This afternoon, as I sat down to write to you about finishing (the sweater kind, not the getting anything done kind) I looked around me at my home and something snapped.

When I finally got home on Tuesday – late in the afternoon, I threw my suitcase inside the door, grabbed Sam and left, and we went downtown to meet up with the rest of the family so that we could go to the new aquarium.   Ken thought the thing up for us all and if you’d have told me we were going to like it as much as we did… well. I think that we had all sort of agreed to go along with Ken’s plan because he’s so nice and that’s really generous and we love him and want him to be happy. 

It turns out that Ken’s a genius, and of course it was brilliant and we had a ridiculously good time and it was super unbelievably fun. The girls all loved it, and it was a fantastic way to spend some time together as a family.

I don’t know why we doubted him for a minute. I think maybe the girls thought they were too old for a field trip like that, but er… look at those faces.

This is Sam touching a fish.

This is Sam finding out that the fish she’s touching is a shark.

Here I’d spent the whole day, in the airport, on the plane, in the cab on the way home thinking that all I wanted to do was pour a glass of wine the size of my head and drink it in bed while I got my knit on, and I even lied to Ken when he said "I’m sure this is the last thing in the world you want to do right now" and I said "No, no.  I wouldn’t miss it for the world." I’m so glad I went.

I LOVE family outings, and I’m never happier than when all three of my girls are in one room and I would have hated that they had fun without me.  Ken’s so clever.

It was a wonderful time, and then we had dinner downtown and I made everyone take a family selfie at the bottom of the CN Tower (they love me. It was about -20 and I’ve got everyone on the stairs outside yelling "SMILE! IT’S A FAMILY SELFIE"

(I’d like to point out that they are smiling, and I don’t think they were just humouring me, but they would lie and say they were – and also, this family selfie is much better than the first one, in which only my forehead and part of Meg’s face appear – but I did get the sawfish in that one.)

It was very good fun, and then yesterday I worked on finishing (again, the sweater kind, not the getting anything done kind) and then last night I had an evening out planned with our Bike Rally Team (yeah. I think we’re a little attached) and then tonight I’m reprising my role as "Joe’s Wife" for the studio holiday party and I’m really, really trying to find my lipstick – but after all this, being out of town and working and then all this other stuff?

My house looks like it was broken into by a marauding squad of macaques. No – let me be clearer than that.  My house looks like someone had a party, put up a tree, left everything to do with all that lying around, then forgot about recycling day, cooked several meals while thinking about the disaster, then shopped for Christmas stuff and left that out while bringing the wrapping stuff upstairs without actually wrapping anything, left a suitcase in the living room, dried their hair, then brought in a weeks worth of mail, studied for a test, put a layer of skeins of yarn and knitting projects over the whole thing and then brought in drunken macaques to "clean up." That’s what it looks like, and it was only when I sat down to blog I could see it all – and so now I’m totally going to have to clean it up, and that’s why there’s not a blog post about finishing. (The knitting kind.)

I’ll see you tomorrow, after I dig my way out of this.  Maybe I should just sell the house?