Blogging about books

19 Minutes by Jodi Picoult

I liked this book, although I didn't love it.
What I liked about this book is how the story was told from the perspective of a lot of the different characters, it was very thought provoking and I am sure a lot of people could relate to at least one of the characters.
As a mom, I found myself really focusing on the parents perspective. I found it a little scary at times, thinking that this could be reality.
Anyway, that is all I have to say on that.
Generally I'd probably give the book a 4 out of 5.

Pine on the nose

During one of our many photo shoots (since I'm not an actual photographer, I need many to get a great shot) Lhotse decided to kiss Drezden. Even though it drives me nuts when she does this, the result was pretty cute.

Times have changed since 'life in the kitchen'

I was just looking back at my entry on May 16th. I'm not sure how I did it. Now I wake up at 7:30, typically, after a good 8 hours sleep. Drezden sleeps for a minimum of 10 hours, so that's pretty sweet!
Drezden is so fun now and still quite easy as far as babies go. Lhotse is way more sane and also very cute!
We seem to have a life again which is great because for about a month we were pretty much just trying to make it through each hour. Having a break down every other day.
I think it was all worth it, now we have a great puppy and an even better baby!

Eat Pray Love

"People universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it and sometimes even travel upon the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a might effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don't you will leak away your innate contentment."

OOPS

Life in the Kitchen

My life revolves around the kitchen right now. The puppy is kind of under control and Drezden, well, he's not so tuff. Thankfully it is warm out, so the 3 of us can hang out outside during the day.
The kitchen has become much more chaotic since this picture was taken. Typically we also have the kennel and Drezden's change pad.
They are both asleep right now, Yah! Although I think I should be too, it is now 7:00 am and I've been up for 2 hours.

Drezden Michael Henry

Drezden was born Friday March 28th @ 7:47am in Banff. He weighed in at 6lbs 4oz. Here are some pictures.

The Waiting Game

Well my Doctor says it could still be a couple weeks. Blah!
Although I appreciate that she is not going to induce me, just because. She says as long as the baby's heart rate is good and the baby is moving then we might as well ride it out.
I guess it's time to tell the Calgary Doctor's that I am not delivering with them, because they do have an ultrasound scheduled for me. Which will likely lead to being induced.
So all of you vacationers will likely be back by the time I actually have this baby. Lucky You.

Mr. Pigglesworth Before A Big Day On The Slopes

Banff Baby

As some of you may know I've not had a very pleasant experience with my doctors here in Calgary.
Our prenatal class was taught by this wonderful nurse from Banff and she suggested we go out to Banff to have our baby, something we were already considering doing, just more sneakily!
Today we drove out to Banff to meet the Doctor, she was everything we could hope for and more. The only downfall is that she is gone on vacation next week, so let's just hope I'm on time or late. With how I'm feeling now, that really wouldn't be so bad!
We learnt more in the 1/2 hour with her than I have from The Maternal Care Clinic throughout my whole pregnancy. The best part is that she is enthusiastic and seems to actually enjoy her job.
So unless there is some crazy storm when I am about to give birth I'm pretty sure we'll have a Banff baby!
Very exciting, just one more reason to go to the mountains... to visit our babies birth place.

Blogger Identity

I just don't know what background I want, nothing feels quite right. I think it's time to explore some more serious options.

Not Breech!

Yah, I'm not breech!
My baby is weighing about 5 lbs and 13 ounces. After I looked that up, it is exactly average, not big! Yah again.
And he has a scrotum! Still. Yah
And he looks like 1/2 me and 1/2 Greg, judging by the pictures! Yah!

Being blunt doesn't always pay off!

Some may wonder, does it ever?
So my boss emailed me a resume the other day and asked me what I thought of it. Me being me, completely honest and straight to the point told him exactly what I thought. I believe the last line I wrote was 'If you want to know what I really think", just a tad sarcastic.
When I replied to what I though was him, I replied to the attachment and it went directly to the recipient of the resume.
Oops! Luckily I have a pretty easy going boss so he wasn't too upset.
I didn't even realize I had done this until I received a reply from this guy. At which point I turned purple and about 5 degrees hotter.
His reply was quite tasteful, which was a little bit of a relief.
AWKWARD.

Breech?

How does that work?
I've been told for about a month now that the baby is in the right position. When I went for my check up on Wednesday the baby had turned around so it's head was hitting my rib cage.
Today, not on my ribs, where is he?
Anyway, I now have a scheduled ultrasound to see the position; which is a little exciting because we didn't get any photos last time, so now we will, hopefully. It'd be nice to confirm the 'it's a boy' thing at this point too.
Also, I'm measuring just a little small, does that mean I could have a small baby??
Here's hoping!

Another good reason to own a MAC

HOURS OF ENTERTAINMENT!

I love my job!

I don't think I could be any happier with my job.
The people at SOLE are great, the flexibility is awesome and I love what I do, for the most part. On top of that I actually get recognized for my contributions!
The only thing I can't believe is that it took me so long to quit the city! What was I thinking? I guess the city had its bonuses, I liked my job, but the hours and the time restrictions stressed me out way to much. It was impossible to move up in the system, basically the only reason that I didn't move up was because of my crappy behavioural interviewing skills! Behavioural interviews are great for people who can think fast on the spot and embellish, that's not me at all.
Oh well, it doesn't matter now. I'm happy!

Random Organization??

I find it interesting how people can do the same tasks in such different manners. Some people have a very random approach and others, an organized approach. and yet neither of these methods are wrong, just different.
How do two people living together or working together just learn to accept that people are different and that just because someone does something differently, does not make them right or wrong.
When people have two different ways of dealing with life, you just have to accept it.
I guess that is a very small part of what makes people different and why things like friendships, marriage and family don't just come naturally all the time. Not everyone thinks and does in the same way, really no one does.

Pictures from Edinburgh

Edinburgh is so beautiful and full of character. We stayed in the New Town, which is only like 250 years old. Not old at all!
Holyrood House (Queen's part time residence), Notice the similarities to our house.

Parliment Building

Picture taken from the Royal Mile

The Royal Mile during the day

A view from within the castle

Part of Edinburgh Castle

I think this was just a really nice, old hotel

The Royal Mile at night

This picture is taken in front of Edinburgh Castle at night.

UK television

Due to my inability to go to pubs and drink, we have spent most of our evenings watching UK television. It has actually been quite good. We saw 2 Jamie Oliver specials which were both quite good.
We say a commercial for... well I have no idea, otherwise I would post it, but the Calgary Tower was in background with some strange music, strange clouds and an even stranger flying object (if my memory serves me).
We have also seen many show on home renovations which are really much more remarkable than 'Trading Spaces', these Brits really have a talent for renovating!
They swear a lot more and will show nudity on general prime time TV! It's kind of mad, really!

More pictures from the same busy day!

We did a lot of walking this day, I pretty much fell apart at the end of the day. I had sore hips and sore feet and then a day after came down with a cold, in other words I totally wore myself out. These pictures don't even cover everything we did in London in one day.

London photos for Jamie

The commemorative 5th anniversary coin

I'm not sure if any of you have seen the twin towers rise up in pure silver recovered from ground zero. But wow, is it cool!
The best part of it is that they are advertising this quasi infomercial on CBC. You send the money order to Winnipeg?? For all of you that can do math, 5 year's ago was not 2001! Anything wrong with this picture?
Apparently, it is a scam, a hoax, who would have thought.
CBC... what are you doing? Shouldn't these be sold at Wal-mart?

The Podcast

I have discovered the best thing ever. Downloading podcasts on to my iPod. I guess I'm not really the one that discovered this, but it was a revelation for me.
Last night we got an oil change, when we pulled up they told us it would be a 45 min wait. Which is a fairly long time, but then I remember the podcasts I downloaded the night before. So we entertained ourselves basically watching TV in the car. The time passed by so quickly.
There was also an A&W right beside us, so we had dinner too. It was like we were at the drive in! Very exciting.
Now I can watch podcasts on the way to England, yah!