QUEENB » family

Rained out

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:03:23 +0000

Just got back from a miserable day in Barrie. It was a grey rainy day before we started out and it never really got much better. We went up to belatedly celebrate hubby’s birthday which was June 5th with his family and his sister’s friends. One of the friends brought her 3 daughters along and with our niece who is generally moody they were all miserable by the time we arrived. They had gone up early to make sure we got a shelter, and had been there like 3 hours before we got there. On the way up we stopped to get burgers for everyone as instructed by hubby’s mom. When we arrived she said that she only told him to bring our own food, but he swore that twice she said that we should bring the burgers. That pissed us both off because we wouldn’t have stopped and spent money we didn’t need to otherwise.

We did use the Baby Buzz patch on baby D and between the super smelly patch and hubby and I swatting away the pesky skeeters, I don’t think the baby got any bites at all. Wish I were as lucky. About 10 minutes after I arrived I got a bit bite on my forehead. That I am aware of, I got 3 on my hands (including one right beside the nail on my pinky finger), 1 on my forehead, 3 on my ankle and tons on the backs of my thighs. Talk about itchy!!!

Eventually after we ate the rain stopped so we went on a little walk around the park to view the animals. We saw an albino raccoon, a bear, wolves, foxes and various raptors. It was so sad though, the poor wolves were just running around in circles and obviously had been for some time since the ground under them was all sunken in. I was told that all these animals had been rescue animals, but I wonder if any of them would’ve chosen death over this captivity. Poor animals.

I was hoping to be home by eight since it’s my first day back at work tomorrow, but as usual I couldn’t pry him away from everyone and it was after 21:30 by the time we got home. I’m surprised I’m even writing this – I should be in bed! So I’m off to hopefully get a good night sleep before tomorrow.

Gearing up

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:52:28 +0000

Yes, I’m gearing up for the end of the year (school year) madness. Even though I’m not back at work yet, I still have a bunch of stuff to do. Like tomorrow night is my school’s grad. Even though I haven’t been there for over a year, I promised the students that I would be back to announce the grads as they walk across the stage. This has always been my thing, and I really enjoy doing it. Besides they always seem to have a problem finding someone who can say some of the names. For instance Sathananthalingam is just the last name of one of our students. Her first name is still 12 characters long. I don’t seem to have much difficulty in saying these names so I’m always called upon when there’s a long name like that to pronounce. Then on Thursday is our end of the year staff breakfast. Even though I went last year, I think I’m going to beg off this year. I don’t really want to sit through all the goodbyes of staff I don’t really care about or know. Besides I anticipate it being difficult keeping a little guy who is *almost* walking still for like 4 hours. It’ll probably be more trouble than it’s worth and frankly I don’t care that much.
My mum was down for a couple of days and we had a really nice visit. This was the first time she stayed for more than one night. We decided the last time she was here that it didn’t make much sense to just stay for one night because it was all so rushed. We really didn’t do much. We managed to get out for a long walk and admire other people’s front gardens. It gave me all sorts of ideas for mine. And we had my brother and his wife over for dinner Saturday night. They left around 21:00 and my mum, dad, hubby and I stayed up till 23:00 talking about baby D and his birth. Even though it wasn’t that long ago (14 months) there were a couple things I had actually forgotten. I love reminiscing! Yesterday we went to church together and then came home and finally hung up some pictures I’ve been meaning to get on my walls. I will still have to get some more pictures as I have a humongous wall in my family room that could use some lovin’.
This time next Monday I will be at work. I am trying desperately not to think about it for fear that I will lose my mind. It’s only for 2 weeks; 9 days in fact so I’m sure I can do that. The worst will be when baby D goes into daycare and it’s a full time arrangement. If hubby was staying home with baby D the whole time as we had planned I probably wouldn’t be as nervous, but my Dad will be watching him for 3 days. I’m sure it doesn’t sound like a big deal, but he’s old-school German and tends to have his own way of doing things and criticizing mine. I guess I’m just afraid that he’ll be letting baby D scream himself to sleep or feeding him large chunks of stuff that he might choke on or possibly being too rough on him. I’ll just have to keep thinking happy thoughts that everything will go fine or I’m going to make myself sick thinking about it.

Back in the saddle

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 15:49:20 +0000

I’ve been away a lot longer than I ever expected. As previously mentioned my computer has been extremely sluggish and I’ve sort of been avoiding it altogether lately. Strangely enough, without doing anything to it, it appears to be acting much better today.
Not a whole lot going on in my life at the moment. GM turned 14 months yesterday and has 2½ teeth on the bottom and almost a full tooth up top. He’s still not quite walking on his own, but he’s certainly trying. I’m starting to get a bit worried about his communication skills – or lack thereof. Besides babbling ‘dada’ he really doesn’t communicate. I’m really not sure that this is normal, but he’ll be getting his next set of shots in the second week of July so I’ll be sure to talk to the doctor about it.

Saturday 9: Happy Father’s Day Eve

1. How long since you have been with your dad? He lives in the basement, so … yesterday.
2. How many siblings share your dad? one younger brother
3. Will you see your dad tomorrow? definitely, we’re going to my brother’s for a BBQ
4. Do you give him gifts on Fatherâ€™s Day? usually, but he never really wants anything
5. Have you ever had a tough time in your relationship with your father? absolutely. we’ve been through a lot of tough roads, but are finally starting to see more eye to eye
6. What was the last thing that you did with your dad? we went out for dinner Tuesday night
7. Growing up, was your dad tough on you? yup, he was the disciplinarian
8. Are you close to your father? yes, I would say so
9. How long since you have spoke to him? a couple of hours

On the mend

Sat, 03 May 2008 02:15:09 +0000

It was a horribly yucky grey, cold, rainy day today. I don’t know where my brain’s been at lately, but my days are all messed up. I was sitting down to breakfast this morning looking out at the nasty weather thinking “at least I don’t have to go outside today…”. Of course today is Friday, so I have to get the recycling to the curb. DOH! Plus I had to get some yard waste out too. When we moved into the house we inherited a huge mess of branches dumped on the other side of the fence. I think we’re probably better off renting a chipper or something to get rid of them instead of following the city rule of only putting out 3 bundles per week. Especially since after all the lugging from the backyard, they weren’t even picked up! grrr
Finally baby D’s conjunctivitis has almost cleared up. The day after his birthday (April 13th) when I took him into the doctor for his yearly check-up I noticed that he was getting a cold. Hubby was really worried because my Mum had been at baby D’s birthday with serious laryngitis which she got while on a trip to Egypt. He was afraid that she’d maybe given him something exotic. We did mention it to the doctor and he thought it was probably just coincidental. After a week of a fairly bad cough, he started to get a goopy eye. I swabbed at it with a warm, wet facecloth and hoped that it would clear itself up since the eye drops I had from the last time had expired. I had finally had enough and made him a quick appointment on Friday the 25th. Unfortunately his usual doctor wasn’t in, so I had to see his colleague. She seems nice enough, but said that she wouldn’t prescribe drops. I ended up getting oral antibiotics, which the pharmacist was surprised to see I was supposed to administer 4 times a day. She thought that was pretty taxing for an infant and I soon began to agree with her. Luckily baby D liked the medication, but I found his eye getting worse instead of better. It was starting to look like he got punched in the face. The skin under his eye was red and raw. By Monday I called the office again and explained that on Sunday when he woke up he couldn’t even open his eye – poor baby! I asked to have the same drops I had had before re-prescribed. I was very happy to hear that I didn’t have to come back in to be seen or get the script as I live about 20-30 minutes from the office. They called in the prescription and I managed to get the drops after my family dinner Monday night. At the dinner my brother callously asked if I had rubbed my son’s eye in raw chicken. So tactful. But his eye did look terrible. So happily now it’s almost gone, which is great since it’s a serious struggle getting the drops into his eyes. I’ve been trying to sneak them in while he’s nursing, but he’s on to me now.

Happy Easter

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 02:15:09 +0000

I hope next year I’m more into the holidays. I haven’t been for some time now maybe because my husband doesn’t like them due to his job. He delivers pastries for a high end pastry company and is extremely busy around the holidays. Now that GM is almost a year old I really have to get more in the spirit for his benefit.
Sunday I will be entertaining the in-laws. ~~I’m~~ We’re really not into entertaining. Or at least not used to it. Even though it’s not that much we have told our families that we won’t be traveling for a while to visit because we can’t afford to spend our money on gas. Once I go back to work we’ll have more money to spend of stuff like that, but for the next little while we’re going to be really strapped. So with that said his family is coming to us for Easter this year. His mom is still cooking the turkey (thank goodness), but we’ll be responsible for everything else. It should work out better anyways because this way I don’t have to lug all GM’s stuff with us and he might actually nap since he’ll be in familiar surroundings.

Sick…of packing

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 14:12:27 +0000

So I’m probably reading into this, but… The first time I put GM into childcare during my parenting group and he comes home and develops a cold, which he promptly shares with Mummy. *sigh* He’s got strings coming out of his nose and goop filling up his left eye. So it begins. After a little over a week we are just starting to pull out from under it. Hopefully we stay healthy through the move.
Getting closer. We’ve decided a few things about the move. Like who our Internet provider will be and our cable company. We just need to get our phones set up and arrange to get our security system guy in to check the place out. I don’t remember my last move being so huge. Of course it was just apartment to apartment and this time it’s into a house, but my Dad is doing most of the work still since he’s going to be the “landlord”. So we get the keys on the 26th, and the carpet cleaner will be in that same day. That will be a big load off. That was the one thing we HAD to do before we moved in. I’d still like to get the place painted first, but am settling for what’s easiest. Without the painting, that gives us 5 days to officially move in which at least sounds way less stressful to me.
Just to give me one more thing to pack and move, I ended up buying Seasons (The Sims2) off ebay. It’s not a bad little game so far. The plantsims are a wee bit strange to say the least. They are green people that only have three needs instead of eight like the normal sims do. All they need are: sun, water and love. But they only have three life stages too which is a drag. They go from toddler, to adult, to elder. No in-between stages.
Yeah, I know just something else to keep me from packing. I’m such a slack! Back to the boxes…

Pull my wishbone

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 02:47:33 +0000

Why can’t there be an easy compromise when it comes to holidays? I am now faced (once again) with dealing with 2 families (his and mine) who want to see us for Thanksgiving. Of course both sides want to do Thanksgiving on the Sunday. Unfortunately that means that my family loses out because ‘you’ve seen them more recently’. Things were definitely easier BGM (before Goober Monster) when I could’ve just said, ‘fine, then you go to your family and I’ll go to mine’. How does everyone else deal with holidays? It seems all complicated now.

No seriously, I’m back

Sat, 25 Aug 2007 02:21:53 +0000

As the title states, yes I really am back. It’s been too long, I know and what can I say a LOT has happened in my almost year hiatus. I managed to let my domain lapse, but was lucky enough to get it back. I will be making some changes (I think) to the site little by little, but for now I just wanted to get back and blog my little heart out.

Okay, so last you heard I was pregnant. As you might imagine after nearly a year I’ve had the baby. It was a boy. He is now 4 and a half months old and the best thing that EVER happened to me. I never knew it could be this amazing! I really loved my job and found it so fulfilling, but nothing even remotely close to spending everyday with my son. I can’t even imagine going back now. I’m so lucky to have a year off with him and thank God every day for my special little guy. At some point I’m going to have to face reality and figure out what to do with him. Do I go back to work? Can I afford to stay home? If I go back, do I want daycare, homecare, Opa-care (granddaddy)? If the world were perfect, I would be able to stay home fulltime and raise my son the way I feel is right. If the world were nearly perfect, then I would have to go back to work, but my husband (yeah I’ll get to that in a bit) would get a shift job to cover the time when I’m at work so that between the 2 of us he’d be looked after. I must admit though that I’m not very realistic. I haven’t even investigated daycares and I know people who have put their names on waiting lists from the time they conceived! I’m in trouble!

So I said I’d get back to the husband bit. Yes, I also managed to get myself hitched. The guy? My son’s daddy and my long time boyfriend of 11 years. Can’t really say that we move very quick huh? My Mum threw the wedding together and was probably the smallest (next to civil services) wedding you’ve ever heard of at a grand total of 16 people including bride and groom. I think that hubby and I probably would’ve been happy enough to continue the unmarried scenario forever, but since we were pregnant (totally planned by-the-way) it was “frowned upon” to not be married, so we obliged.

And in final news, we, with GREAT thanks to my Dad, have just bought a house. Can you believe wedding, baby and new house all in one year?! Yeah, me neither. But it’s true. The house closes at the end of October, so I seriously need to start packing. I can’t believe that 2, okay 3 now, people can possibly amass so much crap. Yes, crap. Mostly my hubby’s. Though he thinks all his stuff is so important, he’s about to get a rude awakening. mwahaha

So there’s a little bit of background to get the ball rolling. Over the next little while (I hope) I’m expecting to spiff up the joint a bit and fix all the old links and well, whatever else needs doing. Oh yeah, like updating my version of WP. Since I’m home fulltime and have the blogging bug again, I’m expecting to update dailyish (what a nifty new word that is). Stay tuned.

Go figure

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 15:03:15 +0000

$270 later my computer is fixed. I can’t believe what the problem was either! It ended up being my memory. That sort of pisses me off since I attempted to do a memory scan, but felt that it wasn’t working since it seemed to run too long. The guy at the shop told me that it took him 45 minutes to run the scan. Damn. I could’ve saved myself some cash. Not all of it since part of that was replacing (and upgrading) my RAM. I now have 1G of RAM to run my Sims2 on. Since I’ve got the system back I have successfully restored my backup (thank goodness!). I really wasn’t sure that it had backed up properly since I kept getting error messages, but everything seems fine. In the mean time I have been madly downloading new files. New houses, furniture, hair…you name it really. Too bad I didn’t manage to get everything fixed at the beginning of the summer.

On that note, I am back to work on Monday. It would be hard for anyone going back to work after 5 weeks off, but I really don’t have the mindset for work. I am seriously not looking forward to going back. In fact I keep thinking I need to check the new postings when I get back and see if there’s anywhere centrally I can apply. I do love the kids and the staff are great, but I think it’s time to go in search of more cash.

My mood lately is another contributing to my dread of going back to work. If I stay behind the walls of my apartment I don’t have to worry about insulting anyone or playing well with others. Strangely enough I spent 3 days and 2 nights with my Mum last week and we had a really nice time. I felt calm and unbothered unlike how I feel now that I’m home. First there’s my financial situation. We are in serious debt that we are working on paying back. It just doesn’t leave us with much of anything after paying all the bills. Then there’s him. I can’t stop yelling at him. He’s driving me crazy. He doesn’t seem to understand the concept of a budget and he won’t get anything done that I ask him to. It’s a hugely long story I won’t get into, but I can’t stand being around him lately and the alternatives keep going through my mind and I don’t really like those either. Why won’t he just shape up?! Not like we haven’t discussed everything. I mean he agrees that he’s the problem and he won’t let me down anymore, then the next day it’s the same old shit. Part of this dark mood I’m in seems to be a great apathy. I don’t feel like doing anything I usually take great interest in. I just want to curl up into a little ball and go away.

In fact I really can’t believe I’m blogging at all. Go figure.

Oh the blue sky

Mon, 31 Jul 2006 02:26:52 +0000

My birthday wasn’t anything super special, but I suppose at my age, what did I expect? I got my wake up nudge at 08:00, which kinda sucked since I’d been online till like 04:00. Since I was getting McDonalds breakfast in bed I guess I really shouldn’t complain. We ended up spending a great chunk of the day in the movie theatre. I really wanted to see Lady in the Water, but had heard that it sucked ass. So I decided that we would have to see 2 movies. That way if I really hated that movie I wouldn’t be kicking myself for picking a really bad movie for my birthday. So it did pretty much suck. Okay not totally, but not anything like I was hoping for from M. Night. So we ducked in to see Monster House, which was … okay. Cute, but nothing monumentally special. We talked about trying for 3 movies and seeing POTC2, but his ass was tired so we ended up heading home. We were supposed to go out for dinner, but seeing as we got home around 16:30 we decided to stay in and have one of my favourite meals…pizza!
Yesterday we went out to my Mother’s cousin Sally’s place where the family was getting together. The occasion? Her brother and wife were over from England. It was great to see extended family all together. It’s really been too long. I even got to see my 2nd cousin, whom I haven’t seen in like 5-7 years and his new wife and daughter. OMG is she ever cute! Her name is Hope and she’s only 6 months old. Though up to this point everyone’s been really good about not bugging me about having children, I did manage to get a few hints from various family members. I kept biting my tongue so I didn’t have to ruin the surprise that we are now actively trying to have baby. If it takes forever for me to conceive I won’t have to deal with anyone feeling sorry for me. I could go on and on on the subject, but I won’t just now.
In other news, I managed to finish up with the additional pages on this site. Still not sure I’m happy with them, but for now it’s fine. I toyed with adding a “visitor” section, but am currently uninspired to do so. I am however inspired to add to my music collection and am currently downloading 50 or so albums from a really great server I found. If you’ve got a decent music album collection and are looking to trade, get in touch with me and I can set you up with an account to my server.
Finally I think I’ll plug Scotty’s new venture Douteux. Go check it out!