Slow

This morning seemed a bit slow mo. I worked for an hour an a bit trying to get things organized for the conference I am working on. I made eggs for breakfast then did some dishes and laundry and played race cars with James.
James is just watching something silly on tv and then we are going out to play soccer at the school. I think we'll need sunscreen!
Other things planned for today- James needs a bath, baking chocolate chip cookies, call Karen, more dishes, ironing, etc until I wear out!

Kindergarten realization

We were talking about kindergartens this evening and James suddenly came to a realization that Mom would not be at kindergarten with him! He had a brief breakdown, but we talked a lot about it and I think he's ok now. For now at least.

James got himself in a bit of trouble at the daycare today. He told a little girl at the daycare who was playing basketball with him that "Boys are better than girls". The daycare teacher took him aside to talk to him about this, and James still insisted that boys were better than girls and that he wanted his mom, thank you very much. And had a cry. And Polly said - you realize your mom is a girl don't you? He may have been watching too much men's basketball with this March madness. If they do a female March madness, I'll make him watch it! James and I have a plan to watch my women's gymnastics tape this weekend so he can see that women can do amazing stuff in sports too.

I didn't sleep terribly well last night, though not terribly badly either. I was up from 4-5:30 but slept a good chunk of the night. I was still kind of dizzy today so I called the dr. again. The cardiogram was apparently normal, so they weren't worried about that and my symptoms didn't sound too bad to them, so they made an appt for Apr 16, so that makes me feel a bit better that they didn't think I had to come in right away or anything. Though if I get worse I have to call them again. Let's hope that doesn't happen!

I don't know if we'll have another child but if we do and it's a boy, we all agreed today we'd name him Jebediah. We heard it on a tv commercial and thought it would be great fun!

Good Friday

I read this at [ hold :: this space ] about Good Friday and loved it:

What makes this day good?

If you have ever believed that love inevitably leads to betrayal
this day says it doesn’t.
If you have ever believed that some people are unloveable, irredeemable
this day says they aren’t.
If you have ever believed that there is a limit to forgiveness
this day says there isn’t.
If you have ever believed you aren’t worth saving
this day says you are.
If you have ever believed that you don’t deserve freedom
this day says you do.
If you have ever believed that fear, anger, hate and despair will always win
this day says they won’t.
And this day is good for you.

Sleep

I did get sleep last night. I slept from 9:30pm - 5:30am and then slept a bit more before getting up at 6:30am. I'm still pretty tired. I was hoping not to be after a good night, but I guess the bad night still is having effects. My head hurts too, I'm blaming that on the bad night as well. Hoping it will improve before my class today.

I hung my laundry out this morning because there was a good wind and it FROZE. Yes, I had little stiff towels outside. By the time I got back from dropping James at daycare they had defrosted though. I expect they'll be dry with the wind and the increasing warmth from the sun by noon and I'll be able to get another load out.

James really likes maps. He surprised me this morning by finding the Dominican Republic on the map. Apparently his daycare teacher is going there and taught him where it was. He also can find Iraq, Toronto, Kingston and Kitchener. But sometimes he gets things wrong in his head. He keeps asking me to find where Oma lives by giving me a map of Africa.

A woozy kind of day

I had an early morning class and functioned all right for that. I called the doctor after the class to ask if I was normal. To which everyone said - you had to call the doctor for that? Anyway the doctor sent me off for a cardiogram to be safe. If there's a problem they'll tell me tomorrow. The cardiogram lady said that you should always get it checked out if you are aware of your heart because if we all were aware of our hearts we'd go crazy. I think she's right about that.
I'm really tired.

No sleep

How a person can lie in bed for 7 hours and get no sleep, even though trying really hard I do not know. Taking insomnia to new heights.

cases

It's the time of the year where I build copying cases. The copycheck ran early and so I was so excited I was swamped with work. It's sad that they copy, but if they do I like to build a strong case. I've never lost a case yet. I build them well. In a way it upsets me when they copy because it tells me that they don't care about the course and I do care about the course. But I understand that they have other courses and aren't always interested in learning lab work. But I make sure they learn it on way or another!

James is into cars right now. Lots of racing cars and the movie 'cars'. I ordered him some Cars stuff online. He wanted the CD and the book and I also got him an activity book, (which hopefully will arrive in time for our trip). I also got him a cars thing for his Leap Pad and a murder mystery novel (for me) for under $40 (but over $39 so I got free shipping)

Have a class to go upstairs and prepare for- the boys are having a night together.

A child shall lead them

At Chruch, Diane was there after having a baby this week (Joshua). She looked like she was doing ok physically. Lisa made the annoucement at the start of Church, which should have been a happy annoucement, but the baby has been taken from Diane (I assume by Children's Aid) and Diane only gets to see him 4 hours a day. Kinda makes it difficult to breastfeed, if that is what she had been planning. I think this would be VERY difficult on Diane. Why take the baby away? If they are assuming that she can't care for it, why not have someone supervise her rather than assume she can't? Rather than having to pay someone to take care of the child, why not pay someone to supervise her taking care of the child? Anyway, I don't know the whole story, but that they've gotten a lawyer to try to get Joshua back and would appreciate prayer.

James really enjoyed the songs at Church today. The kids went downstairs for sunday school but James wanted to stay up and hear the rest of the songs. During the service, he went over to one of the tables at the back and coloured a picture. It worked very well in terms of him being happy and me getting to hear the service. Paul did communion today that was very enjoyable. He talked a bit at first and then he put the bread and the wine on the table for us to come up and take while he sung a song. James was all about this- as soon as he had put the bread on the table, he wanted to go. And so while some people might wait a polite moment to go up first, not us! We were the first to partake!

Spring cleaning...

...with the all-season messer!

It was cold in the morning and rainy in the aft, so we stayed in all day. I tried hard to clean and still keep the all-season messer busy. Some days he likes to clean, but today was all-play. I cleaned the bathroom while he played in the bath. He now washes his whole body with soap himself -it's pretty funny to watch. Also, I cleaned all the windows, washed the dishes, sorted all of my very wintery clothes to pack away, did some sewing,cleaned James' room, and halfway cleaned the front room. Tomorrow I'd like to get the vacuuming done and wash the kitchen floor. I'm also making heaps of ham casserole. Some for tomorrow, some for Tuesday when I work in the evening and some to freeze for Myron when we are away. Longer term plans incluse cleaning under the sofa in the front room (eeee), filing all my papers and cleaning the bedroom/computer room.

With all of this James and I also played all sorts of ball games and read quite a number of books. I'm getting tired thinking about the day!

Myron was at work today but came home when I said I was ordering pizza. He ate the pizza and promptly fell asleep on the couch. That would have been about 7pm. James was up until 9:30pm. Myron was up until late playing his game- but not as late as he is sometimes. I guess his late tolerance is getting worse.

Life lessons

James told me today "If I hit my head, it hurts". Seems he has conquered that life lesson.

He was watching an Amazing race episode that I had taped for him- the one where Rob and Amber get eliminated. And at the end of the episode Rob says "We're still winners in our hearts" and James quipped "Not today!"

A.J. is over now and the boys are playing with a very LOUD train, so I am taking refuge at the computer. Myron is at work today. The night wasn't very good as Myron's game woke me at midnight and 1am (funny that the killing sounds aren't very restful!) and then the mouse woke me at 3:30. Luckily, James slept in until 7:30 so I got a bit of extra sleep in there.

Myron may be going to Moncton at the end of May or early June to do some radiation training. What he generally works with is external radiation treatment, but he is going to go for training on internal radiation treatment plans.

James and I are heading off in a week and a half to St. C, so I am busily planning our meals until then and Myron's meals while we are away. As well as packing, trying to wind up the loose ends of my course, etc.

Boys are calling now...

Choices

The laundry went out today- over the ice!

We went to 2 excellent schools today. I don't think there's a bad choice. The first was the bigger public school but it was very well run. Too well run in some cases! They also have a good before and after care program, which might be useful depending on my schedule. The catholic school was way more laid back, but it is tiny compared to the # of kids packed into it. It was bursting at the seams, but then that didn't look too different from my life. In both cases the kindergartens look great and I would be happy sending him to either.

After a day of walking and buses and figuring James was a little under the weather with his cold, I thought that we would rest for what was left of the aft. If you call 'rest' , 2 hours of this:

then we rested:)

Scam

I got this letter at work yesterday, with beautiful South African stamps. I never get letters at work, so it was pretty exciting, until I opened it and realized it was a scam. It started "Dear CEO"- so much for personalization. And he proceeded to tell me (with spelling errors) that he was a manager at a bank or something (though the letter was not on bank letterhead) and he had found this money of a guy who died and he needed a foreign person to claim it. He claimed that he would keep 60% of the money (a finders fee, evidently- since it was illegal for him to claim the money on his own) 40% of the money would go to me and 5% of the money would go for unexpected expenses. He may work at a bank but his math isn't so good.
But say I was susceptible to scamming and wanted to say yes to this plan - he left no return address, email or phone #. So I can't find him even if I want to be scammed!

James and I are going to head out to see the kindergartens soon. He's had this cold for a few weeks and it got worse last night and so he has a bit of a temperature today, but he's still pretty perky, so we'll go and see how he holds up.

Congratulations Bheki!

I was going to post about this on April 7, but I'm going to be away that day, so I'll post it early. In early Feb. Laura wrote about her friend Bheki and it really touched my heart. The man seems so wonderful and is trying hard to follow God and change people's lives in Africa. He wanted to get married, but couldn't because he didn't have the funds to buy the cows needed for the labola (dowry). We take things so for granted here in terms of all the material things we have. And I don't think we for the most part get the secrifice that love is. I think Bheki gets it. And he got the money for the cows and is getting married April 7. I'm generally not too keen on weddings but this is one that I certainly will be celebrating!

Running

I seem to have overextended myself this week and am overloaded with work because I'm taking Friday off to take James to visit kindergartens. We are visiting one big and one small. The big one has 6 kindergartens. The principal told me this, I think as a warning! We'll see how it goes.

James woke up this morning and asked me for a globe "so he can see the whole world"

I am working at both RMC and Queen's tomorrow. I will try to breathe!

Responsible adult

Myron got an appointment to have his wisdom teeth out (a precursor to the jaw breaking) on April 19 and the paper from the dentist said a 'responsible adult' had to bring him. Hmm. I don't know any of those. Not sure what to do!
I got a letter in the mail from my friend Clara and she wondered if he was getting his jaw broken in Scarborough because of it's violent reputation.

Yesterday, the good Friar Tuck wrote a neat post about team building
As I was reading it, I so could see our 'team' Rustle.
About a year ago Al started the team forming to plant Rustle in an underpriveledged neighbourhood. 'following poverty wherever it goes' he said.
And it certainly did not take long to reach the storming stage, where we had some big issues to deal with and some big disagreements and we lost some people from the team. But in the process we learned a lot about each other and ourselves.
And now I think we're norming!
So it was really cool to read this post and instead of looking back and saying -why did we have to go through that?- understand that it's all part of the process. If it wasn't one storm it would have been another. I like process.

Last night, I did a rough draft of our taxes and for once I don't have to pay the piper. As I work so many jobs for different companies (I had 3 T4s) noramlly they don't take off enough tax, which is just fine with me. But I must have moved up a bracket at Queen's because they took off a lot more tax this year. Myron doesn't get back as much this year because he earned about $7000 more in this past year. Doesn't give much incentive to earn more if they take more!
But doesn't it make me sound like a responsible adult for doing taxes? And there was a new $250 federal credit just for working this year.

Now off to attempt to be responsible year again and put in a proposal for an equipment fund. Fun!

The eagle has landed

My mom's plane landed about 5pm. Don't expect her to be home for a while. Don't expect her to call either because she'll be VERY tired, I'm sure.

James and I did some shovelling, then he watched race cars for a bit while I caught up on some work. Now he and Myron are over at A.J.s and I have a wee bit more work to cover and the dinner dishes to do. I made a wonderful meatloaf in the slow cooker.

Welcome Mom!

To this:
Early morning snow picture

My mom's plane is listed as boarding now.(Edited to add: my mom leaves holland at 11 degrees and here it's -7. Plane is now listed as in the air 7 minutes late, but due on time at Toronto.)

Lorna, I don't think I'd give up my chocolate for mice! So far my mice experts tell me to use peanut butter! And I don't mind giving up peanut butter, so I think that's what we'll do if we ever get around to the traps.

Windburn

Walking to RMC yesterday, the wind was so strong and cold that I had windburn on my face most of the day.

Today by boss and office mate are flying to San Diego for a conference. And did they gloat? Why, yes they did! I'm hoping they get out and my Mom gets in with all the snow.

Thanks for the mouse thoughts eija and rachel. When I went shopping for the traps, I was with Kim, who has extensive mouse history, and she said the plug in sound things didn't work, which is why I didn't get them, though it did seem the most humane thing to do. They didn't have the zappers (which I didn't actually know about until you commented rach!) so we got regular traps. It's just getting them in the attic is difficult. Thankfully, they are not in our house either! I'm hoping they move out in the spring!

Myron was up until 2am playing his game. Then I woke up again at 3:30am (not sure why- don't think it was the mouse/mice) and I haven't been able to get back to sleep. I went online to see if my mom's plane is still listed (it is)

It's very windy and snowy. Happy birthday Sarah- hope you enjoy the windy, snowy present!

Week 9

Week 9 of term is always the most strange. I think everyone starts to lose it in week 9. The students just have had so many midterms and assignments that at this point, they need a march break! I have students sleeping through 2:30pm labs, students ripping up pages and walking out in a huff, and my doozy of a discrimination complaint. (sorry I said in the post below and in a comment on eija's blog that it was a harassment complaint, which it's not, but I feel harassed so I guess that's why I've been referring to it as the 'harrassment' complaint. Of course, I can't write about the complaint here until we have a resolution, which I think will be a long time in coming)

The mouse woke me up again this morning. I'm pretty sure I know where he sleeps (right above my bed!) so he should be easy to trap, but the insulation in our attic really gets in your lungs if you go up there, so I don't want to go up without a mask. Once I get a mask, the little guy is moving out of our house!

Yes, Lorna cars sure are expensive, especially when you pick expensive cars over $4000 models. Cars are even more expensive when you are buying them for someone else!
I'm quite happy with our carless lifestyle. If I had the time to go anywhere, you can get pretty much anywhere in Kingston by bus. The bus costs me maybe $8/month versus the est.$400/month for a car. A car would probably be worth it if we had to drive to work, but we can't drive to work because there is no parking near Queen's.

I give James lots of nicknames and he pretty much replies to them all. My current names for him seem to be 'monkey' and 'love bean', though he will probably move on to 'soccer king' soon if he has his way. He calls me by my first name most of the time 'AAAphra' but yesterday he called me 'Ma'am'. I just about fell over laughing.

Freight trains

There was a train derailment early Monday. The tracks apparently were cleared sometime yesterday as when I was walking home from work in the evening, all I could hear was the freight trains rumbling through. Things were pretty backed up, I guess! Apparently, it is costing them $1 million/ hour to do the clean up (they are still cleaning around the tracks- they have to get all the freight out and then move the derailed cars, I guess.

Next week in my class we are moving on to our project phase and this requires quite a bit of work on my part. And next week will be busy too. But then thing start to get better. At least at that job. As that one improves, my 3rd job will take off as an early registration deadline for the conference I'm working on will occur. So, la la la, I'm not thinking about it.

I woke up this morning at 5am, probably from the mouse. I couldn't get back to sleep, so I checked my email and found a harassment complaint against one of my TAs. Nasty stuff to deal with.

And the car that I thought was $4000 that the boys were getting for their mother- i misunderstood or so- it's a $4000 down payment and 6 years worth of debt. Oh, how I hate debt!

Tuesday's are long.

Yes, I work from 9am-9pm on Tuesday so it feels like a long day, because it IS!

I was again amused by how people find my blog and this is this week's keyword analysis:
2 20.00% ninja training kingston ontario
2 20.00% myron
1 10.00% rogers time change
1 10.00% clean our neighbourhood
1 10.00% rogers time change
1 10.00% where is lake k... (I am editing this one because people look for this lake and find my blog ALL the time from one visit I wrote about ages ago. So I am not entering the name of said lake here or they'll all come here, which would be even less helpful to them than my actual experience at the lake, I think)
1 10.00% in home daycare long nap
1 10.00% fast friday-my teddy

I spent the morning checking my students online work. Now I think I'll have some nachos and then head in for my first class on campus. I'll have crackers for dinner, because it's too much trouble to make a real dinner at work. I made chicken in creamy tomato sauce yesterday, so Myron and James will have the leftovers tonight. James complained about the chicken last night saying it had 'blood' on it. Sigh, no, that's tomato sauce. My culinary delights sometimes go underappreciated.

Myron's brother called last night because they need someone with an A+ credit rating to cosign for a loan on a car for their Mom. Which I find RATHER amusing. Because they make fun of us for being 'Amish' and not having a car. And now the only people in the family who HAVE NO CAR THEMSELVES are cosigning for a loan on someone else's car. Go figure.
Also, though Myron's surgery is not until August we have to pay for the portion that OHIP doesn't cover now. Go figure on that too.

James is majorly into sports now. He plays all sorts of things in our hall and likes to watch on tv as well as clips on the computer. My brother would be so proud :)

Happy Birthday Bob!

Bob is the big 5-0 today!




We celebrated at Rustle yesterday. Good luck with the next 50 years Bob!

Gardening with beer

With our lunch, James chose a gardening show. The man was making lots of concoctions to put on your ground to help plants grow better. For example, for baby plants mix:

1 can beer (enzyme activator)
1 cup dishsoap (softens soil)
1 cup antiseptic mouthwash (messes up the sex life of diseases)
1 can cola (sugar)
1 tsp. instant tea (can't remember why)

and then spray on the ground where you will plant your baby plants. He made quite a number of these and one ingedient of each one was either the beer or whiskey. And he measured stuff using shot glasses, making me wonder.

Anyway, we get to the end of the show and James says "He sure does use a lot of beer!" Yes, indeed.

Time change

James was up at 6am today, so I have decided to start the time change this morning. Let's say he woke up at 7am! Really, I think it takes more than a day to get into a new routine and I was kinda planning on implementing this before the early wake up.

Myron is working today. Saturdays narmally have us cleaning in the morning (I use 'us' loosely) and then going out in the afternoon when he's a bit tired. Today it's kind of freezing rainy so I'm not sure if we'll go out.

He's become quite the sports fan. He's looking forward to all the basketball on tv coming up. We play a lot of soccer at home too.

Play

This morning James made new names for us all based on what we do. So, his new name is 'Play'.
He called Myron "Plays his game on computer" (long name but accurate)
He called me "Hi there". What? Do I not DO anything? I'm thinking Myron's name might even be better than mine.

I had a wild dream last night. I forced myself to write it down at 3am so I wouldn't lose it. I'll post it on my dream blog eventually, but it was an interesting picture of this trip called life.

Today my boss was trying to predict the date of his breakdown. He thinks as of April 1 he will be 'highly caffinated'. Our work picks up April 1 and I am away April 4-11 (over Easter) I'll just be really busy before I leave and really busy when I get back!

Flying high

My mom is in the air, flying to Holland as I type!

The class last night went well. I was pretty pleased with it. Then this morning, I had another class. I was pretty worn out after 3- 3 hour classes within less than 24 hours!
My class all had an exam this evening so they were pretty antsy this morning. I hope they did ok.

Only 3 more early Wednesday classes. Not that I'm counting, or anything. James did his drop off at daycare this morning flawlessly. He was pretty tired this evening though.

I missed the meeting at Rustle tonight as Myron is working. I'll live outside the loop :)

Deep Freeze

Hmm. Enviro Canada says it is -30 with wind chill. We are to be deep frozen for 3 days. Lucky mom is getting out to Europe! I remember going to Holland for March break with her once and they had flowers. In March. Lucky!

I just have a few minutes before my next class. James wanted me to leave him a note with what he should eat and what he should play while I was gone. I did this and apparently this was the first thing he looked for when he got home. One the way to the daycare he assured me that he would 'keep an eye on Myron'. Funny kid seems to forget who the parent is!

I don't like night classes. I'm much too tired to be functioning on all cylinders. Hopefully, they get my jokes and it can be a relaxed class. We'll see what the dynamics are soon. Every class is different. It normally only takes me about 5 minutes to get a feel for the overall character of the class. I'll go meet them now.

Wind

The wind is blowing very strong tonight. The hydro crews probably will be very busy! Good thing my mom isn't flying out tonight!

I hung out with Kim this morning and she seems to be doing much better. Much more positive. Zully gave me a skipping rope. At his hotel, the aerobics room is being turned into a pool. Shame as it really is a nice aerobics room. I bought a little skipping rope for $1 (for James) at Walmart so we can skip together!

Myron is going to see his sleep specialists in the morning, so he went to bed extra early. He's still not sleeping well.

My work went well today. Monday is a pretty smart class, so it tends to go better than some. Tomorrow is my big day for work. I'll work 9-9 as I have a night class. Myron and James will have some male bonding over nachos and chilli. James was pretty excited about that. He was also excited about his new blue rubber boots. It doesn't take too much to excite a 4 year old!

Saskatchewan

James wants to travel to Saskatchewan to see the gas station in Corner Gas. I blame my brother for giving us those DVDs! James says Saskatchewan is his favorite province. Ah, childhood dreams.

Today James and I hung out. He had a real long bath and we went to the park, as highlights. I managed to clean the bathroom while he had his bath. We did laundry together and I ironed. We also vacuumed.

James has a in interesting new 'time' in his day where he claims he needs to 'get his sillies out' and he runs around falling down a lot. It's kinda funny to watch. But when I videotaped it and showed it to him, he thought it was HILARIOUS. That was even funnier to watch.

Our neighbours (who have a pretty close to identical house to ours) have just put their house on the market for about $150,000. I know they bought it for under 110 and they have done a lot of work on it but 40,000. It will be interesting to see if it sells. I haven't seen them for the last few days, so am not sure if they have moved out already or not. They have 2 little girls, but they are never outside. Funny, as I try to get James outside every day. Everyone parents differently I guess!

Ice & bus

A winter storm has lavished us with attention. The sidewalks were icy but not the worst I've ever seen! We slid to James' daycare, then I hopped on a bus to take me to RMC. The bus was kind of fun as it plowed through mounds of slush on the roads, creating tidal waves as it crashed through. I felt the bus slip a couple of times, but the driver seemed to handle it all well. There was still a lot of precip of some kind (rain or ice pellets, I'm not sure) when I was dropped at RMC, otherwise I would have taken a picture. I brought my camera today. Lots of ice sometimes = good pics!

I slept well last night! I went to bed at 9:30 and got up at 6:45. I woke a couple of times in the night but got right back to sleep.