Wow. The Things People Say!!

Mary Jo is in the school choir. So when there are any school/church events she is asked to go and sing for them.

Earlier this week the 8th grade was making their Confirmation. This is a very big deal for Catholics because it is, as an 'adult' that you are choosing to become (stay) a Catholic. You see, generally Catholics are Baptized as infants or children, therefore their parents making them Catholics. Confirmation is reaffirming our desire to further our journey of faith.  Most of our Sacraments are performed by a Priest but Confirmation is performed by a Bishop. And if you've never seen a Catholic Bishop before....here's a pic.   Note in particular, the hat. We'll get back to that.

Anyhow, Mary (and the choir) was asked to sing at the Confirmation.  So, naturally I took her.

I sat at the back of the church, partially because we  got there quite late but also because my kid wasn't being confirmed so I didn't want to be in the way of the families celebrating.  The pews a couple of rows behind me were reserved for the Knights of Columbus, see their pics below and again, notice the hats.  They led the processional at the beginning of the mass.

Behind me was a little girl, I'm guessing about 4. She was sitting with who I think was her grandparents and her Dad. I'm also assuming that her Mom was one of the candidates sponsor so she was sitting up at the front of the church.  The little girl wasn't keen on this and every now and again would whine "Mommy" "Mommy" 

This was clearly making Dad annoyed and each time he would say to her "Stop it or I'm going to take you outside" "Stop it, you sound like a baby!"  "Stop it, or we're going outside!"

After 20 minutes of this I wanted to turn around and say "Pal, grow a set and take the kid outside. Otherwise, shut up because you're more annoying than she is!"  But I didn't, what with being in the house of God and all.

Now we've reached the point of the mass where the Bishop is sealing the candidates with oil to bring the Holy Spirit upon them. It's very quiet. It's very solemn. It's the heart of the ceremony.  Little Miss behind me starts whining again. "Mommy" "Mommy"

Dad starts throwing out empty threats again "Stop it or we're going outside"

"Mommy"

"That's enough, do you want me to take you outside?"

"Mommy"

"Stop it"

"Mommy"

This is the point in which most parents would probably finally reach that follow through point and take the child outside. But not this parent. Nope, instead he said, loud enough to be heard by at least the whole back of the church and likely right up to the front given how quiet it was....

"Stop it or that man in the funny hat is going to come and get you!!"

Three rows in front of me turned around to see who said it.

The K of C (in their funny hats) glared over at him.

I'm quite certain the Bishop (in his funny hat) heard him too.

I truly wanted to clap and say "Well done, douche bag. Way to go."

Apparently though, the threat of an angry Bishop wasn't much more intimidating than the threat of going outside because not a minute later....

"Mommy"

Well colour me excited!!

That's excited....not pink! 

I feel very honoured to have been passed on a blog award. Thanks Kat!!  I'm flattered that you've included my blog in your list of 'love to read'.

So as part of this award I am to give you 7 facts about myself and award this to 10 other blogs that I love.

So here's 7 things you might not know about me.

1. When I first thought of having kids I would say I wanted a boy first but the truth was I didn't think I wanted a boy at all. When I had the girls I wanted desperately for them to be girls. When I got pregnant with Connor I decided what I really wanted was a boy since I knew this was our last baby.

Now that I'm the mommy to a boy - I am so ridiculously in love it takes my breath away. I can't figure out what ever possessed me to not want a boy.

2. I'm not afraid of dying....I'm just afraid of being aware that I've died.  

3. I always worry that people just pretend to like me when in fact they just tolerate me. (insecure much?)

4. Yellow is my favorite colour and seeing any shade of yellow automatically puts me in a better mood. 

5. My guilty pleasure movie is The American President (with Michael Douglas and Annette Benning) I have seen it more times than I can count and watch it everytime it's on TV. I don't know what it is about that movie but I great pig puffy heart it.

6. My dream is to have one (several) of my children's books published. I've been trying for years and can probably wallpaper a small room with 'thanks but no thanks' letters but I hold on to hope because Dr Suess's book And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street was rejected something like 34 times before being published.  And when I want something I'm relentless.

7. I can not sleep if I don't have the covers pulled right up to my ear. Even if it's hot. And every part of me (except my head) has to be under the covers. Yeah, I'm a bit of a freak. 

And now - to pass along 10 blogs I enjoy reading.....in no particular order.

1.  Red Means Go  Annah is highly offensive but her antics and cartoons keep me laughing. And some of the comments she gets are just as enjoyable.

2. Sounds from the Underpants  

3. Christians Journey

4.  Confessions of a Curvy Chick

5.  Dearest Gavin

6. Loving {Almost} Every Moment   (And for the record I'm not giving this to Kat because she gave it to me...I'm giving it to Kat because she really does have a great blog that I love to read.

7.  The Road to Donation   This one doesn't get updated often but if you take the time to read it from the start....an awesome story.

8.  The Mompetition 

9.  The Cothren Family

10.  Ramblings of  a Crazy Woman 

Pay them a visit, you'll probably like them too.

Now back to painting my living room pink. 

Well hello there!!

You're like an old friend who I haven't seen in ages. We have some catching up to do.

Okay, truth be known, my life is not really that exciting and mostly it's a bunch of the same ol' same ol'.

So I'll share some funny anecdotes from the week.

Remember back in the day (I say this like I'm old and lived back in the day...in truth I'm talking more about back in my mom's day) when a young unmarried girl got pregnant they said she's in 'trouble'?

The other night I put Connor to bed. Connor has become the king of the stall so he called me in. He said. "Mommy, I need to tell you a question." (we're working on the tell/question thing)
I said "Sure, what?"
He said "I'm in trouble"
I said "Oh, you're in trouble? Are you pregnant?"
He said "Yes, I pragnut"

Congratulate me. Not only will I be a Nana but it's my son giving birth.

We're painting out living room today. I'll explain a bit. We have 4 walls (duh) One has a big huge bay window. One has french doors. One has another door and one has a faux fireplace and built in shelving. So there isn't a lot of actual wall space.

So here's the colour of the wall with the window and the two walls with doors. It's also the colour of the fireplace and the built in shelves. It's called "Vanilla Latte"

And here's the colour of the wall around the fireplace and built in shelves. It's the accent wall

Let's discuss this colour shall we. It's called "Tender Rose" It's an exact match of a different paint brand - the colour in that brand is called "Red Ochre". We chose it because it matches some of the colouring in our carpet. It looks really nice.

So we're at the paint store, the guy has mixed our Vanilla Latte and is mixing our other colour. There are two other young guys there waiting for their paint too. So our guy brings the Tender Rose over and puts the little dab of colour on the lid.

"Holy shit. It's PINK. I don't want PINK It's supposed to be like RED!!!!"

The guy looks at me (a little scared)

"Well, remember, it will dry darker. Do you want me to dry it so you can see?"

Sure, I say.

So he dries it. Meanwhile, I'm a little upset (not at paint dude - the paint was a perfect match with the chip) But it didn't look like pink on the chip. It looks like a darker shade of red!!

He comes back and shows me. Now Sean is laughing because the two other guys are laughing at Sean saying "Great, we're going to have a pink living room" The one guy next to me says, "Naw, it's not pink - it's salmon" I wanted to knock them both out

I said to the paint guy - can you throw a bit of black in there or brown to darken it up? He said, sure I can do that. All the while, Sean, the paint guy, and the two other guys are having a laugh at my distress at this supposed to be red- pink paint.

In the end, paint dude said to go with what we had, do the first coat and if it looks too pink to bring the rest back, he'll darken it up and we can do that for the  second coat.

The other two guys enjoyed their laugh at my expense (what kind of girl isn't happy about a pink room?? THIS ONE!!)

So when we were leaving the two other guys were leaving too. They got into their car next to us. It was red.

Sean called out the window - "Hey man, is that car PINK?" The one guy says back, "No, it's salmon."

Everyone's a comedian.

Taking the Advice of Others

When it comes to my healthy I tend to ignore the advice of others. I'm bad that way. I avoid going to the Dr., I self diagnose (with the assistance of Dr. Google) and I self treat - most of the time with just that....time. I don't like taking medication and will avoid it unless absolutely necessary.

It's not that I'm worried the Dr will find something terribly wrong - that's my mom's hang up. On the contrary, if I had some terrible disease, I'd want to know ASAP so I could get better. The catch 22 in this means I actually have to go to the Dr when I don't feel well. The trick for me is deciphering my health and deciding when it's a 'I don't feel good' and treat myself or a genuine "I'm sick" and see a Dr.

We've finally hit the latter.

During March Break I started having a lot of heart flutters/palpitations. Yes, it's my heart and not something I should self diagnose. BUT - I've had these for years and have seen the Dr for them before. I've concluded that when I'm hooked up the the EKG machine my heart plays nice. I've also concluded that this flutters/palpitations are largely hormonal. Upon further examination, I've noticed that these episodes occur when that bitch Aunt Flo is visiting.  It so happens that during March Break she was here. And she was in a mood. It was exceptionally heavy (yeah, tmi - but this goes somewhere)
So one day I came out of the bathroom to go and play with Mary and I suddenly felt dizzy. So dizzy in fact that I actually pushed Mary out of the way so that I could get to her room and sit down before I fainted in the hallway and busted my head open. I told her, "If Mommy faints, go downstairs and get Nana"
The feeling passed. I played with Mary for a bit but the rest of the day I felt very disconnected and drained.

Later that week, when I went to the gym, I had a similar but less severe episode in which I thought I might faint while on the elliptical. I do think, in that case though, part of it was brought on by anxiety.

From that point on though I've lacked my usual energy. I go to bed at 9. I sleep until 5:30.  I don't wake before my alarm anymore (I always used to) I don't wake feeling rested. I spend my day in a funk. I have no patience for the kids at school and little enthusiasm for work - which is completely out of character for me. My co workers have said - take some iron. Go to the Dr. Stay home and get some rest....and I ignore them....because I don't take the advice of others well. Shudder to think...they could be right!

I called in sick yesterday and stayed in bed. ALL DAY. And then I went to bed last night at 9:30 and slept until 6 this morning - and only woke because Connor had to pee. I'm off sick again today - I'm so drained that the thought of working makes me want to cry.

I have self diagnosed. I think my iron is low. (Imagine that - my co workers could be right!) I know this is a knee jerk conclusion for anyone who feels tired but I'm putting it all together.

I'm eating healthier - which for me translates to - cereal or toast for breakfast, salad and yogurt for lunch and for supper - lots of veggies with less meat and starch. All this means substantially less iron in my diet. I'm exercising which means I'm depleting my reserves. I'm a woman which means, especially during that time of the month, I need more iron...not less. And all this started during that time of the month.

So, I'm taking iron supplements in hopes that it will help but more importantly, I'm going to the Dr tonight. Because I'm tired of feeling BLAH. I want to feel good again. And I want to make sure that this is truly what the problem is.

I'm home again today. Two sick days in a row. That is a source of stress in itself. I don't like to miss work. I still love my job and I don't want my time off to reflect poorly on me. But if I don't take care of me, I can't do my job as well as I can/should.

We shall see.

I'm Still Here.

You can't get rid of me that easily.

I'm so overwhelmed with busy that when I get a chance to not be busy I seize that moment....and sleep.

I'm in full fundraising mode. The plans for the Spring Tea are well underway. We've sold 32 tickets for the first seating (I said it was sold out...it's not actually but we're trying to encourage second seating sales) and 15 tickets for the second seating. I'm hoping some more Red Hat groups come through and buy some more tickets. I've been purposely completely accidentally leaving copies of the flyer for the Spring Tea in public places like the change room of the gym, the ATM vestibule, taped to bus shelters, in hopes of getting a few more sales.

This is the part where the shameless begging begins.  If you've already pledged to our team....feel free to skip this paragraph. If not...please.....read on.  Come to the tea. Or barring that, buy a ticket and don't come to the tea. Or barring that, buy a tote bag. Or barring make a pledge to our fantastic team....in memory of my Dad or of someone you love who is fighting or has lost their battle with cancer. 

I've only got 8 weeks left to reach our goal of $3000. We're at $900 now. I'm hoping my brothers really come through. I can get us $1000 in pledges, surely together they can find $500. And then my Uncle has pledged to double it and Bob's Your Uncle...we have $3000.  (actually, Paul's my Uncle...ha ha)

And then it starts all over again.

I've been busy at work too. I'm finally starting to feel that twinge...when is summer....when is summer? Don't get me wrong, I'm still honeymooning over my job but I'm tired.  I'm ready for a break. I'm ready for some sun. I'm ready to sleep in. I'm ready to stop paying daycare fees.

There's a lot of bitching and whining going on with the ECE's about the union again. Apparently not everyone gets that collective bargaining is a process and doesn't happen overnight. So while we work without a contract (something we knew would be the case when we voted our union in) some are unhappy with the time it's taking to negotiate. So they want to oust this union in favour of joining one that will roll us into an existing unit - therefore an immediate contract.....and while that's all fine and dandy like wine and candy (shit I'm tired) it's forgetting the bigger picture and why we voted in the other union in the first place.

Whatever.

Next in my random post of posts....

My cousin had one of his short stories published (actually he's had a few published) but I kind of liked this one (not that I didn't like the others)
Feel free to enjoy it. It's not long (hence - a short story)


And finally - because this damned song has been going through my head for weeks now....a short video. My Canadian readers who were old enough in the 80's will likely remember this. Enjoy a bit of Canadiana

When Did I Get Old?

One of my Pumpkin Patch sisters commented the other day that her 3 year old son calls her "Mom" now instead of Mommy.

I remember that shift with Emily. Thankfully Mary and Connor still both call me Mommy but I remember how crushed I was when Emily stopped.

I see Emily now, 11 going on 20. She's a good kid. She's got good friends, she's got a good mind. She's not a follower in the sense that she gives into peer pressure - she knows right from wrong and more often than not makes the right choice (and when she makes the wrong choice it's not usually over something huge) She's not a leader in the sense that she's got a trail of kids behind her doing her bidding. She's got a few good friends and a wider group of more casual friends.  I'm proud of my pre teen.

The other day I was watching Survivor with Em. We both love the show still. I've made a wager with a co worker and each week I get closer to winning my bet.
This past Wednesday one of my people got voted off though. Afterward I texted a simple word to my co worker. "Shit"
He texted something back to me, I don't remember what but then I texted back "LOL"

Emily saw this and said "Did you just send LOL?"
Me: Yeah, why?
Emily: It's weird!
Me: What's weird? LOL? Is that 'not cool' to text anymore?
Emily: No! It's weird that YOU are saying LOL. That's for young people!

W. T. F.??? (Is THAT for young people smart ass??!!)

Upon further discussion I've discovered the following.

A: In Emily's eyes I'm old.

B: Just because other 11 year olds think I'm cool doesn't mean she does.

C: Just because I am in tune with the current young people trends (a perk of working in an elementary school) doesn't make me young/cool by default

D: Apparently, despite the fact that I was LOLing long before she was even born does not mean I'm permitted to use it in a text or IM because.....it's weird......I'm old.

So, I'm going to have to coin my own text-speak. One for us 'old people'

So, my dear online friends, the next time you post something I find humorous, I will not LOL you. I will post this:

PDOPC

Polite and Dignified Old Person Chuckle.