a hippie with a minivan

little house on the mountain…

I was looking through some pics yesterday and found some pics of one of the houses I grew up in…so I thought I would share…

We moved a lot… but this is one place that we stayed in the longest during my childhood before we came to Montreal and one of the places that I have the most memories from…

I think my mom was paying about 50$ a month in rent to live in it… the owners lived right next door and they had two children who were very good friends of mine… It was one room, with a loft that had two beds on the floor that my mom and I shared… there was a water pump with cold water and we had minimal electricity… enough for a fridge , a radio and a small TV … we had a wood stove to heat and cook on and no bathroom… the outhouse was a bit up the hill and baths were no more than cleaning ourselves with a washcloth in warm water by the fire…

When I was not at school, I spent my days in the forest going as far as I felt comfortable.. I climbed trees and discovered buroughs… I played in the stream and built dams with rocks… I played with my friends and tried to find were the cat had hidden to have her kittens… It was simple, it was rough at times but it was an amazing place to live…

The house is no longer there and the area of Nelson where it once stood (Mountain Station) is now filled with lavish houses… so different then the time that we were there…

These pic were taken on a trip back to BC about a decade ago… the house looked the same as when we lived there except for the stairs that seem to have fallen apart…

under the weather…

we have a had a few rough days… runny noses, fevers, coughs, throwing up, sore throats and more…

I guess we are lucky because we haven’t really been sick since October but the last few days have taken their toll on us…

Sleeping especially has been hard because fevers come back at night, and laying down means more coughing and throwing up… and then the night before last I pulled a muscle in my back and yesterday I had trouble moving because of it…

Anyway… today we are feeling a bit better, though my nose is running like a fountain…

Tomorrow we have friends coming over for supper and to help move the last of our things…

We just have my bureau to do and then all that will be left are the closets…

Almost done!

english…

Last week at the homeschooling meeting we planning out a few activities… a few of them are so-so and don’t really fit in with the kids personalities, or our values so I am not too sure that the boys will be interested… but at least I know about them I can present them with the option.

Because the other moms often spoke about their children being interested in learning English, I thought that it might be a good idea to propose something in English to help them learn and so that my kids would feel like thy can fit in a bit more…

It was supposed to be here but because of the changes in the house I asked to either prospone or find an alternate location and we found a place to do it not far from my house…

It turned out well at first but the room that we were in was too small and there were yoga things that had been left out which made a perfect distraction for the kids…We read a few books out loud making sure that they understood the main words and had them act out some of the things… I had brought some “easy readers” that have new words that they may use and it was fun to see them trying to figure out what the words meant… but after reading and playing out a game…. the combination of so many kids in such a small place with mats and cut up pool noodles turned into moments of total chaos… some needed to go home but two of the moms headed over here after and the kids played in front yard a bit while we taked in the driveway…

We are going to be getting together again in 2 weeks and make sure to have a bigger space and have some more things planned and I have to say that I am totally having doubts about having everyone here because the group is getting bigger and my space really isn’t that big… but overall, the kids seemed to enjoy it and were learning a bit of English and Colin had fun doing a few things and being understood and Xavier started to warm up to some of the things proposed a bit near the end…

I think one of the problems that I found yesterday is that I proposed it so that we could “fit in” a bit more, but they seem to need and want something a lot more structured than I am willing to put effort into…

Sunday night…

So, we did quite a few hours of changing things around today and I think that we are done for the night… or at least the big stuff…

Though we might have to sell the bed with the house we were barely able to squeeze our bed down the stairs and into our new room, the computer desk has been brought up and computer is now upstairs and working…

We still have to bring the bookcases and books upstairs but that could be done slowly over the course of the next week, and then it will be my dresser which probably is the heaviest piece of furniture and we might wait until next weekend when we could have a bit of help, needs to be brought into our new room…

Besides that we have to transfer things that are in the closets and rearrange the rooms the way that we want them…

To date though, I love the changes… All of our rooms will be more spacious (except for the playroom and office) but we are thinking about not having as much stuff in there anyway… Having more open space will meant that the rooms will be more inviting, easier to keep clean and just help with the flow of the house…

So we still have a lot to do but it will be worth it!

(and Simon added when I was up from the computer)… And tomorrow Simon will go rest at work.

The change has started…

So I have planned and measured and we have started the change in the house…

We started late today, after I got home from grocery shopping and lunch so we didn’t get much done as I would have liked so at the moment it is looking like a total mess which is a bit discouraging to say the least…

Khéna’s new bed is in their new room, his dresser is down stairs and his clothes are in the closet. He will have the double bed that was in the guest room.. I put it so that the pillows are on the long side so the bed is 6 foot across and all the boys can snuggle together if they want…he is really excited…

Most of the toys have been transferred into the new playroom and for their room to be finished we just need to bring down their bed…

So though I don’t think we will be able to do it all tomorrow here is my plan…

bring their bed downstairs
put our room furniture aside (in the boys old room)
transfer the office by bringing everything upstairs (in our old room)
Bring our room furniture downstairs (in the old office)
Bring the sewing room upstairs (in the boys old room)

After those things are done then it will be the “little things”… the closets, the stuff on the wall etc… but those are things that will be a bit easier…

It feel really weird at the moment to have started it… I have been thinking about it for so long…

wish us luck, if we can get most of it done… maybe by tomorrow we will be sleeping in our new room!

update 12pm: this morning it took longer than expected to bring their bunk bed down stairs. It needed to be dismantled almost completely… and then put back together… but their bedroom is now downstairs!