Bread Machine is History

a while back, i don't remember if i blogged about this, but i got myself a bread machine that had a gluten free cycle. since that's what we need to eat and we save over $1 a loaf if i make it myself (it tastes better too).

for many weeks it did make good breads and i got in a groove of mesuring several loafs at once so on lazy days, i only need to dump a bag and the wet ingredients together and it goes fast. the machine does most of the job and i only need to make 2 quick check up on it.

the last 3 loafs turned out differently, they were not as dark... the last one, i even felt it needed to have an extra 10 minutes added at the end and still i think it wasn't quite well baked. so my guess is that the convection fan gave up

so i dug for my receit, get my info together to figure out what course of action i would take. and it just happened that there was about 7 days left to the store's exchange/refund policy... i figured i'd exchange it for a new one... would be quicker then sending it to the repair shop. but there was none in stock. they gave me my money back. and that's not that bad either, because if i decide to get an other one... i'll have a new warranty to go with it. i can't complain with that hehe

the only thing is now, i got to get used to do it the old fashion way... in the oven. we'll see what catastrophe i mannage to wip up this time hehe

then again, if it turns out well enough, i might just save the counter space and forget about the machine. get a few bigger bread pans and use the rest of the money for something else

The Urge to Paint

so now that the kids both have their own room, and Owen's room has been on the primer eversince we moved in. i feel the urge to paint it before it get too cold to be able to ventilate apropriately while getting messy. there's also the entrance that is on the primer and should be painted soon because i dont think it could endure an other wash. even though it would be very nice to be able to paint the whole house, it's really not in the budget. and there's some room that will need some renovation done before going near the paint bucket.

so i'm trying to find ideas to paint the room in a creative way, not just one solid color. i had a picture in my mind of a girl's bedroom decore idea i saw a while back, it was pink and green. then i saw these things last night...

and also this sweet artic flower garden toutch you can find here

now, i'm not gonna spend hours trying to find what i have in mind for Owen's because it apear to be even more difficult to find boy's bedroom decore images. but i had a few ideas:

- the beach/sea, nice blue sky, some clouds, a plain, birds...

- a night sky with the planets, a rocket, the moon...

- or, 2 tone blue with this kind of effect. maybe some fireflies and wild life/nature accents.

i like the glow in the dark stars idea so much, i'd put it in every bedrooms, cause i'm sure Vivian would like it too and so would I *grin*

i just have to figure out how to make the night sky as acurate as possible with all the constelation and what not.

Easy going can only go so far

i'me a big fan of co-sleeping, and i enjoyed it very much. in fact, i would still enjoy it if it wasn't for the fact i had to draw the line last night. this time i'll call it a safety issue.

I don't have to worry about her falling off the bed, she does fine in her bed or mine. she's mostly gentle and non intrusive sleeping buddy. but what happen before she goes to sleep, while i'm out of the room is a different ball of wax. and she knows when she's sticking her nose where it doesn't belong. because last night after hearing a lot of uncommon noise, hubby decided to go take a look and as he opened the bedroom door, she was rushing to her bed.

couldn't find anyting incriminating at the moment, just layed in bed while she fell asleep in hers. then came back down. when came time for me to go to bed. i didn't notice anything while stumbling in the dark to get under the covers. some times later. it was getting a bit brighter. i guess it was around 5-6 am, hubby was getting ready for work, and i came to realise that something was stuck on my tigh... a termometer case? what? hmmm, it should be in the baby care hard case in my drawer... with a safety lock. and the thermometer was, beside the bed on the floor. *sigh*

then i found the bottle of Holy Water... finaly empty! again, was stored in a drawer with a safety lock on. and she had gotten her hands on it once before. that's why i say... finaly empty. i was taking my temperature, as i always do in the morning when i picked the Holy Water bottle and showed it to her... she turned around and started crying, even though i had not spoken a word.

and also found a tube of tootpast completely flat in the same drawer as the baby care kit... not suposed to be there? hmmm, did you eat this? a muffled yeah, came out of her. not sure if she really did, how much there would've been originaly in it when she found it(we did not notice any unusual symptoms from her)... but i was not a happy camper. maybe it was a snack form the night she had that smelly poop durring the night(usualy she doesn't poop at night) but i wrote it off as too many goji berries, cause there was a lot of seeds in her poop... to many unsafe behaviors in one session. no child proof devices are safe with her... the ensuite bathroom door in our room has a safety door nob, that she can open, and then she can climb to reach what ever she feel like. although we don't keep much that could seriously harm her in there... facecloth, Q-tips, electric razor, comb, hair elastics...

we had started thinking about getting her into her own room for a bit, but figured, we should get a closet organizer first, and with the chelation therapy comming soon, for probably 6 months, it's no time to risk getting pregnant, so co-sleeping with 2 years old daugher was not a rush to terminate really, until last night. i'm kinda sad, because i really enjoyed co-sleeping with her... I love my son dearly but when it comes to co-sleeping, it was only good when he was fast asleep, cause when he'd wake up before me, especialy after he mannaged to sit on his own, i would often have him bash his head straight on my nose as a wake up call. very fidgetty and rough. still to this day, it's nearly impossible to cuddle with him without getting hurt, unless in the lazyboy, that minimized the hurts. no refinement in cuddliness what so ever.

now, this is only first night, and it seems to go well so far, but i'm not making myself any illusion. i'm expecting some resistance at one point or an other. hopefully, we'll be able to address it in a way that makes everybody happy.

now it's my turn to go to bed and see how i'll adjust to the new arrangement. it's been over 4 years of co-sleeping with the kids, now back with hubby. hopefully, we'll last at last a year hehe

Lead Head

Owen and I went for some test to find out about heavy metal toxicity. and the results are in. i was expecting mercury, but lead came instead. it explain a lot of stuff and the good news is, there's chelation therapy to help get rid of a good portion of it. i will try keep up on the blog the progress of our wellbeing through the next 6-9 months.

since my msn buddy is gone to NY for the weekend. i think i'll just go find something to do now.

by the way, I want to thank you Nancy for your weight lost tip... no carb in the evening might be what i needed... on top of my walk.

i'm off to go make some facecloth and cotton pads. look like i'm seriously getting allergic to disposable ones (TMI)

First time at the beach

2 days ago, when i woke up, it was so nice out that i decided I should no longer delay and bring my kids to the beach for the first time in their life... after all, we live in the maritimes, it's almost not normal for them to have never seen the beach.

They loved it! so much so that, back at home, while eating lunch, Owen was asking to go back. and i know he's not going to give up. he still talk about the broken moose. oh yeah, i just realised that i didn't say anything about that here yet. since Facebook happened to me, i got even more lazy.

ok, so here's the story... my dear husband hit a moose on his way back home from work over a week ago. he called me to tell me so i knew it couldn't be too bad. that kind of encounter can be fatal. and he wasn't hurt but just mannaged to bring the van home but that's about it because it was not really not in that good of a condition. hubby was trying to talk on the phone to get all the insurances in order but Owen was inssisting he wanted to talk on the phone also. so i took him to see the van. his reaction was that the moose must be repaired... interresting perspective.

ok, now to the fun stuff. it was so long since i went to the beach myself that i had forgotten how good it feel to walk on the sand. we were so limited in time, because Owen had therapy that afternoon. so we only spent 30 minutes at the beach and i didn't have much time to enjoy it myself because i was too busy taking pictures of their first experience. and that evening i stayed up late to compile it in a video. i wish we could've stayed longer but i realise that anything more and we would've burnt.

My birthday in history

Nancy tagged me...


For this meme, you go to Wikipedia and check your birthday - then post 3 events, 2 births, and a holiday. And, of course, tag 5 people


August 18:


events:

1. 293 BC - The oldest known Roman temple to Venus (mythology) was founded, starting the institution of Vinalia Rustica


2. 1775 - The Spanish established a presidio (fort) and the town came to be called Tucson, Arizona.


3. 1868 - French astronomer Pierre Jules César Janssen discovers helium.


4. 1938 - The Thousand Islands Bridge, connecting New York State, United States with Ontario, Canada over the St. Lawrence River, is dedicated by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.


5. 1941 - Adolf Hitler orders a temporary halt to Nazi Germany's systematic euthanasia of mentally ill and handicapped due to protests.


6. 1969 - Jimi Hendrix plays the unofficial last day of Woodstock.


7. 2005 - Dennis Rader is sentenced to 175 years in prison for the BTK serial killings.


8. 2005 - Massive power blackout hits the Indonesian island of Java, affecting almost 100 million people.

Births:

1. 1587 - Virginia Dare, first English child born in North America (d. 1588)
2. 1750 - Antonio Salieri, Italian composer (d. 1825) (if you saw the Mozart movie, he was the movie narator)
3. 1992 - Frances Bean Cobain, daughter Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love

celebration:

1. saint of the day: August 18 St. Jane Frances de Chantal (1562-1641) but according to wiki it's Roman Catholic Saints - Saint Helena of Constantinople, and Saint Alberto Hurtado


2. Australia - Long Tan Day (also called Vietnam Veterans' Day) named after the Battle of Long Tan


3. Buhe in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church

euh, sorry i couldn't help myeslf and went overboard hehe, it was interresting and ...
woah, good thing blogger started saving drafts automaticaly... i would've lost everything. for some odd reason, my computer crashed.

Happy Mother's Day

and a special day it was!

first, i get to see some animal drag a scarf or something across the driveway, or so i thought hehe. with closer look i realise it's a mother duck with a row of duckling following her

it was getting quite far by the time i was able to grab the camera, it's not a very clear picture.

then at mass i get a vision while praying, very beautiful... but sorry, no pics. then i got back home and i play a bit with the rubic cube i bought friday for the kids... and i finishe it for the first time in my life, ever... with some instruction mind you but even then when i was a kid we had a cube and an instruction book on how to solve it... a book! and i never mannaged. this one came with one page instruction hehe

durring my nap, my dear husband come and get me because he's over his head, trying to get the kids in the house and there's a hummingbird in our kitchen!

if that's not special enough that i was able to take an upclose pictur of it... i was even able to toutch it before it flew away.

what are the odds of one person toutching the fasted bird there is?

Wildernes Bliss

Unless you feel like you've swallowed a porkupine. noting too pleasant. i'm so sick of colds. seems Owen catch one everytimes he goes to the center, and then he gives it to us. i'm taking a break.

aside from that, we did see a porkupine last week i think. i'm losing track of time. i'm so frazzled. but here's a pic.

This sunday afternoon, i was gearing for my afternoon nap, when i realised all i was able to do was stare at the ceiling fan and wonder at the beautiful blue sky outside. so i got up and we went for a walk on our trail. not much eventfull, Vivian was tired and couldn't walk straight on the way back so we carried her for part of the way. but i did see a hoof print, and i thought it was a dear track, but my mother thought it was more the size of a moose. now that got me worried about going back on the trail by myself. I was hopping to start walking every day and use our back wood trail but with the prospect of seeing a moose. i opted for the road the next day.

on my way back from my walk the second day on the road, i came across one of my dear neybor. we talked for a while and she reassured me not to worry about moose or even bears for the most part. they're usualy shy and will get out of their way to avoid us if we make some noise, like singing hehe

so the next day i went on the trail again. it was nice but it looks much shorter when walking it without the kids. i didn't see the hoof print again, but i remembered to bring my camera this time and took a few pictures of nature.

this is what i think is an animal track beside my foot

the river looking upstream

the river looking downstream, the tree across is the dandy work of a beaver

you can see again, the tree across the river, that one was down when we went for our walk on sunday. the one across the path, blocking access to the river was fell since then... busy beaver

and this is our trail with the river at my back... facing my way home

so i'm planning to walk everyday as much as possible. although, there's also the garden that will require some of my time soon. there's a man that came with his tractor tiller yesterday and started tilling when he realised the soil was too wet, so he'll have to come back a bit later. we hadn't really decided how big to make it, but after putting sticks near the spot where the grape vines and the asparagus were, the man ended up ripping up a patch 20'x50'. i think it will be big enough hehe

The Winter of Snot

As if we have not seen enough cold and flues this winter, an other one is fierce at claiming that the winter hasn't given up on us yet. Owen started coughing last night and although his temperature doesn't amount to official fever, he's warm to the touch. today, he dragged through his ABA with red groggy eyes. it's spring MR. weather man!!! send us some spring weather... some REAL spring weather PLEAAAASE!!!!

Yet, I've heard Owen is not the only one to suffer the sneezes. Since we can't get away from it, some peoples decided to make a little orchestra with it.

We had planned to start an other round of ozonation, this time in the attic, scheduled for tomorrow morning. it was the soonest we could find a convenient time for it... Owen's booked to attend his ABA at the center, i have a chiro's appointment and Owen also have to see the ortophonist... i hope it's not too demanding for his snot filled head. it will complete the full house ozonation... we have mice and ants in the attic and hope that it will deter them from feeling home.

we didn't think much last night about leaving the attic trap open, but we can say today that there are 3 mice fewer up there now. i heard some noise upstairs and Andy went to check and our cat was playing with one and so he cough it in a jar. today, she was guarding my lazy boy as one had made it it's refuge and one didn't survive our mice hunter. we first thought about letting it open again tonight and let Daphne go at them for an other round, but she might still be tired from her last crazy night and kids not letting her sleep through the day. and i also was wondering about the risk of letting them migrate before the "O3" day.

we were hoping to keep a live mouse in a trap. we heard that it help attract the others in the trap, but the first one we cough last week, escaped, and today, the other one died. there's the young mouse left but it's the one Daphne injured. don't know if it will affect its longevity. the other problem is that it appear the mouse are escaping the trap... not much of a trap then is it?

weeee

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