Category: Holidays
Monday, Mar 17, 2014 | Book Review, Exercise, Holidays, Work |
This is a terrific book: The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larson, by Susin Nielsen. I brought it along for AppleApple to read on the sidelines at one of her brother’s exhibition soccer games this week, and she couldn’t put it down. She read it all in one big gulp, and it was obviously emotionally affecting, so I said, hey, do you think I would like it too? And she said yes. I started it that same night, and it had the same effect on me: I could not put it down! And I cried so much that I looked pretty terrible all the next day, but it was worth it. I like books that make me feel and think, and after we’d both read it, AppleApple and I couldn’t stop talking about the characters, almost as if they were real people. We were caught up in imagining the best possible lives for them after the book’s end.
Albus and Kev’s soccer team before a game this past week
The book’s subject matter is dark, and there is some violence. But the author’s touch is light. I would highly highly highly recommend this book for children ages 11-12 and up (it depends on your kid’s maturity level, honestly). It’s a book about bullying, and about the worst possible outcome of bullying, but it doesn’t do the book justice to say that, because it makes it sound like it would be preachy, and it’s not. It’s funny and it’s heartbreaking. Best combo ever, in my opinion. That said, I would urge you to read the book too, so you can talk to your child about it — like a book club for parents and kids. (I’m still working on Albus, and may have oversold how awesome the book is, creating the opposite effect I meant to — now that he knows I want him to read this, he’s suspects ulterior motives; and maybe he’s right, come to think of it. I really want to know his take on the subject and characters. I want to know how he reads it. I want him in my book club!)
So.
practicing piano, dog in sunshine, sister reading on couch
March break. It was a pretty fun week here. The kids did a lot of socializing with friends, and a lot of playing on electronic devices. They went to the movies. They had a few sleepovers. We moved AppleApple out of her room, and Albus in: she’s now sharing with CJ. He seems to be able to fall asleep with the light on, so she can stay up and read. And she has more room for her collection of clutter, aka school projects, craft material, books, and, okay, clutter. I don’t what the heck she’s keeping, but there were boxes and boxes to be moved down. Albus literally had, like, three things, including his bed. How she’d been fitting it all into that tiny room, we do not know. We did take the opportunity to purge and recycle, plus I tidied the attic (not sure why, but it made sense at the time).
location of slightly less fun ski adventure
On Wednesday, my copyedits arrived from HarperCollins. So that occupied the rest of my week, though we did take time to go skiing again on Saturday, with somewhat less success. It was colder, for one thing, and the trails were icy, which made the skiing technically trickier (different conservation area). One child, who shall remain nameless, spent quite a lot of time lying on the ground declaring that he would be staying here forever (okay, it was CJ, but you already guessed that). It may not have helped that early in our venture, I literally knocked him down, just after he’d gotten up again, at the bottom of the icy hill pictured above, the hill being all icy, and me realizing too late that I wasn’t skilled enough to manoeuvre around him. Instead one of my skis went right between his skis and down we both tumbled. Nice one, Mom. Ironically, I’d waited to go last to make sure everyone made it down “safely.” So I would have to call that adventure more funnish than fun.
On Friday, my Canadian publisher sent me their mockups for potential covers. This is a screen-grab that doesn’t quite show the full cover, but gives you a good idea of the concept. I love how it represents the era of the book (yes, it’s historical fiction). I also love how strong the runner looks.
Now, I’m off to finish the copyedits and ignore the fact that it’s Saint Patrick’s Day. I live in a university town. This is not my favourite of the drunken stupidity holidays. This morning I saw four young women at the grocery store wearing green t-shirts with the slogan: “Kiss me, I’m drunk.” (They looked relatively un-drunk, for the record.) It was 11AM. How old am I? Too old for that version of Saint Patrick’s Day, apparently. But not too old (and grumpy) to make something green for supper, because you don’t have to be drunk to enjoy pasta with pesto, and the kids will appreciate the effort.
Tuesday, Mar 11, 2014 | Exercise, Fun, Holidays, Kids, Winter |
Yesterday, we went cross-country skiing.
We drove to a conservation area on the nearby escarpment, and rented skis. We spent two and a half hours on the trails, with everyone skiing the entire time.
It was warm and AppleApple took her coat off and left it at a marker, and of course it wasn’t there when we went looking for it, hours later, after the visitor’s centre was closed. But I called this morning and apparently it was returned to the centre by a kindly passerby, so we will just have to go back and ski again this week (and get the coat: the temperature is dropping, blowing snow forecast for tomorrow).
Highlight reel:
* being outside
* being in the woods
* playing in snow
* doing something everyone enjoyed
* being active together
Of course, let’s admit that we had a few rough moments. Losing the coat was a (temporary) annoyance. We also split up about midway through the adventure, with CJ and Kevin heading back toward the visitor’s centre together, and the rest of us continuing on a longer looping trail. Except the older two skied much faster than Fooey could manage (she was hampered not only by being small and recovering from a stomach bug, but also because she had to wear boots and skis that were my size, nor hers). While she grew more and more exhausted, I grew more and more frantic, unable to catch up to or communicate with the older two, to tell them we needed to turn around now. (There was no way I could have carried Fooey and skis out of the woods — we were many kilometres in at that point, and I needed her to make it on her own steam.)
Finally, I decided to turn around without the older two, hoping they would have the sense to come back looking for us (they had agreed to stop and wait for us at a point we’d seen on the map, aka “the mythical G”; it never materialized). About forty minutes into this scenario, the big kids turned up behind us, glowing and unaware of the angst they’d caused us. I did not let them leave our sight after that. So, in future I might make a few amendments in planning. Ten-minute check-ins? Travelling with a backpack and a cellphone?
It was, all said, a real adventure. And really really really fun.
We finished with pie at Marj’s Diner in Alma, on the way home. Pie that was almost as large as this very tired child’s head. That’s banana cream, if you’re wondering.
Monday, Mar 10, 2014 | Cooking, Holidays, Recipes |
March break crafter
I’ve made this roasted squash recipe (written-out below) twice since we got our oven working again, and I’m recording it here because I would like to keep making it even after my friend Nath comes back from England and reclaims her cookbook collection, which I’m babysitting for the year; and of which I’ve been regretfully neglectful, as my cooking time has diminished greatly in recent memory. Enough apologies. Kevin cooks many more meals than he used to, and we both usually cook in a hurry out of necessity. This recipe is not suitable for the last-minute weeknight feeding frenzy. Actually, it’s not suitable to feed to children, at least not mine. So Kevin and I get to eat every last bite, and we’re not complaining.
finished dress with puffed sleeves and hoop skirt
I made this recipe last night, along with a heavily spiced lentil, rice and fried onion dish called Mejadra, from the same cookbook. When I realized how heavily spiced the lentil dish was going to be, I recruited Kevin to whip up a batch of hummus for the kids. The whole meal took me an hour and a half to prepare. Peeling squash and slicing onions is heavy labour. I needed a sous-chef, but Kevin was upstairs for most of the meal prep, swamped by a major room-swapping project that, I must confess, is still underway even today. I can’t go up there. It’s a disaster.
Where was I?
Oh, yes: on March break, surrounded by children, with a bit of extra time at supper for the making of dishes my children will refuse to consume.
March break soccer-in-the-living-room
This is adapted from Jerusalem: A Cookbook, which I might have to add to my cookbook collection after Nath reclaims it. Meanwhile, here’s how to make roasted squash and red onion with tahini and za’atar:
Peel and cube two medium-sized winter squashes. I used a random assortment. Peel and slice at least two red onions. Combine squash and onion in a large mixing bowl and toss with approximately 3 tbsp olive oil, plus 1 tsp salt, and some black pepper. Spread into a large pan or onto a baking sheet (I used a clay baking pan), and roast for 30-40 minutes at 475. Check occasionally, and stir if needed. Done when the squash is soft when pierced with a fork.
Meanwhile, make the tahini sauce. In a small bowl, combine 3 tbsp tahini, 1 finely chopped clove of garlic, the juice of half a lemon (you could use the whole lemon, but it gets pretty acidic), 2 tbsp water, and 1/4 tsp of salt. Stir until it’s a smooth honey-like consistency. Add more water or tahini if needed.
Finally, in a small pan, toast 3 tbsp pine nuts in a small amount of oil with a touch of salt, for a minute or two.
To serve, drizzle the tahini sauce over the roasted veggies, toss the pine nuts on top, and sprinkle the whole dish with 3 tbsp of za’atar, a spice that you really can’t replace with anything else, so go and get some. (Where, you ask? I’m not exactly sure: I got mine from Nath! And I’m nearly out, so I will need to find out, too).
I’m about to eat the leftovers for lunch, along with the Mejadra. And then we’re heading out on an all-family cross-country ski trip so that we can say that we’ve done something outside while not wearing pyjamas this March break. Wish us luck.
Saturday, Mar 8, 2014 | Books, Chores, Fun, Good News, Holidays, House, Kids, Organizing, Travel, Winter |
AppleApple’s last major school project before March break: an original handwritten folk tale
March break started yesterday. The kids celebrated with Minecraft in their pyjamas, a game that they play collaboratively, and that includes everyone, and which therefore I don’t find myself objecting to as stridently as I do to other video games. I also make no comment when Kevin sneaks off to play FIFA14 (a soccer video game) with one kid or another, calling it “soccer practice.” I actually think that “pwning” his opposition in FIFA14 may be helping Albus with his “mad dekes” on the field, in real life. It’s the power of envisioning results. If you can’t imagine it — in specific, calculated detail — it’s never going to happen.
the couch in its new location + airborn son; we call that beanbag chair “the cow”
On our first family outing of March break, we walked uptown to get passport photos taken. Because — newsflash! — I’m flying to London, England next month! (My passport is actually fine, but in digging up everyone’s, I discovered that most of the kids’ had expired.) This trip fulfills a dream to research early print culture, specifically popular culture (i.e. the precursor to the tabloid), in Elizabethan England. Long ago, I wanted to write a doctoral thesis on the subject, but I have the feeling that fiction will be much more fun, and ultimately more in line with my talents and abilities. I studied English Lit through grad school, but have never seen the places imprinted in my imagination by all that reading of English Lit; just like I wanted to see Nicaragua again before trying to write about, I want to see England before trying to write about it (I’ll save the time-travelling for my imagination). There is no guarantee that I’ll find my story, of course, but I know for sure I won’t find it unless I go (see above re power of envisioning.)
different airborn son
I’m going before the spring soccer season starts, and Kevin claims not to be worried at all about managing the house and kids and scheduling madness in my absence, now that he’s home so much more often (and he really is home so much more often, a fact I don’t mention enough, but which has greatly benefitted and altered all of our lives). The timing couldn’t be better: I have friends on sabbatical in London this year, who have offered to feed and shelter me. In fact, Nath has been acting as my unofficial guide, looking up directions to places I want to see, and providing advance tips on using the British Library and getting an Oyster pass so I can use the trains, etc.; plus she says she’ll come with me on my outings and provide me with an umbrella. I keep emailing her questions like: what kind of shoes should I bring? (Don’t we all need someone to whom we can email questions like that? It’s funny how it eases the mind just to have someone to ask.)
I also hope to see another friend, whose family is also in the UK on sabbatical, and meet my UK publisher, Lisa Highton of Two Roads, in person.
And maybe have a jacket potato and some beer.
Fooey playing with matchbox cars, last weekend
Our second stop on yesterday’s family outing was Words Worth, where I bought a pile of bargain books, and AppleApple ordered Black Beauty, and Fooey picked out a guide to making bracelets on her Rainbow Loom (she has been doing nothing else since), and CJ chose a Pokemon guidebook. (Albus was at the library with a friend, as he didn’t need a passport photo). CJ is starting to read, for real. Pokemon guidebooks wouldn’t be my first choice for his reading material, but if he’s the one reading them to himself, I have no objection.
jam cupboard in its new location
We have a list of things we want to do this week, including:
– matinee movie at the Princess
– family party night (tonight!) [note: definition of party supplied entirely by the children]
– make-up piano lesson
– possibly move children’s rooms around
– clean basement / house
– trip to mall
– plan CJ’s birthday party
– family cross-country ski trip
– lamps for living-room
– uke night
– supper at Grandpa’s
– play with friends
– early morning swim with AppleApple
– trip to the Museum to see this exhibit (over strong protest from the very family member we wish to take)
– hot yoga in the living-room
– fix iMac (the computer on which I process photos, which has been crashing with alarming regularity: which is why this blog doesn’t always have up-to-date pics at present)
– transfer all important files to laptop
– exhibition soccer games
– plan Carrie’s trip
– library
new bookshelf
We’ve already added a new bookshelf to the living-room and shifted the location of the piano and the couch, and moved the jam cupboard up to our bedroom where it looks so beautiful it almost causes me grief — I think because it seems like hoarding to keep such a beautiful object in such a private space.
“Does it seem like we’re in a constant state of change?” Kevin asked this morning, as AppleApple offered to do a room switch with Albus, who is not enjoying sharing with CJ. To which I could only reply, Yes. We are.
Tuesday, Jan 7, 2014 | Dogs, Fun, Holidays, Kevin, Kids, School, Winter, Work |
Tuesday morning, 9:30AM
Well that was short-lived. I am very definitely, completely, assuredly, hopelessly not alone in the house this morning. The day Albus has been praying for has arrived: Snow Day! School’s cancelled. Although I think it should more accurately be called Really Cold Day, because that seems to be why they cancelled it.
And it is really cold. I can’t deny it.
Behind me comes the persistent wail of the five-year-old: Mom, no one will play with me! Mom, no one will play with me! Mom, no one will play with me!
His sister suggests: If you had an imaginary friend, you’d always have someone to play with.
But imaginary friends can’t win!
Yes, says his sister, it can be arranged that imaginary friends can win. You just have to know how to do it.
Random parenting tip: I find that if you answer in soothingly vague understanding tones, yet don’t follow up with any action, children will go off and find something to do. Case in point: five-year-old has retired to exploding little go-go figures in the living-room. Happily.
Does our living room look really empty? It is. It’s the perfect play area for indoor soccer matches and floor puzzles and exploding go-go guys that you’ve arranged across the barren floor. It’s ugly as all get-out, of course, but that doesn’t diminish its value as a play area.
Kevin and I are currently brainstorming. This is sometimes a good thing and sometimes not. For example, we do have two dogs (unrepentant early morning whiners and poopers on porches in cold weather) due to impulsive brainstorming. But we all know how hard it is to change one’s habits. And Kevin and I maintain a perverse fondness for impulsively brainstormed decisions. Right now what we’re impulsively brainstorming is getting a gas fireplace. Maybe where the sofa is (see above). We can only do this if we don’t get a new stove and range hood. But, we brainstorm impulsively, maybe the stove will prove fixable. (This has not been adequately determined, nor do we know how much it will cost, to keep fixing a stove that has frequently gone on the fritz ever since its costly purchase six years ago. It’s like that car you keep repairing because you own it and you’ve committed so much to it already. “Throwing good money after bad.” That’s the phrase. But then again, there must be a handy counter-phrase, such as “Waste not, want not,” and “Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.”)
I’ve lost my train of thought. So have you. This is my brain on Snow Day.
I am currently reading Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, an entertaining guide to punctuation, which I fully intend to inflict on future creative writing students, should I ever teach again. Yesterday I haggled over a comma. Today, I’m writing dreadfully long parenthetical asides while my children lie about the house. Tomorrow they will be back in school. Won’t they? Are swim lessons cancelled, too? And soccer practice? Is the entire day a clean slate? If I hide out in my office drinking coffee will they notice? Can I keep them from the siren’s call of ‘lectronics, as my youngest puts it? Should a question mark have been placed at the end of that last sentence?
It’s beautiful out there. And frozen. I’m leaving the office to go for groceries now, actually, because we’re low on everything and this is the kind of weather that screams: STOCK UP OR PERISH!
Although apparently we can expect a light rain by Saturday. (Really, weather?) Sometimes I suspect we’re just lobsters in a pot, happily swimming around without a clue to our fates. Except it’s worse than that. That analogy only works if the lobsters have filled the pot, lit the gas flame, and jumped in voluntarily, while their leaders systematically burn and bury all the scientific evidence that jumping into pots on stoves is certain to cause cooking in lobsters. And strains in analogies. Perhaps I’ve taken this too far.
It’s 2014. I wonder why I thought it would be different from 2013.
Thursday, Dec 26, 2013 | Family, Fun, Holidays, Kids, Sleep |
1. Family photo out-takes
over-exposed dogs
We didn’t make a Christmas letter this year. Maybe I will get it done over the holidays (think of this statement as speculation rather than a plan). Nevertheless, as a first step toward creating a Christmas letter, yesterday, I attempted to take our annual family-photo-with-Christmas-PJs. CJ wasn’t very happy about leaving his new Christmas present to join the shot (new present = Game Boy, old school, bought used).
when is this going to be over?
help me pick up the dog, Dad!
please, smile, CJ? please?
he’s smiling! Now, what’s in your mouth, Foo? “Nothing.” Um, can you take it out, please?
could we get just one good photo, here? just one?
this is as good as it gets (click on photos to see in full)
2. Gifts
lots and lots of candy; thanks, Santa
new radio!!!!
This wasn’t on my wish list, but it was the perfect gift. A radio that turns on when you turn it on. Radical concept! No need to download or refresh or mess around with speaker connections. I opened the box, plugged it in, turned it on, tuned it to CBC Radio One, and the rest of the day was perfection. Music all day long. The Messiah in the morning, and cheesy seasonal songs the rest of the day. It’s the one day of the year that I can listen to cheesy seasonal songs with appreciation. Even the Queen’s address sounded good.
I’m embarrassed to say we gave in to his relentless campaign for another of-the-moment electronic device
“Coconut” the giant-eyed monkey (she has a weakness of stuffies with giant eyes)
the “new” Game Boy
3. Do nothing all day
how I spent my Christmas day: my job is done here
This third is a new tradition, only conceived of this very year, in fact, only thought of late on Christmas eve when Santa was packing the stockings. Kevin and I were feeling very full indeed after three consecutive days of Christmas meals (ham; turkey; paella + grazing). Our counters were blessed with pans of sticky buns given us by generous neighbours and family, and we looked at each other and said, “Who needs a big Christmas dinner?” So we decided to skip that part.
We skipped everything, really — all obligations, all work, all chores.
The kids let us sleep in till 9. I kid you not. We stayed in our PJs all day. I did no laundry. We did no meal prep. We did no dishes. I sat and drank coffee and tea and worked on a puzzle and listened to my new radio all day long. The house was thrillingly disastrous, so much so that the 12-year-old looked around last night and said, “This place is a mess.” HAHAHA! This is what it would always be like if Daddy and I took every day off! Then we watched a movie together (Parent Trap, the one with Haley Mills, still as funny as I remembered it from childhood). We ate sticky buns, basically. The kids added sugary cereal to the menu. There were the oranges from the stockings. We did not go hungry. It was exactly what we all wanted — to be together, and nothing more. It was the most peaceful, blissful Christmas I can remember.
These are my favourite people. We almost never get to spend unadulterated time together. What could be more special, more celebratory, more holiday-making?
4. Boxing Day turkey dinner?
Today we’re being healthy and eating fruit and doing laundry and yoga and cleaning up the dishes. Our neighbour has loaned us her electric turkey roaster (there it is behind AppleApple), and we’re going to roast up our turkey today, and make the trimmings, too. I’m feeling ready for it again.