My New Favourite Song

Not Quite Wordless Wednesday

Anne at The Red Chronicles posted about a new production which brings together one of my favourite children's authors and theatre groups in Toronto. I don't think I'll get to see this but I love knowing that Dennis Lee's poetry is alive and well and making yet another generation laugh.

And from my brother who likes to poke fun at me and my all-consuming on-linedness.

And, of course, a few Instagram shots from the weekend

Clinging to Fall

Slowly sinking 

Cartwheeling

Bubble Brothers

Friday Fragments

• My lovely friend Alexa Reigh of the fantastic blog Your Inner Gosling  introduced me to the Vancouver indie band Said the Whale and their video which is so cute although a wee bit creepy at times. But creepy in a good way. 
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• My eldest son left for Colorado this morning, lucky guy and made his first solo flight due to my OH screwing up the dates he was flying. Luckily I was printing out all his paperwork on Monday and noticed that the flight down was booked for Thursday not Friday with the rest of his ski team. I panicked, called my OH who said that someone else messed up. To which I replied, "Doesn't matter whose fault it is, he's going to get to Denver 24 hours before everyone else." I emailed an old friend to have her on standby to pick Ben up at the airport on Thursday and bring him back on Friday to meet the rest of the group but was actually able to switch his flight and unbelievably, it didn't cost me anything, they even owe me $30! The only down side was that he was on his own but would meet the rest at the other end. And he wasn't alone going through security and customs in Toronto as my OH had to head back down to Florida for another boat show and he timed his flight to leave just after Ben's so they could go through together.

• I went to my younger sons' school Remembrance Day assembly which brings me to tears every year. We have a military base nearby and there is always an active soldier who speaks to the kids. This year there were only three WWII veterans attending this year and I guess soon enough there will be none. Unfortunately there are still far too many younger veterans who can represent our country's military.

• I love the Lest We Forget movement which asks people not to put up their Christmas decorations until after the 11th. I've never been much of a early glitter and tinsel girl so our decorations don't go up until the first week of December and I was thrilled when I heard that customer complaints forced Shoppers Drug Mart to turn off the Christmas music they began playing as soon as the Halloween candy was off the shelves. They are waiting until Monday to start Jingle Bell Rocking although they have already Decked the Halls, of course.

• Better get my act together to face the weekend on my own with Sons Number Two & Three. 

My Operating System is Out of Date

Barbara Kingsolver has always been one of my favourite authors from her early novels like The Bean Trees to a collection of essays on motherhood in High Tide in Tuscon and her foray into non-fiction in Animal Vegetable Miracle but I stumbled across the website The Daily Good and a Convocation address she gave in 2008 and it really resonated with middle-aged me.

"Because of your age." It's okay now to deck out and turn up as the village idiot. Hooray! I am old enough. How does this happen? Over a certain age, do you become invisible? There is considerable evidence for this in movies and television. But mainly, I think, you're not expected to know the rules. Everyone knows you're operating on software that hasn't been updated for a good while."


That just about sums up how I am feeling these days, like my software needs an upgrade. Of course the rest of the address goes much deeper into where our world is headed and she is rather prophetic seeing what has been happening in the last few months.