Eyes

Me with Kim's birds. We've had them a month now and they have grown a bit attached to me, as you can see. Today was a very long day! James and I went to Rustle for 8, bringing his old bike to sell. It sold within an hour to some nice people, so I was quite pleased with that. James went home at lunch time. I stayed to photograph stuff that had not sold to post on Kijiji (The link should take you to one of my posts and if you scroll down and click on "View posters other ads" you can see everything that I posted!) Now my eyes are so tired, I am going to bed. I feel like little Sarah, who curled up on one of the couches and fell asleep during the sale:

Big sale

As the day dawned, there was much to sell

At the end of the day, Tanya had a sunburn, we fed and grew closer to a neighbourhood and we had sold a few things.

There's still lots to sell! Sunday 8-2 Russell and Patrick St. Another free BBQ for the neighbourhood- assuming we can Rustle up some more burgers! Come and see!

James plans a party

James' last hockey game is tomorrow, so this evening he was inspired to write invites to his hockey team (and Al) to come to our place for a ball hockey game.

We negotiated on the date. He wanted to invite people for tomorrow but I told him that people need some notice before a party. He said next weekend, but that is Joanna's wedding. So we compromised on 2 weeks away.

In the invites he told everyone that we have Gatorade for them. I guess I have to buy some now!

Tomorrow and Sunday Rustle is having a big yard sale. 8-4 tomorrow 8-2 Sunday. There is furniture, household items, clothes, books. Check it out! The fun is free.

My kitchen floor is not a mouse graveyard

When I got home from work yesterday, there was a mouse lying in the middle of my kitchen floor. I thought it was dead, it was pretty still-ish. And my first thought was - great, the mice now like the kitchen floor to die on. But he wasn't quite dead (pretty close though). He's dead now (not on my floor). But I'd rather if they are going to die, they do it in the open rather than hiding in some corner and becoming a smelly corpse.

Thanks Nat and Karyne for your comments. Karyne- I read the spoiler boards. There are people that analyze the screen caps for future episodes that ABC gives so they can tell which men are proceeding. Also, they try to find out when the men return to their 'normal' life (Facebook, twitter activity, etc.) and use this to predict who stays the longest.

I finished 'The Boleyn Inheritance' and have started on 'The Last wife of Henry VIII' by Carolly Erickson. And so, I have had to read about Catherine Howard's nasty demise twice. I am happy to get a bit of reading in now that my work isn't so crazy.

I deleted all my student emails from the fall term - 1000 of them. I still need to delete the student emails from this past term.

Hopefully, the rain will let up for a short bit tomorrow evening for James' first soccer game!

ABC D-rama

Yesterday evening I watched the Bachelorette. In case Nat + Karrie and Karyne are watching, here were/are my thoughts:
I love Jilly as the Bachelorette and how she wants all of the guys to come out of it with positive experiences.
I can't believe she kept foot fetish guy. I found him a bit creepy. I can't think he'll stick around that long.
I think the dudes were pretty overwhelmed by the Harlem Globetrotters. That would have been a difficult date to be on date-wise. Fun though- they had a crowd.
I liked Jake, but thought Jilly was more into the singer than him.
I wasn't too keen on Wes. From the two in the car, I thought Brad was going to get picked over Wes. I have heard that Wes gets into the Final 6, but I just don't like him that much. But then I'm not Jilly! The rest of the rumoured Final 6 I think I do like.

Yesterday, when I got James off the bus, we had a close call. The bus was stopped with its lights flashing. (meaning cars need to stop in both directions) I saw a car coming the opposite direction and it didn't seem to be slowing, so James and I stopped. The car did eventually stop, but I really didn't think it was going to!

Happy Birthday Mom!

While I was washing the dishes, I told James to pick a picture for Oma's birthday. This was what I found when I got to the computer. (though he made me sign my own name) Hope you have a wonderful flower-filled day!

Sunscreen sticks

The other side of the bridge being up

Kim planted these in my garden last year, but I have no idea what they are. Pretty, though.

This year I bought some sunscreen sticks (like chapstick but a bit bigger). These are a hit with the little man and myself. He has no problem self-applying the sticks and so he can take them to school. He used to get freakish about sunscreen on his face, but is perfectly happy using the stick on his face. For me, I love the screening is so easy with the boy, but I also love that my skin has not reacted to the stick. Normally, sunscreen and my face are not friends.

Tulips after the rain

I was up from 4-6am this morning. I think I slept some between 6-7 when James woke me up.

Today we learned that Kim's parrots really like freezies and popcorn. I'm sure Kim appreciates their new dietary intake.

Today James rode his new bike to Church. He did really well on a bigger bike. We are selling his old bike on Kijiji.

I am trying to gather the energy to whippersnipper. It needs to be done, but I find the thing very heavy!

#6

James is #6 in this picture. He and his team have improved quite a bit since I last saw them as the blue jays. James is a much better skater now and has a pretty good eye for the game. James scored 6 goals!

I bought James and Myron tickets to Moncton today. They are leaving after school ends. They got about $400 off the tickets because the trains they took at Christmas were very late. Not bad!
When James gets back, the rest of the summer looks like
-1 week soccer camp
-1 week vacation bible school
-2 weeks hockey camp
-1 week gymnastics camp
-1 week soccer camp
Then he has one week off before school starts! (if I'm free that week, maybe we'll head to St. Catharines, if my parents will have us!)
The camps are all half day camps except one week of the hockey camp he goes 7:30-3:30 and the second week of hockey camp is only 1-2pm.

A dog that needs a seeing eye dog

Our neighbours got a small dog a couple of year ago. This dog was wild when they first got her- so much energy. As she grew up, she still had lots of energy, but she wasn't wild anymore. Every morning Theresa would take her for a high spirited walk. Today, when I saw her, the dog was dragging back, unwilling to go for the walk. I asked Theresa what was wrong and she told me the dog had gotten an infection in her eyes and just like that was blind. All her energy must now be going into figuring out her new surroundings.

James' pond field trip went well, though he was disappointed that he didn't catch anything (they had bug nets, I think)
His soccer practice was also good. He's #6!

I watched some of the hockey game with him this evening. Mainly because James is snuggly then. We saw a commercial that was being funny about something and said "It's ok to cry". And so I asked James if he knew it was ok to cry. He said yes. Then a couple of minutes later (after he had some time to think), he said that it's not good to cry just because you don't get your own way. Very true.

In the news

There's not much in the news about the H1N1 virus anymore, despite the fact the cases are growing. I guess they aren't growing exponentially enough. I am glad I don't have students right now as sicknesses seem to rip through them due to their all living together!

James has a pond field trip today and a soccer practice this evening. When I looked at the weather yesterday, it said sunny all day. Now it's cloudy and they saw it will rain. Colour me (and my child) dressed incorrectly for the day.

The lady at the A&P told me that starting June 1 they will start charging for bags. So this now leaves the difference between a&P and Food basics that they have fancier looking stores? I'm sure that justifies they higher prices.

Superman

I went shopping at the Cat center today! I got some nice clothes for work and Superman pjs for James.(Note he is DANCING in the pictures. And it has a cape) I also found him some maple leafs shorts and a montreal canadiens cap.

James has a bit of a cold, so he stayed home from school. He stayed in bed most of the time I was shopping. By the afternoon he was perkier and we did some work - farm animals (in French), printing and did 1/2 of the pooh and piglet book that he got for his birthday.

Then he put masking tape all over the house and ran in the sprinkler. Hopefully, he is still good tomorrow as his class has a pond field trip and he has a soccer practice in the evening.

It was a super day to take off- the weather was wonderful!

With regards to the last post, I do see the bridge go up quite a bit as it's on my way to RMC. The bridge goes up on the hour, if there is a boat (or more) waiting to go up. Thanks Jordin for letting me know I wasn't crazy about that sign. I think sensible people would know to turn off their motor and non-sensible people might not read a sign. And there is only one sign and you can't see it from too far and the traffic normally backs up for a few blocks. When I first read the sign, my thought was - the bridge is up- how will I get to work? (It was early in the morning though! I figured it out :)

There was a story in the whig that an AK-47 was uncovered on Adelaide St. That's a bit close for comfort.

Crossing

On the back of the tank, I was very amused by the yellow sign on the back that read "Student Driver". I didn't want to get any closer to take the picture as there was a dude with his head out the hole. I tried to look like I was taking a picture of the bridge. (The don't like us taking military pictures)

Boat #1 going through.

Next guys turn.

Boat #2 through.

I hadn't seen the above sign before this week. Maybe it was always there, but I never noticed it?

Star Wars

James watched 'Star Wars' last night. (CBC wasn't covering the playoff game)
He thought it was really funny. I heard so much laughter from him. I never thought it was that funny and I couldn't watch it for the violence this time. I did watch the bit where the Jawas capture R2D2. That was pretty funny.

This morning, I asked James what his favorite part of the movie were and his response was:
1. when darth vader chops off obi wans head during their fight
2. when the death star blows up

He wants to watch the Empire strikes back tonight. (again, CBC is letting us down!)

Today he has a field trip to his gymnastics club and after school he has swimming with his friends. I expect he will conk out early like Wed. night. I'm out for prayer at Rustle this ev.

I have another appt with my dr. June 4 about my face.

Oh, and I just found out the Bachelorette Jillian began on Monday. I missed it!

4:44

The paper was delivered at 4:44 this morning! Since it woke me, I got up and went into work early.

My mother said about the photo in the last post that it is good that James thinks outside the box. My goodness, he thinks so far out of the box, he can't see the box anymore!

This past week I realized I made 2 big mistakes.

1. When I did the taxes, I did not realize that Myron was paying tax on the insurance money he was getting and so I did not fill in the 'income tax paid' line. So, he paid $5000 in tax that we didn't get any credit for! (and, obviously, they are way overdoing the amount of tax they are taking as his required payment was maybe 1/5 of that- not sure if I want to take on the insurance company about that though as they have so many other issues with him) So I have written a letter to Revenue Canada asking them to reassess this.

2. When I got Jo's invitation to her wedding, I immediately went to the website listed but everything was still about the Australian wedding, so I decided to wait a bit to RSVP until it was updated to the Kingston one. BUT I waited to long as when I went there yesterday the RSVP deadline was MAY 6th! So I'll call her mom tonight and see how badly I have screwed up.

Yesterday, I dug dandelions again in the morning and cleared only a small bit of the land. I still have a long way to go and my green bin is filling up quickly with all the weeds! But the front lawn seems good, just a long way to go in the back.

In the afternoon, I put on the movie "Ballet Shoes" to watch while I was cleaning the front room. It was a book I read as a girl, so I was interested to see what they did with the movie. I was pretty shocked when I opened it to see it was rated 'PG' as the book was a for sure 'G'. My dad said it was probably the US rating as they are a stricter than the Canadian ones. The reason it was PG is for 'smoking'. There is a scene with smoking in it as the lady with the lung condition tried a cigarette as she thinks it will 'help' her condition but she ends up hacking and gagging, so not really 'glorifying' cigarette smoke! I thought it did the book justice, except at the end they miss Posys growth. (She has a very selfish scene and is punished and runs away and they do not show her growing unselfish they just hop on to the next plot point, which would make more sense if you saw that she really wasn't so selfish)
James watched the movie too but kept asking when it would be over, so I don't think he liked it much!

In the evening, Al and Shari were kind enough to invite James over to watch the hockey game (not on CBC so we wouldn't get it) so that Myron and I could see a movie that he really wanted to see 'Ghosts of girlfriends past'- it had references to the Christmas Carol in it. I had never been to the cinema on Gardiners before. It seems well-designed. The attendance wasn't that large- maybe 15-20 people. There were 2 giggly teenage girls who sat near us and kept looking/texting? on their phones. I thought this was interesting as you pay all that money to see the movie, but the movie wasn't really touching them. It was about a womanizing guy and how he goes to his brothers wedding has this experience with the ghosts and becomes a one woman guy. It showed his is influencial uncle taught him to be this way and when they are seeming the 'flashback', the 'ghost' says I'm calling CPS- and rightly so- this uncle was not being a good parent. I thought of Karyne's story about good parents who are being looked into by CPS. I hope they are able to put most of their efforts into parents that need help, not into the good ones.
James had a great time at Al and Shari's. He said the next time he goes over, he's not coming home. (probably not an idle threat- watch your invitations guys!) Al and Shari said he had a lot of energy. James said (last night)that their cats will sleep well tonight! James also fell asleep as soon as I popped him into bed. Thanks again Al and Shari!

Teams on your belly

James wrote all the NHL teams on his belly. Where he gets these ideas, I don't know!

Heavy rain

Some tulips are over, some are just beginning.




James taped up the entire house. Some kids need expensive toys. Mine just needs $1 worth of tape.

James had a great time at A.J.'s even though they stayed up a tad late.
I headed over to pick him up for 8am and we made it home before the heavy rains came. It was pouring when James went to hockey. He had a good game though.
My heel is still hurting today, but I'm trying to rest it as much as I can, so I took a couple of breaks today to read "The Boleyn Inheritance" by Philippa Gregory. It's a fictional (though based in fact) work about Henry (8th?) and Anne of Cleves and Katherine Howard. A possible account of how things went maybe.

Katie tells me that Norway won Eurovision (click for winning song).

I have a mouse again. I guess they move into my house in the spring to nest?

My face is still having issues, so I'll have to go back to the doctor and maybe get burned again. It is one the whole less itchy than it was.

what the racoon did

As I came around the corner to put the compost away- something didn't look right:

The pictures don't show it well, but theres a racoon sized hole at the top of the double doors of the shed.

The shed inside, up-ended. I didn't clean it up, as I was rushing off to work. For all I know, there could be a racoon under all that. (I doubt it though!)

James and A.J. concocted a scheme where James would sleep over at A.J.'s house. James told me the plan on the way home from the bus, but I didn't really think it would happen. But A.J. apparently got his parents on board quickly as there was a message on the machine by the time we got home from the bus. So after dinner, I took James over and hung out with Gerald and Annette for a bit. Then I came home and mowed the lawn. The front lawn grows so fast, it was already difficult to mow. Then I watched the movie "Looking for Kitty", which was interesting. It had an 'Altenate Opening' which I watched after the movie. The 'alternate opening' was much better than the 'actual opening', I thought!

raided

I went out this morning to put out the compost and as I rounded the corner of my shed I could tell something was wrong. The double doors of the shed (which we never use) were all twisted at the top. The doors misaligned. There was a hole just big enough for a racoon to fit through. He trashed the shed. Now I need to figure out how to racoon-proof the shed. Saturday is supposed to be rainy, but Sunday and Monday nice, so I should be able to empty the shed and reconstruct the arrangement to keep out one ingenious racoon.

I somehow hurt my heel yesterday. It was better after a bit of sleep and did ok on the 3km in. Hopefully, it will also get me home!

Today is an exciting day at RMC. A ceremony at the arch at 10 and flybys of aircraft. There were heaps of traffic advisors here already when I arrived.

blitz

After school yesterday, James went swimming with his friends. Then he really, really, really wanted to help with the food blitz. He did not care about the hockey game. He wanted to go. But he was so tired, he was asleep by 6:30pm and missed the blitz and the game entirely. He slept for a good 12 hours. Maybe he's growing again!

The wind and the rain going across the causeway this morning was pretty crazy. I had to lean pretty hard into the wind to avoid being blown into traffic. It was really strong!

My boss and office mate are heading back from their conference in PA today. It has been nice having the office to myself and being able to crank the heat :)

plastic bags

An article in the kingston whig relating to plastic bags says:

Kingstonians likely consume about 35 million plastic bags a year, according to the advisory group. About a third of those bags end up being recycled, while 1% wide up in a landfill.

Please excuse the whig's typo, but the math is a bit puzzling- they account for 35% of the bags. What happens to the other 65%? Are they really 'consumed'?

I am glad that Carolyn is as determined as I to 'root' out the evil dandelions. It is amazing that you can clear the lawn and the next day there will be even more. There is a swatch of my back garden that seems to be lion free this year and I am not sure why. Wind patterns maybe?

I like that Michelle is up for a 1500 post party. I thought the partys only came on the thousands!

Card

Inside my mother's day card in case it said (in case it is hard to read):
maman tu es bon.
merci pour la pizza.
maman tu es bon a jouer avec moi.
Tu aide moi quand j'ai une nouvelle chose pour mon nintendo ds.
Quand je prend mon bicyclette je t'aime.
Je t'aime beaucoup!?.,

I think that was mostly compliments.

My boss left for a conference this morning. He took my office mate with him. So I'm alone in a huge office for 3 days. I'm happy to be able to talk to myself while I work. I can't listen to music though- you tube is blocked there! (as I type this I have Sarah McLachlan's version of song for a winter night on youtube playing) I am pretty isolated though. When I ran into a problem that I needed help with, I had to waltz into another module. I asked a guy on my team and he got frustrated that he didn't know how to answer my question. Maybe, he thought he had let me down. But I was like- dude it helped just to talk it out.

James had gymnastics after school and I did some much needed vacuuming.
The playoff game just started (9pm)- I have no idea how the boy will get enough sleep to get up for school tomorrow. The playoffs apparently are way exciting!

Changes

Here is the beautiful Shari smiling out at you!

Most of the pre-service chatter this morning was about Al's new facial hair. Way to trump the talk about mothers Al! Change seems to take everyone a little off guard.

Facebook has also recently made changes that aren't so helpful. But my interesting facebook note of the day is that I have been 'defriended' by a former 'friend'. Now as far as I know I have not offended this person (except I didn't write a birthday note as facebook has made the birthday list pretty far down so I don't notice anymore)- this is the only thing that I can think of that I did wrong. But it may be just an accident. Maybe I was accidentally 'defriended'. O Facebook! So I don't know if I should say something to this person or just ignore it. I'll probably ignore it- if they have a problem with me, they should have told me!

This is post #1400!

Mother's day

I saw this Mothers video on Amrita's blog. Very good.

Kim dropped by today to get some water. She doesn't have a supply of clean water in her trailer so she drops by every couple of days to refill her tanks. Her freezer is plugged in at a neighbours in Gan. She is supported by a community. They have not been able to get their trailer to the campsite because the rain has not allowed their road builder to road build! They are having problems with the zoning because instead of only zoning the part they want to build their house on as residential, the zoners wanted to zone the whole property and the whole property is NOT suitable for residential living. They may also have a buyer for their kingston home. If that goes through, they will have gone from having 2 houses that they haven't been able to sell for years to selling both of them within a few months. And if the zoning problems don't work out, they won't have a house at all come fall and they will be very cold!

I worked on pulling dandelions in the afternoon after the rain in hopes they would be easier to pull up when the ground was so wet. I wish they would stop growing on my lawn!

Sandbox

This is the DQ cake that James requested, but then decided that he did not like. He seems to have gone off ice cream. What kid does that?

In watching more than my fair share of hockey (my fair share should be 0) I have heard of the dispute about the guy trying to buy the Coyotes and bring them to Hamilton. To me (and I am completely unknowledgable about the situation!) it seems like kids playing in a sandbox and not wanting the other kid to come in and play. The Coyotes are bankrupt. This man has money. Why not let him buy out the team and move it wherever he wants? It seems most illogical to me that they are making such a fuss. Why aren't they grateful to him for wanting to bail out the team? Why do they stop him from buying a team every time he tries? Why does he keep trying? I'd be like- these people don't want to play with me, I'm going to find another sandbox to play in!

James' hockey team lost today 11-10 to Gold.

James wouldn't do the roll on the runway because he didn't want to be on TV.

James is looking forward to tonight- 2 hockey games. Pitt./Wash is the same as he watched last night so I would think they'll be pretty tired today!

display

Today turned out to be quite a nice day. After work, I decided to mow the lawn seeing as there is rain in the forecast for the weekend. I couldn't believe how much it had grown. It seems like just a short while since there was snow on it. Using the push mower was quite hard on the arms!

James was on display at his gymnastics club. I quite enjoyed all the age groups. James' group did not do a choreographed routine, just a display of what they do weekly. They did the routine to the song "Macho man", which I found amusing. The girls of the same age did a group routine. The younger kids did a follow-the-leader routine, which was a good way to deal with that age group.

Tomorrow James has a hockey game at 10am at the Invista Center and then (if it is nice) he and his buddies from the team are going to the airport to ride on the runway (they say there will be no planes!)

Today James played a number of nintendo hockey games. Now he is back with his paper hockey guys and Myron is on the Nintendo.

7 on 7!

Bike from great Oma and Opa. Fits him perfectly!

Hockey net from Nanny.

The net Oma made for him. (same kit as the other one) He was really pleased to have 2 nets! Maybe Oma can return to make up Nanny's net as well.

An assortment of things. His favorite was the hockey nintendo DS game. Though it frustrates him no end because he isn't any good at playing it yet.

A funny note from the Queen's security website. This incident was reported:

April 22: 00:55 am: Waldron Tower - Residence staff contacted the ERC to report a man in his mid 40s was requesting entry to the building because he had been chased by foxes through some fields and wanted to get away from them and to contact police about the animals. He was refused entry by the desk and subsequently left the area before Campus Security staff arrived. A search if the vicinity was unsuccessful in locating this individual or the alleged skulk of foxes.

Dive in

The dancing stunt at Antwerp station. (click for link) I watched this quite a number of times. I love that while they have about 200 planned dancers, you can tell that members of the crowd are getting involved as well. If people broke into dance near you, would you dance or stand on the sidelines with your cellphone?

This other link is kids singing Coldplay's Viva la vida I love how into it they are!

Birthday dinner

Put a maple leaf on it and he'll love it! Thanks Nat and Karrie!

We went to Kelseys for dinner, only it wasn't Kelseys anymore. Similar, but not with as much selection of dinner choices.

James liked his new FIFA 2009 soccer nintendo DS game. He especially liked getting Grandad to play it. Thanks for dropping by Oma and Grandad!

1 apple, 2 hands, 3 birds

Kim's birds are visiting while Kim and Zully are finishing up their move. This means I have 3 birds in the house. I still only have 2 hands. These birds all really like apples. The first time I tried to do this feeding time at the zoo, it went quite badly. (due to the hand limitations) But I figured out how to wedge pieces into Kassie's cage and then I could hand feed the other two at the same time. Feeding time goes much better now.

I put James' old bike seat on Freecycle and had some people ask for pictures, etc. But I talked to my office mate about it and they have a girl living with them who could do with it, so I decided to give it to him. He's also handy enough to affix it to the bike. (I'm not sure if it has all the bolts required) So I posted a 'taken' and emailed all the people I thought I had conversed with about it. But I missed one and she emailed me when she saw the taken sign and said she thought I was freecycling it to her? But, the thing is - she didn't even have a BIKE! (and you need a bike to use a bike carrier!)

I slept ok last night and my face was ok today and there is a hockey game on tonight, so all seems right in the world for now!

Tomorrow, my parents are planning on being in town to see James for his birthday. James is very excited! Wednesday he is going swimming with some friends and Thursday is his birthday!

Tigerlily's dedication

She's a sweetie.

This one's pretty sweet too.

My cold/allergies had a setback last night and I had a bad night. My face also seems to have had a setback and the spot is puffier now. There's no hockey game on CBC tonight, which is a setback for James. But there's always tomorrow!

No running!

This morning was the first day that my tulips were open!

I like this photo because you can see the tulips straining toward the sun. You know they want to open! In behind is an old rose bush greening up.

James had his birthday party at the Playtrium today. The signs that said "No running" and "No throwing balls" were ignored by all participants at the playtrium. After about 15 minutes in the structure, Tara was done, but the boys continued running, for what seemed like hours. Tara would join in whenever she felt rested enough, but the boys never stopped!
It was very different from last year's party. Last year I knew all the kids and their parents and this time James did all the inviting, so I knew about half of the kids. Because half of the kids did not know me, there was little demand on me. Also, the kids being a year older meant they were a lot more self sufficient. I just had to be on hand for injuries, which there weren't any that a drink at the drinking fountain couldn't cure.
The going away gifts went over very well. The boys loved their hockey sticks (Tara preferred bubbles over the hockey stick, which was fine as well)
A selection of James' gifts:

Kingston Frontenacs hockey cards

Pirate-opoly- a fun take-off on Monopoly that we played for hours after we got home.

James calls this R2D2 but it's actually the clone 'Goldie'. I don't really understand the whole clone wars stuff, so I just agreed that it was R2D2. It was easier that way.
He also got a remote control jeep and a Wendel Clark book. He read the book before bed. I was surprised he didn't know who Jari Kurri was. The star is only in the spotlight for a flash.

I read this Mike Yaconelli quote today:

We’d like to have it all neat and orderly. We want to be able to measure it and control it, but the reality is that Jesus is a mystery. The Christian faith is a mystery. The disciples spent their entire time following him going, “Uhh, what the heck are you doing? We don’t understand what you’re doing and we don’t know why you’re doing it.” And when he would explain why he was doing it, they still didn’t get it.