Wonderings from the Wack

- Gas line and meter appear to be okay, according to the Terasen guy on Saturday. The pilot lights going out may have been a combination of Thursday night's wind and our hot water tank is slowly dying.

-Picked up Hilary Duff's CD for Kyle to give his sister for Christmas. $14 at Wal-Mart.

-Had a fun time with my folks last night. Papa ( what the kids call my Dad ) walked with us to school this morning. Mom and I have terribly grand plans for the gingerbread house next year!

-Over lunch today Kristi and I tried to hammer out the Christmas morning brunch/lunch plan. Yet to be decided after further discussion.

-Toni put the lights up on the house this weekend. We also have some strung around the banister inside. I love Christmas!

Okay now that I have your attention, it's not what you think!

This morning I discovered that we had no hot water. I put the dish washer on earlier so I thought maybe there was just none left. Then I checked the dishwasher and found that the water was only luke warm. Normally if I open it up mid-cycle my glasses fog up from the heat.

Toni had to relight the pilot light in the fire place this morning. I noticed it was out yesterday but forgot to tell him. We had a lot of wind on Thursday night and just assumed that it got blown out. Toni went downstairs to check the hot water tank after I told him about the luke warm dish washer water. Turns out the pilot was out on the hot water tank too. It must have happened in the wee hours of Friday morning or late Thursday night. As we compared notes from yesterday, that was conclusion we came too.

So I called Teresen to see if there was a service disruption. There are townhouses being built about a kilometre away so it was possible. No dice on that angle though. So now I am waiting for a guy to come and check our meter to see if the pressure is okay. Toni is off running errands with the kids. So far both pilots are still on.

For those don't know me, I am not exactly the keenest shopper in the world. I like to do it as quickly as possible. I went with my sister this morning and got Kyle new winter boots ( Canucks ones! ) and myself 2 pairs of jeans. That must be a record amount for me in one morning. The boots were on sale but the jeans weren't. I went boldly ahead and bought them anyway. Yay me!

Kristi and I went back to the mall ( SevenOaks this time ) and to Reitmans. We both got tops, the idea being to wear said tops to our hubbies' respective Christmas parties. I would really like to get a skirt too, but I might have to dig out my black dress pants if I am unsuccessful.

Okay let's have a size rant! Today's pairs of jeans from Cotton Ginny - one size 16, one size 14. Okay...... I tried on several skirts at Reitmans. Depending on the cut and style, some 16's nearly fell off and some I couldn't get over my hips. Grr.....( Insert Kyle's scowly face here ) One size 14 fit okay and looked all right, but it was a long skirt. Not sure if I really liked it enough. I also did birthday shopping for Toni and Christmas shopping for Kyle at the calendar place.

All in all it was a not bad day of spending money I don't have. That's what VISA is for! ( Hey we did that digicam somehow! )

How much do you match your zodiac sign? Well since my birthday is March 19th, I am actually Pisces but on the cusp of Aries. So for argument's sake I did both.

You are 60% Pisces

You are 47% Aries

After hanging around all day waiting for the Purolator guy, he finally showed up at 2:12. All was not lost though, the girls had a nice visit over coffee this morning at my place. The children played nicely for the most part. I hope Torie still wants to come to my house some time!


So now we get to play with our "free" digital camera. It only took almost 10 years of VISA Royal Rewards points to get it. With any luck I can update the family web page soon. Yay, pictures of the kids that aren't a year old!

Kyra was back at school today. She feels much better, but her headache hasn't entirely gone away. We got her report card too. It was supposed to be yesterday but she wasn't there. Out of all the things the students are supposed to be doing, she is at level 3 on all of them. They are graded from 1 to 4. Level 3 is "meets expectations". She did get a 3+ in one of the art sections, "creates an image using colour, setting and detail". Naturally she gets all of her artistic talent from her father. I can't draw a stick man to save my life! The teacher also wrote a note at the top about how she is a very friendly, social student, has beautiful printing, etc. etc.

I looked after LB's little guy this morning so she could go on the Kindergarten library field trip with her oldest. Grey-man is sure a cute kid and he had fun playing with Kyle.

After doing an hour on Angel of the Sea last night, I've not touched her yet today. Kind of hard with a 16-month-old running around your house! I am plugging away on her right wing ( left side of design ). Man is it boring doing 3072 and white.

Purolator is bring me a package tomorrow. I am assuming it is our "free" digicam. We got it from the Royal Rewards VISA program. It's about time we got something for "free". We must have spent $40,000 over the last 10 years to get those Rewards points!

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I get Johnny Depp! Hunk test



Johnny Depp

Kyra has had one on and off since Friday. I kept her home today to take to the doctor, just in case. She has a headache too, but only on her forehead. She's stuffed up so I am kind of thinking sinuses or something.

We got some children's Advil and that works to take her headache away and bring the fever down to just warmish. I really need a new battery for my digital thermometer....

We don't normally get together to watch sporting events ( unless it's hockey play-offs ) but since the Lions are in the Grey Cup this year, we are going to my sister's place to hang out, eat too much, and watch football. Go Lions!

The ever-witty sports commentators have taken to calling them "Casey and the Sunshine Band", due to the quarteback's name, Casey Printers.

Last week's game against Saskatchewan was close. I hope this one is too and not a rout. That gets boring really fast.


Have a relaxing Sunday everyone!



( colour scheme in honour of the Lions by the way, even though this really isn't quite silver enough )

So I took the Inner Geek test and I got 16.56805%. I am just into Geek status, mainly because of all the Star Trek questions I think. Toni would probably do better than I would.


So how geeky are you?

Kyle is thrilled! The people in the split level house next door are getting a new roof. When we left with Kyra this morning there were 3 guys on the roof scraping off the old shingles. On the way back we stood on the sidewalk across the street and watched the crane truck lift the pallets of shingles up the roof. Kyle thought it was really cool. Unfortunately they are rather noisy!

I just spent 45 minutes picking out the incorrect beads on Winter Queen. I hate frogging at the best of times, and beads are just that much more fun! Not.

So now she is bare-headed again. I would kind of like to stitch some more of the lilac/light purple to get a better idea of what that looks like. Then I will try out the new beads. They do look pretty good so far. I just sat the 2 packages on my fabric near where the purple stitching it. The match isn't perfect, but it's quite close to the colour of DMC 210 and 211. The floss is still slightly pinker than the beads, but I think this is as close as I am getting.

First off - fun city at Monique's this morning for coffee with Lisa, Andrea and my sister Kristi. The kids had a great time and we had a good visit. The book "Why Men Can't Ask For Directions and Why Women Can't Read Maps" was a hoot. So now we all know a thing or two!

HY Louie warehouse grocery store with Kristi was more expensive than I thought. I was intending to buy nothing. $38 later I had tonight's dinner ( which Kristi, Keith and Trevor shared ) some other groceries and a birthday gift for Kyra's classmate Brendan. Not bad. You can get some good deals there if you are careful.

I got my beads for Winter Queen. Thanks a million Vivienne for your comparisons to DMC 210 and 211. I will check tomorrow in better daylight but I think they will work perfectly. I am even planning to swap out the darker shade of other beads and use the new ones. Since they are Frosted Sead Beads ( from Mill Hill naturally ) they look sort of pearly and will look suitably jewel-like for her crown, etc.

After dropping of Kyra, I snoozed away most of the morning. Totally unlike me. I've got my period today and feel like I have been hit by a bus. That probably explains the tiredness.

Maybe I am just getting old.

Kyle was great and played quietly the whole time, except for some snuggling. I am so glad I can trust him not to burn down the house or something horrible like that.

Yuck! Dumped all day yesterday.( See Lisa, the hip never lies! ) Today Kyle and I managed to get Kyra to school and home again before the deluge started. November is such a lovely time of year!

The tea is steeping, the dryer is humming away and the furnace is about to kick in. When I get more chores done I am going to sit and stitch. A good plan for a rainy day. I am working on "Stretch" right now.

1) What is your favorite flavor of M&Ms?
Peanut. For some reason I only eat them at movie theatres though.

2) Is there a special edition of candy that you wish they would make a permanent item on the shelves?
No not really.

3) What is your favorite flavor of Hershey's Kisses? I don't like them actually.

4) What is your favorite candy bar? Wunderbar or Crispy Crunch.

5) Do you prefer milk, white or dark chocolate? Dark.

So I finally figured out ( with a great deal of help from my husband the computer whisperer ) how to get my new page uploaded. With Dreamweaver it's actually quite easy. I just had to make a folder in "My Network Places" and put in all the info about our web address, password, etc. Now when I add to the page it's a simple click of the "connect" button followed by the "up" arrow button.

And no I am not putting up the link in this blog, since some projects are not for prying eyes to see. You CAN see a photo of Angel of the Sea at 97 hours. That was from a couple of weeks ago.

Thank you to all the veterans and to all retired and currently serving soldiers.

discover what candy you are @ quiz me

I was at a continuing education course this evening that covered this topic. Very interesting! The GI is basically a scale to determine how quickly a food makes your blood sugar level rise. For example, white bread has a higher GI than whole grain bread. Having had gestational diabetes twice I thought maybe I should check it out. In addition I can also use the 3 hours of cont. ed. credit for my licence. Our family actually eats medium GI foods the most. We could stand to eat lower GI ones more often, but we're not too bad. Even small things help, like squeezing lemon on your fish. Acidity lowers the GI. Theresa just went to a conference in Quebec and the latest word was that eating a 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon a day can help keep your blood sugar lower. That might seem like a lot but if you sprinkle a bit in coffee or tea ( or use a cinnamon stick to stir with ) over the course of the day it adds up. I always put some in spaghetti sauce too. It makes it taste good.

The instructor was Theresa Dillon, who is the Diabetes Dietician at CGH. I saw her when I was pregnant with Kyle. It was around this time 4 years ago.

There are a few web sites to check out if anyone is interested.

www.glycemicindex.com

www.gitesting.com

and www.gisymbol.com.au

The last web site is about Australia's program to have the GI listed on food labels.

I may have an answer to the WQ bead dilemma. Vivienne at Stiches n Stuff ( love her ) has very kindly helped me out and checked out her bead supply for my list of potentials that I got from the Mill Hill web site. She found one that works well with both DMC 210 and the other 00252 beads. I am going to do an order from her and hopefully get somewhere soon. Stay tuned!

I've only done 2 1/2 hours of her rotation but I have to put her away. I have discovered that one of the bead colours in my lilac conversion is too blue. The beads don't actually look bad in her crown. The problem lies when I will have to bead on her bodice near where the DMC 210, 211, etc. is stitched ( my lilac conversion colours ).

I checked Mill Hill's web site and found 5 other potentials. Now that they have changed the web site around it is much easier to see what the colours look like. I emailed Vivienne at Stitches and Stuff to see if she had any of the 5 other beads to try to narrow it down. It may yet be that I have to buy all 5 and see for myself. No great loss if I do since I can always trade away what I don't use.

Kristi was suggesting a trip to the bead store in Abbotsford. That might help me but it would make it tricky for any other stitcher who wants to use my conversion that I posted on the Mirabilia Bulletin Board.

Thanks a millions to Laura for doing our Mary Kay foot and hand soakings, etc. It was fun to sit around my living room with my friends with our various appendages soaking in lovely smelling water. Sometimes you just have to do girly stuff!

I have had to keep Kyra home today though. Obviously playing with her buddies yesterday was more tiring than usual. I heard her coughing quite a bit during the night and when she crawled in bed with me this morning after Daddy left she felt a bit warm. Kyra said she didn't even know she was coughing, but I definitely heard her. She seems a bit tired and draggy today. This darn cold is very hard to shake. Just when it seems like she's getting better then she starts up with the coughing again. At least it's a loose cough, and she doesn't go on and on. Poor little thing sounds like she's going to hack up a lung. I guess no gymnastics tonight either. I'll see how she is later.

I finished up a 5 hour slot on Angel of the Sea and then put her away and took out Winter Queen. Well the last time I worked on her I must have had my head up my butt. I had made mistakes in 3 areas! A lot of frogging and some restitching later, she is fixed. Now I almost don't feel like working on her. I am paranoid of screwing up again!

WQ looks good though and I am happy so far with my lilac conversion. A huge thanks to Princess Stacey, Taneya, Debi and everyone else on Mirabilia BB who looked at my conversion list and thought it looked good. I am no where near colour-conversion goddess-dom but I think I am confidant enough to do it again if I hate the colour of a design. ( Royal Holiday's gold dress comes to mind.....)

Got this from Jen's Ort Jar. She always finds the cool quizes. Not sure if I am exotic though....


You are a Siamese! You are fun-loving, playful,
energetic, talkative, and exotic. You are the
center of attention and you love every minute
of it.

What breed of cat are you?

Monique came over this morning and we messed around with her blog in order to get some links in her sidebar. A great deal of trial and error followed. We went to Lisa's blog to check hers out since hers and Monique's are the same template. After printing off Lisa's source code we figured out how to do it.

I guess I am picking up bits of code here and there and actually know some stuff I didn't think I knew. Not as dumb as I look!

This is the Hundrred Acre Wood personality test.



Take the 100 Acre Personality Quiz!

I noticed that my pixie has heard me complain about the way she is dressed. So today at the 9:00 am PST weather report she is wearing a jacket and carrying an umbrella! Amazing. The cat is back too....

Halloween was the usual mad rush but the kids had fun. My dad really got into it too. My folks came to stay overnight last night ( they live in Ladner ) and Dad brought a bunch of fireworks. I think he was more excited than the kids! He hadn't got out trick-or-treating since Kristi and I were kids so he thought it was cool to go out last night with my 2, Kristi's little guy, my hubby, and Kristi's hubby. Mom and I stayed home, drank wine and handed out the candy. After the kids got home LB and her gang came over to watch the fireworks. I think the kids were a little freaked out. Trevor and Greyman weren't too impressed with the noise.

Back to normal today. I am off to the school in 45 minutes to go and help out in Weezer's class. Should be fun!