vacation ponderings

So I thought I would write out a list of things I could possibly do this summer for my vacation:
1. Go out East - see Halifax, PEI and be a photography buff
2. Go to South Carolina - visit some friends, go to Myrtle Beach, NOT go golfing, go to outlet malls!
3. Go to Quebec (Montreal & Quebec city), see the sites, eat deliciously amazing food, be scoffed at for not speaking French
4. Go camping - somewhere cool...not sure where yet.
5. Go to a bed & breakfast somewhere - I'm positive there's a whole little subculture at b&b's
6. Find some ridiculously cheap last minute vacation to somewhere tropical and get fabulously tanned and gorgeous
7. Stay at home and be a hermit. Read lots. (BORING!)
8. Go to the beach - a lot.
9. Visit friends in Sault Ste. Marie
10. Take a course of some kind - photography, cooking, sewing, etc.

Any other thoughts?

My stomach has been unsettled since Saturday night and I still haven't heard from the midwifery clinic. So I left another message.
Hopefully I'll hear back from them tomorrow.
We told our families on Saturday (minus Shereen - whom I called today and gave her the good news!) and that was a lot of fun.
I can't wait until we can tell everyone!

I started this because I promised Kelley I would tag her one day

This is a viral game of tag in which a blogger tags five others they know, you write five things most people don't know about you, and then you tag five other bloggers. I'm in.

Five things:

1. When I was a kid my mom made me take figure skating classes, but I was a rebel and tried to organize large games of British Bulldog on ice.

2. I've been sky diving. In New Zealand. Over Lake Taupo. It was incredible.

3. I'm a habitual purger. In fact, I probably throw away things I end up needing later on.

4. I once tried to get into a 4 door car like it was a 2 door car. Just picture it. I bet you're laughing.

5. I would like to audition for a real play.

I now tag the following five victims: Kelley, Mindy, Deb, Diva, Sarah D

spring cleaning

Sometimes when you get a cleaning urge you must succumb and clean 'til you drop.
Things I cleaned today:

• I took everything out of the front closet, vacuumed, mopped, and sorted through all our shoes - threw out a box full of old shoes and flipflops - plus a few coats.
  

• Put everything back.

• Hammered in 2 more nails so I could hang my broom and mop beside my Swiffer.

• Vacuumed the entire house - like REALLY vacuumed - I moved all the furniture.
  

• Went through my closet and dresser drawers. Got rid of 3 garbage bags full of old clothes.

• Sorted through all our books and got rid of a box full of weird/dumb/bad books.

• Changed our sheets

• Did the laundry

• Sorted through all my purses and got rid of old ones I don't use anymore.

• Cleared and sorted through everything that had piled up on my desk.

Some more items on my cleaning "to do" list:

• sort through my bedside table drawers - I'm sure I'll find many things I thought I had previously lost.
• finish cleaning/tidying the spare bedroom.

Whew. Cleaning sure is tiring. But it's a "good" tired. I am going to sleep like a baby tonight.

sigh of relief

Whew. I can breathe again.
I went to the doctor's office today for a confirmation of pregnancy.
I did a urine sample and then waited for FOREVER for Dr. B to come in and give me the results. I started to doubt how I've been feeling in the past couple weeks.
But she finally came in and said, "So you're pregnant." I was like, "Yes. Yes I am." with one of those ridiculously giddy smiles.
So I'm going to go ahead and set things up with the midwifery clinic and go from there.
I have an ultrasound in 2 weeks to hopefully hear the baby's heartbeat and confirm the due date - which Dr. B said is Oct. 24th - only a day before the online calculator.
I'm letting myself get excited all over again.
And now to figure out when we tell people...
And so it begins...
:D

the human life

*pro-life opinions being given in this blog entry*

Wow. A baby was born at 21 weeks and 6 days.
The youngest baby to ever be born and survive. She was a little bit bigger than a pen.
This is incredible.
Did you also know that in the US (and I think Canada) you can get an abortion up to 24 weeks.
24 weeks!
This actually sickens me.
About the time when you find out you are pregnant the baby's heart and circulatory system are being developed.
At 18 days, the baby's heart starts to beat.
18 days!
It breaks my heart that so many women abort their babies...every single day. Every single day so many women miscarry or can't conceive after months and months or years of trying for that little addition to their family.
What an amazing miracle that little 21 week old baby is - but what a shocking realization to the medical and science community.
The human life is more resilient than we ever thought it could be.
Check out this link for the whole story on the tiny baby.

complications...

The drama begins...
Today I called the Dr's office and made an appointment to see Dr. B. So I go in on Wednesday. And then I decided I would call the midwifery clinic and see if I can get an appointment with them before I actually see the doctor. And now I'm all confused.
I talked to a woman (let's call her Tammy) and when I told her that I miscarried last month and I was using that as my "first day of last period" to figure out my due date she didn't sound optimistic. She was nice enough - but gave me something to worry about.
She said that it seemed to too early for me to have gotten pregnant already and that October 25th couldn't be my date - it would probably be early November.
She also said that the hormones that were detected with the home pregnancy test could be leftover in my body from the last pregnancy.
This could be true. However, when I was at the hospital after the miscarriage they did blood work and the doctor there told me that the hormone levels had dropped to almost non-detectable (meaning I had started to miscarry likely the week or so before).
Added to that I actually feel quite pregnant.
Exhausted in the evenings - I even feel like taking naps quite frequently.
Sore ... chest.
AND recently I just connected the dots that I've had a stuffy nose for the past week or so - but no cold! And then on the pregnancy website I've been visiting it was said to be quite common to have a stuffed nose - for the duration of the pregnancy! Ack!
Suffice it to say...I am pretty sure I AM pregnant.
I guess it's just the due date that is up for debate.
The good news is that Tammy said that they have room for me as a patient of theirs.
So that's great.
I won't have to be put on any kind of waiting list.
Wednesday just can't come soon enough!

i *heart* cupcakes

My latest obsession/weakness is cupcakes.
Maybe it's the Valentine's season or maybe it's just me craving sweets - either way, I absolutely adore cupcakes.
They are bite-sized (ok, a few bites, not just one), covered in icing, you can hold it in your hand and not need a plate, they come in all shapes and sizes (big, small, heart-shaped, teeny tiny) as well as a multitude of flavours.
AND they take less time to bake in the oven than a cake. They're extremely easy to ice and I think I will be doing some experimentation.
Which means lots of cupcakes sitting around.
I think I should have a cupcake party.
1. because I like parties
2. because I like cupcakes
Anyone else like cupcakes?

I'm pregnant!

So I'm pregnant! This morning I couldn't sleep so I got up early and did a pregnancy test!
It didn't take more than 15 seconds before a positive result showed up!
I am ecstatic! I didn't think it would happen so quickly and so now that it has, I am just so thankful!
I'm full of exclamation marks here.
I think my due date will be October 25th, 2007. We'll see once I go to the doctor's office, though.
Here's the proof!

dance skills

My brother showed me this video. I laughed so hard. Who knew a balding white guy could have such sweet dance skills?

in no particular order...

I love these girls:












I love these flowers:









I love him:









I love these treats:

The Switch

I've made the switch to Mozilla Firefox.
I put it off for so long because I didn't want to have to manually switch all my precious bookmarks. But I did it. It was tedious and long, but I think in the end it will be worth it. I'm already noticing my pages loading faster and there seems to be some cool perks and features so I think I'm glad I did.
By the way, I switched from Rogers Yahoo browser. While I liked it since my email is with rogers, it was time to put that dog down.
Yay for organizing my bookmarks, though.
That's all.

John 15

I'm tired. The week hasn't even begun and I'm tired.
And overwhelmed.
Just make it to Friday. Just make it to Friday. Just make it to Friday.
It's at times like these when the things I've been learning about the Spirit Filled Life come at me in great waves.
*wave*
Oh yeah. Thanks for that reminder, God.
*bigger wave*
Crap. Trying to do it on my own strength again. My own strength. Which is very little.
God help me. I definitely cannot do this on my own. But sometimes I try. And get frustrated and overwhelmed in the meantime. And then I sulk. And refuse to come to you with a broken and contrite heart.
I'm sorry Lord.
I long to abide in you.
Help me to be a branch...and only a branch.

A plethora

This post will be quite eclectic in its topics as there a few different things I'd like to write about.

On an entirely random note...is it just me or does anyone else make words out of the author verification letters that you have to fill in to post a comment on certain blogs? I also think of words. I'm sure there are others out there just like me. Hmm...maybe I should make a Facebook group for that.

Moving on...

Today I am thankful to have a faithful, loving God who answers prayers. Well, I am always thankful for that, but today I just saw God so clearly answer a specific prayer and I thought to myself after the event while washing dishes, "Wow. God so clearly answered my prayer. Some could attribute it to other things, but I know I asked for these specific things and they happened! In the best possible way!"
It's good to thank God for answering our prayers. It's good to acknowledge the one who is the giver of every good and perfect gift. Especially answered prayers.

I got a crafty urge today. I need to have some kind of crafty outlet. As Kirsten and I discussed this I thought of all the wonderful things I could do; start scrapbooking again (it's been months), start crocheting again - I could crochet a toque!, learn to sew and make clothes for myself, learn to quilt (I am seriously considering taking up this "old lady" hobby), paint beautiful paintings on canvases (well, ok, they might not be beautiful), make jewellery...
So I have decided I need to take a sewing class so I can actually learn how to use my sewing machine so I can both learn to quilt as well as learn to make clothes for myself!

As Kirsten and I perused the aisles of Michaels and Bouclair I felt like I had no idea where to begin. I could spend HOURS in each of those stores. It was fun. And it made me want to buy masses of ribbon and paper. I love paper. Stationary, scrapbooking stuff, cards, I even was tempted to buy some stamps and take that up as a hobby. Dangerous stuff these craft stores!

Now I will eat some crackers and peruse the sewing courses available in Guelph!

the switch up

Changing churches is always hard.
We've decided to find a church in Guelph so we can get more involved (our old church was in Kitchener). It's a harder decision for me because the worship at our Kitchener church was incredibly professional and the musicians and singers are all so talented. I love good music and I find it actually LESS distracting for me and easier to worship God.
But it was further away for us and we weren't being challenged from the Word as we desired to be.
So here we are, having found our new church and already so many people have introduced themselves to us and it's been great. The worship is far from perfect, but I think it's a lesson in worshipping God because He deserves it and ultimately because I long to worship Him - not because the music is any "professional" or prettier sounding.
And already I felt incredibly challenged and fed from the Word today. Genesis 39 - temptation and what we can learn from Joseph.
But I'm excited.
Although according to one wonderful girl I know, it was like her two worlds were colliding when she saw us. I think it was a bit of a shock for us to be on "her territory". Funny girl.
Nonetheless, territory or not...we've found our new church home.

the office

Oh The Office...how do I love thee?
Let me count the ways...

1. I love the relationship between Jim and Pam aka Jam.

They're so fun and funny and today's episode actually had me cracking up (usually I watch it and then laugh when I think about it later).

Oh it was good times.

2. I love Dwight. So serious. So lame. It's hilarious.

3. I love the consistent pranking that Jim and Pam do on Dwight. So good.

I just want Jim and Pam to get together. It's inevitable. Valentine's day is coming up so there must be some kind of scheming going on there...