Procrastinator? Who, me?

Well, my announcement that I was back was clearly premature. But as always, when I have a million other things to do, I come back to blogging. This week coming up is so busy so of course I'm taking ten minutes to update my sorely neglected blog.

We are all happy to see the holiday season approaching...not just because we love Christmas but because it means 2015 is finally going away. It's been a roller coaster of a year and we are hoping that 2016 might mean some stability. We're heading into the end of two years of upheaval and while Alex and I will appreciate a more settled life, Miss J needs it in the worst possible way! Little C is quite content with her situation but she doesn't remember anything except our current life.

We've been on a crazy ride of gentle climbs with great views of the future that all of a sudden fall into steep drops that leave your stomach hanging somewhere at the top. But as Alex said to me the other day, good things are coming. And he was right. Less than 24 hours later we got some great news and it just kept coming.

This week I have two term papers and two finals and then I'm starting the Christmas baking and decorating and celebrating with my kids. And maybe I'll start blogging again (although I may have lost my readers!)...we are just starting year two of a huge life change and it is pretty amazing, even with all the ups and downs!

Back to the books!

New Beginnings

Once upon a time, there was a blog here and it was about more than just postcards.

But then life happened and blogging became something that stayed at the bottom of the to do list.

In August, Alex and I did something we'd been talking about for years. We packed up our stuff and sent it away to storage. We loaded our kids and a few things into a UHaul, the back of our car and my mom and dad's station wagon and we moved to Kelowna. With no jobs, no daycare and a place in French Immersion for Miss J.

It was a bit scary and a lot exciting and somewhat nerve wracking but we did it.

And now, almost six months later, we're feeling quite settled and there might just be time for some blogging as we create new memories in a new city. I'm making no promises but I think I'm back!

This, that, and the other

Oh hello internets! I do believe I remember you…it’s nice to be back, but I didn’t miss you much…

Summer arrived and with it came beautiful warm weather and an apartment that felt more like a greenhouse than somewhere to live…so, we decided that we would spend our evenings outdoors and, whenever possible, we would leave town. And that’s what we did. It was wonderful and it gave us a chance to disconnect from the Internet and social media and all that stuff…

In no real order we:

Went to an 80th birthday bash

Went to another 80th birthday bash (adventure #2)

Did a lot of swinging

Reluctantly learned how to take a bottle

Flew on a few airplanes

Discovered the trees and the clouds

Ate our meals on the deck in Kelowna

Practiced swimming

Practiced swinging on the monkey bars at the playground by the school where J will go in September

Unexpectedly purchased a new vehicle (which J absolutely loves…in part because the paint sparkles!)

Ate lots of popsicles

Read lots of books (although some of us would have preferred to just eat them)

Spent a day in Steveston (adventure #1)

Packed up our life and had our apartment painted

Caught some beautiful sunsets

Built elaborate train tracks on the deck

Visited a tree growing in the lake

And spent a lot of time at the waterpark on Granville Island riding the waterslide.

Summer isn’t quite over yet, but the mornings are feeling crisp and the evenings are getting darker sooner. Back to school this year really is back to school for our family and it’s a pretty exciting time! Hope your summer has been just as fun as ours!

Multi-coloured water

For the next little while I'm temporarily doing some work in a department that isn't my own. The project I'm currently working on has been giving me a rather high dose of stress.

Luckily the corner I'm sitting in has a little door onto a little balcony.

From the little balcony there are views like this

And this

And when it all becomes too much, it's nice to know that I can walk out that door, take afar deep breathes of air, stare at the view and the stress will momentarily go away. It's also a great place to sit and read and eat lunch and great place to go to think when the office buzz gets too loud to concentrate.

There Will Never Be Another Tonight

So good. Too bad someone (ahem, me or possibly J) reset the settings on my phone to crappy quality teeny-tiny pictures. This was the coolest spotlight ever. And a really great concert.

The people on the bus

When I first moved back to Vancouver long, long ago in 2002, I regularly rode the bus. It was how I got everywhere unless someone took pity on me and gave me a ride. And honestly? It wasn't that bad. Really. I know I complain about it sometimes, but overall, taking the bus in Vancouver is a fairly pleasant ordeal.

I met some very interesting people on the bus back in 2002. In those days, I worked downtown and the bus I got on started its route two stops before mine. So even though it was rush hour, I always got a seat. But getting a seat usually meant at some point I'd get a seat mate.

There was the "you are beautiful" guy. He was well known in Kits for getting on the bus and working his way slowly to the back telling every woman on the bus they were beautiful and then asking if they would be his girlfriend. Most women were gracious as they declined this offer - he was particularly in tune to not pissing off husbands and boyfriends. I kind of wonder if anyone ever agreed to be his girlfriend...

There was the very elderly lady who had "met" Prince William - who is a very well mannered young man, in case you're wondering - and he is devastated that his parents divorced and that his father remarried and that everyone had to see him walk behind his mother's coffin. And he makes a mean roast. Really. And if his father will be king before him, he might have to commit patricide. She was serious too.

J and I have recently started taking the bus to work most days - I had to start driving when she started daycare at the university because of the hours...if I dropped her off and left within 5 minutes of the daycare opening and got back at the absolute last minute to pick her up, I would be short a good half hour in my working day - the half hour trek across campus each way does that. So I started driving. Since J has moved centres and is a little bit older, the hours are extended by half an hour. It's cutting it close, but I can drop her off, put in my 8 hour day and pick her up before the daycare closes. It requires some very close attention to the minutes in the morning, but we're doing it...

I thought we'd get to meet some interesting people, but headphones seem to have done away with people talking on the bus...I did see a woman in a fluorescent pink crushed velvet leisure suit and bright white sneakers today. I thought she was an older woman, but when I got close enough to see her, she was young - maybe in her early 20s. I didn't know those things were back in style. I also saw a woman pacing up and down the sidewalk, walking backwards. She was there when I walked to my office and she was still there when I walked back to pick J up. She fell off the curb twice and bumped into three people...I don't really understand, but okay.

Maybe tomorrow we'll meet some interesting people on the bus?

Define this blog...

A long time ago, this blog was just a place for me to write and post pictures and keep in touch with all kinds of people. Then Facebook happened and it turned into a place for me to write and post pictures. Keeping in touch happened through Facebook. Then I had J and it turned into a sort of mommy blog (does it always qualify as a mommy blog now because I'll always be a mommy?). Then it was a mommy blog and a place for me to keep track of my 101 in 1001, my postcards, and my attempts at organizing our home. Then Get Fit Chicks stopped existing (although it exists now...I'm trying to get rid of all the links on this blog because the Get Fit Chicks at that url isn't the Get Fit Chicks I was trying to link too, but that's beside the point) and I managed to import all of my posts here. And then I kind of went dormant.

But things are changing in our little world again and I think I might actually have time to really truly blog (I am SO glad I decided not to do a p365 this year...ack)

In the next few weeks my blog that is at once many things and not a whole heck of a lot might have some recipes, some adventures, some organizing updates and maybe that will ease me into the return to regular blogging. Because I miss it. And I miss you guys (if there are any of you left).

And Fifers, I promise this won't become just a postcard blog. Even if everything that was posted in the last few days is 100% most definitely postcard related.

Sometimes I need reminding

Look what I found in my drafts...from way back on February 11. I could use some reminding today, even though the dark, dreary mornings are over until the fall...

On dark, dreary mornings as I drag myself out of bed and through our morning routine, I could certainly use a reminder that I work (and live) in a pretty beautiful place.

Lessons from squirt on husbands and wives

On our way to gymnastics this morning, I stopped to let a pedestrian cross the road. She was an older woman and she looked super cranky, which, of course, J picked up on immediately.

Voice from the backseat: Mommy, why is that lady so grumpy looking?

Me: Well, maybe she is tired or maybe -

Voice from the backseat [interrupting]: Mommy, it's probably because her husband or her wife or her son or her daughter woke her up before she had enough sleep. Or maybe her husband or her wife or her son or her daughter didn't leave any breakfast for her and she's hungry. Or maybe she has to pee.

Over a year ago, J learned the words husband and wife. And it didn't take her too long to figure out that a wife is woman and a husband is a man. And she's made the connection before with our friends that sometimes a woman has a wife and there isn't a husband, but that she just casually threw it in to her list of people who might have wronged the grumpy lady made me happy. And that the lady maybe had to pee, well that made me giggle, silently so J wouldn't think I was laughing at her.

Oscar, from a preschooler's perspective

Like many other people, on Sunday night we turned the TV on and watched the Academy Awards. I wasn't so entertained, but that's how it is. J doesn't understand what the Academy Awards are. As far as she's concerned, the only movie out there worth watching is the "Car Kids' Show" aka Cars 2.

Part way through the show, after a particular couple had been shown a few times this conversation happened:

J: Mommy, why is that sick lady on the TV?

Me: What sick lady?

J: The one on the TV.

Me: (looking at the screen and seeing some presenter who is a man and doesn't look sick) Which lady?

J: The one with the man who needs a bath.

Guess who J was referring to...she was pretty accurate in her description!

Back in the swing of things...

I've mentioned this before, but for me, the new year starts in September.

This year, I'm happily leaving summer and all the chaos that came with it behind me. Some years, while I happily welcome fall, I do sadly say goodbye to summer at the same time, but this year, summer can just get lost.

I'm excited about this fall...things are changing at work and it means some interesting and challenging projects are heading my way. I've been given the all-clear as far as my health goes. J has started at her new daycare and we're all very excited about that (she turned three which means she's a big girl now and gets to go to daycare with the 3-5 year olds instead of the toddlers).

My house has suffered this summer...I am really looking forward to getting organized (again) [why is it that when you think you've got everything under control, life goes sideways and all the organizing vanishes into thin air?]

Welcome fall! I'm very glad to see you! Happy New Year everyone!

In an instant, it all changed

Tuesday, September 11, 2001 was a beautiful day in London, much like the beautiful day we're having today in Vancouver. When I got up that morning, I never, ever would have thought the day would end with such sadness.

I was off work that day and had gone into London with a friend who was getting ready to leave London, go on a trip through Europe and then head home to Mexico. I don't remember much of the morning, but sometime after lunch, around 1:30 or 2:00, we were in a tacky gift shop on the Strand. And over the chatter of the tourists in the shop, I heard something about a plane hitting the Empire State building.

And that was it. I didn't think much of it, in my mind it was a small, personal aircraft that must have made some kind of navigational error. The person reading the news was pretty calm and matter of fact and moved on to the next news story. Sad, but what do you do, right?

Not long after that we decided it was time to move on to our next destination - I'm not sure what it was, we never made it there. When we stepped out onto the street, something was wrong. It was quiet. Very quiet. It's never quiet like that on the Strand. And there was a lady on her cell phone in the middle of the street, sobbing. And a man next to her, who obviously knew her, but not well, awkwardly patting her on the shoulder.

As we walked through the streets, we could feel the mood thickening and the city getting quieter, but we didn't know why. I had forgotten the news report and didn't make that connection until later.

We decided that we were just going to go home. We didn't like the way London felt and we had tickets to the theatre that night, so we thought we'd go home, drop our purchases off, get changed, have dinner and come back.

The underground was eerily quiet. Everyone was very subdued. Every once in a while we'd see someone who had obviously been crying.

When we got back to Pax Lodge, it was a little crazy. We were hosting a seminar and there were American participants who were trying to connect with their relatives. We still weren't sure what was going on. Everyone crowded around the tv, but the news hadn't become huge yet...most stations were showing regular programming. The internet was nothing like it is today and in the entire building there were two computers (maybe four?) that were connected to the internet...nothing would load because the demand around the world was exceeding most sites' bandwidth allowance.

Eventually the UK caught on and all five stations that we got switched to newscasts. And it was devastating. There was huge concern about where terrorists might strike next. There was talk of shutting down the underground. The City was evacuated. All of our international guests and staff just wanted to go home. Of course, we knew that wasn't going to be possible.

Edna and I weren't sure if we should go to the show that night. We were scared that we'd get there and then the underground would shut down and we would have to walk all the way home. We waffled for hours about going and finally our boss told us just to go. That's what we needed to do, keep living and not let the terrorists scare us into staying home, even if we were terrified. She even offered to drive into London to get us if the underground did get shut down.

We went to the theatre and Oxford Street was almost empty. There was two minutes of silence at the beginning of the show and the theatre pretty much stayed quiet throughout the show. The show was great, but the collective sadness of the audience was so heavy. I have no idea how the actors managed to put on such a great performance.

My tv, which pretty much lived in a cabinet, came out of storage and for the next few days there was almost always someone in my room, even when I wasn't there, watching the coverage. I don't think I've ever cried so many tears. I don't think I've ever been so homesick either. Not that being home would have made the reality of it any less, but being home would at least give me the comfort of knowing my family was okay. I figured the world was ending.

The world didn't end.

My parents flew, very safely, to London a few weeks later to visit me and do some travelling. I flew to Finland and flew back to London with two pairs of scissors in my carry-on luggage and no one stopped me. I figured an armed guard would be waiting to arrest me when the plane touched down at Heathrow. Edna didn't get to go on her trip through Europe. Her mom was so concerned she asked her to come home right away.

Things changed. People seem to be more cautious. I need a passport to cross the 49th parallel. I can't carry a water bottle with me on the plane anymore. Thousands of people lost loved ones on September 11. Thousands more have lost loved ones in the years since in London, Iraq and Afghanistan and in other terrorist attacks. But the world has carried on.

This morning when I got up, my thoughts immediately went back to that day ten years ago. I hugged J a little tighter than usual. Then I turned the tv on and saw that the three year old from Sparwood had been returned to his family. And I hugged her again. She looked at me like I was crazy. Then she saw the tears glistening in my eyes and she gently patted my shoulder and told me "It will be okay, Mommy. I love you."

And I think she's right.

It will be okay. The world didn't end. It changed.

Quick, what's that number....

I learned something on Monday night. Something that I thought was a bit strange at the time, but really, it makes sense when I think about it.

I don't know how to get a hold of Alex when he's at work.

Well, that's not true. I do. But I need a cell phone to do it. Dang modern technology makes life tough sometimes.

And we didn't have a cell phone with us. We were not far from my house and why would we have a phone?

Georgia had no problem finding a phone to call 911. There were lots of people walking along the seawall and many of them had phones with them.

But I had no idea how to get a hold of Alex.

And do you think there was a phone book anywhere?

We solved the problem - Georgia had to call Kelsey anyway (and thank goodness I remembered HER number) so Kelsey got in touch with Alex.

And why do I not know my husband's work number? Well, in his line of work it's not really appropriate for me to call him while he's working or for him to have his cell phone on. I do know how to reach him if necessary, but apparently I can only do it with my phone and its address book or a piece of paper in hand.

I'm spending the next few days memorizing Alex's work number...and if you can't recite your emergency contact(s)'s phone number right now, off the top of your head, I highly recommend spending a few minutes burning those numbers into your brain. Hopefully you won't need them, but if you do, you'll be glad you took the time to learn them!

Friend Makin' Monday: Defining Moments

So, I started this post yesterday afternoon, intending to finish it last night. But the universe had other plans for me last night. Other plans that made me look at this post again and make some changes...I don't always understand the universe, but as it all worked out in the end, I'm not going to dwell on it.

Kenlie hosts Friend Makin' Monday on her blog All The Weigh. If you'd like to join (and make some new friends) copy the question below and link back to today's post. Leave a comment on today's post too so we can visit you!

Was there a defining moment in which you realized that you needed to lose weight? If so, will you elaborate? (If you experienced this moment in some other area of your life, please feel free to share that too!)

Hmmm...well...yes...but my defining moment was really about general health and not just weight loss...(fine, moments)

Defining moment number 1: A number of years ago when I worked at an arts-related business located right downtown I struggled with some big health problems (I wrote about them here). The fatigue in particular was bad but there were other issues too (stomach ache, lack of appetite, sore throat etc. etc. etc). I was eventually prescribed a diet by a naturopath and worked hard to stick to it and stay active so that none of my crazy symptoms returned. Life was horrible while I was in the midst of trying to figure out what was wrong - I had to cancel a four week trip to Australia for a friend's wedding; I had to take four-plus weeks off work with no pay; I drained my savings first on my time off without pay and then on the naturopath. I didn't want my health to get so bad again that I'd have to face those things again.

I made some changes to my life, including a job change (which seemed to confirm that environment - mostly physical but partly mental) and life was pretty good. Then, after living by myself for a few years, I decided to move in with a friend. I loved the house, but I can definitely say we were better friends when we didn't live with each other. Things were stressful in our house...we didn't see each other much because she started work before I actually had to get up in the morning. Besides work, I was taking two classes and working on three big Girl Guide projects and I wasn't home much in the evenings. And then there was Alex. We weren't living together, but we were spending a whole lot of time together. So, often I'd get home after she had gone to bed and head straight to bed myself. And she was upset that I didn't have much time to spend with her.

I felt like I was headed back to the horrible place I'd been in just over a year before and I knew it was time to do something about it, so I joined a gym with another friend. Let's call this defining mini-moment number 1.

Defining moment number 2 was huge. Massive. Life changing. For real.

My life changed in a matter of seconds. And when life finally got back to normal, I realized it was time to change my priorities again.

I was going into our basement to do a load of laundry and two steps from the bottom I fell and cracked my back against the steps and ended up with a fractured transverse process of the L4 vertebra. The whole story starts here and is all tagged as sore back (go figure...).

After my back incident, I slowed down. I spent more time with friends and family. I spent more time enjoying our back deck. I spent more time reading and writing and playing with my new camera and just being me. I spent less time doing Guiding stuff. I took a break from school. I worked only during working hours. I took time to stretch and walk and swim. I ate well. The thing was, I went from going to the gym a couple of times a week and walking at least two or three kilometres a day (if not more) to doing pretty much nothing other than the physiotherapist prescribed exercises for about four or five weeks, then some slow walking and a lot of floating in the pool. Alex and a coworker ferried me to and from work many days.

Guess what? I gained weight. No surprise there. I went from being fairly active and eating fairly healthy to being not active at all (the first morning it took me 20 minutes to get from the bedroom through the living room to the bathroom) and still eating the same amount of fairly healthy food. Once I got the all clear from my doctor and physiotherapist, I was more active. I'd occasionally go to the gym, but that wasn't working very well for me. I swam two or three times a week and started walking at least 3 km a day again. And I started to lose weight.

And then I got pregnant.

And then I had a baby.

And then there were complications involving scars and hormones and life got horrible for a few months and what do you know, I never lost the baby weight, but I haven't really gained much either. Steady is good, but seeing the scale drop and clothes shrink is better (for ME at THIS particular moment in MY life).

Defining moment number 3 was the day J was born. Her delivery was long and scary and, thank goodness I didn't catch on until after it was over, very dangerous to both of our lives. We survived without any major complications or scars or setbacks, but that day I understood a little better how fragile life really is.

Since J's birth I've been eating healthy, most of the time, and exercising regularly, most of the time. In case the events in Norway last Friday weren't enough to remind me that life is fleeting, last night I was literally bonked over the head with it...

Long story, shorter version: I was out with my trainer and we were about 20 minutes into a 60 minute workout. I was doing a wall sit and as she started counting down the last five seconds, I knew something was wrong. Really wrong. I had what the doctors were calling a thunderclap headache. I get really bad migraines that used to require a visit to the ER, this was worse. And so not a migraine. After eight hours in the ER, a bunch of different, scary procedures, they sent me home at 3:30 this morning. My trainer, Georgia, stayed with me until Alex could get there from work. My sister Kelsey zipped over to our place to relieve the babysitter and stay with J until someone could get home. I, especially in the moments of greatest pain, forced myself to focus on getting a J hug when I got home.

It was terrifying. Apparently I'm healthy and there's nothing wrong with me. I have an appointment next week with my GP anyway, so I'm bringing this up because I don't think I'm healthy. I have fractured a vertebra, suffered debilitating migraines, suffered brutal menstrual cramps, been in active labour (and pushing) for hours, then had forceps and a C-section before J was born, but this, this was more painful than all of those combined. HORRIBLE.

But I came home with a new respect for life in general. And I'm even more motivated to get the extra pounds off, to eat healthy most of the time (but make that most of the time a percentage that is closer to 100 than it currently is), to get the rest of my body healthy so that this doesn't happen again. Because it was scary for a whole lot of people....

Oh, I'm also SO grateful to be in Canada and have BC Medical. I know most people who live here will think I'm crazy, since most of the time, most of the people complain about everything BC Medical related, but if I hadn't had BC Medical last night's eight hours in the ER would have cost us a pretty penny. I did a bit of research and depending on location my visit would have cost between $7,000 and $18,000. UGH. See, BC Medical isn't all bad.

The end

Today we got rid of a piece of furniture that has been with us for the last five years. It was a key table in the Blue House and held our keys plus other random stuff that came into the house (cell phones, mail, apparently if you take a peak at the picture, miniature Christmas trees). It was a bedside table in the ghetto Pink Palace. And here it was also an entryway table/recycling station until it got repurposed into a side table in the living room.

But then we got new tables. And the sewing table had to go. There was no room for it. I liked the little table. I had great plans to refinish it and fill the sewing machine hole and then take out the sewing machine holder stuff and put a shelf behind the door. But that wasn’t really ever going to happen.

So we put it on craigslist and made a few dollars and put them towards the new storage for the living room (I hope by the end of the summer we’ll have it!)

But that’s not all we got rid of today. Alex helped me carry the table out to the waiting car and send it off to someone else’s home and continue its life. I wasn’t sad to see it go, but when I walked in the house, I felt a lot lighter. It took me a minute to know why I felt lighter and then I realized: I hadn’t just said goodbye to a table, I had released an old relationship. That table was the last remnant of that relationship.

Five and a half years ago a friend of mine came to Canada from far away and lived with me. For many reasons it didn’t work and she left early. There were unhappy words said and not said. There were hurt feelings. There was resentment. There were unmet expectations (often because they were also silent expectations) and there were unmet responsibilities. I ended up inheriting some furniture and other bits and pieces as part of my “compensation” for a few things…

Over the last five years we’ve had two moves and three or four big clear outs of our stuff. This is the last piece of that relationship – the rest of the things were either donated or thrown out or accidentally left behind.
When I came back in the house I realized that the lightness I was feeling came from getting rid of that last piece of furniture. Sending it off to a new home allowed me to stop mourning a long dead friendship. I realized that even though the hurt, sadness and anger are long gone, and even though I know things are best the way they are now, and even though our friendship breathed its last breaths back in 2006, and even though I knew it could never be, some piece of me longed for the friendship we had before she came to Vancouver. And that piece of me left with the sewing table.

One of the questions that you can ask yourself when you’re decluttering is “Does this item make me feel guilty?” Maybe instead I need to ask myself “Is this item giving me a [negative] reason to live in the past?” I never would have thought a simple table could hold so much power over me!

So tonight I said goodbye. And I think that’s it.

And it was silent...

So, dear readers, you may or may not know (because I've moaned about it here, on various forms of social media, by text message or maybe by phone) that my kid has not been going to sleep. She's been going to bed and for the last three or four weeks we have a decent system of bedtime routine and then stay in your bed in place, but she would not go to sleep.

We're big believers in the you-can-lead-a-horse-to-water-but-you-can't-make-him-drink child rearing philosophy. We can make our child sit at the table during meal time, but we can't make her eat. We can make our child sit on the toilet before we go out, but we can't make her pee.

Apparently it applies to sleep too. We can make her go to bed, but we can't make her sleep. Once she figured out that she had to stay in her bed and be quiet, it was much more manageable, but mornings were horrendous. To the point where I got the daycare to shorten her nap in hopes that thirty minutes less nap would equal thirty minutes earlier to sleep. Yeah, right. Then we starting skipping breakfast. I'd roll her out of bed and into her clothes. We'd sleepily get her hair and teeth brushed and we'd stumble out the door to daycare. By the time we got to daycare she was awake enough to eat her breakfast.

I do blame a percentage of this no-sleep thing on the NHL...almost all of the Canucks games ended around 8:00...bed time...and our building is on a busy street near the Granville bridge. It got noisy outside our house. Especially when the Canucks won. J would get up and watch all the cars and celebrating folks. So, now that the playoffs are over, two months of disturbances pretty much every other night are over too.

Back to the no sleep. The other part of this is that Alex has been home in the evenings for a while and the last two nights he was on bedtime duty. Sunday night didn't go badly, but there was resistance from a toddler. Last night, I had to go out and you would have thought the world was ending. The same kid who runs sobbing down the hallway after Alex when he leaves for work at night crying "Daddy, don't go to work. Stay home. Daddy, don't go." was adamant that she wasn't staying with Daddy and only Mommy knew how to put her to bed.

A very tearful little girl walked me to the elevator and wailed all the way back to our apartment with Alex. What J didn't know was that I was just going to a strata meeting in our building, so I asked our next door neighbour when she arrived if she could hear J...nope. Thirty seconds after I left and all was well.

But I was convinced she'd still be awake when I got home just a few minutes after nine. Because it's been ten o'clock or later every night for the last two weeks. I opened the door very, very quietly and there was no noise. I tiptoed in and Alex appeared from our room, talking in his NORMAL voice. J had been asleep for over half an hour. Needless to say, this morning was very smooth, we had time for breakfast at home and J was in a great mood...

I don't know how he did it, but Alex is amazing. I'm now trying to convince him to figure out how he can be home EVERY night for bedtime...

It's Wednesday

Which means we're a lot closer to the weekend than we were on Monday.

I wrote a very lengthy post to the universe about the gong show that has been my day - you know, barometric pressure migraine, bed sheet laundering, toddler bathing, milk curdling, disappearing bike, and toddler-daycare-meltdowning all before 9:00 am (most of it before 6:45 am) - and then deleted it.

Because, whoa, way too much whining.

Tylenol and a latte with an extra shot calmed the migraine and fixed the caffeine deprivation brought on by the lack of uncurdled milk. The washer and dryer and Alex will ensure the sheets are ready to be put back on the bed before bedtime, the toddler is clean and has, by now, I hope, forgotten her bike was left at home and that I am horrible for leaving her at daycare.

The sun is shining. We've been whining about our extended winter for so long, it's good to have some vitamin D streaming down on us. It means the sun is out when I get up in the morning and J and I can play at the park for hours after dinner. It means summer is coming (I'll try not to whine too much about how hot our place gets) and summer is good.

And it's Hockey Night...I am hoping for a better outcome (on a few levels) than Monday night's game...so GO CANUCKS GO...let's go into Friday's game up 3-1....

Me Time

There’s not a lot of me time in my life right now…I touched on it the other day, but basically my me time is short. If I’m lucky I get an hour or two after J goes to bed before I go to bed and the first thing I do with that time is the dishes or laundry or lunches or some other necessity. I’ve been trying to get out the door at lunch and get a walk in or sit somewhere other than my office and read or something, but that’s not always possible…but I do indulge and once a week we get a sitter for a couple of hours.

I was (when no one was sick) using my two hours to go to a run clinic, but it’s over now…when our sitter sent me a message to see if I wanted her tonight even though it was a holiday, I almost said no. But I’m glad I changed my mind…Although I had thought I’d spend the time on a project I’m working on, but then I thought about it and I’d end up not even making enough to pay the sitter if I did that…so I figured I’d take the time and hang out on my own, enjoy a coffee and just be by myself.

That was the best idea ever! Now I’m ready to head home, put J to bed, finish the dishes and then do some work. All good! I definitely needed a reminder to take some time for myself.

Technology blips...

So yesterday Blogger had a meltdown and took a sick day.

Then WordPress decided it would be fun to randomly add characters to the URL of my post so that browsers don't recognize it so I can't do anything with it. (It's the first post [for now] over at Get Fit Chicks) [I've tried to rename the URL, but it won't let me touch the random string of characters...if anyone has any advice, I'd love to hear it!]

Facebook decided to give away the "key" to my account...makes me feel ever so secure about my personal information that they're "not" going to share....

And today? Twitter is being a tease.

Not that this should really make me all that upset. Because Blogger was down, I went to bed at a decent hour instead of writing a post. Which probably wouldn't have been all that interesting since I've totally forgotten *what* I was going to write about.

And my post is there at Get Fit Chicks. I just have to figure out how to make it not be a pain in the butt.

And Twitter, well, it's really just a time wasting device for me. But it's my lunch break and I want to see what random and wonderful stuff people are writing tweeting about.

But all of this (and my grouchiness around it) reminds me that maybe I did prefer the time when you had to put pen to paper to communicate. Or actually dial the phone. When was the last time I talked to someone other than my parents or my husband on the phone? NO IDEA. I probably emailed, texted, Facebooked or commented on their blog instead.

So instead of getting staying mad at technology I think I'm going to go for a walk.

The world has not stopped spinning

At least not yet…

At 7:01 last night I turned on the tv to see who the rest of Canada had voted for. I figured I’d check, turn the tv off and get on with my evening. And then I’d check again in an hour or so. Nope. The election had other plans. My stomach took up residence in my throat. I felt sick.

I hadn’t expected anything other than a Conservative government. I hadn’t expected the Liberals to gain seats. I had expected the Liberals to lose some seats. I had expected the NDP to gain seats. I had expected the Bloc to lose some seats. I was hoping for a Conservative minority. Hoping.

But no. I turned the tv on and the Conservatives had 140-something seats. They only needed 155 seats and they hadn’t even started counting the votes from British Columbia. And BC has 30-something ridings. Not good. Especially since the Conservatives are strong in BC.

And the NDP? Where did that come from? They ended up with over 100 seats. Well, it came from them annihilating the Bloc. It seemed obvious they were going to steal a few seats from the Bloc, but the Bloc lost over 40 seats.

Yup. Shock. And a bit of fear. This government is going to be different. The Conservatives have won the last two elections, but they were minorities. So they didn’t do anything crazy. But now they could. Because the government isn’t going to fall. Because they won 166 seats or something.

And social media. It changes things. I watched tweets and facebook statuses tell me what was happening and how people were feeling. I watched more than one person question HOW the Conservatives had won. Everyone they knew had voted and had not voted Conservative. What this election reinforced in my mind was that we tend to spend time with (and friend on Facebook) people who have similar values and political leanings to our own…I’m not surprised, but it seems to have shocked a number of people…

But I woke up this morning and life was going on. I guess it’s just one of those things where we’ll just have to see what happens. I voted. I did my part. Now I can complain as much as I want if I don’t like what the Conservatives do….