A little splash of our summer..   

We climbed 500 feet into the trees for this lookout in Tobermory, ON

Sunsets in Manitoulin

Co-Captain of the boat.

Another sunset.

Hope y'all are enjoying the summer as much as we are..

Preschool

We went to look at Preschools today.?!  How is my baby old enough to be left with someone else to learn.  

Oh well. She is so excited. She picked out the perfect outfit, did her hair, had to put some lip gloss and some "blush" on. ( she has makeup brushes that aren't allowed anywhere near makeup -- that she sits in front of a mirror and brushes her face all over ) she doesn't get this make up routine from me people. 

We went we saw, we are signing up for 2  1/2 days a week. Just the perfect mix to get into the 'school' routine learn to play with others, meet friends.  

Let's see how this rolls.

Enjoy the rest of Winter. this school thing is still 7 months away.

My excuse for not blogging in so long is pretty lame!  I used to do blog during my lunch hour, as it was super convenient and stress relieving..  New job, new IT, no bueno on the internet. Like everything is locked down, they are super paranoid of being hacked. So it then becomes a late night thing, and well my sweetie is a night owl. 

I mean how can you resist late night parties with that smile and curls. Seriously she loves staying up til like 10, 11 at night. The if - if she gets a N-A-P, and today fine folks she didn't nap. That means she falls asleep super early and I get blogging time. That doesn't happen often.  

So she enjoyed Christmas a lot this year, she was super excited about baby Jesus showing up in the manger on Christmas Eve. Santa brought her a baby "doll" like she wanted. She got some toys to help the budding musician, like a karaoke machine, drumsticks and a electric keyboard. 

(seriously almost suckered into buying this $200 stuffed deer) Thankfully I broke out of the spell of her smile and giggles. 

Hopefully its not another 4-5-6 months before I post again. 

Summer

Cheese

Our summer has been super busy, I started a new job. Lizzie has been with some wonderful babysitters at our house, as we found she has some allergies, which caused us to have to leave our wonderful in home daycare after 2 years.  She has been enjoying sleeping in, playing on her playground, singing and dancing up a storm.

Chalk drawing

ere are some pictures to sustain you until I can make a longer post.

Lessons in Dr. Google.

Lessons in Dr. Google.

With health issues, its not uncommon to search the internet to "see" what might be wrong, or to self diagnose.

Well that self diagnosis went South for me this week.

I had pain in my back.. googled it, went to the chiropractor for an adjustment, all seemed better.  The next morning, pain is back. Went and did another search. Now I think i've got cancer of what organ? not sure but it must be cancer! Endo must have returned! Back to the chiropractor for the "cycle" adjustment. Feel great.. and then 5 hours later not so much. Forge thru another night of insomnia and horrible sleep and my back is starting to itch.

Wake up and looks like I have a huge bite on my side, but from what. Back to the internet and I've convinved myself that I must have been bitten from a brown recluse spider.  Next I must have poison ivy.

Well after another day and half of agonizing pain, I hauled myself into urgent care.

It took the nice kind doctor all of about 3 seconds to say.... you have shingles WHa!

She said did your daughter recently get the vax for it, I said quite possibly we were in 2 weeks ago.. she looked it up and sure enough.. I got shingles because my kid got her vax for chicken pox.

Such is life.. so we've been taking it easy around here.. Shingles is no joke!

A society with no Money

What if a community could exist without the exchange of money?

Well in a small way some little communties are thriving, all without money exchanging hands.

If you haven't heard of the Buy Nothing Project its worth a read, and to see if their is one or something similar in your area.


So to give you an idea how it works from my first hand experience.  It's run on a FB platform ( group or market platform, depending how they set it up). The groups are meant to build community.. so they restrict you to your city/village/zip code/neighborhood. They want the groups to build community, so they don't span over multiple, cities for example. They like to keep them to under a 1,000 people. If they get larger in a city, they will split them with some geographical boundaries.  It is a "gifting" economy, no money is supposed to ever exchange. Common words used in the forums are:

GIVE

GIFTED

GIVING

NEED

ASK

ASKING

LOOKING FOR

FOUND

THANK YOU

GRATITUDE


In my community I see people offering plants that they split, leftover  food from a party, toys their kids outgrew, winter coats they no longer need.   I see people asking for help with something around the house, food when their pantry is bare, help learning a new computer software because they are looking to hone their skills while unemployed.  Some people are just asking to spend time with others, a local group gets together to "craft", or scrap, or share appetizers. When you are grateful for something you got, you show gratitude in a kind post.    It's modern day recycling, mixed with community, and caring. So what i'm getting at it's not just sharing things, it's sharing time, talent and resources.

So you are encouraged, when you post a "give" that you don't just give to the first person who responds, you want to pick. It goes to say it's not always about being "first".  So be creative when you are "picking" your gifteee. It may be i'm gifting to the closest to the number I pick, or random draw, or favorite memory about this gift. 

You are encouraged to meet and build community when you are gifting. It's not about dropping and running. Take 5 minutes and talk get to know people.

I encourage you to seek a community out, if it sounds like something that peeks your interest. I've met many people.  If you need help locating one, or the platforms, give me a shout out in the comments.

5/7

I start my new work  chapter on Monday 5/7

I am excited. It was nice to be a SAHM for 6 months. I am looking forward to getting back to the grind..


++
Peace