Sunday, September 29, 2002
One more thing
AND we turned on the furnace. Who ordered this weather? It’s those damned ski people, isn’t it? Hmph.
Weekend Retrospective
This has been one of those great weekends – the kind in which you accomplish a lot, but still feel like you’ve had a relaxing couple of days.
On Friday, Jeannine and I spent another hour in the basement, then I rushed off to the Alexis Nihon mall to meet Garran and, more importantly, his Jeep. We loaded up the kids’ new train table and brought it home. After we unloaded the table into the basement, Garran went off to more glamorous things, and Andrew came home for lunch. We loaded up the car with about six boxes of dishes culled from the basement clean-up operation, and then Jeannine and I dropped Andrew off at work. We proceeded to Village des Valeurs, dropped off the dishes, and found a great new raincoat (20$) for Jeannine, and yet another leather jacket for me (8$).
Then we took a break at Rockaberry’s, where we had fabulous pie and a cup of coffee. We strolled through a bed store looking for bunk bed inspirations, and at some point we picked Andrew up, dropped him off at the car rental lot, and hit the stores once again.
Andrew, by the way, was renting a car to take himself and a few other members of the Montreal Scrabble Club to a tourney in TO. He gets back tonight.
Yesterday, we did some general tidying, and Dina and Steve came by for a visit in the afternoon, with presents for Colin. After supper, Jeannine went into hyper-Grandma mode and looked after bathtime and bedtime while I had grown-up time (kind of) at Terence and Irene’s for Geek Night – recommendations include Greg the Bunny and SeaLab 2021.
Today started with Kathryn and Zip coming by with Zip’s very manly pick-up to make one trip to the wood dump in NDG, followed by loading the truck with all the wainscotting that used to be in the kitchen, as well as most of the spare shutters and windows that have been languishing in the basement for more than eight years. My imaginative sister plans to make said shutters and windows into her kitchen cabinets. The wainscotting is destined for their bathroom.
Other weekend activities included filling up three garbage bags with clothes for Village des Valeurs, tons of laundry, various cleaning projects, and lots of snuggly coffee-sipping and paper-reading in the comfort of my own bed, sans children, thanks to the World’s Best Mother-in-Law.
And yet I still have time to blog it all!
Thursday, September 26, 2002
Construction zone
I’ll be playing with the template occasionally – one thing I plan to create is a separate page for the photos, to save time and space on the main page.
Many apologies for any temporary inconveniences during this construction period.
Wednesday, September 25, 2002
Many thanks
Colin thoroughly enjoyed his birthday.
Thanks to all who called and e-mailed, and a special thanks to Grandma, who supplied the cake.
Tuesday, September 24, 2002
And where were you five years ago today?
Today’s the big day – Colin is FIVE years old!
Saturday, September 21, 2002
Little Radio Receivers in my Brain
I’ve had Sinatra’s I Get a Kick Out of You going through my head all morning. All things considered, this is not a bad thing. I had a narrow escape the other day, when a certain very tall friend-in-law mentioned She’s Havin’ My Baby, no doubt the most nefarious song of all time. A former flame and I used to play a dangerous game in which we innocently hummed the tune to a song in an effort to inflict upon the other the torment of hearing an endless loop of something dreadful…
Girls’ Night
I got a last-minute invitation to join Dina for a girls’ night at Jen’s place, with Jen’s two sisters and Fanny. The theme: a Pride and Prejudice marathon, in which we watched the entire miniseries. Five hours of Colin Firth scowling and occasionally getting wet. *Sigh*
Many, many thanks to Jen for the hospitality!
Also, many, many apologies to Fanny, since she was right and I was wrong: Mr. Darcy’s first name is, indeed, Fitzwilliam.
Friday, September 20, 2002
Comments
As you may have noted, commenting is now an option (thanks to Bill and her astounding brain). So please feel free to let me know what you think. As I said to Mr. Big, just because you’re wrong doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be heard.
Billding my Blog
A gazillion thanks to my mentor, the bountiful Bill, who supplied me not only with invaluable help with blog maintenance, but also vodka. If other instructors did this kind of thing, I would be much more inclined to continue my studies.
Okay, I Lied
I am actually inclined to continue my studies. After much discussion with my better half, the decision has been made – I will pursue my Ph.D (last seen entering a Walmart in Idaho, wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap. If you have seen my Ph.D. please send any info to the hotline ASAP).
I have emailed the Universite de Montreal to set up a meeting with someone to discuss what I want to do; I’ve also contacted one of my favourite profs from Concordia, to see if he can give me any direction. I want to focus on 18th and 19th century women authors (i.e., Austen, Eliot, Gaskell, the Brontes, etc.) in a historical context. Beyond that I’m not sure exactly what I’m doing.
Plus ca change…
I’ve also planted the seed with my Softitler supervisor that I would be interested in negotiating a permanent part-time gig, which would be ideal in conjunction with studying. Something like 25-30 hours a week. Barring that, the freelance deal is pretty sweet, and we can survive on the reduced income for the three or fours years of the degree.
So there!