Wow, I just had a serious paranoid/conspiracy theory moment. I was listening to the CBC news and they are running a story about some research that "proves" that women who drink even a glass of any type of alcohol a day are at higher risk for breast cancer. For just a moment I thought that I might have been transported to a dystopian world a la Handmaids Tale. It just seems fishy to me, you know? How long till we hear some research saying that women who work out of the home have a higher risk of breast cancer? Or women who drive cars have a higher risk of cancer....It would be easy enough to take advantage of our pathological fear of breast cancer, wouldn't it?
And then I came to my senses. That'll never happen, right?
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Rude people
I'm getting awfully tired of rude people. Today I went to the big Fabricland in Regina to buy everything I need for Mary's halloween costume. I had to drag Mary and Frances with me, so I had no hands, as one was holding the end of Mary's leash, and the other was holding on to the car seat containing my giant, extremely heavy baby. I got no assistance from the women who worked there, one even turned away from me when I started to ask for help finding what I needed. I was horrified and close to tears when I finally dragged everyone out of there. I'm not sure what I'm going to do now, it's the only fabric store in the city and I'm not going back, and Walmart doesn't have any fake fur. I guess I'll have to buy a costume ready made for her...or maybe I can look at the fabric stores in Edmonton this weekend and pick up what I need there.
We inherited a little fishbowl from my step-brother, D, last week. He accidentally dumped his fish down the drain while cleaning out the bowl, and was so devastated that he couldn't even imagine getting a new fish. While we were in the city today I picked up a couple of 39 cent goldfish to put in there, and Mary has already fallen in love. She calls the fish Nemo, and Nemo's Daddy. They are orange and white goldfish, and one is bigger than the other, so I suppose they do look like Nemo and his dad. Hopefully I won't kill them too quickly, although we are going away this weekend, and I have my doubts they will survive. I'm going to ask the little girl across the way to pop by from time to time to give them a little food, and hopefully that will keep them alive.
I had tea with my neighbours, Teenie and Floyd yesterday. They are a very nice, very old couple who have lived in Milestone for decades. They met when Floyd was sent to Edmonton with the air force during WW2 for training, fell in love and have been together ever since. They have 4 kids, 9 grandkids and a multitude of great-grandchildren. I wonder how many couples will have been together for as long as those two have in fifty years. Marriages don't seem to last like that any more, and it kind of makes me sad. Anyways, Mary had a wonderful time playing with toys that have seen more than 13 children over the last 50 years, and left calling Teenie Grandma. We have an open invitation to pop by any time for tea.
We also met a few more of our neighbours, and everyone seems very nice. The lady across the way is on the town council and involved in the towns dinner theatre. Apparently the town is quite well known for their dinner theatre, and they are always searching for new blood. She asked us if we curled (no, but I'd like to learn) or were interested in Drama at all, and was thrilled to hear that we were. While I doubt I will read for a part, I doubt I'm good enough, I would love to help out back stage or something. Anything to get me out of the house and involved in the community is good to me.
I took Mary to her preschool on Monday, and no one showed up. I assumed that the teacher had called in sick, and no one let me know because it was our first day and we aren't registered yet. I was pretty damned disappointed though, and so was Mary. We tried again today, and once again no one showed. So, we walked home and I called the lady in charge of the whole thing, and asked what was up. I honestly thought that I had read something wrong, or misheard, and was showing up at the wrong time. Well, it turns out that the teacher is currently being tested for West Nile, and preschool is postponed indefinitely. yikes. Anyways, they have our phone number now, so when things start up again they'll give us a call. Good thing Mary has the fish to distract her, I hyped up going to school so much that it's all she talked about till we got them.
We inherited a little fishbowl from my step-brother, D, last week. He accidentally dumped his fish down the drain while cleaning out the bowl, and was so devastated that he couldn't even imagine getting a new fish. While we were in the city today I picked up a couple of 39 cent goldfish to put in there, and Mary has already fallen in love. She calls the fish Nemo, and Nemo's Daddy. They are orange and white goldfish, and one is bigger than the other, so I suppose they do look like Nemo and his dad. Hopefully I won't kill them too quickly, although we are going away this weekend, and I have my doubts they will survive. I'm going to ask the little girl across the way to pop by from time to time to give them a little food, and hopefully that will keep them alive.
I had tea with my neighbours, Teenie and Floyd yesterday. They are a very nice, very old couple who have lived in Milestone for decades. They met when Floyd was sent to Edmonton with the air force during WW2 for training, fell in love and have been together ever since. They have 4 kids, 9 grandkids and a multitude of great-grandchildren. I wonder how many couples will have been together for as long as those two have in fifty years. Marriages don't seem to last like that any more, and it kind of makes me sad. Anyways, Mary had a wonderful time playing with toys that have seen more than 13 children over the last 50 years, and left calling Teenie Grandma. We have an open invitation to pop by any time for tea.
We also met a few more of our neighbours, and everyone seems very nice. The lady across the way is on the town council and involved in the towns dinner theatre. Apparently the town is quite well known for their dinner theatre, and they are always searching for new blood. She asked us if we curled (no, but I'd like to learn) or were interested in Drama at all, and was thrilled to hear that we were. While I doubt I will read for a part, I doubt I'm good enough, I would love to help out back stage or something. Anything to get me out of the house and involved in the community is good to me.
I took Mary to her preschool on Monday, and no one showed up. I assumed that the teacher had called in sick, and no one let me know because it was our first day and we aren't registered yet. I was pretty damned disappointed though, and so was Mary. We tried again today, and once again no one showed. So, we walked home and I called the lady in charge of the whole thing, and asked what was up. I honestly thought that I had read something wrong, or misheard, and was showing up at the wrong time. Well, it turns out that the teacher is currently being tested for West Nile, and preschool is postponed indefinitely. yikes. Anyways, they have our phone number now, so when things start up again they'll give us a call. Good thing Mary has the fish to distract her, I hyped up going to school so much that it's all she talked about till we got them.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Why I'm Starving
I'm famished right now, seriously. There are over a dozen big, beautiful, extremely tasty sugar cookies that I spent all day sunday baking up in my kitchen, but because they are worth 4 points (!) each, I can't eat them. Yes, I am counting points, I joined the cult called Weight Watchers. Last week I went to the doctor, mainly because my tailbone still hurts from my spill down the stairs back in April. The doctors advice was that I likely broke my tailbone, but there is nothing to be done, so I should get a cushion. I then mentioned the fact that I am fat, and she agreed. She said that there are drugs out there that she could prescribe, but they are very costly and don't really work. She weighed me, arranged for every type of blood test known to man, and told me to join Weight Watchers and come back to see her in two weeks. I really quite like her, and while the easy fix would be nice, if she had just written me a prescription and walked away, I don't know if I would have been happy. She seems genuinely concerned about me, and wants to help me loose the weight and be as healthy as possible.
After my first WW meeting yesterday, I hit WalMart before getting on the highway to come home. I needed to pick up some oil so Ian can muck around with the van, and I needed formula for the not-so-wee baby. As I was loading cases of formula into the cart, a real granola muncher wandered by with her baby, and came to a dead stop when she saw me. She proceeded to stand there as I grabbed the formula, shaking her head and clucking her tongue disapprovingly, all the while frowning angrily in my direction. At first I thought it was something else, after all, people can't seriously be that rude, right? But then, as I was walking past, she actually leaned forward to her baby, safely ensconced in it's incredibly expensive Eddie Bauer car seat, and stage whispered something about people feeding their babies poison, and only irresponsible mothers would consider not breast feeding. I was so stunned and angry, I was at a loss for words, and I just kept walking. I bumped into her in the craft aisle and she just sighed, looked into my cart again, and shook her head sadly. It took all my will power not to punch her in the nose. Which is why I am going to fail at this weight watchers thing, I've got no willpower left.
Anyways, while in the craft section at WalMart I picked up a pattern for a halloween costume. I bought a new sewing machine a few weeks, and I'm just itching to use it, so...we'll see how it goes. I'm not an experienced sewer, and this pattern seems a little tough, but I'm determined to try it out. Hopefully I won't end up having to take Mary out without a costume because I didn't get this one done. Here's a picture of the costume, I found a site where you can purchase the costumes for only $70 (no thanks).
After my first WW meeting yesterday, I hit WalMart before getting on the highway to come home. I needed to pick up some oil so Ian can muck around with the van, and I needed formula for the not-so-wee baby. As I was loading cases of formula into the cart, a real granola muncher wandered by with her baby, and came to a dead stop when she saw me. She proceeded to stand there as I grabbed the formula, shaking her head and clucking her tongue disapprovingly, all the while frowning angrily in my direction. At first I thought it was something else, after all, people can't seriously be that rude, right? But then, as I was walking past, she actually leaned forward to her baby, safely ensconced in it's incredibly expensive Eddie Bauer car seat, and stage whispered something about people feeding their babies poison, and only irresponsible mothers would consider not breast feeding. I was so stunned and angry, I was at a loss for words, and I just kept walking. I bumped into her in the craft aisle and she just sighed, looked into my cart again, and shook her head sadly. It took all my will power not to punch her in the nose. Which is why I am going to fail at this weight watchers thing, I've got no willpower left.
Anyways, while in the craft section at WalMart I picked up a pattern for a halloween costume. I bought a new sewing machine a few weeks, and I'm just itching to use it, so...we'll see how it goes. I'm not an experienced sewer, and this pattern seems a little tough, but I'm determined to try it out. Hopefully I won't end up having to take Mary out without a costume because I didn't get this one done. Here's a picture of the costume, I found a site where you can purchase the costumes for only $70 (no thanks).
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Epic
My giant baby had a diaper blow-out of epic proportions yesterday. I'm not exaggerating when I say there was poo from her nipples to her ankles, and it was not pleasant to clean up. Mary's running commentary was one of the things that made it slightly more tolerable..."Oh yuck! Baby poopy! Lots of poop! Poop on baby's jammies, baby's yellow jammies. Mummy wiping poop now. Wiping baby's belly. Frances poopy Mummy!" She talked about the poo for hours, and would get right in my face till I responded. There was a time I was concerned that she wasn't talking enough, and while she still isn't as advanced speech wise as some peoples children (V and Goody come to mind) I have no concerns about that any more.
This morning at about 3:30 Mary woke up and came running sobbing into our bedroom. I pulled her up into bed beside me and she immediately snuggled up saying "I want Mummy's bed now." I was more than happy to let her snuggle between Ian and I, in spite of the pointy elbows, knees, fingers and feet that fidgit and jab while she cuddles. I drew the line at the grinding of teeth though. There are many things on the "things that annoy Jennifer" list, and grinding teeth is very close to the top.
I baked sugar cookies this morning and they turned out pretty good. I burned the first batch (still getting used to the fancy new oven) but subsequent batches turned out much better. My next project is going to be to take on Goody's graham cracker recipe. Store bought graham wafers are the only cookies Mary gets on a regular basis, and wouldn't it be great to make my own instead of buying them in boxes?
Oh, by the way Lady Myke, I would be happy to get any advice in regards to potty training you might have. In fact, I'll take anyones advice on the matter. I may not follow it, but I'll be happy to hear it. To be honest, I think the major obstacle in the whole thing is me, I just don't feel like I have the time to sit Mary on the potty every hour till she catches on when I have Frances demanding so much of my time and energy.
Anyways, here are a couple of pictures of Mary's room. It's all done now, the new furniture in place, the pictures on the wall. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. The pictures on her walls that you can see by the bed and dresser were actually my mothers, and they hung on the walls of her nursery when she was a baby almost 50 years ago. :)
This morning at about 3:30 Mary woke up and came running sobbing into our bedroom. I pulled her up into bed beside me and she immediately snuggled up saying "I want Mummy's bed now." I was more than happy to let her snuggle between Ian and I, in spite of the pointy elbows, knees, fingers and feet that fidgit and jab while she cuddles. I drew the line at the grinding of teeth though. There are many things on the "things that annoy Jennifer" list, and grinding teeth is very close to the top.
I baked sugar cookies this morning and they turned out pretty good. I burned the first batch (still getting used to the fancy new oven) but subsequent batches turned out much better. My next project is going to be to take on Goody's graham cracker recipe. Store bought graham wafers are the only cookies Mary gets on a regular basis, and wouldn't it be great to make my own instead of buying them in boxes?
Oh, by the way Lady Myke, I would be happy to get any advice in regards to potty training you might have. In fact, I'll take anyones advice on the matter. I may not follow it, but I'll be happy to hear it. To be honest, I think the major obstacle in the whole thing is me, I just don't feel like I have the time to sit Mary on the potty every hour till she catches on when I have Frances demanding so much of my time and energy.
Anyways, here are a couple of pictures of Mary's room. It's all done now, the new furniture in place, the pictures on the wall. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. The pictures on her walls that you can see by the bed and dresser were actually my mothers, and they hung on the walls of her nursery when she was a baby almost 50 years ago. :)
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Back online
Hello everyone (if there is anyone still out there, of course),
It was a long and painful time without internet access, but this morning the people from Sasktel managed to take the time out of their busy schedules to push the button that they needed to push to enable us to get back on the web. I still cannot fathom why it took them a month to find the time to push that button, but oh well.
We are settling in well here in Milestone. It's a little harder for me, I think, as I am at home every day with the girls and I'm getting pretty lonely. Hopefully being online again will help combat that feeling of absolute isolation that comes with living in a small town and not knowing anyone at all.
Small town living is really quite nice, though it's not as easy to meet people as one might think. The people my age who live here have known each other all their lives, and it's hard to break in to a community like that. Last night I went to a pre-school meeting and met several other mothers of young children. While they were all really nice, I still felt a little lost and lonely, and left without really having made any friends. I think that I am going to try Mary in the preschool next week and see how she does though, so I'm glad I went to the meeting. Anyways, the town is nice, people are friendly enough, and I love being able to walk from one end of the town to the other without a whole lot of effort. Oh, and yesterday, someone left two pumpkins just sitting on my front step.
Frances and Mary are doing well enough. Frances is much more civil these days, and she seems to spend more time smiling than screaming now, thank God. Mary's skin is a mess once again, and we took her to a natropath and a dermatologist in the last month. The natropath gave us a bunch of suppliments (fish oils, magnesium) as well as a recipe for home made moisturizer (grape seed oil, vitamin E and oregano oil), which I have been using religiously. The dermatologist doesn't think that it is allergies, and prescribed a cream that is unfortunately not covered by the provincial drug plan because it is relatively new. It's going to cost us $85 every 2 weeks, but we are applying for Exception Drug Status, so hopefully the province will refund some of that. I gave her the first treatment of it today and already her skin feels softer. Mary is still resisting potty training, sigh, but I have hope. Today she ripped off her diaper after pooping copiously in it, sat on the potty (doing nothing, but commenting to me when I wandered by and spotted her sitting there pantless "I made water in it!") and then asked me to get her a new diaper. It was a bit of a panicky search through the house for the poopy diaper, but she had already put it in the garbage. Sometimes she's such a good girl...
We are all making the trek up to Edmonton next weekend, and I couldn't be more excited. We are staying at the Howard Johnson hotel, which has a swimming pool, and we are going to see people! I hope. Anyways, it's going to be so fun, I can't wait. My only concern is that I'm going to bawl like a baby when it's time to leave. I miss Edmonton so much, not just the people, although of course that's a big part, but the city itself. I can't watch the Edmonton TV stations (we get them all with sattelite, but funnily enough we only get one Regina station) without getting weepy. I sometimes wonder if we didn't make a huge mistake moving away...but then I remember we are debt free and I feel a bit better.
It was a long and painful time without internet access, but this morning the people from Sasktel managed to take the time out of their busy schedules to push the button that they needed to push to enable us to get back on the web. I still cannot fathom why it took them a month to find the time to push that button, but oh well.
We are settling in well here in Milestone. It's a little harder for me, I think, as I am at home every day with the girls and I'm getting pretty lonely. Hopefully being online again will help combat that feeling of absolute isolation that comes with living in a small town and not knowing anyone at all.
Small town living is really quite nice, though it's not as easy to meet people as one might think. The people my age who live here have known each other all their lives, and it's hard to break in to a community like that. Last night I went to a pre-school meeting and met several other mothers of young children. While they were all really nice, I still felt a little lost and lonely, and left without really having made any friends. I think that I am going to try Mary in the preschool next week and see how she does though, so I'm glad I went to the meeting. Anyways, the town is nice, people are friendly enough, and I love being able to walk from one end of the town to the other without a whole lot of effort. Oh, and yesterday, someone left two pumpkins just sitting on my front step.
Frances and Mary are doing well enough. Frances is much more civil these days, and she seems to spend more time smiling than screaming now, thank God. Mary's skin is a mess once again, and we took her to a natropath and a dermatologist in the last month. The natropath gave us a bunch of suppliments (fish oils, magnesium) as well as a recipe for home made moisturizer (grape seed oil, vitamin E and oregano oil), which I have been using religiously. The dermatologist doesn't think that it is allergies, and prescribed a cream that is unfortunately not covered by the provincial drug plan because it is relatively new. It's going to cost us $85 every 2 weeks, but we are applying for Exception Drug Status, so hopefully the province will refund some of that. I gave her the first treatment of it today and already her skin feels softer. Mary is still resisting potty training, sigh, but I have hope. Today she ripped off her diaper after pooping copiously in it, sat on the potty (doing nothing, but commenting to me when I wandered by and spotted her sitting there pantless "I made water in it!") and then asked me to get her a new diaper. It was a bit of a panicky search through the house for the poopy diaper, but she had already put it in the garbage. Sometimes she's such a good girl...
We are all making the trek up to Edmonton next weekend, and I couldn't be more excited. We are staying at the Howard Johnson hotel, which has a swimming pool, and we are going to see people! I hope. Anyways, it's going to be so fun, I can't wait. My only concern is that I'm going to bawl like a baby when it's time to leave. I miss Edmonton so much, not just the people, although of course that's a big part, but the city itself. I can't watch the Edmonton TV stations (we get them all with sattelite, but funnily enough we only get one Regina station) without getting weepy. I sometimes wonder if we didn't make a huge mistake moving away...but then I remember we are debt free and I feel a bit better.
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