In Praise of Slow....

I am currently reading Carl Honore's book 'In Praise of Slow' - its excellent and I spend my time nodding in agreement constantly.....

One thing that really stood out to me was the question:

To what extent is slowing down a luxury for the affluent?

Hmmm this really did get me thinking a lot - Christie I would especially love your thoughts on this (because you have experienced this from both angles and I think you have managed to live a slower life no matter what!) - but everyone that visits my blog - what are your thoughts?

I do think it is possible for anyone to slow down their lives and downshift out of the 'rat race' but I do think it is easier to do when you have a certain level of financial security....

I think for me at least it was easier to opt out of city life and move to the acreage because we could afford to - perhaps it wouldn't have been so much fun if we didn't have the vehicles, toys and comforts that make this lifestyle more enjoyable.....and Lloyds job and salary allows him to be at home more and have a calmer slower family life away from the office.....

But it isn't just money is it? Sometimes money can work in the opposite way if you aren't strong enough to stop it. At the weekend we drove around some of the expensive subdivisions in town - the million dollar homes on their 2 acre plots........

These are people with BIG money....yet it would be MORE difficult in some ways to slow down and downshift living there - there is so much of the 'keeping up with the joneses' philosophy in those subdivisions...........how easy it is it to go against that?

I am glad we opted NOT to live in a subdivision and I am glad that over the last 5 years we have managed to step away from the competitive ratrace......now we do things because WE want to - and not because its expected of us or society demands it.....we don't rush around for classes for the children and we don't over-schedule our lives......we take things SLOWly and its nice to read a book about a movement of people globally, who are all doing the same ;)

Everyone should read this book!

dishwasher

Our dishwasher is dying......noisily!!! Actually you could say it was murdered as it just never recovered after Lloyd pulled it out last year! It is very LOUD and drives me crazy......today I have emptied it and it is going through a lightwash empty with some cleaning product or other inside it to make it sparkle - you would think with the amount it is used in this house, that it would sparkle naturally but I guess not - I think we will have to get a new one......

We are also getting a new furnace and air conditioning put in - the furnace guy is coming on Thursday.....it will be so good to have air conditioning this summer.

Lloyd says that we will have two dishwashers in the new kitchen - he's right I guess - we need them - our dishwasher goes on several times a day.....maybe thats why they never last!

It's a cracker!!!! ;)

And only Brits will 'get' my title for this post lol........

So a big part of our Christmas dinner is the Christmas crackers - we pull them before the meal and everyone wears their hat during the meal :) I like to pay a little bit more for crackers so you get good things inside!!! I got a little silver tin with a sewing set inside.....

Here we are in our hats - except no one took a picture of me in my hat :) Maybe Lloyds Dad did and will send me a copy when he puts the picture onto the computer.....and Lloyd refused to look at the camera while wearing his lol! We always buy extra crackers and have them Boxing Day and at New Year too...........

Our Christmas table 2006............

Here is our Christmas table 2006..........I went with a red and gold theme and decorated each charger plate with a poinsettia flower and uh yes we are drinking white wine from red wine glasses lol - we didn't have enough white wine glasses left as they have all been broken this year - and I wanted the glasses to match lol - just pretend you didn't notice ;)

Snapshots of our Christmas........

A few pictures of our Christmas......

Gingerbread house contest....

I bought two gingerbread house kits and decided to make it a contest so we had two teams - girls against boys!! Terry was with Susie and Abby, and Chris was with Chris and Laurie.....Sam decorated the cookies that came with the kits.......

They all had so much fun!!! The girls house eventually collapsed and the boys took the contest sooooooo seriously!!!

Gifts under the tree..................

Here are some pictures of the gifts under the tree and in the stoickings before the children came downstairs to see if Santa had been! Actually this isn't all the gifts because Lloyd hadn't put all of the ones for me there yet and also the 'special' gift of the disney trip was wrapped in a big box on top of the shelf so the children didn't know who it was for :)

Lucky lucky spoilt me :)

Here are some of my gifts from Christmas - Lloyd and I shared a few others too....I was very lucky and adore my gifts.....the kitchen aid mixer is so so beautiful and soooo easy to use and probably the worst thing EVER that Lloyd could have bought me because all I do now is bake and mix up cream and things - late last night Lloyd craved mashed potato so we boiled the potatoes and then put them in the food mixer with butter, garlic, milk salt and pepper and blended until gorgeously creamy! It was incredible!!! But OMG I am going to get HUGE from having this mixer because I just want to bake and bake and bake - yesterday I made the chocolate cocnut cupcakes from Greys Anatomy mmmmmmmmand then blended up some vanilla frosting for the top mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Greys Anatomy......

One of the series I always regretted not watching was Greys Anatomy - I had heard such great things about it but as we are not big tv watchers really I never actually saw any of the series when it started on tv.....but after seeing the video for The Frays 'How to Save a Life' I was hooked and HAD to see it :) so I put the dvd of series one on my wish list along with the Frays cd :)

Well I was obviously a good girl so I got both for Christmas from Lloyd (thank you baby!)

We started watching the dvd on the 28th and watched 3 episodes a night!!!! OMG its BRILLIANT!!! SUCH a GREAT series! And of course we were really sad when we had seen all 9 episodes from the first season - we HAD to know what happened to Dr McDreamy after his wife showed up! Oooooooh!!!

You know I even made Izzy's chocolate-coconut cupcakes yesterday! YUM!!!!

So anyway Lloyd emailed me just now to say he has bought series 2!!!! 27 episodes including 3 never shown on tv!!!!!! UNCUT!!!! :) woohoo so now I can't WAIT for him to come home so we can watch them :)

If you haven't seen Greys Anatomy then WATCH IT!!!!! :)

Traditional foods

Terry helped Abigail make the shortcrust pastry mincepies......while Chris made the puff pastry mince pies.....Laurence made the peppermint creams, Susannah made the coconut ice and Christmas coloured rice krispy cakes and I made the brady butter!

Yum!!!!!..............

snippets of Christmas...

A few pictures of Christmas ornaments, momentoes and sights of Christmas at home.....including the Christmas cards we sent this year......

Cloves for Christmas

Every year one of our traditions is to decorated mandarins with cloves.......we then either hang them on the tree or place them in a bowl in the living room and the smell is gorgeous - very Christmassy as you walk past! So on Saturday 23rd we sat and decorated our oranges with Terry......

Oh Christmas tree............

Samuel by the Christmas tree admiring the 'balls'.........
all Christmas long he would point to the Christmas tree and say 'ball!'.....

Mum

So My Dad phoned yesterday to say that my Mum had been taken to hospital on New Years Eve by ambulance...with pains in her stomach and difficulty breathing......today I had an update from my Dad who seems to have been left doing all the phoning around......but anyway yes the update is that Mum has Acute Pancreatitis which you can read about at:

http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/pancreatitis/index.htm


This is common in alcoholics which is funny because my Mum doesn't drink.

I phoned the hospital and left a message at reception....the children made lots of get well cards to send and we sent flowers.....apart from that there isn't really anything I can do because I'm the other side of the Atlantic.....which isn't easy.....especially when it drives me nuts that the Dr's don't explain even the basics to patients and their loved ones - like what the drip in Mums hand is for.......

Long time no see.......

Its been a while since I blogged.....I should get caught up!

Its now 2007 and I haven't written about our Christmas or anything. So I plan to catch up now :)

Lloyds parents spent Christmas with us - they were ill for much of the first week which was a shame considering they were here only 10 days so that was a big bite out of their holiday - but we still managed to do a few of the things we had planned.....and we gave them a taste of Christmas in Canada.

I was spoiled for Christmas this year - Lloyd was very naughty as it was supposed to be a 'cheap' Christmas because of our Florida trip! Christmas Eve night and Christmas day were lovely! Sam, Abigail and Susannah had bad colds and coughs which was a shame but they managed to enjoy the day anyway. It was wonderful to finally tell the children that we are off to Florida for a holiday :) They were very excited. Boxing Day (my parents 47th wedding anniversary!) Lloyd and I went for a wlak around here with his parents to take some photographs, and then we drove over to Elk Island Park and saw two porcupines (my favourite animal here!)

Terry and Chris flew home on the 28th which left a few days at home with Lloyd before he went back to work (today!) And I awoke to a mug of coffee and a little note saying how much he would miss me today :) Love you Lloyd!

So the next few posts will be lots of pictures and lots of catching up stuff.....starting with a not so good start to New Year!