This Week

Happy Friday, blogging pals! It’s been forever since I put together a post like this and it feels a little strange. But also great. I always enjoyed sharing tidbits of life in this small city.

Where to start... Well, let’s start with how the long break began.

As many of my longtime blogging friends know, we moved to this area last February after we sold our house in Kingston, a city that we loved and lived in for 8 beautiful years. The house selling took forever, totally stressed us out and left us exhausted. As for the new house, it was a mess. Every inch of it needed some work, which left us exhausted since we did everything ourselves. When we finally caught up and felt like we could relax a little, our cat Nacho left us suddenly in January, and that really knocked the wind out of us.

Because we’d been on the ‘go go go’ for so long, I didn’t realize what a toll it had taken on my physical, mental and emotional health. Sometime in the spring, I began to lose motivation and really slow down. Trying to keep up with things became difficult and I didn’t really care to. And this blog felt more like a chore than a place to connect and have fun. I began to resent its very presence. That’s when I knew that a break was necessary, so I took it and it did me wonders. My only concern was whether I’d ever feel like returning here again. Thankfully I did ‘cause here I am!

And that’s the blog break...

What else? We had the summer from hell. It was horribly hot and humid from the beginning of June through to the end of August, and much of the start of September. To top it all off, our car’s air conditioning quit sometime in May. It couldn’t have chosen a worst summer to do so! The most amazing man in the world who is also the handiest tried to fix it but couldn’t. And since we are planning on buying a new car this fall, we didn’t want to spend a crap load of money repairing it at a garage, so we just had to live with the problem. What was the result of summer from hell and no auto air conditioning? Being prisoners in our home more often than not. Rumour has it that one of us – and I won’t name names or point fingers – almost went stark raving mad.

Speaking of cars, we really are in the market for a new one and we’ve been visiting dealerships for the past few weeks. We plan to purchase by the end of October, at the latest. And let me tell you, we’ll be so happy when it’s all over. I cannot stand shopping for a car any more than I can stand shopping for a house. The whole process is stressful.


And finally, here’s the most exciting thing of the year. My younger daughter is fulfilling a lifelong dream. When she was about 7 or 8, she announced that one day she’d go live in New Zealand. And you know what? She made it happen, at least for a short period. As I write this, she is an exchange student in that enchanting country. She got there in the beginning of July and she’ll be returning to Ottawa at the beginning of November. This is the most exciting adventure of her young life! This eternal optimist who lives life passionately and determinedly doesn’t just dream about what she wants, she makes those dreams come true. Here is one of the adventures she experienced recently as a temporary ‘Kiwi’.

Taking the plunge with an equally crazy adventurous friend.

Yup, bungee jumping! Talk about living life boldly. I could never in a million years do this. Okay, maybe if someone offered me a million dollars. But that’s it.

Anyhow, I could keep going on but I’ll stop right here. I thank you all for the warm welcomes earlier this week and wish you a wonderful weekend!