Thankful Thursday

this week i am thankful for:

-camping with friends who love our kids (and our kids lu-urve!)

-watching my uber-cautious daughter becoming more brave than i was at her age

-s'mores and this girl (even when she wakes up at 4:45 am!!)

-this dad and his small girls

-sunny summer days and sunsuits

-early morning time spent with Isla and in the Word

-love this girl so so much!!

today we also had a goodbye party for my friend Kerry.

she is a lovely co-worker/co-nurse of mine who initially replaced me on my first mat-leave.

she is moving to the states in a few weeks and we are all very sad.

i am so thankful to know her and to have worked with her.

i am also thankful that we were able to bless her with a lovely surprise present.

a little Pandora bracelet with some meaningful charms.

it has been a lovely week indeed.

and i am super thankful to be off to the spa with my girl Becky tomorrow!

woop!

National Running Day!

(let's pretend we celebrate this nationally here in Canada too, shall we?)

i recently watched this little gem:

i've been reflecting on my running journey since i started last July.

less than 9 months ago, i couldn't run back to my car in a parking lot without losing my breath.
fast forward to a week and a half ago:
i just finished my first 10k!

i signed up in the fall to do the Ottawa Race Weekend 10k.
i trained in the fall, (and then took a little break due to the ridiculousness that was the Ottawa winter),
and then picked up my training in April.

i am so proud of what i have accomplished.

my sister caught this picture of me in the sea of 12,000(!) runners.

{can you spot me?}

i was able to finish in 1:05:41.

a personal best!

then, this past weekend, i did a mud hero with 9 other co-workers.

so so so so fun!

the mud hero was definitely the more fun of the two (to be expected i suppose),
but the sense of accomplishment i felt when i crossed the finish line of that 10k?

amazing.

i have become addicted:
.to running.
.to the running community in ottawa.
.to racing.

it's wonderful and exciting and inspiring.

i am a runner and an athlete.



and i am a proud big sister!!
my sister ran the marathon the day after me.
some words to describe what it looked like to see those marathoners come around the 38km mark:

crazy . alarming . emotional . disturbing . inspiring . motivational . frightening

{here she is pre-race}

{i have medal envy!}

veggie garden

i swear, i've been trying to snag some final pictures of the completed bed, but it's been raining on and off for the past few days!!

come out sun!

here is a little about the process:

i used all cedar and bought it all at Lowes

4-2"x6"x12's

1-2"x6"x16' cut into 4 pieces

6-2"x2"x48" balusters

as i mentioned before, i was inspired by Miss Mary Mary's cedar bed, so i pretty much just followed along with her plans.

i dug out holes for the posts, and then my mom and i carried it over to it's spot.

i put down a thick layer of cardboard first, 

because there were lots of weeds back where the old garden was.

and then it took a lot (i mean A LOT A LOT!!) of dirt, manure (i used sheep manure) and peatmoss to fill it up.

the one thing i would change if i could do it again is that the screws i used were 3" so the ends stuck out a little, which meant that i couldn't put the screws in from the inside... for some reason i was really worried that the 2.5" screws wouldn't be long enough, but i wish I would have used them because then i would have been able to hide most of my screws.

also, because i had my end pieces cut at Lowes, they were slightly off, so while i still always wish i had my own saw at home, it worked well enough to be happy with the finished product. i probably could have asked for more specific measurements if i had been super concerned about the final product.

once that sun starts a shining, i'll get a pic of it and the rest of the gardens my mom pretty much did all on her own!!

Thanks Mom!

a veggie garden in the works!

so, when we looked at our house for the first time, Eduardo-our friend and real estate agent- looked out in the back yard and said "what do you think that is?"

my eyes sparkled as i replied: "that is a raised vegetable garden"

when we moved in to our house, the "raised" veggie garden looked like this:

well, 

it kind of looked like that, 

that is actually from October, my mom had transplanted a lily back there because there was no where else to put it, and there is also some fresh topsoil in the back left with some newspaper under it to try and ready it for the next summer.

and when we moved in, it was even more full of weeds than this:

and truthfully, when we did our final walk through, the weeds out back were probably taller than my waist.  

no exaggeration.

last weekend i attempted to make the current beds work for me.

first i thought I would just stack the smaller rectangles and make 3 smaller beds, but then i decided to take them apart and make 2 square beds. 

i got to this point:

and then i had a little huff and said to Thom: "i'm sad"

the wood was a little to rotted and ant infested to carry on.

but, being recently inspired by Miss Mary Mary's new cedar bed,

and after chatting with Thom, 

he told me get some cedar boards for Mother's Day to build my very own cedar bed!

Happy Mother's Day to me!

the building break-down to follow

secret resolutions

does anyone else do this?

it feels similar to when i make a list and have some things i can cross off right away.

ie today's list could be:

- get Isla ready for daycare
- feed Megan
- blog
- get dressed
- look at paint for Isla's room
- tidy
- maybe go to the Restore or Ikea


you know... it looks like i've accomplished something already today

(which frankly speaking, getting one girl off to her day of fun 

and feeding the other one is an accomplishment!)

anyway, where was this going?

oh right, secret resolutions.

well, it kind of goes with the whole resolution of getting out more with the girls (which isn't so easy to keep with -30 celsius windchill... this doesn't mix with newborns---or with me)

but i also wanted to resolve to get out more on my own.

i had been tossing around the idea of cross country skiing

my family did it a lot when i was little, but it's not something i've really done seriously in probably 20 years.

so a couple of weeks ago Maryann and i went to look at used skis at Trailhead... apparently they only sell them at the end of their rental season--which makes sense, but is a bit of a bummer.

so with lots of giggling and a poor young sales man (who was so nice and unfazed -mostly- by our giddyness) we proceeded to try out and by brand new equipment!  

and on Monday night we did our first real ski.

we went to Gatineau and skied into a little cabin for a dinner.

Emma got us all together, Annie picked the route, Maryann provided the car and i drove.

it was so so so so nice.  and i was so happy.

and not entirely too sore the next day...

just my fingers, elbows and left big toe.  i have no idea why.

so secret new year's resolution was to start cross country skiing.

check.

ps. 

apparently skis are fit based on weight now and not height. this was a sad discovery, 

however our lovely little salesman showed us the first pair of skis which were between 100 and 130 pounds 

and said "this is probably right"

Oh Pat... you've obviously helped ladies purchase their first skis before ;)