Snow Girl

Ella's loving the snow, looking cute as ever in her new snowsuit. The snow is piling up everywhere right now: berries, apples in the orchard beside us, across the lake (the view out my new office window) and at Apex, where Ivy and I enjoyed Hanna's birthday party a week ago. Gwen's got a super nice place up there, and they've had an enormous dump of snow in the past few days. Must be all right to be living at a ski resort when there's a foot of fresh powder.

Tannis also caught me pulling the girls around the yard on the sled, getting some much-needed exercise after the white stuff ended my biking season (prematurely, I might add) -- I think it's a great photo. We've been really cozy in the new house, feeling like we live in the country again for the first time since we were both kids ourselves.

Stream of Consciousness

• Sore hamstrings and back from carrying every possession in the past few days.
  
• Driving along Okanagan Lake this morning with the ridges around Crystal Mountain frosted white in the sunshine, Achtung Baby providing the soundtrack.
  
• Office potluck that was actually exceptionally good.
  
• Waking up on Jones Flat Road in total silence, and wandering out to look at the lake out the dining room window.
  
• Thinking of Plett carrying his son around his house in Rosenort, trying to get him to sleep.
  
• Liking the idea of RCU paying us interest every month instead of us paying them interest.
  
• Summerland's light-up festival tonight, with snow lightly falling, thousands of people wandering along main street, eating popcorn and cinnamon-rollkuchen, bumping into the woman who just bought our townhouse and having her thank us heartily (for what?), watching the fireworks from the sunporch and the girls covering their ears for the loud bangs (two miles away).
  
• Hosting Lorne and Nada here at Bill's where we first met them two years ago
  
• Talking to Bill on the phone, asking him how to light his fireplace, and having him ask, "where are you standing" as he had a hard time picturing us in his house
  
• Cooking on Bill's gas stove reminds me of living in Buster (our 1960's homebuilt motorhome) years ago. I know gas is the preferred cool thing in cookery, but I can't say I like it yet.
  
• Listening to the echoes of Ivy crying and saying "goodbye house" as if we were euthanizing her puppy or something.
  
• Feeling out of synch with my friends near and far, hoping it's a seasonal thing.
  
• Seeing the identical skinned knuckles on a co-worker who also moved this week. I always injure myself moving.
  
• Thinking about my thesis advisor's advice that I should switch back to coursework.
  
• Pondering more travel to L.A. in a couple of weeks, San Francisco in January, North Dakota (!?) in February.

Serious Stuff

Check this out. Myron doesn't tend to do anything halfway, as illustrated by the full-on street-hockey gear and the aggressive goalie stance. He doesn't even pretend that the shed was actually built for anything other than table tennis and taking shots.

Elijah fakes right, deking left at full speed and roofs the ball over his sprawling father as if he's forgotten that he's two years old, not 12. Our girls gave it a shot, too, but Ella kept picking up the ball with her hand, and Ivy preferred to play the role of "audience", climbing up the stairs and cheering loudly.

Imagine That

As if Plett is a dad. Congrats to the Action Packed Pletts, and welcome James. He's wicked cute already.

Clever Beatrice

We've been taking out a dozen or so books a week from the library this fall, to keep the reading selection fresh with the girls. One recent favourite has been Clever Beatrice. I also wanted to save some new reading lists.

Seeing

I love the way Tom sees the Okanagan through his lens: once upon a time.

Choose

When I was dropping Ivy off at school today, I overheard one of the moms talking while getting her son changed into his inside shoes. As she got up to leave, her parting words fascinated me (and stuck in my head). She didn't say, "be good" or "have fun" or "have a great day" like I did without thinking. Her advice for the day was much wiser:

"Make good choices."

Weekender

This is our dear friend Barb. She helped deliver both of our daughters at home, and those experiences have connected us to her in a wonderful way. On the weekend, she took us out for a hike around her place, trying out part of the new section of the Mission Creek Greenway that connects Gallagher's Canyon to the older Kelowna sections. We stopped by a favourite swimming hole by a waterfall on the way back.

Earlier in the day, I checked out an urban park area they're developing behind my old office, taking some photos:

• It's been a neglected area in the past, with homeless people taking refuge, and kids decorating with graffiti. Now it's mostly beavers causing trouble back there, chopping down a lot of the trees along Mill Creek and flooding large sections with new dams.
  
• I spotted a ladybug nestled into this weed, which made for a neat photo.
  
• It was a grey day, but the reflections in the creek were still interesting.
  
• Winter berries and a purple plant climbing a cattail.
  
• And finally, these picturesque plants are actually from a ride earlier in the weekend, on a Rattlesnake Mountain trail, but they don't really warrant their own post: mini-tree, dark on light, gold and blue

It was a social weekend again, it seemed. Lorne and the girls were over Friday night, we hit HNIC with the Duecks on Saturday, and broke in the Hildebrands' new hot tub on Sunday, after a supper of Tan's potato-cheese soup. Monday after our hikes, my folks made us supper (and hung out with the girls all afternoon).

Listening to...

I recently rediscovered the pure musical genius of Nine Inch Nails. My first memory of listening to their stuff was Chris Eidse's Pretty Hate Machine tape back in 1991, and it was a bit of a revelation -- I dubbed it from his original cassette and played it to death. I've only collected 20 or so songs since then, but they're unbelievable -- harsh, abrasive and challenging, but also beautiful and intricately crafted. Time to dig into the entire canon, methinks.

Also getting lots of airplay on my headphones lately: Radiohead and Thom Yorke.

Photo Faves

A while back, I assembled a photoset on Flickr of my favourite 90-ish photos from the past couple of years. Headspacej regulars will have seen these along the way, but it's cool to see them all in one place.

It's mostly photos of the girls, of course, with a few shots from our infrequent trips of the recent past and some scenery from the hills and water around Summerland -- slideshow here.

Monday Mundane

This curious-looking deer doesn't really have much to do with this anything, but I thought it was nice enough to post. We spotted it at Bill's place while scouting out his new fence for him, and wandering around the house figuring out where our furniture is going to go. We're really getting excited about moving in...well, not the moving so much, but the being all moved in sounds excellent.

Despite the lack of photographic evidence, we had a great mellow weekend, kicked off by supper at the Hieberts' Friday night. Breakfast at The Elite Saturday morning, followed by some wandering along Main Street in Penticton, mostly window shopping. Ivy and I went for coffee and errands in Summerland later, and Lorne brought his girls over for supper Saturday night while Tannis played hockey. I ended up riding both days, enjoying the warmer weather after Thursday's wintery blast.

Last night Myron and I put in a serious two-hour Ping Pong session, capping off the weekend with some Black Toque and as much conversation as we could muster in the flurry of action across the table. Although I have at times been critical of his behemoth shed-building project, I'm seeing some benefits emerging now, especially since he had the good sense to invest in a kick-ass table-tennis setup.

First Snow

Tannis and the girls bundled up to clean up our flower gardens this morning as the first snow started to fall. It dumped pretty good for a couple of hours and the snowplows even emerged. Kinda cozy to be sipping coffee inside, and nice to know that it won't last long. I was hoping to go for a ride this afternoon, but I'll probably have to wait until the weekend when it is supposed to go back up to 10 or 12.

Update: As expected, the snow lasted about a day before it warmed up for the weekend. Weird time of the year -- today it's supposed to be 14 degrees. Anyway, a few more snowy photos from a several-hour Thursday afernoon play session:

• The girls with their snow-people creations
  
• Sliding sisters...it's amazing how much time they could spend on a "hill" that small
  
• Ella, the cutest little bundle...love that smile

SOLD

After about two months, I'm happy to report that we've sold our townhouse. In the end, our internet marketing blitz didn't do the trick...despite our desires to the contrary, we accepted an offer from a local realtor who agreed to show his clients our place for a much-reduced commission. Anyway, it worked -- at the end of the month, we'll be renters again after nearly three years of homeownership. We're relieved and excited and celebrating.