Happy New Year, everyone! Perhaps many people are planning their fantastic bucket lists for 2024, but I’m not quite there yet. Let me first share some of the crazy little adventures I had in 2023, including various things I never planned to check off my to-do list!

1. Fishing a school of fishy crackers out of the toilet when the toddler dumped them there, or rather, to be more accurate, flushing them!

2. Getting pulled over by the police in a cab when rushing my daughter from the orthodontist back to Highschool, on the way to my younger children’s elementary school Christmas pageant. My poor cabbie looked like Santa with a giant beard, and I, sitting there all flushed with a “lunch on the go” Freshslice pizza box on my lap, begged the officer to take pity on him, as I had been telling him about my mad-dash day and probably distracting him from slowing down in the school zone…thank goodness he got off with just a warning! I missed my 5 year old singing “Winter Time is Here” but caught the other 3 kids’ acts…then went to the evening show to see it all again, on time this time. Phew!

3. Playing the part of a giant sassy crow in a Christmas play called “Suki’s Reindeer Wish” with my local literary arts guild.

4. Getting a Christmas poem published in an anthology of Christmas poetry called Harmonic Verse by Local Gems Press. https://www.localgemspoetrypress.com/harmonic-verse-preorders.html

5. Dressing as a pirate and narrating spooky stories for a Halloween show called “Killer Verse” with the same wild and wacky arts crew…

…and discovering that my toddler had painted the table with Nutella while I was at dress rehearsal. He later repeated said visual art performance with yogurt.

6. Drinking white wine while drinking in the beauty of my dear friend Jude Neale’s (https://judeneale.ca/) poetry at her book launch for her gorgeous new book of poetry, accompanied by the paintings of Nicholas Jennings, called Water Forgets Its Own Name.

7. Being given a surprise trip to Saskatoon by my husband, to spend 5 days with my soaking in life with my bestie, and having amazing Mexican food downtown there.

Well, that’s enough adventures for one night! I hope you all survived the madness of December, had a very Merry Christmas, and are enjoying some relaxing vacation time before the business of school starts up again. Happy New Year!