Paralysis

She’s back! Did you miss me?

1000 apologies for my unannounced absence last week.  Paralysis is the only way I can explain it.  I’m still fighting it – but I’m fighting it harder this week by actually doing something about it.  Small steps.  Back to blogging.

Part of it is stress. Part of it is crazy busyness.  Part of it was the long weekend and not really getting into the full swing last week.  Part of it was crap days at work.

I’m hoping this week is going to be better.  There is nothing really to indicate that the week is going to be any better.  If anything it will probably be worse since on the work front I’ll be dealing with the fall out of last week and on the home front the Boy and I are counting down the sleeps to our marriage preparation course via the Catholic Church. No matter how you slice it that’s not really a recipe for super fun times.

I’m working late tonight, and my original plan was to go in at my normal time and work a 12 hour day, until the Boy said it out loud this morning… “You’re going to work a 12 hour day?”

No.  No I’m not.

I’ve resolved to have a better week and that means don’t burn myself out on the first day.

Here’s to a better week – tomorrow we’ve got flowers.

YouTube Friday

This week’s YouTube Friday is knocking two birds down off the 101 in 1001 list. (You thought I forgot about it didn’t you!)

It’s been a week of theatre – first a community production of one of the best books of all time To Kill a Mockingbird, starring some student of my Sistas.  It was a family affair as we all headed out to support the community arts.  They’re a long way from Broadway, but it was fun nonetheless.

Next stop? Well, it started when the Sista sent me an email just before the Boy and I left for Florida in November to say that if I hadn’t gotten her anything for Christmas yet, she had an idea.  I had got her something – the miniature sweater, but because it was lace weight yarn – it was the most inexpensive sweater ever in the history of the world.  I knew I was going to get her something else, so I let her tell me her idea.

She had already bought tickets to Billy Elliot the Musical during it’s run in Toronto, but had reconsidered the financial commitment she had made and decided it would be better if we got eachother a ticket instead of her buying both of them.  Agreed!

We had ourselves a non-wedding related Sista date last night and it was GLORIOUS! (We did make a quick stop at The Bay to check in on my Kitchen Aid Mixer, but other than that – wedding free). 

If you haven’t seen this play yet – what are you waiting for?! Do it! Do it NOW!

To give you a little sneak preview….

The official trailer:

Plus one highly illegal video (not mine – I obey the rules) and unfortunately not of Toronto –  but just as awesome! It will really make you wonder – what the hell is wrong with wearin’ a dress?

I’m going to be singing and dancing all weekend!

Have a great weekend and for select provinces, including all Ontarians Happy Family Day!

That’s Mr. Boy to you

You will recall that after a year and a half of waiting the Boy finally got to talk to a real person at our local school board. Not only did he get to talk to a real person, he got an interview.  AND since he’s obviously brilliant (and handsome) he was hired, and is now, in his words, “holding down 3 jobs just trying to put food on the table!” Drama queen.

Tuesday was the long-awaited orientation day.  He had to go to an orientation before he could get a supply position. It was all he expected it to be and more.  A boring 1/2 day of health and safety training, learning to use the website, a phone, etc. He was also told he wouldn’t likely get a call for two weeks.  Paperwork.

Part of that paperwork is entering the newbies into a database and including their school preferences.  The Boy and I live smack dab in the middle of the region, so he didn’t make any specifications.  He’ll go anywhere and take anything.  He’s slutty like that.

Wednesday morning I was almost out the door when the phone rang.  It was the school board.  I was hoping it was a job, but the rational side of me was pretty sure he had forgotten to sign something.  I gave him the phone.  Half asleep, he hung up the phone.  SHOOT! Luckily, they called back.

The conversation I heard on my end was as follows:

Boy – Hi, sorry about that…. Umm, yeah maybe…. Well I’d have to shower, I just woke up…. Aurora? Okay, yeah that’s not far. I can do that…. You said two weeks though, so I’m not really feeling well prepared….. No problem?…. Okay, I’ll get ready quickly and make my way there…. No problem…. Oh! It is?… Well, I don’t speak French…. No?….  Not a problem?…. Okay…. Okay, yup I’ll be there as soon as I can…..Okay thanks for calling…. Bye.

He hung up and shouted – “Can you please make me a lunch!”

That’s right kids, the Boy had his first day at school one day after his orientation. And yes, you read that last line in the conversation correctly – it was for French.  Not just one period of French, but a full out French Immersion school.  All French.  All the time.

I packed him a lunch and sent him on his merry way.

I sent a text message at 1:00 (the school he was sent to is also the school my boss’ kid goes to, so she let me in on when lunch was) he didn’t answer.  I got a call at 4:00 to tell me all about the first day of school.  Here are the highlights:

1. He got grade 4
2. There were 7 supply teachers at the school that day
3. The teacher he subbed for was francophone which meant ALL of her lesson plans were in French
4. The term lesson plan was being very loosely used, since it was more like a couple of point form notes on what they should continue to work on
5. When you don’t understand any of the words around a classroom – it all looks like clutter
6. When the instructions in a math book are in French it’s easy to see what they’re working on (parallelograms) but still impossible to know what they are supposed to be doing.
7. He subbed in for the grade 1 gym teacher as well
8. Grade ones in a gym are CRAZY
9. He worried he had physically lost a kid on a couple occasions
10. There’s always a smart helpful kid – make her your friend
11. Grade fours know what they need to do but CANNOT explain it to a third party outsider.

All in all while it will always remain the best first day of school story EVER, it really was the best case scenario for the Boy.  He gets really nervous and anxious about new things, but since they called with absolutely ZERO notice, he didn’t have time to worry and just had to jump right in.  He’s definitely looking forward to his next call, and really hoping to get an English school next time.

Feeling illiterate while trying to teach the minds of tomorrow? Priceless.

3 Minutes Early

Image via Wikipedia

Have you heard the news? Tazo Tea Time is back at Starbucks. From 2-5pm February 11 – 20, you can get your favourite Tazo Tea for half price.

Oh it’s a great promotion – if you disregard the fact that Starbucks is probably still making money on their half-price tea.  Curse it’s deliciousness!

My favourite as you know is Chai Tea Latte, Soy, Extra Hot, No Water, No Foam

But I digress… this is not a post about my love of Starbucks.

Today I was out of the office at just about the right time.  Knowing I was going back for an exhilarating staff meeting I thought I deserved a half-price treat.

I made my way into my local Starbucks.

Me – “Is it 2:00 yet?”

Starbucks Guy – “Not yet.”

Me – “Drat, do I have to wait or can you just do it?”

SG – “Yeah you have to wait, it won’t let me take half off until 2:00.”

Me – Okay

Mystery voice – “I’m waiting too!”

I turned to discover a fellow half-price tea lover, who was also a few minutes early.  A chatty tea lover at that.

At first I thought I was in for a repeat of the over-sharer from the waiting room.  But instead I found myself a Tea Loving Knitter!

We talked about my mittens – she’s made the same ones for her kids and LOVES them. I suggested the Kitchener Knitting Fair, she said being around that much yarn is too tempting, it could be disastrous.  I told her it most certainly would be – but that’s the BEST part!

It occurred to me that I was being one of the crazies. Talking to strangers, Talking about knitting with strangers. But I couldn’t help myself.

Maybe it was my desperation for delicious half-price tea.

Maybe it was my love of knitting.

I think it was a little bit of both.

Waiting Room Crazies

I went to give my blood to vampires trained professionals for normal blood work last weekend.  I got to the clinic about an hour after it opened and took a number. The room was packed but I luckily got a seat.  I sat down and settled in by busting out my knitting.  I was golden to wait for however long it took. Or so I thought.

I found myself sitting in front of an over-sharer.

I sat down and was immediately informed that the woman sitting across from me had 2 children.  Fine.

I learned she delivered them naturally. A little much for a waiting room.  But fine.

I learned with her first birth she had a Doula, while with her second, a couple years later, she also enlisted the help of a midwife.  This is getting wierd.

I learned this woman really “misses the feeling of a baby moving inside [her].” This is getting creepy.

I learned that 9 hours after delivering (naturally – for those that had forgotten) her first baby, she was ready to go home.  She was going to the bathroom by herself, up and dressed and walking around.  But the Doctor’s wouldn’t let her go home.  They threatened to call Children’s Aid Society on her.

I learned she had later learned that she has a friend who works at CAS so – “She would have been fine.”

I learned she thinks it’s ridiculous when women have babies and are laid up for days on end.  “Oh I’m so sore – c’mon it’s not that bad.” – Thanks Judgey McJudgerson.

I learned that her husband works late shifts so her kids really miss him and she feels like a single mom some times.

I learned that her oldest daughter doesn’t get to see her dad too often because she’s in school now.  Hmmm.

Then.  Then she started talking to me.

Crazy Lady (CL) – What are you knitting?

Me – Socks

CL – Oh.  I thought they might be leg-warmers.

Me – Nope. Socks.

CL – My girls LOVE leg-warmers. They’re like me, they hate socks.  But they LOVE leg-warmers.

Me – Polite smile and back to my knitting.

CL – The other night they both had their leg-warmers on and were telling me just how warm they were. And I said “Girls, if you’re hot – take off the leg-warmers!” And they said “No! We LOVE our leg-warmers”  They really love their leg warmers.

At this point I was recapping what I’d learned in my 20 minute wait.

Crazy Lady misses being a preggo.  She was not there for herself, she was with her father (that’s right her father was sitting beside her while she was talking about her junk).  She has two children both of which she had naturally. She judges all other preggos for their inability to bounce right back after pushing a human through their business.  Her kids love legwarmers (I’m not really sure what I was supposed to do with that information. Was I supposed to knit them some leg-warmers in the waiting room?). And her oldest is in school full-time – which puts these pregnancies which she is so fond of talking about approximately 6 and 4 YEARS AGO!

And that’s what I learned in the Waiting Room.

People are weird.

YouTube Friday

Hurray for Friday!

Oh Judd Apatow – I love your movies… sometimes.  Knocked Up? HILARIOUS. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story? Time I will never get back.

I’m curious about this one.  Looks terrible.  While at the exact same time – looks AWESOME! So torn. But I am confident that by the time May comes around… I just might need this kind of movie.

I give you – BRIDESMAIDS

Enjoy!

Have a great weekend!

Counting it Down – 7 Months

We’ve got 7 months to go – just 7 short months! I’ve known this for a while.  But it’s news to the Boy.  The Boy was looking at the calendar the other day and asked “Why is there a 7 on February 10th?” My response? “Really? You really can’t figure that one out?” It took him a good 5 minutes to figure it out. And when he did it went a little like this “OH! Like 7 months to the wedding? Oh my God, that’s not very long!”

Thanks tips.

What we’ve done this month:

• Started the search for the dress
• Found one and said “Yes!”
• Registered for our Marriage Preparation Course – more on that later
• Started thinking about DIYing some Yarn Balls
• Got an iPhone – and also caught me a little crazy
• Searched for Photographers
• Picked one
• Picked another one
• Started thinking about a DJ
• Booked a tasting with our caterer – not ’til March though
• Finalized our guest list
• Booked a block of hotel rooms
• Started a wedding website
• Started our registry – (post-worthy just haven’t gotten there yet)

What we still need to do – A LOT!

• We’ve started thinking about a DJ – need to book one
• We really need to think about some flowers
• Still can’t make a full report on the wedding party
• Send out the STDs (hehe)
• Make a cake decision – find a baker
• Finish our website – share it with the world!

I’ve definitely started noticing the stress.  I’ve returned to my Naturopath (who I love) to help cope with it. The Boy has been really good about trying to keep me as calm as possible.  He’s learning to recognize when I really want help and when I really want him to agree with whatever decision I’ve already made in my head and I’m not really asking.

212 days that feels so much less scary than only 7 months!!

Photography 3.0

We have a photographer for W-day.

We also have a family friend that does wedding photography in Windsor.  He’ll be at the wedding and let us know that he would love to take pictures for us.  When we spoke with David of West Photo we talked about how long we would need him to be there.  Did we want him for the WHOLE night? Or just for the wedding and photos afterward?

I let David know that we had a friend with some mad camera skills, and that I had thought of asking him to be in charge of all candid shots and the reception.   Would that work.

One more reason why we loved David – he was totally fine with that.  Thought it was a great idea actually.  He even went one further to say that if there were pictures that our friend took that we wanted included in the album he was putting together for us we could give him the files and he would include them.  No problem.

What?! 

Well that’s just the best of both worlds.  David told us that when he stays at weddings for the full night, those are usually the pictures that get cut out of the album first – people use one or two, but generally the “wedding story” is told through the more formal pictures, and the pictures of the ceremony.  So if we had a friend that could take awesome reception photos – great, work it out with him.

I emailed Brian (you can find his work on Facebook at Cross Hatched Productions, and if you’re in the Windsor area call him NOW) I gave him my plan and he was all over it.  We seem to have found ourselves the best of both worlds.  David likes to do the more formal pictures, and Brian loves the candids! Perfect.

Brian is giving us a DVD of all of the images so we can print our merry hearts out.  David is including proofs but we can get the images on file if we want them.

I’m still undecided, but I think I’m leaning toward not getting the images in digital files from David and instead putting together a separate album of Brian’s shots.  I can’t give too much away, but I’ve always liked scrapbooks in theory, but never had the patience for it in practice.  I think I’ve come up with a way to get the best of both worlds and our complete wedding story in a book that will actually be interesting to look through.

But that’s another post for another day… like 8 months from now.

Anyway, photography – CHECK!

Couldn’t be happier with all of our decisions.  David is going to take the getting ready pictures, the ceremony, pictures afterward of us and our wedding party and our families.  Brian will swoop in at the reception and take pictures of people arriving, our dances, speeches, and the kick ASS party!  It really means so much to us that we get to feature the talents of our friend.

Thanks again Brian XOXO

Photography 2.0

You’ll recall that yesterday we had 2 photographers that we were considering.  Gemini Photography and West Photo.

We left West Photo.  We talked about what David was offering, his style, and of course the price.  But mostly we talked about his personality, and the Boy’s comfort level.  You see when it comes to photography we have a small problem.  Actually we have a rather tall problem.

The Boy.

The Boy hates having his picture taken.  He is also a giant and we want to make sure that our photographer is able to make the Boy feel and look comfortable – not like a picture hating awkward giant.  While I was confident in Gemini Photography’s ability to take beautiful photos, when it came right down to it – the Boy was going to be more comfortable with David.  He’s worked with him before.  In his words “I feel as comfortable as I’m ever going to with him.”

Decision made.

Let’s face it loyal readers, when it comes to W-Day I’m making a lot of the decisions. The Boy is patiently by my side at most appointments, but as his Grooms Survival Guide told him – he’s a “secondary stakeholder.”

I cancelled my appointment with Lauren – the Boy wasn’t going to be able to make it anyway, and I didn’t want to interrupt her Saturday when I knew how unlikely it was that we would go with her. I did some light research just to make sure that I was getting a competitive price (I most definitely was), emailed David and we’re good to go.

I met with David again to sign our contract (I left the Boy at home and put him in charge of dinner).  We met for about an hour, and spoke briefly about timelines and style again.  We also made some awesome plans for an engagement shoot. Without giving too much away the Boy and I will have a perfect representation of the two of us… country mouse and city mouse.

We really couldn’t be happier with the decision.

Our wedding will be photographed by David West of West Photo.  Mostly… more on that tomorrow.

Say Cheese

Have you noticed the trend yet? In an effort to keep you lovely readers interested, and to not be a crazy wedding-obsessed bride, I’ve been trying to only blog about wedding stuff every other week.  The small flaw with this plan is by the time the next W-week comes – there is SO much to talk about.  That, and I have noticed that my life is slowly being taken over by all things wedding.  So last week, I only had knitting to talk about – because that’s what I do now.  Plan and Knit. Plan and Knit.

But I digress, to kick off this week’s Wedding Week – Photography! We actually booked our photographer last Wedding Week – but it was on Wednesday, I already had DIY Yarn Balls to talk about and then it was YouTube Friday – so it had to wait.

Here’s how we made the decision:

The to do lists on the wedding websites were stressing me out.  Still are actually.  They want me to have all of the pros booked and signed a month ago. So I was getting a little anxious about photography.  When we first got engaged I sent an email to a photographer that had taken family pictures for us a year ago, to check his availability.  He put some dates on hold for us, but then we looked at venues for 2 months so I didn’t talk to him again for a while.  We booked our venue and had Christmas and exhaled over the holidays – which means we put all of those lists and pros out of our heads.

But denial couldn’t last forever we needed to book a photographer. I hit the wedding shows.  I hit the blogs.  I started to get an idea of what I liked and what I  didn’t and then I went on referrals.

One of the referrals we had was a the daughter-in-law of a friend of my parents.  Lauren of Gemini Photography does about 6 weddings a year, but she aims for a candid comfortable style.  She does the shots you need of posing nicely with Grandma, but she keeps things light and fun.  If you’re getting married in the Toronto area take a look – I really liked the look of her photos.  She does lots of family photos and babies too.  Check her out!

So we had it down to two.  West Photo and Gemini Photography.  We met with David of West Photo.

My parents came with us and we talked about “the vision” and David informed the Boy that 100% of wedding pictures are of the bride. Anyone else that happens to be in the pictures are merely props.  We like David.  He’s easy going, he makes the Boy laugh (which is how he got the Boy’s picture the last time).  He takes AMAZING pictures. We weren’t sure that any of his packages were going to work for us – but he happily tweaked them to make them work.

David asked what style of pictures I liked, I told him I liked pictures to look candid, all the while understanding that the best “candid” photos are not generally truly candid.  I told him I love pictures in front of graffiti walls, in the subway, on streetcars.  If we were getting married in the city that’s where our photos would be.  But we’re not.  We’re getting married on a lovely farm – so our pictures will incorporate a beautiful old barn.

David found all of this very exciting and suggested that to get the best of both worlds (and since traveling to Toronto between wedding and reception was out of the question logistically) we’d do an engagement shoot in Toronto.  We could do some very cool things with the subway, and Rick Mercer does his rants in graffiti-ed alleys so maybe we could find where those are and shoot some pictures there.

I then told David the most important component of W-Day photography for me.  I said, “I like you David, but I do not want to say my vows to you.”

He burstated.

I explained that I really didn’t want to see him at all during the ceremony.  I want all of those close up teary-eyed shots of the Boy (haha) but I didn’t want to have him standing beside me.

He agreed – no problem. And also he might use that line in the future.  It was just the best way I could think to articulate what I wanted – or didn’t want in this case.

We nailed down what package we would go with if we went with him – but David encouraged us to look around.

I liked that.

This is getting too long – you’ll just have to wait for a decision tomorrow

Photo from here