thanksgiving, in Canada. and stuff.

I, for the first time, prepared Thanksgiving dinner. For the past few years, (this being the 6th, to be precise) my dad's side of the family has been getting together at Thanksgiving. It's nice, we're kind of spread out, and so we get together this once a year. Most of the family was able to come out to the wedding, so I got to see people then. This year, the big day was held in Hamilton. The budget just wasn't going to allow any flying, and driving would have just been madness with the tiny boy and only for...basically one day by the time we got there. Anyhoo, so we had Turkey Day here, and my sister and her man came to feast on absurd amounts of food with the husband and I and the dear boy. Dear boy was not interested in turkey dinner, and generally made it difficult for me to get most things done, but he did sit on the counter and chew on a piece of bread while I did pre-supper dishes. So, yes. My sister made cranberry sauce, which as far as cranberry sauces go, was delicious. I'm not a huge fan, myself. It's good on leftover turkey sandwiches, but that's about it. We had turkey, which I stuffed with my version of my dad's stuffing. I bought the turkey in the US of A, on a flying road trip with a co-worker of mine. She's doing her B.Ed. at UMPI, and had to head over there Friday afternoon to get some papers signed. We were at meetings in Centreville, which is about 20 minutes from a border crossing (Bridgeview, I think?), so I went along for the drive. We went to the university for about 3 minutes, then to WalMart and Shop 'n' Save. WalMart yeilded a terrific haul of Halloween candy and some Gerber treats for the boy. SnS had Butterballs for $1.49/lb. Sweet. I got the smallest one, which was 9.99lbs. Cathy got the biggest one, which was like, 25lbs. She was having 10 people at her dinner. I had 4.5. So, yes. Turkey, with stuffing. Potatoes, turnip, carrots, and beets. Apple pie that the boy's sitter made for us, and pumpkin pie that I made for us. The pumpkin part tasted really good (I did make it from scratch with just plain pumpkin from a can, not pie filling, so I can take credit). The pastry was kind of crunchy, which was odd, but I blame that I tried to use half crisco and half butter, and have never done that before. I had never made turkey or pumpkin pie, so all in all, things went swimmingly.

I'm in Florenceville today and tomorrow. It smells like french fries. McCain is based there, I think. We had a kick-ass lunch, real food instead of the lame cold sandwiches we usually get. We also got chocolate chip cookies, which are pretty much off limits in our district, for the new nutrition policy. I got away from one district with their silly dress code, and now can't find a chocolate cookie or a bag of chips to save my life. Or at least my sanity, which sometimes is necessary.

I went to the dentist and the eye doctor on Wednesday. The latter was uneventful, everything is still good, I can still see, and don't need glasses. The dentist was unpleasant. 2 of my existing fillings need replacing, and I have a new, "interesting" cavity that needs fixing. Also, my fixed retainer wire thing came unstuck. So, they were able to fit me in right then for one filling and the retainer, and I go back Friday for the rest. super. I'm in school for 1.5 days this week. Hilarious. At least I'll be well trained.

I found out that I have a connection in this district that may come in handy come 'Mrs. R needs a job and it needs to not be in Edmunston' time. My grade 8 teacher (who was super cool, and left us halfway through the year to take a principal position, but we loved her anyway, because she taught us health / human growth and development (that's sex ed) and we had a question box and every day someone would ask "what's an orgasm" and she'd answer for like, the first 11 times) is the new superintendant. Or, as Ralph would say, Supernintendo. So, that's pretty fun. She actually remembers me too, which is nice. We were her last homeroom class ever, which probably helps.

What else. The boy is doing well, he's super happy at the sitter's, he doesn't mind us leaving him there anymore at all. He's saying a few words, and understands just about everything we say to him. He's turning into quite a little golf pro too, much to the delight of....everyone on his father's side. His webpage is more than slightly neglected. I get to spend about 2.5 hours with him a day during the week, so I'm not taking much of that time to do photo shoots. We're more into the playing and running around type things. Bath time is turning into more of an adventure, as he has discovered the joy of bubble baths. He'll go get the bottle in the bathroom and bring it out and say 'bubble'. But it'll be like, 4:30, so we're like, no, babe, not yet. Then he tries to open it with his teeth, generally succeeds, and if we're not watching, will squirt a bunch of it into the bath tub. Silly. He pushes his trike around Fred Flinstone style, cause his legs aren't long enough to pedal. He actually says 'bye' now when he waves, and generally says it like, 13 times before, during, and after the actual leaving part.

I think that's a respectable update, and it's 10, and I stayed up late last night watching Heroes and What About Brian, so I'm going to bed now. There's too much tv, it's problematic. I'm going to have to delegate nights or something, and unplug it the rest of the time.

One last thing. I love cream cheese, but the Philly ads suck. I wrote them to tell them I didn't think bitchy angels was a good way to go with the advertising, and that I wasn't a particularly devout person, but that I didn't think heaven invovled 'wing lifts' and catty girls. I see those ads less now, but they're still around. Meh. That's my opinion. I like to voice it.

Also, I'm going to buy myself a pair of boots. Not full-on hooker boots, but semi. I saw a pair of super hot shoes, but they're like $160, so no. Boots are a little more practical also, as far as hot shoes go. I'm thinking dark brown knee high, they should go with pretty much everything. I have mid-calf boots, and they're cute, but don't go with much.

that's all, for real.

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.

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.

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.

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.

just in case you didn't hear about this already

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Snakes released at US screening

Like, I might have to go see it, just because.

all by myself....

yes indeedy folks. I had a bonafide responsibility-less weekend these past couple of days. The husband was headed to his hometown to host the bachelor party of his best bud. I've had lots of hometown-ness lately, and so elected to stay here. I then got to thinking, hmm. I haven't had a full day to myself since the wee lad came around. That's a long time. I'm about due, I guess. So, I sent wee lad home with his father, to spend the weekend being spoiled and kept up too late by his grandparents. As my neighbour put it, you have to weigh the benefits against the risks. Is it worth the few days it'll take to straighten him out in order to have a day or 2 to yourself? In considering that it has indeed been a long time, and that his grandparents will be eternally in my debt for having the opportunity to spend so much two-on-one time with the babe, yes. It is. They're on their way home as we speak.

I made myself a mercilessly garlicky and oniony chicken noodle dish for supper last night. I stayed up late watching great shows like "While You Were Out" and "Property Ladder". (Note to self regarding latter: always research housing market, neighbourhood, and get a frigging home inspection, before assuming you can make a $60k profit on your first house flip.) I hung pictures, I filled out most of the wedding scrapbook album, and put all the professional type photos in the photo album. Sidebar, if anyone out there has wedding pictures, I'd muchly appreciate copies! Today, too late to be a true part of my girly weekend, I know, I bought 2 small tubs of Ben & Jerry's. It's on sale at Superstore, if anyone's interested.

editor's note: Vermonty Python has now joined Half Baked at the top of my "Best Ben&Jerry's flavours" list. Mmmm, cookie crumb swirl and fudge cows.

Yesterday, I went to the market, had the aforementioned pictures printed off, tooled around town, went to Canadian Tire, that kind of thing. The night before, I went to see Pirates with Jenn and bought 2 cds. It's ok, because they only cost me $20 together. One is Corinne Bailey Rae, who you've probably heard of, or would at least recognise her song "Put Your Records On". It's a good album, basically what you'd expect, and that one song is great to sing along to. The other is Nizlopi. Who? My thoughts exactly. I was browsing the cd racks, and this one caught my eye. I have no idea why, but partly because the album title is "Half of these songs are about you". I thought that was funny. I had basically decided to buy it before I even asked what it was like. The girl at the counter told me it was sort of Counting Crows-ish, which was a good selling point for me. She said it was also kind of Jason Mraz, which I agree with more than the CC comparison. I'd throw in a bit of Coronation Street (just for the accent) and some Paul Simon for good measure. I'm quite proud of my purchase, I must say. I really like both cds.

I have a week before I start my new job, teaching resource and some classroom at a middle school about 15 minutes from here. I'm still looking forward to it, but am also looking forward to finding out what exactly I'm doing. I found out yesterday that it looks like it is in fact just a one year position, because the woman I'm replacing is just on ed leave, not moved to Nunavut or anything, but I'm not seeing that as an entirely bad thing. At least it is a one year position! If they can keep me on at the end, bonus, if they can transfer me somewhere equally close to home, bonus, and if they try to make me work in Woodstock, then I'm no farther behind than I would have been otherwise. I'll pick up where I left off in this district, and go from there.

What else. Oh, I applied for my laptop, I'm super excited about that. I may question the logic behind the program, but ah well. We'll see how badly blocked off the Dept of Ed laptops turn out to be, and then I'll decide if I can scratch "iBook" off my wishlist.

I have to wonder how my sister finds these things

This one she credits to the husband of one of her many pregnant co-workers.
Seacoast Online: Residents wonder if dead animal is legendary mystery beast. I know I'm wondering!


While we're posting links, I've been working on another project (although it got a bit delayed with the wedding and stuff). My uncle and new-ish aunt have opened up a new restaurant. Actually, they took over management of an existing restaurant in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. It's called the Blue Moon Cafe, and it's a Cora's type breakfast and lunch type place, with excellent food. I am slightly biased, but I did my best to try lots of things while I was there, and it was all good. Especially the peacan encrusted French toast. Oh, yeah.

That's my plug for today. Go check it out, and let me know what you think. I'm semi-open to constructive criticism. Semi.

stuff

but brief, I have a shower to have and a kitty litter pan to clean before the wee lad wakes up.

First off, a sample pictorial.


that's us. We got married! The babe was an active participant. A few more pictures are at www.(myname)and(hubby's name).com. Babe has some on his site too, which is that address /(babe's name)

Yes, all went well, especially once we went with the original plan of 'just let the baby do whatever he wants to do, and that way he won't cry'. So, he spent some time with us, and some time wandering the aisles, sitting on his grampie's knee, charming the ladies, you name it.

In non wedding news, for the first time in a while...I've developed a bit of an addiction to Lipton Green Tea with Citrus. I'm telling myself it's the chocolate milk of teas. Stay with me here...I mean even though it's sweetened and stuff, it is still green tea, and thus has good things in it. Like chocolate milk is to milk. Get it? I also really really like those Cadbury Thins chocolate bars. Toffee and Mint Chip are definitely the best. And, they're not terrible for me either, right? So, basically, not a problem at all.

Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, I'll go to SNB and change my name. I have to do that, and I have to do my insurance before I can do my registration, which I have to do at SNB, so I guess insurance will be my first thing. We'll see how it goes.

Anyway, yes, must get going, litter and shower beckon.

later skaters.

married, hey!

so it's official. I'm now Mrs. R. The fiance is henceforth to be called the husband. We had an absolutely perfect day for our outside wedding, 98% of the people we invited made it out, and nobody made any embarrassing speeches or anything. It was great. Pictures to follow soon. I'll tell ya though, I'm taking a few days off. This wedding stuff is a lot of work! We made the favours and the cake, and did all the decorating ourselves. We got manicures, pedicures, and had our hair and makeup done at Avalon, which I would highly recommend to everybody.

More later, just wanted to let everybody know I'm alive.

for those of you with money

who feel like buying stuff for a poor-ish, young getting married couple, (believe it or not, there are apparently people out there like that, who like to buy presents!), we're registered (under both of our names) at Sears, Paderno (for the rich among you, although there are some 99cent items, lol), and that's it. Gift cards are always nice, for Kent or Home Depot or Canadian Tire maybe? Please don't feel the need to go out and spend money though, we've been living together for 5 years now, and so have most of the homey things that are traditionally gotten at weddings.

thanks.

and, on a totally unrealated note that I forgot to include in the last post, we went to the beach yesterday, and were there roughly 10 minutes in the gorgeous hot sun, when it started to thunder and lightening, the kicked us off, we came back home, and enjoyed the craziest thunder, lightening, hail and pouring rain storm I've seen in recent memory. Ridiculous. Might try the beach again, especially now that I know how to get in without paying.

ah, hi5

It's not just a kids' show, you know.

I'm a relatively non-active member of hi5, one of the less annoying sites that supposedly lets you keep in touch with friends. It's pretty good, because it doesn't charge you anything, and you get minimal junky emails from them. However, I found a 'message alert' in my inbox this morning, and it was from Kenny Thompson. I don't know a Kenny Thompson, but since I think friends of friends can send messages, I figure I'll go see the message. It's random, 'hey im kinda bored over here. if youre doing nothing lets chat it up;-) go to (link removed cause too many people are finding it on my page, sorry) for some more pics of me if ya wanna see them too and to contact me besides just here

hope to talk to ya soon!
Ken'

Foolishly, I go.

Go ahead, click. I'll wait here.

Yeah, exactly. So, clearly I'm going to have to like, edit my privacy settings or something. Although, can't hurt to get the *occasional* webcam junkie email, can it? Maybe it can. Tough call.

4 years, 842 posts (944, if you count preggo blog)

That's CRAZY. I started posting in June of 2002. I had just graduated, and had moved back to Moncton, where I grew up, with the fiancé-then-boyrfriend. I had no teaching job prospects, one cat, totally different fish, and was living in a one-bedroom basement apartment (that, incidentally, ruined a bunch of stuff that was unlucky enough to be on the floor in the closet. eff you, mildew!). A lot of things have changed and happened since then, obviously. One thing remains the same though - no job prospects! Ha!

I'm in Halifax, and am going for my fitting today, have got new underoos, and have to get some shoes, Mom said I can't wear dollarama flip flops with a gorgeous and significantly more than a dollar dress. She may have a point. The sandals are from Zellers though. Just to clarify.

I effing love highspeed internet. I sure hope we get it soon. There's some government initiative or something that 90% of the province will have highspeed by the end of the year. I sure hope we're not in the lame 10%. We're not THAT far away from civilisation, is the thing. Odd.

I'm watching food network, and there was just an ad for a ladder. Like, a half hour long infomercial. Odd-er. In between the omlette maker and the Jack Lalane juicer.

I think we're going to the cottage later, it's sunny at 28 today. Nice.

goin' to the chapel

well, not really the chapel (chappel? that doesn't look right), but we are gonna get married. In one month. Pretty crazy! I go for my fitting on Saturday, hopefully all is a go there. I'm pretty sure I've at least stayed the same size as I was on Valentine's day, if not lost a bit more, so I'm not too worried. We'll see though. They can let dresses out a fair bit, so either way I should be good to go. I had a very productive day of weed whacking, dish doing, and painting continents in the babe's room. The weed whacking was probably the most eventful, with the scaring of me and a small bird who was hiding in the brush I was trying to get rid of. He just kept hopping along and calling to his momma, so I stopped for a few minutes to let him get himself sorted out. I think he was maybe a baby bird who hasn't quite figured out the flying thing yet, since most birds don't live ON THE GROUND. I was a bit traumatised, I think I'll take a break from yard work. I'll keep going on my garden, there are actually things growing now. The tomatoes are getting taller, and there are flowers on the bean plants. Not much going on with the peppers, but the lettuce and cabbage are doing decently. My herbs have pretty much gone to the big herb garden in the sky, but I do have access to a tonne of basil from my neighbour, so I'll just have to make do with that. I have chives too. That's it though, I think. My hydrangea has flowers on it, ranging from a purply pink to blue. It's supposed to be blue, but I don't mind. Also, the morning glory that Erin gave me has grown gangbusters, and has flowers on it. Behold.

...

lovely, no?

So I'm not quite self sufficient with my produce yet, but the yard is starting to look pretty good. It's really big (relative to the apartment yards we've grown used to), so even when you get something done, there's a lot left. We're getting there though. There's some major clearing to be done down closer to the water, we're sort of losing our view now that things have leaves. We'd also like to make a patio around the house, and a path down to the aforementioned water. I think there probably won't be grass down there, maybe we'll just till it all up and plant wildflowers or something on the sides of the path. Erin rented a tiller once, she seemed pretty excited about it too.

I brought my tv in to be fixed, Future Shop said it would take up to 60 days (at which point they'd give me a new tv, but before which they would not loan me one or anything) to send away or get fixed, so they sent it to a local place, Damien's. Now, maybe I do have super sensitive hearing, but the thing buzzes. Mr. Damien, or whatever his name is, could hear no buzzing. Luckily, we were able to borrow a tv from my sister, or we would have had a rough, and boring, 2 weeks. So, now I have my buzzy tv back. Hooray.

We watched Syriana. I don't get it. Sorry. It was decent, but not very exciting, and I don't see why George got an Oscar out of it. We also watched Quiz Show (too lazy for links, sorry), which is old, 1994, but good. We had free movie passes since about March, that I jokingly said we had to use by the end of June, thinking surely we'd use them before that. We didn't. They expired on Friday. Nice.

Also, I got a fix and mix frosty, and it was tiny. Not impressed. Good though, I got butterfinger flavour.

I'm going tonight to help Erin pick out a bridesmaid dress. I'm thinking peach with ruffles. Nice.

31 days, seriously. Let's get crackin!

because I do 3 things at once, and am easily distracted, this took me almost 2 hours to type

so, even though it seems nobody is still reading this but my mother, I'll continue to post sporadically, in the event somebody else does stumble by.

My mother, incidentally, for the very dense among you, was obviously the one who helped me (did most of the work, really) put in the garden. Stuff is growing, but not impressively enough to put a picture yet. I might though, because I did put rocks all along the outside to frame it a bit, and I also rigged up a piece of eavestroughing and some river stones (from a bag, not from the actual river by our house) to catch the rain line off the roof and keep it from destroying my tomato and bean plants. Today I got even more gardenny, and planted a morning glory vine my sister gave me at the bottom of our property, where there was a very handy lattice type thing for it to grow on. Vines like that sort of thing, I know that much. I'm a bit dense though, I was going to buy a honeysuckle, but didn't, because I couldn't think of where I would put it. Ah well. I have a hosta I have to plant somewhere, then I'm just going to sit back and wait for my tomatoes to grow. I found out also that the big crazy bushy weed thing my neighbour has growing on one side of his house is actually basil, which I will now help myself to, upon his invitation of course. He also has a bunch of rhubarb that I'm going to pick some more of and make some jam or something. If anybody has a recipe, let me know. Strawberry rhubarb is my favourite. I don't think it usually involves jello, but the recipes I find do, so I'm looking for a good one.

I'm all by myself for a couple of days, the fiancé is gone to Winterpeg / Mosquitopeg, and I have to say, I don't really like being here at night alone. It's weird. We're like, in the boonies, and there are lots of noises and stuff, and it's dark. Luckily the babe sleeps well, so I don't have to face the boogeymen in the middle of the night very often. He was sick this weekend, as was I, which was gross. We ended up going home to the fiancé's parents' place, since he was going to play golf, and I was barely in shape to look after myself, let alone a very small child. He had it worse than me, likely because he hasn't had time to develop immunities like I have. Poor thing though, he pooped more than anybody big or small should, hardly ate anything all weekend, and barfed all over himself on the drive home. Much to our, and his, dismay. Also, ever try to take apart an Eddie Bauer 3-in-1 carseat to wash the cover? I dare you to. I was ready to murder somebody by the end of it.

Random notes. We sort of have a lawn, and will seed it either this weekend, or wait for fall, to encourage more, less prickly, grass to grow. We're also planning to clean and stain the shingles a natural cedar colour (since they are natural cedar, and we just want to protect them), and put up eavestroughing this summer. I was very excited to discover that we have lots of lightening bugs. It's nice, a lot of the time, to live out of the city. I'm going to Maine next week to visit my aunt and uncle (I keep wanting to say my uncle and his wife, but by being his wife, she becomes my aunt, yes? We're sort of past the point of the 'auntie' title though, so it's sort of a moot point.) with my mom and Grannie. My sister wanted to come too, but the timing couldn't be worked out by everybody. She's the only one in our immediate family who works a real job now, my parents are both retired, and I'm supplying and soon unemployed, so I think we're kind of annoying with our non-workingness. The tallships are in town next Tuesday and Wednesday, so we'll get to see those. I'm going on a field trip with a bunch of 7th graders this Thursday, to Saint John. Should be interesting. We're going to the museum, and swimming. I've taken my buzzing tv to get fixed, so it's super boring here right now, being all by myself. I did update the babe's page though, colours and everything, so go ahead and check it out (http://www.(myname)and(fiance'sname).com/(babe'sname)). I plan to go to PEI for the Canada Day concert (whee, the Hip), so I'm looking forward to that. Haven't got my ticket yet, but plenty of time. I don't know that they sell out for this kind of thing. I'm going to go to my parents' cottage and leave the babe with them for the night / weekend, which should be nice for all of us. It'll be my first overnighter away from him, which may be a bit strange, but I'm sure I'll manage. I know for a face he will; as long as somebody feeds and loves him, and he gets to see his dad and I eventually, he's a happy camper. It'll be nice too to like, just sleep and not worry about getting up. Last peaceful night's sleep without discomfort or worry / reality of waking up early with the wee lad? Sometime around my 6th month of pregnancy, I'd say. I know it's probably been longer for those of you with more or older kids, but it's a long time. As I sort of mentioned, I'll be unemployed in a week, so if anyone has any photography or other arty jobs, or tutoring, or whatever else I may be capable of, that they need done over the summer, I'm your man.

I heard thunder rumbling a while ago, and it just started raining. That's my cue for bed I think.

I'd say this is long enough to count for at least a couple of posts, yes?

it's not you, it's me.

I just have so very little that I feel is worth sharing going on right now.

There are 3 weeks left of supply work available to me. This will leave me with a total of, let's say...200 hours worked, at best. Not enough for EI, which leaves me for a couple of months with zero income. Should be interesting. I'm getting a decent amount of work, 2-3 days per week, which would be plenty under normal circumstances, and worst case, if I'm still supplying come fall, will give me enough for EI next summer. Great plans, I'm so proud. Not that we're planning any more babies, for real, any time soon, but everything is on hold until I get a real job. Can't have or plan for more babies, can't upgrade the car, can't move closer to the city, or anywhere really, for that matter. I am planning for sure to redo my French proficiency, but I'm really nervous that I'll do it and my level won't improve, and then that'll be a door that's closed to me for sure, instead of like now, where I can tell myself that well, I'll just get my proficiency up, then I can get a job teaching core or immersion. We shall see, I'll keep you posted.

Wedding stuff is going swimmingly, the dress is in but I have yet to book a fitting appointment. The invitations are in, and I'm just waiting on a few addresses to get those sent out. I even made up an insert with reception and hotel info on it. Pretty sharp, I am. We've booked the caterers, and are working on the tent.

Baby / toddler stuff...I suppose he's officially a toddler now since he, like, toddles. Walks all over the place, looking like he's been into the sauce. Also, speaking of sauce, the babe is a huge fan of ketchup. He'll eat a fry, or a piece of chicken, or whatever, but mainly he'll use it as a vessel to get the ketchup into his mouth. He eventually forgoes the food entirely and just scoops the sauce into his mouth. And hair. And everywhere else he can reach. Pictures to be posted soon on his site.

I planted a legitimate garden, with veggies and herbs. It's been raining for 3 straight days since it was planted, which is good for it, but boring for the rest of the living things. Also, the rain runs off the roof and makes a bit of a trench right in the middle of it, which is unfortunate, but what can you do? Eavestroughing to come later this summer. I also planted a hydrangea bush near the front door, which isn't actually on the front of the house, but it's the main door, so I call it the front. It will have blue flowers, and be lovely. Maybe it'll bloom for the wedding! Another couple of small planters that weren't really planters, that we found in the shed during the cleaning it out, disassembling it, moving it, and reassembling it adventure, now have begonias and impatients in them. One planter is a really old pot with a handle, and another is a white enamel basin. I need to punch some holes in the bottom of the basin one, since it's doing a fantastic job of its original duty, which is holding water. Good for lots of things, not so much for flowers.

That's about it, I have to go get clean and stuff, put together a compost bin, and maybe brave the rain to punch holes. Probably not in that order.

seriously

there are some things that need discussing.

Firstly, and most obviously, the fact that Chris got voted off American Idol. I know I'm not the first, or the most outraged, to comment on this, but come on, America! Here's how voting works. You pick the person who's the best singer / entertainer, and you vote for them. You don't say, hmm, maybe I'll vote for someone else, because for sure Chris will win, because chances are, if you're thinking that, so are other people. Jerks. Anyway, I'm not too worried about him, he's a hottie and he'll get signed and probably make decent music instead of the horrible, forced Idol songs. I think maybe one of the reasons I liked him so much is that he reminded the fiancé and I of our dear friend Mitch. We called him Big Mitch, before we could be bothered to remember his name. Also, because the last post I made about tv, I got a bunch of flack from the aforementioned ML, I feel the need to say that I do, in fact, have hobbies other than tv watching. I draw, I paint, I garden, sort of. I'm doing a mural on my sweet boy's wall, all of which is drawn, and North America is painted. I go for walks, I garden, badly, I play with my sweet boy, I occasionally go on dates with the fiancé. I do press alt+130 every time to make that accent, because I'm an English teacher, and I like things to look the way they're supposed to look.

Speaking of teaching, I have gone back to work. I'm in at basically one school, but they call me 2-3 days a week, which is fine. I've done a day at a couple of other schools, and there's only a month of school left anyway. This summer is going to be interesting. I told the fiancé I'd go live with my parents for the summer, but it really doesn't cost that much extra for us to live at the house, the mortgage payment won't go down, and I don't think the groceries really go up that much with an extra person. Not double, anyway. Plus I'd be pretty lonely I think. I've gotten pretty attached to him. We've been together over 6 years now, and have lived together for 5. I realised that when I was filling out the census form. We lucked out (ha) and got the extended, 60 question version. Sweet. Luckily, I didn't have to answer the majority of the questions for the baby. I did have to look on the 'help' sheet though, to see what to put for what language he most often speaks at home. Gibberish not being an option, you see.

What else. We're at the in-law's house for the weekend, headed into the raging metropolis of Moncton for a night out tomorrow. Dinner and a movie type thing. Not sure what movie we're going to, I was very hopeful that The Breakup had come out, but not yet. I do enjoy Vince Vaughan. I still go to the Wedding Crashers memorable quotes page every now and then, for a laugh.

I think we've just about got all the wedding stuff sorted, I'm just waiting on the go-ahead on the caterers, and that'll be a big part settled. We're still working on a tent, and I have to get to Hali sometime for a dress fitting, but before that, I want to get some proper undergarments, since I really don't have any suitable wedding, strapless, underthings. I'm sure they're expensive, but whatever. Hopefully I'm only going to do this once.

I suppose it's time

to update.

I've gone back to work, somewhat. I'm on the supply list for this district now, and have gone around to some schools so pimp myself a bit. It's really frustrating, because I do my whole shpeel, Hi, I'm S, I'm not a new teacher but I am new to the district, blah blah blah, experience at all levels, able to teach French, blah blah blah. They don't care. I got a half day booked at one school for last week, and ended up getting another day there after having successfully completed the half day test. I also was invited to do 2 1-hour drama / theatre sessions for elementary classes, for free, which I hesitated on for the free part (since I'll have to pay for the babe to be taken care of regardless of my not getting paid) and for the fact that all my drama experience is at the high school level. But then, despite the principal's assurances that my declining this offer would not affect my future supplying chances, I decided it would be best to accept and hopefully get supply days on the same days at that same school. Turns out the sessions are for kindergarten to grade 2, so I'll be pretty limited as to what I can do, but should be able to have some fun.

I had my first extended time away from the babe, which was 8 hours, which was plenty. I wasn't really thinking about it, but I got a little sad as I was leaving. It seems silly, but imagine you've spent every day of over a year with someone who you love more than you'd ever conceive possible to love someone, never away for more than a few hours to catch a movie or some dinner, and then you have to spend the whole day without so much as a glimpse. It's strange. I made it fine, although I did call at lunch to see how everybody was making out. The babe seems to get along with everybody, he gives lots of hugs and kisses to the other babies, which is pretty funny. He actually bit one of the babies, I guess because she was crying and wouldn't stop, and the kisses weren't working. Everyone came out ok, but the little girl did have a perfect set of teeth marks on her cheek. Poor thing.

This weekend was absolutely gorgeous, we went to the park on Saturday with a friend of mine and a friend of the babe's, and the 2 boys seemed to have a good time. They both had colds, which is pretty gross, and I now understand why small children regularly have snotty noses. They're like magical little booger factories. And they mostly hate having their noses cleaned. So sometimes, it's just easier on everyone to leave it for a bit. They really don't seem to care, even though it's disgusting. Then, every half hour or so, you just can't stand it anymore, and you tackle the little beasts. That's your lesson in baby nose hygiene.

Plans for the week are to bring a bunch of garbage to the dump, pick up some shingles for the shed, which now resides in the driveway rather than on the top of a hill that made it basically inaccessible, and maybe going to the baby movie tomorrow if I don't get called to work. Good times. I keep saying I'm going to paint the mural in the babe's room, but now his playpen is at his sitter's house, so it's really going to be tricky for me to do, since he has to nap in his room, and it's hard to paint with a baby running around trying to eat paints and throw himself down the stairs.

baby product recalls

I was fairly alarmed to read this. There are lots of products on there, notably (because we have them) the Little Tikes Flashlights, some of which are painted with lead paint. LEAD PAINT. WTF, folks? Lead has been a known no-no, especially for the little guys, for a long time now. More alarmingly were the Reebok bracelets, again made of LEAD, free gift with purchase of kids' shoes. Tragically, this was discovered when a child died as a result of this completely unbelievable oversight. There were a lot of lead-related jewellery recalls from dollar stores, so I'd recommend not buying your little ones cheap shiny things. Spring for the moderately more expensive but still cheap nickel ones. Please. I hadn't even thought to check product recalls for a while, I stumbled across the site completely by accident when looking for something unrelated. Good thing I did, because lead paint is bad news, and the babe (like all babes) loves to chew everything he owns.

That's all for now!

halifax, and a snowstorm

wtf? It's like, snowing snowing here. My sister tells me it's hailing in Fredericton, also nice. We just this past weekend got the studded snow tires off the car, and put the all seasons back on. Of course. Easter found us, and left a foolish amount of candy. Even the babe got a chocolate bunny, but I can't see that he'll get to eat much of it. We got I think one of every type of Easter candy available at a typical store, each. So, 2 of every type. So, if you're in the neighbourhood, come on over for some chocolately goodness.

Sidebar from Canada AM: eat more dark, leafy greens, cruciferous veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, turnip), "heat processed tomato products" (sauce, juice, etc). Eat less red meat (less than 3oz per serving, yipes), eat no processed meats if possible, and drink less alcohol (no more than 7 drinks per week for ladies, 9 for the menfolk). Man, sounds like fun. This is to reduce your chance of cancer. I'll have to work on the veggies part, but I don't drink much or eat a lot of red meat, so I've got that covered.

Tried to do some yard work this week, but very quickly got overwhelmed by the size of the yard and the remarkably slow progress I was making. We really, really should have mowed last fall, but didn't, so now we have like, hay length grass all matted down over the yard. We've got a weed whacker now though, so will take that to the long stuff, and then raking won't be quite so impossible. Theoretically. We're going to get a lawnmower too, but it'll be a while before the lawn is fit, or dry enough, to mow.

My mom and the babe and I are going to have lunch with my aunt today, should be nice. I'm not sure where we're going though. I might also check for the new Train cd at Costco if we head that way. I do enjoy Train's music. It's reliably good.

Other random notes, I think we'll get the wedding invites started, I'm receiving conflicting advice on how far in advance they should be sent out, everything from righ tnow to 6 weeks ahead, so we're going to go somewhere in the middle I guess. Went to the craft store to see if we could get some beads and wire and stuff to make a headband to wear for the wedding.

You probably heard about this. Pretty crazy. Apparently people were in pretty good humour though, which is nice to hear. On Regis and Kelly, Kelly just keeps talking about how it must have been bad because lots of people don't pee at work, assuming they'll be able to pee at home in 5 minutes. This show is terrible. Regis doesn't know who anybody is, and Kelly is just foolish most of the time.

I'm going to go shower I think.

more gardeny goodness

seriously, I'm a stellar gardener. I want to put in a real garden, but I have to wait for more warm weather and the ground to be less muck and more dirt. And for my mom to come help me, cause I don't know how to make a garden, really.

That said..




nice eh?

The babe had his 1st birthday on Sunday, and it was a pretty good time. He had a nap in the middle of it. He had no interest in opening gifts, but got along pretty well with everybody there, which is nice. He didn't (yet) go through that phase where he doesn't like anybody but us. Yesterday the fiancé and I went to meet the pastor who's marrying us (civil ceremony, yes, a pastor, I don't know how it works, but it's going to work, so whatever!), and dropped the babe off in a hurry at my sister's house, snuck out before he could notice we were leaving, and I don't honestly think he even really cared we were gone. He ate cheerios and threw food on the floor, so everyone had a good time. ha.

Some birthday shots:






More, and the rest of his first year pictures are at http://www.(myname)and(thefiance's name.com(the babe's name).

Not much else happening, I'm trying to do a mural with a map of the world on his wall. I've got the map drawn, but it's mighty hard to paint with the baby running around, and doing on nap time doesn't work either, since it's in his room. He's perfectly content to hang out in bed for a bit before or after sleeping, but if he wakes up and I'm in there, he'll want to come out for sure. We're heading to the fiancé's parents' house for Easter weekend, and then to Hali for work (and a visit) for next week. Both places have highspeed, you lucky ducks, so I'll be able to keep in touch.

garden!

maybe that's a bit of a strong word for the few things I have growing in the bank of rocks and a little bit of dirt behind my house. However, things *are* growing, as the following pictures will illustrate.

I call them "despite my complete lack of skill, holy shit, things are growing!"



There you go. I don't know what they are. In the fall, I planted a bunch of bulbs. By 'planted' I mean threw a bunch of them in the rocky dirt and hoped for the best. There are tulips, crocuses, and maybe something else. We'll see I guess!

I also went out with the babe yesterday and did a little shopping. I found these beauties, which may well serve as my wedding shoes. I'll keep looking, but I'm pretty sure they'll do nicely. Especially considering nobody is going to be looking at my feet.



Planning continues, I'm waiting to hear from Superstore as to whether hydrangeas are available in August, and we'll go from there. We have to book a tent and some kind of catering action. Then the fiancé has to find something to wear. I think that's all the big stuff. Oh, cake. Then we're done. The rest is favours and stuff which we've decided on but haven't ordered yet, because it doesn't need to be ordered yet. Invitations are planned and will be ordered this week or next, and ideally mailed soon after that.

Babe is sleeping, time for pilates and a shower. Whee!

something for the little ones

I know, I thought it was ridiculous too, a website designed for the under-4 crowd. But then I thought, hmm, the babe *does* love to pound the keyboard, maybe it'd be fun if he could be doing that and not wrecking stuff...so I went to this site, Kneebouncers.com, and he frigging loves it. It's really cute, they can just punch whatever keys and it makes music, or bubbles, or plays peek-a-boo, there are 6 or 7 different games. We just played for about half an hour, and he wore himself right out and is napping now. Interactive, colourful, musical, gotta love it. Give it a try. Tell your friends.

fishy

I was just catching up on one of my daily reads, and was made to think about my fish tank. I've had it for about just over 6 years now, and although none of the original fish remain, I do have my algae eater, who's been around for 4.5 of those 6. I've posted about him before, and not much has changed. He, thankfully, hasn't grown any more, but I had no idea he was going to get that big in the first place. Friggin Pets Unlimited. Don't buy animals from them unless you already know what they're going to do. And don't buy furry pets other than like, hampsters. No dogs and stuff. Go to a breeder or the SPCA, please. Anyway, I was just thinking about Cleatus, and how gross he is, remembering how he escaped from the tank a few times. He's not slimy at all like he should be, he's really hard and rough like a big disgusting lizard. I freaked out each time he jumped out and yelled at him to stop moving so I could pick him up. He did, he's a good listener apparently, and I put him back in the tank. Gross. I don't want him to die, but I'm a little worried I'll be like 90, with this stupid tank and giant senior citizen algae eater. I'll have to grind up his algae wafers or something. Poor guy. I might get him another algae eater who eats the brown junk to keep him company, but they're only small, so I'm not sure they'd get along. They should...despite his size, Cleatus seems to be a gentle soul; he's never attacked or eaten any of my other, much smaller fish. He's already proven himself much more clever than my first algae eater. Her name was Gertrude. She attached herself to the heater, and could not be convinced to leave it to find food. I'm not sure if the poor thing cooked or starved, but either way, our time together was short. I had this idea that I would have 2 cats named Mortimer and Gertrude. I was in residence, so the cat thing wasn't going to work, so I got fish instead, and named one Gertrude. That didn't work out, clearly, so I waited until I got a cat, and named him Mortimer. That's working out pretty well, we've had him for just over 4 years now. We got him a friend about a year later, who was pre-named George. They both have thumbs, George has 2 extras per front paw, Mort has one.

That's my pets story. Random, I apologize.

mmm, hicky

Yeah. So, I woke up this morning with a hicky. Not from who you'd think though. From the wee lad. Nice. He was up for about 45 minutes last night around 4:30, and at one point thought my neck looked suspiciously like a boob, and decided to have a go at it. I didn't let him try for long, maybe 2 seconds, but damn, the little guy has some powerful suction. Apparently. Anyway, so yes, as I'm getting in the shower this morning, I see a lovely love bite on my neck. I told my parents it was from the babe, but I'm fairly sure they don't believe me. If I had gotten a hicky from the fiance, I sure as heck wouldn't be showing it off. I did a fairly respectable job of covering it with yellow concealer meant for circles under the eyes, so I guess it's safe to go out in public. We were thinking of stopping by the wedding dress place today, so I can't be looking all whorey.

Halifax bound

or, actually, already in Halifax. Whatever. Down for a few days with the babe and the fiance for the latter's job. Might swing by Winchester's tomorrow and see about my dress, schedule a fitting, and see if they'll let me take a picture of it now so I can try to find shoes and stuff that match. Also should probaly schedule a fitting and stuff, just in case. I'll not eat for a while if I have to though. Hopefully it won't come to that. I just have to not gain weight, which should be manageable, right?

No big plans for the week, just hanging out with my parents. Might go to a movie tomorrow, but there's actually not anything playing that I absolutely need to see. I saw Eight Below as a baby movie, and it was good, but I definitely wouldn't recommend it to small children or people who have a problem with not-so-good things happening to good animals. My sister and some of her friends from work and I went to see Failure to Launch, and it was really good. Quite funny, and you get to see Matthew McWhatsisname lots, along with Bradley Cooper and another guy...Justin Bartha, who although they keep talking about what a dork he is, he's actually really cute.

I began the mural on the babe's wall. I figure since I convinced the fiance to let us make the wall drywall instead of pine like the rest of the room, I should probably do something with it. We decided on a map of the world, relatively simple, with animals painted on in the areas where they live. Should be fun. Anyway, I painted the wall a pale blue, for the ocean. It's called 'white denim', which sounds horrible, but it's a really nice colour. I also bought paints that I'll have to return. They're paints that you make your whatever, animal in my case, and then can stick it on the wall, or on a window, or whatever. I thought that would be fun for the baby, but then I thought ... he'll more likely eat them than put them on the map. So I check to make sure they're non toxic, and find no evidence of that, along with a picture of a baby face frowning, and a 0-3 with a NO symbol through it. Nice idea, maybe in the next house when he's less apt to eating everything. Anway, we're going to borrow the lcd projector from the fiance's work so that I don't have to draw the map, because that would be hard, and likely nowhere near scale. This way I can spend more time painting the world and the animals.

Donald Trump named his new baby Barron. That's just mean. It'll be a fine name when he's an adult, but come on! Things you have to keep in mind when naming your baby.

Alright. I'm going to have some lunch I think, while the wee lad continues to nap. He's making up for the fact that he was up 3 times last night. He's teething, molars, and may well be going through a growth spurt, since that's supposed to happen around now.

One last tidbit, apparently they're making Rocky: The Musical. Fer real, yo. Let's put that on the 'must see' list right along with Lord of the Rings: Onstage.

sigh.

mmm, springy

It was like, plus 10 or something foolish here yesterday. Windy, because it's always windy, but nice. The babe and I went for a walk, he fell asleep. I thought he fell asleep, but as he was reclining with his eyes closed, I hear a "pppppppppppppbt" coming from the stroller. His eyes are maybe half open, and he's pursing his little lips, making his favourite sound on earth. Pretty funny. He did fall asleep for real just before we got home. To compensate for yesterday's niceness, today it is rather cold and quite rainy. Not good for walking. I may invest in a new raincoat this year; mine is from 1993. It still fits, but it's from Northern Reflections and has paint on it. In other jacket news, I have a lovely leather jacket that grew over the past year, and now doesn't fit even a little bit. It's really nice, and hardly worn (I had this thing about it being a really nice jacket, and not wanting to ruin it, so I rarely wore it), and now useless to me. I'm going to see about getting it tailored, but I have a feeling that it'll cost as much to fix this one as to get a new one. We'll see.

We went bowling (was supposed to be curling, but the team got bumped for the 2nd time) on Friday, and I rocked, as usual. My high score was 64. Aw yeah. It was pretty fun though, and my sister and her man came over to watch the wee lad, who behaved wonderfully. Good to know. The fiancé and I might need to have an actual date night sometime.

I have a cold, and all our medication is night-time formula, so I can't take anything, lest I fall asleep and the babe is left to fend for himself. He'll be a year on the 9th, I can't believe it. He can almost walk, and does all kinds of other neat tricks. hah. This is a random post, no? What else. We've changed everything we could about the wedding, and are now pretty happy with what we're doing. There's just one hitch left, and that is that because we're now having family at the wedding, we don't want to (nor is there any need to) have a reception in the fiancé's hometown at all, let alone the following day. We (yes, really we, not me) would much rather relax, sleep in, enjoy our day as newlyweds, eat leftover cake, that kind of thing, than get up, pack up, and drive 2 hours to a party with a bunch of his parents friends. The fiancé mentioned this, and it didn't really go over that well, so we'll have to leave it for now and tackle it again later. The only reason there was going to be a reception there was because no extended family members were going to be at the wedding. Since they now are, it is, thankfully, unnecessary. Let's keep this simple, shall we? Eyes on the prize, or at least the main event, which is the wedding, which is here. Lovely. We have someone to perform the ceremony, and a place to have it, so now can start to deal with things like final guest list, food, flowers, and stuff.

The babe awakes. Early, no good.

I know my cats read this...

Guidelines for Cats.

I always wondered how they just know what to do...

via Kim

warning: post about feminine hygiene product ad

Ok, I have to say something.

You know that ad that is like, "BrandPower, helping you buy better", market research in the feminine hygiene aisle? And the girl says, 'does your ultrathin ever get wet and sticky?' and cut to other women saying, 'yeah, I hate that!' or something equally incriminating. First, I have a hard time believing that any woman in her right mind would admit to that on TV, even if she was being paid. I say that because it doesn't feel like an ad where these are actresses talking about herpes medication or something, where you assume they don't actually have anything wrong with them. These are real people, who have wet, sticky, pantyliners. That's fucking gross. Pardon my french. So, either these people are super hard up for money, super stupid and didn't notice the camera, or were somehow tricked into giving an incriminating answer to an innocent question like, 'do you ever get cut off in traffic?' or 'do you ever go to use a coupon, and it's expired?', and then through the magic of editing, came up with this monstrosity of an advertising scheme. Whatever happened, the ad is super vulgar, and I hate it, and I want them to stop talking about wet sticky things on tv. Unless they're talking about like, caramel sauce, which is ok.

looking for new reads

anybody have any daily reads I can add to yonder sidebar? I've lost a couple, one due to her loss of interest in posting (happens to the best of us), and one due to my lack of keeping up with things and people who are moving to new places / servers! (Nat, Trinity, that'd be you). I also have one who I'm anxious to put back up (GG, hello!) but she's toying with us as to whether her return to Blogdom is permanent or not. Anyway, so if you have any marginally entertaining sites to pass along, please do!

sidebar: after me saying my fiance never comes here, he was here last night trying to find a picture of my dress. What a jerk, eh? Anyway, he didn't read anything, just checked to see if I had posted a picture, but that's pretty funny.

alright, alright

I'm going to post the link, because I don't think the fiance ever goes here. If he does (if you do, don't click it, jerky), I trust that he won't look, because then I'd have to kill him. And then I wouldn't get to wear my dress, which would be a waste, really. I don't make up these rules and traditions, they just *are*. Deal with it. The rest of you, go ahead and click for the front, and again for the back. Mine is ivory, not white, with some pink in the beading. SO PRETTY! I'm excited.

so, apparently the Regis people don't agree

that mine is the most beautiful baby in North America. He didn't even make the top 10! They had something like 150 000 entries, that's pretty crazy. We'll try again next year. What do they know?

In other news, I had a minor heart attack yesterday when I found out my mat leave is up in 3 weeks. Yipes! But then I realised that I still have 21 workdays of pay to come from the NBTA (they don't top you up, but they give you 30 paid days, not too shabby), which will take me to April 10th, which is what I was planning on in the first place. So, good. I'm a little apprehensive about going back to work, it's going to be really strange working as a supply teacher when I'm used to having my own class and rules and stuff, but I'll make do. I had always thought that supply teaching wouldn't be nearly so bad if I hadn't been doing it specifically to try to get a 'real' job. Like, if you were retired, or only wanted to work part-time, and could accept that you're not likely going to have a meaningful impact on most of the kids, and that if you make it through the day without more than a couple of kids ending up at the principal's office it's a good day, then it's not so bad. So I'm going to try that for a while, see if it's enough to pay the bills, and if it is, I'll do it for a year until the wee lad is 2, then hopefully I'll get a real job and he can go to daycare to learn a bunch of vital social interaction skills and whatnot. Or, I'll make some money, bank up some hours, have another baby, and hopefully the rumours about a 2 year maternity leave being on the horizon are true. See, I don't feel bad for employers having to deal with a 2 year leave, because especially in my case, it's a good thing to have teachers on leave. It gives new teachers a way to get started. I imagine in some cases it's difficult, but whatever. People need to reproduce, and it's so much better for people to have the opportunity to raise their own kids for a while rather than having to put them into a daycare system when they're not even walking or talking.

I'll get off the soapbox, for now.

Ah, also, we're moving the wedding to the August long weekend. There's been some...input...from some people, and we've decided to increase the size of the wedding. Based on that, and because we didn't really pick the date in the first place, we moved it to August, since lots of people travel in the summer anyway, and moved it to Saturday from Friday, again, easier for travel and for getting everything ready, and moved it to Fredericton, since having it in a home base makes just about everything easier. So. I might send out 'save the date' things, since lots of people will have to travel to get to us, but real invites won't be going out until probably June / July. We (I, really, I can't see the fiance being too excited about picking out invites) have to pick some out and get them printed up. Whee!

That's about it. I'm on my own (with the bebe, of course) this weekend, so if anyone wants to come over for like, ladies' night in, I'm up for that.

whee, wedding dress shopping!

A few things to keep in mind. Really, don't bring all your best friends. Bring your mom, or someone whose opinion you can trust, and who will be honest with you. Wedding dresses run small ("quite small", according to the lady who was helping me), so, depressingly enough, you'll be at least a size bigger, and likely 2 sizes bigger than your normal clothing size. Who thought that was a good idea?? They run up to size 30, but come on. That's just mean. Try everything on, to a point. If you're iffy, try, but if it's truly awful, leave it on the rack. Go with your gut. If you love a dress, hang on to it. If you try it on, and it's nice, and pretty, but it doesn't make you go wheeeeeeee!, then it's not the one for you. Hesitation is a sign that there's a better one out there for you. The one floor of the one store I was in had 400 dresses. Four Hundred. They have 3 floors.
I learned also that apparently I have a great body for trying on wedding dresses. They all fit perfectly; it was really weird. Nice, but weird. Also made it trickier to easily eliminate some of them. I felt bad no-ing some, because they laced up the back and took significant time to get on. Silly, but whatever. Anyway, I bought a dress. Well, my parents bought a dress, and it's beautiful, and very me. I'm not posting a picture, because the fiance isn't allowed to see it, and I don't trust him not to stumble across it. I won't have the actual dress for several months (probably 5) and don't have a picture of me in it, but can share the link with anyone who just can't bear to wait that long. It's on the Romantic Bridals website, if you'd like to go try to guess. They don't have a picture of the colour of mine though, mine is ivory with some pink in the beading. ooooh, pink! How apropos.

That is all.

Valentine's funny

(from my Lost-addicted sister)


Apparently, these four Valentines were discovered washed up on the Philippine coast last week. After extensive forensic analysis (a big shout-out to the team over at Criminal Minds), the ink has been restored and we can now tell you what they say:


The First Valentine
Dear Libby,
Roses Are Red
Violets Are Blue
Even though you denied it when I asked, I'm still pretty sure
That I know you.
Be Mine,
Hurley



The Second Valentine
J,
Y'know how the Fugitive--from the TV show, I mean--was a doctor? Well, you're a doctor. And I'm a fugitive. How about that?! So...even though I kissed you and ran away because I saw an imaginary horse, I hope you forgive me.
I miss you,
K



The Third Valentine
Dearest Husband Jin,
If you understood English, you would know that I am writing you this Valentine to tell you that even though you frustrate the hell out of me sometimes, you are so effing hot when you take your shirt off.
All My Love,
Sun



And Finally...the Fourth Valentine
Freckles,
There ain't no damn roses anywhere, so...
Wanna screw?
The One with the Guns

baby beauty contests, wooh!

haha. Yes, I did it. Regis and Kelly are having a Beautiful Baby contest, so I entered my dear boy. I sent in this picture



Apologies to the grandparents who got cut out, but the picture had to be less than 100k, and I didn't want to take up any unnecessary space with photo extras. hehe.
Anwyay, so watch the show on the 20th (Next Monday) and then vote for him if he makes the top 5. Thanks! Tell your friends to, too.

so, it's official

A couple of things, actually.

Thing one, arguably the more important, we have a new prime minister. I'm not really excited about this, because he's a scary mo' fo'. I am, however, hopeful that due to the significantly minority-ness of the minority Conservative government, he won't be able to pass all his crazy ammendments. As Rick Mercer said, if you want to drop your kids off at a publicly funded daycare on your way to a gay wedding, do it now.

Thing two, I'm getting married. We're going to have a very small ceremony on September 1st, and then a great big party on September 2nd in the fiancé's hometown. Although certain significant members of his family are having a difficult time coming to grips with there not being a huge ceremony with all 100 close family members being invited, there are several problems with that. I'm going to go over them here, for your benefit, and to reinforce to myself that we're doing the right thing. Thing one, and I'd say definitely the most important, is that I am reading, seeing, and being told over and over again by those who have been there, to do what we want to do. To consider others' feelings, input, and guilt trips, but when it comes down to it, just to do what makes us happy, not what makes everybody else happy. I think the giant party reception in his hometown is a nice compromise, considering it will be 95% his family & friends and maybe 5% mine. There will be people there I have never met, or have even heard mentioned more than once. But it's going to be a good time. Another thing, is that due to the large-ness and closeness of this family and town as a whole, it is really difficult to draw the line as far as who gets invited and who doesn't. We'd end up with a tonne of people, and thus either spending a bajillion dollars to entertain a bunch of people we're not really that close to, or having cheese and cocktail weiners. And somebody is always going to be left out. So this way, it's easily drawn, immediate family only, and a few close friends. I think we have 25 people all told, including the 2 of us. The big reception will be loads of people, and if we're friends, you're invited. If you're not in town but can be for Sept 2nd, let me know. If you want to come, send me your address (real, not e), and we'll send you an invite. Once we pick them out and stuff.

Anyway, we went to the place we're having the wedding and small reception, and it's really nice, and it's going to be great. It's an inn, so we can all stay right there, and we've got the honeymoon suite booked already. It has a jacuzzi in the room. Not in the bathroom, in the room. Nice.

Also, in preparation for the impending day and the dress shopping that will go along with it, I've decided to try to firm up a bit. I have videos for Winsor Pilates, Yoga, and stability ball. I'm trying the Pilates, but it's not going to be fun. 20 minutes this morning may cripple me for a few days. I guess that's a good sign though, long term. My sister and I and a couple of her friends went to a bridal show yesterday. It was sort of fun, free cake samples and stuff, but not very useful since I'm not getting married here, and it was all local merchants. There's a show in Moncton on the 20th that I'm going to go to, if anyone wants to take the day off and come with me and the wee lad. Should be more helpful, since we're getting married around there. The show was a bit of an ordeal though, we thought we needed tickets, and my sister's friend had 2 extra, so no problem, but then she only had one extra, so we were like, damn, but then when we got there you didn't even need tickets, nor was there even anywhere you could have handed them in. I registered for some free stuff, not the least of which is a rehearsal dinner at El Burrito Loco. That would be sweet. All the tables were like, wedding photographers / videographers, favours, invitations, and oh, yes, Fantasia. Big ol' vibrators and dildos, right out on display. They were not giving away samples, nor could I sign up to win anything. Unfortunate. Ha.

Alright, I'm excercised and clean, and the boy sleeps still, so I'm going to do nothing while the doing is good.

funny for the weekend

Random, but entertaining.
Points to Ponder for the new year:

Number 10
Life is sexually transmitted.

Number 9
Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

Number 8
Men have two emotions: hungry and horny. If you see him without an erection, make him a sandwich.

Number 7
Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach a person to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks.

Number 6
Some people are like a Slinky.....not really good for anything, but you still can't help but smile when you shove them down the stairs.

Number 5
Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.

Number 4
All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.

Number 3
Why does a slight tax increase cost you two hundred dollars and a substantial tax cut saves you thirty cents?

Number 2
In the 60s, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.

Number 1
We know exactly where one cow with Mad Cow disease is located among the millions and millions of cows in America, but we haven't got a clue as to where thousands of illegal immigrants and terrorists are located. Maybe we should put the Department of
Agriculture in charge of immigration

another good, though possibly biased site.

Rick Mercer's Blog.

See also Rick Mercer Report. Generally on Tuesdays now, but with a special election episode on this Monday.

Time to get votin', folks

I think this badboy is classified as a non-political blog, but this one post won't hurt.

Vote.

It's coming up, Monday the 23rd. If you're not already registered, and would like to register ahead of time, you can get the number to call on the Elections Canada website.
In the interest of information for people who are too lazy to search or try the obvious names that go with each party, here are links to the main party websites. I'm not saying you can believe most of what you read on them, but at least it'll give you a starting point.

Liberal. Have they done some bad things? Sure. Good things too. You decide.

NDP. I like the idea of NDP, and I'm pretty sure that they'd have a chance to get in if everyone who thought they'd do a good job would actually vote for them, but I think there are a lot of people who aren't willing to take the chance to vote NDP and risk that the greater of the 3 main evils will get in.

Green Party. Sounds good to me, but the same problem, even moreso, as the NDP. Not a main party in many people's eyes, but worth considering.

Conservatives. I'll ask that you seriously consider the scariness level of this guy before you consider voting for him. Revoking constitutional rights? That's not cool, buddy, regardless of how you feel about sexual orientation. Plus, how do you cut taxes, increase tax breaks, and also increase policing on city streets? What's that, by cutting health care? Privatising? Oh, ok.

In a way, the American system is good. Did I just type that, for real? Wow. See, cause then if you like your local conservative guy, say he's been doing a good job (just pretend with me for a minute), then you can vote for him, and then vote for someone else for Prime Minister.

Just to be clear, that's NOT how it works here. You basically have to vote for the PM via the local guy.

That's the end.

Do vote though, please. Even if you don't register beforehand, you can still vote on the 23rd.

oh, d-d-d-d-deer!

Cheesey title? Whatever. We have deer in our yard, it's super cool. I took pictures of them on Wednesday. You can look at them if you like. They're all random sizes, I couldn't get really close so I had to zoom, so then I just cropped the deer out of all the background snow and trees. You know how it is. I made movies too, but don't have the patience right now to upload them. In one, one deer, I think the boss deer, cause it was heading up the rear, was heading toward me to check me out. I went inside to get the fiancé, but when I looked outside they had taken off. Ah well.

deer
more deer
still more deer
deer, again
you guessed it, deer
and finally, deer

In other news, it's freaking beautiful out today. It's probably even nicer than it is in Raincouver, where Mitch is, cause it's been raining there every day for TWENTY FIVE days now. It's almost a record, the record is 28, set in 1953. The boy and I went for a walk, but we only had the little umbrella stroller, so it was pretty rough going. Might have to get a sled or something, cause regular strollers are not designed for all-weather trekking.

What else. I'm hungry. My fat cat Mort has been super annoying and wanting sweet lovin' from us all the time lately. It's annoying because sometimes you just want to sit down without a creature crying to get up in your lap. Bad enough when the fiancé does it.
HA!
He doesn't usually read this page, so I can say that kind of stuff.

I think I'll go have some homemade bits and bites. They're super tasty, even if the fiancé doesn't think so. Have a great weekend, I'm going to the market with Jenn to have a donair the size of my head. Mmmmm. Also am having supper with my sister and her man.

Oh, yeah, also, may actually be getting married this year! Fun, yes? Any ideas to go with a small-ish ceremony, fun quotes to put on invitations or anything, send 'em my way.

sir poops-a-lot

I try to keep the baby stuff to a minimum on here so as to keep it interesting for my many, varied readers, but man. Babies sure can produce an astounding amount of poop in the run of a day. I'm not sure it's even balanced as far as what goes in vs. what comes out.

enough of that.

Santa found me twice this year, which was pretty nice. We spent Christmas proper at the in-laws place, and headed to my parents place on the 28th. That'll be reversed next year, and then likely we'll start having our own Christmas with visiting afterward. My sister did that this year. Some have said she's the clever one in the family. Anyway, my dear boy cleaned up, as was expected, with lots of toys and clothes. He's mainly interested in things he can throw and chase around at this point, so he loves the Fisher Price peek-a-blocks and rollarounds. So, funnily enough, do the cats. Dear boy will be playing contentedly with a ball, batting it about, and Mort (the cat) will just dive in and swoop it away, and play with it himself. The dear boy doesn't seem to mind, he just finds something else to bat at. For those of you not privvy to his website, he's crawling like a fiend, standing up on everything (if you come visit, make sure your belt is done up, or you may lose your pants in his effort to get upright), and as of yesterday can move sideways while holding on to the couch. In baby-parent circles, this is apparently called "cruising'.

In unrelated news, Wedding Crashers came out on video yesterday. You should all see it. Even my mom liked it, with the exception of Will Ferrell's part. Admittedly, he's a bit much, but it's Will Ferrell, thus it's good. We significantly increased our movie collection over the holidays. Mostly the fiancé did, with my help, but what's his is mine, right? We got A Series of Unfortunate Events (I'm thinking of nicknaming the dear boy Sunny), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Cinderella Man, Amadeus, L.A. Confidential, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, and The Sword in the Stone. Those last 2 are theoretically for the boy, but he can't really appreciate them yet. He did watch one of his Baby Einsteins though.

Sadly, I think that's all my news. Mitch was home over the break, but our being away almost exactly matched his visit, so I only got to see him briefly. I haven't seen my sister yet, we missed each other totally when visiting my parents, and I have yet to see any of my close friends. Weird. I'll have to get on that. If only all these people didn't work, it would be so much easier!

nice holiday story

click

after all that template work

Merry Christmas!

I'm not going to PC it up and say Happy Holidays instead, but I will say it as well, so that whatever your affiliations or lack thereof, you can feel free to enjoy some time off to spend with family, or watching tv, or playing xBox, or whatever you like to do.

It's really late, and I have to go to bed. I hope Santa found you!

is it funny cause it's not true, or cause it's true?

A sign in the Bank Lobby reads: "Please note that this Bank is installing new Drive-through teller machines enabling customers to withdraw cash without leaving their vehicles. Customers using this new facility are requested to use the procedures outlined below when accessing their accounts. After months of careful research, MALE & FEMALE procedures have been developed. Please follow the appropriate steps for your gender."


MALE PROCEDURE:

1. Drive up to the cash machine.

2. Put down your car window.

3. Insert card into machine and enter PIN.

4. Enter amount of cash required and withdraw.

5. Retrieve card, cash and receipt.

6. Put window up.

7. Drive off.

*********************************************************************


FEMALE PROCEDURE:

1. Drive up to cash machine.

2. Reverse and back up the required amount to align car window with the machine.

3. Set parking brake, put the window down.

4. Find handbag, remove all contents on to passenger seat to locate card.

5. Tell person on cell phone you will call them back and hang up.

6. Attempt to insert card into machine.

7. Open car door to allow easier access to machine due to its excessive distance from the car.

8. Insert card.

9. Re-insert card the right way.

10. Dig through handbag to find diary with your PIN written on the inside back page.

11. Enter PIN.

12. Press cancel and re-enter correct PIN.

13. Enter amount of cash required.

14. Take a quick peeky at yourself in rear view mirror.

15. Retrieve cash and receipt

16. Empty handbag again to locate wallet and place cash inside.

17. Write debit amount in check register and place receipt in back of checkbook.

18. Re-check makeup.

19. Drive forward 2 feet.

20. Reverse back to cash machine.

21. Retrieve card.

22. Re-empty hand bag, locate card holder, and place card into the slot provided.

23. Give dirty look to irate male driver waiting behind you.

24. Restart stalled engine and pull off.

25. Redial person on cell phone.

26. Drive for 2 to 3 miles.

27. Release Parking Brake.

like I need another time-sucker

thanks to my sister for this one.

WebSoduko

Good luck! Default is easy, I'd highly recommend starting there. And reading the rules, it actually makes it easier.

seriously though, cutest baby ever.

I've managed to not post any pictures of my dear boy on this site so far, but that time is over now. I think, upon seeing the picture, you'll understand why I felt the need to share it with everyone who might stumble across this page.

enjoy.

With all that mistletoe hanging around (haha, hanging...)

You'd better get primed for some serious lip locking.

Mastering the French Kiss

You're welcome.

mystery rodent!

I think it's a weasel, but I'm not sure. Mort was chasing leaves at the window, or so I thought. His mewing and pawing the glass were a little more insistent than usual, so the baby and I went over to investigate. We saw a small white rodent-y type animal scurrying around the yard. Very exciting. We went out and took a picture of it, as it was diving under ground.



From my extensive research on GoogleImages, it's a weasel. They turn white in winter. Who knew? They're a lot cuter than I had imagined a weasel to be. Weasel's a pretty negative image, but they just must be very sneaky little animals to have earned their nickname association. Anyway, that was my excitement for the day, I put up some more pictures on the baby's site to keep the relatives happy, and am now going to get showered to keep myself happy.

Later skaters.

hooray for Primus

I got the whole Rogers thing sorted out, so that's good. It took 45 minutes on the phone, largely on hold, and 3 people to sort it for me, but the 3rd guy actually knew what he was talking about (odd, I know), and explained what had happened in about 15 seconds. Nice of him. His name is Jeff. Thanks Jeff. I still hate Rogers, but it's nice to know you're not all a bunch of useless tits. I've also switched my long distance and internet over to Primus. It's still dial-up, but comes with an accelerator, which actually works. Hooray again!

I've retouched the gift blog. There are actually some things on there that I hope to get, as well as my dear, sweet laptop. I'm not taking it off the list. Feel free to post your lists, it's fun.

In other, unrelated news, I went to check out my old preggo blog, to find that it has been taken over by somebody else. Jenn was right when she said I should save it somewhere else to make sure that it was safe in case Blogger exploded or something, and I think in fact it was doing just that which allowed this other woman to take over the site. I republished the whole thing on another server, and never changed the publish-to address back to blogspot. Ah well. I had a mini heart attack in the 2 seconds before I rememebered that though.

Hmm. 23 days until Christmas, I should get this site all festive looking again. I was going to count the shopping days, but it's the same number here since we have Sunday shopping. Just you po' folks in NS don't, I think. I have lots of plans for my time, but all I generally end up doing is surfing around and playing minesweeper. I have a gift I'm supposed to be making though, so I really do need to get on that.

On that note, the shower and my project are beckoning. I cleaned the tub this morning, with new Lysol cleaner (new to me) and it has the most disgusting smell ever. "Summer Breeze" or some such foolishness. It smells like...I don't know. Something really gross. I'll either have to get new stuff, or the fiancé will have to do the cleaning. Somehow, I'm thinking option A is going to be the viable one.

damn blogger hacker assholes

I received an email about a week ago "in response to my account query" or something, about how I can go about changing my password. Why the hell would someone want to hack into a blogger account? Useless much? Anyway, so I had to change my password, and I couldn't remember what it was. I do now though, thanks.

We're in Maine for the American version of Thanksgiving with my aunt and uncle and parents and the bebe. I'm anticipating much the same thing as Canadian Thanksgiving, but perhaps with more candied yams and green bean casserole. I've never had either of those (although the first one apparently involves marshmallows, so I'm hoping for that) but they're always on TV Thanksgivings, so it follows that they'll be here in real life. Obviously.

Aliant dial up is so frustrating I'm actually thinking about cancelling the account and just using the fiance's work account in the evenings. So slow. Also, with the monitor not working, it's just not worth the mental anguish.

In other, "companies that suck" news, Rogers does. They keep sending me my bill, even though I paid it off and closed the account 2 months ago. Nicely done, boys. I can't be bothered calling them, because it takes a year to get through to a person, and the automated guy doesn't respond to swearing. I emailed customer service instead.

Hmm. Might go shopping in Augusta tomorrow, they have all kinds of exciting stores like Gap and WalMart. lol. Better than sitting around doing nothing though, and there are all kinds of ridiculous sales the day after Thanksgiving here. Being in Sugarloaf, should probably be going skiing, but that's not in the cards this time around. Wasn't the last time I was here either, since I was all pregnant and stuff. And it was October.

Alright, I've abused the highspeed internet (seriously, am I the only one who doesn't have it? not fair.) enough. Later skaters.

oh yeah.

by the way, one month and 13 days until Christmas. WTF??

I'll be updating my buy me stuff page, and if anyone else would like to have one, I'd be more than happy to host it for you. Honestly, if anyone else wants any kind of page, I can probaly host it for you, so long as it's just a small guy like mine.

whee, highspeed!

we're home at the fiancé's parents' place for the weekend, and they have highspeed. How is that fair? They're a good 45 minutes from the nearest big city, and they get fast internet. We, a measly 20-25, no such luck. Aliant and Rogers are mean.

I'm afraid there hasn't been too much to update on, hence the lack of updating. That combined with the wonky monitors (I have mine back now, but it's not cooperating either. it blacks out, and sometimes comes back normal, sometimes with garbage. annoying.) and a 7 month old crawling baby, not much time to do anything worth talking about.

I'm beginning to realise that my maternity leave is dwindling. The boy is 7 months old now, craziness. That means 5 more months of paid leave, 3 weeks of full pay after that, then I'm effed. I am going to meet with someone at the district to see what they realistically expect from me, if there's a possibility of not doing the regular "I just graduated and will need to day-to-day supply for a year" thing. If there isn't, I'm not sure what I'll do. Stay home and start up a naked webcam site or something. Don't think I haven't thought of that. I've had one woman offer me her baby to take care of when she goes back to work in the fall, but I don't think that'll pay the bills. If I had a couple it probably would, and that's more appealing than opening a daycare option, because a daycare would be lots of kids, so I wouldn't actually get to spend a tonne of time with my dear boy anyway. We'll see. I'd be sort of stuck home though, and I'm not sure how it works if, say, I have an appointment with my little guy, or just want to go away, or something. Sorry, daycare closed for today!

That's about it, I really have to find new things to talk about. I actually had a really productive day the other day, I put up a shelf in one of the cupboards for glasses, put up mini shelves under the stairs, did laundry and dishes, and took the baby for a walk. Good times. It makes up for the other days when we do nothing all day except watch Poko and Ellen. We had a power outage for a few hours, which is not very cool this time of year. Or, actually, it is cool, because our heat is electric. It came back on just after 6 though, so the house didn't get too cold. The fiancé will never again complain about my collection of giant candles in jars though.

sweet merciful crap

I don't know if I can keep up this page on dialup with a 6 month old, it's just not working out. I will keep posting whenever I can, but the time, patience and subject matter just so rarely occur simultaneously that it's getting increasingly sporadic, as I'm sure, loyal reader, you have noticed. I'm trying to keep my poor boy from going crazy with teething, he's got 6 teeth through and another on the way, which is just cruel for such a tiny boy. He hasn't had a break since the first one made its appearance almost 3 months ago. There's a craft fair type thing in just over a month that I'm thinking of getting a table at, it's only $8 and I'm sure I can get some photography or something together by then. We'll see. I'm also realising that my sweet boy is almost 7 months old, which means I have about 5 months of mat leave left, and no definite plan for what's to happen after that. I'm planning to go meet with somebody at the district office and see if they can do anything for me. I understand and can respect that they want people to start out with supplying, but the day to day thing just isn't going to work. Even if I can find someone to watch the baby on extremely short notice, they'd have to live next door in order for it to be on the way to work, and with only one car, it'll be tricky for the fiancé to live up to his end of the carpooling agreement, unless I'm strictly at the high school in town and can ride along.

Come on lottery, I don't need $54 million, just maybe $1 million would do fine.

That's all my news and rants for now! I miss blogback. I'm turning on blogger comments, and will make it so you don't have to sign in for now, until I get spam crap.