We were at the mall on Saturday! We went to American Eagle and since the only thing I ever buy there is accessories, I made a bee-line to that area and found this darling sterling silver necklace with the letter "A". Guess what! There was one with an "L", so Lauralee got that one, and one with an "M" for Michelle!! If Jenny had been there, there was also a "J". Maybe we can convince her to get it so she can be a part of the Letter Club. (I am such a dork)
This weekend was a party with the Eastern Invasion. I was the only Albertan in the room! (Jennifer and Lorraine are from Saskatchewan, and the rest of them are from Cape Breton or somewhere else around there.)
I pulled out a few to play with and then decided to clip a pink one on every one's shirt! I did it as an experiment to see if the guys would be comfortable wearing pink. I suppose it wasn't a very daring experiment, since Benny was already wearing a minty-green shirt (might as well have been pink!) and Matty was wearing a purple shirt. I would put money down that one of them actually has a pink shirt! :p
I got home from work yesterday and this is what I found greeting me home. He (or she - how do you tell the sex of a dragonfly?) was sitting on the wall right between the door and the mailbox. It stayed there even after I was all up in its face to take pictures, and even after I opened the door, and it was still there when I left 45 minutes later. From head to tail, it was 10cm long!
Wow, he did it! Kyle MacDonald traded a paperclip for a house.
Read his blog.
I read that the town of Kiplin, SK is planning on building the world's largest red paperclip. Imagine that, a guy with a blog from Montreal has now given the town its claim to fame.
I sat outside and watched four children.
One is a girl of about three, with short cropped dark hair, in pink sweatpants and a lemon yellow t-shirt. Her sandals are boyish, dark blue, and might be a hand-me-down of her brother. She plays with an orange basket ball, bouncing it and chasing after it, as it bounces and rolls out of reach. There is a boy, who is at most five, wears an orange and navy blue shirt and pants that are baggy but do not go down past his ankles. He plays with a large green plastic truck, pushing it along the sidewalk. Together, the young boy and girl venture down the way, each playing with their own toy. Behind them, on her silver scooter, follows a girl of nine or ten. She is tall, skinny, with long brown hair tied in a pony tail at the nape of her neck. I would call her pretty, graceful, serene.
The forth child is off in her own world, where the neighbourhood cats actually stop and stand still, and allow her to pet them. She is dressed in a pink shirt, with a glittery silver butterfly adorning the front, jean shorts with a colourful tie at the waist, and pink Barbie sneakers that light up with each step she takes. She rides up and down the sidewalk on a pink princess bike, streamers in the handlebars trailing in the wind. Her bike is complete with a matching princess bike horn and bike bag. Inside the bag are twin unicorns, riding in the pockets, along with a pair of pink and green sunglasses. There is a princess sack on her back, containing princess knee and elbow pads, and biking gloves. She stops periodically to put these items on, and then to take them off again. She rides on.
Since I am having to drive her to Grandma's house in the morning, I am no longer taking the LRT in to downtown. Instead, I am parking on the edge of the downtown core and walking about 10 blocks. I bought new (old ladyish) walking sandles, since the heels of my old Ecco (non-old ladyish) sandals were breaking off from the sole of the shoe. I got them from the downtown shoe store (Wener's Shoes) with the nice chocolate coloured dog. The lady assisting me was so nice and helpful. She offered suggestions and expressed her opinions of what she thought looked/fit best on my feet. She was not at all pushy, as a lot of people in retail can be.
Today there was a World Cup BBQ at Marie-Aude's house, so I watched my first soccer match , from beginning to end! Well, almost the whole thing; I was 10 minutes late. We were cheering for France. But it was really great! Ok, a little boring in the extra time because the players were tired and they just fancy passing and not really going anywhere, but as a whole I enjoyed it and I could see myself watching more matches in the future. It's a very different sport than I am used to watching. It seems to be more civilized that hockey or football. With that being said, I wonder what Materazzi said to Zidane... I think he probably deserved that head-butt! 
Korean cell phone manufacturer LG has come out with a sobriety phone! It features a built-in breath analyzer. It can't stop you from drinking, but it can stop you from dialling foolishly after you have been drinking.
read more
"It can be programmed to block selected numbers in the address book (bosses, moms, exes, pizzerias) if breath analyzer records a blood-alcohol concentration over 0.08. "
It was two day ago when she lost her last tooth, and another one fell out today! We had plans to play badminton in the back yard but she was worried that her tooth would fall out, land in the grass, and never be found. Then she realised on her own that if that happened, she could write the tooth fairy a letter, just like Uncle Roland did when he swallowed a tooth while eating. We went out and played and she was impressed that her tooth was still in her mouth when we went inside. Then she went upstairs and, a few minutes later, exclaimed that her tooth was out! I just pulled it out because it was too wiggly, she said.
to water them. The largest plant (in the pot still) has 12 leaves 
and is 33cm tall (last week it was 20cm). The plants transplanted along the house have 6 leaves and are 20cm tall (last week 12cm).
Her front tooth, that is! She pulled it out this morning when she was in the waiting room while Grandma was getting ready for a massage. She went to the room, showed Grandma and the massage therapist gave Miranda a little container to put it in. Miranda went back to the waiting room and proceeded to remove the the tooth from its safe case to admire it. She had it in her open hands when it flipped off and fell onto the floor, lost. Miranda cried. Eventually the tooth was found.
The top 10 songs in new rotation on my ipod:
I bought something for $4.00, gave the gal 2 Toonies, a quarter and a dime ($4.35), thinking my total would be $4.28, but I got $0.11 change back! Thanks, Steve.
We watched the fireworks and walked 15 blocks back to the car. We were in sight of the parkade and Miranda said to me, You are the best mummy ever for taking me to see the fireworks and buying me a new Canada Day t-shirt... She drifted off in her memories of the day and looked so beautiful because she was absolutely happy (and exhausted).
Today Canada is 139 years old! Miranda and I ususally go to City Hall for cake and celebration, but this year I decided we would try something different, and we went to the Legislature Building instead.
Someone was complaining because Portugal eliminated England today... As I was heading South on 97 Street, in the Northbound lane there was a Portuguese car flag on the ground (someone obviously forgot about it and opened their window on this 27C day). Car after car after car drove over it. I saw this and thought of you.
Hannah-bear is three!
The little princess got an inflatable swan for the pool but since she didn't want to go in the water, the older girls (like Miranda) enjoyed playing with it.
It was sooo hot, Max the pug puppy walked around wet (hosed down to keep cool) with his tongue hanging out.
"It's hard to be left behind. I wait for Henry, not knowing where he is, wondering if he's okay. | Ask yourself this; 'Are you a human being having a spiritual experience, or a spiritual being having a human experience? - Wayne Dyer, PhD |
| Last night I had a dream that Eelke came home after being gone for less than a week. I didn't ask why he was back so soon. Then I saw a toilet, standing in the middle of the room, filled with water. It flooded over when I flushed it. |
The sweet little buggers (Michelle, Jennifer, Stephanie and Lisa) took advantage of my leaving early yesterday (for Miranda's dance recital) and decorated my desk in honour of my birthday. Balloons, happy birthday banners, pink streamers, shiny bows gallore! Tim was kind enough (and all too willing) to part with the office crab.
And Rhonda (unknowingly) surprised me with my favourite flowers! 
| 4PM Call Transfer Coworker #1: A lady just called wanting to speak to someone who knows Korean.
|
Miranda, with her Oilers game-face on, wrote a song while watching the pre-game show leading up to game 5 of the Stanley Cup finals. She asked me if I would like to hear her sing it, and so she reads off her paper,
A few weeks ago I finally finished reading Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. I got hung up on the part where he started talking about botany and biology. I should have pushed through it sooner because after that he moves into genetics and then it was interesting again. I loved the stories about the chemists and
In only a few evening, I read The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier, a historical fiction about the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries, which were woven in the late 15th century, and which now hang in the Cluny Museum in Paris. I liked it! And found it to be quite different than the other books in the same genre I have read, but perhaps that is because most of the historical fiction books I have read have the focal point being the royal families, whereas this one is not about kings and queens.
Sunday we found ourselves in Rineke's back yard for her fence painting party. Oh joy! you might think. Actually, it was a lot of fun. It was a great day to be outside, sunny and warm, but not too warm to be uncomfortable. 
With so many people around it wasn't like work at all. The food Rineke set out as reward for the hard work was wonderful! The kids also helped with the painting, played with Cleo & Minoes (the dog & cat), climbed in the tree, and even tried to sell cookie and limonade. When we ran out of paint we had a nice dinner, drank beer and wine, and kicked a soccer ball around. Don't you wish you had been there? ;)
