Chaos Theory

Laid-back Saturday

Sherry — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 02:58:14 +0000

This is exactly the kind of weekend that I like - we had plans but weren’t overly busy so it was a laid-back enjoyable day today. Tomorrow promises to be much of the same.

This morning I woke up at 8 am and realized that everyone else was still sound asleep out in the living room. It was the first time that Breanna had made it through the whole night for a living room camp-out. She usually wakes up around 3 am wanting to know where I am. However this time I actually had a chance to marvel that it was morning and I had not been poked awake by a small child needing to pee and then I even fell back to sleep for awhile. That was awesome.

After lunch we drove out to see my parents for the afternoon and Breanna opened up the present that they got her. My family knows how much Breanna loves dinosaurs and got her this little guy. I sometimes really despise battery-operated toys because they’re usually obnoxiously loud and take away from the chance to use your imagination but there are some that I do like. I definitely like this one. He chews on your finger (or a toy spoon, bottle, etc) and “eats”, then makes little cooing baby dinosaur sounds. No overkill and it’s really cute; she loves it.

Hayley and Breanna spent most of the visit trying to convince my parents’ cat to come out to play but unlike the first two cats my mom and dad owned, this one isn’t used to kids at all so she’s just not very interested in seeing two overly enthusiastic children who try to chase her around with toys. Alas.

It wasn’t cold out today but it was chilly by the time the sun started going down so we had a simple comfort food supper of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. When I was a kid my mom sometimes made tuna or salmon sandwiches and a mix of tomato and celery soup on nights when my dad wasn’t going to be home for supper and I always loved soup and sandwiches as a comfort meal.

Tonight it’s all quiet. Both kids were tired because they didn’t go to sleep until well after ten last night. Meanwhile, George is out at a friend’s house so it’s just me (and the dog, but she’s not much for conversation). I’m taking advantage by watching a movie that I know doesn’t interest George in the least, a foreign film called Osama. It’s about a family in Afghanistan during the rise of the Taliban. The father dies and leaves behind a wife and 12-year-old daughter. Since the Taliban prohibits women from working the young girl cuts her hair short and disguises herself as a boy so that she can work to support herself and her mother.

As you may have noted in my reading material post, that’s the kind of movie that is right up my alley.

So on that note, I’m off to read subtitles and relax. Enjoy your Saturday!

(The pictures of Breanna on her birthday are over here. Unfortunately the quality is kind of ech because it was pouring rain outside, leaving practically no natural light to use. My external flash needs new batteries so I had to use the dreaded on-camera flash. Alas. But the subject matter makes them cute anyway!)

Four years old

Sherry — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 03:23:38 +0000

Four years ago today I went into a very fast, very short labour and in under four hours this little girl was born.

And somehow four years have passed and this morning when she woke me up to go pee and whispered that she didn’t want to go back to bed, I whispered back that it was okay because it was almost 9 am anyway and it was her birthday. She had forgotten about it despite being excited the night before. I reminded her that she’s four and she asked, “no more three?” No kiddo. No more three.

In four years she learned so much. She knows her numbers, her alphabet, countless songs, how to color inside the lines, how to play board games, and how to climb up everything at the park, among so many other things. She can turn on her (and Hayley’s) computer, log in, open Firefox, and navigate her way through the bookmarks of all their kid sites. Most recently she loves to help me make supper and has learned not only to assist me in adding ingredients and stirring them up, she can also crack her own eggs and scramble them at the stove (with direct supervision, obviously).

It’s hard to believe someone who couldn’t even hold up her own head this time four years can do so much now. Time flies.

She had a pretty good birthday. George and I gave her a Hungry Hungry Hippos game because she desperately wanted one, Hayley gave her a play tool set that she wanted, my sister sent a dinosaur playset (I’m not going to be surprised if she becomes a paleontologist one day), and she got a cute little outfit from George’s parents. We ordered pizza over there for supper and when we came home she had her birthday cake. Right now George and the kids are camping out in the living room after having had a movie night.

Tomorrow we’ll go see my parents and spend the afternoon over there and we’ll do her party in a couple of weeks since that will be the only time the majority of friends and family can make it.

I have many more pictures but my glass of wine and my book are calling. I’ll get to them while still trying to ponder how my little baby is a big four year old girl!

Reading material

Sherry — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:18:17 +0000

I went through a reading slump recently that was kind of driving me crazy. Really, it started in Halifax. I optimistically packed several books in my suitcase and then George and I ended up at a Chapters bookstore (oh Chapters, how I missed you) so I bought myself a copy of Keeping Faith by Jodi Picoult. What a crazy person I was.

There was no time for reading! Not really, anyway. I did manage to read a little here and there but I was too busy either trying to bang out all my work for the day as quickly as possible or else I was doing things like visiting Peggy’s Cove, wandering along the boardwalk in downtown Halifax, or you know, being my sister’s maid of honor. There wasn’t much left over for reading.

I think I read about 40 or 50 pages in the three weeks that I was there. Sad. Then when I got back home it took me forever to get through it which was a shame since it was actually a very enjoyable book. There was just so much going on when I got home that I couldn’t get into it until I hit the last third of the book, at which point I had trouble putting it down.

After I finally read the last page I then hemmed and hawed over what to read next, reading the first five or ten pages of different books before tossing them aside. I’m now currently reading Blood Brothers by Nora Roberts, a supernatural thriller - first in a trilogy - that I borrowed from my mother. The fact that my mother actually read a supernatural trilogy and enjoyed it is astounding to me because that’s not what I normally see her reading, but she did say it was good so I grabbed all three of them from her shelf.

I again had trouble getting into it even though I was intrigued. However, I’m now about a hundred pages from the end and I wish I had more hours in the day or needed less sleep or something so that I could just finish it. I’m eager to get started on the other two books.

I think part of my problem is that I’m missing my weakness. A couple of years ago I learned that I missed my calling and should have double-majored (or majored-minored, whatever) in Middle Eastern Studies and Women’s Studies. One of my favorite things to read is any book set in those two areas. It doesn’t matter if it’s fiction (such as my number one favorite book EVER, A Thousand Splendid Suns) or non-fiction (like Not Without My Daughter which I just re-read before starting my current book). If it takes place in a Middle Eastern country and features women as its main characters, I’m all over it.

I need to pick up a couple of those types of books I think. Then when I’m finished my demon-filled small town trilogy I’ll have something else waiting for me to fill the void.

What are you reading right now? What’s your favorite type of book to read?

I should probably be sleeping

Sherry — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 03:19:25 +0000

I felt like complete crap today so now that it’s a little after 10 pm I should probably just go to bed. However, since it’s not a gastro I still have an appetite and I’m hungry (see yesterday’s post - and by the way I did make the biscuits today). I also feel like having a steaming hot cup of green tea first, especially since I just got chilled by taking the dog out for her last pee. THEN it will be bed time.

I am coughing like nobody’s business, pretty much the same way that Breanna was (and still is, but with less frequency), but I have the addition of aching legs. I was so tired and icky today that I was dreading this evening’s PPO meeting. I wanted to go but in the end I emailed in to say I was sick; it turned out there was a parent-teacher night at the high school that was going to result in two people not being there and three people besides myself were also sick. They just postponed the whole thing to next week. Thank God.

I ended up just taking a hot bath to try to get rid of the aches a bit (it worked for about half an hour), I laid on the couch to watch Criminal Minds (holy hell, I will be glued to the TV for next week’s episode let me assure you!), and now I’m going to have my tea and some Tylenol and try to get some sleep.

It’s nothing major, just a nasty cough, but I’m looking forward to having it go away, especially since Breanna’s birthday (FOUR) is on Friday.

I covered my mouth with my elbow whenever I coughed but just to be sure, go wash your hands after reading this. I’d hate to contaminate you!

Late night cravings

Sherry — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:59:13 +0000

I’ve heard that a lot of people who are trying to lose weight have had a lot of success by simply not eating anything after 8 pm. This is inconceivable to me because I get so hungry at night that it’s not even funny. I’m a big fan of chips as a snack but I’m also happy with cheese and crackers or making a cup of tea to drink with some cookies.

Tonight there is NOTHING in this place for me to eat. Well, obviously that’s not completely true. It’s not like Mother Hubbard’s cupboard or anything. What I really mean is that there’s nothing here that is the least bit appealing to me.

I did have a waffle because it was something sweet to have with my green tea (which I drank to try to tame this damn explosive cough - alas, it has not worked). It was completely unsatisfying though. I do have some dark chocolate but strangely enough I’m not in the mood for chocolate tonight.

What I really want is some of my grandmother’s baking powder biscuits which I haven’t made in, oh, at least a year now. I’m craving them so badly right now but it’s almost 11 pm. It’s not exactly the time to be baking something up, you know?

I think I’ll have to make them tomorrow (and put some cheddar cheese on the grocery list because a nice slice of cheese on each half of the biscuits is delicious). Still, that doesn’t help me right now. I guess I’ll have to go root through the pantry and the fridge to find a little something or other to help me out.

What do you like to snack on at night?

Chocolate + salt = DUDE

Sherry — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 03:40:32 +0000

So here’s the thing. I love salt. This is easily proven. All you need to do is watch with amazement and perhaps disgust at the way I can polish off a whole bag of chips in one evening. I’ve often joked that an excellent gift for me would be one of those blue salt licks that people put out for deer.

I also love chocolate. I’m not too picky. While I prefer dark chocolate, I will just as gladly eat milk chocolate. Plain chocolate, chocolate with fruit in it (Cherry Blossoms), with peanut butter, with mint, with orange, with caramel, whatever. The only thing I really don’t like is chocolate with nuts.

So. Love salt. Love chocolate. The thought of them together was really appealing until I tried chocolate covered pretzels and those were just… ugh. Not my thing.

Then along came Lindt.

I had heard and heard about this chocolate bar and was curious about it but also reluctant because of the pretzels. Then the other day several of my friends were talking about it on Twitter and going on and one about how amazing it was. I asked George to keep an eye out but he had no luck at the convenience store or the grocery store.

Last night I had to go to the pharmacy and they have a pretty good selection of the Lindt bars so I checked while I was there and they did indeed have it (and for just over three bucks, which is pretty good for these!). Naturally I snatched it up and I gave it a try.

Wow. It’s so good. It’s just barely dark chocolate so it’s not too strong. The sea salt is very subtle. The combination is incredible. Every once in awhile I’d bite down on an actual grain of salt and that was even better.

They only thing that could be done to improve this would be if it had just a little more oomph in the salt department and some bigger grains in there. Still, it’s amazing and it’s right up there with the chili cherry bar they make.

(This probably reads like a review, but alas, Lindt didn’t send me a bar to try out. I never would have bothered if it hadn’t been talked up so much, which means I’m a sucker for marketing!)

Not quite your typical relaxing Sunday

Sherry — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 03:44:28 +0000

Originally our Sunday plans included getting some breakfast from McDonald’s to eat at home (healthy, I know, but so good) and then we were going to go to a nice big park that has a pond, a play park, and lots of farm animals (including a pen with goats, where you can go in and pet them which is always fun).

Unfortunately when I took the dog out this morning, it was raining so that was out. Breanna already has a bad cough and I’ve gone and developed one myself so there was no way we were going out in the damp drizzle just to see goats.

We did get breakfast though, so at least there was that.

Since we were staying home anyway there was no way for me to continue to be in denial of the mess that was Hayley and Breanna’s room so I embarked on that once I was done with breakfast. After six hours I finally emerged, exhausted. However the bright side is that seasonal clothing has been switched out, with t-shirts and shorts being packed away and long sleeve shirts and jeans taking up residence in the drawers. I also threw out three bags of garbage (don’t ask what I threw out, even the kids don’t know what’s gone), packed up another garbage bag with clothing for the donation bin, and now the whole room is sparkling clean.

Let’s hope it stays that way for at least a week or I may end up in a padded room.

I’m exhausted after all of that. Between that, making supper, washing the dishes, and making a run to the store for toilet paper it was all I could do to say goodnight to the kids so I could crash on the couch with George to share some red wine and watch Criminal Minds re-runs on A&E.

And now I’m going to go watch the end of the show while sampling the dark chocolate with sea salt that I bought while at the store. People have been talking about it relentlessly on Twitter and God knows I can’t resist chocolate or salt, so together it should be perfect.

I hope your Sunday was more relaxing than mine!

Christmas planning in mid-November? I must be crazy!

Sherry — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 02:49:09 +0000

In that time in between growing up and having kids of my own, I started becoming ambivalent about Christmas and many times I found myself putting the tree up around December 20th or so. After having kids (especially as they grew enough to understand the excitement of the holiday), Christmas perked back up again. Suddenly it became magical for me like it used to be and I started putting the tree up the first weekend of December.

Yet here I am on the 14th of November and I’m now starting to do some prep work for Christmas. Oh, I don’t have lights and decorations up yet (though I did debate replacing my Fall door hanger with my Christmas wreath; I resisted the urge) and I certainly haven’t started my shopping yet (hahaha). However, Andrea over at A Peek Inside the Fishbowl came up with an amazing December challenge that sounds like a lot of fun.

Although we always get the Advent calendars with the little chocolates - two of course, one for each of them - I’m very interested in taking part in the Advent challenge.

Basically, instead of treats, you tuck a kid or family activity into each advent window/envelope/etc and on each day of December leading up to Christmas, you pull the daily activity out and do it. The key is to make the activities simple but fun - they don’t all have to be epic adventures and they don’t even have to necessarily require you to leave home. The point is to fill up those days full of anticipation with smaller moments of anticipation.

I still have to figure out all 25 activities that I’ll use but I’ve come up with some between seeing what others have done and ideas of my own. For instance, I have the obvious “decorate the tree and apartment” and “write letters to Santa” but I also have the outside-the-box “candlelight bubble bath for the kids” and “family game night - Wii edition”.

Not every activity has to be related to Christmas, although the majority of mine are. Basically as long as they’re fun, easy, and family-oriented they’ll be a hit.

I haven’t decided yet how to do mine. Andrea has a printable template to make paper envelopes where you can tuck the activities inside and I cut mine out; I might use it with some old Christmas bags, construction paper, and other papers I can find lying around. My other idea was to use baby/toddler socks. I have a bag of them and for some reason they’re still in Breanna’s drawer even though they either don’t fit or are missing a mate. I don’t know why I didn’t get rid of them but I’m thinking of using a long ribbon or a string of braided yarn and hanging the little socks with clothes pegs. That could be cute too, considering the use of stockings at Christmas time.

The only problem with this whole idea is that we’re not even halfway through the month of November yet and now I want to just get started already! This Advent calendar may be a great way to help with the anticipation of Christmas when December gets here but now what am I going to do about the anticipation of the Advent calendar?!

Are you in?

Kicking off the weekend

Sherry — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 04:09:16 +0000

Sometimes the weekend feels like a letdown at this point in my life because there’s nothing in particular that stands out. In the younger years, before kids, weekends meant staying out until the wee hours, having brunch well past normal brunch times, and just kicking back and relaxing.

With young children there’s no going out until the wee hours - the only one who still does that is George and when he does it’s only because he’s playing a gig and thus working. We don’t go out for brunch because strangely kids are not as into the incredible joys of brunch as adults are, silly kids. As for kicking back and relaxing… well, it’s more about kicking than relaxing. While I would love to spend an afternoon lazily reading my current book on the couch, alas that just doesn’t happen often (ever).

On the other hand it’s not so bad. While I can justify staying out until 3 a.m. just for the sheer hell of it, at least I didn’t have to set the alarm for 6:15 tomorrow morning and although the kids won’t sleep in until a luxurious hour, it’s still better than sunrise.

We don’t go out for brunch but George often makes brunch for us on one of the two days, cooking up eggs, bacon, and toast (I need to put in a request for sausages sometimes I think; bacon is good but sausage is BETTER). The kids do like that, and so do I.

There’s not much relaxing going on but without the time constraints of school and homework we can do anything we feel like - going to the park or into the woods when the weather is good, playing Wii games, watching movies past bedtime, whatever.

So really it’s not that weekends are bad when you’re a parent of young kids (from what I understand, that’s one advantage of teenagers - at least they like to sleep in so there’s that much). It’s just different. And different is pretty good most days.

We kicked off our weekend today. Hayley went straight from school to her grandparents’ house. George and I had Butter Chicken and since I know Breanna’s not keen on that I had her help me make some scrambled eggs with vegetables for her supper. She helped. She cracked her eggs, whisked them with the milk, and then I started scrambling them, letting her finish up. She was so proud she ate both eggs and half the vegetables.

Then George went out and Hayley was still out as well so I gave her a dinosaur bath and then we made popcorn and watched The Little Mermaid*. Hayley arrived home halfway through so she joined us and they both went to bed easily and quickly.

I’m now enjoying some Shiraz and chips and looking forward to what the next two days hold (preferably a little extra sleep for me tomorrow what with the horrendous sleep I’ve been getting lately!).

What are your weekend plans?

*When I suggested it Breanna was all over The Little Mermaid. Lately she’s very into any movie that features a boy and girl, preferably a prince and princess-to-be, and she loves when they kiss. I think I may have my hands full by the tween years, God help me.

Volunteering is addictive

Sherry — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:48:20 +0000

I can now understand how volunteering can easily take up a lot of your time if you want it to. First I joined the PPO to help organize school events, and obviously it’s hoped that you’ll be able to volunteer for some of those events as well. I haven’t yet but I’m going to be helping out at the movie night coming up later this month.

Then I joined the Governing Board which is less about volunteering and more about making important decisions about the school itself, but it still requires at least one meeting a month (more if an urgent situation comes up).

Earlier this month I volunteered to go as a helper for the class trip to see a play, even though it wasn’t even Hayley’s actual class but rather the other grade two class.

At the last PPO meeting the principal mentioned the assembly for Remembrance Day where a couple of war veterans would attend and the classes all do some sort of presentation (song, poem, etc). I immediately asked if she’d like me to come and photograph it so they could use the pictures around the school and on the website.

The assembly ended up being today since the veterans couldn’t attend yesterday (Hayley was so cute, she told me that they had to postpone it because the veterinarians couldn’t make it!), so at 10 am I headed out with my camera bag, my flash, and all my lenses. I sometimes feel like a bit of a dork when other people have simple point and shoots and then there I am with a camera bag bigger than my head*. It was fun though!

Thing wrapped up in about an hour so the kids could go to lunch but I hung out in the office for a bit with some of the other PPO folks, chatting and laughing. The secretary was preparing posters for the upcoming book fair; it’s held all day for the students and then it’s open again that evening during Parent-Teacher night in case any parents want to buy books. And the “I love this volunteering thing!” kicked in and I asked her if she needed volunteers - that was met with an emphatic YES PLEASE. I can’t do it during the evening since I want to see all of Hayley’s teachers (she has three main teachers this year - French, Math, English) so I’ll be too busy but I could go for at least half the day to help out.

It’s addictive. I could very easily get carried away with it. In fact I might volunteer for pizza day this month. It’s as though once I’m in the school I want to just jump right in and do everything I possibly can to help out. The thing is, once Breanna’s in school too I’ll be able to spend even more time there since I won’t have to worry about George’s schedule then.

In the meantime I’m doing the best I can and I’m so glad I pushed myself this year, got myself out of my comfort zone instead of letting my panic attacks stop me, and just got started. I wish I had done more of this the first two years, but I’m making up for lost time now!

*Although, is it just me or do SLR users always seek each other out? A man was there with a Nikon D40X and I immediately started trying to check the camera out discreetly from a distance. I changed my lens a few times and wondered what he was using since he didn’t. Apparently he was eying mine as well because after it was over we just kind of walked up to each other and he asked me what my big lens was. I told him it was the 70-300mm and asked about his, which ended up being a 35-70mm. We both expressed some envy over the other’s lens, then carried on about our business. That happens a lot, it’s like we photographers are part of some secret club!