Homes Sweet Homes

I was fortunate enough to be born and raised in a beautiful place. My hometown is built on the shores and hillsides by Kootenay Lake. Once a major center of trade and mining in my province of British Columbia, Nelson boasts many beautiful stone buildings constructed around the turn of the last century. Golden sand beaches dot the shore all along the lake and densely forested mountains rise above it. My winters were spent skiing and sledding, summers spent swimming and sunning. A haven for artists and students, my town fostered a uniquely vibrant cultural scene. People still flock there from all over in search of a kind of Utopia. 

I left my hometown at nineteen to attend university. I met my husband and never lived in my hometown again, save a stint of a few months after I was finished with my studies. I pined for Nelson for a few years, always desiring to return and make it my home once again. In the meantime, my husband and I moved for his career from Vancouver to the East Kootenays, then to Vancouver Island, and finally to the Fraser Valley where we have now lived for twenty-three years. I soon learned that my hometown is not the only beautiful place in the world, let alone in my province of BC. 

I remember going for walks in the East Kootenay town of Kimberley, where we spent a couple of very happy years as a young family. There was one spot down the hill from our house (Kimberley is built on a steep hill with three plateaus) with a wide view that highlighted the distant Rocky Mountains. I would regularly stop there on my walks and gaze admiringly at that fiercely dramatic mountain range. Before we left for Vancouver Island where my husband had been offered a transfer, I walked to my spot to say farewell to that special view, hoping it would not be too long before I could return to visit it again. 

I had for a long while secretly longed to live on Vancouver Island. An island life seemed a romantic idea to me. We moved at the start of winter, and I could not believe how mild the climate was. Kimberley's temperatures regularly dipped into the double digits celcius in winter and my little boys loved to watch the snow removal machines do their seemingly constant job in front of our house. We were lucky to see any snow on the Island. Moss and lichen grew rampantly on the north sides of buildings, and we could often visit a nearby beach in January, not necessarily to swim, although our younger son did have a talent for getting wet every time we neared the water. We have a lovely family photo taken during the winter after our older daughter was born. We are sitting on a beach in January, in jeans and fleece jackets, squinting in the sunshine. We lived a few blocks above the Courtenay air park which was built on the flats of the Courtenay river. My husband worked from home, so the kids and I would give him some quiet by taking daily walks down to the air park. We could watch the small planes take off and land, and enjoy the vibrant bird life and aquatic antics of seals and salmon. On weekends our little family would visit local beaches or drive up into the mountains for hikes. Life was indeed good. 

After the non-profit my husband worked for lost their core funding, we were on the move again - up Island to an off-grid lodge in the mountains west of Campbell River. The place felt like my Nelson home in that it was built on the shore and hillsides above a wide lake, but much more remote. The winters were milder, too. When we did get snow, it was generally wet and packable. The kids had a great time playing year round, no matter the weather. They rode their bikes, paddled in little river kayaks, hiked up trails built into the hillsides, swam to the dock, played in the sand, and climbed trees. I soaked in the views - the layered mountains across the lake were an ever-changing pallette of hues I never tired of gazing at. Campbell River provided everything else we needed. Many hours were spent at soccer fields and parks in the beautiful waterfront community. Discovery Passage provided endless hours of whale and seal watching. Once when we were having a meal at the Beehive Cafe, which was basically built on the dock at Foreshore Park, I watched silently as a grey whale rose and dove repeatedly right in front of me.

After five years of off-grid living we were on the move again. Our family of six had outgrown, not the beauty, but the living and working situation, of The Lodge. Saying goodbye to The Island was one of the hardest decisions I had ever had to make. I loved it so much. I still do. I get excited every time I board a ferry to visit our daughter in Victoria where she has chosen to make her home - an Island girl through and through . We were excited to start a new family chapter, but the temptation to flip the pages back was strong. We persevered, however, and began to plant roots in the Fraser Valley. Those roots are fairly deep now, after twenty-three years of making the Upper Fraser our home. 

What struck me first about the Upper Fraser were the mountain views. Mt. Cheam towers over the community of Agassiz, but is still a feature of the landscape in the city we call home now, west of there. How I have grown to love that mountain, and her neighbour, Lady Peak! I have been fortunate enough to climb to the top of Mt. Cheam and admire the long, wide views in each direction. The Valley has much to recommend it. I admire the farmers who work so hard to provide locally grown food. I enjoy the cities being broken up by fields of productive lands and a myriad of rivers intersecting them. The landscape in The Valley is open and generous and encircled with stunning mountain peaks. I also enjoy the fact that within an hour or two of driving, we can be at the ocean in beautiful Vancouver or White Rock. 

I am also incredibly fortunate to spend much time in the Cascade mountains just over the mountain pass from the Fraser Valley and into the Okanagan/Similkameen. The Resort my husband works at (and lives at most of the week) benefits from both the moisture of the Coast and the aridity of the Okanagan. Again, I feel at home. In some ways I have come full circle. I was born and raised at an elevation of 1700-odd feet, which is basically the same elevation as the top of the resort's ski hill. The resort is located near the Eastern border of a huge provincial park, the beauty of which is renowned and loved dearly by many in all four distinct seasons. 

If home is where the heart is, then my home is forever British Columbia. I'm not sure I could live anywhere else. If I can never get on a plane again, I am fairly sure I would be happy continuing to simply explore this incredible province. 

'til next time, 

Rebecca

The Turkey that Kept on Giving

A couple of weeks before the last Christmas my husband and I ever spent living in the Kootenays, I went to the local butcher shop and ordered their smallest, locally raised organic turkey. When I asked how small they came, the woman at the counter said about nine pounds. We had two small boys at the time. Nine pounds would be plenty.

My mom had come a few weeks prior to look after the boys while my husband and I flew to the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island to look for a place to live. My husband was being transferred there by the non-profit educational organization he worked for to start an Island branch. Our little rental house in a cozy, beautiful mountain town in the East Kootenays had been perfect for us to live in as a small family, but it was pretty tiny. We looked forward to spreading out a bit more, especially in a larger kitchen. Moving day was to be a week from Christmas day. 

On a visit with my friend Sandy, I had mentioned the fact that I had never cooked a turkey. She gave me her copy of Martha Stewart's November, 1996 edition of her magazine because it had a 'turkey 101' guide in it. I was aware of Martha Stewart, of course I was. She was everywhere, but I considered her out of my league. I wasn't rich and her recipes were. I was, however, into good food and aspirational, so I read the recipe. It actually looked do-able and delicious, as did the recipe for stuffing, so I thanked Sandy for the magazine and tucked it in my diaper bag. 

On December 24th we drove down to the butcher shop to pick up our little turkey. When the woman brought out our turkey from the back I thought she had made a mistake. "We ordered a nine pound turkey" I faltered. "This is the smallest the farmer sent us" she said. "How much does it weigh?" I gasped, eyeing the Merry Christmas, Mr. Bean-sized girth of the bird on the counter. "Nine kilograms" she said. I'm pretty sure I said, "Oh my God". Well, there was nothing for it. We'd ordered it and it was Christmas Eve, so we had to buy it. 

I went about gathering all the ingredients for our now enormous Christmas feast. We had no family coming to dinner, no friends either, since the contents of our little house was mostly in moving boxes. It was just us and our 9 kilogram bird. I studied Martha's recipe and made calculations. I was not an entirely experienced cook so I was trusting Martha to lead me to victory. On Christmas Day, I melted a whole pound of butter with an entire bottle of white wine. I soaked a four-layer large square of cheesecloth in the liquid and draped it over the turkey. Once in the oven, I started preparing all the ingredients for the stuffing. My husband kept our little boys occupied with their new toys and cleaned up after me (our kitchen usually looks like a bomb went off when I've been cooking) while I chopped endless amounts of celery and onions. The stuffing recipe alone filled an entire large roasting pan. I don't remember where I got the pan for the turkey. 

Every half hour I wrestled with the roasting pan and basted the turkey with more of the white wine and melted butter. About three hours in I removed the cheesecloth as per Martha's instructions and continued to baste the bird on the half hour. Our entire little house filled with the delicious aroma, so much so that we opened a few windows in the middle of winter. 

That the turkey was a rousing success is not the main point in my story. The fact that we ate it for lunch and dinner for the next five days after Christmas is. Sadly, we were forced to throw the last bit out. I suppose, looking back, that cooking a week's worth of meals before moving is a smart idea, just maybe not the same meal every day, twice a day.

I still cook that same turkey recipe, thirty-odd years later. It's a winner. The turkeys themselves vary in size, depending on the amount of people sitting down to dinner. I halve the stuffing recipe and it still fills a large baking dish. 

My husband loves the share the story of our first Christmas turkey. He's an expressive guy so the story is always accompanied by large hand gestures and increasing vocal volume. This post is in his honour.

Until next time, 

Rebecca

Confessions of a Strata Council Vice President

They must have seen me coming a mile away. Fresh blood with that ‘I was once on student council’ look. I had not been an owner in the building for long before I was approached by Angela. Join the strata council, she said, it’s not that big a commitment. Ten meetings a year, a few emails, easy. Ha! I know better, I scoffed. I hadn’t been on the arts council for thirteen years – president for six – for nothing. I knew email was the silent killer, and that there was always more work to do than you planned for. I told her to give me a year before asking again. I was burnt out. I needed time to resettle with my family.

A year later, another council member knocked on my door. I liked Fred. He lived just down the hall from us. He talked me into it. Okay, fine, I said. Not many months after I joined, Fred had the audacity to move to the Okanagan. He had replaced himself with me. Jerk. Or maybe Fred was just smart. Succession planning in action.

We’ve owned our condo for eight years. I have been on the council for seven of those, more or less. I had to take time off to recover from a head injury in 2020. Other than that spell, I have volunteered my time to the cause. There are perks to being on the council. I like knowing what is going on with my building, maintenance-wise, even though I only own one sixty-second of it. The interesting thing about condo ownership is that you own your unit, but you also own a share of the common property and pay for its upkeep with a strata fee relative to the square footage of your unit. Common property in our building is the hallways, the elevator, the building’s mechanical and plumbing workings, the lobby, the exercise room, the parkade, the parking lot, the landscaping, the guest suite and adjacent washroom, the roof, the exterior, and the exterior infrastructure stuff like drainage. I appreciate having a say in how the common property is maintained and improved. Our building is twenty years old this year. In West Coast terms, twenty is considered an ‘older building’. Shocking, I know, but ongoing maintenance is necessary, especially in a damp climate. The provincial government has now required all strata councils to order a depreciation report and dedicate ten percent of all strata fees to a contingency fund. Too many condo owners in the province have been subject to crippling levies as a result of poor management. I personally know of a large complex where individual owners had to come up with eighty thousand dollars each to reconstruct the entire building’s envelope due to years of water damage from wind and rain. It is in my best interest to be involved. Of course, every owner receives strata council meeting minutes. They only have to read them to stay informed. They can also vote on new amendments and resolutions at annual general meetings. Another perk is being an integral part of one's community. I like to bring a lightheartedness to our meetings. Unless there is an element of fun to volunteering, I am likely to lose heart and interest. 

Are there downsides to joining a strata council? Sometimes. We recently had to hold a mediation meeting for two owners who were basically at war with each other. We had never done that before. We set strict parameters for the meeting, keeping in mind that any action we took would set a precedent for future similar situations. The meeting was not comfortable, but I believe it achieved what we set out to accomplish, which was satisfying. I have also had panicked calls from people when water is dripping from their light fixtures. Many new condo owners are inexperienced. They own their units, but they don’t quite understand that the strata council members are not landlords. We can advise (in this case I told the owner to run upstairs and knock on the door of the unit above. Sure enough, the person above had let their tub overflow), but the responsibility to call their insurance company and deal with damage is their own responsibility.  Additionally, as stated earlier in this post, much of our business between meetings is done by email. Unless you are good at keeping up with this brand of correspondence, then strata council is not for you. I had to set up a separate email account due to the sheer volume of emails I send and receive weekly for strata business.

While the building next door is self-managed, we in our larger building employ a property management company. They send a representative to our meetings, seek out quotes for maintenance work, take care of meeting minutes and archive them, keep track of contractors, look after our accounting, negotiate insurance, handle legal advice, and communicate with owners on our behalf, acting as a buffer in difficult situations. They can also be very helpful in emergencies. As far as we’re concerned employing a good management company is money well spent.

Our current strata council has seven members. Only two of us are under sixty, mainly due to the fact that retired and semi-retired people have time to volunteer. I need to start looking around at other owners for future members. Perhaps one day soon I will pull a Fred. I will find a fresh-faced youngish person and invite them to join council, and then ten months later, abandon them. Just kidding. Sort of.

‘til next time,

Rebecca

*Angela and Fred are fake names to protect the innocent

Blogger offered to insert links in this post. I allowed it in case anyone out there would like to learn more about this dull topic. Please don't get mad at me if the links are all AI slop.

 

 

Generation Cell Phone

I've been thinking about how each generation of children we raise lives in a different world than the one before it, and how that affects parenting those kids. I have three kids who would be considered young Millenials and one that would be considered GenZ. I know various factors contributed to their style of upbringing, but with the rate of change being as drastic as it is in this age of rapidly advancing technologies, even in the five year gap between my third and fourth children (both being girls) I noticed a difference. This main difference was the hand held pocket personal computer and communication device known more commonly in this country as the cell phone. And, I'm not just talking about my youngest's possession of one and how that affected her life, but of my own. 

I put off having cell phones in our home as long as I possibly could. My husband was issued a flip phone for work, but the rest of us did without phones, and no one thought to ask for one because they were yet to become commonplace among their peers. We did have the family computer in the living room, and we all took our turns to do schoolwork or writing projects, play games from DVDs like Magic School Bus and I Spy, Lego Harry Potter and LOTR, watch YouTube videos, download music, and play Club Penguin when those online activities came along. Often there would be more than one kid sitting at the computer at a time, sharing their experience together. One of my kids was loaned a Game Boy in Grade Five from a friend, and when I saw how addicted he became I asked him to give it back and never borrow it again. My older daughter somehow talked us into letting her get a Nintendo DS with the digital pen thingy when she was a pre-teen, but she never seemed to become as addicted as her brother had to the Game Boy. My goal was always for my children to develop their 'real world' interests first and use the digital gadgets as a tool for relaxation and entertainment on a limited basis.

I remember waiting in the elementary school yard for my youngest. A woman asked me if I was on Facebook. I told her, ugh no, that if I wanted to communicate with people from high school I would do it the old fashioned way - I wouldn't. A couple of years later my eldest who was in high school asked if he could get a Facebook account. I told him yes, but I would get one, too, and then he would have to be my 'friend' on the site. Facebook was this scary unknown to me then, and I feared losing awareness of what my son was up to. Little did I know the only thing he would use it for was posting music videos and messaging friends about social gatherings. He was the first to leave the site a few years later, too. To him, Facebook was lame already. Not so for me, I found. To my surprise, it was actually really fun to reconnect with old school-mates, my large, scattered family, and acquaintances in this limited way. For many of us it became a way to cheer each other on from afar, and to make each other laugh. People were sharing their travels, their kids' achievements, their health struggles, and their hilarious daily foibles. I soon became rather addicted to all the daily updates, and anyone who is 'friends' with me on Facebook knows I am a regular contributor. I do know my life would be lonelier without it, especially during Covid when digital connection became so vital to many of us. I know it seems I digress. We were talking about cell phones, but social media is a huge part of their use. 

I remember the day I told my husband I couldn't put off having a cell phone any longer. My job was requiring my use of one. We went to the Koodo kiosk at the mall and signed me up. By that time, flip phones were not the norm any longer. The phone I chose had a touch screen and so, in addition to being connected to the cellular network, it hooked up to our home WiFi. My carrier was Shaw, so free WiFi was available in lots of places. Unlike with the computer, I could lie down on the couch and read articles, scroll Facebook, and message people. I'm not going to lie, that was a revelation. One by one, my three older kids got phones as well, although they were well into their late teens. When all three of my older children had moved away to attend college or university, my youngest and I thought, with her busy schedule, that she should get a basic phone, too, so we could communicate on pick-up times from her theatre rehearsals in the next town. If I remember correctly, she was thirteen when I got a new phone and she inherited my old one. Fortunately, my youngest was too busy at the time to become completely addicted to her screen, and she was very handy as a tech assistant when her dad or I couldn't figure something out on our phones. 

The other day I was remembering my youngest and I sitting in our living room when she still lived at home, both looking at our phones. I compared it to the days when she or I, or other members of our family, would sit at the computer in the living room, whatever we were doing open and available to the rest of the family, opposed to both of us isolated with our little screens in our own little worlds. Most of the time she was chatting with her friends and theatre colleagues, while I scrolled social media or read articles, or chatted with family and friends of my own, losing track of time. I wondered how this change had affected our lives in a deeper sense. I know teenagers deserve to have privacy at times, but to be honest, I think personal phones have  given them too much privacy and too much information available 24/7 to absorb - a lot of it sad and/or alarming. Of course, the difference from my own girlhood is huge. I couldn't even have a private telephone conversation in our house, the corded phone being on the wall in the very center of a small house full of up to nine people at any given time. And, TV news was limited to an hour or so a night. I also wondered how my time spent isolating myself with my phone made a difference to her life, or was it just normal to her - part of the culture of the late 2000's that she took for granted? I know there are scholars out there studying the effect of technology on our brains and we are still learning. I know I have made changes in my own consumption. I turned off the Facebook and Instagram notifications on my phone, and I have learned to recognize in myself when I have become over-saturated with information and screen time. Fortunately, I feel like I have struck a balance with the devices in my life, but it took a long time. That we expect our kids to figure this out on their own is a big ask in my opinion.

I can't help but wonder how the younger moms and dads raising Generation Alpha are doing dealing with all that the world is throwing at their families. Probably their best, as most of us have done before them, learning, failing and winning as we go. 

Until next time, 

Rebecca

Ode to the Eastern Fraser Valley: Marking Twenty Years

We arrived in early spring, the slurry it stank

The farmers said it put money in the bank

We found the people down to earth

Of new friends there was to be no dearth

No one asked "Are these ALL your kids, Maam?

When many families filled a fifteen passenger van

The Bible Belt, ever so many churches

Chilliwack has over 50, according to Google searches

Artists, too, but harder to find

Find them I did, and they were most kind

A fab little folk fest where I found work

For ten days I would dance, my responsibilities shirk

Fields of green and lakes of blue

Ribbons of silver rivers, too

Mountains in a ring all around

Rising like castles from the ground

Flood plain living comes with warnings

We check the weather forecast in the mornings 

People shocked by how much I walk

But they almost always stop for a talk (often about the weather)

The wind can be fierce, the ice storms the worst

The swampy hot summer will give you a thirst

The autumn is nice, discuss it we must, but

With all the rain the leaves don't change, they rust

Agassiz, Chilliwack, Mission, Harrison, Hope

Agassiz' the hub, the rest make the spokes

We love to drive between all these places

The beauty that surrounds us puts smiles on our faces

We're lucky to live here, we remind each other

Our girls have left and so have their brothers

But, we have stayed for twenty years

If we ever leave, it will be with tears

Fraser Valley, yes, you have been good to us

Formed our family, gained our trust

Life here has been rich and abundant

I'll stop now, before this ode is redundant

Until next time, 

Rebecca

Where Have all the Bungalows Gone?

For the past year I have been watching an Australian cop show. I discovered it while looking up an actor from another favourite Aussie show, and gave it a try. I was hooked from the start. It is one of those shows that takes me to another place, another time, and gives me a needed escape from the current reality of pandemics, wars and invasions, and the general uncertainty of our times. The fact that this show gives me forty-five minutes of entertainment nearly every day, and that justice is almost always served with a side of humour, is not the reason I bring up the show. I'm not telling anyone they should watch it. In fact, I am sure many of my friends would find it far too quaint. I bring it up for a different reason: its architecture and set design. 

The cop show which ran from 1994 to 2006, and is comprised of a whopping five-hundred and ten episodes, is called Blue Heelers. In watching the show, which takes place in a fictional small town called Mt. Thomas situated a couple of hours from Melbourne, I noticed how modest the houses were. Most of the characters live in older, one-storey ranch style homes often with peeling paint, rusty door hinges, and the very basics in modern conveniences and decoration. Sure, there are fancier homes featured now and again in the show, but those are rare and provide contrast to help illustrate a character. Everything in the show is much more aesthetically humble than what we have become accustomed to nowadays, both in mainstream film and television and in real life, and I find that thought-provoking. 

Blue Heelers reminds me of what my hometown was like in the 1970's and 80's before people came from the cities and restored it to the mini San Francisco it was originally built to be before time, weather, changing fashions (imagine beautifully carved stone buildings modernized with a face of tin siding) and economic ups and downs had their way. The characters in the show are wary of  'yuppies from Melbourne' buying up small farms and changing the vibe, and the property values, of their community, so perhaps Mt. Thomas has since gone the way of many other charming small towns and become a haven for city folks looking for that je ne sais quoi. I don't know yet - I am only on season four of twelve. Anyway, my point is, in this age of Instagram and renovation shows we in North America have come to expect a rather heightened standard of what our houses and communities should look like, (and I believe this standard is, in some small part, to blame for the ridiculous property values in British Columbia, but that is a topic for another time). 

Don't get me wrong. I am as guilty of aesthetic snobbery as the next person, and sometimes renovations and rebuilds are necessary, but to be completely honest, I like a little dingy alleyway, slanting shed or crooked fence mixed in with all this perfection. I like a hole-in-the-wall second hand bookshop that smells of old books, the occasional grandma's house that hasn't been updated in thirty-five years, or a bar that serves good beer but mediocre food on scratched tables perched on faded carpet. There can be an undeniable honesty to places that have not yet been smoothed over and made presentable with the latest in decorative touches and architectural features. I believe it's called character, and my favourite cop show has it in spades.

Perhaps I am merely a sad romantic, but I don't care about that. I care that we are slowly but surely gentrifying the heck out of our communities and that our kids may never know the fun of dancing to a great live band in a dive bar, of drying their underwear on an old radiator in their first apartment above a pizza place, or the struggle of saving for a first home that is somehow attainable for them even without Mom and Dad giving them a 300,000 dollar down payment (true story). Humble beginnings can be good beginnings and lead to true appreciation of all we have through life.

Until next time, 

Rebecca

How Much do I Love Camping?

I have been thinking a great deal about going back this coming summer to a favourite spot of our family's. We used to go there every summer for a family camping trip, but with all our children working and growing up and dispersing, the last time we were able to go to the spot in question was late in the summer of 2010. Below is my post written shortly after our last trip there. I do hope, if we go this year that the sun will shine more warmly upon those of us able to make the trip and, most of all, that we will be allowed to have a campfire. It really does make all the difference in the cool evenings. Even without a fire, however, our spot is beautiful almost beyond belief. There is a sense of being on the edge of the world there without it taking more than a day's travel from our home. The ocean seems bigger there and the shoreline wilder than any spot near here. I love the ocean and have been missing it as of late. The waves are calling me in the dead of winter and I long to answer their call - when summer comes.

I believe I am now completely thawed after camping for five days on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island with a complete campfire ban in effect.  We are experienced coastal campers but nothing could have prepared me for camping in damp windy conditions without the benefit of a fire in the evenings.  I wore all the wool I brought and went for many walks on the beaches dressed like it was January.

My husband and children did not seem to feel the cold nearly as much as I did.  They dressed warmly, but were not desperate about it.  One day found me pacing around our campsite with a wool blanket tied around my waist like a sarong.  My husband took to calling me 'Nanuk', but by the end of the week, even he said next time we camp at French Beach we should come earlier in the summer, when the possibility of a campfire ban has not yet taken effect.   The forest floor of the campground was littered in gold and brown leaves from the overnight fall-like temperatures, but we were mercifully cozy in our tents and sleeping bags at night, and slept well, looking forward to hot chocolate and coffee made on the Coleman stove in the morning.  We had glorious days on the beaches, hunting for tidal life, scanning the horizon for dolphins (we saw a group of three) and whales (we were blessed with a visit by a grey whale feeding in the kelp beds just off shore at Botanical Beach near Port Renfrew), and warming up on the sunbaked stones littering French Beach and China Beach.  At one point I sat on French Beach, picking up warm stone after warm stone to hold in my frigid hands.

We played round after round of badminton and tossed the football, and no one complained about taking their turn to do the dishes after every meal in a pan of hot water.  We were gratefully distracted from the wind on our second afternoon with a visit from my brother, his family and a couple of nephews, and enjoyed showing them around China Beach - a long stretch of fine sandy beach accessible only by boat or by a short hike through a forest of huge arrow-straight Sitka Spruce trees once used for masts on tallships  - which they thought was truly beautiful.  We had brought a gas lamp with us and after we found it emitted a generous amount of heat we joked about it being our impromptu campfire, placed it on the fire grate and gathered around it every evening just to stay somewhat warm while we sat and talked about the day and shared stories and favourite scenes from well-loved comedy programs.

The last day we hiked into Mystic Beach and enjoyed the sheltered bay there.  We lingered in the warmth, exploring the caves created in the cliffs by the tide, and visited the waterfalls.  I was clicking away with my camera when a fellow hiker offered to take a family photo, and I think it will make a great Christmas card this year.  Soon after, our daughter Emma stood on a rock near the shore.  The tide was coming in then and my boys thoroughly enjoyed watching their sister get soaked by a large rogue wave that hit her at chest height.  Good thing I had packed an extra jacket.

New wooden steps down to Mystic Beach

The last evening after supper was cleared away we walked on French Beach and remarked on the darkness of the clouds heading toward us.  We decided to string up a tarp over the picnic table in case of rain, so at least we would have somewhere dry to cook and eat in the morning.  We were so glad we thought of it, because it rained fairly hard all night long.  After breakfast we packed up the wet tents cheerfully, anticipating the dry warmth we would return to here at home. 

Do I love camping?  Not necessarily in the aforesaid conditions.  But what I do appreciate about camping is the unobstructed family time, the simplicity of choosing meals suitable for cooking over a two burner camp stove,  the 24/7 outdoor living by the briny fresh sea, the inaccessibility of technological gadgets, my husband being well out of cell phone range so he can't be bothered with work, and the appreciation it gives me for the simple things of everyday life - like a hot bath and a solid roof overhead.

The painting above of the large piece of driftwood on French Beach is called 'West Coast Wanderer' by Victoria, B.C. artist Jeffrey J. Boron.  More of his work can be found here.  

Clean and Be Thankful

I cleaned my oven this morning, and the job was done with a parade of cleaning products including vinegar and baking soda, SOS pads, dish soap, Mr. Clean and a lot of elbow grease. I knew it would be much simpler to spray on some Easy-Off, leave it to do its magic and then simply wipe off the grime, but the last time I did so I was sick and swooning from the toxic fumes for days. That stuff is nasty.

I do not enjoy cleaning my oven, to say the least, but this morning while I scrubbed a couple of months' worth of baked-on cooking I got to thinking. (Who are we kidding here? The last time I cleaned my oven Mark Zuckerberg was trying to get into a fraternity.) Music played in the background to keep me company but my thoughts ran free - when I was not singing along to the Mamma Mia soundtrack at the top of my voice, that is, something I am only allowed to do when no one else except my youngest is home. She sings with me of course, being a Musical Theatre kid.

Two of my three living-away children were able to come home for Thanksgiving this past weekend. The third had to work and celebrated the holiday with a dinner cooked by his roommates. The rest of us enjoyed all the comfort and cheer of being together at home. We cooked and baked together, sang (ABBA was strictly forbidden) and were silly together. And while we cooked and baked the oven smoked. In fact, every time I basted the six and a half pound chicken the fire alarm went off.

Anyway, while I was cleaning the oven I was telling myself I had better not complain about the task because, as much as I detest that particular chore, I was lucky. Lucky enough to have an oven in the first place. Lucky enough to have a beautiful, plump, organic chicken carefully raised by some farming friends to cook in said oven. Lucky enough to share that chicken with a loving family, even if one of us had to be absent. Lucky to have enjoyed the delicious leftovers in front of the TV with my youngest after her siblings left to go back to their respective post-secondary institutions and her dad worked late. Lucky to have a gainfully employed husband. Lucky to have children who desire to further their educations and make something of themselves. Lucky to live in a democratic country which, while not without its problems, remains a relatively safe and reasonable place to raise a family and build a future.

I remember when I was a girl and would be out walking with my mother. As we strolled down the hills of Nelson with the timeless view of the lake below and the streets lined with trees in full flame of fall colour against a blue, blue sky my mother would invariably say, "Aren't we lucky to live in such a beautiful place?" I would generally agree. I also remember when I would whine about being hard-done-by or some such teenage complaint she would invariably say, "Just be grateful." Well, with the news the way it is these days, Mom, I can honestly say I am both lucky and grateful to be where I am and with whom, enjoying the benefits of your healthy and wholesome upbringing filled with books and walks, love and talks.

My oven looks a lot better now. I baked some apple muffins after lunch and my youngest is enjoying two as an after school snack. The fire alarm remained silent throughout.

This Billy Joel song cheered me up the other day when I heard it after a particularly bad news day in the media. The video even features a smoking oven.
 We Didn't Start the Fire

A Christmas Greeting

"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not; for, behold, I bring you tidiings of great joy, which shall be to all people. 

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a  multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace and goodwill towards men."

'And that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.'

Wishing all my friends in the Blogosphere a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful 2014!

Rebecca

A Country Mouse in Metrotown

Yesterday, my husband and I took our two daughters for our annual Skip-school-and-go-Christmas- shopping expedition. We made stops a some of our favourite places and ended our day by venturing into the final frontier of mass consumerism - the largest mall in the Lower Mainland. With three floors of over 400 shops, Metropolis at Metrotown is normally the kind of place I would avoid, but I have to admit, for the purposes of Christmas shopping, it works. For one thing, it has an actual store devoted to the sale of recorded music and movies. Our local CD Plus store closed down a couple of years ago and since then, it has been very hard to avoid ordering the more alternative types of music from Amazon. Most of us in our family have Ipods, but prefer the tangible quality of a CD when it comes down to it. Two of us even prefer vinyl records, and no, those two are not my husband and I.

When we arrived at Metrotown, we chose a spot a which to meet back, armed ourselves with the maps provided by the mall, syncronized our watches - well, not really, but it sounds cool - and separated. Our eldest daughter recently got herself a smart phone, so we decided to call each other if one of us needed more time. Our daughters went off together, and my husband and I began our search for a specialty item for one of our sons. We optomistically thought, in a mall of 400 stores we would find that special item our son desires at a price we could possibly afford, but after our search through at least ten shops we had to give up. We decided to move down our list and had much more success shopping for one of my sisters and her family. Every year my parents act as Kris Kringle Central and my siblings and I are each given the name of another sibling for whom we put a festive parcel together. We like to fill the parcel with locally made items, but there were a couple of things we wanted to give them that we could not make or find locally. While we searched for these things, we had our antennae up for inspired, affordable gift ideas for other people on our list, including our two daughters.

By four o'clock I was bleary-eyed and suffering from low blood-sugar. We met up with our daughters who led us, me practically by the hand, to one of the mall's two Tim Hortons for some sustenance. After a gingerbread muffin and an apple juice I felt somewhat revived. Our eldest daughter, Emma then went off by herself and our youngest, also somewhat revived by a 7UP and a doughnut, came with my husband I to find something for her brother.

Metrotown has a Chapters book store, which is fun to browse and has a fabulous selection in categories ranging from Literary Criticism to Manga. I had an idea of a book in mind, but not a specific title. I found the section I needed and began reading through a number of similar books. After about forty-five minutes I had my selection narrowed down to two choices. Emma came in to meet us, glowing with the success at finding some much needed shoes for herself marked down seventy-five percent as well as several other gifts for friends and family members. I appealed to her for help in making my final choice. She looked quickly through both books, weighed the pros and cons of both and chose the less expensive one. I, led by her confidence and youthful energy, took her advice and bought the one she liked. I had another book in mind and went off in search of it. By then, I was beginning to fall apart. My husband, ever sensitive to my moods - one of the many reasons we are still married - put his arm around me, saying, "It's going to be okay." I explained how I hated shopping when I felt pressured to find the perfect gift. On our budget, we have to make every purchase count and I wanted our gifts to be personal and meaningful. In that overwhelming environment full of masses of manufactured stuff, glittering and vying for the attention of masses of shoppers - and it was only Monday - I was finding it hard to see the value in anything. The fact was I wanted to go home, have a cup of tea and slip into a nice hot bath. Instead, I pulled myself together and found the second book. Our youngest had seen an obscure item we had wanted to find and we went off to get it, applauding her keen eye.

On the way home I sunk into my seat, grateful for the roads which cleared by the time we got over the Port Mann Bridge. For a lightly snowy Monday, the traffic was busy. By Langley we could breathe a bit easier as the traffic spread out a bit. We put on Emma's new Arcade Fire album and my husband turned it up. Just after Chilliwack the snow had started again and little darts of white came at us in the headlights. We made it home in good time and I put the kettle on. Emma had a shower, our youngest had a quick bath, and then I had my bath scented with lavender. My husband caught up with the hockey game on TV.  I climbed into bed and was asleep by 9:30.

Today I have a Metrotown hangover, but the layer of snow is brightening the world outside my window and it's almost warm enough to wear only one pair of pants today. Despite my sense of renewal after a good night's sleep, when I think about yesterday, This is starting to look a little more appealing.

A Room of my Own

The summer after I graduated from high school I took a train from Revelstoke to Winnipeg to spend the summer with my sisters who lived in that fair city of the Canadian prairies back then. That summer of '87 was filled with touring around the city visiting sites and cafes, and of staying up late on humid nights. Of looking after the house plants of a friend of my eldest sister and riding my bike down Portage Avenue using hand signals to change lanes in the not-too-busy traffic. Of helping my eldest sister Monica cook - she was pregnant and ill at the sight of any meat whatsoever. Of keeping the attentions of an older guy named Garth at bay: 'No thank you' said with a smile.

Monica and her husband and daughter were moving back to our hometown in BC at the end of August, so, after my summer away I returned home with them. In those days you could just show up to our local college at the end of summer and register, so on the advice of my Dad, I did just that. He put a quick stop to my ideas of taking a gap year to 'you know, just work' saying: you will be bored.

I was the youngest of six children in a three bedroom house and now that the last of my siblings had moved out I finally had a room of my own. My mom suggested we redecorate it in the weeks before classes would start. We went down to the hardware store and chose a paint colour called Apple White, which was a pale, pale shade of green like the Transparent variety of apple. It took four thick coats to cover the wallpaper - taking it down would have also brought the plaster down so we didn't dare try - and I brushed and rolled on those four coats accompanied by a cassette tape of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony which echoed in that empty room with its Victorian era high ceilings. The floor of my room was hardwood in need of refinishing, so instead of undertaking that multi-stepped process we simply scrubbed the existing dark brown carpet on our hands and knees and brought it back to soft and fluffy life. I had inherited a very pretty glass topped antique white dresser from my Granny, I had a double futon bed from who-knows-where and a little painted desk. I put up art posters and dance posters, china masks and a little curio shelf also inherited from my Granny. White and muted green curtains framed my window which looked out on the back yard cherry tree over the kitchen roof. When the work was done, I sat on my bed with the blankets and pillows arranged 'just so' to view the final effect - and saw that it was good. Not too cluttered, bright yet calming and airy. Just right for a girl starting her post-secondary education.

I wrote countless essays at my desk in that pale green room, dreamed my girlhood dreams, cried my girlhood tears, ached my girlhood heartaches. My room was at the top of the winding staircase, next to the bathroom.Often, on their way up the stairs members of my family would poke their heads into my room to make a favourable comment about my new decor or to ask me something. Kiko, our black cat with the little white patch under his chin made many visits to me in my room, looking for someone to curl up with. My Quebec exchange student partner, Nadine stayed with me in that room as well as my sister Clare when she returned home temporarily from a four month trip to New Zealand and Australia, waking me up from my customary deep sleep to surprise me. One fall I gave my room over to my eldest sister Monica and her family while they stayed with us between houses, my cherubic little niece Gisele's white-blonde curls glowing in the sunlight from my window.

When I left home for good, my parents put a new green carpet, a few shades darker than the walls, in my room and turned it into a library/study. It also serves as a guest room for single guests sometimes. Sadly, the cherry tree which bloomed into glorious pinky whiteness each spring had to be taken down. Its former ground is now a part of my parents' large and productive garden, the view still lovely with climbing roses on the fence and honeysuckle against the garden shed.

Last summer, my eldest daughter also got a room of her own. We chose a pale shade of sky blue for the walls and rented a carpet cleaner to give new life to the cream coloured wool carpet. She has decorated her room in her own style, which is somewhat similar to mine but updated, of course, and with her own treasures. My youngest daughter also has her own room now. Slowly, with her sister's help she is making it into her own little space in which to dream, read, and practice her lines. Hopefully, the girlhood tears and heartaches will be at a minimum, but I'm not counting on it.  Apples don't fall far from trees, as they say. However, when they do happen we will be here with comforting words, guidance and cups of tea, just as my family was for me when I was growing up.

The delightful painting above is:  'a girl writing' by Henriette Brown (1829-1901). It lives at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Spring Cleaning the Cobwebs

Late winter in Central Park

My mind has not been on writing much lately. My girls have been on spring break for a week now and there is another week to go. My eldest daughter spent her first week in New York City on a music appreciation trip with twelve other school mates during which she visited Lincoln Center, attended a concert of the London Philharmonic, toured Radio City Music Hall, Times Square and the NBC studios at Rockefeller Center, went to Central Park, the Brooklyn Bridge, the 9-11 Memorial, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the musical instruments section. While she was there, my younger daughter kept track of her itinerary, and would often pipe up with, "Emma's getting ready to see Wicked at The Gershwin Theatre," or, "Emma's up the Empire State Building right now," or "Emma might be either at Staten Island or in Greenwich Village right now - they have a choice." Emma came home early Thursday morning and spent almost all that day entertaining us with stories of the group's adventures, and exhibiting signs of complete exhaustion. They had taken the red eye flights both ways, to and from Vancouver, and as might be obvious by the description above, did every touristy thing they could cram into their five day trip. She summed up her New York experience with, "It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there." She found she missed the general politeness of Canadians and home cooked meals after a few days.

Times Square on a Friday night

While Emma was away, I found that a little piece of me went with her, hoping and willing her to have a good time and praying her group would not encounter any bedbugs, which seem to have made an unfortunate comeback in the world of travel. However, the group stayed at a good hotel in Manhattan and one of their group, an experienced traveler, showed them how to inspect their beds properly for any critters. They found none and I felt better. Here at home, I was busy helping my violinist son mentally prepare for his auditions at the universities of his choice and filling my youngest daughter with vitamins and remedies to counter the cough she had again come down with; this winter has been a bit hard on her, like it has for so many of our acquaintance. With all of the above on my mind, I began the necessary task of spring cleaning our house. Spring cleaning and de-cluttering is proving to be a therapeutic exercise as I work toward my goal of having most of it done by Easter.

A long time ago, in a conversation with my always very busy sister, Monica, she told me she had developed a practice of cleaning out one area per day or two. That way, over time, she would get everything done without feeling overwhelmed with the idea of having to clean the whole house in one go. I decided to adopt her approach because, also being a busy person (who would rather do anything than clean), if I was going to get the job done well, I was going to have to do it a bit at a time. Rare is the day I can spend the entire time cleaning. Besides, my elbows get sore after a couple of hours' scrubbing and my lungs can only ingest so much dust. I also had a lot of paperwork and files to sort through and organize, so I tackled that job first. I found as I weeded out the old papers and kept only the important ones, making a folder for each new category, I began to feel my mind de-clutter, too, as if all the disparate items in my head had dropped into their proper place. I knew I would be able to easily locate what I needed now, and not have to shuffle through binders of thrown-together forms, lists, and printed out email communications, which is how a lot of my work is done. I tend to work intuitively. I am not disorganized in my mind, but even though I married a man who is hyper-German-organized and is an amazing example of order and efficiency to me, my files and binders do not often represent the fact.

I felt the same sense of mental de-cluttering when I pulled out our office desk in the corner of our living room. I cleaned everything, including the power cords, the walls, the carpet underneath. Just knowing my files on the shelves by the desk were in order, and the desk and everything about it was clean and orderly made me feel a great sense of satisfaction. Then I tackled the entryway of our house, getting the kids to go through their shoes, cleaning the shoe shelf, the coat closet, the throw-rugs, and scrubbing walls and the floor - which some bright person before us decided should be white lino with little green diamonds. The next victim of my spring cleaning attack will be the kitchen, and my kids have been conscripted for the event. We have a big kitchen which is what builders call 'a high traffic area', and once or twice a year we clean the insides and outsides of the drawers and cupboards and reorganize their contents. Of course, the appliances need to be cleaned, too, and more regularly, but we will tackle them as well, because the time has come again. We are also in the process of going through all our books, dusting them and their shelf homes, and weeding out ones we no longer value. I suppose I would not feel quite so much satisfaction with my spring cleaning if I did not let things build up in such a way as I tend to do. I am better at keeping our lives and important papers organized than I used to be - we have a box for medical receipts and a box for anything to do with our taxes, files for bills and important papers - but I am far from where I could be. I am not hard-wired to maintain a strict ' place for everything and everything in its place,' but I do enjoy the illusion of it, and the serene effect on my psyche for about a week after my annual spring cleaning.

I have long subscribed to the idea that "to everything there is a season." Spring and fall are the seasons to get my act together once more. Spring, because the increased sunshine highlights all the dust, dirt and clutter. Fall, because I will again be much inside the house and looking at the dust, dirt and clutter accumulated over the late spring and summer, and because my holiday from my volunteer work - and its paper trail -  is over. Spring, however, has a certain energy about it that emancipates the soul and makes it desire freshness and cleanliness - perhaps to reflect the renewed world outside my four walls and a desire to cast off the effects of the grey, gloomy grit of a west coast winter. Welcome Spring!

A Study in Parenting

The other evening I stopped in at Starbucks for a cup of tea while I was killing some time before I had to pick up my son. I saw a woman I know a little and like, who was doing the same thing. I said hi and then sat down opposite her and we started to chat. Like me, she has four children - two young teenagers and two small children, all boys. She told me she was supposed to be doing homework, but she was reading a novel on her i-phone instead. I asked her what she was studying and then she told me she was finishing up a bachelor's degree she has been working away at for ten years. She told me she had been accepted to a Master's program for next year. She and her husband are also building a house on their lakefront property and running a small business. She told me of her ambitious long-term plans for her career, which sounded perfectly reasonable to me given her passion, enthusiasm, intelligence, and energy.

Soon, it was time for both of us to go and pick up our sons from their respective activities. As I walked to my car which was parked in the nearby lot in front of Pricesmart Foods I processed and pondered all my acquaintance had told me about herself, amazed at her energy. I remembered a time a few years ago when I was sitting in a coffee shop at a table next to hers - I didn't know her then. I was with all of my kids and we were out for a treat, happily talking and laughing in our usual unobtrusive way. When it was time to leave and my kids were taking turns using the bathroom, the woman said to me, "I really like the way you and your kids talk to each other. It's really great to see." I chatted with her for a bit, I can't remember what about, and then the kids and I were on our way out the door.

I suppose I could compare myself to my coffee shop friend and dwell on the things I have not done in my life, like acquire degrees and extensive collateral, but, as a friend recently told me, "There lies the way to madness." It is much better to focus on what I have done. I am not going to draw up a list here and now, but I think it's appropriate to say that if I did make such a list, my children would be my greatest achievement. I know it sounds trite. Movie stars and highly successful people in the public eye are always saying in interviews that their children are the 'best thing I've ever done,' and one wonders if they really mean it. I have not been a perfect mother, but I have learned from my mistakes over the years, and if the powers that be ever handed out certificates for parenting, I would at least qualify for a Bachelor's degree after nearly twenty years and four great children, would I not?

In parenting, the proof is usually in the pudding, as they say. I am happy to observe that my kids are all motivated, hardworking users of their talents. They are all kind and thoughtful (most of the time), but are also critical thinkers and satirists, especially of the materialistic, callous world around them. They all know what it is to climb a mountain and sleep in a tent, survive without their gadgets and just sit quietly with nature. They have learned to think a problem through and go to their parents or teachers for help when they need it. My eldest has moved away and is finding his life. He checks in with all of us from time to time, just to say hello, to tell us about a decision he has made or something new he is doing, like starting a band. He is independent now and happy to be so. I find I do not worry about him, which surprises me. I suppose I thought that being so available and 'there' for my children might make them more dependent on me once they grew up, but perhaps I have really been helping them gradually gain the tools they need to function in the world.

The greatest of these tools is probably emotional security. My own parents gave me the tools, the language, and the emotional support to know and accept myself, and therefore, to figure out where I belonged in the world. When I was upset and emotional as a teenager - which, according to my diary, was at regular intervals - my mom always knew how to help me get to the bottom of what was bothering me, because sometimes I didn't even know myself. I built a personality and a life on that self-knowledge and have tried to pass that on to my children by giving them the support and love they need to find their own way in the world. One important thing I learned as a young person was that I only had a certain amount of energy to use, and if I pushed myself too hard, then my body would sort of shut down. I also learned that I was sensitive to my environment, to the people around me, and that I needed regular time alone and regular exercise to keep my mood on an even keel. Having the words to identify my strengths and my limits was helpful. I did not always listen to those words, but I always knew deep down why things went awry when I didn't listen to those inner voices. I have had struggles over the years trying to keep a good balance in my life, and to challenge myself in various ways, and I hope my children have learned from me that maintaining a good balance in life is extremely important for both their mental and physical health.

I don't have any framed certificates hanging on my office wall, but I do have four living, breathing, well-adjusted creative kids who can carry on a respectful, intelligent conversation with an adult, become a valuable employee and a trusted friend. And someday when their dad and I are old and grey, they may have good memories of their upbringing and still want to spend time with us. That isn't to say my dreams lie only in my children. There are plenty of things I want to achieve in life, and like my friend, I'm working on it, but life is long. My children's childhood is short and precious.

The photo: One of our happy family memories - our last camping trip on Vancouver Island. The four kids down on the beach after a hike in search of the sun.

Emma and I have a new post up at Stella's Virtual Cafe, too. Check it out if you're hungry for a little story and a bite of something tasty.

A Little Valentine's Post

I saw on the TV news last night, that the average person spends $168.00 on Valentine's Day for their loved one, but that only 17% buy the jewelry so aggressively advertised this time of year. I bet that many of those $168.00 are spent on roses and a night out at a favourite restaurant.

My husband and I have celebrated twenty-two Valentine's Days together. Our Valentine's Day gifts usually consist of a thoughtful card and a box of chocolates, because we both appreciate thoughtfulness as well as chocolate very much. Sometimes I have had flowers, too, but not often. I usually cook a special Valentine's supper for my family and we all gather around the table to celebrate our love for each other in the best way we know how - with food.

This Valentine's Day my husband had to get up at five a.m. to go to work (there is lots of sickness and other stuff happening at his workplace this time of year), so while he was in the shower I sneaked upstairs and left his card and chocolates for him to find on the kitchen table where he would be assembling his breakfast. He left for work without saying goodbye, which is not unusual because as he dresses his focus is already on the day, and the challenges, ahead. Instead of being hurt as I would have been fifteen years ago, I went back to sleep and dreamed of the African jungle in the book I'm reading. When I awoke I went upstairs to make my coffee and see my girls off to school. There, right where I grind the coffee beans, was an envelope and a box of chocolates from the same shop where I had purchased his. The message in the card was simple and loving, very similar to the one I'd left him. I suppose after twenty-two years, the need for a lot of words ebbs and flows just like everything else in marriage.

Our youngest daughter, who has had a cold for a week, developed a bad cough last night. It wasn't much better this morning, so I kept her home from school and took her container full of homemade, individually wrapped and labeled iced heart cookie Valentines - I made the dough and she and her sister did the rest - to her teacher to distribute. Now I am settling down for a morning of writing a blog post and then an article for the newspaper on an upcoming annual event I organize with the local librarian. The dishwasher is scrubbing last night's dishes, my sick daughter is eating toast and watching a DVD, and my son is practicing his violin pieces for his upcoming auditions. Family life carries on and does not stop for this holiday. It is, however, made a little bit sweeter because of it.

Happy Valentine's Day, however you spend it, or whatever you spend on it.

The photo is one I took at the end of a gloriously sunny, frosty day in January, when my Valentine, our girls and I went for a walk on a local trail. 

Cooking Therapy

I remember the exact moment when I realized that cooking was integral to my sense of well-being as a parent, as a wife, and as a person. We had just moved after Christmas that year from our comfortable home on a side street of Courtenay's historic downtown district to a draughty summer cabin with a tiny kitchen at an outdoor education center on northern Vancouver Island. We made the best of our situation, which was temporary while we made improvements to another more suitable cabin for our family, and with most of our belongings in storage, got through that first winter, sometimes surprisingly, with our sanity intact. I did not have to do much cooking for the first year. All of the center's staff were on a meal plan which meant we were welcome to any of the stores in the center's kitchen in the off season, and we ate with everyone else, including the other families who lived there, and all the students and staff, during the spring, summer and early fall.

We had three children, aged 13 months, three years, and four and a half years when we moved to the center where my husband was employed as the program director. As most parents will agree, mealtimes with little ones are not always easy. More often than not, one or more of the children must have their meal served a little bit differently than the others, certain foods have to be disguised, and the environment for eating must be relatively calm. Such was not the case in the eating hall of the center. The meals were served buffet style, and we would take our children up to the tables and try to help them select a well rounded plate of food, depending on what was served that particular day. At first, the meals were novel: grilled Ahi tuna, assemble-your-own stirfry, bean burritos, salads - all healthy offerings. Our children were not particularly picky eaters, but more often than not, they would fill their plates with baby corn and rice, then eat distractedly, waiting impatiently for an opportunity to run around with the other children. And, more often than not, we went home and made a peanut butter sandwich to round out their meal. While we were adjusting to our new and very different life I was grateful for the meal plan, but as time went on I became increasingly dissatisfied and could not put my finger on 'why' until we had moved into our renovated cabin in the spring and life was beginning to take on a more regular day to day pattern.

I think I felt rather more like a shepherd than a mother, herding my children into the eating hall at prescribed meal times, to eat prescribed food which someone else chose for them, and it was then that I realized how important the act of cooking for my family was to me. Before these meals in the hall I would feel listless and unproductive, waiting around for someone else to feed my children while we sat around a table which was not ours, noon after noon, night after night. It took some convincing, but we were eventually allowed to opt out of the meal plan entirely, and a few other families soon followed suit. I once again felt that sense of well-being in making a weekly meal plan - we had to, living a forty minute drive from the nearest grocery store - shopping at my usual stores, involving the kids in the process as well, scheduling my days around marinating, simmering, sauteeing, and baking. Our independence from the rest of the community at mealtimes was integral to our ability to stay at the center for five happy years. Our family grew around our table, talking to each other over fairly standard family fare like spaghetti and meatballs, homemade soups and breads, stir fries, and apple crisp with ice cream for dessert. Sure, I could no longer go into the center's kitchen and help myself to a substantial chunk of Asiago cheese in the off season, but my family appreciated my efforts and their results as they do to this day, and they all learned about cooking in the process. Our eldest son would often get up in the morning and announce that he was making pancakes for breakfast, and I always had helpers for every baking project.

Now, ten years on, my repertoire in the kitchen has expanded exponentially, as have my children's taste buds and skill in the kitchen. I own two solidly packed shelves of cook books, and while I would certainly not call myself a full-fledged foodie, I do turn to cooking for comfort and for joy, as does my eldest daughter. Some days when I am feeling disjointed, a bit down or in doubt, I cook a great meal. I honestly find cooking up a roasted chicken with sweet onion and lemon gravy, whipping up a pot of buttermilk mashed potatoes, and a citrus beet salad great therapy. I put on some music and an apron, and with my chef's knife and my wooden spoon I chop and stir my way into a sense of satisfaction so deep in my soul as to soothe whatever has disturbed it. When I put the meal on the table, and we all gather around to enjoy the food together, my day's therapy is complete...especially when someone else does the dishes and I get to put my feet up with another glass of wine.

I found the above illustration on Google Images. When I clicked on it, it was called 'Cooking Therapy' then dash 'Ishiki' dash 'children's illustrator'. That's the best I can do for crediting the image, which I really like!
And speaking of cooking, Stella's Virtual Cafe is embracing winter and serving up comfort food, with a new post coming later this week. Cheers!

Musing on Schooling

Sometimes I walk into a situation where someone is having a bad day and speaks before they have a chance to consider the impact of whatever is coming out of their mouth. One day not too long ago, I walked into a shop which I frequent. A mother and her daughter, who was dressed in pyjamas and a fluffy pink robe were purchasing some items at the till. I gave the little girl a knowing smile since my daughter had been similarly dressed that day for 'Pyjama Day' at the local elementary school. Every once in a while, the kids have a fun excuse to dress up in some kind of theme at school, and it had been entertaining to see so many kids and teachers similarly and ridiculously attired that morning.

When the pair had left the store and I was choosing my bunch of cilantro, I heard one of the women at the till ask the other why the girl had been in her pyjamas. The other woman suggested that perhaps the child was home schooled, therefore eliminating the need for proper clothing. The first woman practically shouted, (and remember, she works at this store) "If it were up to me I would BAN home schooling. They don't learn anything!"

I decided to tell the cashiers from my nearby position in the store that it was merely Pyjama Day at the local school. Moments later, the first cashier, looking angry, began to remove the packaging from a case of some product near to where I was choosing a can of black beans. I was this close to giving her a piece of my mind because I home schooled my children for four years. However I quelled my anger and restrained my strong desire to scold the cashier for being so narrow minded; I very rarely do give these people a piece of my mind - I usually go home and write about it instead.

Years ago, when we lived a forty five minute drive down a winding mountain road from any school, it did not make sense to drive my eldest to school for the two and a half hour daily Kindergarten class. The gas money required for the daily commute was deterrent enough and after a family friend suggested I home school, we decided to try it. For four years I taught my first three children and I still believe, to this day, that some of their later success in school could be attributed to the one-on-one they received in learning to read, to compute, to write, recite, and even to draw in their formative years. I also benefited from experiencing in an intimate way, their various styles of learning. Ian would understand a math concept before I had finished explaining it; Galen could memorize anything in record time and rarely forgot it even a month later. Emma I only had for Kindergarten, but she was never one to lag behind her brothers, and learned to read in Kindergarten from a handy book called Alphaphonics. Home schooling is certainly not for everyone, and it would not have been my first choice but for the simple logistical challenge of where we lived when our children were small; it ended up being the best of experiences for our family and brought my children and I much closer.

We made many friends in the town where we did our shopping, some of them home schooling families, some of them not. They all accepted us until one day when I said the children would be moving from the home into the one room school house at the lodge. By the end of my fourth year of teaching my children at home, there were enough school aged children at the lodge to qualify for a district funded teacher three days per week. My home schooling friends were not impressed that I would be handing my children over to the school system, but with a new baby at home, I was ready to move on, and I believe my children were, too. I explained that, while I valued the home schooling experience tremendously, my intention had always been for my children to progress to a school setting. I also knew in my heart that our days at the lodge were numbered, and the one room school option seemed like a great way to bridge the gap between home and wherever their next school would be. It was. My children had to learn to trust another adult with their education - Kim was an excellent teacher - and to accommodate and cooperate with other children in the class, even though they all knew each other like family.

When we moved here in March of 2003, and my children entered the local elementary school, I will admit there was a major adjustment period. Ian punched someone in the nose on his first day because the kid called him a 'motherf***er', and my son, not used to that sort of language in his schoolmates, took offense. (I did not hear about the incident for years, however. The very understanding principal let Ian off with a warning and did not call home.) Galen was completely overwhelmed with the behavior of the other children and begged me to keep him at home for the remainder of his grade three year (which I did most Friday afternoons), and Emma merely said, when asked how school was, "It's pretty much the same, Mommy, just louder." Over time, and with much coaching from their teachers and principal, and from us at home, the kids adjusted and even began to thrive. I will always say that while home schooling can give children an excellent academic education and an enriching family life, public school teaches them to get along with all sorts of characters, even the worst sorts, and find room to be generous to them while setting boundaries socially; both are important for the well-rounded education of the whole person, as long as the child is supported and feels safe in whatever school environment is chosen for them.

All in all, I think what I would like to have said to the cashier, is that the great thing about schooling these days is that there are so many options for learning which were not available when we were children. When I was home schooling my children my mother recalled how unhappy I had been in elementary school. "You would have been the perfect candidate for home schooling, Rebecca," she said. "But such a thing did not really exist back then and never entered my head as a possiblilty." Now, with choices, we can give our children the type of education that suits their style of learning and the life of our families.

Nostalgia in a Cabinet

Some people might think it's a bit early to be thinking about sending Christmas cards, but believe me, the way the weeks fly by around here it pays to at least try and begin the process, especially if I am going to make them myself. I have always tried to make my own Christmas cards, although some years I end up buying them because I simply run out of time after attending all the seasonal concerts and such that every parent knows are a part of having children in high school band, music lessons or any kind of performing art.I am determined to make cards for my friends and family this year, although the process will be simplified by the help of a pretty, seasonal rubber stamp that I picked up a few weeks ago at the Granville Island post office. The post office there sells a lot of lovely paper products and card making supplies, and is a bit less expensive than the beautiful Granville Island store, Paper-Ya.


Years ago I would draw a sort of 'slice of life' comic of my growing family, photocopy it onto cards, decorate them, insert a copy of our annual Christmas letter, and send them off. Several of our friends and family members looked forward to the cards and they became a tradition for a few years.

The first family comic I ever drew, back in 1995.
It's so old, the paper is yellowed. My husband had just
recovered from a bout of viral meningitis. Crikey!

We were in the middle of packing up to move to Strathcona Park Lodge,
and I was gearing up for a new adventure and lots of changes to come.

Last weekend, we spent a whole day rearranging some furniture in our house. In my quest for a china cabinet to hold our recently inherited china I had daily walked by a cabinet in our own downstairs family room, ignoring it as a possible contender due to a prevailing idea that it would be too small. One day, looking at the cabinet,  my husband said, "how about this?" and I found myself uttering a "we could try it" sort of response. The cabinet had once been home to our dishes but since moving to this house with ample room in the many kitchen cupboards, and for the fact that the glass had broken in the cabinet door, the thing had been demoted to a catch-all for my stuff - cards and letters I couldn't bear to throw away, birthday candles, old experiential learning books my husband no longer needed for his present career, old files of my writing, etc. I cleaned out the cabinet, we brought it upstairs, and it now holds Nana's china and Granny's crystal glasses very nicely indeed - and looks like it has been in our dining room forever. We'll get the door glass cut sometime soon. (We also need a piece cut for the garage door window which, for a long time now, has had a hockey ball shaped hole in it. It's on the to-do list.)

This cabinet has been with us as long as I've
been making Christmas cards

In the cleaning out of the cabinet I came across a file of old annual Christmas letters I had written, and another filled with the original drawings for the many years of cards I had made. I was, frankly, surprised to see that my drawings were not that bad. Not great by any means, but not bad either. I can't remember the last time I sat down to draw something besides a map for directions or a doodled flower while I'm talking on the phone.Today, I sat for a few minutes looking through the file, reading the old letters from when our children were little, and looking through my interpretations of our evolving life as a family over the years. I must say I enjoyed strolling down memory lane, and I was suddenly very glad I had decided to make cards again this year.

The original drawing for the front of my 1999 Christmas card 'Anyday, 1999'

The original drawing for the  inside of my 1999 Christmas card:
 'Holiday (Ahhh!) 1999/2000'

Family scene from inside Cabin 21 at the Lodge. December, 1999

The last family comic I drew for Christmas 2000
The next Christmas we had a little fourth in the picture.

After my 2000 card I stopped drawing a family comic. The year after our fourth child was born, and I became busier than I had ever thought possible, my kids drew little pictures for our annual Christmas card and I put them together in a collage format, made them into cards and sent them out. The kids enjoyed decorating and colouring the cards, but somehow the experience was not quite the same for me. I had enjoyed framing our family in a single comic format over the years.

One day, perhaps, I will pick up a pencil and draw another family comic. If not, I will still have this collection of cards which serves as something of a point-of-view family archive of those early, formative years that played a large part in making us what we are today.

If you click on the photos, it will enlarge them.