All About me – Page 12 – a hippie with a minivan

Sunday morning…

We got to sleep in this morning… the boys were up a bit before us but Simon and I got to stay in bed and sleep for a little while longer… though I would like another little one one day I am really enjoying that they are growing up and are able to take care of themselves a bit more… even if it just gives us an hour more of sleep….

The last few days have been busy…

Thursday was Simon’s birthday… so I cleaned… made Burrito’s and baked a cake and helped the boys make cards etc…

On friday, Simon took the day off and I decided to go do some shopping in Montreal and to make things easier for Simon and have a little one on one time I brought Xavier with me…

First stop was to find a tripod, then we walked around a bit and I bought some PJ’s and a new sweater… then we headed to a little comic book/figurine store and Xavier picked something out for himself and I picked somthing out for Colin…

I was so mad when I got back to the car and I had gotten a parking ticket… I will be contesting it because I was really not at fault… I was parked in space 351, I had paid for space 351 and I still had an hour left… and I got a ticket for space 350… ( I had my camera on me so I took pics and I have the receipt)… It seems that the city of Montreal is really looking for money…

After, we got in the car and headed out for lunch.. I couldn’t find a space near the restaurant I wanted to go to so we headed to Shwartz’s for the best smoked meat you could ever eat… Xavier had having a blast…

After that we went to a little deli next store and picked up some sausages, cheeses and some hot sauce for Simon… and then headed to my friend Gen’s house to see her and the babes and bring some Leftover vegetable korma that I had…The babies are getting so big and Gen is looking great!

After that we headed back off Island and I headed to Ares Kitchen supplies… I hadn’t known that there was one right near the mall I usually go to but saw it when I visited their site… OMG… it is like the Toys R Us of kitchen supplies… I found exactly what I needed and saw many more things I wanted… that place is going to be dangerous!

It was late, so we picked up a bagel and headed home…

Then yesterday we woke up to Khéna vomiting… then we cleaned the house a bit then I went out for groceries and Simon’s mom, sister and a friend came over for the afternoon… we ordered Pizza and talked and played the Wii… it turned out to be a better visit then I would have thought..

Khéna is still sick though… throwing up and now diarrhoea…

Anyway… today we are all relaxing, the housework is pretty much done and we are just crossing our fingers that it doesn’t spread…

tired and sore but feeling great…

Tonight I made Annie’s vegetable Korma… it was amazing!!!

I ate and then debated with myself for about a min about going to the pool or not (swimming after eating spicy food with cauliflower etc. is not always the best plan)… but I got my things and left…

When I got there I saw a friendly face who gave me a few words of encouragement to get back into things and somehow while we were waiting the conversation turned to homschooling and I found myself needing to explain what it is all about… (he was one of those who had never even heard of it… I have to admit that I was really not in the mood tonight to do that because he was trying to debate me on it…

Anyway… got in the pool and there were two lanes open for laps and it was a bit crowded with about 6 people per lane… but I put my music on, and got into whatever rythm I could with the others and just kept swimming… and after about 20 min some people left and at the 35 min mark I was the only one left in my lane… so I was able to do the last 20 min at a good rythm…

I didn’t do as many laps as I was doing before I broke my routine, and I took a few 1-2 min breaks than I usually did… but I did a lot more than I thought I would be able to do… I really think the music has a lot to do with it… when I am a but tired I tell myself to just finish the song… or I get a song that has a faster beat and I follow that beat for a few laps…

My muscles are a bit sore but I really feel great… I am debating on whether I am going to go again tomorrow (I don’t want to hurt myself) but I won’t be able to go wednesday or thursday…

I’ll see…

It really does feel great though… I need this to be a routine again and knowing that it won’t be to hard to catch up to where I was is encouraging..

non-belief a threat?

Why is Atheism such a threat? Really?

I was “stumbing” and I stumbled upon an article about Ottawa saying that the transportation board is deadlocked in vote or rejected (depending on the article) an Atheist ad that has run in many cities that was saying “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

…Theresa Milligan argued against the ads, saying that it goes beyond freedom of speech.

“When statements are said that God probably does not exist, this is an implied statement of hatred towards all those who do believe that God exists.”…

Of course, this is not the first time I have heard this argument, but it still mystifies me.

How can saying that you don’t believe in something mean that you hate people who do believe in it?

Especially since they are not even taking a completely atheist stance and are saying that God “probably” doesn’t exist instead of saying that there simply are no gods.

What gets me is the double standard. By saying “When statements are said that God probably does not exist, this is an implied statement of hatred towards all those who do believe that God exists.” this Millagan woman actually blatantly implying that she hates people who believe in a different god than her. She may not believe that but by using her logic, if she doesn’t believe in Krishna or Zoroaster or a different god then the one that she believes in then she must hate Hindus and Parsis.

The thing is… Atheists don’t deny or hate whatever god. They simply don’t believe that gods exist. Atheists believe that religions and their gods are man-made and it is as simple as that. If religious people have a right to say “God/gods exists” then Atheist have as much a right to say “gods do not exist”. It is a statement of belief and truth on both sides, and neither are meant to be a threat.

When a humanist group says “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”, I really think that they are saying that life should be lived because it is worth living. It is as simple as that.

As expressed many times on my blog in the past, kids don’t learn right and wrong through rewards and punishment. With rewards and Punishment, children learn how to manipulate and what not do do to not get punished or how to get what they want by doing something but don’t learn the real lesson meant to be taught.

Taking away religion from ones life is taking away the rewards and punishment aspect in our own lives and instead of doing things based on outward motivation, we are free to live life in the richest way possible and do things because they are simply the right thing to do.

what an amazing weekend…

My good friend went into labour on Friday night… 39 weeks 2 days with breach twins…. she called me just when I was just leaving the mall and was heading home with Simon and the boys…

Her water broke and she was on the way home to relax a bit… and wanted me to come over for the night….

I headed back home (a 40 min drive) and then got Khéna to sleep and got ready to leave…

I got in the car at 10pm and just as I was leaving I got a call from her partner saying that the contractions had picked up and that they were on the way to the hospital…

I went fast…. faster than I usually go… and I actually got to the hospital about 5 min after them…

Going in there she knew that she would be having a c-section but she wanted to experience labour a bit before to get all some of the hormones going so that the babies would get the benefits…

She laboured for about 6 hours and then at about 3:30 she decided on the section…

Just before 5am, she became a mom…

There was a bit of time that everything was quite stressful… a lot of contradictory info and a very stressful time with the doctor and with the c-section… something that was really hard to see my friends going through and was very emotional…

But the babies are beautiful and healthy and so is mom…. they are all amazing!!!

Kai is a gorgeous little man who weighed in at 8 lbs 6oz and Zoe is a beautiful little girl who weighed in a 7lbs 7oz….

I wanted to make sure that nursing was going well before I left and it was going pretty well by the end of the day…

Anyway… it was a long night and then a long day yesterday without sleep… we all tried to rest but it was just hard to do it with all of the emotions and excitement and there were things to be done…

Though there were downs… there were also ups and it was an amazing experience that I feel so lucky to have been part of… I was able to support them and help them when they needed me…

I also feel so proud and privileged of being able to be part of the babies lives right from birth…

little house on the mountain…

I was looking through some pics yesterday and found some pics of one of the houses I grew up in…so I thought I would share…

We moved a lot… but this is one place that we stayed in the longest during my childhood before we came to Montreal and one of the places that I have the most memories from…

I think my mom was paying about 50$ a month in rent to live in it… the owners lived right next door and they had two children who were very good friends of mine… It was one room, with a loft that had two beds on the floor that my mom and I shared… there was a water pump with cold water and we had minimal electricity… enough for a fridge , a radio and a small TV … we had a wood stove to heat and cook on and no bathroom… the outhouse was a bit up the hill and baths were no more than cleaning ourselves with a washcloth in warm water by the fire…

When I was not at school, I spent my days in the forest going as far as I felt comfortable.. I climbed trees and discovered buroughs… I played in the stream and built dams with rocks… I played with my friends and tried to find were the cat had hidden to have her kittens… It was simple, it was rough at times but it was an amazing place to live…

The house is no longer there and the area of Nelson where it once stood (Mountain Station) is now filled with lavish houses… so different then the time that we were there…

These pic were taken on a trip back to BC about a decade ago… the house looked the same as when we lived there except for the stairs that seem to have fallen apart…