Some Down Time....

It has been a lovely week and a half or so and it appears things have slowed down just a bit. I even read a couple of books in my new hammock. An anniversary gift from my sweet man who knows me so well. Upon first glance it looks like a re-purposed piece of exercise equipment (it's actually anti-exercise) or some transformer type creature.....but it's a fold up hammock....and is just as relaxing as the kind you tie between two trees. You see...I can drag it under the tree and look up...way up and see.....the underside of the leaves. One can wile away the hours under there with no problem. I was laying in there tonight after supper. I can see a piece of a roof but mostly trees and it feels like the time we spent at Sandbay Resort up north of Parry's Sound. Our cottage backed onto the edge of the woods and I had my coffee and Sudoko on the deck every morning....and read some books. There are lots of things that can take you away when you use your imagination. All that's missing is the silence.

Swimming lessons are done, and with that a lot of the structure of our day goes back out the window. The eating and snacking on time, and being home and going to the library for our daily half hour of high speed. Today it took place after supper.
It's nice though!

I have spent a lot of time SITTING out of doors as well, on the deck under the patio umbrella. It's easier to have some iced tea when you're sitting up....go figure....maybe I need to get those bendy straws out for myself.

Yesterday afternoon Ray and I paddled the backwaters of Strathroy. Wow, what a lot of trash there is in the water around here. You'd fill up a few bags in no time. We carried the canoe from the house to the skateboard park (that drew a few curious stares and drew some ridicule. But in the end....they're just jealous!)and put in there. Then we paddled through the park and all the way to the dam at the conservation area by Food Basics. We turned around and headed back to see how far we could make it the other direction, but eventually it got too shallow, we figure that we probably made it to the back of the marsh walk off Victoria street. Mostly flood plain and a big log jam with all kinds of junk. Things like propane tanks, shoes and scads of empty spraypaint cans. Not very natural....altogether we went about 3 kms, and had a nice outing. No pesky bugs but very brilliantly coloured dragon flies. Those dainty ones of sky blue. Love those and some solid black ones with shimmering emerald bodies. Exquisite. I also saw a wildflower I'd never seen before. That is always really special for me, and I happened to have taken a new wildflower book out of the library, and used it to identify what I saw. It was called "common heleborine", almost orchid like if you looked close enough. If you glanced at it, it looked drab and brownish but upon closer inspection, it had mauve flowers, about 2cm in diameter. Some blossoms were spent and brownish but the fresh blooms were so lovely. It's really neat to learn the name of something...especially a lily of the field, knowing that God took time to create such a thing, give it a name, and cause it to grow, giving it everything that's needed, even in the midst of piles of discarded things. I'll let you draw your own analogy!

I must post a picture of my pots of flowers on the patio soon too. I shall have to relate the story of shamrocks (or oxalis) when I post that.....stay tuned!...but don't hold your breath. It IS down time....

It's Been So Long....

We are back from the Linker Family Reunion and that finishes a whirlwind week of vacation. We made daytrips all week including one overnighter in Toronto.

Monday morning we started with coffee at Tante Henny's in Elora and spent the afternoon tubing on the Grand River at the Elora Gorge. It was lots of fun and the weather was great! On the first run Ray's tube burst while rubbing over some stones near the edge and he had to walk the rest of the way down. Not the most fun he's ever had but....he made it just fine. We brought one tube of our own and rented two there....one of us would go down with the boys and the other would drive the car back down and wait in a lounge chair in the shade.

Tuesday was a work day for me, newspapers for the boys, and then golf in the afternoon. That was an all boy outing, and I stayed home to clean and do the laundry. THis needed to be done badly since we also went camping from Friday to Sunday with friends at the Pinery. It too was a lot of fun. We fished, canoed, and went to the beach there.

Wednesday we left for Toronto. We parked at Yorkdale Mall and took the subway into the city. That really is the best way to go! We visited Casa Loma which is a castle in Toronto. It is really neat and the boys thought it was cool. Part of the movie "X-Men" was filmed there. There is a whole wall of movie posters in a lower section of the castle that were partially filmed at the castle. (Some include: Skulls, Chicago, Cocktail, The Pacifier, and XMen....and othere....) When we finished at Casa Loma we headed back to the subway and upon arrival discovered that the train wasn't running. GREEEAAAAAT! So we took a few minutes to contemplate our options, discovered that we didn't have any, and went to the wicket to ask for advice. The "wicket man" advised us to go above ground and take the #26 bus to the St. George station and hop on the subway there (which wasn't running...). But when you're out of options, you may as well do something, as opposed to nothing! We found the bus...along with a throng of other people and proceded to relate our situation to the bus driver. TTC bus drivers have seen it all, and have little time for tourists not familiar with the system...he waved us through and said...Just sit down! So we did...not wanting to ruffle any one's feathers, got a free ride to the subway and hopped on the subway at St. George, rode it all the way to Union station and walked to Rogers Center for a Blue Jays Game. Our plan was to buy some tickets from scalpers but it turned out that it wasn't going to be any cheaper than going to the ticket window. We purchased our tickets at the Center and got front row seats in the 500 section.(That's the front of the nose bleed section, but those seats only cost $9!! ) We sat in the family section, which means you can't drink beer in there, but ended up with a big group of girls from a camp right behind us cheering and screaming all night long. Ray was contemplating, with his ears plugged, if it would have been more enjoyable sitting with the drunks.....All in all, it was a great game, Toronto beat Baltimore 9 to7. And we rode the subway back without a problem. An usher at the Center said we picked a bad day to ride the train because there had been a fire around rush hour.

We got to the hotel, a great deal that included two adult passes ($40 value)to the zoo and included breakfast for all of us for $109!! Before we left that morning we also could buy discounted passes for the boys. In the end it was not THAT expensive! The zoo was nice, but there is a TON of walking. I can see why people buy season passes and visit several times over the summer. We didn't see the whole thing but prioritized the things we wanted to see. We paid the extra $3 per person to visit Stingray Bay. We left at a decent hour and Ray surprised us all on the way home by stopping at IKEA!!!! That was so fun. Ray found a shady spot and stayed in the car and said...meetcha back here in 45 minutes. We got back to the car and Craig announced that there were .50 cent hotdogs and $1 pops so went back inside and had a quick supper. It was a great day.

We listened to The Chronicles of Narnia on the way home. Our favourite is "the Voyage of the Dawn Treader", I can't wait to see THAT one turned into a movie! Do you think they'll do all the books???

Yesterday we were going to go horseback riding but....couldn't find a place! All the ones near here only have daycamps during the summer and offer trailrides in the off season. So we cut the grass at church and home, and I finished cleaning at church. Hardly the same as being on horseback....but nice to be home, and gear up for the Family reunion. There are always things to pack and get ready, and food to prepare. Things to unpack and put away....etc....

And now it's off to church tomorrow....kind of back to normal routines. Normal is good, but it was nice to have a break....

So that's what we've been up to. Blixie went to a friend's house while we were camping and then again on our overnight trip to Toronto.

Rejoice....

A little birdie told me about a neat challenge blog that has faith based challenges. I really like scrapbooking and sometimes you don't have anything to make...until someone presents you with an idea. Since I tried my first card challenge last week, I thought I would try this one for fun. I used my favourite sheet of Basic Grey paper from the Perhaps line, and a scrap of MME, Tres Jolie, as well as some of that fun flocked paper from Heidi Grace. CS is from CTMH. Chipboard alphas are from Pressed Petals, Basic Grey and Provocraft. The diecut is MME and I made the chipboard heart myself. (I'm addicted to chipboard but the cost can be prohibitive so I innovate and make my own.) The journalling reads....."Just do it...why?? Because the God of the universe is still on His throne, no matter what kind of day I'm having!

The computer is kinda slow today....

Today is my day off. I have switched my church work to Wednesday and Thursdays, and take fridays off during the summer. I like it already!!!

Tomorrow Craig comes home again! I can't wait to hear all about his trip!