Bye-bye 'tuff*

Since discovering our dream property a week ago, and partially because we've been off work with little to do but sit around and talk and dream, there has been a lot of just that - talking and dreaming about what our future might hold.

And since we are opening ourselves up to the possibility that our dream come true might be just around the corner, we have been going about my days with a sense of purpose. We've been researching, educating ourselves, learning new things.

We (or more specifically, I) have also been saying goodbye to old things.

Yes, there is a massive purge in progress here, people.

I've been starting slow - cleaning - going through cupboards and closets.  Every thing I pick up, I've been looking closely at.

I ask myself - When I move into my dream home, would I want to take this with me? 

And if the answer is no?  Sianora, stuff.

Because really, at the end of the day, if I don't want it in my dream home,why would I want it in this one?  If it isn't serving a purpose, making my life better in some way, then why is it here?  Now don't get me wrong...I'm not going totally bonkers crazy.  Like the bed that we currently own will NOT be coming with me anywhere past these doors, but sleeping on the floor would suck (only slightly) more than my current mattress, so it gets to stay.  For now.

It looks better in here already.  There is a pile of stuff at the back door that will likely make someone, somewhere, very happy.

And I am making me very happy too.

And that?  Is a good thing.

(* Imagine the post title coming from the cutest little two year old you've ever seen, in his sing song two year old voice, that likes to say bye-bye to just about everything in the room when he leaves it.  Or everything in the car as he drives past it.  It's one of the 239873 things that is adorable about Corben right now.)

Hot.

It has been hot here, like CRAZY hot.

Thursday was the hottest day on record in Toronto, which is where I happened to be all day. Oh, and I was working. Outside.

The thermometer hit 38 degrees in the shade. Plus that blasted humidex. And of course, the sun.

It took me more than 24 hours to recover from the day.

We haven't had rain here since Canada Day, over THREE weeks ago. (Which is also the last time I was in a tent, incidentally.)

It's part of the reason that my grass looks like this:
(Rain dance?)

Today was the first day in a few that it actually felt like we weren't going to asphyxiate when we walked out the door, so out we went. There was a little bit of swinging action on our new to us swing set...it needs a coat of paint, but the price was right, and the boys don't give a crap that it's rusty!
We spent the whole day outside. Eating, playing, sprinklering, the whole shebang.
And this. This? I don't even know what to say about this photo...only that it's 87 shades of awesome:Weekend. Nutshell. Scene.

(P.S. Right now, for the first time in three weeks, it is finally raining. Thank god.)

May Long Weekend: Check.

It's the end of a busy (long) weekend here, and the weekend turned out to be nothing like I expected.

Our Saturday plans got switched to Friday and then got canceled all together, which left Steve and I with six racks of ribs, and only us to eat them.

Oh, the hardships I endure.

Saturday came with an unexpected burst of energy to do a few much needed things, and the rest was spent relaxing. Like hardcore, naps on the porch in the hammock relaxing. We spent Saturday evening with the parents of one of Griffin's friends - the kids have spent a ton of time together, but we've never hung out and it was just delightful.

Sunday we toddled into the big city for a wedding (OK, there was no toddling, there was running around all hairy scary for three hours, trying to pack the seemingly ENDLESS amount of things that one needs to stay overnight in someone else's house with a 4 year old and a 16 month old in tow, plus spend the following day at an amusement park while Daddy works, PLUS fancy shoes and dresses and too many choices of undergarments...it really sucks that by the time kids are big enough to carry their own darn stuff that they hardly need anything anymore. Dang.)

But the wedding: the wedding was about 18 times more fun than I thought it would be. My family is ALWAYS in the mood for a good party, but this time everyone was particularly jovial, aided perhaps by the fact that no one had to drive anywhere at the end of the night, and both Steve and I and my brother and his wife were out! At night! Without the children! It turned into a pretty rocking party, there even might have been some shots at the end of the night...it's been a long time since I've ponied up to a bar with a row of shot glassed lined up in front of me...and it's probably best if there is equally as long until it happens again.

Today we headed to Ontario Place (where we've often been before) to hang out while Daddy worked. We parked ourselves inside a big tent to watch Daddy's big show, and while we enjoyed the show inside, our stroller "enjoyed" one of the heaviest downpours I've seen all season. Awesome. Despite a wet stroller and a rather traumatic rollercoaster experience, we had a lovely day.

When we arrived home, I decided to seize the proverbial bull by the horns, and did something I'd been mulling over for a bit. You see, last night while Steve and I were out witnessing a sacred union drinking, Corben was put to bed all by his lonesome in his playpen. He squawked once, and then fell asleep, not to be heard from again, until SEVEN FREAKING THIRTY this morning, more than half an hour after I had been up. So - bull, horns, push crib away from our bed, bye bye co-sleeper, hello Corbie's own bed.

He's asleep in there now, after a bit of a fit. There was screaming and head banging, and general baby obscenities, where he's just crying and babbling, but you know if you could understand what he was saying, it would have been enough to made a sailor blush.

If I thought for a moment that Corbie would never sleep in the bed with us again, I might take a minute and get a bit verklempt about saying goodbye to the co-sleeper, but I know there will be MANY more opportunities for little feet in my kidneys and little knees in my back. I mean really, do kid EVER really stop crawling into bed with their parents? I do love snuggling up with that little monkey at night, but I have no illusions that it's really over, so I'll save the verklempt for another day...I'm also certain that there will be lots of other opportunities for that. (Steve said last night "can you imagine us being at Griffin or Corben's wedding?" and I practically burst into tears in the middle of my sirloin.)

So now it's 10pm, on the last day of the first long weekend of the summer, and I would like to officially declare this weekend to be a resounding success. The boys were great, the weather was awesome, the drinks were plentiful, and the general company was delightful. I'm hopeful that this bodes well for an excellent summer to come. (Hopefully next long weekend I remember the camera...lame.)

FIN

I screwed the tops on 14 pints of salsa today, and officially declared the canning season here on the roof over.
We did not too bad this year, canning more varieties of stuff than ever before. Still, for next season I'm hoping that we can get a pressure canner (do you hear that, Santa?) and I can go way above and beyond what we did this year. However, between Picklepalooza (dills, bread and butter pickles and relish,) peaches, apple sauce, blueberry jam and salsa, I'd say we did OK.
I'm also over the top excited about my new little basement "pantry," even though we ran out of room half way through the season (there's a bunch of pickles stacked on the floor, and the salsa is still cooling in the kitchen.)

There's also a bushel of tomatoes that were blanched, peeled and put in the freezer, because I ran out of time to can them all before they went off! Good thing though, because we wouldn't have had room for them!

I didn't freeze as much as I could have this year, there were a lot of beans that could have been salvaged, and I'm sorry that I didn't cut the kale more often and freeze it. However, there is a whole pile of blueberries in the freezer, and even more strawberries to get us through the winter.

There are still a ton of potatoes in the garden that haven't been dug, and a wheelbarrow full of squash sitting at my back door. Seriously, a wheelbarrow. What the hell am I going to do with a wheelbarrow full of squash??!! I'm considering digging the potatoes and trying to store them in the basement somewhere cool, but I'm not sure if it's actually cold enough in the basement for them. Anyone have any potato storage tips?

(By the way, this year's salsa? Is AWESOME! It's got a nice kick, with a bit of a smokey flavour thanks to some chipotle chili pepper I tossed in there at the last minute.)

So, when winter's frigid hand finally strikes, we'll be the ones sitting around eating salsa and sweet Ontario peaches, tasting the fresh tastes of summer all over again. You know where we are, if you want to come and join us!

How does your garden grow?

I've been feeling a little bit ick lately. Like there's something trying to invade my body. On Wednesday morning for the first time, I quit half way through my run, because cleaning barf off the elliptical wasn't something I felt like doing that day. I sucked it up, and we spent the morning at the beach with some friends, which was awesome. But last night we had the most craptacular sleep EVER, and today I feel like arse again.

So instead of my complaining and moaning, I leave you with these:

This is my garden, trying, and succeeding quite well, at escaping it's fence.Fence, what fence? You can hardly SEE the damn fence anymore!

These pumpkin/squash vines are going to need their own damn postal code soon...they're out of control!
But...a peek under some leaves, and look what they're making. (Except with all these vines, I have only found 2 pumpkins. Two. Lame.)
Squash. We are going to be up to our eyeballs in squash. I hope y'all like squash!
The potato plants have been taken over by potato bugs, so I'm hauling them out. Potato bugs bad. But fresh spuds, right out of the ground? GOOOOD!
And...we are STILL getting strawberries. Apparently I bought ever-bearing strawberry plants, which I didn't even know existed. Every few days we find another one or two, and Griffin gets a little treat. Except today Griffin wasn't home...
And Mama got a little treat instead!
Dirty fingers, covered with strawberry juices. Life is good.

What Would Grandma Do?

We are a cloth diapering family, but we're what I call "lazy cloth diaperers." I will most often put Corben in a disposable when we head out on the town, just because it's "easier." It's really not any easier, but somehow tossing a dirty diaper in the garbage and just getting rid of the mess rather than dragging it around town seems more convenient.

Knowing what I know though, that disposable diaper that I tossed to get rid of quickly today will be here on this planet for hundreds of years to come...that's not really OK.

Today I'm starting the process of packing up our stuff to go camping this weekend. A nice little 4 day camping trip, likely to be our only one this season sadly. We're off to spend 4 days hanging out outside, on the beach, on the trails, communing with nature. Somehow, it doesn't seem right that I'm also going to be creating a big bag of stinky disposable diapers while we're off on our little nature adventure, not to mention wrapping my baby up in all the plastic and crap that's actually IN a disposable diaper.

And so, I've decided. No disposable diapers on this camping trip. It's only four days, it's not like I'll have to wash them while we're away, just toss them in some sort of makeshift diaper pail and I can deal with them when I get home. We'll be outside, covers will dry fast if they need to. We have WAY more poo-splosions in disposables, so we'd be dealing with a LOT more laundry if the babe was in disposables all weekend.

My Oma and Opa (my Mom's parents) took their whole family of NINE children camping when they were young. I imagine more than one of them was in cloth diapers at the time, because there was no other option. If Oma did it, so can I.

I've been trying to think about these things a little more often. What would our grandparents have done? Last week I was tempted to go to Canadian Tire and buy one of those little beach shelter shade things for our trip, to keep Corben out of the sun. But then I thought about Oma...what might they have done to keep babies out of the sun on a similar trip, back when a quick jaunt to the nearest big box store wasn't an option? I realized that a few sticks found in the woods and a bedsheet would likely do the same darn thing. So I passed on the trip to Canadian Tire, and will instead pack an extra bedsheet.

Too often we do things just because they're easier, more convenient. It doesn't mean it's better. It's never cheaper. I saved myself 30 bucks, gas for an hour drive to town, and an hour of my time. So next time you're tempted to buy something for convenience, think about it - What Would Grandma Do?

I'll let you know how our camping adventure goes!

(P.S. Hello old RMC friends...if someone sends me some pictures of yesterday, I'd love to write about our adventure! Otherwise I may be forced to scan and post pictures of us with Grade 9 hair, and early 90's wardrobes!)