Roller Derby.....part II

With a post-feminist, punk-inspired DIY (do-it-yourself) ethos and a hearty helping of raunchy rock’n’roll, this ain’t your grandma’s roller derby. Gone are the co-ed teams (in favor of “red hot, girl-on-girl action”). Traditional “time-out” penalties have been replaced with a spin of the much-dreaded “Penalty Wheel,” which dispenses wild consequences, from spankings to “the rat race”, for fouls committed during play.

Hhhmmm think this sounds like a sport I could play??????

And you have to turn up to 80% of the practices....

I'm not good with committment.......

I can sooooo see Christie doing this though!

Roller Derby....

Christies invited me to join her at the roller rink on Sunday with the Oil City Derby Girls...

I LOVED rollerskating years ago...half my childhood was spent in my rollerboots and every Friday I would go to the roller rink in Yeovil and had soooo much fun.....

Louise I am sure you came there sometimes too didn't you????? I'm sure I remember you there!

I even have a big lump on the back of my skull from roller skating - from holding onto the back of someones bike and being pulled down a hill in West Coker....my wheels locked and I went backwards and hit my head on the road.....

You know my Mother didn't even take me to hospital to get checked out!!! Her theory was that if you didn't have clear liquid coming out of your ears then you were ok (?????????) yet 25 years later the lump is still there and hurts at times when I brush my hair!!!! Geez where were social services when I needed them???? lol! If I ever lose my hair and people comment on the ugly lump on the back of my head then I will blame my mother!

Anyway, where was I?? Ah yes, Christie is going to try out for the Oil Derby Girls which sounds like a blast.....except when I went to the website and saw all the pictures I'm thinking I might just be a little bit too square to fit in.......they all have tattoos and piercings and cool hair and lots of denim and make up and stuff......and then there is me....and although Christie reassures me that I am NOT a Plain Jane (lol) I can't help thinking I'm a little too square to fit lol!

So after I stop annoying CHristie with questions, I will think about whether I want to go and have a blast at the roller rink on Sunday morning.....and I really DO want to...it would be sooo much fun.....and good exercise

Oh and you ahve to think up a cool name for yourself too.....

Maybe now would be a good time to have my tongue pierced and get my tattoo done and cut my hair REALLY short and dye it that blue black colour - all the things I have WANTED to do for years but was just too 'square' to do lol

Christie you are so good for me!

Report card day...

Because none of us schooly parents actually KNOW what are kids are doing or what they are capable of lol...we need a letter a few times a year to be told!!

Actually I like report card day...its always good to read nice things about your children from other people :)

Chris says he didn't get one....not sure whether I believe him or not but Laurie says he's right because Chris is in Jr High grades.....


So here are some quotes from Susannahs report card:

Susannah has demonstrated a cheerful attitude toward her class and her school work. She approaches her assignments with enthusiasm and works hard at giving her best effort.

She is a pleasure to teach and I enjoy having her in my classroom

Susannah displays her Christian attitude by being kind and helpful to others (ok quit sniggering Christie lol)

Susannah has an enthusiastic spirit towards learning.

and here are some quotes from Lauries:

Laurence is a conscientious, enthusiastic and thoughtful student.

His friendsly attitude and smile are something I look forward to seeing each day.

Well done Laurence, keep working to the best of your ability.

So all in all I am one very proud Mama...and although I do agree with many homeschoolers in that a good parent doesn't need a report card to tell them how their child is doing....its still great to read nice things about your child :)

Creativity......

When I scrapbook I just 'do it'..............I can get a page done in 20 minutes and although they aren't like you get in magazines, I feel pleased that they are nice enough and a few more pictures are safely in the albums.....

But now I am taking part in this Iron Chef Contest....it changes things. I have to plan...I have to design...I have to draw sketches of layouts and ideas.....and so this morning I have been sketching and planning and designing and thinking and pacing and experimenting.....and I think I'm almost there....I have my layout all planned out and a shopping list for supplies to get tonight.....ribbon, ribbon and MORE ribbon :)

I think I have my card planned out.....I know the style I wnat anyway.......just need to try it out and experiment with it a little before I am done.......so that just leaves my altered item.....

I think that I want to alter the jar that Christie gave me...the one that my bath salts came in...I only have about a third of the jar left (I have a LOT of baths! Two a day if I'm lucky!) so I will put that in another jar I think and alter the bath salts jar.....

Apart from the jar I also have a box I'd quite like to alter....but maybe not for this contest.......

I'm enjoying all of this planning...I think it will definitely help with other challenges and creativity.....in the future.....

It reminds me of the design boards lloyd and I create for things like our bathroom reno.....

Venting.......

The Edmonton Journal has this fabby section where they print things from people who write in to vent about situations/ people/ news etc etc......I LOVE reading these complaints and whines and moans because many of them I can totally empathise with :)

Yesterday someone wrote something like:

My husband needed shampoo and bandaids. He went to London Drugs and bought just shampoo and bandaids. How does he do that?

I think this is hilarious and so so true! Lloyd needs shampoo - he goes in and buys shampoo. Gets it and pays and leaves.

I need shampoo? I go in, stroll around, look at the magazines, put one in my basket......maybe get some bubble bath......sniff the perfumes.......maybe buy a card or two.....oooh look what they have on special!!!! Hhhmmmmm I think we need some candy.......ooooh I like that nail polish........now what was I in here for? Oh yes! Shampoo!! Hmmm maybe I will get some conditiner and a hair colour too......oh and we need bandaids.....Dora or Barbie...oh hell we'll get both.....

And I walk out with several bags of 'stuff'......

So yep...I can totally relate to this vent :)

Population Explosion...

On the news this morning they were talking about the population increases in AB and Canada. There are now 3.3 million people living in Alberta (which is the size of the UK roughly I believe...but the UK has 60,600,000 people!!!)

Edmonton/ Capital region now has a population of 1,034,000 which is up 5.4% in the last 5 years.

Canada now has a population of 31.6 million and is now officially the fastest growing G8 country!

I think immigration should be stopped!!! Damn immigrants coming over here and taking all our jobs!!!!

(and YES I'm being sarcastic duh! I AM an immigrant ;) lol!!)

I stopped procrastinating....

Finally..it has taken me a year to do this.......I wrote an Email to the local community league newsletter....to get a scrapbooking group started....once a month at my home.....and if enough people are interested then we will move it to the community hall.......

It will go in the April newsletter if there is space.....and I really hope someone responds...it would be so great to have a group here in our little village...

I picked up the latest newsletter yesterday and I see they are having a monthly family movie night...free admission...you have to take your own lawn chair or beanbag to sit in (lol) and they sell refreshments...they are showing 'Happy Feet'..........so I will take the kids to see that :)

I LOVE living here most of the time.......if winters were like last years winter I would NEVER leave.....this winter has been horrid BUT it is almost over and I am back to LOVING it here :)

I've been here a year now and know quite a few people around and they know me in the store now and at the school and at the hall and when we are out and about I see people who KNOW me......it's such a tiny community and I really love it :)

I hope someone replies to my ad!!!!

Iron Chef II - it starts today!!!!

The Ingredients were announced today for the first part of the Iron Chef contest. They are 'ribbons and stickers'.

So now I have to create a menu which includes: a card, an altered item or mini album and a scrapbook layout using stickers AND ribbons on each. Depending on how well I do, I will either go through to the next round or become a sous chef and have to try and win my way back in to the contest.... I have just under 2 weeks to create my three courses for the menu!

Wish me luck! The winner gets $50 and a chance to be a design team member for a month!

GULP - there is a lot of talent in the contest!

dreams.....

Well last nights dream got me thinking......and I have had several weird dreams this week......Sundays dream was about penguins......Lloyd and I were walking by the sea which was by Lakeland Ridge in Sherwood Park...and there was a lady there walking her pocket penguin - I recognised her so I said hello and told her I remembered her from a couple of years ago and was pleased to see how her penguin had grown....she picked her penguin up and popped it back in its pod which was like a cocoa pod.....she then zipped it up in a little jacket pod too to keep it warm....I said I thought a penguin was an unusual pet and she seemed surprised by that and said everyone has them now and sure enough as we walked along the boardwalk, we saw lots of people walking their penguins and letting them swim in the water........and they all had little pods for them...

I tell Lloyd about my dreams and he always looks stunned that I have such strange dreams...I always have done though....right from childhood...I remember a dream when I was very young.....Uri Geller came to stay at my house, but instead of bending spoons he could change the shape of his head - he could change it to look like the stump you get when you pull a Barbie dolls head off.....

One night a few years ago I dreamed that I was walking along a hill/ ridge and looking down into a misty valley and there was a rainbow over a pretty country cottage....I took a picture of it with my baked potato and when I sliced the potato in half the picture was in the flesh of the potato.

I always dream in colour. I can still see the muted violets and other colours of the rainbow and the green of the fields...and the pocket penguins pod was red!

Another dream which I know I have posted about before was the squirrels..they were running all over our house in West Coker...hundreds of them and we didn't know how to get rid of them so we fed them bubblegum...they started blowing up into big balls with little arms and legs sticking out....like the girl in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory who turns into a blueberry.....then all of a sudden these squirrels started to burst and they were filled with blood and the house started flooding so we opened the front door and the blood poured out and down the lane like a river.....
I've read a few dream books to see what my dreams mean but I can never find out...those books only seem to cover things like running through the streets naked or dreaming your teeth are falling out.....they don't cover pocket penguins or exploding squirrels............

My things to do list

Normally I don't have breakfast until after 10am...I can't eat early in the morning...but this morning I woke up and I was so so hungry! I couldn't even make it to the end of the breakfast news...I HAD to come downstairs and make toast.....it wasn't very nice but it filled me up....

Abigail and I have been having maze races this morning.......racing each other to complete the mazes in her activity book we bought at Disney.

She also wanted to draw lots of circles....so I showed her how to draw around cups and plates to get a perfect circle and she just LOVES this idea....I think I will buy her a set of compasses this afternoon and show her how to draw circles with those.....

Sam has been colouring in his colouring book too.....and Abigail has been trying to teach him colours in Spanish...

The children finish school early today and then I ahve to take Laurie into town to get new shoes...I want to go and pick up Lloyds birthday gift too.....and I have some other errands to get too....

Tomorrow I have to book Abigail into her Summer semester classes.....she is doing an all-day Pre-K class 9am until 3pm once a week....it prepares rural children for all day kindergarten in the Fall...all day Kindy will be so much easier for me and better for Abigail - 3 hours just isn't enough for her! When I pick her up from preschool she is always sad that its over for the day....

So she will stick with her preschool mornings twice a week and then once a week she will do the all-day class too.

You can't book until the 15th though...

The good thing with the morning preschool class is that Sam is welcome to stay, and thats great for him - he LOVES it and he gets to sit and have snacks with the children and sit and listen to the stories and play the games with all the other children :)

Another good thing is that government pays for the classes because they send me a check for $200 a month towards preschool activities :) Its $100 per child under 6....and it MORE than covers Abigails classes

On the day that Abby goes to pre K all day I plan to take Sam swimming and to parentlink in town......he'll love that...

I looked at classes for Sam and I but to be honest there is nothing offered that we don't do at home already (crafts, games, cooking etc) ...I think we would be better off just going swimming or to the park or for walks by the lake etc and just having fun the two of us......

I had a dream last night that I had a baby and the nurses forgot to check on it (not sure why I didn't lol) and the baby died and the nurses didn't really apologise just said that a couple of the checks had been missed..ie they had forgotten about him....and then they wrote COS in black letters on his medical forms and put two big black dots beside it and I spent the rest of the time trying to work out what COS meant........

Weird dream. I remember when I was pregnant with Christopher and had all kinds of weird dreams about forgetting him places....I remember in my dream I put him on my bed (my bedroom in West Coker) and then I started tidying my bedroom and was throwing all my albums (lol albums!!) on top of him on the bed until he was totally covered in a mountain of LP's.......

But no I'm not pregnant despite last nights weird dream lol! (snip snip - heh Lloyd???? lol) although Lloyd is heartbroken that Sam is our last and is growing up too quickly!

Me? I don't want any more :) I'm planning on hitting Tucson with Christie!!!!!! :) Woohoo.......get Sugar ready Christie :) I wanna see Arizona :)

This Sunday is Science Sunday...take your children aged 5yrs - 12 yrs to the Earth Sciences Building at the U of A.....lots of hands on activities, experiments and entertainment.....fossils, animal tracks, meteorites.......12pm until 4pm you can find out more at: www.museums.ualberta.ca

Tonight is date night.....I wasn't going to bother but Lloyd seemed keen.....maybe we will go to Joeys Global.....

Lloyd hasn't decided what he wants for his birthday so I am going to get a few things for him and he can choose the rest at the weekend.....

Susannah is in a play today at school...I could go and watch but its not so easy with Sam and Abigail...Susie is sad that I won't be there but Sam won't sit quietly and I don't want to take the attention away from the children in the play....Susie is playing a red robin who is baking.....she is happy to be back at school today.......

So my list of things to do:

Book Abigails classes tomorrow

Get Lauries shoes

Buy Mini marshmallows for preschool party tomorrow

Help at St Patricks Day party tomorrow

date night

get Lloyds birthday gifts and cards

Start work on my Iron Chef contest menu....

sad

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6449289.stm

So sad that this man obviously had no one who cared.....and also tragic that the town must smell so bad that a rotting corpse can go unnoticed......

The world doesn't make sense....grrrrr

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6449199.stm

Isaiah Washington had to formally apologise and had to go into therapy for his anti-gay comments recently......and I am not sure if he is staying in Grays Anatomy or what has happened but I know it damaged his career in some ways.....

But then last night in the Edmonton Journal I was reading how a US General in the Armed Forces had commented on how homoseuxal acts are immoral and how the 'don't ask don't tell policy that Clinton had brought in in 1993 should be changed....he compared a homosexual relationship to a soldier having an affair with another soldiers wife (?????)

Today I go to the BBC news website and see he has not even been made to apologise for his comments...all he has said is that he should have focused less on his own feelings about the issue.....

So a tv actor has to apologise and seek therapy but the TOP US Military Commander doesn't even apologise??????????????

See....sometimes this world really does not make sense to me.....