Busy Nothings

This time last year I was browsing the seed catalogues, planning our vegetable garden and berry patch, watching things start to grow in the cold frame. This spring we are still watching the snow fall outdoors, and I am rethinking the whole concept of "garden," not to mention the idea of "home." Moving from a 2500 square foot century farmhouse on half an acre to a 1000 sq. foot townhouse condo with a back deck and no yard has challenges, not the least of which are mental and emotional hurdles. The stupor brought on by the winter that just won't die is not helping matters. Still, I find it oddly fascinating to figure out how to make the most of our space, how to fit outdoor living footage into the deck and the tiny square of grass that we do have, as well as how to eke out personal space, not to mention personality, out of a cookie cutter condo. In the farmhouse, we expanded to fit the space. More rooms, lots of nooks and crannies and large open spaces mean...

So in case you have not heard, I am being the Ideal Housewife these days. Whatever that means. It is like a quirky social experiment, whereby the girl (okay, woman) who used to scream inside her own head at the prospect of staying at home and keeping house does just that with vigour and enthusiasm. Maybe not every day, but I try. I make homemade granola, for heaven's sake, and the infamous $49 muffins . As I wrote in this post , I am inspired by my grandmother and strive to find the joy that she found in everyday life. Lately I find myself turning to an unlikely source for inspiration. A few years ago, a gorgeous old volume of home-keeping appeared in a box of donated books I was sorting at the library. It was pleasantly smelly, as only very old books can be, and pages were falling out, but I simply could not throw it out. Published in Toronto in 1897, The Household Guide and Domestic Cyclopedia was created to help women in more ways than we can imagine, instructing on ever...

This morning I am digging deep in my photography bank to provide us all with a little bit of spring for the eyes and for the heart, even while the wind still howls out of doors... Colour Ocean Joy Peace Beauty Beginnings New Brilliant Love Friendship Family   Simplicity Humour

We are on the downhill slope now. Despite the fact that it is a blizzard outside my window, I refuse to give in to the urge to crawl into bed and stay there until spring. Well, maybe I will crawl in for just a few minutes. Every year March manages to bring me down, with its relentless zig and zag from winter to thaw and back again. This March is no different, except for the fact that everything else is different. This prairie city has a thaw, a beautiful glimpse of dripping spring when kids strip off their coats and believe they can have picnics in the back yard just for today. Later that night the snow blows in again, the puddles freeze and the temperature drops to -21. Convincing everyone to put on their snow pants and scarves this morning brought no one any joy, as the novelty of playing the snow is long past in this cantankerous month of March. So, what can you do? Focus on the positive. Blue sky days do still outnumber the grey ones, and spring will come because it does eve...

Let me tell you about superwoman. Once there was a very smart-looking, dark-haired young woman, dressed fashionably in skirt, boots, and a fur-collared jacket, posing for a picture in the metropolitan downtown of Montreal, circa late 1930s-early '40s. Maybe that is just the way I remember this photo, since I don't actually HAVE it but anyhow it struck me how worldly and sophisticated she looked. Just a few years later, that vibrant woman was back home on the east coast, married to an older man and settled on his family farm in rural Prince Edward Island. She was about to deliver the first of 11 children, nine boys and two girls. She was now committed to a life of faith, family, love, making do and working harder than we can imagine. That strong character is my grandmother, Edith. Edith and Wilfred on their wedding day I was luckier than many children, having two living sets of grandparents close by when I was growing up. Edith and Wilfred Campbell, my grandparents on ...

Eight years ago our world was turned on its ear with the arrival of our first child. I know, it's not momentous in the grand scheme of the universe, where babies are born every second in wildly varying ways (well, generally it follows a certain scheme) and in vastly different cultures and corners of the world and family configurations. But for two childless mostly clueless people in their thirties, neither of whom had ever wiped a baby's bum let alone been solely responsible for its very survival and wellbeing, it was pretty huge. The result of that earth-shaking delivery turns eight today, and what about her? To put it mildly, we shake our heads in wonder, confusion, consternation and hilarity even more often than I could have imagined eight years ago. She is all long legs and arms, flying hair and leaping imagination. She makes us crazy, she amazes us, she makes us laugh. She is smart and sassy, perhaps sometimes a bit too sassy but some would say that is only what ...

If you ask me about my first love, I would probably tell you I first felt that deep, passionate longing for...a book. Yup, it is true. From the first moment I realized all those jumbled letters and marks actually made up sentences, pages, stories, even, I have been a passionate and not-at-all secret admirer of books. When I'm feeling blue, I retreat to books. When I'm ill, you can find me tucked up in a quilt with my nose stuck in a book. A book is the last thing I see before I go to sleep (okay, I DO see my husband as well although probably not as clearly as he would like). In university I majored in English because I thought that would be the best way to feed my habit of reading by creating a purpose for all that book-lovin'. And we all know how terrifically valuable an arts degree is in the real world. Ahem. But, hey, it let me read through a four-year degree, well actually I stretched it out to 5.5 years just because I LOVED to read so much, among all the other thin...