a peek inside the fishbowl

I don’t spend a lot of time poking around in my own archives, but sometimes it’s fun to look back. This “year in review” post is something I used to do awhile back, but somehow lost sight of somewhere along the way.

These are the first lines from the first blog post of each month in 2013. If you’re keen, you can read the post in its entirety by clicking on the name of the month. (Interested in playing along? Let me know if you post something similar. I’d love to read it.)

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January: “I am fascinated by things, and our attachment to our things. Why are some people hoarders? How are some people able to live out of a suitcase, or in carefully curated minimalist surroundings?”

February: “When I first got my iPhone I spent a lot of time shopping for apps. I was in awe of how many awesome things my phone could suddenly do. I must have downloaded a hundred different little apps, for everything imaginable. And you know what, I never opened most of them every again.”

March: “I would like to preface this post by pointing out how fun it is to say BABA GHANOUSH. Say it out loud a few times: BABA GHANOUSH BABA GHANOUSH BABA GHANOOOOOOOOSH.”

April: “Guess who we saw in the backyard bathing in the sump pump dump the other day? THIS DOOD.”

May: “I wasn’t kidding the other day when I said I licked my plate clean. This challenge has had me thinking about a lot of things, including food waste. When your food options are limited and the cupboard is bare, you can hardly afford spillage. It hasn’t happened, but I’m actually afraid it will.”

June: “Recently…”

July: “This morning we took a loop around the Canada Agriculture Museum (a.k.a The Central Experimental Farm) and the ornamental gardens. You couldn’t ask for a better day weather wise. Plus it was free!”

August: “It’s guest post week here at the Fishbowl!”

September: “Someone here at Casa Fishbowl is starting ninth grade tomorrow. I am pretty excited for her. The parent orientation day took place back in January so I’ve had a few months to get accustomed to the idea.”

October: “I am writing this at 3:30 a.m. Piper woke me up. I tried going back to sleep but I found myself with the chorus of “What the Fox Say” so deeply fixed in my brain that I had to get up and do something before I suffocated myself with my own pillow. (“Ring-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!”)”

November: “This was the scene when the other night when I played a solo game of Bananagrams…”

December: “You know you love your dog too much when…

Since Christmas 2006 our family has participated in a self-imposed annual “Shopping Embargo.” This basically meant that we stopped buying unnecessary stuff and paid greater attention to the things we did buy. There was a list of rules, but basically, from December 26 until February 28 we restricted our purchases to the basic necessities: groceries, fuel, medicine, soap, things like that.

Overall, it was great, and I’d recommend a personal shopping embargo for anyone. Shopping mindfully became second nature to us. We saved money, thought a lot about how we spent money and why we bought things, and learned a lot about ourselves in the process. You can read my past posts about it here if you’re interested.

So here’s the update… I’ve decided not to host a Shopping Embargo here this year. It’s not because we don’t need to save money – we do – but I don’t have anything new to say about it after so many years. I have said all there possibly is to say about the issue and I’m drained. :)

I AM tossing around some other Embargo-related ideas but I won’t have the details ironed out until some time in early January.

In the meantime, I wanted to share the details of a different kind of money-saving challenge that we’re doing: the 52-week money savin’ challenge! Laurel Anderson (who blogs here and is on Twitter here) shared this concept and I thought it was great.

The idea is a simple one:

• You take a jar.
• You put money in the jar every week for a whole year (that’s 52 weeks).

There’s one other thing. At the beginning of Week One you put one dollar in the jar. At Week Two you put in two dollars, Week Three is three dollars, and so on, putting slightly more and more money in the jar each week. If you’re able to keep it up, by week 52 you will have $1378.00 socked away; a decent sum of money saved!

SO. We talked about it as a family and have decided to make this a family money-saving project. Once we accrue a bit of cash we’ll move it to a bank account. Until then, this is our jar:

I’m pretty excited about it. I think it’s a good lesson in saving. There are handy sheets you can print out to go with your jar too, so you can get the satisfaction of checking something off every week. Click here for some examples you can print.

Thinking ahead to how it’s going to go down, I realize it may hurt a little to put away $50 a week in December, but in my head I’ve already cut back on our Christmas expenditures next year and adopted the four gift rule. (Have you heard about it? You give one thing they want, one thing they need, one thing to wear, and one thing to read.)

If we’re successful at raising the cash, we’ll spend it on a winter getaway at Chateau Montebello. Fine dining, dogsledding, skating, swimming, skiing… the plan is to spend a couple nights there in December 2014. I think that a holiday is better than gifts anyway. What do you think? Would you consider joining the 52-week challenge?

All four of us finally have skis. We have been renting skis for the girls for the past few years (you can read more about cross-country ski rental in this post) and it was fine, but I’m happy that we finally have our own skis and don’t have to worry about borrowing/returning/etc.

We’ve decided that we’re going to try a bunch of different trails around Ottawa and post about our experiences, just in case anyone out there wanted to try a new trail too. :)

This afternoon we decided that the first family ski of the season should take place at Pine Grove Forest trails (NCC info here), an area that we checked out for the first time in the fall. We parked and started to unload our skis (at a lot on Davidson Road) when a nice lady in the parking lot stopped to tell us that the trail was too icy.

“You should try the trail on Leitrim,” she suggested. “It’s gorgeous there right now.”

And so we did. And it was.

• It was quite scenic. The majority of the trail winds through the woods. And soooo quiet. Totally dreamy.
• It is clearly marked with NCC wayfinding posts, which is great for paranoid people like me. Bonus points, you can choose a shorter loop if you’re not up for the whole thing. We were out for just over an hour and may have covered a 3.5 km loop (at least that what it felt like).
• It was well-groomed. There were two lanes of ski trail most of the way.
• It was quite flat, which makes it perfect for beginners although thrill-seekers might be disappointed.
• It was blissfully underused. We saw four people the entire time we were out.
• The trails seemed well-shared; snowshoes on one side, skis on the other. Unfortunately we did see someone embarking on a walk with their giant dog just as we finished our loop. (Many NCC trails are dog-free this time of year. Conroy Pit would have been a better destination for them.)

Other things worth noting:

• There were no birds to feed at this trail. Go to Jack Pine if you want to feed the chickadees!
• There are no bathrooms or places to sit and rest at P19 (in case you’re thinking of combining it with a picnic).
• It is close to civilization. We did a quick grocery shop at Farm Boy on the way home. :)

I don’t know what the actual trail number is (45? 46?), but the start of the trail is located at P19 which is on Leitrim Road between Hawthorne and Ramsayville Road. We found it easily enough, but in case you need help, note that NCC has an awkwardly huge PDF trail map on their website. Check it out before you go because you’ll have trouble loading it on your phone.

Sarah (12) says: “I liked it but I wish it had more hills.” (She’s itching for some downhill action!)

Emma (14) says: “It was nice. There weren’t that many hills. Sometimes I like a hill for a bit of a break. It was nicely groomed. There were no branches in the way.”

I would definitely do this one again. I think it’s one of the nicest ski trails in Ottawa, even though it’s one of the flattest. There’s something about swishing through those silent woods that is like a balm for my busy brain. I just love it.