february, 2005

kung hei fat choi [happy chinese new year]

february 24

well, i've just checked out when i'm likely to die and not to worry, rumour [and statistics] show i should make it through to 90 [actually 90.2 years of age]. this is a little short of the 100 i was hoping for, but as they point out, there's always time to improve things. if it doesn't make you too queezy, check out the life span calculator.

i really shouldn't read those magazines in the doctor's office. if this sort of bizarre thing interests you, there's a whole list of the things at CanadianContent, including the good old death timer. hey, you could do them all and take your average!

our biggest news is probably the reading progress of the children. aly is excellent at guessing the meaning of words by looking at the pictures and flicks through a book as quickly as possible. toby wants to sit down and patiently read [or be helped to read] a whole book. it's very strange since toby has never really been interested in books - he'd much rather look at a magazine with adverts for cars than a story book, but i guess being able to read some of the words himself makes books suddenly useful for him. aly is getting annoyed that i ask too many questions about what a word might be and ruin the story for her, so i've backed off with her.

a good example of this, and indeed, their individual approaches to life, was on the way home from the library: they both had a book to look at and both wanted me to read them to them. i asked them to read them to me instead [since i was driving]. aly told me a fairly accurate version of her whole story [by looking at the pictures] and toby read "and... it... was.... he... and... the" etc. ie. just the words he knew. his story was much less interesting but more technically correct!

the weather here has been beautiful. sunny for a couple of weeks and warm [16 degrees c today]. no doubt there'll be some rain on the way, but i'll enjoy it while i can. the weather was so nice at the weekend in victoria that i even voluntarily did some gardening. we had a lovely weekend there - the usual thing - aly disappearing to do horsey things all weekend, me organising [tax receipts for the most part!] [see nikki, my sister-in-law's, blog with her publisher for details on the progress of her writing and my attempts to organise her!], toby riding his little tractor around the place etc.

aly is upstairs peeling mushrooms for me and i've just heard her say to toby: "toby will you help me with the mushrooms because there's really a lot of them and i just keep wanting to eat them all"! maybe i should go and supervise a little more closely. having said that, if the worst that happens is that all the vegetables get eaten before dinner, i'm not really complaining. we had been having a very big battle with mealtimes in the past 6 months but just recently things seem to have smoothed out a little; they're willing to try new things and are much better dinner guests! next battle is to stop them bickering - of course that could be a lifelong hobby like kellie and myself.

all the photos are now live (see 2005 photos for the latest). i've also gone through the laborious process of updating the useless facts page. i don't know who's ridiculous idea that page was. make sure you all read all of them thoroughly to make it worthwhile! next task is to get all my scrapbook pages online. oh for a 12x12 scanner bed!

BTW ['By The Way' for future reference for you non-techies] there were only 2 mushrooms left when i went to check on them!

february 16

well, i'm halfway there with my latest photos (see 2004 photos). i think i have everything up from 2004. i've just got the beginning of this year to sort out now. today i ordered 150 prints from london drugs [39c a print at the moment and their quality IS the best] because i'd actually run out of things to scrapbook - i'm up to december of 2004 which is probably my personal best for being caught up.

the children are well [between colds no doubt] and remarkably well behaved - perhaps because i'm thinking of getting a job and so bombarding them with all sorts of little projects i want to do with them before i don't have any time [you know - building solar systems etc. :-) ]

the weather has been beautiful - cold-ish but wonderful clear views across the snowy mountains.

right, it's 1a.m. i should probably get some sleep..zzzzzzz

february 10

my updating is a little lacking but it's been a busy couple of weeks. we found a house which we both really like. now we just have to find someone who really likes us and wants to give us a mortgage. after visiting a few daycares, i found one i'd be happy with. i'm still not overjoyed about putting them in daycare but alas. now i just need to find a job.

speaking of jobs, kellie has a new one in london [wimbledon] doing whatever it is she likes to do [analysing dirt or something] and has found somewhere to live. contrary to her claims of having no social life, my parents tell me they can't visit for a few weeks because she has friends over.

toby had the day of his life on saturday. it began with his favourite thing of the week - a sports variety class which he goes to with sasch. this week was soccer where he apparently scored a hatrick [the only kid of 12 to score anything]. this was followed by a birthday party at go bananas then onto the big monster truck show at bc place in the evening. he always likes things catching fire [boys are just strange at times] and a couple of cars did and one of the monster trucks broken up spectacularly so apparently this made it all a very successful evening!

february 1

more house hunting, more childcare debating. think we're about 90% certain that we're going to stay in the same village at least.

my wonderful sister-in-law, nikki, volunteered to take the children back to victoria early with her when she was visiting us on thursday - giving sascha and i the opportunity to go to the casino [where we only parted with a small amount of money on the stupid wheel of fortune game] after my board meeting on thursday evening. it also gave me the opportunity to get some blood tests done on friday morning [without aly freaking-out/throwing-up at the sight of blood] followed by a full work day on my web stuff at home. hooray! it IS possible to work at home. the kids had a great time on their little adventure and it doesn't seem to have put the in-laws off having them to stay by themselves in the future.

the weekend in victoria was very nice - we were celebrating christmas finally with sascha's other sister, tonya, and her girls. there was lots of horse riding/horse carting [is that the proper horsey term?!] for the 3 girls and toby got to drive around the property on his new john deere tractor so he was a very happy boy. the horses, goats and cats even got used to him after a while.

photos to follow i promise, but i've just dropped the kids off at their new childminder for a couple of hours for the first time so i really have to do some proper work.

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