Midnight musings

    I hate it when i fall asleep on the couch, wake up and it's like 2:00 in the morning.  I could go back to bed, but it's so quiet and peaceful.  It's the perfect time to think or do something around the house without being disturbed, but i know I'm going to pay for it in the morning.
  I was creeping on Facebook tonight looking at pictures that people have posted-(i don't know why I feel guilty when people post it for you to see!) just thinking how fast the time is going by.  I always seem to do this at the beginning of school and at the end of school year for the girls.  I once had a conversation with my dad, telling him how I felt that life was going by so fast- sometimes too fast and that I wished I could slow it down - like when I was a kid.  He told me that he remembers feeling that way- especially when we were younger (my brother sister and I), and that for him, life eventually began to slow down again when he became a grandparent.  So...I guess i have something to look forward to.
   Today I decided at the last minute to go on a field trip with Allison's class to Elk Island National park.  Personally, for a national park, it wasn't all that impressive for me.  In fact, it was quite the let down to be perfectly honest.  Sure we saw bison - like three, but it was mostly trees and bush.  The "lake" was a big dirty big pond with tons of leeches in it. To me, a lake is a body of water that you can swim in.  If you can't swim in it, it's just not worthy to have such a title.
  Our first activity was to go on the dock and each parent had a station and groups of kids would go from station to station with their butterfly nets dipping them in the water and emptying the contents in the basin.  My station was apparently the one with the leeches and egg sacks, sadly no frogs, but lots of tadpoles. Other stations were catching minnows and frogs, nice things, but now I had to get the one with the gross stuff.  I made the mistake of revealing to one little boy how disgusted I was with the leech that he found - it was at least 5 inches long and half an inch wide in one part. He chased me, put the net right up to my face...it was awful and he was so delighted with my reaction.  horrible!
   I don't think it helped that the day before I was flipping through the channels when there was some story that caught my eye about how hospitals use leeches to get rid of excess blood to body parts that are swollen and won't drain the blood properly.  Did you know that they have three little jaws and bite in the shape of a "Y"?  I didn't and that wasn't comforting to know when it was crawling around in this little girls net asking me how to get it out.  I just wanted to tell her that the leech would never be coming out of her precious little net and that she should accept it and just throw the net in the water, let it sink and not worry about it!  I was hoping that the teacher would have picked up on my terrible discomfort, and hopefully relieve me from my station but he didn't and we ended up doing this for 45 minutes!  Oh the things we do for our kids!
  I would have been happy not knowing what was in the water, though I have to admit, it was amazing to find out how full of life it was.  On the surface the water looked so dull and placid, but if you looked our basin, it was teaming with life.  Being by the water made me long for home. There is a fresh water lake at least 30 minutes in each direction and each one is swim-worthy!  (Not to mention the rivers and creeks also.)
   I'm hoping to get home to Prince George this summer.  This is the longest that I've been away - a whole year!  I'm trying to make plans with mom, but our schedules are just not working out so easily.  Mom wants to go hiking in the ancient forest- something that I've wanted to do since college.  I found this book in the library once, when i was 16 about hiking.  I was very big into it because i had just come back from Mongolia, and had to buy alot of my supplies for the trip at the army surplus store (camping store).  I was itching for information on anything that had to do with the subject.  I read a book by a couple who had hiked the Appalachian mountain range in Eastern US with their baby. (I thought it was very impressive, until i had a baby of my own- and that was a different story!  I never let Haley be exposed to the elements till she was about 10 months, before she totally covered up, over-layered and always indoors.)  I read another book about hiking in the Rockies - daytrips around Jasper. I loved reading how each author packed for their trips and the tips they had for survival in the elements.
  Anyways one day i found a book written by the College of New Caledonia hiking group- the college in Prince George.  They had made maps of all the local trails and rated their difficulty.  There was explanations for what to expect and if you needed a compass - which apparently you need one on some of the trails - they are that unspoiled. I found it so exciting, because it was something new for me to explore, because I felt like I knew Prince George, and found everything there was to know about it. I think I rode almost every back trail at least once.

So.... I was waiting till I was either old enough to go by myself, had some friends who wanted to do it with or have a husband to take me.  Well, when i got old enough I was too busy with other things - like jobs and didn't quite make enough money to buy myself a car.  Of all my friends only on liked hiking and that was Bridget.  We were separated for a year because she went to Bible School and I was stranded in PG.  When it switched, I went to Bible school and she stayed home, well she ended up finding a husband.  Well, I did find a husband- that first summer at Bible school actually, but he was such a city boy that camping/hiking didn't have much of an appeal unless you had a tent trailer and HOW would we afford a tent trailer?!  I'm slowly easing him into it, and he's coming around, but when it comes to summer time sometimes it's just not fast enough for me.
   I should really go to bed.  It's nice to know that I don't have to get up if I don't want to.  Get all stressed because someone can't find a matching pair of socks, or there is no school snacks because Allison ate them all, or better yet, have to run to Walmart to buy milk at 6:30 because there is none!  Those mornings are done for, at least for a couple months.
  I feel good. There has been times when the end of school year fog has lifted and I was unhappy with how little I had accomplished with the kids and how fast they are growing.  I'm happy to report that I'm content.  I'm thinking it's because I'm busy doing things that make me happy, instead of waiting for them to happen one day.  I'm putting in the effort daily instead of being passive hoping that one day I'll be able to accomplish.  And anything that I haven't done, well i feel that there is still time and we definitely have another school year to start over brand new.  I can't give up....too much living to do.

A Woman Should Have...

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....


enough money within her control to move out

and rent a place of her own even if she never wants

to or needs to...

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....

something perfect to wear if the employer or date of her

dreams wants to see her in an hour...

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ...

a youth she's content to leave behind....

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....

a past juicy enough that she's looking forward to

retelling it in her old age....

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .....

a set of screwdrivers, a cordless drill, and a black

lace bra...

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....

one friend who always makes her laugh... and one who

lets her cry...

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....

a good piece of furniture not previously owned by anyone

else in her family...

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....

eight matching plates, wine glasses with stems, and a

recipe for a meal that will make her guests feel honored...

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....

a feeling of control over her destiny...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...

how to fall in love without losing herself..

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...

HOW TO QUIT A JOB,

BREAK UP WITH A LOVER,

AND CONFRONT A FRIEND WITHOUT RUINING THE FRIENDSHIP...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...

when to try harder... and WHEN TO WALK AWAY...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...

that she can't change the length of her calves,

the width of her hips, or the nature of her parents..

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...

that her childhood may not have been perfect...but it's over...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...

what she would and wouldn't do for love or more...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...

how to live alone... even if she doesn't like it...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...

whom she can trust,

whom she can't,

and why she shouldn't

take it personally...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...

where to go...

be it to her best friend's kitchen table...

or a charming inn in the woods...

when her soul needs soothing...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...

what she can and can't accomplish in a day...

a month...and a year..."

— Pamela Redmond Satra

Israel.. recap.

It's crazy how fast life can go from boring to exciting in a second..and then back to boring again.  I can't believe how much I've done in just a couple months.  It all seems like a dream...too good to be true. Israel was better than I thought it would be.  I didn't let myself expect too much because I usually - with my crazy big imagination get let down.  For instance, there was this trip that Brian and I took back to Ontario.  It was the first time back since we left and I was so excited...looked forward to it for months.  I thought about all the people I would see..thinking that nothing had changed, that all the friends I had would still be there...but they weren't.  They had all moved away.  I didn't get to go the places that I wanted to because i was dependent on my husband's family.  And well their idea of entertainment wasn't mine. It was such a let down in so many ways.  So I learned not to get my hopes up and have healthy expectations that way I don't get disappointed.

Well, I have to admit that looking at books and websites I started to get really excited. Talking to friends who had gone, looking at their pictures I was able to be convinced that maybe what I read in the travel book could possibly be true.  It was weird sitting in the Edmonton airport at midnight, all by myself, waiting for my plane to board.  I'm always surrounded by people and if I'm not, I always have something that I have to do.  It was weird to just sit and wait and not have a computer in front of me.  I have to say that I had a hard time with it, but by the morning I eased right into it.  I met my mom in Toronto airport and we had breakfast together and just talked.  If that's all I had done, I would have been happy.  But no, I got to go to another country and see a different culture.  While I was there for the first few days, I enjoyed myself, but by the end of the 10 days, I didn't want to leave.   I silently protested on the beach...hoping that it would convince the to sun to not set and that my time there would never end.  But sadly no...and here I write.

Toronto Airport

Catching up with mom....

A glimpse of what lies ahead. (I miss seeing signs in Hebrew)

First glimpse of Tel Aviv after 12 hours of waiting.

We made it!

The Via Dolorsa

Jerusalem  - old city

Church of the Holy Sepulchre 

Jerusalem - Jewish quarter

Church of the Nativity - Bethlehem 

The Dead Sea from Masada 

The big wall - Bethlehem

Via Dolorsa - Jerusalem

Old City market - Jerusalem

boy, that guy has a really big gun.

shopping in the market

catching up with old friends. 

We used to live in the same apartment building a floor apart in Ontario.

Happy Camel.

Garden of Gethsemane

Jerusalem

by the wailing wall

Tel Aviv - 

Ceasarea Martima - 

Mom and I in the Mediterranean

Sunset on the Mediterranean

I hope I can go back...if not, I'm happy to have had the chance to go and I'll always have the memories.