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My last post summed things up pretty well. I still don’t have any photos of unicorns or rainbows, but I’m working on it. Instead you can have a photo I took on Easter weekend on a chilly beach in Sudbury.

Summer is here and I’m preparing for a week of vacation in sunny Manitoba. I’m knitting up a storm because I’ve not used these past six months to finish my family’s Christmas presents. I’m one and a half down, two and a half to go. There will be many photos of finished projects once they are blocked and such, so stay tuned!

Much progress has been made in the cleaning of the apartment and the brain/soul searching I’ve been doing. Applying for jobs once again is a humbling and frustrating experience. So many of the jobs I’d love to do and I am perfectly qualified for are being posted, but it’s so obvious that they are being posted for someone already in the position. Requiring 2.46 years experience in the position is kind of a dead giveaway. Okay maybe I’m exaggerating.

I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in my (very short less than five year) career. And I get caught up in them. When really I need to focus on the bills. Because sometimes little details get lost in the big picture. For the first time ever I’m working on having more than one iron in the fire (even though there is one really big iron right now that I’m not talking about for fear of jinxing it) and we’ll see how it goes.

But that will wait. At least until I get home from Manitoba. I plan on taking lots of photos. And doing yard work. And working on super secret projects. And hopefully at least once being able to dabble my toes in one of Manitoba’s fine lakes. Will it be Lake Minnewasta or Lake Winnipeg? Who knows!

But most of all I’m looking forward to spending quality time with Mom, Dad, little sister, and little brother. I love being in Toronto and I loved being in Ottawa. But I love my family like bonkers and it’s so terrible to be away from them. They worry about me being jobless and being able to provide for myself while being so far away. I worry about that too. Someday I want to have a job where I can have the flexibility to go home for a week and it not be Christmas time. I’m lucky that Joe was able to get this week off work. I’m lucky (and unlucky at the same time) that I’m able to go because I don’t have a job.

The soul searching continues. And the knitting. Oh gosh the knitting.

We have a more recent family picture, but it’s not nearly as cute as this one. For instance, in the newer photo I’m looking at the camera but my hair isn’t nearly as awesome. Little sister and brother are cute, but not as cute as this. Mom’s glasses are waaaaay smaller, but her smile is still as beautiful. And well, Dad’s not smiling in either photo . One of us has to be serious.

This is our family. And today is Mother’s Day. Well, for another hour it’s Mother’s Day. But I’ve already called my Mom and she’s already enjoyed a lovely supper compliments of little sister. Our family has a great Mom.

I’ve been procrastinating all day about what to say. Mom will appreciate this as she of all people knows how well I procrastinate. And I’m sure that before I even mention this, she’s already thought of my Grade Three project on cows. I’ll tell you about that some other time.

The main reason that I’ve been procrastinating is because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to write. I’m usually pretty good about planning out a post before I write it, but this time I had so many ideas and so many stories I could tell that everything was all jumbled and nothing flowed. I wanted to make the perfect post for my perfect Mom and it just wasn’t turning out the way I wanted. So I decided I’d tell her (and the Internet) one really good thing.

My Mom hugs me enough.

One of the (many) things I know my Mom worries about, it’s that she didn’t hug me enough. I was (and still am) a weird kid. I didn’t really enjoy getting hugs. I’m still not really a hugger around people I don’t know very well. But I’ve come to appreciate hugs now, even if they make me feel uncomfortable. Especially if they are from my Mom. Cause these days when we’re so far apart, they are many but far between.

I love you Mom, Happy Mother’s Day. xoxoxo