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Tuesday, July 22

Ah... Vacation...

Well that blog break was a bit longer than intended.  We spend two weeks visiting Mr. Lina's family in Manitoba.  Very restful, saw lots of friends and family.  Prior to that, work got well... crazy.  It has been a while since I worked that many nights past 7pm.  So, not much time for writing.  Nor packing for that matter.

But, we're back now.  

And life is still busy.  My car really does need to be replaced - sooner the better.  I'm not putting more money into it and now another light has come on that I don't want to fix.  Our real estate agent is coming over tomorrow night to talk about moving.  Tonight is going to be a lot of "chuck things in boxes" so there is less clutter when he tours the house.

It's kind of scary to be honest.

I think I haven't written since we returned because I'm a bit scared.  I'd rather spend time hiding from all this change rather than embracing it.  I had Mr. Lina work with me on packing up my sewing room.  Not that he did much, but having him there kept me calm and focused.  I get side tracked by little things from high school or medical receipts for the clinic.  

As tempting as it is to look at potential new houses (online, not in person just yet) and we all know how much I want to be a mom, change is pretty scary.

On the weekend I went to a birthday party for a university friends' husband.  While I do know him, I don't really know his friends and family.  Two other girls from the group came and we stuck together.  I've been a bit of a hermit.  I'm the only one of that group without kids now, while I want to hear about their kids for about 5 minutes, it just feels... stressful to see them.  And sometimes it's sad when I leave.  Not that much has been going on as large group, but I haven't even been reaching out to them at all.  It was good to catch up with two of them and we actually talked more about ourselves than their kids.  Kind of refreshing really and a good reminder that I liked them before they had kids and that friend is still in there.

One of my friends is a social worker in the region we're looking to move to.  She doesn't deal with adoption, but she will know the social workers that I will be working with (when we get there) and generalities of adoption in that region.  It was really good and it brought up all the excitement I've been kind of hiding under the pressure to get the house listed etc.  

Anyhoo... I am alive, I'm doing okay.  We are almost there.

We hosted Charlie A'Court back in March.  Charlie really is that mix of musician AND entertainer.  Charlie is good one-on-one, he and my Australian friend had some banter in the show, he knows how to play to his audience and he is a talented guitarist.  It was one of the most FUN shows I've ever hosted.  Prior to the show, we were talking about what to expect from our audience.  It was a Saturday night, I said I was relaxed as far as start/end times went, odds are a board game of some sort would break out after the show because people would stay.  And I introduced him to Cards Against Humanity as the game most likely to be played post show.

In short, Cards Against Humanity is a question and answer game.  One person draws a question/phrase (some are fill in the blank), each player has 10 answer cards in their hand, they pick the most amusing.  The person asking the question picks their favourite and that person asks the next question.  Some cards are tame, some are, well... not.  Some phrases that sound pretty tame on their own are not when paired with the wrong question.  Also, there is a "Canadian Conversion Kit" with answers like Tim Hortons, Mr. Dressup, The Official Languages Act/Loi sur les langues officielles, etc....  So something normal like "_____ keeps our relationship exciting" isn't too crazy a question, but sounds worse when the answer is "Ooompa Loompas" or "Mr. Dress-up".  I've had moments in this game where my brother couldn't speak because he was laughing too hard.  

We ended up playing that game until 4 or 5 am on time change weekend (I think 4, but with spring forward that makes it 5).  I sent a very tired Charlie to his next house concert with perhaps 6 hours of sleep.

So you can imagine how amused I was to see that one of the options in his crowd funding for his next album is Cards Against Humanity cards written by Charlie.  Or you can buy the game AND the cards.

It's pretty cool that not only am I being impacted by hosting musicians, but it sometimes leaves an impression on them too.  I can't wait for our cards to arrive.