Julie & Keenan's
2006-2007 JOURNAL



August 19, 2007

Peter was over today for a visit, he was in town for a showing of his partially completed project at an art gallery on Cumberland. It should be really interesting when it is all done, he is off to some other cities to interview more subjects.

Saturday we were up to Christie Lake Camp for an 85 years celebration. There were huge numbers of people from Julie's generation of staffers so lots of people for Julie to talk to, including people like Ben and Amy that Keenan had met before which reduced the "outsider stumbling into a cult" experience. It was a fun few hours with dogs and kids running everywhere.

We got back from the trip to Boston on the 9th and it took several days to recover. The trip actually went very well, but it is physically and especially emotionally exhausting, basically non-stop demanding interactions for 16 hours straight every day. But along with Grace and Jen we were really proud of all of the participants, they did great. The group went whale watching and we saw fin and humbpack whales as well as lots of dolphins, it was pretty cool. We had a number of meals of enormous proportion and the whole staff team was feeling very bloated by the end of the trip!

Sean turned 40 and we took him and Joanne out to Les Fougeres on Friday night, everything was really good although the dessert was not one of the best of all time. The arctic char main course was especially good.

This is being typed with television in the background, which is actually big news in our lives, as we've been without TV since we moved in to this house. Dave and Trish have graciously hosted us many times over the past few weeks especially for watching tennis.

July 22, 2007

Julie and Keenan have both been on Facebook for a while now, and that has become our primary means of keeping up with people. It may have a downside of discouraging personal interaction but overall it seems to have strengthened social connections with friends new and old.

We had a really good time at Bluesfest, the Steve Miller concert was probably the surprise highlight. Anyone expected a tired and old sort of performance would have been similarly thrilled at the energy and talent of the entire band. It was a very bluesy performance that had everyone rocking from start to finish, and seems to be the popular choice as top act of the entire festival, although that of course is debatable. We also loved Manu Chao, a performer and band we'd never heard of prior to Bluesfest, it was sort of like Green Day meets Prince with a Latin twist.

You can check out some pictures from the Steve Miller concert by clicking here and from Manu Chao by clicking here. We spent time at Bluesfest with Sean and his friends Joanne and Neville, and also with Pennie and two of her friends, Grace and Jen R, and others we bumped into (some nights it seemed like the whole city came and went).

On Canada Day we biked all the way down to the Hill and back. It was actually pretty easy. We were able to pedal all the way to the front of the Chateau Laurier by following a service truck, and then walked our bikes up Wellington from there. We have been getting out on our bikes almost every evenning, and when we can't do that, using our new elliptical machine, which gives you one heck of a workout - you can burn 500 calories in a half hour!

At work Keenan has been teamed up with Jen for ACES while Julie and Grace are with SMILE, or at least that's the arrangement most of the time. This younger generation in ACES is pretty impressive in a lot of ways, and it gives hope that we won't be helping them with some of the issues that we are helping 30 year-olds with right now.

The big news on the family side of things is David/Trisha got a new television. Don't go out there and try to steal it, you won't get it through the door anyway. It's really nice and Keenan had fun helping David get it all hooked up properly, except for the VCR which Julie later reported to Keenan cannot work with the HD receiver anyway.

We haven't done much with the house but we are definitely enjoying it. The back deck is great, although Pookie has taken to making his way out there. He's older and slower now so even if he escapes, he doesn't get far. He still has a lot of life in him though, and lately has taken to playing with a mouse toy that he carries around at all hours, crying like he's captured a large mammal or something. For his part Bubba would rather be on the stairs down to the laundry because it is the only carpet in the house and he loves to pull on it and be patted roughly at the same time. Yes, both of them are rather deranged.

With just a few weeks to go to our first three week vacation in more than a decade the hardest thing about it is fielding questions from people about where we are going. We don't want to go anywhere, or at least not anywhere that is pre-planned. It seems to drive people crazy that we don't have plans. Travel sometimes feels just like work to us, and we don't feel compelled to go anywhere, especially when August in Ottawa is so beautiful. We can bike, kayak, relax on the deck with cold drinks...exactly what we'd like to be doing if we went somewhere else.

We are thinking about visiting Cyndi and Colin in February, but that's different...it's not so nice here in February, and it often feels good to get away even for a short while in the winter months. So, we'll have to see how that plan goes!

June 24, 2007

Wow, what a month it has been. The pace at work has been frenetic. Just within the last two weeks we've had Visioning Day, the Pool Party, and the big one...the Engines of Success banquet. The banquet was on June 20 and it was pretty great. Along with Grace and Jen we were a great team. It's a nice compliment that many people can't believe it's just the four of us that put it on. But really it's the days leading up to it that are toughest. Keenan was up until 5:00 am twice the week before the banquet, dealing with thousands of hours of video and thousands of photographs. The night before the banquet we were up until after midnight together trying to edit down the length of some of the video segments. Julie was finalizing the rather complex agenda, with the added twist that MC Leanne Cusack would need to be able to follow it well enough for more than three hours of stage management! Leanne was amazing and it went great. The food by DISH was really well received, except for a very small minority who are too used to processed food to appreciate the good stuff!

Despite those sorts of challenges we've really been enjoying the new house and the neighbourhood. We've already been out cycling a half dozen times. We can go east or west from the house and go for miles on car-free pathways. To the west you can get all the way to Rockliffe Park before you have to cross a street, and to the east you can go all the way to Petrie Island. You can also head west and then north over the 174 and up into the woods on the other side of St. Joseph. We have been making it home from the office in 20 minutes or less on a consistent basis, meaning that even when we work until 7:00 we've got time to get home, cook something up on the new gas barbecue, and head out for a sunset bike ride.

The back deck is fantastic. It is in shade by mid afternoon, so it is cool and easy on the eyes. The trees in the ravine are teeming with birds and it is very relaxing. Our house in Dunrobin had incredible sunsets but it was always hot and the sun was always in our eyes. We've already used the deck here more in a month than we probably did all last summer. We have a family of robins with a nest under the deck but they seem to be getting used to us, and the babies are almost as big as the parents how, so they should be moving on soon. We decided to hang the kayaks up under the deck and the mom and dad robins were going ballistic because we had to get close to the nest for a few seconds.

Last entry we talked about Keenan's knee, so a follow-up is in order. He's now been to see the doc at the uOttawa sports clinic, and had x-rays which were read by the family doctor and then eventually by the clinic doc as well. There's nothing in the x-rays to explain the pain, but the good news is that it is getting better. The biking seems to be helping for sure.

Grace and Jen were the first overnight guests in our house during staff visioning week. We spent the whole week together including two days at a David Burns (cognitive therapy guru) workshop. Luckily Julie spotted that the conference was coming to Ottawa so we could all go (we went to see him in Montreal last year). Keenan even got up on stage for a demonstration and followed up by wearing his "Sucks To Be Me" Avenue Q t-shirt the next day. That was Julie's idea and it was certainly a conversation starter. You can't walk through a room full of therapists with a shirt like that and not get some action!

What else has happened since the end of May? Oh yeah, the Senators lost in five to the Ducks. It's actually a bit of a relief to stop talking and hearing about hockey for a little while, although training camp is starting as we write this!

Julie went out as part of a group celebrating with Fran for her upcoming wedding and discovered a fantastic new Greek restaurant. The woman that cuts our hair came back from her yoga adventure trip to LA so Keenan no longer looks like an aging Honeymoom Suite roadie. Not that there's anything wrong with that!

May 20, 2007

Keenan finally sought treatment for his sore knee, mainly because he was losing the ability to walk. After a visit to the doctor he ended up at a physio clinic. Although dubious at first, the stretches, exercises, and icing are starting to make a difference. Maybe soon an entire day will be limp-free!

Kevin has been doing a great job painting the new house, it is 90% done now and we are thankful for the luxury of having all that work done before moving in. The house is so much brighter with the new paint choices. We've been trying to ease into things and not spend a fortune on new stuff for the house until we've had a chance to live in it for a while, but we did get an affordable recliner loveseat, something we've wanted to for a long time, and a natural gas barbecue which we can hook up directly to the house from the deck. With the slow transition it hasn't really sunk in yet that we are moving!

The long weekend was definitely in order. We eased into it in a different way by attending an international SRV (Social Role Valorization) conference with Grace and Jen. It happened to be in Ottawa this year, and thanks to Daniel and Caroline taking over SMILE for two days, we were all able to go. There was nothing earth-shattering but as is often the case when we do PD activities, it helped reinforce some of the things we are already doing, and gave us some ideas about how to do better.

Julie spent some of the weekend developing her Simply Accounting skills. She's picking it really fast and just checking in with Sean from time to time with questions. Speaking of Sean, we went out with him and Joanne to the Metropolitan and then took in the symphony after. We didn't get to sit together and we had a busy day the next day so we didn't get to spend as much time together as we'd have liked, but it was great meeting her and we'll definitely get together again. The Blues Festival is coming up and we've all got passes.

Oh yeah, and the Senators are going to the finals.

May 6, 2007

It's been a very exciting couple of weeks. We took possession of the new house on April 30 and got the word that the sale of our old house went through on May 4. The owners won't be moving in for a while, so we can make a nice leisurely transition.

We aren't wasting any time getting the new place ready. We hired Kevin to do the painting and got a free consult with a designer. We had the colours picked out within an hour of meeting with her on Thursday, and Kevin was already priming the place on Friday. It's going to be a world of difference with lighter colours.

We've already met a lot of the neighbours and they made us feel very welcome. The first couple of days of visiting the house after work we were surprised by the level of activity in the area - so many walkers and cyclers all over the place! The back yard is quite private which should help make the adjustment from virtually no neighbours to a bustling community a bit easier.

We'd worked so hard at not letting the pending sale of our house interfere with our daily lives that it was almost an anti-climax when Geoff gave us the good news. Julie had just spent Friday money cleaning the house because there was an appointment scheduled for that night and one the next morning, so our immediate reaction was - "Oh good, so no visit tomorrow morning?"

David and Trisha came out for a tour on Thursday night and then we went to Gabriel's for dinner. Saturday night we tried to go to Little Turkish Village with Barry and Marjorie but it was completely booked with reservations so we ended up in familiar territory at the Singapore.

April 22, 2007

It's been almost a month, but what a month! The auction raised more than $55000, we have a conditional offer on the house, and we are preparing to move in to the new house! It's been an almost impossible combination of personal and professional stresses but things seem to be working out extremely well on both counts.

We've found a bit of time for socializing, including finally getting together with Marc and Jessie at their place. They have a baby in the house (a charming young lady at that!) so we were thinking a fairly short visit but after a nice dinner we just kept talking and talking until midnight.

We helpd Trish and David out with bit of a tricky and critically important issue - how to help their dogs run free in the yard. They tried one of those invisible electric fences but (naturally) it was deemed painful to the dogs, so an alternative was in order. Julie put them on to an interesting product called deer fencing, a type of plastic fence that has all sorts of interesting applications. We ended up installing it with them. David was keen on doing some sledgehammering but fortunately he let Keenan handle most of it.

This is by far the most beautiful time of year in this house, and the hardest part to leave. On Saturday we managed a day to ourselves and spent it at home...the wind was coming from the west and we had lovely little waves lapping on the beach all day.

March 25, 2007

Spring is finally springing. We've got pileated woodpeckers, muskrat, about 1000 squirrels (black, grey, red, and one grey squirrel with red ears) and of course raccoons, but they're always around. The bay is still not close to being open, there were locals on the other side driving cars on it on Saturday. But the snow is quickly disappearing and the property will soon be in its glory. Just in time to move!

Yes, it's coming up fast, we take possession of our new house on April 30 (whether or not this one is sold). The nice thing about this is that we might not be faced with having to move everything in a single day, if this house isn't sold we can move at our leisure. On the other hand, we'd like to sell it just to get it done. But there's no real emergency, our financing is all set and we can wait until we get the right price.

We did a bit of movie marathon this weekend with a pile of DVD rentals, the big winner was Shut Up and Sing (Dixie Chicks documentary) which was awesome. We also enjoyed Stranger Than Fiction, Rocky Balboa, and Borat. Babel did not do it for either of us...we have one left to watch, which is Blood Diamond, and we'll give that a go once the snacks are ready!

It's been a busy time personally and professionally, and a lot of it about money. With the new house purchase we took a good look at how we were managing things and are going to focus on paying off our mortgage as quickly as possible. With the new focus on affordable housing at LWP we need to take a real hard look at existing programs and do what we can to make them less reliant on fundraising dollars, which ideally should be going to new initiatives (like housing).

We've managed a little bit of socializing in the weeks since our last entry. Christina and David and the kids are all doing well. We visited Michael and Sally and learned about their big and rather exciting renovation plans. We've checked in with the parentals on one occasion each and they too are doing well.

It's a very busy week coming up, the kind where you just brace yourself and hang on!

March 4, 2007

We're back after 4 days in New Hampshire with 20 SMILE participants. The two days of driving felt unbelievably long thanks to the excessive bathroom stops (mostly in gas stations with only one pitiful washroom!) but the time at the Appalachian Mountain Lodge was really great. The food was good, and everyone found something enjoyable to do. We hardly saw each other the entire time and we really enjoyed just spending time together this weekend. There were unfortunately a few work intrusions by phone and email but aside from vacationing on a desert island there's not much that can be done about that!

A funny thing happened this afternoon. We were watching TV by the fire in the living room when Keenan saw three heads passing by the window. Apparently a family of three thinking there was no one home got out of their car to check out the property. As Julie hustled up the stairs to start quick a cleanup in case there had been an appointment scheduled we didn't know about, but that was not they case...when they saw Keenan they scuttled down the driveway like criminals. Hopefully they aren't feeling so sheepish they won't come back with a proper appointment.

February 18, 2007

Well, we're tired. It's official! We are definitely looking forward to a week off in March. There are 100 things going on at work all at the same time and while it is mostly positive and exciting stuff, it's just a lot to handle. Meanwhile we still have people coming to see the house so we have to find the time to keep it looking like a museum!

January 28, 2007

This week one out of two real estate deals came through. LWP now owns a condominium! Unfortunately our own house is still for sale because the city zoning folks turned down the potential new owners with their plans for building a huge garage on the property. We now know that only a small garage is acceptable for someone who wants to have one. We never found a need for one with the large sheds that are already here, but to each is own. So, we had to clear out of the house again on a Saturday morning because it is back up for sale and there's still a lot of interest. No new offer yet, but it will sell. It would obviously be nice to complete an offer sooner than later, but if we have to go to spring, so be it!

It was quite a week for media attention. Keenan had a his "Ashley letter" published (see January 21) and then the Kanata Kourier published a story about how LWP is fighting to continue the affordable bus pass program. And then last but not least the Sunday edition of the Citizen featured a very well written story by Patrick Dare about LWP housing and included a big picture with Keenan and one of our clients.

Julie was mentioned at the start of the article but Mr. Dare did not publish the comment from Keenan that would have made for some hilarious inside chuckles...he had explained to the reporter that initially he was not even interested in the condo idea, but Julie said she was going to go ahead and check it out anyway. Notice any parallels to our personal lives? Heehee.

January 21, 2007

One of the more exciting weeks of our lives...on behalf of LiveWorkPlay we made an offer of $180,000 to purchase a two-bedroom condominium unit that will be rented to people with intellectual disabilities - hopefully until the end of time. If the offer goes through we'll find out in a couple of days, and then we'll make a formal offer to our two candidates to start living there in May!

Robin has already moved in to the unit that her parents purchased and along with Grace and Jen and about 9 others including Wendy and Bob we attended her housewarming on Saturday. The mother of Keenan's childhood babysitter lives in the building and she came by to meet Robin and say hi. It was a really good afternoon and Robin got some great gifts. Most important a lot of her peers got a chance to see that although it is scary to make changes in your life, having your own place can be pretty cool.

We had two showings scheduled on our own house and the first was at 10:30. We were exhausted having got home late as usual from work the night before, and then we had to shovel and clean until the wee hours. It was ass-freezing cold out on Saturday, but we used our time well with some errands and a delicious lunch at Thyme and Again. After Robin's party it was Trisha's birthday so we headed out to Cumberland after a quick drive-by of our soon-to-be new house. We checked out the bus route as we want to take the bus whenever possible.

All this real estate action must have been good luck because Julie's cellphone rang just after we finished dinner with Trisha and Dave and it was Geoff announcing we'd had an offer on the house. It was a decent offer and we ended up at Geoff's house later that night to go over the details and prepare the counter offer which was fair and we were hopeful that would be that. If not, we knew there were more appointments scheduled and we'd sell to someone else.

It was hard to get to sleep Saturday night, but we finally did. Then we awoke from a dead sleep to the sound of knocking at the door. Sure enough, a real estate agent. Keenan scrambled first and was heading downstairs when the "beep beep beep" of the numerical lock went off, and they guy was in the house. Keenan had creases all over his face, and by the time Julie got there, her hair was sticking straight up on one side. The appointment had not shown up so the agent left after waiting for some time. Naturally, just after he left the people showed up, so we did the tour ourselves. Nice people, the guy even asked if we were athletes (um, no) apparently impressed by the workout room.

We went for a long walk before the first football game. We found a snowmobile trail through the wood and it was awesome. We walked on a road for a short distance but spent about an hour in the bush. When we got back we settled in to watch the Bears beat the Saints and then the phone rang - Geoff said the offer had been accepted, so now we have to wait until all the conditions clear. And if they don't, someone else will buy, but it would of course be nice to stop keeping the house like a museum every day.

There's other potential big news too. Keenan wrote a letter to the paper in response to an opinion piece about Ashely (girl with disabilities in Seattle who was butchered by a hospital at the request of her parents) and he enjoyed writing it so much he started thinking about his goal of doing a PhD. After some online investigation he decided to learn more about the Communication PhD at Carleton, which is a very good program that appeals mainly to graduates of the journalism program. He wrote the grad supervisor to see if his MA in Applied Language Studies and interest in public discourse around disability would be a fit with the program. The answer came back in the affirmative so now it is a matter of figuring out how to find the time (definitely part-time) and money (hmmm...) to do it. Julie has ambitions in this area as well (a different field of study, but a PhD of some sort) so we'll have to figure that out too. Happy problems.

January 14, 2007

Wow, what a shock, back to work not much more than 24 hours after getting home from the NYE party. Someone messed up the scheduling! The first week back was a bit of a blur at the office. On the home front we've been working hard at getting daily exercise - at least 30 minutes of brisk walking a day. Our walking routes are a bit limited from our current house, so we're looking forward to having a lot more routes when we move. When we move...wow...May 1 is coming up fast! Yesterday there were at least two groups of people who came to look at our house, but so far, no offers. The house looks great and everyone that comes to see it says so, but so far it's just not the right fit for those who have checked it out. Eventually the right people will find it!

With this strange global warming type of winter we are having the wildlife out here has been rather interesting. The muskrat was out for several days in the shallow water on the beach.

December 31, 2006

It was weird having Christmas on Monday, but no weirder than New Year's Eve on a Sunday night! The party was a huge success...270 guests and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. The downside to it all was we could not escape working on the party during our holidays, but the fact that almost $10,000 got raised for LWP had us feeling pretty good about it. Keenan is getting better and better at taking on the gregarious host role. Julie was getting a lot of attention from various moms who were going "wow" over her dress (she decided to go back to wearing her wedding dress after taking a couple of years off from that).

Speaking of that, we didn't give each other any bought gifts for Christmas this year. Julie gave Keenan some writings of a personal nature and also made some fun committments, and Keenan gave Julie a wedding day DVD that he made from an old VHS tape. There was a lot that we had both forgotten about our wedding and a few tears were shed Christmas morning.

Those were tears or joy, which is good. Usually Keenan sheds some tears of pain over the length and (in his view) ridiculousness of certain Christmas routines, but the day was much improved. We dropped in on mom and dad Wellar just for a quick lunch and then headed out to Cumberland where David, Trisha, Peter, and Michael awaited. There were less gifts to open, and they were opened more quickly, allowing for cleanup to be completed before Sally and Michael arrived to join us for dinner. We arrived home just before midnight, a vast improvement over last year's 2:00 AM arrival.

We spent Boxing Day at the Wellar's with Tim, Flannery, and Jane. It was nice not to be rushing off quickly after a wonderful turkey lunch/dinner. Julie did most of the work in finding some awesome presents that were appreciated by Flannery and Jane. There was a bit of a Christmas miracle when we were going to get a leather hat for David at a store on Bank Street and stumbled across a store with big stone sculptures - turned out to be perfect gifts for mom and dad Wellar - a big hippo for dad and a frog for mom. Should look great in the garden. We liked them so much ourselves we thought they'd be fun items to have inside a house!

We were definitely getting a bit weary later in the day and we had yet another holiday committment on Wednesday with Joan and the Kingstone clan for a dinner at the Weston. Again a nice time but after "4 days of Christmas" some quiet time at home was badly needed. Or so we thought.

We did lie around a bit, but woke up in the afternoon on Thursday and decided to drive up to a house in the woods in Morin Heights (Quebec) to spend some time with Bob and Wendy. It was a lot of fun and we would have stayed two night for sure were we not so aware of NYE coming up and having no time to rest up before going back to work. Keenan used his new digital camera given by mom and dad Kingstone to record a hilarious video of the three dogs that were sharing the house with us in the woods. We visited with some friends of Wendy and Bob who served up a peculiar mixture of beer and espresso, which Julie declined and Keenan drank for the "experience."

Saturday we spent the evening with Christina, David, Ben, Meredith, and a healthy Elliot. Ben and Meredith put on another dance performance for us at the end of the night after a lovely dinner and lots of catching up. After watching Christina and David parent all night it puts a little perspective on our own feelings of tiredness!

On Sunday we were watching the clock at the same time as watching the Steelers game because we had to get going to organize the party but the game was awesome and they eventually won and knocked the Bengals out of the playoffs (again - haha). For the upcoming playoffs we'll be cheering for opposite sides which rarely happens. Julie is pulling for the Colts but Keenan wants KC to knock them out as an underdog thing. But both of us are terribly excited to get a roaring fire going and watch football next weekend.

December 24, 2006

Blink an eye, and suddenly it's Christmas! Well, tomorrow, anyway. It's a bit weird having Christmas on a Monday.

Thursday night we went with Marnie and Dave to the Green Papaya. Very good, especially the crispy beef! It was our first time spending any signficant time with them without a big pile of kids around. The kids are fun but it is hard to catch up with what is going on with the adults in the middle of all that young people action. It showed because we were there for almost four hours and we probably could have gone on talking for a while.

Friday Julie went out for some grocery shopping for hosting our dinner party tonight with both sets of parentals as well as Peter and Michael. No John this year, he's got a new job way up north. Keenan went in to the office to fax the NYE agreement to the Crowne Plaza and take care of a few other loose ends to reduce the possibility of needing to go back to the office during the holidays.

We've really enjoyed sitting around the wood stove watching cheezy Christmas television shows most every evening. Very relaxing, and of course it's what pookie and bubba would prefer to do every night.

We've got this hilarous trio of raccoons visiting the bird feeder every night, which must be a pappa bear...er...raccoon, mama, and baby judging by their size differential. During the day we've got black, grey, and red squirrels having a blast and staring at us through the back door when food on the ground runs low. It's a bit creepy in an Alf Hitchcock sort of way! Squirrels would have been much scarier than seagulls.

December 17, 2006

It was a mad dash to the finish of the LiveWorkPlay fall session. The New Year's Eve party sold out (as expected, but still a big relief) and then came the challenge of trying to seat 270 people in a way that will make all of them happy. People are still calling and emailing for tickets but there's just not one more seat left to sell!

On Thursday night we went out with Jen and Grace for a much-deserved staff celebration at Les Fougeres. We had some great food and expertly-paired wines. We've accomplished a lot together in last 3 months or so, and it was a real team effort.

Last weekend dad Wellar took a bad fall at the skating rink and spent some time in the hospital with a bone chip in the back of his head and a contusion on his brain. Fortunately he should heal 100% but we spent time with him on Saturday and he was still dealing with some bad headaches. His sense of humour was the same and he was still quick as a whip with his comments, so despite the pain he seems to be suffering no other ill effects.

The news is pretty much out now that we are selling our house and moving to a house that we bought in Hiawatha Park. That's an interesting little section of Orleans that is north of the 174 and bordered by the Ottawa River to the north and the greenbelt to the west. No, we aren't going to be right on the water, but it is about a block away and lots of interesting places to paddle like the Upper and Lower Duck Islands, Petrie Islands, and all the way down to Montreal if we were so inclined. The house is relatively huge compared to the one we are in now, and it is on a double lot, the reason being that the lot without the house on it is a treed ravine with a little creek running through it. It's definitely not as remote as where we are now but that little slice of wilderness will be nice.

We've enjoyed just kicking back this weekend, working out, going for a walk, and watching football. All is not lost for the Steelers season and we remain loyal fans. We got together with Grace and Chris on a weekend last month and watched some football at their place, Chris made us a delicious meal but maybe a bit too much, we had sore stomachs on the way home. But to be fair that was probably due to overindulgence on the appetizers!

Grace also organized a social gathering at the Black Dog, sort of a couples night (with one exception, sorry Vicki!) and it was great to get out and socialize a bit in the middle of such a busy work season. We were able to stop by Bob and Wendy's earlier that day after coming from a fundraiser organized by one of the LWP families in the afternoon.

Keenan has gotten a bit carried away with supporting the local squirrel population. How carried away? 14 squirrels in our tiny backyard all at the same time. The birds couldn't even get at the feeder! So Julie went out and bought one of those "eliminator" feeders that are supposed to keep the squirrels off...we'll see!

November 26, 2006

We enjoyed a really nice dinner and football evening with Grace and Chris. Great food, good wine, good company including two adorable cats! Saturday we took mom Wellar out to Baton Rouge for a post-birthday celebration, we all had the ribs (of course). The place was packed and the style of conversation was a but like being at a rock concert! Sunday morning we popped over to their place to help out with some minor computer and video problems, dad Wellar ended up on the phone with a Sun reporter and never came back...he got a big feature in the Monday paper about window tinting in cars. FYI, this is bad. Very bad. So get rid of yours now, before you get pulled over and forced to do it.

November 19, 2006

Ooops, another month gone by, just like that. Just a brief note here to say we are alive and well. It has been an incredibly productive four weeks at work. Keenan was involved in 5 different TV and radio features about how we are supporting participation in the municipal election. Julie has been doing intensive work with one individual and at the same time carrying on with all her other work. We have found some time to spend with friends and family, but definitely are longing for more free time. Only four weeks until holidays!

October 22, 2006

The house hunting pace picked up a lot of speed over the past two weeks. There was an exhausting tour through the neighbourhoods we had explored before moving to Alta Vista (our first house). We are talking about places like Westboro and the Glebe, and as we found out some ten years ago, in those neighbourhoods you pay a fortune for an older house that needs a ton of work. That idea was eventually thoroughly dismissed by both of us, and for a time Keenan was thinking that maybe just maybe it was all over. Get serious!

Julie started thinking out of the box and got down to the core of what we value, individually and collectively, and it came down to a few primary issues: With this information in hand, Julie hit the MLS and Google maps and got to work. It lead us to a very surprising place...Orleans. There is a small neighbourhood in northwest Orleans known as Hiawatha Park that had the potential to meet all of our primary requirements. It borders a very interesting section of the Ottawa River offering short paddles to Upper and Lower Duck Island and Petrie Island. There are NCC bicycle paths that follow the river all the way to downtown. There are small shopping plazas in walking distance. The drive from work has taken us under 15 minutes every time we have visited the area, and although it will definitely take a lot longer in the middle of rush hour, it will easily be half the time of our current commute. Part of the neighbourhood has a stand of trees that follow a streamed ravine that winds down to the river. And most of the homes are relatively new and well maintained.

You may be thinking...is Keenan really on board with this? Yes, he really is. But with the understanding that he isn't moving unless all of the requirements are satisfied. And Julie is fine with that.

You may also be thinking...is this a case of after the fact revisionism? Have you already found a house but aren't yet ready to talk about it? Could be! Stay tuned.

The stress of all of this has been difficult to handle simultaneous to very busy times at work. Friday nights are back on, which of course cuts into the weekend but also takes some extra work getting ready each work. But it is very important and we've worked with Grace and Jen to make some changes that have made Friday nights better - not in terms of being easier for the staff, but certainly in terms of being more meaningful for the participants. Julie has the most work to do with this because she works with the older group of SMILE participants on Friday nights, and they and their family members generally have the most difficult time with change. Keenan is working with the youngest group of teens, and working with them is like dealing with creatures from another planet - they are very independent and very flexible. This brings a different set of challenges but the pace of progress is definitely a lot quicker.

There will be a CBC Radio One 91.5 feature about LWP tomorrow morning at about 7:15 AM. Hallie Cotnam spent more than an hour sitting in on SMILE election preparation activities, and it was a pretty impressive performance by the participants. Hopefully that will show through for listeners on Monday!

October 8, 2006

After a very busy four weeks, this long weekend arrived just in time! There was some beautiful fall weather to be had, but we mostly just watched it pass us by as we rested up on Friday and Saturday. We did end up visiting with Christina, David, Meredith, Ben, and Elliot. We went by to drop off a card because Elliot has been feeling very sick, but we passed them on the road on their way home and got a cell phone call to come back and join them for dinner. It was great to see them and of course especially to see that Elliot is feeling better.

We've had some interesting wildlife sightings, the most exciting of which was the pair of coyotes that were booting it down the road ahead of us on Greenland late one night. That same night a large deer was just on the edge of our property, which is unusual. About a week ago after we'd filled the backyard birdfeeder we heard some horrible noises coming from there in the middle of the night, and turning on the light it was five huge raccoons going after the seed on the ground. Then a couple of nights later the feeder - which is a pretty thick metal pole - was bent right over from the base. We can't figure out what could have done it, but only a bear makes sense!

It's not clear how much longer we'll be enjoying the scenery here. Julie is poking around real estate websites, and anyone who has kept up with our journals knows what that usually means! It's already ironic. Keenan was against moving outside the city to begin with, because he didn't want a long commute. Now Keenan is fine with the commute but Julie has a big problem with it. So, the geese might not be the only ones preparing to leave the area. No alternative has been proposed as yet, so don't expect news of a move to come real soon, but it's certainly become a possibility, unless Keenan can figure out a shortcut.

LiveWorkPlay has been very busy, but should calm down now that the AGM is over. It was a lot of work for both of us. Keenan had a lot of writing to do while Julie did a lot more work on preparing the financial data. We also had small parts in the Heartwood House AGM. We had both intended to retire, but Keenan is staying on for another year as a bridge from the old to the new. Fran will be one of his fellow board members which is kind of neat, and it should be interesting for Keenan to be the oldest person on the board!

September 10, 2006

The start of a new year of our journal always coincides with the start of a new year at LiveWorkPlay, and as always it was a horribly busy week. It's great to be back of course (in many ways) but it's also hard to move on from an all-too-short summer vacation. Next August there might be an opportunity to move the schedule around a bit and string three weeks of holidays together, which would be really great. Neither of us has had more than two weeks off in the past decade!

Our television guilty pleasure of the summer was Rock Star Supernova. Julie didn't get into it at first, but eventually she was barking her opinion at the screen just like Keenan. Canadian Lucas Rossi won Keenan over with his original song as the show moved on and the same thing must have happened to a lot of people because he won the whole darn competition.

September 17, 2006

It's hitting home just how much has to get done at the office in the next three weeks, but we are trying hard to leave our work at the office on weeknights and weekends. We had a nice night out with Sean for dinner at the Clocktower on Bank. We saw Trish and David on Friday night, and much of the evening featured Julie explaining her complex dream involving retirement and a possible move to a new house. This plan was waylaid to a certain exent on Saturday when we drove out to the Carleton Place area to scope out waterfront properties on the Mississippi. There's nothing nearly as nice as what we already have, a finding that relieved Keenan no end.

Speaking of the home front, we seem to have a porcupine living with us. Twice this week we drove home and he was happily grazing our front lawn. He doesn't pay a lot of attention to us until but usually wanders under the deck or up a tree if we hang around for too long. Out back we've got chipmunks and squirrels and birds oh my. Lots of them. There are geese and ducks on the water, and sometimes they make quite a ruckus. The sun has shifted a bit south and we now have gorgeous sunsets right out the back. For whatever reason our house is surrounded by some sort of wasps that we've never even seen around here before. Whenever the sun comes out they fly around bouncing off the screen on the upstairs deck. Once in a while one of them somehow crawls through the narrow cracks between the screen panels. They aren't aggressive or anything but Keenan has taken to sucking them up with the vacuum cleaner because we like to leave the door open and don't want wasps flying all over the house. OK, that doesn't sound very nice, but given we are supporting so much other wildlife on our property, keeping wasps out of the house seems reasonable.