"The Wedding People" by Alison Espach (re-read)

I hugely enjoyed "The Wedding People" by Alison Espach the first time I read it, back in February 2025, and I immediately pegged it as a book my Childless Collective Nomo Book Club would likely enjoy, as it features that rare creature: a childless-not-by-choice heroine!  Happily, my co-host read the book and agreed!  and our group will be reading and chatting about "The Wedding People" throughout the month of October.  :)  I just finished re-reading it in preparation for our discussions, and (spoiler alert! lol)  I enjoyed it just as much the second time around.  

At first glance at the cover and description, you might dismiss this one as a "beach read" -- after all, it takes place during a lavish week-long "destination wedding" at a swanky oceanside resort hotel in Newport, Rhode Island. But there's more to the story here.  

Phoebe Stone arrives at the Cornwall Inn without luggage, dressed up in a green silk frock and gold high heels. We soon learn why she's there. **CONTENT WARNING & SPOILER ALERT** She's always wanted to stay at the Cornwall, and she's flown there from St. Louis on the spur of the moment to treat herself to one last big splurge -- before she commits suicide. Her husband has left her, for someone she thought was a friend (a colleague AND a mother to boot!), following repeated (unsuccessful) rounds of IVF and a miscarriage. She just turned 40.  She's also struggling with job burnout and -- the final straw -- the death of her beloved cat.    

But while checking in, Phoebe learns the entire hotel (apart from her suite) has been booked for a lavish, week-long wedding party.  Almost immediately, she's drawn into the lives of "the wedding people," and, in particular, the self-centred, chatty young bridezilla, Lila.

So -- much more than a standard "beach read."  The book touches on a lot of sensitive themes/realities that the many readers will relate to (especially childless women), including some sharp observations about marriage and weddings, grief and loss, friendships and how they change over time. But it's also a fast and often very funny read that kept me turning the pages.  

Overall, I (still) loved it. :)  My original rating for this book was 4.5 stars on StoryGraph, rounded down to 4 on Goodreads. "5 stars was very tempting," I said then. 

This time around, I'm giving into temptation:  5 stars.  :)   

This was Book #26 read to date in 2026 (and Book #1 finished in September), bringing me to 65% of  my 2026 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 40 books. I am currently 1 book behind pace to meet my goal. You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2026 tagged as "2026 books."  

Pre-Voldemort Day thoughts, and some odds & ends

You will understand that, as a childless-not-by-choice woman (via stillbirth & infertility), That-Day-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named, coming up this weekend (which I've dubbed "Voldemort Day") is not exactly my favourite on the calendar. (Check out the tag "Voldemort Day (Mother's Day)" for past posts on the subject.)  And as someone who hasn't lived within 1000 miles of her parents in 40 years, whose mother-in-law died before I ever met her, I haven't had to worry too much about family considerations on this day either.  I'd send a card, give Mom a call, maybe chip in on a gift that my (childfree by choice) sister would buy and deliver, and do whatever I wanted for the rest of the day.  

This year, I'll be spending Mother's Day AT my parents' house, for the first time in about 35 years. (I had a business trip in the early 1990s that brought me to Winnipeg just before Mother's Day, as well as my grandmother's birthday. I arranged to spend the weekend with them. I am so glad I did.)   

Except (major plot twist) Mom won't be there -- she died in January. I am now motherless, as well as childless. I was lucky enough to have my mother for almost 65 years;  my daughter never took a breath outside my body, but I miss them both, and especially on days like this one.  

My dad and sister have not mentioned MDay at all. (Yet?)  

I am not going to remind them. 

And now for some links:  

• We were at the mall one morning earlier this week.  It's not uncommon to see young moms there, out with their babies in strollers -- sometimes by themselves, sometimes in pairs. I thought I'd seen everything the day I saw four moms with four strollers. 
• Reader -- I had not. On this particular day, I encountered a group of moms with babies in strollers coming my way. TWELVE of them!!!  (I counted.)  12!!! Walking in a group, two or three abreast.  
• (A while later, I saw another group of five!  Not sure if they had broken off from the earlier group I saw, or if this was an entirely different group??)
• All I could think was that it was a good thing that I'm in a relatively good place these days. I mostly just shook my head in disbelief, texted dh (who also saw them, and thought it was hilarious) and... carried on.  Also that if this had been 20-25 years ago, it would have finished me off, sent me home immediately, and kept me away from the mall for weeks.(Progress?) 
• (I also wondered whether this en masse outing had anything to do with the fact that it was just a few days before Voldemort Day/MDay??)  
• Y.L. Wolfe absolutely nails it with her latest Substack piece at On the Outside: "Why This Childless Woman Chooses to Celebrate Mother's Day...Alone."  (Content warning:  Photo of mother & baby at the top of the page.)  A couple of excerpts:  

Don’t misunderstand - I absolutely believe mothers deserve a day of celebration and pampering. They deserve more than a day, in fact.

But that doesn’t mean it has to come at the expense of other women or exist in a space that ignores any other woman’s life circumstances...

I believe women like me need the same thing that mothers ask for: space to take up, validation, and support. In the absence of getting that from a culture indifferent and sometimes hostile to women without children, then we must give it to ourselves.

• This article also absolutely nails the childless-not-by-choice experience and why it can be so painful.  The lengthy title says it all:  "The hardest part of being childless by circumstance, not choice, often may not be the grief people expect — it may be the invisibility of living a life other people have no template for."  Excerpt:  

When women in this position describe the hardest part, they rarely lead with the absence of children. The absence is familiar by the time they’re forty-five. They’ve been around it. They have, on most days, made some sort of working peace with it.

What they describe instead is something more like a slow, ambient erasure. The conversations at dinner parties drift to school catchments and they’re not in them. Their friends speak in shorthand about a life stage they don’t share. Their own parents go quiet about future grandchildren. They are, increasingly, in rooms that aren’t built for them, and the architecture of those rooms gets repeated until it begins to feel like the architecture of the world.

• Virginia Evans, author of "The Correspondent" (which is high on my "want to read" list), is a mother, but she wrote an article for People that I can heartily agree with:  "Mothering Takes a Village. This Mother's Day, Let's Celebrate the Other Mother Figures."  (h/t to Kathleen Guthrie Woods for flagging this one on social media!). (And content warning:  there's a photo at the top of Virginia with her children.)  
• I got tears in my eyes reading this interview in the New York Times with Tracy Clark-Flory:  "My Mom Had a Secret Daughter. I Finally Found Her."  I've put her book on my wish list. (Gift link.) 
• At Afterglow, Katie Dunn welcomes a guest post from fellow Substacker Lexi Weber: "The unexpected intimacy of infertility."   
• Lexi writes at "Not (What I Was) Expecting." I've added her to my blogrolls here and on Feedly. Recent (also excellent) post: “You never know what could happen.” (and why that's not something you should say to someone going through infertility or facing permanent childlessness).  

Odds & ends

• Personal note:  10 years ago today (!), we took possession of the condo where we're now living, and moved out of our home of 26 years, on the other side of the city. (We spent the night at BIL's and moved our stuff in here the next day.) 
• "Boy, that went by fast," commented dh, when I reminded him. No kidding. 
• At the same time, what a lot has happened in those 10 years!:  our nephews' weddings, the arrival of three great-niblings (and a dog!),  the deaths of both FIL & my mom, as well as several other people we've loved, BIL's transplant surgery... 
• I've hashed out the pros & cons of condo living and of moving here several times before on this blog, so I won't go into those topics all over again here. Suffice to say, I'm still not wild about the community itself, but overall, we do love the condo and being closer to family.  :) 
• Mom stuff:  
• I had my first dream about Mom since she died, last week. I don't remember much about it, but she was there. I like it when the people I've loved and lost show up in my dreams. It's like a little visit from them. 
• Dh was looking for a newscast the other night, and landed on ABC World News Tonight with David Muir. Which got me teary, because my parents always ate supper late -- partly because Mom insisted on watching "her" news (on ABC -- the network broadcast, followed by the "local" news, from Fargo, ND -- although she almost always fell asleep before the end...!). She really liked David Muir and how he delivered the news as well.  It's the little, unexpected moments like that that catch me off guard and set me off (very similar to after we lost Katie).  
• Vision update:  We went into the city today for follow-up visits with our optometrist, following my opthamologist appointment earlier this month. The opthamologist determined that surgery was not necessary at this point, but there's still a small patch of developing nodules on my left cornea (as well as the small beginnings of a cataract).  Even so, my vision has not changed significantly since I last changed my glasses almost 12 (!) years ago (although both my regular and computer glasses have some scratches on them. The optometrist didn't think the scratches were that bad, though?). 
• The optometrist gave me an updated prescription for my glasses, but suggested it might be worth waiting a while longer to get new ones. We have a number of large expenses right now -- current, upcoming and anticipated:  we just paid our taxes (ouch), paid for flights to visit Dad soon (and will be going there again this summer and at Christmas), possible purchases for his new apartment to fund, as well as subsidizing his rent until he sells the house -- and we still need to purchase a cremation niche or plot at the cemetery for both him and Mom, and inter her ashes at some point -- etc. etc.... So I've decided to hold off on new glasses for a while longer.  (Dh's glasses are about the same age as mine! and he'd like new ones too, but agreed we should both wait.)  We'll be back for checkups again in six months, so we'll see what the situation is then... 

And now a few links to share: 

• Non-ALI/CNBC-related, but I thought it was worth sharing:  Canadian Returnee explains Bill C-18, Meta's response (why I'm unable to see or post news links on Facebook or Instagram), and "What Facebook's News Ban Taught Canadians."   
• I see posts on social media -- from both Americans and Canadians! -- claiming that the Canadian government is "censoring" news.  Not true!  News (actual news, from actual journalists) is readily available, online and elsewhere -- you just can't find it or share it on Facebook or Instagram. And that's because of a decision made by Meta, not the Canadian government. (The article explains more.) 
• (For some reason, Meta's ban doesn't apply on Threads??  But shhhhh, don't remind them of that...!  lol)    
• Great news:  One of the "OG" voices in the CNBC blogging world is back! Welcome back PJ at Making Sense of It All. 
• I love, love, loved this blast from the past via Tracey Cleantis Dwyer (another longtime blogger who recently launched a Substack): "The Hardy Boys and the Mysterious Case of the Magical Meeting." (Featuring Parker Stevenson, Shaun Cassidy, and an older/childless woman role model who changed Tracey's life.)  
• Speaking of Shaun Cassidy, Alan Osmond, oldest of the performing Osmond Brothers, died earlier this week at age 76, after living with MS for 40 (!) years.  Another brother, Wayne, died in early 2025 at age 73.  You know you're getting older when your teen idols start dying...  :(  
• Katie Dunn at Afterglow writes about whether children give your life "purpose" -- something that many childless women struggle with, when parenthood doesn't work out for them ("what's my purpose now?"). Part of the post is paywalled, but what's free to read is worth a look!  
• Another brilliant post from Ali Hall at Life Without Children:  "When Women Supporting Women Defaults to Mothers Supporting Mothers." (Subhead: "Compassion is never found in comparison.")  
• I vividly remember the story about the doctor whose daughter asked her that painful question -- and her response (or lack thereof) -- and posted about it at the time (during the height of the pandemic). 
• Ali is offering half-price annual paid subscriptions during the month of May. 
• Also from Life Without Children, childfree Rosie Diell ponders "What fence sitters can learn from the childless community." 
• Lana Manikowski at "Infertile and Childless. So Now What?" looks at "What Happens to Your Marriage When IVF Doesn’t Work?" A couple of excerpts: 

...for many couples, IVF doesn’t work.

And when fertility treatments end without a baby, you are left with more than grief. You are left with questions about your marriage that no one prepared you for.

I remember thinking very clearly, is this going to be enough?

 

...a marriage without children is not a lesser version of life. It is a different version of life. It can still be connected, meaningful, and something you feel proud of.

Not because you convinced yourself to be okay with it, but because you built something real together after infertility.

• Poorna Bell dismantles "the myth of grandmotherhood" (and why it's important for everyone, whether or not you have grandchildren).  Most of the post is about grandmothers, but near the end, there's this: 

What about the women who aren’t grandmothers? Where is their place in society? Most of these women will have experienced a sense of isolation and an erosion of community the first time round, when it came to not having children. Having spoken to a number of women including Jody Day about this, it appears there is a second wind in one’s 60s, around grandmotherhood that raises the same issues.

(Bell muses that this particular issue "may merit a spin-off Substack" -- I would love to read that!)  

"Deliver Me From Nowhere" by Warren Zanes

I decided my next read would be "Deliver Me From Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska" by Warren Zanes, in advance of the new movie of the same name, based on the book, that's being released later this week  (Oct. 24th). (We haven't been to a movie since early 2020, before the pandemic began -- something we always loved to do! -- but Bruce has been a constant presence in our lives and our relationship since we first met -- and I always like to read the book before I see the movie version -- so...!)  

As the subtitle points out, the book focuses on a particular era of Springsteen's life, the making of the 1982 album "Nebraska," which marked a profound shift in Springsteen's life and career. It also delves into the events and circumstances, in Springsteen's personal life and career, and in the American culture of the time, that led up to it and shaped it.

I had been aware of Springsteen when I was a teenager (I loved "Prove It All Night" when it was on the radio, summer 1978), and my pre-dh boyfriend had "The River" album, but I hadn't REALLY listened to his music until I met dh, who was a big fan and had the nickname "BRUUUCE" lettered on the back of his residence floor T-shirt (lol).  I bought a couple of his albums and they were a big comfort to me when dh went to graduate school the next year in a different province. 

"Nebraska" came out in the fall of 1982, when I was 21 and starting my fourth and final year of undergrad, without dh on campus. It was starkly different from the Springsteen albums that had come before, or the ones anyone else was making at that point. But the more I listened, the more it grew on me. (I especially liked "Atlantic City" and "Reason to Believe.") 

What became "Nebraska" -- and parts of the subsequent "Born in the U.S.A." album -- began as a cassette tape of demos recorded by Springsteen in early January 1982, on a simple four-track home recorder, sitting on the bed in the bedroom of the farmhouse he was renting in Colts Neck, New Jersey. He'd just concluded a hugely successful tour to promote "The River" -- but he was struggling with what it all meant and what direction he wanted to take next. Around the same time, he was mulling over several things he'd been watching and reading, including Terrence Malick's 1973 movie "Badlands," based on the Starkweather murders in Nebraska during the late 1950s, starring a very young Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek;  a book about Starkweather's teenaged girlfriend/accomplice, Caril Fugate;  and the short stories of Flannery O'Connor. 

When he brought the demo tape into the studio for the E Street Band to work on, some songs came together very quickly, and would form the nucleus of the "Born in the U.S.A." album, including the title song. These songs formed an almost complete album, with the markings of a huge hit (which it would eventually become).  But the other songs kept calling him -- and he struggled with how they sounded when augmented by the full band.  Eventually, he decided to release those songs as a solo album -- exactly as recorded. No interviews, minimal advertising. He did authorize one promotional video ("Atlantic City") that was shown on the fledgling MTV network -- a series of black and white film clips of Atlantic City in all its gritty glory. No Springsteen or E Street Band in sight. 

"Nebraska" was critically acclaimed when it was first released, and still is today. It was a milestone in Bruce's career and in the music world generally, for many reasons that Zanes delves into here. 

There's probably a whole lot more detail here than most of us probably need or want to know about this album. But personally? I loved it. It was a great reminder of that time in my life, of what Bruce meant and still means to me & dh, and what a brilliant artist he is. Of how sometimes it pays to take risks, even when they seem crazy. (And how it helps to have people who believe in you and what you're doing, as Springsteen's manager, Jon Landau, and the record company did.)  There was a lot here that I already knew about this time in Springsteen's life, but I enjoyed the insights provided here (by Bruce, and by others) that put Bruce's music, and this album, into the context of the times.  If you love Bruce, and enjoy learning more about his creative process, especially if you love the album "Nebraska," you will probably enjoy this book. 

I haven't listened to "Nebraska" in full in years, and reading this book makes me want to pull out my CD and give it a spin. (I did have the vinyl album originally, but it now belongs to Older Nephew.  : ) ) 

4 stars on both Goodreads and StoryGraph.  

This was Book #31 read to date in 2025 (and Book #4 finished in October), bringing me to 69% of  my 2025 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 4 books behind  schedule to meet my goal.  :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2025 tagged as "2025 books." 

Odds & ends

• Today is the first day of school hereabouts! 
• Little Great-Nephew (the older/original one) is starting Grade 1 today!!  (eeekkkk....)  The one back-to-school photo I really wanted to see, lol. ;)  
• I heard a startling statistic on CNN on Labour Day morning:  I've always traditionally thought of  the day after Labour Day as the first day of school -- and I think that's fairly common in a lot of places across Canada (although in a few places we lived, we went back for at least a few days, the week before that). 
• I know that's not always the case in the U.S. -- but apparently only 15% of schools in the U.S. start after Labour Day -- the other 85% start before (i.e., in August). Wow! 
• (Of course, the school year ends in mid/late May for many U.S. schools too. Most of our schools go right to the end of June.) 
• I had proposed to dh that he & I mark the day by going out for brunch (because, as an older/childless couple with no kids to send off to school today, we can!).  
• However! Younger Nephew & his wife recently bought a house (and sold their two-bedroom townhouse near us). Moving day is actually tomorrow/Wednesday -- and dh is on call to help with that (although they have hired movers) --  but they take possession of their new home and get the keys today, so he's gone out with BIL (who has taken the entire week off work to help!) to move a few things over there today too. Sigh. 
• He's promised me brunch later in the week. 
• Recent related back-to-school rant here. 
• We watched "The Thursday Murder Club" movie on Netflix the day it was released (last Thursday, Aug. 28th). I enjoyed it hugely. (Dh enjoyed it too.)  Obviously, there's a lot from the novel that it left out, but it captured the flavour nicely, and you can't beat that cast! (or that setting!)   
• The school/church (church!! FFS...!!) shooting in Minneapolis last week (where I have a number of close relatives) brought back memories of other school shootings in the U.S.  Columbine, Parkland and Sandy Hook were mentioned frequently in the media and in social media posts I saw. 
• For parents of other children killed in school shootings, each new shooting obviously stirs up painful memories. On Threads, Nelba Marquez-Greene, mother of Ana Grace Marquez-Greene, a first-grader who died at Sandy Hook, posted sadly, "Why does Ana always get erased in people’s Sandy Hook talking points?"
• At the time Sandy Hook happened, Mel wrote about focusing on remembering just one of the young lives among the many snuffed out prematurely on that terrible day. As I wrote in a blog post at the time, I chose Ana.  As this article explains, Ana spent spent about half of her far-too-brief life in the city of Winnipeg in my home province of Manitoba, and had only recently moved back to Connecticut when she died. Her father is a jazz musician who taught at the School of Music at my alma mater, University of Manitoba.  I still think about her whenever Sandy Hook comes up. 
• Many in the comments assured her they had not forgotten Ana -- including me. "Dear Nelba," I posted, "when Sandy Hook happened, someone in one of my online communities pointed out that while it's sadly hard to remember the name of every child who died, perhaps each of us could pick one child to focus on & remember. I chose to remember Ana because I'm originally from Manitoba and learned of your ties to Winnipeg. I thought of her again yesterday. ❤️" 
• My comment has received almost 800 (!!!) likes to date.  
• Ali Hall at Life Without Children has assembled a great list of resources for childless and childfree people, including online communities, therapists, books, podcasts, movies, Substacks, social media accounts, notable dates and research/science. that she updates regularly  Many of the sites listed were familiar to me, but others were not, and they might be new to you too. I've added it to my own list of "Childless/free boards, sites & other resources" on the right-hand side of the pages here, near the bottom. Check it out! 
• Sue Fagalde Lick has signed off from her "Childless by Marriage" blog with a farewell post after exactly  18 (!) years of writing there (since August 27, 2007).  Luckily for us, she'll still be writing and speaking about childlessness in other places online. Go thank her for everything she's done to draw attention to a less-understood part of our community.  

It's always something....

I was already doing a lot of thinking about travelling -- and then (on the same day, in late June) both Jess and Grumpy Rumblings had travel-related posts that really resonated with me.  This post is the result!  (Be forewarned, it's a long one!) 

All my life, I've dreamed about travelling to places I've only read about or seen on the movies or TV. My ancestral homelands of England, Scotland, Ireland and Sweden rank high on the wish list. So does Italy -- besides being married to an Italian, I've been fascinated by Pompeii ever since I read a story about a boy and his dog and the volcano, as a schoolkid. And other places, especially in Europe. (Ukraine/Russia too, especially given my Ukrainian heritage -- but that was not an option for the first 30 years or so of my life, given the Cold War -- and I fear that window of opportunity has closed again...)   

My family took a few big roadtrips when I was growing up (including a particularly memorable one when I was 14, to the west coast and back), but most of our vacations were spent staying with my grandparents in Minnesota, or visiting family & friends, or camping with friends.  Europe (or even Disneyland) was beyond our budget. 

These days, we're somewhat more financially well off than my parents were. But when we were both working, vacation time was at a premium, and -- since all of my family is 1000 miles away -- we wound up spending a lot of it with them (and still do). We've made a few trips over the years, with them and (sometimes) just the two of us, mostly within Canada and the northern U.S.  

Once we retired, and our vacation time was unlimited (if not our budget...!), it seemed like it was finally time to spread our wings a little and visit some of those places we'd talked about.  

BUT.  

I know I've written about all this before on this blog, but to recap:  

2015:  Dh got the bright idea to sell our house and move across the city to a condo. Which meant a mad scramble to fix up our house (a little, if not a full-scale reno), get rid of a LOT of stuff, and find a place to live that we could both agree on. That consumed a good part of late 2015/early 2016. 

Summer 2016:  Newly settled into our new condo, we did take a cross-country driving trip, from Toronto to Iowa (via Michigan/northern Indiana/northern Illinois) to attend my family reunion there, and then north via Minneapolis to spend some time with my parents & sister in Manitoba, before heading home again through northern Ontario.  (Look under July and August 2016 for posts from that trip.)  Once we got there, it was full speed ahead to Older Nephew's wedding that fall. 

Spring 2018:  Younger Nephew's wedding -- and FIL's cancer diagnosis. Spending time with him became our priority, and especially dh's.  We didn't even get to Manitoba that summer. FIL died in August. 

January 2020:  My 59th birthday. "Next year," I vowed, "I will spend my birthday on a warm beach somewhere." 

Well, you all know what happened just a few months later...! January 2021 rolled around, and no one was going anywhere, for quite a while... 

Most pandemic restrictions had lifted by the time summer 2022 rolled around -- but I wasn't able to go anywhere (even to Manitoba) then either, because I was dealing with a couple of health issues -- one longstanding, one new -- which culminated in almost-back-to-back surgeries for my eye and my gallbladder in July and August.   

Meanwhile, BIL's health had begun to deteriorate, and rapidly so, starting in late 2022/early 2023. He & SIL needed increasing support, for rides to medical appointments, and (especially) caregiving backup for Little Great-Nephew.  His liver transplant in July 2023 was a success (thank goodness!), but he still wasn't able to do much for quite a while, and so we continued to be on call for support for quite a while. 

I had high hopes that this might be the year we FINALLY got to take that big trip. For one thing, it was our 40th wedding anniversary in July -- what better incentive for a celebratory splurge of a trip, right??  (Not IN July -- too hot, too busy/crowded, almost anywhere we would want to go  -- but maybe September/October?)(Whose bright idea was it to get married in early July anyway??  lol)  

First step:  getting our passports renewed before they expired in May.  That took some doing, but we finally had them in hand by late May.  Meanwhile, I was looking at travel packages and asking friends what they'd recommend, etc. I thought about this a LOT, poking around the Internet, turning the various options over and over in my mind... 

When I brought the subject up earlier this year, in a general way, dh was on board ("yeah, sure, whatever you want...").  And I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it since then a few times too. But when I finally sat him down in early June and asked him to commit to some specifics ("if we're going to do it, we need to get something booked NOW..."), he got this deer-in-the-headlights look on his face -- admitted he hadn't really been thinking about it at all (! -- men, right??) -- and then confessed that he really wasn't keen on international travel right now, with everything happening in the world (our country's deteriorating relationship with the U.S., the security of Europe in flux, the continuing war in Ukraine, what's happening in Gaza...).  Maybe next year? 

I get it.  The world is a scary place right now. But. I'll admit:  I was not happy. I pointed out that I'm 64, he's 68. My knees are already not in great shape. We're not getting any younger...!  If not now, WHEN??  How many more good years do we have??

He did say we could definitely plan a trip for somewhere in Canada this fall.  (I probably don't have to explain why travel to the U.S. is off the table for the foreseeable future...)  We agreed we'd like to return to Nova Scotia (we went there for our 25th anniversary in 2010), spend a little more time there -- and maybe hit P.E.I. this time around while we're at it (a longtime bucket list destination for me)(and maybe a bit of New Brunswick along the way).  And he agreed that we could go somewhere warm this January for my 65th birthday. :)  (I'm thinking the Caribbean.... )

But -- first things first. By the time we had this conversation, it was almost time for us to head to Manitoba. I resolved that planning and booking a fall trip would be a priority when we returned.  (I'm much more confident about planning a trip within Canada, and it's easier to do at short notice too.)

Nothing is booked yet. Why? 

It's been busy since we got back. I did have intentions of booking something this week. 

BUT THEN:  

• Nova Scotia and Newfoundland (another potential destination both of us would really like to visit) are getting hammered right now by forest fires -- including some that are fairly close to the capital cities of Halifax and St. John's. Even if the fires didn't affect where we wanted to go (in terms of roads blocked, etc.), there will likely be lots of smoke to deal with. (Lots of other fires burning in other areas of Canada right now too, sadly...) 
• AND NOW -- Air Canada flight attendants are going on strike!!!  The airline is already starting to cancel flights. They expect to be completely grounded by the weekend. There IS WestJet (we only have two major Canadian national airlines -- which is part of why it's so damned expensive to travel within this country) -- but they will quickly be swamped, I'm sure. I have a great deal of sympathy for the flight attendants' grievances -- but...!  (Needless to say, I'm very glad our trip to Manitoba was in July...!) 

To quote the late great (also childless) Gilda Radner, "It's always something...!"  

Of course, the strike could be over quickly (especially if they go to binding arbitration, which is highly likely) -- and the fires could be brought under control by the time we want to go anywhere. Who knows??  But there are still a lot of unknowns to deal with right now. 

I'm sure some of you are reading this and thinking "Excuses, excuses... just go for it!"  To be honest, while I like the IDEA of travel -- and I almost always love it when we get wherever we're going -- I have a lot of anxiety when it comes to the process of getting there. I do kind of enjoy the research -- but actually making decisions, making all the necessary arrangements -- I get quite uptight sometimes.  I don't have a lot of anxiety about flying itself (although I've never had to fly anywhere for more than 5 hours -- to Seattle -- and most of that was over land, not an ocean! -- so that could change, depending on the destination...!) -- but I do get VERY anxious when going online and booking something. It's a lot of money at stake (even just to fly from Toronto to Winnipeg), and I feel like there are so many little decisions have you make along the way through the booking process -- and so many opportunities to screw up, lol.  

(I used to have a great travel agent -- I told her what we wanted and the dates, and she came back with some choices and took care of everything for me.  But once I lost my job, the travel agency fee seemed like one expense we could do without -- plus by then, everyone was booking their own travel online -- especially for simple travel, which is what we usually did and do -- Toronto-Winnipeg direct -- no transfers involved -- easy-peasy. But the idea of booking a flight to Europe -- and then planning and coordinating an itinerary, making reservations at hotels and B&Bs, sight unseen, etc. -- seems pretty daunting. Which is why I was thinking a tour might be the way to go, particularly for a first trip there.)  

One other reason I've been procrastinating:  I was hoping we'd hear from dh's cousins about a cottage weekend, if there's going to be one, so we could plan around that. We've gone there with BIL & SIL every September for the past four years, and really enjoyed it -- and we've usually had an invitation or at least a "save the date" email by now. I know it's been a busy summer for them too, though, for a number of reasons, and I am hesitant to reach out to them (even though there are other reasons I would like to do so), because I don't want to make it seem like I'm hinting/angling for an invitation...!  But I feel like the minute I book anything, they'll ask us, you know?? 

Anyway -- I'm wondering if maybe I should downscale my expectations (again...!) and maybe just suggest to dh that we do a road trip to Ottawa (about 4-5 hours away). (We were there with BIL & SIL in early October 2017.) There's lots to see and do there, and I've been dying to get back there, just the two of us, and do a little ancestor hunting in the area. :)  It would be easy enough to cancel/change a hotel reservation if something else came up in the meantime (much easier than cancelling or rebooking flights...!). 

Montreal would also be do-able -- together with Ottawa (it's only about 2 hours away from there) or on its own. I was there overnight on business, 30-ish years ago, but didn't really get to see much of the city then. 

We could also go to Niagara-on-the-Lake for a few days -- we haven't been there since our anniversary in 2017, and it's always such a great place to get away. The Shaw Festival offers great theatre all summer/fall long, and also runs a couple of Christmas-themed theatre productions in November & December -- A Christmas Carol and White Christmas.  That might be a fun way to get into the holiday spirit. :) 

I'm sure all these places are busier this year than usual, because so many people are staying at home/travelling within Canada right now -- but hopefully it would be a little less busy in the fall once kids go back to school, etc.  

Sigh... decisions, decisions....!  

If you've read this far, thank you!  (I do some of my best thinking on paper/screen, lol.)

#MicroblogMondays: 40 years (!)

(NOT a microblog post, lol.)  

Yesterday was our 40th (!!) wedding anniversary.  (How did that happen??) 

Despite the significance of 40 years -- nothing to sneeze at, especially these days -- it was a very quiet, low-key kind of day, for a number of reasons:  

First, whose bright idea was it to get married in early July?? -- the hottest time of the year, right after Canada Day and the 4th of July in the U.S., when everywhere you might want to go is swarming with tourists, and hotel prices are at their peak??  (Speaking from experience...!) 

As an aside:  I actually wanted to get married on June 16th. 16 has long been one of my favourite/lucky numbers, I grew up hearing that June was the perfect month for a wedding, and from the time I was a teenager, at least, June 16th was a date in my head for my wedding -- AND, June 16th fell on a Saturday in 1985! -- AND both the chapel & reception venue we wanted were available that day!  

But my mother was working then (part-time, but...), as a teacher aide at an elementary school, and classes didn't end until the very end of June -- and she said a June wedding would be one way to send her to an early grave (sure Mom, lay on the guilt...!). (She did say the same thing about a Christmas wedding, lol -- which I also suggested as a very pretty time of year to get married -- so much of your decorating already done for you, right?)  So I took the first available date after June ended, which was July 6th.  

Which was just as well.  It was one of those summers (especially when you're in your 20s) when all your friends and cousins (and your parents' friends kids, and cousins' kids, etc.) are getting married.  There were were wall to wall weddings (and the corresponding showers, etc.) -- a friend from high school, my cousin, my second cousin, the cousin of one of my bridesmaids (I knew her too), and the same bridesmaid herself got married that summer (in August). Even if my parents or I weren't invited to all of these weddings, or couldn't go to them, a lot of people who came to our wedding were going to those ones too.  

I wrote to my first-year university roommate to tell her the date -- I was considering asking her to be a bridesmaid too --  and she actually called me up (which she rarely did -- long distance was expensive back then!) and said, "Well, kiddo, we've both picked the SAME WEDDING DAY!"  I suppose it was inevitable, with all the weddings going on, that there would be a conflict with someone...! So we didn't get to attend each others' weddings!  (She & her husband -- a guy I'd introduced her to! -- wound up splitting a few years later.)  

Another reason we didn't do much on/around our anniversary this year is we'll be heading west to see my family soon -- and there's lots of stuff we need to get done before we go. Even if crowds and pricing weren't a factor, a looming travel deadline and a long to-do list made it difficult to do too much else besides dinner out. 

We didn't think much about it at the time, but we got married the same year (and same month!) that my parents were marking their 25th anniversary!  My dad's family (my aunts & uncles, and his cousins) have always made a big deal out of significant wedding anniversaries and often held big parties of some sort for 25, 40, 50 and onward. Even though we were up to our necks in wedding plans, they relentlessly pressured me and my sister about what we were going to do for Mom & Dad's 25th? (!)  They proposed "surprising" my parents by showing up at the house en masse (!).  

Of course you couldn't just have a horde of people show up and not be prepared to feed them! (and I knew my mother would kill me if I knew this was going to happen and the house wasn't clean...!)  -- so we told our parents & my mother arranged for some food. (The guests did bring some food with them too, but it would not have been enough on its own.) I made a special solo trip home to be there (even though we'd just spent a ton of money on a wedding and a honeymoon a few weeks earlier, dh had only just started working and I was unemployed), and we planned the party date so that I could also attend my friend/bridesmaid's wedding on Aug. 9th.  

Since then, my parents' milestone anniversaries have always taken precedence over ours.  When their 40th rolled around, my sister & I hosted a dinner/dance for them, with about 100 friends & family members attending. We did the same for their 50th (minus the dancing, since we found most people just wanted to chat anyway), and we were planning a come-and-go tea in the church basement for their 60th before the pandemic intervened. Travel restrictions meant I couldn't be there at all for the day, so my sister wound up serving cake & coffee in the backyard to about a dozen neighbours, and that was it.  They will be marking #65 (!) while we're there -- no big parties planned this time around (and many of the people who insisted we needed to have a party, and attended them, are either gone, or would have difficulty coming now), but we will find some way to celebrate. 

To her credit, when we started planning the 50th, my sister said, "Are we doing a combined 25/50 party, or just 50?"  I felt uncomfortable taking the spotlight away from Mom & Dad, so 50-only it was (although my sister bought me a corsage and dh a boutonniere too, and several people brought us anniversary cards too). 

When I think about it, we celebrated my maternal grandparents' big anniversaries with them, too. I remember a family dinner for their 40th -- we all dressed up -- with cake & coffee at the house later. A few of the neighbours may have dropped by. We held a big come & go tea in the church basement on their 50th, with lots of distant family travelling to be there.  We put an even notice in the weekly community newspaper (common practice there), and lots of local friends & neighbours came too.  By the time their 60th came around, they were living at the seniors home, but we still had a lot of family come to celebrate.  We served cake & coffee and played bingo with the residents in the community room. We didn't advertise, but somehow word spread and several people from town came by anyway to wish them well.  

I went to several big anniversary parties for aunts, uncles & cousins on my dad's side (and missed many others, because of distance). On mom's side, I flew solo to Minneapolis in May 2014 to attend my uncle and aunt's 50th anniversary party. I'm very glad I did, because it was one of the last times I saw him before his death last year and I got to see a lot of other people I hadn't seen in a long time too. 

I don't know if dh's parents did anything to celebrate their 25th anniversary. His mom died a few years after that. FIL & stepMIL celebrated their 25th anniversary with a big party/dinner with family & friends at a nearby restaurant. FIL died just before they hit 30.  A few of the aunts & uncles have had parties to celebrate their milestone anniversaries, especially the 25th, but it generally doesn't seem to be the big "must do" thing that it is in my dad's family. 

So, celebrating anniversaries has long been a "thing" in my family. (Maybe not so much in dh's.)  Obviously, we have no children or grandchildren to organize anniversary celebrations for us, or make a fuss over us, or remind people that it's a big anniversary for us.  Or even to take a photo of us.  If we have any anniversary photos of ourselves, it's because we've taken them ourselves -- with a self-timer, in the old camera days, or as a "selfie," with our cellphones now. The results are often less than stellar, lol -- but we have a lot of laughs along the way! I have, very occasionally, asked a waiter to take our photo -- and they are always happy to oblige -- but dh doesn't like doing that.  

It's up to us to celebrate ourselves. 

But I've never felt comfortable with the idea of hosting our own anniversary party, and I know dh feels the same way. (Which is not to say we don't appreciate a little recognition or fuss made over us, now & then...!) We have sometimes gone out for dinner with BIL & SIL on our anniversary (and on theirs) -- and I did suggest to dh that we could invite BIL & SIL, and perhaps dh's two cousins who were in our wedding party, and their partners, to come out for dinner with us -- and maybe the nephews and their families too.  Yes, it would have been expensive, but your 40th anniversary only rolls around once, right? But dh preferred to keep it to just the two of us. He doesn't even like telling the restaurant staff that it's our anniversary either (even if it might result in a freebie or two. 

There have been some years when we've done more than just going out for dinner.  We've sometimes spent the night at a swanky downtown hotel, and/or gotten theatre tickets.  We've spent a couple of anniversary weekends in Niagara-on-the-Lake (a favourite getaway spot -- albeit, again, very crowded and busy -- and expensive!! -- especially at this time of year!).  We spent a couple of anniversaries at "cottage country" resorts (on Lake Simcoe, and near Huntsville), one in Stratford, and one in Kingston.  We spent our 25th anniversary at the theatre ("Rock of Ages" -- an 80s rock musical -- how appropriate, lol) and spent the night at the King Edward Hotel downtown -- and then spent a week in September driving around Nova Scotia.  (I've written about many of these trips & celebrations on this blog -- and while I haven't tagged each individual reference, you can find some of those posts here tagged/labelled "our wedding anniversary".)  And we will probably take some kind of trip again later this fall. (I will probably write more about that in another post, down the road.)  We've sometimes been in Manitoba with my family for our anniversary, and I remember at least one time that my mom got a cake for us then. 

(But it's generally up to ME to propose/express a preference about what we should do, do any research & planning involved, and make any necessary reservations...!  I generally don't mind -- I'm enough of a control freak that I would certainly want my say on any major decision making in that regard, lol -- but it's exhausting sometimes...  Just once in a while, I'd like to leave all the decisions and planning up to dh. But I know if I did that, nothing would ever happen...! -- and I suspect I'm not alone among wives in that respect...!) 

As I said, it's up to us to celebrate ourselves. And if we were waiting for anyone else to make a fuss over us on our big day, we would have been sadly disappointed.  Would have been?  Okay, I'll admit it -- I was/am feeling a little irritated... Okay, pissed off.  I changed my cover & profile photos on Facebook to shots from our wedding, as I usually do -- and got a few "likes" and comments there -- but I had to wonder whether anyone would have remembered the occasion if I hadn't done that. 

Sunday is my usual day to call my parents -- and I was wondering/hoping that maybe they might call ME this time around.  Nope, I had to call them -- and neither of them said one word about it being our anniversary. (I didn't prompt or hint at them either.)  I know my mom will probably call and apologize when she does remember (it's not the first time this has happened -- although I don't think they've ever forgotten my birthday!).  I did think my sister (my maid of honour) might call -- she sometimes does on our anniversaries -- but, silence.   

While some of dh's relatives liked or commented on my FB photos, there was no flurry of "happy anniversary" posts on his family's WhatsApp groups or text groups, as there often is when someone is celebrating an anniversary or a birthday or other special occasion. Of course, it's usually the parents or kids who proudly post about the special dates in their parents' or kids' lives. We don't have anyone to do that on our behalf. 

What *really* rubbed some salt in the wound:  dh's cousin in Italy did post "happy anniversary" wishes on WhatsApp -- for her parents (dh's uncle & his wife), who were celebrating THEIR 50th anniversary that very same day (!).  Now, I certainly do not begrudge them the anniversary wishes -- and 50 does outrank 40...! -- but let's just say I waited a while before I added my own "likes."  (But I did not leave a comment.)  I'll admit, I can be a little petty sometimes (lol -- I come by it honestly -- there was NO ONE who could hold a grudge like my grandmother and/or her older sister!!).  I wanted to see if anyone would clue in and mention that someone ELSE was celebrating a significant/milestone anniversary the same day too...!  I thought SIL might add something to the effect that we were celebrating a big anniversary too (particularly since, to her credit, she did privately text me & dh earlier with best wishes), especially when she added her own congratulations to the chain -- but she did not. 

All the ranting/whining above aside (lol) -- I was (am!) proud and happy to have reached this milestone, and so very thankful for dh and the good life we've built together these past 40 (!!) years... with its share of ups & downs, to be sure, and without the children or grandchildren we once assumed would be ours -- but a very good life, nevertheless. We've agreed to another 40 more (at least).  ;)    

It was a very quiet, low-key kind of day. It was horribly hot & humid again -- peak temperature was 34C/40C humidex -- that's 93F and 104F -- so we mostly stuck close to home and air-conditioned comfort, lol.  We exchanged cards (as we always do).  But later in the day, we dressed up a bit (I wore a sundress) and went out for dinner at a local steakhouse. We hadn't been there since well before the pandemic began. (And holy cow, the prices have sure gone up since the last time we were there...!)  

And then we came home -- and watched "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" on TMC, lol.  I've seen it several times since I first saw it as a teenager -- but not in a while.   haven't laughed that much in a long time. (I needed that!)   

And that was about it.  We're hoping to take a trip later this fall, when the weather is not so hot and the crowds have thinned out a bit (we hope..!).  Where, exactly, hasn't been settled, but we have some ideas... 

Please celebrate the people in your lives, on the meaningful dates in their lives (and maybe "just because" too). Especially the people who don't have kids, or husbands/partners.  They may not have had weddings and all the attendant celebrations surrounding those, and anniversaries to mark afterwards, and/or baby showers and gender reveals (and then kids' birthdays and baptisms and first communions and confirmations and graduations after that). But we all have birthdays, and we've all done other things in our lives that are worth celebrating: education achievements, new homes, new jobs, promotions, retirements... Trust me, it means a lot when you make the effort.      

Past posts about our wedding anniversaries here.   

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.

Right now

Right now...* 

*(an occasional (mostly monthly) meme, alternating from time to time with "The Current"). (Explanation of how this started & my inspirations in my first "Right now" post, here. Also my first "The Current" post, here.)

(Note: I omitted a couple of regular categories this month because I was drawing a blank as to what to write in them...!  But I added a few, and this post is plenty long as it is, I think!  It's all good...!) 

April went by in a blur.  On the negative side: politics! (Federal election on April 28th, and weeks of campaigning before that.)  On the plus side:  dh's birthday, and Easter with the family (including the great-niblings).  And by mid/late April, it was FINALLY starting to feel like spring!! 

Pandemic diary/update: After five (!) years (!), I've decided not to continue monthly pandemic updates, since there really hasn't been anything new to write about in a long time. (Which doesn't mean that covid isn't still out there.)  I'm still masking -- most of the time -- in stores, malls and other such indoor public spaces, especially if/when there are lots of people around -- and I intend to keep on doing so (there are plenty of germs floating around to be concerned about right now besides covid, too!).  (I'll admit, though, I'm not QUITE as much of a stickler about it as I was a while ago.)  

Dh has not been masking when he goes out by himself for a while now, and increasingly, he hasn't been wearing the ones I've handed to him. He does say he intends to keep masking on airplanes, though.

If our covid-free status changes (and I'm knocking wood, LOUDLY, that it won't...!) I'll write about it, and I'll continue to share any articles of interest on the topic that I run across.    

This month, we: 

• Went to the mall to walk around and shop once a week, usually on Tuesday mornings (April 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd & 29th). 
• Had passport photos taken (April 3rd). 
• Stopped en route home from the mall at the drugstore postal outlet on April 8th to mail our tax returns! & buy some large envelopes. 
• Returned the next day to arrange to courier our passport renewal applications to Ottawa (current passports expire in early May), then went to the bookstore for a browse. 
• Returned to the post office AGAIN on April 19th to courier our passport renewals BACK to Ottawa, after they were returned to us (on April 17th -- one week after they were originally sent) -- we both forgot to sign the forms in one spot. (Oops!)
• (I checked the tracking on the package -- it got to Ottawa and I notice my credit card was charged the fees for both passports, so I guess they're being processed!)  
• Attended a celebration of life for a friend from our pregnancy loss support group (April 6th). (Maskless.) 
• Went with BIL & SIL to BIL & dh's cousin's house on April 12th. He's an accountant and does BIL & SIL's taxes every year. BIL & SIL brought takeout lunch -- and we were happily surprised that the cousin's daughter was home from school in the UK!  As always, a great visit (my own klutziness notwithstanding...). 
• Went to the bookstore and then stopped at the drugstore en route home to pick up a prescription (April 16th). 
• Voted at an advance poll for the April 28th federal election (on April 18th/Good Friday). 
• After dropping our passport applications at the post office on Saturday, April 19th, braved the crowds at the supermarket to pick up a fruit tray to take to BIL's for Easter dinner the next day. 
• Spent the afternoon/early evening of Easter Sunday with BIL & family. Aside from a brief but (thankfully) relatively civil argument about politics and the upcoming federal election, it was a great afternoon, and we had a lot of fun with the three great-niblings -- who all showed up wearing the "Egg Hunting Squad" T-shirts I'd put in their Valentine's Day goody bags!  (Little Great-Nephew's was a little too small/tight! -- erk! -- but he still wore it!)  Needless to say, I was tickled!! (We got some really cute group photos too!) 
• Stopped at the drugstore, en route home from the mall on April 22nd to pick up another prescription. 
• Returned to our old community for haircuts on the afternoon of April 25th (with a stop at the cemetery to visit Katie en route). It was later in the day than we would usually go (but we were desperate, lol), so we didn't hang around the mall afterward to shop (trying to avoid the worst of the Friday afternoon traffic), although I did duck into the dollar store and drugstore for a few minutes while dh was getting done. 

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Also right now:  

Reading: I finished 3 books in April (all reviewed on this blog, as well as Goodreads & StoryGraph, & tagged "2025 books"):  

• "Miss Buncle Married" by D.E. Stevenson ( (re)read in advance of our DES group chapter-by-chapter discussion, which began on April 21st. (3.5-4 stars;  original 2015 review here;  latest review here.) 
• "Can’t We Be Friends" by Denny S. Bryce & Eliza Knight (the May book for my Childless Collective Nomo Book Club). (3 stars;  my review.) 
• This book -- which I've decided not to name here (!), as the author is a personal friend.  I don't want to tempt fate by naming her and the book, and then having her (or mutual friends) stumble onto this blog, if/when they Google the book. However, the link posted here goes to my review on Goodreads, and I've also reviewed it on StoryGraph. (4 stars, explanation & review link also posted here.) 

This brings me to 13 books read in 2025 to date, 29% of my 2025 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) on track to meet my goal.  :) 

Current reads: 

• "Miss Buncle Married" by D.E. Stevenson, for my D.E. Stevenson group.  Our group discussion began on April 21st, and I'll count this as another re-read once we're finished (in July). I've read the book twice before on my own (once in 2015 and again prior to the start of our group read & discussion -- see above! (Original 2015 review here;  most recent review here). 
• "Anne of Windy Poplars" by L.M. Montgomery (called "Anne of Windy Willows" in the U.K., with some text variations). My L.M. Montgomery Readathon Facebook group started reading & discussing this book together on Jan. 6th. (Previous review here.) Currently 60% completed. 
• "Living the Life Unexpected" by Jody Day.  I'm once again taking part in a chapter-by-chapter group read of this CNBC classic!  The most recent Zoom meeting covered Chapter 8.  This is the 5th (!) time I've read this book, or the earlier version of it ("Rocking the Life Unexpected").  (Most recent review, with links to earlier reviews, here.)  
• "L.M. Montgomery and Gender," an essay collection edited by E. Holly Pike & Laura Robinson. Slowly working my way through, in between the other books...! 

Coming up: Most of my book groups have their next reads plotted out for a few months in advance -- and listing them here helps me keep track of what I should be reading next. ;)  

• For my Childless Collective Nomo Book Club:  
• "A Burning" by Megha Majumdar. (June) 
• "Rules For Visiting" by Jessica Francis Kane (July) 
• "Drive Your Plow (Over the Bones of the Dead)" by Olga Tokarczuk. (August) 
• "The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands" by Mary Seacole. (September) 
• "The Secrets of Blythswood Square" by Sara Sheridan. (October) 
• For my D.E. Stevenson group:  This list of upcoming books should keep us busy through 2025 or even into early 2026!  (A couple of the books are ones we covered shortly after I first joined the group back in 2014 -- you know you've been around for a while when....!)  
• The Two Mrs. Abbotts (likely starting in mid-July -- original 2015 review here).
• Crooked Adam
• The Four Graces (original 2015 review here). 

• Footnotes and Tangents slow readalongs planned for 2025 include:
• "A Place of Greater Safety" by Hilary Mantel -- starts May 5th, for 20 weeks. 
• "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe -- starts Sept. 29th, for 5 weeks. 
• "The Blue Flower" by Penelope Fitzgerald -- starts Nov. 3rd, for 7 weeks. 

(Simon is a big fan of the late great Hilary Mantel, and the other books he's selected were all ones that she loved, so he figured they would probably be worth reading!) 

• Culture Study (Europe): next book TBA. 

A few recently purchased titles (all in digital format, mostly discounted ($5-10 or less) or purchased with points): 

• "Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live" by Susan Morrison 
  
• "The Age of Magical Overthinking" by Amanda Montell 
• "The Small and the Mighty" by Sharon McMahon 
• "Cue the Sun!" by Emily Nussbaum 
• "Right-Wing Women" by Andrea Dworkin 
• "So Now What?" by Lana Manikowski 
• "Missing Persons" by Clair Wills 
• "The Life Impossible" by Matt Haig 
• "The Stolen Queen" by Fiona Davis 
• "The Certainty Illusion" by Timothy Caulfield 
• "Caledonian Road" by Andrew O'Hagan 

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Watching: 

• "Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light" on PBS (in six parts). In discussing the book after I finished it last December (my review here), I told my fellow readers at Footnotes & Tangents, "I held it together at the end until Rafe (Sadler, Thomas Cromwell's protege and essentially his adopted son) started crying" -- and that was the point where I lost it while watching the final episode as well. Both book & filmed version are absolutely amazing feats of storytelling, and Mark Rylance (as Cromwell) and Damien Lewis (as Henry VIII) are superb. I don't give ratings here to the things I watch, but this one would definitely get 5 stars.  
• "The Handmaid's Tale" (the sixth & final season!). Currently up to episode 6 (of 10).  This show is even harder to watch than it was when it first began -- especially given current events! I continue to wonder just how many times June can pop in & out of Gilead/New Bethlehem, lol.  I can see the arc of the storyline gradually beginning to bend towards Margaret Atwood's 2019 sequel, "The Testaments," which I read and reviewed here, and which is also being turned into a series (in which Ann Dowd will reprise her role as Aunt Lydia). I'm hoping they don't stray too far from the book in that one either. 
• Too much pre- and post-election coverage (mostly on CBC/CBC News Network). ;)  (At least THAT's done!)  

Playing:  

• Heardle Decades: Stats as of April 30th:  
• Heardle 60s: 75.5% (688/911, 266 on first guess), down 0.5% from last month. Max. streak: 15.
• Heardle 70s: 78.1% (505/647, 287 on first guess), down 0.3% from last month. Max. streak: 18. 
• Heardle 80s: 38.2% (198/518, 72 on first guess), down 0.7% from last month. Max. streak: 4. 
• Heardle 90s: 30.9% (192/622, 42 on first guess), up 1.1% from last month. Max. streak: 5. 
• NYT Connections:  
• By March 31st, I'd played 246 games and won 84% of them, including 123 "perfect puzzles."  And I increased my maximum winning streak from 21 to 30! 
• By April 30th, I'd completed 276 games and won 83% of them, including 140 "perfect puzzles" with zero errors, including 6 where I got the most difficult/purple category first.  And I maintained my maximum winning streak at 30!  :)   

Following:  NHL playoff hockey ;) (particularly when the Toronto Maple Leafs or Winnipeg Jets are playing!) -- albeit not religiously. 

Eating/Drinking:  

• As I've mentioned before, we achieved our goal of lowering our cholesterol levels in late January,  after less-than-stellar bloodwork last fall earned us both serious chats with our doctor. We'll be doing more bloodwork later in the year to check again -- so we've continued our efforts to eat healthier -- reduce portion sizes, cut back on fatty & processed foods (fewer casseroles, more chicken and beans/lentils), eat more fruits, vegetables and fibre, snack less (and make better snacking choices), and be at least a little more active. 
• Since then, I've continued to yo-yo a bit, but I still ended the month 1.4 pounds lighter than at the end of March. (I'll take it!)  Overall, I've lost a little over 11 pounds since our chat with the doctor last October, and about 23 pounds from my heaviest-ever weight a few years ago. 
• For dh's birthday (April 11th), we indulged in his choice:  takeout California Sandwiches -- a treat we hadn't permitted ourselves since our chat with the doctor about diet and cholesterol last October -- as well as red velvet cupcakes for dessert. (I stuck a candle in dh's, lit it and had him blow it out.) 
• (I can only ever eat half of my chicken cutlet sandwich in one sitting -- they are HUGE. I saved the other half for dinner two days later.) 
• BIL & SIL brought takeout Portuguese chicken, potatos, rice and veggies from a local restaurant to BIL & dh's cousin's house for lunch (really tasty!), after which the cousin (an accountant) went to work on BIL & SIL's taxes while the rest of us visited. 
• For Easter dinner at BIL's we had pasta alfredo, barbecued steak, lamb & sausages, potatos with peppers, sauteed rapini, corn, and salad.  Two kinds of pie for dessert, plus fruit. 
• Some (other) notable recent takeout meals: soup, pizza slices and teriyaki rice bowls, all from the supermarket takeout counter, and takeout rotisserie chicken (with a baked potato for me, fries for dh). (Trying to avoid the stuff that's really calorie & fat-laden!) 

Wearing:  I'm still wearing long-sleeved tops, yoga pants and socks inside the house -- and slippers still too, on most days. But the weather HAS been gradually warming up, especially later in the month, and there have been several days when I've been able to venture outside in just a denim jacket (and I might not have even needed that!). I even wore a short-sleeved T-shirt to the mall this past week, no jacket!  Hopefully I'll be able to bring out the capris & sandals within another few weeks!      

Buying (besides books, lol): 

• More Canadian products (or, failing that, international) products (vs American -- you can probably guess why...! It's not always easy, though, given how intertwined our two countries' economies & supply chains are...!).  
• Goodies for the great-niblings' Easter baskets/bags, including clothes, stickers, little rabbits that hop around after you wind them up, and (of course!) chocolate (for the two older kids at least!). 
• I've continued to buy stuff for them since Easter too ;)  including matching Canada Day T-shirts from Old Navy. 
• Several pretty tank tops for summer at Reitmans (a Canadian women's wear chain, which has fairly reasonable prices). There's a store near where I live, but they also just opened a large new one at the nearby mall we frequent (yay!). I used a gift card dh gave me for Christmas to pay for part of it (even better!).  
• (I also had my eye on this pretty blouse that I thought would be perfect to wear to an upcoming bridal shower in May -- but alas, they were sold out of my size, both in-store and online.)  

Mourning:  The demise of Hudson's Bay Company (HBC, or just "the Bay"), which has been around since 1670 (!! -- not a typo!) and played a critical role in my country's early exploration and development (with a particular interest in the fur trade). The Bay department stores, along with Eatons, was one of the pillars of the Canadian retail experience when I was growing up. Hudson's Bay was purchased by an American private equity firm several years ago... and you can probably guess the rest of the story. :(  They've closed several stores in recent years (including the magnificent century-old Bay store in downtown Winnipeg -- which, happily, is being renovated and repurposed for mixed use -- unlike the big Eatons store a few blocks away, which was, sadly, torn down completely), even before this announcement -- and now all the rest will soon be closing (as well as Canadian Saks Fifth Avenue and Saks Off Fifth stores, owned by the same parent company). 

It's not unexpected -- over the past 20-25 years, Canada has lost Eatons, Simpsons, Sears Canada and Nordstrom Canada (not too many years after it entered the market here). It's been a few years since I've been to the flagship store at Queen & Yonge in downtown Toronto (which was at one time a Simpsons store), but I was often there on my lunch hour when I worked downtown. There aren't any Bay stores close by us now, but I always took a quick walk/browse through the (much smaller) store at the mall in our old community whenever we were there for haircuts.  The last time I did so, a few months ago, there were (sadly) a lot of bare shelves and few customers (or staff, for that matter).

I miss department stores. :( 

Procrastinating: I need to call a plumber about a few fixes in both bathrooms. The tub faucet in one bathroom is totally stripped -- has been for more than a year now -- just goes round and round and is difficult to turn off completely, which has rendered that tub/shower completely useless. Thankfully, the spout it is not dripping (right now) -- unlike the same fixture in the master bathroom glassed-in shower enclosure, which has been dripping for MONTHS now, and is creating a lot of mildew on the tiles and caulking, which I am constantly wiping and scrubbing with Clorox. :p  

The sink in that bathroom is also starting to drain more slowly (again -- despite dosing it with baking soda & vinegar, followed by hot water after a few minutes), and I'm afraid it's going to plug up completely -- which is what happened last year right around this time. We called the plumber who takes care of the common plumbing structures in the building then, and he got it draining freely again. I actually asked him to look at the tub/shower faucet then -- he did, but he didn't have the right part to fix it, and said he would get back to me. 

Of course you know what happened -- crickets.  (He was actually back here again with the property manager a few months later, flushing taps after the city turned off the water main for repairs -- and I mentioned it to him again then and asked him to give us a call and let us know when he could come. Again, crickets.)  Do I try calling/messaging him AGAIN and give him one more chance?  Or take my chances with a completely unknown plumber?  (Sigh.) (Why didn't one of the nephews become a plumber?? lol)(One of dh's cousins is actually a plumber! -- but we don't know him very well, and geographically, he's way on the other side of the city/region.) 

Anticipating:  Starting to think about whether we should plan a trip this fall to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary (which is actually in July) -- where we should go (likely somewhere in the UK/Europe), how we should do it, etc.  -- i.e., group tour? pre-package self tour? (dh's cousin's wife recommended the experience they had via Costco Travel last year  -- they did London, Dublin & Paris with their kids) -- or try to plan something out ourselves?? I feel confident figuring things out for travel within Canada, and even to most places in the U.S. -- but Europe, an ocean away, seems positively daunting.  

Also feeling somewhat anxious about the prospect of travelling so far away, at a time when the world is in such a state of upheaval, and the economy is in such a state of flux.  Fall seems like such a long time away; who knows what things will be like then??

But there's never an ideal time, is there??  -- plus (ahem) we're not getting any younger -- if we ever want to see some of these places, we need to do it sooner vs later...!   (Decisions, decisions...!) 

Appreciating/Enjoying:  The days when the weather is nice enough that we can once again open our balcony door, even for a while!    

Trying (and mostly failing...!): To get to bed a little earlier! (Especially if we need to set an alarm and get up early!) When we were working, we were up every morning before 5 AM, so 10 PM was bedtime, with few exceptions. Dh often still turns in early, but lately I've been up till 11, 11:30, 11:45... (I still draw the line at 12 midnight!).    

Noticing: The leaves on the trees are starting to bud out!  (Yay!)    

Hoping: That the weather continues to improve. (Some more sunshine would be great, even if the temperatures take a little while to warm up...!) 

Loving:  Any time we can spend with the great-niblings.  :)  (Never enough, of course...!) 

                              

Feeling: Relieved that all the electioneering is FINALLY over!! (Hopefully for another few years...!)  Relieved that spring FINALLY seems to be on its way!