How to get your PhD in nesting

Monday, January 12, 2015

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More nesting. I apologize. But these are particularly good nesting moments that needed to be shared. They happened post-Christmas, which was technically part of the same vacation as the last post. But I couldn’t bore you with 60 images in one sitting. Or you’d never visit this site again, and that would make me so very sad.

You may recall from the last post that I’m working on obtaining my PhD in nesting. Some of you also may know, from experience, that getting a PhD – whether it be in biophysics, mechanical engineering, or the art of relaxation – is hard work.

I spent the first day of 2015 ingesting healthy foods. Which is challenging when someone with a horse tattoo is trying to steal your spiced pumpkin seed garnish.

And I’ve been working on strengthening the mind/body connection with my spiritual guru. He’s an industry leader, having developed a patented set of progressive methods to induce relaxation. Furthermore, he’s published numerous papers in several relaxation journals, and is frequently cited by Psychology Today as one of the great minds of the 21st century.

Let me introduce you:

Central to his theory of relaxation are 1) find a comfortable spot, preferably an off-limits bed and 2) follow a rigorous set of stretching, snoring, and other breathing exercises.

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Family

And then, there was Christmas

Monday, January 5, 2015

Many people dread the coming of winter, the solstice, the shortening of days. In some ways, I crave winter. It’s my time to hibernate; to stay indoors unapologetically, to go to bed early and be awakened by a tip-toeing 3-year-old.

We were at the lake for the last two weeks and I steadily worked on my nesting PhD. So much so, that when Rodney arrived several days after us, he was shocked to find out that we’d barely set foot outside. The kids were happy, I was happy. We LEGOed, puzzled, cooked and watched nightly movies. Caught up on the classics: The STAR WARS trilogy and Back to the Future; The Parent Trap and Polyanna. We prepared for Christmas – the kids’ grandparents came to visit. We continued our nesting in full force: we ate; we traveled the globe one cocktail at a time: Manhattans, white Russians, apple cider Dark ‘n stormies.

It was the rest that I needed. The rest that we all needed. Unharried and unscheduled.

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Family

An anniversary weekend

Monday, November 24, 2014

Last week Rodney and I celebrated our 10^th wedding anniversary. I’d like to say that we planned an extravagant evening out on the town, retreated to a luxury hotel room, and enjoyed some breakfast mimosas in front of a roaring fire.

Instead, it went down like this:

Phone conversation, transcript, November 13, 2014, 8AM:

MUM: “Happy Anniversary Jess!”

ME: “What?!”

MUM: It’s your 10^th anniversary today, remember?

ME: [silence]

We are not good at remembering dates.

Each year my Mum reminds us of our anniversary by sending flowers. This year, I could tell that she was somewhat shocked that we hadn’t even remembered our 10^th. She tried to brush it off “Well, there have really been so many anniversaries, it is hard to keep track…” but in her voice there was a trace of “get it together people.”

It’s not that we don’t care for each other – in fact it’s the opposite. Every day feels like a celebration. We eat most dinners at home together, often after the kids have gone down, accompanied by a glass of wine. We make each other laugh; bleary-eyed tear-filled laughs. Yes, we irritate each other in the way that couples do. I am mostly to blame. But there is love, lots of it, and we remind ourselves of that frequently.

But 10 years….it’s something that should be commemorated, if not with a bronze plaque, then at least with some tequila.

By some twist of fate, there were exactly two tequila shots left in our bottle of Jimador that we smuggled back from our wedding in Mexico. Not easy for a Tuesday night, but sometimes you just have to do what it takes.

We’ll plan a big dinner out soon – once we get through the holidays, the merriment, the wrapping, the unwrapping, and the sheer happy fatigue of it all.

For now, we kept things simple, because a weekend at home beats any evening out….

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Family

The {un}story

Monday, October 6, 2014

I try to avoid the “lately…in pictures” type of post because capturing a story is so important to me. There’s always a story, and one of the most joyous parts about writing this blog is getting to tell it.

But sometimes there isn’t a story. This week, we didn’t visit a Halloween Festival Megaplex Spectacular. We didn’t travel to an exotic foreign location with tall ships and Canadian beer. We stayed home, we nested, we ate some old-fashioned home-cooked food. I guess that’s a pretty good story after all.

Chocolate croissants in the park….

Blink and you’ll miss this speck of a park in Chelsea. Look for it and you might see little ones at play.

Quiet moments…

Wild moments…

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Family

The endless summer comes to an end

Monday, September 1, 2014

Last week we enjoyed our last full week up at the lake and I shared some of my favorite last moments in last week’s post. As a final Summer sendoff, I’m doing things a little differently this week. I had such a fun time revisiting my New York City pictures and processing them through the Waterlogue app before we left for the lake – I figured that I’d do the same with my Summer images. The set of pictures is quite long, but when you’re choosing from hundreds of memories, it’s hard to pick just a few…