restaurant toast

this morning i got up at 8 (on my day off....brutal!) and had a bran muffin for breakfast. steve woke up around 9:30 and asked if i wanted to go out for breakfast....immediately i thought about the amazing restaurant toast. we got ready and hit up ricky's. i don't know what it is about toast at a restaurant but it's WAY better. i thought about why i like their toast more and there are a couple of things that might be part of the reason. 1.) i always order white bread when i am out. at home we always have 12 grain crap. it's good for you but really doesn't taste very good. 2.) they always toast the bread to perfection and then lather on the butter while it's still hot. yum 3.) the jam is always at room temperature (ours is always in the fridge). i don't know if that's why it's so delicious or not but man oh man i could eat it every morning. it was way better than my homemade bran muffins.

grade 5 is brutal!

grade 5 is SO hard!!! i have worked in primary (k-2) for 4 years. this is my first year working upstairs. i was nervous when i was told that i would be working in grade 4 and 5 because of the math. i didn't know if i would remember any of that stuff. i was told over and over "don't worry about it! it'll be fine. it will come back to you so quickly." you know what? they were right, it did. the math is fine. little did i know that the THEME and the WRITING would be the hard part.

"underline the predicate". the what now? seriously....what the heck is a predicate. (i know NOW but i honestly don't think i had ever heard that word before.) many words have been thrown out there that i need to remind myself of their meaning. when the teacher says "adjective" it takes me maybe 2 seconds to remember what that is and i am back in the game. but other stuff is honestly over my head. today mrs. v. was trying to remember the word for when a word has 2 pronunciations but is spelt the same way (ex: lead. lead as is lead of a pencil. or lead as in he lead the group). she looked over at me and said "what's that word again? it's on the tip of my tongue". i tried my best to give a believable performance of "oh yeah....why can't i remember what that's called". when really i was thinking "there's a WORD for that??" i think she ended up deciding that it was homophone...but i could be wrong. again, there were a lot of words thrown out there lately.

moving on to theme. right now in grade 5 we are doing force and friction and simple machines. ok i can get my mind around force, friction, gravity, load, surface texture....etc etc but simple machines is a WHOLE 'nother story. i need to sit and listen to the books she reads to the class so that i have examples of these simple machines. my brain doesn't just look at a pizza cutter and think "oh how nice, it's a wheel and axle" or when i am driving over a bridge i don't think "what a great inclined plane". sorry but this just is not how i think. this concept is BIG. there is a lot to it and i feel pretty stupid sometimes.

confession time. i was helping one of the students with her quiz. i was just reading out the questions and the word bank words that she could choose from. one of the questions was asking for the word that describes "what keeps our feet on the ground and keeps us from slipping". i immediately though "GRAVITY" and so did this student. when i was marking the test (with the teacher's answer key) i saw that the answer was actually "friction". it makes sense. the slipping part should have given that away, but nope, by brain didn't go there.

when i was in grade 4 we did a similar unit and we all had to make a simple machine (just like the kids will be doing this year). mine was PATHETIC. i obviously did not understand the project or the point of it. i took a desk chair (one of those ones that have wheels) and put 2 shoe boxes on the legs for your feet to sit in and then i attached an umbrella to the back with long plastic hanging down so you wouldn't get wet if it was raining. WHAT THE HECK IS THAT????? i don't know what i was thinking. and what were my parents thinking?? i can't believe they let me hand that in. i remember watching other people present their simple machines and i had that sinking feeling of "OH....NO!! i did this ALL wrong". oh man. it was bad. now here we are again. hopefully i learn it for real this time.

lovin' it

oh my gosh!! is this not the cutest???? i want to buy one NOW but i know it would be wise to wait until we know the gender of our little one. i am telling you, as soon as i know i am ordering one of these. there are so many cute ones. of course my favs are gender specific so i MUST wait. it's like a little pea in a pod. check out the other patterns at lala's pequenos.

***this was written a few months ago right after i found out i was pregnant. now that i know we are having a BOY i will be ordering one of these ASAP!!! i just need to choose a pattern.

couples questionnaire

taken from this blog

• what are you middle names? joel and beverly (he has a great one, mine is terrible)
• how long have you been together? in total? married for 3 years, together for 7 years on sept. 26
• how long did you know each other before you started dating? 1 year
• who asked who out? i asked him to be my grad date....but we weren't going as a couple (even though i wanted to) he technically asked me out OFFICIALLY 3 months later
• whose siblings do you see the most? my brothers
• do you have any children? nope.
• what about pets? no....thank goodness!!
• which situation is the hardest on you as a couple? dude, this one is deep....ummm...money is a tough one and who gets to drive the 'good' car (just kidding)
• did you go to the same school? yes we both went to the same high school for one year
• are you from the same home town? yes and no. neither of us were born in langley but when we started dating we both lived here
• who is the smartest? definitely, hands down, steve....expect for when it comes to geography haha
• who is the most sensitive? probably me
• where do you eat out most as a couple? we go through different spurts. we did chinese a lot for a while, then boston pizza, then mongolie grill, now we go to earls a lot (what's a lot? we got maybe once a month....is that a lot?)
• who has the craziest ex? that would have to be me since steve has only ever dated me.
• who has the worst temper? used to be me....it might still be me
• who does the cooking? both of us
• who is more social? for sure me!! i could talk anyone's ear off
• who is the neat-freak? both of us!! i am more obsessive about it but he for sure likes the house clean and he does his share of the cleaning around here.
• who is more stubborn? steve would say that i am, i would say that he is
• who hogs the bed? neither of us. we both sleep on our sides facing out of the bed
• who wakes up earlier? me most days...but that's not by choice
• where was your first date? we disagree on this one. i say that our first date was when we went to subway for lunch and then we sat in his car and prayed together, commiting our relationship to God, he says that that doesn't count as a date and that our frist date was to the old willowbrook theatre where we watched finding nemo. i may or may not have punched him in the stomach (jokingly) when he tried to pay for my ticket and he may or may not have had the wind knocked out of him.....
• who has the bigger family? i have more siblings but his siblings are both married and have kids....so i guess his family is bigger. if we are talking extended family then his is FOR SURE bigger....i have 1 uncle, 1 aunt and 2 cousins....he has a million
• do you get flowers often? not as much as i used to but that's because i asked him to stop wasting so much money on flowers cause i never take care of them. haha
• how do you spend the holidays? well....christmas i go to seattle with my family because steve works every minute of my 2 week break from work. but if we are talking about vacations....we like to go on cruises, they are awesome.
• who is more jealous? me. without a doubt.
• how long did it take to get serious? well steve told me he loved me when he was asking me out (BAHAHAHA....oh high schoolers...seriously clueless). i don't really know when things actually got serious. probably within a year of us dating we both knew that we would get married.
• who eats more? steve. steve. steve. steve. 10x more. and you would never be able to guess it would you?
• who does/did the laundry? steve isn't allowed to do the laundry because he has ruined some of my clothes, hehe, so i do it all and i am happy to do it.
• who's better with the computer? steve. i am clueless
• who drives when you are together? usually steve.

movie suggestions

i love movies. i love recommending movies to others and lending out some of our movie selection. i especially love sharing my favourites. there are certain movies that i always lend people; dirty rotten scoundrels, fried green tomatoes, shawshank redemption, inside man and thomas crown affair (to name a few). last christmas i saw sherlock holmes and LOVED it, i think i saw it 3 times in the theatre. needlesstosay (can i write that? does it need spaces? i am never sure), i added it to my favourites list. a few weeks ago i ranted and raved about it to some colleagues and told them that it's a MUST see!! i love the time period of the movie. i love the cast. i love the slow motion fight scenes where sherlock holmes explains each hit he is going to make (sounds dumb, but it's great). anyways...a few of the ladies at work said they were interested in borrowing it. i lent it to one of them last week. she watched it and......hated it!!!! NNNOOOOOO!!! what the heck? this sucks. now no one is going to want to take any of my movie suggestions. shoot. am i really that bad of a judge of movies? i like most movies i see. hate some (usually fantasy or sci-fi). LOVE others. sherlock holmes is in my love category. dang dude, i am super embarrassed that i wasted this lady's evening, and her husband's evening, with a movie that they did not like. at least they didn't rent it....i guess that's the only upside to this situation.

more of steve's baking

some of you may remember steve's baking attempt from last may. well he is at it again.

at work i was thinking that i should make some cookies today or tomorrow since i haven't baked in a while. to my surprise when i came home steve said he was thinking that he wanted to make some cookies. perfect! i get cookies but i don't have to make them. awesome. then he told me that he got all the ingredients out earlier today when i was at work and was going to make them when i wasn't home but he couldn't find shortening. so i went and pulled it out of the cupboard for him. he was shocked. he had apparently looked through all the cupboards, fridge and freezer looking for it but had no idea what it was so he didn't know what he was looking for. he was going to go to the store and buy some but didn't want to look like an idiot roaming around hunting for it when he didn't know where it would be. lol. what a guy.

anyway....i sat at the bar in the kitchen and watched him start this project. first thing he did was use a liquid measuring cup to measure the sugar....not a big deal, not super accurate but whatever....then he said "oh. half a cup. i put in a whole cup". "oh well" i said, "just double the recipe." he wasn't really looking at the lines on the measuring cup he was just kind of ball parking it. "baking doesn't need to be accurate. i feel like i can just throw anything in this bowl and it will come out great," he said. oh boy. when the recipe asked for 1/2 a tsp of baking soda he kind of froze up a bit. "so i am doubling that, so it will be a tablespoon" "no steve, when you double HALF a tsp it's just ONE tsp," i replied. haha so he started searching through the measuring cups looking for one that said 1 tsp. i watched for a bit trying really hard to hold back my laughter. after he searched through 2 stacks of measuring cups i told him that a teaSPOON is a spoon, not a cup. "oh right," he said. then he had to find the baking soda. he knew what cupboard all of the spices etc were kept in so he started rummaging through there in hopes of finding something that said "baking soda". finally he found that yellow/orangey coloured box and added a tsp to the mix. watching him try and figure out the mixer was also hilarious! he didn't know he needed to tilt the top up to put the bowl under. he was pushing and pulling at the bowl trying to get it to go into the mixer with absolutely no success....again i had to step in and say "umm...there is a button at the back. press it and pull the front up and then you can get the bowl in." eventually he got everything mixed together and we got them on parchment paper on baking sheets and into the oven. i haven't eaten one yet but they look ok (a little different than they normally look).

** steve would like me to tell you all that he is not an idiot and that baking is the only area he does not completely excel in. just so you know. ;)

jobs from grandpa

my grandpa has had a rough month and a half. due to a bunch of different things going on with him he is now MUCH more dependant on people. thankfully he lives in a care home where they take care of all his needs. they feed him, change his clothes, help him go to the washroom, shave him, shower him, get him in and out of bed, etc etc. he doesn't need to worry about anything. and yet he worries about EVERYTHING!!!! the man is the biggest worrier i have ever met (this must be where i get my worrying side from....)! as soon as lunch is over and he gets into bed for his nap he starts worrying about when the care girls will come and get him up for dinner? will they be here on time or will i miss dinner? what's for dinner? who will get me out of bed? what if they don't come on time, what should i do? who will feed me? how long will i have to wait after dinner to be brought back to my room? when i get back to my room who will put me in bed? will they take me to the bathroom first? etc etc etc. it's excessive. there are some things that he often wants me to do for him so that he isn't a "nuisance" to the care aides (who are PAID to do these things....i am not). some of them i don't mind doing. i lay out his clothes for him on sundays because monday is his bath day and he always wants fresh clothes after his bath. i shave his face (not my favourite cause i am always scared i am going to cut him. thankfully i haven't yet). put lotion on his face, forehead and the top of his right foot (kinda gross....read my other post about his feet). then comes the dreaded statement "lael, i would like you to give my dentures a good clean" NNNNOOOOOOOO!!!! i don't mind brushing his teeth when they are IN his mouth but not when they come OUT. it's a little much for me, but i can't say no to him, he's my grandpa and he can't do it himself. so i take a deep breath, swallow hard and start the job. i always go and get gloves from the nurse's station. then i grab a shallow dish from his bathroom and get him to put his dentures (he only has a partial denture for the top) into the dish. i try my best not to look at it. i take it into the bathroom run water into the dish and lightly shake the dish around in order to loosen the chunks of food that are stuck in the dentures (at this point i am trying REALLY hard not to gag). i then put the dish up against the side of the sink and pour the water out making sure that the dentures don't fall out. now i repeat the water shaking, food chunk loosening routine. finally i put toothpaste on his toothbrush, pick up the dentures (with my GLOVED hand) and clean them so they are minty fresh tasting. yuck YUCK YUCK!!!! a good day when visiting my grandpa is when he doesn't bring up his dentures.

children's lit: the crazy man

this is a novel for intermediate/middle school aged kids. it takes place in the 60s in saskatchewan. i am gonna give a brief description of the book and i know it sounds somewhat morbid but it's really a great book!! it's about a young girl Emmie (probably about 10 years old) who ends up getting run over by her father's tractor when trying to stop her dog from getting caught in the tractor. she ends up with a badly injured leg and her dad leaves her and her mom because he blames himself for the accident. "the crazy man" is not her dad, it's a man from the mental hospital in town who comes to work on their farm now that the dad is gone. the book doesn't go into much detail about the accident it's more about stereotypes and family. i am reading this book to the grade 5 class i work in right now. it's so awesome. i am having a hard time putting the book down each day. whenever i have free time in the day i quickly go and read ahead in the book just cause it's SO good!! in 2005 it won the governor general's award for children's literature. even though it's a kid's book i recommend it for everyone!

september 11th

tomorrow is september 11th. i know everyone immediately thinks about the twin towers etc when they hear that date but this year i will be thinking about how it was my due date for baby #2. i am not really sure how i should be feeling about that. if i should be "over" it, if crying still is pathetic, or if it's perfectly normal. it's just sad to me to think that there should be a baby any day now and there won't be. those 9 months FLEW by!! i can so clearly remember all of the doctor appointments during those first 3 months. we were SO excited. i was worried that 9 months would feel like an eternity, but really it went fast. tomorrow i am going to keep myself busy so that i don't just crawl into a hole all day and cry. God works in mysterious ways i tell ya. we don't get it. we'll probably never get it. there is no point going over and over the 'whys?' in my mind, it just makes me more upset. one day there will be a baby, that we know for sure. steve and i both feel like God has given us peace about that. it's just a matter of timing, His timing. something we have very little control over. we will be parents. the next chapter of our lives will start and this will just be a season in life where we learned lots and grew closer to God, our friends and family.

sophie vs. madeleine

i love sophie kinsella. she is the author of all the shopaholic books and some other awesome, non-series, books. i found out about a year ago that she also writes under the name "madeleine wickham". i was SUPER excited to learn this because i own ALL of her books and i am always eager for her next book to be published and hit the chapters nearest me. SOOOO this new bit of information meant more books for me to buy and read and hopefully love. i bought one of her madeleine wickham books, the gatecrasher and dove into it. it was good. i quite enjoyed it. a bit of a different style than the sophie kinsella books, but still totally worth the read. so i bought and read a second one: cocktails for three....also good....not quite as good as the gatecrasher. then i found a couple of her books in a cheap-o bin at safeway so i bought them as well. i am just finishing sleeping arrangements (it's not what it sounds like) and honestly i am not very satisfied with this book. so now here is my dilemma. do i keep reading her books? i feel somewhat loyal to her, but i am lovin the sophie books, and not really lovin the madeleine books. she has 4 others written under this madeleine name but i just don't know if i can do it. 4 books is a big commitment for me.

another thing that i am confused about is whether her name is sophie kinsella or madeleine wickham. i read on a website that her real name is madeleine wickham but then all of her madeleine books say "SOPHIE KINSELLA WRITING AS MADELEINE WICKHAM" so which is it? i hope her pen name is sophie kinsella cause it is a much nicer name than madeleine wickham...especially the wickham part.

here is a list of her books:

sophie kinsella books:

confessions of a shopaholic

shopaholic takes manhattan

shopaholic ties the knot

shopaholic and sister

shopaholic and baby

mini shopaholic (coming soon YAY!!)

can you keep a secret?

the undomestic goddess

remember me?

twenties girl

madeleine wickham books:

sleeping arrangements

cocktails for three

the wedding girl

the gatecrasher

swimming pool sunday

a desirable residence

the tennis party