May 23, 2007

Why is that the youngest kids are so cute? It's probably a survival technique so that they don't get taken out by their parents. My darling son decided to hide my van keys yesterday afternoon. He took us on a tour of the back yard, front yard and throughout the house looking for them. Considering the last time he had keys, he buried them, I thought for sure mine were gone. I was so not impressed. Luckily for him (assists in increasing his survival rate) Kass found his keys in the living room under the stool. Fancy that...

I'm done my work week (only two days this week!) but will have to do more work this week. The deadline for our fall programming is June 1st and I'm going crazy trying to get things together. There is always the pressure of coming up with the "next big" course that will generate revenue and interest in all of our programs. Plus, trying to increase enrollment in all of our other programs. Not that I'm complaining - the challenge is the reason why I love my job. The difficult part is not finding an easy solution to the challenge.

Kass is on her way to losing her second tooth. She's so proud of herself growing up (apparently she'll be the third person on the tooth loosing list at school). Almost every night she asks me to pull it out - I try (cringing at yanking on it!) but accomplishing nothing but loosening it more. I don't know how she can stand there, with tooth floss wrapped around her tooth waiting for me to yank on it, every single night.

On the knitting front - no changes. I'm expecting a big haul to be picked up from someone who is going to the outlet at Brown Sheep (yay!) but I haven't accomplished much of Kass' sweater.


May 21, 2007

May long weekend is done and over and back to work. Yay! Didn't get as much done as I wanted to, but at least I did get some painting in (outside trim and outside doors), some golfing, some visiting friends and some family time.

On Friday I went to an Aloette Party. It was interesting - was held by a teacher at my son's school and his old grade two teacher was there. Very strange to see her in a social setting. She's quite the funny lady. Saturday was pretty much a write off day - I got my hair done, Kass had a birthday party to go to, Darren had to go to work and we ended up going to a friend's house for a BBQ. Sunday was a painting and golfing day. Started off as a twosome with a girlfriend (how does that google through?) and were partnered up with another couple - one of which I worked with a few years ago. It was great - here I thought we would end up golfing with strangers and turned out to be friends. On Monday we did more yard work and then took the kids and my sister to Rattlesnake Point for a hike. Odin, being the mutley that he is, decided that he didn't like his leash and we had to chase him for a bit at the dog park to get him back on to it. I have to say that he is almost as stubborn as our daughter. A scary thought at that as I didn't think there was anyone as stubborn as her. Including me.

May 18, 2007

Here it is, the middle of May, and it feels like half the summer is over. Time is just flying by and we're busy every night. Last summer flew by and I swore that we would plan this summer better. Can't say it's happening quite right yet. Maybe instead of planning, we (make that I) should be a bit more ready to do things on a whim.

Linden and Odin were getting cozy in the backyard the other day. Linden was trying to play catch with Odin, but I think Odin would have rather given Linden kisses.

I've booked our camping holidays this summer. We're going to Blanket Creek for four days and spending time at local hot springs. We come back home for a few days and then will spend time at Fintry (a local campground). We will be going to Cultus Lake with some friends in August for camping too. I would have booked different places other than Blanket Creek and Fintry, but they're already booked solid, three months in advance. Blanket Creek wasn't my first choice, but the hot springs will be lots of fun with the kids.

I'm still working on Reid - slowly but surely. The left front and back are done, just starting the right front. I spent the past two days painting window trim and our front and back doors. I'm finally done painting the downstairs windows - Darren can paint the top! Now that I'm done painting, maybe I'll have more time to knit.


May 13, 2007

Stomach flu - the gift that keeps giving. My cousin came up for a visit last weekend with her one year old baby who was car sick on the way up. Turns out he wasn't car sick as the family was mowed down with stomach flu on the days subsequent to her visit. Cole was sick on Monday night and I had thought that would have been it. Uh, no. Linden is busy puking this morning and hubby just informed me that he's feeling crappy. Happy Mother's Day to me!

I"ve finished Linden's hat for him to wear today. Here it is blocking on a soup bowl. I made it out of Sonata Print in Brazilia using Chicknits bucket hat pattern. Great pattern and very quick to make up. I hope he enjoys it!

Speaking of Mother's Day, the kids are making me breakfast and then I'm heading off for a game of golf. And then, dinner at my mom's house. I have a feeling that dinner tonight will be minus one child and one husband.

Linden finished his assessments on Thursday. The good news, no autism. More good news - it's developmental delays and he should catch up. Linden has a huge gap between how he learns visually and how he learns verbally. Visually, he is in the 92% of Canadian children in his age group. Verbally, he is in the 50% of Canadian children in his age group. Apparently only 8% of Canadians have this large of difference and contributes to his problems communicating and dealing with others socially. He's a smart cookie that understands everything around him, but just can't verbalize it. And, if he gets a lot of his commands verbally, it's hard for him to sort things out. So, we are going to continue with speech therapy for his speech and occupational therapy for his attention and focus skills. Supported childcare will continue to assist him and with some changes at home, he will hopefully do better at daycare. We do have to reassess him at the age of 7 and will have to keep an eye out for ADHD as he may be at risk.


May 9, 2007

After five years of living in our house, we're getting central air. I have to admit that I'm a bit nervous about the whole thing. It's very expensive and we plan to live in this house for only about 10 more years before ripping it down and building closer to the lake. But, I can't take another summer where it's 30 plus degrees outside and only 4 degrees cooler inside. Or, expecting the house to cool down overnight and it's 10 degrees warmer inside than out. It's awful. Although, I know that with us getting central air, we're doing our part to contribute to global warming, which is giving us all the reason to need central air. I'll make up for it when we build our new house and get a heat pump.

I had to clean up our mini storage area where our furnace and hot water tank are to give the workers access to the area. Man, do we have lots of junk. And, I have no clue where to put it all. We live in a space that's about 1100 square feet (which I guess is big by many standards) but it feels like we never have any room at all. We're always cleaning, bumping into things, moving things. It drives me nuts!

Linden's last appointment is tomorrow. I don't know if I should be nervous or excited! I'm getting frustrated dealing with his anti social behaviours at daycare and hopefully we can at least figure out something where it can help him deal with everything.

My LYS is closing down and I had to visit. I held off to the very last bit but ended up going afterall. I bought some Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino and Cashmerino Aran for 35% off. I'm planning to make my cousin a baby sweater for her baby that's due in October.

The owner gave me an interesting piece of gossip that the Cashmerino doesn't have any cashmere in it at all. Apparently Cascade Yarns was trying to make up something similar and couldn't get the right composition at the right price. They did some investigating and found NO CASHMERE. I did a quick google on it and all I could quickly find was something on a forum. So, spoof or not, I got it at 35% off as the LYS owner was worried about the claim. Fine by me!


May 4, 2007

Reid is coming along - I'm done the back and half way the left front. The pattern is actually easy to remember and read, once you get going. If I spend more than an hour on it a day, I could get it done sooner than later. At least Her Highness likes it - after the Hello Kitty disaster with her (I made her a Hello Kitty summer top which she wore once) and the hoody disaster with Cole (another sweater that I made where a child refused to wear), I am a bit leery in making anything for the brats. At least Linden keeps asking me to make him something. Maybe you have to be younger than 5 and older than 30 (or a knitter yourself!) to fully appreciate hand knitted items.

Our local library is having their annual book sell off this weekend. I battled the hordes of people and ended up getting about 50 books for $30. Lots of kids books, craft and dog training books, plus Nicky Epstein's Knitted Embellishments for $1. That was worth it in itself! As they don't put out all of the books at once, I'm hoping to check out the fair again this weekend to see what else I can score.

I took the kids to the Farmer's Market yesterday morning. I'm so glad I don't work Thursdays now to give us an opportunity to go! The kids had a great time, and although there weren't many vendors, there were enough to have a good selection. There even was a greenhouse grower with tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. Much better than what you can buy at the store.

I am now aiming for the 10K run. I started off today running 7 min, walk 2 min for 42 minutes. I couldn't figure out why the training chart would have you go from running 30 minutes straight to breaking it up again. Now I know why. I was able to go much farther today (even taking into consideration that I'm running a few more minutes than usual) and I can run faster during those 7 minutes. It was quite interesting. I ran about 7K today - a big jump from 5K for me. Will see how my body is tomorrow!


May 1, 2007

So, on Friday afternoon we went to pick up the dog. We showed up at the lady's house and I came around the corner to see this puppy cowering in the corner next to a plant. Aw, poor little thing! He spent the next day, cowering in his dog house, only to come out when I'm around. For the entire weekend, the puppy would follow me around, come when I called him, calmed down when I pet him. Stupid thing - of all the people in the house, he picked me to listen to. A declared cat lover and he picks me. Hubby says smart puppy.

So, we now are owners of a McNabAustralian Shepherd Cross puppy whose name is Odin. His daddy was a McNab and his mommy was an Australian Shepherd. He's a smart puppy already. He knows how to sit and shake a paw. The leash training is still being worked on. The name Odin was picked as my aunt's dog next door is named Zeus. Thought it would be kind of neat to have two dogs running around with mythological names.

Linden's appointment with Okanagan Ability Centre went quite well. There was both a parent survey as well as a psycho educational assessment for Linden. After the survey, we felt pretty bad for Linden - thought that there really was something wrong with him! And then, we received the results for his assessment. His reasoning skills turned out to be quite interesting. Verbally reasoning ended up at the 50% mark. Right about average for a boy his age. His visual reasoning was at the 94% percentile. In other words, he is better than 93% of the population in his age group with visual learning. We were floored. He's a very smart little boy with issues on learning verbally. If he can see it, he can learn it.

Given that the educational system is completely set up for verbal learners, it's going to be interesting how this all works out for him. We have one more assessment with the psychologist on the 11th and we will have a complete picture by next week.

April 26, 2007

Look, I am still alive and kicking. I haven't posted in three months, but at least I am around.

I'm back to working part-time (hence the blog update) and doing pretty good. The kids and hubby are doing the same and quite honestly, nothing much has changed since January except for the type of activities the kids are doing and what we're doing outside. Instead of swimming, judo and ballet, the kids are now playing soccer and Kass is finishing up ballet. Instead of cross country skiing, we're back in the garden getting ready for the summer. I'm sure you could even read my blog from a year ago and it's pretty much the same thing.

The only thing I can think of that is new is that my hubby finally convinced me to get a puppy. Yes, a dog. I'm so not a dog person and feel like I have to wash my hands whenever I touch a dog. And don't get me started about people letting their dogs lick their faces or eat from their plates. Sorry if you love your puppy, but it's so not my thing. Anyways, three kids and a husband have convinced me that an independent cat doesn't really qualify as a pet that can catch and play ball in the back yard. So, as of tomorrow night, we will be owners of a 5 month old english collie cross. Or something like that. What I do know is that it's a dog and it's five months old. And that I will not pick up poop off the lawn, feed it or be responsible for walking it. I sound so excited about the whole process....

I am back to running and it has been going good. I'm now up to running 30 minutes non stop. I would like to run farther and longer but I need to get this 30 minute thing down pat before progressing. Just to think that two months ago I thought running 3 minutes at a time was amazing in itself. At least I don't feel like I'm coughing up a lung when running. I'm slow, but getting there. It takes me just over 30 minutes to run 5 k. Apparently that's a typical beginner's running pace. I couldn't imagine running faster!

Linden is finishing up his assessments and we'll know more about his learning style, etc. by May 11th. Wow, that's not far away at all. His speech has come along amazingly and he is getting better at daycare. He's starting to interact more with the other children than before and absolutely loves to go. He's such a funny bunny!

On the knitting front, I haven't much done (mostly due to working full time). I did finally finish Salina, of which I am most proud of. The fit was absolutely perfect, once I blocked the sweater. I was worried about how it rode up in the front prior to blocking, but that was all fixed. I love the sweater, it was a success and I was actually able to wear it once before spring weather hit us!

Beyond all that, it's been pretty much status quo. I'm working on Reid for Kass. After some false starts, I finally have the back figured out. Due to a pattern error and me using the wrong weight of yarn, I had to alter the number of stitches I cast on (a very good reminder as to why I should do a test swatch!). I'm half way through the back and I love the pattern. When I get a chance, I'll take a picture.