This one's for you Kitty Kat

July 25 & 26-- Katie was home again this weekend. That is the only way I know what day of the week it is. All the others blur together until Saturday when I make the trip out to KI-Wa-Y to pick Katie up. This weekend I took Katie's boyfriend out with me to get her. I really like Nate, he is a good guy. I must say we were both a little nervous at spending 40 minutes together in the car without Katie but it was actually a good trip. Nate has just come back from a mission trip to Montreal so we had lots of things to talk about. He got to do a lot of really interesting things while he was away, painting schools, cleaning parks, helping with children and just exploring the city and meeting new people- the car ride flew by. The smile on Katie's face when she saw him was well worth the trip. She was very happy to show him around the camp and introduce him to her camp friends. This is her home for the summer.

My girls are growing up. I know I tend to harp on this subject but sometimes it just seems to hit me right in the face. They don't need me the way they used to. I know they need me in different ways and I am so truly grateful that I have such a good relationship with both of the girls. Life is just different, I don't have to drive them around, I am not needed as much for the daily things. With Katie gone to camp and Nicole working my summers are very much changed from the summers of old. I have much more freedom to do things for myself with my friends but I do miss the girls.

Every week when I pick Katie up I am struck by how much she is growing and changing. She is so strong and confident, taking care of younger children, having to deal with responsibilities, superiors and co-workers has really matured her. Each week we gather Katie's laundry from her cabin, bring it home to wash then return it back to her bunk. As we were walking on the trail last week I realized that Katie's strides are now longer than mine, I was falling behind. I had such a strong impression of Katie as a little girl, running to catch up with me as we walked together, now it is me, dragging along behind her, trying to keep up and just so happy when she stops to let me.

Reason's I Love Being off in the Summer

July 23--I love being off in the summer for a couple of reason. Number 1- you have the freedom to be spontaneous. On Wednesday Michelle told me about the big Lululemon warehouse sale that was happening in Hamilton starting on Thursday. Well Nicole was off and we had no plans so woot hoot- road trip! We got up bright and early ( 8:00) on Thursday morning and headed down to Hamilton. We knew the sale would be a big deal but we had no idea of how big exactly. When we got there the line up was up and down the block- the wait time was estimated to be 6 hours. We were not sure of how good the deals were going to be but they would have to be paying me to take the pants or at least giving them away for free in order to entice me to stand in line for 6 hours- so plans dashed but hey we are flexible. Nicole and I decided to head over the Brantford to check out the university site. We had been there in the Fall but now that Nicole is actually going there for sure we wanted to scope it out a bit more. Since Nicole is only on the waiting list for residence and may be commuting I wanted to have her drive the route to get an idea of how it may be in the fall. It takes about 45 minute and the drive is not bad so she will be ok, we will just have to buy another car :(
July 24th-- The 2nd reason to love being off for the summer is the week day matinee. There is something mildly decadent about sitting in a movie theatre when most other adults are at work. My girlfriends and I went to see The Ugly Truth. What a funny movie! We had a great time and some deep down belly laughs. It was a great way to spent the day and start the weekend.

Scrap class

July 22--I spent the day at 2 Friends again yesterday and I am happy to say that I am all caught up!! I am actually at the point where I am scrapbooking current events- it feels good. I still need to go back and finish my girls school books but now I have the time to do that. I like to scrap current events as they happen, you capture much more of the feelings, it is hard to work up the same enthusiasm for something that happened 6 months ago. I had a great day with Deb and Michelle made it out for a bit as well.

I was at the class last night that Karan taught. I don't take classes as often as I used too but it was fun to be with my friends, Kelly, Veronica and Sam as well as Karan. I learned a couple of new techniques and used some new products- got out of my regular old routine. I know I was a bit on the quiet side last night ladies but I didn't want to bring any homework home with me!!! We got to take part in a special celebration last night. It was Joanne's birthday and her family showed up at the class with a cake for her! We all sang Happy Birthday. It was a very touching moment and it brought a tear to some peoples eyes. I was happy to be apart of that.

Happy Birthday my friend!!

My Book Club Ladies

July 21st-- I had book club tonight. It was kirsten's turn to host. I decied to walk over to her place, it's not far, took me about 20 minutes and I felt good doing it since I had not made it to the gym.

Our book club is small, there are only 4 of us. It is my 4 closet girl friends, Kirsten, Michelle and Gen. We are all quite different but we seem to fill each others needs. The good thing about book club is that we read all sorts of different books. There are no rules, we can pick whatever book we want and then we have a month to read it. We take turns hosting and there are always great snacks. Sometimes we add a movie night if the book has been made into a film. I have read many books that I might not have otherwise tried. I don't always like the books but on the whole it is a good experience. I mainly enjoy being a part of the club because of the people who are in it. It is very important to have girlfriends in your life and it is important to make sure you make time for your friends. book club forces us to make that time. We all are busy with kids, sports, jobs, it is easy for us, as women, to put other's needs before our own. I am glad that I am friends with women who value our friendship as much as I do.

I love you guys!!!

July 19--cleaned the house
went to my mom's for dinner
watched Josh's baseball game
took Katie back to camp
July 20--slept in!!
ran errands
went to the gym
made spaghetti sauce

**spoiler Alert** Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

** spoiler alert** If you don't want to know about the movie, book or book #7 don't read below

July 18th

I love all things Harry Potter. I have devoured the novels hot off the presses. I have also enjoyed the movies very much- until now.

I read a lot of books and see a lot of movies so I am very used to things being left out or altered when a book becomes a movie. I realize the Harry Potter novels are very long and there is no way to get all the details of the book in the movie but to cut out as much as they did for this last movie is very upsetting. The fact that they not only cut out whole chunks of the book but actually added in new scenes is ridiculous. I personally was really looking forward to seeing the parts of the book that deal with Tom Riddle aka Voldermort as a young boy as well as his parents and all the details of his conception and birth. To me this information gives such insight into Tom and why he became the dark wizard that he is. If you never learn about his upbringing, his rejection as a child, then how can you understand how powerful Harry's mother's love is and why it saves Harry? If you want to cut out characters that may seem peripheral to the story then fine, don't put in the wedding story of Bill and Fluer, don't show the house elves or the ghosts ( although they do certainly play a part in the book) but you can't cut out huge fight scenes or all the details of the work the Order is doing with the giants and the werewolves. I think that the movie did a disservice to the ending of the novel. The fight that goes on in the school when Dumbledore is killed is important- it shows the students that they are now involved in a war, they are no longer safe at Hogwarts. We need to believe at the end of the movie that Snape is a bad guy- this is very strongly shown in the book but in the movie you know Snape is acting on Dumbledore's behalf when he kills him- it is either not well acted or not well directed --you choose. I am not sure how it is all going to play out in the next 2 movies. I hope by making the last book into 2 movies they will be able to stay true to the story, that we will get all the details we need to complete the story because JK Rowlings did an excellent job of wrapping the saga up- she answered every question I had and made the whole story tie in together and finish off properly.

Ok enough of my rant- the good thing is that we all got together and spent an evening at the movies. The Harry Potter movie releases have always been a big deal in my family. We have all read all of the books and we get together and see the movie as a group. At the most we have have 20 people all sitting together in the theatre. This time we were down to 9 but all the important players were there, my girl's, my parents, my brother and my niece as well as Josh and Katie's friend Paige. We had fun, most of us were disappointed in the movie, it was kinda slow and short on details as mentioned above but we were happy to be spending time together.

We are Exercising!!

July 17--I am trying to get in some kind of shape. I don't expect any drastic changes I just want to feel better and have more energy. I have been going to the gym a couple of times a week with Shawn, Nicole and Michelle. I usually do a yoga class but I am going to start and do some cardio work. I did try to go on the elliptical machine- it really did not work out very well but I hope to build up to a better level of endurance.

Exercising is so much better with a partner. I am lucky that I have so many people to chose from! My friend Michelle has joined the gym as well. We work at motivating each other to go. It would be easy to just stay sitting on my couch some days but with the obligation of plans with friends makes me get up and go out the door. Nicole is fun to go to the gym with. She is in much better shape than I am but she is great at motivating and encouraging me. Shawn has been going to the gym for years. He doesn't do classes but works out on the machines. We work at encouraging each other to get up and go, we drive over together do our own thing and then come home. I am hoping that I will eventually get to the point where I can keep up to Nicole and Shawn on the machines.

I have also started to walk. So simple yet I hardly ever do it. I have started to walk with my friend Deb. We both have dogs so we head out to Huron Natural area once a week and get them and ourselves an hour or so of exercise. I like walking because you are moving yet you can still chat.

I hope I keep it up. I am enjoying it and also how it makes me feel. I know it will get tougher when school starts up again but hopefully by then I will have a good routine in place.