happy 4th!

Happy 4th of July to you Americans out there! And happy birthday to Paul Kwinn!

Jodi, Allison and I got a letter from the Canadian Cancer Society yesterday, thanking us for our support of the Relay For Life event. Apparently the two Toronto events raised over $325,000, which is pretty cool. More than 33,000 people participated in Relay For Life events across Canada in June, raising almost $8 million. Proceeds will be used to fund research on all types of cancer as well as help support people living with cancer and their family and friends.

Way too humid in Toronto to do much outdoor running these days, so I ran on the treadmill at my health club yesterday instead. Treadmill running is not nearly as fun as outdoor running, but I did find out that I can run for 40 minutes without stopping at about a 13 minute mile pace (which, for the information of all you non-runners out there, is pretty darned slow compared to experienced runners). Good workout for me, though.

I took Jeff's iPod to the gym with me yesterday and listened to some Neil Young. I hated Neil Young when I first heard him (way too whiney) but his voice has grown on me, creeping up on me from behind like a mugger hiding in an alleyway. I find his off-key nasal meanderings comforting somehow.

I'm hoping it rains later today so I can go running outside.





I can't believe it's July already. The spring whizzed right past with barely time for a jump in the lake at ice-out. It astounds and horrifies me how quickly time can slip away. I've been more conscious of how I spend my time since members of my family have been snatched away without little or no warning in the past, but I'm also still aware of how easy it is to whittle away the hours of day doing non-essential nitpicky things rather than focussing on what's really important.

One of the main things I've learned is the necessity of prioritizing. And acknowledging that fact that I can't do everything that I want to do, that it's better to give up some things in order to better be able to enjoy others. It's tough sometimes, though.

One exercise I've found highly illuminating was to keep a time log of how I spend a typical day. Not just recording major tasks completed, but recording absolutely every activity I did during a day, and how long it takes. I was amazed at how much time I was wasting, procrastinating, frittering away on things that distracted me from the real task(s) at hand. Or making relatively simple tasks much more difficult and involved than they had a right to be, so that by the end of a day it was far too easy to say, "I didn't get X done because geez, I was so busy!"

I've found that talking to parents who work at home about this sort of thing inspirational, a virtual slap in the head or wake-up call. I feel stupid whining about how little time I have when people like my sister are finding ways to carve out highly efficient work time despite the hectic schedule-juggling necessary while raising kids.

In fact, I had similar conversations with both my sister, a children's book illustrator, and Maya Bohnhoff, who is a professional sf/fantasy writer as well as a mother of two (soon three!!). They both said that they don't have the luxury of easing into workmode or getting inspired...when they find/make available time during the day or night, they're able to transition into super-productive mode right away, to make the most of every minute. My friend Michelle does most of her writing after the kids have gone to bed after an already full day. I don't know how she does it; my brain generally turns to mush after 10 pm. I suspect that they can each get more accomplished in a single hour than many could get done in a day.

Maybe it's a special gene that only parents, especially mothers, have? Whatever the case, I wish I had it. And no, Luisa, I'm not willing to have children so I can get it. :-)

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Today's Blatherpics:

	Sara at the cottage in her watergun battle gear.
	Jodi and Allison at the Relay For Life event last month.
	Reid at the cottage on the weekend.

back to work

For those who missed them, I've updated my cottage Blatherings for Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.

Ugh, the temperature is supposed to go up to 33ºC today. My motivation to go running in this kind of humid heat is pretty much zero; I think I'll opt for working out in the air-conditioned gym later today instead. And try to get up even earlier for a morning run outside tomorrow.





Some links:

My Songwriting Music Theory 101 column on Muse's Muse is up. This month's column: ledger lines, woohoo!

Ever wonder how your e-mail address gets passed from one spam list to another? Check out this story on Wired.

Yesterday I mentioned the snapping turtle in the lake at the cottage. According to this Reuters story, looks like some Germans in Munich have been having snapping turtle woes of their own.

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Today's Blatherpics:

	Sara at the cottage.
	Reid relaxing in the lake.
	Luisa ready for a watery assault.

poll: heat wave

I've updated the Blatherings for Sunday and Monday, for those interested.

Ruth, Kaarel, Sara and Annie left the cottage this morning after a last swim in the lake. At one point, Sara yelled, "Oh my goodness!" and swam very quickly to the dock and climbed out of the water, saying that something had popped up beside her in the water and looked at her before diving down again.

Apparently the cottage snapping turtle decided to make a reappearance this past weekend. It's been around for years (if it's the same one, that is), but has only been seen a few times. About a foot and a half in length, it seems to mainly come up when it's really hot outside. Jeff suspects that the turtle lives underneath our dock, where it's dark and cool.





Earlier in the weekend, Jeff tried gently poking at the turtle with a canoe paddle to encourage it to swim away, but the turtle just ignored him. Interesting, since supposedly the snappers are "defensive if confronted on land, but, in the water, they usually slip quietly away from any disturbance".

We're going to try to figure out a way of safely moving the turtle to another area of the lake, just to minimize possible incidents in the future, such as someone accidentally injuring themselves on the turtle's shell, or someone inadvertently causing the turtle to snap.

Any advice from snapping turtle experts out there welcome!





As fun as the cottage weekend was, I'm glad to be home. I'm not great when dealing with humid heat. I far prefer ice and snow and subzero temperatures; at least you can always add layers to keep warm! This past weekend was especially bad for heat. We could jump in the lake to keep cool, but you can only stay underwater for so long. :-)

Poll: How do you deal with heat?

Do you prefer hot weather over cold? Do you have air conditioning? What do you like doing in hot weather?

I'm anxious to get back to work on my novel, which was sadly neglected during the audit. I've decided to postpone looking for new magazine articles this month so I can focus on catching up on my book.

Hope you Canadians all had a great Canada Day!

cartoon wars

Luisa, Reid, Ronnie and Michael came to visit this afternoon. Activities included swimming, watergun fights, stuffing our faces on hot dogs and frozen Lolas, and cartoon wars. The photo above is of Ruth taking her turn in a particularly exciting cartoon war.

In a cartoon war, you take turns with your opponent in destroying that opponent's cartoon character. Suppose I draw a picture of a bunny, for example. You could add a picture of an arrow being shot through the bunny's head. I could add a big lightning bolt setting the arrow on fire before it reached the bunny's head. You could add a bucket of water putting the fire out. Etc. etc.

As you can imagine, cartoon wars can get pretty gruesome. :-)

Photo below is of Sara, Ruth and Reid in the lake:





Here's a picture I took of Luisa:





Jeff gave Sara a canoeing lesson during the weekend:

cottage

Catching up on cottage Blatherings...

The photo at the top of the page is of Annie, Jeff and Ruth. Both Annie and Sara have cool swimming goggles with holographic images in the lenses. Annie's have big eyes, which is a little disconcerting, much to Annie's delight:





The purple and orange things are the kids' "noodles", which are made of styrofoam.





Above photo: Sara, who turns eight years old at the end of this month. Dear lord. EIGHT. I can't believe it.

The photo of me and Kaarel below was taken by my five-year-old niece Annie: