Finding the light

 During June, we have many hours of sunshine in Winnipeg.  We get up earlier and stay up later, and things seem very busy.  The birds are singing, it's bright daylight at 5AM, and we're doing all the things except sleeping enough.  Last weekend was especially busy, as these gentlemen turned 8.  Yes, eight years old!!  (Yup, they do not look like this anymore!  My twins have new hats....)

We were very busy with planting our garden, eating gelati with some of our favorite grown ups, and having a special kids' birthday at the university greenhouse last Sunday with a few kid friends.  Yes, the professor was loaned a key to the greenhouse and did the tours--there are a few advantages to having a biology professor dad!
I made cupcakes.  They tasted pretty good, but it is obvious that I did, indeed, fail the icing and piping section of the breads and desserts class. I took this course as a senior at Cornell...I'd already finished most of the coursework for my double major.  It was an elective at the Cornell hotel school. I can make a really presentable loaf of rustic whole wheat bread, but somehow, no one wants that with a candle in it on his eighth birthday!  Go figure.

On Monday, I worked like crazy, trying to catch up on my worklife after the big festivities.  This was complicated by the city's plans to fix some sidewalks near our house.  There was a lot of jackhammering. It's truly hard to write and edit when the house is shaking. 

Tuesday, I hopped in the car at lunch hour to run errands and looked in my rear view mirror.  I prepared to back out.  Then I noticed this.  It's not really clear if this was vandalism (and there is this kind of window breaking vandalism in our neighbourhood...) or if it was just the vibrations from the jackhammer.  Needless to say, I was a little shaken up.  (Note my very annoyed reflection in the glass there...)

The professor kindly brought the car to an autobody shop, where they treated my bright yellow, 16 year old Pontiac Aztek like it was a unicorn.  They told him there were no replacement parts in Canada, they don't make this anymore. It would take 3-4 weeks to get the replacement glass from Minnesota. And-- if it did not work out, well, they would have to total my-low mileage, entirely functional, reasonably fuel efficient- car.  (Please insert your bad words of choice here.)  Needless to say, we're going to try to make the repair work out.

In an effort to try to be cheery, despite the jack hammering outside, (AHHHHHH!), here is my latest article in the Jewish Independent:
See the light inside everyone

And, despite the sidewalk construction noise, the port-a-potty across the street, the workers leaving their lunch trash in front of my house....and smoking near my old wooden house, --even though we've got a fire ban going on--(it's dry as heck here), well, I'm trying really hard to see that light.

Note: Sometime soon, I will post about my new article in PLY Magazine's spindle issue.  Probably after the jack hammering stops...