We've taken on a lot, and somehow managed to stay in tact. Living life now as a family of 4!

I feel like I can taste this upcoming vacation. It tastes like hot apple cider, sleep, pepper nuts and delicious food in Mexico that I haven't tasted yet. These days I feel a strange combination of energy and exhaustion. On the weekend and in the evenings I move from one task to the next (candles! cookies! Wrapping and shipping! Choosing! Shopping! Planning! Laundry!) with enthusiasm that has Jake exhausted, unbelievably. Usually it's the other way around. At work during the day, however, I'm just barely hanging on. I need a break from the kids, from the drama, from the constant problem solving and crisis management. Example: Yesterday, Grade-8-Girl-A came into my room very upset and wanting to talk. Considering she usually just acts out, this is a big deal. She proceeds to tell me that she is being bullied by Grade-8-Girls B,C, and D, who are in the same class. She feels lonely, she's cutting herself again, she's throwing up her food, she's so desperately u...

Jake is already sick of hearing me talk about this, and I am (obviously) soo excited about it, I have to bring it to you, my internet friends. Plus, I took more pictures than necessary. I'm making candles! Beeswax ones! I love love love beeswax candles, but they are so expensive! You know what's cheaper? Buying beeswax and then making them yourself. Plus, it's fun. However, beyond the rolled beeswax candles we made for the wedding, I haven't really ever made candles. However, I have watched a youtube video or two, so I figured I could trouble shoot whatever I needed to. Very first, I had to figure out how to get the huge hunk of wax (not pictured) into smaller, melt-a-ble chunks. A hammer and old chisel did the trick on that score. Then, I gave a chipped measuring cup new life as my wax cup. Perfect! I knew that wax should be melted in a double-boiler-kind-of-way, and that in theory, the method of putting a glass measuring cup in boiling water should work (I don...

On Saturday I went to one of my favourite places in the world. I always find what I want, or they custom-tailor something that is almost right to fit. It's amazing, especially considering that I normally feel that pants shopping is the worst of all the kinds of shopping. Let's just say that my body does not conform to the North American ideal of size and shape. Except at Sargent Avenue Blue Jeans . Shopping there is like nothing I have ever experienced anywhere. First of all, if you look at that link, you'll notice that it isn't anything special from the outside. In fact, the first time I went there I thought I might be walking into a mafia den (which, let's be honest, it may still well be) - there are no windows, bars on all doors and (covered) windows, and it's in a bit of a dodgy area. When you get inside, you are greeted with pile upon pile of every imaginable make and model of blue jeans. (Full disclosure: I snapped these pictures surreptitiously with m...

So November is over! And I did not write every day. I did come close, though. In my defence, I ran out of creative juices. On Friday I sent a text to a coworker that said 'That payed off!' and although I knew that it was not quite correct, I could not for the life of me identify what I had spelled wrong. Yup. THAT tired. Yesterday was a very exciting day. We went to Southern MB to pick up our new dishes! They were a gift from a whole host of people and they are GORGEOUS. If you want a beautiful handmade set of dishes, this is the way to go. I'll have to blog more about that another time. With pictures. We also hung out with L's mom, and I was able to talk myself into getting a bag of her poppy-cock (caramel covered popcorn with nuts), which is quite frankly the very best version of this I have ever had. It's all in the caramel. In the evening people came over and we had tea and talked and laughed and it was delightful. LOVE LOVE LOVE the house even more on the...

That's pretty much all I wanted to say. And also that today after work I sat in front of the fire again - for a while with Jake and for a while with Kerry, and it was glorious. All the more so because Kerry and I ate vanilla ice cream with roasted, salted peanuts which is my new favourite snack and is also the reason that after this ice cream is gone, we can not buy any more. Vaguely related question: where do you think we could find men's summery, light-in-colour-and-material pants for Jakerella? He's gonna need some for our vacay because we are going to a place that is about 4 stars above our personal swank-level. I wore sweats and an old t-shirt from value village to work today, for reference. In my defense, I did teach gym. FRIDAY!!!!  I LOVE YOU!!!

Is it too soon to start another count down? Yesterday was Jaker's birthday and what he wanted was to sit by the fire and have wine and cheese, followed by a nice dinner at home. Twist my rubber arm! We recently moved the chairs from the upstairs sunroom down (initially for movie day) to the parlour where the fireplace is, and while those particular chairs aren't the best for the space design-wise, the temporary placement is working out just fine. Yesterday was also a doozy at work - one kid in such crisis that she was threw a juice box, granola bar, 2 tables at 2 different times, knocked everything she could off the counter and ripped one mailbox/folder holder off a door. She was 1 of 5 I dealt with yesterday (no exaggerating!), all grade 8 girls, all in various states of absolute melt-down mode. I know that the scientific world mostly agrees that there is no real correlation between the phases of the moon and people's behaviour, but I think anyone who works in a schoo...

Well, this was the best weekend I've had in a long time. An excellent balance of junk food and activity. Except a little more on the junkfood side. First, a few pics from the movie extravaganza yesterday that I didn't include in my initial post:  The idea was to have sugar cereal during the first movie (breakfast!). I found the KRAVE. It's chocolate-filled chocolate puffs. The first ingredient is 'chocolate filling', whose first ingredient is sugar. It was delicious. Not that I ate it with milk, that would be gross. But it's pretty good as finger food, even if it does look a little like dog food. Also, we had pistachios and chips, naturally. As well as popcorn, farmer sausage, vietnamese food, pizza, pie, and ice cream. Not all at the same time.  It was snowing yesterday and Jake conned Scott into shovelling our deck by asking him to fill the cooler.  So obviously, we were all feeling more than a little gross by the time that last movie had ended a...

Yesterday I got home and just did not feel like writing. Even though in hindsight I had plenty of material I could have turned into something worth reading. So to make up for it, today I am posting pictures! Ones taken especially for the blog! Jake's volleyball season finished yesterday night, which is a huge weight off his shoulders. I would hazard a guess that this was the hardest season he has ever coached - not because of his players, but because he was so exhausted from our adventures in summer and fall he could barely drag himself to work and back, let alone 3 Saturday tournaments in 3 weeks plus regular games and practices. Today he's making up for all that activity and 'doing' with a day of delightful sloth-like-behaviour, which obviously I am all for, as I am still lazy-to-the-max. Right now the weather outside looks like this (taken from the upstairs sunroom), except with varying amounts blustery-ness. So we're gonna watch movies ALL DAY.  ...

You know what's kind of amazing about blogging every day is how much of your life you record, but how much MORE of your life you leave out. This sort of blows me away, actually. I've been writing every day, but what makes it on here is such a teeny tiny snippet of life. Now it sounds like I'm hiding something. I'm not, but I easily could be! *wink wink* Today I dealt with a diffused-but-not-over situation between a former student who has so much potential that we sent her to a private school on a scholarship - and this is a really good school with a really good program to help equalize the playing field between inner-city kids and other kids - it is a big deal - and a current student. The former student wanted to fight the current student, for no reason the current student could figure out. Now, of course, trying to unravel the intricacies of teenage girl drama is one of THE MOST FRUSTRATING tasks one could ever engage in, but mostly what it boils down to is I a...

Got nothing to say. For real. I know it's surprising, and I probably should be working harder to come with something worth reading. But I've got nothing! I bought stamps today. Work is settling down a tiny bit. I discovered this week that me (along with other people, but also me) dropped the ball in a BIG way on a couple of kids who have some very serious and real problems and who we need to figure out before they hit grade 10. Feel pretty shitty about that. Christmas break isn't that far away and I could not be more excited about that. Jake and I going to go away to somewhere warm where we can have a week of summer break. so. Hopefully I come up with more inspiration tomorrow. Gonna be at work till 7:30, so it's a toss-up really.

Was anyone wondering what Jake did while I read and napped on Sunday afternoon? An educated guesser might have gone with 'organized trim' or 'cleaned up the garage' - in fact that's what I thought he was doing. But nope. Instead, he was taking advantage of the weather in a somewhat grandiose fashion.

Let's just get this out there: I am TERRIBLE at mail. I'm also not that good at presents, or remembering when present-worthy things are coming up. I'm EVEN WORSE at actually following through on whatever I might have thought would be a good idea for a particular present (this goes back to me not liking to 'do' things). So all of this makes me a pretty lame gift-giver. Well, part of that is also that I know I sure don't need more stuff, and I figure most of the adults I know may be in the same boat. Plus I kind of hate shopping. Anyhoodle, Jake is also terrible at these things, and yet we have a niece and nephew that live VERY far away, and who we don't get to see as often as we'd like. And SO. We are trying to be better. On the weekend we went for our Sunday morning walk, and headed to the Forks and the toy store. Is there anything more fun than a toy-store? I don't think so. The gifties are sitting on the coffee table right now, waiting to be...

The Sunday afternoon nap. Is there anything better? I really think not. The sun was streaming in my sunroom today - enough so that I read out there instead of on the corner couch by the fire. It was gorgeous. But you know what reading in the sun does to you, right? Especially in the afternoon? This was one of those naps that you fall into SO DEEPLY that when you wake up you feel totally disoriented and a little confused. Even more so if you're jolted out of it by the phone ringing. I tried to fake it, but I'm sure my friend Karin realized that there was something wrong with me - I could not get my bearings! I had to think extra hard about everything she was saying just to make sense of it and place in context. Ahhhh the nap. Jake typically does not understand this desire I have to spend daylight time sleeping. He sees sleep as a waste of time - it's time you could be DOING something! His brother agrees with him, whereas my sister and I know that the best thing of all ...

When I was growing up, we cleaned the house every Saturday. My job was to dust the banisters and any other surface that was dusty, as well as vacuum the house, and clean the girls' bathroom. Come to think of it - what did anyone else do? Sometimes when I'm cleaning the house now as a grown up I imagine having children and making THEM do the weekly Saturday clean. Then I realize that they wouldn't be able to do it till they were a little bit older (like, not when they're born) and that there might be some fighting involved in making them do it. So today as I was sweeping up hair and dust and disgustingness from the floors, I imagined hiring someone else to do this job. That's right, paying for someone to come to my house once a week while we are at work, and clean the floors and the bathroom, and dust. That's it! That's not so bad. I think it'd be worth it.

I remember being at CMU with all my friends, wondering when/how our parents, who had gone to CMBC (CMU's forebearer), changed from being people like us (poor, no clothes, refused to pay for food if we could avoid it, went where the cheapest beers were, stayed up all night and ordered pizza for $7 from slices at 3am, wrote papers the day before they were due etc etc) to being who they were now - the people who could afford to (at least help) send us to CMU. People who paid for things like cable and cars and who didn't seem as passionate about the issues of the world like we were. I wondered if that same transition would happen to me. Would I realize it was happening? Would I accept it? Would I fight back if I did recognize this process occurring? (there is a whole other post in here about how I feel about this now, but I'm not going there tonight) Now I look at old people, like REALLY old people, and wonder how that transition will be. Will I be fit? Will my mind still b...

Ok, well here is an idea that's been rattling around in my head, but it's not all-the-way developed and also it might sound a little complain-y. I sort of assume in life that people will do what they've said they are going to and will take responsibility for their work/situation/job/promise. I don't stress about what other people say they're going to do because I figure they will do it. Easy peasy! This is an assumption that works out about 99% of the time in my personal life. The percentage isn't quite that high in my professional life. The thing is, it's a surprise every time! And it catches me off-guard. And it makes me SOOOO frustrated. The problem is that when I get frustrated my own personal effectiveness takes a big nose-dive. Not a good cycle to get into. That's all I'm going to say about it because I don't want to be unprofessional. Tomorrow is Friday. PTL!

Does anyone else do this, or is it just me? Scene: My principal has a chocolate stash in his office. For real. And he lets me indulge occasionally, figuring I'll get more work done if I'm not accosting students for their candy/running to the corner store to get my own. Situation: Renovating was great for many things, not the least of which giving me a kick-start back to the size I like to be - helping trim down those inches that gradually snuck up on me when I stopped running and Jake started feeding me wine and cheese when I walked in the door from school. Now, however, there is no renovating. There is winter. Wherein I like to watch tv, cuddle up under a blanket, and sit around. All sedentary. Sure, I walk to work and my job usually entails running up and down three flights of stairs several times a day, but I have no trouble consuming as many calories as I'm burning. Problem: So even though I know that since I'm not as active as I was in the summer, and I ca...

It's report card time, and that's all I'll say about that. Ok, I'll also say that I am procrastinating. A LOT. Also, interesting to note: typically, when I post a direct link on fb to a new post, I get about 50 page views. However, if I just tell people there is a new post without a link, I get 10ish page views. Next up in the experiment: a link posted to the blog, but not specifically to the most recent post. I guess part of this is probably also that my posts are a little boring - no wedding or renovation pictures! On the other hand, I am planning a few new posts with pictures, but they aren't fun before-and-after ones, so I guess we'll see. The post where I put up wedding pictures got almost 150 pageviews - never would have expected that. Ok ok, report card time. blergh.

I read something recently where the person attributed their cravings for carbs in the winter to Seasonal Affective Disorder and I was all 'THAT'S what this is?!' But then when I thought about it a little more, I crave carbs ALL THE TIME, so it can't be the changing of the seasons. BUT - related to changing of the seasons - is how I LOVE the different seasons (apparently there are going to be a lot of capitals in this post). I love that it isn't the same all year round, that the weather matters, and you need to prepare accordingly. A friend of mine lived in LA for a time, where it is always 70 degrees Farenheit and alternately smoggy or sunny. I don't think I could handle that (after the novelty of that weather in winter wore off). I need some variety! The mega-awesome snow storm that dropped more snow in 1 day than we had all year last year (my data - don't know if that is actually true) has changed the daily highs of -7ish and lows of - 12 ish from anno...

It snowed! A lot! I think we got more snow in the past 18 hours or so than we did the entire season last year. See? This was taken at midnight last night. It has snowed more since. Always, especially in a big snow storm like this, everyone seems to forget how to drive. Either they over-estimate their vehicle's abilities and land themselves hung-up on a snowbank or nose-first into a drift, or they completely underestimate what their car can do and spin their tires helplessly, making their situation much worse.  It is one time of year I feel pretty smug. I can get the civic to perform in conditions that you might think might stump the little sedan. You just have to know how to easy up on the gas, give the steering wheel the right amount of freedom and guidance, and gear down or up as necessary. I doubt I would be able to get it around as well if it wasn't standard - makes a big big difference.  Also, today, to honour the snow day, L and L invited people over for...

Don't worry, not from booze. I have eczema on my eyelid. And on my left index finger. The kids keep asking me what's wrong with my eye because even glasses can't hide the glaring red splotch that is sometimes gross and scaly. This is a remnant of childhood for me that rears its ugly head when I've been stressed or tired for a while. It's been around for a few weeks now, and is showing no sign of letting up. Jake, the energizer bunny of getting things done, has been very tired lately - deep down in his bones tired. Sometimes I think everything is ok and life is just like it always is, but then life throws a curveball at one or both of us and we react in not-so-helpful-or-mature ways. After the moment has passed and the calm one has finished talking the losing-it-one off the ledge, we realize that this is all residual renovation exhaustion. Turns out that 2 month long summer break really is necessary! And if you don't get it for whatever reason, well, ex...

I swear! I sat down at the computer at 10pm last night to write a (would have been lame) post and the internet was misbehaving like a petulant teenager. Seriously. It was slower than 1993 era dial-up around here, minus the entertaining sound effects. So I gave up and went to bed, obviously. This week at work we had all of the following - ready? 1. A suicidal student - the mobile crises unit had to be called, and she had someone shadowing her non-stop. 2. 2, sometimes 3 boys who were not supposed to be in the building running loose in the halls constantly, even after being escorted off the premises several times. Every time they came back for more 'fun' of eluding the adults. 3. A fight at the front doors over an ipod. 4. A fight in the hallway over who knows what. 5. A boy (one of the 3 from #2) given to social services by his mom because he was so out of control - set a fire at home, trashed his mom's house etc. 6. 3 new cases of severe cutting in teenage girls. ...

With the advent of time on my hands and a fully functioning kitchen, I have been thinking more about the food I make and eat in it. I am trying to take steps to reduce the food that I buy at the grocery store and increase the food I find locally. In the summer this is easy - we even had a farmer's market down the street - that was convenient. More than once I went there covered in renovation dust and debris to buy veggies for the bbq or salad. I think they thought I was a bit insane. As part of this effort, we're part of a meat-share . Have I written about this already? I don't think so. Once a month there is a delivery of meat that comes to town from the farmer, which we split up among four households. The chickens? Huge and DELICIOUS. The beef? Tastes surprisingly like bison - in fact, it could have actually BEEN bison - or maybe that's just how beef is supposed to taste? The pork? Darker and fattier than you would expect. There is a 'hamsteak' in the fr...

You know what the thing is about blogging every day? Not every post is going to be a winner. I fear this may be one of the less-good ones. Does anyone else drive standard? And love it? Seriously. Generally, I don't really like driving in the city. I get road-rage when other people are stupid and let's face it, in Winnipeg there are more dumb drivers than good drivers. However, I do LOVE driving in the city when there isn't a lot of traffic and I can make my little civic do exactly what I want it to with the touch of a pedal or two. I like shifting into a lower gear to get some speed quickly (required on the civic as it is just a wee bit gutless), or into a higher one to milk the fuel efficiency. This is probably related to my need to control things, isn't it? Anyway, there are some days when I really take delight in driving the car - so much so that I can't imagine ever having an automatic. I'll be sad when the civic reaches the end of its life, although who...

Ok, so to be totally unoriginal, let's just put this down for the record: Extra hour of sleeping on Saturday/Sunday = the best. Sun going down at 5pm rather than 6 = makes me want to go to bed at 6pm. I say we get rid of the time change all together. ok?

How typical. After the wedding was over there I had some time on my hands, and since it had been a while since I had crocheted, I thought I'd give it a try again. This would be no big deal except that the reason I had to quit crocheting in the first place was not because I was busy building a house and getting married - it was because I over-did it (I guess 10ish afghans a year is a little much) and managed to injure my thumbs enough that there was a space of time when I was about 27 that I couldn't hold a water glass or type. For reals. Crocheting injury! Repetitive stress syndrome! You see, my problem is that I can't just crochet one row. It's like eating one chip. Can't be done. I always have to crochet like a maniac for as long as possible. So after a three, almost 4 year break I figured I should be good to go again. Bring on the afghan! So I gave'er. And finished an afghan in 2 weeks. I think that may be a record, even for me. I guess it helps that I wa...

That has to be some kind of record, right? Vowing to post every day and then forgetting the NEXT DAY. L and L are moving. Yesterday Jake and I, and a bunch of others helped them do some painting before moving stuff in and it looks damn fine. So exciting, always, to move into a new place! Now our friends are starting the round of second-houses. Moving up from the 'starter' homes, if you will. So today is the big moving day and I am late already to go and help. I know for some people moving is a huge pain and at some point you decide it's just worth it to hire movers and be done with it. No muss, no fuss. But I like helping my friends move. I like these kind of group goals/activities/events. It's fun to have a common purpose and to help your friends and family settle into a new space, a new phase of their life. I think I've helped at least one person move per year every year since I moved to Winnipeg. New and exciting! Fun!

It's November. Sometimes people who write blogs (I guess that's me) write every day in November. Let's give that a try, shall we? Now that I have free time and all... I have been getting a lot of 'congratulations' lately. Every time an acquaintance or former colleague says that to me I feel slightly confused. I have to think for a second about what they are referring to. It seems bizarre to receive accolades for being married. It's like marriage is an achievement. You did it! You attained something! Congratulations! The thing is, I don't feel that way. Daily life is as it was before. The only difference is that I share my house with someone and I have some gold on my hand. Jake and I planned one heck of a party, but we haven't succeeded at being married yet. We are still working on that one - will be forever. I know that people mean 'yay for you that you found someone to love!' but sometimes what it feels like is 'yay for you being norm...

I was going to write a post about something pretty depressing, but then I noticed that this is the 100'th post! What the what!? Who knew? So I will write about something more uplifting instead. When we were planning the wedding, I was getting pretty stressed out about the cost of it all. Of course, it didn't help that we were paying for a renovation at the same time, but I think I would have still been intimidated by the cost of the wedding. It seems so crazy to spend so much money on a single day! However, as previously mentioned, at the end of it all it was all worth it. People seemed to have a good time and we had a GREAT time. In fact, afterwards I remarked that hosting all your favourite people at one time is an amazing feeling - one that I could maybe see us replicating in the future (maybe 15 years down the road or so :)). This feeling of good will towards all has inspired our new challenge/task/joy. We are going to invite people over for dinner - people that w...

So here's the thing: I really like not 'doing' things. And/or I like putting off the things that need to be 'done'. I'm not really sure what this is about - it's not like anyone will ever run out of things to do. But often I can only  convince myself to 'do' after a time of slothful idleness, much against Marilla Cuthbert's teachings on the subject. Obviously, I haven't been able to follow my normal tendencies/patterns for the past year-ish - doing was constantly necessary, and I impressed myself regularly with how much I could accomplish in a day. In fact, it's kind of embarrassing to know now more than ever how much I could 'get done' in a day if I put my mind to it and don't watch X number of episodes of whatever show in between bursts of activity. I just wanted to write that. I'm sort of cheating by watching episodes of tv while doing mindless school prep/crocheting (made an afghan in 2 weeks, didn't know I sti...

There is no denying or masking it - I am in full-on hibernation mode. I want nothing but tv, crocheting, wine, homemade chocolate pudding with a little sea-salt on top, and popcorn. going to work is a real chore - not because there are other tasks/demands on my time (FINALLY!), but because I want to do NOTHING in a big way. Last weekend I almost went out of my way to not hang out with people. Didn't initiate or join in on any plans on Friday or Saturday. Wiggled out of Saturday evening obligation early. I just want to be by myself, in my sweatpants, without talking to anyone. I sort of want to blame this mood/phase on renovation/wedding hang-over, but the truth is that I regularly feel like wanting to hole up alone. There is no denying it, my friends. Contrary to what may seem obvious, I am not an extrovert. I do love people, in particular my friends and family, but in between events and visiting I am extremely happy to be alone. Poor Jaker doesn't always understand this de...

Besides being one of the best movies ever made, this is the perfect title for this post. Here we go! Long-awaited pictures of our new house! Gotta say, the new digs feel perfectly normal now - it is only when I look back at these pictures that I remember how extensive the work we did was. It's amazing how quickly you forget! I wonder if this is the same mechanism that makes women 'forget' how horrible child-birth can be so as convince them to have more children. Without further ado, PICTURES! Remember when it looked like this when you walked in (with a little less cardboard and a little more wainscotting - but I didn't take a picture of it from here before destructo was in full swing)? Now it looks like THIS when you walk in the front door! Remember when the living room looked like this? Now it looks like this: Remember when the dining room looked like this? Or this? Now it looks like this: When you looked downstairs from t...