A blog that I enjoy reading, Unclutterer, has a regular section titled “A year ago…”. It highlights posts written from, well, a year ago. I love this concept and I’m going to steal it, but considering that I took a break from blogging a year ago, I’m going back two years.
2008
Where was I? At the cottage: “I got a couple of emails from friends wondering why I haven’t posted in over a week. Isn’t that stalkerish sweet? Actually, it makes me realize that…”
***Funny thing about this post is that I just came back from the same cottage, the same long weekend – you can see new photos here.
The more often I get a chance to work with my hands, the more I realize how much I love it. I sincerely think I would do very well in a career in construction. I’ve always enjoyed helping my Dad with things, but mostly I was just an assistant. Now, with all the house renos that have been going on, I’ve been able to get my hands dirty. But it wasn’t until this deck building opportunity at my in-laws summer trailer that I’ve been this involved on something this big (structurally speaking).
The three of us working on it, me, James, and his Dad, didn’t really know what to do. I mean, we had an idea (some of us more than others) but we really worked well together to figure out the best way to do things. And sometimes, one of us would pipe up, “Uh, how come we’re doing it like that? Don’t we want to do ____?” and the other two would say “Oh yeeeeahhh. Good thing you’re here!” (so well, it’s what spurred us to do this video).
I didn’t take as many pictures to show the whole process because I was really into the whole process and not concerned with my camera. I was having WAY more fun with the power tools and the hammer. You can see that the ‘Before’ picture shows the spot the trailer was moved into before it was even a legit spot. It’s really nice – you can see we’re right next to a pond, so we get some privacy, and we get a view of the lake as well.
I got a couple of emails from friends wondering why I haven’t posted in over a week. Isn’t that stalkerish sweet?
Actually, it makes me realize that although I posted where I was on my facebook status and twitter it goes to show that somethings do get through the cracks. And actually, reading those emails made me feel good, because someone out there not only cares about me but also cares about reading my blog. So thank you, I will make sure that I’m more diligent in posting or letting you know if there is some sort of needed break.
On that note, let me show you what wonderful time I had at my friend, Todd’s cottage. Aside from taking video and pictures I left technology (relatively) behind. Sure, I took advantage of electricity and running water but I had no cell phone, computer, twitter, no checking facebook or emails. I was far too busy
This is where I was for the past week:
Here is some of the fun stuff we did:
One of the cool things about the cottage was it’s history. I can’t remember the story but it was left to an aunt who stayed up there while she was ill and then got passed down from generations. There was a picture of the guy who built the cabin and so many funky knick knacks that people have brought over the years.
It got me thinking about my own family history. My parents immigrated from Greece so our family history in Canada starts with them. Back in Greece people don’t really have ‘cottages’ but even if they did, most of the stuff my family had was taken by the Greeks when Macedonia was taken over in the early 1900s.
But there is still a lot of history there. A lot of family. It’s been too long since my last visit (I was 16 at the time) and I think most of it has been a fear of communication. I don’t speak Greek very well and I only know 2 words in Macedonian.
Being at the cottage made me miss my heritage and my family. It also made me realize the importance of the history of your family and keeping it alive in some way. The importance of creating that history when it doesn’t exisit. A history that my great-grand kids can look back and write their blog posts about.
