March Break

It is now officially over. The annual week off from work scheduled to let us rest up to regain our strength to make it through the sprint of the last term of the school year. During my career I have spent March break in one of three ways:

traveling

OR

hockey tournaments

OR

sleeping on the couch

In the past I have travelled to a variety of places. There was the Carribean cruise I won in a contest. My father actually bought the ticket for me. I still remember the moment my mother called to tell me I had won the big prize and I was upset because I owed my father $10.00 for the ticket. I realize now the biggest prize wasn’t actually the cruise around the Carribean but the fact my parents agreed to baby sit the kids for the week. There were only two kids then, Greg was 2 and Kaitlin was 7 months old……I STILL owe my mother for that one. Years later, thanks to Terry staying home to look after the kids, I traveled to Italy and another year Greece with my colleagues.

Then there were the many years of spending March break in arenas throughout Southern Ontario and Western New York. Greg and Kaitlin both played travel hockey so there was lots of time spent watching kids play hockey at the arena and more time watching kids play mini sticks in hotel hallways. (Ed, do they play mini sticks in Germany?)

Then there were the last few March breaks spent sleeping on the couch recuperating from those years of travel, hockey, parenting, working and, and, and, and, and………As the kids aged and I wasn’t needed as a taxi driver any longer I finally had the opportunity to catch up on my much needed sleep.

This March Break was different. As an empty nester I was finally rid of parental responsibilities and I had enough energy to actually do something. While many of my colleagues were heading south I was most excited about the opportunity to DO NOTHING. I did not achieve my goal but I am quite pleased with all of the things I was able to do.

Here is what I did this last week:

• went to a 30^th birthday party and rediscovered my youth
• cleaned and reorganized the walk in closet so I can find my clothes in the morning
• went for Sunday afternoon drinks at Scorecards even though football season is over
• celebrated St. Patrick’s Day with style at the Lions Hotel in downtown Port Dalhousie (see picture above)
• went for five early morning walks (OK, not that early, but during March Break anything before noon is early)
• interviewed 3 people in preparation for an upcoming article I am writing (improving your business through Social Media.....August edition of Business Niagara magazine)
• networked and made contact with an editor of a new national magazine
• confirmed two new articles to write -anyone know anything about eco tourism?
  
• rented out the cottage for a couple of weeks this summer (certainly mixed feelings about this one)
  
• hostessed a real grown-up dinner party (our neighbours are so much fun!!)
• learned to make tea (don’t even ask why I didn’t know how to do that before!!)
• gathered up all my stuff to get my taxes done (With a father as a CA this one wasn’t very hard)
• had lunch with colleagues (three times)
• visited with Kaitlin
• visited with Greg and my new grand-dog Tyson
• messaged Jennifer through Facebook to arrange her new apartment in Kingston
• went on a bunch of walks with Journey because the weather was absolutely BEAUTIFUL!!!!
• Shaved my cactus winter legs
• Admired Terry’s new glasses he bought without my help (yes, that was stressful)
• had breakfast with colleagues (OK, technically that hasn’t happened yet…but it’s scheduled for a few hours from now

The only problem is, in one short week I was able to restructure my lifestyle but now how am I ever going to fit going back to work into my schedule????

Vancouver 2010 ~ My Favourite Things

WOW! Canada has had a fantastic Olympics!! Not only have we won a record amount of medals…..especially those gold ones…..we have brought the world to Vancouver to check things out the “Canadian way.” There are so many things I have loved about the Olympics. Here is my partial list:

• The daily debriefing in the hallway each morning at work as we all discussed the previous evening’s Olympic performances. Especially Carm’s colour commentary of the curling. I think the St. Patrick staff is now ready to take on new jobs as commentators for TSN (That’s the Canadian equivalent of ESPN)

• Living the Olympics vicariously through my cousin Jane’s face book page. Jane headed out to Whistler a life time ago and we lost touch. Through the wonders of Face book we have been reunited just in time for me to see the Olympics close up and personal through her photos of the locals celebrating the Olympic Spirit at Whistler.Way to go Jane (and Ged and Jack!!)

• Speaking of Whistler, everyone has to love, love, love gold medalist John Montgomery!! After his epic win he strode down the streets of Whistler with a jug of beer in one hand and his beloved turtle painted helmet in the other hand. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/22/jon-montgomery-celebrates_n_471642.html The stereotype is true, Canadians love our beer.

• Keeping with John Montgomery (Did I mention I LOVE that guy) I love his Olympic story. Eight years ago he decided he wanted to go to the Olympics and tried to find a sport he was good at. He tried speed skating. After one practice he knew speed skating wasn’t for him so next he tried the skeleton. (that small little sled thing where you go speeding down the course 100+ kilometres an hour head first) Who would have guessed two Olympics later he would be winning a gold medal?

• Another guy that caught my fancy was Dr. Greg Wells. He was the doctor that explained in CSI fashion the pounding the athlete’s bodies take with each particular event. Since I needed ACL repair surgery from my own skiing accident some years back, my knee was sore all over again when he showed how Alex Bilodeau raced those moguls. Check out the Super Bodies collection of videos. http://www.ctvolympics.ca/video/collections/collectionid=45845/index.html

• Watching the Olympics with Jen made for interesting conversation. She informed me 400,000 condoms – 14 per athlete - were available at the Vancouver Olympics. In Torino there were only 40,000 and there weren’t enough. Those athletes certainly have cardiovascular endurance.

• Fashion…..you had to get to Zeller’s early to get your own pair of red Olympic mittens. And those America outfits? What were they about? A big advertisement for Ralph Lauren on an snow suit that looked like someone threw up stars all over it?

• Watching on TV became an athletic endeavour. All of the shouting and jumping up and down as we reacted to our wins as well as the crashes and falls….OW!!!

• Through the Olympics I came across a new internet person (character) I am fascinated with. Josh Rimer posted on You Tube a fabulous video trying to reconnect a lost camcorder with its American owner. You have to check it out. http://www.joshrimer.com/blog/ Another Canadian stereotype confirmed, we really are nice people, eh?

• A great way to end the Olympics with a tribute to Vancouver and all of its international guests for the last 17 days.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU7tZrKZq3s

This internet thing tells me there are lots of people reading this blog…..leave a comment…let me know what you're thinking…what was YOUR favourite Vancouver 2010 Olympic moment?

Guilty Pleasures

According to Wikipedia (the ultimate source) a guilty pleasure is “something one considers pleasurable despite feeling guilt for enjoying it Often, the "guilt" involved is simply fear of others discovering one's lowbrow or otherwise embarrassing tastes, rather than actual moral guilt.”

Here is my top ten list of guilty pleasures:

1. Staying in my pajamas all day.
2. Eating chips and dip without anyone watching (no judging, no sharing)
3. Sunday night during the summer…….no setting the alarm….no work in the morning
4. Reading a trashy novel until it’s finished
5. Not wearing a bra
6. Re-telling a good rumour about someone who mistreated me.
7. Teaching kids an important lesson without actually covering a “Ministry Expectation”
8. Watching Fox news……..it’s like an accident, you know your shouldn’t be slowing to look but you just can’t help but watch the spectacle
9. Wearing jeans to work even if it’s not “Dress Down Day”
10. Creeping through Facebook and finding out your kids did OK


Are there any I missed?

Life's Questions

1. With all of the channels we get now, why is there never anything good on TV?

2. Why IS the grass green over there?

3. Why does time fly when you are having fun?

4. Why do my daughters say I sound like grandma even though when I was fifteen I vowed I never would?

5. Why are the attributes I was most attracted to when I first met my husband the most annoying ones now?

6. Why are we so kind and patient to strangers but the people we love the most – not so much?

7. If the seasons are all about the same number of weeks, why does winter seem so long?

8. Will I get arrested if I take that itchy tag off of my pillow?

9. Is there a gene we get at birth determining if we are a cat or a dog person?

10. When you are doing the laundry, where DO all of those socks go?

Anyone out there have any insights to some of these questions? Any questions you are currently pondering?

Count Down

The radio station we enjoy at the cottage is called “The Moose”. This is an appropriate name for a station geared for an audience of Canadians in cottage country. For the long week-end The Moose decided to play the top 100 songs of all time. Jennifer and I enjoyed ourselves by quizzing each other on the name of the band/singer etc. We also agreed to disagree about the choices of songs. Not sure who got to ultimately decide on the ranking of these songs but we did enjoy most of the song selection for the week-end.

Jennifer also told me her plan for my Christmas present. She is going to download a whole bunch of songs for my ipod. I am too technically inept to figure it out myself. I have Jen’s old ipod with over 3000 songs of Jen’s taste, certainly not my taste. She is into Little Wayne and Lady Gaga. The thing holding Jen back on her project is she doesn’t know what songs I do like. I decided to help her by making my own list of top songs:

-I Gotta Feeling (The Black Eyed Peas)
-Satisfaction (The Rolling Stones)
-Yesterday (The Beatles)
-The Weight (The Band)
-Complicated (Avril Lavigne)
-Hotel California (The Eagles)
-Brown Eyed Girl (Van Morrison)
-Hit Me Baby One More Time (Britney Spears)
-Running With the Devil (Van Halen)
-Go Your Own Way (Fleetwood Mac)
-Bennie and the Jets (Elton John)
-I Want to be Sedated (The Ramones)
-Rock Lobster (B52’s)
-Mack the Knife (Bobby Darrin)
-Last Kiss (the one from the one hit wonder band of the 70’s)
-Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen)
-Dancing Queen (ABBA)
-Save the Last Dance for Me (The Drifters)
-Should I Stay or Should I Go? (The Clash)
-Highway to Hell (AC/DC)
-Hallelujeh (not sure which version I like best…..???)
-How You Remind Me (Nickelback)
-Going to the Chapel
-Wake Up Little Susie (The Everly Brothers)
-Alison (Elvis Costello)
-Spirit in the Sky (Norman Greenbaum)
-Maybe I’m Amazed (Paul McCartney)
-Runaround Sue (Dion)
-The Locomotion (Little Eva)
-Tiny Dancer (Elton John)
-Piano Man (Billy Joel)
-White Rabbit (Jefferson Airplane)
-Under the Boardwalk (The Drifters)
-Since You Been Gone (Kelly Clarkson)
-A bunch of Back Street Boys

-The whole Jagged Little Pill CD

-A couple of Ace of Bass songs I don't the know the names

-A Joe Walsh Song (with the words “Sometimes I stay at parties ‘til four, it’s hard to leave when you can’t find the door”)

So many, many more I like, I just don’t know the name or the name of the band/singer

I always like songs when I know all the words and can sing along

This list is not in any particular order, just random songs I thought I might like on my ipod.. but, I realize I don’t have anything really “Hip and Now”….

HELP….I need suggestions! Please add to my list………

Is Summer Half-Over, or Just Half-Started?

It has now officially half way through summer vacation. Part of me feels like I haven’t accomplished anything yet. I decided to make a list of the things I have accomplished so I feel better about all of the sleeping in, lounging, cross-word puzzles etc.

What I Have Done So Far This Summer:
-Breakfast with the girls
-Lunch with the girls (Twice)
-Dinner with the girls
(These are different sets of girls)
-Researched a new granite counter for the kitchen
-Arrangements made for installation of new counter!!
-Nagged Terry to lay new flooring at the cottage (Thanks Terry, it looks fabulous!)
-New windows installed in the cottage (Thanks Billy, Terry and Jill)
-Bunkie cleaned out
-Sheets and towels all freshly laundered for Bunkie ready for guests
-Celebrated the arrival of baby Avery (my daughter’s best friend’s baby)
-Researched new flooring for condo
-Arrangements made for installation of cork flooring and carpet for bedroom
-Bought a new tap for kitchen
-Bought a new sink for kitchen (It’s amazing how these things snowball)
-Visited my daughter in Kingston (with my mom and niece)
-Got my new driver license and picture
-Got my new health card and picture
-Planted new garden at the cottage
-Sent in a query to Cottage Life Magazine
-Bought tickets for the theatre (my friend is in the cast)

I am going shopping this week-end in Grove City PA. This will be my first retail experience of an entire long week-end shopping with the girls. I think I should have started training months ago…..I’m not really much of a shopper.

No wonder I don’t feel rested! July has been a month of accomplishments after all. My August is filled up with guests at the cottage, the renovations being completed at the condo, a three-day conference in Toronto and of course sooner or later I do have to plan for my return to school.

Today is the day I DO NOTHING…….and try not to feel guilty about it.

Multi-Tasking to get the Summer To-Do List Done

I got home last night from an overnight stay at Jennifer’s in Kingston. My youngest daughter is living there as she is going to Queen’s University,

Last week I came upon a brilliant idea. Friends and family seem to think because I have the summer off I have endless time to visit and do all sorts of things, The Beachboys’ Endless Summer is certainly not reality no matter how much we dream of it. There are only so many days in the summer and they seem to just fly by. So, while trying to squeeze in all of the household tasks put off during the school year, including visits to get my teeth cleaned at the dentist etc., I treasure each and every day. So…..back to my brilliant idea. My mother is always commenting I need to go up to Owen Sound to visit her for a few days. (3 hours north) Jennifer has been wanting me to go to visit her since I hadn’t even seen her new apartment yet (4 hours west) I am at one end of Lake Ontario and she is at the other end. By brilliant idea was to combine the two visits and even throw in a visit with my niece who lives just outside of Toronto.

Tuesday morning I drove to Milton to my brother’s house. There I met my mother and we threw my niece Tamara into the car and made our way to K-town, Kingston. Three generations on a road trip!

Hours later we arrived at Jenn’s new apartment. It is a basement apartment and just perfect for her as long as she doesn’t have any guests. The kitchen has a frig on one side and a rusty oven on the other side and just enough room to walk in between. That leads to a living room with a tiny couch and book shelf and TV. Jenn’s bedroom is not a bad size as most importantly it contains room for a desk. As her purpose to being in Kingston is to get a university education I was very pleased to see signs of books and other educational paraphernalia……I hope it wasn’t planted just for our visit!!

From there we headed to the LCBO (That’s the liquor store for you non-Ontario readers) It was my mom who suggested that stop. Who knew? We then headed for the Radisson to check in. Then off to Wolfe Island by ferry. Apparently the ferry is free as it is part of the road system to allow residents of Wolfe Island to have access. Isn’t the Canadian government great? It was a 45 minute cruise into Lake Ontario and we saw lots of boats, the Kingston landscape, Fort Henry and the Royal Military College. Once again, compacting lots of sightseeing into one trip. I am nothing but a master of multi-tasking!

Then back to the hotel dining room for the most amazing meal ever!! It was real food, prepared by a real chef. Obviously nothing pre-packaged or put together like fast food. Why is that so rare these days?

We were supposed to take the “Haunted Walk” through the historical streets of Kingston but a down pour of rain started. So we ended up going to bed early.

We work up and did a quick tour of Queen’s University, picked up bread at Pan Chancho Bakery. Who knew a bakery was so famous? I still don’t what it is famous for unless it is the outrageous prices. We then did a mediocre brunch (remember that pre-packaged food I was talking about?)

We said a good-bye to Jen as we dropped her back at her place. Then we drove west along the 401 again until 3 hours later we dropped Tamara back home, my mother to her car and I headed south to Niagara.

A very fast 24-hours. I’m tired.

• Visit with my mother




• Visit with my daughter




• be a good aunt




• do something touristy
  

3 things checked off my summer to-do list

Now…..I have to get ready for the kitchen counter guy…….kitchen reno..more summer tasks to do.

Summertime

I made it! I just finished the last end of the year celebration. This one was very relaxing. It was my staff at a pizza place. We ate a bit, drank a bit and talked a lot. The best part is tomorrow is Friday………………..off to the cottage tomorrow night!

We have been up to the cottage a few times this year but the weather has not cooperated much. This week-end is the week-end we absolutely MUST get the docks in and the boats in the water. I am also going to get all of the guest beds made up in the Bunkie and we will be ready for the summer. Our cottage is Haliburton area, smack between Mindon and Dorset. We are on a very small lake with only about 12 cottages spread around. It is not a fancy place but it is ours and we love it. To wake up in the morning and just turn my head and I can see the lake. To sit on the deck in the evening and watch the sunset. To just do whatever we want, whenever we want. Here is my to do list for the summer:
read lots of books

• 
  
  swim across the lake


• 
  
  watch the baby loons grow up


• 
  
  write some articles while on the dock


• 
  
  be a great host to some fun guests


• 
  
  train for the 5 km


• 
  
  drink some wine


• 
  
  roast some marshmallows


• 
  
  plant some flowers

OR NOT!!!!

Lots of plans.............but no pressure.............summer time!

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Last night I went to the school board’s Staff Celebration Dinner. This is a dinner where they honour people who are retiring, as well as staff with 25 years of service. Everyone there was very surprised to find out that I was one of the people being honoured. No, I am not quite ready for retirement, but I have been a teacher-principal for twenty-five years!

I was remembering back to my very first job at Denis Morris High School teaching grade nine and ten math. I was one lesson ahead of the kids. I was teaching myself equations at night before I had to teach those know-it-all kids in the morning. I quickly learned kids at that age are very cool and knew exactly how to take advantage of a very green teacher. Definitely I learned more than they did that year but they were lessons well learned.

Ironically the man who owned the hall we had our dinner at last night was in that grade nine math class! He was a big kid who thought about nothing but football. He was not very interested in math. Once he got a bit older he put dollar signs in front of those numbers and did very well. He has become a well-know business man in our community.

My memory is not as good as it once was but I do remember that first class clearly. I remember the girl who was constantly etching Billy Idol’s name in her books. I remember some kids very excited about going to a concert to see Van Halen and they saw Valerie Bertinelli hanging around. I remember one boy who was very cool because he had a red leather jacket just like Michael Jackson had. To help me remember some of those details I did a little bit of googling.

Back to 1984...............................

- Lee Iacocca had the most popular nonfiction book of the year with "Iacocca: An Autobiography" -Researchers for the first time positively identified the virus that leads to AIDS.

-Ronald Reagan was re-elected to his second term as US President, defeating Walter Mondale. In an historic move, Mondale selected Representaive Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate, the first time a woman appeared on the ticket for vice president.

-Clara Peller is featured in the "Where's the Beef?" commercial campaign for Wendy's for the first time.

-Trivial Pursuit revived the board-game industry.

-Stonewashed jeans are introduced.

-The first megabit chip is made at Bell Labs

-Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, US. The Soviets boycott.

-Mary Lou Retton wins two gold, two silver and two bronze medals.

-Old nude photos of Vanessa Williams, the current Miss America. She is forced from her throne.

-Michael Jackson's hair caught on fire during the shooting of a Pepsi commercial.

-The Cosby Show first debuted on NBC.

Hit Songs of 1984

1. "Owner of a Lonely Heart" ... Yes

2. "Karma Chamelon" ... Culture Club

3. "Jump" ... Van Halen

4. "Footloose" ... Kenny Loggins

5. "Against All Odds" ... Phil Collins

6. "Hello" ... Lionel Richie

7. " Let's Hear It For the Boy" ... Deniece Williams

8. "Time After Time" ... Cindy Lauper

9. "The Reflex" ... Duran Duran

10. "When Doves Cry" ... Prince

11. "Like a Virgin" ... Madonna