Tubing

I wish I could remember everything about this day : the sun, the laughing, friends around a picnic table. The guy that came to pick up the tubes and waited for the kids to be done sliding. I was touched by the kindness of many people today. I embraced it all.

My dream

I spoke a few times here about my friend Renee (who is leaving in a few months to hike the whole Apalachian Trail - that’s 2000 miles!- with her family – her children are 10, 12 and 14! You still have 48 hours to support their awesome Kickstarter campaign!) wrote something that really hit home. She says she caught herself comparing her family’s dream to other families’s dream, namely the homesteading one, and wondered if the back-to-the-land dream à la Taproot was more noble than the dream of traveling/hiking with her family.

I remember wondering the same thing when we sold our little homestead in 2011. How could I be so hedonistic and not do my part for the environment by growing my own food, raising my own meat (I had become vegan at that point so that part didn’t make sense anymore) and turning every leftover to compost (and be part of that important cycle)... I loved having animals in my life, gardening, preparing all that wonderful food, but the repetition of all those tasks, the never-ending to-do lists and all the tedious work related to having a farm was draining the life out of me...

I have come to accept that farming is not my element right now, whereas traveling with my family and camping/hiking/skiing/biking/rock climbing/exploring with my girls and JF makes me feel alive and connected to my essence and to the world. Is this less noble that homesteading? I doubt so.

P.S. Dear readers, blogging is a funny thing... You put yourself out there and have no idea who reads your words. I often meet people that "know me" from the blog. I know many of you read the blog, but very few leave comments. I respect that, of course. However, I'd love to know who you are, or simply that you are there. I told you before that I was a connexion junkie. I love to interact with people and get to know them. I invite you to leave me a comment in English or in French (with a link to your blog if you have one) and tell me something about you (in the post or the upcoming ones, if you feel like it, of course). 

Also, if you have liked Catherine et les fées Facebook page and still do not receive the new posts notifications, simply do a mouse over on the Like button (without clicking) and select Get notifications.

So, tell me what is your element? What makes you feel connected to your essence? What makes you feel alive?

Chinese New Year

I already told you that my friend Steph throws the best parties. Well, she did it again for Chinese New Year! Along with her boys, she spent the week creating an amazing paper maché dragon and after telling the story behind the dragon dance, they performed it for us. Here's the story she told:

Long, long ago the people of China told of a legend of a vicious beast with a long head and a sharp horn called Nian which means year in Chinese. Nian lived deep in the ocean the whole year, but on every Chinese New Year he would climb on the shore to destroy villages and harm the people. One day the Jade Emperor told the village people that Nian does not like the colour red and loud noise. In addition he told the people to build a fierce dragon to chase Nian, the year away. On the night of Chinese New Year, the people hung red banners, made a lot of noise by banging pots an pans and brought out their fierce dragon. When Nian saw the dragon and heard the loud noise, he fled the village in fear. Once a year since this night, on New Year's Eve the people of China perform a dragon dance, decorate their houses with red and make loud noises to chase Nian away and bring good luck to everyone.

There were really cool crafts for the kids (a little drum that they used to "scare the dragon away" during the dance), amazing food, great people and the release of lanterns in the sky (I wanted to do that since I read about the lantern festival of Thailand and the girls asked about is since seing the movie Tangled).

 It was snowy and the snow made the paper lanterns wet, so it was a bit tricky, but most of the lanterns flew away in the night (they are ecological and decomposable), which means most of us will have good luck in the next year! (you have to make a wish when the lantern starts going up). It was magical!

And you know what? It's the year of the horse. It's my year.
And it's going to be a great one!

My hat with wings

I think I found the perfect hat with wings.

The music of my life

Their arguing about reading music is hilarious. I don’t understand much, but it sure is a welcome change from who lost whose Polly Pocket dress or who stole whose Lego piece…

A friend said that welcoming music in one's home is truly a gift. She could not have said it better.

Dear January sun

Dear January sun, please come again soon.

Weaving

He looked at YouTube videos of weaving to help her set up her loom for a scarf (the instructions in the box were all in German). Then, after our ski outing, when we came back home, the whole place smelled of warm croissants (he had put them in a very low oven before we left). And yesterday, he helped me backup my computer files (it took hours...how can someone so organized as I am in real life have such a messy files system?) Could he be any more awesome?