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Maintaining is what I call this year. I survived my first year of working five days a week and although it was an adjustment at first, Cathleen and I recognize the work benefits with respect to completion of manuscripts and continuity in present projects.
We have one new grant this year evaluating strength in children with cerebral palsy. Each test takes about four hours and we see each child 5 times within a year, which keeps us really busy. We completed our Botox and Spinal Muscular Atrophy grants this year, bringing to completion a lot of work and satisfaction. We have one more year of working five days a week and then back to 4 or even 3 depending on the grant funding.
Quilting still remains a vital part of my spare time. I recently signed up for a class that teaches one skill a month for 9 months with the completion of a quilt at the end. This year I made a quilt for each of the girls. They designed their own pattern together and each girl chose their own fabric and it was amazing that despite the identical design, they look dramatically different from each other. I also made a quilt for the girls’ gymnastics team. This year they moved into a new space, which was lacking in character, so I had each girl design a square using their foot or their hand and put it together into a quilt. The girls did a great job on their squares, which enabled the quilt to come out so well.
Gymnastics consumes much of my spare time. As a typical mother with the gymnastics team I try and help out wherever I can and support the girls in their gymnastics endeavours. Since I spend many hours at meets it has allowed me to take up knitting again, you certainly need something to fill the 6 hour gymnastics meets.
The girls are becoming more enjoyable each year. They have really begun to do things with me this year. Art projects seem to consume major portions of our time whether it be beading, knitting, sewing (acutally picking out fabric mostly) or any other activity involving their creative sides seem to intrigue them. We have also spent more time cooking this year with each girl choosing a day once a month to create (with the help of mom or dad) the meal of their choice. It has been fun to see what they have chosen as their perfect meal, how many kids would choose fennel soup or crab cakes?
Remodeling of the house has been minimal on my part this year. At the beginning of the year I painted the dining and living rooms, however it wasn’t until the fall when the girls decided that they no longer wanted a playroom and needed an office that I painted their room for the second time in just over one year. It is a great lavender colour though and their design skills (thanks to many hours of watching "Trading Spaces") are quite good and the room looks great. My next project is to sew the duvet cover, bedskirt and curtains for the soon-to-be remodeled guest room and refinish the furniture that also goes in the room. Hopefully our contractor will take a long time since I put my completion date at the same time as his.
Although it seems that life is so busy with sooooo many obligations I am still trying to get in some workout time. I am trying to lift weights and run 2 times a week and continue my weekend walks with my friend and neighbour Dianne, however this year I added a body sculpting/Pilates class to the mix. Although I am not sure I see any body sculpting effects I am having fun and thoroughly enjoy the teacher and participants in the class.
Family has been an important part of this year. In August we celebrated my mothers 65th birthday (don’t let her know I told her age). We celebrated by crashing at her house for a week's vacation and although it was supposed to be a surprise we quickly learned that my mother is not quite as gullible as my father when it comes to surprises, but we had a great week of eating, drinking and spending time together anyway. This year has also brought some sad times as my sister Sharon combats uterine cancer. I went home for a week to spend some time with her and help out around the house. I am sure they were all happy to see me go as it will take them many weeks to figure out where I put things when I was cleaning the house. Although we are uncertain of how the outcome, our thoughts and prayers are with her and her family at this time.
With the increase in independence of the girls this year it has allowed Jim and I to spend more time together. We did some traveling to Vancouver and Salt Spring Islands while the girls were with my parents. It was fun to spend everyday hiking or biking, eating when and what you wanted and just enjoying our time together. We also got an additional week when they went to gymnastics camp and although we didn’t go anywhere it was fun to eat out at restaurants we wanted to try and it even allowed me to walk to and from work everyday.
Our vegetable/fruit garden did great this year so I made several containers of spaghetti sauce, and lasagna with our plentiful tomatoes. Our fruit trees were plentiful this year which enabled my friend Amy and I to make fruit butter, brandied pears and pear chutneys. It was a fun year all around.
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