Flipping

Isn't he a cute caterpillar?

My day consisted of the same student flipping out again (the one from last week). I was pretty close to calling security. Then I had to fill out another incident report. And my day was just really busy. I flew home at 4:30 and we took the 5pm bus to the mall. We had dinner there and then James, instead of going looking for candy, decided we would go on a treasure hunt for the 'golden treasure'. I didn't mind wandering the mall looking for this. Some people stopped us and gave us candy while on this mission. James did not mind that. After much searching, we did indeed come up with the golden treasure:

Yes, indeed the payment drop box was the golden treasure. You never can tell what will happen with a 5 year old!
James was pretty exhausted by 7pm but the bus didn't come until 7:30pm. Bus service is not that great in the evening. The bus we took back was very full.
I have a heap of marking to look through, but I think I'm too tired.

Raining business

My work spiraled out of control (in a good way) on Monday. I was to sort through all my students files, but I got an email that I had been waiting a long time for about the projects, so then I had a lot to do with that and didn't get finished with the files. I'm off to do that now!
Today James and I went to the library for their halloween house. Apparently, the library is a great meeting place. We saw Polly (James' daycare teacher), Lisa (Jessica's mother), Thomas and Jul, and Bob the Builder.
Tomorrow we're doing Halloween at the mall.

River

I woke this morning to James telling me it was 8am. We just had a short time to get ready for basketball. We made it on time though. James got his first basket during a game! Afterwards, we stopped at Karen's place to drop off some Ensure for Peter who just had his wisdom teeth out. He was looking pretty good, in spite of that.
When we got home, I made some pear crumble with the pears James picked with Bob and Karen last weekend. It was really good. James said he wouldn't like it, but he did!
I hurt my shoulder in the last day or two and have been using some analgesic cream on it- it helps soo much!
The last few days we have been eating meals prepared by other Rustlers. This was brought about by the fact that Karen saw us last weekend and thought we looked bad. She thought I looked tired, which she thought was due to Myron's situation but it was probably more due to my insomnia, which was going on long before myron being off work. So anyway, she decided the best way to help would be to have some meals made for us. It has been especially nice not to have to do so many dishes! It has been a bit difficult, in that I still feel pretty capable (certainly as a pose to when James was born!) but I am receiving it as a Gift from God and enjoying it :)

No fusses

James was pleased to tell me yesterday that he had 'no fusses' at school that day. I was like- do you normally have fusses? He said 'sometimes'. He is really getting more comfortable there. We went there for a halloween ball tonight. James liked the games.
I've got to get to bed now- basketball in the morning!

Incident

We had an incident in the lab today where a student snapped. He was yelling, swearing and even threatened another student. He had calmed down by the end of the lab, but nowadays we take incidents like this very seriously so I'll likely be meeting with campus security about it.

I'm tired and have to be up early tomorrow!

Joys of technology

Technology has been having fun with me today. My version of explorer has been having some issues- one being I could read my facebook at work, but not post anything. Then facebook said I needed a newer version of explorer. So I downloaded that, but it wouldn't install because I didn't have a service pack 2. So I downloaded an installed that. 1/2 hour later I have my computer newly packed and a new version of explorer and facebook now doesn't work at all. I can hear my computer laughing at me!

I have a case of Ensure + calories (chocolate flavour) that we bought for myron's jaw surgery but he wasn't able to drink them because he had some cut in his throat. If you like the stuff, you are welcome to it. Otherwise, I'm donating it to the Rustle food bin.

Tonight there's a with meeting at Rustle, tomorrow James has Pioneers, Friday there's Halloween activites at James' school (not exactly sure what, but we paid for tickets. There seems to be something to pay for pretty much every week at James' school. I don't remember this from my school years, but then I wouldn't have been the one paying! Books, lunches, field trips, parties!

Can the school day be longer?

On our wet rainy walk in to school James was musing on the fact that he really would like the school day to be longer so he could learn more stuff. He thought they should start at 8am instead of 9am or maybe go until 4pm. I wonder how long this will last!

I also met one of the teachers who has been helping out his main teacher. I assumed when he told me about her that she would be a young one (as otherwise she would have her own class). But James assured me that she was OLD - 73 in fact. I met her today and she's a young 20. Funny his perspective!

Cold air

Shieleen keeps sending me messages that it's going to get colder tomorrow. The warmth was nice while it lasted (is lasting). And I got an email from work that there is a steam leak and they will be shutting off the heat in my building tomorrow. Great. So it will be cool outside and inside!

It was so nice this morning that I decided to get my health card renewal out of the way. It was a lovely walk. My work could wait. It's behind anyway due to technical problems. I got into work around noon and did my marks entry and prep for my class. I have to design a new worksheet before Wed. Tomorrow I'm at RMC so I'll have to do the worksheet tomorrow night as my brain is too dead now.

I watched a few minutes of a new show on abc about a girl who seems to have some sort of amnesia. After whatever happened to her, she is feeling like quitting her job and doing something else with her life when she realizes that she has all this credit card debt that she incurred previous to the amnesia thing. That while she felt like she was starting life over again, she still had this baggage from the past.

Warm air

The weather is so warm. Again I forgot to take my camera with me to take pictures of how beautiful it was. But I did manage to snap a pic of James sleeping during the boys hockey night in canada last night.

Yesterday we did basketball in the morning, went by Karen's and got swept up in pear picking, then made lunch for James at Karen's place and got to cook the bacon for Bob. James ate 2 bowls of chicken noodle soup, 1 ham sandwich, 1 bacon sandwich. We played with Karen for a bit, then James and I headed downtown to pick up a parcel. Unfortunately, the sears outlet downtown closes at 2pm and we didn't get there until 3pm! So I took James to DQ and he ate a hot dog. Yes, I swear this kid can pack it away!

This morning we went to Rustle. Shari and Al did a very effective 'interview' intro to the La tienda evening. I love how she was so inspired to paint the women and children involved with the project of bringing women self respect, dignity and new life in the Dominican. "Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and opressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked" (Psalm 82:3-4). The women make lots of artistic things - jewelry and knitted things that were on sale. I went to the evening as well.

In the afternoon, I went in to work at RMC as I had missed last week due to the nasty cold.

Pear picking

Blogger is having some issues with posting my pictures, so I could only post this one, but it's my favorite as it shows bob at a 90 degree angle into the pear tree.

Behavioural

Rachel- interesting that some smokers can hide it so well. However, these guys didn't look really smart, so I doubt they were hiding it. I think Jordin is probably right- that the parents might even be the suppliers. I just looked at them and could see them a number of years down the road sick and it made me feel bad. They are too young to be able to make responsible life decisions, but they are not too young to become addicted.

Marlene- everything scanned ok for me, but I did get the message to put it in the bag, when I had indeed put it in the bag! And then it wouldn't let me do anything until I put it in the bag, which I had, so the cashier had to come over. Apparently everything that scans has a certain weight that the machine knows and if the weight that's hanging when you put it in the bag doesn't match the weight it thinks you bought, it has issues!

As I was waiting for James' bus, another mother was telling me the behavioural issues she was facing with her son. How he doesn't pay attention in class and how getting him to do certain things at home is a battle. I am glad that James so far is really enjoying the academic aspect of school life. He told me the other that one of the other boys tried to talk to him while the teacher was teaching. I asked him what he said back and he said "Nothing. I wanted to hear the lesson." A bit rude, but very academic!
Today they went on a class trip to a gymnastics club. James had heaps of fun and tried to explain to me all the different things he did. At the end, I asked him if his teacher had fun and he said "No, she didn't get to do ANYTHING. She just watched." I suggested that maybe she had fun watching, but James kind of dismissed that. He also said that she couldn't watch all the kids at the same time (they were divided into groups) because "SHE DOESN'T HAVE EYES IN THE BACK OF HER HEAD" to which he doubled over laughing. I guess she said that to them today and James found it really funny.

My nose is not running so much now, which is good. I even had a nap today, though it means I'm not terribly tired now! Got to be up early for basketball, so hopefully I'll sleep soon.

Non-photos

I should have had my camera strapped to me these last few days because there were some super photo ops:
-Al driving with a dresser on the roof of his car, held there only by Gerald's hand (it got there safely)
-a beautiful rainbow this morning as the sun was halfway behind a cloud
-a licence plate that read "I H8 PCS". I couldn't figure out if it was a mac lover or a liberal
-4 young boys (10-11 maybe) smoking across from the school. I would have taken the picture and sent it to the school. Though seriously, the parents should be able to tell if their kid is smoking. it smells!

Yesterday we ended up going to Gerald and Annette's for dinner and then taking the boys to Pioneers. James liked arriving there with AJ.

This morning, James was so excited about his class' field trip to the gymnastics that he attempted to dress himself in the morning. (I woke up to a half naked boy asking if I could help get his shirt on)

I was up in the night coughing - maybe that means it is loosening up. I had to slather with Vicks to get it to stop. I was up for a couple of hours in the night, so I was glad that I had taken a sick day today.

I went by Loblaws on my way home from dropping James at school and used the self scan for the first time there because the line up was about 10 deep for a regular cashier. They never have enough real cashiers there (even before self scan came in). I always get out of Food Basics way faster than Loblaws and I wouldn't go to Loblaws except there are some things that I can only get there - the wraps I like, the mac n cheese with no trans fat, 7 reasons cereal, PC sherbert, tikka sauce.

Tomorrow James has basketball in the morning, which he is also pretty excited about!

Apparently, I blog a lot when I'm sick!

But I am starting to feel better, though my nose is still pretty plugged up.

My class this morning was pretty busy. Myron dropped James at school and then he went to Toronto for another dentist check up. But I think his back hurts more than his jaw, though I doubt the dentist will check that!

I'll pick up James from the bus at 4 and we'll head to rustle to pick up our box of veggies, then head home and have a quick dinner and James will head to Pioneers from 6:30-8. At 8 there's survivor- I normally tape it because it distracts James too much while getting him ready for bed. He loves the games on survivor. Funny, because I don't care about the games, I like watching the social dynamic.

Waiting for the technological failures to stop!

My work has been ground to a helt by technological failures. Currently, the uploads that have been sent in are not showing up (that's been going on for a while). Now my students can't log in to the upload site or the site they use to sign up for their project.
My body is still having it's own failure in the nose and chest.

Last night James packed his backpack for daycare. It's so cute- I pack his school backpack and my work backpack normally the night before but the daycare backpack is just a change of clothes so doesn't normally need packing or repacking (unless he grows). Last night he packed his 2 Queen's fit balls for sharing and he packed 2 snacks - a granola bar and a cranberry cookie. I said that he didn't need to pack snacks as the daycare provided the snacks. But he wanted to, and it turned out to be good as he woke up at 7:20 and we had to leave at 7:40 so he only had a chance to have a bowl of cereal before we left. (and it was only a froot loopsy cereal that wasn't very filling. And it turns his poo green! Really, it's kind of frightening. I'm not buying them again. Now will Bob still be reading the blog after this description? Not sure!)

I was up for quite a while in the night between 3-5am. One time I looked at the clock and it was 3:33 and I thought of the CSI:NY guy who kept getting calls at 3:33. I would have been up to get mine, had one come!

Tomorrow is picture day at james' school, so we got his hair cut yesterday and he behaved wonderfully. There was another little boy there (who was maybe a year younger- but a year can make such a difference) and he was kicking up a real fuss about it. He kindof looked at James amazed - maybe he thought what he was doing was normal and thought James was odd. It's all perspective.

Friday, James has a field trip to a gymnastics club. I hope he has fun.

Semi-sick day

Due to my nasty hacking, I took a sick day from RMC. I still had a lot to do for my course so I worked at home for the morning after dropping James at school. I see Brenda M. every morning as her son's class line up is next to James'. Riley (Denver's son) is in James' class as is Anika (the daughter of a new family coming to Rustle). I rested a bit in the afternoon. I picked up James from the bus and we headed off to get him a haircut and me a new drivers licence. Then we came home and make homemade pizza. My chest is still very bad, but I rested as much as *I* could. Now I have 2 very heavy days at Queen's. I hope I'm up to it- need to pack my bag now as we leave early, then I'm heading to bed!

Homecoming

I thought it was interesting to see the media reports of homecoming. The ones in the kingston paper talk about how it was better than expected and how the volunteers helped out so much and the toronto star said 'violence erupts at Queen's Homecoming'. It's all perspective.

My mom and dawna mentioned I did a lot for taking it easy. But believe me, it was taking it easy compared to what I normally do!

I worked at home this morning, now I'm heading off to Queen's for some meetings and a class.

My chest is still bad, but not terrible.

Myron's birthday

Nice cake eh? Tastes great. DQ never lets us down.
I tried to keep today relatively restful due to the nasty chest congestion. I went through our front hall cupboard and sorted through what things don't fit anymore and what things we need to get for winter. James was insisting the 6X mitts still fit but he can barely get them on and off, so I'm thinking not. I think I have to move from the kids section to the 'boys' section for larger sizes.

I also put back pieces of the door that I had taken off with all the painting. Now the doors barely close again but they are kinda protected from drafts.
I closed and locked all the windows to prevent drafts and this evening I'm hoping to vacuum all the vents so we will be ready to turn our heat on. And it looks like we'll probably need to tonight. The heating system wakes me up at night, so I never look forward to the return of winter.

For dinner I made something called Mexican Sour Cream Rice. I adapted a recipe I found online that was a sidedish with rice, sour cream, cheese, chilis, corn and cilantro and changed it to a main dish with rice, sour cream, cheese, chicken and green pepper. I served the corn on the side. It was pretty good. James ate rice and chicken before I mixed it all together in the casserole. He doesn't like his food mixed in if given the choice. He always has cucumber as a side as well. He really likes cucumber.

We sang happy birthday to Myron in French. James taught me!

Ew

I woke up this morning with my slightly stuffy nose from last night turned into coughing up green stuff from the lungs. Not pretty.

I am hoping that DQ cakes are theraputic for chest infections. I will post a picture of the cake later today!

Basketball 2

Blogger really wouldn't let me upload this picture under it's original name! So I renamed it and it worked fine. Issues indeed. The boy who is a head taller than the other boys was the good scorer on James' team. (He's on the red team if you can't tell)

For dinner we ended up having mac n cheese, salad and garlic bread. Not high difficulty level. I have no real plan for tomorrow except I know we'll have chicken in some format or another.

Did I mention that Myron hurt his back doing yard work? I guess going from inactive to lifting heavy objects is not good for your back. But it's sad for him to be feeling poorly on his birthday (tomorrow). He seems to be feeling a bit better today. It's been bothering him for a few days.

Basketball

James had his first basketball lesson today. They learned how to dribble. The coach was really good with the kids. They were 5-6 year olds so most were not terribly coordinated! But the kids were pretty good.
They played a game after they did the skills (Blogger would not let me load the photo for some reason!). James was on the red team. It was VERY interesting to see how he interacted in this new situation. He was very smart in his game as he realized there was a kid that was way better than him (and all the other kids- he must have been almost 7) and so James kept passing him the ball when he got it, becasue James wanted to see the score go up. They don't keep score in kids games, but James does.
They had some time of free bouncing and James got lots of baskets then in the big high nets. It was a lot of fun to watch really. Almost all the parents stayed which was nice for the kids.

Here James is wearing a 'target' and the neighbour kids would shoot foam darts at him. The glasses look akward here because they are on upside down.

I snapped this while James was sleeping last night. I thought it was so cute that he cleaned up the toys he was playing with in bed into a little pile beside him.

After basketball, James and I went downtown to pick up Myron's DQ cake. James saw a hockey cake on display at DQ and wanted that one, but I had to take the one we had ordered! I'll post a pic tomorrow. We also had lunch at DQ (a hot dog each) and their new soft serve chocolate ice cream. James had his in a kiddie cone and I had it in a cup with raspberry topping. Twas great.

We had the pizza hut pizza yesterday. It was good, but greasy so it was hard for me to digest. I have no plan for dinner yet. Hope I come up with one soon. James wants me to go and pray outside now. When it was nice, in the morning I'd normally pray outside at the start of the day. But it's gotten chilly. He likes it when I pray outside because he likes to play outside and have the company!

Pommes

James had a good day at school today. He came home with a book that he coloured himself and could read- in French. It was about 'pommes'. He was so proud that he read it to everyone who would listen at Pioneers (like you Jo!). He was really really happy to be reading in French.

He also got a prize for being the quietest during the indoor recess they had to take because of the rain.

And he really liked the indoor recess because Izzy (a lunch monitor) showed him a neat game. Probably that kept him quiet too :)

Busy

My mom says she can tell I'm busy when I don't post much. And it is true! Yesterday I worked from 7-5 (luckily I had made a lasagne (from Karrie's cookbook!) and put it in the fridge so it just had to go in the oven) and then after I put James to bed I worked from 8-11 (well, while watching criminal minds and CSI so I don't know that it all counts as work). Today I left the house before 8 and have classes scheduled until 6:30pm.
My throat has been really scratchy the last few days, so I am hoping I am not coming down with something. Tomorrow, I am supposed to work at RMC, but will take the day off if my throat gets worse.
Saturday, James starts basketball and I have to pick up Myron's DQ cake for his birthday. I put a baseball player on it. I didn't have james with me to help me choose, so I just picked a happy picture :)
Myron also wants Pizza Hut pizza for his birthday. If we order from pizza hut, we have been ordering from the princess st one, but I haven't been very happy with their consistency. The last time we ordered pizza there (summer) there were barely any toppings on it. I'm thinking with the construction, it would be better to order from the division st one. We used to order from them and I was happier with them than the pric. st. one, though it was 5 years ago that we used to get div. st one, when we lived at the apt. on Stanley st. as we were in their zone.
And why is it there is only 1 number for pizza pizza and pizza huts all have their own. With their trans fat free crust, pizza pizza is always my vote, I like their organizing of things better. But it's myron's birthday, so his choice!
Karrie's birthday was on Monday- had I blogged on Monday it would have been a happy birthday Karrie blog!

Rustle is 1

Today was a day not to be missed by Rustlites! We turned 1. We had a Thanksgiving party. We ate lots of turkey and there were sooo many desserts. I think everyone was pretty full. Al had a wonderful message on grace and truth and applying it to our lives. The picture above is of Brooke. She told me as I was taking the picture that I would want to throw it away! And it was my best picture. So there Brooke- Truth: you are beautiful (inside and out)!

This is baby Gabrielle. I was trying to get a picture for the prayer letter, but I'm not sure this is going to be good enough unless I crop it. I may have to raid Joel's facebook pics.

And, of course, a picture of James. You can see his face is healing up. Still some residual red from the scar (not sure if it shows up on the picture). I saw him excitedly go up to Al (on his own!) to talk about the hockey game from last night. He knows a man who loves the sport like he does. James prefers to sit through the service than to go out with the kids. He reads his Bible in French during the service. And by reading I mean singing. He sings the Bible. It seems to be musical to him. So beautiful.

The above shot shows how we have grown! And below, other angles of Rustle.

I even managed to catch a pic of Al. (Bob is the screensaver on the wall)

Blocked in

This shot is from a few days ago when our road was a dead end. Jamsie had to walk an extra block to school. We were a bit hostage to construction. Luckily, they opened up a small walkway on Thurs. night otherwise we never would have made it to Pioneers on time.

Today, I tried to work out in the yard while it was still nice. It was still warm and very nice to be outside. I got some of my dead flowers snipped. James helped too. The rest of the day amounted to cleaning the bathroom and kitchen and marking. And talking to Jasmine a bit. Played football a bit too. AJ came over for an hour before dinner. And the homemade pizza was very good!

When I was praying outside in the morning, James called me over to his window (he was inside and very excitedly told me the following, which I would call a Childs Prayer. It was quite beautiful:

I love my dad and mom and God.
I love my toys.
I love my blankets.
I love my stuff.
I love my cars.

And on. I can't remember everything he said he loved! But it was so beautiful. The spirit of gratefulness on this weekend of Thanksgiving.

Start of Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving tends to be a pain for me, as if I have Monday labs (like I do this year) it creates a nasty altered state for me to live in next week. But, for now there is peace, as all my students are AWAY!. I worked late at RMC today as it was the last real working day before the conference. Life was crazy. My boss will still be working a lot of the weekend to finish getting ready.

As I got home late, we had tomato soup for dinner (with garlic bread) and I only got it done just before 7. (we normally eat around 5:30 or 6)

Tomorrow, Jasmine is coming over to play with James and help us out that way. I have to get the house in order and have heaps of marking to do.

I called Bonnie C. yesterday. Their 4th child is due in early January. They don't know too many people in Kingston. (though I think they get quite a few visits from their family) I'd like to be able to help them out. I think having 3 young children with family far away would be difficult, even though she is a very capable person! We seemed to connect right away so she's looking to pick a weekend that is good for them and then we can hang out a bit. I'm pretty excited about that.

Next weekend basketball starts for James and it is Myron's birthday.

My meal plan for the weekend does not include turkey. (Well, we're having turkey at Rustle on Sunday- our 1 year anniversary of Rustle being open, and Thanksgiving and all) I'm planning on making homemade pizza tomorrow night (which James has so far been against- preferring to order in, sigh). I have a new recipe for parmesan chicken that I want to try.
I didn't get a chance to sign up on the food list for Rustle of what to bring, so I'm thinking that means I can bring whatever I like :) I'm thinking about some creamy potatoes and baking some cookies. I love potatoes, so I think you can never have too many of those!

We watched "The terminal" tonight. I thought it would be silly, with Tom Hanks and all, but it was a really interesting movie. I thought quite well done.

Teacher's note

James' teacher wrote this note to me today:
James is getting braver every day and we are seeing more smiles

No time for chocolate milk

On Tuesday was the first day that James entered the school not crying at the first bell. A small accomplishment, but good! He did cry later though, because he was not allowed to drink his chocolate milk (lunch is pretty short) but he enjoyed his pizza lunch!
On tuesday I worked like crazy on our conference. I did not get a hot pizza lunch. I don't recall a lunch at all.
Today I had 6 hours of classes. In my time between classes, I updated our marks database and the course website and did some marking. I did more marking after I put James to bed. I still have more marking to do.
I'm heading to bed now as I have a class early tomorrow.
Nelson St. is now completely blocked off by construction and we have to walk or bike an extra block to get to wherever we want to get to.

Toast

Today flew by. I dropped James at daycare. Biked by the A&P to pick up some lunch (to be eaten later in the day!). Stopped by our computer guy to pick up a CD, biked over to my office. Tried to install said CD. It finally worked. Popped upstairs to prepare my labs. Had to sort through all the marked work from my TAs. And then there were my students. The lab ran pretty well, I was expecting worse. The first day is normally chaos, so I was happy. Only one student broke down in tears, but that was before the lab started and I'm not sure what happened.
Myron picked James up from the daycare- he has rented a car for the day. I biked like crazy to try to get to the daycare to pick up an item James had forgotten there- Grandad's remote, but they had closed before I got there. He'll get it next time.
After I got home, we went to Kelsey's for dinner. James loved that they showed sports on their TVs. I had a really great Taco salad. James had chicken strips and fries and he cleared his plate- and it was a BIG plate. I was impressed. Then we went shopping. It is so nice that James is of a good age to shop, relatively speaking. We saw Tyler undercover trying to catch shoplifters. Shhh.
James has progressed from counting in 10 in French on Saturday, to now being able to count to 15, without attending school in between.
School tomorrow. Myron's driving him in, then returning the car. There is a hot lunch program at school tomorrow, so James is having cheese pizza and chocolate milk. It's the first day of this so we'll see how it goes.