Back to Work!

Before my maternity leave was up, I had been looking for a part time job. My goal was to find something I could do in the mornings while Aidan was in school and then hopefully save a bit on childcare expenses. I didn't find that perfect job, but I did find a number of casual jobs which allow me to mostly stay home with the kids. I'm so thankful we're able to make this work - even though sometimes they drive me crazy I'm glad I can be there to walk Aidan to school and pick him up and just hang out with them.

One of my casual jobs is for a temp agency so every once in awhile they'll call me up to fill in for someone who is sick or away on vacation or if a company needs someone to be at reception while everyone else is in meetings. I've got 2 great babysitters - one who lives close to us and who can drop Aidan off or pick him up from school, and one who will take Keira for the day and Aidan after lunch. Anytime I have to work it's kind of crazy if I'm working a full day because I have to go pick Aidan up from his afterschool babysitter and drive him over to babysitter #2. Usually I just work one or two days here and there as a temp but last week I got called on Tuesday to work Wed-Fri, and then it got extended to all of this week as well. I guess the receptionist left in a bit of a hurry and they didn't have time to pick someone, but I've been told a decision will be made today and the new girl will start tomorrow so I'm crossing my fingers that today is my last day!

I've been working in a lawyer's office and it's been really interesting and kind of cool to see things from the 'other side', but it's a whole different mind set when you work full time! Getting lunches ready the night before, laying out clothes, fitting all the errands and running around into the couple of hours after Michael gets home and I need to get to bed plus getting out the door in time in the morning! The kids haven't been handling it too well either - Keira wails when I drop her off and she's exhausted all the time. She usually goes to bed at 7, but by 6 she's wandering around making the sleep sign and is excited when I suggest that she go to sleep. Aidan doesn't like going to the babysitter's because there's no one his age and he's been acting out and misbehaving like crazy! We've had lots of talks and made new rules and promised rewards, so hopefully today he behaves!!

The other part that makes my days crazy is that I'm still babysitting! Last Wed and this Tues and Wed I leave work at 3, rush over to babysitter#2 to pick the kids up, and rush home to be there in time for Sarah to drop her kids off! The best part of all this working though, is that I really appreciated the long weekend and the time off I got. It was such a great relaxing weekend, and Michael said that I made my 'best turkey yet' - it was pretty good, and I'm looking forward to making soup tonight or tomorrow!

Doormats??

To set up today's sermon, our pastor showed a short clip with a statement (like "If I don't get a pay raise, I'm going to QUIT") and then a picture with a caption (like "Over 1 billion people worldwide are without jobs") and I think the point of showing the clip was to put our grumbling and complaining in perspective and make us realize that most of the time we really have nothing to complain about. I think it's good to put stuff in perspective but there was one statement-picture combo that I wasn't really sure about. The statement was "I can't believe we had to wait over 30 minutes for our food" and then the picture was a picture of a malnourished child with a caption about how many children die every day from malnutrition. I'm not trying to diminish that in any way or say that we shouldn't be thankful for the food that we have. I am extremely thankful (especially this weekend with such a wonderful turkey dinner) that we have the means and opportunity to buy pretty much whatever food we want. The thing I'm wondering about is are Christians supposed to be doormats?

There was also a verse - I think Pastor Anthony referenced it later in his sermon, I don't think it was part of the clip - Phillipians 2:14 which says "Do everything without complaining or arguing"
Once again, are we just supposed to 'take it' - whatever 'it' is - and NEVER complain?? There's the time that Jesus kicked everyone out of the temple because they were selling stuff and trying to make a profit and that may fall more under rebuke than complaining, but it kind of got me thinking this morning. I have complained about waiting too long for food in restaurants, as well as many many many other things but is anything justified, according to this verse?

I guess it's a question of balance and commonsense - like most everything else in life!

The Other Room Downstairs

When we originally bought our house, we had lots of plans for renovations. Well, not really plans, but we had made lots of statements such as 'We could fix up the basement!' and 'We could repaint!' and 'We could redo the kitchen!' all in an effort to increase the value of the house and make some money when we sold the house - which we were going to do in a year or so. And then we did the first room downstairs and I realized just how much work and money went into all those careless statements!!

After the first room (which we still haven't completely finished - another coat of paint over the primer and some mouldings) I decided to take on the second room all by myself - a super smart decision, I know. After examining the walls I noticed that most of the walls were covered with a thick layer of textured paint. Kind of like a cross between the top of a meringue pie and a stucco ceiling. I didn't really want to paint over top of it, so I went down to the Home Depot and rented a sander to sand it all off, COMPLETELY underestimating how much work it would be and how much mess it would make!
Yes, this is me all geared up for sanding. I couldn't breathe under the dust mask and the elastic popped off, so I came upstairs and rigged up a dish towel. I didn't want to pay for longer than a 24 hour rental but that paint was amazingly difficult to get off! My arms were so sore from holding the heavy sander I finally decided to do a good-enough job instead of a perfect job.

After the sanding and the cleanup - which took almost as long as the sanding! - I decided to wait for my mom to visit so that she could help me paint. I also had a coupon for carpet cleaning which improved the look of the room a lot more than I thought it would. The previous owners left us about 12 cans of paint and I found a nice light green. Unfortunately there was only the one can and we sort of ran out before it was all done. So the good-enough job was again downgraded to It'll-have-to-work.

All in all, though, I think it turned out rather well. I still have to staple up some more ceiling tiles (that should be a blast!), buy some mini-blinds for the window and a few other minor things and then the room will be done! Hopefully that will make it easier to get a renter in there - I know it will make me feel better for charging what we do per month!

Here are some pictures of the final product - well, after painting at least. My brother Darrel's friend's girlfriend needed a place to crash for a bit so she's in there now and once she's gone I'll get to finish it up:

Our old desk that is literally falling apart. We got that thing from the clearance center at Staples before we were married and have moved it from the apartment to the little house to upstairs here and then finally down here.

There's that lovely panelboard again. I hate that stupid stuff so much!!!

The bed and the closet and other alcove - kind of a weird setup.

Aidan got a new dresser so his went down to this room and I'm still trying to find a room for the one that was down here. Aidan's old dresser looks much better down here!

I think my next project will either be the downstairs bathroom or the kids rooms upstairs....

Thankful

I was going to do a post on all the things that I am thankful for....and then this whole day was just amazing!

On Monday I was thinking about my job situation - or lack thereof. I'm trying to just be patient, apply for the opportunities I find and trust that God already has something picked out for me and that sooner or later I'll find it. It's hard not to stress about it though, especially after that nice letter from EI saying that my payments are no officially not coming in anymore. I had applied at Mayfair, which is sort of like a placement agency. They can find you temporary, part time or full time office work and after my interview with them I think we were both feeling very positive about it. So on Monday I had been thinking about all the job possibilities I had applied for and not heard back from and I prayed about it and then Tuesday morning at 8:30am the phone woke us up. It was Mayfair calling about a job they had for me and asking whether I would be available. It's not anything permanent, but it's 4 days of work I wouldn't have had otherwise and it was really cool to get an immediate positive answer like that!

The only downside was that now I had to get off my butt and look for some childcare!! This seemed even more daunting, because now I had to go interview strangers to look after my precious difficult children!! Today I had 2 interviews and the last one was really great. She has a 8 1/2 month old boy, lives in a mobile home not too far from us (closer would be nice, but you can't have everything!!) and her rates seem to be reasonable. She was also super friendly and seemed like a happy person. I'm so relieved to have found someone so quickly and these 4 days of work will be a perfect trial period for both of us to make sure that it works!

The other major thing was that today I had someone come to look at one of our rooms that we rent out. We had one of our renters move out at the end of June and the other one left at the beginning of July and although it was nice to have the whole house to ourselves, it really helps to have that extra financial contribution from those renters! This was a guy and his girlfriend and they wanted to live in the bigger of the 2 rooms with their 2 small cats. I wasn't sure they would all fit with their stuff, but they seemed excited about it and right now they're out getting the damage deposit!! It's really hard not to stress about stuff, especially when it has to do with money and bills and payments but it's also amazing how God can work things out. We have a couple people interested in the other room too so it's just possible we'll have both rooms filled for August which would be really great!!

On our way home from our 2 interviews with the dayhomes we stopped at Mac's for a slushie (partly because I wanted one and partly because I forgot Keira's soother and she was letting me know) and they had the Crystal Light one there!! I love slushies but hate all that sugar and empty calories. A couple years ago 7-11 had the Crystal Light slushies, but they didn't keep them because there wasn't enough demand so I'm happy to see that Mac's now has them!

I'll post more pictures soon, maybe in the next week. I have 2 hours of training for those 4 days of work and Keira's got an appointment to get her picture taken at Walmart tomorrow and then Saturday is her party! So I'm off right now to get some dinner and make some cupcakes!!

Trying Again

Wow! I tried like 3 times to upload this video and it just wasn't working, but this time it worked and in half the time.

I am trying not to neglect my blog, so I thought I would come do another post instead of watching yet another show. It's so easy to just sit and watch tv alllllll day and then be grumpy if you have to get up and make a meal or something :) I've actually been spoiled these last few days. Michael's parents are visiting and every morning I get up and the kitchen and all the dishes are sparkling clean - it's so great. But they're leaving today so it's back to real life.

Today I have a speech assessment appointment for Aidan. He can usually make himself understood, but he does have some problems with certain letters or letter combinations and since he's starting Kindergarten in the fall I thought it would be good to go and see if he needs any help. It's very possible that he'll just take a bit longer to sort everything out and be just fine in the end, but just in case it's something more - and I also want his teacher and friends to be able to understand him a little better than they might be able to now.

And I am also on the hunt for the perfect part time job which will co-ordinate perfectly with Aidan's morning Kindergarten hours and Keira's childcare (which I suppose I should also start hunting for) hours - I know it's out there!! I just have to find it...

Keira has taken her first couple steps all by herself. She is so strong and has great balance on those little toes, she probably could have been walking a long time ago but she just doesn't have the confidence to step out. Hopefully soon though!

...And I'm Back!!

It has been forever since I've posted and I thought it was finally time to blog again. For now, here's a couple videos I took of Keira tonight. She's turning 1 year old on the 25th of this month and she still isn't walking! Sometimes I'm happy about that, but most of the time I wish she would start, especially since Aidan started at 10 months. Lately though, she's been standing up by herself and once up, she can balance for awhile. She's also gotten better at sitting herself down when she's done standing and she can even do some squats which I think is very impressive! She's also started pushing her highchair or the office chair or anything that moves really, and staggering around after it. She does have 2 walkers, but they're so light that when she leans on them they tip over. So I got a weight from the garage and put it in the walker and voila! She was so impressed and proud of herself - check it out!

In this one I had her all lined up at the end of the hall but she steered into the closet and couldn't get herself straightened out again

Keira Crawling