It's moments like these....you need...

Today was one of those days…..I will spare you the details.
However, there are always bright spots even in the smoggiest depths!
The friend who specially went out of her own busy day
to bring me my first strawberries of the season to brighten my day,…did!
Brighten my day, that is. Considerably.

As did the friend who took it upon herself to search out
and bring me more beautiful photographic magazines!
A feast for the eyes, a feast for the soul.

And the friend who graciously sacrificed her time
To allow me to concentrate on my pressing study needs
A treasure!

I could go on...
I will.
A gorgeous smile from my eldest
When I drove all the way back to school to deliver the violin he’d forgotten;

The warm snuggly hug from my youngest
Whose whole being reflected his delight at seeing his mom;

The phone calls from my dearest, my family, my friends -
All caring.

I was so touched by the kindness.
So touched in fact, that I might even consider sharing the strawberries with my family……
Now THAT is sacrifice!

Can't Wait. Not.

Tomorrow is Halloween.
I'm very glad that it's on a Friday so school won't be full of sugared children the next day!
The forecast is for rain.
The thing I like about Halloween is pumpkins. Of course, they don't grow in honour of Halloween; they just happen to be ripe at this time of year. They're quite wonderful fruits, and I like them just the way they are. That's why I always put three of them by my front door (my personal designer, Lea, says that groupings are best in odd numbers!).
My neighbours love Halloween. They have put up their old battered picket fence, hung skeletons in the trees, set up the flying bats, created a front yard cemetery, and connected the sound system. Tomorrow night, if I stay home, my house will be full of their spooky soundtrack. Every few minutes the torches will flare up, sending eerie light and shadows into my living room, and horrible foghorns will blare. The moans, groans, and screeches will follow me into every room. Ugh. For that reason, I will make every effort to be out. Until very late.

Seaside Dreams

"Sea Fever" - John Masefield

I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

Keep those dreams alive...

Fly Away

The current fad in grade three right now is flight. Paper airplanes fill the sky at recess and lunch time, as the boys try to perfect the ideal design for optimal air time. Actually, they do very little tinkering with their planes, and put all their energy into the takeoff, thinking that is the key to everything. Their little bodies almost fly away with the airplanes!
It seems like everything is flying away these days... Along with the paper airplanes, the Canada geese (and other birds) have caught the signal that their days here in the north are numbered (did you see the photo I posted yesterday?) and are heading south with all their best buddies. The weatherman is calling for rain tomorrow and for the rest of the week, so maybe the geese have the right idea. "Head for the sunshine, boys!"
I wouldn't mind taking a flight south with them, although I doubt they'll leave the continent. New Zealand is the destination for me - beaches, blue sky, sheep, and a good friend!
Dream on...

Goosies

I've been a bit remiss about keeping up with the flower photos. So here's another one for the day. Again, I'm not sure what it's called. But it looked kinda sweet growing outta the stump in our front garden. I think it might be a weed that got lucky.

~*~

So here's a juicy looking goose from down the road. Actually, this is one of the leaner models we have hanging around this particular park. And I think the geese at this park also have been well trained to pose for the camera (usually because the person who is holding the camera is coincidentally also holding a bag full of bread).

Cupboard love.

Images of Fall - and Other Stuff

We've had a few beautiful days here on the Wet Coast - it's almost enough to make me love fall! Here are some images of Sunday and Monday:


Morning fog on the way to church












Buying apples at the produce market - the smell of all the bins of fresh apples was almost intoxicating!













The maple tree in front of the school is in its glory right now; every day it looks a little different. Pretty soon, all the leaves will be on the ground.





When the children leave at the end of the day, I have a perfect view of the playground from my classroom. Unfortunately, that means that I see the misbehavior, as well as the fun and games, and every so often I must run outside and sort things out!


Dinner tonight was on the run...





And later on, I had an unexpected adventure with the police. It's ok, I was on the right side of the law!






Geese flying south for the winter - do geese fly north Down Under?







Little Bear mowed the lawn for probably the last time this year. It's always sad to say goodbye to the growing season, but I have to keep remembering that it'll come again. After months of darkness...

EUREKA!

It WORKS! The animated gif of E's breadmaking under "Techno Boys" now works. You do need to wait till the page is fully downloaded and then it should just happen. Oh so cool!!!

The end of our day...

Well, we're back on the blog to try and get the gif animation to work, after a lovely dinner out with The Fam. I think it would take a most amazing chef to cook up a curry as good as my dad's. He really makes The BEST chicken curry in the world!

~*~

It was a beautiful evening, and with it being a long weekend, the boys wanted to have the special treat of staying up a bit later, so we took a detour and allowed K and E to practise their night photography. L and I enjoyed watching them and looking at the scenery....and listening to Solveig (a blast from the past)!

~*~

I'm also going to have a whinge and say that I really am feeling very disgruntled about this Dial Up speed...it takes SO long to do anything! But I guess it beats Snail Mail.

Remnants of Saturday

Why do Saturdays pass so quickly? We went to Monika's house again this morning, continuing the process of clearing it out to sell. I spent most of my time in the office, sorting and chucking old papers and other interesting things from years gone by.

Later in the day, I went with Little Joe and bought him a suit for his birthday. Why would a seventeen-year-old boy be interested in a suit? Well, his high school graduation will be happening in June, and grad photos will be taken in a couple of weeks. It was fun to see him pour his long, lean body into a man's suit; it'll need a few alterations!

Big Bear and I watched the latest Indiana Jones movie this evening. I'll just say that I'm glad we didn't spend the money to watch it in a theatre! It did, however, provide us with a few laughs...

One more day and it will be back to school. We're expecting Little Bear to make an appearance tomorrow - it'll be nice to see him. It must be fun to hang out with friends and play guitar all week at school, then breeze in to visit the parents on the weekend. Maybe I should go back to school, too!

Techno Boys

Animated gif - "The one that got away!"

(Page needs to be fully loaded before the animation will work properly)

Thank you to the kind friend who went to great lengths to specially acquire a wonderful photographic magazine for me. Unfortunately, I showed it to my husband and my eldest....and that's all I've seen of it since (except in the distance!)...I have 'heard' that it is a wonderful mag, but I haven't yet had the pleasure of experiencing it for myself (can you hear the violins?!)! K & E have spent all morning discussing cameras, photos, and technology. And now, they are busily putting together an entry into a competition they found therein, to win some souped up, techno wonderful, latest technology camera. And E who just saved up enough to buy his first camera, is now talking about saving up for his 2nd camera - this time a dSLR! He's already picked out the one he'd like (I haven't the heart to tell him that by the time he saves up enough for that model, there will be bigger and better ones to lure him). His mother still hasn't made the shove towards those dSLR's, preferring convenience to techno-fiddling. However, boys will be boys, and both K & E are totally fascinated with all the ''techno-wow'' stuff....whilst L and I made sushi. I prefer ''gourmet-wow''. More my thing!

The Finished Product (including the one that nearly got away!)

Yesterday, the boys combined Gourmet with Techno. All 3 boys baked bread for lunch. And I'm slightly embarrassed to say, that we ate the lot! I should probably add, that dinner was a light affair...as was breakfast this morning! Our distended tummies recovered in time for sushi at lunch...Anyway, we have discovered that my 2 lil boys (who usually eat a light-ish lunch) will eat mega amounts at lunch when there is a) Daddy's homemade bread; b) Daddy's pancakes with lemon and brown sugar; c) Mum's sushi; and d) Mum's pies. Must remember to avoid those particular foods, when they're teenagers!

~*~

Anyway, above is an animation that E made on his not-so-new camera, of the construction of his homemade bread plait. I'm told that it should just play if you leave it long enough so that the page has fully downloaded. Unfortunately, we have been on Dial Up speed for yonks, so it takes me absolutely FOREVER to blog. Mega-GRRRrrrrs!

NOW it's Friday!

As we're almost 24 hours behind you, I feel like I'm always trying to play catch-up, here in the Great White North!

It's midnight - I guess that means it's really Saturday - and I'm so glad the work week is over. I'm so tired! We just came home from the high school auction. It had a seventies theme, and host/auctioneer was dressed as Austin Powers, complete with accent and bad teeth! Blech. The highlight was watching the principal and a teacher get their heads shaved (I've never seen Paul without his facial hair!).

Here are a few of my latest "today" photos (I kept forgetting to take them...), though your Friday pics are far more interesting than mine!

It's FRIDAY!

Alright.

I'm so grateful it's the end of the week.

Here are some snippets from my day too.

Has it been awhile since I told you that I love Spring?!

We ogled this beautiful floral frontage as we went for our walk around the mountain this morning.

~*~

The Principal of the boys' school brought a lamb to school to visit all the classes today. Orphaned from day one, this lamb has been hand reared and loves people. It was the cutest thing, but it did honestly think that it was a human!

It was happiest when it was surrounded by kids stroking and petting and smothering it with cuddles. At one stage, when the kids had to go back into class, you could hear the lamb calling out for them to come back....from halfway around the school! The new entrants were at first a little wary - when the lamb got all excited to see its bottle of milk, it wagged its tail so vigorously that they thought it was a dog....or something!

~*~

And I just couldn't resist including this one:
"It's The Cheeky Bird That Gets The Gummy Worm!"


It's Friday, and we have our long Labour Weekend ahead of us. We are all looking forward to it, despite the inclement weather that is traditionally forecast for Labour Day...in fact, here comes the rain.....do de do dah...
Hope you have a good one (weekend) too!

Hmmm... I haven't read Nicholas personally, Southern Ange, but I did buy the first book for Little Joe. I know that he enjoyed it immensely, as he's definitely a humour kind of guy.

Speaking of Little Joe, yesterday was his seventeenth birthday. We went down the hill to take some birthday photos on our way to school, and in the evening, he went downtown with Little Bear to see the Neil Young concert. He declared that it was "epic".

I have continued working on my Week in the Life project, taking photos whenever I remember. Unfortunately, I have been nowhere but at school for the past two days, so it all looks pretty dull! Here's a peek at my life yesterday and today: