Happy Birthday Canada!

Watch the video below. It is at one of our hockey games during the Stanley Cup play offs three years ago. The usual guy was singing, so you have to endure it through the first verse, but then the fans pick it up and finish it off. It's pretty cool.

Tuesday's Tribute

I am participating once again in Angie's Tuesday's Tribute.

And today I think it is important to pay tribute to teachers.

But only the good ones. We all know they are few and far between these days.

Cassie was lucky enough to land one of the good ones this year. For the first time ever. Finally, in her sixth year (not counting playschool and kindergarten) of her education, a good one.

Mr. B. - as he will be known for this post - is fantastic. Cassie wanted to go to school every day. She was interested. She was happy. Her report cards were good. Her effort level great. All. The. Time.

I don't think a child's education depends completely on whether or not a teacher loves his job. But I do believe that a teacher loving his job can make or break a child's interest in learning.

Mr. B would get crazy with these kids. He had fun with these kids. He shocked the heck out of these kids when he had to get strict with them. Then he'd think of some crazy assignment and they'd be having fun again.

He took the time to practice a song with Cassie after school so they could perform in Friday's talent show.

He created a blog for his kids so they could follow assignments, and he would post links for sites he found that he thought they would enjoy. My friends, he took interest in his kids.  

And you gotta love that!

Asia landed a great teacher in kindergarten. Mrs. S. was amazing. She retired the year after Asia so Cassie wasn't so fortunate. But Mrs. S. was grandmotherly. She hugged them. She was gentle and loving. And fun. 

Since then, however, Asia has only hit the teacher jackpot once. And that was this year. In junior high, of course, the kids go to different teachers, so it is more that you have to make an impact on a teacher so that they think enough of you to want to teach you.

Ms. G. is Asia's gym/cheer/sports coach. She made the kids want to give their all, and Asia did. She excels in athletics. Ms. G. has already told her to let her know when her cheer competitions are and she will come out to watch. I know she enjoyed having Asia in her classes and on her sports teams. (At least as much as hormonal junior high girls CAN be enjoyed...)  Her natural skill and wild and crazy energy makes her a great student for a physical education teacher.

Ms. G. put in her usual work day, and then stayed to coach or supervise the extra curricular stuff that would go on after school. Many cheer competitions were evenings and weekends, and there she was. Always. 

Ms. G. is retiring this year. Tomorrow will be her last day.  I wish her all the best in her years ahead!!!

So, I'd like to send out a huge THANK YOU to the teachers out there who love their jobs, and enjoy their kids, and are in their profession for all the right reasons! YOU are the ones who will make schooling a positive experience for kids.  And what an amazing reward to have these kids love you right back and perhaps, one day, to follow in your foot steps.

Event Number One - Cassie

We had Cassie's grade 6 ceremony on Thursday morning.  

They started by coming in with either a handbell or a candle, and handed them off to the grade 5 students. Like the passing of the torch, I suppose.  It was a pretty cool moment for them.

What really knocked me on my sentimental butt was when Cassie was standing at the door, waiting for her turn to walk in (she was last). A woman behind me, whom I didn't know, said to the person she was sitting with "Man, I love that kid!".  That was MY kid she was talking about. Sometimes it can be an amazing moment to see your child through someone else's eyes. This was one of those times. 

The girl on Cassie's right is the daughter of the woman who loves my Cassie. 

When the kids got called up to get their gift from their teachers, Cassie got a huge applause, and cheering and yelling.  And it wasn't just from her Dad! She has only been at this school for three years, but has obviously made a good impression with many people. She is a good student and a good person!  I was so proud!

She was having a happy/sad moment at the end.  All of her friends are going to a different school than her for Junior High. Cass will be going to a sports school. For many with would be fine, but our kids, because we tend to move every few years, have had to do a lot of that.  It would have been nice for her to go into Junior High having some friends.  Junior High is hard enough as it is.

Afterwards, the kids all went outside with a balloon and released them.  It was a very nice day.

Congratulations Cassie!! Have fun in grade 7!  And keep working hard!

I'm A Guest Blogger!

You'll find me guest blogging today over at Ronda's Rants! See you there!

Friday Foto Fiesta

It was incredibly difficult finding a youtube video for today. This is about the best I can do. Many have disabled embedding.

We had a very busy day, with all three of our kids having three separate celebrations for school. We started with a grade six celebration in the morning. A Kindergarten BBQ later on, and the Asia's grade nine grad. Wowza! Those pictures will be coming out next week.

Today I wanted to share my memories of Michael Jackson.

Michael was the reason I stopped listening to our local country radio station and changed over to the pop station.

I had "The Making of the Thriller Video" on VHS. I watched it a lot. It would probably be worth something one of these days, however my brother taped over it with some other music videos. And yes. He was in HUGE trouble for that! I threatened his Duran Duran video for a long time, and would have taped over it, but for my insane love of Nick Rhoades.

To me, Michael Jackson will always be that cute young thing in Thriller. When they announced today that he was 51, I darned near fell out of my van. You mean he's NOT 25 anymore?? WTF?


So I leave you today with the only MJ video I could scoop off of youtube.





Check out Candid Carrie for more!

My Wish List

Thursday's Writer's Workshop hosted by Kat.

The Prompts:

1.) Interview a child.
(inspired by Quilao Triplets)

2.) How do you stave off boredom?
(inspired by Jenn's Pen)

3.) Write a poem for the little boy in your life.
(inspired by Life With Kaishon)

4.) Describe a memorable interview or talk about your experience trying to find a job amidst this recession.
(inspired by Lacey)

5.) Create a Help Wanted Ad.
(inspired by Jenners)

Number five is my choice.  Here goes:

Position Available Immediately

Mother of teenage daughter is desperately seeking a normal boy who doesn't smoke dope or cigarettes. He wears his pants AT LEAST to his hips. He makes good grades. He knows what he wants for his future, and "getting laid" isn't in the top ten. 

This boy will not know the average hourly rates of the motels in the area, nor will he know of a good therapist. Not yet, anyway.

This young man will have the amazing power to sweep said teenage girl off her feet. Even though said teenage daughter prefers the bad boys. He may have to agree to scheme along with "the mother", pretending to be that bad-ass, so as not to lose the girl's attention and affection.

The wage for this highly-sought-after position is the undying love of said teenage daughter. So long as he plays by her rules.  Oh, and he must be very versatile, as those rules may change from day to day.

There is a daily bonus of the love, respect and complete and total awe from the parents of this teenage daughter for every day "the successful candidate" manages to survive said teenage daughter.

Please apply in person, along with your parents, siblings and all ex-girlfriends.

Almost There!

This week is a busy one in our household.  I'm so glad it's almost half done. 

Church league soccer finished up tonight. Our adult team came from last place to take the trophy. Only there was no trophy. Technically. It's a fun league only. Our orange team was up by one goal going into the second half and down one player to an injury. (Technically two players, because I'm off, and another injury that was playing anyway!) So the green team started the second half by pulling all their eleven players to the eight players we had. Isn't that nice? BUT WE WON!!!! Wahooo!

Tomorrow is work and cheer, meetings and soccer wind up BBQ and Leon has a baseball tourny all day. Then after all that, I'll be up putting hair in rollers and trying different styles on the girls.

Thursday morning is a ceremony for the grade six kids heading off to junior high. Some girls, I have heard, will be wearing gowns. GOWNS, people. Seriously? They do know this is only the mid way point in their school careers, right?

Thursday evening is Asia's grade nine grad, which is more of a casual dress up, because this year they are opting out of the whole dinner / dance schmozzle and just having awards and desserts. Off to high school for her.

And Miss Liv also has her kindergarten celebration tomorrow night, which she will have to miss, unfortunately, for Asia's grad, which trumps kindergarten. But, what she doesn't know, and all that, right?

Then Friday is Cassie's talent show at her school.  She is doing a solo with her teacher playing guitar. That means no CD in the background, in case she forgets words, or gets off track.  A brave, brave girl, that middle daughter of mine!

Saturday is Asia's big aftergrad party. At someone's house.  Be afraid. Be very afraid!!!

The rest of the weekend is reserved for cleaning my poor neglected house!

So, it seems that while I am back to blogging, life is sending me into full tornado mode for just another couple of days.  Hang in there, though. I'm bound to have some grad stories. 

They are, after all, all girls!!! And what are girls without drama and more drama?

A Few Hints....

Can you guess what is now a possibility for me in October?

My Last Post and Testament

I leave you with this. 

A story.

A story of love and betrayal.

One fine day, a family was driving down the highway and saw a sign for free bunnies.

The family quite happily took two same sex bunnies home to their acreage and snuggled them into the unused shed and made them a fine, fine yard to play in.

Suddenly one cold, blistery winter day, two hysterical little girls came running into the house screaming "BABIES! The bunnies had babies!"

We went out to see a wee nest with several frozen solid babies. Seriously. I tapped one on the counter of the shed and it almost shattered. 

Yuck.

Okay, so now this fine family knows that these two bunnies are not same sex bunnies. They are, indeed, brother and sister. 

Can I get a collective "Gross" from the audience, please?

This happened again later in the winter.

And again in the spring. We managed to save this spring litter and found homes for these bunnies. And our incestual bunnies found themselves separated.

This happy acreage family found it was time to move back to the city. So, with Spot and another I don't remember the name of (the sister/mother) we moved into the city and made them a fine hutch to live in. Outside.

Suddenly again, Spot found his way into the little missy's side of the hutch and more babies were again on the way.

Now, everyone, can I get a collective "F*ck"!

We again had another litter of bunnies.

Cute little buggers.

One was clearly not thriving and his brothers and sisters were forcing him out of feedings. His mother was not helping matters as she left him out also.

I know this is the way of it, but it doesn't make it hurt any less. 

We tried to feed him with an eyedropper to give him something in his wee belly. This little guy (We named him Lucky) could barely walk, and finally a few days later died. Since it was winter again, Lucky now found his way into my freezer in a little tupperware container so that we could bury him properly once the ground thawed. 

Yes, there was one time I looked at the container and couldn't remember for the life of me what was in it. Until I opened it.

Now I'm looking for a collective "WTH" from the group!!

We still had the mom and dad, and now decided to keep one from this litter. He was a lionhead rabbit. We named him "Freak". 

(Yes, I do realize that this is a photo stolen from the intenet and that it is in fact a bunny named Brody. But you get the general idea.)

This happy city-gone-acreage-gone-city family discovered that they didn't want these rabbits anymore. Their hutch was attracting mice, the hay was making a mess and they were just sadly neglected.

One day, leaving for work, I discovered Freak, who was still bunking with Mom, quite happily humping her.

So, late for work, and duly grossed out, I grabbed up Freak and put him in with Spot, his Dad. Suddenly Spot was humping Freak.

Now, you guessed it, it's time for a collective "No 'freak'in way!!!"

I'm standing there, seriously not knowing what the heck to do, watching these boys go at it. I'm late for work to boot.

So I went and grabbed the travel cage and dumped poor Freak into that for the day.

Then when I got home from work, we decided it was time. Time to get rid of these rabbits. But who on earth would take these full grown horny rabbits, I asked myself?

Why, the Ford dealership on St. Albert Trail. They seriously had been in the news for their rabbit accomodations. They had this beautiful igloo house for them and they fed them and people who came around loved them. And, by God, that was the place for my rabbits.

Late that night we gathered our children and our rabbits and their child. I had one on my lap and one at my feet. Asia had the other rabbit. We drove onto the lot. We noticed a man still in the office, talking on the phone, watching us.

We pulled up alongside the rabbit igloo thing. Very quickly I opened my door and threw the rabbit I had in my hands, lifted my right foot, and used my left foot to quickly sweep this other unsuspecting rabbit out the door, yelled at Asia to dump hers and we would be off.

Suddenly I looked down to see poor Freak getting accosted by Spot again.

"STOP!!"

I jumped out really quick, grabbed onto Spot, who had his poor victim dangling off his thingy, and shook him until Freak fell off and landed, safely, on the ground. 

Then we drove away really, really fast. Like the Ikea commercial.

And waited frantically for a whole week, for the police to come to my door.

And thus ends our story. 

And, for now, my blog.



Nimrod that I am tried to play soccer last night.  I think I either pulled or tore my plantar faschia. But, the good news is that the injury helped me get in on a cancellation today at the Sports Medicine Clinic. 

The only BAD thing, is WOW, do I look like an idiot trying to get around. 

I tried to hop up the stairs last night from the garage and fell on my elbow.

Yeah, have your laugh. My family certainly has.

I'm off to the doctor. 

**It turns out that it is a tear and I am now in a walking boot/air cast for about six weeks followed by hugely expensive orthotics and maybe even radiation shock therapy of some kind. And in my defence, I really didn't play hard last night, it was just a reach that did it.

F*ck.

And all he's left with is a blubbery, blubbering wife.

So, we went camping in our new-to-us trailer for the first time this weekend. 

Oh. My. Stars.

I'm one of those wives who tends to think about things before diving in. Thus, my endless questions about how much weight our truck can pull. More questions about "What if we push on the slideout without the bars being put on (because it would be just like us to forget....)?" Does he know how to pump out the crap? Load the fresh water? Are the stabilizer bars on okay? What are those boards for? Are you sure we don't need one of those triangle things on both sides? How is the truck doing? Maybe if you take it out of cruise control on the hills it won't be so hard on the motor. Are you sure the dog isn't going to jump out? Aren't we too close to the neighbours fire pit? Isn't our own fire pit going to burn our awning? You should be using your emergency break.

Yup. That's me.

Aren't I amazing?  Leon is so lucky to have me. Just consider everything he would have screwed up if I wasn't there. In fact, he is so confident that I helped iron out all the bugs this first time out that he figures he's okay going without me from now on. 

I'm just kidding. He's stuck with me most times.

Although, I do have to say that for someone who is so on the go all the time - and I do seriously mean all the time - camping is incredibly boring. I mean, really, what the heck do you do out there? And let us remember that I'm a boredom eater. A Costco size bag of M&M's, ice cream, raw weiners, coolers. I'm going to be a house if I go camping very often!!

You get up in the morning and brush your teeth outside in front of your neighbours so you don't waste water or grey water tank space. Then you have breakfast outside in front of all of your neighbours. Then you sit outside and scratch your butt in front of all your neighbours. It's a little weird when you think about how much of yourself you are sharing with these neighbours.

And then the neighbours get to delight in watching this first time trailer family.

They can laugh at you while you back into your stall, get everything set up, and then realize you forgot to stop at the water tap and fill up, so you hook the trailer back up and head out to get water. Then you think the water is full, so you go back to your stall and set up and realize the hose is a little funky so you actually didn't get any water at all, so you make trips to the water tap with a jug and fill it manually anyway.

They can watch while I pull out the lawn chair/bed thing. I laid it out so carefully and got the back and legs just where I want them. With my book in one hand and drink in the other, I go to sit down and suddenly I'm laying on the ground with my legs in the air. I guess the one set of legs didn't lock into place.  And if they didn't see it actually happen, the laughter from my family most definitely made them look after the fact. (I was a little stunned and laid there for a few minutes, laughing foolishly at myself.)

They watch, and smell, while the girls scam poor Olivia into scooping up dog poop. Really big dog poop.

They listen while my dysfunctional children (hey, it's them, not me!) have atter in their high-pitch, blood-curdling ways.

The get to enjoy the singing around the campfire (decked out in winter jackets for crying loud!) as my girls put on a concert. Lordy, do they sound beautiful together!

Then finally, they help while Leon "breaks" the trailer. Our jack broke and he had to try a make shift jack to get the ball/hitch thing hooked up on the truck. CRASH! Down goes our trailer. Thankfully we had a farm girl next door who just the week before had to learn this process when their tire fell off their combine. 

It was not pretty. At all.  I had to walk away to have a meltdown. At that moment I decided this camping thing was just too stressful. And really really really frigging cold. Did I mention that?

Then we got home. And there was almost nothing to unpack, save two loads of laundry and the perishables from the fridge/freezer.

How totally handy is THAT?? 

I think I'll go out again after all. 

Typical Monday

There are some days when one should just pull the covers over their head and go back to sleep.

This is one of those days.

Technically you could just say that I’m having a typical Monday.

I’m worried over Asia’s recent choices.

I’m frustrated with my youngest child’s inability to learn the alphabet, be nice to others and listen to her teacher.

I’m disappointed in myself for not being nicer to my happy middle child, because I’m just so busy beating my head against the wall over the other two. (Better to beat my own head against the wall than theirs, I suppose.)

I’m suffering anxiety over the traditional money woes that everyone seems to be suffering lately.

I’m pissed off that I’ve gained some weight, and can’t find the determination I need to get back on track.

I’m just amazed at the stupidity of the person who thought to make a 2”x4” photo book and then charge unsuspecting people $$ for it. Can you even SEE something that small?

I'm curious what you've all been up to since I was last free to blog to my heart's content.

I’m itching to tell you some stories of the trailer park trash we have become, but with it being a Typical Monday, there is just no sense in doing it today, because my computer would crash and I’d lose everything without first saving it.

I’ll tell you stories of horny rabbits later this week. If I tried today, I’d probably get caught and then fired.

I’ll tell you about the boyfriend we will have the misfortune of meeting at Grad in a few weeks. Sigh…. But today, I just don’t have the stomach for it.

Thank goodness this is my blog and I can be crabby if I want to. Just for today though. Tomorrow I’ll be back to my totally delightful self.

The wife of one of our fire fighters - Kym

We're off to camp in our new-to-us trailer. It is going to be a crap weekend, but at least we'll have a roof over our heads! Have a great weekend everyone!

Thursday's Writer's Workshop - Language Warning

The Prompts:

1.) If you could cut back on something in your life that takes up your time what would it be? And what would you prefer to spend that time doing?
(inspired by Lady Isra)

2.) Share a recent adventure you had with a friend.
(inspired by Amy)

3.) Describe a memorable gift. Why was it important to you?
(Inspired by Kit Kat)

4.) If you could change career paths now and be anything you wanted to be...what would you be and why?
(inspired by Lauren)

5.) Kim's email:

In the St. Louis News-Dispatch paper, they had an article of a man who wrote his own obituary before his death, and gave it to his sister to post when he died. He summed life up in 45 words:

I know it's a morbid subject, but what about a prompt about what would one's obit say, with a word limit. You could stipulate that everyone died at 100, so we'd all be predicting what our future would be like.


So there you have it. Sum up life in 45 words. :) Happy happy.
(Inspired by Kim)

I'm taking on number 5. With a twist.

It's not MY obituary.

And I can't promise it will be captured in 45 words.

But read on anyway.

Obituary for two random strangers who would have much rather remained strangers, but thus, now our entire community knows about them. (click to read)

Yes, that's my title, but it doesn't count toward my word total. 

Because I said so. 

That's why.

On May 31/June 1, two dumb-ass f*ck 14 year olds entered an acreage where they stabbed to death two people. They stole their truck and tore off down the road. Police caught these two dumb-ass f*ck 14 year olds in this stolen truck. Police proceeded to the home of the stolen truck to find two blugeoned bodies. I'm sure they were very nice, reasonable, working class people whose lives have now been snuffed out because two dumb-ass f*ck 14 year olds (one of whom is now charged with murder, the other accessory to murder) just happened to feel like it was their time.

Nice, huh?

These boys can't be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.  Personally, I think NAME THEM. HUMILIATE THEM. DETER THEM FROM FUTURE ACTS OF STUPID AND ILLEGAL.  Why protect them? They MURDERED two innocent people.

So, for now we'll just call them two dumb-ass f*cks. 

Okay?

It also happens that "people" are suddenly wanting to look deeper into children's services (these "children" were wards of the gov't). They want to blame everyone, it seems but these "children". Isn't it just typical for this generation to not be made to take the blame for their acts? Isn't taking ownership of your actions part of the overall learning process? WHY take the blame away from these "children" and put it elsewhere? What will that solve? 

 

Go see Kat, where hopefully many others will participate and be far more uplifting than me.  :-)

Wordful Wednesday!

This shot is from the graduation / family pictures I did in May. I love this photo.

And this one.



Aren't they cute?

Head back over to Angie to visit some other participants!

Tuesday's Tribute

Feet.

Yes. You heard that right.

And I'm not talking feet that have to be beautiful.

No.

Nor feet that are particularly ugly.

This is more about feet that can do this.

And especially this.

(Side note: In my family, Leon would be the yellow shirt guy and I would be the red shirt guy on the right. Yes. The one looking looking like he's going to go all Kung-Fu-Panda on yellow-shirt's ass. I know deep down you all thought I was the compassionate one on the left who was trying to figure out how to catch yellow shirt dude without actually having to touch him.)

But me? I tried to go for a very short, very casual, very sllllooowwwww walk today after work. And now? I can barely move.

This sucks.

Another side note:

Little kids have such a way about them. How many others out there have had this happen:

Olivia: Mom?
Me: Yes Olivia.
Olivia: I want to give you something.
Me (Keep in mind that it is past bedtime and mommy has quit being mommy for the night): What Olivia! You are supposed to be in bed.
Olivia (Taking my hands off the keyboard, turning my chair, flinging herself into my arms.): A hug! Mommy, I'm not tired.
Me (Keeping in mind that it is now almost summer and it's practically daylight outside even though it is now 9:00.): Get your butt to bed. Close you're eyes and sleep will come.
Olivia: But mommy, do I have a rip in my head?
Me (Looking over to see her pulling at the part in her hair where her piggy tails were all day): Um. No. Olivia, there is no rip in your head.
Olivia: Are you sure? I feel a rip in my head. I just ripped it and I feel a rip in my head.
Me (trying not to laugh): Go to bed.

She's just lucky she's so cute.

Tuesday's Tributes are brought to you today by Angie at 7 Clown Circus. Oh, and the letters F'N'A.