Happy (6 month) Anniversary!

**Mush Warning**

If you can believe, we have now been married for 6 months!
And, if you can believe, we spent our 'anniversary' in Vermont!

Yes, as of last Sunday we have been married for only 6 months. It seems longer than that! I mean that in the best way possible. I experience things in life more fully now, because I am now whole. (I warned you about the mush!) It seems that the experiences I had before I was married were only partially experienced. But now, life is whole.

Does this make any sense to you marrieds out there?


Oh yeah, back to our 'anniversary'...

We went to Vermont!
I was having a relatively 'good' day, in regard to health issues so we decided to pump me full of meds and celebrate this occasion by getting out of the apartment, and outta the country! After church on Sunday morning, Tom packed me, over night essentials (in case me or the car got too sick to make it back home that night), and transmission fluid into the car and headed to Burlington, which is in the state of Vermont!

[This actually sounds more extravagant than it was - it's only about 2 hours away.]

I was surprised to find that the state and the city are both very beautiful. The drive was mostly through farmland with rolling mountains, a huge lake, rivers, cattle, dairy farms, etc. The city is situated on the lake, with a beautiful view of the mountains on the other side of it (which would be the state of New York). We borrowed a wheelchair from customer service at the mall and Tom pushed me around for a few hours! We rummaged through the sale racks, and with the dollar near par, we did quite well! (You just need to see how cute my new flip-flops are!)

We went out for dinner on a pedestrian-only street, lined with patios, pubs, and shops. It was a wonderful, wonderful day. We ended it with a beautiful drive home, a short line through customs, and a sleep over in our guest house.

The day was completely exhausting (I'm sure for Tom as well - carrying all of our stuff, doing all the driving - including driving the chair in the mall!), but I didn't care. We felt closer to our normal life again! Such a celebration.

Happy anniversary, Tom!
Here is to so many more. I hope you know how much more complete my life is, because of you.

To Our Friends and Family

As you can imagine, its a bit of work for one man to clean the apartment, cook meals, get groceries, maintain the car, do the banking, care for an ill wife and drive her all around the city for doctors' appointments, run all the errands including returning library books and dropping off doctor's notes, get the sicko out of the apartment (but putting up with whining about being motion sick in the car), distribute pills, put her to bed when she's exhausted, get her up when its time to take more pills, entertain her whenever she is awake to avoid hearing "I'm bored" all the while trying to get enough rest to do this all again tomorrow and hold down a full time job.

So...

My mother flew into town this past Tuesday to help relieve some of this pressure. And did she ever. She cooked, she cleaned, she did the laundry, she drove me to appointments, she entertained me... She took this stress off of Tom. It was so great to have her here. Getting out of the house and being up-and-about throughout most the weekdays felt so good. And, it was such a reminder that even though we are all the way out here in Montreal, we still have so many people who love us dearly.

On that note, even though only a few of them read our blog, we want to give a huge thank you to all of our friends, families, and church families who have been so thoughtful, supportive, and helpful through this time. The calls, e-mails, cards, flowers, prayers, love, and kind words we have received from all of you has touched our hearts and I know it has changed my life. We have come to realize that we are not living alone on an island here in Montreal (no pun intended), but we have the love and support of more people now than ever before. I just don't know how else to express that.

We love all of you, thank you for helping us in this time of need.

And Mama; even though you're gone back home, we are still enjoying your home-made soup in our clean kitchen and clean underwear. :)

Thank you!

Thanks for the advice Tiffany...


We even had some leftovers for my lunch! :)

No time like the past, apparently!

Okay, due to popular demand, and as some may have noticed, we're goin' back to the "classic" template for this site!

We decided there were enough subtle differences in ours to consider it unique, after all.

Enjoy...

It seemed fine to me... ;)

Gentlemen:

I need a little help.

I've been forced into duty in the kitchen, by circumstances beyond my control. My wife has been sick for a few weeks, and we've got to eat. This is a short list of a few things I've learned that may help you... I'd love to hear about anything you know that may help me.

1. Pizza is not supposed to be cut with scissors. (But it works so well!)

2. Chicken, left to thaw in the microwave, will cause an odour in less than two days.

3. This, apparently, is not the correct way to serve your sick wife a hot dog:

[It seemed fine to me!]

They took it away

1) Her tail

2) Her ability to procreate

3) Her ability to scratch (short-term only)

Yes, Buddy went to the vet. When she was returned to us yesterday, she wasn't feeling or looking so hot. I told you about this cat, right? She is a polydactal - meaning she has 7 toes & nails on each of her front paws, and extra pads on her feet. 

This little girl was left out in the cold this winter, and when she was turned in to the SPCA, she had severe frost bite damage on her paws and tail.  This is what led to the tailostomy yesterday. Add in a cone on her head to keep her from licking, plus deny her food for a day or two during recovery leads to a pretty rough life for a 7 month old kitty.  

But she is in 

good spirits. 

I love Value Village

Or, as its called in our part of the world, "Village des Valeurs."

Spring is here and the weather is beautiful. It's the time of year that we open the drawer, which has housed our summer threads all winter, and say "Oh...right." Then we find ourselves in the mall... Beautiful, colourful, fun pieces everywhere. I'm not really into style (surprise), but I am becoming more aware of how I dress. So I decided that I should get a sun dress this year.

So, we find ourselves in the mall (yes, I got out of the apartment!). A beautiful sun dress catches my eye from a few stores down. We are on the move! Whaa! $84.95. Are you serious???? Um, no. No. No! We moved on...

On our way home, we stopped by Value Village. We usually have luck there. Great stuff, great prices. After a hunt, which is often great fun, we entered our change rooms with oodles of stuff in hand.

For that same $84 dollars, we left with:

• A sun dress

plus:

• 4 skirts (super cute, by the way)

• 4 Spanish books

• 2 dress shirts

• 1 long sleeve, zip-up sweater

Yes, I am a fan of Village des Valeurs.

"Like its Going Out of Style" (Quote from Tom)

Actually, this entire post is a rip-off of Tom's idea for a post. The thing is, he is busy at work, and I'm just lying around.
[Sorry babe. At least I gave you the credit?] :)

When you lay around all day, you start to realize negligible(?) things...Like total blog posts for the month of March.

Total blog posts from the seasoned 'regulars', who blogged before T&C's time:
Tiffany - 6
Lyla - 0
Trevor - 4
Brianna - 0

Hmm...No wonder Tom and I are really getting into this blogging thing! Looks like it is going out of style. But, then again, we have a few new comers:

Carli in Panama - 1 (just started 10 days ago)
Lyla's Wedding Blog - 18 (need I point out there are 8 authors on it?)
Ethiopianknights - 11 (friend of a friend's, friend's, friend)

So, it looks like the way to keep ourselves entertained is to either lurk around other people's blogs and gather links to awesome sites (I de-lurked before doing this), or convince others to join the blogging world. Because the last option is by far the less creepy of the two, I'm sending out an invitation to those readers-non-bloggers out there to consider starting your own. It's really fun - highly addictive - but really fun. Let us know if you (want to) start one. I promise I won't count how many you post in a month...:)

The view in the recovery room...