Writing

I've been reading again. I used to read non-stop. I'd read while walking and doing my paper route. I'd read while eating breakfast, while watching TV. Books were always honest, never two-faced, never teased. As an extension of reading, I used to write a lot. Poetry, short stories, and journalling. I haven't written in a long time. Yes, I have the blogs, and sometimes I get a little deep, but it's not the same as the journals I kept. I no longer have the journals, and that saddens me (even though I'm to blame for not having them). I've tried to keep journals for the kids, about them, but it was too hard to write only about Lucy in her book, and only about Huey in his book, and so often I'd just print out an email I had written about them, or hope that the many pictures in the box would suffice to keep my memories fresh.

Many of the books I've been reading have been about natural pregnancy, birth, childcare, and an interesting category--non-instructional parenting books. Books by parents, about parenting, but not necessarily HOW to parent (one, in fact, was actually a book of knitting essays by a 'famous' knitting blogger, but some of the essays were about parenting). I don't need the "how-to" books anymore, never really used them anyway as my challenging kids didn't really fit most of the standard books.

The latest book I'm reading is "Because I Said So" compiled by Camille Peri and Kate Moses. The subtitle says "33 Mothers Write about Children, Sex, Men, Aging, Faith, Race & Themselves". I'm not sure what I was thinking; probably little fluff ditties like on the back pages of parenting magazines: "I'm a bad mom cause the kids watch TV while I nap" or "I'm conflicted about being a mom because I can't go for a pedicure every week". But it's not that sort of thing at all.

The first essay is about a modern day, American witch hunt against a single Islamic mother. There's an essay on American Girl dolls, one about being a white family on the edge of a ghetto and how one son 'turns black', one about the American wife of an Iranian refugee who goes back with her family to Iran for her first visit, one about boys growing up to be men, one about a woman who gives in to California culture and hires a Latino nanny.

I found each one fascinating. Not always relateable by direct co-relation to the factual events, but relateable by the invisible silk thread that ties all mothers. One essay particularly moved me. "Ourselves, Carried Forward" by Beth Kephart. I didn't know where it was going by it's opening paragraph, but it's about memories. "There is little democracy when it comes to telling stories; the best stories always rule. The untold stories fade away, and memory goes flaccid." Perhaps that's why I like journalling--I felt my stories were perhaps not unique, but were still mine and I didn't want them lost. We are, essentially, our memories.
I am, in ways, opposite to the writer--I DO remember my primary teachers, I DID write my childhood. The writer's husband is the one with memories that get told and remembered; Rob never writes, rarely shares stories, but many times he has made it clear that my memories are not worth remembering.

Then the writer asks "Who are we after the first long sprint of motherhood is through? What parts of our history do we return to ourselves when the days shift in shape and size and tempo?" Wow. This ties in so strongly to what is going on in our lives right NOW that I haven't even had the time to share. We are returning to the area of our youth. While it is, by name, the same, it is still NOT the same town as we left. I was a young, childless bride when I left; what am I now?
The writer talks about the things of her childhood that she brought forth into her motherhood--sit down dinners, kick ball, hiking in fresh snow. Her kids knew the words to the songs she knew as a child. "My childhood nested in my son's, somehow. The girl I was is in the boy he's been. The past carried forward, planted, and sprouted, and not because it was merely good enough, but because it was whole, it was happy. Who are we after the first long sprint of motherhood is through? We are ourselves, carried forward."

She talks about remembering who she was before she was a mother. Who was I? Who was that young lady who couldn't bear to look at her beloved home as she drove off to a new life? Some of the things I was, I am ashamed of, regretful, embarrassed. I'm also ashamed and embarrassed of what I wasn't. What I never got the chance to be, due to failed relationships, political changes, lack of initiative and self-fatalism. I mourn the loss of my teaching career constantly. In a culture that defines who a person is by what the person does, I was a nothing. My plans, ever since I was five, was to teach. No one ever mentioned that a new government would come into power just as I was graduating, and eliminate virtually all new teaching positions in Ontario. That wasn't part of my plan. Although my plan was flexible (I could substitute teach), it wasn't enough.

I feel like I have spent the past 14 years waiting for my life to begin. The memories of this time are not the memories my youthful memories thought I'd have.

"The exhaustion of motherhood is cumulative. Exuberance is tempered by the many choices a mother makes. Pathways narrow when a woman has a child, because incautiousness yields consequences, and irresponsibility is selfish, and the dreams one dreams on behalf of a child are the dreams one does not dream for one's self."

"We bring our own selves and stories forward when the first long sprint of motherhood is through. We reconcile who we were to who we'll be...."

What stories am I going to bring forward? What memories of myself will become my children's memories also? I find this both fascinating and frightening.

Who Are They?!

I keep running across references to "Flight of the Conchords" on different blogs. Like, on a recent "CakeWrecks" entry. I'm fascinated, LOL! But can anyone tell me who/what they are?

So, What's New?

I can't believe it took me SO long to write about our cruise. I'm so glad I did do it all though, it's a nice way to reflect and remember!

But, a LOT of things have happened in the past six months!! Some, I post about on Freecycle, some I've kept to myself. We've got some BIG changes happening here; good changes but stressful nonetheless. Considering that it's now summer break, I don't know how much I will post here. The past school year has been rather busy--although I wasn't taking Lucy to kindergarten at 12:30 anymore, Meg wasn't napping in the afternoons either anymore! There was speech therapy, pre-school readiness program, storytime, swimming lessons, shopping....with no naps, I lost the time I usually wrote on my blogs; and I'm certainly not getting that 'quiet' time this summer either.

So, I'll pop in when I can, and fill you all in with the craziness that is my life!

(In the meantime, did ya hear that Canada reversed it's stand on automatic c-section for breech babies?! Awesome country we live in!).

Cruise Day 8: Coming Home

When we booked our first cruise, it was about a month in advance. We were able to get direct flights both ways, and for the flight home we went standby and were actually able to get on an afternoon flight and get home early. This time we had about two months to book, but trying to get flights was dreadful! They were changing hourly! As written earlier, we had to fly down the afternoon before (which relieved some of Rob's anxiety, but created other issues to freak about, LOL). We were dreading the trip home though.

The ship docks very early, and if you want, you can disembark early and carry your luggage through security. No thanks. Based upon your flight departure time, Royal puts you into time slots to disembark. Our flight was 7:35pm. Yup. About 13 hours after docking. And, we were NOT in the last time slot! When we got down to the waiting area, they were about 45 minutes behind in disembarking...which is 3 time slots. They made up time quickly, but it wasn't well organized and there was some confusion and upset when two lines merged on the staircase.

We got into the terminal, and Rob immediately says our luggage isn't there and it's lost. They were still unloading the time slot before us! Finally it arrives...there was some panic because some of it came together, but one piece was missing...just like when we got on the ship and Rob had to wear sandals to dinner the first night. We got a taxi and headed to the airport.

We went to the United area because our tickets said "United Flight 1234". There was one clerk and the self-check in computer. People would use it, but then have to wait for the clerk to be free to weigh the suitcases and give the tags. Stupid. The people ahead of us were not English and were so confused. They tried the computer, but had trouble so they had to wait. Finally another clerk came out and told us to use the computer. We wanted a human! Unfortunately, we got him, and I'm not sure how human he was. Sorry to be stereotypical, but he was a typical swishy short gay man. Nothing against that, but it was just hard to keep a straight face.

We said we had a 7:35pm flight to Toronto and wanted to know if we could switch to an earlier flight. He said they're not flying to Toronto today. Yup. We show him the ticket. He says "That's not us". Yup. I ask "Well, what other airline is called United? and why does our ticket say this?" and perhaps a few other things. He steps back, swishes his hand under his chin, and says "I know where we're going and we're not going there". Yup. My first thought was he thought I was about to get American-Bitchy and I almost freaked, but then realized he actually meant, "we're not going to Toronto". He said he could fly us to Washington State, or Denver. Or, try Air Canada.

Huh? Our flight down had been an Air Canada/Ted by United combo, but it clearly said that on the ticket. Slightly enthused by the prospect of talking to Canadians, we trudged down to the very end of the terminal (actually, United and AC were fairly close) and got in the Air Canada line. What a difference. There were two or three humans, with smiles, the line moved quickly, the lady was nice and said "Yes, it's an Air Canada flight" and "No, the earlier flight is all booked; you can try stand-by, but I wouldn't". We asked if we could check our luggage yet, and she said not until 3 hours before the flight. There was a little shop down in E (or D?) section that stored luggage for a fee. Fine. We headed down there.

I'm standing looking at the shops, wondering which it was, when I realized it was just a little walk-up counter. I got a bit closer to read the pricing signs. I was trying to figure it out when I heard a little commotion behind me. Suddenly, someone grabbed my elbow!!

An old man turned me to him and said "The queue is back there, miss". People in the line were shouting at me to get to the end of the line! I yelled back "I'm just reading the sign!". They kept yelling at me as I tried to read the sign! I yelled back "I'll get at the back of the line AFTER I read to the sign to decide if I want to leave my luggage!". They kept yelling at me! So, we stepped aside. Now, truly, I hadn't even realized there was a line. We were standing off to the side behind the people at the counter. The line started about 10ft back from the counter, so that people were still walking along the concourse in front of the line. I had no intentions of jumping the line, and would have clued in as soon as the next person went ahead. While appreciative of the quiet way the old man let me know, I did not appreciate being grabbed. And the yelling! What was the point of that?!

We did go to the back of the line after a few minutes (we didn't want to give them the satisfaction of us going directly to the end of the line, LOL). The line barely moved. We waited. And waited, then decided maybe to just take our luggage. We started walking, not knowing where we were going to go, or what we were going to do. After a few minutes, we realized this was stupid and went back to the storage place. The line moved faster and we checked our luggage. You had to let them copy your passport and take your picture!

We headed outside and tried looking for a taxi. There were none. Somehow we realized we would have to go back downstairs to arrivals. There, the pseudo-cop flagged one down and asked where we wanted to go. We didn't know exactly, just a large mall, LOL. He told us we could take a shuttle for cheaper, to a particular mall. We just had to go back upstairs and down the way again....So much walking, and it wasn't even 10am. We got out to the shuttle stop and enjoyed the fresh air (as fresh as it can be outside an airport!). And guess who shows up---the yellers!! Apparently, they were NOT American!

We all got in the shuttle and were taken to a mall (don't remember it now). The door we went in was around the back sort of, and labelled "Tourist Entrance"! It was a standard mall. We walked around and got bored. Rob hates shopping. Our feet hurt. We were hungry. We went to the food court but it was mostly names we didn't know. We picked a fresh sub place (a tip jar on the counter? Never in Canada!) and it was okay. We picked up a couple things for the kids, and spent some time in a music store. Then we headed out the front into the outdoor cafe area and into Indigo Books. We browsed the big magazine section.

Suddenly, I needed to know the time. Shock! We had 5 minutes to run back through the mall to the other end and get the bus! We raced back and had a couple minutes to spare. The Yellers were also on the bus. Back at the airport, we headed back to the luggage storage. The Yellers were in front of us. What a big group! I saw them later waiting for a flight to Brussels.

We trudged all the way back to the Air Canada counter and checked our luggage, then headed for security. Slow moving. You end up in the food court, but nothing spoke to us. We wondered down the hall to our terminal and there was still nothing. Back the other way...nothing....back again, and we finally ended up at Quiznos. It was lovely. We were exhausted and still had 1 1/2 hours!!

We headed down to our gate and found some seats. It was really busy. We watched an elderly, high-class couple get wheeled in in wheelchairs. The boys left, and the couple promptly got up and walked to the bathroom, etc. The lady talked on the phone for a bit; useless social chit chat. Her lips were obviously fake. So was much of her attitude, LOL. Once in Toronto, they got the wheelchair treatment again.

We were so exhausted, it could have been midnight--once it's dark out, your brain thinks it's time for sleep. We finally boarded the flight and took off. It was neat to see Florida from the air at night. We had the seats with the little personal screens in front, so we could watch what we wanted. I would have loved a GPS channel so I could see what towns we were looking at. I took pictures, but really, they're not worth the time to download.

We arrived in Toronto around 11:30 and headed for our luggage. We thought it was already in, but turned out to be an earlier flight's luggage that had been delayed and the owners had all left before it came in. It took FOREVER for the luggage to start coming. Finally we got it all and headed for customs. We gave our passports to the young man, and he says "Lisa Marie...that's near Hansen Blvd? Near Lewis St and the park?" OMG. So nice to be home, LOL! He had a friend that lived on Lewis Street in our neighbourhood! We hopped on a shuttle to the parking, got the truck loaded, and headed north.

We had just come through Caledon, it was about 1:30am, and I noticed white on some things. Then, there was more, and more. We realized it was SNOW! By the time we got to Highway 9, everything was covered in several inches of heavy, wet snow! It was only Nov. 16 (or so, LOL). I hadn't gotten all the snow gear organized before we left! There was a basket of hats/mitts, but not boots or pants! We came in the house and Rob's mom was asleep on the couch, all their luggage packed, and Cooper asleep in front of her. He got up, came forward, and growled!!! We were shocked!!

We stayed up chatting for a bit, then went to bed and got up with the kids in the morning and sent them to school. Rob's parents went home, and it was back to reality!

Cruise Life

I know it's been over 6 months since I started posting about the cruise. A lot of things have happened in this time that I would have loved to blog about, but it's also made me re-think blogging a bit. While I love journaling, and miss it, for a lot of my life, I suppose a blog is just not the venue I should use. But, I am going to continue because it is great for sharing photos and kid stories, etc.
This post is about the cruise ship itself.

This is actually the first ship we went on, "The Liberty of the Seas" but I thought it was a good shot of the size of the ship compared to another cruise ship. It looked better though when I looked at it in my photo gallery, LOL. You can see just how high up "The Wall" is, that's the beige area in the middle of the top of the ship. Many of these photos are going to be from "The Liberty" but the "Freedom of the Seas" is exactly the same, although the artwork is different.

This the view as you lay in bed. Rob kept moving the silly coffee table in front of the couch. There is a full length mirror in the center of the photo which is reflecting the desk.

This is the bathroom. LOL. The showers are pretty cozy; if you are a larger person it might cause a problem. However, they have tankless hot water heaters, so you can stand in that tube all day long. The water pressure was awesome, although I still have sand stuck in the 'power netting' of my bathing suit.

The view from the hall door. It was a narrow fit, but surprisingly the closet on the right is spacious (not enough hangers), and the safe didn't work in our "Freedom" cabin. The desk had lots of room, the TV was okay, but our big issue was that there was no clock in the room. There was a curtain though so you could separate the bed from the rest of the cabin. So someone could sleep on the tiny couch?

On both ships, our dining table was in the middle floor, and in the 400 section, really close to each other. This is "The Liberty" dining room. We had a round table right at the railing. There was a couple from Ireland on their honeymoon, a single gal from Washington DC, her divorced friend who brought her 12 year old son; they were living in Georgia I think. Very nice boy, but he ordered a steak every single night!

This is the view looking over the railing as the wait staff did their little showcase song. There was some sort of 'entertainment' each night--some nights the kids from the children's programs did something, some nights it was live music, some nights the wait staff, and one night the chefs.

This was our group on "The Liberty", our waiter, on the left, was Noel from the Philippines; he had 6 kids. The guy on the right was the head waiter for our area (or the maitre d' ?). He was funny and nice, but really, doesn't actually do much but remember people's names. On "The Freedom" the head waiter was a bit less friendly, but one night one of the ladies said she just wanted plain cake with ice cream and strawberries, instead of the fancy desserts, and he made it happen. They were very accommodating this way. Rob had 3 lobsters one night!

This is the theater curtain on "The Liberty". The one on "The Freedom" was similar but more glitzy.

This was a piece of art on "The Liberty". For some reason I liked it, LOL.

This is a little vacuum they use. How could you not smile at seeing that in the morning? One thing I didn't clue into until near the end of the second trip, was that the carpeting in the two ship-length hallways were different colours. Port was one colour and starboard was another colour. Of course, I couldn't remember which was which anyway, LOL. Also, we heard/read how to remember which side of the boat your life station is on...if you're facing the front of the boat, odd numbers were on one side, evens on the other. Of course, I couldn't really remember that either. On "The Liberty" our stateroom was in an inside cabin, and I mean, really inside. When it was time for the life drill on the first afternoon, we couldn't make sense of the little map on our door because we hadn't been on the ship long enough to get familiar with it. After the drill, someone opened a door, and we all just followed the crowd--right into the dining room getting ready for dinner. We didn't even know how to get out of the dining room and the staff was going nuts trying to stop more people from coming in and getting us out, LOL. On "The Freedom" our cabin was also an inside cabin, but on the exterior corridor (I don't think there were any interior corridors on that deck). It made things a LOT easier, except that floor, and the one above it, had the ice rink in the middle, and you couldn't travel from one end to the other end of the ship. You had to go up to deck four and go through the smokey casino, or we'd just go outside and walk the open deck to the other end, LOL.

"The Wall" is one of the highlights of this class of ships. It's huge, and up on the top decks, so very high above the water. We were really looking forward to trying it on "The Liberty" but were a little discouraged at trying to find the right time slot. Finally, on the last sea day (we thought we were going to do it every day!), we had our turn. Despite how sick I was, I was determined to climb it.

I climbed right to the top! It was very hard. Now, I love hiking, and I love mountain/hill climbing, but I had never rock climbed. It was harder than I thought it'd be, and we had a beginner route (but maybe a shorter wall would have been better? LOL). The parts were it juts out and you have to lift yourself up and out and over were killer. I kept pausing, and I'd feel the guy tug on the ropes and I didn't know if he was telling me to come down or hurry up, but I kept going up! I don't know how long it took me, but it felt like forever, and was over way too soon. I felt like jelly afterwards, on an incredibly high feeling. Rob climbed it before me, and he wanted to get to the top because the woman before him did it, and I kept going because he had made it to the top too. LOL.

That's Rob climbing. On our "Freedom" trip, we had planned to do the wall again, but once we were there, we just didn't feel the need. We spent more time enjoying each other (!) and relaxing instead. Plus, I was worried I wouldn't be able to do it again. Despite being so sick the first time, I was in great shape, thanks to babywearing. I had stopped babywearing at the end of June, 2008, when school ended and Meg was over 35lbs. Even though I was still walking lots that fall, I did not feel nearly as strong as I had the year before. I had started babywearing when she was born, solely for the convenience of not needing a stroller to get Huey to school in the winter. I knew about the attachment parenting aspect of it, but the fitness rewards came as a big surprise!

This is the Royal Promenade; the "Main Street" of the Royal Caribbean ships. There are shops, services, and food spots along here. Some were 24 hours, some were not; some were free, some were not. The rooms that look down on to The Promenade can not open their windows, but it must still be noisy and bright. And those rooms were a little bit smaller than our room!

Someone at dinner one night mentioned they wouldn't want to have a cabin under a pool. Well...the Royal Promenade is under all the pools!!!

This is "The Solarium"; the adult only pool. However, it wasn't an adult-only area as it wasn't closed off completely. The little bit of the dome you can see on the left is one of the hot tubs that is cantilevered off the side of the ship. The hot tubs and pools were not 24 hours.

This is the sport pools area. They would adjust the water level for different events. This is where I filmed Rob when the ship was rocking enough to make the waves. There is no 'shallow' end...there is the edge where it's a few inches deep, then it goes right to about 3 1/2 ft deep and gets deeper from there. The temperature of all the pools varied every day, but the Solarium (adult pool) seemed to be the coldest. And I mean, cold! At the far end of the pool decking, in the middle, is the 'stage'. The music was good, but way too loud. We could hear it fine down the deck in the Solarium!

Another shot of the sports pools. I was standing above the Pool Bar in the other photo.

Mini gold was something we did right away on the first trip, and then several more times. While we were still in port, it was very windy! The course was actually quite challenging, but I did get a hole in one. On the second trip, I don't think we did it even once!

Here's the Flowrider. Again, we thought we'd try this, but after seeing people wipe out (search YouTube!), we thought perhaps we'd stick to the hot tubs. If there wasn't a crowd, I might have tried.

These two shots are of the H2O Zone on the "Liberty"; a kids water play area. The hot tubs on the left were great for me because I could sit and not drown, LOL.

The round area on the right is a 'make your own' whirlpool.

These next three pictures were taken on "The Freedom", from the round windowed area up top in the first of the two H2O Zone pictures. That area is "Olive & Twist" a lounge with separate game/meeting rooms. We never went there on the first trip, or the chapel, but we checked it out the second time. We had planned to go hear some live music there, but it just gets too late at night!

The "Olive and Twist" lounge is sort of above "Windjammer Cafe" which opens to the H2O Zone. If you keep going, you come to the Sports Pools (The stage is just on the other side of the wall that says "H2O Zone". Keep going past the sports pools and you come to the Solarium. Go back inside past that and it's the health club.

And there you have it; what it's like to be in a cruise ship. You'd think 3600 people is a lot, but it's funny how you keep seeing the same people over and over again. Things did get a little crowded on sea days, but we found the best time to use the pool was around 4pm, when families left to get ready for dinner. We'd stay in the pool area and watch the sunset (never any good ones though), then head back inside for a snack and to rest up (LOL) for dinner. The events on the Promenade were a little crowded, so we didn't really do any the second time--watched from the TV in our cabin.

So, I still have to post about the day we came home. Not a lot of pictures for that day, but a couple crazy stories!!

Cruise Day 7: At Sea

Day 7, Saturday, was the last cruise day, and it was a 'Sea Day'. It's a great time to check out all the things you never got to on the 'Port Days'. Or, just relax. We managed to sleep in a little, and then headed out to the Royal Promenade ("Main Street") to check out some of the happenings on our way down to the theater for a backstage tour. I really wanted to do this as I was very impressed with the stage shows. Some of the crew came on stage and introduced themselves, and we found out that the reason we got to hear Tragically Hip and other Canadian music before the stage shows was because the chief sound guy was from Ontario :) We got to go on stage, and around back with some of the dancers/singers. There is NOT a lot of room, and some of the costumes were hanging up. This one is from one of the parades the dancers do on the Royal Promenade at night.

This is a backdrop from one of the stage shows.

This is a harness that is worn during a wall climbing act at the start of the magic show. The 'dancer' can spin 360 degrees within the harness. It is NOT very light!!

This is the view of the theater, from the stage. It's quite large, but I'm not sure how many it holds. There's about 3600 guests, and most shows have two show times to accommodate the two different dinner seating times.

We went directly from the theater to the ice rink. Even at the end of our second cruise, we still had trouble remembering which way to get into the rink. You can't walk end-to-end on our deck (2) or the ice rink floor (3), and we just could never remember which way to go, LOL. The skate time is only 45 minutes, but those rental skates were hurting me!

I would have liked to skate every day, but it just wasn't possible with shore trips. There wasn't skating in the evenings, and there were other things going on.

After lunch (and possibly a 'rest' LOL) we headed up to the pool deck. This is my great cover up that I made. Hopefully someday I'll make something that involved on the Singer 327 again.

Sadly, I don't recall what we did, except maybe just lounge around and relax. The sun was gearing up for a great sunset....but at the last minute, a cloud appeared out of no where!! We were surprised at how early the sun set, it was only about 30 minutes later than at home. There was a Farewell Show in the theater at 7pm, it was great, and once again, I wish we had bought the DVD of our trip! The rest of the evening was spent packing (bags have to be out by 11pm) and settling the bill (once again they changed how we wanted the charges changed to Canadian! And this time they wouldn't fix it, so it cost us something like 2% extra, even though we had made certain to check the right box!!)

This is one of the floor plan models found around the ship. The theater is the blue wedge at the front of the ship (the right side of the picture). The green areas are staterooms.

This is our waitress, Huny, and Dale's mother. Never learned her name, LOL.

And this is Dale. He says people think he looks like Bruce Willis, I thought he looked like Billy Joel, LOL.

These pictures are actually from the last morning while we waited to disembark.

I love amethysts and rocks, so I just had to take a picture. The front of the geode had been epoxyed so you couldn't chip any off, LOL.

So, this just leaves the last day, when we disembarked, and then got to meet Miami's finest at the airport.

We Interupt This Cruise

...to bring you the great news that my old, ex-best friend from public/high school has found me on Facebook!!!!! I think she's just joined; she is using her maiden name hyphened, so I think my searches would have found her if she had been on before. I'm excited to find out what she's been up to for the past 26 years (good grief). I'm afraid my life won't seem too interesting!

Anyway...the cruise. I had a few minutes this weekend and I thought I'd make a list of all the Labadee pictures I wanted to post (it works best to load them in reverse order of how you want them to appear). I remembered that when I had tried to write the post about Labadee, Blogger screwed it up. So, imagine my surprise when I logged in and found that somehow I had already journaled the Labadee day! I honestly do not remember getting it fully written and posted! So now I just have the last cruise day and the last day to write about. Almost done journalling, and now I'm ready for another trip, LOL. There is SO much going on in our lives right now that I have missed blogging about, but perhaps it's been good to just keep it to ourselves :)