floor space!

well, we're not quite done, but we put a good dent in the stuff that needed putting away today. I got all my clothes except sweaters away, which is no small task. I helped a little with sorting of boxes of junk collected from the computer desk and coffee table, and, well, floor, of the old apartment, so we've got most of that done too. The cats are very helpful with all of this, with their jumping in and out of boxes and whatnot. They've actually taken quite a liking to the nursery; it's nice and sunny in there most of the day, so they just laze around in the sun pools. I would too, if I were a cat.

I haven't showered yet today, and on any other day I probably just wouldn't bother, but I figure since it's poker night here tonight, I should look somewhat presentable. Does anybody want to buy an xBox? If I have to watch one more game of NHL 2005 I'm going to vomit. Seriously. It was very helpfully pointed out to me that I'll soon be surrounded by boys, except for some of my fish, but they really don't count. I'll be needing lots of girly visitors.

funny, and yet really offensive

weird how that works out. go ahead, click. via Kim.

Man, I'm still super bored. I'll be done bedrest on Wednesday, but I'm not even sure I'll make it that long. I start to feel really gross after a while of just lying around. Lack of movement and fresh air is no good for me. I saw a woman on the View this morning who's been on bedrest since November though, so I really have no right to complain.

Still working very slowly on getting things put away. It's a bit tricky to get all the clothes away, because I have basically 2 wardrobes now. At least one and a half. I don't want to store the regular stuff anywhere, because hopefully I'll be wearing those clothes in the not-too-distant future. I obviously also have to keep the preggo clothes out, because I'm ENORMOUS. I now have only 1 box of clothes in the nursery, but only because we moved the other one into the bedroom. Meh, whatever. I'm on my own all day today, which is brutal. I do have the cats, and they follow me around whenever I do get off my ass, which isn't often. They like having someone home all day to follow and sleep on. I'm interested but not worried at all to see how they'll react to the baby. The little experience they have had with babies, they are either afraid of them or just show no interest, since the little ones can't pet them or anything.

The couch and something more substantial than mini eggs for lunch is calling, so I should go and answer one of them at least. I may get adventurous and put some clothes away later, but no promises.

you missed me

so here I sit at home. Better than the hospital, I have to say, though not terribly more exciting. The TV is cheaper though. I'm looking around, and when I see something I can do that doesn't look too physically demanding (no bending or lifting or anything) I'll think about doing it. I put some baby clothes in the top drawer of the dresser yesterday, that was pretty exciting. They're all clean and just waiting for a baby now.

The new place is great, very nice, very clean, which is a nice change from what we're used to when moving into a new place. Grant has gone to pick up the last of our stuff in Moncton, and is quite worried that I'm going to go into labour while he's away. I think I'll be ok. Big plans for the day include vegetating in front of the tv, thinking about showering (I just did yesterday, what's the rush?), and hoping that somebody else is as bored as I am and comes to visit me and my messy apartment. I'm pretty bitter right now that I'm not at the market; that's one of the best things about Fredericton. Hopefully in a few weeks.

oh, right

happy valentine's day!

haha

yawn, or, I think I'm dying

but at least we get red napkins on our food trays today.

I've had about enough of this, I'll tell ya. I now have a wicked cold, for which I can take Halls and cough syrup. Not only don't the work very well on the actual coughing part, but they do absolutely nothing for the sneezing, head about to explode, general feeling like shit symptoms. Sweet. So yeah, good times

Sorry for the lack of updates, but there's really not a whole lot going on here. I have some lovely flowers that have (miraculously) not died yet, so that's nice. My roommate (Madam Snoreypants) and her baby (I Only Cry at Night) have gone home, so that's nice too. She was really nice, but not much fun to share a room with at night. Also now I can open the curtain and get some daylight on my side of the room. I thought of asking to move over to the window bed, but then I'd have a different phone number and stuff. Plus, theoretically, I'm only here til Wednesday. Wish me luck.

My lunch has arrived and looks DELICIOUS, so I must be off. I did get ice cream for dessert, that's pretty exciting.

mmm, bedrest

so, obviously everyone is really concerned about why I haven't posted for so long.

...

jerks! all of you!

anyway, I'm in the hospital, on bedrest. It's a pretty rockin' time. I'll spare you the details, I'll post them all on the preggo blog, but suffice to say the baby wants to come out now, and we don't want it to! I'll be in the hospital at least until next Wednesday, or until I have the baby, whichever comes first. Hopefully next Wednesday comes first.

Due to the fact that I've been in the effing hospital for over a week now, there's very little going on in my life to report on. Hospital food is not very good, but I've had fantastic visits from friends and family, and have a good supply of pretty flowery plant things and candy.

The good news is that I did manage to (just) finish first semester. I had my last exam on Monday afternoon, got it marked (only 9 kids wrote, lord love exemptions), and got all my final marks into the spreadsheets so I could fill in the bubble sheets. I went to Toys R Us and made a registry for the baby, not a lot of things, but fun things. I came home, surfed a bit, and then started having a lot of braxton-hicks contractions. They're fake, they don't usually mean anything. Unless you're having them every 3 minutes. So, I came here, and haven't been allowed out since. Unfortunate. I week and 2 days to go. Emails and comments to entertain me are appreciated. I don't have to help in the moving to Fredericton, which is nice. For me, not for anyone else.

I'll be on a bit now that I have dialup and a computer, but for now, that's about it. Must off and update the preggo blog.

because it's fun to start posts with "because"

so, exam week is over, but we still have one day of exams. That's hardly fair. Effing snow. I say fuggit, the theatre arts exam isn't that important, let's just skip it. But no. So I have kids writing an exam Monday afternoon, marks are due Tuesday morning, then we have probably Tuesday afternoon to 'prep' for semester 2, and then classes start Wednesday. Super. I still have no idea what I'm doing. Well, no, I have some idea, but no concrete plans. How hard can it be to get through 4 weeks and 3 days, really? Also, my prep class is moving to period 3, right before lunch, which is exciting. It's period 5 right now, and I generally feel like doing absolutely nothing by the time last period rolls around, so it's not a really productive time for me.

In other news...I have no other news. I was looking for a bit more feedback on the new colour scheme, but no news is good news, or you're all just too lazy to say anything. Except for the, yeah, one person who did comment. Thanks, Kim!.

For now, I have to go cook my sweetie some supper, and then just sit the hell down and relax for a bit. It is the weekend, after all. I have my very first baby shower tomorrow, I'm pretty excited for that. That's about the sum total of my plans for the weekend though. Finish marking exams, and relax some more. Sweet.

because you all want to know more about me

I can tell.

via PSMC, via GG, via Trinity.


- I am: sleepy.
- I know: enough about the English language that I'm annoyed by much of what I see / read on tv.
- I have: too much stuff.
- I wish: for something every time I notice the time is 11:11. I have my sister to thank for that.
- I hate: ignorant people.
- I miss: being small and carefree.
- I fear: being alone.
- I hear: the 3rd blizzard of the week raging outside.
- I search: for the good in people. It can take a while.
- I wonder: what it will be like to be a mom.
- I regret: not participating in much while I was in school.
- I love: my family.
- I ache: when I think about how little I can impact the really big issues in the world.
- I care: what people think of me, even though I know I shouldn't for the most part.
- I always: smile at people when I make eye contact. It's involuntary, and I hope people don't think I'm weird.
- I am not: a very good liar.
- I dance: like a moron, I'm fairly sure. but I have fun.
- I sing: very often, and pretty well, I think.
- I do not always: clean my fishtank as often as I should.
- I should not: spend so much time on the computer.
- I write: much less than I used to. I'll put a link back up to the writings I had posted a while back, on my other site.
- I win: at Scrabble and Scene It.
- I lose: patience quickly when I don't understand something.
- I confuse: my students' names sometimes, even when they've been in my class for a while. I feel badly about that.
- I listen: to cds obsessively when I buy them.
- I go: a little stir crazy when I'm here by myself with nothing to do.
- I am happy about: the way things are turning out for us so far.

because I can

needed a change, I suppose. May not quite be finished, but I think the change of colour scheme will keep me happy for a while. Make sure to reload to get all the new pretty stuff, and let me know what you think. As long as you think it's good. haha. No, really, I can handle well-said constructive criticism too.

snow? again? really?

That's just silly. We once again have the red screen of doom on the weather channel, calling for some ridiculous amount like 40cm to fall tomorrow. Luckily, it's starting tomorrow morning, so hopefully it will be finished by Monday morning, and I can go to work, and my sweet fiancé (who is choosing to risk it instead of go home early like last weekend) will be able to make the treck back to Freddy. Tomorrow will probably be dedicated to not much, sticking close to home and watching tv or movies. I have to clean the fish tank. Wooh!

I had a relatively productive day today. Did some dishes, went to school to photocopy my exams, got some groceries for here and some cleaning stuff for the new apartment. That took me a surprisingly long time. Oh, I also got new wipers for both of our cars, and some good winter wash. Mine claims to be good to -40, you know, the classic blue stuff, but it freezes on my windshield when I try to wash it, when it's nowhere near 40 below. So, I got the same wipers and wash as last year, the motomaster teflon winter stuff, it worked really well for me last winter.

I am greatly enjoying wearing overalls today, they're quite comfy with their lack of waist. In other baby news, I now have just under 10 weeks to go, a baby shower next weekend thrown by the (future) in-laws (mom and aunts), and picked out a crib and dresser for the nursery. That's all, I'm trying to keep the baby stuff on the preggo blog.

We, well, the fiancé and his burly friends and family, moved a bunch of large stuff to Fredericton, to the new place. I am now without, and not missing horribly, I'll say, the futon, the loveseat (which is a pullout, and weighs roughly 2.8 tonnes), the kitchen table and chairs, my regular desk, and the giant tv stand. Also a bunch of boxes of books and stuff, and the 2 bookshelves. We still have a lot of stuff though. People keep telling me that of course this is a great time to clean house, and I agree, and I do throw stuff out, but really and truly most of the stuff we have is useful. Like, I have a lot of clothes, yes, but I wear them all. I go through every now and then and prune out what I don't. We just have enough stuff that we could live in a house and not need to get much. One of the biggest pains in the ass to move is the fish, since I have to catch most of them and drain a bunch of the water out. I'm not going to catch Cletus this time, he can ride in the half-full tank. I think that will be much easier on both of us than me trying to catch him with my inadequately sized net, and him being in a bag not much bigger than him for any amount of time. He likes to hang out on the bottom, or wherever, so it should be ok. If anyone has any great fish moving tips, pass them along. I've done this before, and am better now than I was, but I'm sure there's a better way.

edit

apparently I was unclear in my post about that stupid anti-immigration flyer thing. Now my family thinks I'm being targeted by psychopaths. Have you never come out to find some random flyer on your car? If not, you are very fortunate indeed. Most people have. This is what happened here. The flyer had nothing to do with me personally, or my website, and I didn't think that I had implied that in any way, but just in case, here I am un-implying it.

that's all.

by the by, here's what he wrote back to me. I'm not even going to bother commenting, but I invite you to!



Dear (jallápenno):

Thank you for taking the time to express your views about our leaflet.

Fewer than 18 per cent of Canadians were born abroad. Europeans were the founding/settler people of Canada as we now know it. To say that everyone – and that includes the Natives, who migrated from Asia about 10,000 B.C. – came from somewhere else originally is to say nothing.

There’s a rule of nature. If you don’t control the territory you live in, you won’t have it for long. The Natives were overwhelmed by the newcomers. The reality is that they no longer control the land they once lived in. We have a choice. We can continue to say, “come one, come all,” despite our high unemployment rate. The result, according to Stats Canada, is that by 2050, people of European descent will be a minority. In other words, others, probably East Indians and Chinese will be the majority and, as such, willl impose their ways. If that’s okay with you, do nothing, because that will be the world your children and grandchildren will live in. If it bothers you, join us and seek real immigration reform and a Canada First policy.


Paul Fromm

CFIRC

help!

I have internet, but messenger won't sign in! I feel alone! I have today off, as predicted, because of the wicked-ass blizzard blowing itself all over the place here. The roads are actually pretty clear in front of my place, but that's because the plows go by roughly every 10 minutes. It pays to live across from the fire department.

Anyway, feel free to email me, I'm lonely. Still marking, will finish today, and will further impress myself with my Excel mastery while I create my marking systems. Free hot chocolate and popcorn to whomever decides to drop by! I can pretty much guarantee I'll be here to welcome you, I doubt there's much going on in the hub city today. Plus I don't want to shovel out my car.

I'm watching an amazing show about extreme surgeries, and this poor guy got his whole head and face really badly burned, so they're doing grafts, and it's really gross, but I'm interested to see how it turns out.

it never ends

well, it'll have to end after Wednesday, except for the exams, but there is just far too much marking crap in this teaching job. Especially for English, because there's really no other way to see if the little bastards are learning anything, if not by getting them to do things that I then have to mark. Anyway, I'm hoping to get finished up this latest bunch of stuff today so that I can focus on the horribly complicated exam exemptions process that we're test-driving this year. I understand that of course, there's no other time of year when we could really figure out who's exempt other than now, at exam / end of semester time, but it's just already such a busy time of year.

anyway, on a totally unrelated note...we went to see In Good Company last night, and it was pretty good. A little different than I expected, funny parts but not overall hilarious, but good. We had to park roughly a mile away from the entrance, because there was some kind of conference going on at Crystal Palace. So, went to the movie, enjoyed it, came out to find some hate literature on my car. I was astounded. I visited the website and sent them an email telling them how ridiculous they are, and I encourage you to do the same. Apparently they forgot the part of this country's history where THEIR relatives immigrated from somewhere less wonderful, and were allowed to stay and build a life here. I reminded them of that, but honestly, I'm not expecting much understanding from these folks. It just left a bad taste in my mouth at the end of the night to come out and find that crap on my car. I was surprised that it would even be legal to do so, and sad to be reminded that such small minds exist in today's society.

I'll get down off the soap box now.

marking!

I *finally* finished marking my students' short stories. It took me a really, really long time, because a) I hate marking, and b) the damn kids can't write. I had a few that were really quite good, but so, SO many more that were poorly written in every way. Lame plots, very little detail / thought, and enough spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors to make any literate person vomit. I had to keep taking breaks. Anyway, I won't go into details about the travesties against the English language that I have been forced to witness, but suffice to say I had to just stop correcting a lot of them and try to muddle my way through to attempt to at least get the gist of the plot.

I just looked over at my aquarium and my giant algae eater is on the side of the tank facing me, and he scared the living crap out of me. The light is off, and his underside is lighter with crazy labyrinthy patterns on it, and ... he's enormous. Scary. It's a very pet-centred desk I have here, both of my cats are currently laying in front of the monitor, which makes it tricky to type this post.

What else is new. We have 2 weeks of school until exams, which is fun, because I've never prepared an English exam before. I'm hoping to get some help in that area from the other grade 9 teachers, and hopefully have a look at old exams for the 113 English and theatre arts classes. There's then a week of exams, 2 turn around days, and then 4 weeks and 2 days until March Break. That's when I'm done like dinner. Ack.

I need a hair cut, that's pretty exciting. I think that's it though. I need to go to bed; I've been staying up late all week for some reason, and it's definitely catching up with me.

useful info

speed up Firefox, if you're on broadband.

happy new year!

I have to say though, I've never really gotten the excitement about new years. I've even had a couple of years when I just didn't bother to stay up. Granted, those were years I was spending the break with my parents in PA, but still. As I get older and more mature (haha), I just don't really feel the need to wait for one more excuse to get blitzed and fend off slobbering strangers.

That said, this past 12 months has been quite eventful. As I was planning out my list of what has gone on, I noticed that Tirexl has beat me to the punch, but here is my list of what made this year so much more ... interesting? than years psst.

1. I fully accepted the possible fate of continuing to work in a position I didn't consider my ideal, only to be told later that day that it was no longer available to me


2. I got my dream job a few weeks later


3. My parents moved back from the states to the much more visit-friendly Halifax


4. Even though I had my job lined up, the fact that I didn't know exactly what I was teaching made it possible for me to do basically nothing the whole summer


5. Also making that possible, the fact that I found out I was pregnant in late July, and was rendered unproductive for a couple of months


6. Even though that was terrifying at first, it seems to be working out really well


7. My sweetie got an engineering job that he really, really likes


8. We got engaged


9. We started looking for a house. We've put that on hold for now, but it's definitely a big thing.


10. I can look at my fiancé and smile at how in love I am


11. I can look at my tummy and smile at the giant alien baby growing in there, who seems to be trying to escape, or perhaps doing kung fu.

Made for some stress, I'll tell ya, but it's all going pretty well now. The alien baby thumps my innards as we speak, and the fiancé is happily playing NHL 2005. Things are good. I'm happy.

Happy Boxing Day!

No shopping yet though. Santa found me and my family, and we gorged ourselves on turkey et al last night. Good times. We're hosting what has become an annual boxing day event here at our house this year, where we get together with my dad's sister and her family for dinner and general merriment, usually involving drinking and board games. We have a couple of new games this year, Battle of the Sexes and Scene It, which I got for Christmas. I also got a sweet pair of pink gloves to go with my sweet pink hat that I got last year. Very hard to find, apparently. Anyway, here in Halifax we're supposed to get like 50cm of snow. That's a lot. Moncton is supposed to get 30cm, which is also a lot, but it's no 50! Since we had only planned on leaving Tuesday, we're not too worried. It's supposed to stop tomorrow, just snow a crapload this afternoon and tonight. I'll keep you posted though.

I got loads of stuff, I must say. Some things for the baby, which is great, a jolly jumper thing and a snuggly carrier thing, and my parents got us a stroller / infant car seat that took us a good hour to put together and figure out how to use. The stroller was just a baby present though, not for Christmas.

Anyway, off to get clean and spend some more time with the fam. Hope all is well in your neck of the woods!

the countdown is on

and the holiday visiting is officially beginning. The kitties are going this aft to their holiday hotel, I'm heading up to see my sweetie, and then on Friday we're heading down to see my parents. Wooh! I'll probably be online a bit, because everywhere I'm going for the next few days has internet, but just in case, I wanted to send out my happy holiday wishes to you all now.

Eat lots, drink lots (not necessarily alcoholic, mind you), and be merry. Enjoy your time with your loved ones, and I hope Santa finds you all!

via Mitch

hmmm, good points.

wooh!

it's vacation, and am I EVER having fun so far!

just kidding.

So far, I've gotten up about half an hour later than I usually do on a Monday morning, to go to a dentist appointment I had completely forgotten about. Then, I went to the clinic to have some blood work done, which involved me waiting in line, then drinking something really sweet and gross, and then waiting for another hour, and then having my blood taken. Good times. I stopped in at Superstore to get some kitty litter and enough food to get me through the next 3 days. The boys will be spending their holiday with the almost-in-laws, as they have the past few years. They could, technically, spend it at my parents' place this year, since they're so much closer than previous years, but we'll only actually be there for a few days, and the a-i-ls' place is much close, and we'll be heading there after my parents' place anyway. They're heading there on Wednesday afternoon, after which I'll be heading up to Fredericton to see my sister and my sweetie, and hopefully Tirexl, whom I haven't seen for a while. I'm hoping to see Jenn soon-ish too, now that she's back in town.

I have to get the boys' stuff all ready to go, which shouldn't be too hard, since they have a litter pan and stuff where they're headed. I need to clean the fishtank and figure out exactly when we're coming back, and if I'll need someone to stop in and feed them before we do get back. Quite likely. They can go a couple of days, and have gone longer when the fiancé was left in charge, but I don't know that it's really good for them to do so. Must get this place cleaned up a bit, because coming home to a messy house is never fun when you've been away. I think that's it though. Shopping is done, wrapping is done except for my Grannie's present, which is large and can wait for now to be wrapped.

What last-minute things do you have to take care of in the next...4 days? I say 4, not 5, becuase in 5 it's actually Christmas, and there's not much you can do then, except open presents and eat lots.