THE GOODS BLOG: Erika's Precious Little Life - May Edition

Oh man, life is a roller coaster. But in this moment, right now, I’m feeling pretty good. I’m feeling much better than I did at this time last month. Things can sure get tough sometimes though. I often wonder if I’m cut out for the life that I’ve chosen... And then on other days I crush it so hard and feel like a million bucks. I know that you guys all experience the same things.

We celebrated Melanie’s birthday with a potluck (way too much food!) at her house and it was a ton of fun to hang out with my ladies and the husbands and not the kids, ha ha.

I have gotten a bit closer (thank goodness) to solving my yoga issues in Toronto. There are still a bunch of studios that I would like to try, but there’s one near my house (it’s actually the closest studio to my house) called Chandra Yoga Shala that feels special to me. I really do get the vibe from them that I’m looking for. The only down side is that they’re very small and offer far fewer classes per week than I’m used to. However it sounds like they’re planning to add more classes that are of interest to me! So I think that I’ve finally found my new yoga home. I really do require yoga regularly (at least three times a week) in my life to remain a sane person. ॐ

We celebrated Colen’s birthday by going on a Queen West Pastry Crawl! (The most perfect thing to do for a professional pastry chef’s birthday?) The crawl was super fun. Our guide took us to five different pastry shops and we ATE SO MUCH!! It was delicious and we had a great time!

We FINALLY finished setting up and decorating our new home!!! It was really only a matter of getting the last few things hung up on the walls and now it’s all complete! The house feels like our home. Out of all of the places that we’ve lived (there have been too many) we love this house the most. It finally provides us with the kind of space that we have always dreamed of. I’M NOT LEAVING. (Our second most favourite place that we’ve lived in was our amazing apartment in Edmonton. That place was incredible.)

This is the guest room! This is where YOU will be sleeping when you come to visit us! There are even MORE fancy guest amenities in here now, so you should come and check them out!

New addition in this house: A travel gallery wall. This is probably my favourite new decor element that we added. I love being able to look back on these best times of our lives.

Since all of the house stuff was complete, we threw an official Housewarming Party!! We invited all of our local friends over for hangs, eats, and house tours. So now all of our TO peeps know where we live!

We spent a really nice, low-key Easter long weekend at home, together as a family. It was great! We did Easter things and Archie was very excited about the Easter Bunny hiding eggs for him. He loved hunting for them!

Our Easter tree!

On the hunt!

Toddler boy Easter fashions.

Tim went to Montreal on a business trip. Generally, it went really well and Archie and I managed everything together totally fine. I loved feeling like I’d crushed the day after Archie was asleep and there was nothing left to do but relax. But it was difficult and overwhelming as well. I find that solo parenting brings up a lot of emotions - and they’re not always rational. It’s easy to feel resentful when your husband is staying in a fancy hotel and eating at fancy restaurants and doing important adult things. Anyway, we survived.

We had our spring cottage weekend up in Muskoka with the whole Golem family. It was a great time! (Although with five kids terrorizing the place, it’s not exactly relaxing.) Archie loves spending time with his cousins and getting into mischief with them. They’re a very cute little crew. We also celebrated a “late Easter” while we were there and the kids got to have another Easter egg hunt all together!

The whole cousin crew! Amelia (4), Laura (2), Evelyn (1), Madison (2) and Archibald (2)! Plus one more on the way!

I attended the Toronto Life Best Restaurants 2019 event and had such an amazing time! It was a super cool event and I loved trying as many of the food dishes as I possibly could! I highly recommend following my blog’s Instagram account: @erika.eats.everything because there’s a whole lot of extra content on there that appears no where else!

And finally... I got some disappointing news yesterday. I did not get the job at Ubisoft. :(

I’m quite surprised in all honesty because I was so confident about it and such an ideal candidate for the role with my prior experience. And I know that the interview went incredibly well. So it’s a bummer. They said: “It was a really tough call for the team as they were very impressed with your experience and passion and fit for the studio.” So yeah, I’m actually SUPER curious to find out who got the job instead. Which I will, because Tim works there. It’s disappointing because we really were beginning to mentally (and physically) prepare for me to be going back to work - we really did think of it as a sure thing. It would’ve been incredibly ideal and convenient to have us both working at the same place. Plus me making video game money would’ve been really nice too. I’m almost most disappointed that Archie won’t get to go to the incredible preschool that he is now wait-listed for. I really think that it would’ve been very beneficial for him.

This isn’t to say that I won’t keep an eye out for other jobs. I just don’t think that anything else will be as ideal of a situation as this would have been.

On the plus side, I do feel a bit of relief as well. As much as I was excited about the potential to work again, the idea of it freaked me out a bit too. The more that I thought that “this could really be happening” the more that the reality of such a huge shake-up to our current lifestyle sunk in. I was already calculating that I probably wouldn’t be given enough vacation days for all of the things that I intend to do this year. So I’m not entirely heartbroken that it didn’t work out. Plus all of my Toronto girlfriends work in schools and I am really looking forward to spending their summer off with them!

So yeah. That’s the news with that. I shall remain in retirement for the time being. And I’m surprisingly okay with it at the moment.

I spent lots of time thinking about the “funk” that I’ve been in, which I mentioned last month. And I think that I’ve realized that in addition to being trapped at home with a toddler all day, the other main reasons for my funk include seasonal depression and homesickness. Moving in the winter from a place that doesn’t experience winter... To a place that has been cold, grey, snowy/rainy, and generally miserable for months is rough. And I’m definitely homesick for Vancouver to the point where it makes my heart ache. I do my best not to think about the mountains and the ocean right outside my door and the lush year-round greenery and the salty ocean-scented air... Because it brings me to tears if I do. Moving involves a lot of difficult transitions. I know this very well! But this one has been more difficult than others. I’m fully aware that my current challenge is to get away from these negative mindsets, to stop feeling sorry about what’s missing from my life, and to continue to manifest the crap out of my dreams. I’m also aware that it’s okay to feel my feelings and to acknowledge them for what they are.

Like I said before, there are good days and there are bad days.

I’m doing the best that I can.

Life with Archie:

Archie has started his swimming lessons and goes every Sunday morning. Tim takes him. (You may or may not know this about me, but I hate public pools.) Tim says that Archie is doing really well and enjoys himself and is able to follow directions! I’m glad that he’s learning about the water and inevitably about how to be safe in the water.

Archie finally had his first appointment with his Pediatrician since moving to Toronto. She was a really great doctor. In fact, our Family Doctor and Pediatrician both work out of the same clinic, which is super convenient. It’s a one-stop medical shop! After performing Archie’s entire check-up she let us know that he is totally normal and that she has no concerns about him whatsoever. She said that despite his delays with speech, Archie makes great eye contact, is social with others, and does all of the normal hand gestures. Because of this she said that there is no concern of him being “on the spectrum” and that no additional testing is required at all. (This was never really an actual concern of mine, but of course it was always at the back of my mind.) She recommended that he continue to attend Speech Therapy to help him along and she even went as far as to say that she disagrees with any of Archie’s past doctors who might have made it sound like there was anything wrong with him. She also said that we’re doing a great job. So this was all GREAT NEWS!! Archie was also weighed and measured and he is completely average in size (28 pounds, 2 feet 11 inches tall - He should be tall enough for some of the rides at Canada’s Wonderland and Centreville this summer!) The doctor doesn’t need to see him again for a year! He’s just a good, good, healthy boy!

Archie has now completed his first six weeks of Speech Therapy. Over the course of the six weeks he has gone from using around 10 words to using about 65 words. (In last month’s blog I reported that he was using 25 words, so the jump over this past month has been substantial!) We have been so happy to see this progress! His speech therapist also mentioned that Archie’s fine motor skills are advanced for his age. The next step is for him to be re-evaluated by a Speech Pathologist to see where he’s at now.

I am so happy and relieved to feel the weight of Archie’s development lifting off of my shoulders. None of that has been helping my life-mood either.

IT’S GONNA BE MAY! May is my favourite month and I hope that the weather becomes truly beautiful so that I can enjoy it. I have an exciting and busy month ahead!

Rachelle is coming to visit from Red Deer - TODAY! She has been such an amazing friend at visiting me wherever I have lived. I can’t wait to do Toronto with her! She will be our first official visiting guest!

And a few days after Rachelle leaves, Jamie (my brother) is coming to visit! He’s actually coming to Toronto on a business trip, but is going to be spending a few extra days with us. He wanted to go to Alo (the #1 restaurant in Canada) so obviously we got a reservation! I’m so excited to be going there for my 3rd time - all in one year!

Mother’s Day is coming up and I have been dropping hints, ha ha. Looking forward to what Tim and Archie have in store for me...

I’m excited to attend the Passion Pit concert as well as the CBC Music Festival at which Stars and Alvvays are playing. (We’re going to bring Archie to the fest and it’ll be his first official concert!)

We have no major plans for May Long Weekend but spending the long weekend relaxing sounds really good to me!

THIS MONTH’S SHOUT-OUTS!:

May 14th is Heather Petrychyn’s 37th birthday!

I miss you A LOT and feel like we need to have a big reunion of some sort very soon. I hope that your day is extra special and that Curtis and the boys spoil you a ton! I really need to come to visit you at some point since I’ve never been to Winnipeg let alone Manitoba, and that seems wrong. Love you!! ♥

May 18th is Nicole Thibault’s 37th birthday!

I mean, you’re my forever human and that’s that. You’re a part of my life for eternity and there’s no escaping it (even if you want to). You deserve nothing but the most incredible birthday imaginable and I can’t wait to come see you this summer for endless hugs and love. LOVE YOU!! ♥

May 27th is Krystie Coutu’s 33rd birthday!

I wish that my tiny amount of time with you in Vancouver could have been so much longer. There are so many more hangouts and yoga classes that we need to do together! I hope that Trevor spoils you a lot on your day because you do so much for so many on a daily basis! Love you!! ♥

May 28th is Heather Petrychyn’s 8th wedding anniversary!

Wishing you and Curtis a wonderful day of romance! I hope that you get to do something special to celebrate!

May 31st is Susan Murphy’s 6th wedding anniversary!

Wishing you and Matt a wonderful day of romance! I hope that you get to do something special to celebrate!