Tag: NaBloPoMo

great big concert

I started listening to Great Big Sea about eight years ago, right around the time Sea of No Cares was released. I’d heard of them before that, and knew a couple of their songs, but that was it. I can’t even remember why I started listening to them. I don’t own all of their albums, but I’ve got everything since Sea of No Cares, and in my opinion they keep getting better.

The first time I saw them live was an outdoor concert at Centennial Square, and if I wasn’t hooked before then, I sure was after that. They are a fantastic band to see live, and I’ve lost count of how many of their concerts I’ve been to. They are energetic, funny, talented and they share the spotlight.

So when I found out they were playing the Orpheum, I checked with Kaptain K to see if she’d join me (Greg will listen to them, but he doesn’t share my passion). K had just seen them play the Seattle Zoo in the summer, but she was game.

The concerts I enjoy the most are the ones where they sing more of their new material, and Monday night’s concert was one of those. They sang five or six songs from Safe Upon the Shore, and a couple from Fortune’s Favour. They did two complete sets, so they were playing for close to three hours. And the crowd was awesome. I am not a big fan of seeing concerts in theaters, as people tend to sit down, but as soon as the opening notes of Ordinary Day started, before the band was even on stage, everyone was on their feet, and we stayed that way for the majority of the concert.

One of the things I like about seeing bands live, especially bands that so obviously enjoy performing live, is I feel like I’m connecting with them. Sure, I’m one of thousands in that crowd, but I feel like they are playing for me. Another thing I like is hearing a bit of the history behind the songs, and during Monday’s concert there was a lot of that.

So I guess you could say I enjoyed it. And the added bonus was spending 24 hours with K. We went over Monday afternoon, made an Ikea stop, had a sushi dinner, took in the concert and then headed home the next morning.

Next up, Wil.

halloween

As I said yesterday, Halloween was a pleasant surprise this year. And not just the evening — the whole day was wonderful.

My mum was visiting for the weekend, and we’ve been having some really nice visits lately. The kids seem to have really connected with her, and they both were happy to spend some time with “Gran”. We weren’t sure what we were going to do Sunday morning but we knew we wanted to do something outside, so when JenV called and suggested we go to Goldstream with her, we said yes.

The weather was gorgeous — sunny, crisp and cool with just enough of a breeze to send tons of golden leaves gently to the ground. A few times it looked like it was snowing leaves. The salmon were still running, and I’m embarrassed to admit that in my 20 years of living in Victoria, I’ve never been to Goldstream when the salmon were running. So that was a treat as well. The kids were able to see quite a few of them making their way upstream.

We had an impromptu lunch of hot dogs and hot chocolate, bought from some firefighters raising money for Muscular Dystrophy, and then headed home for some naps and quiet time (the girls all napped, the boys all had quiet time). When we got home our neighbour’s 12-year-old daughter, was having a Halloween party. And here’s where we get to the surprise part. Elliot has never been interested in trick-or-treating. I’m not exactly sure why, but my guess is that there’s too much attention placed on him. People will notice him more in a costume and he’ll have to actually talk to people he doesn’t know. But really, it could be something entirely different. Because I’ve never asked. If my child doesn’t want to get dressed up and go out and get a big bag of processed sugar, I’m not going to try to convince him.

So when we got home, Elliot went over to talk to the neighbours for a bit, and when Zoe asked him if he wanted to go out trick-or-treating with her, I was shocked to hear Elliot say yes with no hesitation. I thought he might back out, but he was gung ho, and even let me paint his face with a nose and whiskers to enhance his last minute lion costume. Amy wasn’t interested initially, but 30 minutes before they were due to go out, she changed her mind. So we threw some fairy wings on her and the whole Fox family went out with Zoe and her dad.

And it was so much FUN. The night was beautiful, the kids seemed to really enjoy it, lots of people were out, and our street has some great decorations. Plus it was a nice way to talk to some of our neighbours. And we conveniently had Mum at home to hand out our candy for us.

The kids went to about a dozen houses before they started to get tired…this was three times the amount Elliot said he would do (“I’m only going to four houses because I’m four”). The lure of candy was too much for him.

The only disappointing part of the day was the community bonfire. We went down after we got back from trick-or-treating and it didn’t feel very community-like. Lots of really scary costumes, too dark (that sounds odd, I know), and several very stern police officers patrolling around. We didn’t stay long.

But it didn’t really matter because we’d had such a great day.

starting the bar low

I’m 15 minutes away from running out the door to pick up Kaptain K. We’re heading over to the mainland for a Great Big Sea concert, and I don’t want to depend on an internet connection on the ferry. Would be really bad to not post on the first day of NaBloPoMo.

We ended up having a wonderful Hallowe’en, much to my surprise. But because I don’t have a lot of time, I’ll save the details for tomorrow’s post.

So like I said, I’m starting the bar low here…it can only get better.

retrospective

Last day of NaBloPoMo. I went through my posts for this past month trying to find my favourite, and I don’t have one. I think I did a “better” job last year, but I had more going on. I can say that from a life perspective, I’m much happier this November than I was last November. I’m happily ensconced in my new home, my kids are sleeping through the night, I don’t have a ton of packing/unpacking awaiting me (although there is still some unpacking to do…one year later), and I’m enjoying being back at work. Unfortunately it wasn’t the best November for Greg, but hopefully December will be better for him.

If I do this again next year I will either use a theme to guide me, or post on the family site, as it seems I have little trouble finding something to write about when it comes to Elliot and Amy. The other thought I had was posting a picture every day (old or new) and writing about the picture.

We’ll see. For now, I’m signing off.

something exciting happened today!

I have my sister-in-law to thank for providing some content for today’s post. She gave birth to a baby boy at 5:30 this evening. She sent an email out at 3:30 pm saying things had started but they were still “light and slow”. Two hours later, baby arrived. Wow.

No name yet, but his sister didn’t get named until a week after her birth, so I’m not surprised.

So that brings the tally of cousins up to four boys and two girls. I’m pretty sure that’s it for everybody, so it looks like Amy and Rosie will be outnumbered forever.

Congratulations, Bill and Anna!

sue crocker

I baked today. Three times. I made pancakes for breakfast, cookies with Elliot right before lunch and cornmeal muffins with our soup for dinner.

My mother was a baker, and we always had something homemade and sweet in the house. I don’t remember ever seeing a box of store-bought cookies in our pantry. She taught me to bake early (I don’t remember learning) and as I got older I did more and more. Never anything fancy, just cookies, muffins and cakes. I continued baking for my first couple of years of university, but it came to a halt as I got busier with school. And then I just got out of practice and it became a chore.

So there hasn’t been a lot of baking happening over the years, and there’s been many a store-bought cookie crossing the treshold of our house. But I’ve recently started again. Partly because Elliot can now help me and it’s something we can do together, and partly because I don’t want to deprive my children (or myself!) of sweets — and if I can make them then I can control what goes into them.

This year for the first time since I lived at home I’m planning on doing some Christmas baking. I’m looking forward to having the house smell good, having Elliot help me with both the making and the decorating, and having goodies in the freezer I can pull out when I get the craving.

the week has ended

Just got home from Greg’s work Christmas party — came home alone as he wanted to stay a bit longer. Kind of weird going to a party for an office that is shutting down. I had a good time, but I was ready to leave. I’m just not a small talk in big group kind of person. It energizes some people ,but it exhausts me.

Anyway, I’m glad to be home, glad to be in my pajamas, soon to be crawling into bed.

traditions of the season

Continuing with my Christmas theme from yesterday…one of the things I loved about Christmas as a child were the traditions my family shared. When we were very young my dad would take all four kids out for a drive to look for Santa. We’d invariably see an airplane and he’d tell us it was Rudolph. Meanwhile, back at home, my mum would be scrambling to get last minute wrapping done.

Every Christmas Eve we’d have a beef fondue. Mum would make four or five different sauces, we’d heat up the oil and we’d dip our beef in. As I recall, that’s all we had for dinner. No veggies, no salad, just meat. I’m sure there was something else, but all I remember is the meat.

On Christmas Eve we’d go to bed with just a few presents under the tree, and when Christmas morning rolled around we were always greeted with a pretty large increase in the number of presents. Mum continued this well after the Santa-believing age, and I loved it.

Our stockings would be stuffed to overflowing, and the extra presents would be on the hearth of the fireplace. There was always a box of sugar cereal for each of us. We never had it normally, so it was a real treat. And Mum knew all our favourites. Corn Pops were mine.

We were allowed to open our stockings and one present of our choice before breakfast. And my parents were pretty lax about how early we got up. I don’t think 6:00 was unheard of. Their bedroom was next to the living room, and I imagine they woke up to their kids squealing with delight as we turned on the living room lights.

One particularly good memory I have is of waking up really early on Christmas morning and not being able to get back to sleep because I was so excited. My sister, who is six years older than me, was always the same way, even into her late teens. I saw her light on across the hall and I climbed into bed with her. We lay there reading together until it was time to get up. I remember being really warm, snuggled up against her.

We didn’t have any extended family other than grandparents, so Christmas dinner was always at our house. We occasionally had people over, but mostly I remember it just being the six of us and my maternal grandparents. We always had Christmas crackers at the table, and we always wore the hats.

It has been hard for me to transition into an “adult” Christmas. Over the years as my siblings have got together less and less I’ve had to struggle with what Christmas looks like for me. It has become a little easier now that I have kids, and a new focus, however I put pressure on myself to create our own family traditions. I have to stop trying so hard. I don’t think you “create” traditions. I think they evolve over time.

Regardless of how we spend each Christmas, I do hope that Elliot and Amy have as fond memories of their childhood Christmases as I do.

one month to go

Last Christmas wasn’t the best one for me — we had just moved, I didn’t feel like my house was my home, there was lots of unpacking to do, and Christmas mostly just got in the way.

This year I’m feeling like this is home, and I’m looking forward to having a good Christmas here. It looks like we’re going to have a busy December with lots of celebrating and visiting, and I’m thankful for that. We’ve got Greg’s office party this weekend, plus we have family visiting. Next weekend is my office party and some gingerbread house making with friends. Then we’re heading to the mainland in the middle of December to catch up with a few friends over there. We’re also hoping to have an open house here nearer to Christmas. We never had a house-warming, so we thought we might do an open house instead. We’ll see if we actually get our butts in gear to pull that off.

My mum will be here for Christmas morning and for a few days before, and we’ll be heading up to Greg’s mom’s Christmas afternoon for a couple of nights. And it looks like we’ll have plans for New Years as well.

And we’ll go to the Esquimalt Light-up, Greg will take the kids to the Truck Light parade, we’ll go see the Navy ships all lit up, we’ll take my Mum to Butchart Gardens and we’ll go see the Christmas trees at the Empress.

Oh, and on December 1st I’ll crack open the new Christmas CD I bought after listening to one of the tracks on the CBC.

Should be fun!