Photohunt: Messy

I learned about "photohunt" today. This week's theme is "messy".

Here is my photo with that theme this week.

"M" eating like a dog.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night

Smelled the Playdough

Checked out all the crayons

Friday Fill In

1. Snow is beautiful, especially when viewed through a window.
2. I'm looking forward to the days getting longer.
3. Sue's homemade peanut brittle is the best thing to snack on at work ever!
4. One of my favorite old tv shows is the muppet show.
5. I'm done with room assessments.
6. The most enjoyable thing around the holidays is spending time with family and friends, laughter and good food.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to shutting the alarm off on my clock for TWO WEEKS, tomorrow my plans include going to Damos FOURTH birthday party and Sunday, I want to nap of course!!

Tree Excursion

We travel in style when we go to select a Christmas tree.

It was an absolutely beautiful day. It was chilly (ha ha) but the view was magnificent.

This is M and I. Something about the wind blowing in his face when it was -25 degrees Celcius made him a little grumpy. Go figure.

what kind of spice are you?

Your Score: Fennel


You scored 25% intoxication, 50% hotness, 75% complexity, and 50% craziness!


You are Fennel! You're a cool cat. Crisp, clean, fresh, and extremely complicated. You're like quantum physics or modern jazz. Think Niels Bohr meets Ornette Coleman. You may look normal now, but once you sprout, you look kind of, uh, funny.

windchill

Wind chill warning for: FV
Issued at 10:24 AM MST WEDNESDAY 5 DECEMBER 2007
WIND CHILL VALUES NEAR MINUS 40 DEGREES THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING. THIS IS A WARNING THAT EXTREME WIND CHILL CONDITIONS ARE IMMINENT OR OCCURRING IN THESE REGIONS. MONITOR WEATHER CONDITIONS..LISTEN FOR UPDATED STATEMENTS.
A COLD ARCTIC AIRMASS SLUMPING ACROSS NORTHERN ALBERTA COMBINED WITH WESTERLY WINDS OF 15 KM/H IS PRODUCING EXTREME WIND CHILL VALUES IN THE PEACE COUNTRY REGION TODAY. WIND CHILL VALUES OF MINUS 40 DEGREES CAN BE EXPECTED THROUGHOUT THE AFTERNOON AND INTO TONIGHT. TEMPERATURES WILL GRADUALLY RISE THURSDAY WITH WIND CHILLS NEAR MINUS 30 DEGREES EXPECTED.

This is the warning issued today for the region where I live.

It is only the first week of December and the temperatures have plummeted. This reinforced what Weather Canada has already said about this winter being very cold. Now sustained cold will kill pine beetle and other "pests" and I think perhaps that mother earth is trying to heal herself from all that we are taking from her.
It certainly would be helpful to this region and regions in BC if the pine beetle were destroyed by nature and not humans making small and futile attempts to eradicate this pest.

Unfortunately for me, I will also perish at temperatures which will destroy the pine beetle.

unconscious mutterings

Shel thinks this is cheating, not blogging.


Music :: professor. Mu Mu Music Professor. (information society song)
Insanity :: is contagious
Curtain :: call
Nickname :: "jules"
Container :: tupperware (ROCKS)
Roast :: pig on a spit, or in a pit.
Thong :: song. Dad in a thong. (private joke)
Purple :: Rain
Holidays :: are here again
Christmas tree :: smells like pee if you cut it down and a moose used it as a urinal.

friday fill in

1. When my blog is broken, I check on it over and over again waiting for it to be working again.
2. I saw the most amazing ? this morning ... I didn't see much this morning because my alarm didn't go off and I was late to work.
3. ? is the new movie I'm most looking forward to seeing. I don't even know what new movies are out - I live in a town with no movie theater. ACK!
4. Work is Necessary and a fun place to see friends and students.
5. Of all the new tv shows, I enjoy Life the most.
6. If only we had something to remove snow from our driveway with!
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to chillaxing with my spousal unit, tomorrow my plans include trying to get the quonset open so I can retrieve our Christmas decorations and Sunday, I want to catch up on reading and watching tv. OH.. I can't forget taking a nap!

unconscious mutterings

Filthy :: rich
Therapist :: couch
Duck :: duck, goose
Slant :: twist
Artist :: Uncle Trevor
Lease :: verses buy
Wish :: upon a star
Doormat :: welcome
Global :: warming
Apartment :: studio

Friday Fill in

1. I enjoy laughing more than anything else.
2. Blogging satisfies my need for writing.
3. When I look at a full moon, I feel like laughing, because Shel pointed out the other day that we call a day with no clouds a sunny day, but we don't call a night with no clouds a "moony" night.
4. If I want a snack, I usually reach for a cadbury fruit and nut bar.
5. The most recent movie I saw, "bound" made me pick my jaw up off the floor, squirm (lol), shake my head in disbelief and add it to my list of favorite movies!
6. If only I weighed less than 200 pounds.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to sleeping in a hotel room, tomorrow my plans include buying a filing cabinet and making buscuit pudding and Sunday, I want to enjoy a meal with friends and family!

Thursday Thirteen, number one on this blog

I asked Shel what I should write about today and she said thirteen reasons why I love her. Then she changed her mind and said thirteen reasons why I love "M".

So I will stick with the first one (since that's what she really meant) and save the reasons why I love "M" for another day.

1. The first reason why I love Shel is because she is such a good listener. The first time that I recall meeting her (she apparently had seen me around campus prior to my first memory of her) we talked for HOURS. I remember walking down the main stairs in the Shepherd Union Building and talking and walking SOOOOO slowly because we knew the conversation would end when we got to the front doors. She is such a good listener, people just tell her things that you would never think possible. I can't stay quiet that long to listen.

2. I love Shel because we read books together. There is nothing like finding someone who likes to do what you do. Shel and I will hunker down in bed with a stack of books between us and just read and read and read. ( We did this more frequently in life "preM") We talk about what we read, we agree, we disagree and we read some more. When living our former life, we would go to bookstores and spent HOURS browsing and buying books. We have tried to be better about not buying books since we moved here, but we still manage to accumulate them as though we were magnetic north and books were compasses.

3. I love Shel's smile.

4. I love Shel because we have the same goals.

5. I love Shel because we listen to music when we drive and we sing along and talk about the songs. We listen to the Indigo Girls and talk about what the songs mean to us. You'd never believe it but we get something different out of the lyrics. You would also think that after ten years of being together and talking about music that we were bored of it, but we aren't. We manage to find something to discuss each time we drive.

6. I love Shel because she always beats me at scrabble (and infuriates me), but I learn of ways to use one letter and score 60 points so I can infuriate others if we ever play with them!

7. I love Shel because she works at creating a warm, clean, home for M and I. She is a great cook and makes great meals, if only we could get choriso.

8. I love Shel because she has a great sense of humor and appreciates mine - so she has great taste.

9. I love Shel because she totally supports me in everything in do and believes in my ability to succeed. When I doubt myself she encourages me to move forward and "be all that I can be".

10. I love Shel because of all she sacrificed to be here with me. She came to Canada for us. Basically she put her whole life away - her job, her schooling, everything to come to Canada so we could be together when the USA would not recognise our relationship as legal and we had to "find another way". She lived alone with all the pets for five months and then came to Canada and basically waited for the immigration process to work itself out. That is not a slow, easy or inexpensive process.

11. I love Shel because we share a religious "history". It is invaluable to share life with someone who has come from the same spiritual and in our case "cultural" background. This makes a huge impact in our case because we both come from a place where our church has "rejected" us after we gave so much. Sometimes it is important to share the "knowing" with someone.

12. I love Shel because she's a great big dyke. I would probably love her if she wasn't a dyke, but probably not as much.

13. The last, but not least thing I love about Shel is summed up in the lyrics of Alanis Morissette's song, "Everything".
I can be an asshole of the grandest kind I can withhold like it’s going out of style I can be the moodiest baby and you’ve never met anyone who is as negative as I am sometimes I am the wisest woman you've ever met. I am the kindest soul with whom you've connected. I have the bravest heart that you've ever seen And you've never met anyone Who's as positive as I am sometimes.You see everything, you see every part You see all my light and you love my dark You dig everything of which I'm ashamed There's not anything to which you can’t relate And you’re still here I blame everyone else, not my own partaking My passive-aggressiveness can be devastating I'm terrified and mistrusting And you’ve never met anyone as, As closed down as I am sometimes.You see everything, you see every part You see all my light and you love my dark You dig everything of which I'm ashamed There's not anything to which you can’t relate And you’re still here What I resist, persists, and speaks louder than I know What I resist, you love, no matter how low or high I go I'm the funniest woman you've ever known. I am the dullest woman you've ever known. I'm the most gorgeous woman you've ever known And you've never met anyone as, as everything as I am sometimes.You see everything, you see every part You see all my light and you love my dark You dig everything of which I'm ashamed There's not anything to which you can’t relate

barefoot

In the mornings when I get up for work I have a little routine.
I let the dogs out (but not the cats), go out and start the truck, come in, go to the bathroom,then go into the kitchen to make M a bottle and take the bottle upstairs. Once I am upstairs I change his diaper, give him his bottle and then go out into the hallway to pick out something to wear from my closet (upstairs). Then I come downstairs and let the dogs in.

We had been using the light over the stove as a "night light" but the last week we have been turning it off. I have been doing all of the above mentioned steps in the dark except I use the light from the fridge to see what I am doing in the kitchen.
I don't sleep in socks and I don't have any slippers by my bed. If I DID have slippers by my bed then the cats would drag them all over in the night and #1. I would be annoyed at the interruption in my sleep and #2. I wouldn't have them in the morning anyway. So I do everything barefooted.

Yesterday when I got to work Shel sent me a text message and asked me if I saw the mouse in the kitchen. I hadn't seen it and I asked her about it when I got home.
It was dead of course, killed by our mousers (our dog being the best mouser in a house full of cats so I don't know exactly WHO was responsible for the little prize).
I am VERY glad it wasn't brought into the bedroom, but Shel thought I may have stepped on it in my morning "rounds" since it's head was crushed.

QUADRUPLE EEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

I don't know if I stepped on it or not. I don't REMEMBER stepping on anything that squished beneath my feet as I trucked around the kitchen, but then again... the dogs ALWAYS slurp their water all over the floor so if you walk too close to the dog bowls you will step in something wet. M has a habit of "feeding" the dogs from his highchair tray and so occasionally there is a piece of orange peel we have missed on the floor and I try to walk in big circles around the chair because I have been known to step in something deposited and missed in the cleanup.
What i am saying here is...... there is a possibility that I DID step on that mouse and not even know it.

QUADRUPLE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

This morning when I woke up I turned on my bedside lamp, the hallway light, the bathroom light, the living room light, the porch light, the truck interior light, the truck headlights, the kitchen light, the light up the stairs, M's bedroom light (poor kid). If you had been viewing earth from say... the moon, you would have seen in the DARKNESS which is rural northern Alberta, lights equalling the brightness of the Luxor in Las Vegas.

I did not step on a mouse this morning.

What a sneaky grin

He thinks he is getting away with something which makes it so much more hilarious.
Because he has so many food allergies we monitor very closely what he eats. Shel had an english muffin and we bought special muffin for him without wheat. Shel put butter and jam on his and put it out for him to snack on. He thought it was Shel's so he snarfed it down. AH HAH! I have learned the trick of the old switcheroo. Don't think I watched Princess Bride a million times and learned nothing!

Welcome

Well I just posted this blog site as a link to the BUDD family site.
This is somewhat convoluted. I blog at another site regularly - almost daily, but since I was linking to my extended family site I figured I would like a "tamer" version of myself so I didn't shock the teeth right out of my grandmothers head at some of the things I post.
SO.... If you are here because you linked from the Budd site, and IF you want to go to my "other" blog, leave me a message and I will send you the address.

Wow I just made myself sound so controversial. MU HA HA HA HA HA HA
I'd better go write something TOTALLY riske so I don't let anyone down.

Sunday at the new house

S and I planned this whole weekend of pulling up carpet, sanding, filling holes, painting, stripping paint and other activities that would bring us closer to moving day in our new house. saturday was somewhat successful but we had the baby and so our activities were limited by his interest or lack of interest or naptimes. Now that he is walking it is an exercise in futility to keep things away from him. While we are patching holes in walls and sanding and so on he can just hang out with us, but once we open a paint can, BEWARE!
Needless to say we didn't get much painting done.
There are says when my life as a foster parent are "normal" and occasionally even "fulfilling". My day on Sunday was a descent into foster parent agony. Because we are excited to get some work done on the house, we decided I would go out in the morning with B to do more carpet removal and make a load for the dump. B and I went out (I worked and he watched), then we had to come back into town to pick up and drop of MM at the babysitter. Then we had to deliver B to the social worker. Back out to the house to start work only to have B delivered back to us and have to leave to pick up S in the COMPLETE other direction. Then back to town to drop off B to his fostermom and out to pick up MM from the babysitter. I think i spent the entire day in the vehicle driving and picking up and dropping off. The only thing I WANTED to do was work on the house. At this rate it will never be finished.

moving

I have been blogging for a while now. I am by no means experienced and I can't write code or anything like that.
I enjoy blogging and I have been disappointed in my other "account" because for some reason I have not been able to post anything for over a week. I have contacted the support staff and they are not being very supportive. I decided after many frustrated attempts to get by current blog up and running that instead of continuing my battle with them I would just start another page.
Let's see how it goes.