The Calm after the Storm

The children went back to school today after the Easter break and it was as if mother nature smiled on them with a 9 degrees centigrade clear weather. On my part I was crunching some numbers at my desk and arranging receipts and other supporting documents- duh it’s tax season. My least favourite part of the year! It has been said that only two things are constant in North America – death and taxes. There’s no escaping both.
I was mid way into that activity when the phone rang. It was the real estate agency. Not again!!! Someone wanted to see the house for 2.30pm and a second prospect would like to come in at 5pm. Do I really have any choice in this matter, after I was the one that agreed to list our home. So quickly I did the routine checks and drove to Millbank park to give them room for the 2.30pm showing.
Papa and Sampi got back at 3pm and by 3.30pm Sampi was off for her newly found two-hour baby-sitting job at our neighbour’s. Oh I forgot to tell you. Our neighbours have two young kids Jake and Avery and with their mum returning to work, there was the issue of who would stay with the kids when they got off school at 3.30pm until 5.30pm when either of their parents would get home. Sampi had done some baby-sitting before so when the neighbours came calling, it was a fairly easy decision for me and for Sampi, the fact that it came with ten bucks an hour was not bad at all. So Sampi now has a job for every day of the week minus weekends. That also means that she has to manage her time effectively so that her chores at home would not suffer. Talk of building character, this is how it starts.
The two other events of note today were Sampi going for her youth activities at church and Papa’s football (not soccer please) practice this evening for 2 hours. It was the full works with complete equipment, drills and some scrimmage. For those of us who live on this side of the hemisphere, no game beats what is often called “America’s game”. There is the popular saying that you should never come between a man and his football. Do I hear my fellow Canucks asking what has come over me. For Canadians, it is ice hockey. To the best of my knowledge, it is the only professional sport where fisticuffs is allowed until someone is knocked to the ice. The only game with legal enforcers and where a broken nose or an incomplete dentition is a mark of true glory. That is our game and my team is The Leafs! Most people outside of North America would scoff at both football and ice hockey as two very violent sports. We say competitive and physical. Both bring out the passion in us and with a full dose of adrenalin.
With this we come to the end of the Diary for today. Sleep tight and see you all tomorrow.