Wednesday Wrap-Up!

I call this one the Wednesday Wrap-up... cause I am wrapping up loose ends at home today since we are leaving for Florida this AFTERNOON.

I think I am ready... and I mean seriously. I haven't stressed too much over the packing, I figure what I don't have or have forgotten, we can just buy down there. I have the essentials: a bathing suit, flip flops, and some sunglasses.

I think I did well packing for E too... he has the cutest little outfits for the week... some swimmer shorts, flip-flops, and sunglasses too! I hope he likes the pool cause that is where we plan to be for the large majority of the time!

I am interested to see how it goes with West Jet today... they make it sound all too easy when flying with a child, so I will have to let you know how it goes!

Anyways... onto the wrap-up, which really just consists of randomness and minor updates!

• First off, I took E back to the pediatrican last Friday for a weigh-in, and he is 14lbs 2ozs and on the bottom of the 'holy graph'. This was pretty great day for us... the ped was so happy she doesn't want to see us again - which in turn made me ecstatic. Now, we are just back to regular standard check ups with E's family doctor. Thank you lord baby Jesus (shout out to Ricky-Bobby)!!
  

• I have had more annoyances on the smoking in cars front. The other day at the Timmy's drive-thru, I was behind a teenager... who was in her bright red 1997 Chevy Cavalier with a king size smoke lit and dangling out the window between puffs. She didn't have anyone in the car, so she doesn't loose points there, but when I moved up to the order stand and put my window down, E and I might as well have smoked a pack ourselves.... I was totally disgusted! Now I think there needs to be a law against smoking in drive-thrus! I know... I am taking it to the extreme, but I swear this whole ingesting second-hand smoke thing really gets me going.

• It's earth day today... and I am thinking in honour of this important day, I am going to start cutting back on the amount of zip-loc bags I use. I am pretty sure zip-locs were invented for me. I actually think I over-use them for the sheer fact that my Mom use to buy the non-ziploc bags... (you know the no-name 500 plastic bags for $0.99 cents in the yellow box)... she use to send our sandwiches and other stuff for lunch in them, and get this - make us bring them home so she could reuse them the next day. If I did throw them out for some crazy reason, I got the evil eye from her when she opened up the lunch bag, and said 'where's your baggies?'. I think then and there, I vowed to buy Zip-locs when I was older, and throw them out after a single use - and I pretty much do that. So today, I am going to try to be more conscious about my zip-loc bag use, as my small way of celebrating earth day.

• I have been following this blog My Charming Kids.... (thanks to Loukia for bringing this one to my attention). The author of this blog MckMama has 4 children. He youngest son, Stellan, is currently very sick and is in the Children's hospital in Boston... Stellan's story is remarkable yet sad all in the same breathe. He is fighting for his life... and there are so many of us rooting for a clean bill of health for this little guy. His eyes will melt your heart. MckMama has started a name gallery for him... and people from around the world are sending in Stellan's name written in all sorts of ways, and in all kinds of places. It's so awesome. If you haven't been following Stellan's journey, I encourage you too... it's remarkable.

• A second sad story that I come across via Twitter, is the story of Maddie... a little girl who died recently from various causes, on of which was pneumonia. Her story was truly amazing from the start, born 11 weeks premature, and spending 68 days of her short life in the NICU. Her mother - a fantastic blogger, spoke at her funeral and posted her words on her blog... I was in tears reading it and watching the little video of her life. Life is all too precious, and I can only imagine what Maddie's parents are going through. If you want to see the cutest little girl , I invite to visit www.remembermaddie.com. But please prepare yourself... it's a very sad story.

• My new favourite snack is peanut butter and banana on a whole wheat wrap... shout out to Boyder and KL for mentioning this to me earlier in the week... I am LOVING it!

• It is just me or does the summer weekends fill up all too fast. This summer we have two weddings to go to on back to back weekends... and they are at the end of June. May and June are pretty much booked up right now for us... and I am quickly working on July and August. PC is going to be off this summer for 6 weeks... taking some family time that he didn't take when E was first born. We are hoping to be cottage bound for a lot of the time, but also taking some other trips in August. Before I know it September will be here and gone and I will be back to work. Excuse me while I give myself a tongue lashing - Sara: Shut your dirty whorish mouth. Quit saying that!

Well that's all for this Wednesday folks. I am showered and ready to take on first family vacation. Now... let's hope that we don't mistakenly get on a CanJet flight to Jamaica... and we actually do get on our flight to Orlando.... and have an amazing vacation!

I hope to get in a quick update from the sunny south but if I get too busy working on my tan, I will be back in week's time, so please come back then for a visit.

Tid-Bits Thursday

Frankly, my brain is still on vacation mode - and although I would like to come up with a super witty post about something important, I just don't have the brain power to do that .... so in lieu of my sound writing ability, I present to you: TID-BITS THURSDAY!

1. I think I may be off coffee ... I know it sounds ludicrous, but while we were on our vacation, I didn't touch coffee. I tried one cup the first day and found the milk to taste a bit weird, so didn't have another cup since. When I got home, I just have been too lazy to brew coffee in the morning, and have even started drinking tea at work if I am in need of something. However, I am still on Chai Tea Lattes... and in time I know my cravings for Vanilla Lattes will surface soon, but for now - I truly think I could be off coffee, if I want to be (which is probably still up for discussion).

2. No matter how much sleep I got on vacation, I am still tired... I think I was just starting to enjoy the extra sleep on my vacation, and now my body expects it. I am trying to go to bed earlier at night, but this is at the risk of leaving dirty dishes on the counter, not having lunches made for the next day, and not getting any laundry or other daunting chores done through the week. Why does one aspect of my life have to suffer, if I am trying to improve another part of it?

3. There was a tragic accident in Ottawa that happened early Wednesday morning, involving an OC Transpo bus, and an SUV filled with 5 Carleton University students, 3 of which were killed. The bus slammed into the SUV at 2am killing the male driver, and two female passengers. The other two students were injured and taken to hospital. It is not known who was at fault, although it is suspected that alcohol was a factor. No words can really express the tragedy that has occurred, but I do hope that the family and friends of those who were killed some how find a way to cope with such an unexpected and tragic loss.

4. I am peeling... everywhere. My skin apparently isn't liking this Canadian weather, as I have started to peel in various places on my body - places I didn't even know saw the sun while I was on vacation. It's quite disgusting actually, dead skin cells fill my bed each morning, I have to sweep them off in the garbage, it's very gross - no matter how much aloe vera, or body butter I slap on my skin, it continues to have a mind of it's own! I wish I could shed a few pounds, as fast as I am shedding all of this dead skin!

5. I have way too many books on the go right now, and I am not making any headway with any of them. I get about 3 chapters into a book, and then put it aside, start another one. Now I have 5 decent books started, and I am no where near finishing any of them. Do this ever happen to any of you?

6. It's Thursday, which means tomorrow's Friday. I don't have big plans for the weekend, except fully unpacking my suitcase and doing laundry - other than that, perhaps I can make some headway on 1 of the 5 books I have on the go. What about you, any big plans for the weekend?

That wraps the first edition of Tid-Bits Thursday... perhaps I will make this a weekly thing!

BANG... oops!

Tonight after a long day of work, I raced home as I was hungry, tired, and just wanted to be in my comfy clothes, lounging around, enjoying the evening.

The drive was surprisingly not too bad, no crazy drivers on the road (expect me), and no need to lay on the horn, or flip anyone the bird - that translates into a pretty good drive to me.

As I arrived home, I backed into my driveway, like it was any other day, but to my misfortune, my everyday action would become quite unpleasant, and quickly!

As I was backing in, I was thinking mostly about what I would need to do first thing in the morning at work, when out of the blue my thoughts are halted with an immediate 'BANG'.

The following thoughts ran through my mind:
Was that a BANG?
It sounded like a bang.
That was bang!
Ooooooooooooops.

So I pull forward, and think that that the racks on the Escape have hit a chain or something in the garage. But then I smarten up and realize it must have been more then that... as I have backed in this garage easily over 200 times in the last 2 years and I have never heard a sound.

Like a good woman, I back in fully, immediately shut the car off, and push the button to close the door, but the BANG has not went undetected. PC is at the door within seconds, to which he asks:

Did I hear a BANG?
I heard a big BANG?

Panicking in his Tony Soprano type voice, he questions:
Did you hit the car?

Me... dumbfounded, I respond:
Ahhh, yeah I heard something but I think it was just the roof racks.

Although I was really thinking:
Easy Tony, I did not hit your Mafia car!

With his inspection already underway PC is up on the bumper checking the roof, while I am still trying to figure out what has happened. I look directly at the garage door as it is down and I see a slight peep of daylight shining through at the bottom. I point this out, to which PC inspects further, pushing the automatic door opener to get a better look. Sure enough there is complete separation between the middle of the door and the metal bar at the bottom.

I think to myself:
Ooooooooooooooooooooooops, major ooops.

But I am relieved that there is nothing more. PC gets out the hammer and realigns the bottom of the door, only to discover a further dent on the front of the door. Its not horrible, but its still bad enough... although the good news (at this point) is that there is no damage to the Escape.
I leave PC to further repair the door as I go inside to make dinner.

While inside, our neighbour from across the street makes his way over as apparently he and his young children have witnessed everything (PERFECT). He and PC discuss the incident only to further discover another, much larger, dent on the door, and one on the back door of the Escape.

Apparently, from what they can reconstruct the garage door was about half way up when I backed into it. It continued moving upwards while denting and scratching the top left corner of the back of the Escape. It appears that if I had been going any faster I would have shattered the entire window on the back door.

Perfect. Just. F#%$ing. Perfect.

So apparently my nomination for driver of the year might be in jeopardy after this one small incident - but seriously, it could happen to anyone... RIGHT?

I am super ticked at myself, I have never been so stupid in my whole life. To boot I have no idea what the damage for this major brain fart will be, but I can imagine its going to cut into my spring clothes budget.

Its been a bad day... so I am calling it a NIGHT.

Prayers are now being accepted for a better day tomorrow!
THANKS!

Something worth reading...

You may recall this post in which I mentioned the passing of Michelle Hobor, a young woman who lost her battle with cancer at the end of January... leaving behind her daughter Noelle (pictured here with Michelle), son Nate, and husband Terry.

Back in September, the Toronto Star featured a story on Michelle... that she wrote herself about her discovery of the cancer.... the last line of the article reads 'I may have cancer, but cancer doesn't have me.'

However, the cancer did infact have her... even after a courageous battle... it was just more powerful then anyone could ever imagine and as a result it took her life.

In this weekend's Sunday Star, journalist Adam Gutteridge documents his emails with Michelle during the final months of her battle... the article is called 'A mother's tale'.

The story brings tears to my eyes.... its worth reading if you have sometime. And if you really feel like crying... the tribute video (also available on the site) will move you to tears, its photos of her life to the song 'I run for life', sung by Melissa Ethridge (lyrics here).

A sad sad story, that words cannot express at this time.

Deepest sympathy

Today, PC and I learned of a death of a young woman who lost her battle with cancer. She leaves behind her husband and her two young children. Our thoughts are with Terry Hobor and his children today, as they prepare to say goodbye to their wife & mother, Michelle.

Words can not express how unfortunate I feel about this situation. Although I only had the pleasure of meeting this young woman a few times, she seemed to be a very outgoing and vivacious person. She was taken far too soon from the lives of her loved ones, and only our deepest sympathies can be with her family during this very difficult time.

Its stories like these that make you really take a look at your own life and appreciate those around you. Its gives support to the fact that we should never take anything for granted, that each day we should be thankful for our own lives, and that although we may experience challenging times throughout life... things would be much more difficult without having our loved ones along side us to help us through those difficult times.

I hope you will take a moment today to remind yourselves just how lucky each one of us is to have the chance to embrace life - while at the same time remembering the unfortunate circumstances which Michelle was recently faced with.

Thank you.