Burned

This morning the doctor 'burned' my active spot with nitrogen. She said that today it would get red and blister off. How lovely :)

I also seem to have developed a cold overnight :( Just the running nose bit - wish I could catch it!

Kim is moving today so she brought her birds over to our house early this morning. I hope they are happy!

James' Pioneer club is having a BBQ today, so no cooking dinner for me tonight!

This is James' hockey playoff tent:

How my tulips are looking:


Painted hockey mask that I spoke of in the last post:

(click on the images for a bigger picture)

Marks in

Yesterday, I got my marks in! This was a particularly long year, so I felt very relieved as I walked home in the rain. I also felt releived that my new pink rainjacket is very waterproof!

My friend Rachel L. is involved with MoveIn which is about Christians moving in to communities in need in Toronto. (and some in Ottawa) That seemed to be what naturally happened around Next when we were there. James also would like to live closer to Rustle. So, for a lark, I looked at the mls page to see if there were any houses that I liked. And there was - a 4bd, 2 bath house for 179,000. Now the house across from us just sold (in a week) for $168,000 and that house is very similar to ours. (which we bought for $90,000) So I briefly toyed with the idea of moving, but I'm hoping the house I saw sells quickly, before I start to seriously consider it!

Yesterday, after I picked James up from the bus we ran into Sarah on her way to pick up Tara. James wanted to join her, so we went to Tara's school. They were having a book sale there, so we went in. James found a paint-your-own-goalie-mask kit and decided he wanted to be an artist! So we bought it. When we got home, James opened the box but there were no paints in it. So I took it back and exchanged it. The lady was very apologetic. Later in the evening James FOUND the missing paints- they must have slipped out while he was opening it!! So tomorrow, I'm going to go back and try to explain all this. Oh my.

Thursday is James' pioneer club finale with a BBQ. Saturday James has a hockey game in the morning and his birthday party in the afternoon. Tuesday, my parents are planning on visiting. Next Thursday is his actual birthday! A busy week!

A nice day

It was a nice day today. (24 degrees now) I was dressed incorrectly in a sweater and pants, but you never know when air conditioning will get you!

It was a lovely laundry drying day. It was also a PA day and so I decided to do nothing all morning except hang with James. He made a swamp in our backyard again. What fun.

We had a number of power failures last night, which completely freaked James out. But the Nintendo works in power failures, so that calmed him down!

I made a lovely chicken stew in the slow cooker for dinner tonight. I was going to take some over to Lisa, but I haven't been able to get in touch with her. I'm hoping she's ok.

I had a number of meetings with students this afternoon (with a committee of people) and I (who usually scored low on the emotional competency test) managed to explain to the others what happened on an emotional level with a student. The guys on the committee were baffled when one of the girls cried at the end because they explained the two possible punishments (which weren't that bad) and they thought she would be happy, but she cried. I got to explain that it was relief. It's not often that I score the highest in emotional competency in the room.

My face was good today, no swelling or itchiness. I guess to make up for yesterday, which was pretty bad.

All boy

When I go out, I'm never quite sure of what I'll find when I return. Sometimes Myron is covered with tape, sometimes someone has eaten 5 mini-chocolate bars (he's now lost the food trust he once had!) and sometimes there are interesting words in the word whammer.

We can see into the guy across the street's living room. (he has no curtains) James thinks it is GREAT FUN when the guy is watching the same game that James is. Though my argument is -why do we need a TV, when the guy across the road has a perfectly good one that we can watch?

James didn't want to go to Church this morning. I think it is important for him to go for community learning purposes, but he made me a deal that we would read the Bible for 1/2 hour this evening. He stuck to the deal and he got to pick what we read. He is really fascinated with the Easter story, so that is what he wanted to read. He wanted to read about how He died, the bit in the tomb and the bit about Jesus going to heaven. I think he's trying to get his brain around those main bits.

After I got home from Church, he wanted me to call Collin. Collin's mum was agreeable to sending Collin over, so they played like boys for 2 hours. They were inside playing basketball for a bit. Then they went outside and played hockey. Then they turned on the hose and made my garden a swamp. Then they played a game with a tennis ball against the side of the house. I'm tired just writing it all down!

My eye had been bothering me a lot today and I am very glad of the doctors appt. Thursday!

facial

This spot on my face that the dr. cannot figure out has good days and it has bad days. Some days it is smooth. Some days it is crusty. Some days it is obvious, some days obscure. Some days itchy, some days not.
Last night it was crusty. This morning it was itchy and bright red and my face in the area feels all swollen, even though the spot is smooth now.
I have a dr. appt. on Thurs. - hopefully she will have more insight to it than the last appt.

assembly

James sang at the earth day assembly at his school. He was behind the child in the white shirt and burgundy shirt so he didn't really show up on my picture. They sang "It's a small world" but in French.
Jessie's class sang the nature anthem with the you tube video going at the same time.
John Gerretson (Minister of the Environment, MPP for kingston) was there and he was just GREAT with the kids. No stuffy speeches for him. He seemed to really enjoy interacting with the kids.

This morning James had hockey and his team (black) beat the green team 6-5 with one second left. After the game, James' friend Duncan (from the black team) came over.

After his friend left, I called my grandmother (her birthday today!). James sang a short bit of "Bonne Fete a toi" to her.

Lisa T. has been having some problems with a hole in her lung. It can be quite painful or at least uncomfortable. Yesterday she was doing better but today she was worse. I brought her over some hearty chicken soup and fresh bread and prayed with her. She finds it hard to be so immobile when she just wants to get out. She was talking about going to Church tomorrow, but I tried to talk her into resting if she needed to. Another thing that is difficult is that Lisa likes to talk and with a hole in your lung, you shouldn't be doing too much of that! I talked to her about the Earth day presentation and she seemed to like that.

After I returned home from seeing Lisa, this is what I found at home:

Road trip!

Today I drove all the way out to Walmart on my own!!! That is the farthest trip I have driven in the new car. I was pretty proud of myself for doing so well, really.
The car doesn't stand out like my last one, so it was a wee bit difficult to FIND in the walmart parking lot.

I found 'team canada' plastic hockey sticks with a ball attached for a going home gift after James' party for the attendees. I was pretty pleased with these. I am not sure how suitable they will be for Tara or AJ but I think the boys from James' hockey team will appreciate them.

I tried hard to find clothing for James, but they didn't have much hockey stuff, so I settled for a pair of blue track pants (probably good for next year), some black shorts, maple leaf socks and summery shoes. I tried hard to find him underwear but he doesn't like kinds with the tags in them (likes the tagless kind) and I couldn't find anything successful at Walmart.

I can try S&R, if they have anything left in their close out sale! Otherwise, maybe I'll need to take another road trip to Zellers or Sears!!!

Then I went to Toys R Us and bought James a new bike and a street hockey net for his birthday (I think the money for that will come from his great grandparents in Europe)

So, anyway, it was lots of fun shopping and not too bad with the driving (it was the morning, so not too too busy!)

nick

My cousin Tammy would like to point out that she had NOTHING to do with the previous post. Funny that the post about her having the baby came just before the guy was shouting 'will you admit that I'm the father?' but it was purely coincidental!

James is on day 6 of his sexual abuse proofing course. Today I figured out who nick is. James has been telling me that it is nick who does the course. I was surprised because in the teachers note, it said that Mme. Bennett was doing the course with them. At the start he told me that nick had no voice or something that made me think that nick was disabled, but it turns out that nick is a puppet. He's a pretty funny looking thing that shows up on all the cards that James brings home. Todays card said "Some touching can confuse you and may be inappropriate" which is a lot of big words for 6 year olds, so I asked James what today was about and he said "Don't touch private parts".

Other than sorting out nick, I also sorted out something rather major at the bus stop today. One of the ladies who also waits there is Jodie and her son Aaron has been over to our place to play, etc. I've noticed a couple of times that she looks different, but she has told me she sometimes dyes her hair, etc. so I thought she was trying new styles. Today the different looking Jodie was at the stop. She wasn't as friendly as she normally is, but she can be moody sometimes, so I chalked it up to that. As she bus arrived she said something like "Jodie said this new bus driver is faster than the last". It was only then that I realized that this new looking Jodie must be her sister!

Will you admit that I'm the father?

I was amused yesterday as I was walking down first ave. to pick up James from the bus. There was a guy driving north on kingscourt. He was stopping at the stop sign and I heard him, so I looked over. He is driving with his window rolled down, talking on a cell phone. Rather, he's yelling into the cell phone "Will you admit that I'm the father?" repeatedly.
First off, maybe this is the sort of conversation you need to PULL OVER for. He certainly couldn't have been paying much attention to driving.
Secondly, why does he want to be the father so badly?
Thirdly, why does it matter what she 'admits' to? A paternity test could resolve this issue.

At James' school all of the grade 1's are getting a sexual abuse proofing course. I'm not sure what they are calling it to the children, but it is interesting to see how they are tackling it. The course is in English and every day they bring home little card telling what they learned each day.
Things like
"Everyone has a body"
"Everyone has feelings"
I go over the card with him each day and try to figure out what they are doing in the course, but I haven't been very sucessful!

James has been sleeping in a 'tent' in the front room since the playoffs started. This morning, I found that he had rolled out of the tent and was sleeping on the hardwood floor. That can't be too comfortable!

stirring

I seem to be doing much better health-wise today. My eye is still bothering me, but the cold or allergies that I had seem to have mostly let up.

My cousin Tammy had a baby boy this morning - Rudi James 8lbs. 8oz.. James is obviously a family name for us!

Tomorrow is a long day for me - RMC during the day and prayer in the evening. Hopefully, my health will be up for this!

Making chicken in the slow cooker today - chicken noodle soup tomorrow!

flagging

I decided that doing both jobs today was over the top but that I could handle 1. I am not quite sure if I can even handle the one right now, but I'm in now and have meetings from 5:30-8:30pm. I have no intention of talking much in the meetings as my voice is not so good. The fever has also started creeping back.

The fridge will be 'fixed' tomorrow assuming the Verona Hardware people come. At least I could understand them, unlike Maytag Texas!

rest stops

I tried to take it easy today and took a couple of rest stops during the day. I tried to select mostly quiet things to do. I did manage to hang out 4 loads of laundry because the day was so nice, but that was the most active I was. And I am feeling a lot better now. My eye is still really sore too, but the crusty red spot under the eye fell off, which I hope is a good sign!

I promised James I would make chocolate chip muffins (WITH chocolate chips this time) tonight, then I'll probably go to bed.

I'll decide based on how I feel in the morning if I'll go to work or not!

Rest

I guess I did too much yesterday because I'm running a bit of a fever and feeling pretty bad. I'll try to rest today. My work day tomorrow is looking a bit iffy at this point.

The day begins at 3

This morning I woke at 3:30am. I tried to get back to sleep, but was unsuccessful. So I got up and wrote an email to my boss.
If he is going to send me an email, it generally comes at 1 or 2am.
As we were leaving our meeting the other day he said to me 'what are you doing up at 4am?' (when my emails sometimes come in!) I said something about him sending a message at 2am and I would reply at 4am.
Despite this being a difficult year, I really enjoyed working with my current boss this year. I also enjoyed the Melissa was at Physics this year. Next year looks bleak without the two of them. My boss has been assigned to another course and Melissa is going to have a baby!

I had breakfast with Sandy, which was really nice.

When I got home James and I cleaned up the front room. He was really proud of his work.
After lunch, AJ came over. While the boys played I cleaned the kitchen. Annette said she was coming to pick up AJ at 3:30pm. As it wasn't raining then we went out at 3:30pm to wait for her. It was still a mite chilly though. The boys were happy running around, except my cough seemed to get worse for being out side. She hadn't shown up after 4, so I called and I guess she had forgotten.

I made chicken in the slow cooker. (I got the 2 for 1 chickens at the A&P so we'll have the second one in a couple of days!) Tonight hockey night in canada starts at 7, though the Montreal/Boston game doesn't start until 8. I'm hoping he can concentrate on the game enough not to need me because I am so ready to sleep even now!

Buffalo!

Al got James a Buffalo Sabres jersey. He has been inseperable from it.

James likes cats.

You can't really see what this picture was of, but there is a speck in the air that was the much in the news (now) flight taking off for Afghanistan. They always fly over RMC on their way out, I think. But if you can't see the plane, you might be able to see the new wind farm on Wolfe Island!(click on the photo for a larger image)

My phone rang in my office today. You may not think this is surprising, but I don't give anyone my phone number. (except Karen and I've lived to regret that! lol) I stared at the phone for a bit, thinking that if it was a wrong number the person would hang up. But it actually was for me. I suspect it only was for me because Jim, Brian and JuliA were not at their phones. It was actually good that he called me as I was able to help him sort some things out. But I made a suggestion to him that he was reluctant to agree to. I told him to think about it for a bit and then decide whichever way he wanted. So I was glad that due to my feeling under the weather, I had made the right choice of which job to go to today. RMC I have to feel pretty good to do as it is a longer walk and a longer day overall. I thought I needed a bit more of a break.

Hopefully, I feel better by Monday as I have a big day planned that day work-wise.

Poplar = High

The poplar (tree) allergy count is high in this area (well, ottawa) and this means that I have a sore throat. Adding this to my messed up face, I'm not feeling very good.
The two (face and throat) might still be related. We'll see if my face improves when the poplar starts to drop. Who knows? My face was pretty much a mystery to the doctor.
The doctor seemed sure about my face that one of two things would happen 1. It would get better on its own or 2. It would get worse. Deep thoughts.

One of the people in the meeting today is 'facebook friends' with one of the students we were discussing. Maybe a potential conflict of interest? (not that he remembers the student) He muttered something about having to delete his facebook account now. Well, no, but you could just delete the student. That wouldn't be hard. Why be facebook friends with people you don't know anyway?

Blogger has reverted to the format where I cannot post pictures or links anymore (except if I code it myself- all the pretty buttons are gone). It's not really blogger, it is how my browser is interacting with it. It just seems all random as to how they interact!

well, ok

I managed to hang the laundry and get the dinner started before I left for the doctor. It was nice, Jordin- but only 1/2 hour of nice!

I got to the doctors office at the appointment time and sat next to a guy who was very unconfortable in his own skin. He kept squirming around in the chair. I was a bit concerned, but apparently he was in for a tetanus shot. We sat in the waiting room for an hour. When I got to see the doctor, she didn't know what it was on my face. She didn't think it was bad enough to be shingles so she didn't want to give me an antiviral. She thought it was sun damage and I'll go back to see her in a month. As all hope of relief frittered away.

Now back to work.

new day

I'll leave in within the hour for the doctor, so I'm just hanging the laundry, washing the dishes and putting the dinner in the slow cooker before I go!

shingle

Out of my list of planned things to do, the amount I actually accomplished was 0. After I got the printouts, I had to read them and then I realized how bad a situation was and I had to scramble for our meeting tomorrow. But now at least I feel as prepared as I can be. Hopefully, I will get to declutter tomorrow as I no longer need to prepare for the meeting.

I talked with Karen and Henrie today and they came up with my latest diagnosis- shingles. I think that fits pretty well with the symptoms I have, we'll see what diagnosis the dr. gives. Karen thought if it is caught early, antiviral drugs are effective. She also said I wasn't contagious. Thank you Dr. Karen!

Yesterday, I did the taxes. Do you know there is no deduction for video games? So, I ended up having to pay for Myron.

For some unidentifiable reason blogger seems to have returned to normal for me and I can post pics and link easily again. I wonder if it will last?

next step

My printer in my office has never worked, so I just sent off some files to be printed to a lady in the main office who was being angst-y with me today. Any guesses on how long it will take to print?

After I deal with the printing, I think I need to spend the afternoon organizing. I have heaps of assignments all over my office, my desktop on my computer is FULL and I have 2707 emails in my inbox. De-cluttering is badly needed.

Due to my face driving me crazy, I seem to bring it up in conversation. At least this way I get lots of feedback. Today, the feedback was it could be an allergy, even if it is just on one half of my face! Fun-ny. Tomorrow, I'll find out the doctors opinion.

James did agree to do the day-long hockey camp. I think Myron convinced him that if he wanted to be a hockey star he needed to do this.

Yesterday, James came home from school saying this week was TV turn off week. Now, I understand what the point of it is- that they want kids to be more active. But this kid is already pretty active. (Last night he had a skating lesson and then played an hour of ball hockey in the house) And this week is the hockey PLAYOFFS. We decided we would participate after the playoffs were done, though I don't think Myron would participate at all!

observant

My mother commented on my boss' observational skills. He has always been like this. He is not afraid to ask questions of any sort. I didn't especially want to leave my office after our interchange. However, others in the real world either did not notice, or did not say. The discomfort in the face seems to come and go. I hope the doctor has some answers. And I hope it goes!

At work, I had to do a lot of proofreading of a paper we are sending to a journal. I am in charge of prepositions, apparently the others on my team aren't too keen on them.
Then in the afternoon I had to design a flyer for our meetings.
I did the taxes today, that occupied a good chunk of the evening. So, it was a fairly productive day.

Hello DU161.N197.ResNet.QueensU.CA (130.15.197.161), feel free to leave a comment.

invisible

Well, I thought that looking at my face, things didn't look too different from normal, but apparently, that is not altogether true. My boss walked into my office today, started talking to me, stopped and said "What is wrong with you? Your face looks funny". Sigh.

saddled

Today was a edge day- some things were open and some were closed. The schools + RMC + garbage (+ all things federal?) were closed but Queen's was open and I was in early, got a pile of things done and left at lunchtime. My doctor's office was open, so I got an appointment for Thursday.

At work, for some bizarre reason I was talking to someone and they told me that they used to live opposite the Polish Hall. It was too funny that I got to tell him what has happened to the Polish Hall since. He thought it was a step up for it to be a Church. He had all kinds of stories about the goings on there before.

James enjoys his days off very much. The little paper hockey players had lots of intense games. He does music and 'announces' all the way through the games. It is too cute. He has built himself a tent out of a baby play mat he has and blankets and is happily sleeping in it now.

preserved

Jamie and Delcee made it into our local paper. See link here

Edit

In my last post, I should have added that I should NOT have been surprised about the words on the cross as I'm pretty sure Al told me he was planning that. But my brain is funny and I was surprised.

It was still chilly here this morning -3 but I biked in for the first time this year! Yay being close to spring!

Wing

I have sorted out my photo posting problems. The photos here are from today. After James found his Easter eggs, he played a hockey game. Here is the winning team with their easter eggs:

James biked to Church. It was still pretty chilly, but getting better. At the end of Church, Al made omelettes:

James took off with the camera to take his favorite subject, Tara:

Tara and Tigerlily: (also taken by James)

When we first walked in to Church, I saw the new cross that Al had fashioned with Bob:

I saw there were words on top, but maybe my eyes were blurry when I came in, I could not read them. I assumed they were the words that were put on the cross when Jesus was on it by the soldiers. That was my thought. A little bit later, I glanced back again and my eyes were clearly focused. I saw "In the end, we dance".

Later, I asked Shari to pray for my face because it was still driving me crazy. Her first thought was that it was stress. That stress can do crazy things to your body! In the afternoon, it has been better.

James was sad today as he was supposed to have a playdate with his friend Duncan but that didn't work out. He had been looking forward to it all day, so that made him sad.

Kim called as I was making supper. They sold their house (I can't remember if I mentioned that before) and their plan to live at the hotel fell through, so they bought a trailer and plan to live in their barn. Kim is a rustic girl at heart, so she is actually looking forward to this. They are building a house on their property, it just will take a bit of time to get it completed! (They haven't started building, they still need to get the land re-zoned) So I was talking to her while I was getting the tacos ready. (James picked tacos for Easter dinner- he didn't seem keen on the idea of rabbit stew for some reason!) Because I was talking to her on the phone, instead of putting the taco box in recycling (as I would normally do) I set it down on the stove, on an unused burner. This would not have been a problem, except Myron turned the burner ON. (he meant to turn the back burner on for his salsa) At this time, I was off the phone with Kim and dishing up. I look back and can see that the box is smoking. I pick up the box (which is on FIRE!) and pop it in the sink.

I think of Easter as making things new. I am looking forward to a new day tomorrow!

Made new

The weather today- although cool - was sunny and windy enough to dry a few loads of laundry.

The house that had a fire (a few houses down from us) a while ago, is getting a new roof.

I ran through a rough draft of the taxes and had to use the 'general' form for Myron because he is more complicated now (we used the 'special' before) and I found that on the 'general' form there was an additional deduction for a dependent that was not on this special form and I wonder if we really qualify. I guess I'll have to call them.

James had a great hockey game this morning- he scored 5 goals. The black team pummeled the purple team 21-2.

My face is driving me crazy. There's some crazy swelling in it.(and it's been weird for a couple of weeks) You can't really tell from looking at it, but I sure can feel it. I'm guessing my doctors office will be closed Mon.? So I'll call Tues, or if it gets worse go to a walk in clinic, I guess.

In the end, we dance!

I had a dream on Tues AM and it was this long complicated dream but it ended in a library with everyone in the library in a spot with a coloured ribbon or cloth and dancing. (There was music) and when I woke up, in my head was the line In the end, we dance!

And that seemed to sum up the Easter story for me. Jesus went through a lot. A lot of good stuff and a lot of dark stuff, but in the end, He danced. (not literally)

Old

Blogger is being extremely weird today, so I'm not sure if this will post, but I'll give it a shot.

This morning James was spinning in circles. Then he comes to me with a really scared voice and pulls me to the front room to show me what was going on "The house is MOVING!!!". I go in the front room, I see nothing. Where is it moving? THEN, I figured out what was going on. It wasn't the room that was moving, he was dizzy. He was like, I stopped moving, but the room didn't. Right. First dizzy episode! Nice.

Today was RIFE with problems at work. Except for lunch. Lunch was NICE!
I don't think I've quite ever had this amount of problems. It's hard to put my finger on how to describe it but it's like the boundaries are being pushed to see how little they can do and get away with it. I have had a number of situations develop that I will involve my supervisor in. I assume we are going to have one beaut of a meeting next week. I have taken to writing emails to him that start with "The good news is..." and giving him the best news out of the situation that I can think of! (of course, I have to follow up with "The bad news is...")

James is very happy to have a 4 day weekend. I'll get a 3 day weekend as I still have heaps to do at work.

Maytag called and said they won't come tomorrow because they have run out of kits to fix these fridges that they have the recall on.

Tomorrow, I am going to give James "resurrection eggs" that Kelly recommended. They tell the story of Easter in eggs. I am interested to see what James thinks.

Then James tells me that the Easter Bunny comes Saturday night. So I bought a little bit of chocolate and we'll have a little hunt and it'll be fun but I don't want to make too big of a deal about it.

I am very excited about Sunday at Rustle. If you've ever thought of visiting Rustle, Sunday would be a good day to do it. The corner of Rustle/Russell St. and Patrick St. I expect all our assorted seats will be filled.

Email joke

My email system apparently has a sense of humour.

When I logged in, it informed me that I had a postponed composition. Did I want to go the the composition?

Sure, I couldn't remember what I had been in the middle of, but I was game for finishing it up.

Then this message came up:

'Empty folder! No messages really postponed!'

It is really sad when your email plays tricks on you.(and then laughs about it)

Labyrinth of voices

I got a letter from Maytag saying that my fridge might overheat and they wanted to come and fix it. They said you would go to a website. I did. I went through a few pages where I indentified who I was and they website popped up the address that they had sent the letter to. I confirmed that this was correct, only to be told the ZIP CODE was invalid. Yes, I don't have a zip code, I'm in CANADA.

So, I called Maytag and quickly learned that I don't speak Texan and the guy on the line did not speak Canadian, so it was difficult to communicate:
Tex: I keen git it fixed tomorrew from 8-5
Me: ok well, how about the afternoon?
Tex: No, from 8-5
Me: well, 12-5 is afternoon
He meant that we needed to be available all day. So, we settled on Good Friday. I am dubious about our settlement. I am hopeful that the fridge has been ok for 7 years, it can last a few more weeks.

James had some problem with pluralizing yesterday. If the plural of 'le' is 'les', why isn't the plural of 'un' 'uns'?

We have a dusting of snow this morning, but not too bad- I still wore my raingear. I have big welts on my legs yesterday from wearing the raingear and forgetting to tuck my pants into the boots. I will not make that mistake again.

Do you know that 6 year olds complain when you make chocolate chip muffins and forget to add the chocolate chips?

Carrier

I woke up at 3am this morning. As I was still awake at 5am, I decided to go to work! It was rainy and dark as I went through the streets at 6am, but I really enjoyed the relative quiet. It was quite a nice walk.

I have the CCRA document in my backpack, covered in plastic. Maybe going in to work early means it will get in the mail early. Who knows?

Sleep

My mother asked this morning if the paper was delivered quietly today. The problem last night was that my neighbour had a big party and the guests were kind of loud at 3am, so I was up from 3-4am and did not notice the paper arrive at 5am. Hopefully, that is a good sign, but really I can't tell. Right now, my eyes are so tired, they hurt.(My neighbour did apologize to me today)

I just got finished typing up the board minutes from Wed. and putting together our Church's application for Charitable Status. It looks so nice in the envelope ready to send.

Prayers for safe travels for the document and good sleep as I head to bed with hockey night in canada playing in the background.

Watch

James made a big mud hole on the lawn. He got stuck in it numerous times, which resulted in him falling down and he returned inside sopping wet. And our lawn having a big hole!

James' first hockey game as part of the black team is today. This is what he wrote about it at school this week (spelling left as is):
Samedi on va now pamere jeu dans noir. Avec Duncan. On a 8 persoone sur tout les écip. On jouer eau le ecip bleu.
translation into english:
Saturday, we have our first game as black. With Duncan. We have 8 people on the team. We are playing against the blue team.
translation into 6 year old:
I am really, really excited about this game!

This morning I played a lot of floor hockey with James, talked to Oma, got a load of laundry done (I have another load to the sopping clothes to do now!) and sold James' stroller. I really feel kinda sad about that because I have so many memories with it, but it does make more space in the garage, so that is good!

I left my watch at my office at Queen's and I won't be back there until Wed. so it means being watchless the first part of the week. I don't really like wearing the watch (which is why I leave it at work all the time as I keep taking it off) but I do like knowing the time when I'm out walking.

Swimming pool

Apparently, my backyard is now a swimming pool. Get out the trunks!

Now that Myron is home all day, he is a soft target for telemarketers. We have a new subscription to the Star, which arrives at 5am and wakes me. So I called their office and they said they would tell the carrier to deliver it more quietly. We'll see how that goes.
Myron also almost bought some sort of wholesale groceries (that we don't have room for) and made an appointment with direct buy but I refused to go so he had to tell them no. That and the appointment would have been 1.5 hours. To try to sell us stuff we don't want. Sorry!

Today was the last day of classes. Whoo-hoo. I just hope the eye-puffiness from the lack of sleep and the tree pollen allergy go down!

James' favorite things

James took pictures of his favorite things:
bus
lunchpail
arena
himself!
his calender where he records all his hockey games for his paper teams
me
tv
games
myron
his hockey board
his table set up as a hockey goal
my hair. the kid likes my hair.
Kassie bird
fractional bingo game

Welcome home OMA!

Coming soon, a photo essay by James of his favorite things. (It's already posted in Facebook because it is easier to post thing there than here!) James took the camera and said he was going to take photos of his favorite things, and he did. Kim But. said it captured his essence and I think she is quite right. Stay tuned.

The paper arrives at 5am each day and wakes me with a thunk. At the time, I think I will get up and make use of the extra hour, but I never do. I'm just more tired!

Hope you time-adjust ok Oma!

April fool

Apparently, I am an alien:

James took the above photo and told me that I had to be waving in it. He didn't specify that I had to look like an alien.
I took the photo below of the telephone pole that was struck by lightning on Sunday. They had cleaned up all the bits of wood lying around it that shattered off. But there were no burn marks, so the pole must have been pretty well grounded. We had a number of power outages on Sunday as they repaired the damage. It's more spectacular than the photo shows.

Below is a picture of the april fool that was on the ceiling of the elevator at work. Some heads have been replaced with people who work at the physics dept.

I just made some cookies for the board meeting and will be heading there soon.