I'm Baaacccck

I didn't get any good blogging time in whilst on my trip. A trip that was suppose to take me to Winnipeg but unfortunately only tool me as far as Calgary.


A certain job had me come back early. A job I was told that would be starting tomorrow. So I scaled my trip back a week. When I was heading to the ferry on Friday, I got a call confirming my start date of Oct. 24th. Of course I asked the recruiter "What the hell?" How did this happen?

Ugh. I was half way there with Aaron and the cat in tow. But I turned around and stuck around Vancouver for the weekend.

Aaron and I came home today. I am kind of stoked to play stay-at-home-mom for the week before working full-time for two weeks. After my training, I work 2 days per week. This suits me fine.


As for the MIL and I, things aren't too bad. Were polite with each other and I stayed two nights at the in-laws. I didn't care to over stay my welcome and they got lots of time in with Aaron.


I really want to blog, but I am so freaking tired I just want to go to bed before 10pm for once.

I'm In Lust!

It's been soooo long since I've blogged. I've every intention of getting caught up this week.

Now that I am a SAHM again, I will have more time to do things. Such as blog. I got a week start on the SAHM gig as Aaron contracted Hand Foot and Mouth Disease and wasn't able to go to daycare.

Aaron and I are hanging out over at my dad's at the moment before we embark on a road trip that will have us travel cross three provinces.

Today Aaron and I went to visit my mom, brother and step dad. We don't usually get a visit in when were here as it is an hour drive one way. My mom never makes the drive to see us, but today we went out for my brothers birthday.

It might as well have been my birthday. Because I got to drive a Nissan 350 Z!

I tried to upload a personal  pic, but blogger was having none of it.

This car, this car is something else. I had her at at leas 180 KPH. (111 MPH.)

Yowza! My step dad finally let me take his baby for a spin and OMG I'm in love.



This isn't the actual car but the same damn model. Holy crap! The experience I had driving this 6 speed manual transmission car at the speeds can not be described adequately with words.

I am in lust.

More posts coming soon to this blog near you.

Friday Nights

I don't know what it is about Friday nights, but Friday night seems to be my night to blog. Aaron is in bed, Eric is at buddy's place and it's just me and the cat.

This week has been interesting mix of laughter, tears and frustration on every ones part. We all had/have had colds, we're adjusting to life as a family of 3 instead of 2 and Aaron picked this week to cut his top set of two-year molars.

The frustration stems mainly from Aaron's lack of ability to express himself which comes out in a series of cries, whines and "Uh." Eric isn't aware of Aaron's cues and if we try to help in the slightest bit accomplish a task unless he asks for our help a meltdown will occur.

Aaron spent the majority of the day with me and when it's just us one on one he does much better. It's a transition having Eric home. Aaron is a little confused as we moved his car seat from my car to Eric's back to mine. He never seems sure which car he should be going in. We're running both cars for a couple of weeks and will take the insurance off of mine at the end of it's month and just use Eric's as the family car as we normally do. He has the sedan, I have the coupe.

It's funny how that is. When Eric first got to Victoria, he went car shopping. He had a car in mind and budget. He found what he wanted, fell in love and said "I'll take it!" before he made it around the block on his test drive. I am sure the salesman remembers that as the easiest sale in his career. They didn't have a 2-doors in stock so he took the 4-door. When I moved in with him in 2003 I was a little embarrassed to drive this fancy 4-door family car. It turns out, the lack of the dealership having a 2 door in stock served us well 5 years later.

When I bought my car in 2004 when I moved home as we broke up for 6 months in 2004, I car shopped for weeks or months seeking out a good deal. I didn't go for anything big or fancy, but I bought new so I'd have a warranty and not have to deal with any major repairs. Not needing anything fancy, I went with a coupe figuring I had years before I started a family. Ha! I wish the damn Blazer I'd been eyeing hadn't sold. I just finished paying off my coupe. I'll be damned if I am getting stuck with another car payment.

Both our cars have relatively low mileage and our in good condition so we intend to keep them, but we usually only one run car. I am fine taking the bus, walking or driving Eric to work if we need the car for the day. I've toyed with selling my car and buying something for equal value, but am not one hundred percent sure I am ready to part with the first car I bought myself.

So back to Aaron, he seems to be doing better now that his car seat is in my car for the time being. I wish there was a way to make the transition of Eric being home easier on Aaron, but I really don't know how to do that. On Eric's next big deployment he will be older and will hopefully understand what is going on. The next one 6-7 months long. I don't know how the hell we'll survive that.

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I never did update anybody on the MIL front. I've successfully managed to avoid her and have minimal interaction with her since July. I realize this is unhealthy, but the woman makes my blood boil. I did write her a 25 page letter in a draft form (wrote not typed, I have large writing and used a spiral note book 1/3 smaller than most) but I never sent it or followed it up.

She did apologize to me in an email. I can accept that, but she never said what she was apologizing for and I am sick of her passive aggressive treatment of me over the years and just don't want to waste any more energy on her. I sent one 3 line email back to her in response to an email about Aaron and never responded after that.

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Eric and I went downtown today and happened upon a breast cancer awareness campaign.

I am all for cancer fund raising, and awareness, but I fail to see how draping and stringing bras like streamers helps find a cure. I think the time and energy put into this would be better spent asking for donations or walking or running for the cure. It brings awareness, but what do people do once they are aware?

I'd rather donate $10 or $50 the cost of a bra to the BC Cancer Agency then donate a bra. I have no idea what they plan to do with these bras once the day is over?



Reflections

Some how I think they look better on me....


Aaron and my grandpa.

Reflections:

There were so many different things I wanted to write about. My shitty day, feeling sorry for myself, missing Eric, our 8 year anniversary of sorts. Labour day weekend has special meaning for us as it was the start of our relationship.

But I really want to write about my childhood reflections with my grandpa. I had the opportunity to spend some time with alone with Aaron and it brought me back to my childhood. He is going on 88, and is still of sound mind, living on his own, doing things for himself and is always on the go.

I have a special bond with him. My grandma and him helped my dad out a lot with me as a child. My dad worked shift work and didn’t have every weekend off. I only went to my mom’s ever second weekend, so on weekends when he worked I went to stay with them.

My grandpa is a patient man and had away with kids. He spend hours with me, and I think it shaped part of who I am. I look back on my childhood memories with him and have nothing but good memories. Some of my favorite memories are tinkering around in his basement at his work bench. We would soder iron stuff, (melt plastic) squeeze random things in the vice, play with magnets, charge car batteries. He always told me to be weary of the acid. It probably wasn’t the safest area for me to be, but I was supervised and nothing bad every happened to me or my cousins.

We would hop on a bus, and go all over Vancouver. We would take the Sea Bus to North Vancouver or take the bus to the airport to watch the planes land and take off. We went camping in his motor home and on nights when I would just stay there we always camped out in the motor home in the backyard. Winter or summer, it didn’t matter. He’d let me stay up late playing cards (rummy, crazy 8’s, poker) and had infinite amount of time.

That man can fix anything. I love him and am glad that I got some time with him and I want Aaron to get to know him before he passes. (Lets be real, he’s 88 it’s something I need to keep in the back of my mind.)When my grandma passed away when I was 13, it wasn’t long before he had a new girlfriend who move din shortly after they met. (6 months after they met?) I acted like a jealous daughter of a step-mom, and I lost a part of his affections. But he and my grandma were more roommates after my dad and aunt left the house. At this time I am happy he found a companion to spend the better part of 12-13 years with. (She had to be put into care due to Alzheimer’s) But I wasn’t back in the day. I am just so thankful that he is still around that I can make some new memories and that he contributed to happy child hood memories that might not have been there had he not took the time.

I’ve so many memories of this man, I can’t list them all. I have memories being a toddler with him and helping him shave with his electric razor and dumping his whiskers in the toilet and saying “Bye-bye whiskers see you in the riber.” (I said riber, not river) and I had visions of seeing them when we went down to the Fraser River.

I just wanted to say how much I love and cherish my grandpa. And I got to know him. I learned more of his an my grandma’s elopement, but that will be a post for another day. A good one. I am tired.

Not feeling it

I haven't been feeling the blog this week. In fact, I haven't been feeling a lot of blogs. Which is very strange for me being an avid blog reader since 2005... I had my dad staying with us for over a week and then the next day I had another friend stay with us so I just haven't been feeling it...

I'm also fighting a summer cold mixed in with allergies another reason I am not in the mood.

We had a great day as a family today. We took Aaron to a truck show at a miniature railway museum in Saanich and he had blast touching all the rims on the big rigs. He got to bounce in the bouncy castle, go for a tractor ride and a train ride. We came home and he crashed and we vegged around the house until we went downtown for the Symphony Splash fireworks in the Victoria Inner Harbour.

These were Aaron's first fireworks and he loved them. I was disappointed that they only last between 2-5 minutes (I shit you not.) Canada isn't known for its great fireworks IMO but my god, this is a long weekend, we have rich tourists on their yachts could you at least make them go for 10 minutes? I was spoiled growing up with the Symphony of Fire in Vancouver now known as the Celebration of Lights. Seriously the best fireworks I have ever seen. Eric disagrees (he hasn't seen them) and thinks the 4Th of July fireworks in Pearl Harbor are they best.

If you want to get a taste of Festival of Lights watch this video, it's only 2 min long.



I may be working soon and have been looking for quality child care for Aaron. I've been busy.

I found a new blogger and am going to take place in her 31 Days of Fun for August. Feel free to jump on the old band wagon if you wanna.

Interview Me

Encephalgia is what I am suffering from right now. Let break encephalgia down for you dear reader(s). You read the word right to left. -algia means pain, encephal/o means brain. I have pain in my brain from studying all evening. I have made well over 200 flash cards I have midterm in 3 days and I'm cramming. The worst way to study I know. So here I am taking a break to do an interview from fellow blogger Steph.

1. How did you decide what you were going to name your son? And since I haven't read your archives, did you find out his gender before he was born or was it a surprise? What would his name have been if he was a girl? (Wow, that was three questions, but one category, so we'll leave them as one, LOL).

My son’s pseudonym is “Aaron” which a picked of a hat when I created my other blog. His real name, which I won’t reveal is Eric’s middle name. We hummed and hawed for a few days over his name. I really liked the name Alexander but we went with Eric’s middle name as we both liked it. We didn’t find out Aaron’s gender we chose to be surprised and we had 3 ultrasounds where could’ve found out but didn’t. If you want to read about my pregnancy you can go to my old old blog here I knew deep down that Aaron was a boy, but I was really hoping for a girl. Had he been a girl his name would’ve been Isabelle and Belle for short. (I hate the nick name Izzy.)

2. I read that you were half-American... which half and what part of the States is your family from? Were you born and grew up in Canada your whole life or did you live in the States as well?

I am half-American on my mother’s side. She was born and raised in Des Moines Iowa. I was born in Vancouver and raised in a suburb of Vancouver. I have never lived in the States I have only done tons of cross border shopping (living within a 30 min drive helps) and I have vacationed in various parts many times. My mother met and married her first husband and moved to Ontario with him (he was Canadian) and she hated it so they moved to Vancouver where she made her life, ended up marrying my dad and having me. I have 2 aunts on my Mom’s side one lives in the Dallas TX area; the other lives in Des Moines IA.

3. What is your favourite vacation spot, and why?

That is hard to say. As a child I vacationed in the Okanogan a lot. Kelowna is close second. But I would have to say the Grand Canyon. In 2006 I went to Las Vegas and took a day trip to the Grand Canyon and it was one of the most peaceful places I have ever been to. I could’ve sat and stared at it forever. If I ever go there again I would love to camp there. Maybe that will be a family vacation when Aaron is older.

4. If you were having visitors from another country come stay with you for a week, what local attractions are a MUST?

In Victoria? Almost every attraction is a must. This place is a big tourist city. But my favorite place to go before moving here was the Royal BC Museum. Also Butchart Gardens, and for sure Mount Douglas. You drive up the mountain and you get a beautiful view of the city. If you go for 2 min hike you get a 360 degree view of the city and the local Islands including the San Juan Islands and the Olympic Mountains and Mt. Baker (the last three being in Washington State.) the view is phenomenal. Also a jaunt to Tofino is a must time permitting. It’s a 4 hour trek to the west coast of Vancouver Island and I have yet to venture there myself but I can’t wait to one day.

5. With your fiance being in the Navy, is he away from home a lot?

At the moment, no he did his sea time for many years and we were doing the long distance thing from Victoria to Vancouver, which is hard enough as it is throw in his sailing schedule and it was harder. Sometimes I would go weeks without seeing him. The most has been 2 months. I’m lucky a lot of sailors go away for 6 month deployments every few years. Right now he has a shore posting so he works office hours for the time being. It’s nice I’ve gotten used to it. But it will likely not last as it’s a posting season soon… when you’re with a sailor its not so bad when you live together as you get into a routine which makes life easier. The old routine was get up, go to work, come home, eat, sit ass on the computer, lather, rinse and repeat and then go to Vancouver on the weekends. I don’t know what this routine will be like with a toddler as he has been ashore for almost all of my pregnancy and Aaron’s life so far.

Now it's your turn if you would like me to interview you just leave a comment and I will email you the questions!

Here's the directions:

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. (I get to pick the questions).
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.