No Complaints

This is cool. There's a pastor in the US that has a website. His goal is a complaint-free world! How cool. While I may not share his faith or belief system, I have to admire someone that has come up with such an admirable plan. His idea? A little purple rubber bracelet. All you have to do is wear it on one wrist for 21 days. The catch? If you complain, about anything, you have to change wrists and start counting all over again. Not as easy as it sounds, eh? The bracelets are free (3-5 weeks for delivery), and available on the above website - they request a donation, but it's not necessary. Now let's find a way to have an ad-free day, shall we?

1 Week

That's all it takes to:

1. Forget to blog
2. Host in-laws and friends that we haven't seen for 2 years (the friends, not the in-laws)
3. Cast a show and do the marketing/publicity for the show that goes up next week (eek)!
4. Go slightly crazy 'cause the kids are both home and so am I.
5. Read 2 books - 1 that I've read before and another that I won't read again
6. Have hip pain, not have hip pain, have hip pain, not have hip pain, etc.....
7. Learn that my sister has earned an undergrad RN position at her hospital!
8. Soccer Games, soccer practices, Tae Kwon Do, kids' friends over, dance lessons, swimming lessons, pre-school, owies, boo-boos, grocery shopping, breakfasts, lunches, dinners, laundry, floors, bathrooms and making space for our guests.
9. Update website and continue business plan/website development for Project Food for Thought

and...

10. Wonder what he heck to blog about. Is there anything anyone would particularly like to know about me/what I do/???

Netfile!

I would like to congratulate the Canadian Government's Revenue Agency on their speedy (yes, SPEEDY!) repair of the Netfile System. It's been just over a week (it went down the very day I finished my taxes... murphy was looking, I guess), but now it's back up and our refund is on its way.

Related... I love quicktax. It's quick. It's taxes. As long as you have all of your information at hand, taxes can be completed in less than an hour (and that's with loads of complicated deductions, etc).

Mooooooody!

I have been such a moody cow lately! Sorry about that. I haven't been feeling the greatest (Flu's gone, but I've still got a fever... what's up with that???) and there's some stuff going on with my grandparents that I'm worried about. I'm afraid that I even took it out on my Mum when she called tonight.

A long time ago, I saw a really (really) crappy show with a horrible woman that loved to talk down to people; however, she did do and say something to the kids that has stuck with me, and I'm going to share it! After some sort of quarrel complete with tears, she handed the kids each a spoon and a tube of toothpaste. She asked them to squirt the toothpaste out onto their spoons. Then she asked them to try to put the toothpaste BACK INTO THE TUBES. Not possible, right? Right. Her point? Words are like toothpaste. Once they're out, you can't put them back... so think carefully about what you say.

That's MY lesson for today. Hopefully I'll remember that next time I try to speak without thinking.

Disease?

How many times in my life have I heard "when I was a kid...."? How many times have YOU heard it?

Well, here goes. When I was a kid, there were hyper kids, quiet kids, kids that did what they were told, kids that didn't. Rich kids, poor kids, talented kids, average kids. I miss that. Now there are kids with ADD, ADHD, ODD (??? aren't kids SUPPOSED to be defiant ???), pleasers, rebels, advantaged, disadvantaged, etc. You get the point.

When did we, as young parents, decide that it was okay for others to label our kids and feed them all kinds of "medications" designed to "quiet" them into an obedient stupor when it was our generation, growing up, was all about getting rid of labels?

Don't medicate your kids if you don't HAVE to, people! There are extremes,of course, as there always have been - but those are rare. Not 10 to a class.

QUESTION your health providers. GET second opinions. DON'T ALLOW your child to miss his/her childhood in a daze of over-prescribed/under-required medications. And, most of all, DO NOT allow your child's teacher(s) to convince you otherwise just so that he/she can have a "more orderly teaching environment".

Oh, and my flu? It went away.

When's enough.... enough?

Now. That's when!

1 week ago today, in the middle of the night, I woke up with a head-splitting tension headache, possibly a migraine. I took some meds and fortunately fell back to sleep. On Thursday evening I had a friend over and some sniffles - I attributed them to the miserable 2 weeks of allergy that seem to come upon me every year at this time. Boy, was I wrong. I woke up on Friday morning with a high fever, stopped up nose AND a migraine. This, I am told, is the nasty flu for this year.

You'd think it'd go away. At least some of it. Nuh-uh. Here we are on a beautiful Wednesday morning, with a high fever that hasn't gone away since Friday (and I have the fever blisters to prove it), a stuffy nose and a migraine (I think you stop feeling the ENTIRE effect after awhile).

Enough already! I've missed going over to friend's house to play pool, a friend's surprise birthday party, going swimming with my kids (of course, I HAVEN'T missed cleaning and all of the other assorted household things that have been put on hold) and other assorted fun things to do.

Dear Flu, GO AWAY!