Possibly the world's most boring post.

Well, it seems as though my work firewall doesn't like Blogger. I can read from work, but I cannot seem to log in to post or to comment. They are working on the network, so maybe this is temporary, but I am not sure what to do with myself on my coffee break. It is cramping my style.

I put up 20 pounds of peaches, 10 pounds of plums, and made 10 pints of applesauce. I think I am done preserving for the season. "to put up" - where does that phrase come from and why do we use it in reference to home canning? I should post a photo of the peaches - they look pretty. The peach rum sauce is to die for:

• 6 cups diced peaches
• 2 cups white sugar
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 3/4 cups rum
• Simmer for 20 minutes, ladle into sterilized half-pint jars, process in canner for 10 minutes (for elevations less than 5oom; add 5 min for each increment of +500m).
• Eat on ice cream. Try not to hurt yourself when you swoon.

Really, there is little new here. We did the classic Labour Day weekend thing, and sat in the cold and rain watching our favourite CFL team win. Then we came home. Now I am read to sleep.

We are all working our way through a cold that came home from daycare.

My baby isn't very small anymore.

I'm tired.

The End.

What I was thinking on my summer vacation.

There was always something about saying goodbye to C. that made me feel so ancient. It was a weight that pulled me down. If I sat around in a room of eighty year olds, I would feel like I was the oldest person in the room.

This is not something that has slipped away from me. I still feel old. After 30-odd years on this planet, I suppose most people would consider me in the tail-end of my youth. But I just feel old.

I don't know if or when I will shake this feeling. Perhaps it is something that I will just grow into. Instead of feeling old, I will just be old. Who knows?

Recently, I was listening to Stuart McLean read a Vinyl Cafe story. In it, a 40-something Morley is asked to stand up for her friend's second marriage. The friend has a 20 year old daughter who is horrified at the idea of her mother marrying a younger man. Morley recognizes the "confidence of youth" in the daughter's self assured dislike of the marriage.

It was this phrase that struck me. Frankly, I think this is what I am missing - this is what I lost in January 2005. I lost the confident arrogance that fuels the spirit of the young. It was this loss that left me feeling like a wrinkled, withered up old shell.

During my pregnancy with C, I distinctly remember feeling irritated by those who wished us luck. I was appalled that these people would imply that anything bad could possibly happen. I took prenatal supplements and read about the "right" way to be pregnant and went to the breastfeeding class and avoided soft cheeses. I did everything right. I believed I knew how the story went. I believed there was only one ending.

I remember feeling a certain envy for my great-grandmother in those early days after C. died. She had at least 2 children die before their second birthday. However, she would have had a much better sense of infant mortality than I did. She was a European immigrant who was homesteading in the middle of the Canadian prairies, with the nearest neighbour miles away. There was an understanding that every pregnancy is risky - for both the mother and the unborn infant. That isn't the world we live in - we live in a world where tragedy is defined as not getting the crib linens we want.

I regret being so over-confident in my youth and I regret losing that confidence, both at the same time. I see young people around me all the time; I hear what they say. They see nothing but opportunity in the world and they have all the answers. I would have liked the lose that with the passing of time. This way was impossibly hard.

Still not much worth reading here.

Whew. I just updated the Babyloss Directory. That always takes a round out of me. I had updates dating back to May. 54 emails to address.

I am smarter now, though. I don't read any of the new blogs, other than to quickly glean necessary information. I know I can't deal with it, not without incurring the pain of a downward spiral of grief.

Suffice it to say, the miniature epiphany that I had during our holiday will have to wait. I'm spent.