Mom is here! Things we have accomplished part one

My mom is here for about three weeks. I am so happy.

When I grew up we lived in a small town and I had two sets of grandparents, great grandparents, and aunts and uncles all in the same community. I spent weekends with grandparents, hung out with uncles and aunts and played with cousins. I loved it.

There are five kids in my family and four of us currently live in Canada, one in the USA, but we are still so far apart that we see one another rarely. We have kids around the same ages but they really don't know one another well. My parents have been living overseas for a number of years.

My mom has returned to Canada now and I am excited for many reasons, primarily because my kids will  have a better opportunity to get to know her than they would have otherwise.

She arrived this week (my camera is not working and I am SOOO sad about that, but we will figure something out). She is an insanely hard worker and we have already contemplated the "projects" we will be working on.

Yesterday we (I say "we" loosely - I only did one thing on the list) sorted and counted over 1400 cans and bottles for recycling which I brought into town today in the truck. Mom mowed the lawn (we have a LOT of lawn and it was completely overgrown because the mower was broken and then we had two weeks of constant rain) and then when I got home from work I fixed the dripping taps in the bathroom tub.

This morning before I left for work mom wanted to know what projects she needed to be working on today and so we sat at the kitchen table and made a long list of all the things we want to do while she is here. We both LOVE lists. We both LOVE to check things off the lists and we LOVE the "before" and "after" of projects - so we really need to get the camera into working order!

Shel would like her to visit more than once a year for all the things we get accomplished!


Mom put the list on the wall and then laughed when I added "build a treehouse". She thought I was joking.