Season four of Being Erica, my favourite show, premiered this week. It’s the only show I watch and I take it in online because we don’t have cable. If you haven’t seen it, and are a woman between the ages of 25 and 40, watch and love.

A few clickity clacks after the show and I found myself on the mothercorp job board where I found this little gooder. May be worth dusting off the ‘ole CV.

The truth of the matter is, I want to blog. But my MacAir has been on life support for two months and I can’t stand finding my way around Michael’s PC where only a smattering of my files live on the desktop. Fingers crossed that the geniuses at the Apple store can sort things out this week and I’ll be up and at ‘er soon.

This week Madeleine and I baked a big batch of ooey gooey oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for our neighbours and grandma and grandpa, who are coming to visit at the end of this week. While the rain continued to pour outside, we decided to also whip up a batch of play dough. Turns out it’s easy as pie. Easier, actually.

Play dough (recipe from Tracy at Bowen Island Family Place)

Mix: 2 cups flour, 1/2 cup salt and 2 teaspoons cream of tartar

Mix: 1 1/2 cups boiling water, food colouring and 2 tablespoons oil

Mix liquid into dry ingredients. Microwave on high for 30 seconds, let cool for 1 minute and then knead. Repeat microwave and knead. Keep in a plastic bag when not in use.

Red and yellow make orange. Madeleine’s pick. Her favourite thing is making playdough snowmen. Good thing too. We’ll have nothing but snow in a few short months…

I am looking forward to the launch of Kate Payne’s new book THE HIP GIRL’S GUIDE TO HOMEMAKING.

Monday, September 19, 7 – 9pm. The Drake Hotel, 1150 Queen Street West, Toronto. Hosted by Type Books.

In her own words:

“I’m a grant writer, half-assed domestic goddess, occasional nanny, after-hours poet, committed doodler, trash collector, big-time procrastinator, tea and toast and jam obsessed Austinite. I come from Swedish, German, Irish and British great grandparents. I collect old typewriters; some of them still work. I studied anthropology and sociology in the Sonoran Desert. I worked on an organic tomato farm once. I paper mached gigantic thumbs once, too.”

This is the kind of domestic I can get behind.

Madeleine at the Humber River Park, Easter Sunday

Here are a few pictures of our house in progress.

We wake up, have breakfast, unpack, play, eat lunch, unpack, look for stuff on Craigslist/IKEA.com/CrateandBarrel/wherever.com, buy groceries, fire off some emails, eat dinner, do a pile of dishes, baby bubble bath, tuck munchkin into bed, tidy, read, bed. Repeat. It’s coming together. We pick up our teak bed set tonight!

See the full set of pictures here.

Our house is chaos, but we love it.

We love the stained glass, the hardwood floors, Madeleine’s aubergine room, and the piano room with the view of our winter-ravaged backyard. We love our neighbours who have lent us heaters and a hand while we went without heat our first week here (turned out all it was a dead battery in the thermostat, oops.) We love that the next door neighbours have teens keen to babysit and that I met a lovely lady named Reve whose sister wants to nanny part-time. I love that my midwife group is only a five minute drive away. I love that the kids go fishing in High Park and that there are fall fish runs in the nearby Humber River. I love that a hippy-(read: Vancouver)-looking mama told me that.

I am making lists, taking names. We bought a used Subaru and a sweet marigold couch straight out of the seventies for our little reading nook, for $40.

We are piecing it together, together.

(House-in-progress pictures to follow)

Home is asking to be wrapped. Rooms wait ready to spill out door, into arms of strangers, onto trucks, into cardboard, buried in storage, carted on boat. Too many bins and boxes for my little head: what to keep, what to store, what to sell, what to bring to Bowen, what to ship out east, what to give to family, what, where, how, when…

But I know life sits out of hand. In arms a billion star courses wide. And I take her hand, now one-year-old, and walk our path to smiling eyes. Sit in her chair at our coffee house. Visit our park, swing our swings, dip in our wading pool, visit our friends, roll all over green carpet thick, laid out under our trees, eat sushi where they remember our alaska rolls and our names.

Soon, together three, we will light new paths, grieve old ones, sit huddled in front of burning hearth, welcome friends at ferry dock and feed hungry mouths, rest weary heads in our island home. We hear the Voice who’s laid out our mornings, years, seeking Face that tells our story. These six months will set a course, I can feel it.

There is much ahead. Family to forge. Words to write. Poetry to spill. Schooling to ingest. Home to make.

I met a friend while visiting in-laws last week who told me her story. Of her travels to Romania, working with Gypsies, igniting a call to international law. She’s running toward it. This relit my heart to study more: media’s impact on democracy — how our incessant ingesting of information shapes our understanding of citizenship. Perhaps a Masters in Toronto, time and prayer will tell.

Much is afoot in my little writerly life. The book, the one about women who seek Jesus but don’t all look like suburban mammas, edgy, world-changing gals who rock tats, paint up storms, influence politics here and overseas, is out as a proposal… seeking an agent / publisher. I’ll post some pages so you can see. Poetry is being submitted, I’ll share as it makes its way onto pages. I hope to start having others share their poetry here. I’ve been inspired by my friend Emily’s imperfect prose Thursdays.

My sister-in-law, Brittany, and I have a crazy idea of starting a little onesie company, using my husband’s adorable old Scouting badges: Badge of Honour onesies on Etsy. We’re setting up shop as I type.

For now we take the days as they come, living them full, here in our home in Burnaby… Thank you for sharing this adventure with us.

Photo by me

We’ve been here ten days. Seen a dozen neighbourhoods. Walked a hundred brick streets. Sipped a dozen morning Second Cups. Ate some of the best this city has to offer. Bought street neighbours morning meals. Swung our daughter on seven different swing sets. Picnicked in Christie Park. Ambled along the lake. Rode the ferry to Toronto Island. Caught up with old friends. Befriended a mother and daughter in Union Station. Caught a show at Free Times Cafe. Enjoyed the honest help of many a transit employee. Carried strollers up and down too many flights of stairs. Lazed over morning meal at Cora’s. Endured record humidity and torrential downpours and survived (mostly) with humourous disposition. Fell in love with South Annex, Roncesvalles Village, and Trinity-Bellwoods. Indulged in the lovely weekend bustle of our ‘old’ neighbourhood - St. Lawrence Market.

Toronto, I see you could become home.

We stand at intersection. Black suit universal pause, here at Bay and King. She’s staring up at you. Boulder eyes, size of the moon. Seeking face. Your upwards morning mouth, silent words: ‘Yes child, I see you. The world is good.’

Ignore me, I don’t care, but turn your gaze on these innocent eyes because they won’t remain forever so.