completion means that Bryan and I can move downstairs. We planned the space down there for us, so that our upstairs bedroom could become a nursery, then a shared room if we had another girl. Lily's room would then become the piano room. (Piano? What piano? It's at Auntie Eleanor's right now. She has generously offered us the piano that sits in the spare room at her house. It's going to live there for a while...)

Now that we have some progress (read, walls!) downstairs, I feel like I can start thinking about what I want to do to include another person into our space and family. We don't have to buy any gear, thank goodness. I have to check the expiry date on the infant seat we have, but  other than replacing that, we are set. I am flirting with the idea of cloth diapers, out of eco-consciousness and to save some money. We have a good washer now, which wasn't the case for Lily's first year of life.

Are we ready? Lily is. She talks about having a sister, and instead of telling me to put her too-small things in the Goodwill bag, she asks me to put them away for this hypothetical child. I think Bryan was ready a while ago. I was the one that wasn't on board yet. Am I ready now? I think so.

We are hoping to add another Carbol Carbol-Ritcey baby this year. Wish us luck!

***I wrote this post a couple of days ago, and have debated whether or not to post it. We let my mom and dad know this weekend that we had 'pulled the goalie' so to speak. I had to, as my dad had cracked open a lovely bottle of red that I was not going to be able to partake of, and had to say something. So, I am just going to put it out there. The support of our extended family and friends is very important to us, whether we are blessed with another right away or have to face some of the struggles close friends have gone through. We wouldn't be where we are today without that support, and we will need it as we continue on this next step of our journey as a family.***

Now back to our regularly scheduled posting.

Project 365- 18

Q is for

(picture coming soon, camera is at home and I am not)

Qi

Being shut in due to this lovely weather means I may have to pull out the Scrabble board again. We are tired of watching movies, and there is nothing on TV. Time for bored I mean board games. Bryan hates it when I get a Q. We're pretty evenly matched - he can't spell but is a better strategic player and I can spell him under the table. When the Q comes out, it's war.

P is for 

Purple.

Somehow all three of us ended up wearing purple tonight. Lily in her purple jeans, dragonfly top and white and purple sweater, Bryan in his eggplant tshirt and me in my lilac t and new striped cardigan.

It was a very matchy evening...

Project 365 - 16

O is for

Opportunity.

My mom called me this week to offer me the opportunity to go on a mini vacation in April. She wants to do a trial run on flying prior to the France trip this spring, and has invited Lily and I to take a short trip to the coast. She's using airmiles, and we will stay at my Auntie Barb's place. We will rent a car (I get to drive!) and spend 4 or 5 days in Victoria.



This will be an opportunity to spend some mom and daughter time with my mom, to explore the city with Lily, and to enjoy the springtime I am so longing to see right now. This deep freeze is really getting me down.

I can't wait!

Project 365 - 15

N is for

Nebelung

This lovely old man is our Leocat. Lily thought he needed help with his nap today, so she accessorised him.

We think he's a Nebelung, which is apparently a rare breed. If you go to Google Images here you will find that while we are out at work, Leo has been posting pictures of himself on the 'net. Time for some parental control software, I think.

I bought him in a pet store without any regard to breed. He picked me by crawling up on my shoulder, licking my nose and then curling up in my arms. I was in the process of moving across the country to Toronto, and wanted to have a pet, so I stopped in at the pet store at the mall and the rest is history.

He has been the most amazing companion. He is very affectionate and social for a cat. His purr warms my heart and his fluffy 15 pound of cat-ness warms my feet at night. If he really really loves you, he will very carefully and gently bite the end of your nose.(The first time Leo did this to Bryan, Bry gave quite a yelp and wondered what he did to make Leo bite him. Guess I should have told him about all of Leo's quirks.)

Leo's patience with a 4 year old that loves him THIS  (holding hands very far apart)  much is quite amazing. She's better at reading his body language now; she learned the hard way what flattened ears mean. He has never hissed at her or been mean to her. Like any animal that has had enough, he does give her a warning now and then. Cries of

"Leo bit me!"

 are usually followed by one of us saying

"What did you do to him? Well, I would probably bite too, if someone stuck a finger in my ear. Don't bother the cat."

 He checks on her at night, and waits for her to help feed him his weekly treat of Fancy Feast turkey every Saturday and Sunday. If she's sick, he will sit beside her and keep an eye on her.

He's 15 now, I know we won't have him forever, but I sure wish we could. He is the best grey cat I know, and I love him.

Project 365 -14

M is for

Circle Monster, created by Miss Lily today at school.

Midway point!

I am half way through the first theme of this leg of the project. It has been both easier and harder than I thought it would be. I have to make a conscious effort to set aside time to do the writing. It's really hard to do while Lily is awake and needing my attention. Even harder when your contractor has a question, Lily needs something and your parents are calling about stuff every few minutes. They all require 100% of my attention, but I can only do one thing at a time, so there has been a bit of juggling, push and pull, and a bit of frustration. Mentally I am a wee exhausted. Thankfully, I don't work for a couple of days so I will have some time to regroup and focus.

Today Lily is in preschool and I am sitting  at the Second Cup, set up with my laptop, the newspaper, a croissant and a really large coffee. I scored some holiday treats from the Second Cup Christmas line for 50% off the regular price, and I am feeling better about the rest of the week.I'm trying not to think of all the things I need to do at home, and just relax. So far it's working. It's amazing what 45 minutes of time to yourself will do.

I should update on the renovation project. We have walls! Real ones! The drywalling is 99% done (just one side of the stairs to do) and the taping starts today. It's pretty dusty in the house, soon to be dustier. I need to tape off the landing so that we can keep the dust downstairs.

I can finally start thinking about things like paint colors and finishing details. I want to get all the painting done before any flooring goes in. Bathroom first! The bathroom fixtures are easy, but I'm still undecided on the flooring for that room. I have fallen in love with some absolutely gorgeous limestone floor tiles, but at $9 a foot, I will have to think about it.

First things first, paint the walls, then get some of the built-in's done. We are going to tart up some IKEA Billy shelving for Bryan's Batcave, Lily's craft/play area and the library section.  When we are done it will look like custom built, but without the custom built price.

So much to think about, so much to do.

Thanks for sticking with me! Any ideas for N-Z?

Project 365-13

L is for 

If you click on the photo, you can almost feel the sunshine.

Lilies.

Because they are under 5 feet of snow and I miss them. Good thing I have my own Lily to get me through the winter.

Juicier post tomorrow, promise.

Project 365-12

K is for...

(Many moons and many many Halloweens ago...Cruella met up with a vampire)

Keltie. Yep, Ms Watson, you are up.

I met Keltie nearly 15 years ago when we were both working at The Body Shop. That job didn't last long for either of us, but our friendship has remained strong.

The best thing that ever happened to either of us was having our kids a couple of weeks apart. It wasn't planned that way, but what a special gift the universe tossed our way. Every child presents a unique set of parenting challenges, but it sure is helpful to have such a good friend in the trenches with you at the exact same time. Lily and Evan have a blast playing together, even when they fight like, cats and dogs, brother and sister - you get the idea. Keltie's dad likes to call them the linebacker and the dancer. And Lily isn't the dancer.

We both have an amazing support system; she is lucky to have a great network of friends that are also parents and I have family very close by and rely on them a lot for advice and support. Her own parents spend about 90% of their time at their home in Victoria, but her brother and sister in law have a really close relationship with Evan. Evan has tons of honorary Aunties and Uncles - Bryan and I are among those. It really does take a village to raise a child, and Evan has an awesome village.

As a single parent, Keltie faces challenges that I can't even imagine. It's hard enough getting myself out the door some days. I don't know how she manages to have lunches ready, kid ready, self ready and out the door by 7am so she can get Evan to daycare, drive downtown and be working by 8am. I'm barely caffeinated by 8am! She does this 5 days a week, plus soccer practice, and manages to get out to see friends and family for fun stuff too. I have a sneaking suspicion that she is really a duck. Gracefully gliding through the pond, but if you look underwater, she's paddling like crazy to get there. But she gets there, and that's what counts.

I am so proud of you, Keltie. You are a strong woman and a fantastic mom. Evan is a lucky boy to have you as his mom, and I am so lucky to call you friend.

Project 365-11

 J is for jumbled.

My house is a jumbled mess of Christmas ornaments I can't put away, baby paraphernalia that I had to bring upstairs as it had no where else to be, boots and coats from the back door.

I can't wait to be done with this project!

Lily has taken it upon herself to re purpose her old baby bathtub to use as her movie watching chair. I am giving her credit for creativity. The slope of the tub is just right to lean on, and she is using the shampoo and soap sections as cup holders. Her old baby swing has been commandeered to her bedroom to use for the Groovy Girls.

It may or may not be a roller coaster.

The drywalling is done in the main room, and the bedroom should be started before they head out for the day.

Hopefully, the end is in sight. When I can get near the basement, I will post some pictures.

Project 365-10

I is for

im·pass·a·ble/imˈpasəbəl/

Adjective: Impossible to travel along or over.

That would be the roads, sidewalks and alleys in Edmonton right now. I am officially done with shovelling snow. If we have any extra money next fall, we WILL be buying a snow blower. Bryan shoveled snow yesterday, and I did some more today. We are helping our neighbor out with his walks as he is recovering from surgery and can't lift anything. That means twice as much snow to move. It's the neighborly thing to do, but it is wearing me out. Luckily I can get out of my driveway. My drywall is here, having been delivered just before the blizzard started, but my contractor can't get to his truck right now, nor could he park in front of our house so we are delaying the start by a day or two. Such is life in a winter city. 

If we hadn't shoveled at all, the snow would be to the top of my front porch. As it is, in the back yard, it's close to reaching the top level of Lily's play structure.

For comparison: (click on photo, then click again to zoom in) Lily sitting next to her play structure, and what you can see of it today after we shoveled. The perspective is a bit off as I was taking the pictures from the door. I was too cold to go outside again! 

I can't even get to the bird feeders to fill them up. You will notice that I have added a new feature to the blog. I can not wait until spring, and the days until then are many. Count with me?

Project 365-9

H is for handy

When I was a girl, I spent a lot of time with my grandpa. For the first four years of my life, we lived a few blocks from my grandparents, not unlike our current proximity to my parents. I was there a lot of the time - he would swing by on the weekends to take me to the hardware store. My job was to count out the nails from the giant galvanized bins, dropping them one by one into thick paper bags.

My memories of Grandpa are scented with sawdust. He had table saws and mitre saws and jigsaws for his woodworking projects, and there was sawdust everywhere in his workshops. (Both at the city house and out at the lake.) He loved to show me how to use his tools and would take time out of projects to let me make airplanes out of scrap wood, drilling and carefully nailing the propeller pieces for me. They always spun.

I wonder now, did he do that for me, or for himself? I can still remember the sideways grin he would give me when he would hand the toy over. Lily has the same grin, and it sends me back to his workshop every time I see it.

Today I work in a hardware store, but it's not a real one. It doesn't smell right. The floors don't creak. You can't buy nails by the pound. The stores that my grandpa took me to when I was little had all of that. Prudham's, McLeod's, Beaver Lumber. Totem.

When my parents bought the cabin, they inherited all of my grandfather's tools and the miscellany that comes with a shop filled with 40 years of this and that. My dad gave me grandpa's hammer a few years ago, and it is one of my most treasured possessions. Even if we don't need to hammer anything, I always make sure it's within reach when we are working on something in the house or in the yard.

 I love rummaging through the shelves in the garage to see what kind of things my grandpa stashed away. There are vintage handles and hinges (circa 1950's), links of chain, mason jars and coffee tins full of various nuts and bolts. I especially love when I find a package of screws or finishing nails with a price tag from one of the stores we used to go to - marked at 50 cents or some other impossible amount. 50 cents will get you a couple of washers or half a carpenter's pencil these days.

I think that one of the greatest gifts my grandpa gave me was the knowledge that I could make or fix anything if I just put my mind to it. I have never been afraid to pick up a hammer or a wrench, and can figure out how things work if I need to. If I don't know how, then I can take a class, or read a book or just figure it out through trial and error. That's how he learned, and it's exactly how I learn. That, and just try to tell me I can't do something...

Today I had a customer comment "Look at her lift that! Can she lift that? Look at her go." (I was moving cases of 18" x 18" travertine marble tile from one pallet to another.) He may or may not have been teasing; after 12 years at Home Depot I have heard pretty much every comment one can make about women in the building industry, and it all rolls off me. I smiled, and kept moving tiles.



You bet I can lift that. I can also wire a light fixture, lay hardwood, use a chop saw and I own three drills, a jigsaw and an acetylene torch.

Look at her go.

Project 365-8

G is for Gingersnaps


 This is a plate of Auntie Ann's gingersnaps.

I mentioned her in my B for Bread post. Auntie Ann loves to bake. She sends home the most amazing care packages. On Christmas Eve, she passed me a giant parcel filled with muffins and squares, and a big bag of ginger cookies.

They are a perfect combination of crisp and chewy, sweet and spicy. I like them with a cup of tea. Bryan heats them up in the microwave so they have that just out of the oven taste. Lily nibbles them around the edges, or crumbles them in to applesauce. We dole them out a few at a time because they are SO good and we want them to last - we like to joke that they could be used as currency in our family.

I would love to have the recipe, but it's a hard one to get out of Auntie. She has about 5 recipes she likes to use, depending on her mood, what ingredients she has, or what color the molasses is. Then you have to factor in baking time and how distracted one might get while the cookies are in the oven.  9 minutes and they are too soft, 11 minutes and the cookies are too hard. That's subjective too, as my mom likes the crispy ones and Bryan likes the chewy ones. I asked to see Auntie's recipe book once. Was I in for a treat!

She has a drawer in her kitchen that is filled with old fashioned cut and paste scrapbooks. She collects recipes the same way my mom collects cookbooks - and this collection spans 70 years of cooking.The books are stained and dogeared, spattered with batter from cakes eaten long ago. Some of the recipes are cuttings from the newspaper, others are ones written in by Auntie. The earlier ones are written in a fine confident hand. As I flipped through the pages, the hand was a bit shakier, the words a bit bigger.

These days the recipes are in different hands, as we have written out our recipes for Auntie, and she has pasted them in. Her hands are not as reliable as they once were, and she has shaky days that don't allow her to bake. You see, this year my Auntie will be 94. She is my dad's aunt, my great Aunt, Lily's great great aunt and godmother. I count her as one of my grandparents and she is very dear to all of us.

My friend Keltie gave me a really neat notebook for Christmas. It's a Moleskine one, a recipe journal. Today I took advantage of the quiet morning to copy recipes from my own nearly full notebook to the new recipe journal. Maybe someday one of my nieces or nephews will look at the stained and dogeared pages and wonder how I came across all of them.

I'm hoping they will find her gingersnap recipes among the collection.

Project 365-7

F is for flowers.

As I work through the first days of this project, I am finding myself focusing on the Letter of the Day. Yes, we watch a lot of Sesame Street around here. We started our day with Abby's Flying Fairy School. What to write about? Today, the answer was in the mail.

 I have to say that this is not my photo. Why take a picture when another can speak for itself? Especially when the picture is on the front page of a gardening catalog that was in the mailbox when we came home from preschool today. 

I contemplated taking my laptop to the coffee shop today, to do my writing while Lily was in school, but I wasn't organized enough this morning to have it ready. I didn't have coffee before we left, and I'm lucky that I managed to get matching socks on without my caffeine. 

This is the time of year that starts to get me down. Christmas is over, decorations are put away, and there is not much to look forward to except spring. A spring that seems very far away. Especially after one has just spend $10 at the car wash to scrape a months worth of grime, salt and slush off the car. It's bright and sunny and above 0 today, so it was a good day to wash it without having to worry whether or not I would be able to get in or out due to frozen locks and doors.

I love my garden. It's my haven, my stress release and my oasis. From the moment the snow melts enough to see my lawn, the garden is my focus. I shovel the last of the snow onto my perennial flower beds and around the trees, rake the grass and start planning what to add, what to move and where, which plants to take to my mom's garden and which ones to steal trade from hers. Last year my parents gave me a fountain for Christmas, and I redid part of the back yard beds and added in some paving stones to widen my sidewalk a bit. With the city redoing the streets and sidewalks out front, I had an opportunity to enlarge the front flower beds without doing any digging, as they re-landscaped 6 feet up from the new sidewalks. 

What I love most is that Lily loves the garden too. We gave her a great name, as she is a mini-me in the garden. All my kid needs is a bucket, a shovel, a pile of dirt and some water from the hose. She can amuse herself for hours while I weed and dig and move plants. When gardening, our motto is "As dirty as you want to be." And we do get dirty. If we had a larger house, I would have a mudroom, just for us. 

According to wikianswers, there are only (!) 81 days until the first official day of spring. Bring it on please!

Project 365-6

E  is for

End of the Season.

It’s time to put it all away. Sniff.

Lily convinced me to wait one more day before putting the Christmas tree and all the holiday décor away. This is the sight that will greet her tomorrow morning.

I have no idea where things are going to go once they are packed up in the boxes though. I am quickly running out of room in the current Batcave. (The laundry room, soon to be the let's-just-stuff-it-in-here-for-now room, which is also my future studio space.) We are having 57 sheets of drywall delivered in 2 days and I need the basement to be as cleared out as soon as possible. Wait, that would be tomorrow.  

It will take a miracle.

Does anyone have a magic wand available? Invisibility cloak? Purse with an undetectable extension charm?

""When you say you've got the Cloak, and clothes..." said Harry, frowning at Hermione, who was carrying nothing except her small beaded handbag, in which she was now rummaging. "Yes, they're here," said Hermione, and to Harry and Ron's utter astonishment, she pulled out a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt, some maroon socks, and finally the silvery Invisibility Cloak... She gave the fragile-looking bag a little shake and it echoed like a cargo hold as a number of heavy objects rolled around inside it."

Harry and Ron are introduced to Hermione's beaded handbag.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Perhaps Dr. Who would lend me the TARDIS.

It’s bigger on the inside.

Project 365-5

D is for drywall!

(I realize this picture has nothing to do with drywall. 

No one wants to look at a picture of drywall. 

This ornament is much prettier.

It was a Christmas gift from a dear friend, 

and I like it so much

I will be keeping it out year round...)

My drywaller called this morning to book us in for next Monday. I just have to confirm when a delivery can take place and then call him back. Wooohoooo!

I finished 99% of the exterior wall insulation today. After Bob, my electrician comes through tomorrow morning I will have it 100% done. Thursday and Friday will be vapor barrier days, with an hour or two set aside for removing staples from my ceiling joists. The previous ceiling was 12" x 12" ceiling tiles stapled to the joists. Easy to take down, but every foot or so I have a staple to remove. Luckily this only has to be done in the main room, as we are doing drop ceilings in the bedroom, Batcave and bathroom.

Alas, the Despot gets none of my money on this round, as they do not deliver into the house. I don't mind lugging in 2x4's, bales of insulation, doors or flooring in on my own, but there is no way I am hauling X sheets of 4x8 drywall into my basement. None. I will pay extra for the in home delivery, thank you very much.

One of the best parts of the drywall being done is that we will soon have another bathroom! OK, so the counter will be a temporary one, and the hall door isn't hung yet, but having another semi functional bathroom will be nice. If you have a man in your house, you will understand.

If you have a 4 year old that asks

"What is Daddy doing in there? Pooping? Again?"

in the kind of exasperated tone of voice that can only be made by an impatient 4 year old girl, you will understand even more.

And because I have picked on him, I just want him to know that the very first part of the basement to be finished will be the Batcave.

Just for him.

Did I mention it's right next to the bathroom?

Love you honey.

Project 365-4

C is for a lot of things today. 


Construction. Closets. Child back at school.
Cheap Tuesday. Copper. Cream of Tomato.

We are in the home stretch of the never ending renovation of our basement. Today my dad came over so we could complete the framing of the bedroom closet, in preparation for the drywall that will be going up very very soon. 

Today was Lily's first day back at SSMDO, her all day school that she attends on Mondays. Every parent dropping their child off looked exactly how I felt - AT LAST! was written all over their faces.  As much as I love and adore my child, I need my Mondays off, and it's been a while since I have had one to myself. One week Lily was sick, then the next two were during Christmas break. ( SSMDO stands for South Side Mother's Day Out. Enough said.) I love this break in my week, and will miss it next year when Lily is at kindergarten. Perhaps I will be able to swing a 1/2 day of Mom's Day  Out if Lala will agree to kidnap Lily once a week. (hint hint Mom!) I don't really do anything special with the day. I usually grab a coffee, and run a few fun errands. I love to wander the aisles at Planet Organic, the Italian Centre Shop, walk through the IKEA showrooms or spend an hour or two in the stacks at Indigo; all of these things are hard to do with a curious kid that wants to touch everything.  

Today I chose to get coffee on the way to drop Lily off, then came home and tidied up a bit before Dad came to work on the basement. We completed the closet framing, and had a chance to admire the copper work that Bryan did over the weekend. This means that all my plumbing rough-ins are complete, and that I can finish up the exterior insulation that I couldn't do before. Bryan doesn't know it yet, but Thursday night after Lily's in bed, he's helping hang vapor barrier. 

Tomorrow is another busy day - Lily has preschool in the morning. (Yay!)  While she's there,  I have to run to the grocery store as it is 15% off a.k.a cheap Tuesday at Save On Foods. Back to school, back home to unload groceries and have a bite of lunch. After that I get to drop Lily off at my mom's so I can go to my brothers condo to do a grout touch up on the tiling I did for him, repair his counter top, and tackle any other handyman  sister type things that might need to be done. I always go armed with various power tools, fasteners, levels and tape measures. You never know what needs to be done, and my brother has been known to store Christmas ornaments and hair clipper attachments in his tool box. Better to arrive prepared.

Cream of Tomato you ask? My mom and dad's diet without bread, means feeding my dad lunch is a challenge. When I was at Planet Organic today I found some really really tasty (but low sodium, no gluten, &  made with skim milk) Cream of Tomato and Roasted Red Pepper soup.  I may be selling him out by telling you this, but he even had a couple of crackers with it. I knew he couldn't eat soup without crackers...

At some point in the day I need to call my contractor, measure walls and order drywall, call my electrician and hope he can swing by to fix one run of wiring, and take down all the Christmas decor. At least I don't work on Tuesday.

C is also for candle, one that I will be burning at both ends this week. 

Project  365-3

B is for bread.

It is not accidental that all phenomena of human life

 are dominated by the search for daily bread - 

the oldest link connecting all living things, man included, with the surrounding nature. 

Ivan Pavlov 

Are you sensing a theme? I thought that the easiest way to get this thing going was with a theme. Since the alphabet has 26 letters, it gives me 26 different things to blog about.

Today's is all about bread, with apologies to my mom and dad who started Lent really early and have given up bread. (And pasta, potatoes and chocolate.) That's another story for another day.

When I was growing up, my grandma made bread. Cinnamon buns, white dinner rolls, plum kuchen and Christmas Stollen bread. She didn't really measure anything, so precisely making her recipes was always a challenge when you wanted to replicate something at home. I can remember my mom going over to Grandma's house armed with paper, pen and proper measuring cups, determined to figure out Grandma's cinnamon bun recipe. She had Grandma measure out the ingredients, and then transferred the ingredients to the proper measuring cups to get a better idea of what really went into the buns.

Some of my fondest memories of time spent with my grandmother come from the times we would make her annual Christmas Stollen. It's one of those family recipes handed down from person to person, and I asked her to teach me how to make it.  Flour, spices, butter, sugar, nuts and fruit. Yeast and milk and more butter. We would mix everything by hand in a giant plastic tub and would end up covered in flour to our elbows. Once that part was mixed we would have to add in the eggs one at a time, by hand.

Once we couldn't figure out why the dough felt so strange, and had a good laugh when we realized that we hadn't added the yeast mixture into the dough. We kneaded it in anyway and it all turned out OK. The dough was shaped and placed into an assortment of mismatched aluminum loaf pans. The recipe makes around 14 loaves, to give you an idea of the sheer amount of dough we had to knead by hand.

I have her recipe, written down just as my mom did years before. Grandma and I went through the recipe one ingredient at a time, making notes about feel, temperature and how to alter the recipe depending on how the dough felt and tasted.

I love making bread. I love the feel of the flour on my hands, the sweet earthy smell of proofing yeast, and the feel of the dough as it changes from a sticky mass to a smooth shiny ball of dough. My favorite part is punching down the dough, and feeling the burst of the spongy dough as it deflates for it's next rise.

I don't remember when I started making it with her, but I do know that the first Christmas she wasn't with us, it was hard to make that bread. My great auntie Eleanor (my Grandma's sister) and I spent the day making the bread, and I think it turned out well. She was a good teacher. Auntie still makes the bread every year, and it tastes exactly right.

Lily likes to help measure out the ingredients and is a pro at kneading. She shares my grandmother's name Ruth and I hope that she will also share my grandma's love of baking and cooking, and pass it on to her own children some day. Whether those recipes are on line, on paper or in her heart, she will be passing on a family legacy in that baking.

The cookbook in the photo belonged to my great grandmother Karoline, whose name I share (she was called Carrie). The cookbook was a gift to me from another great Aunt, my Auntie Ann. She's going to be 94 this year, and she still makes bread at least once a month. Her care packages are legendary, and are made with the most important ingredient of all, love.


Project 365-2

 A is for Absent 

I had a conversation with my brother the other night, and we both wondered why it is that we tend to avoid doing the things that bring us the most enjoyment.

For him, he wondered why he just doesn't sit at the piano every day? And why not? It's not that hard to do, but it seems like so many other things get in the way.

For me, well it's obvious that I am avoiding writing.

Why? No idea.
How? Easy.

There is always another blog to read, website to visit, play-doh to play with, dress up costume to repair or laundry to put away. Those are just excuses though. I am on this computer every single day, so there is no reason why I can't set aside some of that time to do some writing. 

So, inspired by that conversation and by a fellow blogger, I have a year-long project in mind. Jay, a blogging mom I met while our girls were tiny, just finished a photo project called Project 365. The premise is very simple; take a picture a day, and blog about it. Sounds easy, right?

Writing is something I really enjoy doing, but when it feel like something I have to do, I shy away from writing. So, I am using this project as an opportunity to get past that feeling. I know it will be challenging. I know there will be some days when I really don't want to take that picture and don't want to write that post. Will I make it through the year? I'm pretty sure I will.

And now, the big question. Where do I start?

At the beginning, of course. The written word is a powerful thing. Every word starts with a letter, so I thought I should start at the top.

 Today's blog is brought to you by the letter A.

Project 365-1

Hello, is anyone there?

Bet you thought I had abandoned you...


Not so. I have something in the works...


Stay tuned!