Beantown Bugle: 2017

Sunday, October 22, 2017

Monday, August 28, 2017

Ladies "Hiking" Weekend

Two weeks ago I had the great fortune to join a group of ladies on a "Wilderness" adventure. I say "Wilderness" and not Wilderness because while it had access to all the Maine Wilderness one could ask for, it also had some pretty nice amenities. The trip was conceived by a pre-kid friend, Jen. We met not long before Matt and I were married and ended up pregnant at the same time. We stayed in touch in those early days and even had the kids camping together a few times when they were pretty young.

But time passes as it does, I had a second, she adopted a second, they don't live to close and life generally gets in the way as it tends to. But, through the modern miracle of Facebook, we were loosely in touch over the past couple of years and when she posted about a "Moms Only" backpacking trip, I was thrilled at the chance to get out there with her again. I also reached out to some other friends from that era who I have stayed more closely in touch with and managed to convince my other friend Sue to join in.

I was a little anxious, after not hiking much for the past couple of years, but the trip was very do-able, even for me! I hadn't' met any of the others before the trip, but that didn't matter - I did plenty of trips this way with the AMC many moons ago. More importantly these gals were incredibly friendly, fun and so welcoming, by the end of the weekend it felt like we had known each other for ages!

It was a quick, flat, 2 mile hike into the hut (don't be fooled by the moniker, it was beautiful!) where food, drinks (including grown up drinks!) were available, as well as boats and paddle boards, books and games, and even hot showers (I kid you not).

So we hiked in, and after we got settled we took a selection of boats out onto Lake Flagstaff for a few hours. We paddled for a while, floated for a while, and repeated the same. It was a stellar weather day and incredibly relaxing. Cocktail hour and dinner followed, then a round of cribbage and a campfire.

All of the ladies on the trip had kids around the age of ours, and it was amazing how similar they can be. In some ways it validates some of the experience of parenting, but mostly I think it was just nice to commiserate with people going through the same things - hectic schedules, picky eaters, etc. etc. Funny how we get away for a kid-free weekend, but all we did was talk about the kids!

Ready to hit the trail Danielle and Susan

On the trail

My friend of nearly 15 years - Sue!

Selfie at the Trailhead

Group Shot at the Hut

Group Shot near the Lake

Another Group....

Cocktail Hour on the dock, or floating

Jen, our Instigator and Melanie

Susan and a chilly Erin

Jen, ready to Paddle

A little floating

The dining room at the main cabin

Gathering outside our bunk room

Jen and Melanie relaxing in the lodge

Me and Danielle also relaxing

Small sample of the food and drink available

Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Foto Friday ish

Happy birthday Roddie !

Foto Friday ish

Backpack Attack 2017 for Lowell wish

I've been thinking a lot lately about how I participate in our community. I mean someone has to run the PTO, the board of directors at hockey, coach so many things, teach Sunday school and all the rest. Some people seem to have infinite capacity to take on these roles. I do not. my introvert/extrovert balance coupled with a very extrovert job means I crave some quiet time. I've done some of these roles in the past and will again, but for this year, need to focus internally I think.

In any case, that had me looking around for other opportunities, and I've long been a fan of the Lowell Wish Project - a nonprofit near us whose mission is to provide basic goods to over 35,000 needy clients in our area. We often donate our excess household goods (yes, still thinning out after combining households 11 years ago!) but I also send them items from their Amazon wish list from time to time. This time of year they run a "backpack attack" where they collect new backpacks, filled with a standard list of school supplies for children who otherwise wouldn't have one. The thing that really got me about this was the fact that many of these children are in unreliable housing situations, and sometimes their backpack is their only "personal space". Wow.

We are fortunate to live in a relatively affluent community where we don't see a lot of people who want for much - just the opposite in fact. My kids and most of my friends kids not only have plenty of backpacks, but also entire rooms (yes rooms!) of their own personal space. So I figured, backpack attack could be a win-win, if I used it as an opportunity to talk to the kids about what other kids lives might be like.

So, early one Sunday morning when I couldn't sleep (not unlike now) I ordered 2 dozen backpacks from Amazon and sent out a note to my friends in the neighbourhood, telling them about the project and asking if they wanted to help fill the backpacks - an amazing thing happened - within 24 hours, all the supplies I needed to fill the bags (plus some!) were ordered and on their way to me - thank you amazon and target!

By that Friday, a huge pile had accumulated in the foyer and the kids could not wait to put the bags together. We had had several conversations over the course of the week as the boxes piled up about what these backpacks might mean to the kids who got them. Norah gave them a personal touch by making sure that each one had a color co-orinated set of supplies.

We dropped off the completed backpacks on Saturday morning.... this was so easy I might do 48 next year :)