One Part Inspiration...

As the end of the year approaches, I find myself looking back through the kaleidoscope of activities, new experiences, the peaks and the valleys, and trying to define what it is that the year of 2010 meant. Some of it defies recognition. Until you slow down a little and see it for what it was, such as enjoying the decorations of the house on the corner.. Some of it was grabbing what was given to me at the moment and trying to soak it in like a sponge because the moment was fleeting, such as seeing this sunrise on my way to work that morning. Some of it was going through the storm, and learning to trust that there would be a rainbow. A year ago, we had not begun taking the roof off The Pokeaway. We were anticipating what might be ahead, but really had no idea of what we were about to encounter. It still looked like this: Morphing it into our own place has been a process, which has been all at once pleasing, painful, and productive. No windows. No doors. Half a roof: Praying that the...

My daughter brought her cat, when she moved back in with us. The cat is very friendly. She likes to keep track of everyone. Especially at 4 in the morning. I'm not a fan of having a cat jump on my bed, and I do my level best to get her to understand that playing with the plastic bag in the garbage can is not night duty. Nor is hopping up on our head board to look outside. The cat says she understands, and then completely ignores me. So I put a laundry basket in front of the door - full of unsorted laundry. I woke up to see her looking out the window. She'd pushed the door open - laundry and all, and decided to keep watch for us while we slept. It doesn't help that the cat is a tad bit lonely for my daughter, who is house-sitting for some other people. She wanders around looking for my daughter, and although she is temporarily distracted by us, she definitely misses her missus. She doesn't meow. She just jingles. Her collar has a little bell on it that alerts us to...

Sometimes we have a date night. And we always want to do something fun for a buck or two. So we have big discussions about our options. Not too long ago, it happened that we had a bonus date night. We were talking about what we should do that evening, over a nice cup of tea. I said I had planned to colour my hair. My husband asked if I wanted him to help me. I said sure, and then half-joking asked him if he wanted me to help him colour his hair too. To my surprise, he agreed. I usually buy the same colour - for consistency of results. However, because I am a magazine fan, and had kept seeing this other product consistently recommended on the " Best Colourer for your Buck " lists, I had bought that brand instead. I chose a colour which I thought was fairly close to the one I usually buy. It said " Dark Auburn ". We decided that since my husband's hair was so much shorter than mine, we should start on his first. I applied the colour and started the timer. It didn...

"The captains and the kings have departed", as my mother used to say. Christmas 2010 is now in the memory books. It was a wonderful time. Here are a few pictures of my favourite things from this celebration. I bought 10 Paper Whites - we gave some away as presents to our neighbours as a thank you for keeping watch over our sheep over the past year. The rest I kept to enjoy at home. They bloom and bloom. So pretty. Christmas-like without being red. One of my very my favourite things was that we were 'home' for Christmas. Although there are many things to accomplish yet, it is so nice to be driving down the road as home owners and not demolitionists . It was a pleasure to pull out my Christmas plates and some of the decorations, and watch the kids decorate the tree. And this was another of my absolute favourites. The fireplace! It was my husband's gift to me. We landed at the store at the exact right time, to get the last one of these - and they gave it to us for...

This is not a picture of nothing. It is the lunar eclipse. Too bad, you can`t see what we saw.... My husband decided to build a bonfire and have us watch it. The eclipse occured on the same date as the Winter Solstice. He told me we would not be alive for the next occurence of an eclipse at this time of the year, since the last Winter Solstice and Lunar Eclipse happened in 1638, when Galileo pronounced that the earth revolved around the sun, not the other way around. A lunar eclipse occurs when the sun, the earth, and the moon are perfectly aligned, with the earth in the middle, blocking the moon from the sun's rays. I realize this makes me sound all scientific and stuff, but I am not. I Googled it just like the rest of you. So, at the time when all good children should be in bed, there we were out in the cold winter air, watching the eclipse. In our part of the world, it was cloudy, and the forecasters said that we might not be able to see it. But my husband was undeterred. Tha...

It was just the three of us. The time had come to go get the Christmas tree. My husband had done his research and found a local tree farm that we could walk to. My husband loves walking around the neighbourhood. And a tree hunt was the perfect opportunity. Off we went, with our wagon, to find the perfect tree. Of course, we waited until the snow was flying in our faces, our little noses were completely frozen, and we couldn't talk very well, because our lips were stuck in one position from the cold. It's in the rules. " Getting the Christmas tree must be an adventure. " We walked down the street and around the corner, [calling the dog back many times from her explorations of the frozen grass]. And then we knocked on the window of the house of the young tree farmer. He came out, and gave us the hack saw. We tramped out in the field, looking for the perfect tree. After a bit, we found one. Actually, they were all in good shape, but it wouldn't do to choose the first...

It was an exciting day. We were expecting our first dinner guests. We moved into The Pokeaway on Canadian Thanksgiving, but hadn't been able to get it together to have anyone in for a meal. A December birthday party seemed the perfect opportunity to have our in-laws join us. It felt like a celebration in more ways than one. The day before, we had worked on getting rid of the drywall coffee table, and now had room in the living room to enjoy visiting, after the dinner was over. I pulled out all the stops. (Well, some of it I pulled out of the freezer). Lasagna, ham, fresh bread, Caesar salad, (compliments of my daughter), homemade cake, and ice cream (compliments of my daughter's boyfriend). Not everything turned out perfect. The bread rose to a certain point and then turned in on itself. I served it anyway. My husband told them it was shaped that way to hold the gravy. When I went to ice the cake, I couldn't get the cocoa to disappear in the icing. It may have been becaus...