Orange

Things have been quite busy around here and I just have the energy to post a picture so here it is:

Just look at those lashes!

Happy feet

Have a relaxing weekend!

biscuits for brunch

It may seem that I have exhausted the topic of our new table but I have one more note to make about it. Since we have had it up I have made more meals from scratch in a row than ever before. I'm sure that it also has something to do with a combination of things, not the least being the wonderful chill fall-like weather we have been enjoying this week. Also it's possible that the influence of feeding my boy well and finally having stocked my kitchen with good basics from which these meals can be made has encouraged me but I would still like to lay the majority of the reason with the table. Not that I have never made meals from scratch and not that I haven't had a table before but I feel as though, all other factors being present, the table (and my excitement surrounding it) has been the deciding factor in our new meal menus. However it has come about no one has complained yet. We'll see how long it lasts.

Colour

One thing I love about kids toys (as much as I think many of them are useless) is the vibrant colours. It doesn't always work and can be (in my humble yet actually officious opinion) quite garish at times but some times the aesthetic just cries out to be admired and--the next logical step--photographed. It happened this weekend while my little one was playing with some of the toys we were helping to move to his cousins' new house.

I just couldn't get enough of these beads and it looks as though he thought they were pretty great too.

Great taste Logi bear!

The table

We now have a dining room table! I never would have guessed I would be this excited about such a seemingly small thing but that's what makes life interesting, I suppose. This place is cramped and the area which would normally be designated as the dining room has been piled with boxes and other things so much that I thought we couldn't fit one so I had resigned myself to a less-formal arrangement for the duration and left my perpetual request for a table fall into the standing-joke category (hahahaha). When out of the blue last Saturday my wonderful husband surprised me with the news that we were in possession of a real table! He seriously could have used this surprise for Christmas or my birthday present, I was that thrilled. The night we got it in, he set it up for me and I spent the rest of the evening re-arranging the boxes in our (actual, now) dining room so we could fit the chairs around this wonderful table. Now from my description you may have some idea that there is something extra-special about this table and I truly feel as though there is but when it comes down to the basic facts, it's one of the plain ikea tables that we rescued from the garbage. Lovely. But let me explain a little and maybe you'll see just why it is just perfect for us. Back when I was still hopeful we could fit one (before fifty-plus more boxes were brought to our place to store) I had my eye on this exact model of table. I liked it because it is solid wood, matches my bookcase, is small enough to fit without being too small to use, has a simple, classic design, and doesn't seem too heavy or awkward. As affordable as ikea is in general I still looked around for ads for used ones and even had an episode where I almost bought one for fifty dollars (I think, maybe even less) but it fell through. But what is even better than buying used? Getting free (and saving landfills, right?). Sure, the last owners tried to paint what looks like a close-up of a peacock feather on the entire top but they didn't do a half-bad job (I can think of a lot of other things that could be worse) and I have a nice collection of tablecloths I had acquired during my RA days that I have been itching to get out. Eventually I think my handyman will probably sand it down and re-finish it but until then I'm actually enjoying having to air my assortment. There isn't a single thing that I would change about that table. Even after all of that you may still be thinking I'm going a bit extreme about it but I am truly beyond ecstatic! Remember I never said I wasn't crazy.

the driver

We were outside all afternoon yesterday and part-way through I tried feeding my boy in the truck but for some reason he thinks driving is more interesting than eating... He is definitely his father's son!

Shoulder check!

Ducks

Just to change things up a little, here is a picture of some ducks we saw a couple weekends ago at the arboretum.

Okay, here's a picture of my handsome men taken that day too. Sorry; I just can't help myself...

picket fences

Yesterday was a gorgeous day. We took a drive out to my Mom's for my eldest brother's birthday dinner. It was a perfect drive: late afternoon, taking our time along back country roads, a few stops along the way, and--best of all--window shopping for houses. We're currently living in a basement apartment close to downtown. Although we are saving a lot in rent and it is convenient for work, eventually we would love to get our own house with a bit of land outside of the city. Even while we were just friends we would discuss what kind of houses we liked so it comes as no surprise but is still pleasant that our tastes agree exactly. I may want the extra field for pasturing a horse or two and he may want it to store and drive cars in but we both still want the land... and I'm sure we'll be able to make things work! We would like to move before our son is too old so rough plan is within the next few years. In the mean time we save and keep window shopping. This apartment is small and dark but the hope of it not being permanent makes its inconveniences much easier to bear. It also helps that on occasion, my husband has to got to work right here. This past week he was replacing our bedroom window-well so we were able to sit in the bedroom most of the day and watch him work. We all know how much little boys love watching big machines. Just imagine how much our little guy loves watching when the machine is driven by his daddy! It has been a great family week.

Cousins' first drive together

Does it get any better?

I came across a glimpse of this amazing product while surfing around the internet this morning and had to know more. I instantly have fallen in love with everything about it. Mast Brothers Chocolate. Chocolate, ships, hand-crafting, amazingly designed packaging, beards, and did I mention chocolate? What's not to love?

Contemplation in blue

Sunlight is good for you

I guess the threat to wash his mouth out with soap won't work yet... Don't worry; I rinsed the container thoroughly before putting it by the door.

I can't help feeling it should be made into some sort of wind instrument. Maybe he'll be a busker.

I take so many pictures and would love to share them all but don't feel that I have the time or my friends have the patience to warrant posting them. It can be so difficult to decide which to share and which to leave in obscurity. So today I am going to indulge myself and post a whole stream of pictures from one afternoon. Enjoy!

"What, no more?"

Tasty

What?

Recent reading

I may have mentioned this before but during my degree I made myself a rule only to read books on the course lists (after all, they're exactly the books I wanted to read in any case so it wasn't a difficult rule for the most part). Having emerged from both my BA and my MA I now have no rules as to reading lists so have been following whims and suggestions. I also have the desire to fill in some of the blanks and read some more of the 'classic' books one would expect to have an acquaintance and an opinion about having fallen out the other side of an English degree. So recently I have read (among others I may not remember at this moment): Eliot's Daniel Deronda, Bronte's Wuthering Heights, Gaskell's Wives and Daughters, and James' Portrait of a Lady. Even having just read them I find this list quite attractive. Now I'm reading some essays about Daniel Deronda and Portrait of a Lady. It feels good to be back in the swing of literary studies especially with September just around the corner. I'll have a few years off from the imposition of the school year but I don't think I'll be able to break the habit of feeling studious at the arrival of the first chill in the air.

his ears are burning...

someone must be talking about him

Cold day

Instead of visiting the grave site on the anniversary of my Grandma's death we decided to remember by gathering to continue a family tradition of racing tiny home-made boats across a small backwater nearby. It's what she would have done. The day turned out appropriately gloomy and cold (contrasting with the beautiful weather we've had all summer but understandable considering the proximity of the hurricane) but there was warmth in the gathering. I am so glad we did this.

beach babe

Messy Boy

This is some of the results of self-feeding sessions.


You should see my walls and floor...

Thinner

The title of one of the Stephen King books (made into a movie too, I think) popped into my head as I thought of this post. I believe the story goes somewhere along the lines of a fat man being cursed by becoming thinner. This doesn't seem too scary (isn't it the goal of many?) until lack of control enters the picture. No matter what he eats, he keeps losing weight. I don't know how it ends but one can see the potential for some sort of starvation amid piles of food. Hmm. Come to think of it, that isn't quite the picture I might want to draw here. Maybe we should drop that association but in some strange way it is slightly applicable.

Taking note of most of my experience and observation I had prepared myself upon my pregnancy never to have the same body as I had had previously. I am not claiming to have had an amazing body at any point. I was strong (spending years engaged in physical labour will do that to you apparently) but not with the sculpted look of a gym-bunny. I was for the most part pleased with my body: it was not ugly and it accomplished much of what I need it to. I always felt I should eat a bit more healthily and perhaps shed a bit of the extra fat I seemed to have hanging around but it never worried me. But upon entering pregnancy I was fully prepared to resemble a beached whale for most of the term until giving birth at which point I would start to tend more to the penguin aesthetic.

Imagine my surprise when during pregnancy it mostly looked like I was a little girl imitating pregnancy by holding a balloon under my shirt. I can say this in no way to boast because it really had nothing to do with anything I did. Apparently each person's body responds differently to pregnancy and I was one of the lucky ones who had few discomforts under the physical appearance head (note I say nothing of the unseen but much-felt discomforts that fall under other headings). Being unable to engage in the same level of physical activity during my pregnancy I unfortunately lost much of my muscle mass so in the end gained few actual pounds even by the end of the pregnancy.

They say a quick and easy way to shed ten pounds is to cut off one's head. I decided to give birth instead and, although not an easy procedure, in the end it was quite as effective with a better chance of surviving the ordeal (although it may not seem so at the time and, really, at times in our history it didn't hold a great survival rate either). So I dropped the package and finally had room in there to draw breath again. I was left with a bit of a belly and extremely thin arms (in my books). I paid little attention to my weight gain or loss because there was suddenly someone else whose weight seemed more important. I watched him grow and gain with pleasure and awe.

I happily saw my belly subside but bemoaned the loss of my muscles and, although carrying around a child is a fairly good work-out it still doesn't compare to shovelling gravel and lugging half a ton of flagstone around daily. I started to notice that I was losing weight in more than just my belly. My pants were requiring a belt more frequently and a couple pair I had been considering donating because they were a bit small on me before I became pregnant (and, as I thought, would never fit me again) were fitting me quite well.

It wasn't until my boy reached about twenty pounds when, seeing the bathroom scale at a friend's house, I decided to weigh myself to see just how much weight I had lost and I discovered that I had lost as many pounds off my pre-pregnant weight as my boy weighed!

Oh the wonders of breast-feeding! I can eat as much as I like and it all gets passed along as good fat to my growing boy! Of course, I am also more conscious to eat better foods now that I am introducing him to food so that may account for some of it too. A friend who is a year ahead of me in the motherhood line also mentioned to me to beware after weaning because it can just as unconsciously creep right back on (and this time it is more certain to creep on in the form of fat as opposed to muscle) but I'm currently enjoying the fat of the land while I can.

So it turned out to be true that my body would not be the same after having had a baby but instead of going the way I had anticipated I got back the body I had at fourteen (just before starting my first physically-demanding job). It's insane. I don't want to appear smug to those who have had trouble with weight gain or loss. I personally, although never to the extreme, have gone through times when I know I should lose even five pounds to be more healthy and have had an extremely hard time accomplishing such a goal. This is one of those things that has happened to me without any virtue arising from within. But I suppose I should enjoy it while I can. I never thought I would have to go out to buy an entire wardrobe of smaller clothes, though. Thank goodness for second-hand shops!