I Have a Fever

Olympic fever, that is! For someone who is not interested in watching sports of any kind, I've sure been paying a lot of attention to the Olympics. And mostly it's been hockey. It sure gets the heart pumping! I shouted so loudly when Canada scored the other night, I scared Carter!

I've still been trying to get out walking as much as possible. I can go indoor walking Monday through Thursday and try to go each day. Last week I went three times and this week I've gone twice so far. Last night I walked with Cindy and my legs felt like lead weights. Today in comparison I felt like a gazelle, completing one lap in under three minutes (mostly running). I'm not seeing any physical changes since starting this unexpected regimen, but it does feel pretty good. And I don't wheeze (much) when I pick up the pace.

The weekend was pretty great. I had a short week last week. Before Christmas I had booked a hair appointment for Friday after work. When I received a gift certificate for a manicure, pedicure and facial for Christmas, I decided to make it a spa day. In the morning I went for a manicure and a glorious facial.

Since I've been so tired lately, I had an important project that I had put off too long, and had to finish it right after my treatments. It was Cooper's first 100th day of school. I had intended to make him a t-shirt much like Carter's. Cooper requested 100 pictures of Bolt on a t-shirt. I had prepared the graphic, but nothing else. That morning before I took the boys to school, I printed out the pictures.

I came home from the spa just before lunch. I cut 100 of those little suckers (for some ridiculous reason I printed circular pictures; squares would have been much quicker). About a half an hour of cutting, I went looking for my 'pop-dots' but couldn't find any, realizing I'd likely used them all on Carter's shirt. I wasted about a half an hour hunting down pop dots at two dollar stores and finally Wal-Mart. I ran home and stuck all the dots on the pictures and mounted them to the shirt.

I bolted to the school to deliver it to Cooper. I got there about a half an hour after school started but I pulled it off and was glad. Cooper got all goofy when I brought him the shirt. I managed to get a picture before I skulked back out of the classroom.

Saturday afternoon we had a visit from one of Cooper's daycare teachers. He's working on his ECE course and he chose Cooper to study and arranged to observe him in his own environment. That took up most of our afternoon but the boys were both fairly well-behaved.

Saturday evening was designated as girls' night. A few of us went over to Carmelle's place. Serena and I both had new SingStar discs to try out. We had plenty of yummy appetizers and a few cocktails. I got home shortly after two in the morning!

Surprisingly, I was up first thing Sunday morning (well, not surprisingly since Cooper was my alarm clock again.) However the surprising part was that I stayed up and we had planned to go ice fishing with Cindy's family and Serena's family. I picked up the Jeep at Carmelle's and gassed it up and we got ready. We all arrived out on the lake at lunchtime. We spent a wonderful afternoon out on the lake. In hindsight (and as a result of a guilt-ridden email from my parents) we should have called Mom and Dad to come hang out with us. The weather was amazing and the kids all had a great time. Of course the grown-ups did too :)

It's been a fairly uneventful week. Aside from work I've only gone out to walk. Today I finished my ten laps in just over thirty-seven minutes, my best time yet. There was one lap I almost ran the whole time, and in under three minutes. Whenever I spy an empty hallway I start to run a little. Occasionally it feels good enough that I keep going. My feet aren't too bad today either. Hopefully I'll get to walk tomorrow evening with Cindy again.

That's Brisk, Baby!

Oops I just realized awhile ago that I forgot I had a blog again yesterday. Today after work I came home to change quickly so I could go walking. I did ten laps in almost exactly forty minutes. This equals about five kilometres and for me is VERY brisk walking. Whenever I spot an empty hallway I pick up the pace so my laps range from 3.5 minutes to 4.5 minutes.

I came home and as I was walking in the driveway, Chris arrived with the boys. He had plans to go for a ride with his guy friends so I quickly went to pick up happy meals for the boys and him. I got back and he got ready to go. I snapped these pictures of the boys playing outside. I don't like guns and we don't have any toy guns, but that doesn't stop these two from using their imaginations:


So yesterday...the main thing that stands out in my mind was almost getting t-boned by another vehicle on my way to work. I was on a through street with the right of way and there was a lady at a stop sign that decided she didn't want to be stopped any longer, I guess. I kept going, thankfully, since if I braked she would have hit me for sure. It was a lucky miss; I was glad my guardian angel was sitting on my shoulder!

Last night Chris's Dad came over for dinner. I picked up the kids right away after work and Chris picked up his Dad. I already had dinner on the go by the time they got home. We had chicken legs (à la Shake'n'Bake), mashed potatoes, mixed veggies and salad. Right after supper I left to go walking. Cindy was there and we did seven laps together. She had already done two. I did another three to make my usual goal of ten.

We watched American Idol last night and tonight; they're finally down to the top twenty-four and the live shows start next week. Aside from the wacky auditions, this is where it gets good. I also spent a bit too much time last night trying to hit the top of the Bejeweled high score list. Surprisingly I did it. I tried to stay awake to watch Craig Ferguson but I couldn't make it the whole way.

Right now my feet are a little tender and my legs are a bit ticked off with me but I'm still really enjoying the walking. I'm looking forward to the weekend already, which starts a day early for me since I'm off Friday. I already had a hair appointment booked after work, and decided to turn it into a spa day for myself. In the morning I'm having a manicure and a facial. Can't wait. I love that tomorrow is my Friday too. :)

Family Day

Today was ''Family Day''. It's a newfangled semi-statutory holiday around these parts. Most things were closed, including Wal-Mart and the grocery stores and many other businesses including Chris's workplace. Mine, on the other hand, was open. There were six of us there today. It was a great day to get caught up on things since there were very few phone calls and very little foot traffic coming in.

Since Chris was staying home with the boys (oh yeah, no school either), I had an easy getaway this morning. I had plenty of time to go get a coffee and brought one home to Chris before I headed to work. The morning was flying by when Chris and the boys stopped in to bring me...a coffee! I came home for lunch at one and had lunch and a visit with the boys. I walked in the door and OMGCOOPERWASVACUUMING! Cooper seems to love the vacuum; I foresee this coming in really handy once he gets a little taller. ::wringing hands hatching evil plan to con children into helping with housework:: He was quite peeved when we asked him to shut it off and he was ordering me to go back to work. I actually set the microwave timer and sneaked into my room for a quick catnap. Twenty minutes later I was headed back to work.

The afternoon zoomed much like the morning did; by the end of the day I felt like I had just arrived. It's amazing how much work one can get done without phones ringing or people coming in! I came home after work and Chris left right away to go fishing for a couple hours. The boys and I munched on leftover pizza for supper and watched Zathura for the quadrillionth time. Mom and Dad stopped in for a quick visit on their way home from Cindy and Bob's house.

Chris came home and now we're just having a quiet evening watching TV. Both boys are sleeping. Dare I attempt to do a scrapbook page?

Floral Delivery!

I neglected to mention something very important when I blogged on Friday. I received this beautiful rose at work from none other than Mr. Michael Bublé. I hope you can see the tag says, ''Love M.B.'' When the floral delivery lady showed up at my office, I said, ''Well I know that's not for me.'' Then she said my name and I said, ''Hey that IS ME!'' I was very excited. I opened the little envelope to find the card and realized immediately it was from my pretend celebrity boyfriend Michael Bublé.

I tried to call Kelly but had to leave her a breathless message with the excitement of the floral delivery. Of course I knew it was she who sent it...she came over to my office when she got my message and pretended she hadn't sent it. We had a few good laughs over it anyway and I bragged to all my coworkers that Michael Bublé sent it to me. :)

Yesterday my friend Leeanne came to town and we had our standing lunchdate after her hair appointment. We went for the East Indian buffet with Brittni and her darling son Henry. We all savoured the deliciousness of the food and had a great visit. After lunch Leeanne and I did some jeans shopping. I found a pair I liked but ended up buying a pair of brown pants on sale instead. I picked up a pair of jeans for Chris though, along with getting a great deal on some socks and underwear for him too. It was a ''buy one get TWO free'' deal. So for ten bucks I got what they would have normally charged thirty for. Not bad. He was a happy camper. I also got a bracelet and necklace in the deal.

Before she dropped me off I did a Starbucks run. Chris had taken the boys ice fishing and Chris had texted me to ask if I'd bring a helmet down to the lake. I found them right away. Chris needed the helmet for the boys to go for a ride on a mini snowmobile one of his friends had brought for his daughter to play on. Morgan gave Cooper a ride and it was so adorable. Oh and the snowmobile? Bright pink. Adorable. I took a picture on my cell phone...(it's kinda lousy but it's all I had with me.)

I came home and was very sleepy. I finished my latté and snoozed until the boys came home and even a little beyond that. We had sandwiches for supper (I was still full from lunch) and had a quiet evening at home. Cooper was asleep by seven (gotta love that fresh air!) and Carter was up for about another hour or two after. We watched the movie Fireproof. Fantastic movie. Every couple should watch it. After the movie I was a bit too sleepy to blog so I vowed to myself I'd catch up today.

Today we had planned to have our 'family day' since I work tomorrow on the actual day. Chris and I exchanged our Valentine goodies this morning then we got ready to go sliding. The temperature wasn't bad today but it was pretty windy. I decked myself out in all my winter gear, including an old pair of boots Chris found for me in the basement (I so seldom wear boots). I even wore a toque. My hair was kinda toast anyway. We went to the park to go sliding and then I realized I didn't have my camera. I took a picture and a video on my cell phone then decided it was worth the trek home to get the real camera. I came back and took these pictures and slid down the hill a few times. I was surprisingly toasty warm. The only thing that felt cold in that chilly wind was my forehead a little. Not bad.

After we walked home from the park we took the boys to Tim Horton's for hot chocolate (and donuts). Carter's tongue was dark purple from all the sprinkles on his donut so I took his picture and in it his tongue looks like it just has a purple spot on it. Cooper had to get in on the fun too of course. :)

We came home and hung out and had lunch. The boys were napping when we got home after cruising around a bit. I decided to capitalize on their downtime and have a little nap too. I had plans to go out to Bingo tonight with Kelly and Phyllis though, and definitely needed to shower to rid myself of my ''hat head'' from wearing that itchy, snug toque all morning.

Kelly and Phyllis picked me up at about four-thirty. We did a quick pitstop at Tim Horton's and headed out. We left extra early since one of the special jackpots was about $42,000. Good thing we left so early because there was hardly anywhere to park when we arrived and the line-up to purchase cards snaked all the way around the bingo hall. We stood in line for about an hour. It was also a good thing that we darted up to the non-smoking section to save seats before going to buy our Bingo cards. We got to our seats and set up our cards and it was about the usual time we would have been doing so.

Well, as much as I'd like to say one of us won $42,000 and we each came home $14,000 richer, we didn't. But of course we still had fun. Our Bingo trips have become very few and far between and we had a great time.

Well, that took me over an hour to edit pictures and get all caught up. I'd better hit the hay 'cause I'm the only one that has to work tomorrow.

Let The Games Begin!

Well I'm no sports fan; not even when it comes to the Olympics. But recent events such as seeing the torch go through our town and realizing all the pomp and circumstance that goes along with it is pretty fantastic...and our Olympic door decorating contest (and winning it) have put me in the spirit a little. Plus there are some locals involved in the organizing events, including a local girl dancing in the opening ceremony.

I tuned in since the boys had fallen asleep. I just was curious to see who was going to light the cauldron; with my bet on Gretzky. Go Wayne! Then once I saw the intricacies of the technology and graphics and sheer volume of people that went into it, I was enthralled and watched for the three hours straight. It was pretty amazing. Made me really proud to be a Canadian! The floor/stage was a graphic masterpiece and the choreography of dance and music and technology was amazing.

Today was a slow one. It was very quiet at the office since there were quite a few people off today. Fridays are usually good catch-up days since they're fairly quiet. A few of us went out for lunch today. The afternoon was much like the morning. Chris and I exchanged a few texts late in the afternoon to decide what to have for dinner. We opted for steak and the plan was for him to pick up the kids and for me to go grab the food. In the meantime his Dad called so I picked him up first before going to the grocery store. I picked up some gorgeous tenderloin steaks, potatoes, mushrooms, and asparagus. We came home and Chris played outside with the boys for awhile while I got a couple things ready.

I made twice-baked potatoes, pan-fried mushrooms, steamed asparagus, Chris barbecued the steaks and I made a salad. Dinner was delicious; I loooooooove barbecuing in the middle of winter!

After dinner Chris took his Dad home and the boys fell asleep watching a movie. Chris fell asleep early too. I got to watch and thoroughly enjoy the opening ceremonies. During and after the ceremonies I had exchanged text messages and Facebook messages with a few of my faraway friends and when it was all over Julia called me. She told me about this insane website called SelleckWaterfallSandwich. I don't know how it started but every post is a picture (some animated) of Tom Selleck, a waterfall and a sandwich. While Jules and I were talking I made her her very own JuliaWaterfallSandwich photo.


Well that's about it for me; I'm sure there's more but I'm too sleepy. But hey, at least I managed to post again! :)

Six Clicks

This morning was a hairwashing day so I needed to get up early. Good thing I have my trusty alarm clock (aka Cooper). He never fails waking me about a half an hour BEFORE my alarm is set. Today it was a good thing though. I got up at quarter after six and hit the shower. I managed to get all ready and the boys fed and dressed and had time to spare. We left earlier than usual and I did a coffee run before dropping the boys off at school. It was cold enough for indoor recess, so I got the boys settled in and got to work early enough to get a parking spot with a plug in.

The past couple weeks we've held a door decorating contest at our office in honour of the upcoming Olympics this weekend. The decorating deadline was today. Since my 'office' is the reception area, I don't have a door. I had planned on decorating the copier room door or a coworker's door that didn't plan to participate but I ended up teaming up with Amber, who has a door! I had chosen Canada as my country to decorate and in talking to my decorating partner got the idea to build an inukshuk out of Coke cans, since they're red and white. We also printed out a bunch of pictures and covered the door in cotton batting to resemble snow. Anyhoo, they had two people from the other two agencies in the building come in to do the judging. Guess who won? GO CANADA! Here are all the pictures from the contest:








So that made it a fun day. Kelly and I had a quick bite to eat at Subway today. The afternoon went well. After work I ran to the grocery store to grab something for dinner. I picked up the boys and we came home. Chris was home by then and Carter wanted to play outside. Cooper just wanted to have snacks. He had oranges and yogurt while I started cooking. I cubed up and browned some chicken breasts and prepared quesadillas. Chicken and cheese for the boys and added jalapenos for Chris and me. Chris was still outside working on his four-wheeler. The boys loved the quesadillas (so did I).

Chris came in so that I could leave for my walk. I was just finishing my second lap when I saw Cindy. She's often there for the kids' volleyball practice. After my second lap she joined me then we walked ten laps together, even though she didn't have her walking shoes. I came home and Chris went out to finish working on his four-wheeler. The boys went to sleep fairly early so I started working on their Valentine cards. I stuffed all the envelopes and made matching labels for each. I also made cards from both boys for the day care teachers.


I managed to stay up late enough to watch Craig Ferguson again but I'd better be getting to bed! By the way I'm so proud of me for blogging again. I'm already looking forward to tomorrow. Yay for Friday! :)

Uphill Both Ways

Today was a pretty good day. Work was long but okay. At lunch I was super tired. I brought a coffee to Chris at work but he wasn't there. He had run home for a bit. I came home and he was about to leave. I came in the house and set the timer on the microwave for twenty-five minutes and curled up on the couch. I closed my eyes for what felt like two seconds and the timer beeped. Wow that was a fast catnap!

I went back to work feeling a little bit refreshed (particularly after I drank my coffee). After work Chris had planned to go fishing with some of the guys from work. I got the idea awhile back to come home after work and walk to pick up the boys so I thought I'd give it a go today. I came home and put ski pants and an extra sweater on and set off to pick up the boys, pulling along an empty sled.

I arrived boiling hot. I really didn't need all those layers. It was beautiful out. The boys climbed aboard the sleigh and I pulled them home. Those little turkeys are getting HEAVY! The trip home was likely longer than the trip there; I forgot to check my iPod for the time on the stopwatch. The walk home was largely downhill, (though at times it felt like it was uphill!) which was a bonus except for the couple times where the sleigh caught up to me and lurched into my achilles tendons, akin to getting a shopping cart in the back of the ankles when shopping with the hubby. Then there was crossing streets where there was bare pavement. That definitely added to the workout!

We came home and I cooked dinner (sort of). My friend Diane had brought me a tray of ribs to cook up. All I had to do was put them in the oven for awhile and I cooked some rice and veggies. The boys looooooooved it. After dinner we went to visit the boys' great grandpa (Great Papa). He was having a hard time with his TV remote and I helped him fix it last time. Once I showed him last time he knew how to fix it but it wasn't working this time. But by the time we arrived he had it figured out. We stuck around and had a nice little visit anyway.

We came home and I cut out all the boys' valentine cards and stuffed them in envelopes. Both boys were asleep shortly after seven-thirty. Bonus! I did a little more printing and managed to get over here to document my day. Now maybe I'll do some browsing through my pictures and scrapbooking graphics. Baby steps!

Plug it In, Unplug it Out

Wow it's me again. Just wow!

Here is a picture of Carter in his 100th day shirt. Surprisingly when I retrieved it from his backpack after dinner to grab this photo opportunity, all 100 robots were still stuck on it!


This morning started out a little rocky for me. I managed to get the boys up and out on time, but when I went to back out of the garage I THEN realized Chris had plugged in the Jeep. Luckily I stopped before the cord reached the breaking point. ::sigh:: I took the boys to school and brought Carter's shirt to his classroom and got Cooper settled in. I would have loooooooved a coffee this morning but I had just enough time to make it to work on time. I had a busy morning but things were going well until I got a call from Cooper's day care teacher to advise me he didn't have any ski pants to go play outside. Crap. Here's where the beauty of a small town comes in handy. I quickly drove home and picked up the ski pants. Judging from where they were near the kitchen doorway, I quite likely had to step OVER them when we originally left. ::sigh:: I dropped off the ski pants and had some quick hugs from Cooper and headed back to work. The rest of the morning went okay.

Kelly and I went for some soup at Tim Horton's and I had my dose of coffee too. The afternoon at work was busy too. I asked Chris to pick up the kids so I could go for a walk again after work. It's nice to do the indoor walking since the sidewalks are so uneven, snowy and slippery. I managed to do ten laps which equals about five kilometres. (That's about three miles for my south of the border friends... :)

I walked home then left right away to pick up Chris's Dad for supper. As I was backing out of the driveway, I heard Chris whistle so I stopped. Unbeknownst to me he had plugged in the Jeep when he got home and here I was driving away with the cord again, lucky to not have reached the cord's breaking point once again. Usually he plugs it in in the morning and lets me know so this wasn't such a good surprise. ::sigh::

I picked up Chris's Dad and he brought some ground beef he had thawing and we stopped to pick up some salad and veggies. After all that I managed to get supper on the table just before seven o'clock. I made a meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, kernel corn and salad. The boys liked the meal and ate enough that they didn't ask for a peanut butter sandwich this evening. :)

I printed Valentine cards for the boys tonight and I'm hoping to get the names of their classmates so I can do envelopes tomorrow. The kids fell asleep just after eight so I was able to get much more accomplished! Usually when I stay up working on projects I just leave the TV on whatever channel Chris was watching before he fell asleep on the couch and end up being tortured by some news program or infomercial. The past couple nights though, I've retrieved the remote from his sleepiness and tuned in to Craig Ferguson. I've always liked that guy and with that accent I could listen to him all day. Plus he's hilarious. So now I want to tune in again but after my long day I'm not sure if I'm going to make it...

100th Day of School - 2010 Edition!

Tomorrow is Carter's 100th day of school. There are plenty of things going on this week, including his first-ever trip to the ski hill today. He had a fannnnnnnnntastic time skiing and snowboarding. I wish I could have been there to see him. Each time he told someone about it (Chris and me and Grandma and Grandpa), he carefully demonstrated the correct way to grasp the tow rope. Now I really want to take him out skiing one of these days. I haven't skied for about ::cough:: twenty ::cough:: years.

Back to the 100th day of school thing, this year I asked Carter what he wanted to bring or wear for it. In JK he wore the shirt with 100 pictures of himself. In SK we stuck 100 googly eyeballs on a shirt. This year he requested 100 Roblox robots. Roblox is a game he is completely obsessed with (though currently grounded from). It took me a few hours but I have 100 of those little suckers cut out and stuck on the shirt. The image is actually his character he designed in the game. Here is the finished product: (And yes of course I'll take pictures tomorrow when he's wearing it!)


I can't wait to show it to him in the morning. He was already telling me how awesome I am when I was printing and cutting. Cooper's 100th day of school is being celebrated on the 19th; presumably since he had a later start due to the Kindergarten gentle entry. I'm sure he'll want something similar to this; perhaps pictures of him like we did the first time with Carter.

On Friday both boys' classes are celebrating Valentine's Day. I have Valentine cards prepared for both of them; I just need to print them. It feels good to do something creative for me; I'm used to working on projects for other people so it's nice to have a break to do something for myself.

Well, that felt good to blog again; I really do want to keep this up; I've missed it so much and have a much easier time keeping track of what we're up to and remembering where we've been when I actually take the time to write it down!

Happy New Year!

Yeah, okay, I'm over a month late. It's been nearly two months since I've blogged and I really miss it. It's just too easy to skip through things and do a quick Facebook update or just tune in to the internet with the iPod instead of opening up the laptop to blog. For starters here is 2009 in pictures, including a few new pictures since my last post.



Christmas came and went quickly as usual. I was off for a couple weeks to use up some vacation time. That gave me plenty of time to get ready for Christmas. (But of course I wasn't.) We had a few friends over on New Year's Eve and had a blast, kids included.

Since then I've been feeling a little blah...the mid-winter kind of blah, I suppose. I've had some great times with new and old friends and have recently teamed up with a few girlfriends for the occasional girls' night.

Dad is doing well with his chemo with only a couple delays and the addition of some new treatments. Mom is being quite the nurse giving him daily injections.

The boys are doing well at school. Carter is becoming quite the reader and Cooper loves to count and is great at writing his name. Carter's latest craze is playing an online game called Roblox.

I haven't done any scrapbooking lately or blogging (obviously) for reasons I'm not fully aware of. I have the time and I have the energy but I seem to have a lack of interest for some reason. I'm hoping to get back in the swing of things. I'm hoping my new attempts at getting some exercise and getting healthier will also inspire me to get creative again.

This week the boys are celebrating the 100th day of school so I'm hoping to come up with some fresh ideas for them. I'll be sure to post pictures! Seriously. I will.