Friday Eve

It's almost Friday. It's almost Friday. ::chanting::

It's been a long week. Well that's not really true; it's been a short week. There is always this strange phenomenon I find after a long weekend wherein the week feels EVEN LONGER and I still have another day to go. I'll never understand it, but I always notice it.

I had a fantastic lunch out with one of my funny girlfriends. We went for Indian food and it was fantastic as ever. Comfort food. I love all the spice. I probably reek of garlic but I don't care. Plus I ate enough that I had no desire to eat supper.

I picked up the kids after work and treated them and Chris to McDonald's for supper. Today we restarted Cooper's first communion classes. I still don't understand how I send them to a Catholic school, yet they still need to go to classes outside of school. Anyway, we went to the church for his class then stopped and picked up a treat for the kids and coffee for Chris and me on the way home.

I'm working on a few projects at the moment; hopefully I'll be able to post some samples soon. Happy Friday Eve y'all!

I Already Lost a Day

I briefly thought about blogging last night. There was a terrible fire that destroyed a local business yesterday. That was on my mind the whole day. Plus the internet is boring me a little. One week down, five to go. I hate that I'm even thinking of counting the time before I get to have the interaction on Facebook. I did enjoy a quick FaceTime visit with Mom and Dad. Mom is getting pretty swift with that iPad of hers! :)

I've been watching more TV, cuddling with the kids more, but managing to put off the housework as much as always. This weekend I'm going to have the girls over, so I'll need to do some serious tidying on Saturday.

I was asked to make some tickets for a benefit social the other day. I was happy to have a project, even if it's one I'm donating. I've hardly had any print projects to work on. Of course as soon as I agree to do one, I get asked for two more. So I will have a busy week if I can get my creative juices flowing.

Today was a busy one. I did a mail merge of 200 letters, which I do many of, and quite enjoy. What made it even more enjoyable was the new letter folder we have at the office. That thing is pretty darned slick! After that the day paled in comparison, but I made it through.

Tonight is Judo night. It's Chris's turn to take them (I still do the other day.) However, Chris is busily trying to get some ice off the roof. The amount of snow and ice we have this winter (including the extra foot of snow we got on the weekend) is insane. I dropped them off and am enjoying a few peaceful moments before I pick up the adrenaline-filled children. Hopefully they will have had a good workout and just want to relax when they get home.

An Entertaining Evening

I picked up the three girls (Kelly, Yvette & Carmelle) and we set off to have supper out before the Shawn Desman/Anjulie concert. We intended to go the Best Western restaurant, but we were not expecting it to be closed for Family Day. We left and found a nice quiet alternative and had a great dinner.

Next stop was the concert. It was great and loud enough to feel it. Anjulie had two female backup dancers and quickly sang an album's worth of songs. She's cute and lively and entertaining. There was no band. Just her DJ taking care of the music.

There was a bit of a break and Yvette and I walked to the lobby hoping for a beverage but there was no beverage service. Even with the younger crowd they could have made a killing selling pop. I was so thirsty! All there was was a drinking fountain. I couldn't drink enough water. Here is a picture our friend snapped of us. I tried taking more of our whole group but with the narrow seating rows, it was hard to do. Hopefully one of the other girls has one.

Shawn Desman was next and also put on an energetic show. He had two male backup dancers, two guitarists and a drummer. Again the sound filled the room and the entertaining music and dancing made everyone move. After the show we navigated the still very snowy streets and I dropped all the girls off at home. I stopped for a quick (vanilla...YUM!) Coke at McDonald's on the way home and downed it quickly. Everyone at home was already asleep when I got in. I had texted a few pictures and videos from the concert to Chris and the boys were impressed with what I was seeing.

Well, that's the last of the weekend; back to the grind tomorrow.

Snow Day!

Happy Family Day!

There are many festivities that were planned today for families to go out and celebrate. It's called Winterfest, but in an ironic turn of events, many of the events were cancelled because of the heavy snowfall. 

I went out briefly to visit my lovely hair stylist Corina, and this is what it looked like on my way home:

Even with the Jeep in four-wheel drive it was really messy. I'm glad I don't have to travel any distance today. When I got home Chris was gone with the boys to the festivities. They have a big man-made sliding hill down by the lake and a snow maze. They're probably having fun despite the whiteout out there. I'll post more later when I get home from the concert. I hope the performers were able to make it to town!

A Strange Yet Delicious Concoction

Today I felt like we were in a snowglobe. It's still snowing. I lazed in bed a little to long to make it to church today. My hair really needed a wash and a dye job so I did both and didn't make it to church.

Chris did a very welcomed coffee run with Cooper. We hung out watching movies most of the day. Cooper went outside to shovel a few times. That kid is a rugged outdoorsman at age seven.

A few days ago when I made chicken for supper, I had cut up a couple extra chicken breasts and kept them in the fridge intending to make soup or something. Well, it was something alright. And it was delicious! I browned the chicken cubes in a bit of spices, cooked some egg noodles, threw it all in together with diced tomatoes and peas in an alfredo-ish sauce. Cooper loved it. Carter didn't. It's almost all gone. Cooper requested it for leftovers tomorrow. Weird. Chris asked me if I remember how to make it again. Very strange mixture, but it was good!

Tonight is Walking Dead night. But whenever it comes on, Chris falls asleep. I never really got into it. It's no Dexter by any means. Chris got into it a couple months ago and started from season one and watched straight through to catch up to the current season when it started. I have it recording on the new PVR.

Cooper fell asleep and Carter just zonked too. I'm currently downloading a movie on my phone to watch on the TV when this show is over, but I might as well start it as soon as the download is done. I'm going to watch Couples Retreat. I rented it on iTunes.

Dad stopped by to give Chris his birthday card. I've seen Mom and Dad a number of times since Chris's birthday, but Chris was always working or fishing during the visits. Chris was treated to a Tim Horton's card with the dollar value of his thirty-nine years on Earth. He did a second coffee run after supper, so I'll probably be up late watching movies again.

Tomorrow is date night with the girls. Kelly bought four of us girls tickets to see Shawn Desman and Anjulie tomorrow night. We're meeting up for supper first then the concert. I must say I'm looking forward to it! I'll try to take pictures tomorrow evening.

Speaking of Dexter, it's a long few months until season eight starts. A couple weeks ago I wrote this little ditty as kind of a tribute. It's really not a Christmas song, but it was a good fit.

And one last thing. I was tagged on Pinterest by my friend Deanna - she saw something like this and said I should make some. The best part is I already did a few months ago. This is for you Deanna! :) I've seen a few different wordings on this but I watered it down a little :)

Minimal Activity

Today was pretty low-key. Chris and the kids had me awake early as usual. Chris worked until noon then went fishing.

I picked up a coffee and Dad's newspaper and headed out to visit Mom and Dad. I gave Mom a quick tutorial on her iPad and we had pizza for lunch. We hung out for awhile then came home.

We watched 'Hotel Transylvania' (twice) then Cooper fell asleep. We watched 'Fun With Dick and Jane' then Carter fell asleep too. I didn't drink my coffee until we got home so I will probably watch another movie or two.

Day Three

Friday, Sweet Friday. And a long weekend to top it off! Family Day is Monday and after the past couple chilly months, a long weekend sweetens the deal. I'm hoping for mild enough weather (particularly on Monday for the Family Day festivities) to take the kids sliding. I'm sure Chris would take them anyway, but I'm the indoor girl and would prefer playing outside if it's nicer out.

Today was day three of no Facebook. I have to say it's quite liberating, though I do still think about it a few times a day. Every time I want to look someone up or find a phone number the easy way, or just when I find a random time to check in, I miss it a bit. But I'm wasting far less time than usual, and managed to watch a whole movie this evening without even touching my laptop!

Chris worked until noon today and stayed home for the afternoon. I came home at lunch and had a bit of a nap. After work I picked up milk and bread, (then the kids), and came home to supper on the go. Chris cooked chicken in mushroom soup (with tasty assorted spices he didn't divulge), veggies with cheese, and rice. We had a delicious dinner then watched a movie. Cooper's choice was Evan Almighty. That one is always good for a few laughs.

Next we watched Next. Cindy came to visit while she was waiting for assorted teenagers to decide their plans for the evening. Both boys had a bath and smelled heavenly when they cuddled us before falling asleep. The movie just ended. Everyone else is sleeping. I might just go surf on Pinterest for awhile before I go to sleep too.

I saw this phrase on Pinterest and it made me laugh so I made my own. Graphics are from Theresa Hernandez' Sunshine on Wildflowers kit and Helena Jole's Masks and Mats. I started noticing a few years ago that I'm turning into my mother. :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Last night I made one more Valentine card. I usually make one of the two boys to give to the Grandparents, Aunties and a couple others. Here it is. I got the idea on another web site and recreated it.

This morning I awoke to flowers. FLOWERS! And instead of a Valentine's card, there was an iTunes card. Best Valentine's Day card EVER! :) It's been ages since my hubby bought me flowers. I think the last time he did, he asked me to stop at the florist to pay for them on my way home from work. I was telling the girls at work I got flowers and one of them asked, "From who?" I laughed. It was a legitimate question.

Last month, our free cable TV offer ended. I didn't happen to notice on last month's bill they were notifying me it was ending. So this week I got a bill for all the channels we were getting free for the year. Yikes. I called to whine and complain and fortunately they met me in the middle and fixed the bill a little to reduce the programming on the bill. I cancelled the cable again (we survive on Netflix and barely watched the cable even when it was free). I turned in the cable box to the cable company. The very next evening, I got a call from the cable company to review my cable subscriptions. I told the guy I just finished returning the box and cancelling the cable TV and that we still stayed subscribed to cable internet. He obviously knew this, and was calling to make another offer. Cable for $9.95 for three months, including an HD PVR!

Installation was this morning. Wow they move fast! Unfortunately the package only includes channels 2-22, which is just the basic networks. But I still went for it to try out the PVR. While the cable guy was here, he was compelled to tell me that if we upgrade to 'classic cable' for only $20 more, we get all the channels back, including the 50 HD channels. I though what the heck; three months of cable for less than the price of one month of what we would have paid. So, we have cable again for three months. We'll see how much we watch it. I will be paying attention to the bills so I know when this offer ends. I'd hate to see the bill for what all of it would cost at full price! I hope I find something I'll want to record; we can record two shows at once. Very groundbreaking for me. I love new gadgets!

After work I came home right away and started making supper. I just received a box of nice veggies and fruit at the office. There is a healthy living food box I signed up for and today was the day for it. There were apples, bananas, oranges, carrots, celery, avocado, grapefruit, beans, pasta, tomatoes, peppers, onions, potatoes, kiwis, (there may have been other items too). I decided to use my new Epicure mandoline slicer to slice the carrots and cook them in my new Epicure steamer I hadn't tried yet. I already had the chicken breasts baking in the oven when I started slicing carrots.

I didn't realize until it was too late that the heel of my hand was closer to the blade than the end of the carrot was. Oops. I took a little chunk off my hand. It was a clean little slice and didn't even bleed right away. I washed my hands again and put on a bandaid and continued slicing (more carefully) once I made sure the blade was clean and didn't have any pieces of me in it!

Supper turned out great. We had mashed potatoes. I usually use milk and butter and cheese in the potatoes, but I used the last of the milk in the gravy. Instead of milk I used some chip dip. Heluva Good dip worked great with the cheese and butter!

After supper a few of my girlfriends picked me up to go to the hospital to visit our friend and her new baby. She had a beautiful baby girl and we all took turns having baby cuddles and sharing baby stories. We always have a good time. I just got home and figured I'd hit the blog again in hopes of inspiring myself to continue. (Yes, I admit it's partly an outlet for me in the absence of Facebook!) That's it for now; I'm already looking forward to the weekend.

I Remember When I Used to Blog!

Well, for some strange reason, I've decided to give up Facebook for Lent. That's about 46 days. I actually did some reading about it, and found myself a loophole that I don't intend to use:

"Technically, Sundays are not part of Lent. Although we celebrate them liturgically as part of Lent, the Lord's Day cannot be a day of fast and abstinence. Six weeks of Monday through Saturday gives you 36 days. If you add to them Ash Wednesday and the three days after it, you get the 40 days of Lent."

As I was daydreaming about what I ought to do instead of Facebook (all housekeeping aside), I thought about resurrecting my blog, and how all those status updates could be cleverly converted into blog posts.

I opened my blog page with trepidation, typed the first sentence, and remembered again tomorrow is Valentine's Day and I needed to get the kids' Valentines printed. The kids chose their own designs. Cooper's is the cute puppy with the standard greeting. Carter's is of course World of Warcraft-related. Here they are:

Let's see. What's happened in the past NINE months since I blogged? A lot. An awful, awful lot. I can't even begin to describe it. Instead of racking my brain, I will note current events. And with a little luck and will power, I will keep it current.

Cooper lost his two front teeth shortly after Christmas. His adult teeth are already poking through. Carter is going through an "I-don't-want-to-get-my-hair-cut" phase. I'm humouring him for now, though there will be a hair appointment to try to shape his mop into something stylish. The two are still as opposite as ever (right down to the haircuts. Cooper likes his short).

The kids are still in Judo. Every Monday when I pick them up after school, they profess their hatred of Judo, or they conjure up some random symptom like a sore leg, or a headache in an attempt to be excused. Of course as soon as they get to the dojo, they get right into it. This season, the Judo club, which used to be located in a neighbouring town, moved to a new location just three blocks from our house. That was a nice change. The schedule changed too, which facilitated Cooper's communion classes. When Carter went for his classes, he had to miss a night of Judo.

We all went to the dentist today. I'm happy to report there are no cavities, although Mr. Dentist would like to do repairs on fillings for Chris and me. I am always suspicious they just want to do some digging; however in the past I had a broken filling that caused me much discomfort in the way of sinus infections. So I'm more open to the suggestion of fixing an old filling.

Work is still the same for Chris and me. He is at 16 years as of this summer, and I'll be reaching 15 at the beginning of June.

Well, that was a short update. I have to go tuck the kids in bed and pack up the Valentines. I got the boys to handwrite each of their classmates' names on labels to put on the envelopes to involve them in the process instead of just doing the whole thing on the computer. They're pretty cute. Stay tuned. If I'm bored enough, I just might do this again soon! :)

A Little Bit of Catchy-Uppy

Cripes it's been ages. We had an awesome winter, which is odd for me to say since I haven't been a fan for a long, long time. The weather was pretty favourable, and the clincher was accompanying the boys on their school ski trip. I actually put skis on for the first time in over twenty years.

The boys had a great season of Judo. Cooper received a promotion from yellow belt to yellow with an orange stripe. Carter didn't receive the same promotion so it was a major life lesson that evening.

I'm going to sum up the past six or eight months with a few pictures. Facebook is nearly my sole connection to the outside world these days; I don't ever do digital scrapbooking anymore, however I keep relatively busy with my hobby of doing birthday invitations, business cards and other print projects.

Carter turned NINE last week. I'm just in the process of planning his party. I printed up some lovely Minecraft-themed invitations, however in the meantime he has decided on a Pokemon party. ::sigh::

Here are a few event updates...
October 2011:
Thanksgiving - dinner at Mom and Dad's with the whole fam-damily.
Concert with Cindy, Carmelle, and Yvette to see Alyssa Reid and Neverest.
A family trip out to our friends' cabin for the weekend.
Dacryocystorhinostomy - I had eye surgery to create a new tear duct to divert from my blocked duct. It was successful, however after a few months has started to leak again. :(

November 2011:
The arrival of a friend's new baby. (Welcome Joseph!)
Girls' Night Out (hereafter referred to as GNO) - consists of snacks and drinks at one of the girls' places. We try to do this as often as we can all convene to celebrate birthdays or just everyday life.
Date night to a Jully Black concert - FANTASTIC!

December 2011:
The arrival of Marsha and Ryan's twin girls - August and Reverie. Welcome girls! ♥
A fairly quiet Christmas with family.

January 2012
A new Judo dojo - a very short walk from home instead of a fifteen-minute drive! :)
Going sliding at the park...Daddy tried to show off for the boys on their GT sno racers and landed on his head. Mr. Stubborn wouldn't go to the doctor but he quite likely broke his shoulder. A week at home to recover shortened our summer vacation. :(

February 2012
Another concert - Serena Ryder - fantastically talented young lady!
Family Day - first time off on Family Day for me. We participated in some community activities - there was a huge man-made sliding hill and we all had fun there!
Mom on TV's "You Gotta Eat Here" - episode from Buster's Barbecue.

March 2012
A long-awaited movie - "The Hunger Games". Well done. :)

April 2012
Auntie Lurdes' retirement party.
Doggy sitting.
Trip to Thunder Bay with Kelly and a sweet present for doggy sitting - a Kindle!

May 2012
Business Excellence Awards - Nominated for Employee of the Year - Service Sector. A great evening out. I didn't win the category but had a fantastic dinner and evening out with friends.
Hope and the City - Wow! GNO of all GNOs! A night to raise money for Cancer plus a night to get all gussied up and go out with 500 other women! Good times were had by all!

Right Place, Right Time

Well, Fall is here but today was a beautiful, warm day. Yesterday too...Chris has barbecued two days in a row. I've still been fighting a cold the past few days. Mom brought some delicious chicken soup yesterday and I enjoyed it for supper today.

On my way home from work yesterday, I stopped in to see Chris at work. He went to pick up the kids while I went to get a few groceries. I went to M&M and got some bacon-wrapped filet mignon, and to the grocery store for some veggies. On my way home, I just happened to catch the tail end of an announcement on the radio about a radio contest...had to be caller number four. As I drove (my bad!) I dialed the radio station, still listening to find out the contest details. Sure enough, I was caller number four, which qualified me to be in a draw for a fifty dollar gift certificate at a local clothing store. The announcer kept me on the phone to get contact info, and advised me the draw was going to be in just a few minutes.

I got home and put away the groceries. Just as I sat down, my phone rang and it was the radio station. I won the draw and can pick up my gift certificate next week. Talk about right place/right time! :)

Today I had some fun creating some birthday invitations for a coworker. In order to post it, I changed the info. Here is a demo of the invitation; I got the idea here and created my own. The lid is attached to an insert that lifts out of a slot in the card part to show the invitation. Fun!



A couple evenings ago I sold the boys' bunk beds. They're the kind with shelves and drawers built in, and they take up a lot of space in an already small room. I've arranged to buy a couple captain's/mate's beds for them. Maybe with the drawers built in those, I might actually put some of the boys' clothes in them. Doubt it, but maybe it will help with the lack of space in the room at least.

It's been a fairly quiet weekend so far. Chris is out watching UFC at a friend's house. I had some fun building a fort for the boys and it was really quiet for a little while when they were watching a movie in there. Now they're both asleep and I'm about ready to turn in too.