What? Huh? Are you telling me it's actually been 2 weeks since I posted here? Huh. Go figure.
I've been busy! It's kind of amazing, really, but I have been really busy, and actually getting out of the house, sometimes even without children! The play is really keeping me hopping, and I love it. I've met some very cool people (yes, there is such a thing as cool people, even in rural Saskatchewan) through the dinner theatre, and I really enjoy socializing with them as well as working on the play. Just this Saturday we had a drama workshop which was fantastic. Carrie from Free My Muse Theatre in Yorkton came out and spent the whole day with us. It was long, and by time I got home I was exhausted, but it was really fun. We worked on our production a little bit, but much of what we did was vocalization and improv. Carrie was fabulous, and at the end of the day she made me a little weepy. It also brought those of us who were able to make it a lot closer together.
Mary is still skating, and doing amazingly well! It's like she decided that with a new year comes new skills (did she level up? It's entirely possible) and she skates like a champ now. The rink is another place to get out and socialize for me, and for Mary too. We often stay a little while after her lesson so she can run around like a maniac with the other kids, and I can drink some tea and chat with my friends (I have friends!).
Back to the theatre group...we rehearse three times a week, and it's really nice to get out. I've brought Mary and Frances to a couple of our Sunday rehearsals when Ian is working, and everyone is very supportive and helpful with the girls. It doesn't help much that Frances hates people, of course, but we manage. Speaking of Frances, I just can't get over how very different she is from Mary. At this age Mary loved everyone, and was more than happy to abandon Ian and I just to socialize with a random stranger on the street. Frances however shrieks if anyone strange even looks at her, and unfortunately her opinion of strange includes my poor father and occasionally Ian. I suppose it has a lot to do with our lives when they were young. We started taking Mary to Boston Pizza every Thursday night when she was 4 weeks old, so she got used to being passed around from person to person at a young age. Frances is a real Mummy's girl though, and she isn't really happy unless I'm holding her, or at least within sight of her.
The weather here has been brutal. Living a block away from the bald prairie does not make life easy. The other day we had a wind chill warning and that wind just whips up our street. It was minus 45 at one point. Brrr.
Anyways, that's it for an update...I'm keeping busy, making friends and getting happier. I still miss Edmonton, but it's not on my mind as much lately. It helps that I know when my next trip to visit will be and I have something to look forward too. For those of you who read this and have responded to my post about my visit, I'll get back to you, I promise, I'm just having some email issues right now.
Bye!
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Bandwagon Jumping
I hate all the hooplah around New Years and I especially hate new years resolutions. This year, however, I decided that there was no time like now to make a decision about my life. So my resolution for 2008 is to stop being a consumer. I can't stop all together, but I can give it a good try. Really, I decided it for totally selfish reasons - if we stop spending all our money on absolute crap then we can save it for things that are really important to us. Then I saw "The Story of Stuff," and I realized that there was more to this non-consumer thing than I had realized at first. I was absolutely outraged and poor Ian has had to listen to me ranting about "planned obsolescence" and "perceived obsolescence" on a near constant basis for the last couple of days (when I heard that Warner Brothers will no longer release DVD's, only Blue Ray....well....It's fair to say I was frothing at the mouth about it). So today, I put this up on my fridge -
It's a start, right?
Then last night we watched a documentary on CBC called "WalMart Nation," and I was absolutely sickened. Oh yeah, I've always known that WalMart was bad news, but I ignored it. I shop at that store all the time....How can I not....Formula for Frances is TEN dollars cheaper at "The Mart" than anywhere else. Ditto for diapers, and cat food, and kitty litter. No one can compete price wise. I pondered my dilemma all night and at about 3:30 (after Mary woke us up and before Frances woke us up) I came to a conclusion. If I don't buy that plush hot pink hippo at Walmart that sings and wiggles it's ears when you push it's foot, well, maybe I can afford to pay a little more for formula. If I don't go to Walmart and drop $300 on God only knows what crap, I can afford a bit more for diapers and cat food. We were actually planning on buying Ian's glasses (God, he's getting old the poor thing) at Walmart, but we have changed our minds. We are going to do our best to boycot that awful place.
On to other topics. Do you know how fun it is to have a three year old with (as the doctor put it) severely infected tonsils and a very bad ear infection? Can you guess how much more fun it is when you have a 7 month old baby with diarrhea. This is my life right now, although the diarrhea seems to be abating (thank Christ!). Poor Mary is absolutely miserable and in pain, and poor Ian is freaking out. His tonsils nearly killed him when he was about 24, and he wants to rip Mary's out tomorrow to avoid her going through the same. We also have a referral to a Speech and Language Pathologist for Mary. She's really not speaking a lot of English, and enough people have commented on it (including the Doctor) that I decided that it's probably a good idea. My brother had terrible problems with language when he was her age, mostly due to his tongue tie (which Mary had too) and severe recurrent infections in his ears. We've never noticed ear infections with Mary before this, but the Doctor did say there was a bit of scarring in her ears so it's likely that this isn't her first. In happier news, we finally have an actual Family Doctor. Yay! I really like her, she's fantastic with Mary, and while she isn't taking new patients my Step-Mother called her and demanded she see Mary a while ago, and now we are all in.
We started serious practice on our play this week, and eep! They want to go "script free" on Sunday, and I am not ready! It's like the lines go in one ear and out the other...my brain is a sieve. The practices are every Monday and Wednesday night, as well as Sunday afternoons...hopefully working with the others will help things stick in my brain. Oh! And we have a date for our show in North Battleford - It will be on March 27th. I'm thinking that on the Friday after the show I may run over to Edmonton to visit for the weekend - sans husband or children too! I really need to use that Spa gift certificate I got for my birthday last year, and this may be the perfect opportunity. March 27th, just over 2 months away. Pardon me, I need to go puke now...
It's a start, right?
Then last night we watched a documentary on CBC called "WalMart Nation," and I was absolutely sickened. Oh yeah, I've always known that WalMart was bad news, but I ignored it. I shop at that store all the time....How can I not....Formula for Frances is TEN dollars cheaper at "The Mart" than anywhere else. Ditto for diapers, and cat food, and kitty litter. No one can compete price wise. I pondered my dilemma all night and at about 3:30 (after Mary woke us up and before Frances woke us up) I came to a conclusion. If I don't buy that plush hot pink hippo at Walmart that sings and wiggles it's ears when you push it's foot, well, maybe I can afford to pay a little more for formula. If I don't go to Walmart and drop $300 on God only knows what crap, I can afford a bit more for diapers and cat food. We were actually planning on buying Ian's glasses (God, he's getting old the poor thing) at Walmart, but we have changed our minds. We are going to do our best to boycot that awful place.
On to other topics. Do you know how fun it is to have a three year old with (as the doctor put it) severely infected tonsils and a very bad ear infection? Can you guess how much more fun it is when you have a 7 month old baby with diarrhea. This is my life right now, although the diarrhea seems to be abating (thank Christ!). Poor Mary is absolutely miserable and in pain, and poor Ian is freaking out. His tonsils nearly killed him when he was about 24, and he wants to rip Mary's out tomorrow to avoid her going through the same. We also have a referral to a Speech and Language Pathologist for Mary. She's really not speaking a lot of English, and enough people have commented on it (including the Doctor) that I decided that it's probably a good idea. My brother had terrible problems with language when he was her age, mostly due to his tongue tie (which Mary had too) and severe recurrent infections in his ears. We've never noticed ear infections with Mary before this, but the Doctor did say there was a bit of scarring in her ears so it's likely that this isn't her first. In happier news, we finally have an actual Family Doctor. Yay! I really like her, she's fantastic with Mary, and while she isn't taking new patients my Step-Mother called her and demanded she see Mary a while ago, and now we are all in.
We started serious practice on our play this week, and eep! They want to go "script free" on Sunday, and I am not ready! It's like the lines go in one ear and out the other...my brain is a sieve. The practices are every Monday and Wednesday night, as well as Sunday afternoons...hopefully working with the others will help things stick in my brain. Oh! And we have a date for our show in North Battleford - It will be on March 27th. I'm thinking that on the Friday after the show I may run over to Edmonton to visit for the weekend - sans husband or children too! I really need to use that Spa gift certificate I got for my birthday last year, and this may be the perfect opportunity. March 27th, just over 2 months away. Pardon me, I need to go puke now...
Friday, January 04, 2008
Spontaneous
This week we decided to be spontaneous. On saturday I went to Ian and said "we should drive to Edmonton on Tuesday," and he said "okay." So, our plan was made. We would have left earlier if it hadn't been for the plans to have Mary's birthday party monday afternoon.
Monday morning Frances got us up around 7. We got up, fed and changed her and put her back into bed for a little while to chat with herself so we could stay warm in bed for a bit longer. At 8 our furnace roared to life, and at about 8:01 there was a huge rumbling crash - so big that the house shook - and bright blue flashes of light outside the bedroom window. For a moment I thought that the furnace had exploded and I was waiting to die. Ian jumped out of bed and looked out the window into the dark. He shortly announced that the power line to the house was down and we may as well climb back into bed to keep warm.
To make a long story short, a Semi had driven down our street, a street where truck traffic is not allowed, and pulled down the power lines on our corner. It turned out that we would not have any power, heat or phone for at least the rest of the day, so we packed up our bags, put signs on the door that the party was cancelled, and left for Edmonton.
Here are some pictures of what greeted us Monday morning when the sun came up:
The power pole directly behind our house. If it weren't for our wonderful trees it would have landed right on top of our cars.
Across the street from our back yard.
The neighbour kitty corner to our house. The pole landed on top of her house but didn't seem to do much damage at all.
Frances on the way to Edmonton, enjoying our spontaneity.
Mary had the best birthday ever. 9 hours of uninterrupted movie watching in the van.
Monday morning Frances got us up around 7. We got up, fed and changed her and put her back into bed for a little while to chat with herself so we could stay warm in bed for a bit longer. At 8 our furnace roared to life, and at about 8:01 there was a huge rumbling crash - so big that the house shook - and bright blue flashes of light outside the bedroom window. For a moment I thought that the furnace had exploded and I was waiting to die. Ian jumped out of bed and looked out the window into the dark. He shortly announced that the power line to the house was down and we may as well climb back into bed to keep warm.
To make a long story short, a Semi had driven down our street, a street where truck traffic is not allowed, and pulled down the power lines on our corner. It turned out that we would not have any power, heat or phone for at least the rest of the day, so we packed up our bags, put signs on the door that the party was cancelled, and left for Edmonton.
Here are some pictures of what greeted us Monday morning when the sun came up:
The power pole directly behind our house. If it weren't for our wonderful trees it would have landed right on top of our cars.
Across the street from our back yard.
The neighbour kitty corner to our house. The pole landed on top of her house but didn't seem to do much damage at all.
Frances on the way to Edmonton, enjoying our spontaneity.
Mary had the best birthday ever. 9 hours of uninterrupted movie watching in the van.
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