Silence

Last night, I was standing outside on my lawn at 3am - puppy on the end of a leash, the lawn crunchy with frost under our feet.  Standing there quietly, sleep quickly leaving me (for at least another hour, but that's another story involving children and not dogs), as I waited patiently for my dog to do his business. I noticed something.

Silence.

I don't mean it was quiet out, I mean it was silent. Not. A. Single. Sound. Silence.  Which is weird because we live so close to the highway; there's normally traffic noise, even at that late hour.

Silence is something I don't often here. The hum of the refrigerator, the drone, of the TV,  little children chattering in the other room...  my life is full of sound. But last night it all stopped for just a moment - it was as eerie as it was beautiful.

Then, in the distance, an owl hooted softly.
The dog finished his business and started sniffing through the leaves.
The furnace kicked on.

And just like that, the silence was gone.

I wonder if anyone else heard it?

You're still here?

I stopped by my Google Analytic page a few minutes ago and noticed that people are still checking this blog on a regular basis.  To which I thought to myself, 'why is anyone even bothering anymore??'

I suspect that the daily visitor is my husband.  He does it out of habit - you know, just to make sure I'm not up to any funny business.  Thing is, the funny business gets posted on Facebook, not here, Silly Head.  :)

So, since I'm here... what's new?

Well, beekeeping didn't go quite as p-  well, it just didn't go.  It sounds like such a romantic idea - all that nature, and outside, and making sweet sweet honey.  But truth is, it's hard freaking work!  And did you know that it's hot outside in July??  Like, really hot.  And then life with two little kids started getting in the way, and it's really hard to get to know how to do something well when you only show up once in awhile.  So anyway, I'm happy letting Dave be the beekeeper.  In the meantime, I'm trying to market it, or something.  Someone's gotta sell it I guess.  www.harrisonhoney.com

Puppy!  Long story short, I had a puppy fall on my lap and, in a moment of weakness, Dave didn't say no to keeping it.  I'm sure he's regretting that now, but, too late!  In a lot of ways, the puppy is a giant pain.  But also, in a lot of ways, this puppy is the best behaved puppy I've ever shared a house with.  I'm confident that he'll, eventually, be a really good dog.  Plus, girl child is in love with him.

Anyhue, that should keep you coming back regularly for another few months. 

Until next time...

A note from the universe

Today was money counting day at work.  It's my job, with a team of volunteers, to process the weekly church collections.  I've been counting these collections for 16 years.  We count for 8 churches, so there's a bit of money that gets processed.  I figure I've helped process somewhere in the neighbourhood of $7.5 million in my time here!

Today I was opening envelopes like I always do.  I pulled out a $5 bill, carefully smoothed out the creases to set it down, and noticed something scrawled on it in red permanent marker.

"Amy give back"

No, seriously, out of the possible 600 envelopes that I could have opened this morning, of 150 $5 bills that we shuffled through, I just happened to pick the one that said, "Amy give back".

Coincidence?  Yeah, probably.  I could certainly push it off as just that - a random, meaningless, coincidence.  There are plenty of 'Amy's' in the world; I'm sure that the author of the note had intended it for someone other than myself.  Coincidences happen all the time, and they're just that, coincidences.

But here's the thing, it's just one more thing to pile on top of the things that have been lingering in the shadows, waiting for me to act.

The tired Sunday School teachers who have been burning through the last of their energy trying to give a lesson to a bunch of kids who'd rather not be there, while I sit there with a head full of camp songs that could spark some life back into things.

Amy give back.

The increasingly 'missional' sermons being preached from the pulpit.  The messages that resound with 'we are the hands of God; go, do.  Be the light in the community.'

Amy give back.

The local playground where my kids love to play.  With it's run down toys and burned out committee that's out of ideas for fundraisers and has lost touch with how to get the community involved.

Amy give back.

The people who come to the door at work looking for groceries and someone to listen to their story.

Amy give back.

The local emergency housing program that advocates for, and supports the homeless within our community.

Amy give back.

The local soup kitchen that has lit a spark within the community to make sure that everyone has access to a hot meal 5 days a week.

Amy give back.


My kid who loves to play t-ball but isn't old enough to play on an organized team.  All the other kids and parents in the neighbourhood whom we haven't even met.

Amy give back.

All the local farmers, and producers, and entrepreneurs who are trying to  eek out a living selling their wares at farmers markets that I never attend.

Amy give back.

The entire idea of 'Third Place' where people long for, and need, and thrive, with not just two places in their lives (work and home), but also a third place where they can be social and find community.

Amy give back.

The horrible, horrible, horrible shootings and attacks that have been taken out on innocent, beautiful, loving people, that have left me frozen; unknowing what to do, how to respond, what to say, or how to comfort.

Amy give back.


It all points in one direction: building community.  Love your neighbour.
It's so easy to say 'I don't have time for that.' 'My life is too busy.' 'Not right now.'

I don't know...  I woke up the morning of my 36th birthday and noticed for the first time just how many grey hairs are starting to highlight my head; maybe this is my midlife crisis.  Maybe I'm starting to feel the need to make an impact.  Maybe I don't want to waste my time doing meaningless things.  Maybe I'm just hungry for community and a better sense of self.

All I really know is that if I wait for opportunity to come to me, I'll be long dead before I ever make an impact.  It's now or never; it's time to stop saying 'no', it's time to be involved, to start something.

Amy give back.

Clickity Clack

Way back when Dave and I were first dating, he helped me purchase a laptop.  It was a good machine; purchased refurbished, it had a lot of bells and whistles on it that I normally would have gone without.

I got a lot of mileage out of that machine; carried it a lot of places, did a lot of computer-y stuff on it.  But at some point along the way, I realised that my life no longer warrants a laptop.  As my life has become more rooted to one place, my laptop has spent more and more time sitting in one place.

So when the kids started pulling keys off it, and Microsoft started insisting on Windows 10 upgrades that it couldn't handle, and the battery charged it's last charge, I didn't replace it with a new laptop.  Rather, I set up Dave's old desktop in the corner of the living room, ...and secretly (read: loudly) wished for a tablet for Christmas!

The desktop does the heavy duty work - photo and video editing, spreadsheet and bookkeeping work.  And the tablet does the stuff I like to do in front of the tv - namely, facebook.  And catching up on the news, reading blogs, playing apps, taking pics of my kids, and reading books.

And now, I can add blogging to that list!  As a birthday gift I received a handy dandy bluetooth keyboard that magnets itself right into my tablet case.  It's taking a bit of time to get used to the new, much smaller, layout, but it's still lightyears faster than writing with a touchscreen!  First blog entry seemed to go well anyway.

Two years

Today marks the 2nd anniversary of the day that I evicted my second-born child from, well, myself.

It was horrendously unpleasant, came with a pelvic separation that took my breath away mid-contraction (as if those weren't painful enough already), and left me getting stitches, with no freezing, in places where stitches aren't meant to go.

So why is it that she gets all the presents and I'm left to bake a cake??

Happy Birthday child.  I'd do it all over again for you.  (Not for anyone else, but for you.)

Internship

So... changes at work.

Basically, this past year has been hell on wheels for my co-workers and I.  Which is saying something, since I work for a church....

Long and short of it is, I've found myself with an extra day of freedom each week.  My hours have been cut and I no longer work Mondays.

After the initial shock of this decision, and the worry about whether or not we'd still be able to make mortgage payments, or feed our kids, or, you know, 10,000 other financial repercussions... We realized that, once we sell our eldest to the circus - oh, wait, he doesn't really care for animals - Once we sell our YOUNGEST to the circus, all will be well.

No really, it's been an incredible kick in the pants, and has made work quite stressful for all involved, but, I'm taking it as an opportunity to get to do something that I thought I'd never have time to do.

You see... my husband seems to think that beekeeping is, well, the bees knees, and we'd really like to make a go of it - eventually.  Make it something a little more substantial than the hobby it is right now.  Problem is, I know literally nothing about beekeeping.  And with two little kids, and full time job, I couldn't see myself actually being able to get into it myself for years.  Forever the beekeeper's wife, never the beekeeper!

But, Hark!  An opportunity has presented itself!  I'm now free on Mondays.  Let the beekeeping begin! For I have gone to our most trusted beekeeper friend, thrown myself at her feet, and begged her, 'Oh wise one, teach me! For I will be your unpaid intern for as long as I am so inept at beekeeping that I don't know which way to hold a bee to milk out it's sweet, sweet honey!'

And she was like, 'Yeah, I'm not paying you anything, ya noob, but you're welcome to come hang out with us whenever you want.'

So there you have it!  You won't find me a work on Mondays anymore, but you will find me all suited up and standing around in a bee yard trying to not get stung. 

So far, they don't even have enough trust in me to let me into a bee suit, let alone a bee yard - but I'm pro-star at putting together frames now!

Check Marked

SOMEBODY, I'll not name any names (but she's my husband's sister and lives down the road from me), decided that it would be a great incentive for her kids if she were to give them check marks when they did chores, and then reward them with prizes when they get so many check marks.

You know... it's fine; sometimes a kid requires some incentive to get off his butt and do something.  I wasn't particularly interested in setting up a check mark system for my own kids.  For starters, they hardly seem old enough to take chores seriously; and then there was the part where it seemed like a lot of work for me to keep track of a points/rewards scheme, and it looked like it was going to cost me some money.  For toys.  That my kids don't need.

No check marks; not in this house.

And then it happened: my kid saw my sister-in-law's kids earn check marks.  And they were excited.  And then the reward toys appeared.  And they were even more excited.

Now, my son has spent the past week randomly awarding himself his own check marks for doing helpful things around the house.  One day he awarded himself a check mark for every. single. toy. he put back into the toy box - there had to have been 30 toys laying around!  Luckily, he immediately cashed in those fictitious check marks for a kiss from mom.  Yesterday, he got out a piece of paper and started keeping track of his own check marks - things are getting serious.

But as much as I've tried to downplay the whole check mark system, by ignoring it entirely, his desire to collect them hasn't subsided.  In fact, he's been asking to go to his cousins' house to earn check marks there!  They get actual toys for their check marks, not just kisses.

Fine, Kid.  That's the way you want to do things, check marks it is!  But we're working on my terms, Buddy.

1 check mark for doing what you're asked around the house.
10 check marks = 1 Mom Buck
You must save your Mom Bucks until you have enough to purchase your next awesome toy.


Now we've got a handy little check mark chart up on the fridge, and a wad of paper Mom Bucks sitting on a shelf  waiting to be earned.  And... a ridiculously eager 3 year old who did everything last night from feeding the cat, to cleaning his room, to eating his vegetables without complaining, all for a bunch of silly check marks.

I have my doubts that it'll last more than a few weeks - once the excitement for new check marks wears off....  But for now, I'm willing to work with it - after all, he did eat his vegetables without screaming!

Volen-told

So I've found myself in the position of being the (un)lucky new treasurer at my church.  Because, well, you know, the 88 year old guy currently doing it can barely hold his hand steady long enough to write a legible cheque. And, hey, I do it for a living anyway, so obviously I want to do it in my spare time too, right?  yeah....

Bitter?  Nooooo... I mean, once I get home from work at night, make supper, do a bunch of household chores, spend a few hours keeping my kids from killing each other, and then another couple of hours trying to convince them that they want to go to bed, I've got all the time in the world!  I'm so happy to take on the burden of this life-long sentence! 

Nope, no bitterness here.  Not even when they didn't bother to offer me any sort of monetary incentive.  A slap on the back, a 'thanks for taking over', now, let's talk about raising the organist's pay.

*sigh*

It's alright.  At the rate they're dropping, there won't be enough money left in 5 years to keep the doors open anyway.

wait.

shit.

Jesus, this is my purgatory, isn't it??

Some days...

The Internet - Not just for Candy Crush (TM) Anymore!

Here's one use for the internet: FACT CHECKING

Like, when you're on Fbook and you see some quote by some guy and you think it's brilliant, (although somewhat biggited and/or racisist), and you think "Hey! That's exactly spot on!  I'm going to share this just like the one million morons before me did!"

Do yourself a favour: make sure it's true.


How to fact check like a pro star:

Google: "Questionable thing I found on Facebook" Snopes

Guaranteed, 30 seconds of fact checking will stop me from calling you out on your BS 95% of the time!

Bare your soul

So there's this guy I know; used to know him quite well - we spent a lot of time hanging out back in the day.  He's probably reading this blog right now going - 'yeah, she's talking about me on her blog! That's all me!'  ...bit of an egotistical fellow.

Anyway, back in the day, he would greet me with a hearty, 'How is your soul?'  and actually mean it.  Like, really, how is your soul?  How's the spiritual stuff? How are you and God?  And, for awhile anyway, he expected an answer - and I was happy to give him one.

But then, life, yadda yadda, and slowly the question just became a thing that was asked for the sake of being a thing that we said to each other.  And then... I kinda started ignoring it because, as much as I enjoyed hearing the words, I didn't really know how to answer anymore.

And then, more life, yadda yadda; it's probably a good thing he moved away because I wouldn't want to have to lie to him.  The truthful answer would have been something like, 'black and wizzled', 'torn to shreds and tossed in the wind', 'angry and sad and frustrated', 'just about ready to walk away from this whole church thing to be honest'.  Something like that; you get the picture.  Things that someone who spent time in Bible College shouldn't be saying.

I can't blame it all on church, but my church did go through a very stagnant time.  I found it depressing.  Every week I would painfully sit through yet another boring sermon while thinking about all the dreadfully old people surrounding me, and the complete lack of younger people to pick up the pieces when the older ones were, inevitably, gone.

And then, kids.  Kids makes going to church just a chore.  Like, an 'I don't want to do this' exhausting feat of a chore that has to be endured weekly.  The little rats won't go to the nursery by themselves either, so I rarely hear a sermon anyway as I hang out in Sunday school playing with toy trains.  Weekly turned into bi-weekly, turned into monthly...

Church has not been the loving, worshipful, refreshing place that I need it to be.  And my soul has suffered considerably from it.  And I've considered washing my hands of it and walking away.  My husband would support me in that decision; being from an entirely un-churchy family, even he doesn't think my church does church well.

And then, (all my paragraphs start with 'and then' because it sounds more dramatic than it really is), a new guy shows up.  Well, two guys actually, but this is really only about the one.  He's a reverend, and a doctor of something completely un-medical but of I'm not really sure what.  He acts unsure of himself; you wouldn't know it from a single meeting, but he's funny, a dark dry funny that catches people off guard; he's got a slow southern drawl that speaks of his childhood in the hills of Virginia.

I went to church alone yesterday, child-free for a change, to confirm my desire to walk away from the political nonsense and mundane, flat-lined, worship service I've been experiencing over the past few years.  What I found instead was a spark.

That man actually believes what he preaches!  You can tell from the stories he tells and the glint in his eye, and his body language.  There was an unusually large crowd of people there too, and they were happy, and laughing, and engaged.  There was life there that I haven't seen for a long time. 

And now I'm annoyed because I wanted to quit; it would have been easy to quit.  But now, he's gone a lit a little spark and I don't want to quit so much anymore.  It's going to be an uphill battle to fix what has been left in disrepair over the past 6 or 7 years, but maybe, just maybe, it'll be worth it.

Pressed for Time

Lately I feel like 'time' is the only commodity I have and everyone wants a piece of the action.

The other day I was asked to bake a couple of pies for a fundraising dinner.
I immediately went into denial mode, 'I don't really bake pies.... I guess I could buy a couple...'.
'Oh, no, don't do that!  You can MAKE them!  I know you've made chocolate and lemon pies before; they're good, bring those!'

You're sort of missing the point.

In recent weeks, my son has been asking me what I'm doing - every. waking. minute. of. every. single. day.  I've taken to telling him that I'm building a rocket ship to fly to the moon.  To which he earnestly replies, 'No Mom, you can't fly to the moon, you have to stay here!'

He's also missing the point.

My life has become an endless laundry list of things to do (laundry is also one of the things *on* the list).  Between feeding kids, cleaning kids, dressing kids, picking up after kids, laundry, dishes, housework, yard work, work work, a husband, and a cat, I have precious little time left for myself.  Time, it seems, that everyone else wants: 'Hey, come to this dinner!', 'There's a meeting...', 'You should help clean the pool', 'You're going to play ball with us this season, right?', '...teach Sunday School?'

There's a time for all of that, but it's not right now.  So I need to ask you all to just be patient with me while I look after my kids.  In a few years' time they aren't going to need me so much and then I'll once again have time to do whatever it is that you need me to do.  I'll be able to bake pies without a toddler clinging to my leg and a pre-schooler asking me 10,000 questions.  I'll be able to go to dinners without my kids having temper tantrums.  I'll be able to prepare Sunday School lessons, and go to evening meetings, because my children won't need me to help them got to sleep. 

Believe me, you, I'm looking forward to the day that I actually have some free time again.  It'll be awesome to sleep through the night again, and not be exhausted at 8pm.  To pick up a hobby, or just sit and read a book!  But I'm not rushing to get there.  Right now I have hungry mouths to feed, and little fingernails to cut, tiny buttons to do up, and goldfish crackers to dig out of the couch cushions.

To my son: don't worry; I don't actually have the time (or the knowhow) to take on such a lofty project as building a rocket ship.

As for the pies, I'll stop by the bakery on my way home from work.

Baby pics

So, the Royal Palace released some pics today of Prince George and his little sister.  They're cute and all... but not as cute as MY kids - obviously.

But why is it so shocking that Kate took the pics herself?  Royalty or not, clicking a button on a camera isn't exactly rocket science.  I, too, like to think that I take a good photo once in awhile; no one writes about that in the papers.

Also... Are they trying to keep poor little Prince George as *stuffy* as possible?  Is it written in some law somewhere that the heir to the throne must at all times wear shorts with knee-high stockings?  I'd love to see a pic of the kids, well, being a kid!  Maybe I should mail him one of Dyson's old hand-me-downs...  Something with Lego or Thomas the Train on it.


And, for the record, please take note:

Dave and I got married.
then Will and Kate got married.

Dave and I had a baby boy.
then Will and Kate had a baby boy.

Dave and I had a baby girl.
then Will and Kate had a baby girl.

I predict that they're going to get a cat next.  Just sayin'

Thus endeth my interest for the Royals.

Sometimes I forget I have a blog
and then someone reminds me.
Sometimes I think I should write something
but then I remember....
I HAVE NO TIME TO BLOG!

Sometimes I think I should take my blog down
but there's so much here, so much writing and thinking
....and growing up
It's sort of part of me,
or at least a written testimony of the things I've done.
Taking it down would be sort of like throwing all of that away
I don't think I'm ready to do that yet.

Have you ever thought about what will happen to your internet footprints should you die?
Should your mark on the internet be scrubbed out?
Or should it be left there as a memory?
hmmm

Maybe I should find time to blog again
Is blogging still a thing that anyone does?
Is it still cool?  ...Have I ever been cool?

Anyway, It's been the better part of a year since I last posted anything;
this is mostly a test to see if anyone is still paying attention!

Breakfast Muffin Tops

One of the most difficult parts of my day is feeding my two year old breakfast.  He just doesn't like anything.  Sometimes he'll eat toast, sometimes he'll eat some egg, sometimes he'll eat a pre-packaged cereal bar...  But a lot of the time, he settles on hotdog.  Or a bottle of milk.  Or, nothing at all.

He's on a bit of a cookie kick right now.  He cried for about two hours for a cookie the other morning, and would not touch anything else.

So, I googled 'breakfast cookie', because, hey, it seems that everything exists these days.

Guess what?  They do.  In abundance.  Most of them are not a true cookie though; they're more cake-y in texture and seem to be refereed to as 'muffin tops'.  Basically, you could just make them as muffins, but, we're feeding toddlers, so the cookie size is a little more fitting.
I found a couple recipes that seemed simple enough and had enough healthy sounding ingredients to sound passable for breakfast food.  I didn't love either recipe on their own, so I sort of mushed them together, made a couple of changes, and came up with my own.

Amy's Breakfast Muffin Tops
Dry Ingredients
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp milled flax seed
2 tbsp grated coconut
--------
2 tbsp pumpkin seeds
2 tbsp sunflower seeds
2 tbsp dried currants*
*These 3 ingredients were actually trail mix I had that I picked the larger nuts out of - I didn't want someone to be surprised by biting into a whole almond!  It was about a 1/3 of a cup in the end.  Next time, I'd aim for 1/2 a cup and probably stick more to dried fruit - craisins or cherries would be good.  But use whatever is in your cupboard.
----------
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon (I don't really like cinnamon, so I didn't add too much)
1/2 tsp salt

Wet Ingredients
1 cup milk
1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 cup apple sauce (or one fruit cup container of apple sauce)
1 apple, grated, with the skin left on
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Mix your dry ingredients.  Mix your wet ingredients.  Pour the wet into the dry; mix 'em all together.  It'll look like thick muffin batter.  Drop spoonfulls of it onto a greased cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes at 350F.
Makes about 24 cookies


Now, here's the bad:  They taste AWESOME warm, (someone suggested warming them up, crumbling in a bowl, and covering in milk), but they're 160 calories each!  Remember, this is supposed to be toddler breakfast food, not your 4-cookie afternoon snack!
Here's the good: They actually contain some good stuff like fibre (1.6g), protein (3g), calcium, iron, and some vitamins like A and B6.

Granted, they're still just a cookie/muffin.  But really, we're talking about breakfast here - that meal of the day where people find anything from a half grapefruit to a plate of maple-syrup-drenched-pancakes acceptable.

So far, they pass the adult test, but they haven't had a chance to pass the toddler test yet.  IF they do though, I'll definitely be making them again.

Charity

So, Facebook is currently swimming in videos of people throwing ice water on their heads in the name of ALS research.  Good idea/Bad idea; I don't really care - people are having fun and raising a bit of money too.

But with the donations comes the age-old argument that: "I don't donate my hard-earned money to charity because 'x' charity uses most of their donations to pay their CEO instead of (finding a cure/helping the poor, etc). There should be rules so that administrators don't get all the money!"


*sigh*

There are rules.  The Canadian Government has very clear rules for charities to follow so that they can continue to keep their charities status.  This includes using at least 80% of their funds in 'Charitable Acts'.  However, 'charitable acts' includes the overhead of the charity.  It includes the utility bills for the charity's buildings; it includes the salaries of the secretaries who answer the phones; it includes all the paper mail outs that get sent out to millions of people every year fishing for more donations.

Charities are businesses.  Non-profit, but business none the less.  And it costs a significant amount of money to run a proper business.  It's great to say that 'I want MY money to go to research', but how do you think the research happens if the hydro bill isn't paid?  Yes, I know, you want YOUR donations to help the poor.  But how is that going to happen without a system of administration in place to follow through? 

It's unfortunate that some charities choose to pay their higher-ups millions of dollars in salaries each year.  It's unfortunate that someone who works for a charity would choose to accept that sort of salary.  Charities, it seems, are not immune to the greedy human condition.

But there are rules, and the rules are in place so that charities don't abuse their donors heartfelt givings.

Every year, every charity in Canada has to file a report to the government that shows how their money was spent.  These reports are available, online, for anyone to view.  They're all available here: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/chrts-gvng/lstngs/menu-eng.html.    If you don't like 'x' charity, that's fine!  Pick one you do like - there's no shortage of them, and they're all doing good things.

Sincerely,
An administrator who works for a charity

Toddler Games

We play a game in our home.  It's called: 'How many times can you put the same cheerios back in the bowl'.  It's a lot like '52 card pickup', if you've ever had the pleasure of playing that.

We have a toddler; we basically have food on the floor ALL THE TIME!!  Some of it is edible, some is not.  The half chewed piece of balogna, for example, not so much.  The dried out slice of apple (that began as fresh apple), eh, probably not.  But cheerios - cheerios are fair game.  I mean, not much can go bad about cheerios.  ...unless they get wet.  Wet cheerios are gross.

But don't worry!  Our house is clean.  I totally swept the floor yesterday.  I think.  And I know it was done last week too.  ..or was that the week before?

And it's not like we have any animals.  Well, except the kitten.  But kittens are so tiny; they're not big enough to be dirty.

The sand that got tracked in from outside?  That's nature's seasoning.  No biggie.

So next time you're visiting maybe you'd like to play with us?  If you're lucky, maybe you'll get a cheerio stuck to your sock to take home with you - then you can play our favourite game in your house too!

Oh Bees!

So, just to be clear, I am not a beekeeper.  I know nothing about bees, or how to look after them.  But eventually, I'm going to have to learn because my husband is in the process of becoming a beekeeper and he promises that he's going to drag me along with him!  (Willingly, of course!)

Unless you've had your head under a rock for most of this year, you will have at least heard about colony collapse and bee die-off and how everyone seems to be pointing their fingers at seed grain (corn, soybeans, wheat) covered in pesticides as the #1 culprit.

Once again, I am not a beekeeper; I am not a biologist; I am not a farmer; I really haven't done any research into this; my husband's bees have been unaffected by this whole thing; and in all honesty, I don't know what's going on, or who to believe.  But this sure is happening:

The OBA (Ontario Beekeepers Association) has started a petition to right out ban Neonicotinoid (the pesticide in question).  Their petition can be found here.

In response to this petition, the GFO (Grain Farmers of Ontario) have started a similar campaign asking the government to not be too hasty in their decision because there's still a lot of research to be done.  Their view on things can be found here.

Both organizations make reasonable arguments, but for now, I think I'll just sit on the sidelines and watch things unfold.

So, I've noticed that I've had 74 visitors to my blog over the last month, and I've not written a darned thing!

We went on vacation last week; rented a ..um... quaint/rustic/authentic(?) - ok! So it was a beat up, run down crappy little cottage!  But we had a lot of fun!

Seriously though, it was a cute little cottage, in a great place where we had a bunch of visitors coming and going all week. We played on the beach, went for walks, visited a museum, did some shopping, dinner out, etc, etc, etc

I value yearly family vacation.  It's something my family has always done, and it's something I plan to continue doing with my own family - even if I have to drag them kicking and screaming!  Time spent together is important.  Even if it's forced.

One thing I did realize though, it's freaking exhausting!
I was very glad to get back to work today for a bit of a rest!

Back at it

Today was my first day back to work.

I've been fielding a lot of questions lately that go something like this: "aren't you going to miss that cute little boy of yours?".

The polite answer of course, the MOM answer, is "of course I'm going to miss him, but he's going to somewhere familiar, so it won't be so bad".

The real answer, the one I keep to myself because it makes me sound like a terrible parent, is "are you freaking kidding me?!  I can't wait to get out of the house by myself and be a real human again!"

I donno... People seem to think I should be spending the week crying at my desk.  Nah, not going to happen.  I love my kid to pieces; he's pretty much - well, no, he IS the cutest kid on the planet, and happy and cuddly and fun.  But I don't miss him.  I know where he is; I know he's safe and having fun.  I don't need to miss him.