Headlines

THE YEAR'S BEST (actual) HEADLINES OF 2006

Most of the year's gone by, but they are pretty neat,so...enjoy!

Crack Found on Governor's Daughter
Imagine that!


Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says
No, really?



Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers
Now that's taking things a bit far!



Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over
What a guy!


Miners Refuse to Work after Death
No-good-for-nothing' lazy so-and-sos!



Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant
See if that works any better than a fair trial!


War Dims Hope for Peace
I can see where it might have that effect!



If Strike Isn't Settled Quickly, It May Last Awhile
You think?!



Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures
Who would have thought!


Enfield Couple Slain; Police Suspect Homicide
They may be on to something!


Red Tape Holds Up New Bridges
You mean there's something stronger than duct tape?!


Man Struck By Lightning: Faces Battery Charge
He probably IS the battery charge!


New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group
Weren't they fat enough?!


Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft
That's what he gets for eating those beans!

Kids Make Nutritious Snacks
Taste like chicken?


Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half
Chainsaw Massacre all over again!


Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors
Boy, are they tall!


And the winner is....

Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead
Did I read that right?

Blondes and Snow in Michigan

This just made me laugh! :)

One winter morning a husband and wife in northern Michigan were listening to the radio during breakfast. They heard the announcer say, "We are going to have 8 to 10 inches of snow today. You must park your car on the even-numbered side of the street, so the snowplows can get through." So the good wife went out and moved her car. A week later while they are eating breakfast again, the radio announcer said, "We are expecting 10 to 12 inches of snow today. You must park your car on the odd-numbered side of the street, so the snowplows can get through." The good wife went out and moved her car again. The next week they are again having breakfast, when the radio announcer says, "We are expecting 12 to 14 inches of snow today. You must park..." Then the electric power went out. The good wife was very upset, and with a worried look on her face she said, "Honey, I don't know what to do. Which side of the street do I need to park on so the snowplows can get through? "With the love and understanding in his voice that all men who are married to Blondes exhibit, the husband replied, "Why don't you just leave it in the garage this time?"

Life this week

Life has been....shall I say a challenge this week in our household.

Monday.. I see lights dancing, everything is blurry, I get dizzy, VERY freaking when one is driving a car on London roads. Pull over. AH safe. Go into pharmacy, watch self closely so don't fall over. Get back into car, Jim drives. YEAH!

MASSIVE HEADACHE! BLURRY VISION. I am NOT a happy camper.

I even take something because pain is bad. (I hate taking stuff)

Make doctor's appointment, go in Tuesday evening. Jim at meeting, Eva comes down to care for Justin.

Doc hems and haws. Threatens to send me to UH because wonders if I have brain bleed. But is not sure because some of my symptoms indicate migraine. Ends up making me promise that I will take myself in if I don't get better, or if I get worse, said he was 75-85% sure that it was a migraine, but a somewhat odd one.

The next day it's a wee bit better but I feel like I've been beaten over a head with a brick. Thursday I was just TIRED. Like just massively tired. Today (Friday) I'm fine. :)

Well...except for the fact that I tripped over a child gate and now have a badly sprained left foot. NOT FUN! Went to emerg...not broken, badly sprained, stay off it and elevate it. Take pain stuff if I need it.

And through it all, my hubbie, my sweet, generally patient hubbie, is fighting um...what shall I say here.... lack of being able to write sermons. It's Friday night, he's been working hard all week and has NOTHING (Well four pages) but basically nothing! FRUSTRATING!!!!! So not quite as patient.....

Makes him tired.
Makes me want to help and I generally end up not helping, and somehow I end up thinking that I make things worse.... ARGH!

And the old dog Riley has been battling diarrhea this week. Almost hit me with it this morning. I was unimpressed --- BUT very glad that I was smart enough to move quickly. :) he walks all sad and old looking. ARGH!!!! Now I can worry about the old dog too!

Do I sound like a whiney child yet? :)

So on a positive note
1. I made a brand new recipe for a meatloaf that Jim really likes! he does! it's too spicy for my taste...but he likes it! YEAH!!!! I like making him happy! :)
2. Justin ate good today!
3. I got the fridge cleaned out, the counter well cleaned
4. the boy was well-read too, fed, cleaned, pajama-ed, and bedded. :)
5. the dogs were walked...by Jim this afternoon (they had a good walk this morning).

So life isn't completely bad...just been a bit rough this week.....

Ear tubes in Place

So Justin's surgery went well.

He has tubes in his ears now.

He did have yet another ear infection so is on antibiotics again.

We have to watch for bleeding and such like. And he's not to play soccer or engage in other active behaviours for about a week (not that at 19 months he's into soccer). :)

Eva came up to assist since we're all rather bagged.

Thank you for your prayers.

Justin's surgery

So our boy Justin has his pre-admittance tests on February 12 at 215 p.m.

He then is booked for surgery on February 16, 2007 at 1115 a.m. This time line might change as they do the children in order of age. Youngest first and then up the line from there.

Night at the Museum

Jim and I saw this movie, Night at the Museum, yesterdaynafternoon. We were two of about 8 people in the theatre.

What a fun movie. It's been a while since we've done a movie together, so it was nice to just sit and watch a good movie together. Good laughs, not a whole lot of nasty stuff in it. I didn't even get scared... a wee bit alarmed perhaps first with the dinasour, but nothing too bad. :) Something I could see renting when Justin hits about 8 or so. :) Ben Stiller did a good job.

For other reviews of this movie, feel free to check out these here.

Update on Our Boy

My wife posted on her blog the following update:

The scoop so far

Okay,
on Tuesday our boy had another appointment with the ENT. We had thought
that perhaps he had another ear infection, turns out he didn't AND his
perforated ear is no longer perforated!!!!



Found out that they
have developed a new plan for doing the ear tube surgery, where if we
get everything done for pre-op, our boy might not have to wait until
March for his surgery, but could have it in as little as two weeks.
Pretty cool huh?!?!?!



So he had his physical today at the doctor's office.



His
lungs are clear, so we're not sure why the cough remains. Doctor says
he's looking pretty good other than his ears being fairly messy. So now
all we have to do is go through all the pre-admittance stuff which
hopefully will be next week and then we wait!



Hopefully it will happen quickly.

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Our Dogs

 

Our dogs

Going through some picture

As I was going through some pictures I stumbled upon this video of our boy eating pasta. As you can see, he likes his pasta a lot.



Here is a picture of what the results of this rather unorthodox way of eating pasta.


And here is an even better one.

Timeron has "crossed the bridge" that is "He died"

Yes, I know...I don't believe that animals cross a rainbow bridge... but it is a somewhat nice euphamism....unless of course you see different connotations in the whole "rainbow" part of the bridge...which apparently some people do. Weird.

Anyways, blogger was being stupid and not letting me post a pic so... let's try this from photobucket, not sure how it will work..but giving it a shot anyways. okay...that picture was just WAY too huge to share here... BUT my hubbie darling helped me out AND I learned something new....now to remember it! :)



Today my sweet old pig (correction --- our sweet old guinea pig) died.

He had turned from a sweet old pig into a rather crotchey old man with "issues".

He died just after lunch today, the boy was in bed.

Timeron was a good pig....sired several good looking youngsters. Brought us in some needed cash. :) He liked to nibble fingers ... not to hurt, just to check you out. Was calm for nail clippings. Liked to swim -- has a daughter the same way. He was for most of his life a good solid well-behaved pig.

I'm glad he lasted until after Christmas. :)

Nothing to look at here

A shocker t'is

Our boy owns this book.

It's a simple little book. Man wants an apple on April fool's day, man gets an apple from a man who wants to play an aprils fools joke on him, and the joke ends up being turned back on the original joker. It's actually quite intriguing to follow the story of what happens with this apple.

Anyways, our boy loves to look at this book while he's sitting on the potty. He'll sit there for 10 minutes just 'reading' away quite contented.

I was quite shocked when I went looking for a picture of this book so I could blog on it. The lowest price I found for it, and that was used, average quality, was $42. The highest was $70 and that was brand new. I"m SHOCKED!

We got this book free at a garage sale. No one wanted it and the lady just wanted it gone.

It's a simple little book. Technically a bit too advanced for his age level.

Written by an individual named Jan Loof. (scandanvian perhaps??)

As I told my hubbie, now I feel really bad that our boyo ripped a page in the book tonight as he was a bit too aggressive in finding the exact page that he wanted (where the apple falls on an old woman's head) Just loves that page for some reason. :)

So... a dilemma.... do I continue to let our boy look at this book over and over and over again, knowing that he might totally destroy it (or might not)? OR do I monitor his actions closely while letting him look at it, knowing that it might make him more pushy with it? OR do I hide it on him and see if I can sell it for $40?? :)

This Pastor Has Guts! - email mostly true

Here's the email that I received today.

This Pastor has guts!!

Thought you might enjoy this interesting prayer given in Kansas at the opening session of their Senate.

It seems prayer still upsets some people. When Minister Joe Wright was asked to open the new session of the Kansas Senate, everyone was expecting the usual generalities, but this is what they heard:

"Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, 'Woe to those who call evil good,' but that is exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values. We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery. We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare. We have killed our unborn and called it choice. We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable . We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem . We have abused power and called it politics. We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition . We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression. We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment. Search us, Oh, God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Amen!"

The response was immediate. A number of legislators walked out during the prayer in protest!

In 6 short weeks, Central Christian Church, where Rev. Wright is pastor, logged more than 5,000 phone calls with only 47 of those calls responding negatively. The church is now receiving international requests for copies of this prayer from India, Africa and Korea.

Commentator Paul Harvey aired this prayer on his radio program, "The Rest of the Story," and received a larger response to this program than any other he has ever aired.

With the Lord's help , may this prayer sweep over our nation and wholeheartedly become our desire so that we again can be called "one nation under God."

Here's is the link for the Truth of this tale.

This particular email isn't all that far from the total truth.

As the website says: one person did walk out, Paul Harvey did air it, and it was controversial. The prayer as written above does not appear to be same that was given. Please check out the website to learn more of the whole story.

He sits on the big toilet too!

So I must say, I am kinda enjoying this...the not having to change as many wet/dirty diapers deal.

He still wears them, but that's because mommy isn't always quick enough on the uptake to read his body language properly. Or mommy lets him get distracted when he's signalled he wants to go potty but decides that "thus and such along the way" is infinitely more attractive at the moment. Or we're going for a walk, or a car ride, or whatever where doing the quick bathroom break isn't an option.

BUT it is nice.

And it is funny to see his excitement at sitting on his potty on the big boy toilet too! Oh my. It's just too much sometimes for a little boy. :) I don't know how long it will last....

Daddy's thinking he'll build a step stool for Justin soon.

Nasty side-effect though. He's decided that everything should go in the toilet now too. His stuffies (unless mommy is too quick), his small toys, the toilet paper rolls, you name it, he's tried it. Calls for some quick thinking on the part of mommy and daddy.

Snow! We have TONS of snow!

You would NEVER believe how much snow we have gotten in the past 24 hours. It is just unbelievable! It's also really, really cool!

Sassy rolled and rolled and rolled on our walk this morning.

Riley slipped and fell and looked old, and then started to look happy.

I slipped and fell, felt old and tired, then met people and chatted with them about the snow and all was well again.

Isn't snow fun! :)

Rather Unpleasant Past Month

Those of you who check in here regularly may have noticed that we have not posted anything for a fairly long time. The reason for that is that for the past 4 weeks or so, at least one of us (often more than one) has been ill. It all started at the start of the second week of November with a stomach ailment that first Justin got, then Annette and finally myself. That lasted for two to three weeks. Just as we got over that and were feeling more ourselves, I came down with something else that made me feel absolutely horrible. That only lasted several days, but during that time Justin got a cold. Annette got it as well and lost her voice. Now I have the cold with a wonderful congested chest that results in lots of coughing at night. That means little sleep for myself and Annette who I keep awake. That is where we are now. Thankfully, Justin seems to be getting over it, and Annette has her voice back for the most part. I am hoping that my cold will go quickly as well.

All this has made Annette wonder if we have a mold problem in our house. I guess it is possible. When I moved in 8 years back there was a smell in the house. As the years went by I started to get colds and respitory infections more frequently that lasted longer than normal. Eventually we traced the culprit to the sub-floor in the basement which when pulled up had mold covering the whole bottom of it.

Once that was removed things got much better, but lately it seems things are getting worse. Justin seems to have colds all the time, especially now that the windows are closed because of the cold winter weather, and neither Annette nor myself are feeling that good either. I'm not sure if the house is infected with mold or not, but if this continues we will have to find out.

Now you know why we haven't posted for a while on our blog.

He learns new things

Justin still just loves watching the fish. he thinks they are just so cool. He climb up to visit them. Sit and watch them for minutes at a time. So to keep him out of the fish tank, we've given him a new job. he feeds the fish. every other day at night. That way we can say, "Justin, it's not time to feed the fish, we'll feed them later". It works! he's learning to keep his hands OUT of the aquariums. :)

He also helps his mommy feed the guinea pigs. He loves holding that carrot and bringing to the piggies.

He "helps" mommy make suppers too. Though I must admit, it does make getting the meals a bit harder since I have to watch out for little hands.

He helps mommy to water the plants. This is teaching him to leave them alone except when he holds the pots still so the plants don't run away while mommy waters them. :) what can I say...parenthood is teaching me creative thinking. :)

He's learning to clean up his toys (but that's hard!).

He helps mommy get the mail. His favourite part of the mail is peering diligently into the slot to see if mommy left anything behind. I must admit, Sassy dislikes him helping as it means she doesn't get too!

He helps mommy to go to the library almost every week as well. :)

he helps mommy to walk the dogs in the afternoon. he is starting now to hold Sassy's leash. he finds Riley's is just TOO heavy for him.

He's a great little helper.

I HATE THE FLU!

I know...what we had was probably NOT the "flu". You know that really nasty virus that affects your respiratory system and makes you feel totally ick? But what we had was NOT fun at all!!!!!!

First Justin got sick. NOT FUN. Jim was gone for the weekend. I got stressed and tired and just hated this sickness thing.

Then I got sick. While in Toronto visiting friends. Not fun. Shortly thereafter Jim got sick... really not fun at all! We returned home. No vacation this week!

Justin stayed sick until Saturday afternoon. He still is completely better BUT for the most part he is back to being a happy, into everything, let's play with this and that and help mommy with this and that normal little boy who is NOT into cuddling. He is still a wee bit of a cuddle monster, but not as bad as he was.

I got better Saturday as well, which is really cool.

Jim on the other hand is still under the weather a fair bit. He was up most of Saturday night visiting the local bathroom. He is TIRED! understandably so!

We're really hoping no one else gets it. I learned in church (went to exeter CRC) that the pastor there had it, and a few others have had it in their church as well. So...we're not isolated...just not appreciative of this particular side-affect of sin in the world. BUT we are thankful that God sustained us through this all.

And very much aware of the blessing of a helpful mom (Jim's mom) through it all.

Golf Clubs for Sale

I filled in a survey.

By doing so I entered a contest.

I won! Yes, me, who rarely wins anything. I won! It's my big news for the week!

They are Northwestern Golf 835 TS Ladies Graphite Club Set. 11 clubs, came in a box with no bag.

Set Includes:

* 8 irons (PW-3)
* 3 woods (1, 3 & 5)

* Woods feature forgiving clubhead which allow you to easily get the ball down the middle of the fairway
* Irons have forgiving cavity back clubhead that make even your miss-hits land on the green
* Comes fitted with the Ultimate ProFlex 88 Ladies Flex low torque graphite shaft

Kinda cool huh?

Now to sell them since I don't golf. Anyone want them? I will sell them to someone who wants to give me what they are worth. They originally retailed for $350 in an Ontario on-line store. That doesn't mean I want $350, but I'd take it, but give me a reasonable offer and they will be yours complete with a happy smile. :)

Life while Jim was away

While Jim was away I was able to get a lot of cleaning done in the house. It was good to get that done.

I also took Justin to baby group on Thursday morning. He's the only one who showed up which meant... NO SHARING of toys needed. Justin liked that. Long nap in afternoon.

Friday we went to toddler time at the library which is story and craft time. He liked that too. He liked playing with the stuffed dinasour. Long nap in afternoon.

Saturday we popped in to Sola Scriptura to their book sale. Picked up a couple of books for me, and a few for Justin. None for Jim since I don't know what he needs yet. :)

Saturday Justin was fussy all day. learned why in the evening. He got the flu! (okay..as Jim would say...not the flu...just a tummy upset) No fever last night, that came Sunday morning. But he tossed his cookies quite a few times. Didn't settle to bed until midnight, up at 200 because was thirsty...gave him just a wee bit of warm water just to see if it would stay down. It did, so 20 minutes later I gave him more to drink. He sort of settled but not really, at 330 I gave him a bottle of tang and that seemed to do the trick. He slept until 930 a.m.

Had a wee bit for breakfast and back to bed at 1130. Tired boy. Running a fever today. Gave some advil to help settle his tummy. Called a lady from church to do me the immense favour of picking up some more advil for him. Not so nice to be a sick little boy.

My hubbie called!!!! Jim is on his way home. He had a wonderful time!

I have decided that I really, really, really strongly dislike Jim being away when Justin is sick. BUT I am thankful for helpful ladies in church and for Jim having a great time away. God is good.