I think that I have forgotten to mention a couple of things that I found out in Australia. The happy thing being that Roy and Robyn are having a BABY and I will be an aunt in October. Robyn's almost my age, so they've been cautious about telling people, as she's old to be having her first baby, but it looks as if all is good.

The other thing, not so happy, is that my dad has to have open heart surgery again, and soon. One of his valves is failing, and he needs a new one. And they want to check on the five bypasses they did in 1993, as they usually only last ten years or so. We were bugging him that if they knew they were going to have to go in again they should have given him a zipper. He's pretty cheerful about the whole thing. It was funny, because I told them I was pregnant with Ian right around the time they told me Dad needed surgery, and now Roy tells them Dad'll have another grandchild right around the time of the second surgery.

We took the kids out on the snowmobiles today, over to where there's a cliff that gets a great overhang of snow and you can jump off. When we got out there, the snow was sparkly and the wind was just fetching little plumes of dusty snow off the top. Beautiful. And we all climbed up and leapt off. I'm tired now, but it was worth it. I find that in order to stay sane in the job I'd doing, I need to get out and play every once in a while. Don't get me wrong, I do love the job, but it tends to weigh on your mind. I didn't have to drive a kid, we had enough adults and snowmobiles and komatiks (wooden slatted sleds to pull behind snowmobiles) so that I ended up alone. This partly because my machine is a 350 and everyone else has a 500 or a 550, which pull the komatiks easier.

It seems strange that this time last month I was bodysurfing in Australia. I find that there's something very mind-clearing about riding on a snowmobile. After a while you don't think about anything any more. You just ride. It makes me think I might like riding a motorcycle, too, even though I've never done it.

Trying to clear the piles on my desk at home, today. This week I had cubs and a meeting of the school board and a late night at work when an emergency developed at 4:30 and I stayed with the radio at work because the guys were out on snowmobiles looking for someone and needed me. Then Friday night at midnight they called asking me to guard, so yesterday was kind of a write off too. Not that staying in bed all day is really such a hardship. But what happens is I come in and dump mail and stuff on my desk, and some of it really needs to be dealt with. Every time I get it all cleared up on a Sunday, I swear that I'm not going to do that during the week to come, but it never seems to happen. All the efficiency I might have at work doesn't seem to translate...