OK - Lots-o-stuff - ready !?

1. Thanksgiving was mmm, mmm, good! Larissa cooked a wonderful meal and Lorraine and the kids came over - Steven was working :(

Here are some delicious photos of the spread:



2. Hope got her cast off (everything seemed all healed up) - and well there are no photos 'cause I didn't take any, and I figured you all have seen her without a cast on. Hmm?

3. Andre (me) did injure his calf muscle the other evening. I turned to bound up the stairs and felt a ripping in my leg - not fun. I have yet to see a professional - we figured it wasn't worth the ER wait, and I am sure they can't do much about a muscle anyway. I have a Tues. AM appointment at the Physio clinic, and procured myself some crutches. I can hobble around pretty good, but I can't put any weight on the left calf muscle. OW! (er - no photos)

4. I recently acquired a SMALL digital camera to fit in my pocket. Sometimes the DSLR is just to much to lug around. The opportunity came up after my dad went on a buying frenzy and bought more cameras than he could handle with one hand. :) It is tiny @ 3.74" x 2.18" x 1.08" (95mm x 55.5mm x 27.5mm) - for comparison a standard playing card is 88mm x 62mm - or about the same size. Here it is all by itself:

It looked lonely there, so I put it with my smallest camera, actually now it is my second smallest camera. The Olympus Verve (Feb. 2005), just barely beat out the Rollei 35 (late 1960's), to take the tiny title.


Late breaking news! I just won Canon Rebel Ti SLR on ebay for a total of $41.50 US(including shipping) - that's like $25 Canadian, isn't it? (ahh that feels good). Anyway, after I couldn't come up with any good reason for buying it, Larissa wanted to know if there was a 12 step program for camera-a-holics. I think she is going to change the e-bay password.... :(

Anyway, this is what it will look like:


Um, ok, bye.
-André

Broke it again!

Last Thursday afternoon, Hope came racing (actually Alex and Hope were racing) out of the Post Office, tripped and fractured her arm. Now before you say things like oooh or ahhh, or poor little girl, please remember she has already broken the same arm a while back. The last one required surgery and pins, etc. This was a simple fracture - no overnight in the hospital, no drugs - just simple cast.

The doctor who examined her decided (based on her lack of reaction to his poking and prodding) that she most likely did not break anything, but he would `take some pictures to make everyone feel better.`

Well he was a little surprised at Hope`s pain tolerance when he saw these, showcasing a lovely "buckle fracture" of the radius:



and a little zoom:



Hope was tired and hungry by the time the cast was applied, and wasn`t too happy. Completely understandable. Back to school the next day, where she was happy to take autographs!

Here is a photo of Hope making a craft with her day old cast, out on the deck:



-André

DAY NINE

Well, this is day 9 of being a single parent. So far, it has been fun, and educational. It has also been a test - for me - to see if I could do it. I mean I know I could, but lets face it, Larissa does most (or a lot) of the stuff around the house. I pretty much get up in the morning and get ready for work, while she dresses the kids and makes breakfast. I am proud and happy to say that I kept most things under control. Dishes were done after almost every meal, the laundry was kept up with, the kids got their baths on a regular basis, and I only went out to eat, um, 4 times....once was out regular Sunday morning breakfast, and another was covered by the Bobers as thanks for helping unload their truck. That leaves two meals which were cheating.

I had a great compliment from my step mother about my latest photo gig, made me grin from ear to ear. I was the official photographer at a friend's wedding recently and while I am always my own worst critic, so far I have received glowing compliments from the bride, and her father as well. As of this post they are not all on the website, but here it is: Wedding Photos.

I got Hope off to her first day of school successfully, which was a concern as she has a fit last night for about 40 minutes about not wanting to go to school. Oh well, I understand it - been there, done that.

Larissa is back tomorrow, and I think I will pull Hope out about 1 hour early from school so we can ALL go and get her.

One 2 other incidents of note are sort of related....
We had a worm emergency downstairs. Now for those of you who don't know - Larissa is into vermiculture - which is composting with worms. You take a bin, and add damp shredded newspaper to make a bed, and then add in vegetable and fruit kitchen scraps, and toss in a bunch of red wriggler earthworms. The worms eat the kitchen stuff, and their excrement is fantastic fertilizer. Back to the story.... Larissa was busy with trip preparations and had neglected her worms, well after a while there was no food, and they were living in their own sh#t. So they decided to leave and look for a new home - this meant that there were about 30 worms in various stages of trying to escape the bin (lots still inside though). You can image that after a while the worms sort of dry out. So in a 10 foot area around the bin there were mostly dessicated worms stuck to the floor - some making it farther than others. Now I don't mind Larissa doing her worm thing, but I don't like to participate, but Larissa loves her worms, and I love Larissa, so I jumped into action - well maybe jumped is to strong a word ;) I got some kitchen scraps from the freezer (yes she keeps them in there until the worms need feeding) and put them in the microwave to defrost. We then all got in the car and raced to the nearest Irving Mainway cornerstore (well maybe raced is too strong a word) and bought a Globe and Mail newspaper (you see the shredded newspapeer bedding can't have colour ink, and the G&M has the most B&W pages). We came home and shredded the newspaper, oh wait - the bin is still full of SH#T - I put on a latex glove and carefully moved the crap to one side of the bin, then put the food in on the other side and covered it with the damp shredded newspaper. None have tried to escape since. Must be habitable again.

I rinsed out the container that had the newspaper in it - into the tub sink in the laundry room. Well there must have been a few bits of paper left in the container, and, well, the washing machine drains into that sink... the sink got plugged up, and the laundry water overflowed onto the floor. The kids and I sprang into action (yes sprang is the right word) and used every towel in the house to mop up the water. A little Draino in the right place, and throw in a mop, bucket and dehumidifier and all was well by the end of the day. WHEW! Exciting!

Ride to work

My feeble attempt to get in shape has led me to try to ride my bike to work this summer. While I don't do this as often as I should - I have been averaging about 2 days per week. My trek takes me about 35 min. there and 30 min back. Almost 15 min of the trip there is walking my bike up a STEEP hill. One thing I learned is that you see a lot more on a bike than in a car. I also realized how beautiful it is here, and do not regret moving at all. Here are series of photos from my bike ride. Taken with my Canon Elan 7N, and Canon EF 28-105mm f3.5-f4.5 USM lens, on Ilford Delta 400 black and white film. Processed for 7 min in HC-110 Dilution B - and finally scanned and tweaked on the computer.
-André

Off to the Big Saddle!

Larissa left early this morning for her trip to Calgary. I think she was a little nervous leaving us all behind - but we will be fine. Once she is there I am sure she will have a blast!

The main event of her trip is doing henna at the 2007 Calgary Tattoo & Arts Festival . She will be joined by 2 other artists for a hard-working, but fun filled long weekend of HENNA!! While she is there she will also be visiting friends and doing a workshop. Their group is called The Merry Maids of Mehndi!

I have taken a bunch of time off work for some full time parenting, and fun with the kids. I get to take Hope to her first day of Grade one! Larissa's brother is also arriving with all their stuff as well - should be a great week coming up - for all of us!.
-André