Report...

OK, so from the list, what did I do...

1. Got the washer and dryer repair guy booked!
2. Dishwasher guy came, didn't do much - still have to wait for parts now...
3. Booked a visit for a Home Depot decorator to come over to measure for blinds
4. Went to Costco, got about 1/2 of what I needed. I needed propane for the BBQ, I was waiting in line, they ran out!! Hundreds of people buying beer and propane in prep. for Canada Day celebrations tomorrow.
5. Printed 44 pages for Gillian's "First Year" scrapbook. All 8 x 8 on 8 x 11.5 paper, so I've got some cutting to do!
6. Vacuumed the floor and couch! And cleaned the downstairs bathroom.

So I think that is pretty good for a days work! But considering when I was at Costco, I was feeling really dizzy, probably means I did too much! Tomorrow I'm just going to chill with the girls, take lots of photos and celebrate Canada's birthday!

Didn't do any layouts today, but I did play with a Fake Tilt-Shift action I found for Photoshop, it creates such a cool mini world effect with blur.

This is the before, completely untouched.

After running the fake tilt-shift action.

Oh what to do today....

I have the day off!! I don't have to work, I don't have to parent and I don't have to be wife. Well, at least until 4:00 pm when I pick up the girls!! So what to do.......

1. Call washer and dryer repair
2. Order some blinds for our bathroom and bedroom
3. Pick up some stuff at Costco
4. Wait for the dishwasher repair guy
5. Walk the dog
6. Print Gillian's scrapbook
7. Scrapbook
8. Go for a bike ride
9. Read a magazine
10. Fix my commuter bike
11. Vacuum up the dog hair on the couch

O.K., who the hell am I kidding..... I'll report back on what I ACTUALLY did tonight....

Eat, Relax, and Indulge

In the novel "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert, she spends the first 4 months of her year long journey in Italy simply enjoying everything with no guilt. Last night Eric and I did just that type of thing at Le Nordik Spa. We went with our friends Lynne and Andrew, meeting them there at 6:00 pm for dinner at the restaurant. We ate tapas, drank wine and had a great supper before heading to the baths. We spent the next 3 1/2 hours chilling out in the various hot/cold/rest areas , being shushed by the Nordik staff because we were talking too loud at times, and sleeping by the fireplace (Lynne!). At 10:00 pm, when the Spa closed we went in for our wine and cheese to cap off the night, then were home by 11:00 pm feeling really relaxed, and very tired! It was so wonderful, to go in there and just ENJOY everything to it's fullest!

Today we went down to Eric's parents place for a swim, the water is getting a little warmer, but it was still a little cold when you first get in! Abby has always got to get in twice, first she screams "Too cold!", then gets out, then gets right back in. I think it's more of a thing that she doesn't want to be left on shore without me! The Canadian Geese had a field day with their lawn. We think they were there for an overnight party and did a number with there poop! Quite yucky!

After the girls had their nap, we went down to the GRYC because the wind was pretty good and I thought I would try to go sailing. When we got down I chickened out because it was just too windy and I didn't want to freak out in the high winds and tip the boat. I can't wait until I feel comfortable enough to just go down, rig the boat and go for a sail! I know it will happen one day, perhaps when the kids are older and more independent, so that we can actually go down for the day! Right now it's just too tough to be down there with both kids. There is so much water all around that you have to be constantly watching Abby, and Gillian doesn't walk yet, so we can't just stick her down, the terrain is too rough. Here are a few shots of the club:

It's an island so this is the dock to come in
where the big boats are kept.
A shot of the clubhouse.

Abby wishing she could play/reach the tether ball.

Having a little snack of Cheerios and juice on the point.

It's a great place to be, and we're happy we are now members and we are really looking forward to rasing our kids there. They run summer camps for little sailors and it looks like they all have so much fun down there!

Off to bed again. It's 10:45, but I had accidentally fallen asleep after putting Gillian to bed at 7:00 pm. I was a little groggy, as I do get when I sit and cuddle with her in the glider chair in the dark, so I went to lie down for "5 minutes", then 3 hours later woke up! oops! If I don't get back to bed then I may be up scrapbooking all night long! Or finding things to order on-line at 2:00 am, like I did the night before!

Good thing I don't work tomorrow!

A photo!

Just took this one. Eric said to me, "Come and take a photo of this.." So I ran upstairs and saw the two girls were watching Baby Einstein:

Needless to say it didn't take too long before Gillian was screaming to get down from the chair!!

Finally posting

It's been a few days since my last, quick, post. I played hockey on Wed night, and we lost (something we are doing a lot of lately). But I had fun because I got to play forward and I actually scored a goal! I like to change it up a little even if its for a season, but I do believe that my natural position is defence. Although maybe not, maybe with some lessons I'd be a half decent forward, who knows.

Thursday was a crazy day, I had a day of training for work on an application called DOORS. Kind of dry, since it's very database oriented, and programming and databases are just not my bag baby! But, I do have to do it for work, so at least I knew it was very applicable to me and therefore made it a little more interesting. The course went from 8 am to 4 pm, but I had to take off at 3 (which was find because we were going to be done around 3 anyway) and rush downtown to Henry's School of Imaging where I had signed up for a Scanning and Resotoration course. It taught us how to scan properly, what resolution to get for different media (film, slide, photo etc), then we learned the basics for restoring. I already knew some of the basics of restoration but I did learn a few extra tips for adjusting the levels in a photo, as well as using the healing brush in addition to the clone stamp tool in Photoshop. We were using Photoshop Elements, which I really enjoyed, it has a different user interface than full Photoshop, but everything we did we could do in the full version.

What I really enjoyed about the class was that I got to try scanning one of my photos and slides. I had tried it at home, and the quality was so poor, it was un-useable. When I scanned it at the school, it was fantastic! The quality was great! The other fun thing about the class was that we did all this work on Macs, I'd never used a Mac and it was quite fun, I really can't wait until I can get one. But don't worry, I won't do that for a few years, because I have a new computer and monitor here which I love.

After a long day, my brain was fried and I couldn't wait to get to sleep! Unfotunately, at 12:30 am, I woke up and couldn't get to sleep for an hour and a half. I think my mind was on overdrive, which the info I had learned that day. So I came downstairs, got caught up on the blogs I read with Google Reader and managed to find the scanner I was looking at buying for $150 off the lowest price I had found in the past!! So my insomnia wasn't all wasted!

Friday was the second half of the DOORS course, the advanced class. And that was 10 X more taxing on the brain, since it was teaching us how to set up the database, how to link modules, link requirements, blah blah blah! My baby brain was holding me back on this one!! But this part was very important for my job, so I had to make sure I understood it before leaving, which I feel I did. Once again, when I got home I was too tired to even come down to my computer, so I watched some back shows of So You Think You Can Dance (which I can't) and Wonder Pets with Abby.

I can't wait until I get my scanner and start scanning old photos and slides, and hopefully making a few memory books with them! Have a happy Saturday!

A quick one!

Running off to hockey! So just posting a couple of pics!!

Taken today

A page about Gillian's birth.

Got to run!

Mommy, I really love your underwear.....

I really have to start noting down the funny things Abby is saying these days. Her ability to say things is increasing by leaps and bounds everyday. A couple of today's funny statements were "Mommy, I really love your underwear. They are very much pretty." - of course I was going pee at the time, and while saying this she stroked them like one would do when shopping for clothes. I have a feeling the girls compare underwear at the daycare, and I guess my pink Jockeys are da bomb!! The other thing she said was when I mentioned that I was going to make potatoes for dinner (which she rarely eats at home). She said "I don't like potatoes at Mommy's house. I eat all my potatoes at Mo-Mo's, I like her potatoes, I eat them all up!" Ok, so what am I doing, or not doing to the potatoes....? Hey I can count on Gillian, she'll eat everything!

I thought i would joint Designer Digitals 30 days of Photos group on Flickr. I'm not guarenteeing that I'll take a photo a day, but I'll try. Now that I'm at work, I'm taking less photos, which is sad.

Tomorrow is Gillian's 1 year Dr's appointment. I'll see how much she weighs and she'll get her vaccinations. She is doing so well, it should be a pretty quick appointment. She is teething all over the place now, her bottom incisors are pushing through right now, along with her upper molars and two front teeth. Needless to say she was up screaming for almost 2 hours last night. Surprisingly I felt pretty good all day and didn't hit the sleep deprivation wall at 2:00 pm as I usually do! (I think it was the 4 cups of coffee...).

Anyway, off to play with Photoshop!!

Weekend #26...I think

Halfway to the shortest day of the year! We spent the weekend doing various things, Eric tried to go sailing a couple of times then finally he and his dad had enough wind this afternoon to make it down the river. Not raging, blustering winds, but enough to move. For me I took the first Learn to Sail class at the GRYC on Saturday afternoon. I had taken a few of the classes last summer, but needed a refresher. We learned how to rig the squadron, it's not a very big boat, probably enough room to fit three, but probably two comfortably. The rigging seemed pretty straight forward, but we'll see when I go down again if I remember!

Saturday night we went for dinner at our friend's Shawna and Scott. We swam in the not too warm pool, and ate a great dinner! Sunday we went into town to try and get Eric some golf stuff for his birthday, but I didn't realize that he needed his shoes and old clubs, so we walked out of Golf Town with only a box of balls...

We also had to drag our laundry over to my parents as we are now weekend #2 with no washer and dryer... hopefully we'll get this problem resolved soon!

Anyway, heading to bed so I'm keeping it short... I spent the night doing this:

Happy Birthday Eric

So this post is a couple of days late. We celebrated Eric's 39th birthday on Wednesday night! Hi parents were a godsend, because at 10:00 am I received a phone call from Gail offering to make Eric's favourite meal (spare-ribs) and bring it over for supper! I was so happy because all I was going to serve up were burgers and fries... not very ingenious for a birthday dinner. We all had a wonderful meal and even better dessert - Birthday Cake!!:

yummy spice cake with maple icing
(at least I think it was maple..??)

Abby was a little nervous during this part.

Abby gives Eric a hand with blowing
out the candles.

All in all it was a fun celebration for Eric and I'm so thankful that his Mom helped me out, because I couldn't pull anything fun together while at work! I'll be doing something special for him this weekend... more to follow.

Abby has started to declare that she is a "Good Talker". She usually babbles away on the way home from daycare and the other day she said "Mommy, you can eat Daddy's Happy Birthday Cake with your fingers, ok." It wasn't really a question, but really her giving me permission to use my fingers to eat it. You see we are always harping on her to use her cutlery instead of shovelling the food into her mouth with her hand, and we are pretty much loosing the battle. Anyway, today's declaration was that "Abby's happy birthday is in August" followed by "Daddy's happy birthday is in June". Mine is apparently in August too, but when I told her it was November she said "Noverbember". Followed by "Mommy, I a good talker..."

The big news about Gillian is that she apparently walked across the room at Phyls place. She had been standing up all by herself and then just walked across the room. So she is getting there. Slowely but surly she will walk! I can also report that her top molars are now coming in. Her two front teeth have all but stopped in their tracks, just sticking out a little, I guess they are taking a break while the molars push in...

Here is a page I did "celebrating" Gillian's funny little personality. People have said on numerous occasions that she will be a little joker, because she is always smiling and giggling. It's particularly funny when Abby is having one of her 2-year-old moments and crying for whatever reason, and Gillian just looks at her with a straight face, then just starts laughing at her. I know she isn't being mean, but it's so cute to see!

And that's it for the last few days! On to the weekend!

Are Bagels Really Bad?

I work with a woman who is a member of Weight Watchers. I applaud all those people out there who can actually use self control when it comes to food, because if I ever had to diet, I could never do it. I'm not exactly skinny Minny, but I'm not over weight either, (except when you refer to the BMI, then I am ???? But apparently it doesn't take into account those who are particularly active - which I keep telling myself that I am...) anyway, I was asking my colleague about how Weight Watchers work as I remember my mom doing it about 10 years ago, and counting points, weighing everything, measuring how much wine she drank (GASP!!). I gave it a go for a week back then, and almost passed out. Depriving myself of food, is just not my thing. I get totally crazy, feel like I'm going to faint, start shaking like gumby, and get cranky. She described to me how many points she gets in a day, and what that entails and she said "Bagels are bad". I have a bagel a day smothered with rich cream cheese - none of the light stuff for me! I'm sure that would count for at least a third of the points in a day! I love my bagel and coffee in the morning, and this is the reason that I could probably never succeed at Weight Watchers. I'd need a diet out there that says that bagels are good... because bagels are my friend.

Pretty Bagged!

I stayed up a little too late last night! But I wanted to attend a chat on Designer Digitals, which only began at 10 pm. I'm happy I did though, because Cassie Jones was teaching us a really cool technique that I tried out today, but first here is a quick page I did using a template:

I got some pretty beautiful photos of Abby last weekend up in Wakefield, this one and The other I used for the Chat. She sure is growing up!

Special technique we learned was to
blend a photo onto cardboard. Very cool effect!

I have to try and get to bed earlier tonight, because there is another chat tomorrow night I'd like to attend. And it's Eric's Birthday!! We'll probably be celebrating on the weekend, because it's hard to do anything special in the middle of the week.

Monday

After a nice weekend it was back to work today. I'm starting to get into the swing of things, I didn't forget everything like I thought I would. I thought that if anyone needed some advice on diapers or bum cream I could handle that no problem, but if it came to project phasing and procurement strategies, I'd blubber my way through it. Luckily, not much changes at work and it's easy to convince others that you know what you are talking about!!

I got stuck in a little rain storm on my bike ride home, there was a little thunder and lightening behind me but luckily I stayed just ahead of it. I did get pretty wet and covered with sand from the road, but none worse for wear. I will be nice when I get my new bike and it has fenders, that way I won't get as wet!

Working on some scrapbooking tonight. I'm taking part of a DD challenge where we create a 20 page book over the course of 10 weeks. 2 page spreads/week. Here are my first two pages:



And another page done today, with Ali Edward's new template from DD

To All The Dad's

Happy Father's Day to all the Dad's in our lives!! Have a great day sailing, watching golf, biking, eating, spending time with family, and just being a Dad!

Crunch and Fry

Oh what a week is has been. I've been out of touch because of the "Fry" bit in the title, which I will explain later... but first about the "Crunch" bit...

Let's start with some advice, well two pieces.. first: Don't, at least - try not to, drive your car into the garage with your bike on the roof rack. If you really feel that you do need to do this, then at least do it with your cheap bike on top, and not a good bike. And really, you should go slowly for maximum impact sound effects... (Since I did have the urge to try this, I at least did it with my cheap bike, and not all was lost, I fixed it up enough to ride again. Good thing I drive slowly)

Next piece of advice: GET A UPS (uninteruped power supply) with SURGE Protection. And get it now! Oh and a side bit of advice - back up, back up, back up!! Because if you don't follow the UPS advice at least you'll have your precious photo files backed up in a safe place or three!

I'm saying this because on Wed, I came home and the power was out in most of our house except for a few places in was in a surge state! We called Hydro, they came and found that the cable going from the pole to our house had come partially disconnected. And it created a surge in the house, and fried my computer's power supply, all of our clock radios, and fans. Thank goodness it was only my power supply. Francois came by and fixed it tonight so I was up and running again in no time. This event gave me a little scare, because I could have lost the entire computer. Luckily I registered for a Carbonite account a little while back, I purchased an EHD and I burn DVD each month with my photos on them, to I do have a triple backup of all my files and programs... just in case it's a major failure next time.

Ok enough with dishing of advice. It was a crazy week, so I didn't take many photos. Just a couple to post from today at my parents:


Hope you didn't miss me too much Beth!! :)

And a Layout I did today:

Bye Bye!

Man it's HOT!!!

So there is a little heat wave passing through here, and with not having air conditioning makes it even harder to take. Luckily where we live it's always a few degrees cooler than in the city, but still 35 degrees C (95 F) (42 C with humidex (107 F)) is damn hot, no mater where you are! We are fortunate to have close access to the river, and so over the weekend we spend time at Eric's parents place for some swimming and fun in the sun. It was Gillian's first time in the river, and she loved it! Giggled, splashed around, dunked herself in and all in 19 degree C (68 F) water! Abby, being a bit older, got to go swimming off the end of the dock with me. We had her in her water wings floating in a round tube with slots for her legs. At first she was screaming that it was too cold, but once she got used to it, we couldn't keep her out!


After swimming we ended up staying for dinner, and finally celebrating Gillian's first birthday. Eric ran home to get the cake we had made for her that morning and ate up!

My little chef and her pink bear.

Finally, we get to sing Happy Birthday!
(No comments on the cake... I'm can not decorate
cakes to save my life!! But I don't care she still has
a smile on her face!)

Oh yeah! CAKE!

Sneaking around before dinner...

Sunday was to be another hot one. We started the day with a nice brunch at my parents place to visit with some old friends of ours. Before they came, we had my mom gave Gillian a little gift, which we got to open, well which Abby got to open!

When we went home it was so hot, Gillian would just not sleep! So I did a little photo shoot instead outside with the self timer:

Then today was Monday, it was supposed to be back to work, but it just so happened that my work was having it's annual Sports day! Considering that it was still 32 degrees outside, there were quite a few people out playing ball, and volleyball! I wonder if anyone was sent to the hospital for heat stroke at the end of it all??

And FINALLY... after not turning on my computer for 2 days last week (GASP!), I've done a layout! I'm so slow :)

Sick, sick and more sick...

Wow what a week! First Gillian sick starting last Saturday, and not ending until Thursday (good think she was a little chubby, because she definitely lost a pound or two this week), then I got hit with the mystery bug and was down and out for 4 days. I still can't really eat much, but at least I'm feeling better (which means I can venture more than 5 steps from the bathroom!) , I myself am grateful for being a little chubby too, because I also lost a few pounds this week!

The worst thing about this whole ordeal is that we missed celebrating Gillian's first birthday on her day - June 4th. I did manage to take her photo, but that was about it for celebrating!


Opening her birthday card from Grandma and Granpa
(little dopey eyed here!)
She did muster the energy to give
the bear on the card a little kiss.

I'm going to bake her a cake this weekend and be sure we celebrate her big day, it will just happen a few days late!

Some pics taken today (sorry forgot to change the date on the image!)

Feeling much better, as you can see.
Good shot of her fangs too!

Too bad I can't include the audio on this one!

Priceless.

Now, I wonder if my belly can handle an ice cream cone....

Recreating...

I was having some problems with my blog, so I backed up my entire blog, and am going to start again! Not an ideal thing to do, but I had to because I just couldn't figure out what was going on. I won't go and re-post, so if you want to read previous posts - go to:

http://christinedenis73.blogspot.com/

for everything prior to today! Thanks!