This Too Shall Pass

My brother-in-law tested positive for COVID last week after experiencing a fever and flu-like symptoms. He waited a while before getting tested because it seemed so unlikely it could be COVID given how careful he and my sister have been (she tested negative). They both work from home and only go out when necessary because …

Tis the Season

I never saw myself as a person who'd have my pet's picture taken with Santa but that's who I've become. Our neighbour hosted a 'Pet Pics with Santa' session for about a dozen of the neighbourhood dogs so, in the spirit of Christmas and neighbourliness, we headed over for our scheduled timeslot. Juno when we …

Settling in

Have you ever met someone you really didn't like right from the start but then they do something totally out of character that forces you to change your opinion of them? You assume that because they've always been miserable in the past, that's how they'll always be? I've said a lot of nasty things about …

Friends don’t let friends rent with U-Haul

When we told our neighbour we were renting a U-Haul to move, he said, "friends don't let friends rent with U-Haul", then told us a couple of horror stories from his own experiences with the company. We looked into other rental companies, but U-Haul was the only one that offered one-way rentals, so we went …

A Change of Season

Nick's home for Thanksgiving weekend and we're in the this-is-the-last-time phase of moving - the last Thanksgiving we'll spend in this house, the last backyard bonfire, the last family walk through the greenbelt. I was pregnant with Nick when we moved in here so it's a strange feeling. The house is mostly purged and we're …

Summer’s End

Some days I want to just curl up and watch reruns of The West Wing and pretend it's the real world for a while. Sticking your head in the sand isn't necessarily a bad idea when you're in the middle of a shit storm. Self preservation. I haven’t provided an update on Nick in a …

The Choices We Make

Ray and I are a good example of the ‘opposites attract’ theory. He’s friendly and talkative, I’m quiet and reserved. He’s fit and active, I’m more cerebral (my sister’s reading this thinking, “she means lazy”…which is fair). When it comes to everyday life, Ray’s a doer and I’m more of a thinker. He’s energetic and …

The things we keep

I've been having a hard time finding the energy to write a post lately. I feel like we need to revise our scale for how we're doing - struggling, surviving, coping. I mean, is anyone actually doing great these days? To clarify, is anyone sober and doing great. I suspect everyone is feeling some degree …

…in which my sister falls out of a canoe and my brother gets married in a car

Back in January, Ray and I booked a cottage in Brighton for the first week in August. We'd planned to use the time to see Nick, who would be spending the summer at an engineering firm in Burlington. It would also allow us to check out Brighton and surroundings to see if it was somewhere …

We bought a house!

Two days after our nail-biting house-selling experience, Ray and I drove to Brighton to view a few places. The first two, despite looking good online, were instantly ruled out because of heavy traffic noise. The third, our favourite going in, was just as nice in real life as we'd imagined it to be. We love …