Six Of One, Half Dozen Of The Other
Date: Thursday May 15, 2008Posted in: Blogging, Family, Random thoughts, Sundry, domestic bliss
I did not mean to leave the poop post up for so long, but what do you know? My life has been busy outside of the Internet. The long weekend is coming and I have a lot to do to prepare for company. I’m also working (DEADLINES!), had Boot Camp last night, and am trying to get outside as much as possible. SUMMER HAS FINALLY ARRIVED!
The lovely Ali (Who also has a Miss Emily) from Cheaper Than Therapy tagged me with a “six random things” meme. I normally shun the memes (I have done a TON of them!), but I was having a hard time deciding how to follow in the footsteps of poop. Miss Ali to the rescue!
Here goes:
1. I love to bake. I really, really do. Honey loves chocolate. He really, really does. I bake copious amounts of sweet treats for him. For many women trying to keep their weight in check this might be a problem, but it’s not for me. I prefer cookie dough/brownie batter to the finished product, and while fresh baking is lovely, I can take it or leave it. Come the next day? I like it even less.
Chips, however, are a totally different story…
2. My middle name is Dian, which is Diane without the “e”. I share it with my Momma. For the first twenty-eight or so years of my life, I thought it was pronounced “Dee-Anne”. BOY WAS I SHOCKED when I found out that was not the case. How smart am I? I did not even know MY OWN NAME. And they let me teach University graduates…
3. I don’t like beer. It tastes like urine. Not that I have ever tasted urine, but beer is what I imagine urine would taste like.
4. Even though I am Canadian, I have to consciously add the letter “u” to words such as “favourite”, “colour”, and “favour”. I hesitate every. single. time. I would ditch it, but us Canadians are a proud folk. Plus, my fellow Canucks would probably hold a lynching. That would suck.
5. As for the whole pound vs. kilo, inches vs. centimetres, Celsius vs. Fahrenheit, mile vs. kilometre differences, I am a mixed bag. I don’t get Fahrenheit. At all. Zero is Freezing, 100 is boiling. Celsuis makes sense to me. As does the kilometre. When it comes to weight, however, kilos confuse me. I need to Google the conversion every time. I know my weight in pounds, but have NO IDEA what I weigh in kilos. I also uses inches instead of centimetres when it comes to measuring. Except when giving birth. I am pretty happy that we do not dilate ten inches. COULD YOU IMAGINE?
6. Speaking of child birth…Before ever having kids, I was convinced that I wanted FOUR of them. After having Nathan a mere twenty months after Graham, I was sure that TWO was the magic number. A little over a year later, Matthew and I knew we wanted one more. Just one. For a total of three. I think it is the perfect number for us right now. Together we have created three perfectly healthy, happy, and gorgeous children. See?
If we ever do want a fourth, we can always adopt. I am DONE being pregnant. And in case you were wondering if an “oops” would ever happen, it is now medically impossible for us to get pregnant. Huzzah!
That’s six things. I am going to tag six people who I *think* would like to play. If not, no worries. I also think they are a pretty neat group of peeps. Check ‘em out.
Kami, Hannah, Kristabella, The Over Thinker, Hillary (with 2 l’s!) and Mrs. Wilson.
This weekend is a busy one. In laws and siblings and a day away, oh my! I doubt I will be posting, though stranger things have happened. Let me get an early start on wishing you a super May long weekend (in Canada, at least). Doing anything fun?
Getting Jiggy With It
Date: Thursday May 8, 2008Posted in: Blogging, Emily, Family, Graham, Nathan, Workin' It, me
I *think* most of my computer issues have been resolved. One of the drawbacks to living in the sticks is that the only high-speed Internet you can get out here is via satellite. While it is a billion times faster than dial-up, it usually hesitates a second or five two before loading a page. Matthew called our ISP yesterday, and we decided to upgrade to the next level of service. I do not know the technical term, but it’s SUPER FAST. Wheeee!
As of this morning, gmail is working. Woo! My work website is easily accessible. Yes! I can procrastinate by surfing the Internet get my work done even faster. Huzzah!
I was trying to use the crisis as a means of convincing Honey that this would be the perfect time for me to switch to Mac. He was not convinced. I see his point. If I am using the “But it’s better for photography!” argument, then I really should not spend money on a new laptop until I start making more from my photography gigs. Want to hire me and support my cause?
As for the whole “work” thing in general, I just started a seven-week contract. Those of you have been around for a while will remember that last year at this time I started a seven-week contract. With thirty-five students. I was working fifty to sixty hours a week and ALMOST DIED was a little burnt out by the end. This time around, I only took on eighteen students. That’s exactly half (with one left out for rounding), and should keep me busy a mere thirty hours or so a week. I won’t even have to pull the up-until-midnight shift to meet deadlines. Hooray!
This means that I will have time to do the photography gigs that come my way. Last weekend I was asked to go to a couple of the local wineries that were participating in the Spring Wine Festival and take some photos.
It was a tough gig. I sure hope I don’t have to do another one of those. Ha! It was too much fun to be considered “work”.
In addition to work and “work”, I plan on having time to hang out with the kidlets and Honey. Last year we managed to keep doing a lot of family stuff, but the whole time I would be thinking about all of the work that I knew was piling up in my inbox. Some people are good at compartmentalizing. Me? Not so much.
I should be able to get my work done in a reasonable amount of time, which will leave me to play with wild abandon. With the arrival of spring (FINALLY!), we spend the bulk of our days outdoors when we are not at school/swim class/boot camp. After dinner we usually head back outside to play some games.
The dudes have been loving “baseball”. Basically, they just take turns hitting the ball. I do not have any photos of this game we play, as they like the way I pitch. I cannot pitch and take photos at the same time. I may be a fantastic multi-tasker, but even I have my limits.
I did manage to get some photos of them playing frisbee with Daddy. Here they are waiting to catch it.
I have been having some issues with my computer and my website.
Not this site that you are reading, but the one that I use for my contract work. It is not their fault, and they are working with me to get the issues resolved. They use a third-party service who decided to upgrade to a New! Better! Platform!
Except that the new platform is slower than molasses. After putting the kids to bed last night, I went to log in to the site to quickly (ha!) check my email and it took me an hour to just LOG IN. An HOUR. I don’t know about you, but I do not want to spend ONE TWENTY FOURTH OF MY LIFE IN THE LOG-IN SCREEN.
In addition to that problem (which included trying to log in from ALL THREE computers in our house), my laptop has decided that it does not want to play nicely with the Internet. After (FINALLY!) getting my work done, I thought I could answer a few emails before editing some photos I had taken yesterday.
It ALSO took me a while, but I EVENTUALLY got into gmail. Then (THEN!) I could SEE the EMAILS but could not OPEN them. I had the gmail that was “Loading…” for almost an hour.
I thought maybe I should try some surfing. The problem was (AND IS) that anything I type on the Internet has about a twenty-second delay. I type, sit back and have a sip of DC, and watch the characters I typed slowly make an appearance. I closed the Internet and walked away from the disaster that is my STUPID VISTA laptop before I heaved it over the embankment.
I may or may not be a little frustrated. In the meantime I am working on this boat anchor of a desktop that I have down in the office. It is five (Five!) years old. It also makes my heart sing for joy. Ha!
I should trade them both in for a Macbook Pro. They say once you go Mac, you never go back. ARE YOU LISTENING, LAPTOP?
I think this photo I took of Graham yesterday sums up how I am feeling.
I may or may not have looked exactly like that last night. And possibly as I type this.
I use the Internet for work (WHICH PAYS THE BILLS) and pleasure (WHICH KEEPS ME SANE).
As I lay in bed last night (with a sick baby girl), I decided I had two options:
1. Throw my laptop in the lake and eschew anything Internet related. While I am at it I will give up all modern conveniences, including electronics, appliances, and razors. I will start pumping out more babies to, you know, churn butter and pluck feathers off of the chickens.
2. Call in our computer guy to come and fix my laptop. I can then get my work done and save myself (and my family) from joining a commune. Then I can also possibly get back to being an Internet Member In Good Standing.
I really hope it’s the latter. I’ll keep you posted.
I plan on posting random photos from yesterday amidst my points. Just in case you were wondering what on Earth is going on with the photos that do not have anything to do with the content.
1. More?
Back when I learned the manual settings on my camera, I was so! very! excited! I wanted to share my photos in all of their glory. I was posting them at full resolution. Yes, they looked great, but once you clicked on my link you had ample time to grab a coffee before my site would load. To combat this, I started using the “More” tag, and leaving only the first paragraph or so showing.
I soon smartened up and started sizing my photos for the web, like so.
It is not high resolution, but you get the idea. If you want to see full resolution photos, you can see them on Flickr.
I have still been in the habit of using the “More” tag out of habit. Yesterday, LVGurl linked to this article titled “Why I Cannot Stand Your Blog“. It was funny, and made me realize that maybe it was time for the “More” tag to go. That way all of you feed readers can read without clicking through, and the rest of you are saved an extra click.
Thoughts?
I am a Mom. I have a Blog. This, by default, makes me a “Mommy Blogger”.
I do not have a problem with this title. At all. I have just wondered lately if I fit properly into that genre.
Looking through my posts, I do not speak much about the whole “Mommy” side of my life. I used to. I used to write posts that contained tales of snot, and of barf, and of wiping butt cracks.
Lately? Not so much.
I started to analyze what had changed.
