Wacky Wednesday

Phew...Last night was busy! Matt was home sick all day so I got him to pick up Alex so I could get to a class at the gym to make up for at least one of the ones I missed last week. It was interesting to say the least! It was the new release of Body Jam and it involved alot more spinning and jumping than the last one. Needless to say there were lots of flying bodies during what one instructor called the "African Disco" segment.

I returned home and heated up the remainder of our homemade cream of mushroom soup (which Alex actually tried and liked) and made some 'garden style' quesadillas. While Alex was in the tub I put in a batch of dough for cinnamon rolls and made a batch of pumpkin mini muffins for the bazarre, tonight I'll make another batch of dough and the squares so Thursday I'll only need to make a batch of cookies. After all that was complete and Alex was in bed after another chapter of Franny K Stein, I got to throw yet more clothes in the wash, shower and edit some photos on the computer for a gift I need to order tonight. So by 9:40 I was pretty zonked and headed to bed...with my needleroll in tow. I finished the dreaded over one stitching in the candles and shut the light off. This needleroll is progressing much smoother than the one I did for retreat :) Hopefully if all goes smoothly it'll be beaded tonight!

Tonight's agenda a) pick up remaining ingredients for bazarre cook off b)pick up kid c) do homework with kid and prep baking 'center' d)throw supper in oven e)fix son's beaver uniform f) start more sweet dough g) put squares together h)possibly make cookies i)drop kid off at Beavers j)Get workout in and bead k)Read chapter of Franny L)Squeeze in shower m)slay dragon (ie: geek stuff) n) head to bed....really not that bad a night...not!! Thankfully tomorrow is hot lunch day so I only need to pack recess. I'll be sooo glad when Saturday evening rolls around ....by then the tree should be decorated, the bazarre over with and I'll be looking forward to a relaxing week ahead with 'optional' baking. I seriously must have done to pledge sheet before medication!! ;)

A Week in Review

Where oh where oh where have we been? Last week was one of those weeks that you just want to crawl up and ignore some of the goings on and rejoice in the others.

Tuesday: Headed to Angela's for some stitching and bitching and also taking in all of the progress they've made on their home which is truly gorgeous

Wednesday: Day from Hell...After prepping poor Alex for his 'booster' we get to public health and don't 'need' it for school admission. I was pissed to say the least. I got a letter from the school that was forwarded all the way to district office about it and for no reason whatsoever. I tried calling both public health and the school to find out what shot was missing to confer with my doctor, neither could tell me sh*t. I found out that the 'audits' were done in the spring and that the school had left off telling me until a day or two before the last day they were legally obligated to. So, I spent hours trying to track down this 'needle', had to take an hour and a half off of work to go to public health, lost my parking space, burnt a load of gas for what...to be thrown in the same barrel as the deadbeat parents. There is one well worded letter being compiled for head office!

Thursday: Fun Day...Had another appointment with my doctor (two appointments in one week, yuck...at least only one was for me). Then I got to go home. Mom and Jazz came up for a visit and Alex was excited to let Jazz out when we got there. After supper we headed to the school for parent teacher. Alex was pretty excited to show mom his school and they headed off to the bookfair. The meeting went well and Alex found some new books at the bookfair (and thankfully avoided the Magic Treehouse book I'd already picked up). He now has another favorite book series Franny K Stein-Mad Scientist by Jim Benton, although Matt wanted to know who enjoyed them more, Alex or myself.

Friday: Out on the town...we had a nice outing with mom to Scott's nursery, house 'hunting', a little christmas shopping and a nice lunch at Quiznos. Alex only had a bratty moment at Scott's and was eventually turned around and happy as a clam. We got home to Matt telling me I had to go to the school...I was ticked, I had been looking forward to walking the dog before mom headed back...but Alex was drawn as the grand prize winner at the bookfair winning 25$ worth of books...that had to be picked out by 3... and it was 2:30. So we hightailed it in to town. I guess his teacher was pretty excited as the class got 25$ worth of books as well. I'd planned on going into town after mom left to get groceries and didn't want to make another trip in so I bit the bullet and took Alex with me, and didn't have my trusty list or menu. Oh well... After supper we went to the treelighting at Scott's but didn't stay for the whole thing that was really drug out for one wound up kid. He was pretty excited to see Callie sing and we got to chat with Eleni and Craig for awhile (and Jackson worked his...really you want another one just like me charm on Matt). Oh during our trip out with mom I got the last set of lights for my village and it's now lit!!

Saturday: Run AWAY: Ok...I left the boys Saturday morning to go stitch. With inlaws incoming and I needed to recoup some sanity. Their trip was uneventful, besides our trip to the parade...note to parents don't put new boots on your child before said event. Alex ended up on Matt's shoulders for most of it with my mittens on his feet if it's any indication of how that went! The highlight of the parade for him? Most kids are happy with Santa, mine went ape over the mascot for Boston Pizza!! All you could hear for a block was 'Hi Boston Pizza Guy!!!' until he was out of sight, Santa got a Merry Christmas a wave and that was it!!

Sunday: Our company left just in time for me to miss the second of my classes, sigh... Oh well, Alex and I still had time for a stitching playdate over at Faith Ann's. Alex was begging to go back if that's any indication of how well they played together.

Monday: Flex day off!! Alex and I had a nice day planned...with sewing of a christmas gift and wrapping Matt's gifts planned...until he showed up home sick. sigh... We met Angela and Eleni for lunch. The boy has been obsessed with trying clams since he saw them in a menu on our Miramichi trip! After that we took the bottles in and headed up to Fabricville where there was a really bad diesel smell so they called 911, of course everyone was rushing to get out and stuck with an incompetant cashier...top that off with "I've GOTTA PEE!! I don't want to pee my pants' and you can begin to guess how pleasant it was! And it only got worse, just as I was about to pull out of there to take Alex to the bathroom a firetruck pulled in behind our spot!! So we made a mad dash to Tim Horton's... I did manage to wedge the van out and head to the mall. First order of business, take Alex to Santa :) We did a little shopping too, Alex got to take the bottle money to Chapters where he was down right awestruck at the full collection of Magic Treehouse books (and ticked when I told him they were off limits for his purchase). Fast forward to two tired redheads driving in the yard ready to wrap and watch a movie to find out we no longer had the house to ourselves, sigh... Not that I don't love Matt's company, it's just very rare that I ever get the house to myself!! After supper I settled in to stich and watch Doctor Who and Heroes. I tried to watch Dexter but it was just too gross for me. Whenever Matt was out of the room I started basting the cording on the stocking, oye...

Today: No plans besides body Jam, woot!! I need to make a pan of squares for school and that's about it for me!!

Just One of the Things We've Been Up To In The Last Week

'Tis The Season

Woo hoo, there's no better way to start a weekend than with a report card that shows obvious improvement!! Alex's report card was sooo much better than last year, and much more positive. I also got back to Body Pump, which was good, I've been feeling a bit blah due to the missed gym sessions either due to our hectic schedule or colds/headaches. My goal is to make it to two body pump classes a week and then get back up to three in January.

Saturday was the usual run around day, Gym and Swim went relatively well and then Alex and I headed for groceries. For supper Matt decided to have a special dinner out at Pizza Hut and Alex got to order his cheesy bites pizza (essentially cheese filled garlic bread mini buns make up the outer crust). After we returned to the house I grabbed my iPod and keys and headed to Green Village for their annual tax free sale. The trees were gorgeous but I didn't end up getting too much as I already had alot of the ornaments. I picked up some snowment and that was about it. They didn't have indoor mini LED lights which I was a bit disappointed about. After that I headed to Walmart to look for the LED lights (again no luck), resisted the urge to heckle the suckers waiting in line for the Wii and find some replacement bulbs for the village. I was tickled pink when I found a 5 light strand for the village!! That definitely reduced the number of wires!! I couldn't remember exactly how many houses I had so I withheld on a second strand but of course I got home and found that I had exactly 5 more houses to do!! Oh...I also got all of the outdoor decorations put up during the mild weather...

Sunday we slept in so I stitched on Alex's teacher's present until the Body Jam/Body Pump combo at 12:30. After that I tried a couple more stores looking for the lights with no luck. Oh well! It was so mild that Alex and I were able to go for a bike ride around the block when I got home and then we made 'Worms in dirt' for dessert (chocolate pudding, oreo crumbs and gummy worms).

Monday was a bit hectic, it just seemed hard to get going in the morning. I tried out a new recipe from Eat, Shrink and Be Merry and Jellystone Pork was a huge hit. After Alex went to bed I settled in with my stitching and watched Doctor Who. By the end of the episode I had a little happy dance which was actually quite monumental, I'd finished Alex's teacher's Christmas gift (Tis The Season from the latest Lizzie Kate Tiny Tidings), it also marked the end of 'gift' stitching!! Seeing as Justice was a repeat at 9 I celebrated by making some healthy caramel apple muffins and tidying up the kitchen ;) Then I settled back in and watched Heroes and dedicated my full attention to it, and it rocked!! I meant to go downstairs after and get the pom poms for Tis The Season but the evil Sylar had me too scared to go down in the basement alone...who wants to have their head cut open and brain removed anyway?? ;)

Matt had a little surprise for me as well yesterday, a CARD!! Not only was it monumental because it was a card but he'd also doctored up an anniversary card to mark 1/2 a year, wow!! :)
Tonight I'll be stitching with the girls for a bit, I can't wait to see the improvements on Angela's house!! I need to track down my JCS though first so I can get back to my Hope needleroll :)

Twenty Dollars

Just incase any of you need a reminder of how special you are ;)

$20.00

Sometimes we just need to be reminded!
A well-known speaker started off his seminar by
holding up a $20.00 bill. In the room of 200, he asked,
"Who would like this $20 bill?"
Hands started going up.
He said, "I am going to give this $20 to one of you
but first, let me do this.
He proceeded to crumple up the $20 dollar bill.
He then asked, "Who still wants it?"
Still the hands were up in the air.
Well, he replied, "What if I do this?"
And he dropped it on the ground
and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe.
He picked it up, now crumpled and dirty.
"Now, who still wants it?"
Still the hands went into the air.
My friends, we have all learned a very valuable lesson.
No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it
because it did not decrease in value.
It was still worth $20.
Many times in our lives,
we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt
by the decisions we make and
the circumstances that come our way.
We feel as though we are worthless.
But no matter what has happened or
what will happen, you will never lose your value.
Dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased,
you are still priceless to those who DO LOVE you.
The worth of our lives comes not in what we do or who we know,
but by WHO WE ARE and WHOSE WE ARE.
You are special - Don't EVER forget it."

Save The Cheerleader, Save The World!

Ok...there is no cheerleader, just a Heroes addict and that tag line is just too cool to not use just once in the blog. After yesterday I plugged into the last 30 minutes of Heroes that I taped Monday to wind down..... why?? well...

The relief that my breast incident was an isolated occurance quickly turned into anger with the fact that the first surgeon is even allowed to practice medicine in the country. What is competitent about not reading a patients file before suggesting surgery and not being honest about that surgery. I came prepared with my questions, will it affect breast feeding later on...no. Well how the heck would losing a quarter of ones breast not (oh and that 1/4 was not the small amount discussed, I only saw that when I saw my file). Let alone his comments that I'd be able to go 'topless' after without anyone noticing a scar, tactless jerk. Between that and my desire to line up a whole bunch of people concerning another incident and have them explain the continual questions of my 6 year old honestly, well it was one of those days where the Dixie Chicks I'm Not Ready to Make Nice got alot of playtime.

Work went well yesterday, we had an interesting meeting on how the department's plan to move our apps to the .NET framework, then I plugged away at yet another 'standards' change to the reports I've been developing. It would be soo nice if Crystal had a way of safely applying Templates to predeveloped reports. By the time 4:20 rolled around (had some flex time to make up due to migraine day) I was ready to go home and pack up for stitchy night.

The one hiccup in that plan was picking up a child that did NOT want to go home and was being a brat for the x-consecutive pickup who wanted to quit beavers thinking he could stay and play in the meantime and continually ran his mouth until I had to put on the serious voice (which I hate using), try to find a politically correct way to say stop talking, and marched him to the car. Arghhh... There was one serious conversation in the car on the way home concerning this behavior. He was then good, doing his homework promptly, handing over the halloween treats for the night and eating. He got ready for Beavers and I packed up my stitching stuff and headed to his investure. Well...that was not the proud glowing mother moment I was expecting, three times I caught his arm going up and when the leader didn't say anything the third time I had to discretely make my way up and warn him that if he did it again he'd go straight home. Worse, the kids that he was having issues with weren't only one of the leaders kids, it was one of my coworkers...so then he tilted his halo and sat their stoically. Then came the actual investure of his group (which is all on video). While the other kids had one hand on the Canada Flag and the other in the beaver hand symbol my son was continually grabbing his butt. It was up to the parents to put their kerchiefs on and when I went to do that I heard "mommy, I pooped my pants". If the floor could have openned up at that point I would have been pretty appreciative. Thankfully it was only some questionable gas but just the thought of having to walk past a room full of parents to take poopy underwear out for lack of better words sucked!

Needless to say when 6:45 came around I was out that door like a shot to pick up Faith Ann and let Matt take over!! I was never so relieved to get to stitchy night!! What an exciting evening, there were a number of pick me ups, hugs and wonderful news, an expectant stitcher :) I vicariously live through people starting families ;) I tried out a pattern to see if it would be narrow enough to make into a needleroll for Alex's bazarre but that was a no go...so now it'll just look nice framed in my house (or mom's) and went back to stitching on my Jeanette Douglas needleroll, I'm getting pretty anxious to put up my Christmas tree. I can't even put into words how nice it was to unwind with some pretty awesome women for 3 hours!! Then when I got home I had a chance to open my mail and there was the letter Matt wrote for me at our marriage prep weekend, timing couldn't have been more perfect ;)

Today I'm FINALLY going to get back to the gym woot! I'm going to check out the christmas craft fair at lunch which should be fun :) Now for something completely off ranting ;)

The rules:
List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether or not they have words, or even if they're not any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they're listening to.

1) Not Ready to Make Nice by The Dixie Chicks
2) I Belong to You by Anastacia and some dude ;) Body Track's Current Cool Down, and it makes me want to go home Friday nights and pretend we're not having tacos and instead light some candles, crack open a bottle of wine and have a romantic dinner...like lobster tails
3) Fly Me To the Moon by Frank Sinatra, Body Jam's Current Cool Down, this should be played after the dream dinner for dancing ;)
4) All I Can Do by Chantal Kreviazuk
5) Simply Irresistable by Robert Palmer, yet again another Body Pump Track, squats this time
6) Man Eater by Nelly Furtado, thanks to last weeks Desperate Housewives promo
7) Pretty Vegas by INXS, Body Pump's current Shoulder Track

Got iPod?

Yeah, long time no blog :) Friday night we headed out to pick up my iPod Shuffle as it was FINALLY release day. Well, I walked right past them they're sooo tiny, they're smaller than the pictures on the web. I was playing with it all Friday night!! I'm so glad we didn't wait to pick it up as we got the second last one at the futureshop.

Saturday, I loaded the van and connected the iPod for our trip to the Miramichi. It was soo nice to finally have current music in the van (which has a tape deck...and my old stereo does not like disks burnt with iTunes). Alex's only request was that I load Sesame Street's Hot Hot Dance Songs so he could do the Macarena ;) The trip was uneventful, besides almost mowing down some people, I understand people were going to the rememberance day ceremonies but parking on both sides of the road unexpectedly in a 90 zone and then walking two abreast with their backs to traffic....where's Darwin when you need him??

We had a nice visit home. The dog was a bit jealous of Alex and would try to eat the ninja turtles, even if they were in the box. I guess he was trying to discourage having to share dad with Alex for a whole week like our last visit ;) I got some stitching, relaxing and catching up in. My lost dragon samper is almost done, if I could find my Havana silk and I finished my Mill Hill Mandolin Santa.

Monday we headed back in the rain and fog, leaving is miserable enough without the weather adding to it. Yesterday I was home with a Migraine, which was a blessing in disguise as I got to keep an eye on the basement as we had a real freak rainstorm, there was water everywhere but thankfully the basement stayed dry. I did do some manual sump pumping before supper and took out about 10 loads of water from the storm drain in a big canner pot, what a workout. I could practically vacuum/dump/vacuum/dump, head up the stairs, head back down the steps, dump water return and repeat in my sleep. It's only on a day like that that one realizes how many steps you do in a raised ranch house :)

In my good news Monday, I don't need to go for a biopsy, woot! Just monitoring and a list of 'if this happens call'. It takes sooo long for a second opinion in Canada but it was worth it, the doctor I saw in the breast clinic was going to take 1/4 of my breast for biopsy, which wasn't the amount he disclosed with me, but I did find out when I saw my file >:( My lovely surgeon who reminds me of Monica from Friends, said while that would take out anything suspicious, we don't do mastectomies to reduce our risks. I should ask that jack a** if he'd like to have a 1/4 of his testicals removed to make sure nothing was wrong with them for nothing. After sleeping off my migraine I put up the Christmas Village and started to do some of the Christmas decorating, poor DH was caught a bit off guard when he got home ;)

Tonight's stitchy night, I can't believe it's been a month already!!

It's Friday! Friday! Fri-DAY!

Thanks for all of the positive feedback on my little mental health awareness plug, it's nice to know I'm not the only one :) It's hard sometimes to try to describe it in a way that doesn't make you sound self centered. I know my limits and there are days/situations where I cannot put up with people's bs and removing myself from them isn't being self centered, sulky or always getting my way. If lancing the brain was possible, painless and not life threatenning sure we could monitor it like diabetics can their blood sugar but it's not really a viable option.

Yesterday was one of those days, the work day that never ends!! I went for a run at the gym and finished reading Embroidered Truths in the car while I waited for Alex to finish playing with his friends, I wasn't in any mood to put up with "but I'm not done having fun yet". Not that he gets away with this normally, but it's not like I wasn't 10 pages away from finishing a book ;) So now I've read all of the Monica Ferris paperbacks, woot! I wonder when Sins and Needles is coming out in paperback, or if I can drop enough hints for Matt to pick it up in hardcover...yeah right!! So now it's onto the Scrapbooking Mystery series.

My Mandolin Santa was almost finished yesterday but I forgot my beads at home so I couldn't finish that part at lunch, instead I worked on my Lost Dragon Sampler which is working up remarkably fast. I also met up with Eleni and did a small stash exchange and got a little girl hug from Callie :) In the evening I finished doing my DMC inventory, now to set aside some time next week to wind!! ;)

This weekend Alex and I (and maybe Matt) are heading to the Miramichi Saturday morning, I can't believe it's been 3 months since I've gotten home :( Alex of course is VERY excited at this development (and mad at me for not going right after work, but if Matt doesn't go I don't want to be on the highway alone after dark). I'm hoping to attach the mustache to Mandolin Santa and quite possibly finishing the Lost Dragon Sampler this weekend, we'll have to see ;)

Sweet Retreat

Retreat was awesome, Cathey pretty much summed up our fun escapades on her blog ;) Retreat was great in other ways too. 550.75 was raised for breast cancer with our basket draw, I don't know how much came from the kits for cancer draw on top of that. I wish there was someway though that we could encourage a mental health dialog along with it. I'd catch pieces of conversation here and there and while it was comforting to know that you aren't alone it would be nice if we could celebrate being depression/anxiety/bipolar survivors as much as we celebrate surviving physical ailments. I've found great strength in the mantra "depression is not a flaw in character, it is a flaw in chemistry" this time around. It helps having a doctor this time that truly monitors my condition and just doesn't prescribe an open prescription, although I don't think I've had as many doctor's appointments since I was pregnant! It's taking a bit of getting used to ;) I'm slowly accepting the fact that it truly is a chemistry problem and something that will be a condition that just doesn't magically go away. Alchoholics do not continually drink 24/7 and those who suffer from depression do not mope around 24/7 either, although I could give a whole list of warning signs that are very easily ignored and written off as something else. So there's my open dialogue for the day, I'm still me, I still run around with my ta-ta tassle twin, I still put whoopie cushions under people's seats, I still have my very black sense of humor, I'm still a wonderful mother and loving wife and now I'm finally being responsible and seeking treatment.

Ok...there was my mental healt awareness plug (or should it even be classified as mental, that screwed up chemistry affects your entire body)...anyway...back to retreat. As for my part I stitched away Friday night and Saturday Morning on the Hope needleroll. I kind of like doing them for the exchange too to work the kinks out before mine goes on my anal retentive tree, especially when it involves samplers as diagramming does not always represent the space the stitches actually take up. I also enjoyed my Laura Secord truffles, pumpkin spice and caramel apple are divine!!!

After a lunch with the Dragon I settled into hem stitching and mylanta the afternoon went fast!! There was an incident with the fireplace that ended up smoking up the place temporarily, quite ironic where the dragon herself was in the center of it ;) I finished my piece and waited for a friend to bring in her sewing machine. I then hummed and hawed if I'd do The Lost Dragon Sampler or Mirabilia's Christmas Elf Fairy and The Lost Dragon Sampler won, who could resist those bright colours?!? Saturday evening we just got silly, Cathey and I changed into our matching jammies and donned our tassles ;) This cut into stitching time but garnered some much needed laughs.

I was sad to see Sunday come around, I could have stayed another week! The exchange was a bit disappointing, there's always 2 or 3 people that don't put that much effort into their stitching (not that I'm a stitching snob) and when the retreat numbers are down they show up a bit more. For me personally, if I'm going to stitch something to exchange I stick on the safe side, plus I try to stitch something that promotes a Canadian Designer (ok the first was a G&P but I customized it to have the camp name on it). But really the best part of the exchange isn't the ornament I receive, it's hearing people vying for YOUR ornament when they're in the dinner line, that is truly rewarding knowing your stitching will be appreciated. The other little downer was the fact that a couple of the leaflets Cathey and I were selling off went 'missing'. What was truly odd about it was they were ones that at least I couldn't understand people taking when there were Lizzie Kate's in my stash...although a reference to Shannon's Heart In Hand 'pooping bird's' quickly wiped that notion away ;)

This week has been a little hectic. Groceries weren't picked up on the weekend so Monday was shot, I've been buying/arranging installation of some studded tires, Beavers and a kid with ear wax issues...oh and trying to organize my floss finally. I'm just about finished another Mill Hill Santa...woot! Now to just find some down time to wrap the remaining presents I picked up in Moncton, it feels really good to be 90% done Christmas shopping!!

Enabling Alert

Here's one of the gorgeous pieces on the show and tell table. I wasn't big on the Prairie Schooler Santa's until I saw this....

Retreat Pics

A retreat update will follow after a good night's sleep, and figuring out how to summarize an awesome and much needed weekend away!!

But seeing as I won't be able to upload in the morning here are the pics before I head to bed:

Tracy of Fiddlestitch Cottage, myself and Cathey The Flamingo Girls from the South ;)

Cathey and I...and yes there's a story behind this...

My retreat finish by Jeanette Douglas for the ornament exchange, Cathey's 'winnings' are to the left.

Multiplication

Well, I'm beginning to believe the deer are multiplying or involved in some top secret cloning, we've gone from one to to two but now three deer. It was pretty exciting to see three of them on one of our neighbors front lawns, but it made the remainder of the drive a bit nerve wracking as they took off in the direction of our house and I was worried they'd run out in front of the van.

Well tonight wasn't as big a packing success as I had hoped, but I did get some more charts ready to attempt to sell at retreat and some pieces of hand dyed that I'm lacking vision for... ;) Now as promised some pictures...


Alex headed to the Beaver Halloween Party

His latest school pic

A picture before the Halloween festivities

One pooped clown, his deflated pumpkin mother (really I don't usually look that bad but I was too tired to even fix the pony tail) and our pumpkin :)

Trick or Treat

I'm back... The weekend was pretty busy, fun, but busy. Mom and dad were over for a visit Friday evening. Alex was pacing around the picture window from 8 o'clock until they arrived. He tried to convince mom that she should read the Magic Treehouse book to him until 10 o'clock but that didn't work ;)

Saturday we had a nice family brunch and then dad, Alex and I headed to gym and swim. He was soo excited to have his pappy come see his 'new' pool. As much as we loved the facilities at the Northside pool we weren't overly impressed with some of the instructors and found the number of different age groups in the pool distracting. His new pool is older but the fun distractions are gone so he can focus on lessons, the instructors (although there's a mumbler) are great, it's only kids his age in the pool and he can move around level wise if he completes it before the time frame is up. He found getting stuck for 8 weeks at the other pool annoying. After we returned we cleaned up and went to Boston Pizza with mom and dad, that restaurant is Alex's absolute favorite. Being stuffed and tired I napped for the remainder of the afternoon.

Sunday we enjoyed our extra hour of sleep. I got caught up on some Smallville and Desperate Housewives episodes and skipped class due to a cold and the birthday party Alex was invited to and while he was out I had my first trick or treater ever ;) (Matt usually gives out the treats). Faith Ann was by with her DS who was too cute. Then I proceeded to wrap Alex's Christmas gifts and got about half of them done before it was time to pick him up again. Sunday night was divided between cleaning up after a turkey dinner (yum), stitching and playing some computer with Matt, woot!

Monday I took an official sick day, it's not something I do normally but sneezing for 5 minutes straight had me convinced I'd either make people sick or be very distracting. I vegged most of the day. I tried to sleep but was woken up by Rogers, although we finally asked to be removed from the list (they've been calling for weeks but we always seem to be in the telemarket cue), then I had an e-mail that had me a little concerned. I was a good girl though and didn't move too far from the couch. Before I went to pick up Alex I did wrap a couple more of his gifts, anything left to wrap is small, a dvd and some xbox games. What a relief. Matt was having a good laugh at me Sunday, here I was wrapping gifts (and almost done) and he hasn't even thought of what to go shopping for, we're sooo different. I had a stitchy happy dance too...although dancing was more of rolling around on the recliner ;)

Yesterday was a flurry of activity, in the morning I prepped some dip for our potluck and loaded the car with everything we'd need for trick or treating (we trick or treat with Alex's friends directly from work). My little clown was VERY excited to be out (pictures will follow this evening hopefully). After doing the circuit with his friends we visited Faith Ann's (his gummy vampire/frankenstein head is now his most treasured posession ;)) and Alex wanted to move in and after being wound up all day wasn't the most cooperative kid. Sigh. We dropped by the house to pick up Matt and found out we had three trick or treaters (a new record!!) and then headed to his cousin's house. Down on our cul-de-sac I saw a deer, Matt then insisted it was a dog, but as we got closer he concluded it was in fact a small doe. Alex compromised and said it was a dog dressed up as a deer for halloween ;) We finally got to meet Taylor, Matt's cousin's daughter and then returned home to head around our block. I know I complain about the ding bats on one side of us but the rest of our neighbors are very nice people. We even went to our house's 'twin' on the street (it's not often you see a raised ranch on the street, let alone two of them). Although the interior layout isn't like ours at all, I definitely like our living room better ;). I washed my poor little clown when he got home, his happy makeup was looking kind of sad by 8:30, he had a treat and then passed out. I checked the rest of his candy, reclined on the couch until the end of 30 Rock and then rolled into bed too, a 15 hour day is hard on a girl!!

I was going to do groceries tonight but the boys will be in town when I'm gone so I think I'm going to stop being a martyr and ask them to do them for once while I'm away this weekend. The point of a retreat is a break, not to stress myself out about being away before the fact. Now I'll get to prep for retreat instead ;)