It's Halloween!

I have today off which is really nice because I get to go to the girls' school and help out at Anna's party this afternoon. I rarely get to attend school events so I am quite pleased.

Chris also has the day off so we're just sitting around drinking coffee and in a bit I think we'll head out shopping. We have a few ideas of things to get the girls for Christmas so today is as good a day as any to start the process.

I have to remember to take my camera with me. I always forget.

I'm going to be a robot for Halloween

MSN groups is closing for anyone who happens to belong to one. They 'partnered' with Multiply and will migrate your group over there if you like. So I signed up and even though I cleaned my computer of all spyware etc., I still have problems with Multiply. The site thinks I am a 'bot' as soon as I try to do anything and takes me to a page that asks me to verify text. It never likes what I verify. I complained to the support people and they fixed it, and then it happened again as soon as I tried to do something.

So if you see me on Halloween, I may look just like myself, but know that deep down inside I am really a robot trying to hack some random website. Brilliant costume if you ask me.

Gotta love a late night email that lets you know your weekend meeting might be cancelled! Yay!

I was saved at church

Interpret that title as you want, lol.

In the spring, our church held a garage sale of donated items. Since we were there the night before the sale to help set up we got first dibs on the items. I always go straight for the books at garage sales and that evening was no exception. I found Chris a few books and then found my JACKPOT. Someone had donated a brand new copy of the The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet. I had just finished reading a copy from the library and loved it, and since books were only 50 cents at this garage sale (even the hardcovers) it was a steal of a deal. The book was an over sized paperback and retails for $27.50! When I picked it up and looked a little further into the pile I found another treasure, World Without End also by Ken Follet, also brand new looking. I had not read this one yet! It's set in the same place as the first book and makes mention of a few characters from Pillars of the Earth, but it's not really considered the second in a series as they both can be read as stand alone novels in any order. This one was hardcover and retails for $42! I was giddy with garage sale excitement, lol. But as I picked up the second book the face of another member of our church standing across from me dropped. She had wanted the second book. So we made a deal. I'd buy one, and she'd buy one and we'd trade when we wanted. Since I was going away for the summer, I told her she could take the second one to read (she had also just finished the first) and bring it to me in the fall when I returned to church.

I'd actually forgotten about the second book until yesterday at church when she told me she had it in her car and would bring it in to me at coffee time. I was so excited. Not only did I get to read the book I had been so excited about, but I could stop reading the third book in the series I blogged about the other day. Yep, I started it. But I was only 15 pages into it, so it's safe to set aside until I am done my new one.

She saved me.....from reading the book I don't want to read!

I just can't stop myself

I finally finished a novel I have been working on since before summer. No, I am not that slow of a reader, but the book was really dry, and I just have this annoying aspect of my personality that MAKES me finish a book no matter what. It was the second book in a series and the first one was really good. But now I am trying to decide if I should read the third one in the series. It's sitting on my shelf, calling out to me, trying to tell me it's not so boring, that it's more like the first book than the second book.

Actually I have no idea if it's any better than the second one, but it has to be, right? Authors don't write a third book in a series when their readers didn't like the second one, unless it's waaayyyy better than the second one, right? Please tell me it will be better. Another part of that annoying aspect of my personality is that a series sort of counts as one book, lol. So I may not have a choice of reading the third book or not.

And then of course I have another book by the same author sitting on the shelf next to the third in the series. It's not a part of the series, but I may be destined to read it as well. I won't be able to stop myself and I may curse myself the entire time, but I'll have to do it.

Generally the only thing that prevents me from finishing a book I have completely lost interest in is that the online library renewal system. It tells me I have renewed the book too many times and prevents me from renewing it again. Then I have to take it back to avoid late fees.

Unfortunately these books are borrowed and the owner seems to have no desire for me to ever return them. If she would just call and harass me and complain I have had the books too long, which I really have, and then maybe shed a few tears because she longs to read the books again, them maybe I could bring myself to not start the third book in the series. But I doubt that will ever happen, because I have read the second book in the series, and I don't think anyone would want to read it again.

Three days in a row. A blogging accomplishment.

Chris is still out of town. He will be home tonight. He made it back in time yesterday to drop Anna off at her activity.

We have Girl Guide cookies to sell. Please buy some so I can stop eating them. I swear I have zero willpower.

I was going to swim laps tonight but the pool I wanted to go to cancelled lane swimming tonight. I'll have to look at my lists of other facilities and see if there is anything open. Of course it will depend if Chris is home by then. I suck at swimming, but I enjoy it. Maybe one day I will learn how to do more than the breaststroke. A walk might be nice instead.

I wonder if Chris will get a chance to work on installing the central vac this weekend? How odd that I am excited to vacuum....but then I am sure that excitement will be gone after the first time I use it. The girls can start vacuuming now though, without having to worry about plugging in or dragging a heavy canister around. Yay for slaves, I mean kids.

The girls want allowance. They have been very good about keeping their rooms clean. Of course I still pick up some of Katie's clothes that have not found their way into the hamper, but her room used to be a disaster so it's a big improvement. Beth had been doing better, but she has books all over her floor and her drawers are all hanging open. If I make her a space for the books she reads while in bed that should help. Anna's room is often messy but all the day home kids play in there, so it's not entirely her fault. She's been good at cleaning it when asked though. I think we'll take some of the little kid toys out of her closet this weekend and move them downstairs to the play area.

Chris and I will have to have the allowance discussion again soon. Do your kids get allowance? Are they expected to do chores for it? Do you ever take it away?

It's Wednesday. Mid-Week. Hump Day. Yay.

Trying to get back into the blogging thing, but I only have random sentences in my head, no paragraphs to form a nicely thought out blog. Guess you have to put up with that for a while.


Chris is out of town. Left yesterday evening, comes home tonight for a few minutes, then he's off again 'til tomorrow. I don't always remember where he is, so I have to write it on my calendar. I don't mind the travelling, but it interferes with plans sometimes.

Tonight Beth and Anna have to be at 2 different places at the same time. Chris might be home in time to help and can drop one off on his way to the next place. If not, my parents might be able to help. If not them, I'll figure something out.

Katie's old enough to babysit for a couple hours, but I don't think she's quite old enough to drive unfortunately. We're enjoying her age, she can watch her sisters while we go out and shop or run errands, or go to a movie. It's a freedom we're enjoying. But now I am looking forward to when she can drive. I must be crazy!

No, I can wait. I don't want my little girl to grow up too fast, plus the teenage years scare me.

I got a bathroom clean this morning. Maybe I can get to the other one if I can get all kids sleeping at once this afternoon. Not likely though.

Still need to plan supper. At least I went grocery shopping on the weekend so the pantry is full.

New Background

So thanks to Bonnie I changed my background. But that was all I did.

A blogging mood has not struck me lately, not sure why.

Maybe my life is too boring right now?

How can it be so boring when it seems we are so busy?

Weekends get used up fast and don't last long enough.

Weekdays are filled with work, school and the girls' activities.

Except for Mondays and Fridays, those nights are still free but somehow they still seem busy.

Tonight Beth and Anna have Brownies and Sparks. We should get the cases of cookies to sell. Anyone want cookies? They are the chocolate covered mint ones. Yum!

Back to School

Katie and Beth were back at school today. If I was one of those good 'get everything on camera' mothers I would have taken a picture, but I am not. Tomorrow is Anna's first day of Kindergarten. I am hoping I will remember to get a picture of her before I take her to school, and then I can snap one of the other girls as well and 20 yrs down the road no one will even know or remember it wasn't the actual first day of school. Especially if I ever get around to scrap booking and I journal it as the first day of school. I wonder how many other people scrapbook lies?

We're ready!

Almost.

I went school supply shopping on Saturday and picked up almost everything the girls need to start school. Last night we labelled it all and got it packed into their backpacks. All I have left to pick up are indoor runners for the girls, and Kleenex. I am getting excited! The girls have been fighting a lot lately. More than a lot. It's all they seem to do. Hopefully separating them with a few classrooms in between each should help curb that.

Katie and Beth start school on Thursday. Chris will take them in the morning and help them find their classrooms and meet their new teachers. The lists will be posted at the school somewhere and we don't know the teacher until the first day. Anna doesn't go until Friday, and we were given her Kindergarten information in June, so her teacher has already been announced. I am taking Friday off and am crossing my fingers that she is going to let me leave after I take her to her classroom. She's not normally the clingy type, but she also likes to surprise you.

I have to remember to take first day of school pictures. That's something I almost always forget.

What I bought at the party

My sister had a home party last week and I splurged and bought a picture frame. It's not a normal picture frame, I mentioned it in a blog a few days ago. It's a magnetic frame that you can add your pictures to, or you could add a scrapbook page, or a combination of the two.


This is a picture of the frame on the company's website so you can see an example of what you can do with it if you have some time and some creativity.

When I opened it up last night I went through my box of pictures to find some to display so I could show Chris how neat the frame is. He thought it looked nice, but wasn't nearly as thrilled as I was. These are just a few pictures from the girls' dance recital last year. They are just put on as is, with no background paper or embellishments or anything, so imagine how pretty it could be with some creativity! The round wooden things on the pictures are the magnets, and on the ribbon at the bottom the pictures are held on with mini clothespegs.

My sister and I are going to try and figure out a way to make some more of these frames for ourselves. It has got to be cheaper than buying them from the company. And we could make them in different sizes as well. Any ideas?

5 years

What was I doing 5 years ago at this time? If I remember correctly I was slightly uncomfortable and trying to sleep because I had been up most of the night before feeling slightly uncomfortable. It was actually the onset of labour, but I didn't want to believe it, lol.

I had been induced for both of my previous pregnancies, so I had never gone into labour all on my own. I wasn't actually having contractions yet, just cramps. Chris convinced me we should go in so I could be checked. We lived over half an hour from the hospital and my previous history of labours showed I like to get those babies outta there FAST. Not quite as fast as my mother who had her last baby, my little brother, in 45 mins from first contraction to babe in arms. But 4 hours fast, which is quicker than 'average'. I was worried I'd be like my mom and end up having a baby on the side of the road in a car, lol. Anyways, I grabbed my hospital bag and off we went. Katie had swimming lessons so we took her to the pool and left her with an overnight bag with friends of ours. I can't remember if Beth went with them also or if she went to stay the night at my sister's place.



We got to the hospital and I was still just having cramps. I was sure they were going to send me home, but I did not want to spend a bunch of time in the hospital only to get sent home so one of the first things I told them was if they were going to send me home to decide right away so I could leave, lol. Of course nothing can be that simple. I was there for hours. And I was on monitors that were not showing any contractions, yet I was still feeling cramps. I don't think they believed me, lol.



So we spent hours in the antepartum unit before they finally sent me over to the birthing unit. They told me that they didn't think I would be delivering any time soon, but they were running out of space on antepartum and needed to open up some beds. I was having contractions by this time, real ones, but the monitors were not picking them up, so of course they don't believe the woman in pain, they believe the monitors.



By the time I got over to the birthing unit I was feeling some really painful contractions. I wanted an epidural. It didn't help. They gave me more medicine in the epidural line. It didn't help. They gave me the same stuff you give for a c-section through the line. It didn't help. Nothing helped. Thank goodness for fast labours. Just like my last 2 labours, this one only lasted just over 4 hrs. When the baby was finally crowning, they discovered why I had been in so much pain. Her head was presenting sideways. They said in that position all my pain would have been in my bones and an epidural does nothing for bone pain. I wonder if that's true or they were just trying to make me feel better? They also said that was the reason no monitors were picking up that I was having any contractions at all.

At 10:10pm on August 19th, on her due date, Anna Renee was born. Today she is 5 yrs old. My baby, my last baby, is 5 yrs old. Wow.

Loving my Laptop

I'm outside on my deck.

Kids are playing in the sprinkler because it's super hot today.

Sitting at my new (to me) patio table, compiling an address list for my camp job on my laptop. I love that there are no cords all over the place and with a wireless router I can even email and blog.

This is the life.

Ahhh...Coffee

Gotta love a nice cup of coffee mid way through the morning. I was too busy after getting home from the gym to start a pot. My kitchen was left in a mess last night. Chris promised to get up and help me with it in the morning since it was almost all his doing.

He made it into the kitchen in time to watch me wash the last dish.

So I made him make the coffee, which he normally does anyways, so he didn't care.

We're having a BBQ this evening. Last count we had about 35 people say they would be attending. It started out as a BBQ for us and 2 couples, but just grew and grew. It should be a lot of fun. But I think tomorrow I am going to need some more of that coffee to get through the day.

This morning Chris made potato salad and I made guacamole. We still have chip dip and fruit dip to make and we have to cut up all the fruit. That will have to wait until after lunch because I am too busy enjoying my coffee at the moment.

Oh, and I drove the car this morning. The windshield wipers have two settings. Off and Super Fast. And when you turn them off from Super Fast, they just stop wherever they feel like it. We're going to need to figure that out before we're driving in the rain.

Driveway Decor

So while I continue to think about decorating the inside of my house, Chris has been busy 'researching' how to decorate the outside. He started with the driveway. This is our newest decoration.

We've been contemplating a second vehicle for a while now. Technically this is a third vehicle, but don't get me started on the giant blue monstrosity that is currently parked in my garage. I will continue to pretend it's not there and call this our second vehicle.

We threw a bunch of ideas back and forth, new, slightly used, used, lease etc. and spent a couple of months thinking about it. We visited every dealership in the city and met a lot of salesmen. We even visited a few dealerships 2 and 3 times, and each time got a new salesman. We obviously have no loyalty, lol. And then in the end we decided to get a used car that was being sold privately. It's a 1999 Malibu and hopefully it's more loyal to us than we are to salesmen.

Back to Blogging

It's been a couple of months, but I swear I have a good excuse. Well to be honest my good excuse is only good for the month of July, I cannot explain what happened to June.

In July the girls and I went to the lake, for the whole month. I took a job there at a children's' camp as the Camp Administrator. I caught up with some old friends and made a few new ones. A good time was generally had by all. Unfortunately though, the Internet was dial up only at the lake. It was painful, but I must say, less painful than I originally thought. So my Internet time was limited to downloading email and once in a while I would check on a forum or try to catch a friend of two on MSN...oh and Facebook, I'd try to check that once a week or so as well.

So now we are home and back to the same old same old. Which I am already a little bit tired of, lol. I'm hitting the gym every morning, even though some mornings I can barely drag my butt out of bed. And I bought a new bike with part of my summer pay cheque so I am riding that to and from the gym at the moment. Once the snow falls (Mother Nature I beg you...please let me have until at least Halloween) I will start driving my van again. I am also back to babysitting every weekday. Luckily I have great kids, so it's a pretty easy, yet very busy, job.

Now that I am back to blogging, I need something to blog about. A theme for the year, or a while, I suppose. Not that I will stick to a theme, but if I have one there will always be something in the back of my head nudging me to write. I've been thinking about what's missing in my house lately. We have all the basics and more, but if you came into my house, I think you'd notice one main thing that is missing. DECOR.

It's glaringly obvious that I am not a decorator. Our walls upstairs were white when we moved in and they are still white a year later. Our pictures, those that are up, are just hung on old nail holes. It's really quite sad. I suppose I should give myself a little credit though, we have a small nook in our hallway that is decorated. Chris spent some time in Nunavut a couple of years ago and brought home some soap stone carvings which are beautiful. I have those in the nook with a painting I found at a garage sale for $5. It looks nice to me, but remember, I am not a decorator. I'll have to take a picture and post it sometime.

It's not that I am scared of paint exactly, that's not why my walls are still white, it's more that I am scared of starting painting and not knowing where to stop. All of our corners upstairs are rounded corners so one wall leads to the next, and the next and the next. I'm told you can still paint and just make sure you tape the corner well so there is a definite line, but I don't trust myself or my husband to tape it that well. So we just don't paint, and we look at our white walls day after day after day.

Which brings me to my goal for the year and my blog theme for a while, again, not that I will stick to it, lol. I want to decorate my home this year. I want to place my pictures in planned places, not left over nail holes. I want to buy some home decor items. I might even want to buy some, dare I say it, curtains. I don't really like curtains, but they often look nice in other peoples' homes, so maybe they would in mine too?

I went to a home party they other night and bought a magnetic frame thing which I am excited about getting and planning what's going to go in it. It's one that you can put scrapbook pages or pictures in and change it up every so often. It was my first step in my home.

My first step on my blog was to change the background...much easier, and no paint lines to stress about.

Katie's Room

Katie's room is getting close to being ready for her to move in as well. It's painted, but it needs a closet door, and all the trim (baseboards, door and window moldings) and of course a ceiling. Once we get a few more things done in there, and the furniture from my brother in law, she can move in!

Looking in from the hall. We bought that daybed at a garage sale last summer. With all the bedding, mattress and mattress cover. Only $50!

This her doorless closet.

And looking out. Isn't it a huge room? I think it's bigger than the master upstairs. That dresser may or may not stay. I want it in my room one day.

It's been a while

That's becoming a pretty standard title around this blog unfortunately. I really do have good intentions of keeping you all up to date on what's going on around here, but it's really been the same old same old lately. Basement Renovations!

But we're getting sooooo close to being done. And again, I say we as if I have played a major role. I painted the first coat in the office and family room, and a few walls got a second coat done by me, but other than that painting, my involvement has consisted of helping move a few heavy things and wandering down stairs every so often and pointing out little flaws in Chris's work. I really am a horrible wife. But he did tell me that it doesn't bother him that I have not done much when it comes to the major work of this reno, and in fact he much prefers it if I stay away!

This blog entry is going to be mostly pictures. I don't have time to post all of them, so for now you get to see the family room and area and our new couch. I mean sectional. No, I mean monster couch sectional. It's crazy huge.

We went furniture shopping last week...on a whim. We knew we were going to need new furniture, but we had not decided for sure what we were looking for. We had two options:

1. Move the furniture from upstairs to downstairs and get smaller stuff for the upstairs living room or

2. Buy something new for the basement family room and move stuff around upstairs.

The set we have in the living room now is quite a large leather set. It takes up a lot of space. We love it, but it's big. That set and our wide screen tv made my upstairs living room seem very crowded and small to me. I was leaning towards option 1. We also had plans to get a smaller tv for the upstairs living room.

So back to furniture shopping. We found this very cute, reasonably priced leather set. It was much smaller than what we had and was designed for condo spaces. Perfect! It was comfy too. We asked about it and found it could not be delivered until July. That was okay, we could survive. We decided to look around a bit more, but we were pretty sure it was the one. Fast forward about 40 couch sets, all of which we had to sit on, and the kids had to attempt to jump on, and put their dirty shoes on (note to self....floor models may look clean, but they are obviously very, very dirty). We're still thinking of the first set...until....we see a sectional. We never even considered a section. You pretty much have to have the right space for one, and we never really have, until now. This sectional was gorgeous. It had a huge ottoman that all the girls could lay on, at the same time, and not be falling off. And only Katie's toes hung over the edge a bit. If you pushed the ottoman right into the corner of the sectional, it basically made a double bed, perfect for company.

We thought about it for a while and then decided what the heck! The salesman went to check on delivery etc. and it turned out we could get one piece of the sectional and the ottoman right away and the other piece in July. Sure, why not. While he went to right up the order, we went to look at tv's. Then we saw another sectional, in front of this huge tv (which in hindsight probably helped make the sectional look much smaller than it really was). We all had a seat. There were two reclining chairs. One had a vibrating function. And there was a phone in it. Built right in the arm rest of the chair was a phone. A real life, I am so lazy I am sitting in my vibrating recliner chair, not lifting a finger, calling you on the phone kind of phone. The couch also had a hide-a-bed. Bonus. They are heavier than heck, but if our future goes as planned, we will always have movers, so not our problem, lol.

You probably guessed that when the salesman got back and told us this sectional was on sale for $500 off the ticketed price, we were pretty much sold. Chris later told me he didn't really like the first sectional, but that he could tell I really did, so he figured it would be fine. This one, he really likes and I really like, so that's good. It was delivered yesterday and it is huge! It really makes the tv area of our new family room small and cozy, but it's turned into exactly the space I wanted. We're a tv family, I won't deny that. We all live to sit around in the evening and watch a show or a movie together. This space is exactly that. Yay!

Unfortunately though, our new fireplace is not going to fit in that space. We could put it behind the sectional, but that is going to become a kids play area, so I don't really want it there. We've decided it will come upstairs to the living room. Not quite what we had envisioned when we bought it, but it will still be in space where it can be used quite often. And if we buy the right tv for the living room, it will fit right on top of the fireplace (remember, we're a tv family).

So without further ado....our new furniture.

And hidden in one of the armrests of the middle chair is the phone...seriously, can you believe that? Do you think we'll actually use it much?

And this is a shot of the family room from near the basement stairs.

And a shot of what will be the kids area behind the couch eventually. That china cabinet will be moved into the office when the cabinet in the office gets moved to someone else's house. The Universal Gym will also be gone (know anyone who wants to buy a gym...cheap?), so that leaves a nice sized kids play area. It's good though because next fall I will have two 5 yr olds every other day when they are not in kindergarten (one is my own), two 2 or almost 2 yr olds, and one 6 mos old in my dayhome.

Quotable Monday ~ Strength ~

These are for you Michelle...

Once you go through something you think will kill you and it doesn’t, every day is like a present. ~ Elissa B. Terris

To find in ourselves what makes life worth living is risky business, for it means that once we know, we must seek it. ~ Marsha Sinetar

Don't think about how weak you are — think of how strong you're going to be. ~ Michelle (Berry) Dougherty

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." . . . You must do the thing you think you cannot do. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Lucky Ducky!

On Saturday the girls and I went to the Child and Family Expo. It was mostly a bunch of booths of local business that have products for children or families. Dora the Explorer was also there, but the line up to see her was pretty darn long, so thankfully none of the girls cared to wait in line to be able to get to stand next to her for 12 seconds. We were there for a couple hours, wandering around booths, participating in the fun crafts and jumpy house things, etc. And while we were there I entered my name into the door prize draw for grown ups and the girls entered their names into the draw for a bunch of Dora and Diego stuff...$150 worth of Dora and Diego stuff to be more specific. That was just one of many draws, but I really didn't want my kids names in a bunch of draws for home parties and stores etc., who would probably put us on email lists or call us asking us to host parties, lol. So they entered the one draw only. It was sponsored by the Army Cadets, so no harm in that right?

Well last night I got a call for Beth. She was the lucky winner of the Dora and Diego prize! I couldn't even remember what was all in the prize since I never really gave it much attention when we entered. We never win, lol. I stopped by the Army Cadet place tonight while Beth was at Sparks and picked up the prize, and here she is with her stash!

That's a lot of Dora and Diego stuff!! I told the girls we would open a few things and the rest would go in the closet for birthday gifts, but I think they have me convinced that we should keep it all. They don't even like Dora and Diego that much, but the idea of new toys, especially the ones that talk and make noise, has them glowing with excitement!