Ever done something super dumb, and totally obvious?!

Due to low ceilings and poor weather at at least two of our three intended airports yesterday, my girlfriend and I cancelled our planned dual cross-country flight, and went to get our upper ears pierced instead, you know, one of those funky cartilage piercings, on the helix? It was the perfect piercing for a hip, newly-30 gal and an older girlfriend going through mid-life crisis, ha!

We researched to make sure there were no major risks associated with such a piercing, and also that it would be okay to fly within 24 hours (we hoped to reschedule our our cross country the next day, weather permitting), i.e, that changes in pressure and altitude were okay.  Allegedly, they were.  So we found a reputable piercer in town, and went ahead and did a crazy little thing and got twin helix piercings!

Yay!

We’re so cool!

It’s all good!

…. And then, and then.  Reality.  Hit.  As we were soaking our respective ears in the recommended saline solution last night after doing our flight plan prep before bedtime, I wondered out loud, “what about our headsets”?

Ahhhh…. Such a simple question.  So.  Easily. Overlooked.

DUH!!!!

Despite the “piercing after-care” sheet’s suggestion to reduce or eliminate all stress in order to speed up the healing process, we spent the next 3 hours stressing out about a) how stupid we were not to have thought about such an obvious impediment/complication, and b) how we were going to deal with the repercussions – there was no way we could wear a thick, heavy, aviation headset pressing up against our newly-pierced ear cartilage; both the immediate physical pain and the subsequent possibility for infection would be mammoth!

Disappointed as I was the next morning to find that upper winds in the area of intended flight would cause us to once again post-pone our cross-country trip, I must confess I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to deal with the painful consequences of my stupid, ill-though-out choice just yet, lol!

How good it was to be back at our home church this morning!  

After a summer of traveling, it was nice to be back in the folds of the familiar, despite the positive church experience we had had in PEI.  Worship is – in my opinion –  as much about the company you keep as about the sermon preached by a specific pastor, or the songs sung by a particular choir.  Just being together and sharing the collective experience of those things, catching up with people’s personal news (much of it very sad unfortunately; our church had a death and several illnesses over the summer), seeing the sea of smiling faces at the front of the church during children’s time, and being in the presence of people with whom I have a shared history presented a much-needed re-grounding for my tattered soul.

And then, it was a bike ride along the lake to the airport for my first flight lesson of the fall.  Yep, I flew a plane today!  Couldn’t remember if I could still do it, actually, but it was quite good in the end, considering it’s been a full three months since I last piloted an aircraft!!!

Flying offers a high (no pun intended) like no other:  After a somewhat hellish week on the home front, and a coincidentally-hotter-than-Hades first week back in my 32-degree-Celcius classroom at school, I wasn’t even sure that I had the stamina to taxi off the apron, let alone do all the radio work and simultaneously fly the plane.  But, as it turns out, flying is an immediate antidote for any kind of emotional trauma...  there is something quite spectacular about pulling back the throttle, and -- moments later -- soaring over the city!  After my lesson, I felt genuinely refreshed and newly optimistic about a variety of concerns, both personal and professional!

We finished off the day with a little picnic dinner at Leslie Spit, and some geocaching at Sherbourne Common before heading home for bedtime and “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, which we have just started reading together this week.

A Sunday like this one is surely the medicine needed for an excellent week ahead!

Miraculously, I not only passed my PPAER re-write at the Moncton Flight College, but actually did quite well!  And although I will have to really focus in the fall to get my flight training done whenever I have some free time (so that I can complete my flight test before Christmas), I do feel a great sense of relief and optimism, and a need for a temporary break from "studying" -- onwards to real vacation time now!!!

Trevor, the boys and I spent the afternoon at Magic Mountain, a water fun park in town, before heading back to the Island, where a friend from Mimico had arrived with her son for a week-long stay, and Tatsy flew in the next day to join us, too, for the rest of the summer.

Lazy days around the cottage, breakfast with visiting former students and student teachers, and late night conversations with friends and neighbours in the sun porch are aggravated only by mosquitoes that sneak into the house and insist on waking the kids up just after the adults have drifted off to sleep, making for some very disturbing nights!

Happily, there is no "work" and we have very few commitments during the days, so we can recover at least some of our lost sleep via long naps in the hammock while the boys play endless games or watch a movie, and with more adults than kids in the house, there is always someone to "help" when needed. 

Ahhhh, summer!  How I relish your gifts of (mostly) peaceful restoration!

Sat morning in PEI means breakfast at Outriders with the rest of the pilots on the island, and this week, Simon joined me at Cablehead, from whence owner Jim Whitty kindly flew us from his airpark to CYYG.

Enroute, Simon spontaneously pointed out our house (I guess he recognized the Greenwhich Dune and Redhead Harbour from overhead, and deduced the location of our road)!

At Ch’town, we got to see a big plane up close, as West Jet’s morning flight to Toronto was just taking off.  We also had the opportunity to poke around in the general aviation hangars, and check out the local happenings.

Having a neighbour who works at the Charlottetown Airport Tower has its advantages:  We were lucky enough to watch the arrival of a friend from overseas, whom we hadn't seen in several years, and who is spending a few days with us in PEI.

Sooo…. Mosied on over to 4900 Yonge St this morning to write my PPL exam.

Thanks to an inner ear infection, I have had to take a few months off flying, but I wanted to get the written out of the way before heading out to PEI for the summer.

I am thankful.  It is not the kind of thankfulness that we try to embed into our daily lives after we read some self help book or article, the kind that is more grounded in logic (I know I ought to be grateful for…) rather than unbridled passion (Wow!  This is incredible, I am soooo lucky!)

Nope, I am filled with the kind of gratitude one sings about in the lyrics of the 

Is it really over already? 
GORGEOUS weather, good food, family and friends and lots of fun at the beach, as you will see in the ppt below (I plan to share this with my Grade 3s, who have recently completed a study of Urban and Rural Communities in Social Studies, and will soon begin a Science unit on Soils). 

Feast your eyes as you join us on a weekend in PEI...
(The ppt comes in two parts -- lots of photos, so the files are kinda' big, sorry!)

Bread delivery time again... once more, we and the giant loaf of Dimpflmeier made it through security, and are headed to PEI for the weekend!

Boys, bread, Tats and boys are installed in the waiting area; boarding begins in 10 minutes, and after posing for this photo, everyone except for the bread plugged themselves into a laptop or iPod, and waited for our call.

Stay tuned for first pics of 2012 (but it will take some time, as we will be without internet until Tuesday -- decided to go tech-free this year!)