I spent the last few days visiting my parents on a tiny island off the coast of BC called Thetis Island. My dad retired in the summer and the first step on their new adventure was to sell everything, rent a cabin for 1 year and move to BC. This was my first chance to get out to see their new digs and I had a blast.

This acorn didn’t fall far from the tree – all three of us love to dawdle around on the edge of the water, hunting for treasures. I spotted the odd fish, lots of crabs (from tiny to big enough that they started to look tasty), purple and orange starfish, and translucent pulsating jellyfish. It was awesome.

I did bring some work to do at the cabin and have to say it would be a lovely life to make pendants and package up postcards while listening to nothing but the sound of the waves lapping against the shore. I missed my boys, of course, but my house usually has the sound of a TV in the background – a sound I often try to drown out by playing my own music or podcast in my studio. The only thing to watch at the cabin was the water – oh, and the sea lions and seals that like to hang out on the rocks maybe 100 meters from my parents’ deck! So. Awesome.

Also awesome? I got to fly home on a float plane! I was a little nervous at first, but it was amazing. Such beautiful views and so fast! Instead of 2 ferry trips and over an hour of driving, I was up & down in probably 20 minutes. Highly recommended.

As much as I enjoyed my brief holiday, I don’t know if I could live on an island full time. The mister & I tend to be fairly spontaneous.

Wanna go see a movie?
When does it start?
15 minutes.
Let’s go!

Planning our lives around ferry schedules and being unable to make late night dashes for fast food would take some getting used to. Attending concerts or art openings would take so much effort that it would have to be something I’d *really* want to see. And even though I loved the break from the chatter of TV, eventually I’d start itching for the new Project Runway.

I may not have seals to watch out my window while I’m working on my computer, but the squirrels, birds and neighborhood pooches (& their owners) are enough to keep me entertained most days. Plus I can always visit.

We had a pretty mellow Halloween this year that started off with some pumpkin carving. I usually like to do it a few days ahead of time, but since the boy had hockey every night this week, it just didn’t happen. Instead Saturday afternoon was devoted to decorating & the scooping of pumpkin guts while we listened to H.G. Wells The War of the Worlds audiobook.

We stayed home to give out candy this year – the first time we’ve lived in a house that gets trick-or-treaters! We’ve always been in condos or houses divided into multiple suites, which we still are, actually, just now we live in the main part of the house. We got a ton of kids too. The pug in his bumblebee costume was a big hit.

As a social experiment, it was interesting to see how much candy kids would take if you let them pick what they wanted versus if I doled it out. With the exception of 2 kids who grabbed tiny handfuls, the children were incredibly polite, carefully selecting one single piece each. That’s it. Lots of “Thank you!”s & “Happy Halloween!”s were shouted. No pumpkins smashed or eggs thrown. Just incredibly well-behaved kids in super cute costumes, my favorite being the 4 year old girl dressed in a pretty authentic looking Mountie uniform.

The mister carved a Space Invaders pumpkin & accidentally carved right through the eye blocks. Fortunately they were reattached with toothpicks & it looked pretty rad:

Part 2 of our social experiment began when I started putting my Awesome Possum bookmarks into the candy bowl. I may have skewed the tally a bit when I answered the door, since I couldn’t resist saying, “We’ve got AWESOME bookmarks too!” Still, quite a few kids took them & I ran out of them completely by the end of the night.

I was always one of those kids who really liked the few houses that gave out something different – toothbrushes, stickers, crayons, home baked goodies. I didn’t *only* want those things, of course, and I definitely wanted my big bag of sugar, but it was a nice change. Of my friends who were over on Halloween, however, I was the oddball. Apparently the normal reaction to being given those items as a trick-or-treater (as far as my friends & loved ones can be considered an average sample group), is to throw them in the bushes.

My mister is out raking leaves right now & he’s on the lookout for stray bookmarks.