Category Archives: Recap

Dust Bunnies

Posted in Life, Recap by

Is this thing on?

Pardon me while I clear this space of the cobwebs and dust bunnies that have accumulated over the past few months.

I could use the excuse that life has been busy AF and I just haven’t found the time to sit down and blog, but that’s not 100% true. While life has indeed been busy with work, kids, and everything in between, I just haven’t felt a pull towards this space. Neglected, it certainly was.

I won’t even go to say that 2021 will be a turning point for the blog. After the manure-filled dumpster fire that 2020 was, I’m not making any promises. But – I do want to do a least a little better and make a valiant effort to at least park my ass at the keyboard at least once per month.

And so, here I am!

Since my last few posts of 2020 mainly consisted of book reviews, I suppose I haven’t really given a life update so to speak. I’ll see if I can summarize things the best I can …

Norah started kindergarten in September and it has been WONDERFUL for her! She’s grown so much intellectually and I’m so thankful that school was able to resume for the students. I honestly don’t believe virtual learning would be the best option for her, and her teacher is absolutely the BEST.

Isla started grade 3 and she’s loving it as well! Being in a 3/4 split class has been great for her, however, I’m apprehensive of her befriending the “older” kids in the class. We’ll see how this pans out in the long run, I suppose.

Both girls started dance in September as well, Isla in her 3rd year of ballet and Norah in her 1st season ever. Norah is really enjoying it, more than I had anticipated, which is great! She seems to really enjoy tap dancing (no surprise there) so I’m curious to see if this is something she continues to do.

Isla was also offered the opportunity to do a solo routine, and she’s doing really well! It’s hard to say what the festival season and year end show will look like right now, but it’s teaching her discipline  regardless, which is a bonus.

Over the summer and into the fall, I managed to get in four running races! One of the local running organizations busted their asses to put together a handful of COVID-safe races, and each one was amazing. I managed to finish in 2nd place for the 5K distance for females, so that was definitely my humble brag moment of the summer.

I’ve missed a few book reviews, but I did manage to finish reading 27 books last year in total. It’s likely peanuts compared to most, but I’m happy with my reading routine and the pace works for me! I don’t have a set goal of how many books I’d like to finish this year, but if I made my way through 25 I’d be happy!

2020, of course, was not all sunshines and rainbows. If you follow me on Instagram, I had posted that we had to say goodbye to our wonderful rescue dog, Campbell. The vets found a cancerous tumour on his spine and after a few weeks of keeping him comfortable,  we felt it was his time to cross the rainbow bridge.

Christmas, as it was for mostly everyone, was oddly quiet this year. While it was a nice change, we certainly missed the chaos that surrounds the day and look forward to the potential of being with our friends and family this year. The girls were spoiled rotten (likely to compensate for the lack of family time, lol) and I couldn’t have asked for a better holiday for them.

So there you have it! The last few months of 2020 were pretty great overall. While it’s dumpster fire is still smoldering a lite, hopefully it gets put out fully sooner rather than later in 2021 and we can return to whatever “normal” was.

May Recap!

Posted in Dance Recital, Recap by

Hello, friends!

While I’m never 100% sure what day it is, May seemed to go by in a flash! It’s always such an eventful month, so I’ll recap it briefly here!

The kids

Isla is still working hard on her schoolwork from home. I’m so thankful that she’s a bright girls and has a fairly good grasp at understanding her work; they finished the grade 2 math curriculum in May and started learning a little bit of grade 3 stuff – multiplication! She’s slowly figuring it out, so she’ll be good to go when she starts grade 3 in the fall!

Norah had her kindergarten immunizations at the beginning of the month and she was NOT KEEN on them at all, but she was treated to her choice of donut so all was well with the world after that.

We had the option to send them back to school on a part-time basis starting today (June 1) but I’m opting to keep her at home for the remainder of the year. It just didn’t seem worth it, as much as she misses her teacher and friends. Hopefully everything will settle over the summer and school life can resume normally in the fall!

Isla was supposed to have her final dance shows this past weekend but it sadly had to be cancelled. We were able to pick up her costume, so instead of performing, I did her full hair and makeup and we took photos in the park. Her academy also held a “reverse car parade” where we could drive by the studio and wave/see all the teachers, so she dressed up again and we drove by.

A little glimmer of brightness has come through and the teachers are planning an outdoor, adjusted/socially distanced choreography show so the students can perform for their close family.

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We also bought them a trampoline! It was SUCH a smart investment, especially for Norah since she has endless energy. We had to wait a couple of weeks for it to come back into stock, but we got it at the beginning of the month and had it set up in a couple of days for them to enjoy!

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Life

We/Kyle have been busy doing a bunch of work to the yard! Kyle built a new fence for the back portion of our yard and we got our garden in a couple weeks ago! We planted peas, two types of potatoes, bush beans, corn, cucumbers, zucchini, tomatoes, lettuce and radishes.

Photo May 17, 4 07 35 PM
One of the two plots!

We lost a few tomato plants and our zucchini because of an over-night cold snap, but thankfully we were able to find replacement plants.

I also celebrated my birthday at the beginning of the month, as well as Mother’s Day! Kyle bought me an awesome Yeti Rambler and an amazing new crossbody bag for my birthday, and then he and Isla picked out some beautiful hanging baskets and flowers for my planter for Mother’s Day. To celebrate my birthday we had a little social-distance visit in our backyard with family.

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Hobbies

I finished three books this past month and just started reading The Testaments and am trying to get into it but like The Handmaids Tale, it’s a little tough to follow at first. It’s starting to pick up now, so we’ll see what happens!

I have Emily Giffin’s newest book on preorder and it should be ready to pick up at the bookstore sometime this week – Hurray for summer reading!

Since organized, outdoor races have been cancelled for the remainder of the year, I suppose all this running I’ve been doing has been mostly for fun, haha. I’ve been signing up for a few challenges/virtual races on Strava to keep myself motivated, and it’s been pretty productive. Kyle thinks I’m nuts, but that’s okay! Really, it’s been keeping me sane during all of this craziness, and he understands that.

Looking ahead …

June is already looking to be a busy one. I’ll be returning to the office on a part-time basis starting on the 15th, the girls will both be celebrating their birthdays, and Kyle and I will be celebrating our 9th wedding anniversary later this week! At some point Isla will also be performing with her dance studio too. I’m pretty certain June will fly by just as fast as May did!

What was the best book you read in May? Tell me something exciting that happened in your life this past month, or what’s happening this month that you’re looking forward to?

January/February Update (a.k.a., I’m still alive)

Posted in Life, Recap, Work by

January was probably the longest month ever and I accidentally disappeared from the blog aside from book reviews. Apparently those are easier to type up than life updates?

Between January being 79 days long and being super busy with life, I finally have a moment to post a life update from the beginning of 2020 today. Hurray for long weekends! I’ll break everything down into categories so I don’t forget anything …

The Girls

Norah took a month-long break from preschool in January because her part-time program was cancelled due to a lack of enrolment. She returned earlier this month to a full-time program (more on that later) and she’s doing really well! Isla got her first report card of the year back and she’s turning out to be quite the student! Kyle and I are both super proud of them both; even though they’re so different they are both striving.

Norah is all registered for kindergarten starting in the fall, so there’s a lot of emotions surrounding that! I still can’t believe she’ll be 5 in a few short months and that she’s off to school with her sister in September! Where did the time go?! Really though, she’s SO ready and SO excited to finally be going to the same school as Isla; she’s been waiting for this day since Isla started kindie, so it’s been a long time coming!

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Isla and Norah both started swimming lessons at the beginning of January! Norah was going 2x week and finished up after four weeks, and she did amazing! To be honest, I wasn’t 100% sure she was going to pass because she has a lot of energy and just wanted to swim around, but after a few reminders to listen she did awesome and got her badge. Isla’s lessons are only once a week, so we have a couple more to go before she’s done, but so far she’s looking strong.

This past weekend Kyle worked overtime one day, so we spent the day hanging out – we went and did the grocery shopping, and then after lunch we saw a movie (Dolittle) and went out and had sushi for dinner! It was a lot of fun and while they drive me crazy sometimes, it was nice to spend some quality time with just the two of them.

The Dogs

Campbell and Lars are … Campbell and Lars! Lars is growing like a weed and probably needs more exercise, which will be remedied soon as he’s going to go off to bootcamp within the next couple of weeks.

They are still getting along so well and Campbell is such a patient older brother to Lars, haha.

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Back in October I had mentioned briefly that Lars was suffering from a bit of a limp, and after Kyle and I had it checked out by two vets (the original appointment and a 2nd opinion), it turns out that he blew out his ACL somehow. (Likely playing too hard with Campbell.) We had the option to send him for surgery, but with him being so young it may or may not have worked, plus he’d need more in the future. (Read: $$$$) We opted to make him lay low and see how it healed on its own, and while he can’t put 100% of his body weight on it, you’d never think he’s injured. Lars is very much a typical Labrador retriever and acts like a doofus

Running

I took a solid bit of time off between the last race I ran and February, aside from a Mile-a-Day challenge I did in December. Race season is starting back up in a month or so, so I need to get my butt in gear! I’m hoping to conquer more 10K distances, even on the trails, so we’ll see how it goes! My shoes are two years old now, so I may or may not treat myself to a new pair soon. I just can’t decide if I want to keep wearing my current ones for the road and get trail shoes, or just get a new pair of road shoes for everything. This is the toughest decision by far because really, I can’t afford both. (Even though I really want to!)

Life

Overall, life has been pretty amazing. Kyle and I have been working together to hash out a lot of “life’s plans” and it seems to be going well! We have some big goals for ourselves and for our family, but I think we’ll definitely be able to accomplish them if we stick to the plan and life doesn’t throw us too many curveballs. (Because there’s always curveballs!)

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Last year when I finished my Administrative Assistant certificate I said I was going to reward myself with a new tattoo, and I finally got around to it at the end of January. (I finished school at the end of June, haha.)

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In a nutshell, I got a lupin tattoo in honour of my grandparents. Once upon a time they had a cabin, and the trail to get there had crazy amounts of lupins growing wild. My brother and I used to spend a lot of time there with my grandma and grandpa, and have so many fond memories with them there. Lupins seemed like a logical choice to honour them.

Work

Oh yeah – I got a job! I didn’t really plan on going back to work until Norah had started kindergarten, but a position for a part-time administrative assistant was posted for a local business and I couldn’t help but apply. The hours were perfect to accommodate drop off and pick up from school, so why not, right?

I ended up getting a call to interview a few days after I applied, and was offered the position a few days after that! I was thankfully able to get Norah back into preschool full-time, just at a different campus (the school she was going to has four locations) and nothing else really changed.

I’ve been at the position now for two weeks and I’m really enjoying it; there’s a lot to learn and do, but I feel like it’s going well. It really fell into my life at the perfect time and it almost seems too good to be true, especially with being able to get Norah into full-time preschool right away.

So that’s pretty much what’s been going on since my last update! The days are getting longer and I’m looking forward to what the warmer weather is going to bring. (Camping! Waterslides! Races! Slo-Pitch! Pool Days!) I’ll try not to go so long between updates this time.