.:shy:.

snubbed ubb - day 2

i stayed home again today. feeling a smidge better then yesterday but only got my voice back (sort of ) near the end of the afternoon. both days, i actually had to email my manager to let him know i was still off sick because a voicemail from me would have just sounded like some random squeeky noise.

i got a chance to watch 'the switch' which was definitely a nice movie to take in while one's head is fuzzy (both from the sinus congestion and cold meds). i normally do like jennifer aniston but she wasn't at her best in this movie. no, no - she wasn't bad. just not one of her shining moments. i suppose the spotlight goes more to jason bateman. and even jeff goldblum (though his character was like a lot of past characters he has played - the neurotic, playboy-like friend, trying to talk some sense into the main character - still, very likeable).

it just got me thinking - i'm so happy jason bateman has been having such a better come back. he's come a long way since 'the hogan's family'.

so i am back to work tomorrow.

and i really wish i could have some bailey's irish whiskey right  now - but apparrently, one mustn't mix cold meds with alcohol. damn. it's robbie burns day, too.

snubbed ubb

ugh - my nose is totally stuffed, my sinuses are achy and my throat is a bit phlegmy.

the worse? i had the weekend all to myself - but how did i celebrate this much needed solitude of mine? by getting sick. not ideal at all.

but anyway - i tried to salvage the alone time as best as possible. even though the majority of my weekend was spent in bed.

doug and chaeli had a last minute trip to t-bay to see my in-laws. i chose not to go - work has just been crazy with a lot of overtime. and even if i didn't have to put in some overtime this weekend, i was just completely exhausted.

hobbes stayed with me though. in fact, when i started to come down with this cold, he really stayed with me. for most of sunday, he was glued to the side of my leg. faithful dog - but a little bit of a space hogger.

i managed to at least do two things from my list of me-time things to do:

1. finished watching the final season of the L Word. I was actually really excited that the first episode showed them wheeling away a very dead jenny from bette's and tina's house. unfortunately, i still had to endure the annoying jenny as the rest of the episodes was a built up to the climatic ending. it's not just that jenny is one of those characters you love to hate, but in all honesty, as much as i loved the show as a whole, i wasn't at all convinced that the jenny character was believable enough. perhaps because her persoanlity really went through too many different transformations from season 1 - i felt as if the writers couldn't make up their mind what to do with her. and i also found it really hard that all those other ladies actually stayed her friend for that long. if it were me, i would have kicked her out of my life a lot sooner.
2. watched twilight eclipse. fun and an improvement from the first two movies. but when jacob first makes his appearance in the movie, they did that cheesy soundtrack in the background. that almost killed the whole thing for me. overall, it was entertaining but really, what i'm truly eager for is part I and II of 'breaking dawn'. i have a lot of questions and curiosities of how they are going to illustrate the last book on the big screen.

okay - i'm hoping another night of sleep (good sleep) will allow me to get back to work tomorrow.

2011 - happy new year!

what should have been a fun night with friends and then ending with a post-party with family, was just not in the books.

with chaeli's cough not getting better and me waking up feverish and woozy, we decided to cancel all plans and stay in.

and you know what? as much as i was looking forward to hanging out with my friends, it ended up being a great night. there's always the added bonus of not having to change out of one's pj's and being able to watch tv in the comfy setting of one's bedroom.

doug, chaeli and i even planned to do our own countdown (after i napped for the evening) but ended up completely missing it.

why?

we were watching lilo & stitch. after seeing disney on ice on wednesday, doug and i both realized that neither of us have ever seen the movie - and we've all seen pretty much all of disney animated movies. since the rental was on demand, we could have paused it, but we got so caught up in the movie that when i looked over at the clock, it read 12:01am.

oh well. we did pause the movie so doug could get the champagne. and with chaeli and her apple juice we did the fastest 10-second countdown ever.

i think we did it in 3 second. upon chaeli's request to "just do a really quick one."

the movie ended just 30 minutes later and when i tucked chaeli in, i could see her eyes already figting to stay open as she said, "wow. i should be asleep by now. it's very late."

and that's how we, as a family, started our new year.

all the best to all in 2011!

a geeky-family type of birthday

as a continuation from our geeky-family type boxing day, my one wish for my birthday was to see Tron.

and so, now at the age of 38, over 18 years ago after i saw the first movie in the theatres, my wish came true.

happy birthday to me!

and as for the movie...

stunny CGI and great graphics.

everything else was... meh.

a geeky-family type of boxing day

doug is playing his new firefighter game on the wii.

chaeli is playing one of her new 7 nintendo ds game.

it's only natural that i should devote my boxing day afternoon to the sims. no, nothing new from christmas - just a game i got two christmases ago of which i have yet to fully enjoy for a very, very long time.

we'll be screening calls all day.

think of it as a big 'do not disturb' sign on our entire household.

twas the night before...

i am exhausted. chaeli's been in bed for over two hours now and we just finished laying out all the gifts under the tree and stuffing the stockings as much as possible. when we were done, doug and i just sat there. i turned to him and said, "i thought we were all going easy on the gift-giving this year?"

it still looks like a crazy amount of gifts to go through tomorrow.

hobbes definitely senses something is up. he's been excited all night, following one of us right at our heels as we walk back and forth, each trip carrying more gifts to the tree and stockings. i find it funny - he has no idea why he's excited. just that he simply knows something is up.

anyway - it took a lot of energy to get everything ready for tomorrow morning. but i think both hobbes and chaeli are in for a real treat.

i just hope she lets us sleep in.

and with that, merry christmas to all and to all a good night!

ah midnight bath!

i find it hard to relax when it's been awhile since i've had a long stretch of time to relax. this weekend was one example.

i just couldn't get into the groove. and the crazy thing is that it's now sunday night, i'm about to go to bed, and i'm a little disappointed that i didn't have a chance to clean. crazy.

i did, however, do a very large load of laundry and finish all my christmas wrapping. we did more baking and also decorated the christmas tree. on top of that, i also got chaeli's stuff ready for winter camp.

last night, it was late, but i realized that i had to do something to unwind. so i did what i use to do - a trick that i learned that's proven to be quite relaxing.

a midnight bath.

with candles lit and the lights dimmed down, i drew a hot bath. and then i soaked in it. just thinking about it is making me relaxed all over again.

why midnight? i don't know. it's when everything is done in the house and anything that needs to be done can wait until tomorrow because it's just too late. it's when it's quiet both inside and outside. i suppose it's when i finally get a moment's peace to myself.

anyway - *yawn* - time to get ready for bed.

this upcoming week is going to be brutal.

vinyl cafe, udon and more baking

i's been a really, really, ultra-short weekend. simply because it's been just so much fun that time flew by way too quickly.

chaeli stayed at my parents place for a 2-night sleepover - and i so needed this. a break from motherhood even if just temporary. doug and i did a lot - things we had to do and things we wanted to do. after all, it's all about striking that balance:

• friday night, we went over to my aunt's and uncle's where hobbes was staying during the day. since chaeli and my parents were not joining us this time, we took the opportunity to get some spicy indian food. of course - yum! winter and spicy food (especially if curry is involved) is my comfort food from the cold. sure, sure - i love a mean stew every now and then. but it just doesn't beat some of my favourite spicey foods - indian, west indies, thai, just to name a few.


• i did take saturday morning to do things on my to-do list - p90x cardio-x and cleaning the house. afterwards, though, doug and i got to doing some more baking which we will finish up today and then sort all six kinds into several tins to be handed out this week. feels good to almost be done. as much fun as it was, it does take up a lot of time. i'm not at all sure if we'll be doing this each year. but if we do, i need to try and do it in november and then just put the cookies in the freezer. it's nice to have one less thing to do in december, since preparing for the holiday festivities is already jam-packed as it is.


• we went to see stuart mclean's christmas tour last night and like last year, it was not at all a disappointment. what i love about his stories are that they are not just hiliarious but touching and humble and down-to-earth. they are fictional characters but over the many, many years (close to two decades?) these characters of dave, morley, sam, stephanie and arthur the dog have become so real and so very much part of our lives.


• before heading to the show, doug and i stopped at the grange for some japanese noodles. same place as where we went last time. the service is fast and with our two dishes and two appetizers, the whole meal came out to less then $30 after tax and tip. plus, the piping hot steam coming from the food was like a warm blanket from the winter evening walk.


• hobbes was a great sport. we rarely leave him on his on for more then five hours - if even that! but due to the show starting late and the traffic coming home, he was pretty much on his own for almost eight hours. but he did really well - no accidents and the kitchen wasn't in a mess when we got home (well, his toys were everywhere but that was to be expected).

so we're now off to do a little shopping and to go meet up with my parents and chaeli for some all-u-can eat sushi! hopefully, if the weather does not get too crazy, we'll also be picking up our tree on the way home.

decorating, bon ami and soapy-words...

no, not 'good friend' in french bon ami.

but BON AMI - as in the super-duper wonder-cleanser for glass, porcelain and other things you want to get shiny without the streaks.

that's what i used today, for the first time, and well, okay... i admit it. being the super-geek when it comes to cleaning and organizing, this is now really my partner in crime when it comes to mirrors and windows.

other then that, we finally got our christmas decorations up today (not including the tree - a live tree will be bought next weekend and put up the weekend late). doug's going to do the outside lights tomorrow while we go searching for a wreath (fake one).

we're also baking like crazy this weekend. the teachers will get their tins of baked, christmas good sometime this week (get that out of the way) and tonight, i will need to wrap all the thunder bay christmas presents so doug can ship them out this wednesday.

yes - THIS WEDNESDAY! can't believe how time is just whipping by. the countdown for christmas has begun.

evidently, this time of the year always brings out the worse in chaeli. i am not sure if it's the added pressure of having to be good or that the sheer excitement is too much for her to contain.

it all resulted in her also saying "shit" today. which wasn't something we wanted to hear while listening to christmas music and decorating around the house while drinking eggnog.

we didn't flip out though - she's in grade one. i expected her to be saying some type of bad word at this point. and of all the curse words she could be bringing home, this one isn't all that bad. but still - it's what i call a 'soapy word.'

doug explained to her that when he was just a bit older then her, he said a bad word. the first time, he got a warning. the second time, he got soap rubbed across his teeth. and the third time, he got his entire mouth washed out with soap.

third time's the charm but we reminded chaeli that if she really wants to avoid soap in her mouth all together, it's better to just take heed after the first warning.

too busy to be a geek

i've been trying to not complain so much about my daily grind. i did enough of that back in september when our lives were suddently dropped into two different universe at the same time - that being grade 1 and hobbes. both requiring a lot of attention and care.

and the reason why i've been trying hard not to complain so much is because while my days come with challenges, in the grand scheme of things, i can't complain.

i simply can not complain about the life that i lead because it is filled with wonderful family and great friends. i love the little things that catch me off guard, as well. from the smile of a toddler at starbucks a few days ago to the sound of the rain one late evening during that one hour between chaeli's lights-out and my own bedtime which lended a moment of tranquility.

or even the fact that i'm still doing it - still getting up at 5-something-am to do p90x and being able to feel how hard it's working my muscles. yes - even the soreness i'm feeling right now is giving me this understanding that because i can feel it, it symbolizes that i am here. in this world, no matter how small and insignificant, i am still participating in this on-going universe.

yet if i can just take the universe's time - a very small moment of time, really. i mean, if you were to really think about how old this universe is and how long it would take for it to just hear me out, it's just the smallest percentage of a fraction of it's time.

some things i have not had any time for...

1. shopping - aside from one pair of black pants, all other work clothes are still dependent on one single belt to hold them up.
2. playing 'the sims 2' - i got it as a christmas gift two years ago and have thus far only created one family... how sad is that?
3. take a bath - not that i don't cleanse myself. i shower daily. but i mean a nice, long, pampering bath. it's been awhile since i've been able to just sit there and soak the stress away.
4. read a book - it's been so long that my library card is about to expire.
5. get a massage.

i got one of those forward-emails yesterday where they asked a bunch of grade 2 kids questions about mothers. one question asked them what their mom does in her spare time.

the reply?

"mom doesn't have any spare time."

sad but true.