08/3/2011



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long winter blues

totally not surprising, but this winter seems to have dragged on longer then most. i think it’s because we’ve just had a lot of bad luck hit us this year. with a crazy schedule, it’s been hard to find time to just catch my breath.

i’ve been sick a lot too, which hasn’t helped. in fact, it’s been really hard for me to work out for the past couple of months because i’ll start my workout routine for a week or two and then have to stop because of some ailment.

anyway, an update with life in general:

  • with me not feeling well a lot, hobbes has been a faithful companion. days where i was in bed all day, he barely left my side. it’s amazing how these canines can just detect that your not well.

  • it’s hard to imagine that chaeli is more then halfway through grade one. she’s learning stuff like: nonagon, heptagon and decagon (the three i had to look up for either the number of sides/vertices and/or pronounciation); capitol cities of countries such as jordan, vietnam and pakistan; and getting ready for multiplication and division. quite a lot for grade one but with our help, she’s been able to get anywhere from 90% to 100% on her test scores.

  • fitness for me has been a struggle these past two months but i’m not giving up. this week, even though i’m not 100% recovered, i’m starting again. but to help me ease into the swing of things, and just to try and keep in perspective that my life is busier and so i need to cut some time out of my workout schedule, i’m just back to the basics. essentially, i’m going to try and do something each day and only workout to the intensity i’m able to. i’ve lost so much strength since before christmas and while it’s very frustrating, i have to look forward and not let this set back depress me as it often can. i do think that i need to do yoga at least twice a week, swapping out some high intensity workout for it. so far, i’ve worked out 3 times this week - hoping to continue like this.

  • doug has been going to night classes back to back, two nights during the week - one with all-day workshops on most saturday’s. it’s been really hard. on all of us. but personally, it’s been really hard for me. i miss not having him help out. it’s hard to work all day on a job where no matter what, i can’t help but to bring work home at least in my mind because i’m doing a lot of projects/tasks that require my problem solving skills, and then having to be the one to pick chaeli up, go home, do homework with her, cook dinner, prepare lunches for the next day and hopefully, squeeze in shower time (for her and for me) before trying to get to bed early. and then wake up early enough to get chaeli to school before getting to work myself. the daily grind this winter is way harder then the latter half of last year. i can’t wait until the school year ends - not just for chaeli but more so for doug.

  • chaeli has been a great sport in all of this. and while there are frustrating days with her, for the most part, i’m so glad i get to be this kid’s mother! i thought i could never love her more then i already do but i was wrong. as she grows up and i learn more about parenting and her growing personality, i seem to love her more. it’s more challenging but in return, it’s also more rewarding. i don’t always feel this, of course. there are days, thankfully not often, where i feel like it’s almost impossible to continue being an effective parent. but still, i’m lucky to have her in my life.

  • march break is coming up and we’re kicking it back at home for the whole week. it’s only been 2.5 months since christmas break but we all need it. i’m looking forward to working out in the mornings (without rushing to work afterwards) and spending some quality time as a family.
Tagged: family, health, parenting, random, relationships, .

23/2/2011



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texting and phone use during dinner

so this blogger basically entitles his blog, “I Will Check My Phone At Dinner and You Will Deal With It.”

i would comment on his blog but wordpress has this really annoying thing of keeping you on the email subscription forever so that if the blog post is very popular, anyone who makes a new comment will force that blog at the top in your ‘my comments’ page. ever months after you’ve lost interest in that post.

[if anyone knows how to stop this, please let me know. and if there’s no way to stop this then wordpress should really consider fixing this problem. man do i miss vox!]

i think my comment would have basically been, “you’ve spent a lot of time just to justify and make it seem okay to be rude at the dinner table.”

he refers back to his mother a lot and basically goes on and on about how the older generation needs to basically just deal with it and change. well, i’m not from that older generation. i’m a total geek - and a bit of a gadget geek. i’m also a mother and i know one rule that will stick in our household - there will be no texting or using one’s handheld device at the dinner table. not at home nor when we go out to a restaurant - even if it’s a pub.

i’m not saying this should be everyone’s rule within their household, but i don’t at all see why it’s a negative rule, as this blogger seems to want make his point around. or… maybe he’s yet again, making justifications of his rude behaviour… to his mother, especially. because really, he’s going on and on about how surfing/texting enhances the social experience. right… true to some degree. because if you’re having a meal with peers who all do the same thing, i can somewhat see that if the surfing involves the discussion (i.e. looking for information). i can’t, however, see how his reasoning hear applies at all to his mother.

if he, as he puts it, has to text under the table, pretending all the long to me looking at the menu, then i would like to ask this person, ‘how exactly is this enhancing your social experience with your mother?” he claims that talking on the phone and engaging in texting where it obviously takes up a good amount of time at the table, excluding others, is the exception to his rule.

so in the scenerio where he’s secretly texting so that he doesn’t get in trouble by his mommy… how is that escape this grand ‘exception to the rule’ of his? there sits a person who wasn’t born into a generation where being rude at the dinner table is socially acceptable.

what ever happen to taking in the account the background of the person in which one is dining with? it’s the same as certain cultural traditions - you’re the bigger person to try to abide by such guidelines in hopes to not offend the person/people across from you at the table. is age/generation all of the sudden not something he should factor in?

personally, i don’t have any patience with people who want to be glued to their phone or mobile device. when i make time to go out to dinner (being a full-time, working mother, it’s not like i have all the time in the world to do this), the last thing i want is to sit there and try to have a conversation with a friend only to get interrupted a dozen times because they get a call or an incoming text. if this is the way of the future, we’re going to have a much harder time with meaningful relationships - it’s bad enough that we’re communicating to each other through 140 characters (not that that is bad in itself, i mean the people who do not use any other form of communication - or very little of it).

if this blogger feels that this is actually enhancing his social skills, i would like to challenge him to go out with friends and leave his mobile device completely off. i would no doubt predict he will have a hard time to communicate.

and if this is the case, i would further extend my prediction to issues he will have in his interpersonal relationships in the long run. i.e. marriage or even his communication skills with his children.

such things, regardless of the of device, has not changed in how it effects how we communicate with one another.

i can say one thing - i have dinner with my parents and other close family members about every two to three weeks. we sit down and eat with no tv or anything else that we are hooked up to anyway throughout our waking ours of the week. we sit there and we talk. like really talk. and it doesn’t matter what we talk about - it can be serious, entertaining… whatever.

it’s the best. not just because we’re spending quality time with one another, but we’re not aided by devices which eventually is used as a crutch that mimics the appearance of ‘enhancement’. the converstations stand on their own - natural and strong.

Tagged: family, friends, geek, rant, relationships, .

15/2/2011



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valentines day for everyone but me

no, this isn’t a pity-party. just a very accurate description of how my valentines day went.

it started off like any other monday. except perhaps that i had to pack a bag of mini, veggie spring rolls for chaeli’s valentines day at school. and then of course her little ziplock bag of tiny v-day cards.

which, by the way, i’m now embarrassed to have given. why? because chaeli didn’t get ANY back. rather, she got little presents and loot bags instead. one was a miniature box in a shape of those chinese take-out cartons famously seen on retro sitcoms such as friends and seinfeld (do chinese take-out places really use those? because i’ve never seen one here in canada). it was so pretty that it alone was a more lovely gift then the iron man or tinker bell cards chaeli gave out. the little box was a translucent, plastic-like material with hearts all over it.

but seriously - it’s not the amount of money put into these gifts but the time.

I’M A FULL-TIME WORKING MOM WITH A HUSBAND WHO EITHER WORKS LONG HOURS OR HAS NIGHT SCHOOL TWO TIMES A WEEK PLUS FULL WEEKEND DAYS WHERE HE IS OFF DOING FIRST AID OR OTHER SCHOOL STUFF!!! i mean… how can i ever compete?

anyway… so other then the whole v-day preparations to pack up, everything else was normal.

until… i stepped outside to our back patio/townhouse phase common area with hobbes so he can do his ritualistic business. and that’s when i was greeted with a very unpleasant discovery.

to backtrack here, doug has been sometimes tying up hobbes to a very long rope and just setting hobbes out free. which has always lead to the argument of how doug then doesn’t keep track of where hobbes is doing his business (number two, to be exact). still, doug swears that he’ll collect it at the end of the day or first thing in the morning if he happens to be off or it’s the weekend. which i always counteract with, “yeah, well, why is it that i have to pick up old piles of poop the next morning? like my morning isn’t rushed already when you’ve already left the house?”

now, up until now, we’ve been having bouts of snowfall and very cold temperature. the past 48 hrs, however, has graced us with a warm front, thereby creating massive melting. so when i went outside, i saw to my horror about 10 or more piles of poop that had been covered with snow up until now… all melting and no longer solid anymore.

i know, it’s gross, but i just HAVE to share this story because i feel justified to. see, doug’s reasoning was that if he left the poop out for a bit, it would freeze and would be easier to pick up. well, true - IF HE HAD PICKED ALL OF THEM UP! evidently, he either missed a few and as mentioned above, the rest was just covered with fresh bouts of snow by the time he did go out, which he would come back claiming that hobbes must have not done his number two business earlier ithat day because he didn’t find anything.

this is where i let out a big fat, HA!!! YEAH RIGHT!

so there i was, in my work clothes, trying to scoop up soggy, old dog poop for the next 10 minutes. i used 3 poop bags, realized THAT made a mess and switched over to regular grocery bags (at least you can say that we recycle). i ended up using in total, 5 bags. you might wonder why i just didn’t leave it for doug. well, as mentioned in a previous entry, we have a leaky roof situation. the common area is just that - a common area. people use it to cross over from one neighbour to another and there are plenty of grandparents who are home taking care of toddlers and preschoolers while the parents are off working. it would only take one to notice the filth in our backyard and complain directly to property management.

now is especially not the time to piss management off - we need them to quicken their very snail-like pace in recitifying this leaky roof issue. it was a question of vindiction or taking the responsible path in making sure our house doesn’t collapse on us.

as for the rest of the day, i was definitely not in a romantic mood. and felt even more pathetic when hobbes came home from doggy daycare with a valentines card for himself. i mean, he’s a dog. and he got one, not from the people who work there and care for him, but from another dog.

i was all like, “seriously? the dog gets one and rather then just getting nothing for myself, i spent the first part of my valentines morning picking up old, soggy dog poop? has it come to this?

that’s when doug said to me, “i’ll get you a card!”

“and that’s going to make up for it? getting me a card after valentines day is over? do me a favour - leave me alone for the rest of tonight.”

i’m sure you can decode what i meant by that last statement.

Tagged: parenting, rant, relationships, .

14/2/2011



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randomnous valentine

  • i’m not a big fan of valentines and if it weren’t for chaeli, i would do anything for this day. but like a good mom, i did whatever needed to be done to prep for her valentines day party at school - including a 30 mini spring rolls contribution for their food list. as for doug and i, we did get a chance to go for sushi this past saturday while chaeli stayed with my parents. it wasn’t for valentines - just a regular date-night/outing because we haven’t had one for so long.
  • i’m glad that justin beiber didn’t win last night. nothing personal against the kid - well, except for his hair - but it felt good to see esperanza spalding take the award for best new artist. she might have not won the hearts of teenie boppers more interested in getting a date with bieber, but her talent and lovely personality was definitely dserving of such an award. bravo, esperanza! bravo!
  • so i got chaeli to point out her new boyfriend - i must say, he’s the best looking kid in class. way to go, chaeli! but i learned that he’s also one of the students that gets into trouble often. so young and she’s already going after the bad-boy image.
  • our roof is leaking again - propery management didn’t fix it as they said they would two years ago and so now, we’re looking at a worse leak then before. i’ve been spending a lot of my free time communicating back and forth with them - and basically nagging them to do it right this time. they are responsible for not only fixing the roof but also fixing any water damage the leak might have caused (and not just the cosmetic parts of our interior - but any material inside the walls and/or attic that the water has touched so they are not hotbeds for mould spores).
  • we have now acquired an ipad and have been wasting our time with plants vs zombies.

Tagged: parenting, random, rant, relationships, .

02/2/2011



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one more craving

yesterday, i listed off some current cravings. i would like to replace the entire list with one very big craving i am having right now…

to drop everything, get the next flight out to vienna and meet my friend who had been stuck in cairo. we would celebrate over some schnizels and very good beer.

how tempting it is…

Tagged: bliss, friends, relationships, .

30/1/2011



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weekend family fun

as mentioned before, i wanted a weekend just for the three of us. with so much going on, i felt a need to reconnect.

i also realized, though, that doug and i are really in need of a weekend alone. it may not happen until the end of february but i’m looking forward to it. i’m wondering if my parents will be brave enough to take on both hobbes and chaeli. or my aunt and uncle might take hobbes just because they are more experienced with him. i don’t know - i’ll have to see.

it was a good weekend though i wish i started it with my cold completely gone. i think it is gone now but i still woke up a bit stuffed up in the mornings and finding myself still needing lots of tissue on saturday.

a lot of our plans were somewhat reversed but in the end, that turned out to be better!

friday night, doug and i got to watch ‘the last air bender’ while this was the 2nd time chaeli saw it. i know it got realy horrible reviews. i’m guessing the acting was  pretty much the reason. but to be honest, doug and i liked the concept and the action enough - we’re hoping that he will continue with the trilogy. in the end, though, i could see a lot of kids liking this movie.

saturday morning, chaeli came with me to the supermarket and helped me shop. i must say, it’s great to have her at the age where she can go fetch a plastic bag for me, open it and hold it on both sides while i fill it with produce. chaeli also got a chance to pick out her own valentine’s day cards. she chose iron man for the boys and tinker bell & fairies for the girls  in the class.

in the afternoon, we went to that indoor dog park up north. fun but i’m not sure how often i will go back. it’s definitely a cool place to visit on a very cold day where both chaeli and hobbes need to burn some energy. but because the business was new, they do not have a huge clientele for the play sessions just yet. however, the owners, a nice, young chinese couple, own three dogs themselves. they also invite family friend’s to bring their dogs for the afternoon. plus, there are also some dogs there for grooming - while they wait, they get to run around in the big room as they promise a cage-free grooming services as well.

in the end, there were eight dogs, including hobbes. it ended up being a fun time, especially as the couple were very nice to socialize with.

saturday evening, doug roasted what ended up being our most successful roast beef (i splurged and bought the best prime rib roast), accompanied by neeps, tattie and of course, haggis. doug had his scotch and i was kicking myself for not having a chance to go out and buy some irish bailey (since i’m not a scotch drinker). it wasn’t so much for having some during dinner, as i had some red wine with our robbie burn’s day feast, but it would have gone beautifully with my midnight bath later on that night.

after dinner, as it was late, we ended up watching ‘might joe young’ since it was on tv. i’ve been meaning to get chaeli to watch that movie - it’s one of my favourite disney family movies. just as i suspected, chaeli welled up a bit at the end when she thought joe wasn’t going to make it. she’s been much more emotional about sad endings or moments in movies. but she’s also starting to learn how to cope with these emotions. i think it’s hard, now that she has hobbes, to see animals suffer.

today, being sunday, isn’t always ideal for any fixed plans. it’s now 9pm and i’m still needing to make chaeli’s lunch for tomorrow, my own food for work, as well as fold laundry. still, chaeli and i had time to practice her words for next week’s spelling test and then later in the afternoon, we all played jr. monopoly - twice! i have to admit that the junior version is much faster. because it can’t drag out like the original monopoly, you don’t need to reserve a whole evening. is it wrong that as an adult, i think i might prefer the children’s version?

we also carved out some time for chaeli to write her very first letter to her penpal - who happens to be our friends’ niece in s. korea. i think it will be good for both girls - not just for them to practice their english language, but also to cultivate the art of writing letters and practicing their social skills.

anyway, for start, chaeli would talk about something about herself and then in turn, ask her penpal the same question in respective to the subject. for example, chaeli would state her age and then ask her penpal for her age. or she would talk about hobbes and then ask her penpal if she had any pets. and so on - alternating statements of herself with the respective question. it just basically ended up being how chaeli decided the form of her letter should be - i suppose it’s a good start. and she also included a v-day card for her penpal. i’d better  make sure to mail it off early this week!

Tagged: bliss, family, friends, health, parenting, relationships, .

21:12



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dear friend - please come home soon…

after watching the news yesterday about the riots and violence in egypt, the first thing i did was get on the internet and start to email/twitter to a friend who is there now (long-term work project).

i knew even as i was typing that what i was doing wasn’t exactly helpful. the egyptian government had already turned their ‘off switch’ on the country’s internet. but it was a knee-jerk reaction. something i felt i needed to do. just in case.

i then emailed her sister (my best friend) to ask if they had any luck contacting her. thankfully, they did. over a very static-ridden connection - one landline her company had available for them to call home - my friend and her brother were able to get confirmation that their sister was safe and staying somewhere where they could continue being safe.

it’s something, at least. small news over a bad connection - something that happens to be better then nothing.

so for the next while, all my prayers go out to her.

Tagged: friends, relationships, .

30/12/2010



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it’s hard being lazy

sounds weird, but honestly, i find it exhausting just to try and relax. not that i haven’t been relaxing but after 3.5 days of it, my skin was starting to itch. and i’m not even sure if my reference to being lazy constitute as true laziness to others because since monday, on my week off, i still got up at 6:15am to work out every morning.

a recap of this week:

sunday was sheer laziness. as mentioned - it was a day of video games.

monday, we did go see tron and then had dinner at my aunt’s place. chaeli baked me a birthday cake with her new easy-bake oven. the cake was split amongst 6 adults and one kid. in other words, we all had a bite-size - more symbolic, really. and you know what? best birthday cake ever! simply because chaeli enjoyed making it for me.

tuesday, i got more into sims 2. i purchased and downloaded three expansion packs as they were all on sale for $15 ea. and each of them actually contained 3 expansion packs in them. other then that, i really can’t remember what else i did that day. eat? sleep? poop? not much different from hobbes’ schedule. wait - i did do some work in the morning. i suppose that counted as being productive.

wednesday, in the morning, i went grocery shopping. and mid-afternoon, we went to see disney on ice and then out to dinner. my parents came along. it was fun but the coolest part was on the way home. doug took a detour to show them parts of downtown they have not seen in almost a decade. it was interesting to see their excitement - and surprise. they both said that it was like they were seeing a whole different city. my father said that one day, he’s going to come down by himself just to walk around and explore the downtown area all over again.

and finally, today. yup, today. today was the breaking point. sure, as you can see, i did get out of the house for some fresh air. but in between the outings, i was mostly in my pj’s. and i just couldn’t take it anymore.

so after lunch, i cleaned chaeli’s room (it was a mess), reorganized it and put her jewelry in her very nice, new jewelry box which she got from my PIL. i’m gearing up to also cleaning up and storing away some of our christmas presents and finally, this weekend, taking down and putting away all our christmas decor except the tree. doug wants it up for one more week so he can enjoy his train set around the tree. he had made a winter village to go below it.

fine, fine - the boy needs his geek-outlet, too. his train set and the village to go with it is like my sims. only i have much more control over my manufacturered people.

anyway - i also did the laundry today and so there’s a sense of me that doesn’t feel as bad. i’m also not feeling sluggish.

the universe is on route to being normal again.

Tagged: bliss, family, geek, health, hobbes, parenting, rant, relationships, .

22/12/2010



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he said, she said - with holly’s

doug has this superstition tradition - you have to have some wrapping left to do on christmas eve.

i’m not sure exactly who he thinks he married to but if he took a moment to understand how his wife works, he’ll know that i certainly can not stand leaving anything to the last minute.

and wrapping gifts the night before christmas just before actually placing the presents under the tree and in the stockings, isn’t how i ease into the christmas festivities.

even so, this year, i figured i’d leave two presents to wrap last minute. and thankfully, the family member i’m wrapping it for could sit there watching me wrap both of his gifts for the entire time and STILL be mega excited when he gets it the next morning. because really, what do dogs know about surprises? we do it for ourselves, not for them.

so - one toy and one treat. both for the dog. to be wrapped on christmas eve.

and as a side note, i seriously can not believe christmas is just three days away. i woke up thinking, “well, i suppose the count down begins” except that the count down had really begun long ago. but for me, i basically have been putting the thought of christmas on hold during the week because i’m more concerned about taking my christmas holiday without stressing and worrying about all the work waiting for me when i get back in the new year.

which is, unfortunately, why i’ll be bringing work home with me.

Tagged: family, hobbes, parenting, rant, relationships, .

14:00



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he said, she said - with holly’s

doug has this superstition tradition - you have to have some wrapping left to do on christmas eve.

i’m not sure exactly who he thinks he married but if he took a moment to understand how his wife works, he’ll know that i certainly can not stand leaving anything to the last minute.

and wrapping gifts the night before christmas just before actually placing the presents under the tree in in the stockings, isn’t how i ease into the christmas festivities.

even so, this year, i figured i’d leave two presents to wrap last minute. and thankfully, the family member i’m wrapping it for could sit there watching me wrap both of his gifts for the entire time and STILL be mega excited when he gets it the next morning. because really, what do dogs know about surprises? we do it for ourselves, not for them.

so - one toy and one treat. both for the dog. to be wrapped on christmas eve.

and as a side note, i seriously can not because christmas is just three days away. i woke up thinking, “well, i suppose the count down begins” except that the countain had really begun long ago. but for me, i basically have been putting the thought of christmas on hold during the week because i’m more concerned about taking my christmas holiday without stressing and worrying about all the work waiting for me when i get back in the new year.

which is, unfortunately, why i’ll be bringing work home with me.

Tagged: family, hobbes, parenting, rant, relationships, .

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