You are up for a treat today!  First in my guest post line-up is Anonymum, a favorite blogger from the colorful world of down under.  I first met Mum when she started leaving me comments at my Shoe.  She seemed to really enjoy my attempts at poetry, and who can’t help but like a fan?  Her blog at the time was called Nanny’s Nook with the tagline that read “I’ve got a blog and I’m not afraid to use it - I’m a Nanny on the edge!”  I loved it and would sometimes visit several times a day just to read and giggle at the tagline!  I was probably one of those bad people that *shit her to tears* because I was making her numbers skyrocket but not leaving comments to let her know why.  Sorry ’bout that Mum.

She has been gracious enough to let me use a favorite post from her site, one she dubs as “family friendly”. It is also very good reading!  It was the April 5, 2008 winner of the Post of the Day award from The Rising Blogger.  (To this day, she still wants to know who nominated her.)  So grab your coffee, sit back, and enjoy.  

Why is it many young people of today {now how old does THAT make me sound???} think love is an exclusive emotion only felt by people between 15 and 30? 

What makes them think people lose the desire, or indeed, the ability, to love as they age?

Do they think we know nothing of love? Romance? Or {shock horror!!!} <em><strong>making</strong></em> love?

Let me assure, I could, without a doubt, give some damned good lessons on making love. Love does not consist of one long fuck! {not that there’s anything wrong with the odd one of those let me say!!}

Do they seriously believe their parents created a family through virginal births? When will they realise there’s only ever been one immaculate conception, it <em>wasn’t</em> theirs, and that their parents actually “did it”??

The other question I would like to ask is what makes people think love is only a feeling as opposed to actions?

I’m a romantic at heart. I love picnics, candlelit dinners, having Mark buy me flowers because he knows the ones he saw are my favourites. {tulips if you’re thinking of sending any!}

When we got married our “reception” was fish and chips, with white wine, by the lights of the Sydney Harbour Bridge as the QE2 left dock at Circular Quay {a well timed event, not planned btw} We didn’t need a big fancy place, or have the need to spend squillions of dollars on a huge to do as seems to be the norm these days. 

I don’t see that as romantic in any way shape or form.

When will people realise love is holding their loved one’s head as they vomit because they’re so exhausted and ill, that they can’t?

It’s a million and one little things you do. The look that can pass without words and still be understood.

The unspoken understanding that sometimes you just shouldn’t watch your favourite show at full volume.

The times you DON’T do something you want to because you know your partner would prefer not to.

True love endures. 

It’s strong. 

It’s resilient. 

It also needs to be nurtured, and caressed, and that takes time. It doesn’t suddenly vanish once you reach a certain age.

True, deep love, can sustain a person through almost any event which may befall you. Death, disease, tragedy, all the things that shake a person to the core. It’s having someone beside you that can soothe, hold and comfort you without the need for words. They’re just “there”. They just “do”. they give you the strength to deal with it without even having to try. They just “are”.

Love is not exclusively for the young, nor is it merely a feeling. It’s actions, words, and the ability to love someone despite their faults. Accepting their imperfections, as they accept yours.

When you love, you should love unconditionally. 

And what’s with trying to “change” something you don’t like about the person you love? If they change, does that not make them different to the person you fell in love with?

When will the young realise love doesn’t diminish with time? It becomes stronger, and deeper. 

It gets better with age. 

As you read this, I am not here.  I have left the building, disappeared from view and am no longer available.  It is time for us to be on the road again, and on the road we will be for the next three weeks.  

Yet have no fear for you will not be alone.  Thanks to my dear friend Annie, who introduced me to the wonderful world of scheduled posts, you will not be without new posts to read.  And, thanks to my other dear friends Mum, Micheal, Spaz, Sarah, Evyl and again Annie, those new posts will not be my own random rumblings, but well thought out and put together posts of seasoned writers and bloggers.  I expect you to be nice to my guests and leave them lots of lovely comments to respond to.  

So, the place is yours for the next few weeks, and while I don’t mind a little mess, I do expect the damage to be minimal and the walls intact.  And remember, if you party, there is always the morning after to contend with.  A little Amanda Marshall for your viewing pleasure as you wait patiently for the first post to appear.

It is that time of year again.  School is out, (finally)  the sunshine is here (yay) and it is the long weekend. Trailers are congesting the highways, bar-b-ques are working overtime, and fireworks are flying off the shelves.  There are parades, waving flags, rodeos and everything is in red and white.  

For some, Canada Day is a great party.  It is close enough to the longest day of the year that outdoor parties can still have daylight well past midnight around here and the summer spirit is still high.  To all the partiers and backyard enthusiasts, I say good for you!  Enjoy your weekend!

For us, Canada Day isn’t too big a deal.  Our town puts on a firework display at midnight, but as I said before, it is only starting to get dark then, so some of the effect is lost.  The kids still enjoy it and we often go, but this year I have to get two of the kiddies up early the next day so the fireworks are a no go.  We will fire up the barby and have a toast (or two or three) to living in a good country, but mostly we are getting our stuff done so we are ready to leave on our trip to the Yukon.  

So, to Canada, to all Canadians, and to all who wish to be Canadian, I wish you a Happy time celebrating Canada Day!  

I’ve often wondered why so many people choose to stay in abusive relationships.  I’ve purposely avoided using the words “women” and “men” here because it is not only women who are abused.  I’ve known big, tall, strong men who have been in situations where their wives physically abused them.  While it is more common for women to be on the receiving end, it is not just an issue for them.

I will admit that I’ve never understood what keeps people in such a spot.  I guess I can add that to my blessings I am thankful for.  I have never had my spirit so damaged that I believed I deserved to be treated that way.  I’ve also never had such fear of what someone would do to me if I dared leave, that staying seemed my only option to survival.  I have never felt so alone and without a support system that I didn’t think there was anywhere to turn for help.  For all of that and more, I am truly grateful.

I have a beautiful person in my life who is currently separating and divorcing her husband.  She has one young daughter and is currently pregnant with her second.  I watched her marriage and her relationship with her husband escalate for 10 years.  I saw what I deemed to be red flags within the first 3 years, and before she kicked him out, I was starting to think about how far I could stand by before I should be going in and packing her out myself.  He has hit her twice in their marriage, but has spent years calling her names, yelling at her, punching holes in the walls and breaking things which were special to her.  I didn’t understand how she could put up with it for so long, but now I do.

The things which kept her hanging on to the marriage are the same things which gave her the strength to end it so quickly and decisively.  It was love and forgiveness.

She has the unbelievable power to love unconditionally.  For all those years, she poured all that unconditional love into her marriage.  There were so many things that she chose to overlook about her man because she chose love over anger.  Using that power to accept him as he was, to love him with no strings, she was able to forgive everything he did to her.  She is the embodiment of such divine traits.  Through the past two months, I have started learning from her what it truly means to love and to forgive.

Then he made a mistake.  He pushed her so far that she had to make a choice, and she chose to direct her love and forgiveness towards herself and her children.  While she still forgives him and all he has done, out of love for her daughter especially, she has decided that life would be better on her own.  She is now learning to love and forgive herself, unfortunately a lesson not taught in her childhood.  She is determined that her daughter will learn how to love herself so that the trials of the mom are not in vain.  

I would also like to let you know that she is approaching the end of her marriage with a resolute and ferociousness I wouldn’t have believed possible from her.  She is stunning in her decisiveness, breathtaking in her resolution, and exquisite in her flexibility.  He has released the tigress sleeping within her and he still doesn’t realize what has happened.  

She has never been more beautiful.

Well, ~m tagged me for a meme, which is something I’ve done a good job of avoiding up ’till now.  Thanks Michael!  Bookbabie started this idea of writing a memoir in six words.  Six itty bitty little words to describe yourself and your life.  One little sentence about you.  Sounds easy right?  Not as easy as it would seem there bud!  I’ve decided not to tag anyone else with this torturous fun exercise, but instead will leave it to each of you to decide for yourself if you want to put yourselves through hell try it yourself or not.

I’ve struggled with this.  I visited others also tagged with this meme to see what they came up with.  It didn’t help.  If anything it made it worse for me as everyone seemed to effortlessly come up with the perfect combination of words to describe themselves.  I started wondering what the devil my problem was.  I called my family in to help.  They weren’t a lot of help.  

So then I went to my thinking place.  The last place in the world I have any quiet reflective time at all, even if it is only for 5 min a day ~ the shower.  It was there that I thought about Mr. Man and my oldest son being gone for the remainder of the week.  I came up with this little gem of alliteration:  Missing my Mr. Man.  Melancholy me.

Okay, not knock you over great, but a start at least.  Unfortunately the hot water ran out and that was it for the great thinking spot.  Fast forward to tonight and I’m desperately trying to string exactly six words together and thinking about all the beautiful profound sentences I’ve been reading lately.  I found myself making a wish:  I wish I’d think profound thoughts.

Just at that moment, Superbabe hit another milestone, climbing onto the couch all by himself for the first time.  I quickly wrote down Baby getting mobile.  Life forever changed.  I lamented that nothing ever stays the same with kids for long, rapidly followed with this:  Once I knew it all, everything changed.

In the end though, I think this little gem penned by my daughter sums life in this house up best.  I only wish I could lay claim to it.  Oh wait, I already have.  Nevermind.

Live in a house.  It’s pink.

I have been compiling a list of things I need to say lately, and the list keeps getting longer and longer and I’m finding that I’m running out of time to put these thoughts down.  So, without further ado, here is my catch-up post full of all the little tidbits I want to get to.

First order of business is to thank A-Mum.  She has been busy e-mailing short interviews out to anyone who has put their hands up and then posting the answers on her site.  She has compiled the perfect list of questions for each person, and has done a wonderful job of making each and every one of her interviewees realize that they are important and special.  Check it out.  I guarantee that you will find more links to add to your daily reading list!  She is currently on interview #5, (which happens to be mine ), with a total of over 20 to do! Thanks Mum, for all your hard work and kind words!

Next, I wanted to introduce some of you to a few new faces on my blog roll.  To start with, there is Yelling Human.  This one has been started by a young woman with some big ideas.  She is smart, articulate, and if anyone will change society with a blog, it will be her.  She is also extremely busy as a student, with work, and in other areas of her life.  I am hoping that by highlighting her beginning to blogging that we can draw her back to her writing.  Please visit and leave a comment so that she will know that you were there.

Next on the highlight list is Pioneer Woman.  This highlight is purely for you and your enjoyment.  This is one fun blog!  The author has something for everyone, whether it is great stories, photography, recipes, or give aways.  I never fail to laugh when I visit there, and who doesn’t like to laugh?

Next is Jo at The Road Less Travelled.  She weaves stories and pictures with a picturesque and poetic style that leaves me breathless.  This is definitely one of those “quality over quantity” sites, and each new posting is well worth any wait.

Finally, I want you to all know about Young Warrior.  This is the grandson of another blogger on my list, Matty at Running on Empty.  He uses the handle of Mr. T, and Matty often talks on her blog of him and his sister, as she is their guardian.  Mr. T.  has spent the past 80 some days in the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children and has been undergoing chemotherapy in preparation for a bone marrow transplant in hopes of curing his leukemia.  As there always is in these situations, he has had many ups and downs.  Even if you visit none of the other links I’ve highlighted here, please visit Mr. T and Matty and leave them some words of encouragement to help them along on their journey.

I think that is it for tonight.  Tomorrow I have a tag sent to me by ~m at Smoke and Mirrors to contend with, but that is for tomorrow.  

Goodnight all!

My man and the crew actually did make it back, safe and sound.  I have spent the past three days doing laundry, pressure washing clothes (we’ll get to that in a minute) and trying to find the time to sit and type this all out!

I wanted to get a picture for you of the clothes that come back from a canoe trip down the Peace River with my family.  The Peace is home to some pretty awesome, oozy, sticky, clay mud and silt.  And my kids love it!  They can work the mud with their feet until they have a hole big enough and deep enough that the shorter ones can stand in it to their necks.  And they do!  They cover themselves completely, hair and all, and come out looking like weird alien mud monsters.  Because it is still rather cool this year, I don’t think they got in quite that deep, but they were definitely in to the waist!

They did get rained on, but because my Mr. Man had the foresight to buy waterproof stuff sacks this year, everything stayed toasty warm and dry for them.  I was in the basement at my sister’s house, watching a movie, listening to the thunder crashing, and wondering and worrying about my family in tents on the river bank somewhere.  I need not have worried though.  Sounds like they slept better than I did that night!

So I got to wave and yell out  to them as they drifted past my sister’s house the next afternoon.  By that time the rain had stopped and the sun was actually shining and feeling quite nice!  My husband flashed me a brilliant white belly which is in great contrast to his face and arms, and then I managed to beat them to the boat launch, and we had two babies to pack up!  

By the time we had unpacked tents, bags, (chased the kids out of the mud,) coolers, muddy clothes, wet shoes, (chased the kids out of the mud) garbage, cleaned and tied down canoes, visited, and chased the kids out of the mud, it was late!  We got home and had to unpack everything all over again, quickly find something to eat, make all the stinky dirty kids wash and then chase them to bed because they all had school the next day.

Now here is where I wish I had that picture for you.  You wouldn’t believe the clothes I had to deal with!  The mud was caked on and it is so fine and silty that it gets right into the very fiber of the clothes.  The blue jeans and pants had mud inside all the pockets!  Plus they are soaking wet still from the rinsing they did themselves in the river.  Yes, that’s right.  These clothes had already been rinsed!  ”Ha ha ha!  You should have seen them BEFORE I washed them off” is the only comment I get back from my less than appreciative verbalizings. (I don’t think verbalizings is a real word, but I’m using it anyhow!)  

This is where the pressure washing comes in.  Four years ago, after the very first canoe trip, I had no idea what it was like.  I put the clothes straight into my washer, and promptly spent the next four days trying to get all the silt and sand out of my washer.  Not Cool!  So now I spend about two days spraying the clothes out with a garden hose on the front lawn before they ever see my washer!   It’s a good way to get all the gunky mud out of the pockets too.   We have made a rule that they are allowed only one pair of mud clothes each year because that mud stains and I never do get all of it out.  It does wonders for all that nice white underwear, I tell you!

So today is Wednesday and I’m still trying to get laundry done.  The mud clothes have been sprayed and then the dust beaten out of them as well, but they haven’t seen a washer yet.  They will still leave a nice layer of silt in the machine and I have too much other laundry to do first.   Clothing aside though, the mud play is a huge part of these trips for both the kids and the adults.  It feels so good against the skin and is weirdly sensual.  Nothing like dropping all pretense and becoming primal and primitive.  Kids get into it easier than many adults do, but it is something well worth experiencing.

If you ever do get a chance to come a take a trip down the Peace River, whether it is by canoe, boat or a stop along the highway, do it.  And try the mud.  It feels great and it will change you forever.

My kids really do have a great father, and I want to take a little time to let you all know just how lucky we all are to have a man like him in our lives.

This weekend, he has four children, ages 13, 12, 10 and 7, with him on a three day canoe trip down the Peace River.  They are tenting along the banks of the river with two other families, and he alone will be responsible for the safe return of all our offspring and their gear.  He is a brave man.  I’ve been on this trip with them in the past, and while beautiful, rugged and relaxing, it can also be very stressful to be in charge of the kids.  Plus, it is quite cold at night this week, and not even terribly hot during the days.  They are calling for rain and showers for the weekend, so it will be quite a bit harder to keep everyone warm, dry and safe.

There are so many children who grow up with Dads but never really know them.  I’m one.  My children know their Dad.  He is the person they can turn to when they need help fixing something, doing their math, figuring out a problem.  Even when they don’t want the help or don’t think they need it, he is there, making sure they are safe and creating boundaries that both allow their freedom and keep them secure at the same time.  He has jumped into parenthood beside me with both feet, and has risen to the challenges in his own way, and I can only hope that our children see and learn what it means to be a Dad from him.

He is my partner, my lover, the father of my children.  I love him deeply and I wish him the best of Father’s Days, floating back home on the river.

Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Leroy.  

Leroy was a happy child who enjoyed telling stories, making his baby brother laugh, and making his older brother angry.  Leroy was also a disorganized little boy, who often forgot things, and was distracted easily when he was supposed to be doing something.

One morning, Leroy was especially tired.  He had to get up for school, but it was so early he didn’t even want to get out of bed yet.  His mom brought the baby into his bed to wake him up.  The baby giggled, slapped his face and pulled his hair.  Leroy started to laugh and play.  His mom took the baby and told him to come have some breakfast.  He had lots to do before the bus came for school!

Leroy made some toast.  His mom was busy making lists and remembering all that she had to do that day. Leroy didn’t notice how busy and distracted his mom was.  He was too busy arguing with his older brother. It was fun to see how easily his brother got upset! 

His mom called from the kitchen, “Whose toast is this?”  Leroy jumped up and ran to the kitchen!  His toast was cold, but his mom said he didn’t have time to make more toast, he would have to eat it that way.  She rushed off to get more things done for the day.  

Leroy started to daydream as he sat at the table.  He didn’t notice his mom pushing everyone else down the stairs to brush their teeth.  She was busy too, so she didn’t notice that he wasn’t really eating.

Leroy’s sister was finished getting ready for school.  She started playing on the computer.  Leroy was watching her.  His mom pulled him into the kitchen so he would make a sandwich for school.  ”The bus is coming, and you aren’t even dressed yet!”  she said.  ”You have to hurry!”

Leroy didn’t want a sandwich.  He walked into the living room to find his lunch kit and saw his brother playing with the baby.  Leroy liked making the baby laugh, so he sat down and started to play too.

His mom found him there.  She got really angry because Leroy hadn’t done any of the things she had told him to do.  She yelled really loudly and it scared Leroy and made him feel very small.

She sent him to his room to get dressed and told him to brush his teeth.  She made him a sandwich for school, but she was still angry.   Before he left for school, he gave her a hug, and she suddenly didn’t feel angry any more.

Many years later, Leroy grew up to write stories that made little children laugh.  He was often distracted by things that looked fun or interesting, and he was always late.  His Mom loved him anyways.

*names changed to protect the innocent

Well the votes are in and counted and we have….a TIE???  The recount still comes up with a tie!  Two votes for Jen Smiles and two votes for Cabin in the Sky.  Hmmm…..

Jen Smiles in the Cabin in the Sky?  No, no, no.  Too wordy and just plain weird!  We need a tie breaker.

So, I went to the utmost authority on all things cool and fabulous because they are all so cool and fabulous themselves ….. The kids!  And let me tell you, it was close.  It looked like it was going to be another tie and then I would be completely hooped!  After many heart wrenching minutes and seconds of deliberation, it was decided.  Cabin in the Sky it shall be.

Thank you to all who gave me your thoughts and ideas, and who came and voted to help decide.  Where would I be without all of you, you ask?  Why still worthless probably!

(Now I just have to figure out how to change the name up top!)