What a day!

It snowed. And there was sunshine. And then a bit more snow.

James had his hockey practice from 9-10am, then we went to Rustle.
It was a baptism service today- which are really special ones. James didn't quite grasp the specialness of it, but he did get to experience being there so maybe the specialness will sink in eventually.
First was Mark S., then Steve.
Then Shari was baptized again by her mother. And her mother issued the best line of the day. To Shari she said "I should be in that tub with you..." and Shari moved over and she finished with "...but I don't trust Al."
Then there were Phil, Nicole, Pearl and Faye. It was so beautiful, there really are no words.
I can't say that I like too much about Halloween, but I sure did like this! (I also still like the 1/2 price candy tomorrow!)

James is off to a Halloween party this afternoon, then going trick or treating with his friends. I am hoping to get some work done around the house!

Proctor skeleton

My funny brother suggested I dress up as a 'proctor skeleton' tomorrow. He makes me laugh:)

Today I spent a good amount of time with Kimmee. We went to 2 sessions in the morning on understanding Islam. Then we did some shopping. We went to Walmart. I got a new indoor clothes hanging dryer. It seemed really busy to me and I was reminded why I never shop on Saturday afternoon! The Walmart lady we had checking out our stuff said it wasn't really bad today. It seemed pretty busy to me. Then we went to Produce Town (my first time!). Some of their produce wasn't in great shape but a lot was good, just depended on what was fresh I guess. Then we got some groceries at Food Basics. Then she dropped me at home but came to pick me up in the evening and we went to a session down at Queen's.

James is planning on hanging out with his friends tomorrow afternoon. He suspects this is the parents plan to wear the kids out before the exciting evening. He's a smart kid! He plans to be back pretty late tomorrow. So he was unsure of if we would have time to read the Bible. However, they are heading out at 6pm for trick or treating so they may be done by 7pm. That will shock him!

Yesterday James and I read the bit in the Bible where the leaders give Judas money to betray Jesus. After finishing, James exclaimed "I don't think he'll do it- he was just taking the money to get rich". Children apparently would do things differently!

I'm not to keen on the Halloween- the only thing I like is the half price candy the next day!

The tooth came out

I haven't got the 'after' picture yet but it fell out yesterday during first snack and landed on his chair. He was pretty pleased with the whole thing anyway.

Yesterday, his class got to go to the Skate Canada demonstration at the K-rock center (I think it was kind of a warm up for the events that started today)

James got to play on the PD team tonight- still part of the tryout process. Then he went to a Halloween party at AJ's kung-fu class. He seemed to have had a pretty good time.

My work is tripping along, but not as quickly as I had hoped. I had thought I would be done the proctor skeleton by the end of today, but I'm not quite finished - I just have to get the rest of the Grant shifts in, which I may try to get done Mon am and then start the special needs scheduling in the afternoon. The database is all set to go, which is always a bit of work. We're in high gear preparing for exams now, only a month to go!

Another loose tooth

My dad!

My mom!

For some reason James liked the lemons.

TODAY- James has a new loose tooth!!

James with a clone trooper

What ultimately happens to clone troopers. (or any of his star wars action figures) He can't reattach arms yet, so that is my job when it happens.

A sign on Queen St.

On Monday night I wasn't feeling 100%. I happened to find a book I had bought about a year ago and never read. That is SWEET to find unread books. I read a bit before I went to sleep but then I woke up at 3:30am and read it all. It was a fiction book about dealing with serious crime in community.

Work is crazy busy as I'm juggling a few things- midterms, the dec exam database needs all the puzzle pieces put in and I am trying to get the proctor scheduling database ready. Today's puzzle piece was private exam rooms. Tomorrow will be print deadlines. Plus the regular volume of phone calls and email!

It has suddenly turned very windy here. Is this our weather bomb?

‎"Rookie clones are known as "shinies" until their armor shows the scars of combat" (James' clone commander manual)

Siren song

Wikipedia says about the siren song: The term "siren song" refers to an appeal that is hard to resist but that, if heeded, will lead to a bad result. While I always cringed when my students' used wikipedia for a source, I don't mind using it on an informal blog.

In the Greek epic poem "Argonautica" Orpheus plays his lyre and drowns out the sirens and thereby saves most of the crew.

In another Greek epic "The Odyssey" Odysseus straps himself to the bow of the ship and has his sailors plug their ears with beeswax so he can hear the song but he can't follow it.

I think it interesting that these correlate with Dr. Phil's advice. You can 'white-knuckle' your way through something (which is better than nothing at all!) or you can overcome bad ways with good ways.
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Not on Siren songs anymore.
This morning Mady sang the song I posted about this morning- I was like - hey- I was just listening to that!

James and I went and heard Greg H.'s story in the evening. It was very good and interesting. They had desserts afterwards and so as soon as the ending prayer was done, James was off like a shot to check them out. However, he wouldn't take any until I came with him. So he ran to the desserts and then ran back to get me and dragged me back to the desserts. As the Church is not as speedy as James he was still the first one to take any desserts. He had 3 Timbits. He's a pretty simple kid. They had quite a spead of desserts though- it looked really good!

Recommended for you

When I go into youtube, it suggests videos "recommended for you". I assume it makes the decisions on what sort of videos you would like to see based on what you normally watch. Unfortunately, as James spends a lot of time watching videos on my youtube all my recommendations are always for Lego Star Wars stuff. So it really has read me wrong. But it's probably got a pretty good grasp on what James would like to see.

I am currently listening to Chris Tomlins "Our God" that we sang last night. It has no Lego battles so James probably wouldn't be too keen on it. He is currently at hockey practice though so I can play what I want!

Today it is rainy but I don't mind walking in the rain to Church. I forgot my glasses at work so I couldn't drive anyway. James is probably pretty pleased that he is getting a week off from Rustle as he doesn't like to walk in the rain. The Calvary Church that we'll go to in the evening is much closer so he won't complain about that!

On Friday I went to the Metro on my lunch break (about 1:30) and found that the line ups were huge so I didn't buy anything. I was rather surprised as I expected this if I went after work on a Friday, but not mid-afternoon. It would have been a 20 minute wait and I was only trying to buy a couple of things. The express line had at least 20 people in it. So instead I went to John's after work and there was no lineup and I got a chicken as well for dinner on Monday.

On my bike ride back from the Metro in the afternoon, I saw one of the candidates for mayor's car's being ticketed by the police. I guess they didn't buy the pay and display ticket. Unfortunately, it was the person I was thinking of voting for. Now I am not so sure- if their staffers (or themselves) do not obey municipal guidelines for parking, should we put them in charge of the municipality? I'm sure it is only a little thing and really not a good election issue, but it really may sway my vote!

P.S. This is post #1800!

Are oyu good in qaulity assukrance?

I got a (SPAM) email message that asked "Are oyu good in qaulity assukrance?". Obviously they are very short in quality assurance personnel and I should contact them immediately!

Kim and I had a good time at the NHOP event. One part was we had breakout groups of 4-6 people and we prayed for each other. I am not too keen on this when I don't know the people, but I knew that Kim would be less keen so I took her hand to encourage her. It went fine despite her hesitation.

After that we joined together as a large group and had people pray for Trenton and R. Williams and the vitim's families.

Then Rob spoke- some good teaching about prayer. So it was all good :)

Tomorrow James has hockey practice. I'm not sure if he'll be up for Rustle but I'm taking him to Calvary Church in the evening for their "This is my story" series (where 1 member of the congregation tells their story) It is an interesting way to learn what God is doing in others' lives and learn things about each other.

1798

Michelle- this is post #1798- we are inching toward the #2000 party.

Last night James went to the game of a team that he is 'on the bubble' of making. It's a higher level for his age group. I don't really know how to explain it. Anyway, they have been trying to decide if they can give one of the positions on the team to him, but he's not on the team at this point. Anyway, yesterday after school, he went to one of their game and they were short a player so he got to play and he scored a goal! So he was pretty pleased with that.

This morning James has a game with his regular team (Salvation Army). The boys had a real hard time getting up in time and it was a 9am game, so I don't know how they will do with a 7am game!

James is going to a birthday party for Duncan from 3:30-6:30 today. He's looking forward to it!

I am going out with Kim tonight to City Christian Center for a prayer and worship session with a group from NHOP in Ottawa. 7pm in case anyone is interested. Some of the group Spora will be playing the music.

I signed James up for a free trial of NHL Game Center, which allows him to watch hockey games not shown in our area on the computer. He has plans to save up his money so he can get this during the playoffs, but we will see if Star wars things distract him too much! (He has no money right now as he bought some Star Wars ship while my parents were here)

sun

James got up early yesterday and asked me why the light outside wasn't on.
That's the SUN James- you are up too early!

This week at work has been very busy with midterms. Is it mid term already? It is hard to keep track of the weeks!

I am also working on rooming the Dec. exams and learning a new proctor scheduling tool.
Unfortunately, as there are both midterms and Dec. exams on my brain sometimes I answer midterm questions with Dec. answers. I have to make sure I get people to clarify which they are talking about!

The biking is getting quite nippy- I am wearing a scarf and mitts. Today was also quite windy which made it more difficult. Tomorrow the high is 7 degrees, but at least it isn't supposed to rain.

The visit

My parents came up for Friday and Saturday. They got to see a lot of James' hockey! On Friday night I made chicken adobo, rice and veggies. It was quite nice. Tonight they took us out to the Grizzly Grill. It was very nice even though none of us had ostrich or alligator.
James was a bundle of energy. I think he really appreciated having them around! He fell asleep early so they must have tired him out!

Tomorrow evening we are haivng Myron's birthday party. We are having a couple of families over for dinner. We'll have 6 adults and 6 children in our wee house. See how it holds up!

Worth it

James and I spent Monday morning cleaning up his toy bins. He found a few things he had lost. When he talked on the phone with Oma he claimed the cleaning up was 'worth it' for the finds.

He is VERY excited about Oma and Grandad coming to visit. He has been looking forward to the end of school on Friday all week because he knows they will be there to pick him up.

In my agenda that I use to organize things I found someone had found it and written on Friday "OMA"

He is calling them every night, I believe. A highly anticipated visit!

Tonight is Survivor night!

Early morning photos from 10 10 10

James' clones take over the garage

The old flowers were cut down from here

and placed here for brush pickup!

Compare

James on the first day of school, tooth still intact

James with the missing tooth today

Hicken

When I went to John's deli yesterday, there was a large object in the meat section labeled "HICKEN". I had not seen anything like it before and I couldn't figure out if there was a spelling error and it should have been labeled "CHICKEN" or if it really was a cross between a pig and a chicken and really was a "HICKEN". Needless to say, I didn't buy it as I couldn't figure out what it was. It probably would have fed my parents as well as us, but exactly what we would have been eating, I don't rightly know.
They also had a duck that would have fit in my slow cooker, but I couldn't bring myself to eat a DUCK!

This morning the boys had a hard time getting up for hockey practice. It was at 8 at the M-Center. They were late. I am not sure how they are going to handle the 7am games.

Today I realized that we were out of pizza sauce so I decided to bike downtown to food basics. I did not realize there was so much construction going on downtown! Montreal st. was blocked so I went down to bagot. Bagot was blocked so I went down to Rideau, which was unpaved, but open. At Food Basics, I also picked up some of the Nestle chocolate ice cream that was on sale for 1.88. It is seriously good stuff!

When I got back I mowed the lawn, made pizza and then worked again on cutting down my old flowers in the patch.

I read James a book on the World cup and watched him play some soccer games on the Wii. Soccer fever lives on!

Done

Happy birthday Karrie- please enjoy the exam schedule. Despite the fact that you don't go to Queen's and don't really care what is on the schedule. LOTS of people do. I am not kidding you. And so, you should be really happy that the schedule posted on your birthday as this was really important to a lot of people.
Lots of people are booking airline tickets as we speak.

James has hockey practice Sat and Sun morning. He's a hockey boy. Thanksgiving doesn't stop hockey!

My parents are coming up next weekend. Thankfully, James' game that weekend is at the reasonable hour of 10am on Saturday at the invista center. I am busy trying to think up a recipe that both they and James will like! We'll see what I can come up with.

Rustle is having a big turkey lunch on Sunday!

Brown cloak

James wants to be a jedi for Halloween. He has a lightsaber (or two) but he needs a brown cape. Anyone have one we can borrow?

The exam schedule is done and I've sent it out for the server to pickup. It only picks up once a day and then it's a done deal. I'm mostly done all the rooming as well. I'm hoping to finish that up tomorrow. I have a bunch of computer midterm stuff to get on top of first and then I will be rooming away tomorrow.

I had an interesting phone conversation today. The person was calling as he did not like the time of his exam and he told me that he was a research chair and then he paused. As if I was supposed to say something? I didn't, I just waited for him to continue.

My contract was renewed until June 2012, so I guess I'll be around for a few more exam cycles.

Happy birthday to Karrie tomorrow! For your present, I give you an exam schedule?

Lost tooth

This morning I gave James his breakfast. He only ate a few bites of it before he came to me crying and saying his tooth hurt. His tooth has been loose for a while but when I looked at him this morning it was just hanging and bleeding, so close to being out. But he didn't want to touch it and was pretty much a mess. I think Myron took it out and James was all happy again. He drank some water and then was good to go with a new bowl of cereal.

The last changes to the exam schedule are due back tomorrow at noon. Hopefully, there aren't too many. It needs to be posted for the students on Friday. It has been a whirlwind!

The weather is pretty rainy right now. Hopefully, it is better before I need to bike in tomorrow!

10pm

It is now 10pm on Sunday and I still haven't dug out the scarves and gloves. As my bike ride in tomorrow will likely be nippy, I should do this. I also haven't ironed my clothes for tomorrow, but I don't expect anyone to notice that. I try to stop doing chores at 10pm.

Now that I have covered what I *didn't* accomplish, let's move on to what I *did* accomplish.

I went to Rustle in the morning. Al spoke on faith.
At the end he played this song that I have been enjoying on repeat ever since.

When I got home, I cut down dead flowers in my back garden for brush collection. This was more of a workout than you might think. I didn't finish all of them but I have until the 18th (our brush collection week this year)

I assisted James in washing the lunch dishes. He is getting a kick out of washing dishes and I am encouraging it :)

Then I made dinner.

James and I went to Calvary church for the evening service.

Then James watched the Amazing Race. I caught a bit of it. They had the teams racing in what seemed to be a very poor town in Africa. It was interesting to see how the teams responded to this. Then their challenge was to sell sunglasses. In a poor area I don't know if I would want to set the challenge as selling stuff but maybe it wasn't as poor as it looked.

Then I washed the dinner dishes and vacuumed.

James has his first hockey practice in the M-Center tomorrow!

Summer is over

Time to dig out the scarves and mitts tomorrow.
It is now warmer inside than out.
Hockey season has begun.
James' team won their game. James got 2 goals and 2 assists.

There was a woman at the grocery store this morning who was telling her friend that she got up at 5am and now she was out shopping as her house was already clean and all the clothes washed. I was up at 5am and now it's 10:30pm and I haven't accomplished all that this inspirational woman did. lol.

The other day Al gave James some plastic hockey men. As he did he said "So you don't have to play with the paper guys anymore". To which I smirked. James will never let his 'paper league' go no matter how many plastic men he gets. He was quite happy with the plastic hockey men. Though the plastic men games are a bit too violent for my liking. At least when the paper men get violent with each other they suffer disastrous consequences!

My parents were thinking of coming on Thanksgiving but when talking to my mom today she said that the week after was better. Whichever is really fine, we're just happy to see them. Though James was not so sure as we had been thinking of having a party for Myron's 40th on the 16th or 17th. We could still do the 17th, or we could do it the week after. I've started calling him Mr. Inflexibility!

Dishes

Last night, James washed his first set of dishes. This was very helpful for me and he was SOOO pleased with himself. He called Oma as soon as he finished as he wanted to share with the world his feat!

Yesterday I sent out the exam timetable to the faculties. It will go to departments next week. I am pretty happy with it, but there will always be people who aren't!

Yesterday was pretty crazy as we ran our first midterm and there were some technical problems (not our fault but we had to deal with them)

I decided not to get the new cream for my hand as it is looking so much better.

I'm off to get groceries now. I hope it's a nice enough day that I can hang laundry when I get back.

James has his first hockey game of the real season today at 3pm at the Constantine arena, in case any of his fans want to watch :)