Shelly Tucker is a crazy lady…but a crazy lady I’m lovin’ even more! She blogs over at “This Eclectic Life” and always has challenging entries…she’s a blogger to look up to.

I just clicked onto her blog to see what was new and was blown away by what I saw. Talk about CRAZY! Shelly has taken up a challenge and is in turn challenging all us readers and bloggers to help her out. She’s making a goal to send 140 kids to camp this year. That’s $21,000.00!!! These kids will be attending Camp Sanguinity, a camp for kids with cancer.

If you feel the urge, that small little voice, to help Shelly and these kids out, check out her blog entry for more details.

Good luck Shelly!! I’m really rootin’ for ya!!

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Kiddies

My sister in law is pregnant. Again. This will be their second child and unfortunately, it leads everyone to believe that her brother and I will be getting in the baby mood too. We won’t. They can stop asking now. Her stomach churns, they tilt their head and say “Oh, mmm, because you’re pregnant” and then turn to me “Katie, when will you guys start having kids?” Yeah. Because seeing a sick pregnant woman really makes me want to pop a kid out.

I love kids. I’m almost forced into loving them, really. I’m the oldest of eight kids, the youngest are 20 years younger than me and just turned 4. My parents have the cutest babies! I can’t help but love them to pieces. And my first niece, she’s soooo cute! Kids are all around me and I love them! But that certainly doesn’t mean I’m ready to have children myself.

Like I said, I’m the oldest of eight, so I think that has a large part in why I’m not ready to have my own. Not only because I had to half-raise the younger ones, but also because I’ve seen the reality of having kids. I have a “too-realistic view” of child raising. At least that’s what I call it. All my friends oooo and aaaaah over having babies. For me, instead of seeing cute perfect babies (although I do see that too, that’s just not ALL I see) I see the crying all night (all my mom’s kids woke up every two hours until they were at least two, no matter what she tried), the constant attention, the thrush, the emotions etc.

I know I’m going to have moments where my kids are perfect and googoo’ing and smiling and so adorable I just want to bite their chubby little hands, but I also know it’s hard work.

So no, we’re not going to start having kids anytime soon…maybe in a few years…but not now. Like my mom in law said in the family Christmas card “Katie and Brett are busy having puppies” (: And I’m happy with that for now!

Ooo, more later! I received some items in the mail on Friday so I have pictures to post!! YAY!

Easter!

Did you know the statues on Easter Island was discovered on Easter Sunday in 1722?

My mom has always been “anti-traditional”. She loves anything that helps set her aside from the cookie-cutter image of being a wife and homemaker. Thus, she has never been great with keeping up the traditional holidays and celebrations. I’m sure we had more Easter memories than this, but the one Easter that stands out is the one we spent living in logging camp.

I was 13 (I remember this clearly because I was horrified when my Grandma sent me a birthday card saying “Happy 12th Birthday!”) and we had made the move to logging camp so my Dad could finish his time at this job before we moved to our farm. Why, I don’t know, he has nothing good to say about the boss, but yet he still worked there for another 8 months.

The camp was located off the north end of Vancouver Island and only accessed by float planes. We had named every plane that landed there and were able to recognize them, even before they landed, by the sound of their engine. Root Beer, Bumble Bee, and Goose. The six of us lived in a small two bedroom cabin, surrounded by old Atco trailers, broken down trucks and heavy machinery, several float houses, a dock and miles and miles of forest. One other couple lived in a bigger house beside us, but they had no kids and were our only company. The camp itself was up the gravel road a bit. Us kids were also able to tell who was driving towards our house because all the loggers had their own trucks, some with lights out, some running more rough. For the most part, all the trucks had their own sound which we came to distinguish between.

Knowing that Easter was coming mom sent some money into town with Marci, the lady that lived beside us, for candy. Marci would take the float plane into town, stay a few days and bring us treats back for our hunt.

Easter day finally came and Marci’s plane landed, ferrying in from the inlet into our bay.

I can’t remember if we were told to stay in the house or not, but somehow they hid the candy outside for us and we were set free to find it. At first we found the usual candy, Eggies, marshmallow chicks…then we started to find more! Soon several large chocolate bunnies were found (four each!), huge rainbow lolly-pops and jawbreakers, licorice and Nerds. Marci had had pity on us kids and had spent another $80.00 on candy without my mom knowing. Thinking about that now, I don’t know how mom reacted, but we were blown away.

I’ll have to write more about the logging camp later…

The biggest reason mom doesn’t stick to the traditional celebrations and ways, is that she wants us to remember the real reason those celebrations happen. It’s hard to keep that in mind while you’re chowing down on chocolate or opening a ton of gifts. I don’t blame her, but I think I’m going to do it a bit differently when I’m a parent.

Scared Silly

* This blog entry is in response to the “Scared Silly” blogging contests that Shelly Tucker, from This Eclectic Life, is hosting. Kudos to Damien from Postcards From the Funny Farm for blogging about it!

When I was seven years old my parents moved our family from a small British Columbia logging town to the big city of Victoria, BC.

I loved our new house, our new friends and our new school. My sister and I used to walk to school from our house with our matching backpacks and braided brunette pigtails. (At one point I decided my five year old sister needed to grow up so I ran home while she walked by herself. I wasn’t trying to be mean, I just thought she was old enough to do it on her own!).

Our walk to and from school consisted of several blocks, one hill, passing my crushes house…and then the corner. This particular corner was only a block from my house, I could see it across the two lane highway. This is what made the corner seem even worse. My house was so close, but yet so…..faaaaaar…..away!

My friend Christina had told me about the witch that lived on this corner. “That corner?” I asked, pointing. The house had old brown ivy crawling up the outside walls, chipping green paint and a deep front porch where the old witch sat and watched me as I walked home from school. I couldn’t see her, but I knew she was watching. “She’s got a wart,” Christina said. “It’s on her nose.”

Every time I walked by that old house…well, I wouldn’t walk. I’d run. I’d run as fast as i could until I reached the highway and then I’d take the first space in traffic and run the rest of the way home.

One terrible day I was walking home and I decided to be brave. I would walk past the ol’ witches house. I would taunt her. So I walked slowly past, trying to stop shaking, and trying to look tough. Suddenly I heard a vehicle behind me. Right behind me. It pulled up beside me and drove slowly at the same pace I was walking. I didn’t look over. I knew it was the witch. I walked faster. The vehicle sped up to the same pace. I broke into a run, whimpering, I knew she was going to get me. It honked. I didn’t look back and ran as fast as I could across the empty highway and into my yard. I finally let go of the breathe I was holding as I slammed the gate behind me. That stupid witch.

A vehicle rolled into the driveway on the other side of the gate. “Katie,” my moms friend Barb called, “why were you running away from me?”

The Creation of Beaumont

I made several new toys this weekend! Beaumont is my favorite so far. I don’t know what it is about him that I like so much, but he’s super cute (: He’s up for sale in my Etsy store now! I’m working on another guy like him and he should be up by tomorrow (:

Beaumont has a zipper for a mouth and it opens into a pocket that is the size of his body (9″ tall x 7.5″ wide). His ears can be used as handles. His eyes are two buttons and he has a striped tail.