What a week…

WOW.

I can’t believe I made it through that week. It was hectic for sure, but man was it a blast.

I spent the whole week, every night until at least 2am, working on my essays, assignments, cases, quizzes, etc, and the marks were tremendous. Nothing lower that an 85. Actually scored 100% on a few of them. Nice.

My semester actually ended Friday at 3pm, which was the time I wanted to be at home to take Happy Boy to the park as the nanny was off all week and the amply-pregnant UrbanMummy was exhausted, hot and suffering from an achy back so she could not take him for the whole day. I submitted my final essay – all 19 pages of it, knowing it was not my best work, but received a note the next day from my Professor indicating that while not my best work, he found it worthy of a 91. Whew. Imagine if I started it earlier. LOL. I could have earned a 92… Or 85.

The week ended with us racing off to lovely Cambridge Ontario on the first leg of our Day out with Thomas, in St. Thomas for the Happy Boy. Needless to say it was HOT out there and when we travel it means no sleep or food for the Happy Boy, but man does he love running up and down the hallway of hotels. He even managed to open the hotel room door and run down the hall before either of us could believe he was able to do it. As I ran behind him, I could hear him giggling. I love that kid!!!

We raced to St. Thomas to get on the train before it left, and thanks to UrbanMummy for sitting in the backseat with Happy Boy so I could get us there on time (90KMs in less than an hour meant average speed of 150kms, sometimes 160, and oddly being passed every now and then. Whew did we fly.

The phenomon that is Thomas was quite fun, and I owe tons of thanks to UrbanMummy for planning the trip for all of us. She’s really good at that. Like she could do it for a living. So we got on the train, scorching hot, and only one cabin had windows, and sit down at the end near the open door. Happy Boy is pouting and hot, UrbanMummy is hot, I’m hoping this ride is going to be fun and then the music starts and in between Happy Boy’s cries of “No dadoo” (train) I see him making fists and dancing to the music, then as we get moving I see him waving to the people outside. I think he’s liking it.

After the 1/2 hour ride, we walked through Thomas-ville taking pictures with some guy named Sir Topham Hat, drinking jumbo lemonade, walking through the all-Thomas-all-the-time gift tent, and stopping to watch the Lionel trains exhibit – which caught Happy Boy’s fascination. We got the Happy boy a llama balloon animal and took pictures wherever we could. Then it was time to move on. Grabbed dinner and we to the park. Once at the park, Happy Boy wasted no time in taking off to the water play area. I steered him towards the jungle gym and he found his way at the top of the tallest, steepest slide I have ever seen for a child, and sure enough, he flew done it with screeching delight. “More”, he said as he made his way again for Mummy to see. He loved it.

After sliding and playing he made his way to the water area and we ran around there and got him wet. From there, the car, and from the park to home in 1 hour and 10 minutes (instead of the expected 2 hours plus).

Some highlights from the weekend:

Happy Boy running from bed to bed at 2am to see Mummy and Daddy.
The exceptional service at Kelsey’s in Cambridge. VERY child friendly and super-helpful.
The cries of “Thomassssss”
The cries of “Donkey” and “Llama” from the nursery that had some animals and butterflies. Hapy Boy actually touched a butterfly and loved how pretty they were.
The look on UrbanMummy’s face at the end of the trip as she gave us the “I survived” face in the extreme heat. She’s a trooper. Like when she was pregnant with the Happy Boy and led a group of us through a cave in Monaco, I believe. Whew. If it were me… I’d be home complaining.

But the weekend was a success! Fun had by all.

Monday began with an 8:30am appointment for a CT Scan, at the hospital, for my achy back. Cool machine. Quick test. Now it’s on to the Chiropractor.

Thoughts full of 1st birthday wishes going out to neighbour and fellow-blogger The Cheaty Monkey http://www.cheatymonkey.com on Monkey’s special day. With so many kiddies in attendance, I hope Haley-O made it out alive. Looking for a future ost from her marking this event. (adjusted)

Just under 11 weeks until the arrival of Baby 2. Getting nervous??? Yup.

And the backyard landscaping project is coming to an end. Got all the monster tree stumps out and removed most of the brances. Gardener coming to remove the stumps and slap up a fence. Yay! Putting more sod down, and making more room for the Happy Boy to play, and hopefully keeping the racoons out. All this wear and tear on the back and bruises and mosquito bites had better be worth it. I feel like we’ve gained an extra 6 feet on the side and back of the yard.

For a full rundown of the Day out with Thomas, may I recommend the blog of a fellow blogger, and number one spouse, the talented, good-looking UrbanMummy, http://www.urbanmummy.com/journal – who also seems to be on a free-stuff winning streak.

It’s only Monday a.k.a. Is he sleeping yet???

Whew.

Day one with the Nanny on holiday and I thought the Happy Boy was exhausted enough to sleep by his bedtime, 7:30pm, but boy was I wrong.

You see this morning the Happy Boy woke up at 7am. Of course. I had the opportunity to sleep in today. I arranged to have Baby Proofers, come by to see how safe, or un-safe our house is for the Happy Boy, and the kitten. The earliest appointment they have is 10:30am. I start work at 8am, so I arranged to have them here for 10am. Happy boy ruined my sleeping plans.

So today, he went to camp with UrbanMummy, then after a short nap, went to the park with the lovely and talented Haley-O and her irrestible Cheaty Monkey. More running around, so you think he’d be tired, eh? Nope.

The Happy Boy probably couldn’t sleep because he was having dreams of Monkey. You see the Momerazzi caught shocking picture of the Happy Boy kissing the Cheaty Monkey in the tunnel in the park. My little player. Then as Haley and Monkey were leaving, the Happy Boy started throwing kisses and saying “bye bye”. Cutie.

So after dinner, outside for more fresh air, we come in and give the Happy Boy a bath, afterwhich he got some milk, 4 books and bed… where he proceeded to wail. We tried more books… Nope. More milk… Nope. He didn’t eat dinner, so we offered him a lot of food, no dice. Since the UrbanMummy is suffering from a bad back, I took Happy Boy to the vet, grocery store, then to another grocery store, but as I left the driveway, I decided to drop him off at Gramma and Granpa’s. They played with him until 10pm when I picked him up. He was tired. Still whiny, he got more milk, then right to bed. He has not budged. I’m going to check on him. BRB.

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen Things SpeakEasy is up to right now 1. Trying to finish a 8000-12000 word essay focussing on Knowledge Management and Confidentiality within the Canadian Tax System… bu tomorrow. 2. Building a better wife… By that I mean making th most of every second I get to spend with UrbanMummy and letting her know how great she is. Hanging out with her tonight would be a great start. 3. Taking down and out the remaining cedars in the backyard of my house so that the gardener can come and put up a fence. 4. Cleaning out the “Red Room” in our house, which is going to be the Happy Boy’s room once the new baby comes (in 3 months), but we need empty so we can get him used to it, slowly. 5. Organizing and taking inventory of our Scrapbook merchandise and Embellishments so we can bring the store back online or get the mready to be sold in another store 6. 9 Reports for management on my work files, due tomorrow. 7. Taking care of my sciatica, and that does not mean taking pills to make the pain less. I’m tired of not being able to put on my socks in pain. I’m only 35. 8. Cleaning out the garage. For a freezer coming soon, and to put the car in it. So much junk. 9. Getting ready to complete an exam this weekend 10. Looking at 2 businesses to begin in the spring, or next summer so I can leave my job and let UrbanMummy just worry about the kids and her video Ipod. 11. Get my bike tire fixed and actually use it so i can lose some unwanted baby-weight. If UrbanMummy can lose all, and more of her baby-weight, then so can I. 12. Socialize. It’s been way too long for old friends and hopefully some new ones. Once the week is over, it should be time to be social again. I miss talking to adults. 13. Sleep. I’d love to. Just say when, dear. Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

What are you thinking Shea…

In effort to attract more guys to my blog, I present the following post about a now former Toronto Blue Jay player (bluejays.mlb.com), a DH no less, named Shea Hillenbrand.

Turns out Shea, a early season hitter who tails off after like April, took some time off from the team so he and his wife could adopt a child – yay, Shea!

Then upon returning to the team 2 days ago he was not in the lineup, nor was he in the line-up tonight, so he refused to come to the dugout and made the following statement,

“I love my teammates here, but I’m waiting to be traded,” Hillenbrand said during a profanity-filled tirade before the game. “I should have been traded two months ago.”… “They wonder why they are not winning,” Hillenbrand said. “It’s the atmosphere.”

So the Jays “designated him for assignment”, meaning they have 10 days to release him, trade him or send him outright to the minors. Considering the Jays could use a shortstop or pitcher, he might be marketable.

But for those who know me, and my love of playing sports and watching them, will know that there are a few things one can do in organized sports that REALLY pisses me off. Number 1, is quitting on a team. You just don’t do that. Successful players and teams never quit. The Jays might be a better team now that this whiner is gone. If you quit, you will never lose that tag and there is no coming back. One season while running my ball-hockey team, I brought on 3 friends, of which only one was semi-good enough to play. Of the other 2, one was eager to learn and the other, well he ran a lot and sometimes remembered he was playing hockey and use his stick. Them one game late in the season this player tells me if he doesn’t get more playing time he is going to run on the floor when we are winning a game and cause us to get a penalty for having too many players on the surface. Upon hearing that, I immediately asked him for his jersey and booted him off the team. Quitter. Was going to cause the penalty, then go home. No way.

So Shea, I know you a big reader of this blog, and I want to wish you and your wife a big hearty “Mazel Tov” on the adoption of your daughter and let you know that if you need help packing you shit up, I’ll call 1-800-got-junk and help you get the fuck out of town.

Quitter.

If you want more readers, apparently you have to make your posts interesting and clear. Damn!

A wise person who may or may not be my wife once told me that if I want more readers to my blog, I need my posts to make sense.

What?!?  I have to put effort into what I write?  And I’m supposed to edit them, and check the spelling?  OY.  That is way too much work for my 5 regular readers (sorry guys!).  I blog in order to keep track of milestones for my kids and in my life and the fact that people read this who do not know me, is mind-blowing.  Assuming that I continue to blog into 2007, 2008 or beyond, I expect my readership to remain the same…

So when I look back at older posts, I realize that a lot of my posts are gibberish and while they may have made sense to me back then, they certainly do not make any sense whatsoever right now.

Maybe I should proof-read them.

I’m just not sure when.  You see I do most of my blogging after my wife and kids go to sleep, so these posts are getting cranked out between 11pm and 2am.  That is also the time I have set aside for my graduate school work, and while my wife is also completing her graduate school degree, we have to juggle the other responsibilities around the house.  For example, while my wife has managed to lower her work load down to only having 2 essays left to complete, I am now working through 5 essays, a case study, a quiz and a journal assignment to hand in before my final paper and final exam which are… this weekend.

I’d better get to work!

It’s easy to get this work done, on time and on topic when my recent marks look like this; Essay 95%. Essay 95%. Quiz 100%. Case Study 100%. Essay 90%.

I can now see that the end is near and I no longer question whether I can do this or not.  I’m running full steam ahead.  The only thing holding me back right now is my back.  Thank goodness for the anti-inflammatory medication my doctor gave me so I can focus on my work and have one less thing to worry about, in the short-term.

I’m going to have to take a break from my school work later tonight as I have agreed to present some legislation to 2 of the Canada Revenue Agency’s commercial collection teams.  I have not yet had a chance to review the material and it’s already 9:30pm.  I have done it before and can do it again.  It keeps the dry material interesting when I add real life encounters into the discussion.

What’s up with…

X-Ray Technician’s?? Hello, insert personality here —->.

I went to my family doctor this morning to discuss my still achy back, and the fact that now I’m in pain 100% of the day in my back and left leg, and after examining me, told me to be patient and keep stretching, oh, and take these pills (anti-inflamatory).

My doctor also sent me for an x-ray and made an appointment for a CAT scan (meow).  So once the appointment was finished, I gathered up my stuff and make my way to the basement of the building and entered into a large waiting room full of no patients, two Russian x-ray technicians and a very grumpy receptionist.  I stand at the front, by the door, while the receptionist grumbles at me, then after a BIG yawn, the male x-ray tech says to me, in the most bored tone ever, “Come with me please”.  (We have ways to make you talk.  LOL).

I followed him down a hallway, into a secret passage down another hall and into a small cubicle where I am supposed to disrobe (“leave your underwear on”) and put on this blue dirty looking robe with the opening in the back and “follow me”.  So after undressing and trying to figure out why it is necessary for my ass to hang out, I walked into the main room where both tech’s are playing with the laundry. I stand there waiting and waiting. 

Eventually, since I did not go away, the tech takes me into the x-ray room and I go to sit on the table but realize that it is REALLY cold, and I have to lay on my back. Brrrr. So the x-ray guy tells me, like I’m a friggin moron, that I should have I tied up the back before walking out.  Apparently he thinks that I have really long arms and can tie up 2 inch ties behind my back… Let the ass hang out.

So after becoming a contortionist for 15 minutes, he says to me, “Wait here while I check the pictures”, to which I gleefully reply, “Okey-dokey… Take your time!!!” He was not amused and grunted something in return. Great, now he’s going to give me extra harmful rays. I’ll glow in the dark.

So once it was all painfully over (pun intended) I began to gather my personal belongings when onto the floor fell my glasses, wallet and clothes on the floor.  Since it killed to bend over I figured (hoped) that “Sergei” would help me by picking them up for me, but instead, he just looked at me, and I had to bend over and pick them up myself.

I can only imagine an x-ray technician’s party. They must be REALLY wild…

Hey… I can see your femur. lol.

And they probably glow in the dark…

My Five Factor Personality Test

I just had to post this one too.

It is very accurate, I think!  If you know me, read it and let me know your thoughts, please…

Your Five Factor Personality Profile

Extroversion:You have medium extroversion. You’re not the life of the party, but you do show up for the party. Sometimes you are full of energy and open to new social experiences. But you also need to hibernate and enjoy your “down time.” Conscientiousness: You have medium conscientiousness. You’re generally good at balancing work and play. When you need to buckle down, you can usually get tasks done. But you’ve been known to goof off when you know you can get away with it. Agreeableness: You have high agreeableness. You are easy to get along with, and you value harmony highly. Helpful and generous, you are willing to compromise with almost anyone. You give people the benefit of the doubt and don’t mind giving someone a second chance. Neuroticism: You have low neuroticism. You are very emotionally stable and mentally together. Only the greatest setbacks upset you, and you bounce back quickly. Overall, you are typically calm and relaxed – making others feel secure. Openness to experience: Your openness to new experiences is medium. You are generally broad minded when it come to new things. But if something crosses a moral line, there’s no way you’ll approve of it. You are suspicious of anything too wacky, though you do still consider creativity a virtue.

The Five Factor Personality Test

How do you live your life?

Thank you to the beautiful and talented Urban Mummy for the link to this site.  I kind of like these little quizzes as they  not only best reflect the person that is UrbanDaddy, but also act as a perfect distraction from all the essays, assignments, case study’s and quizzes that are coming due by the second in my MBA program.

So this is me…

How You Life Your Life

You seem to be straight forward, but you keep a lot inside. You’re laid back and chill, but sometimes you care too much about what others think. You prefer a variety of friends and tend to change friends quickly. You tend to dream big, but you worry that your dreams aren’t attainable.

How Do You Live Your Life?

This is actually me to a “t”, for those of you who know me.  For those of you who don’t… Well, don’t worry about it, and trust me when I say this is me!

When a Blog crashes down, it pays to know how to fix it… But I don’t.

English: Government notice describing the duties of those granted land on Yonge Street. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I don’t know where to begin.

Maybe this past Thursday July 6th, 2006, after I posted my Thursday Thirteen and somehow managed to screw up my HTML coding – so people have told me – and the layout of my blog went berzerk.  I just wished I knew how to fix it.  I like to write but I’m not so great with the technology-side of blogging.

I asked my wife for her thoughts (she is awesome with computers but HATED that I referred to her as my “cyber geek” –  which I honestly thought was a compliment for someone like her who knows so much about computers – and she basically said, “Yup. Your blog is really messed up”.

Thankfully that consultation was free!  I knew she wouldn’t have the time to fix it for me.  She’s really busy.  Well, she’s always really busy and I think she’s tired of fixing computers that I destroy, so lesson learned indeed.

Then I reached out to a fellow Toronto blogger, and her response was pretty much the same… My blog is really messed and she has no time right now to help either.  Damn.  So for the time being, until I find a way to fix it myself, I will just have to come to grips with the fact that every time I look at my blog, I’m going to worry that my 3 regular readers will think I know nothing about HTML, well that would be right! So there!  I said it first.

Blogging aside, the rest of my Thursday was spent selling our scrapbooking supplies (embellishments mostly) from our online business www.theembellishmentstore.com at a warehouse sale of one of our suppliers. While we did not make that much money over the 4-days of the sale, the networking was GREAT.  Met some potential new customers and  a couple of potential new suppliers.

Always interesting at these types of sales are the number of people who accept cash and do not charge the tax.  I find it interesting because we have always charged the tax – as an employee of the CRA, not doing so could lead to immediate termination – so I always presumed that we would generate less sales than other businesses, however I guess people like the honest folks, and I have yet to see someone walk away when being charged tax.

Friday night’s dinner with my family had some significance this week as Linus had his first taste of a beef burger and at 18 months, ate almost 1/4 of his burger.  I always hoped he would come over to the dark side and eat meat, however he has no taste for it and now that he’s eaten it, I’m okay that we eat a predominately vegetarian diet.  I’m still not so sure about the hormones and stuff they inject into animals these days…

After dinner, once Linus was asleep and the kitchen was spotless, we went upstairs to our bedroom in order to do what ever other couple does on a Friday night – homework!   I have a case study due for one of my graduate school classes, a quiz in another class, an assignment and an essay due on the 10th (today).  Once I send off the last of those tasks, I have to get moving on a major 12000 word essay and begin reviewing for an exam in 2 weeks.  My wife, on the other hand, has 3 papers all due this week.  I feel bad for her because she is also working very hard on completing her Masters degree and her and stress do not mix well. They are quite the volatile pair.  Add to that, she is 6 months pregnant, feeling like she is 16 months pregnant, and you guessed it no time to actually rest and relax.

The rest of the weekend was not so relaxing either, mind you.

Saturday we went to my in-laws cottage for their 40th Anniversary party which they threw together themselves on short notice.  No other family was invited and I think there was an expectation that we would put Linus in a room, with his toys, and that he would be able to stay there and play quietly without disturbing the guests.  See my previous comment about stress and apply it up to my mother-in-law.  I asked if that was true and if so, we would happily stay home – there is no reasonable way an 18-months old would be able to play quietly on his own for 2-3 hours.  Especially our son.  And as for keeping all the toys together in one place… Another non-starter.

So we arrived at the cottage with a very tied and cranky Linus who forgot to nap on the way up, and there were a lot of people who we did not know, which was fine, however my in-laws cottage is for them, not baby-proofed in any way so I always get nervous leaving Linus to walk around in there.  My father-in-law always says to me’; “what’s the worst that can happen?  He breaks something.  It will teach him to not touch something like that again.”  I would always say that I’m not concerned about him breaking stuff, but getting hurt touching something or having something fall on him.  What this ultimately means is that we have to watch him carefully every moment he is inside, and of course being a waterfront cottage, every moment he is outside too.  It becomes a LOT of work.

To top things off, my in-laws like to prepare certain foods for parties which my wife – their daughter – would never touch so while everyone is eating salads with goat-cheese or BBQ chicken, my wife is eating raw veggies and has to make her own salad.  Considering her current state of pregnancy, she needs me to help make something and I’m a pretty terrible cook.

More stress.

So we came back from the cottage Saturday night about 9:30pm, put Linus to sleep in his crib, then came into our bedroom to do more homework.  My wife nodded off at midnight and I turned out the lights at 2am.  Very typical nowadays.

Sunday morning began with my wife’s suggestion to finally unpack the rest of the boxes from our move 6 months ago.  That kept us all busy until the Yonge Street festival began – living so close to Yonge street sure has it’s benefits.  We took Linus for a walk and he got to go on some rides, see the performers and eat.   We stayed cool with Chocolate Chillers from the Second Cup, and we bumped into our neighbour and her always happy son, and the 5 of us made our way up the street to various parts of the festival.

Linus kept asking to go down to walk, until he realized how hot it was, then he wanted back up into the stroller so he could lay down and have a nap.  It was too hot and really who wouldn’t want to be pushed around in a stroller in the heat!

After the festival, we walked home, Linus and his mummy took a nap, and I went back to pick up the rest of our goods from the scrapbooking sale.  When I came home, my mother came by to Linus-sit so we could grocery shop and upon walking into our neighbourhood Dominion – 3 houses over from us – I immediately realized that the person right inside the door shopping looked VERY familiar.  It was Haley-O from The Cheaty Monkey.  I pulled my wife aside to confirm with her this was in fact the much sought-after Haley before I said something (which I was going to anyways) but with super-hero like hearing, Haley came over to us instead. I immediately realized that she is much cuter in person than the pictures on her blog, and she is REALLY nice. Her daughter, if you have seen some of the many pics on Haley’s blog is adorable too, and at just 6 months younger than my boy… Hmmmm.

I like friendly local bloggers. Now I know 3 of them.

So we left Haley, finished shopping then came home to cook dinner for my wife’s friend and her son when we blinked and it was 9pm.  Linus’ bedtime is 7pm, so we ran upstairs for a super-fast bath, book and bed for him, then back to homework for us.  Tonight was better for me and not so great for my wife as we both packed away our books at 1am.

This week is going to be the week from hell with all the assignment and both of us down quit a few hours of sleep.  At least I had some time to blog this insane weekend and the fact that I managed to fix my blog HTML problem all by myself and it only took me 2-hours.

Off to do some more homework!  Thanks for dropping by!

Related articles

• Can I Please Get Some Sleep! (urbandaddy.wordpress.com)

Shouldn’t a spell checker embedded in a blog know how to spell the word “blog”???

I used to use blogger.com, to host my blog – blogspot – and one of the things that really bugged me was the fact that if you run the spell checker on your post, it will kick back the word “blog” as being wrong and offer to change it to “bloc”.

I’m guessing the bloq Quebecois must be a sponsor. lol.

I know, eh? What the hell is a “blog”.

Stupid program.