Our House in the Middle of Our Street

sunset at Semiahmoo I was able to read quite a bit, again, this month, but I have low expectations for the coming couple months ahead. We're moving into Canada at the end of June, and that has most of our focus right now. Leave me a title if you had a great read this month! I hope you can find a good read here.  * Blood, Bones, and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton I actually finished this book on the tail end of March. Nearly 10PM on March 31st, if I remember correctly, but I had already written up a March Reads post and I wasn't about it edit it that night. Ergo. Hamilton's memoir had so many great reviews that I jotted it down last year for 2014, slotted firmly in the 'foodie memoir' slot. Or so I thought. This wasn't a foodie memoir, complete with recipes of traditional family dishes and gushing over comfort food. This was a life memoir, where waitressing, preparing, catering, and owning a restaurant always happen to be in the background. This b

This feels like it's my song. 

I just got back from the car repair shop, this time in Bellingham, for the second day in a row. It's way past the kids' quiet time for the day (also known as MY time limit of noise, questions, interruptions, and broken brain synapses), also for the second day in a row. We were out of bread this morning, so I had to make do and pack a too-small lunch for us to eat in the tiny lobby of the repair shop. Boy, have we had a time of it.  The reason we were in the shop was because our back alignment was out of whack, causing our tires to be bald on the inside corner of them. The tread was so bad that on our trip to Peachland, Stefan had to spend some time rotating the back to the front, just so they wouldn't be a road hazard. We still had to get down the mountains! We made it safely home (me, not without a stomachache) and yesterday they diagnosed and then today repaired the back alignment. After a $2,350 repair in February (yes, you really did read that number right), thi

The Good : --camp joining --end-of-school-year partying --friend seeing --book reading --recital dancing --retreating --conferencing The Bad : --day slowing --laundry piling --decluttering (again) The Ugly : -- Car fixing (again) -- Health care renewing --tax paying, money ordering, hand-delivering, loan acquiring, [crying] --document gathering, paperwork filling, medical testing, photograph taking (immigration) --every-item-in-our-house inventorying, cleaning, moving, renting, depositing

This week is Blaine Public School's Spring Break, and although we have continued to homeschool (best time to continue is when there are no outside activities going on!), we have finished up early every morning to enjoy some solid time with friends playing outside and exploring together. This was Tuesday, when we drove to Bellingham with some friends, and took a 1.3 mile hike to Teddy Bear Cove , and the kids played for hours while the moms basked in the sunshine and beauty of the area. What an awesome spot!  There was even a large boulder area that the kids loved exploring, and we barely saw them except for water every 30 minutes or so, and a few bites of their picnic lunch in between running and climbing. The only unfortunate thing about these pictures is I don't have a panoramic lens, because you just simply can't capture the beauty of a surrounding area with little snapshots. Water, beach, rocks, and trees. It's just breathtaking. The