11 laps

After dinner yesterday we went to the park again and James biked and biked- 11 laps non stop at one point. He is very proud of himself! He called Oma to let her know what she and Grandad can expect to see when they visit next week!

It was very cold in the park. At one point I looked up and it looked like fog was rolling in. As I looked at the 'fog' it turned to snow!

Work was very busy yesterday as I had to get the summer students hired. Next week there are lots of final presentations to keep me busy and I am running the copycheck. Running the copycheck doesn't take much time but reading the output and making the report does!

2 wheeling

At the end of the summer last year James was really struggling with riding a bike. I had to be right beside him all the time. He just couldn't get it all coordinated and he was just so frustrated.
In the last week he has talked about riding again but it has been so cold I didn't want to encourage him.
But today he was determined. He wanted to go to the park and learn to bike. I wasn't too hopeful as I figured he might have regressed over the winter. But I was wrong! Something had obviously clicked in his body as the first time on he was shaky but already much better than last summer. We were in the park around the tennis courts - much safer than the sidewalk really- a bit smoother! By the end he was able to make 3 full laps around the tennis courts without stopping. What an amazing thing to see him going without me by his side. The baby bird has sprouted his wings!

In other exciting news, Les' company has been at the house doing some renovations- they've done some rewiring and fixed the toilet that was a bit tippy. I'm very happy about that!

Bulbs

Sam gave everyone at Rustle a bulb on Sunday to remind us that some things need to be buried to grow into something beautiful.
Later that afternoon James and I were searching the garage for his baseball stuff and I came across a bag that Kim gave me when we were moving in to the new house. It was bulbs! I had been missing the old house and all the beautiful tulips that grew there. I had meant to plant the bulbs Kim gave me in October but I guess I was busy. I bet Kim dug up those bulbs from the old house. She's thoughtful like that.
I planted them all on Sunday. They may not come up this season but I will get to enjoy them in future years!

James played baseball at the park with friends. We wore our rain boots. My feet were in some pain after as we did a lot of running. My rain boots are not good for running in!

I read that in one area of the States they pulled a magazine that had a (discreetly) nude pregnant celebrity woman on the cover. I thought there was nothing wrong with the cover- it looked like a celebration of beauty in pregnancy. I find the current sports magazine with a swimsuit volume rather unpleasant in comparison.

My email exploded today. I had finally made it through the weekend email by 3pm when I went in to do interviews. I came out of the interviews at 4:30 and I had 20 new messages!
Tomorrow I have 3.5 hours of interviews so I'm thinking I'll be pretty behind in the email by the end of that!

75

I am invited to a 75th birthday party next week. I am generally not very good at selecting presents but I'm even more lost when it comes to a 75th present! Any suggestions?

It seems like it has gotten chillier out- should I go back to a winter coat?

I have to write some emails then off to Rustle!

fluff

I woke up at 5am this morning. Shopped at Loblaws at 7am.
Went down to work. James had soccer- he made it on the elite team he was trying out for!
In the afternoon he played sports on the Wii and I ironed.
We had leftover pizza for dinner which helped me catch up on the dishes.
I am trying to get the fortitude to tackle the bathrooms.
The weather has turned a bit chilly again. May have to switch the heat back on. Was happy to have it off for a bit though.
Have plans to get the sewer valve installed as well as the house rewired.
Listening to Halo

world problems

I guess it really is a first world problem that our problem is that girls don't know the difference between tights and pants. I did have a girl in one of my interviews that I thought was wearing tights but they turned out to be pants that looked like tights. Hours of interviews are pretty draining but it is interesting to meet all the students at least.

Today was pretty crazy. Mainly because I am still doing the 2 jobs. I had a calibration report to prepare before a meeting but I also had a pile of things to do- including interviewing a person to take over my position- but I got it done just minutes before the meeting. After the meeting I had a couple of documents to prepare and send off for review. I still have the minutes of the meeting to send out but I brought them home! Then the interviews were for the rest of the afternoon. Monday is looking better though.

James has a really hilarious dance he does to the "Party rock" song. He also made crazy concoctions of Gatorade. He says they taste good but I think he might just be saying that!

Working at the registrar tomorrow!

Saying goodbye

The link to Gerry's obituary is here.
The service was really good. Mellow and subdued and everyone more or less held it together. I think Gerry would have been pleased with it all.
Saying goodbye is never easy.

Hmm it took me 1/2 an hour to write this much. I haven't washed the dishes or done the laundry today. Need to get back on track.

There are buds on the trees. Things are turning green.

summer clothing

With the nice weather, it means that wardrobes are changing.
I think it's still a bit chilly for shorts but lots of people (with presumably higher body temperatures) were in them today.
There was one gal in a very short dress. So short it was like a shirt really. She was wearing pantyhose- the reinforced panty part of them was clearly visible. I felt bad for her as I didn't really think that was her intended or best look.

I do feel challenged in the clothing area as the outside and inside temperatures are not generally similar.
Someone opened a window at work and the morning chilly air was blowing on me. I closed it as soon as I could!

morning fog

This morning was very foggy. As I was walking in to work I could see less than a block away. When I got into work I realized that my hair was soaked from the fog! It was pretty funny. And my hair dried nicer than usual. Apparently fog agrees with my hair.

Work was busy with interviews. Lots to do tomorrow - I have to schedule more interviews and try to catch up on my email!

James keeps making me play Katy Perry's "Firework" on repeat. Last week it was "Good Feeling" by Flo Rida. It is interesting to watch (or listen to) his tastes develop.

Sadness

The service this morning had a lot of sadness in it, but it went well considering. There will be a celebration service of Gerry's life on Thursday night.

I am surprised by the st. pats riot. Disappointed really. A riot for what? For fun? First world issues.

I raked all the winter remnants off the front lawn and easily filled the green bin. I piled all the rest under the tree for when the green bin gets emptied on Wed. Harder work than it looks!

Hordes of green

The weather was nice enough for me to hang some laundry outside. Still a bit chilly but ok.

People here take March 17 very seriously. Most everyone was dressed in green on the streets. There was a new pizza place that opened by John's and there was a line up outside when I went by with people lined up outside. In jeans and green shirts. The pizzas were on sale for 5.55. There were people with signs on the street drumming up more traffic (as well as almost getting hit by cars). There were people riding off on bikes with their pizza. I can't say I've ever tried to bike with a pizza!

unexpected

I don't know how tomorrow is going to go as there was an unexpected loss in our Church community. We will cope in Rustle's way. I expect it will be a heavy service but hopefully comforting in some way. It weighs heavily on my heart.

For the first time in months James did not have a early morning hockey game on Saturday, so I got groceries first thing. Then have been working on cleaning the house. I'll do some work setting up interviews a bit later. I have to schedule them for Monday so I need to get to it soon!

Also it is Sarah's birthday today. I wonder if her favorite colour is green?

and now the 3:30am storm

And last night there was a storm at 3:30am. I would not have a problem with nighttime storms if I could sleep through them, but I can't so I object! James can't either. He doesn't like storms but he says he's not scared of them anymore.

I brought home a pile of work as I need to have interviews set up for Monday afternoon.

The weather is looking good. I hoping it won't regress to bad weather if I pull out my spring coat!

4am high storm

The thunderstorm at 4am woke me up in the night. Tonight the weather forecast is calling for another storm. Looks like sleeping has got more difficult!

I worked late yesterday as I had a meeting from 5:30-6:30 and then some emails to write after. I got home in time for survivor though. I missed last week so I'm pretty behind on who everyone is.

I had a dentist appt this morning. My mouth is still pretty sore. I only had a cleaning done! The lady who was working on me suggested that tonight I take my "usual" painkiller. I was taken off guard at that comment. Does everyone have a "usual" painkiller? I don't even know what my "usual" one would be. The last time I had a painkiller I was in the hospital after James was born. Either I'm lucky or I will tolerate a high degree of pain before taking treatment!

I got a new phone at work but it cut out on me each conversation I had. They came and fixed it (I think) but I haven't tried it out yet.

Speaking of phones, I had a little problem with the phone at the old house. After being dropped by Rogers a year ago or so and having no phone service (which I didn't worry about because I knew the move was coming up) and not being able to switch my phone # because noone knew who owned my old number, Primus decided to send me a bill for December. Since I wasn't living there I asked them who authorized it- it hada long distance package and everything. I had lots of emails with them, but today I finally got an email indicating that the line was activated in error and they would be resolving the problem.

lists

I used to write copious amounts of lists of things to do but the last couple of weeks I have been on some sort of list rebellion. I haven't been keeping lists at all. The way I have been organizing myself is through my email. Which is not an entirely great idea as I'm having a hard time getting through the volume. I'm thinking I will need to get back to the lists.

James is enjoying his hockey school on the March Break.

We were running an Open House this week but I was so swamped with work that I couldn't participate much. I felt bad about that!

Male contortionist

James and I watched "Canada's got talent" tonight. One of the acts was a male contortionist. James' comment on the act was "I've seen stuff noone should be able to do and I'm only 9"

Then the judges gave their assessments of the performance. I maybe should mention at this point that the contortionist was only wearing shorts. Presumably wearing more clothing makes the contorting more difficult. I could also mention that he was 16 but that really doesn't have any bearing on the story. So at the very end the judges vote if the act should move on to the next round. The judges vote for the contortionist and he is going through to the next round. He raises his arms in the air in triumph, prompting James to say "I hope he shaves his man hair before the final"

ahead

I worked at the registrar yesterday. There is so much to do there I could spend weeks there but I don't have that kind of time! The girl I am working with is a quick study and is doing a great job, but it is a lot.
Last night was the time change.
This morning I went to Loblaws when James was at hockey. I saw Sam there as I have done the last couple of Sundays. He does the Rustle shopping when I do mine, it appears. I very much enjoyed the walk there as the weather has much improved over last week. By midday it was 17 in TO and 11 here. Not bad! I like this season (March-October) very much!
Then I marked some late papers.
Then went to Rustle. I came home and AJ came over to play with James.
Tomorrow I have a busy day in store as I have heaps of emails to write and we are putting on a March open house for high school students.

I am thinking of starting a new FB account for work as one way that we communicate with students is through FB and I'm not sure I want to use my personal account. Not that students would see any personal information as I would keep my account privacy settings as "friends only" but I'm unsure if I would even want it tied to my work at all. Just thinking about it.

weaving

James was very excited this morning to go to school as they were doing weaving. I'm not quite sure what he thought it was going to be or if it lived up to his expectations.

Now he is happy to be on March break!

His favorite song right now is "Good feeling"

I got the timetable stuff in today and now I'm pretty drained.

In which I try to accomplish something and fail

Today I wore a lovely skirt that was very comfortable and nice. It is a chiffon that is layered in zig zags. It is nice and soft and falls in a pretty way. I knew I wouldn't be able to describe it well so I asked James to take a picture. What I got:

Yep, he's photogenic. And a ham. This was the best I got of the skirt, which isn't good at all. And I can't explain the funny expression on my face except that James kept having me say "fromage"

Today was filled with meetings, meetings, meetings. I had so many meetings they started overlapping and I started missing meetings!
At 5:30, I was just about ready to start looking at the timetabling file and Tim came in. The information that he said he would send out to the students early in the afternoon had not been sent out and now it was early evening. So I quickly had to come up with a plan as to how to get the information out. I loaded the emails while Tim got the files ready. We sent them all off but it took up an hour that I hoped to spend working on the timetabling. I did spend some time after that working on the timetabling file. But seriously, it is hard to get the project done with so many meetings. My timetabling file is now 700 lines long (in Excel)! Still much more to do.

My funny moment of the day was when a student said to me- I have a perfectly valid reason for missing the lab- it was his grandmother's birthday! The mentality of the students is always interesting to me.

Should sleep now- another long day tomorrow!

Images

Another thing that got me thinking from the workshop on Sunday night was that Mike was talking about images. How our subconscious speaks to us with images (like when we dream). He suggested that sometimes it helps to speak back to the subconscious with images and that is why the rituals in losing someone you love are important so that your subconscious really understands and gets what is going on.
For some reason Tim and I were talking about images today and I brought up these ideas to him. He looked at me like I was crazy. Tim and I are really complete opposites but it is still lots of fun to work with him. I'm not sure he would say the same thing about me!
There are so many unhealthy images that the world feeds us, but I leave you with an image of Tim for fun:

Good grief

Tonight I went to a grief workshop "Good grief" run by Mike M. (a counsellor at a Center downtown). It was an excellent session, though not as well attended as it deserved to be!
There were brownies there. And the sort that weren't too sweet or too dense, just perfect! Unfortunately, for me that means it is now hard to get to sleep and I really need to as I have a class AND a meeting at 8:30am so I have to be up early.
Mike talked about grief in terms of love and attachment. The more attached you are, the more it hurts when you lose the relationship. He used the example of paper glued together. He had some that just had a bit of glue and some had a lot. Obviously, the ones with more glue were harder to tear apart and left a lot more damage.
Mike didn't say this but my thought after the fact was that the glue is all you. You can be attached to someone and they can not be attached to you. Our levels of glue are never equal.

Everybody knows it's windy!

There was a pretty wild windstorm last night which kept me up. Hopefully, tonight is quieter!

James was just changing into his pajamas and the underwear he had selected he had not worn in a while. Apparently, he has grown since he last wore them. His comment was "These feel like tights. My crotch cannot BREATHE"
9 year old drama :)

James' team was in the consolation game of the playoffs at the end of their season. They lost 8-2 to St. Joes. Last year it was these same teams duking it out for the final. Last year they won the final. You win some, you lose some!

I saw this video put out by KLM and I thought it was interesting in the age of more and more privacy. They allow you to view other passenger's FB profiles, etc (for those who opt in) so you can decide who to sit next to. They suggest you could meet up before or after. I appreciate that they are trying to make flying friendly. But really, it is flying. Generally, you are on the plane not to meet people but to get from A to B. I think it is innovative to try to incorporate modern technology and they are cutting edge that way BUT this could lead to more security problems. Someone in the comments for the video said "Abduction airlines".

I cleaned the kitchen, front room, dining room and bathroom today.

While James is playing his paper league games (he made this up himself) I was putting some packages together for the students.

Full

Today was a full day. As they all seem to be these days!
When I got into work, I had to get set for the presentations that morning which were in another building. So I left signs on our room and headed off MCL.
When I got there I found the room we needed locked and Tim having some meeting.
So I managed to get the room open then found Tim and collected the material that I needed. Tim told me about the hard time they had the night before. Tim is not as hardcore about running things on time, so he turned all the organization back over to me as we had to get out before the English class came in at 11:30. We did it with a few minutes to spare.
Then the team and I (minus Tim who had to do something first) headed back to my building for the instruction team meeting. Which we had but then Tim was late for another meeting because after our meeting I needed his help on writing an email to the class. He wanted me to write it and send it to him to review but we needed to get it out faster than that so I had to get as much out of him as I could before he headed out. Tim has great ideas, great design sense and a great sense of what is good for the students but is not so strong on the organization- that's why they hired me though! He's still a lot of fun to work with.
Then I went straight from that meeting to a meeting with Dave.
Then I had to write that email to the students.
Then I had meetings with other students.
Then I wrote another heap of emails.
I brought home some crafts to work on at home as I have to put together feedback packages to hand back next week.
I figured I could put them together while watching James play his paper hockey league.

James was excited today to go to school dressed as his favorite character from a book. I can't remember the name of the guy he dressed up as but he's from Star Wars and is a Jedi but gets killed pretty early on. I don't know why James chose the obscure Jedi but he liked taking the light saber to school.

March break is coming up in about a week and James has started asking when Oma is arriving! (Not that we have any firm plans but she has come on March break in the past, so it's an open invitation if she wants to!)

We have a wind warning here today.

March

Well, March came in with a snowstorm! Hope it leaves like a lamb. A sunny warm lamb.
March seems really long.

On the story about the VIA train that derailed. The story out today is that it was going too fast. They say they don't know who was actually driving at the time of the crash. There was a trainee in the locomotive. But you don't even have to be a trainee to know that trains slow down when switching tracks. They said there was a CN crew working on the tracks ahead so they were going to switch tracks. They sounded to whistle to alert the CN crew they were approaching. Any time I have been on a train and there is a crew working on the tracks, they have slowed down not just for switching the tracks but passing the crew, I assume as an extra safety precaution. So it all seems very odd, but maybe they were running late and rushing or something.

On the story of the student who was slashed. He is still really in shock and has been sent to counseling. The whole incident is so nasty. It is quite callous that humans can be so nasty to one another :(

I am stretched very thin for about another week and then things will start to get better. Tim had wanted me to help out with the presentations for the course I work for tonight but I emailed him this morning and said I just couldn't. I'll find out tomorrow how he did on his own. Normally I organize the students at the start and do the timing of the presentations.