Friday, September 29
Cat Haikus
this is totally what my cats would write. If they could. They do both have thumbs, so they probably could, in fact, if they really wanted to.
Wednesday, September 27
Go support my mom
Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation: Run for the Cure. If you're going to support someone, and I surely hope you are, you might as well donate to my mom. She's a 9 year survivor, and the run is on the anniversary of her surgery. Come on. Do it. DO it.
I had a lovely birthday supper last night with the man, my sister, and her man, and the babe. The babe has hit the age where he's no fun in restaurants. He doesn't want to sit still for...any amount of time. He eats 2 bites and then wants to run around for an hour. I know this is fun for other restaurant-goers, so it looks like we're limited to McD's for a while, and are in the market for a babysitter in the neighbourhood. Just in case we want to go to not McDs for supper. We went to the Blue Door last night, and it was quite tasty. They brought me out a crème caramel (that è just took me like, 4 minutes to figure out) with a sparkler in it for dessert. I also got a caramel apple making kit, and some truffles from Laura Secord. Mmm. And a really nice watch. It's like a grown up lady's watch, very fancy. It's too big, needs a couple of links taken out, but I'm wearing it anyway, because I like it. So there.
I don't feel any older, and yesterday I felt a little less wise, because I accidentally brought the boy's lunch bag with me to work. Which is a good 30 minutes from where he goes to the sitter. It had his drinks and snacks in it. I felt like such an idiot. And the man was unimpressed, thinking it was just hiding in the house somewhere, and not wanting to be accused of being a bad looker for things (because he usually really is, terrible), he spent a long time looking for the bag and for things to go in it, but found only one 'litterless' (plastic) juicebox to send with the lad to the sitters. Anyway, he was fine, but still. I didn't do it again today! I even packed myself a lunch, of leftover Wok Chicken. Mmm.
Alright. I have to find some kids and observe them, and then do some testing. I'm kind of excited, actually.
I had a lovely birthday supper last night with the man, my sister, and her man, and the babe. The babe has hit the age where he's no fun in restaurants. He doesn't want to sit still for...any amount of time. He eats 2 bites and then wants to run around for an hour. I know this is fun for other restaurant-goers, so it looks like we're limited to McD's for a while, and are in the market for a babysitter in the neighbourhood. Just in case we want to go to not McDs for supper. We went to the Blue Door last night, and it was quite tasty. They brought me out a crème caramel (that è just took me like, 4 minutes to figure out) with a sparkler in it for dessert. I also got a caramel apple making kit, and some truffles from Laura Secord. Mmm. And a really nice watch. It's like a grown up lady's watch, very fancy. It's too big, needs a couple of links taken out, but I'm wearing it anyway, because I like it. So there.
I don't feel any older, and yesterday I felt a little less wise, because I accidentally brought the boy's lunch bag with me to work. Which is a good 30 minutes from where he goes to the sitter. It had his drinks and snacks in it. I felt like such an idiot. And the man was unimpressed, thinking it was just hiding in the house somewhere, and not wanting to be accused of being a bad looker for things (because he usually really is, terrible), he spent a long time looking for the bag and for things to go in it, but found only one 'litterless' (plastic) juicebox to send with the lad to the sitters. Anyway, he was fine, but still. I didn't do it again today! I even packed myself a lunch, of leftover Wok Chicken. Mmm.
Alright. I have to find some kids and observe them, and then do some testing. I'm kind of excited, actually.
Monday, September 25
It's my birthday tomorrow!
I sure hope you all bought me something exciting.
A brief sidebar with regards to buying things - I get Scholastic Bookorders now, the joys of middle school! If you'd like to order some books through me (and I know you, and you're willing to pay for them, of course) then let me know. You can check out the flyers at the Scholastic site.
Anwyay, back to me. I'll be 27. Holy cow! I'm not having a crisis about it or anything, no ages have really thrown me yet, but there's always 30. Jenn and I were talking the other day, about the fact that a coworker of hers had just turned 35. We were saying how that's really not that far off, and it seems both old and not old at the same time. It's getting awfully close to 40, which in my head (I'm stuck at age 24, not sure why) seems old, but in reality, I know it's not. Weird. Anyway, I'll let you know how this one goes. I feel pretty good though, got the whole decent job, good man, sweet baby thing going, so I can't really complain. There are of course details which I could complain about, but on the whole, it's a good setup.
Have to keep this short, cause I'm at work and we have a staff meeting in about 30 seconds. Tried to go to breakfast with Jenn on Sunday.
How to tell you live in a university town.
1 - The only places open for breakfast are McDonald's and Cora's, neither of which we're interested in because we're looking for real food with less than a 2 hour wait.
2 - Seriously. Harvey's has breakfast, they don't open til 11. As do most other places. Ringo's, Bugaboo Creek pub. We tried the Blue Door, they don't do breakfast, and they only open at 5pm.
3 - I know for a fact that I ate breakfast at most of the aforementioned places while I was in university, and the realisation that breakfast before 11 was unheard of, is kind of funny.
anyway. off I go.
A brief sidebar with regards to buying things - I get Scholastic Bookorders now, the joys of middle school! If you'd like to order some books through me (and I know you, and you're willing to pay for them, of course) then let me know. You can check out the flyers at the Scholastic site.
Anwyay, back to me. I'll be 27. Holy cow! I'm not having a crisis about it or anything, no ages have really thrown me yet, but there's always 30. Jenn and I were talking the other day, about the fact that a coworker of hers had just turned 35. We were saying how that's really not that far off, and it seems both old and not old at the same time. It's getting awfully close to 40, which in my head (I'm stuck at age 24, not sure why) seems old, but in reality, I know it's not. Weird. Anyway, I'll let you know how this one goes. I feel pretty good though, got the whole decent job, good man, sweet baby thing going, so I can't really complain. There are of course details which I could complain about, but on the whole, it's a good setup.
Have to keep this short, cause I'm at work and we have a staff meeting in about 30 seconds. Tried to go to breakfast with Jenn on Sunday.
How to tell you live in a university town.
1 - The only places open for breakfast are McDonald's and Cora's, neither of which we're interested in because we're looking for real food with less than a 2 hour wait.
2 - Seriously. Harvey's has breakfast, they don't open til 11. As do most other places. Ringo's, Bugaboo Creek pub. We tried the Blue Door, they don't do breakfast, and they only open at 5pm.
3 - I know for a fact that I ate breakfast at most of the aforementioned places while I was in university, and the realisation that breakfast before 11 was unheard of, is kind of funny.
anyway. off I go.
Saturday, September 9
starting over
So, I've survived my first 2 weeks at the new job, one week with students, which is no small feat. It's a small school, our numbers this year are 153 students and 9 teaching staff, including the principal. I'm enjoying the job so far, the hardest part has been making a schedule for my 2 TAs. We have one student who requires full time TA support, so that leaves us with one TA. Not sure how to make that work, but it's been done, and I guess you just do what you can. We had been told initially that this student actually does better without people sitting on him constantly. That's just not true, unfortunately. So, we'll sit on him for now, and try to back off later. The school is nice, everyone gets along well (which is nice, and a bit surprising), but everyone does their own thing too. I have a bunch of reading comprehension tests to mark this weekend, which is super fun. Marking has always been my least favourite part of teaching. In large quantities anyway. I know I'll be doing testing as part of my job, but not normally for a group of 50 kids all at once.
It's the babe's 17 month birthday today. We celebrated by going to the market, Staples, and Superstore. I wanted to go to Home Depot too, but he needed a nap. One of the reasons I needed to go to HD is that my clothesline has broken. 3 times. I wish I was kidding. I put up this stupid clothesline. I bought the kit from Canadian Tire, with the spinney end parts, 150' of line, and the winch thing to join the 2 ends. I get up there, I'm drilling pilot holes in trees, I'm precariously perched on a ladder, I'm getting things done. I get it all strung and screwed, and I'm holding one end of line in my left hand and the other end in my right hand, and I have literally...3 feet of air in the middle. There is no way the line is going to reach for me to be able to connect it. So, apparently from the corner of our house to the nearest sturdy tree is not 75, but about 76.5'. Excellent. So, a few days later, I make it out and buy another winch thing to splice in a piece of line that I stole from my sister. She didn't need it, her line was long enough. So, good. I splice in the line with the 2 winch things, and am good to go. Before I ever get clothes hung out on it, I notice it's loose. This is maybe a day or 2 later. I go to see what's up, and I see that one of the winches has broken. Ok. Fine. I take it off, and go to HD and buy some clamp things made specifically for looping clothesline ends together, in cases such as mine. Perfect. I put them on, and am good to go again. I do a load of laundry, and I hang my clothes out. I'm really excited. I go mow the lawn. Then my line falls down. Apparently, I did not squeeze the shit out of the clamps enough, and the line slid out. My fault, I can accept that. I'm still furious, because all my clothes are on the ground, but it's my own fault, so whatever. I take all the clothes off the line, because I can't get it back up with stuff hanging on it. I loop the ends together again, and put 3 clamps instead of the recommended 2 on each end. 3 new ones on the end that slid out, and 1 new one to go with the 2 already on the end that stayed put. I squeeze the shit out of the clamps. I use 2 different sets of pliers. My hands were sore for days. The line WILL NOT slip this time. I'm happy. I put the clothes back on the line. I will have fresh smelling line-dried clothes if it kills me. I go out, I come back, clothes are still hanging. I'm happy. I go put something in my bedroom, I look out the patio door, clothes are on the ground. WTF. Upon investigation, it is discovered that the line itself has broken. Seriously. The line that was supposed to hold up to 1100lbs. It had a basket of clothes on it. Not towels or anything, a load of the babe's clothes, which are tiny, and a load of our clothes with a fitted sheet in it. Actually, the sheet wasn't even on the line, because after the 2nd time it fell, I said, eff it, I'll put the sheet and socks and stuff in the dryer, and just dry the regular clothes. So. We have no clothesline, I guess is the moral of the story. I told my dad this story, and I decided that I must have angered some clothes-hanging-out god or something, because really. WTF. I will try again, I will get a 160'+ piece of super deluxe heavy duty line that will stand up to towels hanging in hurricanes, and hope for the best. Wish me luck.
In other news, the babe is doing very well at his sitter's. She has a 13 month old boy, and also watches a 5 month old girl, and they all play really well together. Well, the 5 month old doesn't really do much other than laugh at the boys, but that's goood. Dear husband drops the babe off in the mornings because it's on his way to work, and in the opposite direction of where I go to work. It was rough and traumatic for him at first (the husband, not the babe), but once he realised that babe has fun at the sitter's, and does not cry for more than 10 seconds after Dad leaves, all is well. We've also had to buy a 2nd carseat, because DH was leaving it at the sitter's in the morning, and I was installing it and bringing the boy home in the evenings. That got old really fast. We looked for a while, because if I can avoid spending $200, I will, and my sister found me one at Zellers for $99. It's not the super deluxe model, but it's Cosco, which is a good name, and it's a 3-in-1 carseat / booster, so it's good stuff. And, it has a cup holder. Also, since kids have to be in carseats / boosters until they're like, 80lbs or something, it's quite likely that we will need 2 carseats at one time.
Hmm. I got a new phone, the Nokia 6265i. I like it. It's also a radio, 2mp camera / video camera, and mp3 player. And alarm clock. And other stuff that's cool. I can connect it to my computer and sync files and contacts, which is good, because it doesn't have a sim card, nor did my last phone, so I lost all my contacts, which is annoying.
DH has started his masters in ... fire protection engineering? I think. Something very close to that. He's doing it mainly by correspondence, but taking a couple of courses here at the university. He's pretty excited about it, so I guess I am too! I think sometime I will do my masters, but not just yet. After there are no tiny babies, I'll take a year of Ed leave and do it. With summer courses, I should be able to do it in a year. I have to decide in what though. I'd like to do a joint one in resource / guidance, but I don't think it exists. I guess I would pick one and do any electives in the other.
My cat is sitting, staring at me, waiting for me to move my arm so he can jump up and crush my lap. I'm not doing it, Mort. You have to wait.
My sister and her man got a puppy. He's very cute. He's a chocolate lab named Reese. I'll post some pictures soon. I have some in my gmail, but I'm trying to do minimal stuff right now, because I'm downloading the nokia suite thing that lets me connect my phone to my computer, and it's a 17.1mb file, and it's 37% done and still has over an hour to go. Good times. I love dialup. I did appreciate though, on the Nokia site, there was a link for dial up users to click and go to the non-graphic version of the download site. Very thoughtful of them. Most ... pretty much all sites, assume that everyone has highspeed. I don't. I can't get it, and I don't need to be further annoyed by not being able to access some sites because they take too long. Jerks.
Holy long post, batman. Ooh, 17 days til my birthday! I'd like a watch. I haven't gotten my laptop yet, so a personal laptop is still on my wishlist also. I'll let you know if I think of anything else.
It's the babe's 17 month birthday today. We celebrated by going to the market, Staples, and Superstore. I wanted to go to Home Depot too, but he needed a nap. One of the reasons I needed to go to HD is that my clothesline has broken. 3 times. I wish I was kidding. I put up this stupid clothesline. I bought the kit from Canadian Tire, with the spinney end parts, 150' of line, and the winch thing to join the 2 ends. I get up there, I'm drilling pilot holes in trees, I'm precariously perched on a ladder, I'm getting things done. I get it all strung and screwed, and I'm holding one end of line in my left hand and the other end in my right hand, and I have literally...3 feet of air in the middle. There is no way the line is going to reach for me to be able to connect it. So, apparently from the corner of our house to the nearest sturdy tree is not 75, but about 76.5'. Excellent. So, a few days later, I make it out and buy another winch thing to splice in a piece of line that I stole from my sister. She didn't need it, her line was long enough. So, good. I splice in the line with the 2 winch things, and am good to go. Before I ever get clothes hung out on it, I notice it's loose. This is maybe a day or 2 later. I go to see what's up, and I see that one of the winches has broken. Ok. Fine. I take it off, and go to HD and buy some clamp things made specifically for looping clothesline ends together, in cases such as mine. Perfect. I put them on, and am good to go again. I do a load of laundry, and I hang my clothes out. I'm really excited. I go mow the lawn. Then my line falls down. Apparently, I did not squeeze the shit out of the clamps enough, and the line slid out. My fault, I can accept that. I'm still furious, because all my clothes are on the ground, but it's my own fault, so whatever. I take all the clothes off the line, because I can't get it back up with stuff hanging on it. I loop the ends together again, and put 3 clamps instead of the recommended 2 on each end. 3 new ones on the end that slid out, and 1 new one to go with the 2 already on the end that stayed put. I squeeze the shit out of the clamps. I use 2 different sets of pliers. My hands were sore for days. The line WILL NOT slip this time. I'm happy. I put the clothes back on the line. I will have fresh smelling line-dried clothes if it kills me. I go out, I come back, clothes are still hanging. I'm happy. I go put something in my bedroom, I look out the patio door, clothes are on the ground. WTF. Upon investigation, it is discovered that the line itself has broken. Seriously. The line that was supposed to hold up to 1100lbs. It had a basket of clothes on it. Not towels or anything, a load of the babe's clothes, which are tiny, and a load of our clothes with a fitted sheet in it. Actually, the sheet wasn't even on the line, because after the 2nd time it fell, I said, eff it, I'll put the sheet and socks and stuff in the dryer, and just dry the regular clothes. So. We have no clothesline, I guess is the moral of the story. I told my dad this story, and I decided that I must have angered some clothes-hanging-out god or something, because really. WTF. I will try again, I will get a 160'+ piece of super deluxe heavy duty line that will stand up to towels hanging in hurricanes, and hope for the best. Wish me luck.
In other news, the babe is doing very well at his sitter's. She has a 13 month old boy, and also watches a 5 month old girl, and they all play really well together. Well, the 5 month old doesn't really do much other than laugh at the boys, but that's goood. Dear husband drops the babe off in the mornings because it's on his way to work, and in the opposite direction of where I go to work. It was rough and traumatic for him at first (the husband, not the babe), but once he realised that babe has fun at the sitter's, and does not cry for more than 10 seconds after Dad leaves, all is well. We've also had to buy a 2nd carseat, because DH was leaving it at the sitter's in the morning, and I was installing it and bringing the boy home in the evenings. That got old really fast. We looked for a while, because if I can avoid spending $200, I will, and my sister found me one at Zellers for $99. It's not the super deluxe model, but it's Cosco, which is a good name, and it's a 3-in-1 carseat / booster, so it's good stuff. And, it has a cup holder. Also, since kids have to be in carseats / boosters until they're like, 80lbs or something, it's quite likely that we will need 2 carseats at one time.
Hmm. I got a new phone, the Nokia 6265i. I like it. It's also a radio, 2mp camera / video camera, and mp3 player. And alarm clock. And other stuff that's cool. I can connect it to my computer and sync files and contacts, which is good, because it doesn't have a sim card, nor did my last phone, so I lost all my contacts, which is annoying.
DH has started his masters in ... fire protection engineering? I think. Something very close to that. He's doing it mainly by correspondence, but taking a couple of courses here at the university. He's pretty excited about it, so I guess I am too! I think sometime I will do my masters, but not just yet. After there are no tiny babies, I'll take a year of Ed leave and do it. With summer courses, I should be able to do it in a year. I have to decide in what though. I'd like to do a joint one in resource / guidance, but I don't think it exists. I guess I would pick one and do any electives in the other.
My cat is sitting, staring at me, waiting for me to move my arm so he can jump up and crush my lap. I'm not doing it, Mort. You have to wait.
My sister and her man got a puppy. He's very cute. He's a chocolate lab named Reese. I'll post some pictures soon. I have some in my gmail, but I'm trying to do minimal stuff right now, because I'm downloading the nokia suite thing that lets me connect my phone to my computer, and it's a 17.1mb file, and it's 37% done and still has over an hour to go. Good times. I love dialup. I did appreciate though, on the Nokia site, there was a link for dial up users to click and go to the non-graphic version of the download site. Very thoughtful of them. Most ... pretty much all sites, assume that everyone has highspeed. I don't. I can't get it, and I don't need to be further annoyed by not being able to access some sites because they take too long. Jerks.
Holy long post, batman. Ooh, 17 days til my birthday! I'd like a watch. I haven't gotten my laptop yet, so a personal laptop is still on my wishlist also. I'll let you know if I think of anything else.
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