1. community celebrations where i realize how many people i know and how thankful i am that my job has made me part of the community.

2. living in a country where we enjoy food and water at reasonable cost.

3. living in a place where my kids are safe.

4. living in a country where we can still make fun of ourselves.

5. customers wishing me "happy independence day!"

Seriously, i feel among the luckiest people in the world to be born into such abundance. I am proud to be canadian and plan on telling my kids every single day how lucky we are.

Sweet, sweet summer vacation.

It has been a wonderful start to vacation. Camping in tofino was amazing, sleeping in every morning has been amazing, swimming at the lake every single day. In the summer i truly feel like we live in the very best place in the whole world. The whole town slows down. A constant stream of kids walking to and from the lake, swimsuits around their necks and quiet giggling with friends as they walk up and down the country roads.

The kids are really happy. I had hoped in my heart that once summer came and we spent so much time together that their spirits would be lifted just a little bit and this hard year would finally find some joy in it.

A few weeks ago i had a meeting with the counselor at the kids school. We talked about the atmosphere in my house, the fighting between the kids, my frustrations with their not listening to me. She was great and, as outsiders can often do, gave me some really great advice. So simple, yet i didn't see it. In my desire to make the kids happy i had become a push-over. Trying too hard to be their friend.

She said if i just became an authority figure again, was consistent with rules and consequences, my house would return to harmony.

And magic of magic, it has worked. The kids are listening to me. We are enjoying each other more than ever and the fighting has really subsided. They still fight, don't get me wrong on that one, but they are quicker to try and solve the problem before it erupts.

I see a really great summer ahead of us.

I was joking around with ada on twitter last night about divorce in the age of social networking.

You see, a few weeks ago my ex-husband removed me as a friend on FaceBook. I was crushed. It seemed a silly thing to be upset about, but it was like that final door closing. I was unfriended. We were no longer friends. I pictured photo albums being poured through and my face cut out of family photographs. Trash bags full of photos of my head.

The other night my daughter asked me to look at something she had written on her dad's profile. "I can't we're not friends." She looked puzzled. "Well, add him as a friend." It's important to me to not bring the kids into the drama that ebbs and flows between their father and i, yet i didn't want to lie to her and i didn't want to hurt her. "I could do that, but maybe it's for the best, this way we both get our privacy."

Then there is this blog, there is twitter. I have locked and unlocked my twitter account several times over the past few months. How do i navigate this? How do i say what i want to say, sometimes need to say, without causing pain and protecting my privacy. The answer? You can't. If i want privacy i would have to get off the internet and i just can't do that. The support and therapeutic value of writing, of putting it out there, is too strong for me.

Instead, i will slowly unentangle two lives and six years of marriage that happened online.

1. qualifying for a mortgage

2. finding the perfect house for me

3. driving 600km in five days in my new car

4. fitting all the camping gear in said car

5. a stranger giving me a Thule box for my car upon hearing me chat with the kids in line at the store about how to fit everything and how expensive said boxes are.

*it's all about karma"*

i bought a house today. two weeks ago i bought a car.

this shit is freaking me out.

i'm doing it all by myself.

there is no man there to check and balance with and i'm pretty sure i'm not getting screwed, but rather the opposite, i am rocking this single thing.

Last week toby turned ten years old. We have been so busy with the requisite end of year field trips, a family camping trip and enjoying life in general that i haven't had time to write about him until now.

Toby is the most amazing boy. Long time readers know that he has had his share of struggles. Toby was diagnosed with apraxia of speech at two years old. When he entered kindergarten he was 90% unintelligble to strangers. He went through seven years of speech therapy. This past year we transferred toby from private to public school in order to gain access to more resources for him and get him psycho-educational testing. His tests came back showing him at above-average to gifted intelligence in almost all subject areas. He was also diagnosed with a profound learning delay in reading and writing - a result of miss-firing synapses because of his apraxia.

The test results brought me great relief because i already knew what they would say and it meant that he could gain access to very limited special education resources. He switched to a modified educational plan that included many of his texts and home-reading being done on tape. He went from a grade one level in reading comprehension to exactly on track for grade four in a matter of weeks. His confidence soared at a time when he needed it most.

Toby talks non-stop from the moment he wakes until sleep takes over his tired body. Once he found his words they never stopped coming. He is filled with brilliant and large ideas and an imagination that knows no limit. He is loud and rough and jubilant and moody like most ten year old boys. He is always eager to help me with any job and, when i think about it, has really filled the role of "man of the house" in my home.

Sometimes i wish he would just slow down for a moment so i could give him a big hug and tell him how proud i am of him and how far he has come. I know that this will be the year that all the pieces have come together for toby and he will soar. Happy birthday toby, i love you.