Fully Alive...Ready to Smile

BAFAB Week's back! sticky post

2007-10-03T15:17:00.000-05:00

***this will remain at top of my blog until Oct. 3...see below this post for newer posts.

Hey everyone! Buy A Friend A Book Week is just around the corner (first week of October). I hosted one back in April and had 2 winners because I was feeling especially generous (or maybe I needed to make it even so that both my girls could pick a name out of the bowl). This time I want to know who's reading my blog. If you read my blog, tell me what book you're longing for. I want LOTS of participants. I don't care if you've never commented before and never plan to comment again...although I'd really like it if you'd comment : ) I don't care where you live. I will send you a book if your name gets picked. It can be a fiction book, a self-help book, a children's book, any kind of book you please...you get the picture. I need your choices in by October 3 since that's half way through the week. You can enter by leaving a comment below (click on the link that says "deep thoughts" with a number in front). If you'd rather not comment, email me: happy_erin26@hotmail.com with your pick. And even better, if you have a blog, I encourage you to host your own BAFAB contest. And if you don't have a blog just go buy someone a book for the sake of giving someone the gift of a book.

Scrapbooking and a Celebration of Love

2007-10-01T12:34:00.000-05:00

Saturday was a long day of scrapbooking. I mean loooonnnnngggg!!!! It was from 9:00 a.m. until midnight. Yes...15 hours. We left shortly after 10 p.m. because I think our creativity just ran out. In the 13 hours we were there I actually made more pages than I've ever made in one day...7! Two double layouts and 3 singles. These are the three lovely girls I spent the day with (and I look stupid because I was laughing in the middle of taking a bite of my yummy chocolate puff wheat cake)

(click on pictures to enlarge)

This one is to have her diploma in the big blank space, but I forgot it at home.

Then yesterday we went to Lindsay and Geoff's wedding at the Millenium Center. It was a lovely location and a beautiful wedding. Lindsay was an absolutely beautiful bride and Geoff just grinned the whole day. So cute. It was a privilege to be there to celebrate with them.

Go take a look!!

2007-09-28T23:57:00.000-05:00

Just a shout out to my girl Val who now has the nicest website ever created (and of course the best photographs). Just thought you might want to go take a look at her lovely work and send her some love!

So I'm moving...

2007-09-28T22:01:00.000-05:00

Yes I know you know I'm moving from my house, but I actually meant I'm moving in the blogging world. To a new home. Right now I'm tweaking it and figuring out how it all works. I got my own domain name (moving up in the world). I figured since I had actually stuck to blogging for a whole year and hadn't given up on it or run out of steam like I do with everything else I would reward myself and get a new blog. Give myself even more incentive to keep blogging. Maybe get even better. I've been really uninspired the last few weeks because I've been so busy and my brain has been on autopilot. I'm hoping with the down time now I'll be crazy inspired and awesome in my blogging. But don't count on it : ) So once I've done a few more tweaks and stuff I'll let you all know, or maybe I'll just surprise you and one day you'll come here, but you won't be here, you'll be there and that'll just be fun! Wait for it....

Sold!

2007-09-23T22:59:00.000-05:00

Yup, that's right, folks. We are the proud owners of a...sold house : ) We signed the Offer to Purchase agreement 1/2 an hour ago and we are good to go. Our basement of our new house is scheduled to be started October 9 and we have to be out of here November 17. So that means a few months back at mom and dad's. I'm very excited and very relieved that it's over. No more stressing about a clean house...although I wasn't actually terribly stressed about that, it was kind of nice to have a perfectly clean house all the time. I think we'll try and keep the "up-for-sale-must-keep-it-spotless" mentality a little longer! Maybe I won't tell the girls and keep harassing them about keeping it clean for showings (they already know what that is, hee, hee).

So now I'm happy about the upcoming journey, but really, really sad about knowing the date I have to move from my cute house and lovely, wonderful, amazing, awesome, fabulous neighbors (did I get enough compliments in there to appease you, girls?) At least we'll only be one street over when we move into our new house. Just a short walk away to borrow garlic presses and propane (clarification, that would be US doing the borrowing from them...they are probably secretly happy that we'll be gone and they can get some normal neighbors. Unless of course they are crazier than us, and I mean crazy in the best possible way).

What's in a name?

2007-09-21T22:36:00.001-05:00

What Erin Means

E is for Elitist

R is for Revolutionary

I is for Irresistible

N is for Nutty

What Does Your Name Mean?

Happy Blogoversary to me!

2007-09-21T10:03:00.001-05:00

So today it is one year since I started blogging. When I started I was going to blog to post pictures, mainly. But somewhere along the way I found a voice. If you know me, you know I don't like speaking in public and this forum ventured WAY to close to that. Although when I started I didn't think anyone would read it regularly anyway : ) Thank you to all those who come back to see if I have anything to say (lately, nothing of any depth...sorry). I was going back over the last year of posts and these are some of my faves...

- My trip to Las Vegas (5 separate posts)

- The fight over the corner in our basement!

- Late night Walmart Rendevouz

- My pretty girls!

- My Big news April fools joke! Which was even funnier 3 weeks later when we went to some peoples house and she still thought I was pregnant because she didn't scroll down. So funny!

- Il Divo and William Joseph concert with Elin...mmm....good times.

- Fun with our neighbors! Always good times

- The lovely sky after the terrible thunderstorms

- Finding peace in the midst of turmoil

- Josh Groban, yeah...makes me smile : )

So those are just a few of the posts that make me happy and there are so many other things that I've enjoyed...the support and encouragement of the blogging community, meeting new friends, learning things about old friends, fun and laughter...and the list could go on. I think this experience has enriched my life in so many ways and I'm so blessed by the people I've gotten to know and know better. You guys rock!

Friday's Feast

2007-09-21T09:00:00.000-05:00

Appetizer
What is your favorite type of art?

That's a tough one. I love classic art. I've been to a few museums in Europe and I love looking at the
old paintings and sculptures. I think other things like music is art, too, (like the master Josh Groban, sigh).

Soup
When was the last time you got a free lunch (or breakfast or dinner)? Who paid for it?

I can't remember...but it was probably my Dad who paid for it. He does that quite often.

Salad
On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how emotional are you?

Probably an 8. I can get VERY, VERY excited!!! (right Val?) and I can cry pretty easily, but I don't cry about everything. I'm generally on the happier side of the emotions.

Main Course
Approximately how long do you spend each day responding to emails?

Emails, maybe 10 minutes. Blogs...that's another story : )

Dessert
To what temperature do you usually set your home’s thermostat?

In Summer I have it at 21 degrees celcius (69.8 degrees fahrenheit), in winter about 19-20 degrees celcius (66-68 degrees fahrenheit).

Just some nonsense and stuff

2007-09-19T22:09:00.000-05:00

Another not so busy day for me. Ella started her first day of preschool today (it's her second year) and it looks like she's going to enjoy it once again. She woke up really excited and then a few minutes before getting into the car to go, she panicked. She was still exclaiming that she wasn't ever going to school again until she saw her teachers and then she was all smiles and showing them her new shoes and outfit and snack box. So it was fine. Aidan figured she wanted to go to school too. Next year. So here's Ella in her new outfit looking pleased as punch:

I spent some time lining up coffee dates with friends I haven't connected with in a while. The beauty of being a stay at home mom...coffee with other stay at home moms!

Okay this is really, really funny. I got this email today about a public bathroom in Houston. If you've seen it, sorry, if not, enjoy!

Bathroom on the outside:
View from the inside:
Could you use it? I couldn't. Talk about stage fright! It's made of one-way glass. No one can see you from the outside, but you can see EVERYTHING from the inside. Crazy. Who comes up with these things?

Here's a meme that I thought looked fun and I was bored, so I did it. I think I found it over at Dedee's.

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car)
Cat Saturn (Wasn't sure if they wanted the pet type or pet name...if it's the latter then my name would be "Tiger Saturn")

2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fave ice cream flavor, favorite cookie)
Vanilla Chocolate Chip (not very gangsta-y if you ask me)

3. YOUR “FLY Guy/Girl” NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of your last name)
Ewie (what the?)

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal)
Red Puppy

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)
Joanna Winnipeg (yeah, that's just weird!)

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first)
Wie-Er (add an "n" in the middle and what do you have? Hee, hee)

7. SUPERHERO NAME: (”The” + 2nd favorite color, favorite drink)
The Brown Water (why is it brown? Don't answer that)

8. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers)
Cornelius Isaak

9. STRIPPER NAME: ( the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/scent, favorite candy)
Vanilla Turtles

10.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names )
Isaak (my mom doesn't have a middle name, so I guess I'd just be a one-name person like "Madonna" or "Cher"...except that Isaak's a very masculine name)

11. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME: (Your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter)
Peters Paris

12. SPY NAME/BOND GIRL: (your favorite season/holiday, flower)
Summer Magnolia

13. CARTOON NAME: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now + “ie” or “y”)
Raspberry Jeany

14. HIPPY NAME: (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree)
Yogurt Apple Blossom

15. YOUR ROCKSTAR TOUR NAME: (”The” + Your fave hobby/craft, fave weather element + “Tour”)
The Scrapbooking Sunshine Tour

Supper swapping

2007-09-17T21:09:00.001-05:00

So I was over at Because I Said So (if you haven't been reading her regularly, you should. It's great!) and her latest post was about supper swapping. Apparently there's a book out there called "The Great American Supper Swap" by Trish Berg and it sounds like such a fabulous idea and I've ordered the book off Amazon so I'll let you know how it is (or you can order it yourself and see for yourself). Anyone want to do it? Basically what's involved is a group of 2-4 women create their own swapping group. You cook ONCE a week for the whole group (large quantities of whatever it is you're making...think of it like a great big dinner party but you don't have to entertain everyone, lol) and the other few nights you get supper delivered to your door. Doesn't that sound great? Home cooked meals and only one night of cooking. The author wants to promote family time and eating together and this is a chance for people to do that. Less grilled cheese sandwiches, too : ) I think this would be lots of fun. It could work. I mean, who wouldn't want to cook less? Here's a blurb from her site and here's a link to what a sample swap calendar would look like:

Become A Supper Swap Mom!

		Moms have so many demands placed on them daily that preparing a nutritious and delicious family dinner becomes nearly impossible. Swapping suppers with a few "girlfriends" can be a simple, practical solution to your dinner time dilemma.

		Supper swapping (also known as co-op cooking) is simple, and it simply works. It’s moms helping moms, friendship at its best! On your cooking day, you simply fix enough dinner for you and your girlfriends’ (like 4 baked spaghettis) keep one meal for yourself, and deliver the other 3 meals to the families in your group.

		Then, the other four days of the week, sit back and relax as dinner is delivered to your door, hot, fresh and ready to eat. For about two hours worth of meal preparation, and thirty minutes of delivery time, you get a week's worth of stress free family dinners. That’s an 80% reduction in your cooking time - Talk about return on investment!

		Supper swapping saves you time, stress and money. You also build deeper friendships as your journey through the adventures of motherhood together. Supper swapping will solve your dinner time dilemma. Through joining together, we will learn that we can go farther than any one of us can go alone!

		Simple Steps to Supper Swapping Success:


		1. START WITH WHO YOU KNOW – Ask a neighbor, a girlfriend, or a co-worker to give it a try.

		2. HAVE COMMON GROUND – Either live nearby, attend church together, or work at the same company so delivery can be easily coordinated at that common location daily or weekly.

		3. PLAN 3 MONTHS OUT - Choose and plan your meals for at least three months at a time, and write or print them on a meal calendar so each family knows what is being delivered for dinner each night.

		4. START WITH FAMILY FAVORITES - Choose recipes to start with that are your family favorites. New recipes should be tried out on your individual family before they are introduced into the co-op.

		5. AVOID PAN-DEMONIUM - Use 9x9 or 9x13 glass Pyrex pans with snap on blue lids, semi-disposable Zip-Loc containers, and Whale of a Pal Tubs for soups and stews. Rotate them through the group (See Pan Formula in the book)

		6. HONESTY TASTES BETTER - When you establish your meal calendars, be honest and up front about food likes, dislikes, and allergies to avoid problems down the road.

		7. BUDGET MEALS - Buy ingredients in bulk for your meals when items are on sale. Try to budget recipes so you don't make two expensive ones back to back. (i.e. pot roast is more expensive than pizza burgers)

		8. ADAPT DELIVERY TIMES - Delivery times can vary depending on what works for each family. If you deliver at dinnertime, have the meal cooked and ready to eat. If you deliver in the morning, have your meal prepared but not cooked with baking instruction included.

		9. BE FLEXIBLE - Be flexible with one another when life throws you a curve ball, like a sick child, a broken down car, or unexpected circumstance. Have a meal back up plan for those nights agreed upon at the outset, like switching days or having pizza delivered if you are in a pinch.

		10. RELAX AND ENJOY THE RIDE - Relax and enjoy the ride. Don’t expect your supper swapping group to remain stagnant or to last forever; some families may swap longer than others. If a mom leaves, let them do so guilt free. We typically ask for one month’s notice so we can adapt our meal calendars

And there you have it. Doesn't that sound neat? I encourage others of you to think about this in your community of friends. Let me know if you try it! And if you're around here, let me know if you'd be interested in starting something like this. "Let's get together, na, na, na..."

All is well

2007-09-17T20:08:00.001-05:00

Just been taking a little break from the world in general this weekend. I think I just tuckered right out. It was really, really busy for a while and I needed to sit back and take a deep breath. I had a great weekend. Lots of good times.

Friday I finished off the last minute things in the show home that I needed to do and spent the day at my mom's making more salsa. In the evening I went to a wedding shower for Lindsay. The shower was at one of our great restaurants, Buccacino's where we ate supper, visited and just had a relaxing evening there. After the shower I went grocery shopping. I'm telling you, shopping at 10:00 p.m. is so much better...there's nobody there! Imagine that : )

Saturday we had a lazy day and then we found out there was going to be a showing at 3:00 so I quickly tidied up and got us ready to go out the door for the bonfire/birthday party we were going to that evening. The party was great fun. We had a wiener roast and lots of good food. There were like 60 people there and it was such a nice evening. We've had so many weeks of crappy weather that it was a nice change to have 3 great days in a row. Today it was 28 degrees! Awesome.

Yesterday after church my mom and I took Ella shopping for a few new things for school. We went for ice cream and checked out my uncle's new scrapbooking kiosk in the mall. A truly successful shopping trip! In the evening we went over to Chris and Tara's for birthday cake for their daughter's birthday and visited with them.

Today was another relaxing day. I spent a good part of the day outside enjoying the lovely weather and visiting with the neighbor ladies. I picked up my passport today and I truly look grumpy in the picture : ( Then we had another showing in the evening so I packed up some stuff for supper and took it over to Chris and Tara's and she was kind enough to let us stay there. She made an amazing supper which I'm still stuffed from. Then she and I went to look at the 4 show homes in town. All very different and very nice. Great job to everyone!

So that's it. Nothing really exciting. My week is going to be filled with a few coffee dates and as much relaxing as possible. I think my body is in sore need of it. Hopefully one day soon I'll have some exciting posts. Nothing right now. I'm sucked right dry from all the busyness of the past month. It's a lot of work getting your house ready to sell and keeping it in that shape! I think I've got it down to a pretty good routine and so now my thoughts are...if it can stay this nice for this many days in a row, why can't it stay this nice all the time? Maybe it will become a habit and it will stick! We can only hope.

Come take a walk with me...

2007-09-10T21:11:00.000-05:00

Okay, I've made some flickr sets of pictures of our house for anyone who cares to see what it looks like (although it doesn't usually look like these pictures...I do have two little girls, use your imagination and you can figure out that it's not NEARLY this clean and organized). So here's the set with our main floor, here's the set for our second floor, and here's the set for our basement. Hope the links all work and you can get a feel for my house. If you click on the pictures there are comments about each picture.

I just wanted to share this view as well. Isn't it gorgeous? We had this fabulous rain shower this evening while the sun was poking through the clouds and our street looked so beautiful. I'll miss the sunsets from my front porch, that's for sure. (if you click on the picture it gets really big and you can see all the rain drops)

Just one more thing...

2007-09-07T17:06:00.000-05:00

See the sign? It's for sale...Woohoo!!!

Umm, yeah

2007-09-07T13:25:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting here at my computer, reading blogs when I should be doing something. I'm sure I should be doing something. My house is officially for sale and if you know anyone that wants it, let them know showings start tomorrow, okay? Okay. So I'm down to the bottom of the barrel of things to do on my to do list.

- clean windows in my bedroom and Ella's bedroom
- wash kitchen floor (I'll probably do that as we're leaving tomorrow morning)
- weed garden
- fold one last load of laundry (that's it, we're going to be wearing the same clothing for the next week or so)
- wash dishes one more time (off to mom and dad's for supper so that we don't make more dishes before tomorrow)

Is that it? I think that's it! That sounds totally doable. Very funny how that would have been lots to do in a normal day for me and today that sounds like a very reasonable amount of work.

Very exciting for me, I got new lamps for our living room yesterday. $60 at Walmart for a pack of 4 lamps.

They're so pretty. Makes me wish I had them like 18 months ago when we moved in (kind of like I wish our basement was finished, walls were fixed, pantry was cleaned, mirror in our closet was up and knobs on entertainment unit had all been done before this last week...funny how no amount of nagging will get your dh's butt in gear like a for sale sign and the promise of a profit on your house). But the sense of accomplishment following the last week and a half of work is immense!

Progress...

2007-09-05T21:57:00.000-05:00

I know you are all probably getting bored of my posts lately, but I thought since you've all been so encouraging, I'd let you know what I've accomplished. I've got one of three walls painted, the whole main floor cleaned and Janice came to take pictures so that she could list our house tonight. I washed the pillars down in the front of our house, washed the walls in the main bathroom, cleaned all the main floor windows, vacuumed the whole house (except the basement...hoping to do that yet before bed), went to a preschool meeting and had our meeting with the bank.

On that note. It's all good. We've been approved for everything, got a good long mortgage term (since it's a flip house we figured we'd stretch it as long as possible so that we'd have a nice smallish mortgage...is there such a thing?), and as soon as our house is sold we'll be ready to go. Yeah!!! That is a huge relief! Now I'm just sitting and waiting for mud to dry so that I can paint the other two walls. Looks like it's going to be another late night : )

Oh, I forgot to mention all the wonderful salsa and apple pie filling my mom and I made yesterday. Oh yes, I found time to can with mom. We made 21 jars of salsa for us and 5 batches of apple pie filling from the absolutely gorgeous apples I picked off their tree. I even climbed a tree (which I haven't done in years and years!). I got 3 four gallon pails of apples. One pail makes 2 1/2 batches. We didn't have time to make all 3 pails so I gave one pail full to Tara. We will be eating lots of apple pie and apple crisp this winter and probably into next winter : )

Hello, my name is Jellyfish!

2007-09-05T09:31:00.000-05:00

SPINELESS jellyfish!!! I can't say no. A very simple word. One of the very first words we learn as children. The one that can save your sanity when you are crazy busy. And I can't seem to say it.

I'm going to do something I rarely do on this blog...vent. Sorry. I just really need an outlet. I'm going to do this as diplomatically as possible because I know some of you go to my church. You all read my last post, right? About how crazy my life has gotten? Yeah, well, I'm officially over my head. That takes a lot for me to admit that I've finally done it and taken on more than I can handle. You see, aside from all the other craziness I've been roped into Sunday School teaching. I said specifically, "I don't want to teach, but I can be a parent volunteer once in a while." And suddenly I'm on a team, teaching every 3 Sundays. I tried. I tried really, really hard to say no. But apparently I'm a big, old push over and people don't listen to me when I'm trying very hard in my quiet, roundabout way to say no. Yes, I said quiet...see, I'm a people pleaser. Don't let anyone down. Make everyone happy! Don't make waves or make anyone mad at you. Such a bad way to live. I like to be helpful, but there comes a point when you can't give to everyone.

Yes, I know my child is in Sunday School and everyone needs to do their part. I've spent the last 4 years in the nursery volunteering and doing my part. Yes I know that there are people who are busier than me and still do more, but I can only handle so much before it's too much for me. There are enough people in our church that there is no reason why some of the people who don't do anything can't volunteer to be in Sunday School. The child care and teaching of the little ones seems to be the hardest area to get volunteers. I understand. I don't want to be involved in that area, either. I am with my kids 7 days a week all day long. Sunday School is what gives me the chance to sit and listen to a sermon without my children while they still get their share of Spiritual guidance at their own learning level. I am finally able to sit through a service 80% of the time because my kids are old enough to stay in their classes. And now I can't even enjoy that????? Seriously.

Okay, I'm done.

So our house is being listed today! Isn't that nuts? The plan is to give it some exposure on the mls (multiple listing service) and then do showings on the weekend and start taking offers on Wednesday. If there is no response, we do it again next weekend and so on and so forth until it's sold. So I have a gazillion things to do to get my house in "showable" order and here I sit blogging because I'm just too overwhelmed to start. My game plan today is to wash windows, vacuum stairs and landings, paint 3 walls that look terrible (due to the paint having changed color over the last 18 months and when I did touchups on Monday it left big ugly patches on the wall that are very noticeably different colors), clean bathrooms and finish cleaning and vacuuming the basement. If my kids let me. I have to do as much today because tomorrow and Friday will be stuff with the show home. What have I done? Wish me luck and maybe send up a prayer for me.

Crazy Week!

2007-09-02T22:43:00.000-05:00

(Okay, as I was sitting down to type this post I realized something. Something quite important. In my life, that is. It's almost my one year bloggiversary! September 21! It's gone so fast...)

Anyway, back to the subject at hand. This is the week. Hopefully. It's a big week! Lots of things happening in our lives over here:

- Meeting with the bank on Wednesday to see if they will finance our big build
- Hopefully putting the for sale sign up by the weekend...if all goes well. You all know how things go and it might not be till the following week, but we can try!
- The Parade of Homes opens and my show home HAS to be done by Saturday at noon...AAAHHH!!!

See, that's 3 really big things. All in all, it may chalk up to be nuts around here because all the things that go hand in hand with those 3 items include:

* Getting all the rest of the quotes together for the bank
* Doing paint touchups around the house
* Cleaning my carpets
* Cleaning my windows
* Cleaning up the house of little stuff that shouldn't be out for selling
* Did I mention cleaning anywhere?
* Shopping for the show home
* Putting stuff together in the show home
* Miscellaneous meetings that have nothing to do with said 3 items above
* Yard work to tidy up for selling
* Making salsa and apple pie filling (Why this week? Because, of course, that's when the tomatoes and apples had to be ready!! What grand timing!)

I'm happy to say that with all that has to be done, lots has already been done. This weekend I washed my drapes, packed a lot of stuff, Jer finished the basement (Totally 100% done!!!), cleaned my oven and stove top, cleaned out the garage (ready to move boxes and bins into for storage), and even managed to find time to take the girls to the zoo for the day. Now I'm afraid to do anything in my house because it's getting cleaner and cleaner and I want it to stay that way. So let it be known that I would definitely not turn down any offers for supper in order to keep my kitchen and dining room clean, hee, hee : ) I'm kidding of course. I did, however, make mention of this to Jer, saying "I should tell everyone on my blog that I'd be open to dinner invitations. But of course, probably the only invitations will be from people who live in other parts of the world." And my dear husband snorts and says "And you'd be likely to take them up on those offers!" He knows me too well. All Val did was jokingly invite me to a housewarming party and look, I'm going : ) Okay, off to bed so that I can do all those things I need to do tomorrow. Well, some of them. I have to make the most of my day without the girls and get LOTS done.

Why I love shopping!

2007-09-02T15:42:00.001-05:00

I haven't had time to post about it, but last weekend (Sunday to Monday) my friend Janice and I went down to the States for the night. Shopping was the name of the game. I was going to try and stay away from black and brown, but you'll notice, it was very unsuccessful...in fact, everything I bought is either black or brown. I suck! Janice on the other hand, who has complained to me in the past that she doesn't have enough color bought pink and green and blue. Oh well, at least it's all nice : ) I also got the girls some little treats. Aidan needed new jeans. Ella got a new computer game and I got them both new plates and mittens. (click on the collage to see it larger...and don't you just love those shoes?)
And quite possibly one of the main reasons I go is for this...

Unfortunately Bath and Body Works was in the fifth week of their "5 for $15" sale on antibacterial soaps and the selection was very limited in Fargo. On our way through Grand Forks we stopped in at the Bath and Body Works there and found a few more.

And a big, bright, shiny moment for Janice and I...

...don't worry...we didn't eat it all right then. There are just so many fascinating treats that we don't have here. I brought most of mine home and shared with my family.

Pack it up pack it in, let me begin...

2007-08-29T21:49:00.000-05:00

Maybe they called themselves "House of Pain" because they were packing up their house which IS a MAJOR pain. Okay, maybe not really. And I'm not actually finding it a pain. I feel good while I'm purging my cupboards and spaces. Making the house feel bigger. "Why didn't I do this months ago, while we were still enjoying the space as our home and not just a big fat profit waiting to happen?" I asked myself.

Well, regardless, I'm starting to pack. I've got a lot of my kitchen cleared out of all the stuff that isn't used regularly...so WHY IS IT IN THERE??? Yes, maybe I won't pack, but host a huge garage sale. That sounds like a marvelous idea! Anyone want stuff? I've got stuff. Lots, and lots and lots of it. I get in these moods where I just want to throw or sell or give everything away because it's just taking up space that I could be using...to put new stuff in, lol. Okay, it's just a cycle for me. Buy new, throw away old. I'm not terribly sentimental sometimes. I think I'm going to wake up one day when I'm like 84 and regret all the crap I threw away. Oh, well, by then who cares right?

If we're going to be moving a few times in the next few years, I don't want to haul all kinds of useless stuff from one house to another. Why even bring it if it's just going to sit in boxes? I mean there is the stuff you have to, like baby stuff (if you're not sure you're done having babies) and that takes up a lot of space. The big crystal vase you got as a wedding present and gets pulled out once a year for that token bunch of flowers your honey buys you to prove he's still got it going on. The engraved wine glasses you had for your wedding supper, but will never use again because you only drink wine with company and let's face it, you're not giving your guest a glass that says "This is my beloved!" The tea kettle that sits in the cavernous cupboard above your fridge just waiting for all those cups of tea you think about having with a friend, but never do but still plan, so you can't throw THAT out. The gazillion candles you have in a special cupboard because you LOVE burning candles, but can't because you have two children who might decide to play with the pretties, but you are definitely going to burn them one day, so pack them up! Can anyone guess what I've packed today? Go on, take a wild guess : )

Now I'm sitting here asking myself what I'm doing sitting here talking to you, my dear bloggy friends instead of packing away all the stuff that I've just finished telling you about that's sitting on my counters. My cabinets are cleaned out, but my counters and floors are a very different story. I'll let you know if I'm having a garage sale.

Behold...

2007-08-25T23:58:00.000-05:00

...my business cards. I'd advise everyone to only leave me nice comments because I'm feeling rather vulnerable right now. I picked my name at 2:30 a.m. (yes, during one of my sleepless nights...I think I was eating the chocolate covered grapes at the time) and it's really the only thing I can think of. Maybe not very creative, but oh well. You want creative? Hire me. That's where I'm more creative. And...yay me, yay them...my furniture package has been approved at the furniture store, now it just has to be approved by the person who has to pay for it : ) I've also found someone who is willing to come to take pictures of the house for me when it's all done for my portfolio (Allison, Allison, you should have said you knew of someone...see, I said I'd expose you for reading my blog and not commenting...hee, hee, I know you're out there). I'll explain, you see I was at a wedding today (congratulations Jordan and Heather) and at my table was Allison. I said something and she responded, "I saw that on your blog." I stopped and looked at her and was like, "You read my blog?" It's really funny when you find out WHO reads your blog. Like when random people come up to you in church and say something about what they read and you think to yourself, "I wonder who all reads it?" I know what my stat counter says and there are a WHOLE lot more people reading this than commenting. Very weird. I'd love to know who my audience is. At least then I know who I'm writing to. Anyway, what a strange world we are in...the alter reality of the blogging universe. Okay, it's after midnight again, I'm off to bed.

EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-08-23T23:36:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the over use of exclamation points, but what other word do you use to explain to your bloggy friends how excited (Val and I decided there is no other word to really explain how it is) I am than, well...excited. Okay maybe ecstatic, or thrilled (lacks something, I think), beside one's self, delighted...the list goes on. Why am I EXCITED!!!!!!!? Because I.AM.GOING.TO.VISIT.VAL. Yup. You all read that right. I'm leaving on a jet plane to go visit the dear friend I've never met. I can't even go to sleep because I'm so worked up. She made a comment on my blog today

"...So I get so excited for October. Speaking of . . . if you are free in Oct, we're having a huge Halloween/Housewarming party which you are so welcome to come to!!!!! (You know, because it's so easy for you to!) :)"

So I emailed her and I checked flights and at 11:08 this evening after much hand sweating and back and forth emailing with Val, I did it. I booked a flight. I'm officially going to visit on October 19-23. It's my birthday present to myself. It's how I'm spending the hard earned money that I'm getting for this show home. Jer said I could do whatever I wanted to do with it since it's my first big job and that's how I chose to spend it. I even got a pretty good deal on the flight. Now I need to get a passport. Oh, I'm so excited I think I feel some hand flapping coming on. I did a happy dance...or three : ) Now I really have to go to sleep. Right...sleep. Ha. That's amusing, now not only am I nervous, overwhelmed, and busy, I'm excited on top of all of it. When will I learn.

I Nice!

2007-08-23T22:32:00.000-05:00

Well, someone thinks I am. Two someones, in fact! Isn't that sweet. Alexis and Val both gave me the "Nice Matters Award." Wow. They have pretty long lists of people on their blogroll and I'm sure every single one of them are nice so it feels pretty special to be given this award by two sweet women who are extremely nice themselves.

Now I get to give this to the seven people I think are nice. Too bad my blogroll has like 40 NICE people on it. So this award is given because:

"This award is for those bloggers who are nice people; good blog friends and those who inspire good feelings and inspiration. Also for those who are a positive influence on our blogging world. Once you've been awarded please pass it on to 7 others who you feel are deserving of this award."

The seven of you encompass this award for me:

Dedee
Nadine
Tara
Andrea
Louise
Lindsay
Ruth
and all the rest of you, including Val and Alexis who gave me the award.

???

2007-08-23T01:45:00.000-05:00

Does eating grapes dipped in chocolate at 2:00 a.m. count as a serving of fruit? Just wondering...

Erin's life...such as it is

2007-08-22T14:07:00.000-05:00

Here's a run down of the days of our lives (my life) as my world turns and I deal with all my children trying to make my show home bold and beautiful. And I don't even watch soaps! Ha!

- Cabinets went into the show home yesterday, hope to go take some pics tonight.

- Still know nothing about the furniture...argh!

- Have drawn and thrown out 3 sets of floorplans for our new house (one complete set, a second one that isn't thrown out, just put on the backburner for a later flip and Jer beat me to a good one before I finished the third one). Have finally found one that I think will work and alas, it's a bungalow. Our wonderful Colonial was not deep enough to sit on a walk-out lot. So we'll build that one after this one : )

- The swaying has finally stopped, which is a huge relief. I found out after the fact that it is a wide spread problem after being at the lake. I actually talked to 4 separate people who dealt with the same thing. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, from our last day at the lake until 2 days ago (which was a total of 11 days) I had a complete loss of equilibrium. I felt like I was still on a dock (you know how when you've been on an elevator and you get off sometimes you still feel like you're moving? Like that.) and it was a very BAD feeling. The room always felt like it was moving even if I was lying down. I don't want to even get into all the worrisome things that went through my head!

- I spent a full day yesterday (10-5) cleaning out my house in preparation for selling. I got a big chunk done. All major and some minor closets and storage spaces decluttered and LOTS of stuff thrown out. It feels so good. I managed to take a whole bin worth of books off the shelves of my entertainment unit. Today I'm going to start in on toys...oh is that going to be a big job. My mom had the girls ALL day yesterday and I got to be by myself. It was so fantastic!!! I had Josh in the cd player cranked to the top and I didn't have to worry about feeding little grumpy people, working around naps, keeping them out of stuff, breaking up fights or cleaning up accidents. It was a very triumphant feeling to get so much done in one day. I think it's one of my most productive days in years!

- Jer and I snapped a chalk line in the basement yesterday (all while I was singing the Johnny Cash favorite "I'll Chalk the Line"...ha, ha...booo!!!) so that he can start the suspended ceiling, which he actually did end up starting last night. Go Jer, go Jer!

And now I'm going to go outside for a bit of fresh air to enjoy the nice weather. What a cold sucky August we've had. It feels like fall. Don't get me wrong I love fall, just not in August. August is supposed to be stinkin' hot so that when fall gets here it's refreshing. Jeans are not supposed to come out till later in September. Or jackets. It's been going down to 5 and 6 degrees celsius at night (celsius...what a dumb word, I don't even know if I spelled that right because when you look it up on Google it's also spelled "celcius"). Okay, enough rambling and I'll talk to you all later. And sorry I'm not doing much commenting on all your blogs, haven't had time to do a whole lot of blogging (reading or otherwise) so I'm going to have a HUGE load of blog posts to read when my life settles down. I haven't forgotten about you all...if you care...okay, bye!

Aidan's Happy Birthday Party

2007-08-19T21:43:00.000-05:00

Here's some pictures of Aidie-bug's birthday party. It was so nice to enjoy our backyard and all our wonderful friends!

I made Aidie-bug a ladybug birthday cake. It was only fitting. Such a fun cake to make and SO easy!

Exclamations over the ladybug.

NOT blowing out the candle. For some reason it freaked her out a little when the candle was lit.

Immense enjoyment of ladybug!

Opening of all the great gifts (and Aidan's friend Mackenzie on the left playing with her belly button or something).

Fun with Granny! Captured a very funny pose of my mom. I'm sure it was almost as much fun as it looks : )

Just a cute picture of Aidan playing with the bubble lawnmower that we gave her. This was a rare moment when she was alone. She usually had 4-6 kids following her around as she raced around the lawn pushing it. It seemed to be a big hit.

Barely Alive...Ready to sleep

2007-08-17T08:18:00.000-05:00

Do you think 4 1/2 hours of sleep is enough to survive a day...with 4 kids? I guess we'll find out now, won't we? I need to find better times to think and design than bedtime. I was a very good girl and went to bed at 10:45, the earliest night I've had in weeks. And then I laid there for almost 4 HOURS thinking about this show home. I actually got up at 1:30 and went to have a hot bath to try and relax. I got back to bed at 2:00 and I think it took me another 1/2 hour to actually fall asleep. No wonder my head hurts. But so far, so good. The girls are all getting along and the Tylenol seems to have kicked in. Maybe once the 2 littlest ones go down for a nap, I'll put a movie on for the older 2 and go take a nap. Mmm...sleep...

Part of my problem is that I'm a little stressed. I now found out that I may not get ANY furniture whatsoever for this show home because the furniture store that was going to supply it is so busy they don't know if they can do it. Argh! An empty show home is no good. So again, please pray, I'm going there today to see what they can do for me and I'm hoping for a good report!

On a good note, the house is painted and casings are up, railings and mantel are stained and up. It looks great! I went yesterday to meet with the people at the Tile Boutique to design an idea for the entry and backsplash. On Wednesday I had curtains priced out at our local hardware store, but I think I can either buy fabric and sew the curtains or find premade curtains for a LOT cheaper. Hundreds of dollars cheaper. I just about choked on my muffin when she told me how much they would cost. I mean, the fabric is fabulous, but not THAT fabulous.

Another HUGE accomplishment is that I designed our house (from scratch) that we want to build and Jer did the detailing yesterday and he said it's a good plan. We are going to price it out this week and we meet with the bank on Wednesday to see if it will work. We have a back-up bungalow house plan if this one is too much for us to carry. It's a beautiful 2-storey Colonial style house. It's a simple rectangle foundation, but the details would be what make it the "colonial" style (shutters on all the windows in front and pillars on the porch). There is nothing like it around and it would be so cool to build it. Not to mention it's a lot bigger than the house we live in now. It would be nice, but it can always be the next house we build, not this one if need be. Always have a plan B.

Okay, I'm going to go take the kids outside to get some fresh air before lunch. Hopefully I'll have some pictures to share with you soon. If anyone who is within driving distance of me has a great camera that takes professional quality pictures or knows someone who does and doesn't charge terribly much, please let me know because I'd like some good pictures of this house for my portfolio. Greatly appreciated. Have a wonderful day and a fabulous weekend.

Where has that old friend gone...

2007-08-13T09:00:00.001-05:00

Pause my player on the side if you want to view this. This is "February Song" and it is one of my favorite (all though that is hard to say because almost every song he played I'm like "Oh, I LOVE this song (more hand flapping)!" But this is one of those tear jerker songs for me and when he sang it yesterday I kept wanting to close my eyes and just let the song wash over me, but then I'd remember where I was and think "no, Erin you can't close your eyes because then you're going to miss SEEING him sing it live...silly girl, you can close your eyes at home when you listen to the cd!"

I kept squeezing Jer's hand throughout the concert because I was not sure that it was real. Now you have to understand something, I'm not putting Josh on a pedestal, he is just one of my absolutely most favorite artists of all time, I own every cd he's ever put out, I know every word (almost) to every song and I love, love, love his music. It's been a dream of mine to see him live since the first time I heard him. So if you can put that into perspective you'll understand how very exciting this was for me. I know he's just a guy, a regular person like you and me and that's what makes him that much better. While he was walking through the screaming throng of people he was singing "I am not a hero, I am not an angel, I am just a man..." and that really hit home. We were his adoring fans, but he's just a guy who's the same age as me and happens to have an AMAZING voice and is blessed to be able to share it with the world. But even so, just a regular guy and all that, I still had goosebumps for the better part of 2 hours. Next time I'll pay even more so that I can sit right up front. What a show. I'm still shaking my head in amazement that we were there. The wonderful thing about going to a concert for me is that now when I listen to the music, it has even more impact. I feel the music even stronger within me. Sigh...

Josh is Loved!!!

2007-08-12T23:39:00.001-05:00

Okay...yeah...ummm...I have nothing eloquent to say except that I have stars in my eyes. That picture is Josh Groban like 2 rows behind us walking down the aisle. If I wasn't such a scaredy cat wuss I would have gotten up and gone closer. Never step out of the comfort zone. You know, I was guilt ridden for even pulling out my camera to snap this shot because there were signs posted all over the arena "No recording devices or cameras allowed!" Even though there are a thousand flashes going off every 2 seconds, Erin's scared to take a picture of the most amazing concert and live performer on the face of the Earth!!! See, Val, I told you I was a goodey two shoes!

Frickin' Awesome pretty much sums up how awesome this concert was. It was SOOOO good I didn't want to leave. He's funny! So very funny. What an entertainer. Not only is he amazing vocally speaking (not too bad looking either, might I add, but we all knew that), but he has such amazing stage presence and he really engages the audience. And now every time I wear my new shoes, I'm going to think about it. They have officially been dubbed my "Josh shoes" : ) We went to the concert with my cousins, Clint and Elin, and Elin says "If I was 14 I would totally get one of those t-shirts with his face on it!" and I'm like "Hello, I'm not 14 and I'd STILL wear Josh Groban on a t-shirt!" Hee, hee. I'm a total starstruck fan. I LOVE concerts. I love the experience of "Oh my goodness, I'm in the same building as JOSH GROBAN (insert hand flapping)!!!" feeling. Yeah, I'm a bit of a cheeseball. What can I say. And just like I thought I would, I cried. I know, I know, I'm a dork. I get so moved by music. Especially real raw talent. When he sang "So She Dances" I welled up. I got a lump in my throat. I felt a little flushed. And I enjoyed every second of that song. THAT is what I paid good money for. I felt very satisfied with the whole experience. He hit all the important notes, played all the best songs and gosh darn it, was just plain cute! I'm just so blinkin' tired right now, I'll probably have more amazingly wonderful deep things to say about it tomorrow when it's not midnight. I'm hoping to get some good sleep tonight. Maybe all the excitement and adrenaline of the evening will have exhausted me enough to tire me out. I'm just a little bit melancholic under all the excitement, though. I hate when concerts are over. But was it ever worth every penny. Every one of the 11,100 pennies I paid for it! I will definitely be seeing him in concert again. Until then, farewell to thee my sweet singing angel...oh am I tired...Good night...

Early morning ramblings

2007-08-12T05:33:00.000-05:00

This is what 5:33 a.m. looks like at my house. I can't sleep. I've been tossing and turning and thinking since 4:00. I finally got up because I was keeping Jer up. I think I'm just very overwhelmed. There is SO much floating around in my head. I figured if I got up and just thought about it, made some lists, then maybe I could go sleep for a few hours. What's so important that I can't sleep? Well, here, I'll purge to you, my wonderful bloggy friends and then you can think about it and I will go sleep...

- Of course, the showhome! It is 4 weeks from NEEDING to be done and there is lots and lots to do yet (draperies, accessories, furniture, details, details, details).

- I've been asked by the same people to do another home (not a showhome, just a basic house in another small town, spec home).

- we are weeks away from putting our house up for sale (hopefully in the next 3 weeks sometime) and there is lots to be done to get it to the point where it's ready to sell.

- all the details for our new house...the floorplan, the meeting with the bank, organizing trades, picking selections, moving!

- going to see Josh Groban in 14 hours and I'm so excited that it's just one more thing I'm thinking about.

- Aidan's birthday party on Saturday...making cake, buying food, get a present.

The one and only think I'm not having to think or worry about...what I'm wearing to the concert tonight. (Well, I have to decide which of the two shirts to wear that I purchased, but that's just a minor detail). Yes, dear friends, I bought myself something hot! Well, it makes me feel good, so that's enough for me. I even got new shoes. I NEVER buy new shoes. Sorry for the poor picture, I was guessing where they were when I took the picture because it's the MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT and I couldn't see them!! Yeah, I'm taking pictures of shoes in the wee morning hours. I was in the city this morning (oh, I guess that would be yesterday morning) and I decided to go to Payless Shoes. I wasn't actually planning on buying anything. Then I saw these. And suddenly I needed an outfit to go with them. Kind of spontaneous, not terribly justifiable, but oh, so sweet! Besides, isn't Josh worth it? I think so... : ) (and who needs to justify 4 1/2 inch heels? Not I)

Okay, well I'm off to the land of nod. Wish me luck and sleep.

A week at Minaki...(or Vanaki in Ella's words).

2007-08-11T12:26:00.000-05:00

It's really good to be home, but I honestly could have stayed at the lake for another week! We had SOOOO much fun. It was relaxing, fun, restful, busy and great all at the same time. We sat on the dock for the better part of 7 days (trust me, I still feel like I'm rocking with the motion of the water...it's a really odd, disorienting feeling and it made it REALLY hard to drive home today), went swimming, fishing, ate and ate and ate until we couldn't eat one more thing and then somehow still ate more! Visited with some of the most important and wonderful people in my life, played dice (a game called Ten Thousand, or Nuscht which is translated into "nothing" in low-German), did I mention all the food we consumed? I'm not sure what it is about the lake that makes us want to fill ourselves with everything and anything bad for you. At one point Jer was going up to the cabin and I said to him, "Jer, can you bring my ketchup chips down? And maybe some chocolate and the sunflower seeds...and OH, is there still raspberry cheesecake left?" Yeah, not a bright shiny moment for me (I'm telling you, stomachs look MUCH better tanned, so all the junk doesn't look like it did as much damage as it probably did). Okay, so here's a few of my favorite pictures (of the 99 that I took in the last 3 days of our holidays because the first 4 days I was too busy doing nothing to bother taking pictures. I wasn't sure where to stop, so there are 20 pictures below and then is Aidan's birthday post if you missed it.)

These are my silly girls NOT SLEEPING!! This was the first time they have ever had to sleep in the same room together by themselves. It didn't work very well and it only lasted one night. There was a lot of commotion in the room and when I went to check, I found them standing on the bed looking out the window to see what was going on out there.

A view from outside of Aidan not sleeping.

Ella's bum must have been very hungry this week. She had a perpetual wedgie and I know she's going to hate me one day for showing this totally inappropriate picture, but she has the cutest little behind I've ever seen. Sorry Ella!
Three cute little girls on the dock.Jer being VERY lazy and sitting whilst drying dishes. Yes, sitting! Drying the dishes that he was too lazy to wash.
Aidan having a great time with Daddy in the water.Ella pretending to put Aidan to bed and saying prayers with her. Made my heart melt.
The girls having a blast on one of their many boat rides.
Just another one of Aidan's cute moments.
The fishermen going out yet again.
Rub a dub dub how many girls fit in the tub?
Me doing what I did best, NOTHING!! Relaxing by the lake working on my tan was my specialty.
I was elated to find out that my girls loved to be in the water (last year we couldn't get them near the lake). For someone who loves to swim as much as I do, it would be devastating to have kids who don't like water!
My two sweeties looking all cute in their pink "baby suits" as Aidan likes to call them.
Our view from the dock. Couldn't be better!
Okay, maybe it could. This was our sunset on Thursday night. Spectacular.
And even more beautiful!
Ella posing for Mommy on a rock outside our cabin. Reminds me of a picture of me that my mom took when I was Ella's age at Minaki.
More sweetness!
Our convoy of vehicles winding our way around the curving road.

So there it is. My holiday. Sorry about all the pictures. I tried to get Flickr to work for me, but I'm just too tired to care. So maybe next time I won't have these long posts with all the pictures on my blog. Happy weekend everyone. I'm sure I'll have more to say soon. Always do : )

The journey to Aidie-bug (Aidan)

2007-08-10T22:00:00.000-05:00

Today is Aidan's second birthday. I thought I would honor her and show everyone some of my favorite pictures of our journey to meet her and to who she has become. She is a sweet, mischievous little girl. She can be the naughtiest little thing and the most cuddly agreeable girl. She makes up for any badness by being so darn cute. She is called Aidie-baby, Aidie-bug, Papa's peanut, Sweetpea and Peach. Aidan means "Fiery little one." Strangely enough she came out with red hair screaming her little lungs out and has been a little fireball ever since. I think her name was God-given. When I was pregnant I chose the name Aidan simply because I loved it. Then I decided to look up the meaning because meanings are very important to me. When I found out that it meant fiery little one I changed my mind. I didn't want to label my child with something that sounded so negative. I picked a new name and we settled on that. About 3 weeks before I was due I went to see Ballet in the Park. The ballerina's name was Aidan. I sat there thinking, "It's such a beautiful name and it feels so right for this baby!" So we decided to keep both names as an options and see when the time came (we didn't know we were having a girl, we had a boy's name picked as well). When she was born there was no doubt in our minds what her name would be. But we now realize that instead of negative connotation, it can be good...she's got passion, she's stubborn, she will one day stand up for what she believes is right and good. We pray that she will have the fire of God in her and live passionately for him.

So this is me 8 months pregnant with her. (I'll apologize in advance for the bad hair...it was a bad hair year!) I had another wonderful pregnancy the second time around!
Two weeks before I had her.

The crazy thing is that she's sucking her thumb in the womb already and she is an AVID thumb sucker now! Silly little girl : )

Here you can see her little knees bent and her feet are in the upward position and she's busy doing what she did best, kicking my insides into pulp!

We were blessed to have a home birth with Aidan. I called our midwife, Giselle at about 7:00p.m. to tell her that I thought this was the evening I would go into labor. She arrived at about 8:00. The contractions had been steady for days (just like the first time with Ella), but something felt different by that time. They broke my water at 9:30 because for the contractions, strong as they were, didn't break it. An hour and a half and 4 pushes later, Aidan Mackenzie arrived. My mom had decided a few days before to be at the birth. So at 10:15 Jer calls her to tell her to come and she takes her jolly old time, arrives during the third push and exclaims when it's all over, "I almost missed it!" Ha! I thought you knew by now that I did everything quickly! This picture is us about an hour after she was born in our living room.

Proud Daddy!

Content Mommy!

Beautiful Aidan!

Aidan and I at Minaki when she was 3 weeks old. We had to miss most of the annual Minaki vacation, so we went on the September long weekend again.

"I bet you I'm the fattest baby there is! Oh no? Don't think so, check out the next picture..."

"They call me the Michelin baby" She had more rolls than I could count. I think there were 4 from armpit to elbow and 4 from top of thigh to knee. Not to mention the 3 chins and Buddah belly! Oh those cheeks were kissable.

Aidan's first Christmas wearing the dress that Granny made her.

I just love this picture. Her beautiful red hair and sweet little button nose. Still with kissable cheeks, too : )

Happy birthday, sweet Aidan. I love you SOOOO much! May God bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you! Love Mommy.

But before I leave...

2007-08-03T07:41:00.001-05:00

I've been given the Rockin' Girl Blogger award by Cherrye over at My Bella Vita. Wow! I'm ALMOST speechless...almost. But not quite. THANK YOU!!! That is such an honor that someone thinks I'm a rockin' girl! Well I think she's a rockin' girl and I'm so blessed to call her a friend. I love this, I have so many new friends I've never met. I'd love it even more if I could meet you guys. Okay, so now I have to give this Rockin' Girl Blogger award to someone...

Lindsay...I've been reintroduced to who you are through your blog. You make me smile, you make me cry, you are a very vivid writer. Even though we don't spend as much face-to-face time as we used to, I'm still learning a great deal about you through your blog and I look forward to reading what you write as though I'm having coffee with you. I feel like I can hear you through your words.

Val...you feel like my sister from another mother, I'm pretty sure. Although we've never met, you are one of the most encouraging, sweet women I've had the pleasure of meeting through blogging. You make me smile and you just plain ROCK!!

And every single other blogger girl that I have listed on my sidebar Rocks. That's why you're on my sidebar! God bless you all this weekend.

See you later : )

2007-08-03T07:26:00.001-05:00

Hope you all have a wonderful week and a great long weekend! I'm off to the lake for a week, woohoo! I'll talk to you all when I get back...

Crazy Awesome Contest!!!

2007-08-02T15:45:00.000-05:00

Hey, wanna free Insignia 37" flat-panel LCD HDTV? Yeah me too! So go here and enter this amazing contest that 5 Minutes for Mom and Best Buy are putting on for all us Canadian and American residents. You don't even have to have a blog to enter, so GOOOOO!!!!!

The day Ziggy died!

2007-08-01T22:03:00.000-05:00

Jer killed our fish! I'm kind of sad. Sort of. At least there are more like him at Walmart. Maybe the girls won't even notice and we can just replace him after our holidays. I think Jer did it on purpose, tomorrow he's taking the kitty away to a new home (a farm where she can run free without infringing on anyone else's territory) and today he kills the fish. Gee whiz, I'm sure there are people who would be kind enough to pet sit.

***Update...yes, Ziggy's still dead, but Jer just wanted me to make sure everyone knows he did not, in fact, kill Ziggy on purpose, it was an accident. Apparently Ziggy didn't like the clean water because he was so acclimatized to his green sludge and Jer forgot to keep some of the sludge in with the new water. He thought he was doing him a favor by giving him a clean home, but alas, this was not so. He died alone 2 hours after the water change. He was a good fish. He will be missed. RIP Ziggy. Sniff...

Dad's home and a showhome update...

2007-07-31T12:49:00.000-05:00

My Dad finally came home today at noon. It kind of feels like I've been holding my breath and now I can breathe a bit easier. I know there are still things that will have to be worked through, not all of them easy, but it's all in God's hands and I'm not worried. We are going to go to my parents tonight and have a welcome home supper with the family. The girls are VERY excited!

I realize I haven't updated much on my showhome project, but that's because there hasn't been much to update yet. It's a long process of going back and forth with suppliers, pricing, making sure it all looks good together, changing it for some reason or other, pricing again, etc, etc. Today, the owner of the home came in from Calgary and we met at the house. It's primed and waiting for casings to go up so that the painter can come in and finish.

I've been a little anxious the past few weeks because the budget seemed on the very low side and I was stressed out that I wouldn't be able to make this 2200 sq ft home fit to standard for a showhome (not to mention one that's going in the Parade of Homes!). But today during my meeting with Walter I was VERY encouraged!!! He gave me the go ahead to upgrade a few things which will make it so much better. I got the okay to put in some window coverings and decorative stuff, which I was pretty sure I wasn't going to get (and what fun is an empty naked house?). So let's just say that the pictures I'll take when I'm done will be a lot nicer than what I thought I was going to be able to show you. I can't wait. It should be more or less ready in the next month! Yay! It's all going to come together in the next few weeks and now is when the fun really begins. I get to see all the ideas that have been formulating and rolling around in my head come to fruition and reality. So excited! I placed the lighting order today as well as the flooring. Tomorrow I go to pick the stone for the outside. All this in the middle of packing and preparing for our holidays (which start on Friday morning.)

On that note, today I made lasagne, manicotti, marinara sauce, banana chocolate chip muffins and cookies to bring to the lake. I figured the more I could make and freeze ahead of time the less cooking I have to do there. So now I just need to finish my grocery shopping, finish my laundry, pack and go. Relax. Finally. Sigh...

Yay!

2007-07-30T08:55:00.000-05:00

My Dad is coming home tomorrow (fingers crossed) if nothing else happens. I'm praying that all goes well and he can. It's been a long four weeks. On Friday, July 20 he went to the Health Science Centre in Winnipeg to get the cyst drained that is somewhere by his pancreas. Following the procedure he was in LOTS of pain. He didn't get in for a CT scan until the following Tuesday afternoon. The doctors got the results back on Wednesday late afternoon and suddenly they were in a panic because apparently there were some holes in his stomach and possibly his pancreas. I heard that these were caused by the procedure.

He had already been starting to eat and drink again and they took him off all food and drink (including no ice chips), put in a nasalgastric tube and IV to see if the holes would repair themselves by taking away anything that might aggravate them. They were going to wait 24-48 hours and then if the holes were not yet closed, they were going to do surgery. Well, 48 hours came and went and they decided to wait another 5 days and then do a dye test on Monday...today (send dye through his system and see if there are any places were it leaks out). But they changed their minds again and decided to let him start taking in clear fluids on Saturday to see how he handled that. He got to go off the morphine as the pain lessened and now he's on Tylenol 3. So far he's handling the fluids well. Today they were going to change the clear fluids to a little heavier fluids and see how that goes. He can integrate food back into his diet on his own, they are just waiting to make sure that everything is okay.

No dye test, no surgery, just waiting. Please pray that the holes are closed up and that this cyst wouldn't flare up again (it will still have to be addressed in the future). We are leaving on Friday for our holidays at the lake and he is anxious to come. Pray that he is well while we are gone and that he recovers quickly and regains his strength (he is skin and bones right now). It's been four weeks since he first went into the hospital and we are all ready for him to come home. It's been a long summer already.

Question Meme

2007-07-27T22:53:00.000-05:00

So Alexis tagged me (like 10 days ago...oops) and I'm supposed to answer these 5 questions and then make up 5 of my own and tag 5 people. I'm wondering why I do these things so late at night. But apparently I'm still "witty" at night...(thanks, Nadine)...although I don't think I'm supposed to be witty in this meme...okay, whatever, here it goes.

1. If you were trapped on an island and could only take three things (and NOT people, laptops or cell phones) what would they be? Books (I'm counting the plural as one because I read too fast to only take one book, unless of course someone came and rescued me really, really quick...but that's not being trapped now is it?), Deodorant (I'm assuming it's a tropical island, cause I don't want to be trapped on an island up in the Arctic Ocean or something dumb like that. Let's make this worth our while and get a good tan!), and my pillow (although it's a water pillow and if you've ever had one or felt one, it weighs a TON. I probably wouldn't have even made it to the island if that was one of the things I take because I would have sunk. Seriously. I know Lindsay knows what I'm talking about. She used to use it as a weapon in highschool).

2. What is one goal in life you would like to achieve before dying? To be completely debt free and owe nothing to anybody. That sounds pretty exciting. After a meeting we had yesterday, that could be sometime in the next few years. I'm thinking before we're 30...

3. What was the most exciting place you have ever traveled? Well it's a toss up between Italy and London, England. One was because it was somewhere I've always wanted to go and the other is because it was with my best friend and we had such a blast, it was last minute and it was 3 months before my wedding. Here's 3 pictures from that trip...

(Lindsay, looking SO young in Trafalgar Square where the crazy demon possessed pigeons had us in terrors. We ran to the fountain, took the pictures and ran for cover. We both HATED birds)

(Me talking to Jer in a red phone booth in Picadilly Circus)

(One of my favorite pictures I took in Oxford during our day trip...had I had a digital camera there would have been lots of favorites, unfortunately there are just a lot of blurry pictures.)

4. What is your dream car? It's always been a VW Beetle. I think they are so darn cute. I suppose if I have more kids I'll be dreaming about vans, but let's not go there.

5. Do you believe in heaven and hell? Why or why not? Heaven!! Because I believe in a God who has promised me a place in Heaven with Him if I believe in Him...which I do.

Now apparently I'm to think of 5 questions and tag 5 of you...

My questions:
1. If you could live ANY one place in the world where would it be and why would you choose that destination?
2. Are you doing what you thought you'd be doing in life and if not, where did you think you'd be or what did you think you'd be doing at this time of your life?
3. Are you an optimist or a pessimist (for the most part)?
4. What would be your dream job?
5. And a fun one...if you were a paint color what would you be called (you know how paint has lots of fun/weird names)?

People I'm tagging:
1. Lindsay
2. Robin
3. Jen
4. Dedee
5. Ruth

Friday's Feast 153

2007-07-26T23:56:00.000-05:00

Appetizer
Describe a toy you remember from your childhood. My kind-of-like-a-Barbie-but-not-really-one "Mindy." She was my favorite. Until my little brother bit her foot off. She was a ballerina. Lost all her "ballerina-ishness" after that : )

Soup
On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being highest) how observant are you? I'd say about an 8 on average. Depends what it is. If it's your house...a 12, if it's something else, maybe a 6-8.

Salad
Where would you rather be at this very moment? Considering it's midnight...bed. If not there, at the lake. Which I will be in 8 days...yipee!!!

Main Course
When was the last time you learned something new? Almost everyday I learn something new. I have 2 little kids after all. They teach me new things all the time. Sometimes it's about them, sometimes it's about me, sometimes just about life : ) Learning and growing that's the name of the parenting game and the game of life in general.

Dessert
Fill in the blank: I have ____________ but I haven’t ____________. I have eaten supper, but I haven't cleaned off the table yet. Ha! Yeah, I know it's midnight. I'm sure as heck not going to do it now. Unless it cleans itself, it will still be there in the morning. Sorry, no deep thought on that one tonight. Good night all and happy feasting!

Want to join the feasting fun? Go to Friday's Feast.

Congratulations!

2007-07-25T17:52:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to wish David and Svea very BIG congratulations on the birth of their daughter Talia. She was born this morning at 9:45 weighing 7 lbs 11 oz. God bless you guys!

Eight very intersting things about me. Okay, maybe just slightly intersting.

2007-07-24T23:21:00.000-05:00

I was tagged over at Cherished Moments With My 2 Angels to do a meme. Apparently I'm supposed to tell you all 8 things about myself. I think it would be more fun if YOU told me 8 things about myself. Hee, hee. Oh well, here it goes...

The Rules: “Each person posts the rules before their list, then they list 8 things about themselves. At the end of the post, that person tags and links to 8 other people and then visits those peoples’ sites and comments letting them know that they have been tagged, and to come read the post, so they know what they have to do.”

1. I'm 5 foot 7 inches tall and I have the tiniest fingers and toes. It has caused much comic relief for lots of people. I'm glad I can give people something to laugh about. It's one of the things I live for : ) They are so short that I have tried and failed at 3 different instruments...piano, flute and guitar. I can't reach an octave on the piano, my pinky finger goes completely numb while playing flute (so much so that the entire side of my hand right into my arm goes numb) and I can't reach around the neck of the guitar. I guess I'll just have to stick to singing.

2. My readers who have been here for a while know this already, but for the rest of you, I'm allergic to sausage. Or more specifically, certain smokes used in some sausage. It makes me hiccup horribly. It took me a LONG TIME to figure that out. Talk about years of uncomfortable meal times.

3. I'm terribly afraid of the phone. I don't mind answering it, but it's like pulling teeth to get me to call almost anywhere, especially if I have to ask questions. I get terrible stage fright and stumble over my words. I like to talk to people in person so that I can see their face and see their reactions and body language.

4. I was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease when I was 13. I had surgery when I was 14 because I was dying from a blockage in my intestines. I healed by nothing short of a miracle and walked out of the hospital 7 days after my surgery and have never had a relapse since, in 13 years, praise the Lord. And I have 13 inches less intestines than the rest of you, how cool is that? Okay, maybe not so cool, but whatever (and look at all the 13's, very cool).

5. I'm a fish. Or maybe I should have been. I love water, I love to swim. I can't wait till we go to the lake in 10 days and then I can swim whenever I want to. My parents neighbors have a pool and the people who lived there until 2 years ago let us swim whenever we wanted to because they didn't have any kids living at home. We had the run of the place...pool parties, lounging there all summer. It was the life. Then they moved and I was sad. Still am. Especially today when it was 47 degrees celsius with the humidity (which translates into 116 degrees fahrenheit for all you who don't know what celsius feels like). Yup, it was a scorcher. It was yesterday, too and it's supposed to be all week. The kiddie pool is looking better and better all the time.

6. I love to bake. I don't love to eat it all, but I will if it's there, so I usually send the majority of whatever I bake to Jer's work. They all adore me there : )

7. I had blond hair till I was 15. Very blond. Then I got it cut after my surgery and it grew out very dark. Go figure.

8. I have a fondness for details. I love to make lists, file stuff, fill out forms...which is perhaps why I like games like sudoku and crosswords because I find it so fun to fill in the little boxes and make sense of stuff. On the other hand, I'm not a very organized house person. I procrastinate on folding and putting away laundry, washing dishes, putting dishes away, cleaning up the kids stuff, etc. But it drives me nuts!!! I can't stand the disarray and mess. I annoy myself with my laziness. Especially because a beautiful house is very important to me. Maybe one day I will learn how.

Now I have to tag 8 of you. So many to choose from...

1. Becky at Mills' Memoirs
2. Tara at This is my Life
3. Bonnie at Can You Ever Go Home
4. Louise at Living Out Loud, Trying to Be Quiet
5. Jamie at My Turn
6. Val at Purple Valley
7. Tammi at Valleygirl
8. Corie at My Life as a Book

Excuse me for one moment...

2007-07-22T00:28:00.000-05:00

I've added a poll on my sidebar. Please go look at it and answer the question. Even if you don't usually or ever comment on my blog but you come and read, even if it's your first (and maybe last time here), please vote. It's anonymous and doesn't take more than 2 seconds. Thank you!

Good Times : )

2007-07-21T20:53:00.000-05:00

We just got home from a 30 hour "holiday" in Dauphin, Manitoba. I know, I know, how much fun can you have in Dauphin? What were we doing way up there? Well, that's why I'm posting, now isn't it?

Okay, so some background info. Jer got asked to play drums for Stephanie Nicole (aka: "Steph and the Duck" from CHVN Radio 95.1 fm our local Christian radio station). He's friends with her brother Mike. Steph just recorded a cd and she was asked to play at this Christian music festival, Jesus ManiFest, in Dauphin this weekend. So, 3 weeks ago she put together a band consisting of her brother Mike on bass, Jer on drums, Mandy on Djembe (now also Mike's girlfriend), Steph on vocals and keyboards and Steve on guitar. For only practicing together 3 times (twice with all members), they were GOOD!! Stephanie has an incredible voice and is seriously talented. It was scorching hot and there wasn't a lot of people this year at the festival, but regardless, we had some serious fun!

Our trip began at 1:00 in the afternoon yesterday. Kids were with Granny and we escaped to our 30 hours of freedom : ) Yay!!! I'd love to say the trip was uneventful, but alas, it was not. About half way there, we heard a large KAPOW! and we both knew that we had some serious trouble. Our tire had blown out. Fortunately we were only a mile or two out of Gladstone (also known as "Happy Rock"). So Jer put on the spare and we hobbled our poor car back to the gas station only to find out that we had to drive 25 minutes to Neepawa where they had a tire store. Thankfully this happened while everything was still open, we weren't in the middle of nowhere and Neepawa and the tire store were directly on our route to Dauphin. We got to said tire store where Jer inquired about a tire. The guy didn't think he had any that would fit our car, but he'd go check. We were in luck, or maybe not so much luck as blessing, he had ONE. That's all we needed and we were on our way, $99 later and an hour lost, but we had no schedule, so it was all good.

We saw some nice scenery on the way. For instance, this...probably one of the largest hills in Manitoba, lol : )Okay, maybe not the largest, but we are flatlanders so that was pretty exciting to drive up it! We drove around one of our many provincial parks, Riding Mountain (huh, mountain?) which is a large plateaued piece of land with forest and lakes on it. It's the closest thing we have to mountains around here, so it's cool. You can see the "Mountains" in the background of this picture.When we got to Dauphin we settled in our room (dropped our bags on the floor) and off we all went to Pizza Hut for supper. Then we decided to do what I'm assuming is about the only fun thing to do in Dauphin, go to Walmart : ) This is where I met my laughing buddy. I used to laugh uncontrollably. At the strangest things. In the last number of years things either haven't been that funny, I've gotten too serious, or I'm not with anyone who has the same sense of humor or ability to laugh as I do. Well let's just say that Mandy does. For some reason or other, everything was funny to us. The fact that we both laughed so much was funny. It set us off just thinking about how we laughed. The more she laughed, the higher her laugh would go and she'd squeak. I actually was crying from laughing so hard and both our cheeks were cramping from laughing. It felt really good. Here's us laughing while Jer's taking our picture. Not sure what was funny, but it was (and no, I'm not pregnant, my shirt was just being all weird).Perhaps it was seeing Mike and Jer together, which in and of itself was quite comedic.
Maybe it was that every time Mike opened his mouth something funny would come out. He's even funny when he's driving. On the way home he slowed right down to 30 Km/hr (they were in front of us) and we were wondering what he was doing. Suddenly this arm shoots out of the car and he's taking a picture of us (or our car).

Anyway, here they are in concert (sorry they are so small, it was a pretty big stage and they were all over the place).One more kind of funny story. Being that Steph was a radio personality and she has a cd and she's quite mature and VERY confident, I was under the impression that she was older than me. I got around to asking her right before we left how old she was. She says, "guess." So I did. I was going to poll you all to see what you thought, but the picture doesn't really take into account who she is or how she acts. So anyway, I said, "hmm, 29?" I was actually thinking 30, but you never know what's going to insult people. Everyone started laughing. Huh? Nope. She's 23. Well, she's turning 24 on Wednesday. Jer and I both didn't believe her. In fact, Jer asked to see her driver's license, which she handed to him and we inspected. Yup, she was born in 1983. Maybe it's because her life experience seems so far out there from mine that I just assumed she was older. She is a brilliant musician and a very, very sweet person. I am blessed to have gotten to know her a little bit and spend time with her.
So we made it home safe and sound, had lots of good laughs, played some awesome music, didn't melt in the heat and I made 2 new friends. What a great thing to do on a weekend!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I couldn't help but giggle when I saw this guy...

Friday's Feast (on Thursday...)

2007-07-19T23:31:00.000-05:00

...but only half an hour before Friday as it's almost midnight! We'll start with last week's because that's the one that I saw first and I answered all the questions and then I went back to the Friday's Feast site and it was a different one. So there, you are very lucky, you get double the fun and I get to answer double the questions and stay up way later than I intended...I'm doing this on Thursday and then going to publish it on Friday, but at the rate I'm going it could be midnight before I'm finished and then it will be Friday, and it IS Friday somewhere in the world, so I'll just shut up now and start the feast! Bon Appetit!

Friday's Feast 151 (last week's)

Appetizer

What is your favorite fruit? Raspberries...always has been. Probably because we had a raspberry bush on our yard and I was the one who had to pick them. Made me appreciate their goodness after all the prickles and thorns I had to reach through to get at them, the scorching sun I had to pick in because I was too lazy to get up when my mom told me to so that I need not pick in the heat : ) You appreciate things that you've had to work for.

Soup

Who is someone you consider as a great role model? Kathy (or Hottie), who is technically my aunt, but feels like my sister. She is a person of strength and integrity, spirit and joy. Even when she is going through really hard times she still has enough in her to give to others and make them feel loved. She pushes through with a tenacity that I aspire to have. She says it like it is and doesn't take crap from anyone. She will offer her helping hand in a heart beat, probably sometimes at great inconvenience to herself. She is beautiful.

(And we don't look at ALL related...look right in the middle at the white space between our pictures for 30 seconds, you know, like those optical illusions and pretty soon you can't tell us apart! Whoa, freaky! Hee, hee. My dad even confused us during his state of incoherency at the beginning of his hospital stay.)

Salad
If you were to spend one night anywhere within an hour of your home, where would you choose? Hmmm...a field? Does that count? There isn't much an hour from my home. I think the beach is close to an hour...so that's where I guess I'd go.

Main Course
Name something you do too often. Talk, lol.

Dessert
Fill in the blank: I really like spending time with Chris and Tara because they make me smile and are so generous and fun and...I don't know...I just love them : )

And finally, today's feast...

Friday's Feast 152

Appetizer
On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being highest) how much do enjoy watching sports on television? 0...I know that's not one of the options, but definitely 0.

Soup
If you could completely memorize any one work of fiction, which one would you pick? I think I've read too many books to answer that, and I almost do memorize them because I can't ever, EVER read a book twice. I remember details so vividly that it doesn't hold any interest for me when I read it again...so I don't.

Salad
What is your favorite breakfast food? Hmm...a few years ago I would have said "None!" Then I got pregnant and had to eat breakfast, so I forced myself to and now I have to have breakfast. I love fresh berries and yogurt separately or together in a smoothie, I also love eggs and hashbrowns (crispy, of course) with sausage and toast.

Main Course
Name something fun you can do for less than $10.00. A couple rounds of bowling. Always a good time! I suck...BADLY, but I have fun being horrible at it. It makes me feel good to let others feel good about themselves...very selfless feeling : ) Gives everyone else a good laugh, too. And then on the odd occasion that I get a strike (or sometimes two), everyone is SOOOO pumped for me that I feel like freakin' celebrity ; )

Dessert
How long does it usually take you to fall asleep? Anywhere from 10 minutes to 2 hours. I usually lay awake and process my day...and quite possibly the following day. If I've had a good walk before bed and actually taken the time to think about stuff I fall asleep better. If not, I'm screwed.

Jumping for Joy...or something.

2007-07-19T22:10:00.001-05:00

I saw this sunset this evening and was going to try and take a mid-air picture of it from Tara's trampoline in their backyard, instead I started jumping and having some fun. So I took a picture to prove it (that I was having fun that is...). Now I have a mid-air picture of me and just a regular picture of the sunset.

A visit with Papa

2007-07-16T09:30:00.001-05:00

The girls love snuggling with Papa on his bed when we visit him.

My dad is doing pretty good. He still has bouts of nausea every so often. The doctor wants to schedule him in to see a specialist after our holidays in August to see if the cyst is still what's bothering his stomach. I think if it's still there, they are going to remove it.

He seems quite relaxed. His doctor is going to see him today and hopefully let him know when he can come home. Then we pray that the journey to healing will continue.
***Update: Now the doctor is trying to get him in to see a specialist at Health Science Center tomorrow. Pray that everything goes well and that they can help him with the stomach problems.

A Recipe for Fun : )

2007-07-13T23:39:00.001-05:00

Jer and I got to go out on a date tonight. How refreshing it was! We went to see the movie Ratatouille which I must say was so fun. If you can get over the fact that they are RATS, it's very cute...a little disgusting thinking about rats in a kitchen, but cute. I think the best part of seeing the movie was that it got Jer all fired up about cooking. Oh, that is a GOOD thing! Anyone who wants to get fired up about cooking is more than welcome in my kitchen. I love cooking, but I don't always like cooking alone or thinking up WHAT to cook. A little input goes a long way. I'm sure some or all of you can relate.

So I put in my two cents. Since I love to cook and try new things, and he wants to cook, but in a fun way, why don't WE set aside a night each week and try out a new recipe (an old one's fine, too). After the girls are in bed we can prepare and eat a nice meal together. Kind of like a date, but in our own kitchen. Make it fun. Spend time together. It actually got him all excited and off to Chapters we went to find a new cookbook that we could use. We spent half an hour browsing through many, many different cookbooks. All very nice, lots with pretty, shiny pictures, some with recipes we couldn't pronounce or wouldn't eat. We didn't have enough time to make a decision, so we'll get back to that another time. In the meantime, we can use the cookbooks we have and the internet to start our new tradition. I said we should get the chef's hats to make it even more fun : ) I don't think he'd be opposed to it (he even talked about an apron, lol). So, I'll let you know how it goes. Maybe I'll have to start a weekly post about what we're cooking and how it turned out, pictures and all. Are there any cookbooks that you guys find amazing, ones that you use lots of the recipes? Let me know.

Have a happy weekend.

Lazy Days...

2007-07-12T17:39:00.000-05:00

Today was a most beautiful day! It was warm when the sun was out, there were just enough clouds to give relief every so often, there was no cloying humidity and a sweet breeze (so no bugs). I lay on our grass with a book, enjoying what I would consider a perfect afternoon.

When I looked up I saw this...

...and when I looked to the side I saw this! What perfect scenery to go with the perfect weather!

Another very AWESOME thing happened today! I spoke to Val in person...on the phone. Considering we both hate phones, it was very neat. It was so cool to put a voice to a face that I've seen on a blog and a personality I've already conjured up in my head based on her writing. I'm pretty sure it was the highlight of my week! I was so excited to talk to her that I was wishing she was here in person so I could hug her : )

She doesn't have email or internet until Monday because they are busy painting their new house (sleeping there already, too, even though they don't technically "move in" until this weekend). Because of this she hadn't blogged or emailed in almost a week and it was funny, I missed her already and I was thinking about her during what has to be a very busy crazy, week. So I did what I would do with any of my friends...called her to see how she was doing. It was a natural reaction. And because we keep in touch online, we were able to chat about normal things because we already know what's going on in each other's lives. So cool! What a sweet moment with my dear sweet friend : )

Culinary delights!

2007-07-12T13:19:00.001-05:00

I went out to my garden and picked the ingredients for my lunch (obviously not the bread!).One day the carrots will be from my garden, too, but until then, it was pretty fabulous. I finally got my bruschetta. It's much more fun cooking when it's food you've watched grow. Mmmm...

More goodness...

2007-07-10T20:52:00.000-05:00

Today there was more good stuff. I made 12 jars of strawberry jam...my very first time ever making jam. It turned out quite nice.
Jer sold his drums which is going to pay for our income tax! No, no, don't panic, I didn't make him sell his only drum set...he had 2 and he sold the older one that he had fixed up for that purpose. I've been bugging him to get them sold because the taxman was going to be calling and so he listed them on Monday night on the Buy and Sell and they were sold 24 hours later. The guy came this afternoon and picked them up and we are that much closer to being out of debt! Yay!

Even though there was more unnecessary rain this afternoon and evening, there was another beautiful rainbow. Click on it to see a better image.
My dad is feeling better. The recovery is still a long journey ahead, but it's coming. He'll probably be in the hospital for another week or so. I've been very, very blessed by the outpouring of love, emails, phone calls and support. It's been amazing to see family, friends and church body pull together and love on my family. Hopefully one day I can tell you all the story...until then, know that all prayers are being heard.

I hope you are all having a great week...full of goodness!

Small things to be thankful for...

2007-07-08T21:37:00.001-05:00

In my crazy world this weekend I found a few things that made me feel...happy! Today in church the message was designed for me, I'm positive. At least, that's what it felt like. He talked about being thankful when you are in the middle of troubled times and problems. So here are the things I was thankful for this week.

*My centerpiece. Silly I know, but it made me happy. Every time I walked into my dining room it made me smile. A leaf broke off my cana lily plant and instead of throwing it away I made it useful.

*The beautiful flower that Svea brought me. It reminds me everytime I look at it that there are people praying for my family and supporting and loving us. Thank you!
*My basil and parsley that are ready to cut, the oregano that's on it's way, and the tomato from MY garden that is almost ripe. Pretty soon I'll have all the ingredients freshly grown by ME to make bruschetta. Mmmm....
*The sunset that graced our sky this evening.

*My feet enjoying our new grass. It's so soft. I feel like going outside and just lying on it with a book.

So even if the odds were rather stacked against me this week in the "happiness" department, there are still things that remind me of life's little joys. What made you happy this weekend?

Woo Woo...

2007-07-06T22:50:00.000-05:00

Oh yeah baby! Check out the sidebar...I reached my goal!!

Word of God Speak (Kutless)

2007-07-06T08:10:00.000-05:00

Yesterday on the way to the hospital to visit my dad I had this song playing (the one playing on my mp3 player on the sidebar right now) over and over again. I needed the strength to face this situation and up until that point I was just a blubbering, weepy mess. I just prayed for God to pour His peace over me. He miraculously gave me what I needed to be there and sit there and be still. I was reminded that He is the Refiner and Purifier of Silver and He's holding me and my family as we are in the middle of the fire right now. If you have a moment, sit back, close your eyes and let His peace wash over you. With Him, you CAN face what today holds, I CAN face today...

I'm finding myself
At a loss for words
And the funny thing is
It's okay

The last thing i need
Is to be heard
But to hear
What you would say

Word of God speak
Would you pour out like rain
Washing my eyes to see
Your majesty

To be still and know
That you're in this place
Please let me stay and rest
In your holiness
Word of God speak

I'm finding myself
In the midst of you
Beyond the music
Beyond the noise

All that I need
Is to be with you
To be quiet
And hear your voice

Thank you...

2007-07-05T09:02:00.000-05:00

Thank you all for your prayers and words of encouragement. I'd really appreciate if in the coming weeks you would send up prayers for us if you remember. I think we're in for a long road ahead, but the doctors are helping him on the road to recovery. I've learned new things in the last 19 hours and I feel very emotionally raw right now. That's all I feel at liberty to say right now and I'll email those of you who need to know more, if only so I have somebody to talk to and people who can pray specifically. You guys are my rocks!

Please Pray!

2007-07-04T08:31:00.000-05:00

My dad is in the hospital again today. It sucks! I don't even know where to start.

He had cancer 4 years ago. He came out of the hospital after having surgery (on his tongue) to remove the cancer. He went back in a week later because the place where they had to crack his jaw to get at the tongue was broken and just hanging there (this all happened the week I had Ella).

Then a year and a half later he was hallucinating one night and they brought him to the hospital again and this time he had pneumonia. Another 7 months after that, back in the hospital he went (this time I was having Aidan) because of a cyst close to his pancreas. It was making him very sick all the time because it was blocking off ducts leading to his digestive system, thus making him feel nauseated every few weeks. They didn't do anything about the cyst saying that it COULD go away. He ended up back in when Aidan was 10 days old and he was in for a while. They gave him a nasalgastric tube and he wasn't allowed to eat for like a month or more to take the pressure of his digestive system and give the cyst a chance to shrink. Which it did. To 10% of it's size. He was great for quite a long time, seemingly feeling healthy.

Lately I've been noticing more bouts of the nausea. I didn't think it was more than every month or two again, but he says it's more like every couple weeks, just not always bad enough than anyone would notice. This weekend he had a bit of bad run of it and yesterday landed up in the emergency because he was having breathing issues. They ran some blood work, did a few tests and released him like an hour later. He was NOT normal when he came home. He did some things that were just not like him. This morning my mom called from the hospital again and said that he's back. He was hallucinating all night and saying he was going to go to work in the middle of the night. She wasn't sure if it was the medication they put him on yesterday causing the hallucinations. He doesn't have a very good history of reaction to medication.

So please pray that he's okay. That the doctors can figure out what's causing all this crap and actually do something about it. Pray for peace for my mom and the rest of us. Pray...please. I feel like I'm just barely holding it together...and I have to babysit all day. I need grace and patience, I'm already starting to snap at the little things...

Standing here
in your presence
thinking of the good things you have done

Waiting here
patiently
just to hear your still small voice again

Holy
Righteous
Faithful till the end

Saviour
Healer
Redeemer and friend

I will worship you for who you are
I will worship you for who you are
I will worship you for who you are, Jesus

My soul secure,
your promise sure
your love endures, always.

Oh yeah...I'm bringing somethin' back!

2007-07-03T22:22:00.001-05:00

I feel like I'm on top of the world right now, I did it. I ran 20 minutes. I have no idea how far that is, but it was far. I'm very excited! My emoticons on the sidebar are pretty excited, too : ) Does that ever feel like an accomplishment from 30 seconds of running! It's been 2 months and I'm well on my way to my goal. I'm assuming I'm not too far off my 2 mile goal. I guess we'll just have to find out.

Daft Hands - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

2007-07-01T21:38:00.001-05:00

Something to make your weekend even more enjoyable. This is so very, very funny! Check it out. It's worth it. I found it over at 'Twas Brillig (very good blog, by the way, go check it out if you have time). (and the music on my blog can be turned off by pressing the pause button on the mp3 player on the sidebar...the other mysterious music is gone now, I found the problem).

Happy long weekend!

2007-07-01T20:03:00.000-05:00

So far, so good. Other than a few nasty mosquitoes on Friday night, it's been nice.

Friday night we went to some friends house for their joint birthday party. Unfortunately their house is down by the river...tons and tons and tons and tons of mosquitoes...you get the picture. My poor little Aidie-bug was full of nasty bites. When she started saying "owie" every two minutes it was time to go. So it was a nice, but rather short lived birthday party.

Yesterday morning I had planned to go quickly get a pail of strawberries and quickly come home so that I had time to make my cheesecake and let it chill for the appropriate number of hours before the evening's dinner at our friends house. Notice the operative word here...quickly. Well, it didn't all go quite as planned. Knowing me, there is always an adventure waiting in the most mundane of events.

I showed up at the strawberry farm at 9:08 a.m. My mom was working there, so I assumed incorrectly that obtaining a pail of strawberries would be simple. Not so! It was a Pick-Your-Own strawberry day. My mom informs me that only people who had pre-ordered their pails could just pick them up. If I wanted any, I'd have to go pick them. Myself. Okay. So off I was, pail in hand to pick my pail of strawberries. Let me interject here that I was NOT dressed for strawberry picking. Luckily, I wasn't wearing my white capris...just pure dumb luck, at that. I was, however wearing my new, beautiful shirt and my nice sandals, my hair was all styled (thanks to a very wonderful appointment with Kyle the day before), my makeup was still all fresh.

I did get my pail in about 20 minutes, no accidents, all good. So I thought. I went back to my car to drive to the booth to pay for the strawberries and my car didn't start. Wouldn't start. REFUSED to start! I, in all my flurry to get my strawberries and get out, had left the lights on in my car. So I called my husband. He couldn't help me. He had no way to get to me and the booster cables that are usually in my car, were not. A nice lady offered help me (after she asked me "are these booster cables?" and then I thought "maybe I don't want help from her, especially since there are only 3 metal thingies on the end of her booster cables!"). Last resort, I tried every other path available to me, I called my Daddy! Always my hero, he was there in 5 minutes to get me out of my plight (also gave me a quick lesson on how to boost a car) and I was off...by 10:05.

In the evening we had the pleasure of going to our friends, Bentley and Helen's, for a wonderful supper. Mmmm...steak, potatoes, salad (the lettuce fresh from her absolutely massive garden...I must say, I have slight garden envy), fried mushrooms...I could eat that almost every day (I'd be 30 pounds heavier and probably have massive indigestion problems)! It was such a beautiful evening, hardly any mosquitoes at their place, and we enjoyed sitting around a fire with them till after midnight. Maybe they wanted us to go home sooner, but as we had no kids for night it was our chance to hang out later than the norm.

Plus I'm not very good at judging when we should leave someone's house. Usually that decision revolves around kids. But when there are no kids in the equation I could overstay my welcome. I'm a social butterfly, if you will. I enjoy adult company. I REALLY enjoy sitting around a fire with good friends and just visiting and laughing (lots of that). I'm a night person. Other people aren't though, at least not usually. Maybe people get annoyed that I can just keep going...like the Energizer Bunny. The later it gets, the more I have to say and the more I laugh. The less likely I am to want to go home. I suppose they could take it as a compliment. I was having so much fun I didn't want to go home. The extroverted side of my personality thrives on people to such an extent in some situations that when I leave somewhere that I'm having fun, I almost get this melancholic feeling. It's over. It went by too quickly. Sigh...

Anyway, today we had a joint church service with 2 other churches from our town. Then after church we spent a lazy day at my parents. I was going to go for a jog, but it was cold and rainy. So now I'm waiting to see if the wind will die down a bit so I can go this evening.

No plans for tomorrow, possibly more strawberry picking (with the correct attire, of course) and maybe some outdoor time at home. And for just sitting down to quickly write a post about my weekend, that turned out to be a hugely long rambling post. Sorry! Happy long weekend from us!

Closing me in...

2007-06-29T08:23:00.000-05:00

This is a picture of the fencing guys scouting out the lay of the land in our back yard. I guess they're preparing to put up our back fence. I'm a country girl. I love our yard for a reason. I can pretend that I'm in the country when I'm back there. All I see is field. Once the fence is up...I'm thinking that my love of my yard will diminish significantly. A 3 1/2 foot fence would be grand. It would keep the kids in, the animals out, and the view would still be there. But alas, I'm not in charge of how high the fence around the development goes, so I must suck it up and deal with it. Oh, to be in the country! Maybe I can pray that the whole fencing thing takes a really, really long time and it won't go up till fall! That would be okay.

Silver Refined

2007-06-28T14:00:00.000-05:00

This email was forwarded to me. It made me cry because it made me really appreciate where God is in every situation. I was reminded that He always has my best in mind, that He's always there, that His eyes are ALWAYS on me...

Malachi 3:3 says: "He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver."

This verse puzzled some women in a Bible study and they wondered what this statement meant about the character and nature of God.

One of the women offered to find out the process of refining silver and get back to the group at their next Bible Study.

That week, the woman called a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She didn't mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining silver.

As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities.

The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot; then she thought again about the verse that says: "He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver." She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined.

The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed.

The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, "How do you know when the silver is fully refined?"He smiled at her and answered, "Oh, that's easy -- when I see my image in it"

Progress in the garden

2007-06-28T13:26:00.000-05:00

I'm very pleased to say that my garden is flourishing (for the most part). I was absolutely convinced that NOTHING would grow. That would just be my luck with plants, but it's actually doing quite nicely. The only thing that didn't come up was my chives, which I planted twice and they didn't come up either time. So I finally broke down yesterday and bought 3 chives plants at the greenhouse and stuck them in my garden. They look right at home as if they'd been there all along (bottom right hand corner of the picture above)!
This below is my very first cuttings of lettuce. We had some of it on our sandwiches for lunch today and it was so yummy and fresh! The spinach should be ready to cut in the next day or two. Yay!
Now I'm just waiting for fresh tomatoes (this plant has 25+ tomatoes on it).
I've never grown cabbage before...oh, wait, I've never grown anything before, LOL! Okay, but my mom has never grown cabbage before, so this is a very new experience for us. It's kind of perky and cute : )
I think the thing I'm most proud of with my garden, other than that everything is growing, is that it reminds me of my Grandma's garden. She always had flowers along with her vegetables and I decided to do that, too. I'm so happy I did, because it makes for such a pretty sight. Even though my Grandma doesn't garden anymore, hopefully I can pass along the legacy of gardens to my kids. This is an awesome new breed of flower that I found this year. It looks like a cross between a Gazania and an Osteopermum. Such a lovely color.

Ella-bella's birthday party

2007-06-26T20:53:00.000-05:00

We had Ella's birthday party on Saturday. We invited our neighbors and our family for cake and chips. I was informed by my very single-minded almost four-year old daughter that I was to make her a castle cake. Okay.

So behold the castle cake, draw-bridge, moat, towers and all. Oh, and did I mention it HAD to be pink? But of course it did.

I actually changed the gumdrops on the top to marshmallows because I thought it looked better : ) Cake decorating takes on a whole new meaning when you're an interior decorator! Ella thought the cake was "absolutely wonderful!" That's good, because maybe from now on we'll get slab cakes! Okay, probably not. I couldn't live with myself now that I've made all her cakes. Maybe one day it won't be cool anymore and I'll be off the hook!

She was super excited about her new flip-flops (because like any girl knows, 3 is just NOT enough).

The fabulous outfit that my brother and Ashlee bought her. Very nice!

After the party was over, I actually got a picture with my parents. It's been years. And do you notice a running theme? It seems white is the staple clothing color in my family. See, Andrea, I come by it completely honestly : ) I think it might even be hereditary to wear white pants/capris/skirts/shorts...because no normal, sane person would choose to wear white pants. In fact, both my girls have a couple white skirts and capris. Who dresses little girls in white? Me.

Happy Birthday, Ella!

2007-06-26T08:47:00.002-05:00

These pictures were taken by Svea about a week or two before I had Ella.

I loved being pregnant! It was such a wonderful time.
God blessed me with a truly beautiful pregnancy and labour. I can honestly say that I enjoyed both.

I had a midwife and I planned to have Ella at home, but after my water broke we realized that there was lots of meconium in the amniotic fluid, so we made the decision to go to the hospital. I got to the hospital at 11:40 p.m. and I thought for sure this baby was coming any minute! My midwife, Gisele, wouldn't let me push for another hour and if took everything in me to not. I started pushing at 12:30 and ended up pushing for 3 hours. I didn't have any drugs, but I didn't have any pain, either. It was so neat to be totally involved. By the end of the 3 hours I was very tired. They could see her head, but she just wouldn't come out. They gave me oxygen because her heart rate was starting to slow down with the trauma of being in the birth canal for 3 hours. Gisele went to get the attending doctor, who came and checked me, said the baby was facing the wrong direction and that she would need to go get the forceps and suction. She left the room and I thought to myself "I've come this far, I'm not giving up now and no way is anyone using forceps!!" So I gave one more mighty heave and Ella was born at 3:33 a.m. on June 26, 2003. She was 7 lb. 10 oz. and was 20 in. long.

This is me holding her about 20 minutes after she was born. (No I'm not really sweaty, I was able to shower right after while the midwives cleaned her and did all her vitals.)

We were able to leave the hospital at
6:30 a.m. (3 hours after I had her) and go home. It was so awesome to be in our own home and get settled right away. Gisele came a couple times the first day to check up on us and make sure everything was going well.

So Happy, happy birthday Elly-bean jelly bean! You are such a wonderful little girl : )

(pictures and post about her birthday party later...got to go now).

...and Jer takes the lead!

2007-06-23T17:25:00.000-05:00

Although he's been lagging behind for weeks, Les went fishing and Jer cruised into first place in the "who's-going-to-finish-their-garage-first" competition. Jer wishes he was fishing instead, but since he isn't, this is a good alternative. We won't mention too loudly that Les already has his garage door and we don't...so maybe that gives him first on a technicality. Oh, well. They are both doing a fabulous job!

Molly Maid

2007-06-23T12:28:00.000-05:00

Just because Jer was happy the person who took this didn't have a blog, I'm going to blog it : ) Jer brought my Norwex dusting glove to work so he could clean. I think he even took one of our vacuum hose attachments. Jer's Cleaning Service...I think I'm going to hire him : )

The calm after the storm

2007-06-22T21:16:00.001-05:00

I used to LOVE thunderstorms. Absolutely loved them. After Tuesday's incident, I'm now somewhat terrified. Especially because there was more tornado warnings for our area this evening. The storm clouds rolled in and I started pacing. "It's looking awfully dark over there." "That's a lot of lightning. " "Check the radar again."

I prayed and paced...and finally it was over. No tornadoes tonight : ) But there was a beautiful sky. The biggest rainbow ever...so big I couldn't get it in one shot right out our back window. I ran out into my back yard and this is what was waiting for me...

...and as the sky changed from the storm, there were the most amazing cotton ball clouds.

I thank the Lord for beauty after the storm.

Beautiful Ella

2007-06-22T18:28:00.001-05:00

Rejected!

2007-06-22T13:27:00.000-05:00

Okay, so my name that I applied for was rejected because it was similar to someone else's name. Back to the drawing board. Hmmm....

A little bit of panic (and a pep talk to myself)

2007-06-21T10:25:00.000-05:00

My hands are a little sweaty as I'm sitting here trying to design a business card. I'm just not sure I can do this! It just kind of hit me that if I make business cards, and people GET my business cards, some of them might actually CALL me and want my services and I'm being swamped with overwhelming feelings of inadequacy that I won't be able to perform to standard or expectation and I'll fail miserably and wonder what the heck I've done! That was totally a run-on sentence, but that's how the thought processed.

I actually took the plunge, figured out what I wanted to call my business and submitted the online business name reservation form this morning. I paid the $40 and now I have to wait to see if the name I've chosen is available (please pray it is...I DO NOT want to go through the process of picking a wonderful name again!). Then I have to register my business name and I can order my business cards, get my email address and BAM...I'm a business!

CRAP!!!!! It was kind of safe and secure hiding behind the "oh, I'll do it for free that way if you don't like it I won't feel bad" facade. But that's just a bunch of baloney, isn't it? It's the coward's way out. I have to be accountable for my standard of design and back it up 100% and be confident in what I CAN do, not worry about what I CAN'T do (and figure out how much to charge people). With more experience I will get better and thus more confidence will follow. Just got to fake it for now. I can fake it. I can, can't I? I'm so bad at lying, but this isn't lying, right? It's just holding my head up high and taking authority and hopefully people will believe me and trust me and then I'll trust myself. Deep breath, Erin...

Oh, yeah...I guess I should probably put my portfolio together. So much to do, so little...something!

***Update: Here are 3 of my card designs and I could use some imput. They obviously look much, much better with the actual business name on them, but since my name isn't for sure, we'll just pretend that there's an awesome name on it : ) They also all have a back side telling what services I have available and any other contact information that's needed. The one at the bottom is supposed to be totally simple with all personal info on the back. Please vote and let me know which is your favorite...

I don't think we're in Kansas anymore!

2007-06-20T08:02:00.000-05:00

Last night was probably the freakiest experience I've EVER had to this point in my life! I got home from my walk at 10:00 p.m. and there were storm clouds rolling in. I sat on my deck for a few minutes and watched all the lightning flashing to the Northwest of us. When it started to rain I went inside. Jer and I sat in the Dining room watching the storm all around us. The lightning was crazy!

At 10:20 we went up to bed and were lying there when all of a sudden something was very wrong. We heard this most unearthly sound and our house was making weird noises. Jer looked at me and says "get the girls and go in the basement." So I go grab Aidan and Jer gets Ella and we run to the basement into the mechanical room under the stairs. I'm shaking so bad and the girls don't have a foggy clue what's going on. After a few minutes Jer goes to check what's going on. He comes back and says it's okay, we can come up. I put the girls back in their beds and go check what happened and to see what all the commotion in our back yard is about. Well apparently a twister of some sort went through our back yards and picked up our neighbors trampoline and tossed it into their neighbor's garage 2 doors down from them. Can anyone say scary?

While we're out there it's deadly calm and warm. Let me just say, it was NOT warm yesterday evening or most of the day. So that's freaking me out a bit. Suddenly the weather changes and the wind is weird again and Jer says "let's get the girls and just go in the basement for a while until this things blows over." So that's what we did. Poor kids! Getting dragged out of their beds twice in one night. But I wasn't going to be sorry.

It took me a while to fall asleep after that...I had to check the radar about 15 times until I was sure that it had passed and could relax. We don't know if it was an actual twister (we don't think it touched down) or a very, very strong gust of wind, or what. All I know is I've always been afraid of tornadoes even though we've never had one here, and now I can say why they freak me out. I could never, NEVER live anywhere where tornadoes are a risk factor all the time. Unfortunately my safe comfort zone has been seriously damaged and I don't think I'll view storms quite the same, which is really too bad, because I love thunderstorms.

For My Husband on Father's Day

2007-06-17T20:23:00.001-05:00

That title sounds like the front of a Hallmark card, but this really is for him. Since our daughters are not old enough yet to pay tribute to their daddy, I have to do it for them. Not like that's a hard task. Jeremy is such an amazing daddy to our little girls. They, just like me, are daddy's girls, through and through. I remember when we got pregnant with Ella and we were dreaming about what it would be like to have our baby, Jer said to me, "It would be awesome to have a little princess that can be my little girl. Maybe she will run to me when I get home and I can swing her up in my arms." That's pretty much how it is. Twice over.

He is so patient. Unendingly. Which is a really good thing God supplied one of us with that : ) He has all the time in the world for them. He gets down on their level and plays. He makes believe with them and goes on wonderful adventures. He reads to them and makes sure their teeth are brushed. He is such a good balance of firm and loving. So level-headed when it comes to being a dad. He teaches them bible verses and prays with them and for them. He goes in every night while they are asleep just to touch their heads one more time.

It has been amazing to watch my wonderful husband grow and mature into a loving father. To see someone as young as him take on so much responsibility and do it with wisdom and grace. To be such a wonderful spiritual leader in our home. Our children are blessed to call him their father. And I am blessed to call him my husband.

Daddy

2007-06-17T15:37:00.000-05:00

I have always been a daddy's girl! Always. There is something so special about a daddy...about MY daddy. He has always been a rock for me. He always knew and still knows what to do in all situations. I turned to him for all my problems. In fact, it took me a while after I got married to realize that it was now my husband's place to help me in a bind and not my dad's : )

He is the most generous person I know, to a fault. I'm sure I took advantage of that when I was younger (unfortunately he couldn't say no to his only daughter...who had also mastered the art of coyness). And I always, always knew he was and is proud of me.

Even though I have 2 brothers, he always included me, even when I didn't want to be included (I didn't think hunting when I had the flu was a great idea, but oh he tried!). He taught me to drive and was extremely patient with me as I almost hit the ditch turning onto our yard : ) He cried with me and for me, prayed for me and carried me and my family through when I was sick and almost dying. He beamed as he walked me down the aisle on my wedding day and clung to my arm just a little too tightly. And when I watched him lying in a hospital bed with cancer, praying for him to survive because I couldn't live without my daddy, he was still my strength. The day he came home from the hospital after his surgery and I proudly laid my newborn, firstborn daughter in his arms, I was so thankful that he had survived to be a grandpa to my child and she could now love him the way I do and know what a wonderful man he is.

He hasn't disappointed me as my children's Papa, either. He is loving and patient. Tender and playful. He takes time to teach them and hold their hands. He is one of their heroes and it makes my heart so full to watch them together. To know that the very first person my daughter asks for every morning and a thousand times throughout the day is her "Papa" makes me so happy.

I know you'll probably never read this, Dad, but I love you. You have given me a very good image of who my Heavenly Father is and I thank you for everything you've taught me. Happy Father's Day.

Too much sadness for a small town

2007-06-15T13:12:00.000-05:00

This past week held more tragedy for our community. Another young man committed suicide. It seems too stark to write about it and I've been hiding from it for the past 8 days. I'm afraid to think about it because I don't understand. I'm afraid I'll start crying for all the loss and not know what to do with it. Is it silly to feel such grief for someone you haven't had much to do with in 10 years? As my friend Lindsay put it so eloquently,

"there are people out there with more reasons to grieve than I have and it makes me hesitant to grieve at all."

That pretty much sums up my feelings on this. Yet I know it's still important for everyone who needs to grieve to do so. Maybe I just haven't come to terms with the fact that he is no longer alive. It's not something anyone wants to come to terms with. I will remember him with a vitality that was hard to escape from. A smile and a laugh that was big.

My prayers and thoughts are with all those who loved him so dearly. Those who called him son, brother, grandson, nephew, cousin and friend. May God cover you with a cloak of peace and be your comfort during this time and in the coming days, months and even years.

My Week in pictures (with some words...or a lot of words)

2007-06-13T22:57:00.000-05:00

On the weekend we went to our town's annual Old Tyme Country Fair. It was lots of fun! This is the first year in many that I've gone all three days. On Friday we dropped Aidan off at Grandma and Grandpa's and off Jer, Ella and I went. We stopped in to see the animals...

...and get a pony ride...
...here's my hottie hubby standing by watching the pony ride : )

Then we just walked around talking to people and getting food (so much food!). We met up with some good friends of ours that we hadn't seen in a while and ended up chatting. We arranged to meet them to watch the fireworks later that evening (we watched last years fireworks with them, too. Maybe it's going to be an annual thing). Once the fireworks were over, their daughter, who is half my age, and I decided to go on the Tilt-A-Whirl at the midway. I love to spin and that ride is one of my all time favorites. We went on twice in a row and had a whirling good time.

Saturday we were lucky once more, as my mom came and stayed with the girls and Jer and I went to the fair again. Brent Butt was there doing a stand up comedy act (which was quite funny, I must say) and we had arranged with our friends (the same ones we watched the fireworks with) to meet them to watch Dean Gunnerson (the escape artist) do one of his fancy tricks. I actually enjoyed visiting with them more than watching Dean pretend he was going to get ripped apart by a tractor. So very fake, but somewhat entertaining.

Sunday we went to the open air church service and then stayed for a BBQ chicken lunch. Chris and Tara (our lovely neighbors) showed up and I stayed to watch our local talent Amanda Falk sing and a very fun Exelsior Choir rock the house. And even though I don't burn, I burnt my shoulders. I guess that happens when you sit outside in 35 degrees celcius for 6 hours straight.

Monday was Ella's Summer Fun Day with her Preschool class. She was very excited to ride a pony again (same pony as at the fair) and see the baby chicks once more.

Her and Ethan, Katie and Kierra enjoyed a picnic lunch of hotdogs and chips at SFD.
Yesterday I didn't do much in the morning and then in the afternoon my dear mother came back once again to watch the girlies while I went shopping. I met Lindsay for supper to catch up and hear all about her upcoming wedding plans. It was a very enjoyable evening.

Today was a joint birthday party for Ella and Aysia and Mackenzie (2 of my friends daughters). We had crepes for breakfast...

...and then the kids played while us moms visited. It was very exciting for the girls when the long awaited moment arrived to open presents.

(This is just a random cute picture of Aidan from today because she doesn't really appear in any other pictures from this week).Then we got home from the birthday party and a little surprise awaited us on our steps. Looking in our back window was a very cute kitten who appeared to be very hungry and lonely. We decided to make it comfortable as long as it was around and my girls named her Violet. She's a very sweet kitty. She will reside outside in our garage as long as she decides to stay.
She has a habit of falling asleep very quickly and she's very relaxed. Even with all the little kids trying to touch her and hold her all the time.

Then at bedtime I heard this talking coming from Ella's room. I found her reading a story to her new Sleeping Beauty Lamp that she got from Katie for her birthday today. She loves that lamp.
And probably one of the most exciting moments of my week...my husband is not only hot, he can clean! He decided on a whim today to clean. He vacuumed, washed dishes, swept. When he started washing the floor I almost fainted and I wasn't quite sure what to do other than take a picture when he started cleaning toilets. I'm still in shock. I've never seen him wash floors or clean toilets in the 6 years we've been married.

A day trip, a party, a modeling session and scrapbooking

2007-06-07T13:20:00.001-05:00

On Tuesday was Jer's birthday. I wanted to do something special for him, so I called his boss the day before and arranged for Jer to skip the day on Tuesday. I didn't tell Jer he wasn't going to work until Tuesday morning while he was getting ready for work. He didn't believe me, it was quite funny! He didn't want to know what we were going to be doing so I just told him to go clean the car while I got myself and the girls ready. Then his sister came over at 8:30 to stay with the girls for the day and we were out the door at 9:00. By then he had already guessed what we were doing. We were going to go to Grand Forks, ND for the day to go shopping. Just the two of us. It only takes 2 hours to get there and the Canadian dollar is better than it's been in many, many years.

We found lots of great deals, we ate at a really great Mexican restaurant (and since it was his birthday, he got his meal free...bonus!), he got to spend time in Cabela's, I got some scrapbooking stuff at target (see below) and I found the girls some great clothing, which they needed. All in all a fun day.

When we got home at 7:00, his guests started arriving for his birthday party. I had made Mississippi Mud Pie the night before and we all feasted. A funny story behind his birthday party...I called the day before to invite a bunch of his friends and their wives (who are my friends) to come for cake. As it turned out only 2 of the guys could make it (and their wives couldn't, but the other wives could make it and their husbands couldn't. What guy wouldn't want a birthday party with mostly women? LOL! Fortunately 3 more guys showed up later and all was well.

Below are the pictures of my great deals.

Ella was thrilled about these flip flops and her new shirts! I think she's already changed in and out of the shirts about 10 times : )

Cutie patootie Aidan in her little pale green outfit (they are gaucho pants, so cute!)

This little floral sundress is darling on her with her red hair! She's thrilled over the fact that there are "pat-ties" under (you'll notice she's showing them off in the picture on the left).

This is all the coordinating scrapbooking stuff I bought at Target (SUPER Target!), isn't it lovely? I just loved all the colors.

This just shows all the different patterns of the paper included in this
slab of paper. Can't wait to use it.

Pretty spakly flowers...

...tags...

...and matching ribbon. Sigh! Just love it! I also bought big chipboard letters, small round alphabet stickers and a pad of matting papers. Makes me all giggly seeing it all together and how matchy-poo it is : ) One day when I make a scrapbook page or ten out of this stuff, I'll post pictures. Anyone want to have a scrapbooking day soon? Anyone?

My 5 Questions Interview

2007-06-04T08:22:00.000-05:00

So Tara did the 5 questions interview from Andrea and I asked Tara to interview me. Here it goes...

1. If you had to move far away to a place like Australia, what is the one and only THING from your house that you would take? Oh, Tara, only one thing? Man! I guess I would buy most everything that I needed there, and if this move was forever I think I would put all my pictures on either a disc or external hard drive and bring that. The pictures are the one thing that I couldn't replace. Pretty much everything else, sentimental as it might be could be replaced.

2. What is your favourite color and why? It depends what mood I'm in. Currently it's red. Not and orangey red, but a deep, rich, passionate red. It's warm and inviting. I would really like a red dress. Maybe once my jogging has paid off I'll go spend some money on one.

3. If Jer was to describe you in one word, what would it be and why? Silly. If you'd ever seen how often he shakes his head at me you wouldn't ask that question. Very often after I say or do something he does this head shake as if to say "I can't believe you just said/did that!" Sometimes it's accompanied by an eye-roll. That's only when I'm being really, really silly!

4. If you were to win the lottery tomorrow, what would be the first thing you would buy? A holiday to Europe for as long as I felt like. That's the only thing in my life right now that I truly long for but just cannot seem to get. My house is great and new (not that I couldn't always build bigger and better and better since that's what I do) and I'm content for now. Of course, clothing is always something I feel short of, but I'd be buying clothing whilst in Europe : ) We don't lack for anything. God has provided and blessed us abundantly. Even if it's not always everything we think we should have, we have everything we need. And that's the most important thing.

5. When and how did you decide that it was time to start a family? (Not how you did IT!) Oh, you don't want the juicy details? Okay, fine! When we got married we said we would wait two years to start our family. In August of 2002, while driving to Minaki for our summer holidays, I popped the question to Jer and I swear he almost hit the ditch. We had been married 1 year and 3 months when we had "the talk" which if you know your math is not 2 years like we talked about : ) We talked about it all that month and decided that we would like to HAVE a baby around our second anniversary rather than starting at 2 years. So 6 weeks after the decision was final we were pregnant with Ella! She was born 6 weeks after our anniversary and it was a decision I've never regretted! I'm glad we didn't wait years. We were young, yes, I won't dispute that fact, but I always wanted to be finished my family while still young so that I could have the energy for my kids (which wanes fast regardless of how old or young you are!). So there you have it. Now I'm 26 and deciding whether my family is complete with 2 or whether we'll have more. I always said I wanted 4. I guess we'll see about that. That's twice as many as I have and that seems daunting (did you know according to an intelligence test I took I'm almost a genius in math?)

There you go!

Here are the rules to post on your entry:
1. Leave me a comment saying "Interview me."
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Sleeping Beauty

2007-06-03T22:49:00.000-05:00

Our little sleeping beauty has some sleeping issues. It's been about 2 1/2 years since we started these issues. It involves a lot of bouncing in bed and a lot of singing. Let's start from the beginning.

When Ella was about 18 months old she figured out how much fun it was to bounce in her crib. The mattress was bouncy and it was great. She also started singing around this time. It was mostly just the tune of song, but sung with her own jibberish (and the occasional word stuck in to make sure we knew which song it was). We noticed early on during these bouncing/singing episodes that she has incredible rhythm (I mean, Daddy is a drummer, after all!). So she would sing in time with her bouncing...(imagine a thunking noise with every syllable) Twin-kle twin-kle lit-tle star- How I won-der what you are...

For a while it was cute. Then it started getting a little annoying and finally, 2 1/2 years later, it is driving us to the point of insanity. It has become a habit for her. She does it in her sleep. She'll do it at 3:00 a.m., she'll do it at 6:00 a.m., she'll go for long periods of time if we don't drag our tired butts out of bed to lay her back down and tell her to go back to sleep.

Then there's the fun little fact that her Papa made her a 4-poster bed and every time she bounces it thunks the wall (THUNK-THUNK-THUNK-THUNK...aaaaahhhhhhh!!!). In fact, the thunking noise was so loud that our neighbors can actually hear it in their house. They thought that there was some jerk living on our block that listens to music with really loud bass at all hours of the night...a couple times a night. It was even pondered whether Jer and I were...um...you know...every night...2 or 3 times...ya. What an impression we've given them : ) I think Tara was worried that she'd have to live up to some crazy standard, LOL! Anyway, one night us and Chris and Tara were sitting outside by the fire when we heard this peculiar thunking noise coming from somewhere. Jer listened closely and he's the one that figured it out. We were hearing Ella bouncing in her bed. Chris listens and says "that's the noise I hear all the time!" Crazy! My child isn't only interfering with our sleep, but our neighbors as well. Since then I've moved her bed away from the wall. We've noticed that she'll stop in mid bounce and this is how she sleeps. In the perfect position for her to start bouncing at the slightest whim.
In an effort to stop the insanity, I also took away her naps recently. Well let me tell you...that has been rough. She was still a really good napper. Now, we have a very grumpy, disobedient, defiant, screaming, temper-tantrum throwing, "what-kind-of-parents-does-that-kid-have" kind of little girl. It's SO frustrating. She's not bouncing as much during the night, but I'm not so sure the trade-off was any better! I think I'm more tired now than when I was getting up 2 times a night to tell her to go back to sleep. During the last week, every night she falls asleep while reading her books during her "quiet time." She's so exhausted from not napping and still getting up at 7:00 a.m. to sing that she doesn't stay awake longer than 10 minutes after she gets in bed. This, after waging war with us about how "NOT TIRED" she is. Right! This was her tonight. So peaceful. Such a princess. Hard to be mad or upset about the rest of it. I just hope she outgrows it soon. Her little sister has been sleeping 13 hours through the night for over a year already, but I still get up with my almost 4 year old. Not fair. Oh, well...C'est La Vie!

Renovating!

2007-06-03T10:00:00.000-05:00

It was time to change things up a bit. I was getting bored. So if you come and things look different from one time to the next, you'll have to excuse me. I'm doing a little blog decorating.

My Guestbook

2007-06-03T09:53:00.001-05:00

The Day My House Almost Burned Down

2007-06-01T17:44:00.000-05:00

Okay, well maybe it didn't almost burn down, but I'm so thankful that it was only smoke I came home to and not fire!! That, up above, is the culprit of my very long day. I put a pot of water on the stove this morning to boil my Norwex rag. Because it's such tight microfibre, washing it in the washer doesn't get the bacteria and smell out. So you have to boil it to get it clean and fresh smelling. Well normally I only boil it for 3 or 4 minutes. Today, however it ended up boiling for a little bit longer. Like over an hour.

After I put the pot on to boil I took the girls outside (I was babysitting the neighbor girls) to have a snack and play. Then I got a phone call and was distracted. Then we decided to go for a walk to a garage sale that Esther and Josie were having (as a fundraiser for bringing their new babies home from Africa). We spent a while at the garage sale and when it was time to go I really felt that it would be silly to go the long way home (the way we'd come) so I picked a shortcut. Thank the Lord for that. When we got home I went to put our garage sale bag in the house and when I opened the door, black smoke came billowing out. I freaked. Panicked doesn't really begin to describe what I was feeling. I ran around opening doors and windows after I'd removed the pot from the stove. The smoke had filled every corner of our house. It smelled so bad. I can still smell it. I honestly didn't think I'd get the smell out ever. It permeated.

Thankfully I spent the rest of the day cleaning walls and windows and floors and the front of cabinets and airing out drapery and doing laundry. I say thankfully because I was thankful that I had a house standing to clean. Thankful that our house had been spared. Thankful that I listened to the small voice that told me to take the short cut home and save me 25 minutes on my walk. Thankful that the girls behaved so well while I sorted out the whole mess.

Now I'm exhausted and weary from all the hard work and worry that I went through today. I had such a wonderful evening with a whole bunch of friends and it was such a good end to that day. I think I'll sleep good tonight.

Summer Reading Challenge

2007-06-01T08:37:00.000-05:00

Alexis over at Ramblings from Life is having a summer reading challenge. It's not a contest, it's just to encourage people to read more this summer. It starts today and ends September 3. So this here is my stack of books that I'm going to read this summer. There are 15. I encourage you to join in the fun and make reading something you do more of. If you want to do this, go over to Ramblings from Life and tell her you're joining and then post how many books you are going to read this summer. You don't have to take a picture since most people don't know which books they are going to read. I just happen to have way too many books and I keep buying more. So I need to make a dent in my stack of unread books. Good luck. Let me know if you join.

When I'm Walking

2007-05-31T23:00:00.001-05:00

I went for my usual walk this evening and towards the end I turned the corner and this is what I saw. Coming up over the field and lake was the most beautiful moon. It was big and orange and so beautiful! I wish I'd had my camera to take a picture of it when it was just rising. This picture is about 20 minutes later. It was still gorgeous. It suited my mood.
Sometimes when I go for my walks, I get in this mood. I'm not sure exactly what it is. It's something I never feel when I'm at home or when I'm with other people. It's almost melancholic. In a bittersweet way. I heard this line in a song once about how sometimes we just want to ache. That's how I feel. And I find I crave it. It balances out my usually happy, energetic self. Often a song will trigger it. There are some songs that I just love especially because they have that "feel" to them. You know when you long for something so much that it makes you want to cry? When you can feel something, but it's just out of reach? It's the time I feel the most vulnerable. The time when I just want to bask in the evening air that feels thick with the promise of something. Maybe it's when I feel closest to God. Maybe it's when I'm just me. Not a mom. Not a wife. Just Erin. Stripped bare and letting myself feel. Really feel. I don't hide behind a smile or a joke. I don't make excuses or talk incessantly. I don't have to fill a silence. It's the silence I crave. And a melody to fill my head. And I walk...

**According to Wikipedia it was considered a "blue moon" tonight. Maybe that's why it felt special. Hmmm...

Here I am

2007-05-31T09:25:00.001-05:00

I guess it is kind of strange when I don't blog for almost a week. I figured since I've started getting comments asking where I am, I should post something. Well, I've been busy. Babysitting, gardening, doing projects that I've wanted to do, working on the showhome, working for 9 hours yesterday at Solomon's Porch to help them get ready for their sale starting today. So that's what's been keeping me from my computer. Probably a good thing. I started out not really feeling like I had that much to say right now...that's odd for me : ), but the longer I sat here and left the post on my screen, the more I thought of. So sit down, grab a cup of coffee, maybe a snack and get comfy. It's a long one...

*Yesterday was Ella's preschool graduation. It was very sweet. She's going back to preschool next year, but all the kids participated in the graduation even if they weren't moving onto Kindergarten in fall. They wore little hats with tassels and got a diploma and a goody bag from their teachers. Ella was very excited to give her teachers, Mrs. Falk and
Mrs. Broesky, the cards that we had made and a little gift.
*I've been busy picking flooring for the showhome so that I can start picking the paint colors (which is what's needed next from me). When I brought home the carpet sample, which is really soft, Aidan laid
down on it and said, "nice...puppy...night-night." It was so cute. She thought it looked and felt like a puppy. Love it.

*On the showhome note, I finally got to go walk around the house. I got to see it for the first time, and it is in fact real! There is a house and I'm not just imagining it. The shingles are on and the electrical is roughed in. So the contractor walked me through where all the lights are going to be to give me an idea of what needs to go where. So weird that all these decisions are up to me. I like it!

*I planted the seeds in my garden on Tuesday in between rain. It's been raining for almost 3 weeks I think, maybe it just feels that long. But anyway, I did get my garden in and hopefully it hasn't all drowned and will come up. Right now the dirt (mud) looks and feels a little packed down. I'm not sure how those tiny little seeds are going to poke through it.

*Some of the projects I've completed...this was an ugly looking terracotta colored plastic pot. I was going to buy new ones, but instead I found spray paint (textured!) to match the new pots I just bought. Very happy with the results. There's one of these pots on either side of my door. They should look spectacular once they've grown to full height. Canna lilies in the back, potato vine in the middle and lobelia in the front to hang over the edge. *Then I found a dirty white pot in the garage and remembered that I had enough spray paint left over to paint it and VIOLA...I had another matching pot. (Then I needed to buy more flowers...so I did!)
*Another project I had was to plant flowers in the small strip of dirt between our house and driveway. I put in what I thought was red cosmos (the little thingy that comes with the plants showed RED. Call me crazy, but I thought for some strange reason they'd be red. Weird, I know), but alas, they're a pinkish purple. Oh, well, they're still beautiful.

*When I went to the greenhouse today I got overcome with color envy (my front flowerbed and pots all have white flowers, green foliage and a small bit of redish orange for a very nice effect) so I bought pink and purple and fuschia and orange flowers and stuck them in my garden in the back. Now I can enjoy them without losing the overall aesthetic of my color coordinated front. Man, it's tough being picky with how everything looks together : )

And for some highlights of my day (with more pictures, of course)...

1. (Above) My one tomato plant has...TOMATOES!!! Isn't that great? I counted 5 on it this evening. I tried to circle them in red, but the lines are not very thick, so they are hard to see.

2. The sun was out long enough for one of my FULL SUN plants to bloom. I'm not sure what all my poor sun loving plants in front are thinking (not that I think they think...umm, yeah, anyway) with all this rain and no sun. It's very sad for them. I swear they all grew 2 inches in the 3 hours of sunlight they got this evening. It's supposed to be sunny all weekend. That's so great.

Music From Another Room

2007-05-26T23:33:00.000-05:00

There's this not very well known movie called "Music From Another Room" and it's one of my absolute all time favorite movies. (I guess it doesn't hurt that Jude Law is in it)

Anyway, it's a sweet, somewhat cheesy movie about love and fate and all those great mushy things that are so nice to watch movies about on cold rainy days...we won't mention that I watched it tonight by myself...

There's this line in the movie that I love. It explains the title of the movie. Danny (Jude Law) is sitting at the dinner table with the Swan family. Anna Swan, the girl he's in love with, is sitting across the table from Danny beside her new fiance and her sister Nina (who's blind) is beside Danny at the table and Nina asks Danny what love is like. Danny replies with this wistful voice

"You know how when you're listening to music playing from another room? And you're singing along because it's a tune that you really love? When a door closes or a train passes so you can't hear the music anymore, but you sing along anyway... then, no matter how much time passes, when you hear the music again you're still in exact same time with it. That's what it's like."

Makes my heart melt every time. (Not to mention my most favorite song of all time, which later became "our" song is in it twice...totally came upon that by accident and I was thrilled the first time I saw the movie. Made the movie a sure favorite in my books!)

The ABCs of Me meme:

2007-05-26T20:49:00.000-05:00

I got this meme off of Cherrye's blog. I was rather bored and so I thought I'd do it. Nothing more interesting to say right now, so this is it.

A - Age: 26

B - Band listening to right now: no band

C - Career future: Amazing, Interior designer, mommy

D - Dad's name: Kenneth Isaak

E - Easiest person to talk to: My husband

F - Favorite song: Right now..."Lost" by Michael Buble. It changes with my mood.

G - Gummy Bears or Gummy Worms: worms

H - Hometown: Small town, Manitoba, Canada

I - Instruments: tried flute, guitar and piano...fingers too short for all 3!

J - Job: Mommy, interior decorator, babysitter,

K - Kids: 2 lovely daughters (except this evening they were not so lovely, but that's okay, I know they are lovely deep down inside somewhere)

L - Longest car ride ever: To Mexico, although that was in a bus, so car...to Calgary, Alberta. I think that took 15 hours.

M - Mom's name: Annie

N - Number of people you slept with: Dumb question, that's really not anyone's business, but if I have to, 1...my husband.

O - Optimum time of day to work: Evening

P - Phobia[s]: snakes, worms, touching dirty dishes...maybe that's why I hate doing dishes so vehemently!

Q - Quote: "Laughter is the best medicine. Unless you're really, really sick, then you should call 911"

R - Reason to smile: My 2 usually lovely daughters, my wonderful husband, more friends than I can count, the sky is finally clearing up and perhaps we'll have a sunny day tomorrow, I'm not pregnant...hence the relieved emoticon on the side of my blog : )

S - Song you sang last: "Running Over" (a Sunday School song from when I was a kid) to my little girl before bed.

T - Time you wake up: between 7:30 and 8:00

U - Unknown fact about me: Hmmm, well I can no longer use the human barometer or the sausage making me hiccup, so...um...you know, I'm really quite an open book, not too many unknown things...I'll get back to you on that one.

V - Vegetable you hate: onions. Always have, always will. Except green onions, I like those. Maybe it's the texture, because I don't mind the flavor.

W - Worst habit: Where do I start? I can't stand doing dishes, so they tend to linger around longer than they should. Walking around barefoot (my husband used to call my feet "bushman feet" because they looked so bad...sorry to any bushmen out there, hope I didn't insult you). Blogging too much...okay, I'm going to stop doing this letter before I start feeling really bad about my habits.

X - X-rays you've had: The worst one that stands out in my mind is a barium x-ray when they didn't know what was wrong with me back when I was 13. It turned out that I had Crohn's. Thinking back on that horrible barium stuff, that may have been one of the worst part of those years (okay, maybe not the worst, but pretty darn close...yuck!).

Y - Yummy food: Mexican, Italian, cheesecake, pizza, I'm a pretty big fan of food in general : )

Z - Zodiac sign: Libra, but it means nothing to me.

I'm tagging Andrea and Tara because they've never done a meme before.

So Many Emotions

2007-05-25T08:11:00.000-05:00

Today when I woke up, the first thing I did was check my Facebook because I had some emails about friends requests. Low and behold, one of the first things I see is that one of my friends is engaged to be married. The feelings that went coursing through me were a wide spectrum. So happy. First and foremost, that is the emotion I experienced. The one that followed on it's heels was a tiny bit of sadness. Not for them, but for what in our silliness, I now missed.

You see this friend was my Maid of Honour. My sister I never had. My bestest friend in the whole wide world. As I'm writing this I have tears streaming down my face. I loved her more than just about anyone in the entire world, except my family. I remember thinking that I couldn't wait until it was her turn to get married and I could be with her enjoying all the fun and excitement that comes with being a bride. Then somewhere along the way, in our immaturity, we stopped talking. Stopped being sisters. I used to sit and think about the fact that I would probably never talk to her again and never see her get married and have kids. That we would never be old and sitting on our front porches being gossipy old bitties like we thought.

The very happy part is, now I am able to be happy for her that she is getting married to the man of her dreams. That I can wish her happiness in person. I'm just sad that I forfeited my right to get the phonecall and be her giggling friend. That I found out after all the other people on the internet and checking out blogs. It's bittersweet.

Lindsay, on this day, I want to wish you all the happiness in the world. That God would bless you and Geoff and all that comes your way. That you would find so much joy and love. That as you walk together on this journey, your love and God will hold you two close. I'm so excited for you guys and wish you were here so I could hug you. I'm sending you hugs until I can! I love you and I already feel Geoff is a friend because he is part of you. Hopefully one day soon I can be his friend for real, as well. Congratulations again.

***Note: Just so you all know, this post is in no way about ME. I would never want anyone to think I was trying to take away from her joy. I truly feel blessed that I'm back in her life, that we're on friendly, talking terms again. It's been a long journey to get back to this. Hopefully one day we can get back to something like what we were before.

My Celebrity Look-alikes

2007-05-23T13:44:00.001-05:00

This is quite funny! Louise tried this and since she had a Keith Urban look alike I HAD to see who mine were.

http://www.myheritage.com

More gardening and food

2007-05-21T21:53:00.000-05:00

Today was another successful day despite the forecasted weather. Even though it was rather on the windy side, we were able to get done all that was on the agenda (except maybe Jer getting to any siding on the garage). Okay maybe I should say we completed what was on MY agenda. Saturday we got that wonderful flower bed in front done. And today we were able to dig out and get ready my vegetable garden. I'm going to grow VEGETABLES! Maybe...we'll see if they decide to grow or not :) Maybe if I go out there and talk to them. I could set up my lawn chair beside them and drink iced tea and tell them how wonderful I think they are...they call me the crazy lady around here for lots of reasons...

The morning started off with me deciding that as it was cloudy and windy I'd like to cook breakfast for 10 people (I'm nuts, I know). I called an impromptu brunch party with Tara and her family and Andrea, who was without family for the morning. They contributed and we had a roaring good time. By then the weather had cleared considerably and off we (Jer and I) went to pull up sod (I must add that I actually relaid sod in another area, quite meticulously, I might add. I know, I know, I'm a jack of all trades!). Then later in the afternoon Andrea comes sauntering over and asks if hotdogs are okay for supper. Sweet, another potluck - although we didn't end up having hotdogs, we had sausage burgers instead. Just as good, still not cooking! So out of 8 meals this weekend, we all shared 4 of them. That's a pretty good run. I figured we should set up a colony. I mean, we eat together, we garden together, we play together...it's pretty darn close to a colony. We decided a good name for our colony would be the Cortieben Colony (for those of you who don't know us, that's a combination of all three of our last names, brilliant, I know). (BTW, this picture of our supper is taken from Andrea's blog, I kinda stole it, hope that's okay, Andrea! Now nice bloggy people, go read hers and Tara's posts and comment)

Anyway, after supper I got my tomatoes, peppers (1 green, 2 yellow and 2 red), rhubarb, cilantro and 2 popcorn plants in the garden. My mom is supposed to be coming to help me tomorrow to plant all the seeds (carrots, chives, beans, peas, lettuce, spinach, cantaloupe and broccoli...for never having planted a garden I'm feeling rather ambitious and slightly nervous that I'm going to have a massive crop failure), but it's supposed to rain. Maybe there'll be some hours that it won't and we can get it all in before it does rain and it'll save me some watering!

Garden(ing) Party

2007-05-19T21:32:00.000-05:00

Today we spent a lovely day outside creating our beautiful flower bed in the front of our deck. The day actually got nicer the longer we were outside. It was absolutely frigid when we started, but then the clouds cleared and the wind died down (or changed direction). It didn't matter how cold it was, we still had fun. Chris and Tara put their flower bed in as well and we had quite the time out there. The guys goofing off, the girls being bossy. Then my mom showed up and took control and everything went a lot better then (Drill Sergeant Granny!).

Jer and I had one little incident at the outset. I decided to go to the greenhouse and before I got in the car I told him not to put ANY stone in without me. I wanted to be there for the actual laying of stone. I had an idea in my head and I wanted to be sure it was done right (not that he wouldn't do a good job!). So I came back 1 1/2 hours later and what has dh done? You got it, started laying stone. I go and inspect and realize that he's put the stone much too close to the deck, not realizing that my shrubs would grow to be almost as big as the width he'd laid. I had a row of flowers I wanted to plant in front of the shrubs and he'd left no room for that. The first thing out of Chris's mouth is, "I told you man, you should have listened to me...I knew it would be too narrow and she'd say something!" Funny! Jer didn't think he should have to move it, out of pride or actual perception, I don't know, but I stuck to my guns and in the end got my way.

So, by supper time, both ours and Chris and Tara's beds were planted and watered and looking lovely. I even saw a couple of people who were driving by, slow down to take a second look. So here for your enjoyment are some pictures of the day! (I'm, of course, not in any of the pictures and I was the one taking them. Jer actually said to me at one point, "Stop thinking about your blog and get to work!" Hee, hee...)

I must add, after all gardening was said and done, Chris and Tara and Sergeant Granny came over to our house for a great meal. I have so much apple crisp left over, so if anyone wants some, here, dig in...

Die Hards!

2007-05-18T20:45:00.000-05:00

You know you're a die hard Manitoban when you plan a fire/marshmallow roast and not even 60 km/hr winds and ice cold fingers will stop you. This here is me windblown eating a burnt marshmallow...

Ella roasting her own marshmallow...very important!

The whole crew, both sets of wonderful neighbors...that's Tara with the grey sweater and Andrea is taking the picture. What fun we all have together!

And this is my dh. Need I say anything? Didn't think so! Gotta love him...

Foto Friday

2007-05-18T08:04:00.001-05:00

Even though I don't participate in Foto Friday, I'm going to call this post that. On Wednesday night I saw this tree in the back of my parents
yard. It's kind of hidden in a spot that we never go (they have a 10 acre yard, so it's not hard to miss things). The sun was shining on it through the trees and it was so beautiful. I was wishing at that moment that I had my camera and my girls were dressed in something other than dirty play clothes. I told my mom that if I could make it, I'd bring the girls back the next day to take some pictures of them. She then proceeded to inform me that there was going to be 60km an hour winds the next day and as the blossoms on the tree were in full bloom and starting to fall already, there probably wouldn't be any blossoms left on the tree by that time. I was very sad. I did offer up a little request to God that he save the tree for me, but oh, well, maybe next year.

I got to my parents yesterday evening and there, in the midst of the windy day, was this tree, standing perfectly still. It struck me how all the trees around it were dancing in the wind and this one was just standing there not moving. All the blossoms were still on it. It was positioned in just the right spot that the wind was not touching it. I was so excited I wanted to cry. I had
dressed the girls in their new outfits and brought my camera just in case. So here are the pictures that I took.

Funny little quirk

2007-05-17T16:17:00.000-05:00

I have this slight oddity about me that I can predict rain. Let me explain...

When the humidity rises in the air, my hands, feet and ankles start dripping, literally! So this morning I was rather confused when I was all uncomfortable and sweating and the forecast on the internet said sunny for the next 5 days. My feet are never wrong! Well, it's been getting worse all day, I know it's hot, but it's a different kind of sweaty when it's humid.

So I went just now to check the forecast again. Sure enough, tonight 30% chance of rain, tomorrow 60% chance and risk of thunderstorms both tonight and tomorrow. HA!!! Now sometimes I feel like this and it doesn't rain where we live, but it does rains nearby. Sometimes, and by far the worst, is when it feels like this and the rain doesn't come; when it sits brewing in the heavens and it just won't rain. I'm the most miserable person (physically). I have to wear capris and not pants or else the hem of my pants are sopping wet and I can't touch anything because my hands are all wet. It's so gross and somewhat embarrassing. You can call me the human barometer. Someone even jokingly told me they were going to call me when they were planning to go golfing : )

So that's my strange little quirk. Well, one of them. Did I mention sausage makes me hiccup?

***UPDATE: Sweating let up a couple of hours ago, so chances are something by-passed us close, but the sweating will start up again once a system is close to us again. That's the joy of this sucky quirk!

An Answer To Prayer!

2007-05-17T07:50:00.000-05:00

Can anyone guess what that is? THAT is my answer to my prayer! The fact that there was someone out there with extra stone, who didn't need it and offered it to us is a blessing. Even if it's not exactly enough to do everything I want to do, it's enough to do something. That, my friends, is more than nothing, which is where I was when I started this journey to stone. I don't believe this is coincidence! I believe that even as God cares for the big things in our lives, He also cares for the small things.

Even in the small things...

2007-05-15T12:03:00.000-05:00

Ever since Jer and I had a major discussion about our finances, credit cards, and I cut myself off of pretty much all spending, I've had to give everything to God. Trust that he'll provide for EVERYTHING! I realized that I had been trusting for needs, but not wants (not even all the needs). That's a big one. We assume that just because we want something we shouldn't ask God to provide for it. I think that's a bunch of baloney!

Case in point...I wanted flowers, shrubs and a small vegetable garden. I have a yard now and I wanted to landscape. So I told that to my Heavenly Father. "We don't have extra money for this, but I trust that you know all our desires and can make a way for this!"

This weekend was our anniversary and Mother's Day. Low and behold, everyone got me flowers, shrubs and gift certificates for greenhouses. Need I say more? So now I have most of the things I WANTED for our yard. I still want some nice stones to build up a raised vegetable garden and a couple trees for the back, but I'm not too worried. I've offered it up to God and now I'm just waiting. He will provide.

The most blessed mom ever!

2007-05-13T09:26:00.000-05:00

Yes, that most blessed of mom's is me. And these 2 little princesses are the reason. They fill my life with joy, laughter, tears, and prayers. It's true, there are often bad days, or days I wish I could do over, but usually it's because of ME that I want to do it over (don't get me wrong, sometimes it IS them). They stretch me and grow me, love me unconditionally no matter how horrible of a mom I was that day, they giggle with me and hug me, give me wet, shnotty kisses and make me very proud of these 2 beautiful creations that God has given me. I love when Ella gets this soft little look on her face and cups my face between her small hands and says "I love you, mommy". I love when Aidan trips over her feet trying to get to me as fast as she can when I've been gone. I love watching them sleep and watching play. I wish the years would slow down a bit, so that I can catch my breath and enjoy the moment.

This morning they gathered in the bathroom with daddy, giggling. Then Ella came out to tell me they had a secret. Ella and Aidan were both holding one handle of a gift bag and they gave me the sweetest gift. It's a hanging ornament of a mother (an angel, but aren't we all?) holding her daughter on a swing. The emotions that came bubbling to the surface when I first saw it are hard to describe. It's so beautiful. I'm going to hang it in a place of honor on my front porch. Love lives here!

Introducing My Neighbors!

2007-05-13T08:59:00.000-05:00

I have the great pleasure of introducing my two sweet neighbors to all of you (one on either side of us) who have become fellow bloggers. I take all the credit for this (just kidding). So without further ado, please join me in welcoming Andrea and Tara, two of the sweetest women I know and lucky me, I get them as my neighbors! Now go say hi, go!

This Is Why I'm Hot!

2007-05-13T00:51:00.000-05:00

***I took the song off now, if you want to hear it go to my player up at the top and find it on the list to listen to it ("This is Why I'm Hot by MIMS")...I still maintain...this is why I'm hot...

Sorry for the obnoxious song playing, it's 1 a.m. and I just couldn't wait to put it on my blog! I heard it tonight when we were out for supper with Chris and Tara and it kind of grew on me. In fact, the joke is that this is now my new pre-walk song (I go for a walk/jog every night). I'm going to crank it up with wicked, pimpin' bass and then I'm going to come bustin' out of my house all cool in my gangsta outfit and do my stretches on the front porch while Cobblestone watches, envious of how hot I am hee, hee. I'm busting a gut just thinking of how ridiculous it all sounds. They dared me to do it. If I do, I promise I'll get some one to video tape so that I can post it on here!

Six years ago today...

2007-05-11T15:39:00.000-05:00

I married my best friend. I absolutely love the pictures that our photographer Joel Ross took (and he took a lot!) so I thought I'd share some of them with you...(click on them to see them in a bigger size)

I'm Getting Dizzy!

2007-05-10T22:54:00.000-05:00

I spent about an hour in the flooring department yesterday (with a very chatty, somewhat annoying flooring dude) trying to make heads or tails of the choices before me. I must say the selection is endless. Where do you start? Where do you stop? How should the house feel? What image am I trying to portray? Goodness! It's overwhelming. I must say, just like in fashion, there are so many designs that should never be let onto the market so that people can actually choose them. It's disturbing how awful some of the flooring choices are out there. Take the choice away and save people from horrid design!!

Not to mention the endless hours I've spent pouring over websites, magazines, more websites. I was up till 11:45 last night, laying in bed thinking, pondering, mulling...designing...I'm not getting paid enough for my lack of sleep. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying this thoroughly! I'm in my element...Interior Elements...by Erin...hee, hee. I tend to do my best work in the middle of the night, in my dreams or in the hour(s) before I actually fall asleep, when I'm processing all I've thought about during the day.

I've also realized I have very expensive taste...well, I knew that, but it hit home again. If I can only have $3.49/sq ft in the budget, likely I'll pick something that is $7.00 just to make myself miserable. WHY??? At least my sleepless nights have helped me figure out where the money should be spent and where I can save it (kind of...more money would always be helpful!).

Well, it's that time again, time to sleep (or should I say design).

Showhome Project Update

2007-05-07T14:42:00.000-05:00

Just thought I'd keep everyone posted with how the Showhome project is going. I've picked all the exterior selections and we just have to confirm the stone. It's going to look pretty hot!!!

The cabinetmaker just dropped off all these goodies...
so that I can pick the cabinets, hardware, and countertop. YIPEEE!!!! This exciting stuff. I'm going this week (with my cabinet samples) to pick out the hardwoods, carpet, linoleum and tile. Then later this week the contractor is taking me on a walk-through of the house so that I can see the lighting plan and then perhaps next week I can go to Robinson Lighting and get started on picking lighting.

I was very excited when the contractor called me this weekend to confirm something. This is really happening. I'm the one he's referring to when he has a question regarding what's going into the house, I'm being taken totally seriously. It's so fabulous that I can make decisions and someone's going to do it. Now I just need some awesome inspiration so that I can make this the best house ever!