My Life – Page 14 – a hippie with a minivan

last day…

My dad arrived last night and we got him all set up… he has COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) and is on oxygen so house-sitting means that he needed to bring his big machine and apnea machine and all of that…

Our bags are packed and pretty much ready to go… just a few last minute things left that I am going to do when I put Khéna down for his nap… I’m nursing him to sleep as I type…

Khéna is in a pretty bad mood at the moment… I think that the atmosphere in the house is really weird for him with my dad, the machines and all of the bags etc…

After lunch I am heading to my friend Gen’s house and Simon will meet me us there and we will sleep there and leave first thing in the morning since she lives minutes from the airport…

I went on the Westjet site this morning and chose our seats so we just have to show up and check the bags now…

I am bit nervous still but once everything is packed and we hit the road I think I will feel better…

BC here we come!!!

btw…. anyone out there who wants to meet up with me… just e-mail me 🙂 I’ll be in Vancouver for a few days… then off to Nelson… then back in Vancouver and I am going on the Island also…

my last few days…

Last week was like a blur…

All three boys had fevers and runny noses and were each miserable for a a day or two…On Friday I needed to get some things done in Montreal… I hesitated so much because the forcast was saying thundershowers for the whole day… but because the boys had been sick and I hadn’t done the things that I had planned so I didn’t really have much of a choice if I wanted to get those things done before we leave…

So… I got ready and I told the boys that we would go get some bagels at Timmies… Just as I was nearning the street to Timmies the serpentine belt that powers the power steering/alternator etc came off as it did a few weeks ago when we went through a puddle… so right away I felt the steering wheel get stiff and the battery light when on…

Knowing what had happened right away I went straight to my garage a few minutes away… they put the strap back on without charge and headed to Timmies and then the highway… scared to get another puddle…

A day of shopping… in and out of the car in the rain… First the MEC for a waterpac… then on Plaza St-Hubert to LL Lozeau for a Strap pad for my Camera bag, a cleaning pen and a UV filter and then I headed to the West Island to pick up my friend Gen to go to Fairview (a big mall)… First stop there was LensCrafters where I got a new pair of glasses that won’t take out my hair each time I take them off and that don’t transition… I also got a different style of glasses which is pretty cool… I will have to take a pic! then got some t-shirts for the boys, some new sandals for them also and some memory cards…

Simon met us there and then we headed out for supper…

I left Simon with the kids to go eat on their own… while Gen and I went for a quiet Sushi supper and great conversation across the street…

After that I left Gen at home and we headed home…

On the way back about 5 min from our place of the highway we caught a huge storm with the kind of rain that you can’t see within a foot in front of you and cars start going 30 km or stopping altogether ont he side of the road… and of course… the serpentine belt came off again…

I took a chance and drove home anyway hoping that the car wouldn’t stall…

Yesterday morning I did some research and found that there is a fix for the problem that my mechanic had said was unfixable and found out that the part was availible at NAPA…. so I called them and they had it in stock but I neeed to call around to see if there was a garage open and besides Canadian Tire… there wasn’t and with the way they talked to me on the phone (convinced that I had no idea what I was talking about) I wasn’t going there…But on Monday I will go to my garage…

But I hate knowing that the Car is there but I can’t use it if I need it… and I did need it… So I decided to tackle the problem myself….

I fought and cursed and got my hands dirty and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how to get the belt on the tensioner after I had put it around all of the other pulleys… So google was my friend and I found this post and the wise words of wisdom from the authors friend…

“Matt,” he replied, “take the belt off another pulley – something easy to get to – put it on the tensioner, and then use the wrench to pull the tension out of the line and place the belt over the remaining pulley.”

And that… worked like a charm…and I am pretty gosh darn pround of myself… lol

So I went and did some groceries… just enough to tide us over until Wednesday and some snacks and the fixings for Sandwiches that I am going to be making for the plane…

and now we are in the getting ready and packing stage… needing to prepare the house for my dad who will be cat/house sitting…

ahh… how time passes quickly when you have tons to do…

random thoughts…

Man… I feel old…

We are leaving next week and I am getting more and more nervous…I get a queasy feeling each time I think about it… and with all that I need to prepare I have been feeling really queasy lately… especially now that Xavier’s party has past and now it is the only thing I need to think about…

There is just something nerve wracking about leaving our home for about 5-6 weeks… leaving our comforts, our routine, our beds etc…

I am nervous about staying at my mom and her bf’s house… they are not used to kids… let alone 3 energetic boys…

We don’t go on many trips… though I love to travel… and I know that everything will be great and that I am going to love the time that I spend there… it is just weird… leaving with three kids is no where like leaving alone….

but though I am nervous… I really am looking forward to being in BC, seeing old friends, having them meet my kids… meeting theirs… I can’t wait to meet Annie who I talk to almost everyday on the phone and is pretty my best friend even though we have never met in person…

I think that one thing that makes me nervous also is that I love BC so much I really have trouble leaving each time I go back…

Really though… to be honest with myself…

I think that I am a bit nervous that I will get back here and be even more unhappy about living here… and I really don’t want that…

New Camera on the way…

wow… I am just on a spending binge here aren’t I?

I love my current Camera (Canon G9)…

but well… I have long desired more “Umph”… I just love photography and I want to do more and as great as the G9 is… it is a P&S and has its limits…

So I decided to take the plunge and sacrifice any gifts for my birthday, Xmas, Valentine’s day,Mother’s Day, Anniversary etc for as long as it takes to get my hands on a nice DSLR…

I love Canon… so for a long time I had eyed the XT… then the XTi… and then of course the Xsi… and the higher level ones of course but always knew they were not in my range (especially price wise!)…

I started looking for prices on the XTi and XSi but I kept my mind open because I wasn’t 100% sure yet…. and then I saw the Nikon d80… another great looking camera…

So I was torn for quite a while between the XTi or XSi and the d80…. and I was about to choose the d80 but kept looking and went through every online review that I could find which is when I started to see the Pentax mentioned…

not much… but just enough to get my attention..

So I started looking more into it and realized that it was the choice for me…

So the new Camera? The Pentax K20D

What made me choose… it has tons of features, it is weatherproof, has the anti-dust and has the image stabalization in the camera so that you don’t have to buy more expensive IS or AV lenses and most importantly the images look amazing…

This is not classed as an entry-level DSLR… it is a semi-pro but priced in the entry-level range….so I will have the chance to not only grow into it but stay with it for quite a while…

Of course then I needed to choose a lens… I decided to get the camera with a kit lens on special at cameracanada.com which gives me the Pentax 18-55mm lens…but for the upcoming trip to BC I wanted to have a bit more than 55mm and while searching for lenses for all the cameras I was looking at the 18-250mm Tamron kept popping up… and not only does it have amazing reviews as a great walkaround “most purpose” lens and especially good for travelling…. it also has macro which is something that I really want also…

So both the camera and the lense were ordered just a few hours ago and because it is coming from Ontario it should be here within the week…and in time for Xavier’s Birthday party on Sunday…

I am SO excited!!

I bought clothes…

ok… ok… maybe not that news worthy to some… but for me who never buys clothes… well it is something worth mentioning… honestly…

I have never spent so much in one day on clothes in my life!!! actually I have never even spent 1/3 of what I spent yesterday…

I really needed it though…

All of my clothes were too big…

I was at the mall a few days ago and I had Khéna on my back and Xavier was telling me that my shorts were falling down and when I checked they were half way down my bum… I was waiting to lose a little more weight before I bought a few things but It just hit me that there is no more delaying it…

So… I started trying out clothes and at first was looking at the sizes that I am used to…

A few months ago… I was wearing a size 22-24 so I started looking at those but then realized that I was there because it didn’t fit anymore… so I asked an employee what size she thought I was and she said 18… so I tried one on and yep!!! 18! I can’t believe that 30 pounds took that much off!!

So I bought…

-2 new bras ( and I mean real bras… not nursing… REAL…. I haven’t bought a real bra in about 7 years!… my boobs went from droopy and navel gazing to HELLO THERE!!!)
-clear straps for the bras to wear with my spaghetti strap tops…
-2 tank tops
-2 t-shirts
-denim bermudas
-Khaki bermudas
-a pair of jeans
-black shorts
-lounging pants
and a bathing suit…

you can just imagine what I spent… 😐

But… I wanted to cover all of the basics… so that I can use what I have in my closet that still fits and also everything I bought is mix and match…

It felt so weird spending all that money on clothing for me…

and I have to admit that I kind of even liked trying on new clothes that fit well and make look and feel pretty good if I may say so myself…

eta… a few pics…