Gratitude month

On facebook some of my friends have started a "gratitude month" post where each day they post something they are grateful for.
I like the idea so I joined in even though I don't know where it started. (It may be a Mormon thing since everyone I know who is doing it is Mormon?)
It's still a good idea!
I used to keep a gratitude journal many years ago and I have fun looking back at the things I was grateful for. I am grateful for a lot of the same things now.
What are you grateful for?
Here are some of mine:
I'm grateful for warm days even though it is November already.
I'm grateful for my sons who grow more each day and who make me smile each day.
I'm grateful for my mother who always inspires me.
I'm grateful I was able to put up Christmas lights because of the joy they bring to my oldest son.
I'm grateful for friends who provide us with last minute halloween costumes!
I'm grateful for my spouse who sits with me in the emergency room ALL DAY LONG to make sure I get the care I need.
I'm grateful for the balloons which my mom and sister sent in my birthday package. We have played and played and PLAYED with those balloons for three days now. My lips hurt!

Hoping for a productive day

We have really been blessed with wonderful weather for this time of year. Yesterday morning it was -15 but there was no wind which still made for a pretty nice day. On Thursday the winds were whistling at around 60 km an hour. It was only -4 but with the wildchill it was MUCH MUCH colder.

When Max and I went to meet the bus we were so cold we climbed into the ditch and crouched down to get out of the wind. I haven't found my winter coat yet and the wind just blew right through me. Unfortunately that ditch will fill with snow before long and will no longer be a place to get out of the blowing morning chill. I wish we had a place to build some kind of small shelter in the driveway where we could wait out of the wind on bitter days but unfortunately there is no such spot. On either side of the driveway the ground gives way immediately to the ditch and so there is no flat spot to put anything.

It is also the place where CJ likes to hide while he waits for Max to get home!
Today the temperature is supposed to reach as high as 1 degree which will be FANTASTIC as there are some things in the yard and house we need to do before the cold sets in for good. If it does actually get that warm I may even bust out the chainsaw and get rid of some deadwood before the snow flies. I guess the real proof of how warm it is will be how much we get done. I'll post photos Monday.

What's your number?

Recently the population of the earth exceeded 7 billion.

There is a cool page on BBC that you can link to here to find out some stats on yourself and the country in which you live.

When I was born, I was the:


3,793,054,066th  person alive on Earth and the 77,990,203,579th to ever be born.

Interesting isn't it?
 

You can get more information on the page about the country in which you live. I entered Zimbabwe because although I don't live there now, it is where I am from.
I thought it was interesting that the life expectancy of women in Zimbabwe is 45.5 years. Thankfully I no longer live there, but reside in Canada where my life expectancy is almost double.

Thursday Thirteen: Thirteen things I hate about my dental experience

1. The x-ray plastic pieces cut my mouth.
2. The dentist gloves taste nasty.
3. The freezing gel put on the inside of my cheek burns my tongue.
4. The squeezing and shaking of my cheek while putting the needle is does not take away the pain of the needle.
5. The bite blocker forces my mouth open wider than my jaw naturally allows.
6. My lips crack and bleed under the dental dam.
7. I have to concentrate the whole time on not gagging because my mouth is so wide open.
8. I HATE getting a filling on a tooth that will need a root canal in less than a year. I think it is a money grab and a way to make more from the insurance company and keeps me coming back to an experience I dread.
9. There are four posters on the ceiling and they were the same posters five years ago.
10. The freezing never completely takes away the pain of the dental work.
11. My fingers hurt at the end of two hours from clenching my hands so long.
12. I didn't get to rinse out my mouth after the whole thing was done.
13. I hate that I have to go through this whole process FIVE MORE TIMES in the next three months.

Wordless Wednesday

Nablopomo

Today is the first day of National Blog Posting Month.

I have lofty goals of participating and posting something every day.

I will start out the month with a photo of my boys from Halloween yesterday. They had a ball. We just went to a few houses out in our neck of the woods and they loved every minute of it. Max wanted to come homke and start eating candy but CJ wanted to keep going. We experienced rain, sleet and snow but still persevered!

Max was bound and determined he was going to be a witch this year - right up until bed time on the 30th. Then he decided he was going to be a pirate. I could NOT come up with anything he wanted to wear but the Fenties bailed us out with costumes for both boys! Pirates are grumpy apparently - hence the grumpy face on Max.

Turning 40 today.

Today is my birthday. I am 40. ACK!!!!!!!

Typically I LOVE birthdays, they are among my top three favorite days of the year. I'm having a bit of difficulty with this one and things are popping up for me that I didn't anticipate.

This year (in February) my parents separated after 40 years of marriage. I have not posted anything on my blog or on facebook about it. Initially my parents asked us to please not post anything and I refrained from commenting to respect their wishes. I actually COULD write ad nauseum about how it has affected me, my siblings, my mom ... but I have refrained. Until today.

Today my dad is in Asia - somewhere. I think he is travelling but don't know for sure. I don't have a phone number for him. I don't have an address for him. I don't know where he is living. I could email him and he will respond to me as soon as he is able but sometimes that isn't for many days.

My dad won't remember that today is my birthday. My mom would usually remind him. He isn't great at sending letters or cards and never has been but ALL my life - until today - my parents would call first thing in the morning and wake me up to say happy birthday. It has been a tradition until this year.

I have actually had a pretty good day as far as days go. I have had an outpouring of love from friends, family and my kids. But my dad (wherever he is) doesn't know I turn 40 today.

Wordless Wednesday

A meme to jumpstart my blogging block

I took this from HERE


1. If you and your friends formed a biker gang, what would your name be?
Flyin' Purple People Eaters

2. Are you more of a talker or more of a listener?
I would say I am more of a talker.

3. What's your favorite sport?
Soccer. Football. English Premier League. Liverpool Football Club. Are there any other sports?

4. Would you rather be really hot or really cold?
Being cold is hell for me.

5. Who do you think should be the next president of the United States?
Hillary Clinton

6. Do you believe in fate?
I like the idea of fate. Don't know if I believe in it though.

7. Have you ever been fired? If so, why?
Nope

8. If you had the opportunity to live one year of your life over again, which year would you choose?
Probably 2002. Following the brain surgery of my spouse, I would do better because I know better.

9. If you won a $1,000 shopping spree for any store, which store would you pick?
If I were being practical I would choose the grocery store, but I would prefer a bookstore, maybe amazon.com or overstock.com

10. Who do you think should run for president of the United States?
Steven Colbert

11. If you were stranded on a desert island, which one person would you bring with you?
My spousal unit

12. Are you a morning or night person?
Absolutely a night person

13. If you had to cook dinner for someone tonight, what would you make?
Martha's Chicken and nuts
14. What do you think was the greatest invention in your lifetime?
The one I personally use - ereader.

15. What do you think is your most attractive feature?
My hands

16. Where's your favorite place to buy clothes?
Old Navy

17. What did you eat for breakfast today?
I don't eat breakfast because I am not a morning person and eating in the morning makes me sick.

18. What was your favorite year?
The END of last year when the adoptions were made final - not the beginning of the year when we were told we were not permitted to adopt!

19. What celebrity would play you in a movie about your life?
Rosie O Donnell or Steffi Graf.

20. If your house was on fire and you could only grab three things, what would they be?
I am assuming that my family and pets are safe... I would grab.... 1.Photoalbums. 2. African Art.  3. Journals.

21. How many countries have you traveled to?
Let's see.... 7, but I have been in airports in more.

22. If you could have the starring role in one movie what would it be?
I thought tomb raider but I would rather star opposite angelina jolie than replace her as the lead....
So I think I would like to be the lead in "Salt". I would love to be a spy :)

23.Would you rather be a zombie or a werewolf?
Werewolf

24. What's your favorite season of the year?
Summer

25. What's your favorite city?
Seattle

26. Star Trek or Star Wars?
I used to be all about Star wars but probably now more Star Trek. That's what happens when you marry a trekkie.

27. What websites do you spend the most time on?
Facebook. Netflix. Postsecret. Goodreads.

28. If you could go on a road trip with any person, dead or alive, who would it be and where would you go?
I'd go with my spouse and we would visit every province and state in Canada and the USA

29.What's your dream car?
I have always wanted a mini-cooper, but it would be asinine to have one where we live. So I have to say .... some kind of BIG truck with 4 wheel drive.

30. What was your favorite movie as a child?
The only movies I can remember from when I was a child are E.T. and Return from Witch Mountain.  I preferred E.T.

my autocorrected text conversation....

Me: Oh dear. Final days until I'm 40.
My spouse: Yep. Lol. Enjoy your salad days!!
Me: I do like salad

Don't put the Birkenstocks away yet please!

I'm holding out putting away my Birkenstocks. Somewhere in the back of my mind I believe that wearing my birks will delay the cold weather. So far it has worked out ok but this morning was a might cold on the tootsies as I ran with Max to meet the bus.

Yesterday we missed the school bus entirely. I knew we would and honestly didn't even care. I work until after midnight on Wednesdays and so getting up on Thursday morning is already a chore for me, but for some reason on Wednesday after I got home from work the boys woke up and they were up pretty much the rest of the night. I think silence finally fell in the house at about 4:30 and there was no way I was getting up at 6:30.
I think that's the second time this year we have missed the bus which is pretty good all things considering.

This morning as I was on the back porch putting coats and boots on CJ I happened to look up and see out the window the bus coming down the road. In the instant I saw it I thought we were late and so I yelled "RUN" to the boys and we headed out the back door at as fast a pace as could be managed considering I was carrying a backpack, a bagel for CJ, mitts, a touque and CJ!
We have to take a flashlight already. It is pitch dark and since we live in the boonies there are no streetlights on the road. Max had the flashlight and was running. I was running behind him and CJ was screaming he was being left behind so I was "kind of" carrying him. I dropped a mitten and when I turned to pick it up Hugo saw it and grabbed it and ran off like it was a great game of chase.
The bus saw us and waited but Max ended up not having mittens this morning. It turns out she was five minutes early which was a huge relief to me since I thought my timing was messed up and it really wasn't. Unfortunately I will have to suck it up now and set my alarm 15 minutes earlier since it is colder because dressing both boys to go out takes longer now that we have to dress more warmly.
I didn't notice in the hustle out to the road how cold I was, but on the walk back to house my toes protested the exposure. Turns out the temp this morning was -5, so I guess the protest was legitimate.
Oh how I hate wearing socks and shoes. I guess I have to add another five minutes to the alarm if I have to dress myself as well.
Winter, I hate you.

poop

I never conceived that body functions would be such an integral part of my daily life.

I knew that boys found body functions humorous and I AM the mother of two boys, so I expected that at some point the boys would find things like burping and farting funny. CJ in particular thinks noises made by his body are a thrill.
Don't get me wrong. We are making attempts to teach manners and to have the boys say "excuse me" when they do happen to pass gas. However, I had NO idea how captivating poop would be. Nope. No idea.

We have been working on toilet training for a while. With Max the going has been slow and he still needs reminders and has accidents. CJ has taken to using the toilet like a duck to water. He LOVES it. What he doesn't love is wearing pants. Going to the bathroom has become an excuse for him to remove his pants and underwear and go nekkid for as long as possible. If going to the toilet means he can remove his clothing then he is all over it.

Living out on the acreage has allowed some freedom in what I like to call "location of excretion". We have let the boys got to the bathroom outside because we figured at least they were going and they were developing an awareness of bodily demands. When the boys were foster kids we were MUCH more strict on where and when they would go to the bathroom and going outside was avoided. It's one thing to let your own kid urinate in your yard but we felt the province would frown on us letting foster children void anywhere they wanted!

For the most part this has worked out o.k., especially since we were able to train them that the back porch was NOT an acceptable location to urinate on. We have always tried to get them to poo inside (but admittedly haven't always been as successful as we would like to have been.)

Now they are both using the toilet most of the time. CJ in particular is very proud of his endeavours and whenever he uses the toilet he wants one, preferably both, of his parents to come and look and give him a high five before he flushes and washes.  We do. We have created a monster.

A proud pooping monster. He is extremely proud of his poop. He is VERY excited to show it to us. He comes into the living room, or kitchen, or bedroom and says "MOM! Come see! BIG BIG POOP!" Once we have witnessed the miraculous expulsion he then tells us he is going to "BIG BIG FLUSH".

Now all of a sudden his older brother is in on the action. Max, who initially did not want ANYONE looking at him or heaven forbid, asking him if he was using the toilet wants to share his poop with us also.  Yesterday he asked me if his poop was as big as CJ's poop.

Just what I wanted to be when I grew up, a comparative poop analyst.

I will just say this. After I went to the bathroom this morning I considered for one moment if it would be appropriate for me to call CJ in to check out my poop. He would have been impressed. I let the thought go and went for the big big flush.... this time.

Doors ... and then the water pump

We have been living in our house for a few years now. To be sure it is a bit small to be "ideal" for us - especially since the introduction of Great Dane Hugo to our household two years ago.
There are many, many things which need to be repaired and upgraded on the house and although it sometimes feels as though we are not moving forward on any of these projects we do sometimes make small improvements.

At the moment we are in desperate need of TWO new exterior doors.

Both doors are made from wood and neither is insulated. One problem with the house being as old as it is is the fact that nothing is "standard". The doors are not standard doors. In fact, the back door is so short, it is impossible to find a replacement by walking into a store or to a "used" lot to find a replacement.
The screws holding the door into the frame have become stripped and completely pulled out of the wall on the top hinge and the door "flops" around. in addition to the flopping problem, it is impossible to put any kind of weather stripping around the door to stop the wind, rain, and snow from coming in because the door simply does not fit the hole that was made for it.

The front door is a hollow wood door with a piece of glass in the middle. The glass has fallen down into the door and now there is a hollow door with a hole to the outside which I have covered with duct tape to prevent the majority of the air from coming in. If I sit on the couch in the corner by the front door the wind will literally blow my hair!

Every time it rains we have to pile towels at the base of the door to mop up all the water that pours in underneath. It has been our intention to replace the front door before winter and to try to at least fix the back door until we can come up with a more permanent solution at the back entrance.

We have been trying and trying to get someone to come and help us make repairs for months. Literally months. We live in such a small town it is impossible to find a contractor who is willing to work on a project so small. In the entrance to the grocery store, the drug store and in the town paper there are fliers advertising people who are willing to work on small house projects. We have called these people. One is booked "for months", one has not replied, one came out and apparently worked on the back door, but it is not fixed?!

I am getting desperate. I asked the maintenance man who works with me if there was anyway he could come out to the house, measure what we needed for the front door, come with me to buy a door and install it. I KNOW it will turn into a larger project than simply pulling the old door out and putting the new door in. I know it is beyond my capabilities.
He said he would help. He said he would measure and we put together a plan for him to come out this weekend. At the last minute on Friday he came to me with this:

It is a sheet of paper on which he would like me to measure and insert lengths to save him some time.
ACK! I absolutely do NOT want to do this. Have I mentioned this house is old? I can GUARANTEE that the numbers I measure will leave him shaking his head and he will want to measure again to make sure I have done it correctly. I JUST WANT SOMEONE TO HELP ME !

We stuck with the plan to have him come and help with the door on Saturday , and I (quietly) planned to let him measure what he needed anyway!

On Friday night I went to bed. All was well. In the middle of the night the toilet made a terrible gurgling noise and all of a sudden.... we had no water!

The house was silent, which is a bad thing. I went to the basement to check on the water pump. There was power to the pump but no water pressure. This I know is a bad thing.

We get water right into the house from the springs so we don't need a cistern or to haul water which I LOVE. There was water in the tank. I don't know enough about the system, but I know when it is not working.

This is not OUR pump - but it is what our system looks like.

Saturday morning first thing I called the plumber. I told him what I knew and that we needed some help. He wanted me to check a few things and so I was taking instructions from him on his cell, which was cutting out, laying the phone down upstairs because there is no reception in the basement, and trekking up and down the stairs with the boys and dogs in my way the whole time to check on what he was asking. Still no water pressure. After many calls he said he would send someone out to check it. He did ask me if I knew it was a weekend and the call out cost was higher than normal. I did know this and unfortunately we cannot live without water and so we needed to pay whatever it cost to get it repaired.

I took the boys to swimming lessons, (where I made them shower twice!) and the plumber came out and fixed the switch. I was hugely relieved it was the switch that needed replacement and not the entire tank, but my plans to get a door this weekend just went out the window.

So today we have a pump and water that works, two doors that STILL need repair, and it is the second weekend in October.

I sure as heck hope I can figure out what to do with the doors before the snow flies and the water lines in the house freeze because there is no front door!

Toilets to avoid if travelling in Northern Alberta

We had to go to the city this weekend because Cj needed oral surgery. We decided to take off on Saturday after the boys had swimming lessons because we were thinking they would be tired out and would travel better and we wouldn't miss a week of swimming lessons.
It turns out they weren't tired, but they loved swimming and it was worth it anyway.
This was the first trip we have ever taken with both boys in "big boy underwear" and I was a little concerned we would make it without any accidents.
The boys were AMAZING and we made it accident free!
We did stop at a LOT of gas stations and on the side of the road once or twice but it was worth it.
I will just add here that if anyone is every travelling in Alberta and you end up in Whitecourt, do not, I repeat, DO NOT use the bathroom in the Whitecourt Esso on the north side of town. That place is NASTY.

addition to our family

This weekend my baby sister had her first child.
After 2 hours of labour she gave birth to a wee one (just 5 pounds) and both mom and baby are doing amazingly.
I would post a photo but I need to get mom's permission. Take it from me, she is GORGEOUS!
Welcome to the family little one.

open minded... what?

This past weekend wubby and I attended a conference for foster and adoptive families. The conference is held yearly locally and we try to attend as often as we can.
The hotel was a complete bust (served cold food and put us into a dirty room and took two hours to move us) but the conference was pretty good.
We had registered in advance for some aboriginal training which we do at every opportunity but the presenter was unable to attend and the session was cancelled which was a huge bummer because we had to find alternative sessions at the last minute to join. There was a session on Child Sexual Abuse which I KNOW is important but I was not feeling emotionally "prepared" to sit through the session and another on dealing with adolescents - which I have a few years yet to prepare myself for. Basically my remaining options were limited to one. It was something about claiming your magnificent self ...
It was extremely touchy feeling and a LOT of sharing deep personal thoughts and feelings. I have to say it isn't something I would volunteer for again considering the group we were with.
In the entire group Shel and I are the only gay couple. MOST of the foster parents in the area are very religious and to be honest, not the most inclusive group I have ever been a part of. 
We do have a few good friends that it is always nice to see but we ended up in different sessions at this conference for some reason.
On Sunday Shel went to a session on building resiliency in children and teens and I went to a session on Aboriginal culture and Christianity. The presenters were a Catholic nun and an Aboriginal elder. The purpose of the session as outlined in the program was to have the presenters show the similarities between Christian ritual and Aboriginal ceremony. MOST of the people in the session were the people who are very vocal about their "Christian" lifestyle.
In every aboriginal session I have ever attended there is a smudging ceremony at the beginning. The presenters outlined that there would be a prayer from the nun and then a smudge from the elder. One person raised her hand and said that in her understanding a smudging ceremony was inviting aboriginal spirits to enter the room and stated that she was not comfortable in her religion to invite any spirit that was not from God.
The nun responded to her inquiry and stated that a smudge was like a prayer. I have included a link where you can read more info about smudging because I am in no way an expert, but what was explained was that all ceremonies must be entered into with a good heart so that we can pray, sing, and walk in a sacred manner. When the sweetgrass is brought to the people in the circle each individual wafts the smoke over their head, eyes, ears, mouth, heart and then down over the body. The whole process takes about two minutes per person.
The elder was very clear that if you were uncomfortable smudging that you could hold your hand over your heart or step back out of the circle and you would be passed over and there was no judgement on whether you smudged or not. The nun explained that when she smudged she prayed to her father in heaven that her heart, mind, eyes and ears would be open to the process about to take place so that she would learn and not pass judgement.
PERSONALLY, I like the idea. I think it is a cool way to start a meeting. It is a great reminder to take a minute, think about what you are about to do, why you are doing it, and commit to be a part of the process if a positive way. AS the smoke rises to heaven thoughts are on the creator and the role he plays in all our interactions.
Unfortunately this was not sufficient for the person who asked the question because she chose to leave the group and not attend the session. Others also left the room rather than be present for the smudge.
 Of those of us that remained more than HALF did not participate in the smudging.
The session continued, each presenter sharing personal experience and knowledge with the group. Then we were invited to take part in a pipe ceremony.
I have never been a part of a pipe ceremony but I was amazed and awed by the fact that this elder was willing to share something of his own spirituality that is so significant. ESPECIALLY in a group that was obviously not completely open to the ideas surrounding his beliefs.
It was an honor to participate. It was absolutely beautiful. Again, many people chose not to participate.
At the end of the session there was a sharing circle. The eagle feather was passed and each person in the group was able to share.
I said thank-you to the presenters for sharing their wisdom and knowledge. Some of the people still felt as though Native Spirituality was in conflict with their native beliefs.
I have been thinking and thinking about the experience and I WISH I had shared some of my feelings to the group. I am obviously still struggling with finding my "voice"  because what I wanted to say was this: (good thing I have a blog to "spew" on!)
I am a returned missionary for my CHRISTIAN church. I lived my entire life, served a mission, held positions of leadership and gave my time (and my heart) to proselytize for the church that I am not welcome in. My spouse and I have approached churches in our community and asked if we may bring our family to worship with them and we have been told that we are NOT welcome.
(I have to interject here that we have friends who attend a church locally who have invited us to join them and when we asked if we would be welcome they told us not to worry what anyone said but to go anyway. While we appreciate their support, it is not a resounding welcome from the community to our family!)
We have been judged, condemned, and rejected by EVERY Christian organization we have communicated with since arriving in our community.
Not once, not EVER have we been rejected, judged or treated differently by Aboriginal people in ceremonies we have attended. NEVER.
In the circle we sat in at the conference the Aboriginal leader welcomed all, regardless of belief, regardless of whether or not individuals wanted to participate. He said to everyone, "Come into my circle".
The people who rejected the message - self proclaimed "Christians".
I don't understand it. I have read the Bible (more times than many would believe). Christianity is so far removed from Christ it is unrecognizable to me.
I am so grateful for the BLESSING of being able to  pray to and thank my Creator in a space where I believe he walked, and it wasn't a church.

Birthday Boy

Max is FIVE years old today. I can't believe it.
He asked me this morning if it was his birthday "RIGHT NOW" and when I said it was he responded by saying "So do I get to stay home from school then?"
Silly boy.
He went to school but I got a call at lunch that he was not well and so I went to pick him up. Shel came into town and took him from my office up to the hospital where they said he needed medication and breathing treatments. He insists that he still wants cake and ice-cream for supper though.
I love this kid.
Happy Birthday Buddy!

Books from School

Maxie brought a book home from school this week. He has done this before with regularity - but never before has he actually sat and listened to me read a book to him in it's entirety. Last night he listened to this book not once, but TWICE.

I love books. I love to read. I have been sad that my boy would never ever sit still or show interest long enough for me to read to him.

I love Sam Sheep.



Wordless Wednesday

First day of Kindergarten

So here we are!

Max had his first day today, an orientation day and not a full day. He will be attending the school in town. We deliberated and deliberated and FINALLY decided to send him to the community school and then received a call from the school letting us know that enrollment was so low that the school would not likely stay open and we would end up having to move Max again if he went there this year.

For Max to move twice would be too much and so we decided to keep him where he has been going - the school in town. We are sad that the community school has such low enrollment and we know that choosing to put Max into school in town also affects this enrollment, but we have to do the best thing for him. We are happy with our decision. Max has the aide this year that has worked with him for the past two  years. He will be getting speech therapy, Occupational therapy and physical therapy AND going to kindergarten.

YAY!

He took the bus this morning and Shel went with him on his first day. It is about an hour bus ride and he will take his DSI to play games on the ride. He was reluctant to get onto the bus but Hugo was excited and climbed right on the bus behind him. The other kids on the bus thought it was hilarious. I was so busy pulling Hugo off that I neglected to get a photo of the great dane on the bus.

My baby is in Kindergarten.

Here is Cael waving at the bus as it arrives. Max was behind him clinging to mom and crying. CJ was thrilled and HAPPILY would have gone. We will see if he is still thrilled in two years when it is his turn.

At one point I said to Max that he would be taking the bus for the next 13 years. Upon reflection I son't think it was the most motivating thing I could have come up with to tell him. He has not slept at night since last week in anticipation of school beginning. We have been talking to him about it trying to prepare him but it was too overwhelming so we really downplayed it the last couple of days to try and "ease" him into it more and not build it up so much. When I got him up this morning he started to cry immediately and said he did not want to go on the bus. It was really the first he had mentioned the bus, but the bus driver let Shel ride with him which helped immensely. Hopefully tomorrow it will all go smoothly.



small school

We have in Alberta schools called "small school by necessity".

Historically communities who are far from larger centers would have schools that are small. These schools are funded by the government to a greater amount per student than schools in urban centers because the students simply could not travel the great distances to the urban centers for their education.

We live outside a small community which has two elementary schools, one public, one Catholic. Close to where we live is a small school, which I think at one point was a small school by necessity but now it is just a community school which depends on student enrollment to keep running. This school has one classroom and teacher for grades one, two and three and another for grades four, five and six. There is a small amount of students that attend this school. Because we live so close to it we can choose to send our sons to this school or to the school in town.

Max has been attending an early intervention program at the school in town for two years. He is registered to attend this year. This program has been AMAZING for him.  He has developed in leaps and bounds since he began. He has had the best aide for two years.We adore her and the work she does with him and SHE adores him. The bus ride for him to get to this school is over an hour each way.

The community school called this week to say they were running a program this year, there will be four kids, maybe five, in his class if we chose to send him here. The bus ride for him will be about half an hour - TOPS. We know that when he enters grade one we would like him in our community school because of the ratio of students to teachers and because of the way the classes are split. If for some reason he is delayed he would still be with basically the same kids. We went to an open house there last night and checked out the place (we have been there before). I thought after attending the open house I would have come to some certain conclusion one way or another.

It looks, on paper, like the best thing is to put him into the community school now. He would have a year to transition which is something we know he needs. For some reason I CANNOT find "peace" with this decision. Neither can I find peace with the decision to send him into town. It's so ridiculous. I can honestly say I have never had such a tough decision with regards to parenting as this one.

I hope decisions get easier as he gets older or I am hooped!

Accepting change

Max has Static Encephalopathy. Permanent or "unchanging" brain damage. Static Encephalopathy may involve the frontal lobe, which affects judgment and impulse control, and the corpus callosum, the membrane between the left brain and right brain which affects the ability to process information.

Raising a child (or two) with brain damage is a daily, hourly, sometimes minute by minute challenge.
One of the difficulties we face with the boys is when they "transition" from one thing to the next. It is extremely difficult for them to move from one task to the next or from one activity to the next. For this reason we set up a lot of rigid routines which we follow so that they know what to expect and when to expect it.

This fall Max will be taking the school bus for the first time. He has been in an early intervention program for the past two years and I have driven him each day to school in the morning. I am realizing more and more how much I like routines (shocker!) and I am DREADING this transition from driving each day with him. It has been our time together, our habit, and now I will be driving alone and he will be taking the bus. The bus will be new for him and will be hard for him to get used to, but the thought of driving without him brought me to tears yesterday. I will miss mornings with him immensely. I am so very, very sad at the thought of "losing" just this little part of him.

crazy week

It's the week before school starts for college students and one of the busiest weeks of the year at work as we gear up for students to move in on Sunday.
It is also the week that we have "PD" opportunities here on campus. A bad week for me to be leaving the office but I hate to miss out on the opportunity to participate in some of the sessions. Yesterday I went to a session on "Brain Mapping" and it was EXCELLENT. I got some great ideas on some things to do with the boys and I wish there was an opportunity to actually get our brains mapped, but alas, we cannot at this time because there is no-one doing this kind of thing in Alberta that I know of. It was still a great session. Then I went to a session on the universe. Another amazing session. This morning I went to a session on Meditation.
I really like the idea of meditating. We actually meditated for 15 minutes and it's not the easiest thing in the world to do, but I enjoyed the session. Unfortunately for me, when I left, I found that my stress had actually increased and not decreased. I don't know if this is a natural consequence of regular meditation, if so, I likely won't pursue trying to incorporate it into my daily life, as much as I know I need to!
I recently read a blog post about yoga that talked about the emotional release that occurs during yoga practise. I don't practise yoga myself, and there isn't anywhere locally to join a yoga practise, but the idea of the emotional release actually appealed to me. With all of the events of the past 9 months I am in desperate need of an emotional release, or should I say, MANY emotional releases! I am thinking I will look into a yoga dvd and try it out. I just don't know if I will get the same benefit from trying to do it on my own.
On Monday we got a call that some of the siblings of our youngest adopted son will likely be coming into foster care and would we be interested in taking them into our foster home.
When the adoptions came through for us in November of last year our foster home was put on "hold" which they said was a normal practise when families adopted to allow the family to find a rythym and get used to being a family unit. I see in theory the purpose of this, but in our case it seemed a little silly since the boys have both been with us since their births and we had our routine pretty much down so there was not much of a transition to go through, but we accepted that our home would be on hold for 6 months. In May, at the end of the six months we called to activate our home. We were put off and told the workers were really busy and would get to us. We called again a few times, June and July and were put off again. When the call came Monday to ask if we would be willing to take these siblings we were asked to pick up the paperwork at the office and fill it out and the worker would get in touch with us again to get everything completed. Then on Tuesday came the call. Two other children, not siblings of our son, but two other children needed a home IMMEDIATELY. They needed our home open IMMEDIATELY. I could not get off work so the worker arranged to come in the evening to get the paperwork filled out to open our home again so we could take these kids right away. This has been our experience with the foster system in the past. Nothing is important or urgent until they need you and then everything moves at light speed. So the worker came over, filled out all the paperwork to open our home, and we did what we have RARELY done - which is say we are not willing to take the kids who need the urgent placement. We will wait until such as time as the siblings need a placement OR we will wait for kids who are a bit older. I think the worker was shocked, but now that we have over 6 years under our belts as foster parents we know a little of how things work and we aren't going to allow ourselves to be overwhelmed just because they have an urgent placement. At the end of the week our house will be open again as a foster home and we'll see what happens.
As we were meeting with the foster worker the phone started ringing. We ignored it. When I checked the message later it was the local school (k-6) calling to get Max enrolled. Talk about leaving things to the last minute! ( I think I need to do a completely different post on this topic)
It seems as though the weeks will go by and nothing of consequence happens and then all of a sudden, in one week, absolutely everything happens at once and it's all a little overwhelming.
When I woke up this morning I was certain the week was over because we had done so much, but it is only Thursday today! The worst of the week for me hasn't even happened yet.

Honorable Jack Layton 1950-2011

His honorable Jack Layton passed away this morning. I am saddened by the news that such an amazing leader has left us. My thoughts are with his family at this time. NDP deputy leader Libby Davis said, “He was a great Canadian. He gave his life to this country. His commitment to social justice and equality and a better Canada in the world and at home. I think that’s how people saw him, they saw the courage that he had. He faced cancer and he kept on working, doing his job, because he felt so strongly about what he believed in.”

Here is a link to a letter written by Jack Layton in the event he passed away.

Four stitches before breakfast!

wordless wednesday

What to do with a five year old?

Oh, we are having a devil of a time trying to decide what we should do with Max this year for school.
He is growing up SO fast. For the past two years he has been a part of an "early intervention" type program run through the elementary school that has done him WONDERS.

His birthday is in September and he will turn 5.

When he started the program at age three he was just out of surgery , having been deaf until that point in his life. He was not speaking any words at all. In the initial speech assessment the speech therapist was setting goals with us and said for us not to set our hopes too high, and that if he managed by the end of the school year to have between three and five words that would be a success through their program.
Well, by the end of the year he was saying over 100 words! He is truly our "Miracle Max".
He went to that program again a second year and improved again in many areas. He can spell his name, he can count (just about) to ten - but he keeps leaving out number "7". He talks and never stops.

BUT.... 1) his speech is very difficult to understand and in MANY cases you must know the context in which he is talking or you simply have no idea what words he is saying.
2)He is not toilet trained - and contrary to popular belief this has very little to do with our parenting (though many try to tell us it is our fault at this point that he is not trained). He has NO idea when his body is "excreting". So we can have him on a schedule and go every hour and he will go when we take him, but if you even ask him if he has pooped he can't tell you if he has or not.
3) IF he goes to school this year in the way that was proposed to us by the teacher in our last meeting he would go in the morning to the same program he has been in twice already which will make it his third year there. Then he would stay and go to kindergarten in the afternoon. That means that NEXT year when he goes to kindergarten full time he will go from every day school to twice a week school. This is my biggest problem with the whole plan. It will be a huge step backwards for him next year to go back to school twice a week. For all intents and purposes, by next year he will have three years under his belt. I just can't see him doing well in that change. AI AI AI AI AI.

ANYWAY.

I think he should be in kindergarten this year. Shel thinks maybe not? She thinks, and I do agree, that being older is not bad for boys to be starting out school.

Man oh man.

I wont even go into my dilemma about putting him on the bus!

Why I love my iphone - reason number one

Last night there was a power outage and we lost power at about 2 am.
Normally this would be a really good time to lose power, one would think, but our house has a pump that runs on and off through the night for our water (if I go to the bathroom in the night the pump runs). I also have a fan in our room which I run through the night while I sleep, and we leave the light on in the hallway for the boys.
Well when the power went out the house went DEAD silent and PITCH black. We live on an acreage out of town so there are no lights from street lights, no lights from neighbours or traffic either.
The silence and the dark instantly woke the boys. Max was ok and knew exactly what had happened but CJ had a little freak out.
We brought them into our room on our bed but the dark still was freaking out CJ.
I was using the flashlight app on my phone to make light in the room but I really wanted the boys to settle down so they could go back to bed.
Netflix - here I come.
We watched an episode of backyardigans and also another show - for the life of me I CANNOT remember what else we watched as I was completely out of it. I was trying to hold the phone in my hand but kept dropping it as I dozed off so Max held it for me. Such a good little helper!
After an hour of television I took them back into their room where I opened the curtains and the light from the moon was bright enough for them to see something. It took a few minutes but they settled and went back to sleep.
YAY IPHONE! Unfortunately the phone didn't charge last night and I am almost completely out of a charge today.

Choosing what to blog about

I have been blogging for a long time.

At one point  in my history of  blogging I maintained two different blogs - one for my family and extended family to read and one for "me". I tried to keep anything related to my sexuality off the blog which was for my family because I didn't want to offend anyone and I saw it as a place for them to come and catch up on life events and not have homosexuality "shoved down their throats". My family - for the most part - is very religious and my homosexuality has been an issue of contention.

It got to be too much of a hassle for me to maintain two blogs, especially when we no longer had a functioning computer at home so now I basically only maintain one blog on a consistent basis.
At one point I know there were two (maybe three?) of my family members who stopped in and read  my blog on occasion but whether they still do I don't know. Which recently has made me wonder why I still come to this blog and edit what I write.

You may ask, what do you edit?

1. I make a concerted effort not to ever post anything about work, although I have done on one or two occasions without posting anything too negative or incriminating. I will continue to avoid posts about work because - well - it's work.

2. I edit things I write about my coming out process. I was trying to protect those people in my life who were around me at the time - but WHY? They did nothing to support me OR to stay in my life and so why was I trying to protect them, or more importantly why do I continue to try and protect them?

While I was in university I was going through the process of discovering and accepting that I was a lesbian. I was a late bloomer! A girl I worked with in student government had recently come out. At a retreat for student leaders I was hanging out with my "straight" friends and they were talking about how no-one wanted to share a room with her on retreats because of her newly claimed sexual "preference".  I wasn't surprised by this, but considered how this information would impact my own coming out. I roomed with the same person at every retreat and although I was fairly certain she would not have a problem to continue to stay with me in the future I worried that her STAYING with me would have implications for her. I decided then I was not coming out while I was still involved in student government. This formed some of the basis for my choices later not to talk about my coming out process.

Many years after this experience in college, I was out, married and as at my sisters house with Shel. My sister had never asked about my coming out process but in a conversation she brought up a name as being the person with whom I shared my first lesbian encounter. It was COMPLETELY wrong! This was a direct result of the fact that  I had never shared my experience and by not sharing  it was left up to others to "fill in the gaps" and come to conclusions as to what had happened. No-one ever asked me, I never offered and the story that was constructed in the absence of all information was completely wrong.

Coming out is scary. I was terrified that I would hurt people but I believed that part of the process automatically meant that I would be hurt by others. I was. People I considered to be lifelong friends wanted nothing to do with me and walked out of my life. I disappointed my family. I EXPECTED that I would be hurt, but did whatever I could to protect others from being hurt. WHY? I can understand why I did what I did back when this whole thing was new to me. It isn't new anymore. I have been out of the closet for 14 years. I have no reason any more to try and protect anyone but myself and my family.

3. Although I do post things about my family, which in it's very nature has content related to homosexuality because we are two women parenting, I try not to be "in your face about gay issues... Having thought about this I really have to question "why" I do this? Who am I protecting? Who is it that I don't want to offend? And what does it mean to be "in your face" about my sexuality?

I have always felt in the back of my mind as though I was an "apologetic" gay person. What do I mean by that? I suppose that many people who know me would find this a bit surprising, because we live our lives very "out". I am out at work and in our community. We are "out" at the elementary school and to the parents of the kids who are in Maxies class. So I guess what it means for me to feel like an apologetic gay is that I feel as though in many ways I have to "protect" my parents and my grandparents and other people in my life who are offended by my sexuality. I try to ever hold hands or show public affection to Shel when we are with my family. I try not to write anything in a letter or post on a blog that would make my family uncomfortable. I HONESTLY do not know why I do this.


Let me give a "for instance"...

I am friends on facebook with some of my cousins and aunts and uncles. In 2008 there was a proposition in California known as Prop 8 that would eliminate the rights of same sex couples to marry.  Some of my relatives, living in California, were in support of Prop 8 passing and posted links on their facebook pages to support Prop 8. You know, I honestly believe that everyone has a right to believe what they will. I understand why my family believe this way, but I disagree with them. I disagree that human rights should be legislated against. I avoided saying anything, posting anything or commenting at all either publicly or on my own blog. Why? Because I didn't want to "rock the boat" with my family. But now I sit here and I wonder why? Why can I accept that they can post their beliefs, but not give myself the same acceptance? Why can I accept that  they are uncomfortable with me and then make it MY place to make them feel more comfortable? You know, at the end of the day as I reflect on this I think that the way I act could lead my family to believe that I am SORRY that I am gay. I'm not.

I'm sorry that my family can't accept me unconditionally. I am sorry that I had to deal with the things I did in my coming out process. However I am NOT sorry that I discovered who I was, that I came out, that I found a loving life partner and was able to MARRY her (YAY CANADA!), or that I am rasing two beautiful children. Right now I am sorry that I have tried to "hide" who I am when it has not been in my own best interest.

As I browse around on the blogosphere I come across all kinds of people who have no qualms about sharing what they believe. Why should I ? If people do not want to come and read what I have to say then by all means they can stay away! I should feel "free" to blog what I want to - especially as it relates to my own life!

And lastly - because I really segued there...

4. I edit my blogs about my children. Certainly there are some things about our lives that are mot for public consumption, but  specifically I edit myself when it comes to writing about the challenges of raising two children with disabilities and brain damage. I got thinking about this when a friend recently went through a phase of not knowing whether to blog or not. She has blogged about her families journey to adoption and she has laid it all bare. She has blogged the good, the bad, the ugly. I admire her for it SO much, so why don't I do the same?

Am I worried that people with think I suck as a parent because of the difficulties we face in raising our boys? Will people judge our boys? I know that I want to have the most positive outlook that I can as we face the challenges we do, and so perhaps I think that if I blog about the challenges it will negate the "positive" things we encounter? Does it make me blind to the challenges? To be honest I don't think it makes me blind to the challenges. I think it makes me feel like I am in an isolated bubble. Just me and my spouse all alone and without any support or recourse or even validation that what we are undertaking is INSANELY difficult.

I have had two interesting interactions that have fed my "fear" about blogging about the trials of parenting. One interaction happened prior to the adoption of our oldest. When he came to us he had incredible medical difficulties and we knew he faced a life of challenges. Someone made the comment to us that we were sure lucky we were just fostering and didn't HAVE TO adopt this child who we knew would have troubles throughout his life. The comment was made that "thank goodness he wasn't our problem!"
Well whose "problem" should he be? I decided at that moment that I would never tell this person if we encountered a challenge because it would only validate her opinion. Thankfully she moved away and I have no interaction with her and so it is a non issue now - but the comment stuck with me.

The second interaction was a comment on facebook when I posted something about Max being argumentative. The comment was " a child can only be as argumentative as a parent allows."
I never commented again on the topic and just moved forward but I WANTED to say - "You know, being argumentative when you are four and you have a severe brain injury has very little to do with parenting style..... etc. etc."  But I didn't, and I am deciding now that I need to change.

I need to change my blogging style. I need to change my reaction (or NON-reaction) to people when I disagree. I don't need to be argumentative, but I need to stand up for what I believe. If it chases some people away and they are uncomfortable with who I am or what I say then I will need to deal with that. I am certain that I will meet or find that people I already know ARE supportive, there will be people out there who like me for who I am and less people in my life that I spend trying to "protect", who really don't support me, or believe in what I am doing, and are judgemental about how I am living my life. Are these the people I WANT around me?

HELL NO

Hopefully moving forward I will feel more freedom in blogging. Let's see where it takes us!

How to spend money

I don't need any help spending money. There is ALWAYS something that needs to be done.
This month it is news on CJ's teeth.
The poor kid has bad teeth, I would say he inherited them from me but he carries none of my genetic material. Unfortunately for him, he seems to have inherited bad teeth anyway.
I have a great dental plan (which I pay great money to) because my own teeth and my spouses are in such rough shape, but I never knew I would need the insurance for CJ - especially because he is so young.
We have had both boys to the kids dentist locally and CJ needs a LOT f work. SO much that he needs to have oral surgery, so they can put him under anesthesia while they work on all of the issues in his mouth. He needs it. We need to do it. So we got the call from the dentist to schedule everything yesterday.
HELLO!
They take our insurance but we have to pay up front and be reimbursed from the insurance company.
This is pretty typical of a lot of dentists here so that news wasn't particularly surprising.... but 3500 dollars! HOLY MOLY!
That's a lot of freaking money.
Do you know how many tattoos I could get with that money?
I do!
I could get a tattoo from THIS person, or one from THIS person, or maybe even from THIS person.
For that amount of money, I could likely get inked from all three. What a dream come true THAT would be!

Oh, being a parent can be a bummer when I want tattoos and my kid needs teeth.

Letter to Cael - 36 months

Dear Cael.
Wow, I cannot believe it!

You are three years old this month. The time has literally flown by. I still remember holding you in my arms the day we picked you up from the hospital. You were SO tiny - less than five pounds. It boggles my mind that you are so tall and growing up in every way.
You are becoming more and more independent which is cool, but so hard for me to let go! You don't want help getting in and out of the van at all and you are doing VERY well with your potty training. I love to do happy dances with you when you use the toilet. You love them as well - you particularly love to tell me "how" to dance, which I find immensely amusing.
You have had a love of all things related to cars for as long as I can remember. You have a matchbox car in your hand at all times. You even go to sleep with one in your hand!

You love to bath more than anyone I know. If you had your druthers you would bath four or more times a day. In fact, on many days you do take at LEAST two baths, sometimes three. You are a water baby through and through.

When Gramma was here we put up the trampoline. You spend HOURS jumping and entertaining yourself on the tramp - but sometimes you sneak Hugo on with you. You are a social butterfly and would prefer to do anything with company if you had your choice.

You bring so much joy to our home and you are such a blessing I cannot imagine my life without you. I love you my humpback whale.

Rest your head, close to my heart, never to part, baby of mine.

Mom

CJ started riding his bike!

I just got a text message from home to let me know that CJ has just got the hang of pedalling his two wheeler and he is away like a shot!

He got a bike for his birthday because he wants to be like Max in everything he does and Max is a mad man on his bike - even though he only figured it out last year. They both still have training wheels, but CJ has been "pushing" his bike behind Max as he rides in the driveway since he got the new bike a month ago on his birthday. Apparently it all came together for him today and I am so happy for him. Way to go my little humpback whale!

Technology....

Hey! Look at me! I am blogging from my PHONE!

Gave up on my work phone

If anyone is wondering about what happened with my phone - here is an update.
The guys in IT here at work wiped the phone and asked me not to download anything and they put a 3 G tracker on it.
I had wiped it previously but downloaded Angry Birds again so they took that off. Unfortunately the phone continued to transfer high rates of data. No-one could figure it out. It was transferring so much I would have exceeded the monthly data transfer limit and I wasn't doing ANYTHING.
The person in charge of phones for staff on campus wanted to give me back a flip phone but I chose personally not to go with that. I doubt I would have been happy going from a smart phone back to a flip phone. I decided that I didn't want any more hassles with phones and work and the pressure of worrying that data usage would go over the monthly allotment and having to pay for the extra personally - ESPECIALLY when I was not in control of what was being used or when or how.
So.... after much deliberation I went out and got a new phone. I will pay for it myself and I will do whatever I want to! I wont stress about what someone says my monthly data usage is. I won't stress about how many text messages I send (even though I had unlimited texting I was always questioned about how many texts I was sending) and I won't worry about personal use of a work phone. STRESS OVER!
Having said that ... I now have to transfer all my contact info and stuff to this new phone. Can you say "pain in the butt?"
Shel is excited because now I can sign up for games she i s playing on her iphone and she can get points! I do what I can to keep my lover happy.

Wordless Wednesday

Mouse in the house

On the list of things to do while mom was here I had "clean under the kitchen sink" and "clean out the bathroom cupboard". Mom and I did under the kitchen sink and we decided to buy a small piece of laminate to put down for water drips. The plumbing here isn't dripping - at the moment - but the boys like to "help" at the sink and so there is often water spilled that gets under the sink. We looked for laminate pieces but the place we looked only had really large pieces and so we haven't put it in yet. I still have a plan to get a small piece and glue it down.
The other goal was to clean out the bathroom cupboard. I started in on it while mom was in the kitchen. I pulled everything out from the bottom (the floor) and I was wiping all around. As I wiped around the corner, out of my view, a small mouse scurried out.

I screamed. Yes. I screamed. It was more of a shriek/scream and not a sound I am accustomed to coming from my mouth. I actually startled myself by the sound and mom came running.

Oh we laughed.

We needed to catch the thing and release it outside - we live on an acreage and there are many, many fieldmice around and usually the dogs and cats do a good job at keeping them out of the house but this one apparently got past our living traps.

Mice move FAST! Mom got a bucket to catch it in and I was assigned the role of mouse "herder". I am not good at being a mouse herder. I was laughing too hard to do any good and it moved WAY WAY fast. It managed to get away and down a  hole into the basement.

I am still shocked at the fact I screamed. I wouldn't say I was afraid of mice, but when I am cleaning and a moving thing comes from where I expect no moving things I was certainly startled.

I am happy to say we have not seen hide nor hair of the creature since and I removed all toilet paper from the floor so there is nothing enticing to nest in any longer. There has also been no evidence of a mouse in the cupboard since then and the cats did bring a "catch" to us which I am hoping was the offender.

trampoline

While mom was here Max did a couple of funny things.

One thing he did was to start calling me by my first name!

I think it is because mom was here and he heard her calling me by name a lot. He can't really say "Julie" so it sounded like "Goo-ey" but it was frustrating (and mildly funny) to me! He is back to calling me mom now although sometimes he still slips in a "gooey!"

The other thing he started as we were putting up the tramp was to remind us of the "rules at Cece's house".

Cece is our neighbour and she has taken the boys for respite since they were in foster care. We love her! She has a trampoline at her house and until we put up our own it was the only place Max had been on one. Cece has trampoline rules - and one of them is "Only two people on the tramp at once". In the top photo you can see Max waiting for his turn while Gramma bounces with CJ. (We were actually not finished putting everything up but they were very eager to jump so we had to stop our construction project while we had a jumping interlude.)

Max started in saying everything "was a rule at Cece's house". It started with trampoline rules - no jumping when someone is getting on, no jumping when someone is getting off, no shoes on the tramp, no toys on the tramp, and then it just started generalizing to EVERYTHING. What it boiled down to was if MAX wanted a rule - he said it was a rule at Cece's house.

Cece apparently has a LOT of rules. I tried to say "well we are at our house Max and our rule is ...." but he could not be deterred.

One afternoon mom and I went into town to run some quick errands. As we arrived home and got out of the vehicle Hugo came running over to the van barking. Hugo is a nerd and barks at everything that moves (I don't think he can see at all) and mom said to him. "Hugo, Don't bark at Gramma, That's a rule at Cece's house!" I died laughing.


One last thing I will share before signing off this epistle. We have had no proper fridge in the house for many months. We have just been using a bar fridge. We bought a proper fridge recently but when it arrived it was too large to get into the passage from the living room to the kitchen so the fridge was stuck in the living room for a few weeks. We decided when mom was here to move it into the kitchen because we needed many hands. When we moved it into the kitchen, -which involved taking off the fridge doors and removing a kitchen lower and upper cabinet and then levelling the floor ( a small indication on how something on the list like "move the fridge" turns into a major project!) we took the mini fridge out.

I had planned on taking the mini fridge to work and putting it into my office. Mom and I carried it together and put it in the back of tinkey winkey, my little truck. I don't want to exaggerate but I think the truck was parked about 25 meters from the house. We put it in the back and then went to town to run our errands. We were going to take tinkey into town but when we got in the battery was dead so we had a change of plans and took the other vehicle. When we returned from town Max had taken the mini fridge out of the back of the truck BY HIMSELF, carried it over to the house, plugged it into the outside plug which we use for winter plug in - AND he had put his hammer in the freezer!

What a kid!



our list

Here is the list we made of things to do.. When we completed the item we crossed it off. If we did it more than once we put the date next to it so we could go back and know what we had done.

When we were making the list I put "build a treehouse" on the list and it was a bit of a joke. I do think that one of the next visits mom makes will include a treehouse building project though - we just have to find a tree to use in the yard!

Some of the things we decided not to do on this trip and other things we added. I laugh that we put "possibly, maybe fun" and then put dates next to it! I would like to say that we did actually have fun on more than three occasions.

Some things took longer than others, for instance we were doing a LOT of laundry. The laundry had backed up because the drier died and as we were working on catching up the washer sprung a SEVERE leak. It seemed as though every project we started required making adjustments of some kind or another. For as many projects we had there was a greater amount of adjustments made. Partially that has to do with the old house we live in, but MOSTLY it has to do with having Max and CJ around. Holy Moley do they ever require a lot of supervision.

We would be in the middle of putting something together and we would turn around and parts of it had "walked away". Putting together the trampoline is the perfect example of this. We had pieces we needed to fit together. We were bringing  them all to one spot to lay them all out. As fast as we could lay them out pieces were disappearing. It took two of us to put the pieces together and the third of us to chase the boys around gathering things back. I made the mistake of putting things together but not screwing them in (step two on the list of directions) and so we had to go all the way back to step two when we reached step ten and realized we couldn't progress if the pieces weren't screwed.

I have to say the tramp was one of the best things we did - I have a few favorites - the trampoline is absolutely in my top three of the things we did.  We managed to get it together (with only one small missing piece which I still have to order) and we spent a LOT of time on it.

Gramma made awesome memories with the boys jumping with them on the tramp. She is sassy though - she tries to double bounce me!

Phone frustration

I am having huge issues with usage on my phone. I am on a plan that allows for 500 MG free use per month.
I don't download ANYTHING on my phone - no music, no movies, nothing. I don't watch youtube videos.
I have installed three items - Angry Birds, Angry Birds Rio and a list making app. I don't allow the boys to touch the phone and I have no games for them downloaded onto it.

In one month I "supposedly" used 9015.099 MB!

Yesterday I installed a 3G tracker to track my daily usage.

In less than 24 hours I have transferred over 18MG of info. WHILE I SLEPT last night over 7 MG was transferred.
I have wiped the phone clean TWICE and I am at a complete loss of what to do...

I know I am not a technological wizard by any stretch of the imagination but it simply does not make any sense to me - and no-one I have spoken to seems to be able to help.

I took the phone today to the IT department at work. They are going to wipe everything off the phone and reinstall the 3G tracker and we will see if that helps. After I left their office I realized that ALL MY PHOTOS from my mom's visit were on the phone and will now be wiped away. I almost cried. I have no photos anywhere else of mom's visit this time and all the projects we worked on. I also had some of her with the boys on the trampoline and those are gone also. DANG PHONE!

Mom's visit: Post one

I know I am a day late and a dollar short with these posts about my mom's visit, but I want to go back because there is a lot to write about.

Mom is a ridiculously hard worker and so we sat down on day one and wrote a list of things we wanted to accomplish while she was here. We are both huge fans of lists, I particularly like crossing things off once they are done.

For the first few days of the visit I still had to go to work, so I left each morning with much chagrin. I would have preferred to be at home where the action was happening!

The first day I was working Shel took mom around the quarter and measured in the car the distance for her walk. It was exactly 9.6 km all around the quarter and the driveway is .2km, so from door to door it is exactly 10km! I did tell mom I would ride the bike while she walked but she is an early riser and I never made it. She walked every day (except Sunday) and even walked in the pouring rain and through swarming mosquitoes. One day she brought us home a dog from a neighbouring farm. Everyone was thrilled to have a visitor.

While I was at work on the first day of mom's visit she and Shel sorted and counted bags and bags of recycling. I think at the end of the day they sorted over 1400 cans and cartons to be turned in. I was able to borrow tools from the maintenance man at work and when I got home we took apart the bathroom taps and kitchen taps and fixed the drips. To be honest we fixed the drips in the tub - and I know what we did, but when I took apart the kitchen tap it was completely different and I had no idea what to do so I just put it all back together and lo and behold it stopped dripping! I DID change the way the handle turns to turn the cold water faucet on and off, (and I didn't know that I was doing it when I did it). It has taken some getting used to but it fixed the drip so I was happy!

Having mom visit makes me super happy. I knew we would get a BOATLOAD accomplished.

A letter from Canadian Tire

I was so frustrated with my experience at Canadian Tire that I contacted the customer service department with a letter.
They responded to me with this comment, "We are sorry to learn about your dissatisfaction with Canadian Tire."
Well that was sure big of them!
Not a "Sorry that the product was not available even though it was advertised on sale and in stock," or a "Sorry that our staff are idiots" (even though I didn't exactly expect that as a response.)
The thing about saying "Sorry about your dissatisfaction" is that it does not accept responsibility at ALL for the role the store played in my experience.
I guess it further frustrates me with the corporation and my experience there.
Jerks.

Why Canadian Tire Frustrates Me and should be closed on holidays!

I believe that with few exceptions, ALL stores should be closed on Federal Holidays.

Why do I believe this?

It is very difficult as an employer to staff these days. People make plans to be doing things away from work on days that are federal holidays. They should. Holidays exist for a reason.

I know as a parent that there are some things unexpectedly that happen on holidays - like broken bones from trampoline accidents where we require services provided by emergency providers and pharmacies and I appreciate their availability at all times. However, stores like Canadian Tire, The Brick, Walmart and so on should shut their doors for 24 hours and send everyone home.

What they do instead is advertise special "holiday sales", open the doors to customers, but because they have a problem staffing the day, they operate on a skeleton staff that provides less than satisfactory customer service.

I know I am partly to blame for these stores opening, because I enjoy taking advantage of the sales, and so I go. I should clarify that. I USED to go. I will never go again, and hopefully others will also stop shopping on these days thus making it a waste of money for chains to open.

We had the WORST customer service experience EVER at Canadian Tire (a store I generally REALLY like - because you can give like Santa and Save like Scrooge) in Peace River.

My spouse and I have been looking for a locking cabinet for our kitchen. Our house is DESPERATELY short of storage, the kitchen specifically, and we need locking cabinets to keep the boys out. We have been looking for ages and we finally decided that a cabinet make from metal, typically designed for a garage, is exactly what we need. We got a flier from Canadian Tire advertising a sale on a Mastercraft Cabinet that suited our needs EXACTLY and was on sale beginning on July 1st. (Canada Day)



We checked online that the product was available in Peace River Store and we called the store to check the hours of operation. The product was in stock and the store was open. So we went to get it. We drove. A LONG TIME. The sole purpose of the trip was to get this cabinet so we could proceed with other projects over the weekend.
When we arrived at the store there were three employees working. One was at the customer service desk and was also acting as checker. One was in the paint section and there was one other employee present. We arrived in the store at the same time as another woman who was carrying her used weed eater. She asked at customer service for an employee by name and was directed to the paint section of the store. We asked at the same place for the metal cabinet by name, and with the flier and were also directed to the paint section.
When we got to the paint section the lady with the weed eater was being assisted by one staff member. She was describing a problem with the machine and he was taking it apart and trying to fix it. I don't know anything about warranty or arrangements she had with the store to fix her broken weed-eater. I thought it was interesting though. I didn't know Canadian tire fixed things, but I am sure the lady was appreciative.
I spoke to the other staff member and asked about the cabinet. She was uncertain of the availability of the item and needed to talk to the staff who was fixing the weedeater. She asked him where the shelving was. We stood. And stood. And stood all the while the guy was taking apart the weedeater and completely ignoring us!  I was becoming more irritated by the minute. I could see he as busy obviously. He WAS helping someone who arrived before we did. But all we needed from him was a verbal response and he was not even acknowledging our existence. We finally stopped just standing there and walked up and down the aisles looking to see if the shelf was on display anywhere. We couldn't find it. We returned. We waited some more.  He finally said that the shelves were buried in the back and they were not available until Monday (it was Friday) because there was no-one to operate the machinery to get them out. I explained to him that it was advertised in the flier and showed as available on the internet and that we had driven a long way to come and pick it up. He said it was not his fault there was no-one there to get it. All the while he never looked at me once, and continued to take apart this used weedeater. By this time I was REALLY frustrated.
I asked him for his name and he refused to give it to me. I asked the girl at the counter if she had a phone number I could call, and she gave me her name and a card with the phone number of the store.
We went to the customer service counter at the front of the store and said we would like to make a complaint and she said she was not able to take a complaint from us at that time because she was not the person who regularly worked behind the counter and so she had no way to "process" a complaint. We asked if there was a number we could call for a corporate headquarters and she said she had no idea and had no way to find out that information for us. FOR REAL!

We left the store.

We called on Monday and asked if the shelf was available because we didn't want to drive all that way again if it wasn't. We were told it would be ready for us in one hour. We returned to the store. THE SAME THREE PEOPLE WERE IN THE STORE WORKING. The man who said he couldn't help us was the one who wheeled the cabinet out. I was so incredibly choked I can't even express it. The SAME people who could not help us were the exact same people working when they were able to help us! What is that about?

As far as I am concerned the store should be closed on a holiday if the staff can't provide for customers the items they have advertised. The staff - with the exception of the paint section young lady - were VERY unhelpful and downright rude. If it were possible for me to have purchased this item without travelling over 3 hours to the next closest store I would not have returned to this location and I will avoid it at all costs from now on.

Gone so long

I can't believe I have been gone for so long.
Fortunately (and a bit unfortunately) life seems to be back to semi-normal and I have an internet connection again so I can start posting once more.
My mom was with us for two weeks and we worked insanely hard and accomplished RIDICULOUS amounts of things which I will write more about later.
After mom left the rain arrived and it seems as though the rain hasn't stopped since - which matches my mood. I miss living closer to family and I always seem to have a "post family visit depression" after family visits end. This one hit me particularly hard for some reason.
Anyway. Back to "normal"  - whatever that means!