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Category Archives: NL

Mommy Musing Monday – #CBCNL One Book, One Child

Posted on Posted in 2013, books, Musing Monday, NL, Parenting, St. John's .

Something I’ve been trying to do with Missy Moo is take her to places for fun and new experiences. Even when she was just a few months old we were going weekly to story time at one of our local libraries.

Image provided by CBC NL

Image provided by CBC NL

It’s not always easy to go out with her, especially now that she’s getting more mobile, vocal and independent… we went to Reel Babies recently and it was interesting to say the least. Thank goodness my mother was there with us!

Next weekend, there’s a fun family activity coming up that we’re definitely going to attend. It’s called CBC Reads with One Book, One Child.

CBC Newfoundland and Labrador is partnering with Literacy NL, Community Food Sharing Association and the Avalon Mall to help facilitate a conversation about literacy in our fair province.

What’s fun is that some of our local CBC personalities will be there to read their favourite children’s books. So if you want to hear Here & Now’s Jonathan Crowe, Debbie Cooper and Ryan Snoddon share their book, it sounds like the place to be. I wonder, will Ryan choose a book about weather?

books!

Just a sample of the many books in our house!

Our little family will be going and so should you. Maybe we’ll see you there!

If you do go, you’re encouraged to bring along new and gently used books as a donation to Literacy NL and the Community Food Sharing Association. All books donated that day will be given to local food banks and distributed to families and children.

It sounds like a fun event for an important cause. I’m sure we can find some books to donate. And books for all ages is encouraged.

I was chatting with my mom just the other day about my reading habits. When I was young, I loved to read and it was something my parents always encouraged. Both my brother and I were avid readers (although I think he had more of a passion for it than I did). I remember going through lots of books and also enjoying library visits where I could find something new or fun.

Do you remember the Baby-Sitter Club books? I had a few… oh yeah. I loved those books. My eldest niece currently has them, but I suspect her reading level is beyond BSC books, but they are a nice easy and quick read.

Into adulthood, I’ve noticed that I don’t read as often as I like. I think part of it is the busy lifestyle we have, but part of it is due to my ADHD. It takes me long enough to get ready for bed at night that by the time I am, it’s really too late to lie back and get through a chapter or two in the latest read. One might say I’m really good at dilly dallying. But with so many books in our house, I’d like to really work on reading more. It’s something I hope Missy Moo will also enjoy since Matt is a super-fast speed reader who devours books.

I’ve been reading to little miss and am starting to notice that she’s liking some books more than others. One book that she absolutely loves is Good Night Moon. I’m not sure why, but maybe it’s the fun contrasting colours, or something about the words. All I know is that she gets excited, bounces up and down and grabs at the book whenever we start to read it. Thank you Auntie Christina, Uncle Joseph and Theo for that book. She loves it!

I wonder if someone will read Good Night Moon on Saturday? We’ll have to wait and see.

Gobble Gobble

Posted on Posted in 2013, Family, Food, Holidays, NL, Nostalgic, Ontario .

This weekend in Canada is our Thanksgiving weekend. While our American friends celebrate Thanksgiving at the end of November, we typically celebrate the second weekend of October.

The Monday of the weekend is a statutory holiday (yay long weekend!) and traditionally there’s a feast of turkey dinner and other traditional treats depending on where you live or what your family enjoys.

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It’s hot in here

Tely 10 – jogging my memory for Sunday

Posted on Posted in 2013, NL, St. John's, Tely 10 .

The Tely 10 is on Sunday.Tely 10 2013
Last year I ran the Tely and did much better than I expected; especially since I was eight weeks pregnant at the time!

Even before giving birth to Missy Moo, I had already decided that I would run the 10 miles/16 kilometers from Paradise, through Mount Pearl and into the east end/central part of St. John’s.

Ideally, I would have been running multiple times a week, but with a baby that’s just now five months old and weather that’s rather unpredictable, I haven’t been able to run as much as I’d like.

 

This cartoon was in the Saturday’s edition of The Telegram, our local paper for the metro area and boy did it hit home for me. Ha ha.

Telegram cartoon July 20 2013

Credit: The Telegram, July 20 2013

Now I’m staying cautiously optimistic. I can do this. I know I can. To beat last year’s race time of 1:53:39 would be amazing, but I won’t be completely crushed if I don’t. Just running it again this year is a big win in my books.

In the last year and a half I’ve had a lot of life experiences that have only made me stronger. From surviving my month in Taiwan to giving birth to my first child, I think I’m a different person than before any of this started. I’ll just use some of these experiences to motivate me to never give up on goals I have (including running the Tely on Sunday).

 

Last year Bobble-head Ted and I ran together for the race (truth be told, he didn’t train much and I had to do most of the work, but that’s OK). He’s been rather quiet online lately and has expressed an interest in sitting out the Tely this year. Maybe next year he’ll return as my running partner.

So if you’re running in this year’s Tely, let me know! And if you’re going to be one of the many awesome people watching and cheering on the runners and walkers, please yell a little extra loud this year because it looks like it may be rather humid day and we’ll need all the motivation we can get!

#ThrowbackThursday – Swimming swimming in my giant pool

Posted on Posted in 2013, Bull Pond, Family, NL, Nostalgic, Throwback Thursday .

OK, so maybe the title of this post isn’t completely accurate. Technically I’m not referring to an actual swimming pool.

Yes, I did have one of those kiddie pools that had the bendy sides and it was so much fun!!!! But the pool I’m writing about today is actually a pond and for you mainlanders, you can go ahead and call it a lake.

Virginia & Muffiin

Mom and I with my dog Muffin. Not sure of the year, but given our closes, the 90’s more than likely!

One of my favourite places on the planet is our summer home at Bull Pond and I’ve written about it before. With this summer already getting fairly hot, I’ve been able to enjoy some nice swims and look forward to lots more.

Our dog, Muffin wasn’t an amazing swimmer, but she would often get in the water. It was mainly to bark at anyone swimming because she was worried that we were in danger. And every now and then when barking her face of while on the wharf, she would accidentally get bumped and fall into the water. Luckily it was fairly shallow and her natural instinct to swim would then kick in. It was pretty funny to see and you’d year “Bark, bark, bark” then a splash and someone saying, “Oh geez, Muffin just fell in!”

Growing up I didn’t always want to spend my weekend at Bull Pond, but once there I was usually happy. Even on weekends when it rained and rained and rained, I enjoyed playing cards with my mom and Nanny Sturge; I even went fishing on our wharf in the pouring rain a few times with Grandma Radford or out in the boat with Poppy Sturge. These are all memories that I cherish and am grateful to have.

I’m really looking forward to helping Miranda to make some great memories up there as well. In fact, she’s already been swimming… well not really, but she was in water while at Bull Pond, so that sort of counts, right? More about that on Monday!