End of the Line

 Drum Roll Please....ta da, it's the final pleat!!!! Hooray! I have been working on the petticoat of Blair's grad dress for a while now but had to get busy considering my new plans to take off to see my parents this weekend. So, a few hours and about a hundred pleats later, and I'm ready to sew this ruffle onto the skirt. Then put on the decorative trim and voila, it's a petticoat. Blair is coming over on Wednesday night to try everything on. I have to remember to get a picture, this dress is going to be unbelievable. I have no idea how she's going to dance in it, it's going to weigh a ton with all that fabric! I'm really excited to see it all together.

Moving Day

 I have moved many times in my life. Since Darrel and I have been married we have lived in 5 homes. That's one for every year of our marriage! In my life there's been some highly memorable abodes, (the crack shack in Ottawa stands out in my mind, of course juxtaposed to the ritzy condo I house sat immediately afterward). Some are pretty unmemorable as far as the four walls go but the people I was with and the things we did live on in my memories (#1 Lafayette was such a place). I think moving so many times has in some senses created resiliency in me. I can pick up start again, I know I can, I've done it before and I can do it again. But I'm also weary of it. I told Darrel when we bought this house and moved to Bon Accord, "we are never moving again!" Which is probably not true. :) But perhaps we can/should just keep ourselves planted for the next five years of our marriage. That will improve that, "years together to moves", ratio. (Although if we have a kid or two more by then and haven't cleaned out our clutter due to moving on a yearly basis, the task of moving us in 5 years could be daunting!)

Growing Up

 We've never been able to leave Jack alone in a room by himself for more than 5 minutes. He is just too curious, to busy and too into things. But I can see that starting to change. This week he has definitely been having fun amusing himself. On several occasions I have thought to myself, "yikes, I haven't seen Jack in the last 10 minutes", only to find him quietly playing cars in his room, or in this case immersing himself in a box of stuffed animals. It is a welcome change, albeit a little strange. I've had to resist the urge to tell him to come play in the living room, "where I can see you". I think it's good for him to learn to be independent, at least a little bit.

A Picture of Commiseration

 
 Karly, I feel your pain at Luke's climbing antics. Just when I think I'm done with that with Jack we have another incident. This is what happened during the 10 minutes I took to shower and get dressed. AHHHHHHH! Child, you are going to hurt yourself!

Beefs and Bouquets

I've been trying hard not to complain as much in life as I think it can drag you down but I have to post a little rant just to get something off my chest.

WHAT'S UP WITH PEOPLE PARKING TOO CLOSE IN PARKING LOTS?!?

This has happened to me 3 times in the past week. The final incident was at Walmart yesterday and a genius was about 8 inches away from my right hand side and another brainiac was parked crooked in the spot my left hand side, leaving about 10.5 inches of room beside the rear passenger door. (I should note that I was parked in the middle of my parking spot, and the spots at this Walmart are generously enough sized even if you drive a mini-van or SUV.) Of course, I can't get the right door open enough to put Eric in on the right side. So, I have to go around to the other side and put his infant car seat in through the other door, get in myself to lift it into place, all over top of Jack who's already belted in on that side. Argh! Honestly, it's just plain rude and freakin stupid. Two courses of action popped into my head, seriously, I wanted to take my keys and run a nice line down their doors and write a seriously nasty note questioning their mental capacity and put it under the windshield wiper. I know it's not healthy to have this much rage over something so silly, but it happens often enough that I am seriously done with people this stupid.

ahhhh, in with the good air, out with the bad air.

And now the happy things:
I knew I had forgotten something in my post of good things last week. One really fun thing has been the climber/slide I found in the buy and sell. We bought it from a family moving back to England for only $25! hooray for emigration! (For those without kids, these things are ridiculously expensive, so this was a real score!) Jack has had tons of fun on it already.


And second, and probably most exciting of all, I found a pair of board shorts to wear over my tankini! Hooray, I will feel much less self conscious on the beach now. I can't wait to go swimming.

Lightbox Fun

 
 I haven't been scrapping as much lately as I've had a few other projects on the go, but here's what I have done. The apple pic was for our standards night with the youth at church. I took a lot of apple pictures! I wish I had waited until the green apple was browner but I ran out of time. As usual, I was doing this the night before. And the yellow layout is of my grandma, the first of many with those old family photos.

A Week of Good Things

 We've had a really good week around here, crazy busy but good! One of the most exciting things is that our seeds have sprouted! Only one little pot of sweet peas held out on us, a very successful start. Dale sent me a bunch of seeds out of the packages that she bought, thanks Dale! These are heirloom seeds, not hybrids, so in the fall we can collect the seeds from the fruit/veggies/flowers and plant them and they should grow. Fun! Dale sent many varieties of tomatoes, with names like Black Stripe, (they sound so exotic!) and I'm looking forward to trying them all and seeing which are best for making what.
  Eric turns nine months old tomorrow. He is a mover and a shaker, and really just an all around cutie. He's starting to look different to me. I think it's the hair. We've been attending Rhymes and Story Time at the Fort Sask. library on Wednesday mornings and both the boys seem to really enjoy it. My friend Debbie from church comes with her two girls that are pretty much the same age as J and E and Jack and Sariah have a hoot running around. The class is really for the babies and they have child minders to watch the older siblings. It's a nice break for me to not really worry about what he's doing but still not have to leave him with someone else. Eric loves all the interactive rhymes and songs we do together. I have had to suspend my disbelief/laughter at the whole concept of Rhymes and Story Time because I thought, oh yeah, nice for the kids, but honestly I'm quite enjoying it myself. Who knew?
 Jack is really starting to come into his own, for better and for worse! He plays much more independently know, particularly with trucks and such. He is 100% cuckoo for trucks! I tell you there has to be something innate in little boys that makes them love things with wheels. He has also adopted to quite emphatically saying NO to anything and everything that he isn't inclined to do/eat/listen to/ watch etc etc. Sometimes it's really funny, the nasally, whiny NO, but we try not to laugh to much.

This week I met with the institutional research directors at NAIT and Grant MacEwan. about 2 months ago I sent them letters introducing myself and offering to do some contract work on the side if they had any projects that they couldn't do in house. A couple of weeks ago I phoned to follow up and they were both lukewarm. They thought, that was nice, but they didn't really have anything. Then I meet with them this week and they both offered me projects. "Well, I do have something, it's pretty small, I only have $1000 to pay for it, it may not be something you are interested in." Ok, you want to pay me $1000 to set up a database with information that you've already half collected?? Yup, I think I'll take your $1000 and run. Darrel and I were pretty excited about it -1. that something worked out that well. You send out cold call letters and think well maybe something will come along. 2. that these two projects will bring in around $2000 which buys a new computer and miscellaneous house rennos that we wanted to do. 3. That we paid our tithing the week before and lo and behold if blessings aren't just poured out our way. It seems like whenever we follow through with doing what we know is right, even if it's hard, Heavenly Father blesses us immensely and immediately.

And finally, tonight for supper I have made a wickedly good Thai Green Curry Chicken. I've attempted before with mediocre success but I think tonight I mastered it, and that is a GOOD THING!

One More For the Road

 I was just browsing through these photos again and found another one I love. My Dad is the baby bundle on the right, and his twin brother Rick is on the left. The three older kids, Pearl, Verna and Andy have all crowded into the box. Too crazy!

Family Photos

Following my grandmother's death in 2000, my Aunt Pearl and Uncle Norm took all of the many photographs she had, (over 2000), scanned them, and gave each of Pearl's siblings a copy. I had forgotten they existed but asked my Mom last week about the CD and she said she had it and even knew where it was! On Monday the CD arrived in the mail for me and I've spent a few moments here and there looking at these pictures. It is fascinating to me -these people that I came from, their lives. Sometimes it's easy to think that we live so differently, that those pictures were "so long ago". But when I see these people I see joy and laughter, love for ones children and strikingly similar features to those I see in the mirror every day. What a treasure. I am so grateful that Pearl and Norm took the time to do this, thank you, thank you!
The first photo is of my Mom and Dad. I have no clue where they are, it must be around the time they were married, Mom is sporting some seriously 70's inspired clothing. I'm mainly posting this one just to prove to my Mom that it is her, it's incorrectly labelled as my Dad's brother and his first wife. But clearly it's La Mama and Le Papa!
The second photo is my grandmother, Iris Landon Blum. She was quite the gal. I had to laugh when I saw this photo, it could be an ad for how not to handle a weapon. It was probably loaded too. Ahhh, different times.

The next is my great grandmother, Blanche Eva Longpre Blum. The boy on the right, Verne, grew up to be my grandfather. Blanche and I share the same birth day.

The couple are my grandparents, Iris and Verne around the time of their wedding. Growing up there were two framed photo groupings of historical family photos in my home, and this photo was included. It kind of makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside because of that. It reminds me of home and laying on the living room floor reading, (strange what we associate with certain things). Plus, they look so happy and looking forward to life.

The final picture is my grandfather, Verne. Apparently he was quite the horseman, I need to get more info on this from my Dad, Uncles and Aunts. He also played a mean fiddle. Later he contracted MS and became quite crippled. I never got to know this man; my only recollections of him are from a time in his life when he was confined to a wheel chair and could no longer speak. He passed away when I was 6. I'm actually quite interested in meeting him one day "on the other side". I've always felt an affinity to him. Maybe because he was in my home a lot as a child, and I loved him, but didn't get to build a relationship.

So, I'll be happily scrapbooking historical stuff for the next ten years now with this infusion of 2000+ photos. Yikes! Again, Aunt Pearl and Uncle Norm ROCK for doing all this work!

Easter Fun

 The cold windy weather forced us to have an indoor easter egg hunt this past weekend. Jack really did seem to enjoy Easter, even more so this year as he got to appropriate some of Eric's gifts. Auntie Lara and family sent pinwheels for the boys and they were pretty darn popular. Jack runs around the house with one in each hand, it's quite cute.

Light Box

 
This past weekend, while Grant was here, the three of us headed downstairs and made a lightbox for photographing objects. Darrel had found this cool tutorial on how to build your own light box (macro studio according to this fellow's terminology), and off we went. Honestly, it took like 15 minutes to make and since we had a box and some vellum the only cost to us was the poster board we used for the backdrop inside. And voila, here's one of my photos of the plant in my kitchen. I'll definitely be playing with this some more!

Muttart Conservatory

 
 
  Today we visited the Muttart Conservatory. Darrel's best friend, Grant, is visiting from Lethbridge so we took the opportunity to be tourists in our own city. It felt so good to be in the warmth and sun of the pyramids and smell the plants and flowers. Jack loved the pools with the giant koi, the snake like cacti, and the paths to run on. Grant was in his element taking photos. I find that Grant is one of the easiest people I know to just "hang out" with. We always have a fun time when he visits, (or we visit him). And I think that partly it is that, (as both he and Darrel have described), he is both interesting and interested. Interesting because he knows something about a lot of things, has personality and opinions. Interested because he is always genuinely interested in what you think, do, and feel. Thanks for coming Grant!

Productivity

I had one of those days yesterday when you feel like a winner.

A few weeks ago I sent my resume and an introduction letter to the institutional research offices at Grant MacEwan and NAIT to let them know of my availability and willingness to do project or contract work for them. (Once my maternity leave money stops coming our family budget will be a smidge tighter than we would like so I'm trying to get a little income going. Plus after the kids are in school and I want to go back to work it will help to have contacts.) Yesterday I followed up and called them. For me this is really a hard thing to do. Cold calling someone is harder for me than actually going to visit them. I don't know why, it just is. I've always been kind of shy so this was an opportunity for me to get out of my comfort zone. Well, I got voicemail both times, almost a relief, but kind of a disappointment after working up my courage. But about 10 minutes later the director from NAIT called me back. And crazily enough he had just been to an executive meeting for a professional organization for institutional researchers and another member is a former co-worker of mine. My name must have come up because my former co-worker told him that he should meet with me. Man, it's a small world, and you never know how a contact you made 5 years ago will come back into your life. So, he asked me to come down and I'm meeting with him April 20th. I don't know if I will get any work out of this but it feels good that I was proactive and that this director wants to meet with me.

Then I phoned the ENT (Ear Nose and Throat) specialist that my ENT in Winnipeg was supposed to refer me to. It's been six weeks since he supposedly sent the letter and I hadn't heard from them so I called up the new guys office and asked if they had received the refererral. I am paranoid about stuff like this getting lost in the mail or the general shuffle of busy medical offices. And yes, they had my records but hadn't contacted me (grrrr). Surprisingly they gave me an appointment for the end of May, this is akin to a miracle since apparently the wait times for new patients to see an ENT is about 8 months in the Edmonton area. So again, I feel blessed that it worked out so well. I was scheduled to have a stapedectomy done on my left ear about a year and half ago but I became pregnant with Eric so it was canceled. My hearing in that ear has totally tanked so I really want to have something done. I saw a new hearing aid specialist in January and she recommended that I look into getting a BAHA, a bone anchored hearing aid, as my type of hearing loss is a good match for this device. Basically, the surgeon puts a small screw into the bone behind your ear. The head of the screw sticks out of your head and becomes the attachment piece for a very small box like hearing aid. I have a conductive hearing loss, the bones in my middle ear don't oscillate the way they should therefore the sound does not travel into my inner ear to be heard by the nerves and transmitted to my brain. The screw in my head (hahaha) would bypass the bones of my middle ear, essentially the mastoid bone would be the new conductor and I would hear like normal. If you use this device you don't need a hearing aid in each ear because it doesn't matter what side the BAHA is anchored on, it works for both ears. Sweet! I love my hearing aid, it makes my life soooo much better but it's still not quite the same as normal hearing and from what I've read this is one step better. The other plus is that this surgery is much less invasive than the stapedectomy, there's less chance of something going wrong. Inserting a screw on the outside is easier than going into my ear through my ear canal, and replacing a teeeny tiny bone without damaging anything else. So I'm crossing my fingers that the ENT specialist does indeed think I'm a good case for this device and that it won't take a million years of being on a waiting list to get the surgery done.

And finally, we took Jack with us to the chiropractor yesterday and had him adjusted. Since his fall down the stairs a couple of weeks ago it has been a nightmare getting him to go to sleep. He comes out of his room a million times and finally breaks down into a huge temper tantrum. I wondered if he was feeling yucky after that tumble, I mean he really wouldn't be able to tell us if he was having headaches or back pain right, and I know if I fell down the stairs like that I'd be in rough shape. Dr. Comeau said there were a few places on his back that were "out". In children they just apply gentle pressure to the offending places and they move back quite easily, no cracking or anything. :) And wouldn't you know it, last night it was 7:45, I read Jack three stories, turned out the lights, said prayers, sang a song, said good night, and he said bye bye, and that was it! Hooray. That chiropractor is our new best friend!! I love that man.

So all in all a stellar day, hopefully today is just as good!

Fish Face

 Eric routinely makes this fishy face. I wonder if he likes the feeling of sucking in on his cheeks, or if it soothes aching teething gums. Whatever the reason it can be pretty funny. I tell ya though, what a good looking baby! :)