OH DEAR...

Oh dear oh dear oh dear. How very long it had been since my last post here on my blog. I hate when life gets in the way of my fun time. I really must try harder to make the time to enjoy my creative rambling type writing.

Here's my life in a nut shell lately: EAing at the school more than usual lately, travelling a bit over the school break, friends having babies, cows having babies (not ours, but inadvertently our friends animals delivery dates effect our simple town lives; alas I am a bovine widow every other Saturday as hubby helps on the farm), spring cleaning, garden planning, assembling a few Ikea things which as we all know leads to even more organizing to make it all fit and rid our home of the extras, and lastly painting in hopes of putting up the hardware to hang curtains so our neighbors will be less inclined to peer into our open window. Hugh. That's a lot. Did I happen to mention a birthday party, a school Book Fair and reading night as well as a few extra church functions? But life is good. We are blessed.

"But where did you visit on your travels?" you say. Well I shall tell you. We visited some (actually 15 families) very wonderful people we knew during our college time in Red Deer, AB. The bulk of our time was spent in the city but we also included some time out at Sylvan Lake to fellowship with dear friends whom we enjoyed the company of when we lived there. The kids played, the adults visited and played (after trying the game here at home I will never attempt the card game "Pennies" ever again!) and all was well. Our family even spent one night at a hotel in RD to swim and water slide and veg out just the five of us. (After two other visiting families Michael went to school with left). Other than the lack of sleep, we all enjoyed our trip.
It was so great to see old friends and to note how their kids have changed so very much over just a few short years. We wanted to see as many people as we could on this trip for the simple reason that some will move away shortly *(some of you farther than others Talena!) and we hadn't seen a few of them last time we were there. It was hard to say good bye again. Not to the hectic, crazy-busy city, but to our very wonderful friends there.

The only very minuscule silver lining in my departure from there was the promise of stopping at Ikea on the way home. Which was indeed fun and exhausting. So much to find, in such a BIG place, with so little time and three not wanting to shop kids half hanging from the stroller/cart. Michael was incredibly patient and helpful and the self professed Ikea hater actually enjoyed himself and even attested to wanting to go back there sometime. Miracles do happen. Believe me, that's a miracle. Upon arriving home, we assembled our purchases yet all the while a nagging thought ebbed away at the back of my mind: am I missing something here? Never having put together anything Ikea, the instructions in the packaging seemed too simple. And there weren't any parts left over. And the things we built actually look and function like the ones in the show rooms. Again, miracles do happen.

One last highlight to share with you is my very high opinion of Kirby vacuum cleaners obtained today by my spring cleaning spree today. A friend lent us their unit (I say unit because it's not just a vacuum, it shampoos, sands wood, blows up inflatables, polishes and buffs and can even be used as a paint sprayer!) So I've cleaned just about every cleanable surface including all those very icky dust mites and billions of dead skin cells in our mattress. Ya, that's really gross to say, but check out the Kirby site or better yet, have Kirby send out a rep. for a demo and you'll see what I'm talking about. I love to clean and it's great to know what I've cleaned is actually clean. How many more times can I say clean? CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN I feel a song coming on, or perhaps a Robert Munsch inspired book....

Alright, that's enough rambling for one evening. Perhaps I shall return to you sooner than I did this time. Love to you!