It has been quite awhile since I last posted. Since Christmas has come and gone, I figure I have something to write about. It certainly was an adventure.
I think the excitement started on December 20th. If you discount all the parties and concerts and all the usual "stuff" that goes with every Christmas in a family with kids and jobs and teams and such.
On December 20th, my sister and brother-in-law arrived. Not bad. Put in the table extender, we now number 6 people.
On December 22nd, my brother arrived. Getting full. Added another table, one more chair, we now number 7. My living room is full any time we want to watch TV or a movie or play Wii, with kitchen chairs or people sitting on the floor.
On December 24th, my in-laws arrive. THEY are thankfully staying in a hotel, but I am still in charge of feeding them. Add 2 chairs to the second table. We now number 9. It's getting a little stressful.
On December 25th, my parents arrive for the day. Add 2 more chairs. 5 at one table, 6 at the other. I am feeding 11 people for supper and there is no space to move in the living room. The two tables plus people basically fill my kitchen. We serve buffet style, with tv tables set up in two spots so half can get theirs in one spot, the rest can get their food at the other.
All in all, it went well. The food turned out, the 17 pound turkey was pretty close to being the perfect size, leaving only the equivalent of probably 7 hot turkey sandwiches' worth of meat, everyone had enough and enjoyed it.
I won't be doing it again, though. It was great to see everyone, it was great to have everything turn out, but it was SO MUCH WORK, and a lot of worry and too little space. Next year will be a very small Christmas...just me, Hubby, Son, and Daughter. (And Dog and Cat 1 and Cat 2)
My parents went home Christmas Day at night. Down to 9 for Boxing Day. Went shopping, out for lunch, relaxed, fed everybody. Daughter got sick. Had a headache, threw up X3, super dizzy, temperature of 102.8F under the armpit. Children's Tylenol, lots of water, darkness, and rest, and a 30 minute chat with the health nurse on the phone, and she was better the next morning.
In-laws said goodbye that night, left early the next morning. And then there were 7.
All but Hubby and Daughter went to church on the 27th in the morning. Said goodbye to sister and brother-in-law in the parking lot afterwards, they hopped in their car and drove off to spend a week at my parents'. And then there were 5.
Relaxed and watched many TV shows and such, then took brother to the bus station for his 13:15 bus on the 28th. Went to Superstore, bought snacks, kids and I watch movies all afternoon. All are exhausted and glad to have to house back.
Now we return to normal life, cleaning up and rearranging everything back to family-of-four status.
All in all, it went quite well. There were some glitches, some personality issues, as there will be with that many people in one space who are not normally together in said space....but we made it.
Next big-group adventure....Disneyland. :)
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Friday, October 2, 2009
Sanctuary from WHOM?
I wrote in my last blog that I would revisit a certain topic, specifically that of the birds in the local bird sanctuary. My friend and I went to see the birds, and to feed them big bags of bread crumbs. The sanctuary is a fairy large, fenced enclosure, with walkways, lots of trees, a nice big pond with fake waterfall, a very nice, supposedly peaceful place to go, see the birds who happen to have landed at that particular moment in the season.
The problem with this particular trip is that there were a lot of birds with very gruesome injuries that day. There were lots of Canada geese with broken wings, at least one with a broken ankle. The same was seen in some huge, gorgeous, white swans. The ducks seemed okay, as did the grumpy looking, sleepy pelican. But these poor geese and swans. The first one I saw, I thought maybe he was the runt or something, and the others had attacked him. But then there were more, and more, and MORE...and we noticed that the angles of these broken wings and ankle were all the same, all very...odd. Not the kind of breaks you would expect from birds attacking birds. And definitely not in that large a number.
My guess is that some stupid people, be they drunk, stoned, or just plain rotten, went into this supposedly safe place for the birds, and thought it would be funny to catch them and purposefully break their wings. It wasn't funny, whoever you are. It was horrible, it was mean, it was criminal, it was torture, and will continue to be torture for all those poor birds. Now they will never heal because of the angles of those breaks, now they will never be able to fly again, and therefore they will die when winter comes. What hard-hearted, selfish monsters do that to animals?
And what about the parents with young children who went in there to have a fun day with the kids, to show them the nice birds, and then have to try to explain the scene worthy of a horror movie to these little kids, who, as all kids do, start asking questions about why that bird is holding its arm out and up and pointing that way, and what about that one and that one and that one and so on?
I took my friend there to show her what a neat place it was, but we ended up leaving sad, angry, and horrified.
I really hope the city has some sort of resource to help these poor birds that have suffered this horrible fate....but unfortunately, I kind of doubt it.
The problem with this particular trip is that there were a lot of birds with very gruesome injuries that day. There were lots of Canada geese with broken wings, at least one with a broken ankle. The same was seen in some huge, gorgeous, white swans. The ducks seemed okay, as did the grumpy looking, sleepy pelican. But these poor geese and swans. The first one I saw, I thought maybe he was the runt or something, and the others had attacked him. But then there were more, and more, and MORE...and we noticed that the angles of these broken wings and ankle were all the same, all very...odd. Not the kind of breaks you would expect from birds attacking birds. And definitely not in that large a number.
My guess is that some stupid people, be they drunk, stoned, or just plain rotten, went into this supposedly safe place for the birds, and thought it would be funny to catch them and purposefully break their wings. It wasn't funny, whoever you are. It was horrible, it was mean, it was criminal, it was torture, and will continue to be torture for all those poor birds. Now they will never heal because of the angles of those breaks, now they will never be able to fly again, and therefore they will die when winter comes. What hard-hearted, selfish monsters do that to animals?
And what about the parents with young children who went in there to have a fun day with the kids, to show them the nice birds, and then have to try to explain the scene worthy of a horror movie to these little kids, who, as all kids do, start asking questions about why that bird is holding its arm out and up and pointing that way, and what about that one and that one and that one and so on?
I took my friend there to show her what a neat place it was, but we ended up leaving sad, angry, and horrified.
I really hope the city has some sort of resource to help these poor birds that have suffered this horrible fate....but unfortunately, I kind of doubt it.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
She Finally Made It
I forgot a very important event when I was trying to catch up. A friend of mine, one of those soul-mate friends you see across a room and know it is them, a lovely woman who I met in my last year of university, finally had the time and the means to come and visit. She bravely hopped on a Greyhound and spent approximately 24-25 hours therein to finally arrive at my place with stories of interesting busmates. Then had to spend that long on the bus home again when she left. That's usually how these things work.
She was able to stay nearly a full 4 days, if you count by a 24-hour clock (she was short by about 3 1/2 hours). It was an amazing time, full of talking and laughter (ESPECIALLY laughter), memories rehashed, and a bunch of exploring. We hunted buffalo (to look at), fed an elk, fed geese and ducks and seagulls and tried to feed a pelican. We saw atrocities in relation to the birds (more on that in a future post) I taught her about geocaching, she helped me deliver flyers. We went to Costco for a hot dog and pop, and, of course, poutine. We went to the cheap theatre to watch "Up". We stayed up as late as we could (and proved ourselves to be old fogies by not staying up nearly as late as planned), and ate chips and such, while watching "Miss Congeniality" and, of course, "UHF" (because that is the kind of humour we like, among other movies, know what I mean, wink, wink, nudge, nudge).
I am so happy she was able to come. She lives a very busy (and seemingly fulfilling) life, so having the opportunity to claim that much of her time was wonderful. I miss having her here already, and hope she makes it back sometime, or that I manage to scrimp and save enough to go visit HER someday.
It was so nice to connect with a piece of those days again, to connect the dots in between than and now, and just realign the friendship to fit the changes we both have gone through over the past 11 years since McGill. And it was nice to have the mix of the Mommy-me, and the Debbie-me going on at the same time while she was here.
Here's to you, sweet Moosh.
The kids already want to know when you are coming again. :-D
She was able to stay nearly a full 4 days, if you count by a 24-hour clock (she was short by about 3 1/2 hours). It was an amazing time, full of talking and laughter (ESPECIALLY laughter), memories rehashed, and a bunch of exploring. We hunted buffalo (to look at), fed an elk, fed geese and ducks and seagulls and tried to feed a pelican. We saw atrocities in relation to the birds (more on that in a future post) I taught her about geocaching, she helped me deliver flyers. We went to Costco for a hot dog and pop, and, of course, poutine. We went to the cheap theatre to watch "Up". We stayed up as late as we could (and proved ourselves to be old fogies by not staying up nearly as late as planned), and ate chips and such, while watching "Miss Congeniality" and, of course, "UHF" (because that is the kind of humour we like, among other movies, know what I mean, wink, wink, nudge, nudge).
I am so happy she was able to come. She lives a very busy (and seemingly fulfilling) life, so having the opportunity to claim that much of her time was wonderful. I miss having her here already, and hope she makes it back sometime, or that I manage to scrimp and save enough to go visit HER someday.
It was so nice to connect with a piece of those days again, to connect the dots in between than and now, and just realign the friendship to fit the changes we both have gone through over the past
Here's to you, sweet Moosh.
The kids already want to know when you are coming again. :-D
Monday, September 14, 2009
Catching Up
I see, with shock, that is has been nearly 3 MONTHS since I last posted. It isn't that there has been nothing to blog about, but rather that we have been having so much fun and so much stuff TO DO that I just haven't gotten around to it. This will likely be at least a 2 parter, as I am only writing as I wait for Hubby to be ready to go somewhere.
Off to Value Village for their 50% off sale.
Let me see....Daughter finished her softball season with a rained out tournament. All the same, she ended up with a cool t-shirt and a really nice medal. Next year, Son will start t-ball or whatever.
I had yet another birthday. No big, blowout celebration or anything, just dinner and cake. About a week later, I took myself for an evening out. That was nice. I ate at Red Lobster (crab legs, yum!), puttered around Toys R Us (Total Mom, I know), then Canadian Tire, nabbing a few plants for my garden at 25 cents each as they were trying to clear them out, then off to the movie theatre to see "Up". Since then, I have watched the movie a total of three times...the first time was in 3D, the other times, not. The second was with a friend, the third with my family. Can you tell I love this movie?
Daughter finished her school year, and we entered into the madness of summer....Son and Daughter both took swimming lessons for 2 weeks each, one passed, one did not. We did tons of daytrips and such...plus Daughter had 4 days of Art Camp, where she created masterpieces and aside from all parental pride and bias, displayed an aptitude in the artistic field.
There were hot dog sales to run, flyers to deliver, people to see, birthday parties to attend, Chorus rehearsals to go to, a trip to the Science Center, the museum, we went to the Edmonton Ex and while there visited family, we went camping in Assiniboia, and visited family while THERE, Son had a birthday, complete with party....we tried our had at fishing, but only managed to catch our dog (poor baby.....thankfully we were able to get the hook out with no real damage)...we picked saskatoon berries by the ice cream pail-full, we geocached until we dropped, Daughter had a sleepover with two other giggly girls, we celebrated our 10th anniversary with no pomp and circumstance at all....and took our little family out to dinner with the money we received, to Applebees. We will whoop it up at a later date, when time and money are easier to come by.
And then the kids went back to school. Daughter goes all day, Son goes afternoons. Life has settled down a little, and I have hopes of someday soon reaching a peaceful level of clean in my house, as opposed to the harried slap-and-dash attempts to do 3 days of cleaning in 3 hours.
Well, looks like I caught up after all! Hopefully I will keep up a bit better now, so I don't have to try to remember 3 months all at once. :-D
Off to Value Village for their 50% off sale.
Let me see....Daughter finished her softball season with a rained out tournament. All the same, she ended up with a cool t-shirt and a really nice medal. Next year, Son will start t-ball or whatever.
I had yet another birthday. No big, blowout celebration or anything, just dinner and cake. About a week later, I took myself for an evening out. That was nice. I ate at Red Lobster (crab legs, yum!), puttered around Toys R Us (Total Mom, I know), then Canadian Tire, nabbing a few plants for my garden at 25 cents each as they were trying to clear them out, then off to the movie theatre to see "Up". Since then, I have watched the movie a total of three times...the first time was in 3D, the other times, not. The second was with a friend, the third with my family. Can you tell I love this movie?
Daughter finished her school year, and we entered into the madness of summer....Son and Daughter both took swimming lessons for 2 weeks each, one passed, one did not. We did tons of daytrips and such...plus Daughter had 4 days of Art Camp, where she created masterpieces and aside from all parental pride and bias, displayed an aptitude in the artistic field.
There were hot dog sales to run, flyers to deliver, people to see, birthday parties to attend, Chorus rehearsals to go to, a trip to the Science Center, the museum, we went to the Edmonton Ex and while there visited family, we went camping in Assiniboia, and visited family while THERE, Son had a birthday, complete with party....we tried our had at fishing, but only managed to catch our dog (poor baby.....thankfully we were able to get the hook out with no real damage)...we picked saskatoon berries by the ice cream pail-full, we geocached until we dropped, Daughter had a sleepover with two other giggly girls, we celebrated our 10th anniversary with no pomp and circumstance at all....and took our little family out to dinner with the money we received, to Applebees. We will whoop it up at a later date, when time and money are easier to come by.
And then the kids went back to school. Daughter goes all day, Son goes afternoons. Life has settled down a little, and I have hopes of someday soon reaching a peaceful level of clean in my house, as opposed to the harried slap-and-dash attempts to do 3 days of cleaning in 3 hours.
Well, looks like I caught up after all! Hopefully I will keep up a bit better now, so I don't have to try to remember 3 months all at once. :-D
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Quirky critters
It has been a week full of stories I could tell about animals. Two in particular.
First of all, there is Geo-Dog...not er real name, but that is the title she has earned because she comes along as we geocache, sometimes. She is a smart critter. We went geocaching this past week, along a walking trail in the middle of nowhere, pretty much. Searching for one particular cache, we went tromping through long grass and short shrubs, scratching up our legs pretty well. Son was not a happy camper when we got ground zero, and we never did find this cache. We were dreading the traipse back, and as we started out, I noticed that Geo-Dog seemed to know where she was going. I figured things couldn't get much worse, so I let her have her head and followed along at the end of her leash. Wouldn't you know my silly, soppy, half-crazed Black lab/shepherd/greyhound cross picked up the scent of other cachers? She led us along a nearly invisible trail....MUCH easier on the legs than our entry trail...and got us back to the path, goiung in a different direction from where we had come from? Pretty impressive. Now if only she could have left the ticks behind. We are STILL finding them!
The second story is about a little frog named Hopper. We had a lot of puddles in the ditches near our house, and could hear the frogs SCREAMING out their ribbits....so I thought it might be kind of cool to go frog hunting with Son and Daughter. So we went, annd we looked, and listened, and looked....and couldn't find anything because we were looking for frogs to match the loudness of the ribbits. I will never know how a sound that loud could come from a frog that small, but we finally found one, about an inch long. The kids were thrilled and set him up in a huge jar with a rock and water and such....and declared we would keep it forever. How to feed a frog? So I was out in the backyard daily, after some internet research, catching ants and beetles and anything I could find that moved. No luck. Hopper would not eat. One day, just out of desperation, I caught a housefly and got it into the jar. The fly was about 3/4 the size of the frog. Well....Hopper ate the fly....and died. My suspicion, based on the size of the fly was that Hopper either choked to death, or his tummy exploded.
I now have a tiny grave in my flower bed, with a rock saying "Hopper" on it, loving;y dug and created by my children. Silly frog.
First of all, there is Geo-Dog...not er real name, but that is the title she has earned because she comes along as we geocache, sometimes. She is a smart critter. We went geocaching this past week, along a walking trail in the middle of nowhere, pretty much. Searching for one particular cache, we went tromping through long grass and short shrubs, scratching up our legs pretty well. Son was not a happy camper when we got ground zero, and we never did find this cache. We were dreading the traipse back, and as we started out, I noticed that Geo-Dog seemed to know where she was going. I figured things couldn't get much worse, so I let her have her head and followed along at the end of her leash. Wouldn't you know my silly, soppy, half-crazed Black lab/shepherd/greyhound cross picked up the scent of other cachers? She led us along a nearly invisible trail....MUCH easier on the legs than our entry trail...and got us back to the path, goiung in a different direction from where we had come from? Pretty impressive. Now if only she could have left the ticks behind. We are STILL finding them!
The second story is about a little frog named Hopper. We had a lot of puddles in the ditches near our house, and could hear the frogs SCREAMING out their ribbits....so I thought it might be kind of cool to go frog hunting with Son and Daughter. So we went, annd we looked, and listened, and looked....and couldn't find anything because we were looking for frogs to match the loudness of the ribbits. I will never know how a sound that loud could come from a frog that small, but we finally found one, about an inch long. The kids were thrilled and set him up in a huge jar with a rock and water and such....and declared we would keep it forever. How to feed a frog? So I was out in the backyard daily, after some internet research, catching ants and beetles and anything I could find that moved. No luck. Hopper would not eat. One day, just out of desperation, I caught a housefly and got it into the jar. The fly was about 3/4 the size of the frog. Well....Hopper ate the fly....and died. My suspicion, based on the size of the fly was that Hopper either choked to death, or his tummy exploded.
I now have a tiny grave in my flower bed, with a rock saying "Hopper" on it, loving;y dug and created by my children. Silly frog.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Oh, yes, THAT makes it all better!
Ever had somebody say something to you that had the absolute opposite of the desired effect? That would be today. That would be me.
I went to one of our local hospitals, to visit a friend. She was signed in on Monday to have a baby. She had asked me to come visit sometime this week, if I could, in an e-mail she sent a few days before she was admitted. So I finally had a spare moment or three today. I dropped Son off at preschool (kids other than relatives are not allowed on the baby ward), and high tailed it to the hospital. Arrived shortly after one, to find that Baby/Mom quiet time was from 1-2PM daily. So I sat in the hospital hallway and read for an hour. I went in, and asked for my friend. The nurse checked her chart, then checked again. "Are you sure she isn't under another last name?" Nope. They asked when she had been signed in, I said Monday. She thought maybe my friend had been discharged, checked, STILL no sign of my friend. Another nurse walks in, so she asks HER. The nurse's response is "Oh,yes, we have her here...family is room 9, remember?" Oh, yes, says the other nurse. Are you family? No...just a friend. I get a strange look from the nurse who had known where my friend was, and she says "I'm sorry, you'll have to talk to her family...I DON'T WANT TO ALARM YOU, but I can't give out information....I'm sorry, but you'll have to call her husband to get information..."
And that was it. I was supposed to leave.
Um...I don't want to alarm you? Excuse me? That, right there, has me alarmed. Very. Because, you see, I still have no idea what that was all about. I don't know if my friend is in danger. I don't know if her baby is in danger. And because they live on a farm about 2 1/2 hours from me, and so her husband is fairly likely to stay in town until she is discharged, I have no clue how I would contact him short of stalking the hospital corridors until I catch a glimpse of him!!!!! And even if it WAS a simple task to contact him, just the looks, the demeanour, and the words "I don't want to alarm you" are enough to have me really, really afraid for my friend and nearly frantic in wanting to know what is going on.
Maybe if Hubby can watch Son, I can go back tomorrow and leave a message for him at the desk or something. Either way, it's going to be a long, worrisome night.
I went to one of our local hospitals, to visit a friend. She was signed in on Monday to have a baby. She had asked me to come visit sometime this week, if I could, in an e-mail she sent a few days before she was admitted. So I finally had a spare moment or three today. I dropped Son off at preschool (kids other than relatives are not allowed on the baby ward), and high tailed it to the hospital. Arrived shortly after one, to find that Baby/Mom quiet time was from 1-2PM daily. So I sat in the hospital hallway and read for an hour. I went in, and asked for my friend. The nurse checked her chart, then checked again. "Are you sure she isn't under another last name?" Nope. They asked when she had been signed in, I said Monday. She thought maybe my friend had been discharged, checked, STILL no sign of my friend. Another nurse walks in, so she asks HER. The nurse's response is "Oh,yes, we have her here...family is room 9, remember?" Oh, yes, says the other nurse. Are you family? No...just a friend. I get a strange look from the nurse who had known where my friend was, and she says "I'm sorry, you'll have to talk to her family...I DON'T WANT TO ALARM YOU, but I can't give out information....I'm sorry, but you'll have to call her husband to get information..."
And that was it. I was supposed to leave.
Um...I don't want to alarm you? Excuse me? That, right there, has me alarmed. Very. Because, you see, I still have no idea what that was all about. I don't know if my friend is in danger. I don't know if her baby is in danger. And because they live on a farm about 2 1/2 hours from me, and so her husband is fairly likely to stay in town until she is discharged, I have no clue how I would contact him short of stalking the hospital corridors until I catch a glimpse of him!!!!! And even if it WAS a simple task to contact him, just the looks, the demeanour, and the words "I don't want to alarm you" are enough to have me really, really afraid for my friend and nearly frantic in wanting to know what is going on.
Maybe if Hubby can watch Son, I can go back tomorrow and leave a message for him at the desk or something. Either way, it's going to be a long, worrisome night.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
The Stove, The Run, and The Rest
I seem to have this annoying habit of only writing once a month while consistently reminding myself at least a few times a week that I really want to write about this, that, or the other thing, so those of you who have decided to bear with me....thanks. :) I always seem to have a lot to write about when I actually sit down and DO it, and i invariably forget at least a dozen really good anecdotes along the way.
So...the last I wrote would have been what? May 11. There you go. Nearly a month ago.
Since then, as you see in the title, there has been a development on the stove. Namely, the thing decided to explode again. Same element. So we unplugged it and hucked it into the front yard, where some nice guys hauled it off to the dump for $35. And for $250 plus the $60 (?) delivery fee, I now have myself a nice, shiny, white, 9 year old ceramic top stove. YESSSSSSSSS! I love it! The thing MUST have been absolute top of the line when the people bought it new, they took amazingly good care of it, so it looks nearly new, and it is SO much easier to keep clean! No more having to take the burners out and scrub the metal plate thingies underneath because you spilled something, no more residue causing clouds of smoke if you forgot there was something under the burner.
On May 24, Daughter and I ran a 5km fun run. She did amazingly, running most of the way, and we finished in 46 minutes on the nose. Son was near the finish line and so grabbed my hand and ran through with us. I even have pictures! Next year we hope to improve on that time, but for her first run, that was AMAZING!
It was a lot of fun....and probably one of the only times when I have been fed a hamburger at 9:50AM (that's what all the runners got....a burger or hot dog, and a glass of juice, when they were done)
Other than that, not a whole lot has happened...had a farewell party for a beloved preschool teacher who just happens to be leaving the job after our youngest "graduates" from preschool in a few weeks. I have created sock monkeys for her and the other teacher there, to remind them of my little monkey (son). :)
I just came back this evening from a 24 hour retreat at an amazing place about an hour from here...it's called a "House of Prayer", and is run by a priest and some nuns....basically a place to go for peace and quiet, reflection, stuff like that. They feed you, give you a place to sleep, and basically stay out of your way. It was beautiful. Last year,there were deer just outside the window. This year was birds....bright yellow finches, blue jays, stuff like that. We went to plan our next steps for Chorus, but it was a nice restful place, too....if you discount having to share a double bed with one of my team when I am used to a king sized with Hubby.
Oh yes! And I gave Son a mohawk hairdo. No pics yet, but I'm sure I will get some eventually for you all to see. It actually looks really good on him, which even Hubby had to admit when we surprised him with it on his return from a 2-day trip to Kingston.
So...the last I wrote would have been what? May 11. There you go. Nearly a month ago.
Since then, as you see in the title, there has been a development on the stove. Namely, the thing decided to explode again. Same element. So we unplugged it and hucked it into the front yard, where some nice guys hauled it off to the dump for $35. And for $250 plus the $60 (?) delivery fee, I now have myself a nice, shiny, white, 9 year old ceramic top stove. YESSSSSSSSS! I love it! The thing MUST have been absolute top of the line when the people bought it new, they took amazingly good care of it, so it looks nearly new, and it is SO much easier to keep clean! No more having to take the burners out and scrub the metal plate thingies underneath because you spilled something, no more residue causing clouds of smoke if you forgot there was something under the burner.
On May 24, Daughter and I ran a 5km fun run. She did amazingly, running most of the way, and we finished in 46 minutes on the nose. Son was near the finish line and so grabbed my hand and ran through with us. I even have pictures! Next year we hope to improve on that time, but for her first run, that was AMAZING!
It was a lot of fun....and probably one of the only times when I have been fed a hamburger at 9:50AM (that's what all the runners got....a burger or hot dog, and a glass of juice, when they were done)
Other than that, not a whole lot has happened...had a farewell party for a beloved preschool teacher who just happens to be leaving the job after our youngest "graduates" from preschool in a few weeks. I have created sock monkeys for her and the other teacher there, to remind them of my little monkey (son). :)
I just came back this evening from a 24 hour retreat at an amazing place about an hour from here...it's called a "House of Prayer", and is run by a priest and some nuns....basically a place to go for peace and quiet, reflection, stuff like that. They feed you, give you a place to sleep, and basically stay out of your way. It was beautiful. Last year,there were deer just outside the window. This year was birds....bright yellow finches, blue jays, stuff like that. We went to plan our next steps for Chorus, but it was a nice restful place, too....if you discount having to share a double bed with one of my team when I am used to a king sized with Hubby.
Oh yes! And I gave Son a mohawk hairdo. No pics yet, but I'm sure I will get some eventually for you all to see. It actually looks really good on him, which even Hubby had to admit when we surprised him with it on his return from a 2-day trip to Kingston.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Modern Conveniences?
If you have been following my life the last little while, you will know that we have had some mechanical issues...car trouble, furnace trouble, etc. And the beat goes on.
I have to tell you a little bit more and some discoveries we have made over the past few months.
Our fridge was having issues at about the same time as our furnace. We got the furnace fixed, and our gas usage dropped like a rock, our power usage dropping a bit as well. So...with the fridge having issues, it reached a point where it probably would have been more effective to bury our food in the snow, as milk and fruit and veggies were turning into creatures of another kind. So we got out tax refund and went out to purchase a new fridge...new to us, not necessarily new altogether, but a much newer model anyway, reduced a fair bit because it was a scratch and dent. At the same time, spring started to arrive, so we went out and bought the gear for a clothesline and have started hanging our clothes out to dry instead of just hucking them in the dryer. I looked at our power bill for the past few months and discovered that JUST BY REPLACING THE FRIDGE AND NOT USING THE DRYER, we reduced our monthly bill by 25%!!!!!!!! What a shock!
Our stove has started going on the fritz, too...at least the element part....I was cooking something a few weeks back, and spilled something on the burner...water boiled over while I was cooking crabs, I think it was...and there was an EXPLOSION, complete with a green and orange flash of fire. It blew a fuse, which we replaced, but now it is super finicky...when you turn on the element, you need to have something to kind of push the element a bit further into the socket, and if you happen to be making hash browns, it will constantly turn itself off so that they take forever to cook...so for the most part, unless it's having a good day, we are down to three elements. It's one of the big elements, too. Bah. Give it another year, and that will be replaced, too. That will likely drop the power bill farther, too, as the fridge and stove were a set, so it's as old as the old fridge was, and so not very energy efficient.
We also had been having issues with our dishwasher over the last few months...it hadn't always been doing a good job. But it was "convenient", so we kept using it....until it started leaking. Last night we finally decided that this was it. We would just have to revert to hand washing the dishes. So I washed the supper dishes, and Hubby dried. I opened the drawer to get spoons for breakfast this morning, and was absolutely DAZZLED by the shininess of the cutlery! We got so used to the way the dishwasher did it that we didn't even notice how dull the dishes had become from build-up, we had just noticed the ones that had food cooked on. So we probably are using less water now, I can water my plants with the water from the dishes this summer, thereby reducing water consumption, the dishes will always be done right away, as we will need them for the next meal, so that should make the kitchen a bit tidier, with there being no dishes stacked up, waiting for the dishwasher, it will reduce our power usage even further....all in all, the dishwasher has become more of an INconvenience....by washing them ourselves, they are actually getting CLEAN! What a concept!
Makes you wish for the old days with a true ICE box, wood stove, wash the clothes in a bucket and hang them up to dry, and hand wash the dishes. Well....almost.
I have to tell you a little bit more and some discoveries we have made over the past few months.
Our fridge was having issues at about the same time as our furnace. We got the furnace fixed, and our gas usage dropped like a rock, our power usage dropping a bit as well. So...with the fridge having issues, it reached a point where it probably would have been more effective to bury our food in the snow, as milk and fruit and veggies were turning into creatures of another kind. So we got out tax refund and went out to purchase a new fridge...new to us, not necessarily new altogether, but a much newer model anyway, reduced a fair bit because it was a scratch and dent. At the same time, spring started to arrive, so we went out and bought the gear for a clothesline and have started hanging our clothes out to dry instead of just hucking them in the dryer. I looked at our power bill for the past few months and discovered that JUST BY REPLACING THE FRIDGE AND NOT USING THE DRYER, we reduced our monthly bill by 25%!!!!!!!! What a shock!
Our stove has started going on the fritz, too...at least the element part....I was cooking something a few weeks back, and spilled something on the burner...water boiled over while I was cooking crabs, I think it was...and there was an EXPLOSION, complete with a green and orange flash of fire. It blew a fuse, which we replaced, but now it is super finicky...when you turn on the element, you need to have something to kind of push the element a bit further into the socket, and if you happen to be making hash browns, it will constantly turn itself off so that they take forever to cook...so for the most part, unless it's having a good day, we are down to three elements. It's one of the big elements, too. Bah. Give it another year, and that will be replaced, too. That will likely drop the power bill farther, too, as the fridge and stove were a set, so it's as old as the old fridge was, and so not very energy efficient.
We also had been having issues with our dishwasher over the last few months...it hadn't always been doing a good job. But it was "convenient", so we kept using it....until it started leaking. Last night we finally decided that this was it. We would just have to revert to hand washing the dishes. So I washed the supper dishes, and Hubby dried. I opened the drawer to get spoons for breakfast this morning, and was absolutely DAZZLED by the shininess of the cutlery! We got so used to the way the dishwasher did it that we didn't even notice how dull the dishes had become from build-up, we had just noticed the ones that had food cooked on. So we probably are using less water now, I can water my plants with the water from the dishes this summer, thereby reducing water consumption, the dishes will always be done right away, as we will need them for the next meal, so that should make the kitchen a bit tidier, with there being no dishes stacked up, waiting for the dishwasher, it will reduce our power usage even further....all in all, the dishwasher has become more of an INconvenience....by washing them ourselves, they are actually getting CLEAN! What a concept!
Makes you wish for the old days with a true ICE box, wood stove, wash the clothes in a bucket and hang them up to dry, and hand wash the dishes. Well....almost.
Competitions, fires, and Clinics
It has been nearly a month since I last posted. I can't believe how much time has gone by. I have often thought about how I could post about this thing or that, and then have become busy and forgotten. So I will attempt a mish-mash effort, and hopefully will capture the majority.
My son got to visit French Immersion Kindergarten last month. It was a lot of fun for him in the one hour glimpse he got of the class. The other day he came up to me, and we have this conversation...
SON: Mommy, how do you say "can I"
ME: "Est-ce que je peux"
SON: Essejepa...how do you say "some"
ME: "de"
SON: duh..how do you say "milk"
ME: "lait"
SON: "lay"...can I have some milk?
ME: Est-ce que je peux avoir du lait?
SON: That's what I SAID!
LOL. He's a cutie.
The same week as his visit to kindergarten, I took off to Calgary for Regionals with my chorus. I drove down with three of my riser mates, and it was quite an experience. We had a lot of fun, but it took a lot longer to arrive than I had hoped, with two of them taking medications that, well, required us to stop...a lot. After the first half of the trip, I simply stopped asking if we needed to stop, and kept driving until someone begged to stop. Coming home, we added a car mate, which greatly increased the luggage, as she had just flown directly to competition from a two week visit to Scotland, so with much laughter and creativity, we managed to cram 5 people's luggage plus 5 people into my minivan without having to tie anything to the roof.
The hotel was very nice, and very big, involving escalators and elevators, the elevators being quite annoying, because if you got on the wrong one, it would not let you go any lower than the 3rd floor. There was one that went from the parking garage only to the lobby. And then there were the ones that went from the lobby to whatever floor you needed, but you had to make sure you swiped your room card to make it go...I was up on another floor, helping a riser mate put on her eyelashes, while my roomies returned to our room...I didn't have my key, so had to phone them so one could come up and get me! How embarrassing!
It was the first hotel I've stayed in since joining the Chorus that did not have a mini fridge. I brought all my food with me, knowing how much it would cost to eat out the whole weekend. Thankfully, I had brought a little cooler with me, so I visited the ice machine frequently...but by doing so, I spent about $60 on groceries to eat for 4 days...and I had leftovers!!!! Not bad, when you consider that eating out in the area we were in was costing my roomies about $20-$50 a MEAL.
I had quite an experience with my earrings...when lining up for our competition performance, we sang a song for the other chorus waiting in the lineup (it's a tradition), and right after we sang the last note, my earring fell off, into my hand. The backing was GONE...and there was no time to go looking for it. Thankfully, the costume chair had a clip on, so I traded her my one with no back for a clip on, and wore that. Right after our competition, I found the backing...let's just say close to my heart, but on the other side, all snug in my all-in-one. So I traded back for my earring, and had it on for the Show of Champions. Came down the elevator to line up for the Show of Champions...and discovered I had the backing on the back of my ear, but NO EARRING!!! I nearly had a heart attack! Happily, one of the other Choruses had found it on the elevator and given it to one of my riser mates. So I got it back just before we went off to perform. I was so paranoid, though, afraid it would fall off again....and when performing, you CANNOT be reaching up to check.
Prairie Gold (my chorus) placed 2nd Place Small Chorus, by one point (story of our lives...2003 International Harmony Classic, we came in 2nd by 1 point), and 8th Place Overall out of 16 choruses. Our lowest score ever, I think, but based on the kind of year we'd had, I think we did very well.
The drive home was a fair bit faster, as I drove until they begged, and it was a lot of fun. I arrived home around 9PM, and then standing in my kitchen, talking to Hubby, we heard something like thunder....twice...and THIS happened
http://www.leaderpost.com/news/Fire+damages+northwest+Regina+home/1537066/story.html
This is not OUR house, but rather a few houses down...close enough that there were sparks and embers landing in our back yard. I had two very frightened children, plus the little girl who lived next door to this. She was so scared, poor thing..."What's going to happen to my room? What about my flip flops?"...having that sort of thing happening to the house next to you when you are 5 is a big deal. Not that it isn't a big deal even if you are grown up, but I think it turns little kids' worlds upside down a lot more violently.
Last weekend, we went to a Flash Mob/ Geocaching event. It was a lot of fun. The flash mob part involved a peanut scramble. Son found a white peanut, and as a prize received a travel bug. We are very excited. We have an idea for what to do with it, so now we just need to carry it out and figure out where to hide it.
While we were there, we walked around the lake a little bit, and I had to laugh at how frustrated some poor beaver must have been. You see, there were these saplings near the water, along the walkway. They were supported with wires and sticks and such. A beaver had found one of these saplings, and decided it would make a good addition to its dam, so it had chewed the trunk and managed to fell the tree. One problem. The tree is attached to the ground by the wires! So you see this tree stump that has obviously been chewed by the beaver. Just above that, lying sideways and suspended in the air, is the top part of the tree, the bottom of which obviously matches with the trunk with beaver teeth marks, going NOWHERE. Poor beaver....all that work for nothing.
This past Friday, Son went to the cleft palate clinic, just to have everything given the once over, 4 months after his surgery. He is officially discharged from the clinic, as everything looks wonderful. They said we could get him back in the program anytime we needed, for example, they said when he hits the teen years, as his mouth grows, it may not grow properly and may reopen the muscles or make his adult teeth grow in wrong and his speech may deteriorate again....or it may not....but if anything happens, we can bring him back. Based on the fact his father had no such problem in his teen years, we are optimistic that this will not be necessary.
A the clinic, we met Peanut. This was a very cute, very friendly cocker spaniel, with one very special feature...Peanut has a cleft palate and hare lip. Let me tell you, this makes for an interesting face on a dog. He looked like he was constantly smiling out of the front, left side of his mouth. I wish I had a picture. What a great thing to bring to show to the kids with cleft palates...a doggy just like them!
Oh yes, I am a redhead again, though a darker redhead than usual...closer to my natural brown, but when in the sun, it shows the red very well. Not something that matters to most people, but I know some of you wanted to know if I had done it or not.
My son got to visit French Immersion Kindergarten last month. It was a lot of fun for him in the one hour glimpse he got of the class. The other day he came up to me, and we have this conversation...
SON: Mommy, how do you say "can I"
ME: "Est-ce que je peux"
SON: Essejepa...how do you say "some"
ME: "de"
SON: duh..how do you say "milk"
ME: "lait"
SON: "lay"...can I have some milk?
ME: Est-ce que je peux avoir du lait?
SON: That's what I SAID!
LOL. He's a cutie.
The same week as his visit to kindergarten, I took off to Calgary for Regionals with my chorus. I drove down with three of my riser mates, and it was quite an experience. We had a lot of fun, but it took a lot longer to arrive than I had hoped, with two of them taking medications that, well, required us to stop...a lot. After the first half of the trip, I simply stopped asking if we needed to stop, and kept driving until someone begged to stop. Coming home, we added a car mate, which greatly increased the luggage, as she had just flown directly to competition from a two week visit to Scotland, so with much laughter and creativity, we managed to cram 5 people's luggage plus 5 people into my minivan without having to tie anything to the roof.
The hotel was very nice, and very big, involving escalators and elevators, the elevators being quite annoying, because if you got on the wrong one, it would not let you go any lower than the 3rd floor. There was one that went from the parking garage only to the lobby. And then there were the ones that went from the lobby to whatever floor you needed, but you had to make sure you swiped your room card to make it go...I was up on another floor, helping a riser mate put on her eyelashes, while my roomies returned to our room...I didn't have my key, so had to phone them so one could come up and get me! How embarrassing!
It was the first hotel I've stayed in since joining the Chorus that did not have a mini fridge. I brought all my food with me, knowing how much it would cost to eat out the whole weekend. Thankfully, I had brought a little cooler with me, so I visited the ice machine frequently...but by doing so, I spent about $60 on groceries to eat for 4 days...and I had leftovers!!!! Not bad, when you consider that eating out in the area we were in was costing my roomies about $20-$50 a MEAL.
I had quite an experience with my earrings...when lining up for our competition performance, we sang a song for the other chorus waiting in the lineup (it's a tradition), and right after we sang the last note, my earring fell off, into my hand. The backing was GONE...and there was no time to go looking for it. Thankfully, the costume chair had a clip on, so I traded her my one with no back for a clip on, and wore that. Right after our competition, I found the backing...let's just say close to my heart, but on the other side, all snug in my all-in-one. So I traded back for my earring, and had it on for the Show of Champions. Came down the elevator to line up for the Show of Champions...and discovered I had the backing on the back of my ear, but NO EARRING!!! I nearly had a heart attack! Happily, one of the other Choruses had found it on the elevator and given it to one of my riser mates. So I got it back just before we went off to perform. I was so paranoid, though, afraid it would fall off again....and when performing, you CANNOT be reaching up to check.
Prairie Gold (my chorus) placed 2nd Place Small Chorus, by one point (story of our lives...2003 International Harmony Classic, we came in 2nd by 1 point), and 8th Place Overall out of 16 choruses. Our lowest score ever, I think, but based on the kind of year we'd had, I think we did very well.
The drive home was a fair bit faster, as I drove until they begged, and it was a lot of fun. I arrived home around 9PM, and then standing in my kitchen, talking to Hubby, we heard something like thunder....twice...and THIS happened
http://www.leaderpost.com/news/Fire+damages+northwest+Regina+home/1537066/story.html
This is not OUR house, but rather a few houses down...close enough that there were sparks and embers landing in our back yard. I had two very frightened children, plus the little girl who lived next door to this. She was so scared, poor thing..."What's going to happen to my room? What about my flip flops?"...having that sort of thing happening to the house next to you when you are 5 is a big deal. Not that it isn't a big deal even if you are grown up, but I think it turns little kids' worlds upside down a lot more violently.
Last weekend, we went to a Flash Mob/ Geocaching event. It was a lot of fun. The flash mob part involved a peanut scramble. Son found a white peanut, and as a prize received a travel bug. We are very excited. We have an idea for what to do with it, so now we just need to carry it out and figure out where to hide it.
While we were there, we walked around the lake a little bit, and I had to laugh at how frustrated some poor beaver must have been. You see, there were these saplings near the water, along the walkway. They were supported with wires and sticks and such. A beaver had found one of these saplings, and decided it would make a good addition to its dam, so it had chewed the trunk and managed to fell the tree. One problem. The tree is attached to the ground by the wires! So you see this tree stump that has obviously been chewed by the beaver. Just above that, lying sideways and suspended in the air, is the top part of the tree, the bottom of which obviously matches with the trunk with beaver teeth marks, going NOWHERE. Poor beaver....all that work for nothing.
This past Friday, Son went to the cleft palate clinic, just to have everything given the once over, 4 months after his surgery. He is officially discharged from the clinic, as everything looks wonderful. They said we could get him back in the program anytime we needed, for example, they said when he hits the teen years, as his mouth grows, it may not grow properly and may reopen the muscles or make his adult teeth grow in wrong and his speech may deteriorate again....or it may not....but if anything happens, we can bring him back. Based on the fact his father had no such problem in his teen years, we are optimistic that this will not be necessary.
A the clinic, we met Peanut. This was a very cute, very friendly cocker spaniel, with one very special feature...Peanut has a cleft palate and hare lip. Let me tell you, this makes for an interesting face on a dog. He looked like he was constantly smiling out of the front, left side of his mouth. I wish I had a picture. What a great thing to bring to show to the kids with cleft palates...a doggy just like them!
Oh yes, I am a redhead again, though a darker redhead than usual...closer to my natural brown, but when in the sun, it shows the red very well. Not something that matters to most people, but I know some of you wanted to know if I had done it or not.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
The Birds!!!!!!!!!!!!
Okay, first of all, we have a wood stove in our basement. It's all hooked up and to code and everything, but we have never used it. Because it costs a fortune for home insurance if we ever do. Which is fine. It looks nice anyway.
Over the winter, two birds got in, unbeknownst to us. And subsequently died in said wood stove. Not using it, there really was no huge need to be peering in through the little window to count the carnage.
We heard a noise yesterday, and found our dear kitties watching what I will call "Bird TV"...noses pressed up against the glass, they were happily watching a live bird flutter around in the stove. We came up with several ideas for how to get this bird out of the wood stove without major chaos. Having found a suitable solution (big bag over door of wood stove, bird flies into bag, we quickly close bag, run upstairs, free said birdie), we prepare to execute the plan. Open the wood stove. No bird in the bag. No noise. We bang the stove and pipe, hoping to flush it out. Nothing. Close the door, peer through the window. No bird. So I don rubber gloves and hold my trusty garbage bag, and fish out the two dead birds. Still no sign of the live birdie. Go upstairs, grab the vacuum to suck up the soot the birds had knocked out of the pipe. Sucking away. Suddenly there is an explosion of feathers and said birdie emerges from the ashes and flies, you guessed it, past me and into the house. Thankfully the dog was already sequestered in a bedroom from the moment of the wood stove attempt, but let me tell you, there were two kitties who very much enjoyed THIS turn of events.
It took a long time and a lot of effort on the part of hubby to chase down this totally freaked out ball of feathers. In the end, it involved a roll of toilet paper, the top of a clothes hamper, a girl guide cookie box, and a pillowcase. We finally captured the bird and set it free. It flew off as fast as its little wings could go. I returned immediately downstairs to finish the job of cleaning up. I was just reaching for the door of the wood stove to open it and finish cleaning when PLOP...there was a bird fluttering around in the wood stove.
It seems to have found its way back out through the pipe, as it disappeared before we even considered trying another evacuation, but then, who knows...maybe there's a nest up there somewhere. Time will tell, and hopefully we will figure out how to block the thing before we repeat that fiasco.
Over the winter, two birds got in, unbeknownst to us. And subsequently died in said wood stove. Not using it, there really was no huge need to be peering in through the little window to count the carnage.
We heard a noise yesterday, and found our dear kitties watching what I will call "Bird TV"...noses pressed up against the glass, they were happily watching a live bird flutter around in the stove. We came up with several ideas for how to get this bird out of the wood stove without major chaos. Having found a suitable solution (big bag over door of wood stove, bird flies into bag, we quickly close bag, run upstairs, free said birdie), we prepare to execute the plan. Open the wood stove. No bird in the bag. No noise. We bang the stove and pipe, hoping to flush it out. Nothing. Close the door, peer through the window. No bird. So I don rubber gloves and hold my trusty garbage bag, and fish out the two dead birds. Still no sign of the live birdie. Go upstairs, grab the vacuum to suck up the soot the birds had knocked out of the pipe. Sucking away. Suddenly there is an explosion of feathers and said birdie emerges from the ashes and flies, you guessed it, past me and into the house. Thankfully the dog was already sequestered in a bedroom from the moment of the wood stove attempt, but let me tell you, there were two kitties who very much enjoyed THIS turn of events.
It took a long time and a lot of effort on the part of hubby to chase down this totally freaked out ball of feathers. In the end, it involved a roll of toilet paper, the top of a clothes hamper, a girl guide cookie box, and a pillowcase. We finally captured the bird and set it free. It flew off as fast as its little wings could go. I returned immediately downstairs to finish the job of cleaning up. I was just reaching for the door of the wood stove to open it and finish cleaning when PLOP...there was a bird fluttering around in the wood stove.
It seems to have found its way back out through the pipe, as it disappeared before we even considered trying another evacuation, but then, who knows...maybe there's a nest up there somewhere. Time will tell, and hopefully we will figure out how to block the thing before we repeat that fiasco.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Well, okay then.
It's amazing how things seem to sort themselves out. I really need to learn to relax a bit more. This whole faith and testing thing is a real challenge for me.
The short version is that the worries I had in my last post seem to have sorted themselves out, somewhat.
Hubby received a FREE iPod Touch from one of his suppliers, because a customer had returned it, complaining because it had a scratch on it. A scratch people. We looked, and looked....and saw a minute little one on the back that we had to SEARCH for. Anyway.
Hubby goes off to work a couple of days ago. One of his clients says, totally out of the blue, not knowing that hubby even owns one, that his son is looking for an iPod Touch, but hasn't managed to save up enough to buy new, and if Hubby knew of anyone wanting to sell theirs, his son would like to buy it.
Hubby sold his iPod Touch today. He hadn't really been impressed with it in the week or so that he owned it anyway. And so we got $200.
Oh yes, and the work van's troubles magically disappeared. So now we have $200 in a fund, put away for a later date when we have a bit more to add to it, so if the trouble resurfaces, we can get it fixed.
And I rummaged around the living room and dug up a few small things to sell and posted them for sale on a group on my computer. Not even 5 minutes after I posted one thing, someone already responded that they want to buy it. So it looks like there will at least be a few things I can sell around the house that will bring in bits and pieces to add to our Emergency fund and all.My problem is that I form an emotional attachment to pretty much everything. But give me time, and I'll have sold so much stuff that the kids will be afraid they are next. (That's a joke)
Oh, and hubby will be heading out of town for another big job, so that will add to the fund, too. A little bit, anyway.
So there you have it. The plan is working, God is honouring our efforts, and things just keep trucking along. :)
The short version is that the worries I had in my last post seem to have sorted themselves out, somewhat.
Hubby received a FREE iPod Touch from one of his suppliers, because a customer had returned it, complaining because it had a scratch on it. A scratch people. We looked, and looked....and saw a minute little one on the back that we had to SEARCH for. Anyway.
Hubby goes off to work a couple of days ago. One of his clients says, totally out of the blue, not knowing that hubby even owns one, that his son is looking for an iPod Touch, but hasn't managed to save up enough to buy new, and if Hubby knew of anyone wanting to sell theirs, his son would like to buy it.
Hubby sold his iPod Touch today. He hadn't really been impressed with it in the week or so that he owned it anyway. And so we got $200.
Oh yes, and the work van's troubles magically disappeared. So now we have $200 in a fund, put away for a later date when we have a bit more to add to it, so if the trouble resurfaces, we can get it fixed.
And I rummaged around the living room and dug up a few small things to sell and posted them for sale on a group on my computer. Not even 5 minutes after I posted one thing, someone already responded that they want to buy it. So it looks like there will at least be a few things I can sell around the house that will bring in bits and pieces to add to our Emergency fund and all.My problem is that I form an emotional attachment to pretty much everything. But give me time, and I'll have sold so much stuff that the kids will be afraid they are next. (That's a joke)
Oh, and hubby will be heading out of town for another big job, so that will add to the fund, too. A little bit, anyway.
So there you have it. The plan is working, God is honouring our efforts, and things just keep trucking along. :)
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Testing...
Lately, I wrote a post in regards to tithing and trust. At the time, things seemed to have a definite answer, a "yes, this is the right thing" feeling, as things seemed to suddenly click into place financially, things suddenly were looking up...
And then the true testing came. And still is here, with teeth. I wish I could see into the future, and into the "why's" of it all. It hit so hard this morning that I hit my knees at the edge of my bed, ground my face into the covers, and cried, and prayed. I don't do so well with testing. I fail miserably when it comes to hard times. Anybody who has known me for any length of time knows that.
I wrote the blog about my van and its flat-tire-turned-nightmare-of-broken-brake-parts and such. And I wrote that it was all working out fine and dandy, it was a big ouch, but hey, everything is A-OKAY.
Nope.
Hubby called this morning to say that his work van is making funny noises and the steering wheel shakes as he drives. Now I know next to nothing about cars, but I DO know that is bad. Very, very bad. And we don't have the money to fix it. At all. And with the two kids and the nature of his job and the schedule he and I and the kids hold, one car just isn't going to do it. But we can't afford to fix whatever horrible thing is wrong with his van. Which means we will HAVE to be down to one van until we can afford to fix the work van. Which means we will be at each other's throats because we are going to both need the van at the same times and it's just going to be miserable because life never works on our schedule we're going to need the other to have the van home at certain times and it's just not going to happen. Oh yes, and now he will be out of town for a day and a half in a few days, leaving me with NO car and two kids...
It's a little stressful.
I know it's a test. I know God is testing to see how seriously we mean to stick to the whole tithing and trusting thing. And I DON'T LIKE IT!!!!!! It would be so easy to just use the tithe, fix the van, and move on. But we won't. We can't. We shouldn't.
I just wish it didn't feel so much like we were being kicked down, and the second we started to get up, repeatedly getting kicked in the head. It really does feel like that. We just start seeing the sunshine and get booted in the gut. Again.
I know hubby won't admit to it, but we are in trouble. We really are. Last month, we pared things down to the minimum. this next month, we've had to pare the minimum down even more...we don't have anything going aside for the kids' summer activities, no summer vacation, no clothes. Nothing. Our menu for the month is going to leave our cupboards looking pretty bare by the end of the month, and they'd better like toast and pancakes this month. And now the van.
Would you believe that as I knelt there this morning, the thought actually went through my mind about how much we could get if we SOLD the bed? I think it is coming to that...hopefully there are people out there who will be willing to buy everything I can get my hands on in the house that we could sell. I suppose it's ONE way to keep the house clean...sell all the contents. Ha ha.
Here's hoping we make it through this testing and reach the other side of this dark tunnel soon. I'll keep you posted. Wish me luck and send lots of prayers.
And then the true testing came. And still is here, with teeth. I wish I could see into the future, and into the "why's" of it all. It hit so hard this morning that I hit my knees at the edge of my bed, ground my face into the covers, and cried, and prayed. I don't do so well with testing. I fail miserably when it comes to hard times. Anybody who has known me for any length of time knows that.
I wrote the blog about my van and its flat-tire-turned-nightmare-of-broken-brake-parts and such. And I wrote that it was all working out fine and dandy, it was a big ouch, but hey, everything is A-OKAY.
Nope.
Hubby called this morning to say that his work van is making funny noises and the steering wheel shakes as he drives. Now I know next to nothing about cars, but I DO know that is bad. Very, very bad. And we don't have the money to fix it. At all. And with the two kids and the nature of his job and the schedule he and I and the kids hold, one car just isn't going to do it. But we can't afford to fix whatever horrible thing is wrong with his van. Which means we will HAVE to be down to one van until we can afford to fix the work van. Which means we will be at each other's throats because we are going to both need the van at the same times and it's just going to be miserable because life never works on our schedule we're going to need the other to have the van home at certain times and it's just not going to happen. Oh yes, and now he will be out of town for a day and a half in a few days, leaving me with NO car and two kids...
It's a little stressful.
I know it's a test. I know God is testing to see how seriously we mean to stick to the whole tithing and trusting thing. And I DON'T LIKE IT!!!!!! It would be so easy to just use the tithe, fix the van, and move on. But we won't. We can't. We shouldn't.
I just wish it didn't feel so much like we were being kicked down, and the second we started to get up, repeatedly getting kicked in the head. It really does feel like that. We just start seeing the sunshine and get booted in the gut. Again.
I know hubby won't admit to it, but we are in trouble. We really are. Last month, we pared things down to the minimum. this next month, we've had to pare the minimum down even more...we don't have anything going aside for the kids' summer activities, no summer vacation, no clothes. Nothing. Our menu for the month is going to leave our cupboards looking pretty bare by the end of the month, and they'd better like toast and pancakes this month. And now the van.
Would you believe that as I knelt there this morning, the thought actually went through my mind about how much we could get if we SOLD the bed? I think it is coming to that...hopefully there are people out there who will be willing to buy everything I can get my hands on in the house that we could sell. I suppose it's ONE way to keep the house clean...sell all the contents. Ha ha.
Here's hoping we make it through this testing and reach the other side of this dark tunnel soon. I'll keep you posted. Wish me luck and send lots of prayers.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
You say po-tay-to, I say po-tah-to
Okay. Another round of potato recipes.
My favourite thing to do is to make stuffed potatoes. Cheap, easy, and filling.
Take the size of potato you figure you will be wanting to eat as a meal. You aren't going to want a small one this time, because you need to be able to cut the top off and get the insides out.
So...pick your potato, poke it a couple times with a fork. Put it in the oven at 400F (yes, you heard me right) for between 1 and 2 hours, depending on how crispy of a skin you like. Take it out and (wearing your oven mitts), slice off a thin slice from the top. Scoop the insides into a bowl, and then do one of two things:
If you are picky about the beauty of your meal, mix the scooped out potato with a bit of margarine, spoon it back in, and add toppings.
If you are not picky, mix the potato with margarine and all the fixings you plan to use, then spoon it back in.
I will give you my favourite stuffed potato recipe, but you can create your own. I have a cookbook called Stuffed Spuds in my cupboard...I recommend looking it up if you want more exotic versions than what I make. I will type up a few of the more fun ones another day, ones kids would like.
But as I was saying, my favourite stuffed potato...taco stuffed potatoes.
You need: salsa, sour cream, taco beef, cheese (lettuce and tomato if you want).
As I said before, once you have the scooped up potato mixed with margarine, you can either pile all the above on top,and enjoy, or if you are like me, mix the potato with the salsa,sour cream, taco beef, and cheese, and then put it back in the shell, and top with diced fresh tomato (or I suppose you could even mix that in), and if desired, lettuce.
One I tried recently was a stuffed potato that was essentially scalloped potato with cheese. Cook the potato, scoop it out, mix it with sauteed onions, garlic, and margarine, put it back in, sprinkle (or bury) with cheese, put it back in the oven until the cheese looks as brown as you like it. Enjoy. Or I suppose even mix the cheese in with the potato and then put back in the oven for 15- 20 minutes.
Just a side note: My potatoes are almost gone already! I will have to order more this week. A good sign is that when I mentioned this to my family, they did NOT groan and beg me to stop with the potatoes. They seem to be enjoying this as much as I am.
My favourite thing to do is to make stuffed potatoes. Cheap, easy, and filling.
Take the size of potato you figure you will be wanting to eat as a meal. You aren't going to want a small one this time, because you need to be able to cut the top off and get the insides out.
So...pick your potato, poke it a couple times with a fork. Put it in the oven at 400F (yes, you heard me right) for between 1 and 2 hours, depending on how crispy of a skin you like. Take it out and (wearing your oven mitts), slice off a thin slice from the top. Scoop the insides into a bowl, and then do one of two things:
If you are picky about the beauty of your meal, mix the scooped out potato with a bit of margarine, spoon it back in, and add toppings.
If you are not picky, mix the potato with margarine and all the fixings you plan to use, then spoon it back in.
I will give you my favourite stuffed potato recipe, but you can create your own. I have a cookbook called Stuffed Spuds in my cupboard...I recommend looking it up if you want more exotic versions than what I make. I will type up a few of the more fun ones another day, ones kids would like.
But as I was saying, my favourite stuffed potato...taco stuffed potatoes.
You need: salsa, sour cream, taco beef, cheese (lettuce and tomato if you want).
As I said before, once you have the scooped up potato mixed with margarine, you can either pile all the above on top,and enjoy, or if you are like me, mix the potato with the salsa,sour cream, taco beef, and cheese, and then put it back in the shell, and top with diced fresh tomato (or I suppose you could even mix that in), and if desired, lettuce.
One I tried recently was a stuffed potato that was essentially scalloped potato with cheese. Cook the potato, scoop it out, mix it with sauteed onions, garlic, and margarine, put it back in, sprinkle (or bury) with cheese, put it back in the oven until the cheese looks as brown as you like it. Enjoy. Or I suppose even mix the cheese in with the potato and then put back in the oven for 15- 20 minutes.
Just a side note: My potatoes are almost gone already! I will have to order more this week. A good sign is that when I mentioned this to my family, they did NOT groan and beg me to stop with the potatoes. They seem to be enjoying this as much as I am.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Budget stretcher
I guess my blog is going to be a bit about recipes for awhile. That's okay. :) I love to cook. :)
I just had to take a break from the potato thought, and have something different for you today...
Yesterday I made soup. I made a whole STOCK POT of soup. It was a lot of fun. Actually, it took me two days. Wednesday, I rummaged through my freezer for the big Ziplocs full of bones. This soup very definitely was a kitchen sink variety. Into the stock pot went a ham bone, some T-bones, and a turkey carcass. I covered it all with water, nearly to the top of the pot (not too high or it will boil over), and boiled the living daylights out of them, for a couple of hours. Then I turned off the heat, let it sit for a little bit until it wasn't going to burn a hole in everything it touched, put a piece of foam (thick padding) in the deep freeze, and put the pot on top (so it wouldn't thaw things underneath), and left it in there overnight. Yesterday morning, I took it out, scooped out the frozen fat, brought the remainder to a boil (yes there was some fat left in it), and added spices, 3 onions, some leftover green onions, garlic, 6 carrots, a big sweet potato, a medium turnip (rutabaga?), and 8 breakfast sausages, cooked and chopped up. We had some for supper last night, and it was AMAZING...and if you think about it, really, really cheap...
The bones were free because they would have been garbage otherwise, the spices were maybe $0.10 worth, if that, onions...say $0.50, based on what a small net of them costs, green onions...$0.25, garlic...$0.10, carrots...$1.00, Sweet potato...$2.50, turnip..$2.25, sausages...$1.50.
I may be off a little on these, but not by much, so....for $8.20, I made about 9 meals worth..as in 36 servings. Not bad! About $0.91 a meal. About $0.23/person per meal.
Okay, here's my potato plug....if you need a soup to be even more filling and hearty, add potato and MASH it, or add mashed potatoes! It will thicken your soup and fill you up and make you all nice and warm inside, and happily thinking of all the money you've saved...make your own bread and serve that, and for the whopping total of MAYBE $0.30/person, you've made a filling meal! Need dessert? Apple crisp! That should cost about $2.50 to make. A drink, you say? Make your own hot cocoa...$2.00 for 4 servings. Okay, so now you have soup, bread, hot cocoa, and apple crisp. You have fed a family of 4 for $5.70. You can't even get a meal for ONE for that price at a restaurant!
Now do you know why I don't eat at restaurants much anymore? Seriously. Over the past two months, we have taken our favourite dishes from restaurants, and figured out how to make them at home. I'll give you some examples:
Red Lobster shrimp linguini...made it for about $10, or $2.50/person
The Keg T-bone steak,mushrooms,loaded baked potatoes-made it for about $25, or $6.25/ea
Chilis Nachos Grande...made it for about $12, or $4 each
Lee's :Pork and broccoli,fried rice, and chow mein for about $10 or $2.50/person
Tony Roma's Ribs: made that for about $20, or $5 each
Amazing, isn't it???? You just don't realize how much you spend in a restaurant, over and above what it would cost to make it at home!
Traveling?
I will be away next month for 4 days, and was told that restaurant food was very expensive where I am going? So? I am staying in a hotel with no promise of a fridge. So?
I am taking a cooler. I have planned out what I will eat (while away, I will have 3 breakfasts, 4 morning snacks, 4 lunches, 3 afternoon snacks, and 3 suppers), and you know what? Based on taking a cooler, which I can refill with ice from the hotel ice machines anytime I need to, I can eat VERY well....and it's going to cost me about $60 to do it. That's total...as in $15 a DAY....and I'll likely have leftovers.
So there you go. If you are driving, this works really well, because if you get hungry, you just stop and pull something out of the cooler or bag of dry stuff. If you are flying, see if you can get one of those styrofoam ones at your destination, maybe, and go to a grocery store THERE. It's amazing how easy it is to cut corners, when you need to and want to.
I also like to can things...so far, just jams, jellies, juices, pickles, and fruit....but that's another day's story. :)
I just had to take a break from the potato thought, and have something different for you today...
Yesterday I made soup. I made a whole STOCK POT of soup. It was a lot of fun. Actually, it took me two days. Wednesday, I rummaged through my freezer for the big Ziplocs full of bones. This soup very definitely was a kitchen sink variety. Into the stock pot went a ham bone, some T-bones, and a turkey carcass. I covered it all with water, nearly to the top of the pot (not too high or it will boil over), and boiled the living daylights out of them, for a couple of hours. Then I turned off the heat, let it sit for a little bit until it wasn't going to burn a hole in everything it touched, put a piece of foam (thick padding) in the deep freeze, and put the pot on top (so it wouldn't thaw things underneath), and left it in there overnight. Yesterday morning, I took it out, scooped out the frozen fat, brought the remainder to a boil (yes there was some fat left in it), and added spices, 3 onions, some leftover green onions, garlic, 6 carrots, a big sweet potato, a medium turnip (rutabaga?), and 8 breakfast sausages, cooked and chopped up. We had some for supper last night, and it was AMAZING...and if you think about it, really, really cheap...
The bones were free because they would have been garbage otherwise, the spices were maybe $0.10 worth, if that, onions...say $0.50, based on what a small net of them costs, green onions...$0.25, garlic...$0.10, carrots...$1.00, Sweet potato...$2.50, turnip..$2.25, sausages...$1.50.
I may be off a little on these, but not by much, so....for $8.20, I made about 9 meals worth..as in 36 servings. Not bad! About $0.91 a meal. About $0.23/person per meal.
Okay, here's my potato plug....if you need a soup to be even more filling and hearty, add potato and MASH it, or add mashed potatoes! It will thicken your soup and fill you up and make you all nice and warm inside, and happily thinking of all the money you've saved...make your own bread and serve that, and for the whopping total of MAYBE $0.30/person, you've made a filling meal! Need dessert? Apple crisp! That should cost about $2.50 to make. A drink, you say? Make your own hot cocoa...$2.00 for 4 servings. Okay, so now you have soup, bread, hot cocoa, and apple crisp. You have fed a family of 4 for $5.70. You can't even get a meal for ONE for that price at a restaurant!
Now do you know why I don't eat at restaurants much anymore? Seriously. Over the past two months, we have taken our favourite dishes from restaurants, and figured out how to make them at home. I'll give you some examples:
Red Lobster shrimp linguini...made it for about $10, or $2.50/person
The Keg T-bone steak,mushrooms,loaded baked potatoes-made it for about $25, or $6.25/ea
Chilis Nachos Grande...made it for about $12, or $4 each
Lee's :Pork and broccoli,fried rice, and chow mein for about $10 or $2.50/person
Tony Roma's Ribs: made that for about $20, or $5 each
Amazing, isn't it???? You just don't realize how much you spend in a restaurant, over and above what it would cost to make it at home!
Traveling?
I will be away next month for 4 days, and was told that restaurant food was very expensive where I am going? So? I am staying in a hotel with no promise of a fridge. So?
I am taking a cooler. I have planned out what I will eat (while away, I will have 3 breakfasts, 4 morning snacks, 4 lunches, 3 afternoon snacks, and 3 suppers), and you know what? Based on taking a cooler, which I can refill with ice from the hotel ice machines anytime I need to, I can eat VERY well....and it's going to cost me about $60 to do it. That's total...as in $15 a DAY....and I'll likely have leftovers.
So there you go. If you are driving, this works really well, because if you get hungry, you just stop and pull something out of the cooler or bag of dry stuff. If you are flying, see if you can get one of those styrofoam ones at your destination, maybe, and go to a grocery store THERE. It's amazing how easy it is to cut corners, when you need to and want to.
I also like to can things...so far, just jams, jellies, juices, pickles, and fruit....but that's another day's story. :)
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Potato Recipe Time
Somebody requested that I post a few potato recipes...
I'll start with one or two, as I don't have my handy dandy recipe book in front of me.
The neatest thing I've found lately (in terms of recipes) is a lady called Clara. You can find her on YouTube. She has a few clips (she is 94 or something like that, by the way) in which she demonstrates how her mother used to cook when she (Clara) was a child, back in the Depression. Let me just say everything has to do with potato and onion, for the most part. :)
The first recipe we tried of hers was called Poor Man's Dinner. Take as much potato as you think your family will eat (it's surprising how little it takes, actually). Peel and cut into small cubes. Heat a pan with a bit of oil in it. Toss in the potato, do the same with an onion. Fry them up. Cut up some hot dogs, stir it in until things are nice and golden and hot. Add salt to taste. Enjoy. I put ketchup on mine. Like hash browns with meat, I guess.
My 75 pound bag of potatoes is RED potatoes, very juicy, too, so I'm not entirely sure how recipes work/taste with other types of potato. Keep that in mind.
Fries. If you have a deep fryer, fries are always good. Take your potato and cut it into strips. Keep the peel on, or not. I don't peel mine. Take a bowl of water and stir in a bit of sugar. Put cut potatoes in the bowl and swish them around, or leave them in there while the deep fryer is heating. Put them in the basket, but don't pile them too high. Lower the basket and cook 10 minutes. At the end, you will have the most delicious fries EVER.
Potato slices. Made this one up a log time ago. Nothing fancy in this one. Works best if you have a baking stone, but if you are willing to hover, a baking sheet works, too. Slice your potato into thin slices (not TOO thin, but not thick). Arrange on the stone, sprinkle with whatever seasonings you like best. Bake at 350F for about 20 minutes. If on a baking sheet, turn about halfway through so you don't burn one side black. :) Good for dipping.
I will bring more recipes later, heartier, more complicated ones. I promise. :)
Enjoy these if you wish.
I'll start with one or two, as I don't have my handy dandy recipe book in front of me.
The neatest thing I've found lately (in terms of recipes) is a lady called Clara. You can find her on YouTube. She has a few clips (she is 94 or something like that, by the way) in which she demonstrates how her mother used to cook when she (Clara) was a child, back in the Depression. Let me just say everything has to do with potato and onion, for the most part. :)
The first recipe we tried of hers was called Poor Man's Dinner. Take as much potato as you think your family will eat (it's surprising how little it takes, actually). Peel and cut into small cubes. Heat a pan with a bit of oil in it. Toss in the potato, do the same with an onion. Fry them up. Cut up some hot dogs, stir it in until things are nice and golden and hot. Add salt to taste. Enjoy. I put ketchup on mine. Like hash browns with meat, I guess.
My 75 pound bag of potatoes is RED potatoes, very juicy, too, so I'm not entirely sure how recipes work/taste with other types of potato. Keep that in mind.
Fries. If you have a deep fryer, fries are always good. Take your potato and cut it into strips. Keep the peel on, or not. I don't peel mine. Take a bowl of water and stir in a bit of sugar. Put cut potatoes in the bowl and swish them around, or leave them in there while the deep fryer is heating. Put them in the basket, but don't pile them too high. Lower the basket and cook 10 minutes. At the end, you will have the most delicious fries EVER.
Potato slices. Made this one up a log time ago. Nothing fancy in this one. Works best if you have a baking stone, but if you are willing to hover, a baking sheet works, too. Slice your potato into thin slices (not TOO thin, but not thick). Arrange on the stone, sprinkle with whatever seasonings you like best. Bake at 350F for about 20 minutes. If on a baking sheet, turn about halfway through so you don't burn one side black. :) Good for dipping.
I will bring more recipes later, heartier, more complicated ones. I promise. :)
Enjoy these if you wish.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Ode to Daughter
LOL...I intended, when I signed in last, to post something, and totally got off course and into the money post. :)
Daughter has a skill. I can totally see her using this as a career someday....if she wants to, that is. She loves doing this, and her teacher has even said we should sign her up for classes. Which, in regards to the last post, we simply do not have the money to do right now.
But someday we will, because I think she has real talent, and I'll show you why I say this...she did this in about 15 minutes, while at her brother's soccer game on the weekend:
She is just recently turned 8, by the way.
Proud Mommy moment. :)
Daughter has a skill. I can totally see her using this as a career someday....if she wants to, that is. She loves doing this, and her teacher has even said we should sign her up for classes. Which, in regards to the last post, we simply do not have the money to do right now.
But someday we will, because I think she has real talent, and I'll show you why I say this...she did this in about 15 minutes, while at her brother's soccer game on the weekend:
She is just recently turned 8, by the way.
Proud Mommy moment. :)
Money, Money, Money....must be funny
Yeah. I'd like some. :)
Remember that last post, where we had our budget down to a fine science? Well, life happens. With teeth. It does have a semi-happy ending, I suppose, but I have to admit that I will be very happy in a few years, when I am back at work, the house stays clean, the kids are both off at school, and hubby is making multi-millions. Ha ha ha. Okay, I'll settle for us being back on two steady-ish incomes without the need for child care.
In any case...
On Friday I ended up with a major flat tire, as in, the kind where the car goes bumpitybumpitybumpity, you pull over to look at the flat tire, and find it halfway off the rim flat. And my tire iron would not work to remove the partially stripped lugnuts. So I had to walk home, get Hubby's, walk back, and use his to get it off and then get the spare on. Saturday, we got an appointment for new tires. An ouch, but do-able, as we had just built up a $1000 emergency fund, and the tires were going to be about $600. No big problem, we'd just have to rebuild the emergency fund. Right?
No.
They get the van up on the hoists, saying it'll be done in about an hour. Call us about 30 minutes later. Brake drum is shot, brake fluid all over EVERYTHING, not safe, spare is worn down to the core. Okay. Has to be done. Fine. We'll figure something out. While trying to replace the drum, the brake line snaps. Woo-hoo.
So over $1300 later I have my van back. Bye bye emergency fund hellooooo paycheck advance.
This sounds like a bad ending, but it isn't...we had the emergency fund, which is more than we would have been able to say in the recent past, and we will rebuild it, it will just take time...and in our budget, we CAN reduce our payments on a few things to recoup that extra money we technically didn't have. And as we keep on watching our pennies and sticking to our budget as closely as we can, slowly we will get things paid off. Most things will be paid off in about 2 years. The mortgage should be paid off in about 8 years. And then we will be totally, utterly, absolutely debt free. How's that for a concept? I like it.
As Dave Ramsey says (one of my Hubby's favourite authors/radio guys right now) "Right now we will live like nobody else so that someday we can live like nobody else". Get it? :)
And you know what one of the best things about our plan has been? NOTHING has been added to the debt. We paid cash from our income tax return for the new fridge when the old one died, cash for the broken furnace repair, cash for the furnace and vent cleaners, cash for the car repairs (or debit or cheque, but the cash was there, no floating cheques or credit cards or whatever). Nice. As in no interest fees, no waiting for things to appear on a bill.
And I rock with cooking cheaply. 75 pound bag of potatoes from a local farmer =$15
Do you have any IDEA how many potatoes that is, and how many fabulously delicious, filling, satisfying dishes can be made with 75 POUNDS of potatoes? :) Add that to 20kg of flour, farm fresh eggs, and discount meat, you can feed a family for next to nothing. :) Ask me for ideas if you need some...I'm having fun. :)
Remember that last post, where we had our budget down to a fine science? Well, life happens. With teeth. It does have a semi-happy ending, I suppose, but I have to admit that I will be very happy in a few years, when I am back at work, the house stays clean, the kids are both off at school, and hubby is making multi-millions. Ha ha ha. Okay, I'll settle for us being back on two steady-ish incomes without the need for child care.
In any case...
On Friday I ended up with a major flat tire, as in, the kind where the car goes bumpitybumpitybumpity, you pull over to look at the flat tire, and find it halfway off the rim flat. And my tire iron would not work to remove the partially stripped lugnuts. So I had to walk home, get Hubby's, walk back, and use his to get it off and then get the spare on. Saturday, we got an appointment for new tires. An ouch, but do-able, as we had just built up a $1000 emergency fund, and the tires were going to be about $600. No big problem, we'd just have to rebuild the emergency fund. Right?
No.
They get the van up on the hoists, saying it'll be done in about an hour. Call us about 30 minutes later. Brake drum is shot, brake fluid all over EVERYTHING, not safe, spare is worn down to the core. Okay. Has to be done. Fine. We'll figure something out. While trying to replace the drum, the brake line snaps. Woo-hoo.
So over $1300 later I have my van back. Bye bye emergency fund hellooooo paycheck advance.
This sounds like a bad ending, but it isn't...we had the emergency fund, which is more than we would have been able to say in the recent past, and we will rebuild it, it will just take time...and in our budget, we CAN reduce our payments on a few things to recoup that extra money we technically didn't have. And as we keep on watching our pennies and sticking to our budget as closely as we can, slowly we will get things paid off. Most things will be paid off in about 2 years. The mortgage should be paid off in about 8 years. And then we will be totally, utterly, absolutely debt free. How's that for a concept? I like it.
As Dave Ramsey says (one of my Hubby's favourite authors/radio guys right now) "Right now we will live like nobody else so that someday we can live like nobody else". Get it? :)
And you know what one of the best things about our plan has been? NOTHING has been added to the debt. We paid cash from our income tax return for the new fridge when the old one died, cash for the broken furnace repair, cash for the furnace and vent cleaners, cash for the car repairs (or debit or cheque, but the cash was there, no floating cheques or credit cards or whatever). Nice. As in no interest fees, no waiting for things to appear on a bill.
And I rock with cooking cheaply. 75 pound bag of potatoes from a local farmer =$15
Do you have any IDEA how many potatoes that is, and how many fabulously delicious, filling, satisfying dishes can be made with 75 POUNDS of potatoes? :) Add that to 20kg of flour, farm fresh eggs, and discount meat, you can feed a family for next to nothing. :) Ask me for ideas if you need some...I'm having fun. :)
Friday, February 27, 2009
Budgets and all that fun stuff
Recently, Hubby and I sat down to figure out our budget. We have been tweaking this sucker every month for the last little while, in the effort to get it to fit our means, our needs, and possibly some desires, too. Lots of fun when you have money, not so much when it's a tight month.
It's amazing how much a little error can cause the blocks of your budget to come tumbling down around your ears. That is the time when a sense of humour, a huge sense of humility, and some creative thinking come into play. For example, our budget for next month. We, of course, base it on the money we have at hand, to determine what we can afford, assuming, of course, that the amount of income does not change a whole lot. Last night, we happily sat down and tweaked the budget so that we had everything the way we needed/wanted it to be, and based on what we THOUGHT we had made, we even had enough to reconnect our satellite. Let me just say I am thankful we have been without that for the past year, so the true withdrawal pangs are gone. And I am extremely thankful we had not yet told the kids about getting the satellite back.
Because, you see, we discovered this morning that we had miscalculated the income from delivering flyers by, oh, about $200. A month. The problem, with this, in case it's not obvious, is that we had accounted for every penny of this $200/month. Scramble, scramble, grumble, whimper, scribble, scribble. How on earth can we do what we said we would do when we are short by that amount every month?
I must admit, I lost my faith for a short time. I panicked. I griped and whined and wanted to cry. I got stressed and even had a few chest pains, at which point, of course, I took a bunch of deep breaths, tried to relax, and prayed a bit. And sat down with the budget to play with it.
The big thing that I felt was important was that, for once, we were going to start the habit of tithing. We had not been doing that, and both felt it was important. So when I was playing with it, I really didn't want to mess with that, despite the fact that reducing our giving would solve everything. I initially reduced it to 5%, but didn't feel right about that. So I fiddled, and I think I have come up with a budget that will still work, AND will allow us to truly tithe.
Oh, it won't be easy. It does involve a lot of careful thought with purchases and a bit of personal sacrifice. Definitely a leap of faith. It can be done, though it won't be "comfortable", and maybe, just maybe, we will be blessed in the end for tithing. I can hope, anyway. If we can make it to the end of the year and have "enough" to cover all the expenses we have, and to start the new year on a good foot, I think it will be worth it.
It's amazing how much a little error can cause the blocks of your budget to come tumbling down around your ears. That is the time when a sense of humour, a huge sense of humility, and some creative thinking come into play. For example, our budget for next month. We, of course, base it on the money we have at hand, to determine what we can afford, assuming, of course, that the amount of income does not change a whole lot. Last night, we happily sat down and tweaked the budget so that we had everything the way we needed/wanted it to be, and based on what we THOUGHT we had made, we even had enough to reconnect our satellite. Let me just say I am thankful we have been without that for the past year, so the true withdrawal pangs are gone. And I am extremely thankful we had not yet told the kids about getting the satellite back.
Because, you see, we discovered this morning that we had miscalculated the income from delivering flyers by, oh, about $200. A month. The problem, with this, in case it's not obvious, is that we had accounted for every penny of this $200/month. Scramble, scramble, grumble, whimper, scribble, scribble. How on earth can we do what we said we would do when we are short by that amount every month?
I must admit, I lost my faith for a short time. I panicked. I griped and whined and wanted to cry. I got stressed and even had a few chest pains, at which point, of course, I took a bunch of deep breaths, tried to relax, and prayed a bit. And sat down with the budget to play with it.
The big thing that I felt was important was that, for once, we were going to start the habit of tithing. We had not been doing that, and both felt it was important. So when I was playing with it, I really didn't want to mess with that, despite the fact that reducing our giving would solve everything. I initially reduced it to 5%, but didn't feel right about that. So I fiddled, and I think I have come up with a budget that will still work, AND will allow us to truly tithe.
Oh, it won't be easy. It does involve a lot of careful thought with purchases and a bit of personal sacrifice. Definitely a leap of faith. It can be done, though it won't be "comfortable", and maybe, just maybe, we will be blessed in the end for tithing. I can hope, anyway. If we can make it to the end of the year and have "enough" to cover all the expenses we have, and to start the new year on a good foot, I think it will be worth it.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Checking In
I know, I know, it's been pretty much a month since I last posted. This, according to a friend of mine, is bad blog etiquette, that to have a successful blog, you must write consistently and frequently. Boo. Life marches on, especially with two children, and blogs don't get written.
Son is talking really well, so that pretty much everyone can understand him. I find it harder to understand him sometimes, but I think that's because my Mommy brain is so used to translating his old, mumble-jumble nasal speech into English that now that he is speaking plain, clear English, my brain doesn't know how to process it anymore. If I really focus hard and listen properly, I can see what everyone else means. He DOES talk much, much clearer.
He is getting so tall. His Daddy accidentally put Daughter's sweat pants on Son this morning, and didn't even realize until I watched Son trotting around, clinging onto the legs for all he was worth so they would neither fall down nor drag too much. I think they were maybe 3 inches too long. Considering he is 3 1/2 years younger than his sister, this suggests he will be a tall one. :) No real surprise there, just didn't think he'd be getting such a head start on it just yet.
Daughter just had a birthday this past weekend. That was quite the experience. Three giggly, screamy, silly, computer savvy girls roaring around my house for 3 hours, eating burgers, nachos, chocolate cheesecake, drinking pop...signing up for ePets and that sort of thing. Teaching Hubby just how much he really did need to put on parental controls and keep an eye on them. Then one went home, the others put on their pj's and climbed into bed for a sleepover. An hour later, we were on the phone to have the girl's Dad come pick her up. Old enough to be too smart for her own good, but not yet old enough to survive a night without roaring homesickness.
I am now in the process of what FlyLady would call a Fling Boogie. This means that as I am cleaning the house, I am also trying to get rid of as much STUFF as possible. We agreed to pay the kids a dollar a pound for toys they decided to get rid of. Son made $4 as he was not too motivated, Daughter made $20. She plans to buy a Webkin with it. Not a bad tradeoff...a big box of toys goes out, one stuffed animal comes in.
I am just starting with mine, but I think once I have managed to scour the entire house and have either sold or given away boxes and boxes of STUFF, I will feel tons better, and definitely will have an easier time getting organized and keeping things clean. So goes the theory anyway.
Oh yes. I am back in the saddle, so to speak, in terms of Wii Fit. I also have the Jillian Michaels Ultimate Workout for Wii and am starting back on my program. I NEED to RUN....I can't explain it, it's just this URGE to JOG! So in the spirit of also getting back in shape and back into jogging without reinjuring myself, I am starting slow. Yesterday I jogged 20 minutes on Wii Fit. Today I will do 30 minutes of Jillian. Tomorrow back to Wii Fit and so on. For 4 weeks. Then I will up the times slightly, gradually getting myself up to a level when I will not only be in better shape in general, but might even be able to sign myself up for the Fun Run again this spring. Maybe the 5Km again, maybe the 10KM, we'll see how it looks closer to that time.
Son is talking really well, so that pretty much everyone can understand him. I find it harder to understand him sometimes, but I think that's because my Mommy brain is so used to translating his old, mumble-jumble nasal speech into English that now that he is speaking plain, clear English, my brain doesn't know how to process it anymore. If I really focus hard and listen properly, I can see what everyone else means. He DOES talk much, much clearer.
He is getting so tall. His Daddy accidentally put Daughter's sweat pants on Son this morning, and didn't even realize until I watched Son trotting around, clinging onto the legs for all he was worth so they would neither fall down nor drag too much. I think they were maybe 3 inches too long. Considering he is 3 1/2 years younger than his sister, this suggests he will be a tall one. :) No real surprise there, just didn't think he'd be getting such a head start on it just yet.
Daughter just had a birthday this past weekend. That was quite the experience. Three giggly, screamy, silly, computer savvy girls roaring around my house for 3 hours, eating burgers, nachos, chocolate cheesecake, drinking pop...signing up for ePets and that sort of thing. Teaching Hubby just how much he really did need to put on parental controls and keep an eye on them. Then one went home, the others put on their pj's and climbed into bed for a sleepover. An hour later, we were on the phone to have the girl's Dad come pick her up. Old enough to be too smart for her own good, but not yet old enough to survive a night without roaring homesickness.
I am now in the process of what FlyLady would call a Fling Boogie. This means that as I am cleaning the house, I am also trying to get rid of as much STUFF as possible. We agreed to pay the kids a dollar a pound for toys they decided to get rid of. Son made $4 as he was not too motivated, Daughter made $20. She plans to buy a Webkin with it. Not a bad tradeoff...a big box of toys goes out, one stuffed animal comes in.
I am just starting with mine, but I think once I have managed to scour the entire house and have either sold or given away boxes and boxes of STUFF, I will feel tons better, and definitely will have an easier time getting organized and keeping things clean. So goes the theory anyway.
Oh yes. I am back in the saddle, so to speak, in terms of Wii Fit. I also have the Jillian Michaels Ultimate Workout for Wii and am starting back on my program. I NEED to RUN....I can't explain it, it's just this URGE to JOG! So in the spirit of also getting back in shape and back into jogging without reinjuring myself, I am starting slow. Yesterday I jogged 20 minutes on Wii Fit. Today I will do 30 minutes of Jillian. Tomorrow back to Wii Fit and so on. For 4 weeks. Then I will up the times slightly, gradually getting myself up to a level when I will not only be in better shape in general, but might even be able to sign myself up for the Fun Run again this spring. Maybe the 5Km again, maybe the 10KM, we'll see how it looks closer to that time.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Adventures in Motherhood
Since my last post, life as a Mommy has been....interesting, to say the least. I am happy to say that for the most part, I think things are going to settle down now in 2009. Happy New Year, by the way!
Daughter had the unfortunate luck to catch the chicken pox just 2 days before Christmas Break. That meant she had to miss a fun day with her class at an indoor amusement place, a reward they had won for selling a lot in a fundraiser, and the next day of school, which would have been her class Christmas party. She was understandably crushed when she was told she would have to miss these, plus the evening performance of her school Christmas pageant. Her disappointment was nothing compared to her discomfort over the next few days. She ended up with a bad case of them. We were dotting her with calamine lotion, and counting them as we went. The first day produced somewhere around 200. When she woke up the next morning, we counted 1015, and that was not including the ones all through her hair, inside her mouth, and in places nobody is supposed to look or touch but herself. We stopped counting after that because it would have been easier to just get a big paintbrush and paint her pink with the stuff, but I would venture a guess that she probably made it up to 1500 before she started to scab. Poor thing was wild with itchiness in every conceivable part of her body. She was spoiled rotten during that time when she was quarantined (about 4 days), and couldn't really enjoy it much. he took a lot of baths in an effort to do SOMETHING for her...baking soda baths, oatmeal baths, a combination of the two bath, an epsom salt bath. She looks much better now with just the occasional scab here and there.
This ties in with Son very tightly. Just a few weeks before that,I received a phone call saying he had a surgery date. I believe I wrote about that in a previous blog post. If not, the following pre-surgery interview phone call was quite funny....very definitely a form written for anybody and everybody, and it gave me quite a chuckle as the nurse on the phone rattled off the questions, without really thinking about their relevancy. Everything from "Is he potty trained" to "does he have any problems with drug abuse", "does he smoke", etc. Oh, yes, Ma'am, my 4 year old is a smokin', drinkin', ladies' man! :)
So anyway, his surgery date was a mere 13 days away when Daughter broke out in spots. He was whisked away in the dark, as soon as we saw the spots on Daughter, on a 2 hour car ride, to stay with his grandparents for 4 and a bit days, in the wild hope that he would not get the chicken pox, since that would take him off the surgery list and put him back on the waiting list for a year or more. We waited and watched with baited breath, hoping an praying that nary a spot would emerge.
We made it. On December 30, 2008, at 2PM, Son had surgery to repair a submucous cleft. The night before, I had rummaged through the internet, looking for any and all info on the procedure, recovery info, anything, and ended up in tears as I realized what my son was going to be going through. But I also knew it was necessary. I was brave for my little guy. He went bouncing into that hospital, all happy and proud of himself, announcing to everybody that he was having surgery today to fix his throat and that he was going to have a really sore throat after, but he was going to talk better. We had done what we could to explain it all to him so that he understood what was happening and what to expect....but there's only so much a 4 year old can grasp.
We had to be at the hospital at 11AM....3 hours before the actual surgery. That was one boring 3 hour wait. He was shown to a little room, changed into his hospital jammies, I was asked a few questions, and we waited....and waited...they did not provide him with toys or anything. Luckily I had brought a few for the overnight stay....unfortunately, the long wait meant he was done reading and playing with everything long before he even had the surgery, so needed new stuff for afterwards.
At about 4PM, the surgeon came out and told me the surgery had gone wonderfully, and told me what to expect and how to feed him and all that sort of stuff. And then walked off, leaving me wondering where I could find my son, and when I could see him. About 10 minutes later, I managed to catch a nurse who was able to direct me to the appropriate floor and room number, so I went there, and got settled...and waited....and waited. Husband, Daughter, and my In-Laws showed up at the room....still no Son. Finally somewhere around 5, I guess, he was rolled in, eyes wide with pain and druggedness. Poor guy had bloody drool leaking out of the corner of his mouth, the inside of which was so swollen his lips did not close. He had quite a miserable night, wavering from painful awakeness to drugged and snoring sleep. Poor guy had the nurses coming in every 20 minutes to check his vitals or give him more medicine, so it was a very disjointed night. We were reading Thomas the Tank Engine stories at midnight, and playing with cars in the middle of the night. At least the room was kind of a neat place to be...we had our own room with a sliding glass door. There was a sink, a closet for his clothes and my jacket and stuff, a big armchair that was once a recliner, but now did not recline, the hospital bed with buttons to electrically adjust him to a sitting or reclining position, a bathroom with a huge bathtub in it, and a really cool window platform...like a window seat, but big enough to sleep on...about the size of a double bed, but in the shape of the bay window. Very cool. Our longest stretch of disjointed sleep with him being relatively calm was in the middle of the night when he had been crying because he wanted me to sleep in his bed with him, and the nurses, bless them, shifted things around to move him out of the hospital bed and onto the window shelf so we could lie together under the blankets....no small feat with all his tubes from the IV and the splints on his arms to keep him from sticking his fingers in his mouth. The IV machine had to be plugged into the plug in the bathroom and wired over to the bed. That resulted in us not being able to fully close our bathroom door if anybody except him had to use it, but the nurses were discreet and there was the ever-present curtain by the bed that we just pulled closed when we went in there, both as a signal and as a deterrent to the roving eye of anybody passing by the room at those moments. (The wall facing the hallway, with the sliding door, was glass) He settled down a bit after they did that for him, and we had the fun of looking back at all the pigeons peeking back in at us at the window in the morning.
My heart broke a million times that night. Every time the nurses came in, they tried to get him to drink. They had those medicine syringes that only hold maybe a teaspoon of water at a time, and would put that in his mouth...most of the time he would only get a drop of it down, the rest of it spilling out of his mouth, and when he DID manage to swallow, it was with such a grimace of pain that it made you want to promise he'd never have to do it again. After they made him swallow twice in a row, he'd make a sound that was him TRYING to say "OWWWW". :( They kept telling him that the water would make him feel better. After about the tenth time, after they had left, he looked at me, started to cry, and said as best he could "the water ISN'T helping!". I wanted to just sweep him into my arms and rock him and make him feel better....but all I could do for him at that time was to stroke his hair and face. I felt so helpless.
The surgeon came in at about 7:30 in the morning to see how he was doing. Compared to the night, he was doing a bit better. The doctor asked if he wanted breakfast, to which Son promptly replied "Ice cream and Jello". And that is what he got. The surgeon had brought that one on himself....before the surgery, he came in to talk to us, and told Son that after his surgery that these were what he would be able to eat, meaning that he would be in no shape for, say, cheeseburgers. Here we discovered the true challenge of the day after the repair of a submucous cleft. Ice cream in a little cup and jello in a little bowl, most kids could polish those off in about 5 minutes. Combined. It took him about half an hour to get the little ice cream cup down (about 1/4 cup worth), even once it was ice cream soup. The jello he worked at for about an hour, and never did finish it. He ate about 1/3 cup of jello, I think. If that. The surgeon said if he could drink enough, he could go home later that day. The poor kid ended up with a tray that looked like a line of shots by lunchtime. He had been accumulating them, trying desperately to drink sips from one or the other. By about 1PM, he had a bowl of soup, a bowl of pudding, another cup of ice cream, a glass of chocolate milk, a glass of peach juice, a carton of orange juice, and a carton of white milk sitting in front of him, and a look of bewildered desperation on his face. He finally decided he'd rather not go home. LOL. I don't blame him. I guess he thought he'd have to swallow all of those, and then go home and sit in bed with nothing to do.
The nurse came in and asked him to point to the two he liked best. He pointed to the pudding and the ice cream. She told him if he could finish those, then he could go home. When I told him he could sit or lie on the couch and watch movies or play Wii, he decided that might be worth the effort. So at about 2PM, the ice cream and pudding were gone, he'd managed about 1/4 of the glass of chocolate milk, was freshly drugged and we changed him, packed him and his stuff, and brought him home.
I have to backtrack just for a minute. I must tell you that out children's ward nurses are wonderful. They spoiled him like crazy. When he was first wheeled in, he was given a Christmas bag of presents. That bag had 3 little teddy bears, a plush gopher with a toque and scarf, a Giant Tiger slinky, and a toy carpenter tool set. A little later, the night staff came in, and brought him a gorgeous toy car, about 20cm in length, probably a '70's model, which had doors that opened, a trunk that opened, and a hood that opened to reveal a detailed engine. For a guy who loves toy cars, this was a great surprise.
After filling his prescriptions (poor guy has 4 meds to take), we took him home and planted him on the couch where he watched a movie, ate jello, and fell fast asleep for a few hours. He woke up sad and sore. We managed to keep him relatively occupied to get his mind off the pain between drinks and medication, but he was still really sore. He got to bed around 10PM, and slept until 9:15 this morning. He was supposed to get some pain meds in the middle of the night, but there was no way we were going to wake him out of a deep sleep, back to the world of pain, just to give him that and to have him not be able to get back to sleep. We gave him a whistle to blow if he woke up in pain, and he blew that this morning, when I was just outside his room, so he got his meds right away, and seems to be doing okay, though he was sore and very sad until the pain meds kicked in. Now he's going to have baby food for breakfast. We were told he can move up to mashed potatoes in a week, if he's up to it, so in the meantime, I have an abundance of cream soups, pudding, ice cream, jello, and things like that....and a new blender to create more.
My parents talked to him on the phone last night and said that, even with the swelling and all, they can already hear a difference in his quality of speech. This is great....hopefully when the swelling goes down (we were told this could take 10 weeks), his speech will still be as good as what they hear. I can't tell the difference yet, being the Mommy, but I'm sure I'll be able to tell later whether what I hear is from the swelling or from the repair. And in 3 months, we go back to speech therapy....if he needs it. You never know. He may just do the speech adjustments on his own.
Daughter had the unfortunate luck to catch the chicken pox just 2 days before Christmas Break. That meant she had to miss a fun day with her class at an indoor amusement place, a reward they had won for selling a lot in a fundraiser, and the next day of school, which would have been her class Christmas party. She was understandably crushed when she was told she would have to miss these, plus the evening performance of her school Christmas pageant. Her disappointment was nothing compared to her discomfort over the next few days. She ended up with a bad case of them. We were dotting her with calamine lotion, and counting them as we went. The first day produced somewhere around 200. When she woke up the next morning, we counted 1015, and that was not including the ones all through her hair, inside her mouth, and in places nobody is supposed to look or touch but herself. We stopped counting after that because it would have been easier to just get a big paintbrush and paint her pink with the stuff, but I would venture a guess that she probably made it up to 1500 before she started to scab. Poor thing was wild with itchiness in every conceivable part of her body. She was spoiled rotten during that time when she was quarantined (about 4 days), and couldn't really enjoy it much. he took a lot of baths in an effort to do SOMETHING for her...baking soda baths, oatmeal baths, a combination of the two bath, an epsom salt bath. She looks much better now with just the occasional scab here and there.
This ties in with Son very tightly. Just a few weeks before that,I received a phone call saying he had a surgery date. I believe I wrote about that in a previous blog post. If not, the following pre-surgery interview phone call was quite funny....very definitely a form written for anybody and everybody, and it gave me quite a chuckle as the nurse on the phone rattled off the questions, without really thinking about their relevancy. Everything from "Is he potty trained" to "does he have any problems with drug abuse", "does he smoke", etc. Oh, yes, Ma'am, my 4 year old is a smokin', drinkin', ladies' man! :)
So anyway, his surgery date was a mere 13 days away when Daughter broke out in spots. He was whisked away in the dark, as soon as we saw the spots on Daughter, on a 2 hour car ride, to stay with his grandparents for 4 and a bit days, in the wild hope that he would not get the chicken pox, since that would take him off the surgery list and put him back on the waiting list for a year or more. We waited and watched with baited breath, hoping an praying that nary a spot would emerge.
We made it. On December 30, 2008, at 2PM, Son had surgery to repair a submucous cleft. The night before, I had rummaged through the internet, looking for any and all info on the procedure, recovery info, anything, and ended up in tears as I realized what my son was going to be going through. But I also knew it was necessary. I was brave for my little guy. He went bouncing into that hospital, all happy and proud of himself, announcing to everybody that he was having surgery today to fix his throat and that he was going to have a really sore throat after, but he was going to talk better. We had done what we could to explain it all to him so that he understood what was happening and what to expect....but there's only so much a 4 year old can grasp.
We had to be at the hospital at 11AM....3 hours before the actual surgery. That was one boring 3 hour wait. He was shown to a little room, changed into his hospital jammies, I was asked a few questions, and we waited....and waited...they did not provide him with toys or anything. Luckily I had brought a few for the overnight stay....unfortunately, the long wait meant he was done reading and playing with everything long before he even had the surgery, so needed new stuff for afterwards.
At about 4PM, the surgeon came out and told me the surgery had gone wonderfully, and told me what to expect and how to feed him and all that sort of stuff. And then walked off, leaving me wondering where I could find my son, and when I could see him. About 10 minutes later, I managed to catch a nurse who was able to direct me to the appropriate floor and room number, so I went there, and got settled...and waited....and waited. Husband, Daughter, and my In-Laws showed up at the room....still no Son. Finally somewhere around 5, I guess, he was rolled in, eyes wide with pain and druggedness. Poor guy had bloody drool leaking out of the corner of his mouth, the inside of which was so swollen his lips did not close. He had quite a miserable night, wavering from painful awakeness to drugged and snoring sleep. Poor guy had the nurses coming in every 20 minutes to check his vitals or give him more medicine, so it was a very disjointed night. We were reading Thomas the Tank Engine stories at midnight, and playing with cars in the middle of the night. At least the room was kind of a neat place to be...we had our own room with a sliding glass door. There was a sink, a closet for his clothes and my jacket and stuff, a big armchair that was once a recliner, but now did not recline, the hospital bed with buttons to electrically adjust him to a sitting or reclining position, a bathroom with a huge bathtub in it, and a really cool window platform...like a window seat, but big enough to sleep on...about the size of a double bed, but in the shape of the bay window. Very cool. Our longest stretch of disjointed sleep with him being relatively calm was in the middle of the night when he had been crying because he wanted me to sleep in his bed with him, and the nurses, bless them, shifted things around to move him out of the hospital bed and onto the window shelf so we could lie together under the blankets....no small feat with all his tubes from the IV and the splints on his arms to keep him from sticking his fingers in his mouth. The IV machine had to be plugged into the plug in the bathroom and wired over to the bed. That resulted in us not being able to fully close our bathroom door if anybody except him had to use it, but the nurses were discreet and there was the ever-present curtain by the bed that we just pulled closed when we went in there, both as a signal and as a deterrent to the roving eye of anybody passing by the room at those moments. (The wall facing the hallway, with the sliding door, was glass) He settled down a bit after they did that for him, and we had the fun of looking back at all the pigeons peeking back in at us at the window in the morning.
My heart broke a million times that night. Every time the nurses came in, they tried to get him to drink. They had those medicine syringes that only hold maybe a teaspoon of water at a time, and would put that in his mouth...most of the time he would only get a drop of it down, the rest of it spilling out of his mouth, and when he DID manage to swallow, it was with such a grimace of pain that it made you want to promise he'd never have to do it again. After they made him swallow twice in a row, he'd make a sound that was him TRYING to say "OWWWW". :( They kept telling him that the water would make him feel better. After about the tenth time, after they had left, he looked at me, started to cry, and said as best he could "the water ISN'T helping!". I wanted to just sweep him into my arms and rock him and make him feel better....but all I could do for him at that time was to stroke his hair and face. I felt so helpless.
The surgeon came in at about 7:30 in the morning to see how he was doing. Compared to the night, he was doing a bit better. The doctor asked if he wanted breakfast, to which Son promptly replied "Ice cream and Jello". And that is what he got. The surgeon had brought that one on himself....before the surgery, he came in to talk to us, and told Son that after his surgery that these were what he would be able to eat, meaning that he would be in no shape for, say, cheeseburgers. Here we discovered the true challenge of the day after the repair of a submucous cleft. Ice cream in a little cup and jello in a little bowl, most kids could polish those off in about 5 minutes. Combined. It took him about half an hour to get the little ice cream cup down (about 1/4 cup worth), even once it was ice cream soup. The jello he worked at for about an hour, and never did finish it. He ate about 1/3 cup of jello, I think. If that. The surgeon said if he could drink enough, he could go home later that day. The poor kid ended up with a tray that looked like a line of shots by lunchtime. He had been accumulating them, trying desperately to drink sips from one or the other. By about 1PM, he had a bowl of soup, a bowl of pudding, another cup of ice cream, a glass of chocolate milk, a glass of peach juice, a carton of orange juice, and a carton of white milk sitting in front of him, and a look of bewildered desperation on his face. He finally decided he'd rather not go home. LOL. I don't blame him. I guess he thought he'd have to swallow all of those, and then go home and sit in bed with nothing to do.
The nurse came in and asked him to point to the two he liked best. He pointed to the pudding and the ice cream. She told him if he could finish those, then he could go home. When I told him he could sit or lie on the couch and watch movies or play Wii, he decided that might be worth the effort. So at about 2PM, the ice cream and pudding were gone, he'd managed about 1/4 of the glass of chocolate milk, was freshly drugged and we changed him, packed him and his stuff, and brought him home.
I have to backtrack just for a minute. I must tell you that out children's ward nurses are wonderful. They spoiled him like crazy. When he was first wheeled in, he was given a Christmas bag of presents. That bag had 3 little teddy bears, a plush gopher with a toque and scarf, a Giant Tiger slinky, and a toy carpenter tool set. A little later, the night staff came in, and brought him a gorgeous toy car, about 20cm in length, probably a '70's model, which had doors that opened, a trunk that opened, and a hood that opened to reveal a detailed engine. For a guy who loves toy cars, this was a great surprise.
After filling his prescriptions (poor guy has 4 meds to take), we took him home and planted him on the couch where he watched a movie, ate jello, and fell fast asleep for a few hours. He woke up sad and sore. We managed to keep him relatively occupied to get his mind off the pain between drinks and medication, but he was still really sore. He got to bed around 10PM, and slept until 9:15 this morning. He was supposed to get some pain meds in the middle of the night, but there was no way we were going to wake him out of a deep sleep, back to the world of pain, just to give him that and to have him not be able to get back to sleep. We gave him a whistle to blow if he woke up in pain, and he blew that this morning, when I was just outside his room, so he got his meds right away, and seems to be doing okay, though he was sore and very sad until the pain meds kicked in. Now he's going to have baby food for breakfast. We were told he can move up to mashed potatoes in a week, if he's up to it, so in the meantime, I have an abundance of cream soups, pudding, ice cream, jello, and things like that....and a new blender to create more.
My parents talked to him on the phone last night and said that, even with the swelling and all, they can already hear a difference in his quality of speech. This is great....hopefully when the swelling goes down (we were told this could take 10 weeks), his speech will still be as good as what they hear. I can't tell the difference yet, being the Mommy, but I'm sure I'll be able to tell later whether what I hear is from the swelling or from the repair. And in 3 months, we go back to speech therapy....if he needs it. You never know. He may just do the speech adjustments on his own.
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