16 Westwood

The thing I will miss very most about Wolfville is our house. Someday I want to have a real permanent set up as good as this one. It was a gorgeous old 6 bedroom mansion, where Eric and I got the big room on the main floor. The pool in the backyard is beautiful!  We were a three minute walk from the University of Acadia campus, and the gym. Two guys in the house went and bought a family membership for $100 for the month and all of us in the house split it up. Eric and I only made it out these last couple weeks about 4 times. It was so great though.
It was sad to say goodbye to the whole thing. Eric and I said goodbye with a rain swim on Tuesday, a midnight swim on Wednesday, a hot hot sunny swim on Thursday.

Goodbye Wolfville! We're home to Dartmouth for a week or two, then home to Calgary.

Glimpses of Wolfville

Because of how quickly our decisions were made this week (to leave Wolfville, to spend a week or two in Dartmouth, and then to go home to Calgary), I feel a little like we got just a glimpse of Wolfville. There is so much to see in this little one blink town. But the last couple days Eric and I have taken a few minutes to enjoy the lasts of the cute little town.

Wolfville Farmers' Market Round II

Tonight I went to the market again to see what it was like, and I'm a little sad that I won't see it on Saturdays. Tonight I got a jar of cinnamon apple jelly and it was so delicious. I had a huge craving for chocolate and went home without it. I made some toast with this jam and then my craving was gone. It was that good. I also got some corn on the cob to go with dinner.

 

It was gay pride day at the market. I don't really know what that means, but they had flags everywhere and a woman belly dancing while everyone was eating dinner. That was kind of weird.
I like my Halifax Market though, and I'm very excited to be back there this weekend!

Deciding Some Things

This week was one of those weeks that I think we'll remember; one that matters. Some big decisions were made this week. Some are exciting, some are sad, but most mean very good things for Eric and I in the near future. There was lots of talking and thinking and loving and praying and thinking and talking that went on between us this week.
{Side note: I've been sick for just over a week now, and I just want to say how grateful I am for how gentle and kind Eric has been. It's just a bad cough and so there isn't much that can be done, but he has been very good to me lately. Yesterday he even went out, in the first day of rain we've seen in a month, to get me a drink that would help me to feel a ton better.} 
Yesterday was a bit of a quiet morning between Eric and I. We both took our mornings to, in our own ways, deal with our separate thoughts and feelings. Early afternoon we went to the gym together and that was a huge help. We worked out, and Eric pushed me, and it made us feel better. Then we spent a relaxed and rainy evening at home in the pool for a few minutes, and then playing some games together. 
{Side note #2: Have you ever played Pocket Frogs for the iPhone. Eric has been playing for a week or two maybe and I bugged him and bugged him, and just didn't get it. Until Monday. I finally gave in and got it, and we've been feeding off each other's addictions to it ever since. So we played some cards and some pocket frogs}

So, Eric has decided to stop working the job he's at now. It hasn't been as successful as we thought/hoped/assumed it would be, and so he finished up this week with a call back sale on Monday morning. Yesterday was his first day of vacation time before we head home to Calgary to start working again. We are going home to Calgary! 

The thing that's been the hardest for us to accept (I think it's been a mutual feeling, and I know I've felt it strongly) in this whole thing is that we felt that Eric was not blessed as much as we maybe wanted him to be, or even thought he deserved to be at work. He did work hard, and he mostly did all he could, and I hope he still knows how much I appreciate him for all he's done for us. I've told him in a joking way sometimes, "You're so brave" before he goes to work. And I mean it. I hope he knows how much I admire his strength and his desire to just do what needs to be done to provide for me, and to fulfill what he feels are his duties and responsibilities. 

But in the past couple of days we've really come to understand and appreciate what success means in our situation right now. It's not all about the financial aspect or opportunities that were here, but about the experience and the personal opportunities as well. We'll still have what we need to get by, and we know that we have support from all corners. We will never go without, as long as there's something that can be done, by us or those who love us, to prevent it. We have also so much enjoyed our time here in Nova Scotia. We came here this summer to be close to my family. To get close to them, and enjoy with them some key events and exciting things this summer. We've done that. It's nice that we really just feel so good about the time we've been here, and I'm actually excited to get home. Halifax has just done all it can do for us for right now, and there are some great things waiting for us in Calgary.

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The other exciting thing that happened this week: I decided what to do for school. I got a letter in the mail, after I've applied to open studies to start back at Mount Royal and finish my degree. It told me that they were happy to get my application...blah, blah, blah...I am number 920 on the wait list, and will be offered a spot as soon as one opens. So basically, I moved on to plan B, which quickly became plan A the more I thought about it and got excited about it and remembered how much I've wanted to do it since like high school. I am going to take photography courses in the fall. I'm going to get myself a camera, take some classes and I am going to be a photographer! I've also always wanted to be a graphic designer. That's what my dad took in school. I've always assumed that my creative energy and brainpower comes from my mom, but I'm just realizing that some must be from him too because he's a good artist and photographer (although he doesn't use it much), and I want to do what he did first. I'm pretty excited about it actually. I hope to eventually take pictures and design invitations and announcements and stationary of all kinds. That's the plan. I got such a burst of creative waves this week that I actually decided on a name and started designing a blog/website. I want this to happen now, so I'm doing all I can now to get closer to when it can. 

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So the next couple of weeks are full of plans for happy things, and fun things, and last things and just good things! We'll (maybe just I'll) actually make it to two extra things on our Halifax list, that I thought we would miss.

Wolfville Farmers' Market

Is closed at 1pm on Saturdays. Did you know? Me neither, obviously because I ventured outside when my phone read 29 degrees plus humidity and walked all the way there this afternoon, only to get there an hour and half after everyone had packed up.
It's also open from 4-7pm on Wednesdays so I went there this past Wednesday to look for a few minutes, then realised I didn't have any cash. I left to get that and then found the bookstore I told you about, and never made it back. So basically I don't know very much about this market. What I did see on Wednesday was not very much, but I'm going to give them the benifit of the doubt because it was late and it was the weekday. Saturdays are supposed to be a lot busier with twice as many vendors. I'm just sad I have to wait a whole week to see them. I won't make that mistake again, I hope.

Not a soul in sight. I do love a good chalk drawing though, so at least they had one of those for me to enjoy for a minute or two.

I'm being a big baby though and missing my Halifax market today. I wonder how my Mom or Dad is doing there today, and if people liked my new colours I chose, and if Sarah liked the she ordered for her studio that she's picking up today. I'll be sad when I go back to Calgary and winter comes and I have no farmers' market or reason to constantly paint canvases. I like doing them. I hope today is a good day in Halifax!

The New House

I was really nervous about moving out to such a small town. I thought that everyday things would become more difficult, and I thought that we might feel out of place and that maybe it would be hard to adjust. When we got here on Monday though, I felt already right at home. Here's what we're calling "home" for the next month.

It's a gorgeous old house with 5 bedrooms, and we live there now with everyone from the office. On Monday, I went into the little town to get milk from the drug store, and I just fell in love. Everything I need, and all this things I want to get to know are at most a 10 minute walk away. The gym, the drug store, the grocery store and all the cute shops and cafes I could ever want to see in a month. Then a little way up the road the other way are some amazing little farms and markets and cute small town country things. Then after that, just in case, is a Walmart and a Superstore and a Dollarama and Giant Tiger and anything else that I could need. This house and this town make me feel fresh and new. It feels like we're on vacation everyday. I just feel so free and relaxed. I want to be healthy and I want to just soak it all in. It's been really great already, for only a couple of days. I love the small town, and someday I think I'd love to live in a place like this. We'll see what happens, but for now I think it's great for Eric and I. I think it's just what we need.