hugger

2011. 2011. without any great forethought, i'd have to say it wasn't the year i expected. i don't know what i expected, it just felt fuller. it was a great year with many significant highlights, but still something of a curve ball. surprisingly, the two greatest curve balls are also the two things that book-end 2011. almost right after new year, it may have been january 2, we started talking about the idea of brendan going back to school. at this point it seems so crazy to think there was a time when he wasn't pursuing social services, but indeed there was a period of consideration and discussion. as part of that decision he also took a job at startek and began working full time so he could save for his tuition. this was a major shift for us, but one that we adjusted to fairly well. the other book-end curve ball (wow, i'm mixing metaphors), was obviously our house. we've lived here for 2 weeks and are enjoying it a great deal. it's an adjustment, but i feel so positive about this move. i have no doubts that it was a good decision and a wise step.

january did not gently ease my next church community into the new year, but instead took the baby of some important friends during the 6th month of pregnancy. it felt like everyone i knew at that time was impacted by that experience. it weighed heavily on all of us, but was a great opportunity to pull together with great love. as always, the beat goes on and brendan started his new job and i started finally making progress with losing weight. i was working out with regularity and keeping close tabs on my food consumption. i'd made a new year's resolution to start cutting my portions in half, because i'd discovered that my instincts with food were disproportionate with how much i needed. oh, and we bought brendan's little netbook. it was supposed to be ours, but it's turned out to be mostly his. that's ok, he's pretty good at sharing.

february marked the end of my time on the board at next. with 3 years under my belt i was tired and really ready for a change. at work i continued to take on more responsibility and have enjoyed the challenge. it makes the day go faster when i'm busy all day. i started as editor of the internal newsletter, which turned out to be right up my alley. it was fun and engaging, and i was very surprised at how satisfying i found it. over the family day weekend brendan and i went to visit beckie in quebec city. it was cold, but very fun. 6-hour road-trips are surprisingly enjoyable when you're with your best bud. that was our second long trip together (having gone to north bay in 2010), and we've found it's quite doable. it was brendan's first time meeting beckie's dogs and they really won him over quickly :)

march brought the good word that brendan had official been accepted to college. meanwhile, i underwent a number of medical tests, which were part of a long on-going search to identify the cause of some semi-chronic pain i'd been experiencing. it was a stressful time for me, and unfortunately paired with the mysterious pain, but thankfully i tried to keep everything in perspective and in the end was cleared of anything serious and given some helpful tips. the main highlight of march was our trip to ireland. we spent 10 days in both the republic and the north, backpacking around and visiting with rachel and eric in dublin. we enjoyed the sites, the relaxed pace of holidays, pints of guinness and cadbury's chocolate. while we were there brendan lost his wedding ring (left it in a hostel shower), but thankfully he got it back after we went back to derry to retrieve it.

april was rather uneventful, although a tense time, with the election on the way. lots of opinions floating around on facebook and i recall a sense of division that i've never encountered before. i'm filled with alarm at the thought of this being the new status quo – division, silos, opinions. it's disheartening. but in more exciting news... although we learned this before april, we were thrilled with the news of a new niece on the way. ben and meg were expecting their first baby and we couldn't have been happier for them.

may brought an opportunity for me to begin a writing correspondence course. i love writing, and it comes naturally to me, but this was the first time since high school that i got to write with the purpose of improving and learning. i really enjoyed it and was delighted that i excelled in the course. without knowing it, i planted my last balcony garden at the maxipad. the plants all died halfway thru the season as usual, but i did enjoy that balcony. i may have especially enjoyed it this year. also in may, shanno and i got to attend a social justice conference at the sally ann.

june was a good excuse to purge myself of a lot of excess stuff via spring cleaning. with brendan and my work schedule's not lining up, i had a lot of time on weekends to get organized. as b was starting to look ahead to starting school in the fall, his work announced that it was closing all all the employees at his site would be layed off come september. the timing of that could not have worked out better for him since he was planning on leaving then anyways, and if they'd closed a few months sooner he wouldn't have had enough time to save up for both years of college tuition. phew! to celebrate our first wedding anniversary we took off to a B&B in westport and had a great mini-break there. when we returned to k-town we had our collective family over for ice cream cake. very fun :D

july was filled with strawberry picking, road trips with friends, summer weddings, new bicycle baskets, sandwiches, classic books, sweater knitting, summer walks, gelato, humidity, bonfires with smores, swimming at leo lafleur, the splashpad, heat exhaustion, spray painting, and i got 4 stitches in my second smallest toe after an incident involving a glass pitcher and a carton of sherbet. 

august allowed for a visit up to beckie's cottage. shanno, rach and i threw joanne a victorian-themed bridal shower, and i organized a group of knitters/crochetters to make jo blanket to take with her when she moved. mid-august brendan quit his job as planned, and we took off camping at bon echo for a week. it was our first time camping for that long and we had a great time. we found it was the perfect introverted paradise since no one else was around. we played board games, read books, ate great food and enjoyed marshmellow roasting every night. we lived thru one massive thunderstorm and realized afterwards that it was probably quite unsafe :p at the end of our trip, our wee niece audrey was born to ben and meg, so we packed up and went straight to the hospital to meet her. to conclude the summer months, b got his wisdom teeth extracted. it was a rather sour experience for him, but (in it's own way) a rite of passage. oh! and i mustn't forget that this year, for the first time, shanno, brendan and i were vendors at the wolfe island music festival selling la tienda merchandise.

september introduced a lot of change for us lorimers, as brendan entered school. he was one of two guys in a class with 30+ women. it became immediately clear that the only thing brendan needed to do to succeed at school was to be himself – since he's already passionate about social justice and serving marginalized people. by the end of the semester he had straight A's :D we spent a weekend camping with next at echo lake. the nights were cold but hanging out all together was a treat, and i missed the company other ladies when i returned home and had no one to chat with while i knitted.

october surprised us with an accepted offer on a house. the whole enterprise – from casually looking and a firm deal – took 2 to 3 weeks. we signed the paper work making it official on brendan's birthday. i'd planned a special birthday adventure for him, and buying a house was not something i'd originally scheduled for that day. two days later i took off for san diego on business and was there for about six days. that was fun. it was a great learning experience from a career perspective and i enjoyed the change of scenery from my cubicle.

november ushered in a new age – the age of crochet. i've tried in the past and failed, so i am very pleased that not only have i mastered a new skill, but i've also opened myself up to loads of new hand-crafting options :D as we prepared to move i created some fabric art for the walls. they turned out really great, and i had a really fun time doing it. shanno and i took our annual trip to the casino where we each spent 5 bux and drank free caffeinated beverages (well i did, i think shanno drank coffee cream).

december was like a changing of the guards – only the guards didn't changed but instead the guard house. we left the home i'd enjoyed for over 5 years and moved into a home that belongs to us. our own make-believe bungalow that suits us perfectly. moving day went remarkably well and happened to coincide with my birthday (seems suitable since we purchased it on brendan's birthday). it was quite convenient since i got to see my family and friends all at the same time anyways. that month, brendan also got his full G driver's license which yet another milestone ;)

anyways, that's it. it was a good year – a full and significant. a red letter year for sure. it feels like we're on a roll!

this is a happy end
come and give me your hand
i'll take you far away.