Category Archives: Life

[TSS] The Week That Got Away From Me

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It’s been one of those weeks – you know the kind, where at first glance it doesn’t look like you have too much scheduled, and then you find out first glances can be mighty deceptive.

It started with a trio of deadlines – which weren’t, surprisingly, the problem. I met the deadlines with no problem. Post-deadline, though! Dylan turned ten (I know! Ten! If it wasn’t so trite, I’d say time really does fly), and there were all the activities associated with a little guy turning ten – gifts to buy, the perfect birthday card to get, lunch, dinner, get-together with family. And Mother’s Day on top of everything – another lunch, more shopping.

(I know, it doesn’t sound that rough. And it wasn’t. But I just hadn’t been expecting all the running around and eating out, which cuts huge chunks of time out of the day.)

And it’s already time for another Sunday Salon! I never even got around to replying to comments from last week’s post, so I hope you all won’t mind if  I just pretend that I already did and start fresh with this one. When seen from my Sunday Salon perspective, this week actually doesn’t look as chaotic as it really was:

Eating: Ward didn’t have a performance Friday night, so he made roast chicken. To those not in the know, my husband makes the best roast chicken – juicy, tender and lightly flavoured with rosemary and lemon. To make things easier for today (we’re heading over to my sister’s for Mother’s Day), he roasted a second chicken and we’re bringing cold chicken slices and scallion and ginger oil as our contribution to today’s feast.

Drinking: This week I discovered the pleasure of iced mint tea. It turns out Second Cup, my favourite coffee place (even now, when I’m not drinking coffee) will make iced tea out of any of their regular teas, so I gave the iced mint tea a try. It is SO good!

Reading: I didn’t have much time for reading this week, but I did manage to finish one book: Anne Holt’s Blessed Are Those Who Thirst. I know a lot of people liked this one, but it just didn’t grab me. I must admit, I skim-read through the second half rather than DNF’ing it because I wanted to know who did it. It might, however, just be the translation, and perhaps if I understood enough Norwegian to read it in its original, I would have liked it better.

Writing: Totally out the window this week. Not even a blog post to break up the midweek monotony here. (Yes, I’m hanging my head in shame.)

Making: Zilch. Nada. Nothing. It’s been that kind of a week.

Exercising: I finally downloaded a pedometer app and when I went for my run on Monday this week, I came back and told Ward my time. After doing the necessary km to miles conversion, I announced, “I ran a 14-minute mile.” Ward, polite guy that he is, managed a strangled, “Oh, yes?” but I could tell from the look on his face that most people probably could walk faster than that. I’m chalking it up to my using my meditation songs playlist for running (running meditation, get it?) so I put together a faster playlist and I’m happy to say when I went for my second run of the week, on Friday, I ran an 11-minute mile. Much better, although I’d love to get it to ten minutes.

I seem to have developed a consistent walking habit, which makes up for not running as regularly as I’d like to. Most days I manage a brisk 40 minute walk, with some days (when I’m going to Chinatown, mainly) I clock 80 minutes.

Rice_noodle_rollsSource: By Themightyquill (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons

(Those 80 minutes walking to and from Chinatown are a good thing, as I tend to head over to dim sum when I’m in Chinatown and it’s a good way of walking off the calories before and after I ingest them. Sadly, rice flour, the main ingredient of my favourite dim sum dish – shrimp cheong fun or rice noodle rolls with shrimp – is very high in calories.)

Anticipating: A more restful week, during which I plan to (1) clean/clear out my desk (a Herculean effort may be required, I’m afraid), (2) clear out my clothes drawers to make room for hot weather clothing and (3) READ, READ, READ!

What about you? How has your week been?

[TSS] One Of Those Funny Reading Moods

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It’s been one of those interesting weeks around here, where I don’t feel like I did very much, but at the same time I seem to have gotten most of the things on my to-do list (the one in my head) checked off.  I do love weeks like that!

Time: 9:51 AM

Place: At my desk, which I still haven’t cleaned up yet. I’d snap a photo for you all, but I’m way too embarrassed. Let’s just say my desk is pine-coloured, but you don’t see a whole lot of pine anywhere.

Drinking: Yes, that pomegranate/kale/flaxseed smoothie. This is what I have for breakfast every day, so it’s probably not going to change for a while.

Eating: Ward didn’t have rehearsal last night so he cooked for us! He made his fabulous Japanese gyozas, and also these delicious shrimp and chive dumplings I found online earlier this week. Whenever he makes Asian dumplings, we always have lots of leftovers, so I’m looking forward to more gyozas and shrimp and chive dumplings for lunch.

Reading: Fiction-wise, I’ve still been going through a lot of starts, trying to sink my teeth into a book but just not too sure what that book will be. I’m about a chapter into Blessed Are Those Who Thirst, by Anne Holt, and I’m still working my way through Leif GW Persson’s Another Time, Another Life: The Story of a Crime. I have Ransom Rigg’s Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children waiting for me on the Overdrive app on my iPad, and Dylan and I are reading The Case of the Peculiar Pink Fan, by Nancy Springer during the day, and Peter Pan at night, as his bedtime story.

I did race through Gretchen Reynold’s The First 20 Minutes: Surprising Science Reveals How We Can Exercise Better, Train Smarter, Live Longer, finishing up the book yesterday, mainly because it’s due back at the library tomorrow, and it’s a book I’ve been really wanting to read. Some really fun, eye-opening stuff in there, and motivating to boot.

Listening: Again, lots of starts – I seem to be in a really funny reading mood this week, dipping in and out of various books trying to find something that suits my mood. I listened to the beginning of 61 Hours, by Lee Child, Bitten, by Kelley Armstrong and Peril at End House, by Agatha Christie before finally settling into David Baldacci’s Split Second. Earlier this week, I did finish another Jack Reacher novel, Gone Tomorrow, which might have been why I just wasn’t in the mood for 61 Hours – just a little Jack Reacher-ed out, I think!

Writing: Haven’t gotten back to my current novel yet, but I’m going to be writing a regular feature at Reel Life With Jane – I’ll be writing about the summer series Rookie Blue which premieres on May 23. Rookie Blue is one of my favourite television shows,  so I’m very excited about this! This past week, I’ve been brainstorming ideas for pre-premiere posts and hope to have my first article up there sometime this coming week.

Creating: Nothing yet, BUT I signed up for Trish’s Pin It and Do It challenge (again – and fingers crossed I’ll do better than the last time, which wouldn’t be hard, as I didn’t do a thing last time …). I signed up for the Timid Pinner level, which puts me on the hook for making only one to three things from my Pinterest boards. Surely I can handle that, right?

Working: I have three deadlines coming up this week, so a lot of this past week has found me working on indexes. Still slogging through that high school biology text, which was delayed somewhat, pushing the deadline from this past Friday to tomorrow morning.

Exercising: After I wrote last week’s Sunday Salon post to procrastinate on going on my first run of the year, I did actually go for my run – yay! And it went much better than I’d anticipated. Usually when I haven’t run for a while, my legs give out – the lungs work fine, but there’ll come a moment when my legs turn into limp spaghetti and all I want to do is flop down on the ground and rest them – but this time around, my legs didn’t tire out. Afterwards, I realized all the walking I’ve been doing must have really helped keep my legs in shape.

This past week, I walked for a total of 250 minutes, which surprised even me. And guess what? The First 20 Minutes suggests doing your workout first thing in the morning, before you eat, so I actually went for a run earlier this morning! And all I can say is, it’s a lot harder running in a fasted state. A lot harder. I’m not sure if I want to do that again – I do like running first thing in the morning, but next time it will probably be with my breakfast smoothie in me first.

carmelites_thumbPhoto credit: Canadian Opera Company

Anticipating: Ward has his full dress rehearsal of Dialogues des Carmélites tonight, and I have a ticket for the performance! So I’ll be watching him on stage – I’m really  looking forward to it! I’m sure it will be worth having to live through my own cooking the past six weeks while he’s been tied up with rehearsals. And opening night is this coming Wednesday!

So that’s been my week. How did your week go?

The Root of Our Current Kitchen Sorrows

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It’s a sad, sad state of affairs in our kitchen right now.

You see, I am (temporarily) in charge of dinner.

Yes, you can feel sorry for my kids, they who must bear the brunt of this change in the domestic cooking arena.

And to make things worse, it’s all more or less my fault.

Early in February, I got an email from the Canadian Opera Company (well, I did, as did all the other subscribers to the COC’s newsletter). They had some interesting news: they were holding an open call to fill over a 100 “supernumerary” roles for their upcoming spring productions!

If you’re like me, you’re probably wondering, what’s a “supernumerary”? Luckily, the newsletter spelled it out for me:

Supernumeraries, a.k.a. supers, are the extras of the opera world and play a variety of non-singing roles. They are vital to enhancing the operatic experience presented on stage.

If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you probably know the following about Ward, my significant other:

(1) he teaches martial arts for a living

and

(2) he’s the (one and only) cook around here.

What you probably don’t know is, he’s a huge opera fan. So when I read that email, I got really excited. “You’ve got to go to the casting call!” I said.

Ward was hesitant, never having even contemplated doing anything like this before. But I was persuasive, and when the date of the open call rolled around, off he went.

You probably know where this is headed, right?

Yes, Ward was picked to be a “super”: he’s playing the role of a peasant in the COC’s production of Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites, the story of an order of Carmelite nuns during the French Revolution.

dialoguesPhoto credit: Canadian Opera Company

If you get a chance to attend the performance, which runs in Toronto from May 8 to 25 at the Four Seasons Centre, Ward says he’s in the front row in several of the scenes in which the supers play a part. Look for the tall guy with light brown hair and blue eyes, dressed in peasant robes. (Mind you, I think all the supers are in peasant robes. And there are about 60 male supers. So okay, you might not be able to pick him out.)

Ward’s been having a blast, attending the rehearsals, hearing some great opera almost every night, getting to meet some of the main performers.

The downside? I’m temporarily in charge of the kitchen. Because there are a lot of rehearsals in the evenings, both during the week and on weekends.

Which means, no one to cook dinner.

So far, we’ve been having a lot of takeout. As I mentioned in my last Sunday Salon post, I’ve even taken to doing the 40 minute walk to Chinatown to pick up congee and Chinese donuts (which Wikipedia tells me is called youtiao) and then doing the 40 minute walk back. The walking is a good thing, because having a lot of takeout does not add up to a particularly low-fat diet, if you know what I mean.

Then there’s that good old standby, grilled cheese. And sandwiches. I am particularly gifted in putting together ham and cheese sandwiches. I will even cut off the crusts if you so desire.

And let us not forget frozen lasagne. Thank goodness for frozen lasagne. It kind of feels like a home-cooked meal. So far we’ve tried two kinds: the Longo’s store brand and the President’s Choice brand from Loblaw. Everyone here likes the President’s Choice one better.

Now I just have to get through most of May.  If  you have a suggestion for a quick and very very easy dish that even I can make, please please please let me know in the comments. My children will thank you.

Since this post mentions food to a certain degree (although it mostly discusses the root of our current kitchen sorrows), I’ll be linking it up at Weekend Cooking, a regular feature that runs every Saturday at Beth Fish Reads.

[TSS] Borrowing

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I’m borrowing the format of this post from Kim Ukura’s Currently posts, which I love reading. I’ve been wanting to give the format a try for a long time, and this Sunday seemed like the perfect time. So thank you, Kim!

Currently: 10:07 a.m. I’m pleased with myself because I’ve actually been up for a while – which is not my norm on Sunday mornings, but it’s a beautiful morning and it feels so nice to get an early start to the day.

Eating: Nothing yet, because I always have my pomegranate-kale-flaxseed smoothie in the mornings.

Drinking: Pomegranate-kale-flaxseed smoothie. Yes.

Reading: I read The Killing Floor earlier in the week. It’s the second time I’ve read a Jack Reacher book (the first one was Bad Luck and Trouble, a couple of years ago). I’ve actually stayed away from Lee Child’s Reacher novels because I was under the mistaken notion the story arc went something like this: lone good guy gets beaten, beaten some more, beaten some more, then from what looks like the ashes of sure, bloodied defeat, rises to, finally, conquer the bad guys.

I personally don’t like this kind of story arc very much. It’s one of the reasons I prefer a team approach in action thrillers, rather than the lone wolf. Because that’s often a typical story arc for a lone wolf hero.

But, as Lee Child’s own foreword to The Killing Floor notes, this is not the case at all when it comes to Jack Reacher. In fact, Child set out to create a hero who can, and does, win his fights, always.  And you know what? There’s a time when you need that kind of a superhero-who’s-not-a-superhero character in your reading life. Now’s that time for me. Especially given the kind of week the world’s been having – sometimes you just need the sure thing, you know? The hero who does always win. So maybe Reacher’s been like a comfort read for me this week.

Anyway, once I finished The Killing Floor, I started (and finished, the other night) another Jack Reacher novel (One Shot). I’m listening to Echo Burning right now, and plan to keep on with Lee Child’s Reacher over the next little while, until I get tired of the good guy who wins every fight.

Writing: On Tuesday I was out picking up some congee from a place in Chinatown that I really love, when on my walk home I passed by this woman who gave me the idea for a character. And as I walked, the character drew a supporting character, who turned out to be the narrator, and I started fleshing out the first scene in my mind. I wrote that scene the next day. So that’s what I’m working on right now. It’s more on the cozy mystery side right now, but that might change.

Since I’d already been working on another mystery novel, this switch to the new! shiny! idea signals a change in my methods. A long time ago, I stopped working on several different things at once and began focusing on one project at a time, because conventional writing wisdom is to stick with one thing or you’ll never finish. But recently I read (and loved) Diana Wynne Jones’ Reflections: On the Magic of Writing and in it, Jones talks about all the starts she has lying around, the manuscripts she’s started and never finished. And she was so prolific! And anyway, it’s not like the conventional approach has seen me finishing a multitude of projects, has it? So I’m freeing myself from conventional wisdom and letting myself write what I want to write, even if it means stopping mid-type in another work-in-progress.

Watching: This week I watched The Voice and Bones. Basically, doing catch-up.

Listening: I don’t do the music thing very much, but this week I did play Deva Premal and Miten’s Satsang – A Meditation in Song and Silence while I was writing. That counts, right? And I read Lee Child’s One Shot, and have started Echo Burning, in audio.

Working: One indexing deadline this week, so it’s been a nice, easy time for me. The index is due on Monday, so working is what I’ll be doing for most of today.

Exercising: I only worked out once this week, but I did go for four 40-minute walks (aka going to Chinatown, which is a 40 minute walk each way). And after reading about how moving around is just so good for you, I’ve taken to doing Couchersize: my favourite reading position is inclined, on the couch, so I’ve been doing leg lifts and such while I’m reading, and using a 3 pound weight and doing arm curls with my free arm. Not sure if this really counts as exercise or not, but at least I don’t feel like I’m being too sedentary.

Anticipating: Dewey’s Read-a-thon next Saturday! I’ve signed up again as a cheerleader, and I’m so excited. I’ve cheered in several Read-a-thons in the past, and it’s always such fun.

So that’s me for this Sunday. How’s your Sunday (and week) going?

MORE

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Lots of people are posting their One Word for 2013, so no, despite the title of this post, let me assure you, More is NOT my one word for 2013. I don’t know what my word for 2013 is yet. It may take me until February or March to figure that one out.

But yes, this post is about more.

MORE.

It does looks pretty materialistic, doesn’t it?

But I’ve been thinking a lot about more lately. Thinking about all the things I’d like to have more of in my life in 2013. Like:

MORE Reading

I started 2012 with four very broad, general intentions. And as we approached 2013, I was happy to see that I’d managed quite well with two of them: writing and meditation. And not too badly with the third one, exercise.

But I didn’t do as well with my fourth intention, reading. I had maybe TWO stellar reading months out of 12, which isn’t the greatest track record around. I’d like to change that this year.

Since the whole intention thing worked well last year, I thought I’d throw reading into play again this year. And guess what? I’m off to a good start! Yes, despite slogging my way through several deadlines that have prompted me to delay all my New Year resolution-ish posts until now, I’ve actually managed to read quite a few books already.

And readalongs! I’ve never participated in one, but this year, yes, I’m going to participate in at least one readalong. Jill at Fizzy Thoughts is hosting a readalong of Stephen King’s The Shining in February and Little Women in March. The Shining! Little Women! I mean, really, it’s irresistible.

So yes. More reading, and some fun readalongs.

Which brings me to:

MORE Reviews

Lately, I’ve been writing less and less reviews. I’d sit down to write a blog post, and I’d always have something non-review-ish that I’d rather write about.

But this past year, I realized something. Now that I have access to the Toronto Public Library, which I find to be quite well stocked in terms of my personal reading purposes, my TBR list has grown by leaps and bounds. With such a wealth of enticing books calling my name, I’ve been choosing what books to read based mostly on (1) the reviews and recommendations of other bloggers and (2) the reviews and ratings on Goodreads.

And recently the thought struck me: surely writing reviews is a way of giving back to this wonderful online community of readers, who so generously share their thoughts on the books they loved, the books they thought were so-so and the books that they really didn’t like. If other people’s reviews have helped me, then my reviews might help another reader somewhere, right?

So yes, I will be writing more reviews. I’ll post the longer ones here, and I’ll try my best to write short mini-reviews of as many books as possible on Goodreads.

And speaking of gratitude:

MORE Appreciation

This one is courtesy of the lovely Judy Clement Wall, a truly inspiring woman who’s doing a wonderful gratitude challenge right now. 30 days, 30 acts of (expansive, unabased, downright mushy) gratitude. Doesn’t that sound so lovely? (And if you’re into postcards, like I am, make sure to check out her lovely doodled postcards at Etsy.)

As Judy puts it:

I’m not talking about a gratitude journal here, or a jar, or a meditative ritual. Those are great too, but what I’m talking about is more communal. I’m talking about concrete, outward, unmistakable acts of heartfelt appreciation.

It’s writing something nice with the tip you leave in a restaurant. Telling someone’s manager what a great job they did for you. Writing thank you notes and sending ardent, immediate gratitude texts. Emailing a favorite author, blogger, artist, speaker, teacher, activist to say how much you appreciate their work. Calling someone to say, “the world is better with you in it.” Hand making a card. Treating someone to coffee. Giving, without reservation, your conscious, focused, undivided attention because someone you love deserves it.

I love the sound of this! I will be doing #lettermo next month anyway, writing a letter, note or postcard a day, so I’ve been thinking, why not start earlier? Why not start now? And why not make those letters, notes and postcards full of appreciation?

And maybe, just maybe, a little bit art and doodling too:

MORE Art and Creativity

I admit it. I say this every single year, but somehow 12 months whizz by and during that time I never seem to have the time to sit down and draw or paint or doodle.

That’s going to change this year. No, seriously, it is.

I may do a doodle a day. Start an artist’s journal. Learn to use my new camera properly. Bring gel pens to my world-building notebooks and add a splash of colour to my characters’ lives. Glue things with abandon. Sign up for pottery classes again. Learn to sketch. Draw mandalas again.

I figure, if I say so here, out loud, and boldly, with that MORE for emphasis, surely, surely, it will happen, right?

And there’s MORE. Only I can’t remember what the other things are, although a long list of them has been running through my head the past few days (of course when I sit down to blog about them, they disappear into the ethers). I’m sure they’ll come to me later. You know, when I’m not sitting down to blog about them.

But these four MOREs are the big ones for me right now.

What about you? What things would you like more of this year?

A Bookish New Year

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I’m late writing this New Year’s post, which is fine, I think, as I’m actually going to be postponing all my New Year goals and intentions until mid-January. So this post really isn’t late – in fact, it’s a bit early, given my timeline!

Why am I postponing the official intention-filled start of my new year? I’m awash in a sea of deadlines right now and it’s been really, really hectic here. I managed to squeeze in two days off for Christmas and Boxing Day, and also gave myself the gift of New Year’s day, so I’m really happy about that.

I’ve been missing reading other blogger’s posts about the new year; I always find this time of year so motivating as everyone outlines their goals, dreams and intentions.

But the good news is, I spent my New Year being very bookish indeed. No, I didn’t actually READ any books – with so many deadlines and an intimate knowledge of my own lack of discipline when it comes to reading, I knew how dangerous picking up a novel could be. And I have several on my stack right now that I’m just dying to get to.

No, that way lay madness (or at least, not-meeting-deadlines).

So I did the next best thing. I opened up Amazon and the Toronto Public Library site on Chrome and began checking out all the latest books out there, in all my areas of interest (I have a lot of those) and then began clipping like crazy to Evernote, which is where I keep my various book lists, including my “library” list. I use that list when I’m not as busy – it’s the best time for putting holds on not-so-new books that I’ve been wanting to read for a while.

Most of the books I looked at were non-fiction. I find that the New Year always puts me in a non-fiction frame of mind. It’s that time of the year when I decide, YES! I’m going to do it. I’m going to spend this year doing all the things that I want to do!

What it boiled down to was a very pleasurable evening looking at books about art, photography, writing, spirituality, journaling, homeschooling, food, travel, science, history, productivity and creativity.

I love the one-thing-leads-to-another nature of this kind of book browsing. And then there’s that lovely feeling that comes from discovering there’s so much to read and to learn out there. Not to mention the security of knowing I’m never going to be at a loss for something to read.

In addition, I stuffed the Kindle app on my iPad with sample chapters from a ton of books.

And I also found time to go to my library’s ebook section, where I added a ton of cookbooks to my wishlist. Plus some history non-fiction, a handful of science ones, and some interesting looking crafty-type books (their selection of artsy and crafty ebooks is on the slender side,  unfortunately).

Here’s a  small selection of the many, many books I ended up adding to my various wishlists, at the library and on Evernote:

letters of jrr tolkienThe Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

professor and the madmanThe Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary

poisoner's handbook The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York

life below stairs

Life Below Stairs: True Lives of Edwardian Servants

artist's journal workshop

Artist’s Journal Workshop: Creating Your Life in Words and Pictures

creating time

Creating Time: Using Creativity to Reinvent the Clock and Reclaim Your Life

sound of a wild snail eating

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating

book lover's cookbook

The Book Lover’s Cookbook: Recipes Inspired by Celebrated Works of Literature, and the Passages That Feature Them

first we read then we write

First We Read, Then We Write: Emerson on the Creative Process

commonplace book

Commonplace Book, by E.M. Forster

There are a lot more titles on my wishlists; it’s been fun just going through my lists again, seeing what I’ve recorded. And I went on a min-book-buying splurge last weekend, in between deadlines. There’s a parcel filled with books headed my way right now.

Non-fiction, of course. Last year I didn’t read a lot of non-fiction. This year I’d like to balance fiction with non-fiction. But most of all, I want to devote a lot more time to reading!

So happy new year, everyone! Here’s to  a wonderful bookish year for all of you!

Merry Christmas!

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Merry Christmas!

We are celebrating quietly at home today. Tomorrow there’s a Harry Potter all-day movie marathon with my sister, mom, uncle and cousin, with a prime rib dinner thrown in for good measure.

I hope your holidays are magical and filled with family, friends, love and fun!

Virtual Advent: Christmas in the City

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Welcome to Day 7 of the Virtual Advent Tour, hosted by Kelly of The Written Word and and Marg of The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader. This is my first year participating, and I’ve been excitedly planning out this post ever since I signed up!

Silver Bells has always been one of my favourite Christmas carols; I grew up in Vancouver, and while we didn’t always get snow, the song always brings up such fond holiday memories for me.

Last November, we moved from the suburbs to Toronto. Now, Toronto’s quite a bit different from Vancouver; it’s bigger, for one thing, and there’s a lot less rain. But it’s still Christmastime in the city!

We didn’t join in on many of the festivities last year, though; moving from a 3000 square foot house into a 1180 square foot condo six weeks before Christmas took a lot out of us, and we didn’t really feel truly settled into our new home until after the holidays.

This year, though? This year will be completely different!

In the community we used to live in, there weren’t that many Christmas-y events, so we developed a lot of our own, stay-at-home type of traditions. Putting up the Christmas tree was usually the first of these traditions: we’d do up lots of appetizers, have hot chocolate with whipped cream, and make a night of it.

But this year, we’ve added a whole bunch of new traditions. And most of them are free!

One thing’s for sure: Christmas in the city makes for a very busy, event-filled month!

Cavalcade of Lights

This year we kicked off the festivities with Toronto’s Cavalcade of Lights. It’s held at Toronto City Hall, and there were a variety of musical performances to entertain everyone while we waited for the official lighting of the giant Christmas tree.

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But the highlight of the evening (for us, anyway) was the magnificent fireworks display later in the evening. They even had someone zooming along on a zipline with fireworks on his back!

2012-11-17 20.11.14

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It’s the first time we’ve attended the Cavalcade of Lights (thank you, spell check, because I nearly always spell cavalcade wrong!), and we had such a delightful time. It will definitely be one of our new traditions.

Santa Claus Parade

The Santa Claus Parade

We actually managed to catch the Santa Claus Parade last year; the parade route was just a few blocks from our place, so it was an easy thing to fit into our schedule. No struggling with parking :)

This year, however, we weren’t able to catch the Parade. Or at least, we didn’t think we would be able to. We had tickets to see the National Ballet of Canada’s performance of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and the ballet was on at the same time as the parade.

But, as luck would have it, the parade route passed right by the Four Seasons Centre, where the ballet was being performed. We came out for intermission and caught the last part of it – we ended up having a great view, as the lobby of the Four Seasons Centre fronts University Avenue, where the parade was passing by, and since the foyer was slightly elevated above street level, we were able to see everything beautifully!

We’re hoping we won’t have a schedule conflict next year. It’s even more fun sitting right on the curb, watching the parade from beginning to end.

The Christmas Windows at The Bay

Going to look at the Christmas windows at The Bay department store (whose roots go back to its days as a fur trading outpost before Canada’s Confederation) is another Christmas tradition we started last year as well. The department store devotes several of its windows on Queen Street to lovely Christmas vignettes:

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And when we’re done? It’s off to the chip truck parked in front of City Hall for fries and gravy; it is so much fun eating piping hot fries with loads of gravy in the cold. The steam pours off the fries, and everything cools down just quickly enough, you don’t burn your tongue scarfing it all down!

The Nutcracker

Back when my two older children, Sean and Hayley, were younger, going to see the National Ballet’s performance of The Nutcracker was one of our traditions; we made a day of it, driving into the city for the show and then going out for dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory afterwards.  Unfortunately, ballet wasn’t really something either of them enjoyed that much (and it didn’t escape their notice that it was the same production every year – the complaints we heard about that!)  – although they did like the Old Spaghetti Factory!

We’re reviving this tradition this year for our youngest, Dylan. Dylan loves the ballet, so he’s really looking forward to going.

But we’re going to more than one Nutcracker performance! In addition to the traditional one performed by the National Ballet of Canada, we’re also going to see The Pia Bouman School’s Nutcracker. The Pia Bouman School is Dylan’s dance school. He didn’t audition for the show, but it will be great fun to go and see his fellow students in the production.

So these are some of the new traditions we’re embracing this year – taking full advantage of being in the city! We’re hoping to also go to at least one Christmas concert, too, although so far we’ve only got the Blind Boys of Alabama’s Christmas show lined up.

What about you? What holiday traditions do you and your family enjoy during this time of the year?

And make sure to check out the other stops on the Virtual Advent tour today: Bellezza, at Dolce Bellezza and Snowball at Come, Sit by the Hearth!

Pin It, Do It: The Holiday Edition!

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I’m very excited to be signing up for the latest edition of Trish’s Pin It Do It Pinterest challenge! I missed it the last few times it’s run. All the Twitter chat about it last month was so enticing, and with the holidays coming up, I thought joining the challenge would be a great way to motivate myself to actually do some fun crafty holiday things with Dylan, my nine-year-old.

And look! I even created a special board just for the challenge: my Pin It Do It: The Holiday Edition! #pinitdoit board.

See? I’m committing to this. I really am.

I’ve vowed in the past not to participate in any more challenges, because I fail so miserably at them (in my first year of blogging here, I think I signed up for about twenty reading challenges – and completed only one of them (it was the Harry Potter challenge, and I did my reread in audio, so it was super, super easy).

BUT!  I have high hopes for this one.

The Christmas season is my favourite season of the year; in past years, I’ve always been SO overwhelmed with deadlines I’ve never been able to enjoy the season thoroughly. (I’ve actually had years where I counted myself lucky being able to take Christmas Day and New Year’s Day off – one of the tougher things about being in business for yourself.)

But this year? Due to some changes one of my major clients made, I have a lighter December schedule. And I fully plan to put the extra time to good use!

What about you? Are you on Pinterest? Signing up for the #pinitdoit challenge?