Action Corner Lives On

I’ve mentioned before that we live on the inside curve of a not-very-difficult-to-navigate turn in the road. Not difficult if you’re sober and driving at a reasonable speed. These two factors have eluded drivers before (see here and here).

Last night at 2:30 a.m., I woke up to the sound of someone desperately revving an engine. Thomas and I looked out our window and saw a car, backed into the cedar hedges belonging to our neighbour across the street. It was clear that he had missed the turn, though it took us awhile to piece together his route. He missed the house on the corner (the usual crash site), threaded between their garbage on the curb, a hydro pole and the cedar bushes of the house next door and hit a tree, leaving a perfect tree-shaped dent deep into his car. He chose to reverse into the hedges where he got stuck.

We called 911 and watched him get out of the car, get on his cellphone, stalk around angrily and kick his car (stupid car). He went to the house on the corner and we couldn’t tell if he went inside or just stood on the porch. When the police arrived, he started WALKING AWAY and the cop pulled up beside him and immediately put him in the car.

The car was towed away, an officer took a statement from Thomas and as he was leaving our house, the driver’s friends (obviously whoever he was trying to call) pulled up looking for him and the officer spoke to them, too. We were back in bed at 3:30.

I’m grateful for his family that the driver wasn’t hurt. But DUDE, maybe you can find a better way to spend a Tuesday night then terrorizing the roads with your jack-assery.

 

Meal Plan Monday

Breakfast

pancakes, cereal, toast, fruit, yogurt

Lunch

leftovers, mac and cheese, peanut butter and banana tortilla wraps

Dinner

maple pork chops with maple and apple chutney, broccoli

veggie soup, cheese toasties

chili, pita chips

pizza, salad

pasta with meaty tomato sauce, salad

Snacks/Desserts

popcorn, fruit, yogurt

22 Weeks

Maternity Clothes: One pair of maternity jeans which are a bit big but super comfortable. Mostly maternity shirts now.

Body Oddities: Very dry skin, very thirsty. Bad heartburn which I didn’t have last pregnancy.

Sleep: Most sleep issues are related to a very annoying cat. It’s getting harder to get comfortable, though.

Best Moment This Week: More baby squirmy-ness.

Worst Moment: Nothing terrible, thank goodness.

Movement: General squirmy-ness and some good kicks.

Food Cravings/Aversions: Very thirsty. Craving spicy foods and still disgusted by ground beef.

Rings: My wedding ring is still loose.

Gender: We’re not finding out but I think it’s a boy.

Intense Dreams: Dreaming about mundane conversations between Thomas and I. I wake up and wonder if we really talked about the contents of my mother’s pantry.

Medical Concerns: Not at the moment.

What I Miss: Still wine.

What I Look Forward To: Getting through my next OB appointment at the end of the month. This OB is different than the one I had with Adam. This practice takes A LOT of time with each mom, which is a nice thing to do but my first appointment was an hour late and I was in the examination room for 45 minutes. My last OB had his nurse find the heartbeat, he came in to feel the position, asked “Any questions?” and was gone. It was awesome (and on time).

Emotional State: Good!

The Itsy Bitsy Spider

Adam and I found a visitor the other day:

We’ve seen the spider every day for about a week and Adam is enthralled. We’ve sang the Itsy Bitsy Spider, we’ve found different cobwebs around the room (it’s educational, not bad housekeeping… ahem), we’ve found pictures of spiders in our books. Finding critters… the perfect indoor activity for chilly days!

Using It Up

Since we’ve become a one-income family, we’ve cut back our spending a lot. We need to think about everything we buy. As we all know, little things add up.

And we live in a tiny house with very little storage so I’ve done my best to get rid of clutter, which hasn’t been easy as we are a cluttery couple.

I was thinking about all the things I haven’t needed to buy because a) we already had it or b) we had something that would do. In the last two years, I’ve used up, found an alternative or found for free and I haven’t bought:

• shampoo/conditioner, face wash, moisturizer, bar soap, lip balm
• gift wrap, bows, gift tags
• socks, sweaters
• yarn
• pencil, pens, markers, paper, notebooks, envelopes, glue
• candles, picture frames, blankets, sheets, anything for the kitchen (we have a tiny kitchen!)
• DVDs, books, CDs, magazines
• winter coats, mittens, hats, scarves

Are you using up and making do?

Thanks Doll

I wrote this post last April and forgot about it. I thought I’d share it now.

Our house went up for sale when the previous owner was moved into a nursing home. She had been in bad shape for awhile. Her bed was downstairs in the main room and it was obvious that she hadn’t been upstairs in years. It was also obvious that she hadn’t been able to clean the house or even take care of herself. The sale was arranged through her godson and the realtor warned us that she wouldn’t be able to provide us with any information about the house, despite the fact that she had lived here for 62 years. We knew she wouldn’t be around much longer.

She died last week and unfortunately, the obit ran in the paper after the funeral. I wish I had been able to attend. We’ve pieced together a small part of the story of the couple who lived here. They bought the house in 1947 for a few thousand dollars. Her husband was a “creative” handyman and after ripping out wall after wall, sawing through the floors and clearing out the attic and garage, we think we have uncovered most of his handiwork. He died in 1974 and the renovations and improvements stopped and from what was here when we bought the house, it seems the work stopped some time before that. The house became a time capsule.

We’re renovating and changing her house room by room. We try to save what we can. When we renovated upstairs, adding two closets and a bathroom, eliminating one very tiny bedroom, we built in an odd sized doorway to our bedroom so we could keep the original door. We uncovered the beautiful hardwood and gave it a good polish. We’ve kept the WWII momentos we found in the attic.

Thank you, Doll. Thank you for the beautiful garden. Thank you for the crazy knick-knacks. Thank you for years of memories that we are still uncovering.

 

21 Weeks

Joining in Mrs. Gamgee‘s fun with weekly pregnancy updates: 21 weeks.

Maternity Clothes: Wearing my regular clothes but my bigger regular clothes. There is one pair of jeans that I’ve had to put away. I’m much more comfortable in stretchy pants, especially in the evening.

Body Oddities: Very dry skin, very thirsty.

Sleep: Mostly OK.

Best Moment This Week: Our 20 week ultrasound and seeing the baby squirm and suck its fingers.

Worst Moment: Having both the ultrasound technician (before my ultrasound) and my mother question if I was right about my due date. I know I’m not huge and even though the ultrasounds have been fine, it’s no fun hearing that other people don’t think I’m growing like I should.

Movement: Occasional squimy-ness.

Food Cravings/Aversions: Very thirsty. Craving spicy foods and still disgusted by ground beef.

Rings: My wedding is ring is still loose.

Gender: We’re not finding out but I think it’s a boy.

Intense Dreams: None. A lot fewer weird dreams this time around.

Medical Concerns: Not at the moment.

What I Miss: Wine. We never had wine around the house before I was pregnant. Now it seems that everyone wants to give us a bottle.

What I Look Forward To: Looking pregnant so people will stop cutting in front of me in line. Jerks.

Emotional State: Comforted that the baby is measuring perfectly.

Finally

After some worrying, wondering and overall not-so-sure-ness, we’re comfortable enough to tell everyone about:

Coming May 26-ish!

Chicken and Lobster

I switched our cat to a better cat food. He’s getting older and was throwing up quite a bit and I thought a change of food was worth a try.

His old run-of-the-mill cat food:

$0.39 a small can, on sale, with coupons, ate one can a day/$0.39 a day

New and fancy, better food than we’re eating:

$3.19 a big can, never on sale, never any coupons, eats one can every four days/$0.80 a day

Twice the price but he has all but stopped throwing up and the quality of food is much better. Hopefully, we have a healthier cat, which will be a good investment long term.

I buy him a variety of flavours, combinations of chicken, beef, different seafoods because… well, I don’t know. I thought he would appreciate the change of pace? Over the last few months he has developed favourites and one particular least favourite: chicken and lobster.

The ungrateful wretch complains every time I put it out. He picks at it throughout the day and whines all night. I buy catfood once a month and I only noticed the preference this month so he’s stuck with a few cans. I understand he has his favourites (mainly fish) but DUDE, you’re eating LOBSTER. I had KD for lunch. Suck it up.

Rant over.

Winter Fun

Adam was not much a fan of the cold and snow last year. This year:

Now that’s he’s excited about mittens and hats and shovels and sleds, the problem is waiting for a day that’s not too cold or too rainy.

(I got the toddler sled from Freecycle and Thomas pounded a few nails into it to make it sturdy. Cheap fun!)