funk

Last week Steve was having a really hard time connecting with a good friend from S'toon. Mike and his wife are expecting their first child in about 3 weeks. I knew that Steve had today off so I suggested he take the day and go to S'toon to spend some time with Mike before life got really busy for everyone.

That was before last night when I kinda slipped into a funk, before having a really crummy sleep and waking up to a sore back. Before Matthias started screaming at Callah, who kept ramming her baby stroller into his chair, before Rice Krispies somehow magically seem to be falling from the ceiling all over the floor and before I found out that "a day" meant over-night.

Did I mention it's -30 C outside and it's only 9:30 am.?

my first

Today was my first experience with the new Starbucks here in town (in Safeway).

Ahhh...

What a good experience it was...

There's nothing like a grande double chocolate chip frappuccino to bring a smile to your face.

Thank you Starbucks lady.



I take that back...after updating the link to my actual drink and calculating the total amount of calories in said yummy frappuccino...well...okay...I still thank you Starbucks lady.

Just won't be seeing you that often!

Take this! and That!!

This morning at Mom's we learned some self defence. I thought it was alot of fun. It was even more fun watching all the Mom's practice these moves on each other. If ever there was a morning we should have had a camera, today would've been it! It was great! A huge THANK YOU goes out to Connie Warkentin for teaching us this morning!

Otherwise life is simply moving along. I feel like I should be in my 3rd trimester as I have absolutedly no motivation or energy for anything. Last night for supper, we had cereal. I think Steve had crackers and spinach dip. Matthias had apples and cheese. Callah just kind of picked off everyone elses plate. Then this morning, and I kid you not, I finally decided to get up, so I'm sitting on the bed, I close my eyes again, and I actually fell over and back onto the bed. It was not a good morning.

So now I'm just not looking forward to thinking of something for supper. The only good thing is that Steve won't be here, so I won't feel bad about it not being a "complete" meal. Altho' I know I should try. Any ideas?

time to kill

I'm feeling suddenly bombarded again, only this time it's not sex, it's the environment. I know, I know, cry me a river this isn't something new. Yadda, yadda, yadda. True. But if it's so old, and everyone has heard the message a thousand times over, then why isn't stuff being done to help fix it?

My e-mail carrier Care2 is an environmentally friendly carrier (Steve always laughs 'cos he says "all e-mails are eco friendly." yeah...whatever) and they have all sorts of environmentally safe info and products all over their homepage. They also have quotes and today's quote is : "What's the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?" Henry David Thoreau. That's a bit drastic, but I can see the point. Then last night, I don't usually watch My Name Is Earl, but I managed to catch the latest episode and Christian Slater was a recovered pothead, hippy guy who lived in this hippy commune where they recycled and made everything from scratch and with their own 2 hands. (Speaking of which I once had the opportunity to do this on Canada's own hippy island also known as Hornby Island. They are home to Canada's biggest recycling depot and the friendliest bunch of people I've met in a while. They're homes are all made out of logs and driftwood from the ocean and everything is really unique. A definate place to check out if you make it out to the BC coast. You have to take a ferry to Vancouver Island then hop on another ferry to Denman Island and yet another ferry from Denman to Hornby. I don't recommend going between May and September as this is the tourist season and the population triples if not quadruples and can make finding a camp spot very tricky.) Anyway going back to what I was talking about. Then I saw an add for the Al Gore movie (which I REALLY want to see) An Inconvenient Truth. I really want my kids to be able to go out and see the Cathedral, Long Beach, the mountains, the east coast (this last one I have no idea what they're saying, but the pics are really nice), and all this is just in Canada. There are millions of other places I hope they'll one day be able to see, and not just them, but their children and their children's children. If we all do our own part and help in what little ways we can, then there's still hope. Oh great, now the tree-hugger in me is making her way forward.

Just something to think about.

noise

I can remember a time when we were first married, and even way before that, when I could not handle a moment of silence. I would always turn the radio on, or listen to a cd or have the TV on and not really watch it. There had to be some sort of "white noise" on no matter what I was doing. It hadn't really occured to me that I had lost this "noise need" until my single sister was up this past weekend and always had to have something on. I would turn the TV off and she'd turn the radio on. I guess kids had something to do with that. Made me crave the quiet more. And perhaps a little maturity in there somewhere, not really sure where at times.

And I don't know, is it just me or does anyone else still find the whole Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes thing disturbing?

Finally some relief

Looks like those 3000 mg of Vit C and all those lemon/honey drinks are finally kicking in. I can breathe thru my nose!! Yes!! Now if I could just get rid off this stupid cough, my other little problems would go away as well.

This morning we woke up to the sun shining Snow was melting off the roof and tree, so the kids and I decided to go outside and attempt our first ever snowman. Steve came home just as the kids were getting ready, so he came out to help as well. We soon realized that we didn't have enough snow around the back yard (after shovelling it all into a pile to build a fort a few days ago) so we rolled the snow in the front and then transferred them to the back. The kids found sticks for arms and uh...some poop. Apparently all snowmen poop. We used a carrot for a nose and choc chips for eyes and a smile (which the dog wound up eating) and viola! There was our "freaky" snowman! I've never been prouder!!

To top off our sunny winter day I suggested we have a weiner roast in the pit in the back yard. Steve's super fantastic so he agreed and set out to build a fire. It was brilliant, if ony Gus hadn't stolen that bun out of Callah's hands and the kids had eaten their hot dogs (I..uhh...mistakenly fed them ice cream sandwiches for a morning snack). Oh well, Steve and I had a beautiful weinie roast and enjoyed the sunny winter day. 1 o'clock and naptime rolled around before we were really ready to go inside.

All that fresh air must've tuckered everyone out 'cos they're still sleeping (it's almost 3). While they were napping, I decided to take advantage of this nice day (altho' when we got out to the Red, the sky was cloudy and it had gotten quite windy and blah...) and take Gus for a walk. The way I figured it, we both needed it, and it had been a while since the 2 of us had been out there by ourselves. I love going out there to think. And so think I did. I realized that I'm almost 6 months now. Only 4 more to go and these are the months that usually fly by and pregnancy wise are the toughest. I can't really gain much more weight (in an effort to watch my weight, I'm allowing myself the privledge of snacking on only fruit...which is harder than I thought, especially after all that excess Hallowe'en candy that I've taken in the past few weeks), so now I've just got to take care of the "pudge" and work out when I can, 'cos I know soon it'll be hard to get out of bed. We've still got to decide on girls names and we're still pondering on whether or not we should move the kids to the basement. We have to set the crib back up and pick up the bassinet from my brother's in Melfort. Go thru the baby clothes and pick out the smallest and most unisex outfits. Switch around the car seats and fish out the infant carrier. So much to do, so little time...of course I'm way ahead of myself. Like I'll actually do all that before March anyway, but today, on my walk it suddenly jumped me. Baby's coming.

Even if I lay down and still feel more blubber than bulge. Baby's coming.

It was a sobering thought and yet a thought that I had never really let go of. It had always been there, in the back of my mind, but I think it's just one of those things where you wait and wait and wait, and then suddenly it's closer than you think and you wonder what you've been doing that past 7 months to prep. Oh well. Even if I was an extreme procrastinator and didn't get anything done in the next few months, I know that it would still be loved and cared for with whatever we have ready.

Just think...baby's coming.

Man of the Year

My Dad sent me these photos of possible Men of the Year Award winners.

last straw

So last night shortly after the big game, I had yet another coughing fit. This resulted in me, once again, peeing my pants. However what made last night unique was that I also started throwing up (from coughing too much) which in turn made me cry (I always cry when I throw up) and to top it all off my nose started to run. Picture it if you will...me sitting on the pot with a bucket in my lap, throwing up and coughing, with tears and snot running down my face. It was not a good night.

I have a doctors appointment in an hour.

Please pray.

One night...

Carmen walked up the stairs to her bedroom.
There , lying on her bed, was a great big purple, green and yellow fart.

She ran down the stairs yelling, "Mommy-Daddy! Mommy- Daddy! Mommy-Daddy! There is a fart up on my bed."

"Don't be ridiculous!" said her father. "Good families like ours do not have farts." Nevertheless, he walked up the stairs to see what was going on.

When he opened the door to the bedroom, the fart jumped on him. He said, "Awk! Glach! Argggg!" and fell right on down.

After a while Carmen began to wonder how her father was doing. She crawled up the stairs very slowly, looked over the top step and saw her father's feet sticking out from underneath the fart.

So Carmen ran downstairs yelling, "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy! There is a fart on top of Daddy!"

"Don't be ridiculous," said the mother. "Good families like ours do not have farts. What would the neighbours say?" Nevertheless, she went upstairs to see what was going on. She opened the door and the fart jumped on her. She said, "Awk! Glach! Arggg!" and fell right on down.

Carmen ran to the phone and called the police. She said, "Help, help! There is a fart on top of Mommy and Daddy."

"Don't be ridiculous," said the police. "Good Canadians do not have farts. What would the Americans say?"

excerpt taken from Good Families Don't by Robert Munsch and Alan Daniel

welcome to winter

Yesterday we woke up to a covering of snow on the ground. I had this gut feeling that it was here to stay. Later in the morning a few Mom's at MMO said that it would be gone by late afternoon as it was suppossed to be +4 C. Well it's still snowing, I can no longer see ANY signs of grass and I've officially had my first shovelling incident. Welcome to winter!

Yesterday at Mom's we had our big sex talk. That's right all these weeks of sexual intimacy where the word "sex" wasn't even mentioned until yesterday. I had no idea what the topic was about until I got there (late for once) and Carolyn started talking. I felt like sex was all around me. First from my Babyzone (previous post) and now here at Mom's. Oddly enough as Steve and I were still bickering, sex was the last thing on my mind and yet I couldn't get it out of my head. So that was yesterday. Again, one of the things that stuck out to me was finding out from our husbands what they found attractive about us. Chances are, it might not be what we thought or expected. Like Carolyn said, her hubby finds her sexier in jeans and a T-shirt way more then when she's all dolled up and "stylish". So that's something to think about.

And I'm officially on the hunt for pregnancy safe cold medications. I called Nutters today and they said Vitamin C...and lots of it. I could also take zinc losenges. That's about it. I said thanks for the help (roll of the eyes). Sheesh. Then I phoned my friendly neighbourhood pharmacist and said my throat feels like it's bleeding from dry coughing and she said I could try a cough medicine with ONLY DM and use it sparingly and only if VICKS vapour didn't work and drinking lots of water didn't work and etc...etc...

I hate being pregnant and sick.

oh yeah, Steve and I got over our immaturity and made up last night. Something still feels kinda off, but we're definately on the right track again.

I just wanna add this

Lisa,Welcome to Week 20 of your Pregnancy!

Sex and more sex! Remember that unless you've been advised against it by your health care provider because of bleeding or risk of miscarriage, sex is fine , a good stress reliever, and a great way to "touch bases" with your partner. Don't feel up to it? That's okay, too.

It brought a smile to my frustrated face!

anger after a good weekend

can be so frustrating. One of our old youths has a blog that has caused a bit of heat in our house lately. It's not so much the blog itself, but that particular post and the comments that follow. I guess (and perhaps I should just keep my mouth shut as I don't know all the facts) what bothers us is that it suddenly seems like more and more people aren't believing in certain "facts" of the Bible (ex: the 6 day creation, Jonah, etc...) rather they think they're merely illustrations or parable-type stories. They didn't actually happen like it's written in the Bible. The thing that gets us hot under the collar is that once you stop believing in this part or that part, what's to stop you from believing in other parts? We shouldn't need proof that these things happened. Shouldn't it be simply that we have faith that they did and God is capable of doing these things?

We read something similiar in a book we're going thru at bible study called Velvet Elvis . The author Rob Bell says, "Somebody recently gave me a videotape of a lecture given by a man who travels around speaking about the creation of the world. At one point in his lecture he said if you deny that God created the world in six literal twenty-four hour days, then you are denying that Jesus ever died on the cross. " He goes on to say that this man's faith is like "a wall of bricks. Each of the core doctrines for him is like an individual brick that stacks on top of the others. If you pull one out, the whole wall starts to crumble. It appears quite strong and rigid, but if you begin to rethink or discuss even one brick, the whole thing is in danger." And then but "what if tomorrow someone digs up definitive proof that Jesus had a real, earthly, biological father named Larry, and archaeologists find Larry's tomb and DNA samples and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the virgin birth was really just a bit of mythologizing that Gospel writers threw in to appeal...to other cults that were hugely popular at the time of Jesus, whose gods had virgin births?"

But that's just it. Until proven otherwise, we have to have faith and believe that these things did actually happen. I mean that's what faith is according to Websters; "firm belief in something for which there is no proof: complete trust."

I don't know, the whole things just makes me angry.

Anyway, I had a pretty good weekend away in S'toon at the WJOF conference. Lisa Bevere was awesome, I had faith that she would be! ;) Our hotel was nice and comforting. I found $20 at Galaxy Cinemas which was a total treat. I found a nice long pair of maternity jeans on sale at Thyme. Other than the fact that I was sick and not feeling well for a few hours, the weekend was a hit. But it never fails that after a good weekend or any time away for that matter, something always puts a damper on it when you get home. I should've known it was going to go badly when I walked in on the last 5 minutes of the Rider game. You just don't do that in my house. Especially during the western semi-final. However things are looking like they might just smooth over, which would be nice, but it'll make us both think twice about letting each other go away for a weekend again.

And finally, Mom's tomorrow is part 4 of Carolyn's Sexual Intimacy thingy (the lack of the right word is frustrating and I don't want to say "talk" or "lecture" or "special" or whatever else one might add in there).

I think I need a nap. I'm frustrating too easily.

My "clean" man

In a few hours I'm taking off to S'toon with Dixie for the WJOF conference. While there are many women going, not many are going for the whole weekend, which we are. I have no real problem with this, I completely trust that Steve will be fine with the kids, and I know that the kids will love having their Dad around all weekend. It's the "clean" factor that I worry about. Whenever I go anywhere for a length of time Steve has a habit of "cleaning" things. I say "clean" b'cos this means he reorganizes and disposes of things that don't necessarily need to be reorganized or disposed of. I remember trips in the past where walls have been ripped out, carpet has been taken out (altho' I knew about this one ahead of time), stands and tables have gone missing, appliances have moved ontop of other appliances that most of our babysitters can't reach. So in saying all this, I'm a bit worried about what may be gone or "cleaned" when I get back on Sunday.

9:47 pm poutine run

Last night as I was getting ready to head out to bible study, I was thinking about what drink I wanted to make to take along. Sometimes I make a hot chocolate, others a caramel steamer. Depending on how I'm feeling. Last night, I wasn't feeling either, so I brushed my teeth and headed off. For the next 2 hours, my belly was thinking about something. My mind was trying to figure out just what we were craving. Then it came to us. POUTINE! Hot, gooey, cheesy poutine. Yum. So I dropped Matthias off at home and informed Steve that poutine was calling. He said, "yeah right." I said,"yeah. Right." So off to KFC for their amazing gravy poutine I went. And man was it worth it! Of course, my next weigh in at the doctors might say otherwise, especially now that my sweet tooth is also being fed from the leftover Halloween candy. But I'm telling ya, last night, sipping my Cranberry Gingerale and eating my KFC poutine was as close to Heaven as I had been yesterday. So good!

And in other news, apparently my hair is anything BUT sexy when I first wake up after going to bed with wet hair.

Yesterday Mom's was pretty good. Carolyn shared about her wedding day and her vows. Honestly there was more depth to it than that, but I have such fond memories of my wedding day that I drifted in and out of what she was saying. The best thing that for us ( after 5 years of marriage seems to have been a good choice) has to do with the fact that Steve and I met and married in 5 months. That's right, we met in February and married that June. We dated for about a week and were engaged the remaining 3 months. That whole first year of marriage we were thinking, perhaps we should have waited. But now as I look back and I see how we've grown and moulded together, those 5 months were long enough.

We were married at his Mom's acreage outside of Saskatoon. The day started cloudy and I thought it might rain, but by the time 2 o'clock rolled around the sun was shining and the pictures afterward (taken outside in the yard) had to be taken in the shade. I don't remember much about the ceremony except that when Steve read his vows I was blown away that he could write something like that. And in comparison, mine sounded really corny. I remember that his ring couldn't fit over his knuckle so in many of the ceremony pictures, he's trying to fit it on, and eventually has to lick it on. We had our reception in a huge hall just 5 minutes south across the highway where the DJ played no dance music. I got to wear my flip-flops. Everyone danced like alcohol had been served when infact none was. It was a really good time, and I'm not just saying that b'cos it was my wedding. Of course there were things that didn't get done that should have, and if anyone had told us how to plan a wedding, we would've known that we were doing it wrong. But nothing serious enough to damper the day.

And if there was a chance to do any of it over again, we definately would've had that pig on a spit!