Hey hey hey bye bye

Yay vacation, very very very much needed vacation. I've been working incredibly long hours the last 2 weeks, and now I'm taking a week of lieu time, so I still have 3 weeks of vacation to use this year, I guess I'll be carrying it over again and next year I'll have 6 weeks to take :)

So looking at the title of the post? Wondering what's gone? Jenn knows, though she hasn't seen yet. I'll give you a hint...a foot. Do you know yet? No? I cut my hair, about a foot has gone bye bye. hehehehe, it was so much fun to go to work the next day, or tell my mom I had a hair cut on the Friday when she asked what I'd been doing and mentioned I "trimmed" it. She likes short hair so she was happy.

Hub's and I bought a new TV for our anniversary, Sony LCD Z Series, so the old one is coming up to the living room (not the new one, he watches TV too late and too loudly for me to sleep, he laughs really loud at the late night shows on Com.edy net.work). So since we got a new TV, I need a TV stand for the old one, so to Ik.ea we went. The old TV stand had to have the shelves removed to hold the new TV, so we also needed more media storage, and since we're having it delivered might as well add another bookcase for that ever expanding book collection. I also (hopefully) got a matching Po.ang chair for the existing one the dog likes to sleep in. A new cover too, so that I can replace the one Drake sleeps in with a clean one when...er if...we have company.

OK, so off to watch a movie on Zed.

Sugar Free

Lately I've been coming across a few posts and articles about removing sugar from one's diet. I remember the last couple of times I removed sugar, empty calorie and fatty foods from my diet. I felt a lot better and had more energy, but it takes more planning and commitment than I'm prepared to do again. So for the last week I've been removing just sugar from my diet, I'm not completely without sugar, I just aknowledge that if there's something I'm intending to eat that contains sugar, I remind myself that it does and how that seems to affect my attitude.

I have noticed the last 2 or 3 days that my energy level and attitudes are improved over the previous month, when I felt lethargic and apathic about almost everything. It could just be a response to taking control of something and doing it for myself than the actual removal of sugar.

Yesterday I had a completely sugar fee day, today I had one spoon in my coffee, but that's all. Tomorrow we'll try for another sugar free day. The one thing about cutting sugar is the withdrawal. In the evenings I would wander around the kitchen looking for a little something to eat. I wasn't hungry, I wanted something sugary, and we don't have a lot of sugary foods in the house (only ones hubby likes and I either don't mind or don't like, so they aren't as much of a temptation). I'd keep popping little things in my mouth and wanting more because whatever it was, it wasn't sugar and the craving continued. I consider myself fortunate that the withdrawal for me typically only lasts about 1/2 a day where going cold turkey is really hard, apparently it can last up to a week for some people. For me it starts around 2 or 3 pm on an average work day and last for the remainder of the day (i.e. bedtime), so I go to bed early :) I'm fine the next day, or if I'm still craving is is so much reduced from the previous night that it's not noticeable to me.

So you might be seeing more sugar free posts from me in the near future, I want to chronical how I feel to encourage myself not to go back to eating sugar regularly.

Been awhile

It's been awhile since I last posted, that's because I have nothing to say, I still don't.

Today hubby and I went to breakfast and Drake was naughty at home, he tore up a plastic bag, took my running shoe to the basement, tore up a facial tissue, tried to eat a bag of ginger snap cookies and barfed on the basement carpet (which strangely is the nicest carpet in the house). Hubby found it, so I'm letting him clean it up, all the way up. Apparently it came off the carpet with no stain, but I told him we should probably wash it anyway. So he asked me if we had cleaner other than the rug doctor stuff (nope) so I told him to just mix the rug doctor with water and there's a rag and a scrub brush in the laundry room. So he's cleaning it, hehehehehe. Makes me happy as I usually get that job because 90%+ of the time I find the mess.

Friday I took the day off, just because, it was really hard to entertain myself for the whole day while everyone else was at work. Sometime this week I'll re-highlight my hair as the roots annoy me. Nothing else is new, I'm just waiting for a change at work on the systems to get to my steps of the process (supposedly between 2 and 4pm, unless they are late in delivery). I have another one next weekend.

Hmmm, I've been thinking about my goals lately, I'd like to redo the flooring in the main part of the house, so I'm saving up money, I figure 5K-7K aught to do it. I'd like to put down a darker laminate than I have today (it's currently blonde laminate). I'm still debating between a reddish colour and chocolate/ebony colour. I like the darker tone, but not everyone likes it soo dark, and we plan to sell within 5 years, maybe less, then again life can change a lot in 5 years and we might not be able to move at all, so maybe I should get what would make me happy :)

Here's what the floor currently looks like:



And 4 options I'm think of
1)


2)


3)


4)

Commercials

So yesterday as hubby and I were driving home from the bookstore I heard a minivan commercial where they were offering $10,000 back from the purchase. 10K! They also mention how that buys a lot of gas (a lot of car comercials mention money back and gas these days). So I did a little math in my head of how much I spend on gas, and how long 10K would last for gas. I used to spend $200 a month, it's now about $250, that's $2400 to $3000 per annum, so 3 to 4 years and I've spent 10K on gas (holy cr**!) so I figure a minivan uses more gas, so a tank in a minivan should take me as far as a tank in my car. The tank size of the minivan is 60% larger than my car, so I should be spending 60% more on gas i.e. $3800 to $4800 or take between 2 to 2.5 years to spend $10K on gas! I tell you, I wanted to get rid of my car immediately, take into account that between parking, gas, repairs and insurance, I'm spending currently $7000 per year maintaining the vehicle. So I looked up bus fare, in 2 cities since we're considering moving. Current city it's $175 + $38 = $213 (or $2556 per year) target city is $109 (or $1308 per year). Even if I add another 2K per year for taxis, I'm still saving at least $2k in either city over using the car. Dang I want to chuck the car bad, it's just so darn convenient in my current city at least, I'll have to make a list of what I want to be near if we move into our target city.

Pictures

With and without my glasses. Posting for a limited time only . I got it cut on the 28th (just the post was written sooner but sat in draft mode for 2 weeks.) OK so the parts that look red in the picture are actually closer to blonde.

Time's up, pics removed.

How lucky are you?

Do you ever think about how lucky you are? I do, not a lot, but every few years I think about how lucky I am to be placed where I've been placed, simply from an accident of birth. I've been thinking about that today.

I found a grid of global population by age and sex, about 268,000 people alive today were born the same day I was. Probably 300,000 people where born the day I was born (taking into account mortality rates). I had originally calculated the percentage of people in North America and earning a middle class income or better giving me a 2.5% chance of being born as fortunately as I was, but it would be higher than that as there are lots of other wealthy countries I could have been born into. Still, I'm pretty fortunate. I believe I have a responsibility to humanity to help others because I can, but what to do? There are so many choices. I think some of the first things I need to choose though are to look to the needs of others before my own comforts, do I really need that piece of pie? Could not the $2-3 it costs be put to better use? What about that new item? Do I really need more clutter in my life? More things?

In other news, I got a haircut and highlights, can I just say something meekly? That although it was more than I intended to spend...I feel pretty, so it was worth every penny.

Happy Mother's Day

To all the mother's out there Happy Mother's Day.

Things I know about my mom:

1. That she's always there for me, and even though I'm married and living away from the home I grew up in, she still worries, just a little, if she calls me and I don't call back that day.
2. When she got so mad at my little brother for calling her his maid that he was sent to his room. Mother's are not employees of their children, no matter how much some company says a stay at home mom should be paid in monetary funds. They are paid in the unconditional love of their children.
3. Despite how much I love my mom, not even if I think there is nothing she could do to make me withhold that love, she loves me infinitely more. A love I won't fully comprehend unless I have a child to care for, that I am to teach and love and help grow up into a responsible adult.
4. No matter how old I get, how many children I have, what I accomplish or don't in my lifetime, I will always be her little girl and she'll always be proud of me.
5. My mom will always be my mom, she can't be replaced with another. When she's gone no other woman would fill her shoes in my life. Other women might be mentors, supporters, friends, confidants, care givers, but not my mom because they can no longer fulfill item #3 in my life.

Happy Mother's Day mom.

Kim

The Trip

We're home, we have been for just over a week now. Here's a synopsis of our trip to London.

April 7 4pm arrive at airport
April 8 10am check into hotel room in London, freshen up leave bags and head down to Kensington park to look around. We walk south through the park seeing various statues and stop at the Diana Memorial. Grab a lunch at the local cafe and head west and then north back through the park and see the Albert memorial. Go back to the hotel room for a little sleep and then out to dinner.
April 9 we went to the Science Museum and the Natural History museum. The large museum's in London are free, which is really great.
April 10 Try to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, it's only done on alternate days, today is not the day, oh well. So we head to Westminster chapel and have a look around there, then head to the Parliment buildings and big Ben, and go to the London Aquarium
April 11 Go to Harrod's and Oxford Street
April 12 See MI5 and MI6
April 13 Go to the Tower of London and spend the whole day there
April 14 Go on the London Eye, see Westminster Cathedral
April 15 Decide to go to the wax museum, but it's 25 pounds per person, do the conversion and for $110 dollars decide I don't want to see it that much, so we go to Sherlock Holmes' house nearby, then souvenir shopping for family.
April 16 Fly home

I know there was other stuff we did, but I can't remember now, or at least can't remember which day, and I don't guaratee the above is correct.

I don't have many pictures on the camera, and they are currently on hubby's computer not mine to post. Maybe I'll get around to it.

The last couple of days have been tough, the due date was either Saturday the 19th or Monday the 21st of our baby. Saturday I had a good cry, Monday I was distracted by being back at the office and my brother's 1 year wedding anniversary. I expect the next few weeks will be hard, especially Mother's Day, and then August/September will probably be hard again as anniversaries of the miscarriage come around. Please don't comment about being pregnant again soon, hubby wants to pursue his dreams, so it means waiting 1 to 3 years before trying again, I find that very depressing, especially seeing as I've already waited 2 years and we've stopped trying twice now for this dream.

My bro's having a potluck for his one year anniversary, they've invited over both sides of the family, so that will be really nice. I'm bringing a cheese tray and mongolian beef with noodles (pretty much steak strips in a black bean and garlic sauce with sweet bell peppers, it's hubby's favourite meal right now). Speaking of which I should go make sure I have all the ingredients I need, ta.

Cleanup

I'm doing those things one does before they travel:
Updating the booking info
Getting the house super clean for the neighbours to check on it while we're out
Getting the dog's stuff together
Laundry
Packing
Updating flight check-in info
Printing e-tickets
Aggregating all travel docs together for easy access
Maps documenting where all the things are that we want to do in London

Well my vacuum stopped again (needing the dust cleaned out, because I forgot to do that first, so I best get back to the tidying up and cleaning.

Spring time? Not here.

I long for spring, green grass, pretty flowers, warm bright sunshiny days and mostl importantly no more snow. The first evidence I've seen so far is the bright sunshine we've had over the last week, but the snow hasn't melted yet. In the mean time I have holiday plans for traveling, yay, I'm very excited. It's our second big trip as a couple. Today I purchased a dress and a top for the trip, which to most might not be a big deal, but I typically don't wear dresses and this one even contains hot pink as a colour (I normally wear dark earty colours), maybe I'll take a picture later and post it.

Drake will be off to boarding at daycare, at least I know he'll be happy there, he'll probably be exhausted after our trip, heck he might even prefer to stay at daycare it's so much fun there.

Tomorrow, Cora's for breakfast, yummy, and they are opening one near us soon, that's very exciting news too, I really should go check the projected date for the grand opening. Also get my hair cut tomorrow, it's long overdue, it's been 4 months since my last hair cut and 7 months since I last coloured it (which I'll do next week).

Doggie Daycare

Some of you may know that we take our dog to daycare 3 times a week. DH and I work about an hour from home (he slight more than an hour, me slightly less), and we work long days, so typically we're away from the house for at least 10 hours, usually 11 hours though. I feel bad for the dog because he doesn't eat or drink during that time so that he doesn't have to go to the bathroom, we're also tired when we get home, so he doesn't get a lot of long walks to burn off the energy from sleeping all day. So Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays Drake goes to daycare and plays with lots of other dogs in the playroom all day (he even has a little lunch pail for some kibbles cause he's working up an appetite). The ladies at the daycare tell me about his little friends and his girlfriends at daycare that he plays with, there's Buddy the boxer, Summer and Taffy the goldens etc.

Tonight when I went to pick up Drake from daycare (yes he went 2 days in a row), the young lady at the counter asked me if I noticed if he was extra tired last night. I hadn't but apparently my DH had. So anyway since we couldn't get out of Drake why he was so tired she informed me of how he spent all day Wednesday fulfilling most men's primary fantasy. Yes dear internets, he was in a three.some, apparently today Drake had her all to himself, but was apparently a little worn out from yesterday.

So now I have to wonder when the ladies at day care mention Drake's little girlfriends. And I know why he gets so excited when I turn the corner towards daycare, and I so naively thought it was because of the daycare ladies paying attention to him and he getting to play all day with other dogs.

Good thing Drake's fixed or we'd have a lot of puppy support to do. Daddy's thrilled to know his "little dude" as DH calls Drake has gotten to experience safe relationships with other female dogs, he was concerned that after being fixed Drake would not get the opportunity.

This didn't come out quite as funny as the talk with hubby about Drake's escapades at daycare, but I was trying to use clean language and innuendo so as not to be picked up by a bunch of search engine results. Maybe we should drop the "D" from the dog's name...

The 11th province vs the 51st state

Lately I've been hearing advertisement on Canadian radio stations for Florida tourism, billing the southern state as Canada's 11th province. Out of curiosity I decided to visit the website to see if it was a particular company, or if the advertising was sponsored by state sponsored tourism. Looks pretty offical to me, the footer says that the site is the "Official Florida Tourism Industry Marketing Corporation" you can visit the site at sunshineprovince.com. I wonder if there are any other states billing themselves as the 11th province to Canadians to promote tourism, and I wonder how Americans feel about that.

Personally every once in awhile I hear someone expounding upon Canada being the 51st state, and personally I really don't like that. I'm a proud Canadian, I love my country, I get teary eyed when I hear the national anthem, and though I love my American friends, I don't want to be the 51st state. Going through Wikipedia and Google links most references to Canada or any other country being termed the 51st state is usually used either in jest to indicate the influx of American culture to the country or well not in a positive context and I'll let you go and research it.

So what are your thoughts on states billing themselves as the 11th province to promote the state?

Goals - January

So not exactly taking it one day at a time to talk about a whole months worth of goals here, but I didn't think you'd want to read that many posts ;)

I've decided to add once a week a good habit to my routine. This week it was going to the gym to work out once.

Since I'd like to get back onto a healthy diet and exercise regime, I've also decided that my weight loss goals would be small, 5 pounds every other month. For example in Jan I'd like to lose 5 pounds, then maintain that loss in Feb, lose 5 more in March and maintain the total 10 pound loss through April etc until I reach a weight I can maintain (and if that's the weight I am right now, then I'll have to learn to accept that).

Starting Monday, I'd like to add a daily 15 minute walk about to tidy up the house every night, now I've had that on my list before, but it didn't stick, so we'll try again in the coming week.

I've started using my composter more, so I'd like to add another environmental goal, I just have to think about it...maybe taking public transit to work once a week? Bring a coffee cup to work? Limit prepared foods to ones where the entire package is recyclable or reusable? Limit prepared foods (including meals out) to no more than 3 meals per week? Well I have lots of options for months to come anyway.

Visit The Lazy Organizer for more SMART Habits

New Year's Resolutions

Being that time of year again, I've actually spent a little time pondering my new year's resolution for 2008. I've decided this year will be the year of making a difference.

Like many, I wish for world peace and harmony at Christmas, but honesty, what do I really do to promote that? If I'm not willing to compromise and sacrifice on an individual level, then how can I expect it of the world as a whole? Answer, I can't.

I also wish for my life to leave an impact on the world, be it large or small, but unless I'm willing to take the time or acknowledge making the effort, then I'm likely to feel unsatisfied. I do believe that we all make an impact on the world, daily, just we fail mostly to acknowledge what that impact is (large, small, good, bad, neutral). I want to be more conscientious of the impact of my daily decisions, and to do more things that I want to do to make a difference.

Here are somethings I'm thinking of for making an impact.
Environmental:
Be better about using and managing my compost bin
Get that hot water heater blanket
Look into replacing the furnace with a more efficient one

Helping others:
Get Drake certified as a therapy dog so that he can go to long term care hospitals and centres to brighten the lives of the sick.
Volunteer, donate

Whew - first week back

I've been very busy this week catching up at work after having taken a week off, and it pretty much feels like I need, make that **NEEEEEEED**, a vaction again.

I've almost finished Christmas shopping, I just have to get hubby something, I'm debating getting him something off his wishlist, but many of the items are hard to find locally and usually need to be ordered online (I got 5 of them for his b-day last week). So if you could give me some hints for good hubby presents. He like video games, but he wants the XBOX 360 next, not a Wii, so we have to wait for the new chip on the 360 first. He's into sci-fi & alternate history for reading (i.e. William Gibson and Harry Turtledove). He like geeks toys. He's not hard to shop for and he's pretty vocal about what he likes, you just have to order it all rather than going to the store, and I'd like it to be a surprise. I've debated making him something, but I'm not sure what I'd like to make. Hubby is not handy or into do it yourself projects, so nothing like that would do. Any ideas?

Vacation Week - Thursday

I woke up late again today, 8:20 because hubby reminded me that we had to finish putting out the recycling before the collector comes. I don't have any big plans for today, mostly just lazing around the house. Maybe I'll do some cleaning today, get rid of those cobwebs I just saw coming down the stairs this morning.

On another note, last night I was reviewing my BBTs pre m/c because I felt I was ovulating a little late this month. Looking back I was ovulating before around day 16 and menstruating around day 21-23, so I have a very short luteal phase, or at least I did during the summer when I was last tracking my temperatures. My cycle was longer last month but I wasn't tracking my temperature for that cycle, so we'll have to see how long this cycle is, I'm thinking about going to buy B6 vitamins to help lengthen the luteal phase. Yes, I am now aware that a short luteal phase makes pregnancy difficult as you start your period often before implantation can occur and if it does occur you menstrate soon after effectively causing a miscarriage. So I should go to see my doctor for my annual check up in March, by then I should have 3-4 cycles tracked so we can see if my luteal phase really is short, or if that was just a symptom of coming off birth control.

Vacation Week - Wednesday

Today will be a busier day, Drake's off to daycare again and we're having breakfast with hubby's parents (dim sum).

Hubby wants to go downtown, so I'll be dropping him off and then going shopping more locally for Christmas presents again. After that I'll head home and try to finish this course of mine so that I can take the final exam either Friday or on the weekend.

More to come later.

Breakfast was nice, then I went shopping at Fairview (hubby went downtown on the subway). Although I was intending to buy Christmas presents, instead I bought bras for myself, then I found a new winter coat at Melanie Lyne (red) and since I was there and there was this great red suit, I bought that too. So much for Christmas presents, maybe tomorrow.

Now I'm off to study my course until hubby comes home.

Vacation Week - Tuesday

Today is hubby's birthday, so at midnight I gave him his prezzies, we decided to open one of them, some books from Indigo that he had on his wishlist. Since I woke up late yesterday I didn't go to sleep until about 2am, and I didn't sleep very well, my neck is achy today. Hubby tried to wake me up at 9:30 and gave up by 10, the snoring pup wake me cause he's so cute and I got out of bed at 11.

This morning I woke up at 11, and since it's so close to lunch I decided to just have OJ and coffee for breakfast and I'll have salad or leftovers for lunch. It snowed again last night a couple of inches, so good thing we bought a new shovel (sorry mom, maybe I'll take one off your hands anyway so we can both shovel the driveway).

I spent the afternoon playing with the dog and watching TV, we went out to dinner at Spring Rolls, while out we visited Best Buy and hubs picked up a copy of Terminator 2 for $7 and BattleStar Gallactica: Razor which was released on DVD today.

All in all a quieter day for hubby's birthday.

Vacation Week - Monday

I figured I haven't blooged in a while, so I would bring to you a week of blogging about what I did on my winter vaction ;)

I woke up late around 10am. Hubs and I took Drake to daycare and then went to breakfast at Cora's. I had a raspberry Begian waffle, yummy.

Then off to Markville to do some Christmas and birthday shopping. I purchased my brother's birthday present (it's on the 20th) and perused a number of stores looking for prezzies for mom, bro, SIL and hubs. Hubs bought track pants (sweat pants).

Hubs and I skipped lunch, because well we were still full from breakfast and went home. Once home he shovelled the driveway and broke the scoop portion of the shovel right in half.

We had a nap from 4 to 5 then went to Lick's for burgers for dinner at 5:30. We picked up Drake from daycare and then went to Canadian tire, Home Depot and Canadian Tire again looking for a snow shovel.

I finished the laundry, dusted the main floor while listening to bodyrockers, read a comic book and watched Heroes (which cut their season short due to the writers strike).

And I didn't look at my work email at all, although I did think about it. I have to submit some receipts at work by Friday and it turns out I will have to go in to do it because the tool doesn't work over VPN at home. I also have to finish an online course I'm taking for work by the 12th, so I'll be doing that this week too.

Voila

So here's the new bathroom (sorry I forgot to take before pics and the ones we had from the purchase of the house are lost).

The vanity:



The tub:




The picture from the manufacturer, because it's almost the same and they had a professional photographer :) (Copyright Vanico-maronyx)



I took a picture of me, but it looked like I have an even larger spare tire than I think I do and I wish to remain in denial.