Not Okay, But Okay; Eighty-One Weeks In

I’m okay. Everything in my life is fundamentally okay – good, even – and my little boat in this tsunami of a storm is strong and well-equipped. EVERYTHING IS FINE except everything isn’t fine? I know I’m not alone here. The other day Swistle (HI SWISTLE) mentioned the strong desire to lie down on the […]

Giving Up The (Trend) Ghost; Eighty Weeks In

I have always loved clothes and fashion. When you were a teen, did you “reinvent” your look every summer to have a bold new style in September? I sure did; some elements I would keep – to this day, I wear silver hoop earrings just like the ones I adopted back in 1989 – and […]

A Dive Into Jane Eyre; Seventy-Nine Weeks In

This past week I was a beta reader for a book concerning parenting young children; it’s hard to remember what those early years were like when my youngest just turned sixteen! Also, I was so sleep-deprived back then that I barely remember 2005-07. My son had, by all accounts, a great birthday. His brother, who […]

Eighteen Months of Pandemic Life, An Update; Seventy-Eight Weeks In

This week my younger son turns sixteen – SIXTEEN! – and so, officially, 75% of the Boyhouse will have had two pandemic birthdays. Well, if we include Barkley, 80%, but I don’t as his birthdays have been pretty much the same, pandemic or no. My son had a big celebratory dinner with his favourites, ribs […]

It’s A Conspiracy; Seventy-Seven Weeks In

I find anything to do with the 1918 influenza pandemic fascinating; in part because it ended, and that gives me hope, and in part because I realize that we also will be a footnote in history. This week I read the book Gilead – more on that later – and came across this passage: I […]

I’m Getting Older, Too; Seventy-Six Weeks In

On Friday night we had friends over for dinner, friends who we hadn’t seen for over a year, friends who are more like family, who we vacation with and our older sons share a birthday and are only a couple of hours apart, friends who, in the past decade, we would see every few months […]

Summer’s Almost Gone; Seventy-Five Weeks In

I don’t think I can adequately describe the relief I felt when I received an email from the Calgary Board of Education, stating that not only would masks be mandatory for students K-12, but all other health protocols would remain in place. With the Delta variant of Covid cases skyrocketing, again, and the general mask […]