Behind the Shop

I’m sort of jumping around a bit as I backtrack from last summer’s trip but I’m still hoping to share more of these snippets of our adventure.

This past Monday was Family Day, which is a statutory holiday here in Ontario. The last couple of weeks have been a bit unusual, with PA days, teacher strikes, holidays: one day on, two days off, one day on, four days off. It’s been nice to have some time with Caleb, but also it’s been a challenge to keep up with the usual and unexpected things for the shop and laundry and groceries as well as to also keep Caleb on a good routine.

The teachers in Ontario have had a few strike days recently, so I’ve had Caleb at home. I feel very fortunate that I’m in a position where Caleb can “come to work” with me very easily, although of course I also feel a lot of gratitude and admiration for teachers who are in our classrooms.

I meant to post this sooner, i.e. before Christmas, but it is now actually the next year and here I am. But the new year is a time for resolutions and getting things done, so here I am, getting things done. Better late than never, says the library patron with a tab of late fines.

Happy New Year!

Another year in business. This was a year filled with adventure, growth, luck, some good, some less so, learning, slogging away, good books, mediocre books, huge moments, tiny moments, airplane rides and train rides and bus rides, new pens, surprises, hurdles, Google translate, diaper changes in unusual places, spilled ink, celebrations, reading lessons, waiting, finger crossing, coffee, good company, good customers, good staff, new relationships, changes, stickers, snacks, some relatively low level disasters, painting, and some pretty okay stationery.

I have really dropped the ball on the blog over the last couple of weeks, and in my queue is a blog post about cutting down our Christmas trees for this year, which maybe I will, in fact, still bust out. But here I am, listening to Caleb record his voice into his remote control robot he got for Christmas (“Naomi poos and Caleb poos!” “Caleb and Naomi are pooing!”), and Naomi swing around her umbrella enthusiastically into furniture and pets, and I am pinching myself at the best sort of chaos in life.

I can hardly believe it’s already coming up to that time of year, but with the snow on the ground here in Toronto, it’s starting to feel like it. Every year, as the temperatures start dropping, and the days get shorter, we start planning and preparing for the craziness of the holidays in the shops.

Every year we’ve brought Caleb, and after she was born, Naomi, to the pen show. It’s always been hairy, and I feel like it’s probably going to get hairier before it gets...less hairy. Hairless? In any case, I’m looking forward to the day when I can send Caleb to go pick up lunch, bumping my tasks down the totem pole, but too soon after that will likely mean Caleb off in the real world and perhaps too busy to come back home for the pen show, so I guess I should embrace the hairiness while I’ve got it.

We survived the show! Of course we did. But it was a fabulous show and a great day. It all seems a blur, not least reason of which is because I’ve delayed now almost two weeks to getting started on this.