Year: 2015
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On being twelve
This isn’t about my own, current, 12-year-old, or about any of my former 12-year-olds. Maybe it’s a bit about the 12-year-old I used to be, and about who that has made me as a parent. It’s a copy and paste from a message board, where I was responding to a mom whose daughter had stolen […]
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Another marathon?
I’m vaguely thinking about running a marathon again this year. Maybe the one I ran five years ago in Vancouver. It was a nice route, and by running the same event I’ll be able to see how my fitness is holding up over the years. Also I have a kid attending school nearby and another one who […]
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Permission to Christmas
I give up. Now that Voices West is over, now that the first snow has fallen, now that Fiona is into the thick of preparing for holiday performances, now that plane tickets are booked for the grown-up kids to get home, go ahead and start your Christmassing, girls. Put up a little tree and ornaments […]
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Choral festival weekend
Voices West was fantastic, even for Fiona and me, who weren’t directly participating. Two hundred and eighty singers, a performance hall packed with a thousand people, meals and billets and sight-seeing and travelling and meeting new people and finally hearing Kokopelli and Coastal Sound sing live … it was a great weekend. We billeted four […]
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Front Room
Oh look. I did some things. The front bedroom was uninhabitable when we took possession of the Nelson house. Over the summer Noah, Sophie and friends stripped and then repainted the two gyproc walls, but the ceiling was flaky acoustic tile and two of the walls were this stuff: plaster and lath with a bit […]
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Unschooled adolescents
Fiona’s primary enrolment this year is with SelfDesign, an independent umbrella program that supports home-based learners from Kindergarten through Grade 9 and their families, including loads of unschoolers. The support is primarily moral support, though there’s a little money available that can be used to fund things like sports and music lessons. I love the […]
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House progress
I really love our Nelson house. When we bought it I was sold on it as an investment, a fixer-upper, but I think I’m falling in love now. It has a really nice feel to the living space. It’s open and light and airy during the day, and yet at night it feels cosy and […]
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The school year, times 4
For the first time all four of my kids are officially enrolled in school. Fiona (12) is enrolled one-quarter time, taking two courses at the local school. She’s doing math and science for two hours on each of Monday and Tuesday mornings. Age-wise she’s Grade 7 age, placement-wise she’s “in” Grade 9, course-wise she’s taking […]
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2015 Loop
Last year I carved some time out of July to do a self-powered trip along the Silvery Slocan Circle Route. I did it counter-clockwise over three days, combining kayaking, running and road-biking. This year, with a new-to-me road bike recently acquired, I decided to do the same route all on two wheels. I rode clockwise for […]
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Summer, here and gone
It was an early summer. The trees were greening up a good 3-4 weeks earlier than usual, and the season continued to unfurl early. The lake got “warm” (as warm as it ever does) in June. The wildfires were burning by the end of June. The huckleberries peaked in mid July. The wildflowers up Idaho peak […]
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Running on
My six-year runniversary, celebrating the start of my informal middle-aged commitment to running, slipped by without me noticing. When I began running at age 46, I was really excited by the whole endeavour. I enjoyed the milestones, I liked noticing my progress in mileage, speed and endurance. I ran a few races, I had a […]
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So this happened…
In an instant her summer changed. A tool in the shop, a long-handled thing with a blade on the end used for peeling logs, fell onto her bare foot. It landed on her first three toes, slicing through the extensor tendons and into the joints of two, and through the nail of the third. She […]
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The Other House
We took possession of the Nelson house about four weeks ago. Sophie and Noah are more or less living there for the summer. Sophie is working full-time at a café. Noah is (theoretically at least) working on the house, though he has spent a surprising amount of time being sick with a series of colds, and […]
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Parkour
Fiona and I recently completed a series of indoor introductory parkour classes at the local school. Fiona has spent most of the past few years tackling new physical challenges. My experience with physical challenge has been much more mundane for many years. I’ve challenged myself to endure, but I am a big chicken with new […]
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Letter from college
Normally it would be odd for a parent receive an unsolicited email from one of her now-adult children’s university professors. This is different though, because this prof has been Erin’s violin teacher for four years. That includes the very first year, when Erin was still a high schooler by age and enrolment, but moved to Montreal to […]