What a wonderful world....

What a great way to spend a Saturday...  start by getting some good deals at my favorite mom's consignment sale ever... The Great Kids Stuff Sale.  Then spend the rest of the morning playing with the kids on the street....then walk to the local bike shop, find a bright pink bike for the littlest Kelly and a new helmet for the bigger one... back and lunch at McD's with across the street friends... then off to a birthday party for a friend since 1978.  There are a group of us that went to school together from Grade 7 to 13 and we still see each other and hang out a lot.  All were there with husbands and kids in tow and it was incredible to see them all playing together and having fun...  We were so tired at the end of the day that we crashed as soon as the kids were asleep....  *yawn*

off on another busy day today....

Today I learned something new about my neighbourhood

Today, while reading the monthly newsletter from our community association I learned a little history about our new neighbourhood. It used to be called the Midway Annex and its 99 years old. Pretty cool. It sounds weird but I like knowing that my neighbourhood had a name. It's easier than describing it as "further east than Riverdale, but not as far over, or south, as the Beach". Now if I start calling it the Midway Annex, its not like anyone is going to know what I mean. But hey - I can glow in my newfound knowledge.

Here's the excerpt from the newsletter.

The Midway Annex is just one year shy of its centennial as a part of the city. Midway was the name of an area between the City of Toronto (the eastern boundary was just east of Greenwood) and
the Town of East Toronto (the western boundary crossed Danforth about a half km east of Woodbine). In its entirety, Midway, which was annexed in 1909, almost ran down almost to
Queen.

It was a dusty rural road with small wooden bridges over swamps and creeks until pavement and streetcar tracks arrived in 1913. Its market gardens supplied fresh produce and dairy products to the
nearby city, but gave way to a 1920s building boom that followed the end of WWI and the opening of the Bloor viaduct. The name Midway was largely forgotten as this hybrid streetcar/automobile
suburb developed. Also largely forgotten is that for more than 40 years, people from north and south of Danforth walked to the Midway s Midway stri p -- for streetcars into the core, for employment and for nearly ever kind of shop and service imaginable. There were movie theatres,
bowling alleys, several supermarkets, scores of independent food stores, lots of bank branches and a wide range of clothing and shoe stores.

Things changed rapidly after the subway replaced streetcars in 1966. With transit stops suddenly much farther apart, with traffic speeding up in the absence of streetcars and with major retailers
shifting to larger-scale car-dependent business models, Danforth as a pedestrian-friendly destination went into decline.

Okay - so its been almost a year...

The chaos of buying a house, renovating a kitchen, moving into the house, changing daycares, eldest starting Jr Kindergarten, my new job and life I haven't found time to make note of life here.  However, spring has sprung, the grass is riz, so its time to start again.  

Two important things will happen here... 

1. I am going to try really really hard to keep notes on my fitness activities and lifestyle good/bad choices.

2. I am going to try and keep a running log of what goes on in the daily lives of our crew...

So there - I've said it...

Lets see if I can keep it up.

k