Thursday, Thursday... Where to start??

Okay, it has been a long week. And it isn't done yet. This snow/ice/rain crap has to go. I am done with this weather. On Tuesday, I had to actually go out and buy myself winter boots. Seriously. I have not owned a pair since I was a kid. What do I need them for?? We don't get snow in Vancouver. And it never dips below -5 or so, and that is mid-January weather. I think the weather "high" these past two days was -11! Ridiculous. I live in Vancouver for the weather. Rain. That is what we get. That is why we are sooo green all year round!! But the weather people say that it will start to rain pretty soon and warm back up to 6 or 7 degrees and we should be done with all of this. Yeah. Bye bye.

Marc is home from Korea! Yeah. He brought back some gifts. Yeah again. I am the proud owner of a new Burberry bag and a new Louis Vuitton clutch. Soooo pretty. And new perfume - Burberry Brit. Love it! So I guess there won't be any presents under the tree for me! Kidding. I don't need anything. I am really hard to shop for. I don't allow others to buy me clothing. That is personal. I don't like "gadgets" or tech things. I don't like knick knacks. I REALLY don't like knick knacks. My house is sacred. NO ONE is allowed to purchase something that would have to be displayed in MY house! So, what does that leave?? Perfume and bags! Taken care of. I don't wear jewlery either, unless it is 24K gold and comes from Italy. Sooo, as you can see, I pose a bit of a problem when it comes to gifts. I like money. I am a good Italian girl. Just give me money and I am as happy as a pig in slop!! No joke.

Switching topics, I am preparing to teach my ornament class for Saturday. So, last count - 94 ornaments being made by I have NO idea how many ladies. Crazy. I have supplies enough for 100 ornaments. I have a feeling each and every one will be gone. Sooo, I am looking at teaching from 9:30 am to about 4 pm straight. Sigh. Oh well. I guess I should keep my big mouth shut and then people won't ask for me to teach! Serves me right.

I have begun the Christmas decorations. I have my wreath hung outside - not on my door. I don't like that. But rather I have mounted it on the cedar panel that sits next to my front door. It looks great! My trim colours on my house are a deep olive green. My wreath is all made of dark red berries. The contrast is fabulous!! And then I have pine garlands running all along my front porch rails. These garlands are 9 feet long and I have 6 of them around the porch. I had no idea how large my porch was!! We are not doing lights on the house. Rather, I am switching out all my porch lights for coloured lights - green. But I am missing something. I need a bit more colour outside, but I don't want it to be garish or tacky. I like very natural things. I saw these grapevine balls at Michael's. I may go and pick them up and add them into the garland. I also saw red balls that would look cool nestled in the garland... We will see what I come up with. That leads me to the indoor decorations. Have not started yet. I have to pull out my stuff and see what I have and if I like it. I like simple things, but they need to pack a punch. It is hard to strike the right combination.

Have a good all. Stay safe.

Snow Day, Part Two

Snow Day

Okay, so we had a "storm" come in over the weekend. It started to snow late Saturday afternoon and kept on going until midnight last night. Admittedly, there is a lot of snow on the ground for Vancouver - we have about 3 feet. Now, the rest of you winter people around Canada (and even in the interior of BC) would laugh. But, we are NOT equipped for this. Seriously. The city has shut down. We all have a "snow day". The Surrey School Board (and a majority of the other school districts, including our major universities) closed ALL schools in the district. ALL. I was listening to the news this morning and there were many angry callers on the line, wondering why it is that the schools had to "close" just because we have some snow?? It got me thinking. I knew as of yesterday afternoon that I was not going to drive Ethan to school this morning - clear roads or not. Our lovely little school sits a top a hill. Gee, wouldn't that have been fun to try and manage. You see, we don't get lovely, light, fluffy, dry snow. We get hard, heavy, wet, compact snow. And it froze last night. So, now we have sheets of black ice everywhere. And when you drive up the hill, you enter the school and then go down a mini hill into the parking lot. Ya. Like that would have been cleared since Saturday?!! Right. Dream on. I don't care enough about one day of school to risk getting into an accident with Ethan and Bella in the car with me. People here drive as if there is nothing wrong with the weather or the roads. It is all quite scary. The point of the callers was that we should have the choice of going to school or not on a day like this. Why?? Why risk accident for one day of school?? Is it REALLY worth all the hassel just so your kid can get 6 hrs (maybe) of an education?? It becomes all quite a logistical nightmare. Again, you have to live in Vancouver to understand my rant. We only get snow once or twice a year. If that. Last year, we really didnt' get anything!! The majour routes are taken care of. The rest is up to you. I know my poor Marc is coming home today from a 13 hr flight from Korea to come and shovel the drive way and the back alley so that tomorrow we can get out!! Not to mention the front porch and steps and walkway. Enjoy your snow day!! It will probably be the only one we get this year!! Having said that, I am off to bundle up my kids and let them PLAY outside!! Ciao.

Snow, and parties, and stuff - oh my!!

So, it is almost 5pm, and this is what it looks like outside now. The snow is still coming down, hard. Ethan does not have school tomorrow. Good thing. Not that I would bring him anyway. Our subdivision is not very good right now. Our back alley, especially, is trecherous. Sooo, I had no plans of driving anywhere tomorrow. I hope Marc's plane will come in okay. That is another story. But nothing we can do about it right now. Marc's dad is going to the airport to bring him home. I really am not good with snow. I don't like to drive it in personally, and I don't like others driving in it. Especially the idiots who don't believe that it affects the performance of their ill equipped vehicles!! But this weather keeps my firm in business. Or, should I say the sheer stupidity of people in this weather keeps me in business!! Whatever. All the same.

But this weather could not stop us from having a birthday bash!! Happy Birthday to my sweet sweet Emelia!! The big ONE today!! It was such a fun party. And here is the cupcake cake. And a pic of the birthday girl chowing down. One of her most favourite things to do!! She is a girl after my own heart!!

And last, but not least, these are the fabulous goody bags we put together on Friday night. Everyone got a belgian chocolate daisy lollipop and daisy sugar cookies. It was just the right finishing touch. I have to give my mom credit - she taught us gals how to throw good parties!!

I looked out the window and what did I see....

SNOW!! What the freak?? This is Vancouver. We don't get snow!! Not in November!! If it snows here, it usually comes mid January. This is crazy. This entire weekend has been crazy. Murphy's Law - Marc is away = children sick. Isabella has the flu. It started before lunch yesterday when she said her tummy hurt. Then she started to cry. Then she started to vomit. Every hour, on the hour. It finally stopped around 7pm last night when she passed out and went to bed and slept 13 hrs straight. Now today she is back to normal. I kept poor Ethan basically confined to the basement the entire day/evening. I Lysoled every surface possible. I freakin' washed my hands about a million times in scalding water and antibacterial soap everytime I went near Isabella. I hope I contained the disease enough and now have killed it. I hope. Today is Emelia's fist birthday party, and Isabella will not be joining us. Marc's mom is coming to stay for the afternoon while Ethan and I go. Murphy's Law.

Enjoy the snow y'all. I will now spend the next few hours fretting about driving conditions.

Christmas Cards

Okay, so, after much playing around, this is ONE of the cards I came up with. I really like it. It is "icy" looking/feeling. The cardstock is this very cool icy blue, and the paper is shimmery with snowmen on it and the tag has a HS ghost snowflake on it with some bling. Super super simple. The "Peace" is a stamp I found. I am working on variations of this theme, but this is THE card for this year. Whew. I was beginning to worry for a second. I was so unispired up until last night. Now I have a dozen of these babies sitting on my table. Now to get some pics organized and my cards are ready to go out! Love being organized.

Ciao all. 

Lookin' for the mojo....

Well, I am dismayed. This is the FIRST year that I have no desire to make Christmas cards, or have any ideas in my head of what I want them to possibly look like... I am sad. I have some really great papers from Basic Grey and Ki and Sweetwater... I have some cool Heidi Swapp ghost snowflakes and I found this old "peace" stamp that is in a scroll writing. SOMETHING should come to my head with all this stuff. But alas, nothing. Can someone please send me some mojo??!!!

Timeline

Courtesay of Crystal - she is always keeping me on my toes!!

40 yrs ago - Not around yet.

35 yrs ago - Just a little baby living in Revelstoke, BC.

30 yrs ago - Beginning Kindergarten at Lean Shaw Elementary School.

25 yrs ago - In Grade 5 with Mr. Jones. My most favourite teacher to this day!

20 yrs ago - In Grade 10 at Guildford Park Secondary.

15 yrs ago - In 2nd year at Simon Fraser University, studying History and Humanities and dreaming about becoming a History Professor.

10 yrs ago - Graduated from law and working full time.

5 yrs ago - At home with my sweet Ethan who is 2 yrs old.

2 yrs ago - At home with my Ethan and new baby Isabella who is 1 yr old.

1 yr ago - Getting ready to go back to work part time with my firm that I used to work for 10 yrs ago.

1 month ago - Mourning the loss of my sweet sweet friend.

Yesterday - Listening to a prophet speak.

Tomorrow - Staying home with my sweet Isabella and doing whatever we want.

Thanks for taking the stroll with me!!

Weekend Stuff, etc.

Behold, Ethan's first trophy. He competed in the Western Divison Taekwondo Tournament on Saturday and won this. He competed in forms and sparring and he did really very well! I was amazed at how much he remembers from belt to belt. It isn't just short term memory stuff. Impressive. He was nervous before he started, but once he got into it, he relly had fun. And he was doing these funky jump spin kicks for his sparring moves. He is one cool kid!!

The rest of the weekend was quiet. Just the way I like it. I have a cold and it is pretty nasty. So we just stayed home and hung out. We had Stake Conference on Sunday and we were privileged to listen to President Hinckley speak to us. That was a great spiritual boost. Much needed. After this past month, I am more than spiritually drained... I still have nightmares, but they are not as often. I still miss Manj every day and cant' believe it has been a month already. I still have so many questions that need answers, but the police are working hard. I have to believe that they are on the verge of making an arrest. That is what I pray for daily now.

My week coming up is hectic. Marc leaves for Korea on Wednesday and is gone for one week. Not bad - could be worse... The kids miss him so much when he goes away on business. But we have my niece's first birthday party to get ready for, and that will help eat up the time. I think we are up to 40 adults and 20 children for the party on Sunday... I have 6 dozen daisy sugar cookies to bake this week. And then goody bags to make... I had better get my act in gear. But I did get my niece the most adorable outfit from Old Navy and this totally cute Winnie the Pooh Mega Blocks set that talks. She will love that.

I also finished my Christmas shopping today. Very happy about that. I always try to be done before December 1st. People start getting crazy and it scares me. So I finished with more than a week to spare! Yeah. That's the best thing about being so anal. You never are rushed or panicked because everything is done plenty of time ahead. It gives you room to tweak things here and there!! Now I have to turn my attention to decorations... Hmm. That is a dilema for me this year. I like minimal things and I like natural things. It is going to be tricky decking this house with boughs of holly.... hee hee But I will do my best!! And I will post when I am done.

Off to eat. Ciao y'all.

Oh, it's good to have power again!!

Okay, I am SOOOOO not ready for any kind of "natural disaster" to hit this house!! When the storm hit yesterday morning, our power went out around lunch time. It JUST came back on half an hour ago. Let's see... Hmmm - that was 27+ hours without power, and I was really starting to panic. My cell phone died this morning. I ran out of "useful" candles. I had to throw away all the perishable items in our fridge - milk, eggs and luncheon meats. Awful. So, time to get a plan ready for this house. We had plenty of flashlights and batteries. Yeehaw. But we need the following:

*Lots of candles and matches
*Spare cash
*A regular plug in the wall phone
*A cell phone charger for the car
*A battery powered radio

So, how about y'all?? How did you do?? Something to really think about.

My favourite movie line of all time

I watched "Nacho Libre" last night with Marc. Okay - maybe it had something to do with the fact that I was very tired and I have a cold and I was taking some pretty strong cold medications, BUT all that aside, I LOVED the movie!! I laughed so hard I was crying. And I nearly peed my pants. Seriously. Now, my most favourite movie line of all times is in this movie:

"Do you realize that I have had diahrea since the Easters??" (said in my best Mexican impersonation).

Oh, I am killing myself laughing right now as I type this!! Bathroom humour NEVER gets old!!

Ciao all.

A Re-do

I was not happy with the layout I did for Emelia, so I re-did it. I still think it is lacking, but it is better than it was before.

So last night Tammy and I went out. We went to Earl's for dinner and then went shopping. It was nice to go out and have time to talk. Life is always too busy. And now with Manj gone, I have come to realize that it is very VERY important to give time to friends! So I had a wonderful time last night and Tammy got me home before midnight - I turn into a pumpkin at 12:01 am!! Seriously. But today I seem to have a sore throat. It is killing me... I had to stay home from church because I can't talk more than a sentence before I errupt in a coughing fit. Gotta love that.

Have a good day all. I am off to have a rest and then watch "Nacho Libre" tonight with Marc. I adore Jack Black. I think he is absolutely hilarious.

Ciao.

It's late...

But I can't seem to get to sleep. I am really bad that way - my mind wanders too much when I am alone and then my imagination gets the best of me. Before I know it I have worked myself up so much that I cannot go to sleep. Crazy. I have been like this my whole life. I was totally afraid of the dark when I was little. I remember falling asleep, buried way under the covers and then springing out of bed at the first crack of light.

But right now I can't fall asleep for another reason. Marc is not home yet. He is doing a service project with his Ventures. They are downtown Vancouver handing out blankets and such to the homeless. We are having really ugly weather in Vancouver. It has been raining basically non stop for the past week and now the temperature is dropping. I think it is 4 degrees out right now. Sooo, this is a wonderful project for our guys to do. But I am worried. The downtown streets are not very safe - even for a group of men and 10 or so teens. And of course with my law background and my wonderful Italian "never trust anyone ever" upbringing, I am paranoid that they will get jumped or robbed or something along that line.... Gee, I sure wish I could use my imagination for good rather than bad!! Sigh.

I am sleepy now. Night all!!

One more for the road

Layout I created for Ethan. He was the Red Ninja for Halloween. He looked awesome!! Everything from my stash o' stuff: HS Ghost letters; Scraptivity stamps (OLD school - Oct 2005); scraps; and inking. Super simple. That's my motto. And now I am all caught up again. hee hee

Thursday musings

I am having a home day today. Not by choice really, but hey, that is okay. Marc needs the car and he has meetings downtown. My mom is picking up Ethan from school. So, I am home. I plan on tackling a few projects today - cleaning out the fridge and re-organizing my pantry. These have been bugging me for a while... And I am going to bake today. The kids love banana muffins, so those are on the list. Not a terribly thrilling day, but then again, I have had too many "thrilling" days (and not the good kind!) lately.

My hubby has started blogging (marcofficer.blogspot.com). Y'all should check him out once in a while. He is hilarious. Truly gifted with words. I am hoping he will let some of that craziness out on his blog, and then maybe we can save some big bucks around here - y'all can be his therapists!! hee hee KIDDING!! We don't actually PAY for therapy!! We have friends in the business.... hee hee heeee Kidding again (maybe.....)

I also want everyone to keep my friend Heather and her new sweet babe Helayna in their thoughts and prayers today. Little Helayna has been admitted to hospital with a distended tummy and pain and that is all toooooo scary for a 2 week old - and a brand new mommy!! Heather, I send you all my good thoughts and prayers. I know all too well that scared and helpless feeling that comes over you when your newborn child is sick, and you can do absolutely nothing to help... Be strong my friend!! All will be well!! HUGS

Finally, I did this layout of Isabella a few days ago. Lately, I have been totally fascinated with "freestyle" scrapping. The more bohemian it looks, the more I like it. Very strange. I think it is because I run such a tight household and I don't allow a lot of experimentation with my decor - so I am experimenting with my layouts. It is fun. And it is a whole lot cheaper to re-do a layout vs. my decor!! I am sure my hubby feels relief in that!! hee hee


Have a good day everyone!!

Ciao.

Back to life, back to reality....

Well, so much has been going on these past few weeks, it is time to get caught up.

First, Ethan tested for his new Pheonix belt (purple) and got it. I was so very proud. His form consisted of 37 moves that he had to memorize and perform. Plus his self defence and board breaking and sparring and weapons. He did awesome. And in two weeks he competes in tournament for his very first trophy. He is excited.

Second, my constant need for change is getting the better of me. I have picked out the paint colours for my house and I am ready to go. I am always inspired by designers from around the world. These gorgeous vases come from the UK. I love the muted colours and the bead like designs. I am sure they would look gorgeous in a nook with light shining on them. They look like they would sparkle. Very elegant. Gotta love that.


Marc was in Calgary this past week working. He is being head hunted, again. But it is something totally out of his "norm". We are excited about the opportunity. I think something really good is going to come out of this. Change, change.... Constant change.

And finally, I get to turn my attention to my niece Emelia. Her first birthday is in a few weeks, and now we are busy preparing for the big bash - Italian style!! My sister actually rented the church hall because that is how many of us there are going to be!! I LOVE it!! Italians know how to party!! So I got to create the invitations, with the much needed help of the fabulous TAMMY!! Thank you!! And they are super adorable. We took a Gerbera Daisy, hot pink, and put Emelia's face in the centre, and then did the party details on the side. Turned out absolutely adorable and Laura loved it!! I knew she would!! And now I get to make 6 dozen daisy shaped sugar cookies for the party favours. We are giving out the cookies and daisy lollipops. Martha Stewart I am not - BUT I can give her a run for her money!! And we are doing a daisy cupcakes in tiers for the birthday cake. Super cute. Super girlie. Totally my niece!!

I am off and running. Busy Monday ahead. Everyone stay safe! Ciao.

And now for something a little lighter

Halloween pics from my sweet boy Ethan - aka - the Red Ninja!! Don't panic - his dagger is plastic and retractable. What a ham!

A Final Goodbye

Today was Manj's funeral. It was hard. Really really hard. I cried so much today that I actually vomitted. I have NEVER cried that hard in my entire life. There is a difference between someone passing from old age or a terrible disease vs. someone being taken from you - right out of the blue. There is an emptiness. There are questions - soooo many questions... No one seems to have the answers, or, more to the point, no one wants to answer anything right now. There were easily 1500 people at the funeral today. She touched so many lives. So many. We loved her so much. But amid all those people, there were television crews and reporters and police everywhere - watching; questioning; observing; taking notes. The entire funeral was taped - there were surveillance cameras everywhere. It is all so unsettling. And then in Sikh custom, Manj was cremated right there - while we were all watching. THAT was the worst part. THAT made it all so final. THAT forced us to say goodbye. And yet today, there were also moments of happiness. Laura was reunited with her childhood buddies. People we have not seen in ages. Shannon and Adam... How I miss these two so!! Seeing their beautiful faces today brought back so many wonderful memories. Laura and Manj and Shannon and Adam were inseperable when they were kids and teens. They literally had adventures together. Nothing was ever boring for them. And mischief seemed to follow these four where ever they went!! They laughed together; they cried together; they worked together... True friends. And in such a sad time, they had come together to support each other again. True friends.

Manj, we love you. You will always be in our hearts.

My Little Princess

This is Isabella last night, all dressed up for Halloween - a princess, of course!! Not much different from everyday life here in the Officer household... But too cute nonetheless!!