Time's Up!

Ready or not, Christmas is here. The tree is up and decorated, the presents bought and wrapped. The baking done and waiting to be gobbled up tomorrow after our feast.
This year more than any other it has taken me the longest to find my Christmas spirit. Things have been so crazy at work, with everyone needing that last appointment in before the holidays, my mind has been reeling for the past few weeks as we were on the roller coaster ride of our lives trying to finalize all the details of the purchase of our first home. In the back of my mind I was just praying for it to all stop so I could prepare for the holidays.
Now ready or not, Christmas is here, and oddly enough after a blow-up with my grandmother I have finally found my Christmas Spirit.{Copy of fight as posted on message board:
That's right. Christmas Eve Day, fighting with my grandmother on the phone. It didn't start out that way though.
Back Story: My uncle is staying with my grandmother right now and didn't want to come to dinner tomorrow. Fine, whatever. My grandmother has been changing her mind everyday about whether she's coming to dinner. One day she is, the next day she won't leave him home alone. Every Christmas my grandmother puts on this one woman pity party crying fest that lasts all day. All of us are sick of it.
So I call today to ask her a question about cooking cabbage rolls. Then I ask her if her and my uncle are coming to dinner b/c if they are I'm obviously bringing more cabbage rolls. She says she doesn't know. I ask her why. She says she won't leave my uncle. I tell her that if he wants to sit at home all day sulking then let him, nothing is stopping her from coming to dinner. She says he won't be sulking, I ask if he's not sulking then what is he doing? She won't answer.
She then says that I know that the holidays are hard for her (referring to pity party cry fest). I ask her why it's so hard (now she's crying). She says that it's just hard for her.
Now it's time to lose it. I'm sick and tired of her being Debbie Downer every Christmas. I realize it's hard for her, but it's hard for everyone all the time. I tell her that every year at Christmas she just sits and cries all day. That sometimes you just have to suck it up. I tell her that Andre and I have our struggles, my parents have their struggles, but we're thankful for the blessings in our life.
I tell her that she should sit and be thankful for the blessings she has. She should thank God she has a family, and a family that loves her. She has her health, and her family is healthy. She should be thankful that she has a roof over her head and food that she can eat. Years of frustration with her just came out of my mouth.
She got all angry on the phone and said that she hopes one day I get depressed and know what she's going through. I told her that I have, that depression runs in our family, and that every single one of us has struggled with some level of depression. Then she blurts out "Well I'm sorry I'm not you!" and then hung up the phone.
I was so angry I was shaking. I had to call DH at work and talk to him. Thankfully he had a minute. Then I called my mother. They both told me not to worry and that someone had to tell her the truth. I feel badly that I might've upset her (when it truly wasn't my intention to do that), but I'm just sick of her bringing everyone down all the time. We are all truly blessed, and she just refuses to see it. }

I have heard from so many people that they feel this year especially, how the focus has been on things. Maybe it's just the usual consumerism sneaking up on us, maybe it's the economic crisis, who knows. It's like I had this awakening about how much I truly have to be thankful for this Christmas. How more than ever with all the uncertainty we had in our lives, I realize that sometimes when we feel like everything is upside down and backwards, there is a reason for it all. That everyone around us was right, things will work out for the best. We just have to be patient.

So to celebrate this Christmas season, I am going to list the many gifts that surround me every day.

First off, my wonderful husband Andre. We may not agree on everything, but he is my rock. The one person that I know will and has stood beside me though many of life's challenges. I love him so much.
My family. We may be flawed, I may think they're from another planet most of the time, but they're mine, and I love them.
My Friends. The ones that are close to us and far away. The ones that I have a chance to see during our week, or may only have a chance to "talk" to via our computer. They may not realize it, but they add so much to both my life, and Andre's.
My job. To be able to work with some very amazing people everyday, and make a difference in the lives of other people everyday is a truly amazing thing.
Our home. This being our tiny apartment now, and also our house, that will be ours in just 5 short weeks. This has been our dream to have a home for a long time, and something we didn't think was possible right now. I am so grateful for all the help and support that we received when I thought that our dream of owning was just that, a dream.

To everyone out there who reads this, I wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas, and the best in 2009!

Where has the time gone?

I can't believe that it's been a week since I last blogged. The time is definitely slipping away from me.

So much has happened! We had our home inspection this past Monday. It went very well, and there were no surprises. Some very minor things have to be done to the home once we move in, but that was to be expected. The big things are all fine, so that was great news to us! Our home inspector even told me at the end of the inspection that he has inspected a lot of town homes in our area, and that this one pleasantly surprised him. He said that it was a solidly built home that has been very well maintained. Definitely what you want to hear!

At the inspection I also got a first glimpse of the living room without the cedar shingles. It looks so much more bright and open! I can't wait to get in there and slap on some paint and rip out the carpet. It will look like a completely different place!

We got a call on Thursday morning that we have fulfilled all of our conditions on the offer, but when I talked to our agent, he wanted us to have our ESA certificate (had to be done before closing) completed for our home insurance before we sign off on all the conditions on Monday night. He said he doesn't expect a problem, but that it would be a good idea to have it done before we sign off completely. I understand why he wants it done, but he told me this on Friday afternoon at 4pm after I had to call him about signing off on the conditions. I wish he had been a bit more proactive, and had mentioned this earlier. I politely told him I couldn't take anymore time off work, and he said that he would arrange everything to be done before Monday at 8pm when we're suppose to sign the last of the papers.

I've discovered that finding our home was the easy part, it's all the paperwork afterwards that is proving to be a pain! If all goes as planned we will have our ESA certificate in hand tomorrow night and a SOLD sign up by Tuesday morning. I can't wait for that moment, because then I can switch my brain back to focusing on Christmas.

It's exciting to think that in just 7 weeks we will have the keys to our home in our hands!

Hurt Feelings

There was one not so great part about finding the house; having to break the news to my grandmother. You may remember this post from July. My grandmother has had her townhouse on the market since August. Her home is in the condominium complex next to the one my parents live in (one big happy family!). Her home is slightly larger than the one we purchased, and the price she's willing to drop to is a whopping $15 000 more than what our final ending point was.

I called her on Thursday to let her know the news. I had told friends and other family members before her. I knew that she wasn't going to be happy that we didn't buy her home. So the phone call was very painful to say the least. She did a good job of saying everything that a supportive grandmother is suppose to say, but she was lacking the enthusiasm that everyone else had when we shared our news.

She told me that she would've been willing to work out a deal (not one that we could afford), and she questioned us about the amount that we had been approved for, and then told us that that plus our down payment was only a few thousand that what she wanted for the house. Never mind that that amount was still a good $12 000 more than what we could comfortably pay every month in mortgage payments.

No matter what we said she just would not understand that although the bank was willing to give us all that money we didn't/couldn't spend it all. She didn't care that by taking her home we would be overextending ourselves to the point of literally living pay cheque to pay cheque. She only cared that we would've taken her home therefore solving her problem of having to sell.

Fast forward to today. My mother called me to tell me what my grandmother felt about us purchasing the other house. My grandmother told her that she was "hurt" that we didn't try and buy her home, and that she would've given us a deal. It's like she refuses to see our end. She just won't try and understand that we want money leftover at the end of the month to pay down our debt, go out, make improvements to the house, hell maybe even put some into savings. She refuses to see beyond her reality.

You'd think that she'd put her own situation aside and just be happy that her oldest granddaughter and her husband just purchased their first home. But no, she'll sit at home feeling sorry for herself for weeks on end now.

I wish this all was easier. This is just the mess I feared would happen.

One condition left and it is ours!

So much has happened in such a short time! Here's a timeline of all that has happened (and is to come).

Monday Dec 1- Put offer in for our townhouse. Agent says he'll call us before 11pm if there is word of counter offer. Nothing that night

Tuesday Dec 2- Our agent calls us at 9am. The seller countered our offer at just $1900 above what we wanted to pay. He suggests that we try and get him to lower it a little bit. We let our agent know that we will take the sellers offer, but want some work done in return.

Noon- Our agent meets us and we sign back.

5:15pm- They met us in the middle! They knocked off $900 and will take down the cedar shingles (pics to follow) and repair the walls for us.

7pm- Meet our agent at home, sign the final offer. It's ours (conditionally, of course)

Thursday Dec 4- Our mortgage broker calls to let us know that our mortgage was approved. We have our money! Recommends lawyer and I make some calls.

Saturday Dec 6- Make appointment for our home inspection.

After Mondays home inspection, we're just waiting on the certificate from the Condominium Corporation, and then all of the conditions of our offer have been met. SOLD sign can go up!

It's been such a whirlwind these last few days. It's been so hard for Andre and I because work has been so busy the last few days which means I'm madly trying to make phone calls during my spare moments at work. Needless to say we've had "words" with each other. Because Andre is always driving at work he can't make all the calls that I can, so I am stuck doing a lot of the leg work myself and have been feeling very overwhelmed.

Hopefully that will all be over come early next week.

Now for what you've all been waiting for...house pictures! Here are a few of the pictures that were on the MLS listing. I cannot wait to close on the house so we can get in there and make it ours!

(the view from our front door)

(the living room)
(dining room)

(basement--wet bar)

(basement--family room)

(kitchen)

(kitchen)

(master bedroom)

Putting an offer on the house

I know I haven't had a chance to really post about our house hunting experience, and I don't right now either!
I'm actually blogging from work from my blackberry. Thank goodness for unlimited internet!
So just like the title says we are putting an offer on one of the houses this evening. Our agent is coming over tonight at 8pm when Andre gets home from work so we can make an offer. I am so excited!! We want this house to be our home so badly!
If I have a chance tonight I will try and write about our house hunting trip this weekend. Otherwise I promise I will sometime this week.
Wish us luck!

House hunting here we come!

So the big day to start house hunting is tomorrow. We have two properties that we have requested a look at. One of which being the house that we're secretly in love with. Note to self: must down play feelings about the house in front of the sellers agent if s/he's there!

It's a 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath town home in our current neighbourhood. It needs a little bit of TLC, but we really feel like we could put our stamp on it and make it a home. The only major work it needs is a kitchen/bathroom overhaul, but it's not a must-do right now and we could live with them as is for now.

We had a little confusion with our real estate agent this morning about what exactly we had to work with but it seems to be solved for now. We were approved for one amount for a single (detached) home, but being we're looking at town homes, we will not be eligible for the full amount because of the added cost of condo fees.

So please cross all fingers and toes that our visits tomorrow go well. I think Andre wants his parents to come with us, so it should be interesting!

A Holiday Poem

I was reading through our church newsletter and came across this poem that I thought I would share.

First Corinthians 13 (Christmas version)
By Sharon Jaynes

If I decorate my house perfectly with plaid bows,
strands of twinkling lights and shiny balls,
but do not show love to my family,
I'm just another decorator.

If I slave away in the kitchen,
baking dozens of Christmas cookies,
preparing gourmet meals
and arranging a beautifully adorned table at mealtime;
but do not show love to my family,
I'm just another cook.

If I work at a soup kitchen
carol in the nursing home,
and give all that I have to charity;
but do not show love to my family,
it profits me nothing.

If I trim the spruce with shimmering angels
and crocheted snowflakes,
attend a myriad of holiday parties
and sing in the choir's cantata
but do not focus on Christ,
I have missed the point.

Love stops the cooking to hug the child.
Love sets aside the decorating to kiss the spouse.
Love is kind, though harried and tired.
Love does not envy another's home
that has coordinated Christmas china and table linens.

Love does not yell at the kids to get out of the way,
but is thankful they are there to be in the way.
Love does not give only to those who are able to give in return;
but rejoices in giving to those who cannot.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
Love never fails.
Video games will break, pearl necklaces will be lost, golf clubs will rust;
but giving the gift of love will endure forever.

When it rains...

We thought we had everything under control, until last weekend. That's when our landlords came downstairs and told us that we had to be out by March 1, 2009 because they had decided to sell the house. Now our landlords are friends of the family. So we had assumed that if something like this was going to happen that they would have given us some sort of notice first rather than, 'oh by the way, you're out'.

I immediately started to stress because not only are we not made of money, but we have a little pile of debt in the bank (although from what I'm learning, a hell of a lot less than most people), money in savings that was originally earmarked for the over $3000 of dental work that I need to have done in the New Year, and a plan in place that foolishly included staying where we were for another year. Now everything was shot to shit. I was not a happy camper.

So after dissolving into tears on the couch and talking to my mom and sister I calmed down enough to talk to Andre about what we were going to do. We decided that we would just look for another apartment, and my dental work was just going to have to wait. So the next day I told my friends at work what had happened that weekend. One of my friends reminded me about a program in our city that helps moderate income families buy their first home. Another one suggested that with the falling prices of homes, now might not be a bad time to purchase if we could find a way.

So that night I went home and with the help of google and MLS.ca I figured out that with our bills and a mortgage, the cost was very close to what we were already paying out. So we started on the roller coaster of visiting with a mortgage broker and applying for the Municipal program to have the 5% down payment given to us. Now we're just waiting to find out from the broker what our pre-approval will be for a mortgage. That will be the ultimate factor for deciding if we can purchase. If we're not approved for enough, then we will rent and try and save, but if we are approved for enough, our dream of possibly owning our own home will be a reality.

Fingers crossed everyone. We need all the help we can get.

Quilt Giveaway

Well, I'm not personally giving them away, but someone is! Old Red Barn Co. is having a giveaway.

How do I enter to win a quilt you ask? Just leave a comment on her blog and you could win one of these three beautiful quilts:

There are also ways to earn extra entries such as blogging about the giveaway, just like I'm doing right now.

Good luck to anyone who chooses to enter!

Update on us.

I realized for the last little while I've been focusing on things and events that have been happening around us, instead of on Andre and I, so I thought I would do a little "us" update.

Now I partially realize the reason that I've been writing about so many different things besides us is because we've been kind of boring lately. It's been the same routine day in and day out for the last almost two months. We get up, have dinner, go to work, work too late, have dinner in front of the television, watch an hour of TV then go to bed. It's been very monotonous. I realize that we're in a rut. The only reason I'm not (too) worried, is that I know many other couples are stuck in the same rut that we are in.

After all the cut backs with Air Canada a few months ago, Andre's work schedule changed, so he now has two days each week (Tuesdays and/or Thursdays) were work is up in the air, and he has to work a day on the weekend now too. We've as a result lost some of the time that we would normally spend with each other, in addition to losing money every pay cheque. Thank goodness my work has been very busy lately, but with that comes it's own problems.

In my job everyone wants late appointments, and to accommodate people I have been working three to four late evenings (7pm or later) instead of my scheduled two late evenings. I have been feeling overwhelmed, overtired, and stressed. As a result I get snippy and snap at Andre more than I should.
Although Andre is making more strides with helping me at home. I think he's realizing that a happy wife=happy Andre. We'll see how long it lasts though ;0)

In order to be proactive I've tried looking at my schedule in advance to try and limit the number of extra evenings that I'm working. Even the chiropractor that I work with (the owner of the clinic) mentioned to me the other day that I need to start putting myself first rather than my clients. The fact that she noticed during her even busier day that I was acting "off" gave me a reminder that I need to slow down.

I've also decided that I'm going to resign from a church committee that I'm on. I struggle so much just balancing my home and work life that it's chaos trying to add another obligation to the mix. It's been a long time coming, and I'm happy with the decision.

Andre, Andre, Andre...

Friday, no exception to the insanity that has been our life lately, I forgot to put dinner in the slow cooker before we headed out the door. This was the exchange that occurred as we walked out to the car and drove away:

Me: Shit!
Andre: What happened?
Me: I forgot to the put the salsa chicken in the slow cooker for dinner tonight.
Andre: Oh
Me: Yeah, I'm working late tonight too, crap!
Andre: That's okay Jenna, you can just make regular chicken in the oven when you get home.
Me: ~slowly turns to him in the car with "the look"~ Pardon me?
Andre: ~realizing he said the wrong thing~ Umm, nothing.
Me: Yeah, I thought so.

Fast forward to just before lunch. I check my cell phone, and there's a message from Andre.
Andre: Hi Jenna, I just wanted to apologize for this morning in the car. What I should've said was 'Jenna, that's okay that dinner isn't in the slow cooker, don't worry, I'll make dinner when I get home tonight'. Love you!

I stood laughing as I listened to the message. Maybe he's slowly getting it.

The Dinner

I figured since Andre is at work, dinner is in the slow cooker, and the dishes are air drying in the rack I can finally sit with some cookies that I purchased at the Church Bazaar yesterday and share the details of our dinner last night.

The great experiment--our first date night with Pam and Mike post Abbey. I think all of us (or maybe just Pam and I) were a little nervous about how the evening would progress. So, usually if we would be doing an evening together we would have them over to our place, since Pam feels too much pressure if she has to cook anything, and I'm used to having no time to prepare a meal. Since the addition of Abbey to our little group, we decided it would be better to have the dinner at their house so Abbey was in her own territory, and Pam would be more relaxed.

So we arrived at their house around 5:30 to find Pam in a tizzy because Abbey had decided that she was in no way interested in sleeping that day, and would rather stay up with her dad instead. Pam thrives on routine, so she was very stressed to say the least. The first part of the evening before dinner we spent the time whispering and sitting in the dark living room because Pam wanted Abbey to go to sleep, and instead of putting her in her crib down the hall (there house is on one floor) she put her in the playpen in the living room.

Thank goodness Abbey decided she was rested enough after about 45 minutes because after a long day and a glass of wine I would've fallen asleep in the dark! Pam fed Abbey while the rest of us ate dinner and then Pam had finished feeding the baby about the same time I finished dinner so I took Abbey so Pam could eat her dinner. Abbey was overtired so she was a bit fussy so I took her soother and started to walk around to calm her, and every five seconds Pam was asking "is she okay?", "are you okay?", finally after about the fifth time I told her there were no tears, no crying and no flailing arms and legs so Abbey was just fine.

After dinner Mike took Abbey to her room to try and get her to sleep a bit while we had some dessert, and then around 9:30 I started to get tired from the dim lights and the wine, so Andre and I headed home, and arrived just at 10pm, just as I had predicted when we were driving to their house.

I think considering everything it was a good first dinner together. For the past three years we have always gotten together for a dinner in December to celebrate the holidays with each other and have made plans to get together in about a month again this year. We also decided since we're all not huge fans of New Years we would spend New Years together again this year as well. We'll see how all that goes.

One thing I have noticed is that whenever I'm with Pam and she's starting to get anxious or stressed with Abbey she'll always turn to me and say something like "See, doesn't this make you not want to have kids?" I was kind of just smile, and change the subject. How do you tell someone that you do eventually want kids, but that the experience might be different for us?

One other thing that happened on Saturday is that Andre and Abbey got to meet each other for the second time, and Andre got to hold her for the first time. He hasn't really seen her since we visited them in the hospital way back in August, and he's never had a chance to hold her. So I brought our camera with us last night so I could snap a picture of the two of them together.

Abbey has a thing with holding onto fingers, clothing, anything really as a security sort of thing. While Andre was holding her she grabbing his thumb and shirt, he kept saying "Look at those tiny little hands. Look at those nails!"

On the way home in the car Andre was commenting on holding Abbey, making sure he was holding her right and doing a good job. He was talking about how he liked holding her. Then out of the blue he says "I'll make a great dad one day."

Women like that give the rest of us a bad name.

"That woman" being a woman that I work with. I work in an office that consists almost entirely of women. We all get along, and get together outside of the office sometimes as well. We have one co-worker who likes to over share. She's constantly talking about inappropriate things, and for some reason feels the need to include very graphic details about her sex life with her boyfriend. We've tried walking away, changing the subject, you name it we've tried to convey to her that we're not interested in the intimate details of her relationship but it doesn't work.

Well yesterday at lunch there was 4 of us sitting eating our lunch just chatting and then she started to talk about birth control, and then she started to mention that she had "forgotten" to take a few of her birth control pills that past month. Now she's talked about how she's "forgotten" to take pills before, and how she desperately wants to have a baby. So we took the bait and asked her how many pills she "forgot" to take. She forgot to take five pills that month! Yes, almost an entire week of pills. Someone immediately said, "don't you think that maybe you're "forgetting" to take these pills on purpose to get pregnant?" We asked her if she had told her boyfriend how many pills she had missed that cycle. Her answer? "well he knows that I've missed a pill or two in the past, but I haven't told him". (I'm mentally shaking my head at this point.)

Now one thing I forgot to mention is that this woman and her boyfriend have a very dysfunctional relationship. He doesn't like to tell her where he's going to be throughout the week because he doesn't like her "keeping tabs" on him. She will call him to say hello and he won't answer the call. She can go an entire week without talking to him because he doesn't feel like talking to her. But then on the weekend when he wants some sex, he'll call her and she'll go running to see him.

Later on after lunch she's venting to me how much her b/f has been annoying her lately, and not answering phone calls, and how he arranged to work on his birthday and told her not to call him that day. I turned to her and said that would be an excellent reason why she should start taking her birth control everyday, and how a baby doesn't solve a problematic relationship, it just makes it more problematic. She just got very quiet and changed the subject.

It just gets so hard to just stand by and watch someone that you're friends with be so foolish and not see the roadsigns that all of us see. I think she feels that if she gets pregnant he'll immediately commit to her, and she'll have the life that she desperately wants. Two of us are married in the office, and she's made many comments about how it's not fair because we're younger than her. (rolling my eyes! It's not a competition!!)

At least she won't be in the office today, so we'll have a little peace and quiet.

At a loss...

Pam is back to her old tricks again. By old tricks, I mean not eating. We've been making a habit out of getting together the first Monday of every month for a little shopping date. It's the one time during the month that we will definitely get together, but we do try to get together more if the schedules allow for it.

For some reason Pam didn't cook before Abbey was born. She couldn't do her job (construction) for obvious reasons while pregnant, so she was a stay-at-home-wife for the better part of a year before Abbey was born. During that entire year she would go on and on about how she didn't have time to clean, didn't have time to cook, didn't have time to e-mail...the list goes on and on.

Now many times I had to struggle to be tactful with my responses being that I work a 40+ hour work week and still find time to clean, cook a complete dinner 5-6 days/week and keep in touch with friends. But over time I've come to realize that she doesn't cope with stress as well as the average person does, and that while I have learned to thrive (or at least survive) in stressful situations, she does not.

Her situation has steadily gotten worse now that she has the baby to take care of. I've been trying to help her by suggesting meal planning (don't know how I could survive without it), and sending her recipes that she can pop in the slow cooker, and some quick cook-it-in-30-minutes-recipes. Short of making food and shoving it in her freezer, I don't know how else to help her.

On Monday she confided that she hasn't cooked a meal in the three months since Abbey was born. She also confided that either she doesn't eat during the day, or she will have a bowl of Vector (meal replacement cereal) for dinner. I honestly don't know how she gets out of bed every morning. The public health nurse has told her that she needs to start eating more. The nurse suggested keeping some pre-cut fruits and vegetables in the fridge to snack on and keeping some convenience pre-cooked meals in the freezer to just pop in the oven. The only problem is that I don't think she will do this. The other problem is her husband is never home during the week (workaholic) and when he's home on the weekends he doesn't really cook.

I worry about the short term affects on her (and the baby) because she is not eating a balanced diet (0r at all) and the long term affects on Abbey having a mother who has such an unhealthy relationship with food.

The silver lining to all of this is that in spite of it all Abbey is a happy, alert, well nourished 13.7 lb baby girl. She is so cute, and now will smile and laugh when I visit her. Amazingly enough she hasn't played strange the times that I have seen her. Here is a picture of her that I took on Monday while we had stopped for a coffee:

(sorry it's a little blurry, I was testing out the camera on my blackberry)

We're planning to get together with Pam and her husband for our first couples "date" since Abbey was born on Saturday so hopefully I'll have some more news to share after the weekend.

How Rude

I had a baby shower to go to today. For a family friend that is expecting her first baby, a little boy. The mother is 16. It was interesting. There were two other teen aged mothers at the shower. They handed out little favours at the end of the shower. I opened the little envelope that came with the little chocolate and it was a note card with a pre-written thank you note in it.

Am I so strange to find this rude? Yes it was handwritten, and she did write it. But at the same time, these people, 99% of which were just friends of the family because her actual family is too disgusted with the entire thing to attend the shower, all attend and shower her with gifts, and all we get is a "Thank you for sharing my special day with me. Love _____"

Maybe I'm bend out of shape because I know countless couples who would give their right arm to have a child, and can't, and here were these children, holding little babies, opening gifts and not even knowing what a bottle brush is for heaven's sake! What kind of life is a 16 year old suppose to have while raising a child? Does she realize how hard everything is going to be for her?

Stupid Vista!

I know I'm not the first one to mutter that phrase, and I'm sure I won't be the last.

The surprising thing is that we haven't had a lot of problems since getting our new computer over a year ago. A lot of people talk about the problems they've had with Vista, but we've been lucky. That is until now.

I just crossed over to the dark side and bought myself a Blackberry. I get home, and I'm syncing all my information from my old Palm Pilot to the BB, and realize that BB is not compatible with Vista (surprise, surprise!). So now I can back up my schedule onto a file on my computer, but can't view my schedule on a calendar on my computer.

GRRR....Stupid Vista!

Pictures of Mikey

We've been looking at buying a new digital camera and found a fabulous new Canon Powershot at Best Buy for a great price.

I've been playing with the camera this week and here are a few pictures I snapped of Mikey this week while he was "hiding" on the chair at the dining room table.

Holy Engagements Batman!

So we've had some good news over the last few weeks. Two of our friends have gotten engaged. Andre's friend Mike, and my friend Lindsay. Both have decided to take the leap with their respective mates and get married. Looks like we'll have two weddings over the next year or so, and both will be in the cooler weather.

Mike and his fiance Lisa have set a date for March 2009, and Lindsay and Greg have set a date for January 2010.

I think we were a little surprised to hear of Mike's engagement being his nickname in the group was "Hugh" (as in Hefner). Mike had a reputation as being quite the ladies man, so here's hoping that Lisa has managed to convert him into the dutiful husband. Then there's the matter of where they're going to live as he lives and works in Bermuda, and she works and lives in Australia. Should be interesting.

Lindsay and I got together just this past Thursday for dinner and I finally got to hear all the details of Lindsay and Greg's engagement and how their wedding planning had been going. Apparently her in laws to be have decided that they should in no way be responsible for any part of the wedding, and that it is the bride's families responsibility to pay for everything. And they made that opinion made by e-mailing their opinion to both Lindsay and Greg, as well as Lindsay's mother. Yeah, they're crazy. The best part is when they called Lindsay's mother to ask why her ex husband was only inviting 11 people because of budget constraints. Who does this?!!

I'm so thankful Andre and I avoided that problem all together by just paying for our wedding ourselves. Our parents contributed, but it was because they wanted to, not because we made them.

I had an awkward moment with Lindsay too when we went out for dinner just this past Thursday. The most fun moment when a friend gets engaged is when you get to see your girlfriend's engagement ring for the first time. Who doesn't love showing it off?! Well we sat down at the restaurant and then I asked for the hand so she could show off her bling.

Hmmm, well it was small, like really small. Not we opted for a flawless diamond, and this is what we ended up with, but just small. And it was yellow gold. She only wears white gold. It seemed like she had been trying to hide it while we were out, so I asked her about the setting to distract from the diamond. It was set with her birthstones on either side, so it was a nice setting.

Then she asked to see my rings. The first thing she says is "holy crap Jenna, your ring is huge!" (it's not) How do you respond to that? So I told her that it only looks big because I have six prongs so it makes it look bigger. (which is true). Then she asks me how big the stone is (kill me now). I tell her, and she's like "yeah, I think mine is what they call a diamond particle." I immediately changed the subject to something else.

I think I'm going to skip the whole looking at the engagement ring next time.

My Mission of Organization

I don't know why but I have been on a mission to organize this weekend. It all started with the pile of clothes on the chair in the bedroom. This is my pile during the week. The clothes that get taken off at the end of the day that aren't dirty usually get thrown on this chair until I get around to putting them away. This usually doesn't happen until the end of the week.

So on my break Thursday afternoon I decided they had to be put away. That inevitably lead to having to go through all the clothes in my drawers because I had not only most of my fall clothes out, but also all of my summer clothes. So after some ruthless purging all the summer stuff was in a pile to be put into storage for the winter and another pile was set aside to go to Goodwill.

I wasn't done there though. One of Andre's best qualities is that he is very organized (for the most part). This is also one of his biggest faults because he likes to keep all the packaging for everything that we buy! This drives me MENTAL! So while we were at Zellers picking up plastic storage bins I broke the news to him that we were going to go through all the boxes he had kept and the contents were being labelled and packed into a little storage bin and the boxes were going to be recycled.

(note: by saying "we" were going to do this, it really means me ;o)

So the end result was all of these boxes being sent into the recycling bin:

And the contents of all those boxes being packed up and put away for safe keeping in our handy dandy little tote:
Now whenever we have to look for a manual or need the software for something it is labelled and safely packed away.

Famous Cookies

I'm going to temporarily jump on the Food Blog Bandwagon and post the recipe for some cookies I just made today. It's the second time I have made them and they are so delish. The recipe is from: Company's Coming: Cookie Jar Classics.

Famous Cookies

3/4 cup Hard Margarine (or butter), softened

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup Granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups Quick-cooking rolled oats, processed in blender for 10-15 seconds

1 cup All purpose flour

1/2 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Baking Soda

1/4 tsp Salt

1 cup Semi-sweet chocolate chips

3/4 cup chopped pecans

2 Sweet chocolate baking squares (1 oz., 28g, each) grated

Cream first 3 ingredients in large bowl. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla. Beat until smooth.

Combine next 5 ingredients in medium bowl. Add to margarine mixture in 2 additions, mixing well after each addition until no dry flour remains.

Add remaining 3 ingredients. Mix well. Roll into 1 1/4 inch (3cm) balls. Arrange about 2 inches (5cm) apart on greased cookie sheets. Bake in 375 F oven for about 10 minutes until edges are golden. Let stand on cookie sheets for 5 minutes. Remove cookies from cookie sheets and place on wire racks to cool.

Makes about 60 cookies.

*Notes: Since Andre is allergic to all tree nuts, I substituted 3/4 cup of the chocolate chips instead of pecans.

For the grated chocolate I use 2 oz of Victorian Epicure chocolate (it comes already grated).

I don't know how they say this makes 60 cookies, I only end up with about 3 dozen. Maybe mine are bigger?

Let's talk about Faith

I have such interesting conversations with clients. I talk about sex, husbands, housework, stress, depression, you name it, I've probably talked about it with someone at one point in my career. Even the two taboo subjects (politics and religion) I have talked about with my clients. Now these are two of the subjects that I won't even talk about with some of my closest friends, well especially since my best friend is an agnostic.

I have the most amazing conversations about religion with my clients. Now I'm pretty open about my faith. I mean, someone would only have to look as far as the cross that hangs around my neck 99% of the time to know that I am a person of faith. If someone asks me about anything regarding religion or faith I will answer and speak openly. I will answer (just about) any question that someone asks, but I don't like to push my opinions and beliefs on others (although people have tried to do that to me).

Just yesterday I was talking to one of my clients about the owner of the chiropractic office that I work at. We were discussing how she is always happy, always has a smile, or hug for her patients, and just exudes enthusiasm the entire time at the office. We were joking about how we just don't know how she does it for 12 hours a day without the help of well alcohol, or pharmaceuticals! Then my clients mentioned that her (the chiro's) faith shows through in everything that she does.

Then we started talking about people that we've met, and how their faith just amazes us sometimes. How it's almost as if every word, every action that they do during the day is just a display of their faith, their thankfulness for everything God has given them. It makes me think of my own life, my own actions. Do I do the best I can everyday to live as a person of faith? How can I improve this?

"Faith is the light that guides you through the darkness."

~- M. Eckhart

Awkward Meeting

After practicing as long as I have (9 years). I've met a lot of people. Hundreds of people even. Occasionally while out and about I will run into them. Hell, while picking up a few things at the grocery store last Friday afternoon I ran into three! I've learned over the years to wait until the client makes eye contact in case they feel uncomfortable, whatever. People are strange sometimes. Usually people give a smile, the usual "hello, how are you?" sort of thing.

Just the other week I was weeding out some of my inactive files and I was wondering about a few of my clients that haven't been in for awhile. Wondering if they were okay, etc, etc. I was out grocery shopping with Andre on a break this afternoon and he was loading the groceries while I ran into Shoppers Drugmart for a few things. There in the nail care aisle was one of those clients.

She noticed me and smiled and asked how I was, but it was like she was trying to walk out of the aisle as fast as she could while still trying to be polite. The whole time trying to make small talk, she was walking backwards out of there. Now I'm not offended when people stop coming to see me. It happens.

I almost feel like wearing a sign while I'm out just in case I run into an old client. It would read: Don't worry, I'm not going to ask why you haven't been in, it's okay!

I'm getting tired of this

I don't know what has gotten into my clients. Maybe it's the weather. Maybe it's the time of year. Maybe they're stressed out. Or maybe, just maybe, I've been way too nice to them up until now and now they're just taking advantage.

I've had countless clients just not show up for their appointments lately. I'm not talking once every other week. I'm talking almost daily. At least one appointment daily that is a bust because that person didn't show up for their massage. Not only am I losing money (which sucks!) but I'm left sitting doing nothing at work.

Just this morning I'm in the bathroom getting ready to blow dry my hair and I hear the phone ringing and Andre grumbling on his way to it. Who was it? My office.

office: Hi Jenna!

Me: (knowing this can only mean one of two things) Hello

office: Umm, I have a question for you.

me: Yes?

office: Well, I just wanted to check what time Bob Smith (clearly not his real name) has his appointment with you?

me: 10:00. (it was 9:15 at the time)

office: Oh, well he's here.

me: Well I've never start before 10 am on Wednesdays, so there's nothing I can do about it.

Now instead of just saying okay, hanging up with me and taking care of the situation herself, she hands him over to me. *rolling eyes skyward*

So I explain that he has two appointments booked this week. 10am this morning, and 10:15 on Friday morning. As usual he doesn't have his blackberry with him (the whole cause of this situation) and can't check what time (if any) he had put on his calendar. So in the end, he loses out on his massage today because he can't write an appointment down.

This isn't the first time that Bob Smith has "forgotten" what time his appointment is at and just showed up whenever. And usually "whenever" is at least a half hour to an hour before his scheduled time. The last time it happened I had a break so I was able to get him in early, but people can't just expect that I have nothing better to do then sit at the front desk of the office waiting patiently just in case they feel like walking in.

Why do people buy or carry around palm pilots, day planners, or blackberry's if they are not going to put their damn appointments in them? I get at least 1 call a week from a client (who I know has a blackberry) calling to check the time of her appointment. Why not just check your damned calendar? Oh yeah, you didn't put your appointment in there. What is the function of those little electronic devices if not to tell you where you need to be at any time? Do they think I'm impressed if they pull it out?

If they really want to impress me, they can just show up on time for a change.

It feels so real now

So Andre and I have decided to say farewell to hormonal birth control. Partially with the intention that will help with my (extremely) low libido, and so we will know what my cycles will be like after years on the birth control pill. Only a handful of people know about our decision (and well of course, now all of my readers!). We will not be telling our parents because they will just get their hopes up for no reason.

We still aren't ready for children right now, so we will still be using other forms of birth control, but for now we will bid farewell to the pill.

I had my yearly physical (oh yeah!) on Friday so I discussed our choice with my doctor and she was supportive our choice and sent me for some blood work to check on my immunity to Rubella so if I do not have an immunity I can have that taken care of in advance of us trying to get pregnant.

Andre and I have been talking about this for awhile now, to make sure that this was a decision that we were both ready for, but for some reason telling my doctor made it seem so much more real. It wasn't just a conversation topic at home, it was real, we were really going to do this. For so many years the main purpose of my yearly physical was just to get a refill on my prescription for the pill.

Now every month I will get to know my body again. It will learn to think and function without the help of artificial hormones. I'm not looking forward to the cramping, the irritability and the acne (especially not the acne!) but I am looking forward to getting to know my body again. I'm sure there will be many exciting posts about how things are going (or not going) over the next few months.

Little Miss Suzie Homemaker

That is who I feel like today. Here I am blogging about my domestic exploits today with my apron still tied around my waist.

I already have turkey broth made from our delicious turkey that we had for Thanksgiving dinner last night cooling in the fridge, and dinner simmering in the slow cooker. Yummy salsa chicken! We were going to have some ribs in the slow cooker today to get away from the poultry but I wasn't chanelling my inner domestic diva last night and as a result the ribs are still frozen solid in the freezer. Ooops.

Everytime I make something for dinner, I think of my great-grandmother. Before she passed, (She passed away 8 years ago when I was 21) she sat me down one day and asked me if I knew how to cook. At that point she was bed ridden as a result of her lung cancer. I told her of course I knew how to cook. Then she got this frustrated look on her face and said that she knew that I could bake, but could I cook dinner for my husband one day?

I probably rolled my eyes and said that she didn't have to worry, my future husband would not starve. I think her and Andre would've got along. She loved to cook, and he loves to eat! I don't know why but I've been thinking about her a lot lately. She's just been on my mind for some reason.

"In the childhood memories of every good cook, there's a large kitchen, a warm stove, a simmering pot, and a mom."

~Barbara Costikyan

Our day of shopping

Since everyone (or at least my one loyal reader :o) is waiting to hear how shopping went I decided I would procrastinate making dinner and post instead!

I have to say that the day went 100 times better than I thought it would. I really had no idea what to expect, but expected the worst if that at all makes sense.

She gave me a huge hug when we first met up which was nice since we hadn't really seen each other for so long aside from the accidental meeting at Kelsey's. We actually talked a bit after lunch about how awkward it was when we met up on the Saturday. They are usually visiting his parents on Saturday evenings, and I think it was just weird to see them out at a restaurant, especially since Pam and I had already made plans to meet up on Monday.

We were able to talk about a lot of things that have been going on, some drama that has been going on with her family, what they've been up to, how her husband hasn't been home very much being he's a Mutual Fund Accountant for an American company in Toronto, and it's been busy with the stock market crashing almost daily.

Then we talked about her Post Partum Depression. It's bad, not like she has a hard time getting out of bed, bad, but like she's thought about ending her own life sort of bad. She would never harm the baby in any way, but her depression is at a level it hasn't been in years. She's visiting her psychiatrist every week, and they have increased her medication, but I still worry about her especially since her husband is never home. Thankfully she lives very close to her grandmother whom she visits daily, and her mother who has helped her a lot with the baby.

She is also suffering from a very high level of anxiety which they are treating her for which she has never suffered from. It was a little strange seeing her so compulsive about checking the baby in her stroller. Abbey would be sleeping in the stroller and she would be checking her every few minutes.

I even got her to visit the Early Years Centre at the mall too which I was happy about. I'm hoping now that she's familiar with it she won't be so uneasy about going to the mall alone if she wanted to walk with Abbey but the weather outside wasn't good. They also have a ton of workshops, and groups that they run at different locations in the city, so I'm hoping she'll get out more and meet some other moms once she's feeling better. I think that would be good for her especially since I'm so busy with work during the week.

I don't know how often we'll be able to get together now with work being busier and me not having an abundance of spare time during the work week, but I told her that at the very least I have the first Monday of every month off, so we can at least do something then. Only time will tell how things will work out, but if this day was any indicator, it will be okay, different then before, but okay.

Work Frustration

Back-story: I am kind of like and independent contractor in a medical office. I rent out the space, but am not considered an "employee" there. I am also the sounding board for most of the people there. Aside from one part-time male doctor there, we're all women and all friends. Not to say that there aren't any problems, but for the most part it's pretty good.

Now, lately a lot of the girls in the office have had issues with the office manager. She has a habit of being very judgemental, dishonest, and a hypocrite. For example, she will talk to one of the girls about how they are sharing too much of their person life with one of the patients, but then the next day she will be going on and on about her boyfriend and their relationship with a patient (even if the patient is clearly not interested). Everyone (myself included) as noticed this particular situation occur one too many times, and it's not professional.

Now this office manager and one of the associates have had some run-ins lately. Mostly regarding scheduling issues. Just this Friday the associate had noticed a blank spot in her schedule and knew that with the patient load that she had earlier that day she would be behind and added a buffer. She went into her treatment room and came out a short time later to find a patient had been added where she had placed the buffer.

She questioned the OM about this and she stared right at her and told her "there was no buffer there". She lied right to her face. I was preparing to leave for the day and witnessed the whole thing. The assoc. told her that there was a buffer right there and she was sure of it because she added it herself. Then the OM started to back peddle and ramble about the person being in pain, and needing to come in, blah, blah, blah. What about the people that were in pain on the cancellation list that were waiting to come in? Apparently their pain didn't matter.

The assoc. was LIVID, but couldn't do much at the time since the OM's parents were sitting right in the waiting room at the time this all happened. She's not so angry about putting someone in when a buffer was there (it sadly happens all the time, and as a result she often will be running a half hour late by the end of the day). She is angry because the OM just lied right to her face, and didn't even apologize.

The OM sometimes will come to me for opinions on things as well, and it's getting harder and harder to be supportive when she is just blatantly abusing her power.

It will be interesting to see how things will unfold at work this week.

Surprise, Surprise

My parents had decided that they wanted to take Andre and I out to dinner for our anniversary. We went out to dinner on our own last weekend, so we went out to dinner with them last night. My father requested something "not exotic", so we went to Kelsey's. We're walking up to the front doors to put our name in for a table, and who is walking out the front doors after dinner? Pam and Mike. I think I just stood there and stared for a minute in shock because she had to walk over and tell me to give her a hug.

Her mom had taken the baby for the day so they could spend some time together. They had gone off and seen a movie, and then decided to have dinner together. They were rushing a little after dinner since Pam's boobs were killing her (no breast feeding all day).

I'm sure I will hear all about their day of freedom tomorrow because Pam and I are going shopping with Abbey tomorrow. Yes, I know, an outing. Very exciting. I'm looking forward to it and kind of dreading it all at the same time. Pam doesn't really do anything except visit her grandma and take care of the baby, so I don't know where the conversation is going to go.

I've learned the last few times that we got together that we used to be able to vent about our husbands, but she's started to majorly overreact if I so mention that Andre hasn't done something around the house. She almost freaks out about it. It's weird. Meanwhile her husband does NOTHING, and I'm not exaggerating about this. While she was at home pregnant he would cut the grass on the weekends because she couldn't physically do it. Otherwise she would've been doing that too. I appreciate that he works, but your wife is tired, get off your ass and pitch in. She would be popping Gravol because the pain was so bad she was nauseous and he would be sleeping. Gah!

Man, didn't realize how that still pissed me off! So anyways, yes I will have to filter what I vent about tomorrow. No Andre isn't the perfect male, but he does do a lot around the house, and he puts up with me! This filter will be difficult as Andre has been exercising his selective hearing skills lately which has lead to a few ummm "discussions".

Stay tuned for a post after my shopping expedition tomorrow.

A year ago today...

Andre and I were exploring the beautiful sandy beaches of Palm Beach, Aruba. Today I'm all lethargic and cranky because of the overcast rainy weather.
Sometimes I just wish I could turn back the hands of time just for a little while.

One year ago today...

this was Andre and I.

Where have all the blog posts gone?

In an effort to try and get everything professionally, and on the home front back on track, my blogging as fallen behind. It never fails, every New Years I make a promise to myself (never a resolution, I hate those ;o) that I will keep all my book keeping and paperwork related to my business caught up, and that I will stay organized at home. Then around summer time I realize that I've done a half assed job with both and I freak out.

This year I've been doing a somewhat better job with both, but I was still really behind entering all my income on the computer so my accountant/book keeper came over to my house to get me back on track. She's an angel, and I am now caught up. On the home front I have been feeling very overwhelmed with working later nights at work and having to come home and do more than half of the housework/meal prep. After me having a teary meltdown Andre has finally tried to take on more work around the house. This included a cooking lesson that ended up with a burning skin jalapeno incident. The fun never stops around here.

I have also been struggling for the last few weeks with daily fatigue which I cannot explain. (no I'm not pregnant) I do have an iron deficiency that I have to take supplements for, but it doesn't seem to be doing the trick. The 8+ hours of sleep I'm getting at night isn't helping so I've been trying to get to bed early to ward off the chance of me catching any of the colds that have been circulating around the office. God how I love the fall!

I also realized this week that it's been a month and a half since I've seen Pam, and over two weeks since I've actually talked to her, and by talk to her I mean listen to a message that she carefully left when she knew that I would be at work. I've temporarily given up on talking to her. With all that has been going on lately I just don't have the patience nor the energy to play telephone tag, or talk to her via messages on her answering machine. For a person that is apparently always at home, she never answers her phone.

I have instead decided to put what energy I do have into trying to get together or catch up with friends that I unfortunately put on the back burner when Pam needed me so much during her pregnancy. It has been great to get together and talk to my other friends, and get out there and enjoy their company. I have a friend who is going through the same thing with a friend of hers that had a baby a month before Pam, so we know what the other is going through. It's been a busy time, but rewarding all the same.

Next on the life to do list is decide what Andre and I are going to do for our ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY next weekend! Unfortunately Andre will be working the day of our actual anniversary (Sunday) but we will have Saturday together. We have a few ideas, but we really haven't set anything in stone. How the time flies!

Labor Day Weekend 2008

It was a busy one! We each had one thing that we really wanted to do this summer.

Me- Visit the Metro Toronto Zoo. I have never been (or at least I can't remember ever being there), and they had a really cool Stingray exhibit this year that I wanted to visit.

Andre- Go to the beach. This is his goal every summer. It never changes.

Well this summer had not co-operated with us. We had more rain that I ever remember having in one summer, and when it was sunny, we were either working, or had other plans. This left everything to the last "unofficial" weekend of summer.

We were so happy, not only did Andre have both Saturday and Sunday off, but the weather was FABULOUS! It was like mother nature had finally decided to co-operate with us.

First off the list was The Zoo on Saturday. With the help of our new GPS we made the trip to Scarborough in just under an hour. This is basically unheard of. We were so happy!

We spent the entire day wandering around the Zoo taking in the different animals, and indoor exhibits. Andre was cranky about having to pay the extra $3 to see Stingray Bay (have I mentioned that he's cheap?!), but we had a great time there, and it was a welcome retreat from the hot sun in the mid afternoon.

Here's my first attempt at trying to post a video. If it works, here is Andre and I at Stingray Bay: (You will probably notice my usual response to Andre filming any video of me "okay, you can turn it off now" He loves video clips)

If our adventures at the Zoo on Saturday weren't enough for us, we had decided to head up to Long Point Provincial Park with friends of ours to spend a day relaxing along the beach before heading out and having a fish and chip dinner in Port Dover. It was a great day following all the walking at the Zoo.

We went with friends of ours and they brought along their 10 month old daughter Alexia. She was an angel all day! She loved being the centre of attention. It was so funny watching Andre with her, and trying to get her to laugh and smile (which wasn't hard). I've noticed over the last year that Andre doesn't shy around from children as much as he used to, and if there's a chance to play with a baby or child, he tries to.

Here's Andre, and his friend Daryl, with Alexia.

The entire day Andre was reminding me that it had been almost a year since we had been at the beach in Aruba. He loves the beach. You would think that he was part fish the way he goes on and on about spending time at the beach. At least I had a chance to wear the sun hat that I had bought for our trip to Aruba. There really aren't that many chances to wear a big floppy sun hat.

Andre and I at Long Point.

Things they are a changin'

I knew things were going to change once my best friend Pam had her baby. I knew they would. I have enough friends with children to know that we wouldn't be able to get together as much, and if we would we would have to do a TON of planning before. I knew that most of our conversations would revolve around babies. (Little did I know most of those conversations would revolve around her babies poop) I knew that it would be a long while before the four of us (now five) would be able to do the couple's date thing. In short I expected change, lots and lots of change.

I don't think I expected to be shut out of everything for the most part though. I mean before the baby arrived we would be calling all the time. She would be trying to arrange coffee dates, or lunch dates to get out of the house. I would be subjected to hours upon hours of expectant baby talk (50% of which I minded). Now that she's had the baby? Nothing. I'm politely told that she's too stressed out to have visitors of any kind. (Aside from the one brief visit that I was granted) Phone calls are about two minutes long.

I don't know what I expected. I really don't. I guess I just feel hurt that I gave so much of myself to be the supportive friend while she was pregnant, half because I wanted to, half because she needed/wanted it, and now that the baby is born I am thrust to the side and don't get to experience any of what I helped her get through. I haven't even received so much as a copy of a mass e-mail of pictures.

I know to some I will sound selfish, and a bit like a drama queen, but that's the beauty of this being my blog, and it being a blog that hardly anyone reads! I just needed to get my feelings out there in some form.

Long awaited pictures

I finally have some to post! I went to visit Pam and her new little baby today. She's still cute, but I still don't want one right now!

To quote my dear friend, "Jenna, wait a few years, this is freaking stressful". So for now, I will dote and spoil my beautiful little "niece".

If you're wondering whether the picture is a little lopsided, you're not losing your mind, Abbey was swinging in her "Rainforest Swing". I have to admit, that was one cool piece of equipment.

And the questions begin...

Not that they weren't being asked before, but now they are more frequent. The question being what every married couple is asked sometimes mere minutes after saying "I Do". Yes, that question is "So when are the two of you going to start a family?"

The reason it has become more frequent is that my best friend Pam(who I have mentioned in a previous post) and her husband gave birth to their beautiful little girl, Abigail Marie on August 9, 2008.

I have learned the secret answer for most people is the short and sweet "We're just not ready to loose our sleep right now, ha ha ha". That seems to make them smile and move onto some other topic of conversation. I find it's much more polite than "Bugger off and mind your own business" which is what I would really like to say to most people. Now the people that are close to us know the real answer. The much longer, complex answer.

They know about my job, and how I would not get maternity leave thus making the decision to have a child that much more difficult (financially anyway), they know of my intense worrying about our combined health histories, and my anxiety of passing on the MS or Lupus gene to one of our potential children. They know of my desire to have a house, a home of our own first, and my more selfish desire to have one more fun in the sun tropical vacation before I push out a child. How do you express all of this to a mere acquaintance without seeming like a complete neurotic?

What no one knows is that I was patiently waiting for the birth of that baby. To see this wonderful little human who I had been feeling move in my best friend's stomach for months now, but also viewing it as a test. A test to see if this little bundle would kick my biological clock into high gear or do the opposite and press the pause button for a little longer.

I sat in the hospital holding the little bundle. Her little (well big really, she was 8 lbs, 8 ozs) body fitting perfectly in my arms. Her limbs still moving slowly as if still floating in her own little ocean. Then I realized something, I realized that I wasn't feeling anything. I wasn't feeling like I needed to go home and throw out the birth control and jump my husband. Instead it only cemented how not ready I was for this huge life changing event.

One look at my best friend who was sitting on her hospital bed simultaneously managing to look like she wanted to laugh, cry, scream, pull her hair out and then climb under her bed and hide. This only cemented that I was in no way ready to become one of those freaked out first-time moms just yet.

It's funny, if you had asked the 21 year old me where I thought I would be at 30 (just over a half year away now!) I would say, career, married, house and baby on the way. Well, two out of four ain't bad! The strangest part is that I realized that I was okay with this. I was really okay with where my life is at the moment. This isn't to say that I don't occasionally have a one man pity party where I lament on how much I think my life sucks monkey balls at that current moment, but overall I'm content.

So all you women out there at the same place in their life as I am, lets raise a drink to sleeping in, late nights, and telling all those nosey buggers out there to mind their own business!

What is a home without children?

Quiet.

~Henny Youngman

Things that make you go HMMMM

I had a dental appointment earlier this week to help fix a tooth that I had destroyed by clenching my jaws too tightly at night. After waiting in the waiting room for an hour, then the consultation room for a half hour and then finally the procedure room for another half an hour I was reminded about an annoying thing that all dentists do.

They always feel the need to talk to you once they have frozen your mouth and face so thoroughly that you're lucky if you don't look like a stroke victim with your mouth drooping and spit sliding down the side of your face. Why do they feel the need to do this?

First it was the assistant feeling the urge to speak to me about the two elementary schools in my neighbourhood that her daughter attends. Then the dentist who was commenting on my watering eye while my mouth is cranked open with a piece of rubber jammed in there (yes I know, attractive visual).

I did realize that there are quite a few ways you can make "ummhmmm, umm huh, and hmmmm mean so many different things. Maybe I should make a submission to Websters to have these added to their dictionary? That or dentists should just let me be drilled in peace without asking stupid questions.

The hoarder is purging

So my grandmother has indeed decided to sell her home. She is downsizing and purchasing a small home in a gated seniors community just down the street from where she lives.

Now for most grandparents this would be an easy thing to physically do. There would be the normal sentimental issues that would make it difficult to move, but most grandparents don't have that much stuff right? Well that would be correct for most grandparents, but not with my grandmother. She is a hoarder. Not a pack rat, a hoarder.

There is a difference. To recognize the difference you have to truly know a hoarder. A pack rat just has a lot of stuff. A room, an area, somewhere in the house with things tucked away in boxes or bags. For the most part, out of sight, out of mind. This is not the case with my grandmother. You walk into her home and every surface, every nook, every cranny filled to brimming with stuff. What stuff you may ask? You name is she has it. She actually probably has four or five of every item. You see, with hoarders, they can't find something so they just buy another of that item, sometimes this may happen repeatedly.

My grandmother has rooms in her home that she can't even walk into, there are items blocking the doorway, items that she's giving away that we can't even remember seeing in her home to begin with because it was either covered or obscured with so many items. It's sad really. I have a hard time being in her home because the clutter is that overwhelming.

My uncle is trying to get her purged, packed and out of her house so quickly I just have this feeling of disaster looming after she moves. Hopefully I'm wrong, but only time will tell how this situation will end.

Bad Luck Wednesdays...

That's what Andre calls Wednesdays (or Tuesdays, or Thursdays) when everything seems to go wrong. Today is one of those days.

Today was a slow day at work to begin with. It was to start with an 11am chiropractic appointment in the hopes of ridding my brain of the awful headaches I've been having since Wednesday. Then was to continue with four appointments at work. Three of my four appointments cancelled. This left me with a 6pm appointment and my adjustment.

11am I get a call from the clinic. "Jenna are you coming for your appointment?"
me: "Umm, it's not until 11:30"
clinic: "No, it's right now, 11:00"
me: "Shhhhhiiiiiit. There's no way I can make it"

I hung up the phone and the frustration of the pain that I have been experiencing got the best of me and I burst into tears. I just couldn't take it anymore. Thank goodness I still have some bootlegged Aleve to get me through the pain.

Fast forward to 3:30 this afternoon. Andre calls me from work. Due to Air Canada discontinuing their "Jazz" flights his job is changing and his hours are being cut. He will also be working every Sunday just to get more hours in. We've been working so hard to pay off our debt, so hard to put the money into savings for a down payment on a house and now this.

It's like the universe is just laughing at us. "Ha ha, sucks to be you!" The rational part of my brain knows that everything will work out. Hell we've made it through worse than this! But it's still frustrating.

Here's hoping tomorrow will be a good luck Thursday!

And the verdict...

Is that the shower is still a giant piece of shit! Even after waiting until after 6pm I watched with horror as water started leaking out of the seams of the shower as Andre bathed the filth of camping off his body.

I couldn't believe it! After all that work, all that waiting, all that mess! So we went up and told them that the shower was leaking. Her answer after I showed her all the seams that were leaking? "Well it did take us two years to fix your fridge! Ha ha ha!" (I am seething in the bathroom sopping up water as I hear this exchange) Andre says "I hope that doesn't mean that it's going to take you that long to fix the shower."

Who the hell says something like that?! Are they on crack? Do they just not care? The moral of this whole scenerio is that you should never, ever rent an apartment from a someone from your church. They will still screw you over, but your Christian guilt will keep you from telling them they're fucking idiots.

So after getting all the water cleaned up from our shower we went out to dinner (yummy Lebonese food!) and I drowned my stress in 3 glasses of wine with dinner. We came home and they told us they had added some more caulking (the plumber had said you didn't need any?!WTF?). I checked the shower and it is the worst caulking job I have ever seen in my life. It's going to drive me crazy every time I shower and scrub it clean.

Bathroom Reno

Despite my pessimism the bathroom was actually 90% complete when we got home from the camping trip. The shower was up and we just had to wait for the silicon to continue sitting for a few more hours and we will be able to test it out at 6pm tonight. As long as there are no leaks we will be able to use it as we normally would as soon as I clean out the bottom. (all I have to say is dirty work boots in the bottom of a wet shower=ewwww)

So when we left there were a bunch of damp towels on the floor controlling the leak in the shower:

It was not pleasant.

So we called my mother who was checking in on the cat to see what the progress was on the shower when she came in for the cat, so we had some sort of idea what to expect. She was great, she even did our dishes that we didn't have time to get done before we left!

Nothing prepared us for the disgusting mess that awaited us when we walked in the door. The owner was in the back doing lord only knows and as soon as we walked in (probably with looks of horror) she said "you aren't suppose to be home yet!" Now when we left the apartment it was clean. Dirty dishes piled neatly by the sink. Counter and stove wiped and clean. Dining room table cleaned off with only a note for my mom. Not so much when we returned home.

Apparently while we had been gone the fridge leaked three times for the owner. Not a new thing. Another thing that's been leaking forever, and her solution again was to shove a towel under the crisper (nothing like a moldy towel under your produce!). So while the plumber was there he looked at it and fixed it. So after he had done this, she had taken our crisper out along with the bottom shelf. All the contents were on our counter and stove top. EVERYTHING. Our wine rack and wine that was on the fridge, my mixing bowls and little odds and ends that were on the fridge when we left? On the counter! Everything was scattered everywhere. It was horrible mess. There was stuff everywhere. Her answer for everything being everywhere? "I just didn't want to put it back"

For the love of all things good in this world, it took all I had not to strangle her! So in addition to having to unpack all of our camping gear and food, I had to clean up her mess. Then after it's all away Andre asks: "Jenna don't you feel relaxed since we've been camping?" I just had to look at him. Are men clueless all the time?!

The only problem with the new shower is the damage that we are left with to the drywall, and the new storage unit. I now have this wire thing that I'm suppose to store all of our hand towels and toiletries in. Now, in the picture it looks okay, but I'm not the kind of girl that likes open storage. I don't like everyone knowing what I keep in my bathroom. Now to maintain my sanity we will have to make a trip to Ikea to find some sort of storage box that I can use in here. Hopefully we will have enough room for everything otherwise I will have to buy more wire boxes that you can apparently buy at Canadian Tire. Yeah, that's really what I want to be spending my money on right now...

The other problem with the bathroom reno are all the tears to the drywall and my beautiful paint! Now as you can probably gather from my almost weekly vents about the owners of our apartment are that they are not the most prompt at fixing up things around here. Now I'm wondering how long it will take them to patch up these rips so that they can be painted over. Something that will be left up to us, because they left all the painting up to us when we moved in. Not that I minded, because then we were able to pick our own colours, but I really hate the idea of having to repaint a bathroom that didn't need to be repainted in the first place.

Camping at Valens

This year we finally had a summer, and with summer means camping! We didn't get to do much with all the wedding hoopla last summer. Andre's favourite camp site is Valens Conservation Area. Not too far from home, clean bathrooms, the sites themselves are nice, but we've been going there almost every summer for the past 5 years. I wanted a change, but Andre didn't. So off to Valens we went.

We almost didn't go though. The weather was suppose to rain (60% POP) with scattered thunderstorms, but we went mainly because we didn't want to be home with all the chaos with the bathroom reno going on. So we made sure to pack some extra tarps for cover, had our friends and family cross their fingers and do a sunshine dance and we were off.

Aside from thunder rumbling for the entire day on Saturday, and two little rainshowers on Saturdaymorning, the weather wasn't too bad. The sky got very dark while we were hiking Saturday afternoon and I was worried we would have a downpour, but we managed to miss the terrible thunderstorm complete with hail and funnel clouds that hit Hamilton that same afternoon.

What was very unusual for us was the fact that we only snapped a few pictures the entire weekend! I don't know whether we were so exhausted from the week and stress of the bathroom, but we only got some pictures from our campfire Saturday night. This is some of our documentation of our camping trip: (we didn't even get one of the two of us!)