Liam's hockey game on NHL ice was fun. It was a little crowded because they had 6 teams out on the ice at the same time. It was very well organized and I'm pretty impressed because there were a lot of kids there. Got some great pictures of Liam on the ice and I'm pretty sure he had a good time. He was so proud of the medal he got for participating in the day.


This picture is courtesy of Rich. It's one of my favourites.

I made brown sugar cookies for Valentine's Day. I rolled out the dough and cut out hearts. Olivia helped me decorate them with candy sprinkles in red, purple and pink.

Went to dodgeball Valentine's Day and brought the kids to watch us play. I hung back a lot this time out and played pretty poorly throughout. I was generally the first person out and all of my balls were caught by someone on the other team. Good news? I didn't get a ball to the face or head the entire night!

I've been invited to Facebook by my sister. It's kind of fun since almost all of my cousins are there. I don't really know my cousins all that well as I'm the oldest and for all intents and purposes am pretty much another generation from them. But it's nice to have some contact with them in addition to the random family gatherings I would normally see them at only once or twice a year. I would love to see some more of my friends up there. I guess I'll have to send out some invites and get people I actually know using Facebook too. There's actually quite a lot of crap out there but I think it would be fun to have a nice circle of friends.

Have also continued my Oscar movie-watching mission. This week I rented The Departed and Marie Antoinette.
The Departed was pretty good. I enjoyed it and the end just went all hog-wild crazy! Like a Shakespeare tragedy for crying out loud. Very entertaining of course. I didn't like Matt Damon's character at all. I mean, he played him so well I think and he's just not so nice. He did a good job. Mark Wahlberg cracked me up with his quips all the time and Alec Baldwin was really good too. and um yeah... Leo is pretty hot! and I suppose I should mention that he acted pretty well too.

I enjoyed Marie Antoinette too. It's not an overly exciting film and it's to be expected from Sofia Coppola. It was so delicious to watch though. It's definitely my pick for Best Costume. It was interesting from an educational perspective though how much of it is actually true is up in the air. I should probably do some research on who Marie Antoinette was and what happened to her. I liked the story though and see the French queen in a new light. I also enjoyed the modern twist that went along with the period costumes and sets. I've been to Versailles twice now and loved it immensely. It's one of my favourite places in the world that I've been. I think it's because my best friend first took me there and she showed me through the castle translating all the french museum placards for me and giving me so much of the history of the place that she learned in school there. She then finished our tour by stating that she was making up a lot of the stuff she had told me (well the museum plaques anyway) though I'm pretty sure she was accurate on the history lesson. My favourite part of our trip though was the Petit Triannon, Marie Antoinette's country getaway. It's so quaint and beautiful and Michelle and I picked houses from the village as our own. The second time I went back with Greg I told him which house was mine and which was Michelle's. He then got to pick his own too. Such good memories!
I've just rented Flags of Our Fathers thinking that it was one of the Best Movie nominees. I confused it with Letters from Iwo Jima though. But Flags is up for Sound Editing or something so I'll hopefully watch it this weekend.

Posted Feb 13 2007

dammit. I feel like the worst mom this morning.

You see, Liam has Spirit Week at school this week. Yesterday it was pyjama day. Today is crazy hair day.
The boy has very little hair. I cut it short all the time. Granted it is getting a bit long but there's really nothing I can do to make it crazy other than to let him go to school with bed head (not an option this morning since I gave him a bath before school) or put gel in it to style it crazy-like.
Normally I would do this without hesitation. Crazy Hair Day? hell yeah! let's make the little dude's hair stand up on end all over!
However today it's -24C (-34C with the windchill) outside. The kid has to wear his toque. Any style I could put his hair in would be ruined and gone by the time he arrived at school. In addition, his class is supposed to go skating this afternoon. Helmet! (unfortunately, due to the extreme cold, the kids may not go skating. but regardless, his crazy hair would not have worked today.)

The thing is, he was so excited to make his hair crazy. He suggested that I colour it green. :( I don't have green hair colour for him. I hoped to put a wig on him, one of those colourful afro clown wigs that Olivia got in her dress-up chest for her birthday. However, the wig has disappeared. I think I left it at my parent's place. :(
He was so deflated and disappointed leaving home this morning. And he was nearly in tears getting on his bus. I was a little suprised that he was so keen to make his hair crazy. But at the bus stop with all the kids talking about their crazy hair and admiring each other's crazy hair, I could see how left out he felt. oh my heart breaks for him.
I'm hoping that he can get through the day without feeling too bad. I told him before he got on the bus that he'll be going skating this aft and that he can look forward to that. I think he's a strong kid. He'll feel bad for a little bit but I think he'll get distracted once he's at school. I hope so... :(

Posted Feb 9 2007

Today has been a bit of an ordeal for me. well looking back on it now, it wasn't too bad but I just want to rant some more about if you don't mind.

I woke at 5:30am today to bring hubby to the airport. This wasn't part of the ordeal though. I'm happy to bring the man to the airport so we can see him right before he heads out. I really don't like to send him (or anyone else really for that matter) off to the airport in a cab. I get this from my mom. I want to be there to wave goodbye and blow kisses as people departing go through the security gates. With Greg and particularly this morning we only dropped him off in front of the departures terminal but in essence we were there to wave goodbye and blow kisses. And yes, the kids were with me.
So when we got home an hour later I put the kids back in bed to sleep for at least an hour longer. The boy didn't manage a wink but the girl slept until 9am. At 8:45 I managed to get myself out of bed so I could feed the boy breakfast and get him off to school before the whole morning went by.

After dropping off the boy at school, Olivia and I went for a nice breakfast together. I took her to Cora's where she had the scrambled eggs breakfast (her favourite was the toast with blueberry jam which I really could have made for her at home *rolls eyes*) and I had the waffles mounded with custard, bananas and chocolate hazelnut spread. yum yum yum!

We then headed to Farm Boy to pick up some of the good yogurt I'm taking to avoid cankers (contains L. acidophilus and it's non-fat and sugar-free to boot). Also picked up some more rice pasta and bananas.
Then I went to EB to look for a Wii for Rich (no dice).

Then began my ordeal...
I went to Future Shop to check for a Wii. Then I went to the cell phone booth to get my phone fixed. First of all, there was no one in the cell phone area. I suppose it's not too surprising. There weren't many people floating around looking for assistance and it was a Friday morning. I had to wait a few minutes for someone to notice I needed help and then a few minutes more for an actual cell phone associate to come over. The man who came by was relatively helpful and directed me to the customer service desk to find my invoice to see if my phone was still under warranty. He said that if it was past a year since I purchased the phone it may not be under warranty. Nice guy, helpful, directed me where I needed to go next. Good service.
At the customer service desk I spoke to a nice enough woman who made a couple of calls for me. She checked with another sales associate to confirm that this was a phone that could be repaired. She had the notion that it might only have been under a 90 day warranty, but the person on the line said it should be fine, that we'd be looking at at least a year warranty. After I gave her my name and contact information she was able to find my original purchase invoice and found that I actually have a 3 year warranty on the phone! It's been over a year though so I'm only covered for repair and they need to send the phone out to get assessed. I think if it were under a year they would have just given me a new phone. argh... that's what happens when you procrastinate.

ok, a little history about my phone. Ever since I bought it I have had intermittent problems with making outgoing calls, almost from the day I bought it. I didn't see it as too much of a problem at the time. perhaps it was a glitch, something that would just go away. it was odd at first but then as time went on the problem started happening more and more and was getting increasingly frustrating. It was getting to the point that I wouldn't be able to make a call at all, I could only txt out. I would turn my phone on and off, kind of to reboot it, and I might get a call through but more often than not, I still wouldn't be able to call out. I called Telus last week to see if it might be a network problem but from our troubleshooting it looked like a handset problem. And so my trip to Future Shop to get my phone repaired.

So the next call the customer service rep makes is to see if I can get a replacement phone in the meantime that my old phone is out for repair. It worked out that FS would sell me a phone that I could use and then when my phone comes back I could bring the replacement back for a full refund. not a bad compromise. I really would have preferred that they just give me a replacement but I could go with this. The service rep was a nice woman, somewhat friendly and very helpful. I got the sense that she wasn't optimistic that we could pull this off but everything came together through her. Good work!
Back off to the cellphone booth I went to get me a new phone. They gave me a refurb model which came to the same price as my current phone. Not too much money out of my pocket especially if I was going to get it back. Then I asked if they could transfer all my info from my old phone before I sent it for repairt to the new phone. The man was very friendly and said that they couldn't do that there but that if he had the equipment to do so, it wouldn't have been a problem. Instead he was nice enough to suggest going to a Telus store directly where they did have the equipment but would unfortunately cost some money for the service. Not a problem. For $15 it's worth my time to get it done instead of spending whatever time it would take for me to add all my numbers in manually. This sales associate was also kind enough to direct me to the nearest Telus location. Excellent service. I was very happy leaving Future Shop.

Then I drove to Telus. In the store, the nice lady stated that in fact she couldn't do the transfer in her store because she was an independent location without access to the necessary equipment. She directed me to one of the mall locations that could help me. Not a problem. She was helpful, friendly and wished me a good day. It might help if I explain that this story is going to become a gripe about customer service.

So off I go to the next location in my goal to get my phone fixed. At the Telus store in the Carlingwood Mall I find a very friendly and personable young man who is more than willing to help me. This guy epitomized what customer service means to me. I explained to him the service I needed of transferring my old data to the new phone. He understood my request and explained that he would first need to establish that there would be no software conflicts between my phone and his equipment. He was very clear about what he was going to do, very polite and told me how long it would take for him to carry this out. He made sure that my new phone was ready to take the new info and went off to do it. Several times in the process he got back to me as I waited to tell me what he was doing and how much longer it would take. Unfortunately, at the end he couldn't manage the task. Apparently there was a conflict between my software and his equipment and it wasn't able to recognize my old phone to transfer the data. Sure this wasn't good news, but the man was so polite I certainly couldn't fault him for the bad news. He did direct me to another mall where I might have some luck but at this point it felt like I had already been all over town. I didn't want to make another trip to another mall. I decided that I would simply transfer my info manually.
I bought Olivia an ice cream (she was with me all this time and was really very good and patient about the whole thing) and we had a sit-down while she ate and I punched in numbers and names.
Once I had all the info transfered and double checked my work I deleted all personal info from the phone so it could go off for repair. We left the mall to return to Future Shop. It was 2:30p by this time!

At Future Shop I went directly to the customer service desk. The man was efficient and got all the information he needed to send my phone out. He was very polite and got the job done in no time. Then he sent me back to the cellphone booth to have my new phone put on the network.
Really, all the service I received up to this point was pretty good. The guy from the Telus store was exemplary (in fact I should try to send a comment to the store or Telus in general telling them how happy I was with this guy's service), but I had no issues with all the rest of the people I dealt with all day. All pretty friendly, polite and helpful.
Then things went downhill and fast. Again, there was no one at the cellphone booth so I had to go search someone out to get someone to help me. He called over a young man to help me out. I explained to him that I needed to have my new phone put on the network under my current contract. You know, I'd been running around pretty much all day to get this sorted out. I hadn't returned home since 10am and was up at 5:30am to top things off.
So the guy tells me, "You know, you can call Telus yourself and get this done." And my thought was, "You know, I've been doing this for long enough today, I'm going to indulge myself and get you to do your job and do this for me." Of course what I said was, "I'm already here, I'd like you to do this for me."
The guy was obviously put out that I would ask him to do such a demeaning task for me. Gone was any attempt at being nice and whatever friendly smile he might have been trying for, totally disappeared. Now I can understand perhaps wanting to handle a customer issue that might involve a hefty expensive purchase in the end, but being a sales rep in a huge big-box electronics outfit I think that sucking up to any customer who comes into the place would be part of the job. You may not need to be happy about it but you sure as hell shouldn't piss me off. I really felt like telling the guy that if he didn't want to do this for me then he should get someone else over here that wouldn't give me attitude about it. Lucky for him I'm the type to just sit by and let things like that go. Well, to their faces anyway. I have no problems bitching about it afterwards.
Anyway, like I said, I can let it go because whatever, in the end I'll have a replacement phone on the network and the guy need never provide service to me again because I sure as hell won't be going to him to purchase anything in the future. So the guy sulked on the phone to Telus to get my phone set up and he asks me if I understand that there is a $25 charge for putting a new phone on the network.
Well, this just made my head explode. boom. It was one thing for me to put up with this stupid guy giving me flack for asking him to do his job but he becomes the bearer of the news that my carrier is going to charge me to put this replacement phone on the network so I can continue to get the service that I'm already paying for! wtf?!?
I sure as hell wanted to rag out on this guy just for being a dick but of course it wasn't his fault Telus was going to charge me. *rolls eyes* grrrrr... not really the best ending for something that took me almost all day to get done.

I left the store pretty pissed off and typically I would just fume and stew about it and rant to whoever will listen. This time though I decided that Telus wasn't going to charge me for this. You know, I could have just put my contract on hold while my phone went out for repair. But instead I chose to buy a new phone so I could keep on giving money to Telus. There was no way I was going to let them get away with making me pay a fee to do that.
So I got on the phone with Telus and told the nice lady to credit the charge. I explained the situation and she was nice enough to accommodate me. Of course, she was not really happy to do it but as far as I'm concerned they made me a much happier customer by swallowing a piddly $25 fee.

Looking back on it now I had pretty good service and assistance from all the people I had to deal with. It took only a single person with a bad attitude to ruin the entire experience for me.

but... life goes on and I'm over it.

From now on I will be excerpting some of my posts from LiveJournal. That's my other blog that I update more regularly. In my attempt to remain more updated I will posts excerpts here so that you can get a feel for my everyday life and what's going on with me.

This post has some info that the previous post had but with some additional detail:

Posted Feb 8 2007
The day I updated last, Greg was in Dallas and I ended up going to his dodgeball game as his sub. I was rather fearful as I had no idea what to expect. You know I'd seen Dodgeball the movie and it looks fun but you can't get over the vision of being in grade school and being the last one on the court with a bunch of big guys on the other team all loaded with dodgeballs and you in their crosshairs. Will it hurt if I get hit with ball? Will I be able to throw the ball? Will I totally suck and get put out first every game? It's silly and it's just a recreational game but you just don't know if you've never gone.

So I brought the kids to K&J's for babysitting and headed out the game with Rich. I sat out the first game to see how it all worked and then played every other game after. I will admit that it was a lot of fun. I don't have to be that good, I don't have to throw that well, I don't have to catch the ball, I don't have to get the other team out. It was really just fun. The team members are a bunch of good folk and they're very supportive and cheer everyone on. They'd never met me but they were very friendly and outgoing.
I did get 2 shots to the head. One of the balls just grazed my ear and I was fine even though the shot came from this big guy with a wicked arm. The other shot however I got square in the face. My vision was a little fuzzy and I had to sit out the rest of the game. It didn't really hurt though, it was more of a shock I suppose. And the ball came at me so fast that I couldn't do anything to protect myself. I was like a deer caught in headlights, I could not move!
It was a good night and we ended up winning by one game! woohoo

***

Friday, Liam had a PD day so I packed up the kids and trekked out to Montreal to visit my best friend from high school, Michelle, and her 2 girls. I left home around 11am and we were in Montreal by 1pm.
We went up to her apartment which I hadn't seen since they moved in last year and exchanged gifts for the kids. Michelle was so nice to buy my kids some presents so I brought up some gifts for the girls.
Then we had lunch at St Hubert (which is kind of like the french Swiss Chalet). We then headed up to Mount Royal to do some sledding. They also have an outdoor skating rink there but the kids chose to toboggan instead. It's a great site for winter activities and we went at a good time as the hill was almost empty. We had the run of the hill!
By 4:30p a light snow was starting to fall and the kids were running out of steam. I opted to leave Montreal early and head home to avoid being out on the roads too late. It was an excellent visit though and this weekend, Michelle and the family plan on coming here to take in some skating on the Rideau Canal.
It all worked out fine since Liam had a hockey practice at 7am the next day so we were back in town for it.

When we got in, we visited at Rich's for a bit and I decided to put the kids to bed there. Rich was babysitting his niece so we made it a movie night so I could keep him company. Unfortunately I fell asleep during the movie so I have to make another viewing. More on what we watched below.
When Rich's brother arrived home I left the kids at Rich's and went home to sleep. It was a short nap since I got up again at 6am to get Liam to his hockey practice. I can't believe that of all the times I take Liam to hockey, the 7am practice is the one I actually get to early! But I did it, and the boy had a great practice.

After the practice I went back to Rich's to get the girl and ended up having breakfast there. Then Andre asked if Olivia could stay for the afternoon since she keeps Isabelle entertained so I went home kidless again and took some time to puddle around the house on my own and took in a nap.
I went back shortly after lunch and hung out again until it was time to head to Aidan's first birthday party!

The party was a small one with K&J's sister and parents coming out from Toronto. It was then only us, Rich and another couple of good friends of K&J's there. Rich actually had to leave the party halfway through to retrieve Greg from the airport as he flew in from Dallas. It was a nice little shindig. Did some eating and some chatting. Had some yummy chocolate cake and punch. mmmm... party food.
The birthday boy was in a bit of a fuss. I think he was teething. He had been up during the night and then had been up since about 5:30am with only a tiny nap in the morning. He managed to make it through dinner just fine but then he cried during cake (mostly because I think he didn't want to get his hands dirty in the cake) and then opened a few presents before he had to go to bed.

Once the party was over we came home and watched BSG. Such a great show! so good

***

Sunday was Sens Skills Competition. This is fun and relaxing event for the team as they compete against each other in events such as Hardest Shot and Fastest Skater. The rivalry between Teams Red and White is so much fun and it was a very enjoyable event. I'm surprised that they had over 16000 attend! Next year, I'll have to get my tickets earlier as we had seats way up in the nosebleeds. It was fine to watch the action but I'd have taken better pics and movies closer to the ice and we might have gotten some autographs down there too.

***

Monday I had a dentist appt. It was a 4 month cleaning so they could monitor the state of my gums. I didn't have to see the dentist. My gums haven't worsened so that's good news. I will continue my 4 month visits however.
I also happened to have some canker sores on my tongue when I went in for my visit. When the hygienist noticed them she suggested using Laser Sterilization to help get rid of them. What they do is laser the sore and you will never get another sore in that same spot again. It's inexpensive and might even be covered by insurance. Now doesn't that sound like such a great solution. Take a laser to the sore whenever you get them and problem solved. Something to think about!
But when I got home I rethought the issue and decided to work on other less intrusive methods of avoiding and dealing with cankers.
I spent most of the morning researching on the net and came up with a plan. Stuff like changing my toothpaste, eating yogurt with L. acidophilus, and taking vitamins is what I'll start with. I also bought some Fletcher's Liquid (liquid alum) to help battle outbreaks. I used Fletcher's on the ones I had and they didn't get near as painful nor did they stick around for as long as they usually do. I hope I see some progress.

Olivia missed her dance class this week since it coincided with my dentist appt. I did make it in for my ballet class that night though. And then watched the latest episode of Heroes. Also a great great show. Can't believe all the things going down!

***

ok so about the movies...
my goal is to watch as many Oscar-nominated films before the awards at the end of February.
Last week I made a list of all the movies nominated for something. I then went out and rented An Inconvenient Truth, United 93 and Monster House.

I first watched United and it made me so sad. It was also a very interesting take on what happened behind the scenes the morning of 9/11. It was enlightening to see that no one had any idea what was going on and there was nothing that could be done about the hijackings. There was also so much red tape that got in the way of getting anything done. I honestly don't know that the US could have been prepared for such an attack.
I thought it was a well done movie and I started watching some of the extras on the DVD. It was particularly poignant to watch the meeting of one of the actors and the family of one of the men that went down in the plane. It really hits home that there were real people on that plane and what they must have gone through and the people that they left behind.
It was a little rough too because Greg was on a United flight down to the States as I was watching the movie. Scary.

Next I watched An Inconvenient Truth. I like Al Gore. He's a tremendous speaker and seems to have his shit together. I'm not that into politics but I can't see why Bush got elected and not this guy.
Anyway, I liked the movie but I was so tired that I fell asleep half way through. I made another effort last Friday after I got back from Montreal to watch it with Rich but again I was so tired and I think I fell asleep in the exact same spot as the first time! I'll need to go back to it this weekend and finish the rest.

Monster House was quite good. It was entertaining. I got it more for the kids but since I'd seen the other 2 animated films, Cars and Happy Feet, I figured I'd get in the last one. I didn't even really want to see it based on the trailers I'd seen. Now I haven't watched the whole movie yet, I've just missed the ending, but I can say that I liked it better than Cars and Happy Feet. Both of these movies seemed to go on a little too long for me and there was no real joy in it for me though they had their moments. Monster House though was quite enjoyable. I would vote Monster House for best animated film (as the animation was also quite excellent) but I'm pretty sure that the academy will go with one of the other two (probably Cars) because of the tried and true morals of Pixar or the environment-conscious Happy Feet. we'll see...

This week I rented Little Miss Sunshine. It was a good flick and had some pretty funny moments. However, I think it's too little of a film to actually contend for Best Movie. Unfortunately as well, hardly any of the characters are really all that likeable. It is a good movie and I can see why Alan Arkin was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. He was pretty good. Good for the movie getting nominated though!

More about the 50 Book Challenge...

Last year was a total bust. I ended up reading only 12 books. :(
But the upside is that I read a book a month. I guess that's not too shabby.

I was hoping for a better effort this year but I'm already into February and I have yet to finish the book that I started last year! oh boy... well I'm going to keep at it. I think once I finish The Historian I can make a run at a few smaller books that will up my total. I'll keep this blog updated as I work on my book challenge again this year.

Because I have 2 places that I blog on the net I find myself so delinquent in updating this one. I will really make an effort to remedy that.

Well, the New Year has come and gone and I won't bother making much comment about that now. It was a good holiday though.

We got back into our routines nicely after the holiday, Liam with school, Olivia to her pre-school classes. Olivia is back in ballet classes and Liam has hockey and Beaver meetings weekly. I am going to drop-in ballet classes when Greg's in town. Greg also signed up to play dodgeball once a week!
It looked like Greg was going to be working more in Ottawa and the first week back he had a class at home. Then most of his Ottawa work got cancelled and in January he was in Minneapolis and Dallas.
With dodgeball I actually got to play a game when Greg was in Dallas! It was fun but the hits to the head I could have done without.

We also celebrated Olivia's 4th birthday. We had a great big princess party for her held at her grandparents house. My nephew was christened the same weekend so we combined the events there. We had 15 kids come to the birthday party. It was crazy but all the kids were so well-behaved and the parents stayed to look after their own kids. I think Olivia had a really nice time.

The week after the party, Liam had a PD day on the Friday so we trekked out to Montreal to finally visit Michelle and the girls. Naomi is already 1 year old and I had yet to meet her and Lola is getting ever so big so I was very happy to have made the trip. We lunched at St Hubert then did some sledding at Mont Royal. What a nice hill and the kids really enjoyed it. We had good weather, there were very few people there and by the end we had a soft snow falling on us as we were finishing up. Unfortunately that translated to us having to head home early to avoid being on the greasy highways too late. It wasn't too bad (hooray for snow tires and 4-wheel drive!) and we got home in good time. This weekend I'm looking forward to hosting Michelle and family here for skating on the canal!

February continues to be business as usual with a few fun events sprinkled throughout.
Last weekend we helped celebrate Baby Aidan's 1st birthday. He was a little ill-tempered but he got through the festivities and I think he enjoyed his chocolate cake.
We also went to the Ottawa Sens Skills competition. It was a really fun event watching the guys compete against each other in a relaxed environment. I'd go again and I think the whole family enjoyed it. Except for maybe Olivia. She might either be too young yet or she just doesn't care too much for it.

Coming up this weekend, Liam gets to play hockey on NHL ice at the Scotiabank Place! I'm so excited! Then skating on the canal.