Like 7 Inches from the Midday Sun

Yes, it's a hot one! 7:30am and it's already 25 degrees celcius. Yesterday it went up to 41 degrees celcius (that's about 106 for you fahrenheit folks) with the humidity...crazy I tell you! I can't complain of course since I work in an air-conditioned office but my dear hubby who works in a warehouse and unloads steaming hot metal trailers...yup, he was practically cooked by the time he got home.

And just like with a full moon, the hot weather brings out some of the weirdness in people:

I think a lady in the office who's already slightly unstable has broken out into a full conversation with herself. I walk over and hear "Son of a......Seabisquit" which made me break into an eruption of laughter inside my own head like when Will Farrell in ELF did the "Son of a...Nutcracker" thing (I just love that movie). Now that I think of it, she's kinda talking to her computer screen - is that better? Full conversation with a piece of office equipment? hmmm...I guess the computer is pushing all the wrong keys again, entering all the wrong information, printer just has a mind of its own and starts involuntarily spitting out paper...God, I hate it when that happens!

Guy next door came over to chat with Jamie whilst BBQing last evening. And I was chatting too and squealed slightly when I saw the biggest most giant ant ever in the whole wide world on my steps approaching my kitty cat who was chillin' out in the heat and eating every blade of grass in sight. If it wasn't for the fact that my kitty cat is also enormous I would have thought the ant could have totally carried him off. Ants can carry like 5000X their body weight people! So I think my concern may have been legit had I a pet weighing that of a normal feline. Anyways, I say to the neighbour who I don't even really know yet, "Kill it!"
"You can't kill it?" he asks
"No" giving him the "are you mad?" stare and pointing down, "flipflops" (Flipflops are not appropriate bug-killing footwear)
He laughs
"But you're wearing big boots...you get it" I squeak
And then he knocks it off my step and down to the grass and says, "Let it go free" in his deep authoritative european accent.
Ok, HUGE ant on my steps and he's letting it go free. That's ok, he'll know better when the ant goes to his house and tries to carry away his son or something.

And then I chose yesterday to be the first day of a little exercise routine Jennifer discovered online. It combines 20 minutes of "strength training" with 30 minutes of cardio (walking for me) 3 times a week. Yesterday was HOT, the kind of HOT when Health Canada tells people to stay inside and exert as little energy as possible because of the extreme humidex. And I begin exercising on this particular day. Great idea Myrna. Brilliant. But had I been a guy instead of a water-retaining woman I could have easily lost 8 lbs just by sweating it out sitting on the front steps. Alas, it is not nearly that easy for me and walking my ass off (I hope literally) in 40 degree heat was the next available option.

Today's lesson: Gobstoppers actually taste quite good this early in the morning. Try it, it's the making of a beautiful sugar-filled day. (Wasn't I just now talking about exercising in this exact same blog entry? How quickly I get off track...)

I think maybe the heat could be getting to ME now...I really should go do some work.

Oh, and just found out that yesterday afternoon a guy SHOT himself after shooting a guy in the leg just down the frikkin' street. Like, literally, right next to the Tim Hortons and Wendy's that Jennifer and I frequent...um...on occassion...like not twice a week or anything outrageous like that. Ya know I could totally see someone shooting someone in the leg because they didn't have air conditioning on a day like yesterday. Jamie could have almost done that when our air conditioning wasn't quite working properly last night. I wonder if that's where it all started...guy is crazy hot with frying brain cells and goes to a guy in stripmall down the road, "I demand air conditioning be installed in my house TODAY!" to which came the reply, "very sorry sir, no air conditioning fo' you until next week, too busy this week." And then psycho guy goes and pulls out the ammo and says "Oh yeah, well take this...boom!....now you know the kind of pain I'm in from this unbearable heat"...and then he realizes that being hot with no a/c will not stand as reasoning with la policia and decides to put an end to the 40deg misery. Such a sad story!
*I am totally not mocking this terribly horrible situation, just letting my imagination run wild (like the reporters do) cause I really think my scenario is completely possible...crimes have been committed for lesser things you know.

Cutie Petuties

Somebody please tell me that my nieces are not the cutest ever...like the cutest ever in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD! lol :)

A woman should never be seen eating or drinking, unless it be lobster salad and Champagne...

Lord Byron had the right idea. If only Jamie's dad had agreed. He arrived last week with his 2 brothers (sadly, to visit their dying brother in Sudbury) and proceeded to tell me about how he has GOING to bring lobsters but decided against it because Jamie doesn't like them. Well, screw Jamie, I say! Sorry babe, but HELLO...loving daughter-in-law here positively dying for fresh lobster. Perhaps I shouldn't complain since he brought me a case of bottled moose meat but STILL...COM'ON people, it's Lobster!

Despite his trangressions, I must admit it was nice to have Jamie's dad and Uncles with us for a couple of nights visit. Uncle Mike and Uncle Jack flew back yesterday morning. Jamie's dad will be staying and Barb will be arriving within the week to attend Jamie Caines' wedding on June 3rd.

Camping on the weekend was pretty fun. Jamie and I went just for Saturday night. Saturday ended up being a really nice day although a bit cool. But we managed to stay warm playing volleyball and having fun with Quinton's funnel and sitting by the fire later in the night. And of course once the night wears on and everyone gets pretty tipsy you forget about the cold cause you're laughing so freakin' hard:
At Corey Cullihall trying to play the guitar even tho' he couldn't even stand on his 2 feet
At Quinton and Brian betting each other to strip! "Man, I'll do it you do's it"
At Quinton and Darryl professing their undying love and friendship to each other...all slurred "Man, I lovsh you", "Man, I'm shum glad we're friends", "like man, we 'avs some fun eh?" and to Kristen, "Man, I'm sorry I keeps bringing out the funnel but man, I just wants ta 'av fun and I just wants everyone else to 'av fun too." (I don't recall seeing any arms twisted to do the funnel, you guys?! lmao!)
At Sun (sp?) telling the story of Brian going pee and she could see his "bird"
Ha ha!
Not so funny, on Saturday, OMG, we woke up to SNOW! Sheesh, what up wit dat?

We came back on Sunday and went to Bella's birthday party. It was mostly our family and a couple of Erykah's friends since Isabella doesn't really have any "friends" yet. It was cute! But she's not too keen on having Happy Birthday sung to her. Not sure why but when we brought out the cake and started in on the song she's like "NOOOOO!!!!" lol...funny girl.

Funny girl as illustrated in the following story as told to me by my sister: Yesterday, Isabella was "holding" the baby on the couch and the baby started to cry. My sister says "Ok, just a sec, Mommy will be right there to feed you." When Tracey walks into the room she sees Isabella holding the baby with her shirt up (in imitation of her mom breastfeeding). "I do it" she says. LMAO!! Tracey said she just about died and had to call me right away to tell me about it. Too much...they really DO imitate everything don't they?!

Gonna go post some pics now.

Happy Birthday Tracey!!

Before Romeo and Juliet

...there was Tristan and Isolde.

Watched this movie on the weekend - Really Really liked it! Check it out.

I recommend watching the theatrical trailer and the video clip for the Gavin McGraw song "We Belong Together"

Quote Woes from PC Insurance

I wouldn't advise any of you to call PC Insurance for a quotation unless you are definitely planning to sign up.

Back in the fall before we moved into the house we called to obtain a quote from them out of curiosity to see if it would be better than our current insurance. Everyone does this right? But we decided not to switch.

When we moved into the house we got all of the paperwork from PC with our BRAND NEW home and auto insurance package. Well thanks very much, but we never did change over to your company. Jamie called to tell them of the mistake. They told us we had to pay a cancellation fee! A WHAT? Cancellation fee to cancel something we never had?! You have got to be kidding?! So of course Jamie refused.

And so it began with the calls and the letters and the this and the that...

A few months later now after numerous phone conversations with PC customer service, faxes to PC Insurance with letters from our insurance company, proof of our current policy, etc. As well as many of those wonderful customer service reps telling us that the issue was resolved, no problem, sorry about the hassle, thanks and have a nice day....and NOW today we received a notice in the mail....
What kind of notice, you ask? A COLLECTION AGENCY NOTICE!!!

I am so pissed off right now I can not even stand it. I emailed "Silverman Helps" and everything. (That's the guy on cityTV who helps people with stupid idiotic problems like this). I cannot believe the gall of these insurance companies? As if I wasn't annoyed at paying them an arm and a leg already. Now they're sending us to collections for not paying $75.60 for a cancellation fee for a service we didn't receive! OMG, I swear I could seriously injure someone right now. It's totally not about the money, I mean $75.60 is not a huge deal if WE REALLY WERE WANTING TO CANCEL SOMETHING!

Our good credit is going to be marred by this?! Ugh! Oh the nerve! Oh MY nerves!

Any suggestions? recommendations? hitmen perhaps? (don't really mean the "hitman" part but I'm just really super angry right now).

Happy Birthday Bella!!!

Isabella's Mom: What do you want for your birthday Isabella?

Isabella: Um....(thinking) Cake

Mom: And what else?

Isabella: Um....(thinking again) Pwesents

Mom: And how old are you going to be on your birthday?

Isabella: (Holding up ALL five fingers) FWEE!!!!
*Note: She's actually only going to be two!

Too cute!

Denim Day...

...In support of Breast Cancer research is TODAY and all of the office ladies (and some of the men) at my work have made their $5 donation to wear denim. Ev heard about it and our boss agreed that it was a great idea for us to participate and help raise funds and awareness for this horrible disease.














For more information:
Visit the CURE foundation at http://www.curefoundation.com
The Canadian Cancer Society at http://www.cancer.ca
Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation at http://www.cbcf.org/index.html

Happy Mother's Day!!
Mama
Tracey
Granny
Nan
Mom-in-law
Vanessa
Amanda
Daphne
Tara
Steph (to-be)
My Aunties
and to all you other moms out there too!

First Time Ever

You may not believe this.

Last night I, for the first time ever, ate at Subway. The restaurant, that is. The one that makes the submarine sandwiches. But I guess the rest of y'all would know that being I'm probably the only person in North America who has never eaten there before. In fact, Quiznos is the only "sub-sandwich" making place I've ever eaten at (not counting Tim Hortons for their bagels). And I only tried it maybe about a year ago when Jamie's dad was visiting and I didn't want to be a horrible daughter-in-law and deny his lunch wishes.

"And why have I never tried these popular food establishments?", you may ask. I have a list as follows:

#1. I absolutely abhor. detest. hate with a passion MAYO! Since childhood I have associated sandwiches with mayonnaise and therefore never had any desire to try something potentially good with something I loathe so greatly.
#2. My mother would make me sandwiches with butter instead of mayo. I've been somewhat uneasy about asking anyone else besides her to prepare a sub/sandwich for me in such fashion.
#3. Love bread. Love meat. Love cheese. But quite honestly the thought of it all being thrown together in one single bite just never appealed to me before. I've always been a food separatist. Definition "food separatist": A person who cannot combine any foods together and must have invisible (if not real) sections between the meat and potatoes and salad on her plate. I assure you I am getting better in this regard.
#4. Don't like veggies much. Sandwiches are always garnished with lettuce and tomato and onions and pickles. Yuck. Why is it so wrong to just have the meat and add cheese? Why do you look at me so funny when I say "no garnish please" like I'm a sandwich criminal, like I'm the first person to ever not enjoy veggies. Lucky for me, I found at least one other person in the world who doesn't like veggies and then I married him. Ha! So there you veggie sandwich making people!
#5. Never realized all the other choices. Now that I've been introduced to the world of dressings and sauces OTHER THAN MAYO that can be added to a sandwich to give it flavour, I'm liking the idea of the bread and the meat and the cheese all being combined in one nice munchible package. Just imagine the endless possibilites!

So last night my hubby wanted to have subway - Chris told him about this fantastic new meatball sub on garlic bread something or another. And I agreed to go with but didn't plan to try the sub shop myself. But when I got there I said to myself "ah, what the heck. May as well try it" and I ordered up chicken and bacon with cheese on whole wheat 6" sub with the Southwestern Chipotle sauce...and it was fantastically delish!

And with that I've gotten over yet another hurdle caused in part by a childhood filled with the horror of mayo-riddled sandwiches.

Life has new meaning!

According to "The Needle Test"

...it's a girl!

(Yeah, that's me over there ---> looking crazy sexy in my paint clothes and blue bandana...lmao!)

Call it silly or not...I still think it's fun: This silly "wives tale" thing with the needle and thread, watch it spin in circles (a boy) or rock back and forth (a girl), and then speculate about our future children.

I tried it on a bunch of ladies at work and it's accurate every time...honestly! Probably coincedence but still....weird. And as I read online, with the ladies at work, the needle test shows all pregnancies, not necessarily all children. Which means, IF you've had or will have a miscarriage then it will count that as one.

I looked it up online and seems there is a bit of a scientific reasoning for how it could possibly "work"...something to do with us all having a unique magnetic forcefield which reacts with the metal of the needle.

We girls tried it on Steph on Saturday. We held the needle over her belly (as shown in pic above) and it started swinging back and forth, back and forth: a girl!

And then we tried it on each other. If you hold it over your hand it will keep going telling you how many children you will have and what sexes they will be. Here were our findings:
Christa - girl, boy, girl, boy
Jen - boy, girl, girl, boy (with the last 2 looking suspiciously like it could be twins)
Me - boy, boy, girl (when Christa does it... but when Jennifer does it it's different every time leaving some speculation about the authenticity of our testing...oh well, it's still fun)
Steph - girl, boy

Anyone else ever tried this? What were your findings? Did it work or not work?

Steph's Nursery

Steph and Jason are due to have their first baby at the end of August and so Stephanie had asked Jen, Christa, and I to come over to help her paint the nursery. Jason said, "Well it's very green", not sure if that meant he liked it or didn't like it. But I LOVE LOVE LOVE this colour. I think it's so perfect for a baby room. But I'm a lover of green anyways so I'm slightly biased.
Took us no time at all to get 2 coats finished, only about 2 hours. It was fun, I apologized profusely for screwing up my job of painting the edges around the trim and ceiling, smudged SO many times. Sorry Steph! I think she'll probably just get me back when it's my turn to borrow her painting services one day.
Here are the pics from our day. And here is the theme/bedding she's chosen to decorate. It's called "Clover Fields", I really think it's cute.

Eagles May Seem to Sleep Wing-Wide Upon the Air

- John Keats

I am sad to announce that the Eagles have been unsuccessful in their plight to have babies. The last egg "died" yesterday.

So upsetting :(

One guy in the forum at eaglecam.com has an interesting viewpoint
http://forum.infotecbsi.com/viewtopic.php?t=3941

Better luck next year!

LATER THAT SAME DAY:

Ok, I have some news to add about this eagle situation. Jennifer was just talking to her boyfriend, Chris. He was watching on TV last night all about this eagle pair. The scientist involved was saying that eagles are lucky to end up with a couple of babies in their lifetime. Apparantly this particular pair of eagles are rather old and have already had about 30 offspring! Isn't that great?! That does make me feel better.

Hi-Lites and Low-Lites

In the past 7 days I:

- was pleasantly surprised to turn on Ellen Degeneres and listen to her say those words we are all longing to hear..."Wentworth Miller is on the show today" Here's the clip And for those of you who don't know who that is - shame on you! and tune into GLOBAL on Monday nights to watch "Prison Break"....bringing me to my next point:
- watched Prison Break on Monday night literally on the edge of my couch while my husband stared at me in disbelief over the excitement said show can bring to my life. I swear I could scream at the end of each episode cause I just want to KNOW what's going on and it always ends at such a good part!!!!
- Searched online for spoilers to find out how this season of "Prison Break" will end. (I'm one of those people who reads the ending of a book before beginning it...can't stand the suspense)
- Realized through the online search that Wentworth Miller was once a guest on BUFFY (the Vampire Slayer, that is!) Like, as if that show wasn't the b0mb already! Now I have one more reason to buy all seasons on DVD.

Ok, snap back to reality, and I:
- Bought a hanging flower basket for our front porch. I simply cannot contain my joy!
- Listened to Jamie every day state, "I think we're going to get grass today!" only to see him walk in the front door at the end of each day with a look of utter disappointment over still retaining our muddy brown yard.
- Watched hours of live B.C. eagle footage online anticipating the arrival of the new baby eaglet.
- Could have cried when one of the eggs "died" and was removed by the eagles from the nest.
- Literally prayed to God that the last egg would result in a little family for the eagles and the continuation of an endangered species.
- Walked with Christa whom I miss seeing every day at work. And we could never walk enough miles to say all the things we want to talk about.
- Realized that I am seriously going to be eaten alive by the blackflies and mosquitoes in my wonderful new home town in Acton.
- Had Jamie's ball tournament on the weekend and therefore got to spend a few hours with my nieces at the ball park and almost a full 24 hours with Erykah who had been asking ever since she knew it was spring, "when is ball park going to start?" (She has come to the ballpark with Jamie and I for the past 2 years).
- Began another season of Jamie injuring himself and requiring sympathetic attention at every single one of his ball games. This past week he slid into 3rd and skinned out his entire forearm.
- Taught Jamie how to properly put sheets on our bed. He simply LOATHES putting on the pillow cases....cause it's totally the hardest part!
- Got really upset when I washed a new shirt for the first time, saw that it was going to require intense ironing (which I just simply hate) and remembered how I forgot to do the "wrinkle-test" BEFORE I purchased it. Definition "Wrinkle-test": When you see a new item of clothing at the store, totally adore it, and then scrunch it up in your hand for a few seconds while it's on the rack. If when you let go it ends up being really wrinkled, you immediately step away from the garment because you detest ironing enough not to purchase it no matter how great it may be.
- Am happy to see that I am somewhat maintaining my Cuba tan even though I am scaling over like a dried cod.
- Created a kick-ass scrapbook page of my 3 little nieces. I am so inspired to have a full weekend devoted to my fabulous hobby! Girls, are ya with me on this one?
- Made the best gravy EVER and savored every last french fry with it and loads of ketchup.
- Received email responses from my college profs when I inquired about their opinions and recommendations regarding my interest in opening a daycare from our home.
- Was elated over finding out that there is a Mrs. Fields that opened up in the mall in Brampton.
- Was dismayed over finding out that there is a Mrs. Fields that opened up in the mall in Brampton. Close to work. Close enough to go on lunchbreak. To eat endless chocolate chunk brownies that are my favourite in the whole wide world. Oh my waistline!
- Spent $13.30 in candies and chocolate at the Bulk Barn. "Isn't she supposed to be trying to lose weight?" you may ask. Well I respond by sticking out my tongue in complete justification that my new "now-off-the-birth-control-pill" hormones are going nuts and I NEEDED some chocolate. And besides, like everyone who's anyone knows that the amount of candies you get at the Bulk Barn for $13.30 is really not THAT MUCH....right? Yeah...ha!

Ain't life grand?!