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.

Finishing Touches Day

So today the master bath should be finished. Mom and I are putting on the final coat of paint, and so long as I can paint the trim and I don't wear out the bathroom (minus the shower curtain) will be finished. I suppose I should go pick up a tension road from Canadian Tire for the shower curtain so we can use the upstairs shpwer tomorrow morning.

New Stuff

Time for a new post I'm tired of looking at the last one!

It was another release weekend this week, it went very well and pretty quick (3 hours). My project was pulled from the release on Wendesday as we were not comfortable with the robustness of the new infrastructure and technologies we were implementing. So we're now intending to deploy in January so I'm updating the documentation to indicate the current state and since we have 3 more months adding detail to functionality that was descoped due to lack of detail and time.

I think this week the contractor is going to come to redo our master bathroom which has been in a state of disrepair for 2 years, I guess I should take some before and after photos for all of you. One thing though, I primed it in order to repaint and never repainted, so the cover plates are off all the lights and plugs, etc. Just a warning for the before photos :)

Are you excited? I'm excited just writing about my first major home reno (the biggest one I've done to date is replacing the handles on the kitchen cupboards, and I still haven't finished that).

The return - TMI

OK, not so finished Friday, if you don't like bloodily fluids stop reading now.

It all started up again on Saturday, went to the hospital as I passed out from blood loss. They brought my blood pressure back up and I stopped passing blood and clots on my own, but since it was 11pm the OB/GYN wanted to see me in the hospital the next day for a potential D&C. Well Sunday I didn't have any issues, so they sent me home. Monday of course I started bleeding heavily again, so I was back in emerg, which was packed and it took 8 hours to see a doctor. Strangely when I finally got to see another OB/GYN when she checked me out I had stopped bleeding again, so she was going to send me home, but before she did she wanted to check the size of my uterus, which was tiny she said and I bleed all over her and the table, so she decided I was bleeding and she did the first exam again and decided on an immediate D&C and more blood tests to see where my hemoglobin count was (it dropped from 107 to 79 in the 6 hours between test, so no wonder I was dizzy and weak, the normally value for a woman is 115).

Anyway, the D&C is pretty quick, they wheeled me out of ER at 12:30 and I woke up in the post op at 1:20 and pretty lucid, although I got sleepy again when they were wheeling me to my room, I stayed overnight due to my weakened state.

I'm home now recovering, still weak and headachy. Today hubby and my inlaws stayed, tomorrow, my hubby is going into work late and coming home early and my inlaws will stay with me in the intervening time. I hope my mom doesn't read this before I get to talk to her, I didn't want to let her know what was going on on Saturday until they made a decision, Sunday morning she left for a short vacation, forgive me mom the docs didn't know what to do with me until Monday night, well technically Tuesday morning.

It is finished

Well at least I hope it is. Since Saturday I've been spotting very lightly, yesterday it finally got a little heavier with cramping, but then went away. Today though, the cramps were strong and the bleeding heavy. Strangely, I only feel relief that it's finally resolved, not grief or remorse, I expect that will come in time. For now, I shall relax and be thankful that it was quick and not as emotionally draining as I expected it might be. Tomorrow is another day, and when the emotions flow I'll deal with it then and not wonder why I'm not a basket case now, hopefully, I'll remember that I was thankful to God that I'm not a basket case,

What's new pussycats? Whoa oh oh oh oh

I guess ya'll would like an update? Hmmm? Maybe? Maybe not?

So in my last update I had shots to terminate a potentially ectopic pregnancy (they think that 1 out of 4 ultrasounds showed a mass on my left ovary).

Anyway, my horomone levels at the time were 9K (on Wednesday the 29th). Tested again on Saturday (19K), Tuesday (20K), Friday (19K). Monday I went to see the doctor in the hospital and he wanted more tests to see where we were at so he could determine a course of action, since my hormone levels were steady, not dropping or rising (I'm 8 weeks now I suppose). So we did, he was on call, so I guess he had to go deliver a baby, so he writes the results and next steps in my file and gives it to the nurse to tell me. The results? "Ultrasound looks normal, come back to hospital Friday for more blood work".

So what does that mean any? I'd take it as positive, but well they did give me a nice chemical cocktail to end the pregnancy, so maybe "ultrasound looks normal" means nothing on the ovary and development of the embryo stopped somewhere around 6.5 to 7 weeks (i.e. soon after the shots), so expect HCG levels to drop and miscarriage to start? No ask to make a doctor's appointment after the blood work Friday, tough, he's getting a visit anyway. Either Friday or Monday or the next time one of them is in the office.

Tests, Tests and more tests

So had more tests on Wednesday, not good. The doctor found a mass on my left ovary and although he's not sure, we're treating our pregnancy as ectopic just to be safe. So last night I had shots that cause the termination of the pregnancy and I have to have follow-up blood work and doctor appointments for the next 3 weeks to make sure my hormone levels drop (because this method only works in 75-90 percent of cases).

I'm feeling better today, I didn't sleep very well, so hubby took me out for brunch which has me in a better mood now.

I'm taking the rest of the week off work and I think I'll go read a book now.