I am planning to bake two different batches of cookies tonight, clean the house, organize a days worth of quiet activities for the kids, make a lunch to go, fold laundry, get the kids' outfits picked out and ready for the morning, clean up the cookie mess and hopefully go to bed before midnight.
Why on earth am I on here?????
Although I think that I can get started, now that I have a list before my eyes.
I think sometimes a blog can be like a testimony. You feel like you can't go up unless you've got something good to say.
Nothing much is going on out of the ordinary. The kids are done swimming lessons and soccer. Yeah! I will never do that again, at least in the near future. These next 3 weeks are my turn for joyschool. It will be lots of fun, I am looking forward to it. Josh is down to half time teaching for is practicum semester -- but instead of being home more and less busy, coaching the basketball team at school is taking up more time than I ever imagined. I guess we will pay dearly for those 2 blissful months off in the summer...
Lately I have been having a hard time liking my job. Dishes (again). Laundry (didn't I just get caught up?). Picking up toys and more toys and more toys (and stepping on the ones I miss). Dusting (OK - I never dust). Sweeping (I have to all the time or someone eats leftovers, maybe I should just get a dog). I am not sure why I have been down about it. Maybe cause Josh is gone so much this semester? Maybe cause I don't go to the gym in the day time anymore? Perhaps because the sun is gone most of the day?
Then the other night I read a friend's post. It helped me to remember what a great and important job I have to do.
All this week (so far ;) ), I have been better able to find joy in the everyday. I am remembering that while what I do may not be that exciting most of the time, that is far different than for whom I do it and why I do it. Those whos and whys are so big and important and fulfilling and special I am wondering how on earth I let the what eclipse them.
I guess my problem wasn't the weather or school or anything but my own. Thanks for the attitude check, Friend!
I have wanted to learn to can for a very, very, very long time. Last Friday a good friend was kind enough to come over and show me the ropes. It was so much fun and now I am convinced to never buy store bought salsa again! (We'll see in the new year once we've run out....)
Just over 5 years ago I was walking my brains out. I was due any day and had heard that walking helped. Josh and I walked around the west side of Lethbridge until I could walk no further, and then we turned around and somehow I made it home. That night around 2 am my water broke. We went to the hospital only to be sent back home. "Get some rest," they said, "its gonna be awhile." While my contractions were few and far between, I don't remember getting a wink of sleep. 
So we went back in the morning, around 8 or so. Still not much happening, but this time they wanted us to stay at the hospital. My contractions were hurting more, but still farther apart. We spent the whole day there. Walking around and waiting. Waiting and walking around. I was bound and determined to do this thing without drugs. By 10 o'clock that night, still, we were waiting, and my Dr. recommended we use some drugs to help this baby move a little. She said it was the same drugs as inducing, but it was called an augmentation because I was already in labour. I remember saying to her "I'll have the augmentation," as though I were ordering something delightful at the restaurant. I remember her (the doc) laughing. Then the laughing stopped!
My dear nurse had to give me an IV in my hand to give me the oxytocin. Two misses through two tough contractions later, and someone else had to come in to give me the IV. At least this time it worked like a charm. I can remember the first contraction after getting the augmentation: OUCH. The next one: YIKES!! I promptly asked for some drugs. No epidural, just some nice morphine. While the morphine did help some, I recall thinking "This is it? I can still feel everything!" But those were my last coherent thoughts. From then on, all I did was slip in and out of sleep, waking to each contraction with my eyes closed and searching for Josh's hand so I could warp it and bend it and maim it. Josh told me later that I would want him to rub my back with his other hand, and I would yell at him that he was on my spine and to get off my spine. He said his fingers were as far apart as possible, and was nowhere near my spine. 
Finally, sometime just after 2 in the morning I was able to hold my baby boy. We didn't know he was a boy. All that work and he was finally here. I started to remember things again. He was so cute, and I was so happy..... and tired. I remember holding him as they wheeled me to my room and thinking he weighed so heavy.
I want to go on and on remembering things about him those first few months. Like when I thought the soft spot in his head was growing and I was convinced his head was gonna crack open any second. He smelled like a newborn for the longest time. He laughed so early and was always so ready and willing to laugh. (I thought every kid was like that - but since having more kids realize that was a gift). He was a very happy, easy going baby, and has turned into the same sort of boy. Happy birthday Levi. 
I sure love you!
First thing this morning:
Levi: Hey! I can spell $&@.
Josh and I : What!?
Levi: Ya. A - H - Z.
Josh and I: What does that mean?
Levi: As. Like, as I cross the street.
While here in Saskatoon we have qualified for a sweet deal. We get passes to the local swimming pools/gyms here. These passes not only get us in, they include CHILDCARE. Childcare has probably been one of the biggest motivators (at first) to get me to exercise and lose this baby weight. Unfortunately I have been avoiding using those services with the flu etc. going around, and have been exercising at night instead.
Enter creepy guy who keeps asking for my address.
Let me flash back to my earlier years. I was never the girl who had boys chasing after her. And if one ever did chase me, he was usually, lets say, weird. I had this habit of forming several "platonic," as I understood it, guy friends. These guys were the ones that most girls overlooked or ignored, and feeling sorry for them, I would go out of my way to make them feel welcome. On more than one occasion I can recall having them hang around me, and a real boyfriend, and them having no clue that they were not in the game. (i.e. one Valentine's day I couldn't go out with my boyfriend cause this guy had already invited me out, and I said yes, thinking he would totally know we were just friends. WRONG. AWKARD. I will spare you the details.) Anyways, I am trying to make a point here. I am trying to say that sometimes I am too nice. Is that possible? Yes.
This guy at the gym, (who is at least 50, by the way), comes up to me after a run and comments on my running and how he would love to run with me so that it won't be so boring. I smile and nod and after refusing to give him my phone number or cell number I relent and give him my address. Just kidding. Email address. So, he emails, and gives me this sob story of how he is from a 3rd world country and does not know how to use a treadmill. I feel sorry for him and say I will show him how (only afterwards does Josh point out that there are workers at the gym to do just that). So the next time I am there, I show him how. Then he asks me again for my address. I tell him no and make sure to leave for the parking lot at the same time as other people and check my rearviews constantly to make sure I am not being followed. I could handle all this and even thought that maybe his social oddities are due to being from a different culture. Then he invited me out to lunch via email. I have now done what I should have in the beginning and junked his mail.
Now my evenings are ruined. What was so fun and free of children and good for my heart is now a time to play hide and never be found with this guy. I don't go running cause I don't want to run into him. Creepy guy, please go find a running buddy who is your age and is not scared of you.
