My Happy Place

My happy place is my grandparent's cabin.

In appearance, it looks more like a small house than a cottage. It has a faded blue colour, with a large window overlooking the dark, greener-than-green grass. The cabin is bordered by small evergreen trees. In the backyard, there is my grandmother's garden, where she plants flowers along the bank. Beyond the frontyard, a downhill wooded slope takes you to an expansive pond covered in lilypads and inhabited by ducks. Off to the side of the cabin, there is a stone path made by my grandfather that leads to another pond less crowded by lilypads and more suitable for swimming.

I guess it's my happy place because I spent the best parts of my childhood there. In the summer, we played hide and go seek with my cousins. I roasted marshmallows and picked blueberries and went swimming in the pond when it was most likely too cold to swim. In the winter, we'd take rides on my grandfather's skidoo and go sliding down the snowy banks and ice skate. My grandparents would spoil us by feeding us Poptarts for breakfast and desserts for every meal. It was my happiest time, because it was a time I felt the most like myself, and the biggest worries would be sunburns or fly bites or being forced to go to bed too early.

Ny two sisters and I are planning to go to the cabin for a weekend in September. I can't wait. Do you have any places like this?

Happy Friday!

Well, it's not really Friday for those who work twelve hour shifts and weekends (like me). Oh the joys of being a nurse. For all of you who are lucky to be off, have lots of adventures for me! I'll try to live vicariously through them, as I am slugging away at the hospital.

Love You Forever

What's your favourite childhood book?

Mine is Love You Forever by Robert Munsch, a Canadian author. I remember being as young as four or five years old and my mother reading it to me before I went to sleep. My mom used to always cry a bit before she finished it. The book starts out with a young mother rocking her baby to sleep and singing "I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living, my baby you'll be".

The mother sings the song to her son when he is asleep at each stage of his life, as he grows from a brand new infant, to a toddler experiencing terrible-twos, and then to a raucous teenager. Near the end, the son is an adult and he has moved into his own house. At night, the mother drives across town to to her son's house, picks him up as he is sleeping, and sings him the song. Finally, the mother becomes older and sicker and the son realizes that it's his turn to rock his mother and sing to her. The last page, the son is singing to his own brand-new baby.

The picture of the son singing to his mother always makes me a little teary. I admit it, now that I've moved out on my own and miss my mom, I read it sometimes. I'd love to read it to my own children someday.

What books did you love as a child?

What I love...

When Kyle and I first met, I think it weirded him out a bit that I liked baths so much  more than showers.

I am in love with taking baths. I usually take one a day. If I have a crazy day at work and my mind is racing in a million different directions, lying in warm water really calms me down and relaxes me. The bath is where I do almost all of my reading, books or magazines or whatever. It's also where I do most of my thinking, or where I sometimes don't think at all. I think that if every stressed out, strung out mother or antsy kid or harried young professional or lonely old person took baths more often, there would be a lot more calmness and happiness in the world.

Are you a bath or a shower person?

P.S. I don't think this kitten likes baths all that much though...

xoxo
Laura