Today was a terrible, horrible, no good, stinky (literally), day.
And I'm going to blame 90% of it on Elya LaMarche. Who is pretty awesome, and I really like her. But seriously Elya!
It all started when Elya got super fit and sexy and I decided I need to get back to that too. So I ordered the same program she is on and started it yesterday. It involves copious amounts of colours and numbers and meal planning, and wicked work-outs. Which I started last night.
So I don't know if it was the work-out before bed, or my mind running in circles about my job, but I did not sleep at all last night. I finally gave up trying to sleep around 5:30am and watched Once Upon a Time and straightened my hair. So to start the day off I was tired.
As part of this program, I had a super healthy shake for breakfast. This is fairly typical for me. Nothing new about that, except I was using Elya's recommended shake powder. And I had gas. All day. Like the burning your skin off, what died in my intestine, my eyes are watering, I can taste it, kind of gas. One of the perks of teaching 7th grade though, is that I could blame the stinky funk in my classroom on pubescent boys and gym class.
It is now 7:20am in my story and things are not great. I go to work early in hopes of getting things accomplished. First of all I remember it is Orange Shirt/Every Child Matters day and my employer has been oh so kind as to provide some fantastic orange t-shirts for everyone on staff. Orange is a great colour. Looks great on everyone. (That was sarcasm)
7:22am now. I change my shirt to the orange one, because really, school spirit is more important than me being pretty and looking healthy. Time to get to work. I can get SO much accomplished in the next hour and a half. Or not. I open my email to find an "ooops we forgot to tell you about an assembly that is happening at 9am today" email. Now normally, this wouldn't be a problem. It really wouldn't, except my schedule this week is jam packed because on Friday I found out I have to get all our government testing done this week. My schedule was already messed up with the testing, and now they throw this in. I had to re-arrange our math class, library class, and Social Studies class. Which required me to talk to 3 different teachers and mess up their schedules a bit too. My Type-A personality does not like last minute schedule changes - unless they are for something fun. Free chocolate fountain in the gym? Sweet, I'll cancel the tests, who cares about report cards! Baby mini-animals zoo in the soccer field? try and keep me away! Re-arranging my schedule took the better part of 40 minutes.
8:10am. For all you parents out there, just so you know, the absolute BEST TIME in the world to talk to your child's teacher is before school. We aren't doing anything. Not planning, or organizing, or marking, or getting things ready. So come on in. Take as long as you like. It's not inconvenient. Not as inconvenient as sending your child's teacher an e-mail asking when a good time would be to meet. (This is also sarcasm)
8:40am. Students arrive. Approximately 2 out of 30 did their homework. Massive amounts of organizing and figuring out why they are 13 and can't put their names on their paper.
9:00am - the 15 minute assembly that already toyed with my day, took 35 minutes. Now I have lost another block of lessons.
10:45 - recess supervision. It's raining. What a waste of perfectly great straightened hair. And a student brings me a rice krispy square and I have to turn it down because Elya says so. (It would have made my day better, just sayin')
12:30. Yay. Lunch. Complete with another email that made me unhappy. And lettuce. Fun times. Fun times. I also start to notice my legs are not working properly thanks to my workout last night. I have difficulty lowering myself to use the toilet. (Elya's fault again.)
1:15. Math. Seriously, this 6th grade problem makes no sense! I even pulled the, "So _____ how would you solve this problem?" card. SIX TIMES and no one could figure it out. So we skipped it. Because I am a GRRRRREAT teacher like that. Dumb math.
2:00. I'm avoiding sitting because it's really hard to get up and down. I also have this conversation:
"Mrs. Delay, someone threw up in the hallway."
"Was it you?" I ask, noticing puke on her shirt.
"Yes. Can I go home?"
"Yes."
So who cleans up the puke? Well I ask at the office who deals with puke. I asked three different administrators and they all said the Janitor. Well the janitor was not there. And when she said she puked in the hallway, she meant the ENTIRE hallway. Dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, EXPLOSION, right by my classroom door. Conveniently located beside the girls washroom. So, with no help from my superiors about where to locate vomit-cleaning supplies, I cleaned it up while my students happily played in the computer lab.
2:40. Students leave. Sigh. I tried to accomplish something after school, but I couldn't. I gave up at 3:30 and went home. And worked out again, despite my legs that aren't quite working properly.
And there ends the tale of my no good, horrible, stinky day. AKA "The Day Elya Ruined By Being Too Fit and Awesome and Inspirational."
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Friday, September 19, 2014
Choose your own Adventure
We went on an adventure!
I had a destination in mind, but we never actually officially found it. We got to the general area and then stopped various times and made our own path. It was a GORGEOUS day and oh so wonderful to be outside in God's amazing nature with my husband.
 |
| We discovered an old homestead with a cabin and barns and even a mine dug into the mountainside. The mine had rats in it so I didn't go very far in as we explored. |
 |
| These places fascinate me. Who lived here, what their life was like, why they chose to settle here, the people and lives that were lived and the stories this building holds. |
 |
| Gorgeous fall day |
 |
| Farwell Cayon. The general area we wanted to be, but couldn't find the specific spot/hike we were aiming for. |
 | ||
| Chilcotin River |
 |
| And of course our trusty steed. I took pictures of the scenery, Arron took pictures at each of our many stops of his bike. I'm going to start a new album entitled 'places me and my bike have gone' |
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Wife Fails
I'm still a newly-wed. Which means that I have been trying extra extra hard to be an awesome wife. And usually I do a pretty smashing job if I do say so myself. I make Arron three meals a day (yes, including an early breakfast - which I did all through my summer vacation too, that's real love. I could have been sleeping in every day, but instead I got up at 6:45am every morning to make him coffee and breakfast.), I do the laundry regularly, clean the house, change the sheets way more often than Arron did when he was a bachelor, and I even have like 7 pinterest boards dedicated to house, home, food, crafts, family life etc. Those count as research into being a good wife.
I've been doing pretty good as a wife. But I had two pretty major fails this week. Almost epic.
Fail #1. The tale of the clogged kitchen sink. Aka 7th degree chemical burns.
So our kitchen sink has been getting more and more plugged as the days have been going by. By Friday it was totally clogged but because we were headed to Bella Coola for our last long weekend before I go back to work full time, we decided to leave it until we got back. Arron said he would fix it. But, being a super excited wife, I decided on Tuesday that I would try and fix it before Arron got home from work. I figured he had worked all day and would be tired and probably really thankful if I fixed something around the house and he didn't have to. So I followed the directions on the Drain-O bottle, poured it down, let it sit 15 minutes and then poured boiling hot kettle down the drain to flush it out. Unfortunately the magical Drain-O didn't work and the boiling water just sort of sat in the drain. Knowing in the past that Arron had plungered his way through a clogged drain, I decided to follow his example. I didn't however know that you need to plug one side of the sink or when you push down on the plunger a projectile fountain of Drain-O and boiling hot water would shoot out of the other side. All over me. BURNING ME. Like stripping off my clothes in the kitchen burning me.
I have a short patience span as it is, and that made me mad. So I gave up in anger, had a shower and a cry, put on my PJ's and went to bed. Which is where Arron found me at 5:00pm when he got home. I felt like the worst wife ever. Because I didn't fix the sink, and because I was angry and ugly. And also because I left the draino/drain crud all over the kitchen because I was too mad to clean it up. Luckily Arron just gave me a hug and let me cry and then fixed the sink and cleaned up the mess. Husband +1, Wife -66
Fail #2
Like I said, I really am trying to be a good wife. So before I headed back to work full time I decided to complete tasks. Defrost the deep freeze and organize it, prepare a bunch of meals, renew car insurances, clean the fridge and oven etc. Good wife. +89 points for me. When we got back from our trip this weekend I noticed that the house had a bit of a funky smell. I chalked it up to the garbage not being emptied before we went. So I dealt with that. The next day after work the smell was still there and even worse. So I thought it was the drain (see above story where I tried to fix that). Arron didn't believe me about the stinky house, even after I told him the smell is so bad it makes me want to not live in this house. He couldn't smell it. (I realize now it's because I was always cooking dinner when he came home from work.) Yesterday the smell was even worse. SO gross. SO I emptied the garbage, sprayed febreeze, put new wax melts in my smelly melty pot things, washed the floor, did laundry, vaccuumed, cleaned out the fridge again and DID NOT cook Arron supper and when he came home, he could smell the stAnk. (yes, Stank). And I told him that the smell was coming from his tool room. Because it was. Even he realized when walking over there that the smell was coming from that general direction.
And then my dad texts. He's travelling through town and wants to sleep overnight. In our stinky house. In the evening we were chilling out in the living room and the smell was just... bad. I mean not overwhelming bad, but just this low mist of 'that smells kinda funky.' Before bed Arron and I investigated, and found, in the room beside his tool room, the room with the deep freeze that this good wife cleaned out two weeks ago, a piece of salmon that hadn't made it's way back into the deep freeze. -678points for this wife. :(
I'm sure there will be more fails as a wife in my future, but those were two pretty big, and somewhat funny ones that happened in the course of 2 days. But the result is that my sink is fixed, and my house smells really nice now.
I've been doing pretty good as a wife. But I had two pretty major fails this week. Almost epic.
Fail #1. The tale of the clogged kitchen sink. Aka 7th degree chemical burns.
So our kitchen sink has been getting more and more plugged as the days have been going by. By Friday it was totally clogged but because we were headed to Bella Coola for our last long weekend before I go back to work full time, we decided to leave it until we got back. Arron said he would fix it. But, being a super excited wife, I decided on Tuesday that I would try and fix it before Arron got home from work. I figured he had worked all day and would be tired and probably really thankful if I fixed something around the house and he didn't have to. So I followed the directions on the Drain-O bottle, poured it down, let it sit 15 minutes and then poured boiling hot kettle down the drain to flush it out. Unfortunately the magical Drain-O didn't work and the boiling water just sort of sat in the drain. Knowing in the past that Arron had plungered his way through a clogged drain, I decided to follow his example. I didn't however know that you need to plug one side of the sink or when you push down on the plunger a projectile fountain of Drain-O and boiling hot water would shoot out of the other side. All over me. BURNING ME. Like stripping off my clothes in the kitchen burning me.
I have a short patience span as it is, and that made me mad. So I gave up in anger, had a shower and a cry, put on my PJ's and went to bed. Which is where Arron found me at 5:00pm when he got home. I felt like the worst wife ever. Because I didn't fix the sink, and because I was angry and ugly. And also because I left the draino/drain crud all over the kitchen because I was too mad to clean it up. Luckily Arron just gave me a hug and let me cry and then fixed the sink and cleaned up the mess. Husband +1, Wife -66
Fail #2
Like I said, I really am trying to be a good wife. So before I headed back to work full time I decided to complete tasks. Defrost the deep freeze and organize it, prepare a bunch of meals, renew car insurances, clean the fridge and oven etc. Good wife. +89 points for me. When we got back from our trip this weekend I noticed that the house had a bit of a funky smell. I chalked it up to the garbage not being emptied before we went. So I dealt with that. The next day after work the smell was still there and even worse. So I thought it was the drain (see above story where I tried to fix that). Arron didn't believe me about the stinky house, even after I told him the smell is so bad it makes me want to not live in this house. He couldn't smell it. (I realize now it's because I was always cooking dinner when he came home from work.) Yesterday the smell was even worse. SO gross. SO I emptied the garbage, sprayed febreeze, put new wax melts in my smelly melty pot things, washed the floor, did laundry, vaccuumed, cleaned out the fridge again and DID NOT cook Arron supper and when he came home, he could smell the stAnk. (yes, Stank). And I told him that the smell was coming from his tool room. Because it was. Even he realized when walking over there that the smell was coming from that general direction.
And then my dad texts. He's travelling through town and wants to sleep overnight. In our stinky house. In the evening we were chilling out in the living room and the smell was just... bad. I mean not overwhelming bad, but just this low mist of 'that smells kinda funky.' Before bed Arron and I investigated, and found, in the room beside his tool room, the room with the deep freeze that this good wife cleaned out two weeks ago, a piece of salmon that hadn't made it's way back into the deep freeze. -678points for this wife. :(
I'm sure there will be more fails as a wife in my future, but those were two pretty big, and somewhat funny ones that happened in the course of 2 days. But the result is that my sink is fixed, and my house smells really nice now.
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Yeah Right Pinterest
If you know me even a smidgen you know that I am slightly obesessed/addicted to Pinterest. LOVE IT. So so much. And see, here's the thing, I actually DO some of the things that I pin. Maybe like 2% but 2% of 2294 pins is still ... a bunch. (It's too early in the morning to do math. It's not even 8am).
Also fun fact, I can tell school around North America is starting soon because I get about 57 notifications every hour of other people pinning my school/lesson/classroom ideas.
Anyways, my goal for a long time has been to do a pinterest favourite. Freezer Meals. Where you prep and cook like 50 meals all at once and then put them in the freezer for later. Then on those busy weeks where you want a hot, healthy, good meal you can just pull one out in the morning, throw it in the crock pot and come home to a house that smells like you have been slaving over a hot stove all day, when in fact you have been working or shopping or doing crafts all day.
As I am heading back to work full time next Monday (my feelings on this topic are Ughay - a mixture of ugh and yay), I decided that this week I should find a super-star mom/wife/homemaker and copy her blog and suggestions for bulk cooking. I pinned a few options and decided on this one because the recipes varied and looked tasty.
She advertized 11 freezer meals in 3 hours for $50.
Not so much.
The website did provide a shopping list which was super helpful, but my groceries ended up costing around $160. America has cheaper food. Plus I had to buy some things that I don't normally have on hand so that upped my costs quite a bit. I think if I did this whole set of recipes again, now that I have a lot of the random ingredients in my house I could probably do it for $100. No way could it get done for $50. I spent more than that on meat alone! Shopping at Wholesale Foods! Anyways, I'm not upset, because I separated most of the recipes into two portions so I actually have 19 meals in my freezer. And most of them will feed us for two meals. After all is said and done the number of actual meals comes down to about $2/person/meal. Which is pretty good. Because the recipes are really awesome and I am SO excited to try them.
One of the things I didn't read well enough before I began, was the amount of work that would be required. With this website all the meats need to be pre-cooked. Which was a lot of work. A LOT. While it was cooking I kept busy cutting, and prepping, and mixing other ingredients, but I was expecting to just throw everything in a bag and cook it later. BUT, if I had read the website more thoroughly she explains why she pre-cooks all the meat.
This project, including shopping time, took about 4.5 hours. 3.5 hours for the cooking/prepping, which is pretty close to what was advertized. I also did dishes as I used them so that took up more time, but it kept my kitchen cleaner and me sane. I'm happy with this. It was a SUPER long afternoon. A lot of work for sure, but I decided that I would gladly spend even 5 hours prepping 19 meals than spend 15 hours cooking all these meals from scratch later on. Plus these recipes smell and look amazing! I want to eat them all right now!
The highlight of my cooking experience though, was when Arron came home from work and came in the door saying "Oh man! I could smell all the food three houses down! And I was praying, 'please let it be from my house, please let it be from my house!'" I take that as a compliment, if he can smell the good smells from three houses down when he was in his tool, grease, and oil filled work van, it must have smelled pretty great.
Also fun fact, I can tell school around North America is starting soon because I get about 57 notifications every hour of other people pinning my school/lesson/classroom ideas.
Anyways, my goal for a long time has been to do a pinterest favourite. Freezer Meals. Where you prep and cook like 50 meals all at once and then put them in the freezer for later. Then on those busy weeks where you want a hot, healthy, good meal you can just pull one out in the morning, throw it in the crock pot and come home to a house that smells like you have been slaving over a hot stove all day, when in fact you have been working or shopping or doing crafts all day.
As I am heading back to work full time next Monday (my feelings on this topic are Ughay - a mixture of ugh and yay), I decided that this week I should find a super-star mom/wife/homemaker and copy her blog and suggestions for bulk cooking. I pinned a few options and decided on this one because the recipes varied and looked tasty.
She advertized 11 freezer meals in 3 hours for $50.
Not so much.
The website did provide a shopping list which was super helpful, but my groceries ended up costing around $160. America has cheaper food. Plus I had to buy some things that I don't normally have on hand so that upped my costs quite a bit. I think if I did this whole set of recipes again, now that I have a lot of the random ingredients in my house I could probably do it for $100. No way could it get done for $50. I spent more than that on meat alone! Shopping at Wholesale Foods! Anyways, I'm not upset, because I separated most of the recipes into two portions so I actually have 19 meals in my freezer. And most of them will feed us for two meals. After all is said and done the number of actual meals comes down to about $2/person/meal. Which is pretty good. Because the recipes are really awesome and I am SO excited to try them.
 | |
| Step one: get a good playlist going. |
This project, including shopping time, took about 4.5 hours. 3.5 hours for the cooking/prepping, which is pretty close to what was advertized. I also did dishes as I used them so that took up more time, but it kept my kitchen cleaner and me sane. I'm happy with this. It was a SUPER long afternoon. A lot of work for sure, but I decided that I would gladly spend even 5 hours prepping 19 meals than spend 15 hours cooking all these meals from scratch later on. Plus these recipes smell and look amazing! I want to eat them all right now!
The highlight of my cooking experience though, was when Arron came home from work and came in the door saying "Oh man! I could smell all the food three houses down! And I was praying, 'please let it be from my house, please let it be from my house!'" I take that as a compliment, if he can smell the good smells from three houses down when he was in his tool, grease, and oil filled work van, it must have smelled pretty great.
 |
| Kitchen Before (Notice the picture frames on the fridge - pinterest, and the labels on my spice jars - also from pinterest) |
 |
| Kitchen during |
 |
| This is me making the VERY last recipe. I was so hot and tired. |
Thursday, August 14, 2014
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Monkey Face
There is nothing that can compare to it. And no words to describe it. But I love it. The hiking up process - that I don't love, and I also dislike the hiking down part, (so I guess I don't actually like hiking) but the actual being on top of it is pretty fantastic.
On Sunday my parents came to Williams Lake for the first time since I moved here a year ago. This time though I have a home and a husband and a yard and all the fixings to make them feel comfortable for a night or two. (Except Arron's tarantula... which lives in the guest room.... "I won't do it. I tell you I won't. I wont do it" squealed my mom, which resulted in the spider being relocated to where is now, two feet from my feet under the computer desk... eek.)
Anyways, my parents came for a visit. There was beer and bbq and then a small hike up a local mountain called "Monkey Face." I don't know why it is called that. It doesn't look like a monkey face. It's really close to where we live and the view is breathtaking. (Less so in the following photo's because of smoke from forest fires as well as the impending twilight) You can't fathom how high up you are. 2400feet at the top, and 1400 at the bottom where the Fraser River is. Amazing. I'm really glad that I could show this beautiful place to my parents, and that my dad didn't fall off the side of the cliff - he was scarily fascinated with how steep the cliff face was and how far down it was to the river.
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Honeymoon Snippits.
Of all the many many things we did on our honeymoon, I want to start with this.
Because it was pretty neat.
Ziplining through the trees on top of a mountain in the Dominican Republic.
We went on a series of 9 ziplines and the video here is one Arron took on the longest one. 7500 feet long. He reached speeds of 47 km/hour.
This is one of me coming in. Very exciting. :P
We honestly spent a lot of time just chilling at the beach and pool. Outing Ziplining was a highlight as was our outing to Catalina Island. We went on a paddle wheeler boat up a river and enjoyed the scenery inland and saw locations where Jurassic Park and Rambo 2 were filmed. Then we transferred to a large Catamaran and headed to Catalina Island - which was a tropical paradise. After that we went to explore a medieval village that was gorgeous.
Because it was pretty neat.
Ziplining through the trees on top of a mountain in the Dominican Republic.
We went on a series of 9 ziplines and the video here is one Arron took on the longest one. 7500 feet long. He reached speeds of 47 km/hour.
This is one of me coming in. Very exciting. :P
We honestly spent a lot of time just chilling at the beach and pool. Outing Ziplining was a highlight as was our outing to Catalina Island. We went on a paddle wheeler boat up a river and enjoyed the scenery inland and saw locations where Jurassic Park and Rambo 2 were filmed. Then we transferred to a large Catamaran and headed to Catalina Island - which was a tropical paradise. After that we went to explore a medieval village that was gorgeous.
 |
| Michael Jackson Tribute Night. It was AWESOME |
 |
| Better than Tim Hortons? It actually was! |
 |
| This is on our river boat looking up at the Medieval Village we would visit later in the day. |
 |
| At the village, looking down at the river. |
 |
| No words. Beauty. |
 |
| This is where we were zip-lining |
 |
| If you tell them you have sailing experience they will let you borrow a catamaran for the day. So Arron told them that. It was only a half-truth. |
 |
| I have no sailing experience, but this is me posing like I know what I'm doing. |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)