28/09/2010

Get outta me head, and into the internets..

I've had many a blog posts lately. They are all living in my head.

I heard of a challenge, it's about blogging everyday for a month straight... Just to help get the creative juices going.

I think I might just do it. Not just for you, but for me, too. It's kind of fun sometimes to look back at old blogs.

Watdayathink? When should I start?

And even a better questions.... Who else is up for it?!?!!?

22/09/2010

What's in a name?

We're four months pregnant.

It's time to get a little more serious about deciding on names.


Here's the criteria:

  1. Spellable - NO ONE seems to be able to spell our last name, so out of pure respect to The Kid, it deserves a first name that they won't have to spell every time they meet someone.
    [Tom says: "This is so true. It's not fair that the kid should have to spell both their first and last names all the time -- every time I make a phone call and have to give my name, it's always 'Tom Supercalafragilistic S-U-P-E-R-C-A-L-A-F-...'. I don't even wait for them to ask."]
  2. Gender specific - For example, I love the name Jordan (I know, it's taken!), but it would never pass because we know both a girl Jordan and a boy Jordan.
  3. Maybe not start with a B. Someone graciously pointed that out to me the other day...

Boy's name:
It's been decided. It's meaningful to us, I love it's biblical meaning... And just all around good stuff. Done. (Don't type it in the comment section if you know what it is!)

Girl's name:
Here lies the problem... We have two, but we aren't sold on either. They either don't jive with the boy's name we have (does this matter?) or breaks one of the above rules (can't we just change the criteria to suite our needs?)


What about you? If you've named a kid or two, or four, what was your criteria? Were you sold on a name the first time you thought about it? What if you loved one but your spouse did not?

17/09/2010

Forget the boxes, let's get on with life!

Alright, so I'm done with the move-in thing for now.

We're pretty much not any closer to being done since the last time I wrote, but I figure that we've either found or bought whatever we need on a daily bases, so the rest can just chill for a while.
It will feel like Christmas when we open them, you're pretty sure you know what's in there, but often it comes with a surprise!


What else is up, you ask?

I started working. Full timeish. Woot, woot!!! At a big girl job and everything!! Yup, this past Monday I started working for a prenatal health clinic downtown, four days a week, and on the fifth I baby-sit for a girlfriend. She was the cool chicky that set me up with the gig downtown in the first place, so the least I can do is hang out with her 12 month old one day a week (and she pays me for it too, which is kind of nice). Her mat leave it over, so she's back gone back to school to finish up the last year of her master's degree (the same one I did). So she has her 25 month old in day care, and a baby-sitter at the house with the 12 month old. Now she's a busy lady!

The clinic that I'm working for has a tonne of demographic, medical history, intervention, pregnancy, and pregnancy outcome data that they want statistically analyzed to help determine if their services improve empowerment of low-income at-risk pregnant women. And that's just one project. They also have a study going working with the Ministry of Health of Quebec that they need reprocessed, and a number of other things. Never did i think I would be a research consultant/analyzed, and never did I think I would have this much employment in Montreal (and being hired while pregnant!) but so far it's going really well and I get to work from home two out of those four days! Sweet deal. But maybe the sweetest part is that in Quebec, any income in the calendar year prior to your due date qualifies for mat leave. Booya!!! So forget the boxes, let's spend a bit of that energy on income generation, shall we?

I'm also really diggin' my baby-sitting gig on Wednesdays. It offers such a change of pace from spreadsheets and number crunching, and sometimes a change is as good as a break, but it also offers a glimpse into what life may be like a few months from now. (Well, minus the gorgeous house they live in!)

Tom's doing well too. Not only with work but he's also helping start up a young men's program for youth. Our Montreal church is very much into outreach, especially to those at risk, and he's getting in elbow deep. It's very cool to see some of the lessons we've learned over the past year relay into the life we are setting up in Montreal. Tom also spoke at a men's breakfast last Saturday morning, so he's got the young and the old guys covered, lol!

10/09/2010

Still. Moving. In...Zzzzz

Garg! It takes a lot to move.

We've almost finished collecting our stuff from the numerous households that so graciously stored it for us over the past year (even though the original deal was to store it for only 6 months ;)

We didn't loose too much to mould... But the things that we did were, ewwww, ever so mouldy. EEWW.

Sometimes when I unpack a box you think to myself 'Why did I bother keeping this?' but then proceed to find somewhere to store it in the new place. Go figure.

I tire easily. Which means the moving and unpacking can only happen in bouts. And when I tire? Boy howdy! I have about a 5 minute grace period before falling off a cliff into exhaustion. We'll be in the middle of Costco and I'll look at Tom and say, 'Wow. Honey? I'm getting tired...' He knows that's the cue to high-tail it home before things get ugly. Anyone else out there get spells of exhaustion during pregnancy? All the cute little preggo books tell me that all that goes away in the second trimester.... Well, I'm still waiting. And taking a nap while I'm at it.

And for those of you who care to hear about my pregnancy woes, I haven't puked in a week! BOOYA!

02/09/2010

Bag Lady

I've been carrying around a plastic Safeway bag full of stuff lately. Seems to be too handy to just throw everything I need for an outing into one convenient bag.


Money? In the bag.
ID? Yup, it's in the bag.
Snack, iPod, phone, and sunglasses? You bet, just throw it in that cool plastic keeper.


So why was I so surprised this morning to find that every other woman in the clinic waiting room had one too?



Because theirs were purses.



Hmm, now there's a thought!

01/09/2010

Random Updates

  • We got to sleep in our own bed last night. It was the fourth time in 12 months.
  • Montreal is HOT. Yesterday we stepped off the plane into 30 degrees... Today's high is 32. Tomorrow's? 29...
  • Our air-conditioner can't be installed cuz our windows are old and crank out side-ways. Not window-unit friendly.
  • There's still a lot of moving in to do...
  • This morning while drinking a big ol' glass of OJ I read my lab referral sheet for today's FASTING blood tests. Oops.
  • We got Costco memberships yesterday. Yes, we are somebodies now!
  • On our second day in Colorado Springs my old supervisors from McGill contacted me. The Good News: The scientific journal we submitted a piece of my master's work to didn't get rejected! The Bad News: Now that I'm home it's time to help with the revisions requested... Boy howdy is it hard to remember what in the world I all did with those numbers over a year ago.
  • I've received a few job offers! One of which I start on the 13th of September, doing part-time contract work as a nutritionist for a non-profit prenatal health clinic that serves low-income women. I'm so thankful for this opportunity. I really didn't think I stood a chance at working as a professional in Quebec, considering I'm only a nutritionist (didn't do an internship to be a dietitian) and don't speak French. But this opportunity kind of fell into my lap, which is tres cool...
  • On October 21st we're going to have our 20 week ultrasound.... And get to see the baby's, umm, parts.
  • Tom's aunt told us that when she was pregnant with her first, someone gave her a yellow sleeper as a gift very early in her pregnancy. She propped up the yellow sleeper on the couch and the visual made it all the more 'real' (and the pregnancy symptoms more bearable!)... Inside the beautifully wrapped box she gave us was the most adorable green-with-white polka dot outfit I've ever seen. The outfit is currently sitting on my lap.
  • To continue with the baby talk... According to my iTouch ap, I'm in the first day of the second trimester. That means all this nausea and vomiting are going to disappear today, right? RIGHT?