• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, A Review

    15/10/2014 - By 

      This book is amazing. Some have described it as a “nergasm” and it’s a perfect description.   It’s a post-apocalyptic world and we on Earth have used up our non-renewable resources. Jobs are scarce and the poor get poorer as the rich get richer. Many live in “the stacks”, which is a terrifying mess of trailers in the trailer park stacked one on top of the other to conserve energy and space. Everyone spends all their time in the larger than life game-world of The Oasis, rather than in their depressing real world spaces. When the creator of The…

  • Little Nighttime Rituals

    08/10/2014 - By 

    Isabella is a sensitive kid, just as I was when I was little, and maybe still am. As a sensitive person in an unpredictable world, she needs a certain amount of routine she can count on. I started a new night time ritual just so she would have a nice transition in to sleep. It all started when we were building Lego as a family one Saturday afternoon and Isabella turned to us and said, “I have a secret I have been keeping for awhile, and some of it is bad.” Did your blood just run cold? Mine did! My…

  • An Alternative Exercise Mix

    24/09/2014 - By 

    I started doing exercise and running after a month long break. Between running days I lift weights on our weight bench in the basement. I definitely prefer the weight lifting days! I do cardio to round it out, of course. I always dread my cardio days but after it is all done I feel so much better, and it ends up being really fun. Most of the fun comes from the app I picked to get myself up to 5K- Zombies RUN! When I say I use an app that lets me run from zombies, people say “how cute” or…

  • Shirley by Charlotte Bronte: A Book Review

    17/09/2014 - By 

    What an arrogant novel with unlikeable characters. I tried to like this novel, I did.  I didn’t like this novel. (Obviously). This book surprised me. I LOVE Jane Eyre, and was expecting a similar work of genius and insightful entertainment in this novel. Sadly, I recommended reading this book to my Husband for our Two Person Book Club. I was so sure of her talent that I pushed for it and it was my Husband’s first Bronte novel. I regret this deeply. Shirley was the only entertaining and likeable character in this book. Even Shirley couldn’t hold my love though…

  • Our Master Bedroom Redecoration

    01/09/2014 - By 

    We rent. However, our rental property doesn’t have to be a jumble of random hand me down furniture and a flurry of photos. We’ve been here 5 years and will probably be here for another 5 years before we can afford to buy. We are in no hurry to buy and are okay renting. The only thing that bugged me was our bedroom. After I did Isabella’s bedroom in May, I realized the potential of these rooms. The current colour of my room was the cheap ivory colour that the landlord had put in. It was somewhere between dirt and…

  • So Our Camping Trip Was a Fail.

    25/07/2014 - By 

     I think I come off to some as someone who prefers to be pampered. Who likes things around me to be happy. I am Type A, who loves a plan and things to be properly in their place, to be sure, but I am adaptable when need be. I do like my bed. But I am not against camping at all. I’d rather be at a rustic cabin, cuz that is what I grew up knowing, but I have been camping in my teens. I’m not quite the stepmother-to-be from The Parent  Trap (Hayley Mills, I love you). When I…

  • Preparing for Our First Camping Trip (In Over a Decade)

    07/07/2014 - By 

    We have had no time for anything except preparing for our vacation. Thank goodness the medicine I took for the infectious colitis I suffered seems to have nearly worked, and I can almost function normally and eat properly again. That was rough. Now to focus on the next thing ahead! We are going to visit friends and then we are camping for a weekend before coming home. I should specify! In this day and age there are a lot of people who go camping with portable houses basically (“glamping” or “glamour camping”) and then there are those with RVs or…

  • Infectious Colitis and Nightmares

    29/06/2014 - By 

    So it has been a hard week or so. Josh’s 30th Birthday went by quietly. His mother showed up for a surprise visit and we went out for dinner Thursday night, Vietnamese. I felt bloated, nauseous, crampy,  and awful that night and most of the next day but ignored it. Friday the 20th was Josh’s birthday. We played games and watched the World Cup. That night my Mother-in-law stayed to babysit and we went out for drinks with a couple true blue friends. One of my fave people, Shanna, came too. We talked each other’s ears off until after 1…

  • A Poem About My Daughter

    24/05/2014 - By 

    When I was 14 I used to write a poem or two or ten every day. I have notebook upon notebook. Just those plain black coiled notebooks. Most of it is TERRIBLE. I was never formally trained so they have no rhythm and I couldn’t tell you what type of poem any poem is- of mine or anyone else. I grew up completely enamored with Lord Alfred Tennyson and E.E. Cummings and read their poetry over and over. Growing older I realized some song lyrics are very much poetry as well; such as everything by Leonard Cohen and Hawksley Workman’s…

  • The Two Person Book Club Continues!

    23/05/2014 - By 

    As I blogged earlier, my Husband and I have a two person book club. We are both avid readers but we found, once we had two little ones running around, we have less and less time to read. My Husband works at a job where he has the drive to a client, the drive between clients during the day and the drive home to listen to music or the radio. He decided one day to use that time to finish a book on tape. I found the same book in our library and started to read while the kids ate…