I spuddle. » Silent Sunday

Silent Sunday. Yes, REALLY Silent. I say NOTHING. OK, I will say that our front steps need painting, as you can see.

Karen — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 06:00:39 +0000

Silent Sunday. Yes, I KNOW it’s Tuesday. My bad.

Karen — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 18:39:42 +0000

So we went camping on Galiano. I have a million pictures and I have uploaded these four because everything takes me forever and I was really busy this morning choosing products to give away on this site. Stay tuned for more on that. There’s been a lot of talk about giveaways on blogs lately and whatnot and the way I see it is that if some website wants to give me stuff to give to YOU, why not? You deserve prizes for reading my blog as far as I’m concerned and although I’d be happy to give you my own crap, probably better if you get BRAND NEW STUFF from someone else. Everyone likes to win things, right?

HECK YES.

Anyway, pictures:

The kids had a great time in the water. I treasure all pictures of them looking happy and loving because then I can superimpose these pictures in my mind over the reality of punching, hitting, kicking, scratching and random biting that occurs when one of them does something that the other does not like, such as shouting the phrase “CRUSTY CRACKERS!” repeatedly until my ears start to bleed and I start hitting, kicking, scratching and randomly biting my self.

The sunsets from Montague Harbour are unbelievable. Go there. Even though the spell checker wants me to take out the ‘u’. But I refuse, Spell Checker, because I AM CANADIAN ™!*

From a distance, he looks like he’s being gentle and kind** so let’s pretend that’s what was happening. We were drinking wine from large red cups. Elegant, no?

This may be my favourite picture of all time. LOOK AT THAT SUNSET. Holy crap.

* (Although I don’t drink that awful beer.)

** Actually, I think he was, it wasn’t his fault that the snap on the helmet caught the skin on her chin and screaming ensued.

Five Thing Friday + Silent Sunday + Grace in Small Things = This Post.

Karen — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 18:54:10 +0000

What? What happened? One minute, I was watching The Bachelorette (so it must have been Monday) and next I looked up and, BAM, it was Saturday. It must have been a busy week. Or not. I do not recall any of it. It’s possible I have amnesia or just didn’t do anything. Actually, I did do some stuff. I did some actual writing of a book, which leads me to believe that I may actually finish it someday. I did some reading of other people’s books. I spent a bunch of time outside with the kids. I tried to figure out why my Nikon D80 overexposes everything when in automatic settings. I dumped all the stuff out of my closet in an attempt to sort it and then stuffed it all back in again when I didn’t get it done in a timely manner, i.e. I was tired of tripping on it at the top of the stairs. I vacuumed the thick layer of dust off the kids’ bedroom floors because it was disgusting. Ta da! It was like a real life in which I wasn’t attached at the lap to this MacBook which was nice and probably a nice break for my girly parts which are probably getting radiation sickness from the constant battery heat. And believe me when I say that the girly parts are in enough disrepair without being victimized by gamma rays or what have you.

Onwards. I missed the following: Five Thing Friday. Silent Sunday. Grace in Small Things. And posting in general. So here are Five Silent Things That Grace My Life. This should fill the void left by my silence or at least give you something to read when you should be doing something else, such as your work or tending to your toenails. I warn you that I will be completely silent all of next week because I am not turning on this computer even one time. Not once. Zero. I love you all, and I will miss you, but I will not miss things like the grotesque picture of the man-dog-goat-thing that Clayton just sent me or the seven hours a day I spend reading random twitter streams for no reason. I’M ON A BREAK!

1. OK, here’s the first one because OMG how cute. They were getting ready for bed and The Bun said, “QUICK GET THE CAMERA THIS WILL BE REALLY CUTE!” Which was weird because, um, what? Anyway, it WAS cute. They both picked their nose but I won’t post that one and then they had this big hug, or “huggy” as we call them around here because you don’t really get much opportunity in your life to talk baby talk so you should do it when you actually have baby-like people around, and then stop when you start to irritate yourself. HUGGY.

2. We have been trying for what feels like 1000 years to take The Bun and The Birdy out to Saanich Historical Artifacts Society to ride the little trains. Every time we go, the trains are not running in spite of the fact that — like last weekend — it said in the paper that they were. For some reason The SHAS exists in a tiny pocket of geography wherein it is 26 degrees hotter than everywhere else in a ten mile radius. Nothing improves the experience of driving for half an hour with over-excited kids to a mosquito infested acreage criss-crossed with fascinating train tracks THAT NO TRAINS EVER SEEM TO RUN ON than a heat so intense that taking four steps in any direction causes you to faint from heatstroke. Needless to say, The Bun was determined to enjoy his day at the “train place” (regardless of the fact that the elderly gentleman tinkering with one of the coveted trains-that-can-be-ridden-upon had NO idea if or when the trains may ever run again though he thought that Bill had taken a few kids out on one earlier maybe or he wasn’t really sure if at all), so we did what any fun family would do: we walked around the tiny train track.

3. After the train place, we were desperate for fresh sea air in the hopes that we may cool down. We decided to go to a beach we used to take Malcolm to when he was wee, called Roberts Bay. I LOVE this beach. The water is warm and healthy and full of interesting sea life. There is a sand bar, lots of crabs living under rocks, shade, herons and a lot of boat traffic to observe, if by “observe”, I mean scream, “A BOAT A BOAT HI BOAT HIIIIIII BOATTTTT!” every time one goes by. The kids got soaked but it was worth it. Next time, we may go ahead and bring something like “bathing suits” or “water shoes”. I don’t know though, that might be too radical.

4. Also this week, we spent a bunch of time hanging out in the backyard, which I like because I can lie in the shade on a lounge chair and read a trashy novel while the kids entertain themselves which is actually now a reality, at almost-2 and just-4. They actually PLAY, people. They do. Not always together and not always without biting and randomly pushing each other over by using the old palm-of-hand-on-nose technique, but it does happen. The Bun is into building stuff, like machines. Like this. Awesome. And look! Beside him! A trashy novel! And behind him! The garden! All good things.

5. OK, you’re going to look at this one and say, “Um, so?” But trust me, this is big. THIS is my backyard and THIS is a California poppy. For at least five years, I’ve planted California poppies at every house we’ve lived in. I’ve dumped packets of seeds into various types of dirt, in the sun, out of the sun, wherever. I’ve seen these things growing out of concrete on the highway, that’s how tough they are, but I’ve never EVER successfully made one come up in my garden. Then I was out watering a couple of days ago and highlighted against my dead lawn was THIS. Fo’ serious, people, I done did it. It’s a fluke because it came from a packet of assorted seeds I got from the counter at Butchart’s for 50cents because The Bun desperately wanted it and it did not come from any one of the ten packets of California poppy seeds I planted all over the rest of the garden, but stil: I iz poppy grower! For realz!

Silent Sunday, except it’s Thursday. Am I late or early? Does it matter? Because look how cute.

Karen — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:07:46 +0000

Silent-ish Sunday*: In Which I Let A Dozen Pretty Pictures From The Last Week Do The Talking.

Karen — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:59:27 +0000

So then I was like, “Hey, I could do something different on every day of the week! Structure roolz!” Even though I hate structure and immediately get anxious when one is imposed on me. Any kind of structure. Like places I have to be at a certain time, for example. Or things I have to do on certain days, such as Five Thing Friday or Silent-ish Sunday. But then I uploaded the pictures and made them sepia tinted Polaroids using the built in editing stuff on Flickr.com because for some reason I feel sentimental about sepia-tinted Polaroids as though I want to recall my kids growing up in the 1970s** when really they are growing up in the 2000s. (Is there a word for that, by the way? Because “the 2000s” is just awkward.) Then I liked the idea even more once it was done because seeing my little sepia-tinted kids reminds me both that they were jaundiced at birth and resembled carroty tadpoles and also that somewhere in my mum’s house are boxes and boxes of yellowing Polaroids of my own childhood, throughout which I wasn’t jaundiced but you wouldn’t know that from the pictures.

I thought I’d put these little gems on the blog and then NOT TALK about them for 1000 words because I have to do 1000 words of novel today and yesterday and, well, every day, so I can’t always be giving 1000 words to the blog because after all, how many words does one person have?

Enjoy!

* (This was going to be Sunday’s feature but then the uploader wasn’t working properly and the kids wanted to go to the beach and it was windy enough to fly kites and then we went for dinner at my parents’ house and, well, you know how it goes. So it’s still Sunday’s feature, it’s just a day late. Huzzah.) (I don’t even know what that means, I’ve just been saying it for about a week.) (Not non-stop or anything, that would be weird.)

** This may also explain why I’m so drawn to 1970s style long floral dresses and 1970s style wedge sandals and the book, The Valley of the Dolls. Also why I know (and love) all the lyrics to the songs of Mr. Neil Diamond.