Returning July 10th...

It's vacation time! We're heading to the cabin, which we'll use as home base. We have some friends coming up to camp, some day trips planned to some of the many great places in the area.

I'll update you with pictures and wild tales of exotic endeavers upon my return.

Have a good week!

Another wedding...

An outdoor wedding at a cottage on Lake Belwood. Check out who was for dinner! Hate to say it - but pork sure tastes good when he's cooked like that!

The wedding was nice - hot as hell - in a gorgeous setting. I've always wanted to live on water.

Something about it - aside from it's refreshing qualities and the myriad of pass times it offers. It's pristine movement has a calming effect on me.

More later!

Fleeting memory

Exactly how long is it going to take me to remember to dial the area code for local calls?

The world's youngest linguist

Everyone has constantly said how advanced Evelyn is - cognitively, not physically. My theory was always that people simply forget what children are like at specific ages.

Lately, however, she seems to hold an intelligence significantly higher than those of her peers. That being said, she is still a little wobbly on her feet!

My theory is that children her age (almost 15 months) typically have a higher aptitude in either the cognitive or physical stream.

Evelyn is regularly stringing two words together now, and constantly identifying objects we didn't know she knew about.

Sleepy head

I woke up late. I left late. I got to work, and frantically drank half a cup of coffee to try and clear my groggy mind. Then, Cory msn'ed me. It appears as if the car seat was still in my car! So there he is, on a rainy, gloomy day stranded at home with Evelyn. So I hauled my butt out of the office again and home to remedy the situation.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr. What a day.

The uses of texting

I am just about to start my car this morning to leave for work when my cell phone vibrates. It's a text from Cory, asking "Are you still here? I need to poo".

He'd brought Evelyn into our bed at 6:30 am and she was still sound asleep. We can't leave her alone in there for fear she'll roll off the bed onto the floor. And we'd certainly, never EVER wake her up.

Lucky for him I was still there.

I never thought we'd use technology for that purpose.

Never any rest

Always when I think I've reached a point, a day, an hour (maybe?) with no drama in my life something pops up and makes me want to run screaming out of wherever I am, leaving a trail of hair that I've ripped piece by piece from my head.

General Apathy

I'm so sick of editing powerpoint presentations that I can barely force myself to move from one slide to the next applying silly animations and trying to make them interesting.

That's really all I have to say.

Oh.

And that last night I drank a bottle of wine and hung out in a hot tub and complained about my life.

What a pair of asses!

The 'Frickin Lion Safari

Actually, it's the African Lion Safari, but when my nephew was little he used to say, "We're going to the frickin lion safari!" and I still laugh every time I say or hear African Lion Safari.

We went with friends yesterday. What an amazing time. Even at 14 months, Evelyn loved the entire day and wasn't too tired or overwhelmed by all the action. We took the tour bus through the game reserve (awesome new bus with giant windows) and it was no where near full so the girls could play and move from one side to the other to get a better view of the animals.

They also have several shows and a huge splash park with a toddlers only area. Evelyn would have stayed in there all day.

I highly recommend going - although I am afraid of places like that on Saturdays and Sundays (thus I took a Monday off work).

As it turns out...

Gelato made from dandelion root taste just like coffee (and is in fact, often used as a coffee substitute). DELICIOUS. Who knew?

Back in the game

Happy day! My old, abused, twice washed, countlessly dropped and duct- taped together cell phone has retired! It held out, for the most part (I had to turn it on and apply pressure to the battery each time I wanted to use it) until I was eligible for my free hardware upgrade.

It's cool.

Dandelion Gelato

What are you doing this weekend?

I'll be taking Evleyn, and Cory's mom to the 8th Annual Dandelion Festival at Waterloo Park. I am pretty excited, and slightly frightened at the thought of sampling some of the food stuffs that will be featured.

I keep thinking...are these 'free range' dandelions grown in a nice open field in the country? Or were they taken from the school yard two block down from my house where everyone takes their dogs to do their business?

The wonderful world of bubs

Not only does Evelyn marvel at the birds, try to catch the bunnies, and want to eat the peanuts that our neighbour Helen puts out for the chipmunks - she has become fascinated with bugs of all shapes and sizes.

When we go for a walk (and a walk now consists of me holding her hand and we walk up and down the sidewalk - long gone are the days when I could strap her into her stroller and move at a pace that would let me burn off some energy) she crouches down and points at the ants and says 'bubs' , 'bubs' and then she squishes them with her finger. She's also taken to picking up lady 'bubs' and bringing them up to her lips as if she is going to eat them, and then laughing as she squeezes the living daylights out of them.

Well no kidding...

Pretty Women Make Men Stupid (d'oh)

My arachnophobia reaches an all time high

As if my experience with the 'return of the 5 legged beast' last week wasn't traumatic enough...

After work today, I was getting into my car with my coworker Adrian (to whom I was giving a ride). I plunk down in the driver's seat and put my keys in the ignition when I spy something that looks almost like, but more hideous than this:

http://www.ojibway.ca/spider13.jpg

So I freak and jump out of the car and leave Adrian in there to try and kill it. He finally finds a pair of gloves to squish it with and it JUMPS at him. IT JUMPS, and we lose it.

Now I am literally afraid to get into my car. We have Black Widows and Brown Recluse spiders in Ontario. What if it is poisonous? What if my house is infested with poisonous spiders?

I'm not exactly sure where my fear came from - lots of people don't like spiders, but to fear them, to the degree that I do (I still have goosebumps from my most recent experience) is another story.

I have one memory of being camping with my family in Northern Ontario and waking up in the tent and seeing a huge black spider in the corner and my parents telling me to just close my eyes and go back to sleep - but who knows, no one will substantiate my story, perhaps it was just a nightmare.