Euphoria

Annual subscription to the London Free Press = $200.

One Grand Theater ticket for breakfast, reading and book signing with Best Selling Author, Diana Gabaldon = $10.

Parking by the theatre = $ 4.

Listening to, meeting, having book signed, and having photo taken with Diana Gabaldon = priceless.


I am in a state of euphoria right now. I just returned from meeting Diana Gabaldon, best selling author of the “Outlander” series. Diana spoke to the audience (about 1000 fans) about how the series came about. It is amazing to me, how books come together in stages and from life experiences (a kilt fetish, a historic time-period, and watching a British television program “Dr. Who” helped set the stage for the series). This series centers around a kilt-wearing larger than life (in many ways…eh em…) Scotsman. Need I say anymore about why I started reading this series?

Diana is very humourous, both in person and in her writings. Although her books have historical settings, she makes history fun to read (otherwise I wouldn’t be able to get through them – History is my least favorite subject).

If you have not read this series (and yes, there will be more to come, according to Diana), it is best to read from book number one.

OUTLANDER
DRAGONFLY IN AMBER
VOYAGER
DRUMS OF AUTUMN
THE FIERY CROSS
A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES

One of Diana’s characters, Lord John is so popular, she created a spin-off, LORD JOHN AND THE PRIVATE MATTER. There will be two more books to follow this one.

Not even knowing that thirteen pre-teen girls will soon be descending on to our home for a birthday Halloween sleepover (make that wakeover), will burst my euphoric bubble. It might just give me the strength to get through the night, and most importantly, through the day tomorrow.

Floating, floating…

Daredevils, spies, and cameras

What have I done?

They say lead by example…well, maybe now I’m not so sure!

When I am in the kitchen making supper, I often look outside into the backyard to see Michael and Jenny jumping on the trampoline. They don’t just jump on the trampoline…they make up these games and play them while jumping.

Depending on who cut the grass last, the trampoline ‘visits’ different parts of the yard. If it is left near the house, I will hear balls or other objects being bounced off the house and caught mid-air on the trampoline. However, right now it is smack dab in the middle of the back-yard. Prime area for those in my family that have no fear of heights (i.e. Jenny).

I readily admit that most of the time I can not watch my daughter on the trampoline. Once she ‘perfects’ a move…I dutifully watch and applaud in amazement at my very nimble daughter. It is the route she takes in between that makes me gasp each time she jumps. I fully believe in warning about potential dangers and then letting children make up their minds before trying something…as long as the phone, the hospital card, the van, and the hospital are within a 5-minute transport!

Don’t be misled that it is only Jenny that is the daredevil in this family (Henry’s genetics definitely dominant in this particular area). Michael and I do not take chances because we do not like to be in pain. However, the trampoline is one area where Michael pushes the boundaries. I often see them both in a tangle on the trampoline. Everyone in this family also knows after an injury that I will be the first one to say, “I told you so”, followed by Henry’s “I don’t feel a thing”.

However, I digress…

Looking out the kitchen window yesterday, I see Jenny on the trampoline. (Still not sure whether the helmet is a fashion statement or a safety feature?). I also see Michael zipping by me and out the front door with the camera (oh, oh) It seems he has it in his mind to capture his ‘daredevil’ sister for the blog. James Bond Jr. sneaks around the house and snaps many a frame of his sister throwing her new Halloween stuffie in the air and catching it on the trampoline (thank goodness for digital cameras and not wasting film processing fees). It did not take long for James Jr. to be caught. In my experience, children LOVE to be spies…however, they do not like to be spied upon (Jenny is usually the ‘visual’ spy in our household…Michael is the one they send in with the ‘ears’). Shrieks ensued for about fifteen minutes. You know, the old, “OK, OK, I won’t do it again…”

Yeah.

Finally, Jenny gave up trying to stop Michael from taking pictures. Instead, she decided to try another tactic…that of the ‘ham’. I did not know she could perform stunts like that on the trampoline.

Bailey sitting pretty for the spy who loves her...

Thank goodness by this time supper was ready, my blood pressure was elevated from trampoline and from the sibling stress, so I called everyone in before any damage was done (other than pictures and a story for the blog, of course!)



Not to be outdone, Jenny asked me last night if she could take the camera on her school field trip today to Dresden so she could post to the blog. What could I say? (Thinking lead by example)

Well, what I did say was “Yes, you can take the digital camera. However, you know that if you lose it, I will still love you…I just won’t like you very much for a few days!”

I think Henry has his fingers crossed.

I will wait until my camera is back in my arms at 3:30 this afternoon.

I am in withdrawal right now…

Impressed vs obsessed

I impressed my husband, Henry, on Tuesday.

With all the things lately that constantly need fixing, replacing, creating, or installing…I think Henry finally reached his limit with our endless requests. After I was the third one to tell him about the broken toilet, he said to me, “What would you do if I was not here?”

Okaaaay then….

A little perturbed, I said that I would take the lid thingy off the toilet tank and look inside to see why the toilet wasn’t flushing (the handle did not have any tension on it). Of course, I left it at that, hoping he would get his butt in there at once to fix it. Not a huge rush, mind you, as we have two other fully functioning washrooms. (Having a handy husband, as I do, creates an atmosphere of ‘gotta have it fixed NOW’ before you sit down and watch the hockey game).

Henry ate supper and went downstairs to watch the hockey game.

Mmmm…Okaaay then…

I marched into the bathroom, took the toilet lid off, and peered inside. The chain was not broken and still attached…therefore should be in working order. CSI Mom that I am, I traced the working parts back towards the outer handle. VOILA,…problem solved. OK…not solved, just ‘found’. The lever just inside the tank was cracked and almost severed through at the turn.

I was pretty proud of myself. When Henry came upstairs in the intermission, I told him I had found the problem.

Henry turned around from the popcorn preparation and said that he was impressed that I actually took the initiative to look for the problem! Of course, I told him what was broken, but that it would go on the list for him to actually ‘fix’! He just laughed.

I will wait…Henry is usually really good about fixing things right away. If he takes a little longer than I want him to, I just go grab a bunch of his tools (mainly the Dewalt drill thingy) and head to the area that needs ‘fixing’. Henry usually stops whatever it is that he is doing, to come and stop me from making the problem worse (although after 14 years of marriage, I think he is catching on to this ploy of mine).

Addendum:

I wrote this yesterday to post on the blog today.

You can imagine my surprise when Henry literally blew by me, carrying a Home Hardware bag, to the bathroom when he got home from work yesterday. I heard the words, “I am Mr. Fix-It. I must keep ahead of the blog!”

I thought this was the funniest thing I had ever seen him do…

Without missing a beat (he fixed the upstairs toilet – I was right…it needed a new lever).

Now, my husband and I think on the same wave-length, and he knew what I was going to do next (i.e. get the camera to capture this for the blog). As I ran to get the camera, he literally ran downstairs to the other bathroom (the constantly running toilet had been driving him nuts for weeks) with his Home Hardware bag of goodies.

Can you believe what he did next?

He ran into the bathroom (with me hot on his heels with the camera) and LOCKED the door on me! He claimed that there would be no pictures of him and the toilet on the blog.

He threw out the door the empty packages and told me I could take photos of them! (I had already hid the upstairs toilet lever package for this very purpose!) Does he know me well, or what?

In my opinion, this blog obsession is definitely working in my favor. I might not need to go get his tools anymore when I want something fixed…

oh, and by the way, everybody…thanks for mentioning the hockey net blog to Henry at hockey practice last night…

Bye-bye hockey net

Now an empty driveway. The house is blessedly silent these last couple of days due to there being NO PUCKS slamming into the garage door. There are no shots being taken in front of the garage door because we longer have a hockey net.

A word to the wise…never leave a hockey net in front of the garage (even after warning the son to put it to the side of the driveway…even after warning husband that the net is there and once the garage door is opened it is in prime ‘running over’ range). Assurances were made by son and husband (don’t worry, Mom, I’ll move it in the morning…I’m too tired right now; and doesn’t matter…we won’t be moving the truck out of the garage tomorrow).

Tomorrow comes. I am in the shower when Michael decides he needs his skates sharpened down at the arena. You know Henry will do anything in the name of hockey...so he immediately grabs the skates to go get them sharpened. After Henry leaves (in his truck), Michael shockingly remembers about the net. After checking the driveway and down the street for the missing hockey net, Michael phones Henry. Henry, at this point, has driven almost a mile. He thought he ‘heard’ something behind him, but could not see anything unusual in any of his mirrors. The phone call from Michael changed all that.

I came out of the bathroom and Michael told me that Dad had dragged the net down the street. At first, I thought he was kidding (after all, I had told the two of them, right?). Then I thought that Henry might have dragged it a little down the block to teach son a lesson.

Nope. Net was dragged across town behind the truck with the “ROEFS” license plate (how embarrassing is that – ha-ha). Net is demolished. I am the only one laughing about it…and it seems I am the only one that is telling this story!

Of course, I will not show the boys today’s blog topic, as they might make me reconstruct another hockey net! Henry’s ‘honey-do’ list is being replaced this week by Michael’s ‘Dad’s gotta’ fix’ list.

Good thing Henry is getting over his cold and feeling much better. He should know by now that once he crosses one thing off the list, another one or two or three will appear. This will conveniently lead into tomorrow’s blog topic...

Kathleen Margaret Boulton Walker

My wonderful Mom...











JULY 15, 1930 - OCTOBER 24, 2001

Perspective

As usual, there were many parts to my day yesterday.

The uneventful morning started out with a power skating session with Penny and Boo (yes, I finally told them to stay still so I could capture them on camera!) Poor Penny did not have a voice, due to her horrible cold, but between the two of them, still managed to get all the children skating in the proper direction!

Michael goes so fast at powerskating, he dives and rolls across the finish lines. He ends up wearing half the ice!

The next part of my day, made me step back and put things in perspective. I read my friend Megan’s blog (see link) and laughed at her musings of her daughter, Audrey, and the 4 minute trip down the road in the new van playing unfair ‘I Spy’ and reciting ‘Knock, Knock’ jokes.

Well, I went upstairs and into the bathroom. I suddenly noticed dark blue spots on the Fawcett and sink. Is this sounding a tad familiar? No, it wasn’t Jenny and her blue nail polish again. I became CSI Mom and traced the trail to…the scene of the crime…Michael’s room!

You see, putting things in perspective, we have advanced from the four-year-old curiosity to the twelve year old ‘let’s experiment with…’ stage! In this case, Michael wanted to know what would happen when taking apart a ballpoint pen. It seems very clear to everyone in this household that ink is indeed ‘permanent’! I have to get my CSI kit and Q-tips out in order to dispose of the evidence. Question for all of you putting it in perspective (i.e. those that have older children that have already gone through this phase of life) right now:

How do I get this ink stain out of the carpet?????

Yes, folks, this is the time to comment on my blog…I want advice here.

The latter part of the day meant sitting in an arena watching ice practice, waiting for it to end so that I could meet up with my brother, Colin (he swung by the arena for a beer) and go to the airport to pick up my Dad.

Dad arrived a little early (woohoo), so we went to Harvey’s for a late bite before Colin drove Dad home. Michael gave up after an hour and went into the van to sleep. We talked and caught up on all the family and vacation news until after 10 p.m.!

That’s ok…PD day today…Jenny is still sleeping!

Coconuts

Our house smells like coconuts!

We have come up with a new quick way to make a home smell wonderful!

Faster than candles, cheaper than Glade plug ins, and better (but close to) than Fleecy vanilla sheets in the heat registers….

Jenny found this fabulous smelling Loreal kids shampoo that smells like coconuts (or Pina Coladas, in my opinion). I like having this scent all over the house with winter about to descend on our doorstep. Now that I think about it…it tearfully reminds me that we will not be going down south this year…SOB! Oh well, close the eyes…take a deep breath of coconuts, and IMAGINE.

You are asking yourself…how have we done this wonderful thing?

Well, alas…I cannot take credit. You see, it was Jenny that came up with this genius plan.

Of course, there is one main ingredient to this recipe, other than the shampoo. It is really, really furry and streaks through the house (leaving the scent behind). No…it is not me or Jenny…it is Bailey!

Jenny gave Bailey a bath with her new shampoo (only the best for our dog!) and afterwards, Bailey ran through the house spreading the scent everywhere!

Is this not brilliant?

Bailey with her Halloween bandana…she knows lots of tricks for her treats! (Plus she smells so nice!)

bring it on...

Bring it on…the snow that is!

Do I really want it to snow? Of course not…but when it does, this year the Roefs will be better prepared.

Henry and I have been snow blower comparison-shopping for a few weeks now. We finally made our choice and purchased our new piece of equipment yesterday.

I, for one, am very glad of this purchase. Every year, my body (and mental status) seems to be weaker with each driveway clearing. One particular snowfall last winter kept me shoveling for about two hours (Henry was working out of town and not coming home for the week). My back muscles let me know the next day that they were not pleased with me. There is nothing worse than the extra-heavy snow at the bottom of the driveway after the plow goes by. Michael and Jenny help the best that they can, but they can only lift so much. Once the shoveling is done, they find great joy in tunneling and shoving each other on the snow banks that end up…you guessed it, back on the driveway!

There is a good possibility that Henry will be working out of town again for a portion of the winter. This is one of the reasons we purchased the snow blower. I believe another of the reasons that Henry bought the snow blower was to save on bail money. I think Henry thinks that I was going to bodily harm our neighbor down the street when he did not come and help me dig out of my driveway last winter with his snow blower. I’ll be sure to wave at this neighbor if his breaks down this season!

Henry (of course) has already examined every inch of this machine and shown all of us how to use it. The children are very excited…I’m sure the novelty will wear off after the fifth blizzard!

Michael knows what’s in store for him this winter…


Jenny thinks she’s driving the Indy 500…


Henry showing us how it works….

Jenny's first hockey game

Well, the very big boy’s name is Kurtis…and he is on Jenny’s team! Woohoo!

Jenny was able to choose her jersey. Unknowingly, she chose her Dad’s and Uncle Gerry’s favorite number 2!

Jenny loved her first game at the arena. She played well, learned to watch and listen to the referee, figured out ‘off-side’, and emerged with a smile at the end of the game. She met another talented girl, Natalie, that is on her team. See photo.

Jenny did not escape the game without a huge hit. For this hit, she was at the receiving end of her opponent tripping over his stick and catapulting her into the boards to the ice. She got up, dusted herself off, and kept on going to the net! That’s our girl!

I do have this ‘big hit’ on video and Jenny enjoys having everyone watch it over and over.

Big brother that he is, Michael set his alarm so that he could get up and go watch his sister’s first game. He also talked to Jenny’s coach at the end of the game to offer up his services as a goalie coach. He mentioned to the coach that the child in net had his goalie pads on the wrong legs…this seemed to spur the coach on to say that he will immediately look into the legalities of having Michael on the ice at the next practise!

In our family, I have the reputation of being 'the serious' one (Jenny granted me this title when she was quite young...I think I still have the drawing somewhere), and Henry is 'the fun' one.

It seems that Henry momentarily lost this title yesterday.

Sunday's Quote of the day…Jenny saying to Henry after trying to coax him (unsuccessfully) to go on the trampoline as he is trying to BBQ our supper…

“You’re too old…you’re no fun anymore”.

She doesn’t remember Father’s Day many years ago when Henry tried to do a ‘double yoyo triple header spring’ on his sisters’ trampoline at the daring of his siblings. Henry ended up springing himself into University Hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

Party Time

Chiefs Sponsor Day went swimmingly. We beat the London Jr. Knights 3 – 1. One of Michael’s sponsors (Ken and Judy Shearon, owners of SHURR Electronics in Ingersoll) came out to watch the game and attend the dance afterwards.

Poor Judy (who does not like Jello) succumbed to peer pressure and downed a grape jello shooter with the rest of the Chiefs’ women at the table. After that, she stuck to her mixed drinks and could not be persuaded to have any more shooters. After the two that I forced down, I can’t say that I blame her!

The taco bar lived up to its’ reputation and our team cleaned up on the door prizes. I won and was able to choose a mini-stick from the prize table. This matched the previous mini-stick prize I had just claimed for line dancing! Michael and Jenny were extremely happy with my winnings!

Our team parents and the sponsors in attendance enjoyed themselves immensely. Many of the pictures show our coaches’ wife, Terri dancing up a storm. Never to be outdone, the goalie moms held our own!

Here is Coach Darren and his girlfriend, Kim…Darren roved the silent auction tables until the last minute to secure his bid for the video camera. With my digital camera, I capture essential player and parent ‘team building moments’…he is going to back me up with video! I like the way he thinks!

I think this will be another fun year with the Chiefs hockey team…

Look Ma...a bruise!

Jenny survived her first hockey body-checking clinic this morning! Look out Tie Domi…Jenny Roefs coming through.

That is what I learned from watching this morning’s body-checking clinic.

Hug your opponent first...



Pin victim against the boards...


Keep your elbows down...


After knocking the other guy on his butt, remain standing if possible...

All in all, another successful hockey practise! I just hope the really, really big brute of a boy that knocked everybody on their backs is on Jenny's team!

Nothing phases our daughter, though. She is quite proud of the bruise forming on her arm!

Below is a drawing that Jenny has done for her art class at school. In particular, she wanted her godmommy in New Zealand to see this…

powerskating

Somedays I wonder what kind of mother I am, that I make Michael and Jenny get out of bed any earlier than they absolutely have to.

Those of you that know our family know that we like our sleep. So having to be at the arena for 7:45 on Thursday mornings (when we are normally listening to our alarms going off) is a challenge for us (OK...me and Jenny more than Michael).

These feelings of guilt wear off when I am at the arena and see Michael and Jenny tearing after each other and their friends (the Rizzo boys, shown here, are dynamoes on ice!). Obviously, I think to myself, that other parents raise their children out of bed to do the same thing...so I can't be that bad! I can't complain, as my friend Karin drives in from out of town and then has to tie up four sets of skates before ice time!

Now it helps that the instructors (Penny and Boo) always have a smile and an encouraging attitude that seems to make the children want to skate faster and faster. Of course, not minding the small children throwing 'snow' from the ice at their backs, helps keep the little ones active and on their toes!

I did take a picture of Penny today (I even had the camera set for 'moving targets')...but Penny must have been moving too fast for my camera to keep up! Not to worry, I will try to capture them both next week!

Big weekend coming up, with the Chiefs playing London on Saturday (all of Michael's sponsors will be there to watch), and Jenny's first hockey game in Ingersoll on Sunday.