Just Checking in

It's Reading Week right now at the university so I get a week off teaching.  Not that I mind teaching when it's just a couple of mornings a week.  I would say that that is just the right amount of work to keep me interested without too much stress.

We have had a full house since Christmas when Tristan finished his M.D. and returned home after a four-year absence. Now he is studying for his license exam before he starts work on July 1st... Damien is working and doing a Bio chem course at U of A.  He has sent out applications for an after degree and is awaiting results.

Vlad is getting ready for his hip replacement scheduled to take place on February 29th. 

You could say that we are a 'waiting for' family, but we are having fun and doing lots of talking while waiting.  I cook dinner most nights and so we eat at the island and gab.

The winter has been absolutely MILD except for about two weeks of below 20 temperatures.  Now it's in the single digits above zero and all the sidewalks and roads are drying up.  Went for a walk with Tristan today and it was delightful.  The sun is out like it's supposed to be in Sunny Alberta.

I've been amusing myself with origami and have starting reading again.  I can tell you that my favorite read so far was Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale.  It tells the story of two very different French sisters during the second world war and how each one chooses to survive.   The story is compelling, an easy read and has just the right amount of twists and turns to keep the reader engaged.

I am presently reading the much-lauded The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing and am not enjoying the reading as it is translated and makes the author look like she thinks that anyone who is not super-organized must be "lazy or a slob".  However, I agree with her thesis that in the 'developed world',  we generally own to much stuff and that cleaning out our stuff is an exercise that is good not only for the chi but for the spirit.  My word for 2016 is streamline, hence the choice of the Kondo book. 


À la prochaine,

Stella