March Break at the Cottage

We spent a few days of March Break up at the cottage, something we've been meaning to do more of. Now that Naomi is a bit older, and is turning out to handle longer car rides a bit better, we'll see how it goes.

Despite most of the snow finally melting here in Toronto, the cottage had plenty of snow to make up for it, and it was the perfect weather for enjoying it all: bright and sunny, warm enough for just sweaters, cool enough to keep the snow snow. We broke out the snow shoes, dragged the baby around on the sled, meandered down some trails. The dog had the time of his life.

There's nothing like being the first one to trample through the snow: all the crunch and white and blue wrapping up the end of a season.

Of course I went with a list of things to do. Updating a few back end things, taking photos, planning out a few blog posts, finally sitting down to get going on some projects. Some items didn't quite make it off the list, but I was ambitious going in. Even Caleb had his own homework to do, some printing ("printing"), colouring, numbers.

We were lucky enough to have another family join us at the cottage, which is always fun.

In everyday life, we've rescued ourselves from the question of how much TV should kids watch by simply not having a TV at all. Everything is bit more relaxed at the cottage, though, and one of Caleb's favourite activities is picking the movie. The Incredibles are possibly his favourite family - on some days even trumping the Chans, as he likes to pretend that Jon is Mr. Incredible and the baby is Jack Jack and so forth.

And then we watched ET, a movie I hardly remembered, but is a classic for a reason.

And that was it! It flew by. We picked up treats from Henrietta's, we packed up snacks for the road, we survived the last hour scrambling to make sure everything made it back into the car.

And it was just what we needed.

A lot of people ask if running the shop was always my dream job, something I had thought about since I was a kid, and to be honest the answer is no. I never imagined running a shop until maybe a few months before we opened the shop.

It is a dream - a bit surreal - to be surrounded by stationery all day, to raise my kids in the shop, to watch our community grow. Now that we're here, I couldn't imagine life turning out any other way. I know there's that saying "do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life," and while I'm not so sure about that, because running your own business is work, I love what I do.

That being said, it was perfect timing to head up to the cottage. A good break to help get us through the last of the cold weather and onto spring. Time to step back from all the daily tasks that sometimes keep us busy, to look at a few projects and things that always seem to get pushed onto the back burner. Fresh eyes all around.