a peek inside the fishbowl

It’s Valentine’s Day, and we woke up to the sound of a squirrel desperately trying to gnaw its way out through our rafters. The bad news is that it was trapped in there for a couple of days. The good news is that it has been removed. Still alive. But I shudder to think about the damage it has wrought in there. Gah.

At this point I figure my day just HAS to get better, right?

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Over the past few years we’ve undertaken some creatively kid-friendly projects here at Casa Fishbowl. We’ve written stories about spiders, composed tandem stories on long car rides, constructed our own mini books, made stop-motion animations, we’ve and jotted down the results…. and remember Stealth Poetry? That was fun. When I think about it in hindsight I realize that all of these things are related. I never intended any of these things to be very academic but they’ve always been about literacy in a way. Sidebar: I am very proud to say that we have two fantastically creative young writers in the house now. I don’t know if all of those projects were a factor or if they just see their mum writing all the time, but this is where we are now and I couldn’t be happier.

I wanted to share a neat little project the girls and I started recently because it combines a few of my favourite things: photography, writing, and Piper.

Piper now has her own Instagram account. Yes really. You can find it right here. I know she’s not the only dog in town who is on Instagram, but that is neither here nor there. She has her own things to say.

I’m not sure where the narrative is going. So far it’s been a lot of selfies and posts about her favourite things, but I do see this as the beginning of a fun collaborative multimedia project. What does a dog think about? How can those thoughts and ideas be expressed through writing and photography? What’s for dinner?

I foresee a potentially interesting future for this project, I just hope Piper doesn’t get too big for her britches. :)

I am sad to report that we didn’t host a pop-up forest on our front lawn this year (although I was very tempted). After Christmas we tossed our tree out the front door to await tree recycling day. After a, er, couple weeks, I decided to stand it up in a snowbank, like this:

Sidebar: I was looking out the dining room window one day when I saw something shiny amid the branches. I pulled on my boots, went outside, and found this:

Our Christmas pickle! (I used to think the pickle thing was a German tradition, but this post set me straight.) So the lesson here folks is CHECK YOUR TREE before you pitch it. It would have been pretty sad to lose that pickle.

Every week, Mark wanted to toss that tree to the curb, but every week I asked him not to. Mostly because I needed it for an article I was planning.

Finally it was time for our afternoon project. The girls and I decorated our tree with treats we made for the birds and squirrels – garlands and hanging decorations – it was pretty seedy stuff. A little friend came over and helped too. It was a lovely little project.

For details you’ll have to pick up the March issue of the paper or wait to read it on capitalparent.ca!

It may have started out as a photo prop, but I’ve decided I like having a temporary tree on our front lawn, even if it’s only going to be there as long as there’s a snowbank to hold it up.

Sadly, I don’t even have time to think about this at the moment. Gah!