Dance Recital #1 Cancelled

The dance recital for this evening is cancelled due to bad road conditions and pissy weather.

I'll keep you posted on tomorrow's recital.

On Your Mark...

We have 2 dance recitals- for all 3 kids, 1 spring registration night, 1 appointment with the Ear, Nose, Throat specialist in Portage, 1 appointment to get Scott's hearing tested, 1 birthday and the need to pack for 5 of us! Oh yeah, school and work too. Just a normal week!

If I am really good I will make an appointment for all kids to see the local doctors BEFORE we leave on our trip. It is just my luck that they will all develop ear infections on Thursday. Believe it or not it is NOT my personal goal to end up at the doctor's or in the hospital on every vacation.

Wish me luck. Have a good week.

Counting Blessings

At the end of the Friday, March 11th I was able to tell Scott that perhaps I had raised the bar for my worst day ever but I was still going to consider myself really, really lucky. I counted many blessings that day. It could have gone a lot differently.

For the past week I have been trying to find a way to express myself on what happened. After much thought I have decided that I will count my blessings.

1. It was a horrifying day on a global level- the earthquake in Japan. My heart aches for the good people of Japan. I am grateful that I can do SOMETHING to help. Please donate to the Canadian Red Cross.


2. Waking to news of a- literally- world shaking event is awful enough but waking with the knowledge that the earthquake caused a tsunami travelling at 500 mph towards the Hawaiian islands. I counted 5 HUGE blessing as that was number of family members to NOT be swept away or trapped in a tsunami. They had lots of warning and were safe enough on the 12th floor.


3. The road conditions were quite bad in and around the Virden area- highways were closed all over the place. I was scheduled to be in Waskada (1h 15 minutes from Virden) for the morning to finish interviewing for an inspectors. I was thankful that we successfully rearranged for the interviews to be done in Virden since 4 out of the 5 people involved for the day were all in Virden. And that the one fellow who did travel arrived safely.


4. I was thankful that the highways eventually did open and the kids, the cats and I were able to leave Virden. Scott had bought tickets for the Boys (Finn, Scott and Dave) to go to the Monster Truck show at the MTS Centre in Winnipeg for Saturday, March 12th. Finn had really been looking forward to the show. We got out of town. (This was definitely a mixed blessing as I would have saved us a LOT of trouble had we just stayed home.)


5. I am thankful that we made it all the way to Austin before we encountered REALLY bad whiteout weather conditions. Did I mention that the weather was really, really bad?


6. I was grateful that our cat Howard stopped doing his Al Pacino in Attica impression in his car carrier. He eventually calmed down. Obviously this was the kitten's first long car ride. FYI: hysterical cats are NOT fun travelling companions especially in already tense driving situations.


7. I was thankful for the DVD player in the van and the various ipods and DSi games that kept the kids occupied and quite oblivious to the raging weather outside. Every once in a while G would ask "Momma, can YOU see anything?" and I would mumble something about having better visibility from the front. I was lying.


8. I was thankful that we got to Portage la Prairie safely. Yes, I drove a solid 50 km almost completely blind and on terrible roads but we got there.


9. I am grateful that I had my cell phone fully charged and with me but it didn't work. I was extra grateful to have found a pay phone in Portage. My cell reception was sketchy and I was getting blocks of increasingly panicked texts from Scott asking if we were okay. I was not able to send anything while driving and once we got to Portage all cell lines were blocked. So it was good to reassure him that we were okay.


10. I am grateful for my children's positive attitude and sense of adventure. When we were unable to find an available hotel room and I told them that we may be sleeping in our van they thought that was okay. Even when we were in the Walmart parking lot and in middle of a raging blizzard. After the 4th visit to an unavailable hotel Finn's wise words were "Well, there goes Plan D. What's Plan E Momma?" "Um, Gimme a minute, Baby" was my answer.


11. I was thankful that I came up with a Plan E... I decided to call the only people I even vaguely knew in Portage and ask, beg if necessary, if we could please bunk with them for the night. They were home. They graciously said yes. (Thankyou!thankyou!thankyou!) I can not adequately express how I felt when we got safely to their house and I could actually put away the thought of the all of us in the van for the night.


12. Again to the positive attitude of the kids in thinking that this was the "funnest sleepover ever". Whereas I wanted a drink.


13. I was extra grateful to the neighbours of our hosts for having had a plunger to help deal with the plugged and copiously flushed toilet as a direct result of my children. (OMG! can this trip get any better?!) I was, again, extra grateful that no lasting damage was done to their newly renovated bathroom and now slightly flooded basement. (How do you casually ask someone you barely know if you can buy them a plunger and a bottle of Lysol?) Another blessing was that this happened in the morning of the next day. If it had happened the night before I might have just cracked.


14. The weather cleared and the highways reopened after a lovely breakfast with our new friends. We packed quickly and bolted to Winnipeg before the kids could break their new lamps or something.


15. Finn arrived on time, with 20 minutes to spare, for his Monster Truck show. Scott met us downtown.


16. After 45 minutes at the Monster Truck show Finn had decided that he'd had enough and that it was time to go home. I am grateful that Scott was patient enough to explain to Finn that I had expended a lot of effort to get him there for the show and that they will be staying for the whole show. Scott bought a $25 t-shirt and an $8 snack and they were solid for the next 1h 15 minutes.
17. The girls and I went shopping for the afternoon with Norma and Tammy. It was grand and the girls had a ball.
18. Scott and the kids made it home again on sunday in a very quiet and very uneventful ride home while I stayed in Winnipeg for work. In a typical Manitoba storm we got two days of bad weather and it went right back to being lovely the next day.

So many blessings were counted. I do feel that we were quite lucky in the whole ordeal. I am NOT eager to do it again.

Another blessing ot be counted- on an unrelated note- I got my renewed passport in the mail this week. I can go on vacation with my family next week. Yahoo! Count me in for a pina colada by the pool. Maybe two!

The race is on... and other odds and sods

I am on the race committee for the 2nd annual Virden 10km run and 3km Family Run/Walk. I have a meeting in a few minutes so this will be a short one tonight. We are deciding on a date for the race. Details will follow when available.

We are preparing for the dance recitals and the first step in that is final dress rehearsal this week. I'm not sure how I am going to get everyone to the Aud on time and in costume this week but I guess I'll figure it out as I go.

Monster Truck show this weekend for the boys. Big Fun!

A quick note

Yes, we are all still alive. It was a very good weekend and like all good times it seemed to have gone by extra fast.

The kids were in Brandon for gymnastics AND for a sleepover weekend with Aunt Tammy. Tam rented a hotel room at a hotel with a kids' theme room and a water slide. Aunt Tammy is kool! Norma and Dave drove to Brandon for the day for a visit too.

The sleepover actually allowed Scott and I to get out on a date. And for those of you who are scoffing- we stayed out way past 9:30pm! Hoo Ha! We then ended up watching the movie Grown Ups with Adam Sandler, Kevin James and Chris Rock. We must have been in the mood for a silly slap-stick movie because we both actually laughed, a lot, and managed to stay awake through the whole thing.

Other Sundry:

• Mom is off to Hawaii tomorrow. She is very excited. Dad's batching it for a month. I suspect in the next month he'll be eating a lot of chips and cheese or Mexican food as he calls it.
• Heather's birthday is this week and she leaves for Hawaii next weekend! Have fun Hez!
• I am very concerned about my friend Corinne, in France. Her father had a stroke last week and I haven't heard back from her yet as to his condition.
• I am watching the Oscars. I generally love watching the Oscars but I have to say that this year I am having a real hard time staying engaged. It might have something to do with the fact that I have seen exactly three of the movies mentioned throughout the entire evening.
• I am supposed to be on a 28 days fast from sugar. It is NOT going well. I managed to go a solid 3 hours on the first day before I mindlessly stuffed a donut in my face at a meeting and then remembered what I was supposed to be doing. D'OH! Lana keeps encouraging me to keep trying and to start again. I have been honest with her and have renegotiated to only do 7 days of sugar-freeness as that seems to be my limit but at this rate it will take me 28 days to accomplish if I have to keep starting over.
• On a completely unrelated note: this afternoon I made coconut cupcakes and cream cheese icing for a co-worker's birthday tomorrow. The kids really don't like them so I expect that I will have more than a few Day 1s this week. I also cut up some fruit in case I actually feel like NOT having any sugar for a day or so.
• I'm not really sure how it happened but I managed to spread more than 5 drops of blue food colouring onto my right hand this afternoon while answering the phone and baking cupcakes. I am honestly perplexed as to how this happened as the cupcakes are not blue but I am thankful that I have dark counter tops and the kitten has dark colouring. Scott has accused me of doing rude and sexually inappropriate things to a smurf.
• Anyone have any idea of how to get food colouring off your skin without acid or steel wool?

TGIF

Random things that I know for sure about this week:

1. I'm glad it is done but I'm not sure where it went. I've had a wicked case of day confusion all week. I was certain that yesterday was Friday only to wake this morning with the feeling that I was the cute-but-slightly-ditzy star of the direct to video version of "Groundhog Day- the Sequel!"
   
2. Scott is in Quebec for the weekend and the bad weather seemed to have followed him there. Quebec can keep the bad weather, if it is all the same, but I'd like if they could send Scott back when they are done with him. Thanks.


3. My mom has been at my house since Tuesday babysitting the kids while I am at work. (Thanks Mom!) She is working hard and going to bed more than tired. However, even spending time with 3 out of her 5 grandchildren has not quenched her longing to be in Hawaii to escape the winter weather. She'll be there soon enough.
   
4. It is very important to check the expiry date of your passport more frequently than every 5.1 years! FYI- mine expired in January of this year. (D'Oh!) I started the week with lunch with a friend and she told me a story of friends of hers who had travelled all the way to Taipei in Japan to realize that her passport expired in two days. She had to come home. Better I find this out now than at the border next month!


5. Well, I have learned more than a few things about dress making and sewing patterns this week. Just because I wear size 14 normally doesn't mean I can buy a size 14 pattern. Silly me. Apparently in dress making terms size 14 really means size 8. It must be that new math I keep hearing about. Don't be fooled.


6. I have a crazy friend, who will remain nameless, (her name rhymes with Smana Kidger) who wants me to give up sugar with her for 28 days. Sugar- my oxygen! She wants me to stop breathing for 28 days. Apparently it is going to change my life. Right.


7. I am going to be increasingly cranky for the next 28 days starting on Monday. You might see a few more ranting blogs in the next month. It's not me- it's the lack of sugar speaking.
8. I'm seriously contemplating finding new and saner friends who are fine with my sugar consumption and want help in giving up their serious brussel sprout addictions.



9. Michael, my brother in law, just arrived and brought me a beautiful hand made gift. This will be hereby known as my Naughty Knotty Bowl. I love it! Isn't it beautiful?

Annoyance with Social Networking, A Rant

I am going to offer an ironic statement as a wanna-be blogger: I am tired of some forms of social networking. Specifically Facebook.

I waffle, as I check for updates, whether I should just cancel my whole account and force anyone who actually really wants to talk to me to contact me directly to show me their pictures of their holiday or children. This network has its purposes but it feels so very lazy. It seems like I have "friends" without benefits and, really, what is the point of that?!

Facebook reminds me of a comment made by a friend several years ago when she and I were discussing whether we'd attend our 10 year High School Reunion. (We didn't.) Her comment was that we could all save ourselves the time and effort if we all just filled out a form with the pertinent information that everyone wants to know and circulate it in newsletter format. Information to be compiled would include but not be limited to: a current picture, marital status (history optional), total # of pounds gained since high school, a brief timeline of travels/jobs/major life events since we saw you last, and a comment on how you currently spend you time. We laughed at how easy that would be and unlikely it was to occur. Apparently neither of us were visionaries because isn't that EXACTLY what Facebook does for us now?

I have found many people on Facebook who went to my same high school. Some of them had been very good friends to me or to Scott. Many have found me too. I enjoy seeing pictures of them in their lives now including pictures of their spouses, families and vacations. I am interested in their lives but feel quite satisfied just being a lurker. Does that make me a lazy friend?

Well, no. The ugly truth- most of these people aren't my friends now; most have been, sadly, downgraded to friendly acquaintances. Acquaintances that I may have grown up with or have spent several years of my life at their house talking about boys and dreaming about the future. These may be people who I could see tomorrow and we could pick right up where we had left off and we could become friends once again. To be a friend there needs to be some reciprocity of time, effort and interest.

So why do any of us bother trying to maintain these friendly acquaintances? Logic says that their lives are just as busy as mine. They are likely trying to juggle life as best they can too. Maybe this is the best that we can do sometimes and these ties, even the weak ones, allow us to feel like we are not alone through the balancing act.

___

What got me thinking about this topic in the first place? One of my favourite authors, Malcolm Gladwell, wrote this article in The New Yorker about Why the revolution will not be tweeted. It is a really interesting and relevant article about social media and its role in social activism. (Eygpt, anyone?) It also briefly discusses the function of social networking sites like Facebook. Very interesting read!

About Georgia

Georgia a new friend. Her name is Sasparilla and she is Georgia's Tooth Fairy. She visited us again last night to trade tooth #4 for $2. Good deal for a tooth.

I may have mentioned last fall that G had 6 loose teeth. And was, in fact, becoming shark-like by growing a second row of bottom teeth. (I believe she is an orthodontist's dream but we'll find that out as she gets a little older.) It has only been in the last few months that these teeth have started coming out. Well... been pulled out. Scott has had to pull each one as Georgia has been content enough to let them dangle. Georgia has been very brave. So brave that we are now on a first name basis with the Tooth Fairy.

This was G's Nanny McFee look.


Georgia has been leaving small notes for the Sasparilla to fill out at each visit. We have learned that Sasparilla has short purple hair, green eyes and pink skin. She is small and lives with her sisters. Sasparilla is good friends with Santa and they apparently play tennis together in their off time.

2nd Highest Holiday: SUPER BOWL!!

Okay People! This is a Big Day. I have more than a few things to do before our guests, the two biggest Super Bowl fans ever, arrive. (Okay- they could really care less about the Super Bowl but they like the food and tolerate the football to watch the commercials while having our kids jump all over them. Theys good people.)

It was a rough week last week for me for many reasons and I was very much looking forward to the weekend. It has been a good weekend so far. Here are just a few reasons why:

1. Super Bowl. Weren't you paying attention above. I'm cheering for the Green Bay Packers, not the aledged rapist. I am going to win $5 from my dad.
2. I picked up comic books and Littlest Pet Shop (LPS) purchases. Finally the kids can stop worrying that their money has been stolen by ebay.
3. Wayne was successful in getting day tickets to the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con. Geek Fest 2011 is so officially On! I'd get us t-shirts printed but that would only further prove the point.
4. Lana and I spent yesterday with a deeply satisfying day of retail therapy and Mexican food in Minot, ND. SWEET! It was a good day.
5. One of my best purchases yesterday was the pattern and fabric for two new dresses and a jacket. Yes, I am going to try find time to sew in my spare time too. (Yeah, please don't tell Scott that I have found yet another diversion from knitting his sweater. Shh. It will our little secret.)
6. I got snow pants for the kids -ON SALE- for next year. ($11/each @ Target. Woot! Woot!)

That's it. Those are my accomplishments for the weekend so far. This afternoon will consist of laundry, cooking, frantic cleaning (alternated with periods of shouting at the kids for assistance in picking up their multitude of LPS) groceries, knitting and football followed by Glee.

Life is good. Happy Super Bowl People!

Dear Golden Boy, again...

Dear Golden Boy:

I am pleased to say, and show, that we are okay and still together. We are working things out and progressing along. I have finished the back segment. (I have yet to actually measure this on the back of the person for whom it is meant. But we'll work these things out one thing at a time.) We'll call you 25% complete. Just the front, two sleeves (that are hopefully, at least, approximately the same length), collar and finishing left. Darling Golden Boy clearly we are not out of the woods yet. Maybe I'll work on a sleeve next.

However, in the sake of full disclosure, I must confess to yet another indescretion. Okay, I seem to have stumbled onto a steep and slippery slope here. I used to be a solid one project at a time kind of girl but now... I'm starting to spread myself around a little bit. And I have to say it feels pretty good.

This is my new project, started this morning, Cabled V-Neck Slipover. (From Debbie Bliss, Fall/Winter 2008 magazine.) I am knitting this with Debbie Bliss Como yarn. It is beautiful yarn. The yarn is thick and so very soft. The colour is a very light blue-grey. This is knit on big needles and is my first time with chunky weight wool.

I may never go back to thin wool knit with tiny needles. I feel like a speed knitter. I'm cocky in having finished over 7" of knitting in an afternoon.

So Golden Boy, we will make it through these hard times. We will. Just a little bit slower now than before. The Green Cabled Shoulder Bag is still in the queue and as you saw it last. In fact, after my confession I put the shoulder bag away and tucked in and finished the back of Golden Boy.

So maybe all this straying will be productive... I'm just saying.

With Love,

J