Is Canada the Stepford Nation?
You decide...
Friday, June 20, 2008
It's been a while...
Lots of milestones since I last blogged:
- Became godmother to William Joseph. Spent 5 days in Berkeley CA where my brother and his family live and enjoyed very much the ceremony (which took place DURING mass, and was great) and the party aferwards.
- The boys finished their first year of school here in Toronto. Alex has one more year before he heads off to university.
- Alex got his first job, as a grocery clerk at our local No Frills. It's four blocks from home which is great, but he hasn't been scheduled for many hours yet. He's enjoying the paycheque though. He bought an iPod shuffle to run with and is suddenly hyper-aware of how much everything costs.
- Alex is taking Driver's Ed this week. Yikes! How did that happen?
- Michael got contact lenses yesterday.
- We replaced five feet of our kitchen counter (a peninsula) that was damaged, and installed a new sink and faucet, and....wait for it....a new dishwasher. Our old one sounded like a jet plane and prevented conversation pretty much anywhere on the main floor of the house. The new baby is flush with features, and you pretty much have to put your hand on it to figure out if it is running. Yesterday, I ran the "Top Only" cycle after breakfast which saves water and frees up space to get the rest of the days dishes in by the evening.
- I have started listening to a very inspiring audio book on decluttering (It's All Too Much by Peter Walsh). I gave away all my scrapbooking supplies to a (very grateful) cousin, and a pile of art stuff to Michael's art teacher. I listed a bunch of books to sell on Amazon.ca and give away on Book Mooch. I've got a long way to go, but it feels good so far.
It's been a while...
Lots of milestones since I last blogged:
- Became godmother to William Joseph. Spent 5 days in Berkeley CA where my brother and his family live and enjoyed very much the ceremony (which took place DURING mass, and was great) and the party aferwards.
- The boys finished their first year of school here in Toronto. Alex has one more year before he heads off to university.
- Alex got his first job, as a grocery clerk at our local No Frills. It's four blocks from home which is great, but he hasn't been scheduled for many hours yet. He's enjoying the paycheque though. He bought an iPod shuffle to run with and is suddenly hyper-aware of how much everything costs.
- Alex is taking Driver's Ed this week. Yikes! How did that happen?
- Michael got contact lenses yesterday.
- We replaced five feet of our kitchen counter (a peninsula) that was damaged, and installed a new sink and faucet, and....wait for it....a new dishwasher. Our old one sounded like a jet plane and prevented conversation pretty much anywhere on the main floor of the house. The new baby is flush with features, and you pretty much have to put your hand on it to figure out if it is running. Yesterday, I ran the "Top Only" cycle after breakfast which saves water and frees up space to get the rest of the days dishes in by the evening.
- I have started listening to a very inspiring audio book on decluttering (It's All Too Much by Peter Walsh). I gave away all my scrapbooking supplies to a (very grateful) cousin, and a pile of art stuff to Michael's art teacher. I listed a bunch of books to sell on Amazon.ca and give away on Book Mooch. I've got a long way to go, but it feels good so far.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Three bags of shreddies
Well, shreddings. Three large garbage bags full, ready for recycling. I have wanted to tackle our filing cabinet ever since we moved and I finally got the kick-start I needed.
A couple of weeks ago I saw an item over at Uncluttterer on the FreedomFiler. It's essentially a system for managing household and/or small business files that is self-purging. I ordered the smallest kit that just comes with labels and instructions as I already had hanging file folders and a cabinet.
It arrived on Thursday and by midday Friday, our living room was awash in piles of paper to recycle, paper to shred and THEN recycle, old labels to throw away, and dust. By mid-afternoon today, I had two thirds of the cabinet purged, the shredding bags out on the back porch, the carpet vacuumed, and a basic system in place to manage our files.
I got rid of 10 years of tax returns, 6 years of bank statements and bills, pay stubs, immigration paperwork, user manuals and warranties for things we no longer own, etc, etc. It feels incredibly freeing to have all this empty space in the cabinet and to be able to locate important papers quickly without pawing through piles of out-of-date stuff.
I still have health records and the boys school and sports files to go through. Plus Z will have to deal with some of his bulging files full of financial and work stuff, old papers written in Arabic, and yellowing photographs from his childhood.
My ultimate goal is to get rid of our existing three drawer lateral cabinet because it's in our living room, is not attractive, and takes up too much space. There is simply nowhere else in the house to put it. I think I can get down to half the cabinet, which could then fit into a three-drawer standard filing cabinet that could be stashed somewhere unobtrusive. Or stored in some kind of attractive desk-type furniture thingy (maybe like this or this) in the study part of our living room.
A couple of weeks ago I saw an item over at Uncluttterer on the FreedomFiler. It's essentially a system for managing household and/or small business files that is self-purging. I ordered the smallest kit that just comes with labels and instructions as I already had hanging file folders and a cabinet.
It arrived on Thursday and by midday Friday, our living room was awash in piles of paper to recycle, paper to shred and THEN recycle, old labels to throw away, and dust. By mid-afternoon today, I had two thirds of the cabinet purged, the shredding bags out on the back porch, the carpet vacuumed, and a basic system in place to manage our files.
I got rid of 10 years of tax returns, 6 years of bank statements and bills, pay stubs, immigration paperwork, user manuals and warranties for things we no longer own, etc, etc. It feels incredibly freeing to have all this empty space in the cabinet and to be able to locate important papers quickly without pawing through piles of out-of-date stuff.
I still have health records and the boys school and sports files to go through. Plus Z will have to deal with some of his bulging files full of financial and work stuff, old papers written in Arabic, and yellowing photographs from his childhood.
My ultimate goal is to get rid of our existing three drawer lateral cabinet because it's in our living room, is not attractive, and takes up too much space. There is simply nowhere else in the house to put it. I think I can get down to half the cabinet, which could then fit into a three-drawer standard filing cabinet that could be stashed somewhere unobtrusive. Or stored in some kind of attractive desk-type furniture thingy (maybe like this or this) in the study part of our living room.
Three bags of shreddies
Well, shreddings. Three large garbage bags full, ready for recycling. I have wanted to tackle our filing cabinet ever since we moved and I finally got the kick-start I needed.A couple of weeks ago I saw an item over at Uncluttterer on the FreedomFiler. It's essentially a system for managing household and/or small business files that is self-purging. I ordered the smallest kit that just comes with labels and instructions as I already had hanging file folders and a cabinet.It arrived on Thursday and by midday Friday, our living room was awash in piles of paper to recycle, paper to shred and THEN recycle, old labels to throw away, and dust. By mid-afternoon today, I had two thirds of the cabinet purged, the shredding bags out on the back porch, the carpet vacuumed, and a basic system in place to manage our files.I got rid of 10 years of tax returns, 6 years of bank statements and bills, pay stubs, immigration paperwork, user manuals and warranties for things we no longer own, etc, etc. It feels incredibly freeing to have all this empty space in the cabinet and to be able to locate important papers quickly without pawing through piles of out-of-date stuff.I still have health records and the boys school and sports files to go through. Plus Z will have to deal with some of his bulging files full of financial and work stuff, old papers written in Arabic, and yellowing photographs from his childhood. My ultimate goal is to get rid of our existing three drawer lateral cabinet because it's in our living room, is not attractive, and takes up too much space. There is simply nowhere else in the house to put it. I think I can get down to half the cabinet, which could then fit into a three-drawer standard filing cabinet that could be stashed somewhere unobtrusive. Or stored in some kind of attractive desk-type furniture thingy (maybe like this or this) in the study part of our living room.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Comic Vision
Last Thursday, Z and I attended a fundraiser in support of the Foundation Fighting Blindness called Comic Vision. We attended with some business colleagues and had a very entertaining evening. It was downtown at Koolhaus, a little large for comedy, but it worked. There was some time for drinks and hors d'ouevres, a light meal, a live auction (although the auction items were all out of our price range, it was pretty entertaining to watch the auctioneer and bidding action), and then a series of acts by comedians. The highlights of the evening were Mark Walker, Meg Soper, and headliner Andrew Grose. Grose's act was spectacularly funny and I'd see him again any time.
A beautiful Beef Stroganoff
I'm not sure that I've ever made a real Beef Stroganoff before....perhaps only the kind that uses ground beef and canned cream soup, back in our grad school days.
We got some cremini mushrooms in our organic veggie box this week so I went trolling the internet for recipes. This one was an absolute winner. I made is as per the recipe except that I substituted double cream for creme fraiche as that's what I could find. The fabulous taste was well worth the somewhat finicky prep. It was met with raves by the rest of the household, and they only left me a tiny portion as leftovers for todays lunch.
This recipe will definitely go into my collection.
We got some cremini mushrooms in our organic veggie box this week so I went trolling the internet for recipes. This one was an absolute winner. I made is as per the recipe except that I substituted double cream for creme fraiche as that's what I could find. The fabulous taste was well worth the somewhat finicky prep. It was met with raves by the rest of the household, and they only left me a tiny portion as leftovers for todays lunch.
This recipe will definitely go into my collection.
Comic Vision
Last Thursday, Z and I attended a fundraiser in support of the Foundation Fighting Blindness called Comic Vision. We attended with some business colleagues and had a very entertaining evening. It was downtown at Koolhaus, a little large for comedy, but it worked. There was some time for drinks and hors d'ouevres, a light meal, a live auction (although the auction items were all out of our price range, it was pretty entertaining to watch the auctioneer and bidding action), and then a series of acts by comedians. The highlights of the evening were Mark Walker, Meg Soper, and headliner Andrew Grose. Grose's act was spectacularly funny and I'd see him again any time.
A beautiful Beef Stroganoff
I'm not sure that I've ever made a real Beef Stroganoff before....perhaps only the kind that uses ground beef and canned cream soup, back in our grad school days.We got some cremini mushrooms in our organic veggie box this week so I went trolling the internet for recipes. This one was an absolute winner. I made is as per the recipe except that I substituted double cream for creme fraiche as that's what I could find. The fabulous taste was well worth the somewhat finicky prep. It was met with raves by the rest of the household, and they only left me a tiny portion as leftovers for todays lunch.This recipe will definitely go into my collection.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Saturday, April 26, 2008
My classical education
Most of you know that I homeschooled Michael for Grades 4 and 5. It was a wonderful experience that I recommend to anyone with the desire, opportunity, and energy. Not only great for the student, but I learned a lot about myself that I didn't know before.
One of those things is that I actually like history. I have lived for a long time believing that I hated history. I didn't think I had a good memory, and it all seemed so dry. Well, my memory isn't good for lists of facts or disconnected stuff, but I have found that I actually like learning history, and that has opened up the vast realms of historical literature that I have in the past ignored.
I followed a classical approach to homeschooling as outlined in The Well Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise. I can't go in to the details about the program in this post, but essentially you do a four year cycle, roughly covering Ancients (5000 BC-AD400), Medieval-Early Renaissance (400-1600), Late Renaissance-Early Modern (1600-1850), and Modern (16850-present). You do it three times, which takes you through 12 school years (grades). Each time, you look deeper into the period and read more complex literature. We did the first two years, using age-appropriate history resources and coordinating novels/literature.
I have decided to embark on some self-study, roughly following the high school recommendations. I am going to start with the Ancients and plan to read:
I'm almost finished the Pentateuch and used the reading guides in my New American Bible Study Edition to give me some background, as well as A Catholic Guide to the Bible by Fr. Oscar Lukefahr that I got from Paperback Swap a year ago and hadn't cracked.
I've also been listening to a podcast from UC Berkeley that I found on iTunes. The course is called History 4A: The Ancient Mediterranean World and it's free. The first three lectures are missing (I think she decided to record the lectures at that point) and unfortunately, I missed the discussion of the Sumerians which will be useful for the Epic of Gilgamesh. The drawback of these podcasts is that I can't see any of her slides. And she's slightly disorganized, which makes listening a bit of a chore when I can't see what's happening in the classroom. As I said, it's free and interesting, and kills time in the car.
There are a ton of online (and offline) study guides for the works I plan to read, but I'm going to try to go without, at least somewhat, and let the works sink in to my brain on their own.
One of those things is that I actually like history. I have lived for a long time believing that I hated history. I didn't think I had a good memory, and it all seemed so dry. Well, my memory isn't good for lists of facts or disconnected stuff, but I have found that I actually like learning history, and that has opened up the vast realms of historical literature that I have in the past ignored.
I followed a classical approach to homeschooling as outlined in The Well Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise. I can't go in to the details about the program in this post, but essentially you do a four year cycle, roughly covering Ancients (5000 BC-AD400), Medieval-Early Renaissance (400-1600), Late Renaissance-Early Modern (1600-1850), and Modern (16850-present). You do it three times, which takes you through 12 school years (grades). Each time, you look deeper into the period and read more complex literature. We did the first two years, using age-appropriate history resources and coordinating novels/literature.
I have decided to embark on some self-study, roughly following the high school recommendations. I am going to start with the Ancients and plan to read:
- Bible: The Pentateuch (Genesis to Deuteronomy: dates btw. 1850 and 700 BC)
- Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2500 BC)
- Homer, Iliad or Odyssey (not sure which one yet) (c. 850 BC)
- Sophocles, Oedipus the King (490 BC)
- Euripides, Medea ( 431 BC)
- Aristotle, On Poetics (350 BC)
- Bible : Book of Daniel (c. 165 BC)
- Virgil, Aeneid (c. 30 BC)
- Ovid, Metamophoses (c. AD 5)
- Bible: Corinthians 1 and 2 (c. AD 58)
- Josephus, The Great Roman-Jewish War (c. AD 68)
- Athanasius, On the Incarnation (c. AD 300)
I'm almost finished the Pentateuch and used the reading guides in my New American Bible Study Edition to give me some background, as well as A Catholic Guide to the Bible by Fr. Oscar Lukefahr that I got from Paperback Swap a year ago and hadn't cracked.
I've also been listening to a podcast from UC Berkeley that I found on iTunes. The course is called History 4A: The Ancient Mediterranean World and it's free. The first three lectures are missing (I think she decided to record the lectures at that point) and unfortunately, I missed the discussion of the Sumerians which will be useful for the Epic of Gilgamesh. The drawback of these podcasts is that I can't see any of her slides. And she's slightly disorganized, which makes listening a bit of a chore when I can't see what's happening in the classroom. As I said, it's free and interesting, and kills time in the car.
There are a ton of online (and offline) study guides for the works I plan to read, but I'm going to try to go without, at least somewhat, and let the works sink in to my brain on their own.
Sigh...TTC is on strike
Last night at midnight, our transit workers here in TO went on strike after rejecting the agreement that had been negotiated last week.
I don't know enough about the working conditions or the agreement to have an educated opinion about this labour action. But the strike was called with no notice, contrary to union promises of 48 hours, stranding hundreds of people in downtown Toronto last night.
So far today, I've spent quite a bit of the time in the car. I drove Michael to Japanese class downtown first thing this morning, and then picked him up at noon and drove him to Karate. Then picked him up after Karate and drove him to buy a glove for softball at school this week and then home. Normally, one of us drives him either to Japanese or to a subway station, and then he gets to karate and home on public transit.
There is talk that the city government will order workers back to work in a special sitting of the provincial legislature scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. That would put drivers back on the road for the weekday commute which, frankly and from a completely selfish point of view, would be nice. We have a great, if aging, transit system in the city and it is one of the main reasons we chose to downsize our house (and upsize our mortgage) to live in-town.
I do NOT want to schlepp my boys to school in grid-lock on Monday....
I don't know enough about the working conditions or the agreement to have an educated opinion about this labour action. But the strike was called with no notice, contrary to union promises of 48 hours, stranding hundreds of people in downtown Toronto last night.
So far today, I've spent quite a bit of the time in the car. I drove Michael to Japanese class downtown first thing this morning, and then picked him up at noon and drove him to Karate. Then picked him up after Karate and drove him to buy a glove for softball at school this week and then home. Normally, one of us drives him either to Japanese or to a subway station, and then he gets to karate and home on public transit.
There is talk that the city government will order workers back to work in a special sitting of the provincial legislature scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. That would put drivers back on the road for the weekday commute which, frankly and from a completely selfish point of view, would be nice. We have a great, if aging, transit system in the city and it is one of the main reasons we chose to downsize our house (and upsize our mortgage) to live in-town.
I do NOT want to schlepp my boys to school in grid-lock on Monday....
My classical education
Most of you know that I homeschooled Michael for Grades 4 and 5. It was a wonderful experience that I recommend to anyone with the desire, opportunity, and energy. Not only great for the student, but I learned a lot about myself that I didn't know before.One of those things is that I actually like history. I have lived for a long time believing that I hated history. I didn't think I had a good memory, and it all seemed so dry. Well, my memory isn't good for lists of facts or disconnected stuff, but I have found that I actually like learning history, and that has opened up the vast realms of historical literature that I have in the past ignored.I followed a classical approach to homeschooling as outlined in The Well Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise. I can't go in to the details about the program in this post, but essentially you do a four year cycle, roughly covering Ancients (5000 BC-AD400), Medieval-Early Renaissance (400-1600), Late Renaissance-Early Modern (1600-1850), and Modern (16850-present). You do it three times, which takes you through 12 school years (grades). Each time, you look deeper into the period and read more complex literature. We did the first two years, using age-appropriate history resources and coordinating novels/literature.I have decided to embark on some self-study, roughly following the high school recommendations. I am going to start with the Ancients and plan to read:
- Bible: The Pentateuch (Genesis to Deuteronomy: dates btw. 1850 and 700 BC)
- Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2500 BC)
- Homer, Iliad or Odyssey (not sure which one yet) (c. 850 BC)
- Sophocles, Oedipus the King (490 BC)
- Euripides, Medea ( 431 BC)
- Aristotle, On Poetics (350 BC)
- Bible : Book of Daniel (c. 165 BC)
- Virgil, Aeneid (c. 30 BC)
- Ovid, Metamophoses (c. AD 5)
- Bible: Corinthians 1 and 2 (c. AD 58)
- Josephus, The Great Roman-Jewish War (c. AD 68)
- Athanasius, On the Incarnation (c. AD 300)
Sigh...TTC is on strike
Last night at midnight, our transit workers here in TO went on strike after rejecting the agreement that had been negotiated last week. I don't know enough about the working conditions or the agreement to have an educated opinion about this labour action. But the strike was called with no notice, contrary to union promises of 48 hours, stranding hundreds of people in downtown Toronto last night.So far today, I've spent quite a bit of the time in the car. I drove Michael to Japanese class downtown first thing this morning, and then picked him up at noon and drove him to Karate. Then picked him up after Karate and drove him to buy a glove for softball at school this week and then home. Normally, one of us drives him either to Japanese or to a subway station, and then he gets to karate and home on public transit.There is talk that the city government will order workers back to work in a special sitting of the provincial legislature scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. That would put drivers back on the road for the weekday commute which, frankly and from a completely selfish point of view, would be nice. We have a great, if aging, transit system in the city and it is one of the main reasons we chose to downsize our house (and upsize our mortgage) to live in-town.I do NOT want to schlepp my boys to school in grid-lock on Monday....
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