For Today - February 21st, 2010

Outside my window... It’s clear and sunny today. Maybe even WARM… Love the sunshine on my face.

I am thinking... What a nice time we had yesterday at Kris & Kirstin's wedding!

I am thankful for... Kids that both got sore throats and colds, but didn’t get knocked off their feet.

I am wearing... Black sweat pants, a black t-shirt and a sweater. [I’m so fancy when I’m at home].

I am remembering... That we need to pick up a new lunch box for Mason. He’s had his current one for a year and a half. It needs to be replaced, but he won’t use an old Toopy & Binoo one, because he thinks he’ll get made fun of.

I am going... To pick up pictures at Costco this week. Run errands, have coffee with some friends, walk on my treadmill, volunteer at the school on Wednesday.

I am currently reading...[finished reading actually] Best Friends Forever… Didn’t enjoy it. Should have known better, because I didn’t enjoy the last book I read by her either. [Mental note to self, no more books from this author.]

I am hoping... for an early spring, just like the ground hog promised! Enough of winter and cold and snow and grey. Hello sunshine and warmth. [pretty please…]

On my mind... I’ve had painful headaches now for the past 5 days. Makes me hope nothing else is the matter.

Noticing that... It’s nearly supper time, and if I don’t get it started, we won’t eat. Simple as that.

Pondering these words... “This too shall pass”

From the kitchen... Barry and the kids went for groceries today, so we have a vast assortment of chips, treats and cereal…

Around the house... Getting ready to watch Canada vs the USA in men’s Olympic Hockey. Go Canada Go!

One of my favorite things: A sunny quiet Sunday afternoon, to sit and veg on the couch under a blanket w/my hubby.

From my picture journal...

[This is a picture of my wonderful family at yesterday's wedding]

I'm a Bit Foul Today

I'm sure the question that's first and foremost on your mind is: Why so owl-y today? Well, I can answer that, but you might be sorry. Here goes.

As you know, I've been having some computer problems for awhile. We've had someone to come and look at the computer. In total, I think this guy has spent minimum 15-20 hours of his precious time, sorting out our computer. I'm now updated into the world of Windows 7. Grrrrr... All my stuff (and by stuff I mean personal files) have been changed around from here to there and there to here, so I don't know EXACTLY how to locate stuff right now. Grrrrr... We had a problem with our CD burner, as in it wasn't burning cd's. Grrrrr... So we got a new one, to replace the old one, and guess what? For some reason it will not recognize the pictures I have on my hard drive as being on my hard drive. Therefore, it will not let me burn my pictures to cd. Grrrrrr... [And any one who knows me, KNOWS how important it is to me that I have a cd in my hand, to ENSURE that I have the pictures in a 'somewhat' physical form] Please... I do realize that having a cd of burned pictures in my hand in no way guarantees the outcome/printing of my pictures, but I sleep better at night thinking I can have my pictures at any given moment. You know, like I'm only a drive to Costco away from the hard copy... Grrrrr.... To top it all off, the card reader or, perhaps I should rename it the intermittent card reader on my computer, now seems to just be plain, not working. Grrrrrrr...... So I can't download pictures. Grrrrrr..... And that is huge for me. [I download pictures A LOT]. So to say that I'm frustrated, well that's a bit of an understatement.

Then, tonight for dinner I made kid-friendly Alphabet Soup. I mean c'mon here, throw me a bone, it said KID FRIENDLY right ON the recipe... But would said 'kids' EVEN try it? Did they think it looked even remotely friendly? For the first time ever, I think Mason actually threw up in his mouth a little bit... Yes people, it was indeed drama at it's best. Why? Because we've tried our hardest to stick to the 'one bite rule' around here. You have to try at least one bite, before you can turn your nose up at it. [When Mason was younger, I think it was even a 2 or 3 bite rule] But now, it's the one bite rule. And when it takes you 25 minutes to try that first bite, well you can guess how it goes over. For one thing, 25 minutes later, it's COLD. And no, soup is NOT MEANT TO BE COLD. And when you work yourself up to trying it {in addition to the tears, and the 'i just know i won't like it's' and the 'are you sure if i don't like it you won't make me eat its?} And this is coming from the oldest child... The youngest by now, just hops off her chair, heads up to her bedroom and puts her jammies on, because like she's gonna try it...

Any whoooooo, I was told "You take it too personal that the kids aren't saying 'we don't like YOU'". [Which believe it or not, I DO realize...] But there is more to life than tomato soup and crackers. I'm just not sure how to get there. And I'm really tired of dealing with it. Mason ate good for the first 18 months of his life... He's 7 1/2 which means we've been fighting about food for 6 years. And Madelyn has NEVER been a good eater. In fact, I can't believe we've kept her alive for as long as we have. I can't believe she can survive on what little she eats. So tonight, I feel like throwing my hands up in the air, and quitting my position... Grrrrrrr.....
Now hiring.... Full-time Chef. Any takers?

By the way, Valentine's Day Cinnamon buns turned out great, but do I have a picture to show you, of course not...

Shhhh, don't tell

This is what I've got in store for breakfast tomorrow. Can you believe it? Home made cinnamon buns. Seriously, call me Suzy. Can't wait to see how they turn out, cooked golden brown, drizzled with a topping. Mmmmmm, hope I can wait.


I also made these for the kids and Barry. We're a music family. We're crazy about music, all of us. (Mason has already requested an ipod for his birthday). We all sing along, the kids know the lyrics to so many songs, it's kind of scary. And to hear there sweet little voices singing along when we're in the car... Too cute. A favorite right now, is Fireflies by Owl City. So I think they'll be a hit, because they do look just like ipods and are hiding one of there favorite candy, Sweethearts.
Also, my honey came home this afternoon with these! For me, his sweetheart. Aren't I such a lucky girl? These are my very favorite flowers. I'm so impressed this happened BEFORE Valentine's Day actually arrived.

This is what the kids took to their schools on Wednesday to hand out to classmates. I thought it was totally cute idea. I don't remember where I found it, somewhere on the net, but they turned out great.

Tomorrow we'll be having Cinnamon Buns for breakfast, and there will be heart-y things going on. Perhaps we'll make and decorate some heart cookies. We'll be doing our annual heart shaped pizza tomorrow evening. Don't know whether we'll go out, or bring it in. I'm not over indulging in the candy this year. Enough is enough...

10 on the 10th - February 2010

1.It’s sunny today, the first time we’ve had substantial sunshine in a number of days. I’d like to think I could move where the weather is warmer, but with that come days that are grey and gloomy. The truth is, I don’t think I could move to an area like that, it appears that my mood is parallel with the weather.

2. Tonight for supper we’re going to have nachos. It’s one of my ‘sure thing’ meals. I make taco meat, melt cheese and taco chips. Mason likes the taco meat smothered all over his nachos (that are covered in melted cheese) Madelyn likes taco chips on the side, meat on the side and cheese on the side NOT MELTED. But she does eat it…Barry and I, well we’re just glad to see the kids eat something.

3. We only have one more ‘get up’ this week. The kids only have tomorrow left, and then school is closed for students due to Teacher’s Convention, the weekend and Family day.

4. Since my last 10 on the 10^th in January, I’ve made several more loaves of bread in my bread maker. I’ve used the recipes in this book, and the favorite so far was the Raisin Cinnamon Bread. Mmmmmmmm… I need to stop eating so much bread already, but toasted with butter... Oh my...

5. Barry took Mason swimming the other night. Apparently while they were at the pool Mason was jumping up and down, doing all these funny moves, then came over and said: "Dad, when you first met Mummy, did you have to do a mating dance?" Too cute. [to which Barry replied, "Well, of course."]

6. I’m halfway through sorting out clothes in my closet. You know the old adage, “if you haven’t worn something in a year, you probably won’t?” With that in mind [and a PILE of clothes I haven’t worn in a year] why do I struggle with this so?

7. Since starting to exercise on a regular basis, [and by exercise, I mean walking on the treadmill] I have found my M/W/F mornings to go past in a flash. I don’t know where the time goes. [And when I say ‘exercising on a regular basis’ I mean I’ve bee pretty consistent since the beginning of January]. I’m just giving myself a pat on the back here.

8. Yesterday my brother helped me ‘link’ my cell phone to my car… So now, if I’m driving in the car, and my phone rings, I can answer it – HANDS FREE – and talk with someone without having to physically reach for my phone. Having said that, there are only 2-3 people that would ever call me on that number. It has certainly made me feel like I’m in the ‘now’ and all things ‘current’.

9. There is nothing like having your kids wrap their arms around you, hug you tight, kiss you on the cheek and say “I love you Mum”

10. Looking forward to watching LOST tonight. Can’t wait to see how this entire show plays out. My take… I think in the very end, everything will go back to how it was BEFORE the plane crashed on the mysterious island 6 years ago. I think the plane will land at LAX and everyone will carry on with their lives as though having never met one another. Only their lives will not be that great, and us as the knowing viewers, will see that they should have just enjoyed paradise while it was right there in front of them, rather than worry about being rescued and returning home to their mundane lives… But hindsight is 20/20 right?

Off the Wagon...

I want to do this documenting thing...

Am I putting too much thought into it? Perhaps. I trudged through January. I captured every day. Somewhere around Feb 1st, I was in the "this is such balder-dash" phase... It's now the 8th of February, and I don't have very many pics for the first 8 days. I DO have pics, don't get me wrong, but I may have 20 pictures for one day, and zero for another...

Yet I catch glimpses of the 365 challenge (a picture a day, for an entire year) such as this and this [perhaps you get the idea] and I LOVE it. I love it when it's someone else's pictures. It seems that everyone else has great shots, great ideas and great pictures. Plus, because Mason is at school all day, I tend to take more pictures of Madelyn. If I show a years worth of her, the poor boy child might think he's on the way out. So I don't know how to carry on...

Seriously, I knew this would be a challenge, but I think I underestimated the scope of it. I wanted it to be slightly different that just a photo a day. But now that I've had my 8 day reprieve... perhaps I'm ready to start up again. I don't want to look at what I do have a couple months down the road and say, "Gee whiz, you should have kept up with it!"

So that's the scoop.

As for me, I'm now off to watch the Bachelor... It's the first of the home dates. It's like a car crash you can't look away from. Can hardly wait to see what's gonna happen.

To Document... And WHAT to Document

There it is... my word for 2010. Cool huh? You can do your own word too, just go here: spell with Flickr

I'm trying to document. In fact, I've done so much documenting that I've kind of become turned off it. Why? Because I don't know if I'm doing myself any justice.

I have kept up with January 2010, and as I look back at my compilation, I don't really seem too impressed with it. It's not telling any specific story. It's not capturing things that are extremely important. I'm capturing tidbits here and there... It's true that this is my daily life. It's the simple things that are a part of my every day... But am I really going to look back and say, "Wow girl, you did a LOT of laundry in January 2010" [Because that's ONE thing I kept track of... I did {drum roll....} 28 loads of laundry throughout the month of January. Some of the other random things I kept track of are as follows:

Groceries (big trips) 2 times
Movies in Theatre 1
Movies at home 5 (this is a HUGE number, we may never see numbers like this again...)
Visits to Gigi 1 (disappointed, my aim was 2 times a month)
Treadmill 8 times (attempting to do the treadmill m/w/f, which should be 12x/month)
Fast Food 6 times...(really surprised by that number...and that's not including Tim Hortons which is another 4 times...
Restaurants 5 times....(again, surprised by this number)

I looked back at some receipts I've kept (why?) and news clippings I've kept (what for?) I'm busy trying to capture the every day stuff, and focusing all my attention there, when our trip to Greece in 2008 sits half finished... I feel like I'm doing a lousy job keeping track of the every day, and only letting the things I really want to capture fall further behind...

So what on earth is a girl to do?

Well, I'll tell you what. I'm going to ponder it tonight, over the Bachelor...(trashy tv at it's best) And tomorrow, if I haven't figured out what to do, I'll ponder it some more while I watch the Season Premiere of LOST