money matters

I guess I'm getting into a bit of a routine here. In light of our increased income slicing our child tax credit in half and eliminating medical subsidy, we have come to the desperate need to find a new source of income. So the girls and I have started a paper route. They get a small cut of it and I use the rest to cover half their piano lessons which Brent demanded they give up. But I just couldn't do it, so here we find ourselves. I wasn't sure how we would like it, but as luck would have it we ended up with a pretty sweet route. We do the neighbourhood behind our complex (where we go trick or treating) and the girls working together can get it done in less than 45 minutes. Our first day of papers just happened to be flyer day; the papers were so fat that we had to use 2 strollers to take them. There was no way they could carry that many papers (82) So then I was on the hunt for a wagon. Sure enough the recycling place came through for me again just when I needed it. The girls now love playing outside with the wagon. They have all the kids in the complex clamboring for rides. It reminds of the days when Layne and Karen lived here and their boys had a wagon. (Their rides were so popular that they tried making a little money off their rides) I remember Brenna and Alysha coming for a visit and all the cousins riding on the wagon.
Sigh. Now I've gone and reminded myself how alone I am here. I miss those days when my kids could just go out into the complex and play with their cousins. I had to go to the relief society conference all on my own. I felt so lonely. One of my first conferences here all of us girls that lived here were asked to sing--there were 6 of us and now there is just one. Sometimes I feel a little abandoned and cheated too. I would never have come here to live if our family didn't live here. You enticed me to live here, I set down roots and then you all moved away!
But I digress. Everything with the paper route has just fallen into place. I feel so blessed. We've also talked about Brent doing some gis work on the side--sub contract out for some work and work experience. It has been 3 years since he finished and since he hasn't used gis, he needs to brush up. The challenge is the software costs over 2 thousand. Then Brent went and did some pro bono work as an alumni for viu up in Courtenay. 2 of his instructors were there (1 gis instructor) and they want to use what he did for gis stuff. It ties gis in with what he does at work, so that could be really helpful. This also put him in touch with the software which he can use free for a year! He has already received some requests for work--he just has to demonstrate his skills. We have just really felt the Lord's hand guiding us in what to do about money problems and have been so blessed.

Summer update Part II

Now that I have some encouraging comments, and the house is quiet, I feel inclined to continue. I know it is rather pathetic, but I really do need validation when it comes to blogging. If no one bothers to comment, I simply lose all steam.
Anyways, like I said, it was pretty cool the whole time we were at Shawnigan until Friday morning--the day we were leaving. So Friday morning came around and Brent and I lay in bed discussing what to do with the rest of our vacation time. We can be 2 of the most INdecisive people! Brent had mentioned before when we decided to go to shawnigan, that since we could only go until Friday, that then we could go to the place that I had found. I was leaning more to going home and cleaning up and doing back-to-school prep. So we kept talking ourselves around in circles...'we might not be able to get a camping site on the labour day weekend and the place was up in the alberni area and we were down in the cowichan valley...it would be another tank of gas in the van and the truck (brent knows this argument almost always wins with me) but we made arrangements to be away from church for another sunday and if we go back now, our vacation is over...we could go visit Kim in Victoria, but she has a cat...and will be doing some hockey stuff (we have become so anti-hockey) and then we won't be just our family anymore...but it would be nice for the kids to see their cousins and there is an old navy in vic we could still be on vacation and do a little back-to-school prep. We kept talking ourselves in circles "what do you want to do?" "I don't know, what do you want to do?"
So we called the girls in and asked them their opinion. We got one vote for vic and one for going shopping. So we decided to go to vic. Brent took the girls out for one last trip in the canoe while I packed up. They came back and said they wanted to show me their special spot, so e and I went out too. It was really nice and warm and peaceful on the lake. brent said "this makes me feel like camping still" and so we decided to go camping.
Since we had such a slow start to our day we rushed around to pack up and get to the new place before it was too late. [just a little side note: we found 2 dead mice that morning] We got to port alberni by 5pm. Now we had to find the place. Nahmint lake. It was described as "A beautiful site on the shores of Nahmint Lake under large old growth Hemlock. Activities include boating, fishing and a great beach." We followed the directions which took us out along sproat lake and couldn't find the road we were supposed to turn off on. So I asked a local. She had even never heard of nahmint lake. As we were figuring out what to do, a man walked up and said he heard we were looking for directions. He knew where it was because he had been a logger. He said it was about 30 km into the bush. So we took his directions and started down a logging road. No biggy--the road out to Mabel lake was gravel too. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that e had started crying to get out about the time we arrived in alberni. So we started down this gravel road which turned out to be way rougher than the mabel lake gravel road. To our surprise there was a suv driving along right behind us and eventually it passed us when we took a wrong turn. You see, there wasn't just one gravel road--it met up with others and very few of them were marked. the road was so rough that we couldn't go very fast--30km/h was about the fastest. Other then the one little wrong turn which we realized right away, we were on the right track. Eventually after over an hour of driving on this terrible road with e demanding me to hold her foot (a comfort technique) and me singing the "i love you" barney song and ring around the rosie repeatedly, we came to a place where we weren't sure which way to go so Brent sent me down a little road to check it out while he drove up a hill to see if he could see the lake. the road I took became so narrow that bushes were rubbing on both sides and then of course, what should I see, but another minivan coming towards me. In a slightly wider spot we managed to pass them, but I asked where the road went to first. Their answer was "I wouldn't try it in that van" they said the road just got worse and they had a heck of a time turning around. So I turned around as soon as I found a spot (I think I managed a 5 point turn) Brent said he could see the lake but that he had passed 2 piles of bear poop and one was fresh and he couldn't take us out there unprepared for bears. (that is where the schofield part of the family kicked in) we got out of the cars to discuss our options and were immediately dive bombed by massive mosquitoes. I was more convinced by the mosquitoes than the bear poo. I wanted to try my plan b camp site but brent wasn't having any of it, so in the end we ended up at qualicum bay resort at 9:30 at night setting up our tent by the light of the truck lights until the truck battery died and then we couldn't find the van keys to jump the truck....Once we got there and set up and fed, we had a nice little weekend there. The luxuries of qualicum bay--showers, running water, fires...We started our summer off at qualicum bay and so I guess it was only fitting that we finish it there.

Finally! A New Post: End of summer update

Another year has passed and I find myself feeling the desire to blog. Maybe it is a time of year thing that causes me to be introspective and then want to publish my thoughts; maybe it is because I need to connect more with sisters since I'm all alone now; maybe it is that a lot of interesting things have happened to me lately...(not that interesting); maybe it is because brent went to bed and i'm not done talking; or maybe it is a bit of a everything. Anyways, for whatever reason i'm here.

I'm sad summer is over and my kids have gone back to school. I miss them. We had such a good summer with lots of family bonding. That's what summer is to me--time to spend with my family. Sarah is gone. I am the lonely Clarke. Today when we got to church e said "go see adriel?" and then after church she asked "go see auntie sarah?" Eliza was at church today and she asked if I missed Sarah and I got a little lump in my throat! First no sister movie night last night and then an obvious absence at church. (Yeah and Sarah, I don't think brent resented that he couldn't spend time with me--just the inconvenience of me leaving or of him having to go upstairs to watch tv. i was so bored last night!)

Brent took the week off before back to school to go camping. Inspired by our success last year with forestry camps i investigated the forestry camps on the island and found one that sounded really nice up in the alberni area. it is kind of scary to go camping at a unknown campsite so i asked brent to go check it out when he was in alberni for work. (sometimes it boggles my mind when i think about how much more than me he travels around on the island) he doesn't go up to alberni that often, but as luck would have it, just a couple days before we were going to leave he was up there. He mentioned to a coworker that was up there with him that we were going camping and his friend said "why don't you just go camping in my cabin?" He has a cabin on Shawnigan lake and he let us use it--the only catch was his son was using it for the labour day weekend and so we would have to cut our trip short.

So we took him up on his offer. The lake was beautiful and warm and his cabin was right on the lake. You might think that since we were in a cabin we weren't really camping, but it was mostly like camping. The cabin had no electricity and no running water. It did, however, have a flush toilet; we just had to bring water up from the lake. The only downside was that his cabin was totally in the shade the whole day. I'm sure in 30 degree weather one would appreciate the shade, but the temperature dropped down to below 20 for most of the time we were there. Brent and the girls spent a lot of time out on a canoe fishing. Nat caught a small trout that she couldn't keep and other than that they had very little luck. Then on the last day a boat came over and was fishing right off of our bank so Brent tried it from shore that night and caught a little bass on his first cast. I was a little unprepared for them to actually catch a fish and made him let it go. Nat was really upset with me for this--even brent was a little bummed. oops.

The first morning there I was walking past the cabin and saw a flash of something black by the wall. I stopped and looked and all of a sudden a black head popped out from under some planks of wood a lot closer to me. I screamed and it disappeared (of course) I had no idea what it was. The head seemed too big to me to be a rat and the face too round. Of course after that happened I couldn't help but look over tentatively every time I was near and I caught sight of it again and saw that it had a white under belly. Brent was ready to pack up right then. I had to convince him that I didn't think it was a rat--but I saw it so fast, how could I be sure? It reminded me of our Japan days when we'd spot a cockroach and how we couldn't stand to go in the kitchen for awhile and would usually end up going out to eat. Luckily there were no more sightings. Since we've come home and I've had a chance to research, I think it was a mink. There was even crayfish remains on the dock collaborate my belief.
The evenings were spent reading Harry Potter by candle light. We finished the fourth book while we were there and one night we watched the movie on a laptop. Since there was a fire ban we tried roasting marshmallows over the candles. We also invested in our own skip-bo and the girls really caught on. Other then constantly fighting over who got to sit on the canoe seat when they went out without me, the girls got along really well. On the last night the girls and I sang campfire songs. Mic had mentioned how much she liked that at the reunion so I decided to do it with our meagre group. Of course Brent the non-singer wouldn't participate. Nat said while we were singing that that was the best night of all.
I've just realized how late it is. I have to get to bed. I won't make any promises but I do want to tell you about the more Clarke-like portion of our trip, so I will try to get back on and finish.