hi there, Land of the Living!

Well. I'm back... or at least on my way back. Last week I was sick with the flu. Doctor said it was probably H1N1 because that is the most prevalent strain these days. They are no longer "testing" for the flu here - at least not unless you are hospitalized - which luckily I wasn't. I just felt like $h*t for the last 8 days. I stayed home almost all week - half day on Monday, all day Tuesday, half day on Wednesday, all day Thursday and all day Friday. The problem was that I had a whole bunch of Community Advisory Meetings scheduled for this week. I got some co-workers to cover for me for 2 of the 3, but I had to do one of the meetings on Wednesday night. I stayed as far away from the people there and presented from the other side of the room. I am feeling bad that I did it. I hope I didn't get anyone sick. I felt like my hands were tied, though... like I would be letting down my company and the client and even the meeting attendees if I didn't go, cause they would have had to cancel the meeting. It's a tough situation to be in. I felt obligated to go, I felt like crap and didn't want to, and now I feel like a jerk because I exposed people to the virus. It's like a no win situation.

In any case, the rest of the week I spent in bed. Some days were worse than others (e.g. Tuesday the light coming through the window blinds - which were closed - was making my head hurt even more) but basically I lay in bed getting up 2 or 3 times throughout the day to get some water or a cold cloth for my head. On Friday I was so miserable that I took my mothers advise and went to see the doctor. The doctor said I probably had H1N1 and told me to get my chest X-rayed cause my oxygen levels were low. So yesterday I went for X-rays and the doc said that I have pneumonia and hooked me up with puffers and some antibiotics.

So, now I am feeling much better - still tired, with practically no voice (from coughing so much), and I have a pulled muscle in my neck (again from coughing) which hurts like hell.... but I am in eth best mood. I am out of bed and doing things.

I'm on a mission to get our house germ free. We have stocked up on hand sanitizer, lysoled all the hard surfaces, and today we bought a Dyson vacuum and it totally rocks. I can't believe how much dirt and hair and gross stuff it took out for our carpets.

The problem is that I think we might be too late. CJ is feeling like crap now and seems to be going downhill fast (I'm so sorry honey!), Kenzie was really feeling under the weather yesterday - she was tired and coughing and had a fever. Today, she is coughing a bit but seems to be feeling a bit better - fingers crossed that she can avoid getting the full blown flu.

And I will be back at work tomorrow. I am scared at how much work I will have to catch up on. But at least I am no longer feeling like I'm on my death bed (I'm such a drama queen).

Hair to die for

This is a picture of Jordana, my 17 month old neice, just moments after she woke up from her nap. What I would do for hair like that!





And here's a pic of Kenzie, Jordana and my sister Andrea.

quick update

This weekend I have 3 days off – not only 3 days off – but 3 days with no possible way I can do any work. You see we are going through a major IT system change over (we were acquired by another company a few weeks ago so we are moving onto their systems). So we were told to leave all laptops, and blackberries in our office on Thursday night and we have no access to them until 7:00 am Monday morning. I have to admit that I was going through a bit of withdrawal yesterday. But today I am doing great. It’s nice not to be thinking “I should be doing some work now”. This morning the kids and I took Koda for a walk – we were on a mission to find the perfect colour to paint our front door and garage doors. I didn’t find the perfect colour but I did get some ideas. On the way, we walked by the Woocks house and picked up Jenna. She came home with us and she and Kenzie took Sandy outside and played in the tent (I put a tent up in the front yard yesterday).

Then they came inside and watched a bit of TV while Sandy took a nap on Jenna. (by the way, that is the remnants of a tattoo on Jenna's cheek, not dirt).






After that we decided to go to Michael’s and stock up on a few more crafts since Michael’s is having a big sale. It was fun. We got a ton of fun stuff super cheap. There’s not much better than that!

So CJ spent his morning driving to Oakville and back. My mum’s friends were giving away some old furniture. These are the same people that previously gave us a beautiful oak bench. This time they gave us an oak dining table and a matching hutch. So CJ took the van and picked everything up. They wouldn’t accept any money so … we didn’t want to offend them by arguing – ha! Anyhow. I was really pleasantly surprised when the kids and I got home from our shopping trip. The table is perfect for our little “craft area”. We used to have a small round table there but this one fits much better and the matching hutch is perfect for all our craft stuff. I love it when people want to give away stuff. So here it is….





Here’s the hutch…


And inside..


And in the drawer…


In other news… Sandy is still adorable as ever. She loves to play with Kenzie’s little braid.






Seb is doing well and loves to play on the computer. I am probably biased as his mom, but I gotta say he is so friggin smart…. This week he asked me to explain to him what is outside the universe and outside the galaxy etc. Try explaining a 4th and 5th dimension to a 4 year old. Then yesterday he was trying to get his head around the concept of a point – i.e. the corner of a cube. He said to me “so how does it work – at the very tip is there a small circle cause it can’t be a point at the very tip”… Talk about making my head spin.

Last Day of Summer 2009

So… today is the last day of the summer. That is just crazy to me. Yesterday was a beautiful day but there was something in the air that just reminded me of the fall – maybe it was a smell, or the fact that the morning was really cool and crisp before it got warm In any case, I am just not ready for the summer to end. Yesterday I spent a long time tending to the plants out front. We haven’t had much rain lately and everything is really dry. I gave all the plants a good soaking, did some dead-heading and fertilized the planters. This morning they already looked a lot better and healthier. Here are some pics of Seb helping me….





It was a weird weekend. It went by way too fast. I was in the office for about 6 hours on Saturday so that probably has something to do with the fact that I feel jipped (sp?). I just brought in a really big project last week. I am super thrilled about that but I am also completely overwhelmed. I can barely keep up with the work I have let alone take on more. It is so much work and I don’t know how we are going to get it all done by the deadline. I have been totally stressed out about that and having a hard time sleeping at night. So my plan for this week is to focus and get the ball rolling and try to hand off as much of the work as possible.

In any case, yesterday I got to spend some time just hanging out with the kids. We went to the park and I took some pics of our monkeys….










My grumpster




The kids are doing pretty well. Kenzie seems to be struggling a bit at school. Not necessarily with the school work – more of a confidence thing. She is in a class with only seven other grade 2 kids and the rest are grade 3s. She seems really insecure about school stuff (like a presentation she has to do for the class in two weeks). She is also sitting at a “cube” with a kid who was in her class last year and he is known for being a bit of a bully and he seems to be getting on her case. So my heart goes out to her and I wish I could make everything better for her. I am going to call her teacher this week and see if we can have a chat.





Seb seems to be doing well. We got a note home from his teacher last week. It said “Sebastian threw out his applesauce because he doesn’t like it”. For some reason this note just cracks me up. I stuck it up on our fridge. I can just picture him having a little “discussion” with his teacher and stamping his foot when she told him to eat his applesauce and him saying “I hate applesauce”. Ugh… I pity his teacher. Although she seems to be a seasoned vet and I am sure Seb has met his match in her.


In other news… we have a new family member. Her name is Sandy. She’s a funny little cat. Was the runt of her litter, but seems to hold her own in our household. She weighs 0.46kg (1 lbs) and Koda (75lbs) is scared of her and runs to her crate whenever Sandy hisses at her. She seems to “bounce” everywhere she goes and has the cutest little meow and the loudest purr ever!