Year in Review – Part II

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acreage, actor's life, backyard chickens, canning, foster parenting, garden, year in review

July

July started off quite lovely.  The weather was beautiful, the gardens were thriving, and fruit had started to arrive at the Farmers’ Market.  I canned sweet cherries (cherry pie filling) and apricots.  We opened Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan.  We had told our social worker to put our home “on hold” until mid-July, but after the shows opened, we were still feeling pretty frazzled from June, and decided to take a couple of more weeks off from fostering.  The very next day, placement called looking for a foster home for a seven-month old baby boy named Liam.  He had been in care since birth, and had spent the past two months in a group home, and really, a group home isn’t ideal for a baby – would we be willing to take him?  I called Will.  All I had to say was “So, placement phoned today . . . ”  We took him.  Best decision ever.

On a much sadder note, we said goodbye to Kingsley.  After initially responding to chiro and pain meds, he starts to rapidly decline.  One morning, he can’t stand up he’s in so much pain.  The next day, I took him to the vet to be euthanized and say goodbye.  It was a rainy, cold day.  When we got home, Liam and I napped on the couch all afternoon.  I miss that dog something fierce.

August

August was full of shows, veggies, and cloth diapers.

Finally took the plunge and switched to cloth diapers.  Wish I had done it with the first baby.  I have a theory – I think there’s been a deliberate campaign created by disposable diaper manufacturers against cloth diapers to convince us that it’s messy and time consuming and disposables are so much easier and convenient.  Now maybe if I didn’t have a washing machine, I wouldn’t think they’re so easy.  But seriously – easy.  Just as easy as disposables.  I don’t know what I was so afraid of!

We had a really, really good summer for gardening.  Everything thrived.  Even bell peppers, which usually don’t fair so well in my garden.  Carrots, beets, zucchini, and pumpkins are the superstars though.

One of my chickens starts laying the weirdest eggs I’ve ever seen.  I haven’t a clue what’s wrong with her.

The sour cherries and raspberries are out of control this summer.  I think having four beehives in the backyard really helped.  I can barely keep up with harvest and canning.  I abandon the raspberries at a certain point to move on to sour cherries and let the birds eat their fill.

We finally give in and pay someone to have our backyard landscaped and sodded at the end of the month.  What a relief!  We went all summer with a giant tree stump and dirt, and it was bloody depressing.

September

After Shakespeare closes, I start working as an Assistant Director on a show at Persephone.  But we have daycare woes, and I have to cut my hours way back from what I originally planned.  Which is actually fine with me.  I’d kinda rather be home with Liam anyway.

I can peaches and pears, and make huge batches of spaghetti sauce from the tomato harvest.  And to mark the end of summer, I make pesto.

October

October brings unseasonable warm weather.  Will was very lucky in the hunting draw this year and pulled a moose tag and a mule deer tag.  Liam and I tag along on the hunt, and Will does us proud.  (I admit, I cried when he shot the moose.  But I’m also thankful to the moose for providing us meat all winter long).

Starting mid-October, I pack up and go to Regina to do the Christmas show at the Globe Theatre.  It’s the first time I’ve worked out of town in four years, and the first time I’ve worked out of town since becoming a parent.  It was hard.  Very hard.  I don’t think I’ll do it anymore (except for the gig I’ve got in May/June that’s also out of town.  Damn it.)

November

Show after show after show after show. That’s what November is to me.  Ziggy had come to Regina with me, and we fall into a routine of sleeping in, going to the dog park, show, Netflix, bed.  Ugh.  I just want to be at home.  The show is fun, the cast and crew are lovely, but I want to be with my family.  Will does a stellar job of single parenting.  Yay Will!

I play Gerda, an elf.  I love having pointy ears 🙂

After the show opens in mid-November, I have two days off.  I come home to Saskatoon, we go look at an acreage, and by the time I head back to Regina, our offer is accepted.  WE OWN AN ACREAGE!  Ten acres, twenty minutes east of the city.  We’re still waiting on the subdivision to be completed but possession date is expected to be mid-January 2016.

Being the sentimental fools that we are, we cannot bear to part with our little homestead in the city, so we decide to keep it as a rental property.  Still trying to decide whether or not to hire a property manager . . .

December

Shows, shows, and more shows.  The show closes after Christmas.  I get Christmas Day off, and Will and Liam join me in Regina.  We have a late Christmas celebration with the Brooks family on the 27th, and an even later Christmas celebration with the Shebelski family on the 30th.  For the first time EVER in my life, I miss having Christmas Eve dinner with the Shebelski side.  It makes me sad.  I don’t think I’ll do another show at Christmas time.  It’s too difficult to be away.

And now here we are on New Year’s Eve.  We went to Beaver Creek today and walked one of the trails (it was a beautiful day despite being -20C).  Clear skies, beautiful views.  I love this land so much, it makes my little heart swell.  I even love the ridiculously harsh winters.

2016 will bring us our own little plot of land under that vast, comforting prairie sky.  We’ve been in our city house for ten years, and it feels like it’s time to move on.  I can’t wait to see what the next ten years will bring!  (Personally, I’m hoping for more foster babies, goats, chickens, pigs, and a bloody huge garden).

Happy New Year, and all the best in 2016!

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Year in Review – Part I

Tags

backyard chickens, gardening, year in review

I’ve always thought it a lovely tradition to send a Christmas “newsletter” to your friends and family.  Sending cards and letters this time of the year is so quaint and old-fashioned.  It appeals to my inner Victorian/Pioneer.  However, the actual practicality of making such a thing happen (writing a letter, editing a letter, adding photos, printing up copies, addressing envelopes, buying stamps, getting to the post office) is just one more bloody thing to add to my already crammed full Christmas “to-do” list, so it inevitably gets pushed to the end and never done. But.  My iPad and my blog are both things that appeal to my inner 21st century, I-love-modern-conveniences self, and thus I present to you – MY YEAR IN REVIEW (Part I)

January

We ring in the New Year with a celebration at the home of our friends, Josh and Angela.  At around 9 p.m., we attempt to get our eighteen month old foster daughter, Angel, and their eighteen-month old son, Beau, to bed, so that the Mommys and Daddys can raise a cup of cheer. Sleep proves elusive for the two tots, as Angel loudly protests being put to sleep in her playpen, and Beau has not yet finished cramming every single popcorn twist into his mouth.  Eventually, they give into their exhaustion and fall asleep, while we welcome the New Year with a toast, only to have Beau wake up a few minutes after midnight, having vomited his popcorn twists up in his crib.  At this point, I realize just  how much my life has changed over the past year.  Last New Year’s, it may have been me that was puking shortly after midnight.  Now, it’s our babies.

Other January highlights include performing in The Clockmaker.   

The first show I’ve done since becoming a foster mama.  Not easy.  In fact, fucking difficult.  How?  How do other actor-mamas do this?  I start to get very worried about how the summer is going to go . . .

I also start a new part-time job as Volunteer Coordinator for Saskatoon Summer Players, a community theatre not-for-profit.  Previous to that, I was offered a full-time job with the police, entry level, in the typing pool, that I turned down.  It would have led to a very well-paying, secure job with benefits and a pension.  Thank god I narrowly escaped that nightmare.  (Seriously, what is wrong with me?)

February

For the life of me, I have no memory of February, and looking back on the blog isn’t helping either since in February I decided to do a blog-every-day type of challenge that lasted about a month or so (I was supposed to commit to a blog post every day for the rest of the year.  Ha!  Hahahahaha.)

I think I was in “Go to work, come home, take care of toddler, go to bed, repeat the next day” mode.  For a typical day spent with Angel, please refer to this post from the end of February.

March

In March we celebrated one year of being foster parents.  We are no longer “intern” foster parents, but full-fledged, experienced foster parents.  After a very painful one-year assessment, we say goodbye to the social worker who was the bane of my existence for the past nine months, and look ahead to sunnier days.  We plan the garden, create pysanka, and continue to trudge through snow and ice all month long.  I have a couple of kick-ass auditions that totally pay off later in the year – hurrah!  But March is also that month that brings me the worst news of the year – Kingsley is diagnosed with a terminal auto-immune disease.  My heart breaks.

April

We plant the first two beds in the garden on April 10th!  A new record.  And despite THIS happening at the end of the month –

– the seedlings grow and thrive.  There will be an early harvest!  Hurrah!

Angel is supposed to move to her new home at the end of the month, but it is delayed two weeks, and we are happy we get a little more time with her.

The chickens are doing well, but mid-month, egg production suddenly drops drastically.  Just when I thought I finally knew all there was to know about keeping chickens, the girls get VENT GLEET.  It’s disgusting, but easily cured with some Germe-Zone and yogurt (thank gawd).

May

The beginning of May sees a lot of hot and heavy gardening action.  Many exciting things are planted and eaten in the first couple weeks of May (ASPARAGUS!)

Will tries his hand at dry cure salami (guess what?  We haven’t died from botulism yet, so I think it worked).

The bees gets lots of attention and a prediction of a fantastic honey flow this summer.

On May 13th, Angel is moved to her new home.  That night (and few more to follow), I have whiskey for supper. But I throw myself into renovations (that end in angry tantrums) and work.  We decide not to take another foster baby until after we open Shakespeare this summer (and that was a wise decision because we were crazy busy/stressed for the entire month of June).

June

The first week of June is calm, and I’m starting to enjoy myself again, gardening and working on the house, and then rehearsals start, and I have no idea what else I did for the rest of the month since I didn’t blog a word for the entire month after June 1.

I remember a lot of rehearsing, learning choreo, learning lines, riding my bike, gardening, walking the dogs, and taking care of the chickens.  But it’s all very hazy.  June was crazy/busy/stressful and still filled with grief over Angel leaving.  Although, I’m somewhat thankful I don’t have a child because it would be totally neglected during this rehearsal process.

Will and I conclude that we can never work together again AND have a child.  One of us needs to be free from the madness that is a theatre rehearsal schedule.

TO BE CONTINUED