Hey, Mrs. Wilson!

A couple of you commented and emailed me about the fact that I did not include myself in my previous post. So, here you go. You asked for it.

Well, here’s me. I’m a self-absorbed lazy procrastinating self-destructive people pleaser. I’m irritable, sarcastic, impatient, and incapable of experiencing real feelings. I possess no self-control, self-discipline, or motivation. I am in introverted extrovert. (Because that makes SO much sense.) I like meeting people but I run from any friendship that seems to be getting close. I have a strange feeling that I have to solve everyone’s problems and seeing people suffer drives me completely insane.

Too much information? I’ll try be a bit more positive.

I love photography, blogging, scrapbooking, and hanging out with my family. I hate am learning to like football. I have a fascination with dressing my girls alike, which I will do until Kaylie objects to it. I love organizing, but I’m very unorganized. Just because I like it doesn’t mean I’m good at it!

I love being a wife and a mom. Nothing in this life gives me more satisfaction than taking care of my family. I feel so completely blessed with the husband and children God has given me. I couldn’t imagine having a better family than I have. I have recently had the tremendous opportunity to be a stay-at-home mom and I’m loving every minute of it. I really enjoy working outside the home, but I’m so glad that I get to be with my children all day long. I definitely have to work on my house wife skills though.

And on a serious note …

I’ve been struggling with my health, pretty much since Noah and I were married. After many, many tests, I was diagnosed with IBS exactly a year before Liliana was born. It got better while I was pregnant and then came back with a vengeance a month or so postpartum . I also developed hardcore lower back pain after giving birth that is slowly getting worse and worse, and I’m wondering if it’s from the epidural. Also after Liliana’s birth, I started feeling what I thought was just baby blues.

As the “baby blues” got worse and worse, Noah convinced me it was necessary to go see my doctor. I ignored him for another five months and finally went a week before we moved to Regina, because otherwise it wouldn’t be my doctor that I got to see. After a couple tests, and a shwack of questioning, she diagnosed me with severe depression. This one was a shock to me. I thought that depressed people were suicidal and thought their life was miserable. I am not suicidal and I really love my life. As I learn more about depression, I’m understanding it more, and I’m trying to beat it. It’s a long, hard journey that would fill too many pages to count. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody.

More recently, I’ve also been experiencing intense tension headaches and what I’ve learned are ulcer-like pains, that I hope does not mean that I have an ulcer. That would just be the icing on the cake.

I’ve felt like a hypochondriac, which has led me to procrastinate going to the doctor until Noah says, “Go! Now!” I put off going because I always fear that I’m going to go, the doctor is going to tell me it’s nothing, and I’ll go home feeling even more like a hypochondriac. I always think it’s just going to go away, and then I just get used to living with the symptom. So, I don’t go until it’s absolutely necessary.

So there you have it. A tiny peek into what makes up “me”. I might do another post on this topic, because it’s like a journey of self discovery. I learn more about myself daily as I write, and as I listen to my husband (and a certain friend I have here, you know who you are!) psychoanalyze me. I learned the other night that my love language is quality time. It makes complete sense, I’ve just never thought about it before.

I hope all you Canadians have a great Thanksgiving weekend. We’re heading to Manitoba in about half an hour to spend the weekend with Noah’s parents and grandma. We get back on Monday, and my mom and sister come on Wednesday. Let’s just say it’s going to be a busy week, but I’m sure I’ll be posting pictures of our activities.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I was reading my sister-in-law’s sister-in-law’s my brother’s sister-in-law’s Christi’s blog earlier and noticed this post.  A book?  Made from my blog?  Why haven’t I thought of this earlier?

I’ve checked out a couple sites, but have not found the site yet.  From what I understand, BlogPrinting.com can instantly turn a blogger.com, wordpress.com, or livejournal.com into a blog book, but cannot do the same for a self-hosted blog like mine.  The site I’ve found that is closest to what I would want is Blurb.com. I’ve experimented a little bit, but it’s not as customizable as I’d like it to be.

Is it just me that thinks that this is a sweet idea?  Last year, for Christmas presents for my parents and my in-laws, I made a photo book at Shutterfly.com.  (They rule.)  The books are amazing, and I’d love to have something like it for my blog archives.  I use my blog as kind of a family journal (most of the time when I’m not whining), so I’d love to have a tangible copy of it with all the pictures in tow.

Has anyone else contimplated this, or looked into it?  No?  Just me?

(PS. Liliana is in night three in her Big Girl Bed.  The bad news is that she does not nap, but the good news is that she stays in her bed for her whole “nap time” playing quietly.  She also goes to bed quite easily at night because of the not napping.  I’m not giving up on the naps yet though.  I’ll go insane!)

If you don’t, you should.  It’s all the rage.  Come find me.  My name is heymrswilson.  You know you wanna.

Tomorrow at this time, I will be making the final preparations for our trip to meet up with Nick and Teresa and then to celebrate the marriage of Noah’s sister and her fiancé. I know the kids will be totally stoked when they find out they have to be back in a vehicle for 8 hours each way.

Another cool thing about tomorrow at this time (besides the organized packing that I’ll be nerdily enjoying) is that Noah’s other sister is coming to visit for the night and then she’ll travel with us to Alberta. It’s always more fun to have a van load when you go on a road trip. Yes, I’m serious.

As I was looking through the internet job boards today, I found a job that I would absolutely LOVE. It’s with a local internet company that specializes in making websites. It was the only one I applied to today because I was so excited about it. Everything about the job made me excited. It would be such a blessing to go to work every day and do something that I loved, so needless to say, I’m really hoping to hear back from them.

I can’t even think of anything else to tell you because all that is on my mind is hopefully having a chance at that job. So I’ll leave you with that. We have a fun day planned tomorrow, so you’ll get your picture fix then!

Yes, Ruby had a rough weekend.

Ruby who?

My camera.

Her name is Ruby.

On Saturday, she would not upload photos. I was freaking out and throwing things getting a little upset. Then? She would not turn on.

I started to panic.

I thought of all the worst case scenarios that involved losing my pictures forever, burying Ruby in the back yard, and missing all the family pictures at the park when I thought of the battery. You idiot, why didn’t you think of the battery?

Well, because my battery has never died on me. Not once. Not ever. It is AWESOME. It lasts me a full month before I have to charge it, and I pretty much use it daily. I am in love with it.

I charged it, loaded it, and Ruby worked like a charm. I learned my lesson.

I always sometimes fail to think outside or inside the box.

Earlier today, I could not find Ruby.

I knew I took her out earlier. I tucked her in her case and put her in the diaper bag.

After that, I do not know what happened.

I know I planned to bring her to lunch, but lunch out with 16 people, one of them being a 12-and-a-half-month-old, is kind of chaotic. (Side note: Britney Spears’ stupid reality show wrecked that word for me.)

I put off looking for her and attempted to beat Noah and his mom at a game of Scrabble. I beat Sue, but I did not beat Noah.

Even though I got over 30 on most turns. I’ll get over it.

After Sue left, I got a little more serious about the looking for Ruby thing. I still could not find her. I called the place we were before lunch, but no sign of her. As a last resort, I called Boston Pizza. They had a camera and asked me to identify it.

Identify it? I could do that AND tell you what is in every single pocket of the camera bag. I’ll tell you one thing, if there was ever a camera bag to steal, mine would be the one. It has in it: a camera (duh!), a USB cable, a battery charger, a mini tripod, an owner’s manual, a driver disc, and a sweet Christmas card from my brother when we got each other $25 gift certificates for Canadian Tire.

Yup, it has STEAL ME written all over it.

I identified Ruby and then drove like a maniac went to pick her up. I was SO happy to see her that I might have given her a little hug.

When I got home, I realized I’d gone in there looking like a hobo. Complete with capri Wal*mart sweats covered in paint.

I am so classy.

You cry.

Or you go to work and use it.

Dear Citystreams,
I know you tagged me for a meme first, but my Wordpress was not working then so I saved it as a file on my computer at home to publish later.

Now?  My Wordpress is working and my internet isn’t.  Sorry Citystreams, it’ll go up as soon as my internet does!  Stupid technology.

Onwards.

Angella also tagged me for a meme today (it must be meme week, because I haven’t done one in forever). 

Here goes.  Six random things about me.

1. My ears are not symmetrical.  They are totally and completely different.  I did not notice this.  My mom told me when I was about 16.  If not for that, I would probably still not notice.

2. I can’t stand spelling and grammatical errors (even though I’m not perfect), although I consistently spell weird “wierd”. Figures.  It mostly bugs me in professional settings - like signs and letters, etc.  There’s a sign at the grocery store that Noah works at that says “CD’s”.  Oh COME ON!

3. I love babies.  I love to read blogs about babies.  I’d love to have lots of babies.  The only problem is that they turn into kids.  I don’t really want lots of those.  Two is good for me.

4. I like to watch the commentaries on DVD series.  Yes, I know I’m a nerd.

5. I like to watch TV with the subtitles on.  (Noah hates this.)  I can usually hear it just fine, I just cannot figure out what the heck they’re saying!

6. I like filling out forms.  I like it when I have a sheet in front of me and I KNOW ALL THE ANSWERS!  Yes, I hated tests at school.  I did not know all the answers.

So there you have it.  6 boring things about me.

I’m tagging you.  Yes, you.  And leave a comment for me with the link so I can read yours!

We have the necessities.

See you soon.

Welcome!

I took a little blogging break after my episode the other day. I figured maybe I should stay away from the computer for a little while and be a better mom/wife and maybe not boil a pot dry.

Disregard the next couple paragraphs if you have no idea what I’m talking about. Sorry ’bout that. There’s pictures below.

I tried to update my version of WordPress earlier this evening. By myself. Um, not a good idea. I fooled around too much with my FileZilla. Idiot. I made my back site thing (where I enter posts) explode. The screen was all weird characters instead of my normal dashboard. I may have freaked out a bit and I might have frantically messaged Angella because OMSH was not online. Although Angella is loverly, she could not help me. She does what I should have done in the first place. Get someone else to do it.

Then I had an epiphany. (Shut up.) Fantastico! I blew up my site before, and that’s what saved me, so I went back there. Oh my word, I did a little shriek of joy when I logged in and I saw a beautiful dashboard.  I’m not updated, but at least I’m back to where I was to begin with.
Maybe I should pay a little more attention to the update tutorial next time.

On to hopefully more interesting things

Kaylie and I had a Mommy-Kaylie lunch today. She loves Mommy-Kaylie time. Having another little person take up a lot of my time has been a bit hard on her. She’s never once been resentful toward Liliana, quite the opposite actually. She’s always very loving toward her. Sometimes a bit too much to the point of smothering.

On our way home from church, Kaylie asked if we could go out for lunch. If we do go out, it’s usually on Sunday because I’m lazy on Sundays. I told her we had to ask Dad, as he’d walked home ahead of us (it’s baseball season y’know!) He did not want to go (and Liliana needed a nap), but gave the go-ahead for Kaylie and I to go out on the condition that we brought him back some food.

Deal.

I let Kaylie pick the restaurant from a list of ones I liked. It’s all about letting them think it’s their idea. When she got her coloring sheet, she wanted me to color with her. The child in me was quite excited about this. I said I’d help her color the pigs.

“Mom. They’re not pigs. They’re fat horses.”

My bad.

We’re all about the iced tea in our family. Canadian iced tea. None of that sour sugarless American stuff.

Kaylie decided it was time she taught me about the things of life, like putting the lemon in the iced tea instead of letting it sit on the rim.

“See mom? You put it in and then you smoosh it all around so that the flavor goes aaaaaaaaall through the iced tea.”

Got it.

“And then you drink it while you wink.”

Okee dokee.

“Hey mom, can I take a picture of you?”

What? And let you touch my camera? My baby? My pride and joy? Not in a million years, sister! Um, okay.

I was actually quite impressed with her composition. I kind of like this picture (besides the fact that I hate all pictures that include me).

When our food finally came, she said she was full after she whined through the whole church service that she was hungry.

“I got full on the iced tea.”

Wonderful.

Oh well, we’ll take it home to dad. He likes chicken fingers and fries.

And, just to be nice, we picked him up a six-inch pizza sub from Subway with lettuce, onions, tomatoes, pickles, mustard, BBQ sauce, southwest chipoltle sauce, and oregano on Italian herb and cheese bread. Except I forgot the pickles and southwest. At least I was close.

And now it’s advice time …

How do you get a kid to stop biting her nails?

How do you get that kid to also ride a two-wheel bike without getting really angry at her because she’s whining because she thinks she’s going to tip over even though you’re hanging on? (Not that I’d ever get angry.)

Look out tomorrow for the next episode of my Ode to my Family Series. Tomorrow I introduce you to my mom!

and because I stayed out way too late at a craft night I did not craft at, I will leave you with this.

66 words

What did you score?

Edited: Because I’m an even bigger nerd, I did it again and got 78 … maybe if I do it all day long I’ll get faster and faster.