November 29, 2006
Incoming
My dad arrives today and hopefully I'll be able to fetch him from the airport without any snow type traffic nightmares! Having said that, the roads really aren't as bad as all that. For some reason school is closed again today - this whole place is at a standstill... and yet there's no good reason for it that I can see. It's not snowed anymore. The main roads are clear, with some icy packed snow on the residential streets which you can drive on if you take it easy... which is basically what the Americans don't do. Our neighbour was incredulous that we'd been out shopping and for lunch yesterday rather than being 'snowed in' and walking 2 miles to the local supermarket because the car couldn't possibly go out in it. Mind you, this is the same neighbour who insists that 0c is the same as 0f and that Seattle is far colder than Toronto ever could be.
November 28, 2006
Snowed in
Literally snowed in. It snowed a few inches yesterday and the world has come to a complete standstill. They have no plows or gritters, and we live on some very steep hills..... the roads are like ice-rinks and there are cars abandoned everywhere after people tried and failed to get home from work last night.
Gareth managed. 4 years of living in Canada & actually knowing how to drive in this weather helps. It still took him 4 hours to get here though thanks to everyone else believing that revving up the engine is a good idea when driving on snow and ice.
School is closed today too, and so is Microsoft. Everyone has a day off. Madness.
November 27, 2006
Oh deepest joy
I have woken up with a sore throat, headache, and slight fever.
November 26, 2006
Vampires - Grrrr
Another trip to the Vampires at the hospital earlier this week left me with yet more bruises and yet fewer pints of blood. And get this - yesterday they called me asking me to come back because they LOST MY BLOOD.
Again with the Sick
Poor Harry is poorly again. This is day 3 of fever and vomiting. He's really not a very well little man :( Dylan has woken up this morning complaining of a stuffy nose so I'm crossing my fingers that we're not headed for a houseful of germs.... it's the last thing I feel like coping with at the moment!
Dad arrives on Wednesday, I do hope the boys will be OK for his visit! Dylan has a concert on Thursday night at school which we're really looking forward to, and on Friday we're supposed to be heading off for the weekend. Fingers crossed!
In other news, G bought a new TV yesterday because, you know, TV's only have a lifespan of about 18 months and then you *need* to upgrade. No really. Honest. (!!!)
November 24, 2006
De Clutter De House
Having a major clearout this weekend, putting downstairs the 10293102938 toys that have found their way upstairs, shelving the 102938102398 books that I have read since I last went down to the library room downstairs, and generally making the place look a little more respectable. Hopefully with the cleaners visit on Tues it will be presentable for the onslaught of Christmas visitors! Have also booked the car in for a service on Monday as it's going to be taken up the mountains next weekend and I don't fancy coming down the mountain pass with dodgy brakes!
November 23, 2006
Happy Thanksgiving
We are off to a friends house for Turkey today, pretending to be taking part in the American holiday which is unfathomably bigger than Christmas!
November 21, 2006
Doing my bit for the West Coast economy.
I have employed a Mexican cleaner. She is coming tomorrow to look around and quote (much much cheaper here than Toronto was, something like $60 for 3 hours compared to $120 there for 2 hours) and then will come and blitz before my dad arrives next week. I shall probably then have her every fortnight which seems to be the done thing here. Anything to avoid having to clean up man piss from the toilets. G and I are actually going to spend the long weekend getting rid of the clutter too and having a general tidy up so once that's done and the cleaner has been hopefully we'll be in a more presentable state. Can't speak for outside though, which is currently covered in bits of trees and leaves due to the heavy rain and storms. Oh, and the very long grass that hasn't been cut in 6 months.
November 20, 2006
Tip
House is a total tip. G has been working on those sodding tiles for what seems like forever. They're finally done only now he's managed to smear black grout all over the white walls and ceiling so they now need repainting, and the contents of the kitchen is still all over the dining room. Argh.
Rest of the house is not much better. I'm too tired to do much about it. Need a cleaner.
November 19, 2006
Wii Update
We got one!
G ended up having to queue up till 5.15am to get his and was very lucky as they only had enough for 6 people behind him in the queue and ended up turning lots of very unhappy people that had queued all night away.
He also got a ton of freebies from Nintendo who were handing out loads of goodies to promote the launch.
D is going to be one happy boy at Christmas!
I need a Wii
Well, Dylan does. He wants one for Christmas. G is therefore spending the evening queuing in a giant snakey queue at 'Game Crazy' down the road waiting for 12.01 when 200 lucky people in the line will get one. G reckons he's about 150th in the line, and that there are probably 400 or so there.
Nintendo are there doing a big launch party, and various news crews are also there. G is kicking himself for not having taken the Nintendo DS to play while in the queue (as everyone else is doing so) nor any drink or snack..... he expects to be there till at least 2am by the time they've processed the 149 in front of him through the till!
November 18, 2006
My neighbour has got her Christmas tree up already ... FFS it's 16th November!
November 17, 2006
Vampires
Yesterday I had a blood workup done for various Thrombophilia things that they want to check to see if I have as well as the Protein S Deficiency. I told them I am sure that I've been tested for all these things before but seeing as they don't have my notes here they'd like to check again ... bastards.
As they were getting all the vials ready to draw blood I counted 12 of the things and asked if I could afford to lose this much! The nurse said 'hmmm it does look like too much doesn't it' and went to find a 2nd opinion. The 2nd opinion came in and said 'wow that does seem like too much'..... but they looked at the sheet and determined that this was indeed what was required and said they'd just have to do it.
So, I am now at least 2 pints short .... blood vampires.
November 16, 2006
Chlamydia Free
Last week, at a 'womens' type checkup, they sent me to the lab for a bunch of 'routine' blood tests. Amongst these were things like Chlamydia and HIV.
Being me, I spent the entire week scared that I was going to find out I had all of these things wrong, that I'd somehow picked up HIV from the toilet seat, or breathed someones Chlamydia germs in passing.
I was, therefore, very (idiotically) relieved to find out that I don't have them!
Now I just have to worry about the Parkinsons that I think I've got after I fell over my own foot 4 TIMES.
November 15, 2006
It's *still* raining
That's like nearly a month now, without stopping. Argh. Pissing it down - the rivers and lakes are rising and all the zillionaires with their waterfront palaces are getting flooded, haha.
Poor Harry got sick last night...... dunno why but decided to vomit *everywhere*, *lots*. I am really really bad at sick. I can't do sick. G usually does it but was out ... so had to make do with removing furniture and rugs and putting them outside for him to deal with when he came home. Meanwhile the baby curled up on my lap on the sofa after his poor little body was done with throwing up, and fell asleep.
November 14, 2006
Little Poser
DSC_4479
Originally uploaded by katybops.
Just got my camera back from Nikon, all fixed and working better than ever! They even cleaned and serviced it, upgraded the firmware, and gave me a new battery...... not bad for free although obviously I could have done without the 'Blinking Green Light of Death' situation to begin with!
As soon as the camera came out of the box Harry immediately started posing shouting CHEE!!! CHEE!!
November 13, 2006
If H is asleep so I can put the TV on and veg for an hour!
People who still have Halloween decorations outside their houses.
Weekend Stuff
Popped over to a friends house on Saturday as her other half was away and mine was busy tiling the kitchen. Had a good natter and the kids got to play and exhaust themselves. Then G and I went out for the evening, seeing 'Babel', a new film with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. Not great.... bit too strange and when you're knackered and looking for some light entertainment this is certainly not the film for you.
G continue to tile on Sunday and I took the boys to the mall briefly to buy some new shoes and a Christmas present and some 'indoor' football boots for Dylan... apparently you can't wear studs indoors, who knew. His indoor football season started at 3.20 and we had to get there early so that the coach could run over the new rules for them..... he's bumped them up into the Under 9's category which means more players on the pitch, a bigger pitch, and a faster and harder game generally vs some slightly bigger boys. They did well, Dylan included, and managed to draw the game. Infact they were winning up until 20 seconds from the end when the other team got another goal in... bugger!
Following on from that we went to see 'Flushed Away' at the cinema, something Dylan has been bugging me to see for the last week. G & H joined us and H was surprisingly good strapped into a booster seat and given a tray full of snacks to occupy him. He also watched the movie in awe. Dylan enjoyed it... G enjoyed it..... I thought it was OK, not the best animated movie I've seen but OK.
November 12, 2006
Snuggle boy
When Harry was born, literally the day he was born, he was absolutely loving being held and cuddled and would cry as soon as you put him down in his hospital crib. We went through some weeks of him only sleeping if he was lying on someone and he's always been very cuddly as he's grown up.
Last night he woke up at 1am demanding milk and we discovered, horror of horrors, that we'd run out. I brought him into bed with me while G went to fetch some from the 7/11.
Dylan used to love coming into bed with us, he'd happily lie in the middle and fall asleep. Harry never has really... but last night I put him down in the middle and he immediately scooted over towards me and got as close as he physically could, snuggling up to me as if his life depended on it. He lay there really happily and began to doze off cuddling his 'baby' and his 'pal' (2 favourite teddies).... it was so sweet it really reminded me of when he was a tiny baby.
November 10, 2006
Good Food
We had a 'girls night out' last night at a local restaurant. The food was actually pretty good. They did this menu for a large party where between you, you agreed on 2 appetisers, 2 salads, 2 pasta's, 2 entrees and 2 desserts. Then they brought as much of them as you wanted to eat. The desserts were the most surprising.... we ordered 'profiteroles' as one of the choices, expecting your traditionally sized things and when they came they were absolutely enormous...... each half was about the size of a half tennis ball and inside was a large scoop of ice-cream. By the end of the meal we were all undoing our jeans!
November 09, 2006
How I am going to get through 2 days of no school or gym!
A brief respite
We had a couple of hours off from the rain yesterday. Enough to take the boys to the park and let them run around in the cold damp air and burn off some of that energy that they've been storing up since being cooped up inside.
Dylan is off school today with a diarrhea bug. He has obviously picked it up from one of his mates as it is apparently going around and a couple of others that we know are off with it too.
My cold continues, but hasn't got much worse, thankfully.
November 08, 2006
Will I ever get this place cleaned up ready for visitors?
Still crap
G came in at some ungodly hour last night after working the election here in the States. Then H woke up because his nappy had leaked and he wanted milk. I couldn't go back to sleep from about 3.30 onwards because I was feeling so rough - coughing, congested, you name it.
November 07, 2006
Feeling crappy
Whatever bug was lurking before is now fully out and about on the attack. For the last 24 hours I've been feeling horrible, with a bit of a temperature and congested chest and nose...... yuk. G is also coming down with it, his blood sugars have been wonky which always happens when he gets sick, and he's feeling poor too.
November 06, 2006
Rain
It's been pissing it down solidly for the last few days. Really hard aggressive rain. Very dreary indeed.
Went to see Borat on Saturday night. Hilarious - laughed non stop all the way through! G and I were supposed to be going out and we arranged to go with a couple of friends to have dinner + then see the movie, but shortly before we were about to leave Dylan suddenly complained of a pain in his ear, then threw up. I'm not sure how the two were connected but he was quite miserable so I cancelled the babysitter and G stayed at home with him while I kept the 'date' with our friends. He was absolutely fine the next morning!
Sunday some friends came over for Sunday lunch..... roast lamb, yummm. Also made a Lemon Meringue Pie and Apple Pie & Custard... very British fare! It went down well though!
November 04, 2006
School Dance
Dylan had his school dance last night. It makes me feel horribly horribly old to think that I have a child going to a school dance! He had a fine time - coming home with glow in the dark things around his neck and wrists.... and covered in sweat from head to toe from all the exertion!
After he came home, G went out to play Poker with some friends & I had a quiet night infront of the TV, except the remote control broke and I could not change channel nor turn the damn thing off and ended up with something totally rubbish on! I finally managed to steal some batteries out of a toy and get it to work by standing with the remote 1 inch from the cable box...... very bizarre.
The tiles are being delivered this morning and G is going to learn the joys of installing glass mosaics in the kitchen. They're not like your average tile installation so he should have an interesting time (he doesn't know this, lol). I, meanwhile, intend to do sweet FA this weekend other than cook Sunday lunch for some friends who are coming over tomorrow!
November 03, 2006
End of the Footy year
We had the end of season 'banquet' (pizza at someones house) for Dylans footy team last night. The guys got to eat and watch a DVD that had been put together of their season, which had some lovely photo's of my young man on (I will attempt to post some). They also got presented with trophies which he's extremely proud of! I'm now enrolling him into indoor soccer for the winter season, which is basically one game a week on Sundays.... same team, everyone is signing up for it.
Utterly exhausted when we got home at 9pm I managed to force myself to stay awake for another couple of hours to try to get my sleep habits in order. And woke up at 5am again..... arghghgh.
November 02, 2006
Dylan's 'slow' gene, rendering him unable to do anything quickly!
Ahhh
My friend had a little baby girl a couple of weeks ago and I met her for the first time yesterday. She's adorable with a clump of black hair.....very cute indeed!
Woke up again at 6am today.... what is it with me and insomnia? I'm finding it very hard to sleep at the moment, I wake up early and cannot go back to sleep. Then I'm exhausted by 9pm and fall asleep on the sofa, managing to drag myself to bed by 10 at the latest. I am wondering if it's, aside from having things on my mind, to do with the lack of anti depressants in my system. They made me so groggy and lethargic that I couldn't get enough sleep if I tried. I now seem alot more 'alive'!
Whether installing a beta of Messenger was really a good idea
November 01, 2006
Trick or Treating
I'm exhausted after yesterdays Halloween festivities. We took the kids to Microsoft first..... the floor of G's building that he works on had made a huge effort and decorated the corridoors with all sorts of spooky stuff and there were zillions of sweets to be had. The kids had a blast...... Harry surprised me in that I didn't think he'd 'get it' yet, and while he obviously had no idea what he was doing he got really excited and thrilled by going to each office and getting some candy and putting it into his bag..... we couldn't keep up with him!
Both boys looked excellent (photo's to follow later)..... Dylan as 'Anakin Skywalker' and Harry as 'Thomas the Tank Engine'.
After they'd filled their bags up there we drove down to Redmond Town Center where there was more organized chaos. It was bedlam with zillions of little mites dressed up and walking the streets from shop to shop to collect their sweets. They loved it again, Harry thought it was brilliant to go in every door and get his treat. We also met up with some friends, including one of Dylans good mates so they proceeded to run around together and get more & more candy. Dylan has enough to last him for at least a year (especially as his Mum isn't going to steal it!)
By 7pm we were knackered so we went to eat at one of the local restaurants down there with our friends. The kids were starving and exhausted, and we arrived home full, happy, and ready for bed.