Henry's sister turns the big 50!

Happy Birthday, Mary!


On Saturday, we travelled through blizzard conditions to attend a wonderful dinner that Henry's sister hosted in honor of her 50th birthday (yes, if Mary cooks...we all will come!) It is a shame that Mary had to cook for her own celebration...but it got all the siblings (seven of them) together with the spouses for a nice sit down meal.

We all had the chance to catch up with each other which is something that we don't normally have time to do (hockey tends to take over the family social plans)

Brains vs Boobs...

Three years at Western...three years at Mohawk to obtain a degree and diploma for me.

It seems that my husband is obviously smarter than me. Unbeknownst to me, he studied very hard(for one lunch) to obtain University standing last week (thank you, Bill, for mentoring him!)

On his birthday, he was awarded a University honorarium!

Congratulations, Henry, on finally achieving recognition for something that I've known all along.

Who knew that his favorite 'subject' would enable him to receieve this honor?

I put his 'smarts' to use tonight...here he is helping Jenny with her math homework...

Only in Canada, eh...

I like this photo, so I thought that I would share my chuckle of the morning with you all...

(By the way, I also take my coffee this way)

Normally, when I take Bailey through the Tim Horton's drive-thru with me, they always give her a Tim-Bit.

I wonder if Brigadier and Spencer (the horses shown here) prefer donuts, sugar cubes, or apples...hmmm

my 'other' home

This is my new home...

You know you must be in the right job when you can't believe you're getting paid to do something you love!



Henry surprised us by returning home for Valentine's Day.


It seems that he will be home for the rest of the week...what's up with that, Bill?

Just because I am working now, does not mean that my husband can sit around the house all day eating MY valentine candy!

Early retirement is not an option for Henry as he seems to think it is.

Time to pull out his 'honey do' list (especially now that I am not home to supervise him!)

What can I say...it will feel so WEIRD, me getting up before him and heading off to work...do, do, do, do....

pools of water

It might take me a little while...but I learn fast.

A little girl from junior kindergarten wanted to take out a Franklin book this morning. Unfortunately, she had not returned last week's school library book.

When I told her this...without a word of a lie...her eyes filled with pools of tears. She just stood there looking at me as if I had just told her that her pet had died!

I quickly told her that I would save the book for her return to the library on Wednesday.

Her lower lips were quivering too much to tell me her name, so the note paperclipped to the book just mentions the little JK girl that reminded me of Puss N' Boots from Shrek...




Phew...life is really rough at this age (i.e. hers AND mine!)

Role model for our Jenny...

When I was small, the Olympics were a big deal in our household (even though my Dad did not particularly enjoy viewing any sport). I find that nowadays, the Olympics doesn't have the usual 'buzz' that it did in times past.

Even though I am guilty by not watching the events on television, I always check the newspaper to see how Canadian athletes are doing. I was so proud to read that Jennifer Heil has won a gold! Although, I must admit that I am one of those people who also want to know who came in twentieth and lower. Gold is nice, but it still takes an amazing amount of dedication to get to the Olympics...period.

It is bad enough that Americans seem to hog the spotlight at the Games, but I was disheartened to hear that at the podium, the announcer introduced her as "The gold medallist . . . from the United States of America . . . "

That kinda puts a damper on things, I would think.

However, she looked on the positive side (i.e. did not bitch and complain) "Hopefully they will raise the Canadian flag instead of the American one," the Albertan said of tonight's medal presentations in Turin.

Can you believe that she missed the last Olympics by 1/100th of a second?

This girl has had this Olympic dream since she was six years old. Talk about dedication...
With all the publicized, money-making team sports out there, these individual athletes somehow deserve more.

With our Jenny starting to zip down the hills on her new snowboard, I'm glad she will have role models such as this!

What an inspiration...

how you choose a godmother...

Michael's godmother is, well...a lot of fun compared to dear old Mom (remember, I'm classified as the 'serious' one).


Whenever 'Aunt' Shelley is around, everyone just knows that either she will do something 'memorable', or she will somehow 'make' you do something ridiculous (my opinion, of course!)






Although the label, 'serious' one, bugs me sometimes, I must admit that I would not be caught dead doing this...

So in order for our son to become a well-rounded person, we thought we should pick a godmother with qualities that I lacked.

I am proud to say...we did a good job.

what can I say?

Last week was a flurry of activity:

Thursday: found out that my interview was successful. So much so that I start work (full-time) in one week! Yikes! After being at home for about thirteen years, there will be some changes happening in our household (some, maybe not so pleasant!) I will probably be a bear (what else is new?) with trying to do my courses and working full-time, while attempting single-parent-hood as Henry is working out of town each week.

Friday: PA Day (time spent in snow, Henry returned home from Windsor)

Weekend: Hockey, hockey, and more hockey (Henry is playing again after his 'delicate' injury)!

Monday: Mortgage appointments at upteen banks (oh yes, another snow day for Michael and Jenny...therefore, road hockey, snowboarding, making cinnamon buns etc)

Tuesday: homework, homework, and more homework for me! Looks as if the Chiefs will be playing Sun County in the second round. What does this mean, you ask? It means the weather (i.e. roads) better be good, as we have at least two trips to make to Windsor over the next couple of weeks!

Who are you going to believe?

Happy Groundhog Day!

Canadian Groundhogs are smart and fashion conscious!

This guy looks a little more interested in food than shadows...

Cute little creatures…I particularly like this story from CBC News: Indepth about Groundhog Day, and our closest Groundhog, Wiarton Willie, whom we, in this part of Canada, turn to for weather advice:

“It's always been a pack of lies, of course, but it's fun, and we need fun if we are to survive another Canadian February. Groundhog Day was inspired by an old Scottish couplet:"If Candlemas Day is bright and clear/ There'll be two winters in the year."How groundhogs got a reputation for predicting weather patterns is a mystery, because they are not the least bit interested in their shadows or the number of winter weeks remaining. The only reason they come out of hibernation is for food and sex.The original Wiarton Willie, an albino groundhog said to be 22 years old, died during hibernation during the winter of 1998-99. The good burghers of Wiarton discovered this to their horror just before Groundhog Day 1999. Willie's death made headlines around the world.On Groundhog Day, they put Wiarton Willie face-up in a small pine casket, bright pennies over his eyes, paws clutching a raw carrot. But it was a fake! Turns out the real Wiarton Willie was so disgustingly decomposed he couldn't be put on display, so they found a stuffed facsimile and laid it in the casket."We didn't try to hide the fact that he was stuffed," said Tom Ashman of Wiarton Willie's publicity team. "If the media had been doing their job they would have seen the stitches on the belly."But, why fake it?"People needed closure," Ashman explained.Groundhogs are woodchucks, members of the squirrel family, marmots, sometimes called "whistle-pigs." They are not the sharpest knives in the drawer. When nervous, they emit a high-pitched squeal, which might as well be an embossed dinner invitation to predators who follow the squeal until they find and eat the groundhog.So how did they gain a reputation for predicting weather? Fact is, they aren't very good at it. The people of Wiarton insist their Willie was accurate 90 per cent of the time, but what do you expect them to say when the Groundhog Festival attracts 20,000 free-spending tourists to the town every February? Scientific studies show groundhogs are accurate only 37 per cent of the time, which means you'd do better flipping one of the pennies that covered ol' Wiarton Willie's eyes.Loyalists insist that Wiarton Willie possessed an uncanny ability to predict because he was born exactly on the 45th parallel, midway between the Equator and the North Pole. Wiarton is a pretty town of 2,300 on the Bruce Peninsula between Lake Huron and Georgian Bay.The legend of Willie Wiarton began in 1956, with many groundhogs taking their star turn as Willie. Other jurisdictions have their favourite winter-predicting groundhogs, the second most famous - after Wiarton Willie - being Punxsutawney Phil of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. There is a Brandon Bob in Manitoba, a Staten Island Chuck in New York, a Balzac Billy in Alberta, and a Gary the Groundhog in Kleinburg, Ontario.Wiarton Willie's successor is Wee Willie, another albino groundhog. Actually there are two Wee Willies - Wee Willie and Wee Willie-2 - just to be safe. An Ottawa man captured them after Wiarton Willie died. He sent them to Wiarton for the big show.And a big show it is, with hockey tournaments, curling bonspiels, dances, parades, pancake breakfasts, a Monte Carlo Night, a dart tournament, snooker tournament, horse-drawn sleigh rides, a mammoth fish fry and a circus.Enough to make a groundhog squeal. Oops.”

By the way, both Ontario’s Wiarton Willie, and Nova Scotia’s Shubenacadie Sam groundhogs saw their shadows today: meaning Spring is on its way. Gee, I just had to go outside to figure that one out! As usual, the United States groundhog has to be different, and see his shadow. It’s too bad that the States is going to be snowed in while we will be pulling out and wearing our summer wardrobe!

learning...

I am currently trying to provide my favorite songs/video in my blog sidebar (similar to fellow blogger, Carrie).

I have added the link and the Windows media player seems to appear and run the video for me (with some normal buffering 'time-outs' at the beginning of the video). I just need input from those that read the blog (yes, even those of you that normally don't comment ~ here's your chance)

Carrie, I may need some help here. How do you post a picture (i.e. album cover) to the sidebar?
How do you get the music and video to start immediately...and where do you get your clips from? If you don't have my email, Megan will set you up!

Please comment, everyone, to let me know if the video works for you or not (my brother's computer at work prevented it from opening due to filters)

You know me...always wanting to try new things (especially when it comes to music)!

Thanks, everyone!

Clean-up flury is underway...

Bailey is moping around the house, wondering where the source of all her treats has gone.

It seems that Henry is coming home too soon for Jenny and Michael. When I mentioned last night that Dad might be home Thursday night, they both looked at each other in horror. Apparently, Henry told them that the first floor of the house had to be cleaned by the time he got home!

With Michael out at hockey and homework keeping them busy this week, they haven't had time to do much around the house. They will be flying around the house tonight, I'll bet!

It has now been over a week since Henry cleaned out his truck and deposited items from this 'cleanup' on the kitchen floor. This is the photo of the day...

Compared to photo taken January 23...

Can you see a difference? I believe he did one load of laundry from this pile...remember, he was off work the whole week. I am a very patient person, and will quietly (well, maybe not very quietly) wait for him to do 'something' about this pile in the kitchen.

What's that? You think he meant for me to do something with this stuff?

The good news is that Henry is coming home soon (this above mentioned pile will still be there waiting for him), and there might be some work for him next week in Windsor.

The bad news is that I only have one more night with the bed to myself...