Halloween

Hey, we went out with Jacob for Halloween, all those months ago. I just downloaded the pics of us he was cute as a monkey - everyone got a funny nose with whisker.

Singin' Fun

Here are a couple of pictures from our music workshop last month - that's Jacob clapping on the chair next to our friends Tracy on the fiddle on the right, and Kathi on the left, and Martin singing with Ginny and Tracy. No pictures of me in the middle of the action :(. We had a heck of a time though!

Sporadic but still here

Hey everyone, GOOD NEWS! I recovered my password, I think, and I also deleted the unpleaseant anonymous messages. If you haven't heard about the blog we created for mom & dad for their 40th Anniversary you can check it out at http://40years.blog.com/. We set it up for them, so they could hear us sing some songs for them...

I'm super, super busy, taking 5 classes, a full courseload at school, which is like a 50 hour a week job. Jacob is in daycare full-time, which he loves (he's SO CUTE - I love 2 year olds!), and Martin is on teaching-leave for the fall term - that means he's doing research all fall without having classes to teach. Overall, things are great with us. I'm feeling pretty overloaded with school work, but so far I'm keeping my head above water.

We are spending this Christmas on the coast, at our !!!! NEW COTTAGE !!!! in Gibsons. If you haven't heard, we sold our condo in Canmore, and have bought a tiny 1 bedroom cottage in Bonniebrook. It's really cute, and super-tiny. It was also a total pit when we bought it - I spent about 2 weeks in summer cleaning it and gutting the kitchen and bathroom with mom & dad, and they've pretty much spent every waking minute since then finishing the job. Martin flew out in late September to get in on the action. As of 1 November our friend Erin has moved into it, and will be staying there when we are not there. I can't wait to have people over to my house in Gibsons. We are looking forward to having people over at Christmas! (Of course it's so small no one will stay that long, but still!). Mom & Dad worked so hard on it, and we're really greatful to them for it. We're planning on spending a month out there next summer, and Jacob is very happy about his new "green house".

I will try to attach a few pictures now, and also sign off, as I'm currently putting off writing a paper! I have added them - the one with Martin is in Chicago, where we went for short trip in early September - the one with me is at the Western Fair, London's fall fair - Jacob talked about the baby piggies for days!

all my best to everyone,

Amanda

sad but true

Ok, I don't need to tell you all this, but -- umm, I'm not very good about updating my blog. Now that I've admitted it I can quit apologizing! In truth, I somehow lost my password, and couldn't get in without figuring out how to reset it. And we have established how well I deal with stuff like that. But I'll write soon, now that I can.

My life is all about the singing now. It's a blast - Jacob's singing too now. Who could believe it, a 19 1/2 month old singing - he doesn't even talk yet, but he sings all sorts of things (only just the last 2 weeks). So soon I will write a real update.

ciao for now,
Amanda Lynn

Hark Was that an Idea for Art I Heard?

Today, I was driving home from school with Jacob in the car. We have our first heat wave (argh!) already and it was 33 degrees + 1000 degrees humidity, and Jacob was tired and sick. He didn't have a drink so the was cranky, hot and thirsty in the heat. It's about a 10 minute drive home, and he was very sad. In desparation I gave him his father's stereo cords to chew and investigate because he'd already thrown the water bottle and cellphone (even that!) away, and started singing him his current favourite song (from me) "I've Been Workin' on the Railroad", while rubbing my end of the cords on the back of the front seat to make an entertaining noise.

I sang it about 30 times, with this funny percussion from the cords and I thought "I should record this - it's the true sound of parenting. Ridiculous things you never thought you'd do, say, rattle, rub - all to keep your child happy. I remember when Jacob was first born I was too shy to sing to him, I felt so silly. I think it's because I had no idea what it was really like.

So I thought I could collect sounds from parents of their lives and create a soundscape installation and install it in a big, dark, cool room, so that people could walk through the room and explore the inside of parenting in a way that I think is very novel. Like the real parenting.

What'dya think? I'm looking for volunteers to send me off-key singing, rattling of keys, banging on pots, anything. Who knows if I'll do anything, but atleast I have an idea. Yeah!

Where's the Art?

Ok, some of you may be reading my headline-y thingy at the top and thinking "What about the art school?". Indeed. What about the art school. When I decided to quit my career in insurance adjusting and go to art school, it was hard to do. But, I hoped to have a family soon and starting a job just to go off on maternity leave seemed like no fun. And after all the deaths we'd recently experienced, doing something fun seemed imperative. So, I took a great big leap of faith in the world, and decided to go see if I could transfer my ancient credits from McGill and go to art school at Western. I was overjoyed, and shocked, when all my credits were accepted, and off I went to sign up for classes.

Then I realized that the school also has a linguistics program, which I love, so I decided to do a double major and took courses in both areas. Now this year I could only take one course, and no art courses fit, so it was more linguistics. And I'm taking a spring course now, also linguistics. And I find myself thinking - what about art?

The thing is I love art, I love making it, I loved making it last year. In fact, it was probably the biggest thing that allowed me to cope with losing my first baby in an early miscarriage, and then having an unstable pregnancy with the second one. I made art about it, and about my life. But I'm loving the linguistics too. I used to miss my job for its intellectual challenges. Now I could care less, because I'm much more interested in linguistic theory than insurance case law and I get the same mental stimulation from it.

So, I am anxiously awaiting my course calender for September, and hoping I can manage to squeeze at least one art course, and a linguistics course and who knows what else into next year. I want to keep with the art - it's the main thing that I want to be doing. But the linguistics keeps sucking me in, like a cheap novel or a good dessert.

So there. That's where the art is. In my head I guess. I had some huge art ideas just after Jacob was born (like making human prints with Gentian Violet), but they seem to be fading away now. Perhaps while I'm waiting for September, this blog will jog them in my memory.

For Grandma

Ok, still no full-on vacation pics, but here's a picture for my mom. Jacob first started giving her this look, which she calls his 'fluttery eyes' look before he did it to me or anyone else. It seems to be a blissful, loving look, and we've never been able to capture it on 'film' or pixels in this case. So here it is, post sand-eating, for Grandma.