Tuned In

As I've mentioned before I end up listening to CBC Radio in my car quite a bit as I drive to and fro. I have my favourites among CBC programming:

Sounds Like Canada
This is a wonderful show that, "takes you to the communities and people who make this country so diverse, complex and exciting." In particular I loved the Seven Wonders of Canada vote/search they did this spring. I love that we live in a country that voted to include the igloo, canoe, Rocky Mountains, Old Quebec City, and the Prairie Skies on a *top* list. Check it out, good program.

And Sometimes Y
I've caught this show a few times as it comes on after Sounds Like Canada some weekday mornings. It's a fun 1/2 hour romp through the English language and issues that are facing it. Sometimes controversial though, one week was dedicated to profanity and how what used to be profane is no longer profane. Very interesting show, it will feed your brain.

As it Happens
This is on in the early evening, I often listen as I drive to Young Women's activities. An interview format show; usually news, some serious, some not so serious, just weird. I list this with some reservation as lately I've been annoyed by it. MaryLou Findlay, one of the hosts retired last year and was replaced by Carol Auff. Ms. Auff has to be one of the worst interviewers I have ever heard. She's leading, annoying and comes off as rather ignorant. But that's mainly on the controversial topics, she's pleasant enough on the fluff pieces. So, bear in mind that you can always shut her off if you're about to go postal from the interview style.

Good stuff to be had. If only CBC TV were as good as CBC Radio!

Eleven Months Old

 My baby is growing so fast! I can't believe that he'll be one in less than a month! He has slept through the night now for three nights in a row...a record to be sure. I am jumping up and down with joy, believe me. This little guy sure brightens our days and our lives. He is so happy, cheerful and cute. We are blessed.

Sleep

 Normally I would never scrapbook photos of myself sleeping, I mean really, who looks good when they are caught sleeping? Facial muscles slack, mouth open, drool etc. However, I'm on a kick to capture real life, and this is very real, very us. Somebody is usually sleeping Sunday afternoon, and the weeks that it's me I'm a happy woman.

Cleanin' Out and Cleanin' Up

I am super happy. I've been posting some things in the online buy and sell in an effort to clear our lives of clutter. In the last two days I've sold my double stroller, that is big and awkward, and the old washer and dryer set that came with this house. Not only am I rid of the "junk" but I now have $125 to put towards the new spanky jogging stroller I would like, (or as Darrel jokes, the new spanky metal detector that he would like). Either way, I am happy about my selling success! Now to sell the extra washer in the basement, the old modem, the .....

Book Review #3 -The Hundred Secret Senses

So, I took a hiatus from actually reviewing the books I was reading. It seems a little silly to review brain candy books and historical romances. But, here I am, back at it, reading actual literature. This book centers on Olivia, a Chinese American, trying to make sense of life and her relationships with her sister and estranged husband. Olivia's a little neurotic, the same way that many of us are, and it doesn't help that her sister, Kwan, is, hmmm, shall we say a little different. Amy Tan does write quite beautifully. One of my favorite passages in the book was:

"I planned to talk about the problems later. How he saw avoidance as normal and I saw it as a warning. How we didn't know how to talk to each other anymore, how in protecting our own territory we were losing common ground. before it was too late, I wanted to say that whatever love had brought us together had dwindled and now needed to be restocked. At times I feared that our love had never overflowed into plenty, that it had been enough for a few years but was never meant to last a lifetime. We mistook a snack for a recurring harvest. We were two people starved for abundant love but too tired to say so, leg-ironed together until time passed us by and we left this world, two vague hopes without dreams, just another random combination of sperm and egg, male and female, once here now gone....Now that our marriage is over, I know what love is. It's a trick on the brain, the adrenal glands releasing endorphins. It floods the cells that transmit worry and better sense, drowns them with biochemical bliss. You can know all these things about love, yet it remains irresistible, as beguiling as the floating arms of long sleep."

Overall a very good read, I couldn't put it down once I started.

Me, Unedited

 
 Jess asked me to take some pictures of her while visiting, and at the end I had her take a few of me. This is somewhat of a rare thing, to have half decent photos of me, (as opposed to self-taken at arms length, wierd flash photos), and to have me post them entirely unedited. I have taken, as of late, to digitally altering most photos that I scrapbook as I've learned a few tricks of the photo editing trade. A little teeth whitening here, wrinkle smoothing there etc etc. But this is me, unedited, as is, on June 20, 2007, just for posterity sake. The next time you see these photos they'll be on a layout and look oh so subtley different. :) Not that I'm not fairly happy with me and how I look, but you know, there's always room for a little touching up. I'm quite pleased with my last haircut, it's finally back to a decent length after last summer's disaster move of "going a little bit shorter". Note to self: keep it simple, some version of a short bob is really you, don't mess with that!!!!

Tim & Faith

    
Way back in March I bought tickets for Soul2Soul, the Tim McGraw and Faith Hill tour. It was a long wait, but boy was it worth it. Jess and I had such a FABULOUS time!! It was so much fun, the music was good, and really I can't imagine a better friend to go with, she is very good at drawing me out of my shell. Jess is a hoot and is a lot of fun to hang with. Faith Hill has got to be the only woman on earth that can wear glittery spandex-y clothing and look hot. She has to have one some sort of contest in the pre-existence to inherit genes that good.
They played all the songs we know and love and Jess and hooted, hollered, chair danced, sang and laughed to our hearts content. It was a wonderful evening, one I won't forget soon. As a side note, Darrel is the best husband ever. Despite being home all day with strep throat he didn't complain or make me feel guilty about taking off and leaving him to deal with the kids on his own all evening, (heck we even left early and went out to dinner first!). Thanks honey, you are one in a million!

Out and About

 
 We enjoyed the good weather today and spent quite a bit of time outside. We walked down to the library to get some books about bugs. Eric fell asleep on the way home. I discovered one of the good things about the carrier we found garage sale-ing is that it can stand up by itself. Handy for putting on by yourself, and handy if you want the baby to keep sleeping after you take it off. Darrel thought this picture of Jack was sooo sad: a little boy's popsicle ruined by the sand. Then I told him that Jack wasn't that upset about the popsicle but mad at me for not relieving him of the sticky mess immediately. The final insult was me trying to take a picture rather than clean things up. I notice that he often trys to brush or wipe things off of his hands, he doesn't seem to like the texture of dirt or sand, or the feeling of stickiness. Which is interesting as I am kind of like that. I wash my hands about 20 times during the course of making a batch of cookies because I don't like crumbs and particles on my fingers. My grandmother, Iris, was like that as well. I distinctly remember her telling me as a little girl that she hated the feel of sugar stuck to her fingers. Goodness knows, maybe that's how I became hyper-aware of those types of textures. Interesting how these little traits get passed on, either genetically or socially. I don't think I've made a big deal about this to Jack, so it would seem that his dislike is a "nature" thing as opposed to a "nurture" thing. It does make you think though, about not passing on phobias or strange habits to your kids.

Our First ER Visit

Another first for our family occurred yesterday: our first trip to the ER for one of the kids. As far as ER trips are concerned this one was not too bad. Jack has just badly sprained his arm, no break or dislocation, so we got off easy. Here's what happened: He was outside with Darrel yesterday and Darrel closed the overhead garage door. Jack saw something he still wanted out of the garage, Darrel was holding Jack's hand and prevented him from running under the door and getting crushed (well, technically there's a mechanism to prevent this but you know what I mean). Jack then threw himself to the ground in a fine temper tantrum that only 2 year olds can do so well, while Darrel was holding his hand. According to the doctor these injuries are quite common in this age group. I'm only surprised it doesn't happen more often, who of us has not had one of our kids violently drop to the ground in protest over something or other?! So today will be a TV watching, rest up, take pain killers, kind of day around here. It's really too bad because our Bishop delivered the sand for Jack's new sandbox last night. It's sitting out there, pristine in the sandbox. Begging to be groomed into roads, hills, tunnels, and open pit mines.

While I am indeed grateful that we have access to emergency medical treatment in this country, and last nights escapade didn't cost us $1000, I do have to wonder a bit at a system where we have to wait 3.5 hours in an ER just to have a couple of x-rays and be proclaimed ok. Yes, I know I should not complain too loudly. We were at the Fort Saskatchewan hospital, which is quite small and very fast comparatively. If we had been in the city I'm sure we'd still be sitting in the waiting room. But they were not busy, no ambulances came in the whole time we were there, most of the other patients had driven themselves in, definitely not cardiac arrests or severe trauma cases. At Jack's intake the attendant plainly wrote on the form, x-ray and examine, and 2 hours into our experience a nurse came and asked when we had our x-rays done and I said, "we haven't, we've been just waiting in this treatment room." She said, "oh", like ooops and then it still took another 45 minutes to go take the x-rays. For an Emergency department with 6 treatment rooms, and at one point three doctors on duty, things sure didn't seem to move very fast. I know I wasn't privy to all the behind the scenes stuff, but the wannabe efficiency expert in me says there is definitely some room for improvement there.

Sunday Morning Woe

 Every dog has his day, so to speak, and Sunday morning was Darrel's. I have a particular bad, (and annoying to certain other household members), habit of not properly closing things and putting the lids on properly. I went to move a full 3kg bucket of honey Sunday morning to pull out pancake mix, knocked it over and spilled half of it on the counter. Apparently the last time I made toast and honey I merely set the lid on top of the bucket, didn't actually snap it closed. Well, 1.5 kg of honey is a lot of honey on a counter! Darrel had a good laugh at my expense, and rightfully so, and then helped me clean up the mess. I think I've learned my lesson.

Saturdays

I'm not sure why, but lately I find myself cranky on Saturdays. I think it is perhaps that there is no routine like a regular week day and things get all of out whack. The kids don't eat on time, and thus get over hungry and tired, and have melt downs. And I always expect to get more done, have more fun, and have more quality time with Darrel, more than what ends up happening. We are often too busy or rushing from thing to thing, or just plain haven't figured out what we really want to do, so end up wasting the time. Such was the case today. But a 2.5 hour nap for Mom and Jack did somewhat help the situation!

Last week I heard of a new profesison. "Professional corn maze designer". Yup, it's real. I was at the local greenhouse, which is kind of a country destination for the city folk. They do a huge corn maze there every year, and the design/drawing of this year's maze was sitting by the till. So I started chatting with the lady about it. Turns out they are hiring a fellow to come from Missouri with his gps and hike them through the field, telling them where to rototiller out the maze path in the growing corn. And they are paying him $3500!! What?! I said, well, my husband has a gps and he's pretty handy, maybe he should talk to you. It just seems bizarre. Apparently there's only 2 guys doing this in the US and none in Canada. At $3500 a field, I think Darrel should become the new Canadian gps corn maze guy!! But, as the lady said, it's a deal for them, last year it took them 3 weeks to cut the maze by hand. They started when the corn was waist high and by the end it was up over their heads. That would be tough slogging. So driving a rototiller behind a guy telling you where to turn for one day seems pretty easy peasy. This is the third and final piece of new wall art for my dining room. Just little snippets from the last 6 weeks. well, I should get to bed, even if I did nap all afternoon. The rigors of Sunday will be here all to soon. (early meetings, keep kids quiet, happy and still in church, convince J to go to nursery, teach very chatty teenagers, go to presidency meetings after church....on and on). Bon soir.

New Dining Room Art

  In my dining room I have three framed scrapbook pages that are changed periodically. Well, the ones up right now are from nearly a year ago, when Eric was born. Time for a refresh, so I sat down this afternoon and made "matching" pages for Eric and Jack. Honestly, my boys should nap at the same time every day, I would be so accomplished, well balanced and happy! :)

This and That

  This morning we drove Nan to the bus depot. We were so happy to have her here! I found myself a little blue this afternoon, missing the company, the scrabble games, the conversation, and of course the help. But all good things must come to an end, n'est-ce pas? And we will be out in Shaunavon in roughly six weeks, so more fun is just around the corner. These photos are just from the last few days, happy simple things amidst every day life. Jack gave Eric a random hug, it was quite cute. The second is Jack playing with scissors. He loves manipulating these craft scissors, and really who wouldn't?! as you can see he's pretty much got every pair attached to that piece of newspaper.

Other things of this week: I think we can officially declare "uh-oh" as Eric's first word. Tonight he dropped a book on the floor, looked at me and said uh-oh. I picked it up, gave it to him, he threw it down again, looked up at me again, and said "uh-oh" with a huge grin on his face. (I'm thinking uh-oh, this child his only 10 months old and he's playing me with his little jokes!) Eric is also making great leaps and bounds physically. He learned how to sit back up after being on his tummy and he's starting to push up on his hands and knees. I had him in the empty sandbox today while I worked outside and he almost launched himself over the 10" side walls.

I planted raspberries and tomatoes today. Many thanks to Lara for giving us the raspberry cuttings! I can't wait to have berries from our own garden!

You Know You're a Lucky Boy When

 You are definitely a lucky boy when you have a tractor to haul your Monster Truck! Jack inherited this tractor from his cousin Aidan and it has definitely been popular. It spent the winter making tracks in the basement and recently was released into the wild of the back yard. On Monday we used it to haul the garbage to the curb. The bag went in the trailer, Jack went on the seat, and I pushed the whole contraption. Perhaps not the most efficient but Jack was so proud of "helping". LOL!

A Tribute to the Great Dad Around Here

 Darrel is a great Dad. Every day Jack runs smiling and excited to the door when he hears Darrel's car pull in the drive after work. He takes the time to let Jack hang out with him while he's working on projects. He is extremely patient with all of Jack's "helping". I am so glad that he's my husband and such a terrific father!

ps. I hope the title of this doesn't sound like an obituary! I borrowed the idea from a scrapbooking mag but it was titled "remember me" and was all about the things the Mom did with her kids. So, nope, Darrel is still alive and kicking it case it makes you think otherwise!

Sunday Afternoon Hike

 
 
 
 This afternoon we went for a little walk in a nature preserve area about 20 minutes north of here. It's kind of neat, you hike about two minutes in and all of sudden you are in a different type of landscape, all pine trees, sandy soil and mossy ground. The day was quite hot, 27C and on top of that the mosquitos are fierce this year, so our hike only lasted about 40 minutes. We had a good time taking Nan to some place new and having her tell us the names of plants. Anne is a fountain of knowledge. She has identified all the perrenials in our flower beds, hooray! I now know what it is I'm growing, and if it's really supposed to look sickly like that, in the case of one plant. (The answer is no!) Eric has not seen Nan for 5 months so of course he is showing off all of his skills and charm. Jack is happy to show Nan all of his trucks of course. We're so happy she has come to visit!

Remember

 I always get this warm, fuzzy feeling when I'm in the Okanagan in the summer. This comes from many great summer memories in my later high school years. There were five of us from church that hung out together and in many ways I think we were each other's saviors. We went to three different high schools and some of us had pretty crappy times, high school can be sooo hard eh? But we always had each other to do stuff with on the weekends and we were all accepted for who and what we were. (I was the nerdy one with NO fashion sense. Jess still laughs about some of the outfits/ensembles I had! Come on Jess, I know you were jealous of that shiny, billowy, knee length, loud as a hawaiin shirt, skirt that I wore with my black blouse! Hmmm, I think I am still the nerdy one with no fashion sense, hahaha!)

I've lost touch with Nan and Kari, although I hope to see Kari more now that my parents live in Vernon again. While our lives have all taken us different places I will always be glad for these friends. We made it through some rough years together and they were the best friends a girl could have.

Machinery

 I am conviced that we need to have a baby girl before "finishing our family". I'm so curious about nature vs. nurture and seeing how a child of a different gender may behave differently or the same. Jack is OBSESSED with trucks and machinery. He knows and can distinguish between a cement truck, bulldozer, hoe, dump truck, tractor and crane. We have enough trucks right now that we could start our own tonka store. One of the highlights of our trip to BC was Jack being able to ride the lawn mower and quad with grandpa. It was almost too much -he would sit up there and be super serious, so keen to see everything and experience that ride. Ride on little boy, ride on!