Gawgeous babuh!

Totally cool ego-boosting fun found at K8's blog...

Celebrity Face Recognition

You upload a picture of yourself, it scans your features and compares you with celebrity photos - then tells you which celebrity you most resemble. I uploaded this picture of me



And who does it say I look like?



Woo-wheee! Much better than who I was expecting...

Pride

I'm so proud of my little Princess - after only a few weeks in an all-French school she was named "élève du mois" for "parler en français en tout temps et démontre une attitude positive envers les apprentissages". I know it's only junior kindergarten but it's nice that someone else sees how special she is too!

Tagged!

I've been tagged by Angi!

2 names you go by:
- Mama
- Val (though I really, truly hate being called Val there are DOZENS of people who nonetheless call me that every stinkin' day)

2 parts of your heritage:
- mostly Irish
- Partly English (my family has been in Canada a loooong time though)

2 things that scare you:
- Becoming a young widow
- the thought of bad things happening to my kids

2 everyday essentials:
- Tea!!!!!! Every single day for close to 30 years!
- hugs and snotty kisses from my babes

2 fave bands/artists: (here's where you figure out I'm hopelessly behind the times)
- Colin James
- Eric LaPointe

2 favorite songs: (I'm in Christmas mode right now)
- The Halleluiah Chorus (from The Messiah)
- Carol of the Bells

2 things you want in a relationship (other than true love):
- Humour
- Support

2 favorite hobbies:
- Scrapbooking
- Rubber Stamping (I'm very much into stampin up right now)

2 things you want really badly:
- To get out of debt!!!!
- A bigger house with a bigger yard (see above for what I'd need to make that happen)

2 places you want to go on vacation:
- Florida, March 2006 (to see my ACP friends)
- Turkey (to visit my brother)

2 things you want to do before you die:
- learn to play piano
- see Ireland

2 ways in which you are a true girl:
- I hate bugs!!
- I love lip gloss

2 things you are thinking about right now:
- Worrying about keeping all of the families happy over Christmas (the balancing act is tough)
- Wondering why I haven't been called about that job :(

2 stores you shop at:
- Michael's
- Loblaws

2 people guaranteed to make you laugh:
- Jana (God she is funny!)
- an absolutely crazy but brilliantly funny woman at work (Natasha)

Fun stuff :) OK I tag Susie and Lauri

Still here

I'm still around but I'm too damned sick to do anything but complain about how damned sick I am, and I can't imagine anyone wanting to hear about that anymore :)

Will my head explode if I cough much more?

Day 11 of this stupid cold. If only I could stick a hose down my throat and suction all of this fluid/gunk out of my lungs everything would be great but this old-fashioned coughing it up sucks ass.

Both babes have the cold too (I caught it from Katie, Jonah caught it from me) so the three of us have been hunkered down in the house eating popsicles and watching DVDs

Thursday was my last day in my cute bright corner office :( Monday I'll report to a windowless dungeon :( Half of my unit is moving to a new building, the other half stayed behind. Thursday we had a big goodbye potluck. Emotions ran pretty high, the unit has been together more than 5 years (I've been there 4) and lots of people I care about are staying behind. Still, change happens, and while I dislike my new office (and really change in general) I'm hopeful that I've left behind a lot of the things that bothered me about my job. Time will tell.

It's the little things that rip out your soul

Katie and I stayed home together yesterday. We didn't do much, just had a mostly quiet day. After lunch we ventured over to the park to play for awhile. The air was cold, beyond the crisp of the past couple of weeks, the wind had that edge to it that says winter is just around the corner.

So mittens on and hoods up we strolled. Along the way we found one particularly beautiful young maple that still had almost all of it's leaves. It was a perfect ball of orange against the blue sky. We admired it for a bit, and Katie plucked some of the fallen leaves from the grass, then we continued along.

The park was deserted. Katie implored me to push her on the swings ("swings are my very favourite thing in the whole world" - how can you resist that?). I tucked her leaves into my pocket and pushed her for about 20 minutes.

It's amazing how soothing swinging is. I remember how much I loved it as a child, flying, utterly alone with my thoughts in spite of the playground commotion below, and I wonder if grown up offices would be so stress-laden if swinging for a half hour a day was mandatory?

Afterwards Katie and I were cold, so we walked back home to have hot tea and animal crackers, and play more inside. Just a quiet day, me and my girl, until the boys started coming home at 4.

Today I'm at work, in the cesspool of misery that pays my mortgage, looking out the window at a heavy grey sky and the bustle of traffic flowing down the main drag. But I found in my jacket pocket two beautiful orange leaves, a little dried out but still vibrant. And I can't stop crying.

The cure for gunk in your eye? More gunk!

Katie has pink eye. The doctor says it's a fairly bad case too, lots of pus. She was fine yesterday! She wasn't awake when I left this morning but C didn't notice anything unusual. When I picked her up from school I knew. Her eye was puffy and gooey (I think perhaps the teachers didn't notice because her glasses were so freakin' dirty they couldn't see her eyes). Had to wait until after dinner to take her to urgent care. They prescribed fuci*thalmic viscous "drops". Obviously the doctor either has no children or has never used fuci*thalmic viscous because it's like trying to squeeze toothpaste into her eye! Tough to do while she's thrashing and screaming and swatting at me every time she manages to get a hand free. And I have to do this 13 more times!?!



Doctor insists that we keep her home tomorrow. C is on training and Jonah's babysitter won't take her so I get an unscheduled (and unpaid) day with Princess pus-y eye :)

So did this post make your eyes suddenly feel itchy, or am I a hypochondriac?

The interview

I had my long-awaited interview for the longest job competition in history yesterday. I *think* I did fairly well (either that or I had no freakin' clue what they were asking me). They have 3 days of interviews, and 3 or 4 interviewees each day, so HOPEFULLY I'll know before long. I did get to ask them all about the position and OMG does it sound awesome!!! Busy, fast paced, almost cutting edge (as much as anything involving analysis and spreadsheets can be cutting edge). Beyond that it sounds like something I'd be a good fit for. So, crossed fingers/toes/eyes for me!

Came home afterwards and just dragged through the afternoon/evening, finally giving up and going to bed just before 8. I don't know why I am so worn out lately. I slept nearly 10 hours last night and today again I am dragging terribly. Could be in part stress I suppose. My office is moving to a new building in a week and a half, and even though the transition is going smoothly I tend to get stressed about changes. Plus I've been to the new building, and while most of our directorate will be getting open cubicles with huge windows and tons of natural light my office looks like a dungeon. A roomy dungeon, but no windows, no light.

OK enough poor me, it's mostly sunny and I'm treating myself to lunch out! There's a place nearby that makes great pad thai :)