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?