Here follows the accounts of 2003-version MSN chats between Tommy and Carter, set in the middle of Crushing It as they navigate their long-distance relationship.
Crushing It by Jen Desmarais is available now!
Physical from Canadian indie bookstores, physical from Indigo, electronic version
This week, we will be focussing on Ladybug & Cat Noir: The Movie, released in 2023. This is a new favourite in our house.
Here is the link for the downloadable materials. (I hope this works…please let me know if you have any problems so I can fix it!)
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
| Baking | Watch movie | Make bookmark | Flex | Design superhero |
Summary of the week
Ballet and martial arts on alternate days
Singing, listening to different pieces, learning piano, learning guitar
The project he is working on (currently he is making himself a poncho)
We talk about the days of the week and play games with the cutouts of the names. We do the same thing with the names of the months of the year. You can find the print-outs here.
Download material
Practice counting objects and writing how many of each type –(in download material)
Bake bread
Make butterfly (akuma) bookmarks: link to instructions
Design a superhero costume and kwami (in downloadable materials)
Next week: Nimona (2023)
Pegasus’s first week of school was… interesting. He alternated between being a focussed and attentive student and complaining that he didn’t want to learn French. He would complete half a worksheet so fast and then not want to do anything else. But I’ve learned a lot since I taught my Dragon and when he gets in a mood, I switch the activity to something else. It’s been working well so far.
I haven’t been doing much formally for this one. I’ll put music on and he’ll dance to it unprompted.
This week, we’ve been focussing mostly on him practising his scales on the piano. We have one this time around, and it’s a wonderful activity to distract him with because he enjoys it.
I also worked with him on the names of the keys.
I started the base of the project because it’s not an easy beginning to teach a child, but he made half a row or so of stitches with a lot of assistance.
We alternated between listening to videos for the days of the week and months of the year (M, W, F), and attempting to put them in order with the pieces of paper (days on Tuesday, months on Thursday). For the first few weeks, I’m just letting him listen and passively absorb the information. I’ll start asking him to sing along in a couple weeks and see how that goes.
We have a pencil grip thing to help train him to hold his pencil properly (thank you to my kindergarten teacher Ms. Bertrand for dropping those off last spring!) and he seems to be doing fairly well with that. He really struggled with printing the words (tracing was fine), so I think I might skip those worksheets for the next couple weeks. (He wanted me to guide his hand for “La famille”.)
The colours didn’t print very well for this. I’m going to see if the Tangled ones print better and if not, I’ll ask Éric to look at the printer. I explained how to count logically, either side to side, top to bottom, or bottom to top, and we used a pencil to cover up the lines that he hadn’t gotten to yet.
NGL, we mostly read English books this week. We did get one French book from the library and read that. Pegasus learned how to read the words “la”, “le”, and “de”.
Make paper flower – somehow, he managed to flip his triangle around, so that when he cut the petals, they separated into 4 pieces instead of one flower. But we taped them together and it looks great, so woo!
Make empanadas – even though I had Éric look over the recipe I selected and he approved it, after completing this recipe with Pegasus, he says that they should have made arepas instead because the empanadas are a little more complicated than he’d realized. This recipe is great for arepas: https://minimalistbaker.com/how-to-make-arepas.
Pegasus learned how to curl his fingers so that he wouldn’t cut them, he did a lot of mixing, used the food processor to chop (onions, garlic, and others), he made the balls of dough for the shell, he stirred the meat, and he did all the measuring himself (including the spice mix, which was made from scratch).
Make a paper plate toucan – we used the paint sticks (like glue sticks, but paint) to cover the plates. I helped him figure out where the middle was, explaining how to use a ruler to draw the straight line. He did the cutting and followed the line very well. He didn’t want to add the tail.
Hello Coffee and Crochet lovers,
JenEric Designs, JenEric Coffee, The Travelling TARDIS, Jen Desmarais, and Eric Desmarais will be at this year’s (September the 8th to the 10th) Ottawa Comiccon at the EY Centre.
Come get your coffee, crochet, and books!
We’ll be at booths 2604-2606!
Can’t wait to see you there!
Jen and Éric
How This Works – Read Other Reviews
Hello Cinephiles,
Today we’re talking about the 2023 film The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
The writing was concise and clean. The story was a thin scaffolding for large game set pieces and had little to no substance. I appreciated all the nods to the vast catalogue of Mario games.
Score: 0.5
Mario and Luigi were fairly bland. The addition of their family felt weird and the fake, and disappearing, accents were jarring. I had my reservations about Donkey Kong being played by Seth Rogen but his iconic laugh was perfect for Kong.
I already knew that Bowser would steal the show and he did. Jack Black did an excellent job. A great surprise was the nihilistic cheerful blue star Lumalee. Absolutely hilarious.
Score: 0.5
The video game references were great and everything Lumalee said were great. Bowser’s dialogue was good, but the rest was a little forced and juvenile.
This is not a movie that will be quoted outside of Bowser’s lines.
Score: 0.5
Visually stunning and impressively colourful. It was great to watch the background and see all the easter eggs.
The original song will be stuck in my head forever and the rest of the score was wonderfully referential.
Score: 1
This was an easy watch with lots of nostalgia. I’ve been playing mario games since the eighties and this was very faithful to the world.
That being said, I really did find Mario and Luigi to be the weakest part of the movie.
Score: 1
A fairly inoffensive nostalgia-driven ride that will have gamers pausing every five seconds for the easter eggs, others will enjoy the angst free fair, and kids will be singing “Peaches” for way too long.
Final Score: 3.5 Stars out of 5
Hello Readers,
For the Elizabeth books I have always treated the prologue like the intro bit in a horror movie or genre TV show. It’s a story in itself with some hints as to what is coming up in the book.
Skip at your own peril!
Do you hear the dancer?
Do you see the lights?
They’re coming for you, camper,
Better beware tonight.Their song is very lively,
Making you want to dance.
One step, two step, and you’re gone without a chance.
The dancing lights are coming. Tonight, you will see.Beware little camper,
—Camper’s Rhyme, Authors Unknown
Of their haunted revelry.
Or you’ll become a dancer,
And fade from memory.
“This place is freaking creepy!” Eli shuddered as he talked. “I hate cleaning up after adult summer camps. They’re disgusting.”
Cait shook her head and fought the urge to scratch the itch behind her tight hair bun. She knew that he was just talking to avoid the odd silence of the place.
Camp Riding Thorpe was pretty nice compared to some of the places their family had been hired to clean. The main building, which housed the dining room, kitchen, and staff quarters, sat in the middle of a large open field with twenty smaller buildings surrounding it.
“At least they have electricity, and we can use the vacuums this time,” Cait said, trying to look on the positive side and ignore that insistent itch. The last place they’d cleaned was rustic and they’d had to use brooms until their mother came back with a generator. That may seem like not a big deal, but these camps could be pretty terrible without a wet vac as backup.
“I don’t like this place. It’s too quiet. Where are the birds? Where’s the wind? There’s a lake out there; I can see it, but I can’t hear any water sounds. How is that normal?” Eli stuck his head out of the small bathrooms he was cleaning to complain.
“We’re probably in for a storm and this is the calm before it. Relax and maybe you should cut down on the horror movies?” One of the things that made the family business more fun was that she could tease her little brother while they cleaned.
“It’s just creepy, okay?”
“Okay, let’s get back to work. If we can finish this soon, we might have a chance to roast some marshmallows before bed.”
“Do we have any wieners left?”
Cait opened her mouth to answer, but a loud scream cut through the silence of the evening.
They both dropped what they were doing and ran. The scream was still going as they ran up the creaky wooden stairs. As they reached the second and top floor, the scream changed into a series of disgusted noises.
They rounded the corner and found their youngest sister, Sonia, dancing around the middle of the hall alternating between screams, gagging noises, and repeating, “Yuck, yuck, yuck!” Her short brown hair bobbed up and down as she jumped around.
“What’s going on?” demanded Cait.
“I found a condom!”
“So?”
“It’s used… and it’s not alone. There are a bunch of used condoms all over these rooms. What kind of animal doesn’t use a garbage?” She followed her rant with another scream.
“Well. Good talk, I have a washroom to clean.” Eli turned around; his wide shoulders almost touched both sides of the hall. He looked so much like their father.
“That kitchen won’t clean itself.” Cait turned to follow him.
“NO!” screamed Sonia. “You are not leaving me to clean all these… these… these… things on my own.”
“This is totally a job Dad would do.” Cait pushed back the sadness. Their father had died the year before from a heart attack.
“I wish he was here,” Eli sighed. “I wish Mom was too. This isn’t as much fun without them.” Their mom was taking a year off to spend it with their grandparents. The three of them had decided that it was worth taking some summer contracts to pay for college and university.
“Fine, we’ll help you take care of this love den if you help us after with the first floor.” Cait knew that Eli would agree before she suggested it.
The main building took them another few hours and it was late by the time they were done. They locked the door and both Eli and Sonia looked pleadingly at Cait with matching light brown eyes.
“It’s past eleven, we have two more full days of cleaning left…” she started saying, but both of her siblings stuck out their bottom lips. “You’re such children. Fine. Get the fire started and I’ll go get the marshmallows.” As she spoke, she took her long multi-coloured hair out of the tight bun and ruthlessly scratched her scalp.
“And wieners,” added Eli as Cait walked toward the RV they shared.
“You’re a wiener,” mocked Sonia.
“What does that even mean? Have you been sniffing the bleach again?”
The RV meant they didn’t have to use the camp’s cooking or sleeping facilities. It was also nice to have a place that was stable. They went from camp to hotel to houses all summer and it felt nice to have a place to call home; even if Eli never cleaned his dishes and Sonia insisted on putting up posters of her most recent crushes.
With marshmallows, graham crackers, chocolate, and wieners in a bag, Cait headed back toward the large fire pit for the camp.
The sky was clear and the night was humid. Despite the July heat, Cait shivered. There was something off about this camp. She’d been to a lot of different places and even some that were said to be haunted, but this place felt wrong. Like it was artificial or fake.
She looked at the nearly full moon and its reflection on the mirror-like surface of the motionless lake. The moon looked huge and bright tonight. She was so distracted by it and the odd feeling of the camp that she tripped on a root.
Tumbling forward, she dropped the bag of food and fell. She tried to catch herself, but she landed flat on her stomach. The ground wasn’t hard, but it still knocked the air out of her.
Lying on the ground trying to catch her breath, she saw stars. At least, she thought she saw stars, but they danced and moved around like someone was shining a flashlight and swinging it around. The lights were pale, but they filled her with a feeling of warmth.
She has rainbow hair. Do you think she’ll play with us? The voice sounded like a child but softer. After a few moments of waiting, she wasn’t sure if she’d really heard it or if it was her imagination.
“Maybe I should lay off the horror movies,” she said into the night. She dusted herself off, picked up the bag of food, and went back to her siblings, who’d started a roaring fire.
The warmth of the fire combined with the outdoors heat made her start to sweat the moment she got close.
“Food!” exclaimed Sonia as she grabbed the bag.
“You know what would have made this better?” Eli asked but didn’t give them a chance to answer before saying, “Beer.”
“Right. That’s what I want to do, get drunk with my little siblings. You know Mom and Dad’s rules. No alcohol, it’s unprofessional. Plus, she’s not old enough.” Cait gestured at Sonia.
“I’m eighteen!”
“We’re in Ontario, not Quebec.” Cait deadpanned.
“Are we? This is, like, the sixth camp in the past month. I have no idea where we are.” Sonia shoved a double-sized s’more into her mouth.
“Should we tell ghost stories?” Eli asked as he stuck some wieners on a stick.
“No!” Cait replied, failing at keeping the panic out of her voice. “I mean, I don’t want you having trouble sleeping. You keep saying this place is creepy.” The other two stared at her with dubious looks and after a few more moments, she asked, “Have either of you seen weird lights?”
“I thought we weren’t telling ghost stories?” Sonia’s voice cracked part way through her sentence.
“I’m serious…”
“I haven’t. This place is creepy, but I haven’t seen any lights…” Eli trailed off.
“I fell on the way here and I thought I saw something.” It sounded silly now that she said it out loud.
“That explains all the broken crackers,” said Sonia.
“My wieners are fine. I guess wieners are tougher than crackers.” Eli smirked. The three of them burst into giggles and the creepy atmosphere that had built up disappeared.
The night grew old, the sounds of the crackling fire softened, and the three siblings started to fall asleep. Eli dumped a bucket of sand on the last embers and they stumbled toward the trailer.
Falling into bed, Cait fell asleep immediately. Her dreams were filled with floating lights and voices of giggling children. There was a song in her dreams and violin music.
The morning came too quickly, and she was roused by the dawn sunlight streaming through her window.
The RV was empty, and she felt like that was wrong, but the more she thought about it the harder it was to concentrate. Finally, she decided to just pour herself a bowl of cereal and get to work. She had two days to clean twenty cabins. How had she agreed to clean this whole place by herself?
Looking at the dishes in the sink, she didn’t remember dirtying them. Why hadn’t she cleaned them?
Her shower was warm and she reminded herself that next time she went into town she needed to refill the RV’s reservoir. As she dressed, she looked at the posters of semi-naked female celebrities and wondered why she’d put them up.
She put on her shorts and a shirt. The shirt hung off her like a sheet, it was way too large. Why would she have a double-XL t-shirt?
Suddenly her head hurt as if someone had hit her with a baseball bat. The pain wasn’t important to her. Eli and Sonia weren’t in the RV, and she’d forgotten about them.
Running outside, still wearing the too large shirt, she screamed their names. Echoes and silence were her only response and her heart started to beat too fast.
Taking a few deep breaths, she fought the urge to hyperventilate. “They probably just went to the fire and decided to make eggs and bacon.” Their parents would always make a big breakfast for the last day on a job and she hoped they decided to do it early.
Cait ran to the fire pit and found nothing but the remnants of last night’s fire and graham cracker crumbs. She looked around wildly, her hair whipping into her face by a strong wind. The wind carried with it the sound of violins, or maybe fiddles; she never could figure out the difference. The music was haunting and beautiful.
Without her permission, her bare feet took her toward the music. Inside her, a voice that sounded a lot like her father, screamed for her to stop but she couldn’t. Mist blanketed the forest making it impossible to see where she was stepping, but her feet knew the way.
She didn’t feel the stones or weeds she stepped on. She didn’t feel the sting of her flailing hair which created a multi-coloured halo around her shoulders and head. She didn’t feel anything but the clashing emotions of joy and panic.
She walked into the forest and her mutinous feet started to dance. She danced her way into a clearing, the clearing was filled with beautiful lights. The lights dipped and weaved pulsing in every colour imaginable.
The dance took her to the centre of the clearing; her possessed feet and hair joined the dancing lights. The voice of her father faded to almost nothing as she gave herself to the music.
The mist on the ground swirled around with her and dissipated, revealing her two bare footed siblings lying down on the ground motionless.
The music became hectic and Cait regained control of her feet. Bending down, she tried to reach for Sonia and Eli, but the lights blocked her way.
They wanted to play with us. Why don’t you? Why don’t you want to play with us? The child’s voice was dissonant and sounded like an angry violin.
The dissonance, panic, and pain hit her all at once and she released a scream that echoed through the otherwise eerily quiet Camp Riding Thorpe.
The Mystery of the Dancing Lights by Éric Desmarais is available now!
Physical from Canadian indie bookstores, physical from Indigo, electronic version
Crushing It was sent out for reviews in May, and I’ve received some in return. Here’s one from Éric Desmarais:
Crushing It by Jen Desmarais is available now!
Physical from Canadian indie bookstores, physical from Indigo, electronic version
This week, we will be focussing on Tangled, the Disney movie released in 2010. We are starting on September 6, even though it’s a holiday, because Dragon loves to bake as well.
Here is the link for the downloadable materials. (I hope this works…please let me know if you have any problems so I can fix it!)
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
| Baking | Watch movie | Painting | Flex | Paper lanterns |
Summary of the week
Ballet and martial arts on alternate days
Singing, listening to different pieces, learning piano, learning guitar
The project he is working on (currently he is making himself a poncho)
We talk about the days of the week and play games with the cutouts of the names. We do the same thing with the names of the months of the year. You can find the print-outs here.
Download material
Practice counting objects and writing how many of each type –(in download material)
Baking – cookies
Painting – free-style with Crayola washable paint on paper (please note that this might be a good outdoor activity – check weather in advance and move days if necessary)
Make a paper lantern – need paper bag, stencil (in download material), cardboard box, paper towel folded in fourths, and screwdriver (instructions are Number 11). Put the paper bag over the cardboard box, and slide the folded paper towel in between the box and the bag. Place the stencil overtop of the bag/paper towel. Use the screwdriver to punch holes in the stencil/paper bag. Be careful not to move the stencil, or you will mess up your design.
Next week: Ladybug & Cat Noir: The Movie (2023)
