Happy Anniversary Carol and BJ!

Hope you had a good one! What's it been now, 6 years? Wow! That's a lot of years. Good for you! Way to go! Happy Anniversary!

Good Bye Celebrity... Good Bye..

Well we sold our Celebrity! YES! Dirt cheap because the hood didn't open and even though it started last week it wouldn't start on Tuesday when a serious buyer came to see it. He's a tinkerer and bought it from us for what we would've gotten from the scrap yard. We'd been asking $350 OBO when it was running, but since it died and we had no way to get it anywhere, we let it go at a very reduced price. He came back today with tools and got the hood open (!) and boosted it (!!) and drove it away (!!!) I asked Jake, who was off today, if he offered more money since it was proven it did work. But I was kidding. SO LONG CAR! Thanks for bringing up Linda and Scott that time! Thanks for tiding us over between the ever-faithful Tracker (may she rest in peace) and our beloved Mini Van! You done good, kid. That'll do car, that'll do.

Good Bye Tan Boy... Good Bye..

Well I sold a kitten. The tan one. I was looking through the bargain hunter on Wednesday (that a friend at work lent me) and wishing I had a deacon's bench, when I decided to check out the pets section. I saw an ad that said "Wanted: fluffy male kitten, willing to pay" and I acted. I called the woman (named Kim, but not Vietnamese, for anyone following my current Miss Saigon obsession) and told her about my 5 1/2 week old kittens that I was selling, and she was very excited. She asked if she could come see them right away, put a deposit down (she was cool with the $30) and let them stay with their mom until 7 weeks old. She came tonight. Her boyfriend was with her. He fell in love with Dalmation Dude, and she fell in love with Tan Boy. I was half afraid and half hoping that they'd want to take both of them. She gave me a deposit and then while she was cuddling Tan Boy and telling her boyfriend she was going to name him Turbo (which he objected to) she mentioned that the last kitten she had she'd gotten really early, like 2-3 weeks old and had to bottle feed it and teach how to use the litter box. I had already told her that Tan Boy had JUST started eating real food yesterday, but still had no clue about the litter box. She said she would be willing to teach him if she could take him today. At first I said no, but then changed my mind. He's alllmost old enough, and he was the same age as Tilly when we got her. I know, I know, different species.. she gave me the rest of the money and left very happily. The best part is that when I'd called her yesterday I was at work, and she saw Canadian Blood Services on her call display. I was kind of joking but I asked her if she wanted to donate blood because we are in need especially around the long weekend, and she agreed! I booked her! Everyone at work was laughing that I was getting bookings out of the Bargain Hunter. I think Tan Boy will have a good home with her. She is a very nice lady and really loved him instantly. (of course, who wouldn't? they're KITTENS!) And don't worry, I asked her permission to post her picture on my blog. The guy isn't that short, he's crouching for good photographic .. uh.. styling.

Carol's House

Carol did some home improvements this past weekend, and here's a picture of it:

Congrats on the upgrades!

MY Garden

My sister put pictures of her garden online today, and I had intended to do the same thing. Great minds think alike, and I'm so happy we are so in tune with each other even though we're 117 kms away.

Neatly wrapped up hose.. killed my tendonitis arms wrestling that thing from its tangled mess into this:
Upper horizontal arrow is my tomato plant, lower two vertical arrows are my watermellon plants. Delvia at work bought the kids pumpkin and watermellon seeds to plant, but Tilly ate them. I replaced 'em with seedlings from the store.
Upper two arrows are the pumpkins. The lowest one is the last watermellon.
My one and only flower that came back from last year. I didn't do flowers again this year. I almost did morning glories, but I think it's too late now.
My lilac that had gotten hit by the weed wacker (mean gardener! fie on you!) CAME BACK! I was so happy. After I noticed it came back my dad gave me a full grown white one, and I planted it alongside this one, which is purple. Hopefully they will mingle and I'll get both colours! Right outside my door!

Happy Solstice Everyone!

Midnight Sun by Mark Dennett

I celebrated the summer's solstice last night with my good friend Marlene. She has a house on the Wahnapitae River, and we had a great time talking and watching the light stay in the sky until after 10:45. There were clouds in the sky, but we could see through the small patches of clear where the light blue shone through.

Happy Summer everyone! Now the days are going to get shorter and shorter every day and soon it will be cold dark winter again. Wait.. wahh!!

See Carol's Blog For An Explanation

Varicella-Zoster Virus

Until you get to the "virus" part of it, that sounds like an expensive cheese or something.

Sage has chicken pox. Boo. I noticed a cluster of "mosquito bites" on his arm yesterday, and then this morning Jake saw some more on his back. We looked up chicken pox online because we were headed over to a birthday party (Michelle's twins Shayna and Ethan turned 2 years old today) and wanted to be sure he didn't have them. They described watery blisters, which these weren't, so I went with kids in tow. When we arrived, I saw we were going to be sitting around in a partly shaded yard, so I got out the sunscreen and started to lather up the chilluns. I saw that Sage had way more red bumps on his arms than the morning, and the older ones were starting to look blistery. Fastest party I ever went to. Of course we turned right around and went home, because it is so highly contageous. Michelle said "Next time could you not stay so long?" We'd been there about 3 minutes.

We got home and checked him out: there are big red bumps all over his back and both arms and a few coming on his face. The vaccine he'd had at 15 months prevents chicken pox 85% of the time, and the other 15% of the time makes the illness a lot milder. Boo. I love daycare, but I hate daycare too.

If anyone wants their children to get chicken pox, my house is open to you.

Picturepalooza

Here are some pictures from the past few weeks around here. This one is very cute because Hayden and Jake were both wearing Khaki shorts and underwear with cartoons on 'em. Jake's have South Park and Hayden's have Curious George. Yes. Hayden Is In Underpants All Day. Everyday. Since Friday. With Very Few Accidents. YAY HOORAY! I also think that he looks extremely grown-up in this picture. And not just because of the underpants. Look at how tall he is! How did he get to be so tall? sunrise sunset... LOL
Hayden took this picture. He took many others, but this one was the most interesting and most centred.
EEEEE! My baby kitties!! They're 3 weeks old now, and starting to crawl all over. Kitty decided she wanted to keep them in the bottom drawer of Jake's dresser. Previous to that she had them "hidden" in the middle of the floor in the bathroom.
Aww.. they make me want to keep them!!!

"Hi! We're squirmy kittens!"
"We love to wiggle and play with our mamma."
"And look at our paws."
LOOKIT RHIANNON!! I HAVE A WATER PLAY TABLE JUST LIKE THE ONE I LET YOU HAVE. See how much my kids enjoy it? See the enjoymenting?
Well, this picture doesn't exactly demonstrate how much Sage loves it, but he IS gathering rocks to put in it. Like our barbeque? All we need is a grill and we're good to go.

There. There they are enjoying it together.
Big nose.
I love little Tilly :)
A good shot of the kids enjoying the water table, and also of our fire pit.

Pup-on-a-rope.
Hayden's saying "Go away Tilly!" I thought it was cute that Hayden was gathering rocks and Tilly was so interested.. but he didn't want her to look at what he was doing.
There. got the shot I wanted. sort of.
I discovered the artsy black and white feature on our camera. Yes, that is a clump of mud on Hayden's cheek.

Remember back in 1963 when Hayden and Sage used to play in the yard?
And there was no such thing as the internet or computers yet?
Yeah... good times back then.
This is Sage (back from the past) being caught in the act of jumping on Hayden's bed. Note the mischievious grin from ear to ear.
..about to catapult off into the air...

Hey, speaking of sunsets... (I was in the first paragraph of this post) a beautiful one tonight.


This is Tilly at 8 weeks old. Can you believe the difference from the pictures above? That's only a week and a half of growth! We got her at 5.5 weeks old. Tiny Tilly. So cute. So not housetrained yet.
And OH MY GOD. She could've died. TWO weeks ago she chewed a few of Sage's binkies, leaving him with one intact. Jake was pretty sure he'd recovered all rubbery bits except for one latex bulb that she'd sheared right off clean with her razor sharp teeth. We expected her to puke it up or poop it out, but as time passed and we didn't see it, we thought maybe we'd vacuumed it up without noticing. She was pooping and eating just fine. And then yesterday she started to puke. I'll spare the details, but she was a sick puppy. I thought it was worms. Today while I was at work Jake phoned and told me that this morning she was still pretty sick, and then all of a sudden pooped out the hugely swollen latex bulb of Sage's soother. It had grown to at least twice the size it was when she ate it, and we do not know how that thing fit out her butt-hole. Or why it didn't get lodged. Or why it didn't obstruct her poop for 2 weeks. Or why it took 2 weeks to come out. Or why it didn't fill with poop and become impossible to pass. She is ONE VERY LUCKY PUPPY. And as soon as it was out, she was feeling better and prancing around and playing again.

Pogo Link

http://www.pogopossum.com/index.htm


There's an orange section in the middle of the page where you can "enjoy this book" and you can read the first few chapters of one of the books.

Check it out! The characters are so cute and the writting is funny. Let me know what you think about it too.

One Year

It's been exactly one year since my mom passed away. Now I've experienced every day, season, event, occasion, and birthday without her. One of each. Yep. Even got February 29th in there.

I had a good day though, considering. I took a vacation day so I could spend time with my dad and aunts and visit her grave, which we did. I dropped Jake off at work and the kids off at daycare and then picked up my dad. Then I bought a little cedar bush and we got to the cemetary by 10am. Penny and Sandy were already there and together we planted our plants. My dad had brought jump ups (wild violets) and Penny brought petunias. Sandy "carried the hose". [which is actually almost true because she went off and found a hose to refill the water jug. For those of you who don't know, 'Pogo' is an old comic strip by Walt Kelly and my mom had several books of it. Some of our family expressions come from Pogo, one being "I carried the hose" which this little rabbit kept saying while the rest of the animal crew rushed around ineffectively trying to save something from fire. Check it out if you can. It's cute and funny.] My mood for most of the day, even at her plot, wasn't heavy and gloomy as I'd expected myself to be. I think giving my mom some of her favourite plants really spruced up her apartment.

So we stayed there for about 40 minutes, planting and talking, joking and being. Then we went to a restaurant and Elizabeth met up with us. Afterwards I went back to my dad's house and stayed there till Jake was done work. No major crying melt-downs. No anguish. No intolerable pain.. all of which is what I was kind of expecting. My dad and I had a good talk about life now, without her.

After I picked up Jake, we went home and sat outside in the beautiful sunny weather, and I made a tiny fire in my fire pit. I suggested we have chicken cordon-bleu for supper, which Jake likes. My mom used to make that dish. I will always associate her with it. We shopped for ham and swiss cheese, picked up the kids, and came home to cook. Jake suggested we have a cordon-bleu casserole instead of the real thing, so that is what I did. It turned out really good!

It's clouded over now, and I hope it rains for the sake of her little garden.

One year. It feels like it was yesterday that we said our goodbyes, but it also feels like 10 years since I've seen her. Time is a funny thing.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAROL!!

Happy Birthday To youuu
Happy Birthday TO YOUUUU
Happy BIRTHDAYYY DEAR CARROOOOOLLLLLL...
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOUUUUUUUU!!!!

Happy 35th Birthday!!! Wow.. you're 35 now. That's lots. But you handle it soooo well!!

Love you!
Love
Me