Smiley

 

Time marching on...

 With work and my contract work that I've been finishing up, my scrapbooking time has fallen to bottom of the priority list. :( So, here's a very quick layout that I did to help remember some of the smaller details of the last little while.

Kitchen Renos

Our kitchen the week before we moved in. Note the lovely late 1960s faux wood grain cabinets with copper accent handles. Splendid! This doesn't truly give a proper picture of how ugly this room was. All the paint above the back splash was just a layer of primer, very splotchy and dingy.





Summer 2007 we painted the cabinets with hammer paint. New cabinets just weren't in the family budget, so we thought, what the heck, can't hurt! And it turned out pretty good.













Easter Monday 2008, Darrel and I painted the kitchen walls this dark yellow colour. The colour is titled "Woodthrush", which makes me think of ducks, but it is a really lovely colour. In this photo Darrel has not yet put the trim back up or razored the paint off of the tiles where we deliberately spilled. (A better final picture will be posted tomorrow.)

Rubber Boots

 

Funny Farm

 

Feeling Older, In a Good Way

So, previously when I have worked at educational institutions I was often mistaken for a student rather than a staff member. That was part and parcel with working at institutions with higher average student ages due to the nature of the programming. (Graduate degrees at U of M and people just taking their sweet time, and career programming at Red River that attracted older students). Here at GMCC the average student age is 21, a good solid decade less than my age. But the real difference I am finding is not merely just age but also attitudes, behaviours and lifestyle.

Here's some examples:
-Every student has a lap top. Seriously, the halls are filled with kids and it is rare to see one without a laptop. When I was in university I didn't even have my own desktop. All this computing abundance is shocking, I feel like going up to them and saying, "You don't know how lucky you are." But that smacks of Grandpa on the Simpsons so I don't, but I still think it!

-Concurrent with the proliferation of computers is the increase in other gadgets. The cell phones, the iphones, the ipods, the camera phones, you name it they have it. It's funny to me that there's areas in the library where they have outlawed cell phone use because the kids are just way too chatty, all the time, never stopping. Which means there's areas of the library it's ok to use your cell phone. This would not have flown with some of the librarians at U of L I can tell you. This can also be said for class attendance. Apparently profs have to compete with people's cell phone conversations. What?!? It's become socially acceptable among your peers to talk on the cell phone in your class?! Wow. (btw, with all this technology floating around it's really hard to take student poverty and debt seriously.)

-This is what is really going to mark me as "old" but here goes. The clothing, or lack thereof. There are some girls out there dressed very scantily. Seriously, I don't want to see your bra or your underwear. It is not cool to have your shirt unbuttoned to your belly button. Seriously!

-The hairstyles. What's with the comb over, straightened long hair look for guys?!?

-The piercings. There are people out there who look like they belong in National Geographic.

I know all of this dates me and makes me sound really old, but frankly I'm just really glad that I'm not 20 anymore. (Although I could have used that apple notebook when I was in school.)

Life in the Fast Lane

We've had some "complaints" about no regular updates, and I acknowledge my slackerness. So here's an attempt to get kind of caught up, sort of, basically just a few pictures to show some every day moments around here.

 I started working half time at Grant MacEwan College. I am really enjoying it. It's a good balance for us, the extra $$ is nice and I am feeling not so cooped up in Bon Accord. We had a staff retreat at Fort Edmonton Park this week with a sleigh ride after lunch. How can you tell I did not grow up on a farm, compared to my co-workers in their similar pictures I am miles away from those horses. Definitely not the horse whisperer this gal. The horses are even backing away from me.

 I spent one Saturday morning sorting through kids clothes, getting rid of stuff we can't use, finding all the clothes that now fit Eric etc. Well, I sorted through all the shoes and came upon the rubber boots. I got them out as I knew we'd need them in the next few months. Well! -the boys put those on and just couldn't part with them after that. This is Sunday morning before church and they actually wore them to church as nothing else would do. These two guys are becoming best friends. They are definitely interacting more and are "into" the same things. Blue's Clues, monster trucks, you name it, they do it together.

 I was washing the floor this day and the two boys were playing train on the chairs in the living room. Quite cute and endearing.

 Darrel was repairing the wall in the kitchen this weekend and Eric ended up playing (licking?) in it. Yikes this can not be good for him, in him or even on him.