Gal Smiley brought home about 40 pencils on the last day of school. They’re all dirty half-used stubs and every single one of them has the eraser chewed off – ew. Even grosser: apparently they were all chewed off not by Gal Smiley, but by some other boy who sat at her table. EW.

So, what to do, what to do. Pencils are a highly valued commodity in some places of the world. It seems beyond wasteful to just throw these away when I actually donated money to UNICEF at Christmastime specifically to buy pencils for schoolchildren in Africa. And yet, when you add her 40 icky pencils to the approximately 300 pencils we already have (most of which are crappy dollar store quality, but at least still have their erasers), we are bursting at the seams. Soon I will be able to build a second house out back made entirely of pencils.

Perhaps that is the Gal’s secret plan.

I wonder.

……….

So we went downtown for Canada Day. If you read my post over at Kids in the Capital, you’ll know we were planning on taking the bus. However, the Captain got sick and since he and Sir Monkeypants were staying home, I was too chicken to brave public transit with both girls, a stroller, a cooler, and a backpack. So I drove, and it turned out to be a total non-issue – we easily got parking at around 10 in the morning at the Rideau Centre, and when we left around 4 there was still plenty of parking to be had. So I think the city’s dire warnings to not drive downtown are unfounded, unless perhaps you are staying for the fireworks – can’t imagine how you would ever get your car out of the downtown area at 11 p.m.

But for daytime visitors, it’s fine. And worth it.

……….

We were not intending to try to see the Prince and Princess at all, but by 10 in the morning they’d already blocked off dozens of downtown streets marking their route to the hill. As a result we got fenced in on the market side and physically could not get across to our intended destination, Jacques Cartier Park, for hours. In the end we gave up and stood behind crowds eight deep right by the Art Gallery and saw this:

Well, we kind of saw it – my camera saw it as I shoved it through the crowd and snapped wildly with one hand, while my other arm held Little Miss Sunshine who was complaining loudly that she COULD NOT SEE. It was all very glamourous.

Then we waited another half hour for them to take down a single barricade so we could cross the freakin’ street. Royals! It’s like they think they’re more important than us! Am I right, or am I right?

……….

Yesterday was our first real day of summer vacation since we were away for the rest of the weekend visiting family. I heard the world “Mom” about 3000 times. I think we did every single craft in the house and played with every single toy. We spent 15 minutes in the wading pool, 10 minutes doing PlayDoh, 20 minutes baking. By the end of the day I was exhausted, the house looked like a hurricane hit it, and I was considering changing my name to “Freida” and moving to Iceland.

How many more days of this?

……….

Tomorrow is the third annual Blog Out Loud. Am I usually this nervous? Probably – I always fear that no one is going to show up, then the more I think about it I panic that too many people are going to show up, then I worry that the exactly right number of people will show up and they will all be talking about the fact that I did not put polish on my toenails. Aye aye aye. I still have some last minute details to take care of, which is putting a damper on my Summer of Awesome plan for this week, but we will be in full swing next week for sure.

I hope you’ll all be there tomorrow night, and that you’ll all come over to say hello. This community we have here in Ottawa is so warm, and friendly, and smart, and funny, and kind, and it’s a privilege for me to be a part of it. I’ll be the one hyperventilating in the corner – the one with no polish on her toes.

See you there!

You can’t really be married to any particular activity when you have a birthday party for a four-year-old. Chances are just as good that everyone is going to want to just play cars in the playroom as want to do the carefully prepared crafts you’ve laid out. You just have to kind of go with the flow.

This past weekend we had the Little Miss’ birthday party. She’s not quite four yet, but her best buddy from preschool is leaving next weekend for a summer-long trip to Europe, so we had to have the party a little early. We had a few of her friends from preschool over to the house to just kind of hang out and play. I planned some stuff, but it was all just-in-case kind of stuff. I don’t think I’ve ever had a birthday party with so little planning – I’m a planner! I own it! – but it was a surprisingly relaxed, quiet afternoon and it went really well.

We almost always have our birthday parties just here at the house, both because our kids prefer it, and because we figure it’s less expensive. But after Little Miss Sunshine’s party on Sunday, we were totalling up the expenses in our heads and both Sir Monkeypants and I were surprised at the results. I definitely could have gone the frugal route in a couple of cases, and saved some dollars. But even cut to the basics, I’m no longer convinced that it’s cheaper to have an at-home party than to have it out somewhere.

So in the interest of scientific research, I’m going to lay it all out for you and see what y’all think. How does our budget compare?

Invites for us are inexpensive – I design them on my computer, have them printed at Staples in full colour for less than $2, then mount them on bristol board and put each invitee’s name on the back. Here they are, aren’t they cute?

I’d love to take credit for designing them, but truthfully I found the whole cat/pink/dots background on the web and just added the text. But I had to choose the font! And it took ALL DAY LONG, because do you know how many fonts there are in the world? YES IT IS IMPORTANT, DAMMIT.

Anyway, total cost of invites is around $3.

The day of the party dawned cool, windy, and overcast. Originally we were going to spend the morning playing outside in the backyard, frolicking in our wading pool, swinging on the swingset, blowing bubbles, and squirting water guns. That would have cost $0, since we had everything already. Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate, so instead I had to put together some inside activities.

First up, the kids made their own PlayDoh, Each kid got a bowl and mixed up a goopy glob made up of flour, sugar, a little oil, a packet of Kool Aid, and water. Then we spent some time playing with the PlayDoh with various toys. In the end each kid got to take home their ball of PlayDoh in a snap-lid container.

Total cost for supplies was around $10, including the take-home containers. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Just wait.

I also had a second craft for them to do. I cut out a large letter for each kid – the first letter of their name – from some bristol board I had lying around from a previous project. Then each kid decorated their letter using glue and buttons, ribbons, and a wide variety of sparkly jewels.

Total cost for this craft was around $15 for the jewels, from the dollar store and Michaels – I had the paper, buttons, and ribbons lying around.

Then we had lunch – take out pizza. We got three large pizzas and that was WAY WAY WAY WAY too much. We could have easily done with just two, but we weren’t sure how many parents would be required to stay by fussy kids, so we over ordered. The total cost of the pizza was $45. We also had chips and cheesies, a variety of fruit, juice and lemonade, but I won’t count that – instead we’ll just pretend we only got two pizzas and the rest of the $45 went to the other food, shall we? It works out.

Then we had cake. The Little Miss drools over the cakes at Loblaws every time we go past the bakery section – it’s the icing flowers that draw her eye. We can’t eat those cakes though, due to food allergies, so I made my own and decorated it with sugar flowers bought at the Bulk Bark for less than $3, and a giant “4” candle for $3 more.

I know, it all sounds so reasonable, doesn’t it? But there’s more.

We decorated with balloons. Both Sir Monkeypants and I never were allowed balloons as kids, it was considered a wasteful expense. So of course now I totally indulge my kids with balloons on every single birthday. I probably could have passed on these but I love balloons, so festive, so happy, and every kid loves to take one home.

These were around $20 from the Party Mart. We also had streamers and party hats (the Little Miss INSISTED on party hats, and then she was the only one who didn’t want to wear one, FIGURES), for a total decorating cost of around $30.

The last activity was a pinata. Along with a cake with flowers and party hats, that’s the only other thing the Little Miss wanted. I think she saw it on Dora.

I was really worried about how the pinata would go, but it caused MAJOR excitement and everyone loved it. I gave each kid a brown paper lunch bag with their name written on it to collect stuff that they grabbed. Of course there was one kid – you know, THAT kid – who scooped up half the stuff. But everyone else was both reasonable and happy with what they got so it worked out well.

The pinata was $10 on sale at the Bulk Barn, and I spent $25 on dollar store toys and candy to fill it up.

Lastly, there’s the loot bags, I always splurge on the loot bags because a) I prefer to get just one thing instead of the bag of little things, and so that means a higher minimum value, b) I like our guests to feel like they had a really, really good time as they are leaving, and c) it’s a home party, that’s less expensive, right? So blow it on the loot bags!

I bought each kid a Playmobil or Lego set that came to around $10 per kid, plus I had to buy the bags themselves (small pink and purple gift bags from Zellers), so total loot bag expense was around $80, because I got one for all three of our kids in addition to our four guests.

Discuss: should the birthday boy or girl receive a loot bag? It’s causing a philosophical schism here in the Turtlehead household.

So, adding it all up, we have:

Invites – $3ish, crafts – $25, food and cake – $50-ish, decorations – $30, pinata – $35, loot bags – $80. Total cost: $223.

Is that reasonable? To me it seems like a lot to spend on a small party held at your home. I definitely could have cut back on decorations and the loot bags, maybe food too, but I doubt I could have pulled it in for under $150 no matter how frugal I went.

MyFriendJen did a party for her son at A Gym Tale in Barrhaven a few weeks ago, and it was a couple hundred dollars for ten kids, plus it was totally supervised, and there was no mess in her home, AND lunch was included. She still had to add on loot bags and the cake, and she also provided a craft to do too. But essentially, for not too much more than I spent, she got everything done for her and the kids had an AWESOME time.

So, is the home-based party worth it?

How much do you budget for birthday parties?

My first report on the Summer of Awesome is up at Kids in the Capital. It’s all about our Canada Day plans – hope to see you there!

Last year’s Summer Of Awesome campaign was a huge success, I must say. We didn’t have any big travel plans, so instead I led the kids in being tourists in our own city. This city has an amazing amount of activities, museums, and attractions, and we wanted to take full advantage. Not that lazing around in the backyard isn’t great – we did a lot of that, as well – but I tried to get us out for at least two activities per week, and it really was Awesome.

This year, we’re up for it again, but I’m particularly looking for inexpensive or free activities. We can splurge on a couple of major day trips, but last year almost everything we did ended up costing $100, and when you add all that up, we may as well have thrown it all at a big trip instead. This year, we will have fun – but be frugal, too. A lot of these activities are repeated from last year, but for any new places, I plan to blog about it over at Kids in the Capital.

And new this year – the option to come along for the ride! I can’t take credit for this idea – Sara over at My Points Of View wrote to tell me she was planning her own Summer of Awesome, and why not make it a whole movement? I thought it was a bang-up idea, so I made these pretty pretty badges. If you’re being a Tourist In Town this summer, why not join us – grab a badge (code below), blog about what places you’re planning to visit, and then report on exactly how fun they were on a scale of 1 to AWESOME.

HTML:

<a href="https://diaryofaturtlehead.wordpress.com/"&gt;
<img src="https://turtlehead.me/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/summerofawesome-120.jpg&quot; alt="Summer of Awesome, hosted by Turtlehead" width="120" height="120">
</a>

HTML:

<a href="https://diaryofaturtlehead.wordpress.com/"&gt;
<img src="https://turtlehead.me/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/summerofawesome-150.jpg&quot; alt="Summer of Awesome, hosted by Turtlehead" width="150" height="150">
</a>

Here’s what’s on my list for this summer. How about you?

Family Bike Rides: Alcatel-Lucent sponsors the closing of several major roads and parkways on Sunday mornings, from now until September, for biking. This is the first year we have all three kids up on bikes – Little Miss Sunshine has a wee one with training wheels, and the older two have (finally!) learned how to handle a full 2-wheeler – so we are ready to hit the road. Can’t wait to give this one a try.

The Library: Our home branch is Centennial in Bells Corners, which has a fantastic children’s room and activities all summer long. Many programs there require registration, and your kid will need his or her own library card for that. As long as you don’t lose the card, though (DOH), everything’s free. My kids just love going there – they are amazed every single time that all those books can be theirs just for the asking. Don’t forget they have a huge DVD library too, and that you can request just about anything using their website, then just pop in to pick it all up. We’re hoping to make it a weekly thing – at least.

Museums: We have memberships this year to the Museum of Civilization and the Museum of Nature, so we’ll be going there a lot. Unfortunately I can’t really call either place “free” since parking costs an arm and a leg…and another arm. But it’s pretty inexpensive and we can easily spend a whole day at either place if I bring a packed lunch.

Stargazing at the Museum of Science: We didn’t get the Museum of Science membership this past year but we still went once or twice. On July 8, you can have a peek out of their space telescope – one of several evenings a year when the planetarium is open to the public. Unfortunately, since it’s July, this is the latest viewing evening of the year – the stars don’t come out until 9 p.m. So I’m not sure if the kids will be up for this one, but I certainly am interested and I’d love to go one day. Next year we will try to hit one of the Spring or Fall viewings instead when the sun sets earlier.

Splash Pad Parks: There’s a brand new one just a few blocks from us, but you can find one near you by checking the city’s list. I just heard that the Barrhaven ones will be open on weekends, so there’s sure to be one near you no matter where you live. We can easily spend the whole day, getting wet, getting dry, snacking, swinging, getting wet, getting dry, repeat. I even like it better than the beach – no open water, and plenty of shady spots for parents to rest.

Saunders Farm: I just love The Farm. It’s one of the more expensive trips on this list, but I consider it a can’t miss. My kids could literally spend all day just playing on their big pirate ship play structure, but beyond that, there’s also puppet shows, giant slides, a splash pad, and OH THE MAZES. I just LOVE the mazes. Although, we may skip the Mile Maze this year if we want to be home before dark; and a warning to those with very young children, do NOT attempt to bring a stroller into the mazes. DO NOT. One more thing: bring some crayons for rubbings – you won’t regret it.

AMC Morning Movies – I’m so bitter about this one. Last year, AMC had Summer Movie Camp where kids could see a movie on Tuesday mornings for just $1. They’ve discontinued the program for this year, though, hence the BITTER. Still, they do have morning pricing – $6 for movies that start before noon – so I’m sure to take the kids to the movies at least once or twice this summer. What with a new Cars movie, new Kung Fu Panda, and new Winnie the Pooh, how could I stay away?

CHEO Teddy Bear’s Picnic – This is something I swear we will go to every year, and yet we always seem to miss it. It’s usually in June and June is a crazy busy month for us. But this year is our year, oh yes. It’s on Saturday, June 25 at the Governor General’s mansion, and there will be food, games, midway-style rides, and of course, the bear repair clinic – and I think it’s all free (some of the games might be a very minimal cost, I can’t recall). By coincidence we have been talking quite a bit about the Governor General around here lately – inspired by the election and the Royal Wedding – so this is a great chance for us to have some fun and see an Ottawa landmark at the same time. I’ve heard you have to get there EARLY if you want to avoid being overwhelmed by the crowd – it opens at 8 a.m.

Parliament Hill: Speaking of landmarks, my kids love Parliament Hill. This shocks me, I would have thought they’d be so bored there. If you recall from last year, the Changing Of The Guard was NOT a hit, we won’t be bothering with that this year, but wishing at the flame, going up the tower, looking for cats, and running around on the lawn are things that never get old. This year I’d like to try taking them on a tour – they’ll probably be bored out of their trees, but you never know.

Busker Festival: We lucked into this one last year. It’s on Sparks Street on the Civic Holiday weekend. Tons of entertaining, fun shows all up and down the street, all weekend long – and you pay what you see fit. Our kids were dazzled by sword swallowers, super strong women, kids on unicycles, and magicians. Give each kid a pocket full of twoonies, slather them with sunscreen, and let ’em loose.

National Art Gallery: Oh, how I love the gallery. You can’t have too many expectations when you go there with little kids – they’re into running around, not sitting and absorbing. However, if you’re not too committed to quietly enjoying art yourself, you can still have a great time checking out the modern art galleries (at high speed) and talking about what it means for something to be “art.” The Gallery is free on Canada day, but if you can’t make it that day, try a Saturday or Sunday morning. All summer long they’ll be running their popular Artissimo program, weekends at 11 a.m., and your kids can make a truly amazing and beautiful piece of art to take home.

Canada Day: And speaking of Canada Day, it’s A. Big. Deal. here in Ottawa, which means you can’t turn around without some kind of festival/concert/event happening under your nose. We usually do Canada Day In Kanata, which features free bouncy castles, fire trucks, and music all day (this year, Sloan is the headliner, one of my most favourite bands EVER). For a fee you can do things like face painting and midway rides. We haven’t actually ever taken the kids downtown – Sir Monkeypants and I CANNOT stand the crowds – but we have friends visiting this year who are interested in that so…we may risk it. If you don’t hear from me after July 1, you know I’m trapped downtown somewhere near the Terry Fox statue. SEND HELP.

Nature Walks: Here’s something cheap that we don’t do enough of: walk in the green belt. We live within walking distance of several forest paths and my kids alternate between loving it and being scared out of their minds. Overall, though, I think it’s a positive experience and they especially love bringing fruit and seeds to leave for the animals. We also always come home with a variety of leaves for pressing and pinecones and sticks to use for crafts. It’s nice and cool in there, even on the hottest day, and I kind of want to go there RIGHT NOW.

Public swimming: We don’t have a pool, so we take full advantage of the city pools all summer long. Last year we tried to go once a week to our local outdoor pool, plus the kids took swimming lessons on a daily basis for a couple of weeks. It’s a great way to get wet for very minimal cost – lessons at the outdoor pool were almost criminally inexpensive. We’ll be doing this again for sure.

Britannia Beach: My kids are OBSESSED with the beach. It’s like some sort of mystical nirvana. Up until this year I’ve been very nervous about taking them by myself and I always chicken out, but this year the bigger two are more confident in the water, so it’s on. Plus, I think I can rope a few friends into coming along so we can share the lifeguard/snack serving/bathroom taking duties. A get-together AND beach fun – for free? AWESOME. You can check the daily water quality of the city’s beaches here.

RCMP Musical Ride: This one is on my list every year. And we never go. And we probably won’t this year, either. The problem is that it’s a sunset ride, and in late June (when they are in Ottawa), that means the show isn’t starting until 9 p.m. – way too late for my little ones. However, you can go and visit the stables any time, and we might do that – the Little Miss is starting to get really into horses, and I think it would be interesting to see how she handles seeing them in real life. (Of course, that probably means that by this time next year we will own a pony. Maybe I will rethink this one.)

Camping: Camping is cheap. However, camping is also dirty, gross, and bug-infested. Man, do I EVER hate camping. I can’t think of anything I enjoy less. So guess what we will be doing this summer! Bingo, CAMPING. The kids have bugged and bugged (ha ha! Pun intented!) to go camping because a) they are obsessed with collecting sticks, and b) there is a Mystical Nirvana Beach there. So Sir Monkeypants and I decided to suck it up and we have booked a weekend of camping, SO HELP US GOD. If I end up enjoying it…I won’t be admitting it. So camp away at your own risk.

Farmer’s Markets: I am obsessed myself with farmer’s markets. My mom used to take us girls when we were kids and it was a special treat, a trip full of yummy food and amazing things to see. I tried to take the kids last year to the Carp Market and it was one big whine-fest. That won’t stop me from trying again this year, though! I will never give up, never! Don’t forget, if you’re trying this one, to bring lots of cash – most stalls can’t take plastic – and resign yourself to the fact that something deep-fried and on a stick WILL be purchased.

Ray’s Reptiles: Every year one of my kids becomes newly obsessed with reptiles. This year it’s Gal Smiley, so we’ll be heading off to Ray’s, like we do every year (usually several times a year) to see the snakes, turtles, and birds. It’s a totally interactive place, with lots of hands-on shows, and worth it for any age. It’s a small place so it’s perfect for a rainy morning or afternoon.

Mont Cascades: With the opening of Calypso last year, Mont Cascades got some water park competition. As a result they’ve really dropped their price – just $13 per person. It’s not exactly cheap, but it’s a lot less expensive than a day at the water park would have been just a couple of years ago. With splash pads and pools all over the place, I’m not sure this is a must-do – not to mention the fact that I’m quite nervous about taking three kids to a high-excitement water-based attraction by myself as it is – but it’s on my list for consideration.

The Expensive Stuff: I also have lots of more expensive places on my list – likely we will pick at most one or two of these places to visit this summer, but I wish we could do them all, so I thought I’d mention them. Last year, Cosmic Adventures was one of our biggest hits of the summer, but it is CRAZY expensive – budget at least $100 if your visit will include a meal. Still, it might be worth it for a rainy day, or, it’s a great place to go if you have friends visiting because the adults can actually sit and talk while the kids go nuts. We usually go to the Papanack Zoo once a year, and I love it there, but we might take a pass this year only because we’ve been there often and there’s so much more to see. As an alternative, we might consider Parc Omega, which is a more interactive animal adventure, and I’ve heard it’s great. I have never seen the appeal of Upper Canada Village but MyFriendJen raves about her trip from last year, so it’s now on my list of possibilities. I’m really serious about doing the Wakefield Steam Train this year, IT WILL HAPPEN, and on a rainy day, we might consider doing a splatter paint session at 4Cats. Lastly, we’re hoping to go back to Marineland this year – it doesn’t quite count as a local attraction, but our kids still talk about the whales and dolphins (I think they consider the animals there their own personal pets), and Disney is still years away so this is a great alternative for us.

WHEW. I am tired just typing this all out!

If you’re planning a Summer of Awesome like this, one thing I do recommend is planning. Most of these make great day trips but you can’t just wake up one morning and decide to go (well, I can’t, anyway). It helps to know when you get up in the morning that here’s where we’re going, here’s what food we’ll need, here’s what the kids need to wear, and here’s when we want to get there.

Plus, I find we can only handle two or three of these activities at most per week – the rest of the time is just playing in the park, filling the wading pool in the backyard, or having friends over for popsicles. So if you want to fit it all in, organize your list then actually book it on the calendar – a couple per week all the way out to September. That way, it actually will happen.

Oh yes, IT WILL. Have an awesome summer!

FameThrowa sent me a fantastic link on the weekend. Apparently the City of Ottawa is now taking a much wider range of plastics in our blue boxes.

As you may know, I am obsessive about what can and can’t go in our blue and black boxes. Some might even say judgemental. It’s not so much about “saving the earth” or whatever, it’s much more about my need to follow the rules. The rules are there for a reason! They must be obeyed! OBEY THE RULES, PEOPLE.

I think it’s great news that more can go in the blue box now. It’s not going to be a huge saver in terms of diverted waste, but the city is hoping that by removing some restrictions it will make recycling easier for people, and more people will participate in the program at a general level.

Does anyone actually not recycle anymore? Seriously?

Anyway…here’s what they are now taking (probably not a complete and exhaustive list, but hopefully giving you the idea):

Plastics

IN – any food, beverage, or toiletry container marked with the recycling symbol and any number from 1 through 7 in the middle; margarine or yogurt tubs and their lids; individual sized yogurt or applesauce containers; plastic containers used to package produce like strawberries or lettuce, or used to hold baking-area cookies or eggs, that sort of thing; flower flats and pots; and pails from pool supplies (please remove metal handle).

OUT – plastic bags; styrofoam including meat trays; plastic bubble packaging (like when you buy something and it has a cardboard backing, with a plastic part glued to the front to hold the item inside – the cardboard can go in the black box but the plastic part is garbage); any hard plastic toys or kitchenware, makeup bottles, motor oil bottles.

Metals

IN – cans of all kinds; metal lids from glass jars; frozen juice containers, pringles tubes, and anything else with a metal end; tin foil that has been rinsed clean; metal trays from take-out that have been rinsed clean (but the cardboard lids are garbage).; paint cans that have been cleaned out; aerosol cans like for hairspray or whipping cream (news to me, too!)

OUT – hangers, pots and pans, screws and hardware, electronics, appliances, and generally anything else made of metal.

Glass

IN – jars and bottles of all kinds and colours.

OUT – glasses, plates, bowls, and kitchen baking dishes, light bulbs, windows, any broken pieces.

Other Cartons

IN – milk and juice cartons; tetra packs for drinks, soup, milk.

So, let’s get to it!

Little Miss Sunshine is a talker. By that I mean every single thought that goes through her head comes out her mouth. She thinks it, she says it.

It sometimes gets very chattery around here.

I’ve stopped listening to the radio in the car because it’s way too distracting to have two voices talking at me at once. There’s no possible way for her to turn it off, so asking for silence is asking too much.

Today I picked her up from preschool and on the way home she said all of this without pausing or taking a breath:

AND SO ON.

She’s even like this when she’s by herself. She’s very introverted, and she’ll go in the playroom to play by herself (I am NOT invited), and then she’ll sit there and voice every little scene in her small dramas.

AND SO ON.

It’s adorable. I sometimes have to cut her off – mostly when trying to park the car – but otherwise I try to let her prattle on as much as possible. It’s fascinating to see the inside of a three year old mind, laid bare for anyone to hear. Her world is my world, completely.

I’ll sure miss the background noise when she goes to school in the fall. Maybe this explains why my mother always had to have the radio on at home – she couldn’t stand the quiet. I was a talker too, and she must have gotten used to it.

Me too.

This post is for Brie’s series of Mommy Moments over at Capital Mom. This week’s theme was talking.

My friend Lee Ann has two sons in their early 20s. The older of her sons has just bought a small house with his lady love. They’re fixing it up for a few weeks before moving in – new paint, new bathroom, face lift for the kitchen cabinets. Lee Ann and her husband are going to spend the weekend helping them work on the place, and hopefully the young couple will be moving in by mid-month.

Hearing about these two kids starting out on their life together made me surprisingly emotional. I don’t even know them, and yet I misted up thinking of young people, full of hope and dreams, fixing up their first place, taking the first small step to creating a family of their own. I thought of my own first place with Sir Monkeypants, how excited we were to have a home of our own. I can even chuckle over that big fight we had over which drawer to keep the computer cables in (…almost).

Then it hit me: I am old. I have moved from the young person generation to the Mom Generation. I’ve become one of those ladies who wear hats to weddings and clutch handkerchiefs to their chests as they marvel at The Beauty Of Youth. I am a woman who smiles beatifically at young couples, telling them completely embarrassing things like cherish this time and you’ll always remember this moment and you have your whole lives ahead of you. BLECH.

I know I turned 40 this year but the truth is, I don’t usually feel old. I remember my own mother at this age but in my mind, I am nothing like that. I’m still hip, still cool, still fun. When I’m blowing bubbles for the kids in the backyard and making snack for soccer and laughing with the girls at poker, I still feel like I’m part of the Young Generation.

But it seems that my mother and I have been getting closer and closer without me noticing. There’s a fuzzy grey line out there between a life that is beginning, and a life that is at the middle, and sometime in there, I passed it. My life as a twentysomething can only be seen through a haze of romantic nostalgia. I now look fondly on Young People and want to pat their heads and give them hugs and wish them luck. And offer them advice on how to tile a bathroom.

For the first time, I really noticed that I’m not young anymore. But I also noticed that all that I hoped and dreamed of as a young person is now here – a beautiful family, the skills to make pie, the confidence to speak to strangers, the knowledge that it’s okay if I can’t please everyone all the time. Something is lost with the coming of my new age group (now checking the box for age 40-55 on government forms!), but plenty has been gained, too.

So to the young couple – I wish you well. Cherish this time. You’ll always remember this moment.

See you when you catch up to my generation.

Oh my heavens, I feel like I haven’t been by the internet in about a thousand years. It’s actually been more than a week, which really IS a thousand years in blogging time. This June is just knocking me down and kicking me around. My calendar is FULL. I mean, booked for every second of every day from now until mid-July. It is CRAZY.

I was going to list here all the things I have to do this month but it was incredibly tedious, even for me, and I’m living it. Every day I have at least 10 items on my to-do list, and these are not casual, nice-to-have, work-on-my-personal-growth kind of things, these are MUST DO, last possible day, have to get done NOW kind of things.

The Busy-Ness is totally interfering with my planned blog posts, which include a second year of the Summer Of Awesome (YES) and a series on Myers-Briggs codes, because I am obsessed, and of course, Dance Show Commentary, plus numerous craft and birthday party posts (the little one is turning four, FOUR). And it will happen, DAMMIT, if I have to give up many many nights of sleep.

One thing that has been taking a bit of my time is gardening. I am NOT a gardener, in fact I kill plants on a regular basis. But last year Sir Monkeypants and I got tired of living in the only house on the block with zero landscaping – it was the outdoor equivalent of the mismatched university-era IKEA furniture that we still have in several rooms of the house – so we had a fabulous company (shoutout: Dutch Landscaping!) come in and build us some lovely walkways and flower beds.

Now is the time to fill those beds with something other than dirt, and my good friend Lee Ann did us a HUGE favour by designing all our flower beds – picking out the plants based on colour, hardiness, and appropriateness for sun/shade, and deciding where everythingn would go. I would have had NO idea. On top of that, she even took me shopping to get everything which was even HUGER, the nurseries are SO intimidating what with the plants, plants, and more plants all over the place, and latin names being thrown around willy-nilly, and it’s all just so OVERWHELMING.

So I’ve been shopping, then planting, then shopping, then mulching, then shopping, then pulling up more sod to make a new bed because now I have The Fever, then shopping, then planting. Everything article of clothing I own is DIRTY.

But it is lovely. And I am happy.

I even put in a small vegetable garden for the second year running. It already has wee little plants in it. I continue to be amazed, just amazed, at how you can throw seeds in the ground and water them and voila!, food. It’s a miracle, literally. Speaking of miracles, our next-door-neighbours have a robin’s nest in the rafters of their play structure, and the four little blue eggs in it hatched a few days ago. Between baby bird watching and baby vegetables growing and gardens taking root, I’m feeling rather misty-eyed with the Circle of Life these days.

It’s so nice to have a little rooting in this crazy, windy, wild June. Summer really is awesome.

A few years ago, FameThrowa was working at a company who were trying to launch a new internet site. It was a link sharing site, and you could log into it and post up links of stuff you really liked, with a comment. Then your friends could visit your links and comment back.

It never got past the alpha testing phase, but when it was finally ready for some (gentle) testing, they were looking for users to fill it up with data. So FameThrowa got me and Mrs. Carl Sagan on there, and we started a board for Etsy links we wanted to share with each other. Soon, 95% of the entire data in the site had been generated by either me, Mrs. Carl Sagan, or FameThrowa, talking about Etsy. Every day (oh who am I kidding, SEVERAL times a day) we’d log in there to see if there was anything new, and we’d drool over each other’s finds.

Let’s just say that until the site went under, not a lot of housework got done at the Turtlehead or Sagan homes, shall we?

So now, along comes Pinterest. It’s basically the same thing, except it’s a highly visual site, so you can only include links to things that have a pretty pretty picture. Then it takes all your pretty pretty pictures of pretty pretty things and makes a pretty pretty home page full of the things you love.

Oh my lands, it’s like pretty thing CRACK. I am already addicted.

And of course, the first person I wanted on there was Mrs. Carl Sagan, and after about five minutes of looking at my Pinterest page she could no longer resist. Now we are swapping Etsy links (and others, it’s not just about Etsy) several times a day, and when we’re not pinning things we are searching the internet for more things to pin, and OH MY, the virtual shopping is heavenly.

I predict a very dirty house for the next several weeks. Or months. Or years.

You can see my page of pretty things here. If you want to join, I can invite you. If you do join, send me your page so we can all go down this rabbit hole together.