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?
On Sunday, Mother’s Day, I woke up, stretched, and looked out the window. It was dark. Gloomy. And raining.
This is not a common occurrence around here. We are actually at the north end of a desert that stretches from here to California. Yes, I have complained about SNOW, but in actuality, we do not get a lot of the white stuff. Especially compared to those who live in the prairies, and have to deal with snow up to the roof line.
I. Would. Die.
Our snow pack is almost non-existent and we are on very strict water restrictions.
We need the rain. I get that.
I, however, need the SUN. A cold and dreary day can put me in a funk in the skip of a heartbeat. But a sunny day? No grumpiness allowed. Or even POSSIBLE. Sun = Happy.
So my Mother’s Day started off on the wrong foot. Or wrong weather pattern. Whatever. I did not get breakfast in bed, but I did not expect as much. I am a woman who loves routine, and who loves her daily breakfast of oatmeal and a latte. Honey could have made it for me but he would likely bung it up. That would have thrown my entire day into a terrifying tailspin. I made my own breakfast to save us all from the aftermath of the drama.
After I ate, I was handed a card (That Honey MADE! With my stamping stuff! Creative…or frugal? YOU DECIDE.), and then he headed outside to “get my present”. Soon after, I was presented with some wildflowers from the hill behind our house, a “flower” that Graham had made at school, a gift certificate for a manicure and a pedicure (Woo!), and a postcard that G’s Kindergarten class had sent last week during their trip to the Post Office.
It reads, “Mommy, I love you like the Planet Earth“. Good thing he did not say I looked like the Planet Earth.
It was time to get ready for church and I was grumpy. I had visualized a warm, sunny day. I would wear a pretty pink skirt with a white top and white strappy heels. I would skip and frolic through the wildflowers (Go ahead and visualize it. I am. It’s pretty funny.). The hoopla about Mother’s Day makes it to be this grand event, with sunshine and tulips and leaping. Reality was nothing like the TV. Shocking, I know.
Instead of frolicking through the tulips, I thought I should “spring clean” my closet. Hence, my “fat day“. Bah. (Thanks, though, for your sweet comments and emails.)
Monday morning was more of the same. Grey, cold, and damp. I dislike that word, but not as much as I hate “moist“. Ewww.
Graham woke up with a hacking cough and a nose full of snot, to complement the snot pouring from his siblings’ noses. I kept him home from school, despite the fact that the dude was far more energetic than I have been in about ten years. I don’t like to infect other peoples’ children. By mid-morning the hacking had ceased so I took all three kids to the grocery store, which helped my mood. That is if by “helped” you mean “made me want to tear out my hair”.
Ahem.
(I’m exaggerating. The kids are always good, they just don’t. Stop. MOVING.)
I worked for couple of hours and got caught up on my contract work. I wanted desperately to give Honey a break from Daddy Daycare. Between Accounting work and Photography gigs, he has been pulling overtime. He needed a break. I also needed a break from the blasted weather. Turns out? We BOTH won.
The sun started to peek between some puffy white clouds and I thought a walk would be fun. Except I had all three kids to deal with. We tried to see if they could all fit in the jogging stroller.
Yeah, NOT SO MUCH.
We opted to go to the park at the lake instead. It was early afternoon and in direct sunlight, which is not the best for photos. I did not have my external flash with me, but I tried to do the best I could by manipulating the the metering and the built-in flash (Hmmm…a future Foto Friday post?).
Do you see that long line of drool hanging from her lip? BLASTED EYETEETH.
On the water.
On the monkey bars.
Climbing.
On top of the jungle gym.
While at boot camp last night I reflected (Between shouts of “Right Basic! Left Basic! Repeater Knee!“) on the pensive mood I had been in. Part of was due to the weather, yes, but then I counted backwards in my head. Every twenty-eight to thirty-five days my body does this cyclical thing, if you know what I am saying. It has been almost thirty-five days. The cycle is imminent. Talk about an Aha! moment.
I surveyed the women in my class. There are a wide array of shapes and body types that belong to the women who were jumping, kicking, and crunching right along with me. Every single one of them is beautiful because they have chosen to work hard to make their body the best that it can be.
Which is what both Matthew and I are doing, and what we want to teach all three of our kids to do. We feed them home-cooked meals, we exercise with them, we tell them all day long how beautiful they are. We want to teach them health, as well as balance, which includes the occasional ice cream cone on a sunny day.
I think we are on the right track.
That about sums up my life and, I feel, my posts these days. I am not asking you to shout out, “But you are not boring!” like some of you did on my last post.
I am actually quite happy in my boring life. That month or so after we returned from Mexico was so very, very hard. Emotional dung, physical illness, craptastic everything. It seemed as though every day brought drama or an ear infection. This past month has been quiet in the drama department (FINALLY) and pretty low on the illnesses (Unless you count teething, or more specifically EMILY’S BLASTED EYETEETH). I find that stress and drama usually bring out the creativity in me, but when everything is swimming along nicely I am bland and boring. Which is fine by me. A girl can only handle so much drama and snot.
The photography stuff has been a real blessing to this girl’s fragile heart. I have SO MUCH to learn, yet I have had compliments given to me by those who have real talent and experience in the field. It truly makes my heart sing. People seem to like what I shoot, and are even willing to pay me for it. Bonus. I will never give up accounting as I like it (REALLY) and the pay is phenomenal. Matthew’s industry is in the pooper right now, so I am earning the bread and butter. This is a good thing, as I like to eat.
In photography news, after publishing that last post the phone rang again. Would I be able to take some outdoor shots? On Friday afternoon? Of three young men who wanted to give their Mom a photo of themselves for Mother’s Day? And get paid for it?
You don’t have to ask me twice. They were great kids, it went really well, and I got “The Shot”. Perfect! I would share it, except I did not ask them if I could. Plus, I keep finding out that more and more people in my small town read my site. Heaven forbid that their Mom does and I ruin the surprise.
But if it’s pictures of boys you want, pictures of boys I HAVE! They are much younger, but infinitely cuter, in my humble opinion. Here they are playing the game, “It’s all fun and games until SOMEBODY BREAKS A LEG”.
Getting some sweet air.
If these photo had sound bytes you would hear me yelling, “BEND YOUR KNEES! BEND YOUR KNEES!”
Graham’s technique was of the stepping-off variety.
Nathan? He leapt.
And leapt.
Crazy kids.
After supper yesterday I had my second photo shoot of the day. I got to assist on my very first studio session and it was SO MUCH FUN. It was three girls in their twenties who wanted to give their Mom a photo of themselves for Mother’s Day. Included in the group was the sweet three-month-old baby girl that belonged to one of them. She was SO CUTE. And COMPLETELY EDIBLE. It was a fun shoot to be a part of. I mostly helped with ideas for poses, and while the photographer was changing the lighting I grabbed his camera and got some SWEET photos of the baby girl looking over her Mama’s shoulder. They were not taken with my camera, so I cannot share them.
But I do have a sweet baby girl of my own.
I know I am biased, but I think she is pretty special.
I nibble on her all. day. long.
So that’s where I am at. Drama and sickness-free. Busy, but good busy. Loving life. Perfectly boring.
I like it that way.
***Edited to add***
Happy Mothers Day to all of the Moms out there. I think that the following women qualify as “Moms”: Women with kids, women with pets and women with, um, husbands. Heh. Have a great day!
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.
Last week I posted about how I hated the stage that Emily is in. Not everything about it, just the whole I-still-need-a-nap-but-then-want-to-stay-up-late-and-make-Mommy-and-Daddy-crazy stage. Apart from that issue? I actually love the stage that she is in. It is FUN.
Truth be told, sometimes the “fun” is said with a sarcastic tone, as well as “awesome” and “that’s just super“. This girl of mine? Is a little feisty. I have no idea where she gets it from. Nope. Not a clue. Heh.
