So I'm selling Gymboree stuff on E-bay...

First time I've tried to help moderate my Gymboree obsession. I have 3 auctions going. 2 Gymboree outfits and one Children's Place. One of the Gymboree outfits isn't going particularly well but that's because I had it in the completely wrong category for 3 days - oops!

If you're interested ...

Children's Place Holiday Dress


Adorable Little suit that I accidently put in "Girls' Dresses."

Cute coat that was kind of a dumb purchase for Canada where fall lasts about a week and a half before it's colder than Antartica.

I have $200 in Gymbucks

Those of you who know me from Friends by Adoption won't be surprised here.

It is, in my humble opinion insanely funny (and a little insane period).

Okay, okay, okay... I'm not keeping them or the clothes (well not all of them) for that matter.

I wasn't going to buy Christmas stuff from Gymboree this year. I wasn't! I spent way to much on Christmas stuff last year and Kamryn's black velvet Gymboree jumper from last year still fits fine! So what if she wore it last Christmas. She isn't royalty and I don't own a kingdom.

Then I saw the new line...

Okay - so I bent a little.

Sam didn't get a new outfit for Christmas last year (he wore the same suit he wore for his Christening). I thought the little red vest and red plaid shirt in the new Gymboree line would look nice on him AND I had $25 in Gymbucks that I figured I could spend on him. But, I had to go and look at them in person. This was a mistake. The dresses.... oh the dresses.

I left the store with a plan to return when Gymbucks started next week JUST to buy a vest and shirt for Sam. Mmmmmm ... but the call of the dress. Silk... plaid... they would match so adorably.

Sigh. So I went back (I work just across the street from a store) to buy JUST the little red sweater that went with the dress. That and a pair of socks would give me $25 in Gymbucks which would help with the purchase of the whole bleeping ensemble (Sam's outfit and a dress fo Kamryn) NEXT week.

Yikes - their stock was not looking at all robust. Would everything last until next week? Panic! Ummm... so I bought everything.

Wait, it gets worse. I bought everything in two seperate sizes for both children so I can go home and see what size they really fit into. So that's TWO beautiful silk plaid dresses, TWO little red sweaters with knit bow, TWO little red and grey vests, TWO little red plaid shirts and then I tossed in a pair of argyle socks because I could (hanging my head in mock shame here).

$200 in Gymnbucks later. How will I explain this to Daniel? Somehow he might not think this is as hilarious as I'm finding it. * evil grin *

So I converted this blog ...

to be all handy-dandy and modern and well I discovered (not unexpectedly) that what it did was make it impossible for me to blog from work. Thus my silence over the past little while. I often blogged during a spare moment here or there at work -- no more. :( Well I can blog. I just can't actually post to my blog. So I wote this a few days ago and I'm just getting around to posting it now.

I am a professional writer. Something I have always wanted to be. Somedays, like yesterday, I am a VERY good professional writer. Somedays, like last week a pretty bad one. There is nothing to indicate which one you will get though. Doesn’t matter the topic, doesn’t matter my knowledge level or even how I am feeling.

I wrote a really good speech this week, well last week actually. It was horrible to write. I volunteered to write that particular speech because I thought the topic would be interesting – it wasn’t. It was painfully boring (to me! The audience will probably be interested) after about the first page. It took me forever to write, not because I was working so hard, but because I spent much of last week procrastinating and surfing the web rather than writing. The final product though will make people laugh and will make people cry. That’s something that I’ve learned, over the short while that I have been doing this, you can’t purposefully try to do. You just have to write honest speeches and if the spark is there is will be there. This speech hums, I’m proud of it.

So here I sit waiting for the critics to tear it apart. After we write a speech, because we aren’t experts in everything or anything for that matter, we send it out to the experts to vet it and make sure we aren’t saying anything wrong or anything that will have Islamic militants putting a price on our heads (take note Pope Benedict!). Apparently, my speech, brilliant as it is, is FULL of factual errors. Don’t blame me, blame our Chief of the Defence Staff as he pretty much dictated the speech to me (I just made it pretty). He’s a big cheese though and I’m not going to tell him he was wrong. I’m letting the experts do that directly (there were many fireworks set off yesterday. I lit the fuse and then went home). So as I said here I sit. I have nothing to do until the fireworks are finished. I’m somewhat nervous since the critics (I mean vetters) didn’t say what was wrong with my speech just that it was full of errors.

In my spare time I figured it was time to write Sam “his story.” I wrote one for Kamryn as a present for her first birthday. Sam’s will be a present for Christmas. I will also redo Kamryn’s at that time as hers is a flimsy laminated book and technology has advanced somewhat since I made it. It also has some pictures in it that I don’t want to use anymore for various reasons.

Okay now back to all my bragging about being a professional writer. I have no idea how to go about writing my wee son’s story. It’s so complicated and kind of depressing and it can’t be. It has to be something he is proud of. His beginnings. His origins. How much he was wanted and loved. Ugh! How do I convey that? I’m going to stop procrastinating here now and go and stare at a blank screen instead. Wish me luck.

So this is the part where I teach my daughter about community responsibility

Only I'm failing miserably. For the last two years Kamryn and I have walked in the Mother Daughter Walk Heart and Stroke. I started with a neighbour who dropped out after the first year and have continued on my own (with Kamryn of course). I saw it as a good way to be a little active, have some fun but most importantly teach Kamryn about community responsibility.

Okay there is a slight problem here. I like walking. I love doing stuff with Kamryn and I am community minded. The problem -- I HATE asking people for anything much less money. So I dread it every year. But I made this pledge you see. To do it for Kamryn.

So this year's walk rolled around -- they've changed it to a "family" walk now. and back in August I dutifully signed up and began to dread asking for pledges when I saw an out and leapt at it. I signed Kamryn up for swimming lessons and her first lesson clashed with the walk. I seriously considered having her skip that first lesson but I had specifically siged her up for this session because they had 12 classes in a row and I thought with this good block of classes there was a small chance of her learning how to swim. So I decided we would forgo the walk this year (yay! no asking for pledges!!!!) and find something else equally civic minded to do later in the year. Today they called to tell me that the first swimming class is cancelled. My excuse vanished.

So here I am 1 week to go before the walk with no excuse not to participate and exactly $0 in pledges. Pathetic. Actually I have $50 in pledges because I'm about to go and sponsor myself. Truly pathetic. Last year we raised $530 which I was proud of until I saw that the two people I sponsored for the Breast Cancer Run for the Cure both collected pledges in excess of $1000. Obviously I need to get over my problems with asking for money.

Everywhere I look in our family (and both kids birthfamilies) there is heart disease so there is personal link here. Okay I'm off to pledge some money to myself. If you are interested in doing likewise (for which I would be eternally grateful) here is the link to the Heart and Stroke pledge form.

Well, I dropped my baby off at “big girl school” this morning.

It was sooooooooooo much harder than I thought it would be. I think my heart is broken.

I was so excited for her right up until about 5:00 pm last night and then it hit me like a ton of bricks. She was going out into the world without me and she would be just fine (at least I keep telling myself that).

On the way home from work last night, as I cut across the mall to my car I had a small panic attack over the fact that we had chosen not to buy her a fleece as part of her uniform. They didn’t have one her size for us to sample when we were buying uniforms so we figured we would just wait until the fall order. I never thought we would have such a cold September.

It was a good place to panic over that though because there was a Children’s Place right there and I popped in and bought her a nice thick cable knit sweater that looks good with her uniform. I don’t think they are allowed to wear “no uniform” apparel inside the school but I think it would take a really heartless teacher to let a four year old sit there and freeze (I think it’s probably warm inside the school anyways). Anyway so she has the sweater.

Last night I made her try on her entire uniform (for the gazzillionth time) just to make sure it was set for this morning. (I went though a similar routine with Sam who started preschool today but I was less anxious).

Last night around 9:30 and long after I had tucked Kamryn away in bed she came wandering downstairs, blanket in hand and a little sobby/sniffly to tell me she wanted to go to [her school]. I expect she had had a dream — as excited and anxious as she was. I don’t think she slept at all well last night. Excitement, anticipation, nerves and the beginnings of a cold did nothing to help her. I actually had to wake her this morning which is almost unheard of.

She did tell me she wasn’t feeling particularly well and didn’t eat all that wonderfully at breakfast. I took her temperature and luckily it was normal. I think the cold was getting to her but so were nerves. Poor kid. Regardless, we managed to get dressed, snap a bunch of photos and get out of the house somewhat on time.

Got to the school and her teacher was outside waiting for her surrounded by a cluster of 4 year olds, most of whom looked a great deal happier than Kamryn to be there (although going through my pictures this afternoon I see that she was pretty typical). She wasn’t sad per se but much more nervous than I expected her to be. More pictures and then lots of hanging around then they did a train to go into the school.

I made her a Sunbutter sandwich, with a Nutrigrain bar and raisins for lunch and an apple for a snack. She did feel it necessary to describe this in intimate detail to her teacher. :) She has a little surprise as I slipped chocolate milk in her lunch bag without her knowing. She really loves chocolate milk.

I had a hard time not crying when leaving her at the school (totally unlike me!). Hell, I’m having a hard time not crying just writing about it. There has been much blinking this morning and looking down. Now I’m not trying to be tough and suck it up. I just didn’t want to have to explain to Daniel why I was in tears and well… crying at work would be bad. Lol

After dropping Kamryn at school, just to make matters a little worse, we had to drop Sam off for his first day at pre-school. He’s done summer camp so it doesn’t feel so “first dayish” but really it is his first day too and he shouldn’t be jipped. Summer camp and preschool follow somewhat different routines and he’s all by himself without his big sis to look out for him. So that made me all teary as well. All in all – good morning for the kids, not to good morning for Mom.

I have pictures though...

Before leaving the house:









Arriving at the school:







Off to class:

I'm buying stock in Lego...

Kamryn and Sam have been playing quietly (everything being relative) all morning with some old lego that I dragged up from the basement. Minimal fighting or trying to kill each another. Why didn't I do this sooner. To inifinity and beyond ...

On a completely unrelated not but bizarrely embarassing reason for not posting longer, I seem to have wrenched my right shoulder while (don't ask!) positioning myself on the ummm... commode last night. Ah well. Lord I'm old. Ít's not all that bad but kind of funny, doncha think? I'd laugh but -- wince -- ouch. :)

My "Before" Pics

There isn't much to say here, except that it was ugly and I hated it and I'm a little embarassed by the pictures.







La pièce de la résistance:

So I have "After" pictures too... and a whine. :)

Who would have thought getting glorious new furniture would be SOOOOOO much work?

I called the furniture store on Friday afternoon to see if I could get an ETA on my furniture's arrival and was delighted to find out that everything was in. Woohoo! Me. They said they could deliver it on Saturday - perfect. Daniel was working Saturday and I was likely going to be stuck at home anyways. I was very pleased. I got home and hit my pace nagging poor Daniel. The existing dinning room -- awful as it was -- needed to be completely packed up. Not and easy task. Lord do we have a lot of "cochonrie" (Creole for junk!) I never would have believed it. Packing up the contents of the dining room and finally getting the chandelier hung took the better part of the night. Of course the eletrical box for the chandelier is no where NEAR the centre of the room. Sigh, new reason to curse my builder -- lazy sots. The chandelier came with handy hooks though so while not perfect it will do. So Friday afternoon doing muckity muck work.

Saturday, the delivery guys arrived at around 11:30. It took them three-quarters of an hour to get everything unloaded, assembled etc. In the middle of it all my mother appeared. Once she left and I got the kids fed and into bed for their naps (you would have thought the delivery guys had delivered a pony as excited and Sam and Kamryn were) I started working again. The shelves for the hutch had to be unloaded and assembled and all the glass had to be cleaned. So I did that. I dusted everything and then I swept up endless styrofoam that I STILL keep finding. Then I started putting dishes and dining room stuff away in the hutch. Who would have thought I had so much crystal. Okay I knew I had it, it's just I hadn't seen most of it in a while. It was scattered in various nooks and crannies in the kitchen and in our family room wall unit. Most of it was dusty and needed to be washed before being placed in a glass display case. Scarily at least 50% of it still had price tags on it. Ouch! These were ALL wedding gifts and we love the pattern which has now been dicontinued but we've been married 8 years and we still have tons o' glasses with the price tags attached. Nine years ago EACH glass was $36. I keep imagining what I could do with all that money now. lol Ungrateful git that I am... Anyway to took forver to get the hutch organized. Then I was Martha Stewart and cooked a good homecooked meal for the family. I really felt like Suzy Homemaker.

Today, I zinged out to Home Depot for Scotch Guard (we got a deal on the set and the white chairs aren't Scotch Guarded). Okay the furniture assembler's in their wisdom attached the seats of the chairs onto the frames without taking off the plastic bag that covered them. Getting the plastic off took forever and there are still little tell tale strings of plastic in places where I just couldn't tug it off. Then I scotch guarded all the chairs - that got old fast. The manufacturer (of the Scoth Guard) recommends up to two coats. I was going to do two coats until I got to about chair number 4. One good coat better be enough. Okay so then we were finally done (while I was Scotch Guarding chairs, Daniel was moving the Chandelier so it hung approximately in the middle of the table and I could take pictures ...