changes afoot

I was reminded by goaliemom that I've not blogged in a while. So, here I am again.

Much of life has been ordinary days, caring for the farm and chickens (whose date of demise is now set as Sept. 3rd. Yes, I will celebrate my birthday with a trip to the slaughterhouse), keeping up with the veggie garden and hoping that someday soon those green tomatoes will ripen, working by the back fields to keep them drained, prepping for and selling at the farmers' market, rehearsing with the band, keeping tabs on the girls. Oh, and housework, which always is pushed to the bottom of the list in the summer.

But last weekend D and I celebrated 17 years since we got married. Whew! Where did all that time go? We had a lovely dinner at Cabotto's, including sambuca and espresso as an accompaniment to creme brulee for dessert. I do love creme brulee and want to learn to make it, if for no other reason than to have an excuse to have a blowtorch in the kitchen.

I got the girls' school books last week, and spent some time going through them. Looks like a busy but good year ahead. The year ahead also has a couple of big changes to our schedule.

We're not doing Awana this year; the program has been awesome and has provided a great foundation for the girls, but I was getting the feeling at the end of last year that it has served its purpose for our family. So after 8 years, were done with that.

The harder decision was to not have the kids continue in highland dance. After 5 years of dance lessons, we were all set to make the trek each week (35 minutes each way) because if the girls were dancing, we liked the teacher they had in Manotick and figured the drive was worth it. Then, a month ago, a riding school opened up 3.5km from our house. And they can have their lesson in the day, every other week (with 3 kids riding, that makes the financial end much more reasonable). So this year, equestrian replaces dance. It'll be quite a change, but the girls are looking forward to it and much as I loved to see them dancing, the closer proximity and the evening off are cheering me up quite a bit.