Black...or Blue?

Henry's company Christmas is around the corner and because our children are older and requesting bigger ticket items each year, I have to suck it up and not purchase a new gown for the dinner/party this year in Toronto. Sigh...

So these are my choices...

Black....

or Blue?
That is the question...

superstitious feelings

Remember that 1982 Harlequin song, Superstitious Feelings? It has been playing in my head for two days now.

Could it have anything to do with the immediate deletion of those sappy emails stating bad luck will befall you if you don't forward said email on to 20 of your best friends? I am beginning to wonder.

Not usually a superstitious person, I am cautiously wondering what universal figure we have upset to cause our family so many comedy of errors lately.

I won't even go into the miriad of 'minor problems' that our family is recovering from this past week. Just to give you a sample, though...Jenny put her little guinea pig into one of her flexible tubes...you guessed it..."Mom, I think Speedy is stuck". I would post a picture (yes, I did take one), but I still haven't had the time to load my Canon camera software onto the computer yet. I have three college assignments that I am behind in and need to complete by Thursday. Then I have to work on assignments that are due next week. I am just taking a short break to post to the blog.

You see, it is these types of unforseen dilemma's (that, along with my computer virus) that have been consuming my time this week. And you all wonder why I haven't been posting to the blogs (yes, I do the Chiefs' one too)!!

As Megan posted on her blog this week; at least toss this girl a bone, and comment so that I know my hour spent posting to the blog each day is actually worth it. I know that people follow it (check out the site meter at the bottom). You just have to let me know that you appreciate it!

After all, just like you, I have upteen other things to do during the day. The kicker with my list is that it is jinxed and takes me twice as long!

Superstitious feelings (hum hum)....

I think I'm back...

O.K....I'm sure everyone has been wondering where I've been for the last week?

Unfortunately, I have not been to Hawaii or anywhere warm (unless you count sitting in front of the wood stove watching the blank screen of my computer).

You see, darling son of ours (I am 99% certain of this 'blame' percentage) went on the Internet to find cheat codes for a computer game of his. Getting this code not only progressed him to the next level of his game, it also attached itself in the form of spyware trojan virus to my tower. Automatic warning windows were popping up left right and center instead of my Goggle home page...pretty scary stuff!

I immediately unplugged the phone jack and tried unsuccessfully for about eight hours to get rid of this nasty bug.

Not sure if I had succeeded, I sent it in to get looked at. I expected my technical savvy to have fixed most of the problem so that the computer techie would spend less than an hour on it and return it right back to me!

Two days later, he leaves a message on my answering machine that 'we have to talk'. This did not look promising!

It seems even the techie could not remove this villian without 'wiping and reformatting' my tower. Hence being unable to accomplish absolutely ANYTHING this last week. It was the longest week of my life.

I have to admit to myself now...I can no longer deny it...I can not live (properly) without my computer (and my precious blogs!). That said, I still only have the basics (operating system, dial-up connection and part of my virus protection back on the computer). This is the first thing I'm doing. Next, I have to make sure Norton is secure, my Ad-Aware is ready, load Word, reinstall my college FRED, finish one assignment, get extensions for the two due tomorrow, install my camera software, and check my email (I do not even want to think about how long that will take to come in...). Then I have three assignments to complete in a couple of days and major other *&%$ stuff to do!

Just a little stressed right now...will be much better after a good night's sleep and I settle all this computer mumbo jumbo.

I love my husband dearly, but at this moment in my life, I do not require ice and freezing capabilities. I wish I could wave a wand (yes, we went to see Harry Potter today) and turn him into a computer geek that could fix all my computer problems instantly!

You have to believe me when I say that I missed you all probably more than you missed me!

It is good to be back...and yes, Michael is out of the doghouse at this moment in time.

a sure sign of winter

When I was pregnant with Michael, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Yes, I was ecstatic to be pregnant, and ended up having wonderful pregnancies, but the bonus with Michael was that I was always warm!

Michael seemed to have Henry's warm-blooded gene's from the get-go. I did not have to wear a winter coat that season when I was expecting our first born. I loved it!

Back to reality and bundling up for me.

How do I know that winter is upon us?

I send Michael out to do the BBQing, and see him putting on his slippers (he picked these out himself!), his mitts, his hat, and his sweater! Yikes...must be cold outside! I'm so glad that he is going outside instead of me!

If it was me outside, I would stand shivering by the BBQ trying to absorb some of its' warmth. I think therein that is my problem.

Michael proactively uses the trampoline to keep warm while waiting for the chicken to cook.

Those bears sure can jump high!

What a weekend!

Print copy of the London Free Press, Sports section, People at Play or the following link to today's London Free Press will tell you all about our fabulous weekend:

http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/Sports/OtherSports/2005/11/15/1307281-sun.html

Michael's team (The Elgin Middlesex Chiefs Major Peewee AAA) won this tournament!

For all the games and scores etc., go to this link:

http://allplayers.bladenet.net/allplayers/index.do?associationCode=CA00013306&scheduleGroupNumber=1

Seven games, seven wins over three days to finish as Champions! What a weekend!

We played two games Friday, three Saturday, and two Sunday.

Chiefs 7 Ajax 2

Chiefs 7 Kingston 2

Chiefs 5 Chesterfield 1

Chiefs 5 Mississauga Ice Dogs 2

Chiefs 3 London Jr. Knights 2

Chiefs 2 Burlington 1

Chiefs 5 Sun County Panthers 3

In between games on Friday, we all bonded by going on the subway, to Gretzky's for lunch, and to the Hockey Hall of Fame (thank you, Honored Hockey Hall of Fame Member, Steve Shutt for the complimentary tickets for our players!). Even Michael, being a goalie, is impressed by Gretzky!

While at Gretzky's, we eavesdropped on a radio interview with the Calgary Flames Manager. The photo just won't upload to blogger for some reason.

On Saturday, we went to the Air Canada Centre for a tour.

And then we had the proverbial 'fun' stay at the hotel...

I don't think our room was the only one with a WWF smackdown element!

Our team celebration photo:

for more of our Chiefs weekend...see the Chiefs' blog (that I spent six hours doing today!)

I only had 135 photos to go through, reduce in size, and try to upload to blogger!

I sense a 'Mom of the year award coming...'

Yay to blog...boo to webpages!

Yes, I am going to check into high(er) speed...as soon as I can finish my next lovely assignment for one of my courses. I have to use the Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 product (a 4 hour download 30 day trial that I had to do twice) to create a website with two pages.

After reading through mountains of the 'help' options and downloading and going through the lengthy tutorial, I was none the wiser! I will need to go out and buy another print cartridge today though.

Step by step, I went through this process and completed two webpages. They look great!

I just can't seem to find them on the Internet...

Sigh...

slow speed

I am more and more frustrated with the slow speed of my computer. I had to download Dreamweaver from Macromedia. With my lovely dial-up connection, it took over 4 hours! I downloaded at night so that it would not be interrupted by a phone call! It was nowhere to be found when I checked the computer in the morning!

I love my music, and downloads seem to take forever (what am I saying...they DO take forever).

I skipped getting my email yesterday, and this morning there were 26 messages that took over an hour to come in!

ARRRGGGGHHHH...

Although we have had the same email address since 1995, I am seriously thinking of changing to high speed Internet...

It's going to be one of those days!

Veggie Fairy

I used to go to a vegetable packaging plant once a year to buy frozen veggies (only a buck a bag). The first year that I heard about this ‘sale’, I went and could not believe my luck in hearing about this place. You had to ‘dig’ in these huge forkliftable crates to choose the veggies you wanted.

The second time I went, I was better prepared. I took laundry baskets and I took Michael and Jenny. You see, there was a reason for taking Michael and Jenny with me. I shamelessly used them to go into the crates and get the really good veggie packages at the bottom of the crates that no one else could reach! They would lean over, I would grab them by their ankles, and they would call out what packages they could see and reach. I could have exploited them more by ‘loaning’ them out to the hundreds of others that wanted what was out of reach, but I didn’t. Now that I think about it, I probably could have paid for my veggies by capitalizing on my children’s labour! Ah well…live and learn.

Word of mouth shut this sale down a couple of years ago (hordes of laundry toting, wheelie garbage can, ready to buy veggie people lined up at the entrance, I think, scared the plant employees).

Well, it just so happens that MY neighbor works at this wondrous plant.

A couple of days ago, they gave Jenny an order sheet. Everything on this sheet was $5….A CASE!

Well, you know me…I have to have one of everything, especially if there is a good deal involved (they must have thought I was absolutely nuts!)

Henry confirmed that I was absolutely nuts when he carried frozen box after frozen box into the house from our next-door neighbors vehicle!

It then hit me….oh my god…where am I going to put all this????

Since the summer, I have diligently been using everything up in my deep freeze in order to defrost it before we ordered a pig or a cow. Well, we won’t be defrosting anytime soon, and we won’t be ordering a cow or pig unless Henry caves and buys another deep freeze!!!

Henry hightailed it out of the house to go to hockey, leaving Jenny and I to figure out what to do. Well, it was Thursday night about 8:00 in the evening. What do you think we did? We crammed each box in that freezer and slammed down the lid (we were going to weigh it down if need be). Then we ran out of the workshop to make sure we hadn’t missed a minute of Survivor!

We will be eating healthy for months to come. If anyone runs out of veggies, you know who to come to!

I’m sure everyone has a fairy of his or her own. My brother has a beer fairy (how nice is that?) in that his neighbor works for Labatts; my sister-in-law works at Bayer, so she was the vitamin and aspirin fairy; and my both my friend and niece work at Shoppers…

I am still tickled pink (maybe green?) that I have a veggie fairy that lives next door…


and Bill, before you even ask, “no”, she certainly DOES NOT look like this… (I just happen to like this fairy picture!)

Closed for the season

'Closed for the season' means different things to different people.

I was reading my friend Megan's blog this morning. Her title for today's blog is "closed for the season". Hers refers to the closing of their family pool.

However, after reading the title, my brain took me in a completely different direction. I was not expecting to read about the closing of a pool. None of my family will be surprised at what I expected this story to be about. Even at nine o'clock in the morning, I immediately thought of ice cream.

You see, this is the time of year that all Dairy Queens are being closed for the season. (Except, of course, the miniscule few that remain open year round - I know of a few if you're interested)


It is sad really, that to everything there is a season. However, this only makes you look forward to the reopening!

Speaking of 'to everything there is a season', I am nearing the end of my library studies at Mohawk. I have only a few courses and my Field Work terms to complete. Even though this is exciting and I am looking forward to achieving my goal of working in a school library, I always have a backup plan.

Here it is...

roadhockey

The boys know me well by now...

Matt and Daniel in net...

Michael and Jenny were home early from school yesterday due to early dismissal. I was at my computer doing my school work…OK; I was playing Roller Coaster Tycoon…when they burst through the door with their usual enthusiasm and ‘what’s for snack?’ question. I can’t believe they still ask this with Halloween candy overflowing the living room table!

Happily munching away, Michael asks if he can have a road hockey game. I say sure.

Not thinking any more about it, I go upstairs a short time later and see at least TEN boys on the road playing hockey.

I thought to myself, oh for the days to call up ten friends and have them drop everything to come over to visit! Michael even arranged for hockey nets to be dropped off and picked up. (He takes after his mother for social organization!) If you don't know why we don't have a net, you'll have to read further down the blog pages!

Henry arrived home from work and kept an eye on the game…I thought to myself, not too many years ago, he would have been in there like a dirty shirt! However, he knows he has to work this weekend and play hockey!

Roadhockey even includes little brothers! Word must be getting around about my blog…everyone EXPECTS me to take their picture. Much to Henry’s surprise, people actually want to be on my blog!!!

Of course, every game needs fans…hence Cookie, Speedy, Bailey and Henry had to line the sidelines!

It’s nice to see that Michael hasn’t lost his scoring touch!

The boys gladly polished off the last of the Halloween cupcakes. I would never in a million years have thought to shove the iced cupcake into a child’s face, but apparently these types of thoughts occur quite frequently to the male gender, tempting Henry (an adult for pete’s sake) to squish the cupcake to poor Daniel’s face. Why am I saying ‘poor’? This particular friend of Michael’s probably comes up with similar ideas on a regular basis! This is one of the times I thank God that there is another girl in the house to balance things out!

Watching the boys brought back alot of memories. When we lived in Kitchener, our street looked like this everyday after school until dark. Those readers from Kitchener can attest to this…

Wakeover + Halloween = recovery period

Jenny's Birthday/Halloween Party= Wakeover

Lots of girls singing Karaoke, playing Hide and Seek, wheeling across the kitchen in wheelie shoes, playing Truth or Dare, watching movies, playing fooze ball, playing air hockey, and eating anything not nailed down; this was the wakeover that I survived.

Alyx's Mom, Kerri, stayed for a drink before she headed home to Lambeth!

Henry and Michael, the dirty rotten scoundrels, left me alone with this mob and went to visit Michael's godparents. Thank you, godfather Don, for giving Henry ONE set of ear plugs to return home with. Needless to say, Henry had a really good night's sleep. Needless to say, I 'knew' that some of the girls went to sleep around midnight in the guest room. Those that fell asleep on the couches downstairs, woke up with eyeliner mustaches (courtesy of those that stayed awake). Before I went to bed, I noticed the can of shaving cream on the bathroom counter...I hid it. I was still awake to hear my daughter complain that she couldn't find the shaving cream. Whew...

I was still awake at 3:30 to hear Jenny and two others come up to her room. Eventually, my body and mind caved in to the need for sleep.

However, it did hear some of the girls wake up just before 7 A.M. to continue their fooze ball tournament.

The girls were more than willing to pack away the French Toast for breakfast. They continued their game of hide and seek until their parents arrived to pick them up.

Then we were off to London for Michael's hockey. (They won 4 - 2 ~ see Chiefs blog for details).

After the game, Jenny, Henry and Bailey took advantage of the sunny warmth of the patio to have a picnic and a nap. (Don't ask me why Henry needed more sleep...however, once prone, Henry falls asleep on anywhere). Forgive for sounding just a LITTLE bitter about the sleep issue.

Halloween rolls around. I am deeply resentful that my children are so independent this year that they went trick or treating WITHOUT me. Words cannot explain the HURT. I am THE trick or treating MOM. We carry knapsacks (for dumping the excess candy). We carry water for sustenance. We carry mits to go that extra few miles for that extra pound of candy that I willingly carry for my children. This year they did it without me. I am proud of Michael though, he made up a strategic map (hit up prime 'give out huge amounts of candy' houses first, come home; dump; head out again) and did not return home until 8:30. The haul was one rectangle laundry basket full.

I had no sympathy for Jenny when she realized (going over to a friends for dinner and trick or treating) that her candy haul MAY NOT be what it could by going out with her MOM. Too bad, so sad. Henry just does not understand the need for gathering as much candy as possible on this awesome night! He even makes the children hold back from leaving the house until 6:00! You can tell he is a country boy and has no concept of how city trick or treating is to be done.

However, I am forgiving my children as they are sharing their candy haul with me and I am currently in the midst of a sugar rush.