Sunday, Feb. 27, 2005
8:30 a.m.

When you step out in the back yard here, you are overwhelmed by a huge wall of rock that blocks out the sky, just feet from where you are standing. It gives Everett the weebie-jeebies, and me too ... especially since Scott pointed out the small pieces of it that lay all over the lawn and patio. Should that thing ever come down, well that would be it for this house. Done-zo.

Within the little grove of trees in this picture is where the deer hang out. Haven't noticed them there for a while, but then, have hardly looked either.

We are enjoying blue skies and sunshine again after long months of grey gloom. It's still cool outside though, and this morning there is frost on the roofs below us, and on the cover of the hot tub that the neighbour has slid back onto it after an early morning dip.

Last night we had a little party, since both my brother and my nephew are in town. There was much happy munching on cheesies and a nut combination with chocolate, and there was some pool playing, but I didn't have the good sense to get the camera out. I'm regretting that this morning, remembering how, after the small crowd arrived and gathered around the munchies on the kitchen island, Emil went to stand by his 22-year-old cousin Marc and announced that the two of them look alike.

"By cracky, you do too!" we all agreed, leaning sideways to take a look.

With luck and a bit of planning we'll get to see Marc and his girlfriend again this week. Emil would be devastated if we didn't.

I was looking at Marc last night, "all growed up," and remembering him as a baby and toddler. He was my first recognizable experience of loving a kid, my first inkling that yeah, maybe I'd like to have some of my own one day. I used to shock and awe him with a loud musical yodelling; he'd sit in his high chair and stare at me while I belted out the tune, and then he'd break up into giggling. Last night I wondered how he'd react if I repeated my performance as he sat beside his girlfriend, on the couch. Didn't subject him to it.

Yesterday after breakfast I drove my brother Cameron over to Mom and Dad's and had a lesson in appliquéing and embroidering for the quilt Mom is helping me make. She is determined that someone is going to inherit her love of quilting, and has all three of her daughters working on our own blankets now.

She is unable to walk across the room without fairly severe backache and bone pain, but my uncle Bruce remarked that she was less hunched over yesterday than the day before. We hope she is on the mend, that the radiation treatments worked this time. Dad conked out on the loveseat in the TV room for about an hour and Mom commented about how tired he is, now that she's home from the hospital and he is having to look after her again. "It's a big job; he's constantly jumping up to get me pills or water or food or something. He's worn out."

He has put his three daughters on notice that golf season is about to begin and we must organize ourselves to stay with Mom so he can get out on the course. Mom thinks that will be great, because then we'll be over there more often and "get those quilts done."