This website layout is much better now.
My eyes needed a new view. In case you haven’t noticed, I like change.
Cam will not be impressed. But don’t you think I have some right to do what I want since I am the creator of all 178 blog posts??????
Love and kisses,
Laura-Jane
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Oh my God. Cam is mad at me. Lol. But I have to stay strong.
Oh dear. I am wavering.
But I had to make a change because I haven’t been writing. See look, I’m writing again!
Over the last 30 days I have:
Our house has been lowered back down onto the new foundation now, and all is looking good for the foundation project thus far.
However, due to the construction of our new foundation, we pretty much tore up our entire lawn, which is not a big deal in and of itself. However, it’s been very rainy over the past few days, and our house is now surrounded by thick, oozy mud. It’s a mess, and walking from house to car is an adventure!
I am just thankful that it didn’t rain much throughout the time that the foundation was being put in (unlike Olivia and her crazy adventures with babes in tow). I just remember when we were trying to shingle our roof during a rainy season, and memories of battling and cursing the rain all come rushing back to me.
Thankfully the weather gods were good to us this time. It’s what I always say, the church of 50/50: half the time things are good and half the time things are bad. When they’re good, appreciate it. And when they’re bad, know that better times they are a-coming.
Here’s my list of the top ten things to do on PEI. Bear in mind that my top ten things to do on PEI are heavily influenced by my personality. I love rural areas, people and the simple pleasures of Summer!
Top Ten Things to do on PEI
1. Anne of Green Gables:
Come on, it’s Prince Edward Island. No top ten PEI list would be complete without Anne of Green Gables.
Basically, you should visit Anne of Green Gables house. It’s where the story was set. You’re basically just going to go on a tour of the house, which is small and quaint. The grounds are lovely. Lots of crowds here, and be sure to get your picture taken in the buggy (see above)! It’s run by Parks Canada. If you’re a real LM Montgomery fan, be sure to take the walk across the highway to the site where LM Montgomery lived. The house is no longer standing, but I found it moving to be there. This is included in the admission. Make sure the weather is nice!
If you’ve got kids, you’ll probably want to go to Avonlea Village, too. It ain’t cheap though!
2. Cavendish area:
All of the Anne of Green Gables PEI craziness is in the Cavendish area. So while you’re doing the Anne stuff you should probably see all the touristy craziness that is Cavendish. Be sure to go to Cavendish Beach too. It’s very busy but very nice. It’s the most popular beach on PEI.
Also in Cavendish area are tons of kid-friendly places, like water parks, crazy museums, all kinds of silly touristy fun stuff.
Once you’ve got #1 and #2 out of the way, you’ll have finished with the made-for-tourism part of PEI. Please spend the rest of your visit on PEI exploring the rest of PEI. In other words, please spend the rest of your trip exploring the real PEI!
3. Beaches:
Yes, Cavendish Beach is the most popular beach on PEI. But guess what! There are lovely beaches all of Prince Edward Island, most of which are similar to Cavendish and totally deserted. Singing Sands (Basin Head) beach in Eastern PEI is also very popular. It’s called the “Singing Sands” beach because the sand squeaks when you walk on it. I didn’t believe it, but we went there last year and it’s true! It’s a very cute beach, with a canteen and it’s very popular with teenagers and kids.
Explore!
4. Live music and ceilidhs:
Please go see a ceilidh on Prince Edward Island. They are variety shows that include singing and dancing, and they are just a really good time. Look in local newspapers to find out where they are. Or just ask around. They’re everywhere! They can range from being rather touristy to being totally real, where you may be one of very few tourists there. I love ceilidhs! Check out the Buzz Magazine or musician Gordon Belsher’s schedule. My personal favourite ceilidhs are in rural communities, whereas ceilidhs in Cavendish or in more urban areas are more geared to tourists. The less advertised they are, the more authentic they’ll be. But it really depends on what you’re into. Either way, check one out.
5. Spend a day in Charlottetown:
Have dinner, walk around the harbour, get Cows Ice Cream, you know, do the city thing for the day. Lots of great restaurants. Check out Victoria Row. Check out the Charlottetown Farmer’s Market (great place to grab lunch if it’s open). It’s a nice city, particularly by the water and near Victoria Park (nice houses to drive by near Victoria Park).
6. Drive along the coast:
Prince Edward Island is pretty small. Look at the map and start driving. You’ll be amazed at how far you can get in an hour or so. I think it takes five hours to drive from end to end. Please go for a drive along the coast and enjoy the view. Red sand, rolling hills, houses dotting the landscape, this is the real Prince Edward Island. There’s a bunch of recommended coastal driving routes, including Points East Coastal Drive.
7. Have dinner in a small town:
Spread out your map of PEI. Pick a town. Drive there. Meet local people. Grab a bite to eat. Some destinations could be Murray Harbour (Brehaut’s Restaurant), Cardigan (Cape Light Restaurant), Tignish, Victoria-by-the-Sea (Landmark Cafe), Hunter River, Margate (Shipwrights) and much more. (I’d advise planning where you’re going to eat first because sometimes restaurants can be hard to find.) Just ask people for a recommendation!
8. Eco-tourism, arts and crafts:
There are so many interesting home-based artists, bakers, artisans, craftsmen, farms, wineries and more. Just pick up the Buzz Magazine (free, available almost everywhere) and you’ll see lots of artists listed there. There must be a good online directory or something. (If anyone has a good link to share let me know in the comments and I’ll add the link here.)
9. Dairy bars:
While you’re driving, stop by a Dairy Bar (ice cream stand). There are tons in Kensington!
10. Lobster suppers:
Lobster suppers are a PEI thing. It’s a huge dinner. It includes a lobster. The best “experience” you’re going to have is at a place that only serves lobster suppers. Otherwise you’ll just be experiencing a normal dinner, which is nice but not very memorable. We’ve been to Fisherman’s Wharf. It was a crazy huge buffet. What an experience! It’s just full of tourists but who cares! I’ve also heard good things about Mary’s Lobster Suppers? I think they’re church-run or something. I don’t think the name is quite right. Sister Mary’s? Something like that. Please correct me!
11. Bonus: Brackley Beach Drive In Movie Theatre
Brackley Beach Drive In — It is what it sounds like. Drive-in movie theatre! The movies are usually pretty bad, but who cares? It’s all about the experience!
Your Top 10 Things to See and Do on Prince Edward Island
For those of you who have ever been to Prince Edward Island, how does my top-ten list compare to yours? What would be your top ten things to do on PEI? What did I miss????? I know, it feels like I barely scratched the surface.
Oh, to be a blogger. To tell stories as they unfold. To keep you in my pocket as we ride this adventure that is life. To tell you, “Today I” and “This morning we” and “We’re about to.” It all takes courage, don’t you know?
But, you see, I am not that brave. I delay stories a little. I usually don’t write here until the wost is over. That way you don’t have to come down to the depths of despair with me. Instead, I can say, “We did XYZ, but, don’t worry, everything turned out just fine.” (I have no desire to give anyone, especially my parents, heart palpitations brought on by worry. Besides, I worry enough for the rest of us!)
So now that the worst is over of our foundation project, I can come here and report, “It was crazy but we survived it!” It’s certainly not over, but the foundation has been poured and so far everything’s looking as good as could be expected at this point.
Since I last wrote, a giant hole was dug underneath our house.
Then, Cameron built footings (cement pads on which the new walls will rest upon).
Once the footings were complete, hollow wooden walls had to be built, which would later be filled with concrete.
Once the hollow walls were up (concrete “forms” they’re called), then we called the cement truck and thousands of dollars worth of wet cement was dumped into the hollow wooden walls. Then, we removed the temporary wooden walls, which reveal the finished product, cement walls on which the house will sit.
We still need to have the house lowered down about a foot so that the house will sit on the new concrete walls. This should happen this coming week.
The project has gone pretty smoothly, although, like any big project, there were low points. But nothing a new inspirational quotes couldn’t handle. (Inspirational quotes are very important to this household!)
One of the most important lessons learned thus far is that you can never accomplish anything on your own. No matter what you’re working on, you need inspiration, encouragement, tips, wisdom and helping hands. This project has had a lot of everything I’ve just listed, and for the people who have stopped by to share wisdom and work we are deeply grateful.
On Monday morning our house looked like this. See the photo above? Normal house. Almost level to the ground.
Monday afternoon, steel girders were slipped underneath the house… See above?
And by Monday evening, the house was jacked up in the air and dangling four feet above the ground.
Thankfully, like the driveway project, we’ve recruited experts to help us with this jacking-up-the-house phase. (But, of course, Cameron is still involved.)
When I’ve mentioned in passing conversation that we’re jacking up our house, onlookers tend to ask me where we’re staying while the house is dangling in the air.
“Um, were still living there, of course,” I answer.
In all honesty, it never dawned on me to do anything else.
We just use a ladder to get in.
I am reading this book right now. In the book I came across the following, which was first written by William Arthur Ward:
Believe while others are doubting.
Plan while others are playing.
Study while others are sleeping.
Decide while others are delaying.
Prepare while others are daydreaming.
Begin while others are procrastinating.
Work while others are wishing.
Save while others are wasting.
Listen while others are talking.
Smile while others are frowning.
Commend while others are criticizing.
Persist while others are quitting.
To me, this is Cameron’s motto. The above is, like, Cam in poem form.
In an interview by CBF, the author wrote this about us:
“Cameron Lerch is a lucky guy, and his life is chronicled in hundreds of photographs, anecdotes and poems; indeed most of his thoughtfulness gets recorded online.”
Cam, do you feel lucky that I write these things about you? I feel lucky to be with you, especially these days. And I know you feel lucky to be with me, too! I have heard that the magic elixir for love and happiness in a relationship is to want to make the other person happy 100% of the time. And at the exact same time the other person in the relationship wants to make you happy 100% of the time. See how that works? If perfectly balanced, that would be perfect.
Well, I certainly cannot say that either of us do that 100% of the time. That would be a bit much, don’t you think? But lately I do like to think we’ve been trying to listen and be kinder and nicer and more thoughtful. It feels good to be nicer and kinder and more thoughtful.
I used to think that a perfect relationship is when you are 100% comfortable and could blurt out snappy comments when you’re in a bad mood and just let it all hang out, sweatpants and all. But I have come to realize–and learn, the hard way–that perhaps that’s not the ideal romantic relationship. Perhaps the ideal is a little more like work. Well, not work. But effort. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
My point is, I like Cameron. I like what he is, how he looks, and how he thinks. I am at a point now, after almost 12 years together(!) where we’ve almost come full circle. I feel differently about our relationship. I’ve stopped doubting and started really loving.
From the same book, “There are two things to aim at in life; first, to get what you want; and, after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second.”
Spring on Prince Edward Island isn’t exactly a luscious, green affair–especially in early Spring. Rather, Spring on Prince Edward Island is a bit bleak, but plants are starting to sprout and soon enough the lilacs will be in bloom and then it will be paradise on earth (except for the black flies, of course).
This past Winter’s weather certainly wasn’t as bad a Winter as the previous year; having a tractor-powered snowblower this year certainly helped.
Winter, in essence, is over again. Spring and sunshine and the changes of the seasons… The cold and the hardships of Winter are what make a warm and windy Spring day all the more delightful, don’t you think?
I am in a hurry-up-and-move-faster-life impatient stage these days. I want Summer to be here and I want our house renovation to be complete and I want to have a party and I want to fly around the world. But things don’t happen that fast. In fact, sometimes life seems to move at a snail’s pace, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. This is your life, after all!
Although we’re living in it, our house is half-finished. The good news is that, after having been severely side-tracked from our house-renovation by the first year of running our own business, we are close to being able to make some serious in-roads on our house renovation this Summer. It’s about time, too.
In the mean time, I will endeavour to enjoy early Spring as it turns into lovely, glorious Summer.
Snow is almost gone. Another Winter is over. Cam is 30. I am 28 now. Over the past eleven years we’ve loved, almost broken up, laughed, cried, screamed, glared, ignored, hugged, held hands, grocery shopped, brought orange juice when one of us was sick, were glad to see each other at the end of the day, supported one another, and so it continues.
And that is all I have to say today. When I am going through stuff I can’t tell you (you, world, internet) about it until it’s over. That’s the way it is with me, you know? It’s nothing big, I just live my little life and then I get to tell you the stories once I am through living them.
I feel good. Life is nice. I wish I could let my life flow through my finger tips but I am blocked; thus, I speak in cryptic sentences that don’t even make sense to myself.
That’s okay. If you aren’t sure how you’re feeling, just start typing, like I am doing now. Eventually, you’ll get somewhere. Like, right now, I am getting somewhere.
I am realizing that today is a good day because I can emerge from my self-imposed shell and blab on about nothing. At least I feel that free.
I can tell you that Cameron is outside and I am hungry and I am looking forward to a nice evening meal, eaten on the couch in front of the television. Even though we don’t have cable, we now have a television, on which we watch movies and mini-series. Yes, we are that technologically advanced.
Look, I can blab about movies and TVs and couch-dinners. I can blab about my toenails and plucking my eyebrows and anything I want because…well..because I can and so I will. This feels good. It’s cathartic. It’s a giant purging of my thoughts. We are constantly thinking and making decisions and living life and holy jeez it feels good to do this stream-of-consciousness writing and to not even care. I don’t care! ARGS! Look, I am mashing the KEYBOARD not because I’m angry but because this is the equivalent of letting it rip. Of getting smashed. Of being free. This is my outlet.
There’s no point, no moral, no great wisdom here. Just pure, unadulterated catharsis. I don’t get to use enough big words in my life. I want to use big words. I want to be smart. I want to be free. I want to be happy. I want to have clear skin. I want to hug my sisters. I want to pet a kitten. I want to eat a pickle. I want to jump on a bed. No, a trampoline. But not now. Some time when I have more energy. I want to be happy while munching a pickle and jumping on a trampoline. Some day I’d like to jump on a trampoline with four generations of my family. Some day I want to get a graduate degree, but..in what? It should be something practical, but I’d like to take sociology. But what does one do with such a degree? No, perhaps I should become a nun. You know what’s weird, I really did have that nun comment enter my brain. I certainly don’t want to become a nun. I don’t even know anything about nuns. Why am I going off on this tangent? Now I am thinking about the smell of my deoderant. I don’t wear perfume, but I’ve been wearing the same underarm deoderant for the past fifteen years (Secret Baby Soft, my friends). I think I started wearing it because one of my older sisters used to wear it, and I wanted to be like her. You could say that about a lot of things. Middle-sister, do you still wear that deoderant? Cam says the smell of that deoderant reminds him of me. To him, that is what I smell like I suppose. See how fun this is? Goodbye!
Wait, I am back. It was a premature goodbye. Oh no, I tjust yped a big ramble about a movie scene, but instead I just erased it because no one will understand what I am talking about. There’s a quote or something, a saying I suppose, which goes like so: “Friendship is born the minute one person says to the other, ‘me too.’” I guess what this means is that we like and connect with people who have experienced similar experiences or who like the same things or who feel the same way about things. It is exciting when you get to talking with someone new, and you find that you’ve got a connection about something. I love meeting new people.
Do you think I will hit save? Laura-Jane, should I hit save? I don’t know. I haven’t written in weeks so the choice is to submit this bumbling rambling and let you read it, or simply delete this and write nothing. But I can’t write nothing. Can I?
I just feel feel feel feel feel so good that I’m writing. It’s my favourite thing. To write my thoughts out like this. I don’t know why it feels so good. I get an adrenaline rush from it, I think. My fingers are flying!
Later, later, later, I will decide. For now, I will write more.
No, that was too much pressure. I can’t write more. I have nothing to write about. Whimfield people want to read about life in the country and the birds and the bees. But right now I am not in that head-space. I am in a rigid, practical, citified headspace.
No, I can’t write anymore because I’m just not there yet.
If you read this all the way through and got to the end, please write “popcorn” in the comments. Goodbye.
While driving in the country, a phrase on the car radio popped out at me, “What kind of person do you want to become?” For fun, I tried to imagine my perfect future. I tried to imagine the kind of person I want to become in ten or fifteen years.
I really couldn’t imagine my one perfect future. I could see a million mes, a million futures. How do you know which path is right for you? How can we choose?
I am very goal oriented, and I live with someone who is always dreaming. Always looking forward. Always thinking about what’s around the next bend.
It’s good to dream. It’s good to plan. It’s good to be moving toward a goal. But I am starting to question the validity of setting another goal.
I’d always imagined that once we moved here everything would be settled. That would be it. The goal would be achieved.
But Cameron’s always thinking. Always dreaming. Always looking around the next bend. He’s wise, and he’s got our best interests at heart. I mean, let’s be practical here. We’re financially stable, but what if we had children? And what about retirement? Shouldn’t we always be moving forward, saving more, doing more, learning more, earning more, experiencing more?
But sometimes I wonder when we will be able to just relax, just be in the moment. What happens when you achieve a goal. Do you just plateau? Rest on your laurels?
I guess I thought that once we arrived here it would be good enough. Especially since I’ve always rolled my eyes at those who are never satisfied: Millionaires who want bigger houses and then even bigger houses after that. Olympians who aren’t satisfied with Silver. Gold medalists who aren’t satisfied with Gold and want to win Gold two years in a row. Bigger, better, wider, faster, newer, more, more, more.
Is this what life is meant to be? Always looking around the bend? I am starting to question the purpose of life now. I mean, what is an ideal life? Seriously, in eutopia, in a perfect world, what would life be like?
I don’t think eutopia would be filled with people busily trying to look around the next bend. Eutopia would be living in the moment.
I don’t want to look around the bend. In fact, sometimes I just want to look down at my feet and stay here awhile. But Cameron might tell me to be practical. And maybe he’s right.
But a household with two practical thinkers is just no fun. Maybe that’s why we work together so well; I have the pipe dreams and he brings us back to reality. He transforms my dreams into bite-sized, achievable portions that actually happen. I shout some lofty ideas and he charts maps and figures out how we’re going to get there.
So no, I still haven’t figured out the meaning of life. However, I have figured out that every goal achieved has an endearing sweetness about it. Because soon enough that goal will be left behind, and new goals will rise on the horizon. So I hereby solemnly swear to savour the sweetness and live in the moment while I can. To ride the thrill and exhiliration of dreams and goals, both new and old.