A Record Year

I believe I managed to underwhelm even myself last year, posting only a handful of times and not a word from March until now.

2016 was interesting for the whole world, more's the pity. In my little corner, the most interesting event was a relocation - my sister moved from Calgary back to our hometown. For years we've been dreaming of the day when we could be close enough to pop in without airline tickets, and all of a sudden, with almost no warning, it happened. She's here.

There was another big change in September when my oldest daughter started half-time at the local high school. She's in grade ten...unthinkable. So we're doing a mashup of homeschooling and public schooling; basically she's collecting her Sciences there, and her Arts and electives here. She's thriving in this new environment and doing very, very well both academically and emotionally. I'm getting ready to miss her, oh, so much. Just a few more years...

And the young one, twelve and a born artist. She is always working with miniatures, sketching, painting, decorating, hot glueing, dancing, singing, doodling, thinking, and dreaming. It's not easy to homeschool her...she's not a kid who can read a book and then fill out a worksheet. She challenges me all the time and makes me think on my feet. (Sometimes I don't do so well.)

Christmas was wonderful - a nice rest. I always take the full 12 days, December 25 to January 6, and this year I stretched it out to 14...I just took the tree out yesterday. It's still in great shape; I have to hand it to Home Depot because their Noble firs seem to last awfully well. I think I put the tree up on December 11 this year, which means it was in the house nearly a month and it still looks wonderful. Hardly any needle drop, and whenever I snap off a twig and try to light it on fire, it fizzles out.

I hope there will be more to come, soon. I had my ten-year blog anniversary last September and didn't even notice...in 2017 I would like to get back to a bit of a slower pace, and blogging definitely feels slower after years of Facebook and Pinterest.