Moolie - Happy Thanksgiving :)

[moolie]

Thanks so much everyone!

The girls did really well throughout the entire morning, and the younger daughter actually got up and spoke about her Mom--that was when I teared up. I spoke at length with their Dad afterward and he doesn't think it has totally hit the girls just yet. Mom was in hospice for two weeks, so they only saw her once a day, more often the last couple of days, and they weren't there when she passed (in her sleep). Dad thinks it will hit at the burial on Wednesday (they are having the actual funeral in her home town, today was just a memorial service for friends and family here).

So please keep these two girls in your thoughts and prayers this week, they are going to need a lot of strength to get through another ceremony and the actual interment.

 

[Denim Deb]

Moolie, when my SIL died last month, it hit the youngest that day-she was there when she died, but I honestly don't think it hit her oldest until the interment. That was the first time I saw her cry. Up til then, she acted like nothing happened. The support of all her friends and family members will help both of these girls and their dad a lot, both during the funeral, the interment, and life afterwards.

 

[moolie]

Thanks Deb, and hugs to you as well--I hope your nieces are doing ok.

 

[Denim Deb]

They seem to be. Time will tell.

 

[moolie]

Yeah, they say kids are resilient and can handle everything that life throws at them, but I just can't imagine what a child feels when he/she loses a parent. Especially a mother.

 

[moolie]

So I mailed dehydrated kefir grains to Homemaker and chickensducks&agoose yesterday

I followed the instructions for drying on Dom's Kefir Page, and then packed the grains in ziploc bags covered in dry milk powder (all I could find locally was Carnation Instant Skim Milk Powder) and then I packed them up with some foam packing material in envelopes and sent them off!

I hung the grains in a mesh nylon bag from my ceiling

ready for packing up!

in baggies ready for dry milk powder, they look much smaller now that they are dehydrated

packing up

package of milk powder

 

[moolie]

I still have 2 extra dehydrated grains left if anyone would like them

 

[moolie]

Happy Easter everyone!

Hubbie is baking bread today because we were out Friday and all day Saturday up in the mountains (we're near the Rockies and Banff/Kootenay National Parks) for an outdoorsy weekend and came home late last night.

We had been planning to drive out to BC to visit with my parents this weekend, but they were off to Vancouver to visit with my brother and his family and we didn't relish the 12-hour drive just for a weekend so made our own plans.

Stayed in a quaint old 50s drive-up style motel, had a nice soak in the natural hot mineral pools at Radium (free with motel stay), had a bit of a hike, and did a little bit of shopping/looking in art galleries in Invermere although we didn't buy anything.

This morning we slept in (everyone had a great sleep after the hot pool!) and the girls had a little Easter egg hunt (chocolates). The girls have gone out for a bike ride and I'm just catching up on emails and the forum on a lazy Sunday.

My tomatoes have all sprouted (yay!) and have their little cotyledon leaves, just waiting on my herbs and peppers. Should be able to build our raised beds next weekend and get some of the cool weather seeds sown (peas, beans, lettuce, radishes, carrots etc.)

A couple of the coir seedling pots have a bit of fuzzy mold on the outside, hope that's not going to be a problem!

 

[moolie]

Just checking in as it's been a crazy week and I haven't put any time into my journal for a week or so.

It's a beautiful sunny warm spring day, which is super as we've been having a few spring flurries the past couple of days--nothing that has stuck, but it's been annoying.

Hubby is baking bread, one kid is taking a bath after a long day teaching Geo-Caching at a Girl Guide Camp Skills day and the other smells like camp fire as she waits her turn to get clean.

My girls and I are quite involved with Girl Guides (my girls are Pathfinders and have been in Guiding since age 5, and I've been a Guide leader for 7 years now in addition to having been a Brownie and a Guide as a girl). We've been busy this week as the girls prepared for today and did some fund raising for a big jamboree-type camp in BC this coming July.

The girls have been doing bottle drives each month since Christmas in addition to selling Girl Guide Cookies and have almost covered their camp and transportation costs. Last summer they both attended a giant international jamboree-style "100th Anniversary of Guiding" camp that took place in Ontario, and each of my daughters fund raised the nearly $2000 it cost to attend and fly out to that camp--we're very proud of both of them and their Guiding accomplishments! My girls were both on the shy side when they first started school and Guiding has turned them into self-assured and confident young women and given them many life and outdoors skills along the way.

 

[moolie]

I think I've explained before that Girl Guides is the same as US Girl Scouts (which were actually originally called Girl Guides but the American organization decided fairly early on that the name Girl Scouts would fly better in the US--Girl Guides is the name used in most British Commonwealth countries).

Just for fun I'm posting some photos and info about each level of Canadian Guiding so you can have a visual about what I'm talking about, as Girl Guides will come up often in my journal--Girl Guides of Canada (GGC) is divided into:

Sparks, age 5-6 (kindergarten & grade 1)
(pink uniform accents and maple-leaf tie)
Brownies, age 7-8 (grades 2-3)
(brown uniform accents and maple-leaf tie)
Guides, age 9-11 (grades 4-6)
(blue uniform accents and maple-leaf tie)
Pathfinders, age 12-14 (Jr. High, grades 7-9)
(green uniform accents and maple-leaf tie)
Rangers, age 15-18 (High School, grades 10-12)
(red uniform accents and maple-leaf tie)

GGC has two annual Girl Guide Cookie sales fund raising campaigns:

We sell Classic Chocolate and Vanilla cookies every spring,

And we sell Chocolate Mint cookies every fall.

The funds raised from Girl Guide Cookie sales (door to door, at tables at malls and big box stores etc.) cover most of the activities the girls do throughout the year (camps, field trips, craft and other meeting supplies etc.)

Units may also use other methods of fund-raising for special trips/camps such as bottle drives and car washes etc. as long as they ask permission of their local council for fund raising in addition to cookie sales.