Lost

So I don't know if there is some mysterious house elf in my home, or if I am losing my memory, but at the moment there are several things missing from my kitchen that I have no clue what happened to them! So frustrating if they are misplaced somewhere around the house, and so upsetting if they are actually lost for good!

The least significant is the special glass 3M pads that I use for scrubbing off the wood stove glass doors. Regular scrubber pads would scratch the glass, but these special softer ones are designed for glass. Can't scrub the baked on grit off my wood stove doors without them! I have no clue when they went missing, it has been longer than I like to admit since I scrubbed the glass on the stove, but when I went to put my rubber gloves on, the scrubbers weren't sitting on top like they used to be, nor were they fallen down behind. Hmmm...

Then more of a daily inconvenience is that one of the two one teaspoon measures that I have in the kitchen has been missing for months now. And of course it is my favorite all metal one from the set that my sister in law gave me for christmas one year, that goes in the dishwasher as there is no plastic on the handle like my other set. I've searched all through Little M's play kitchen things, but it is nowhere to be found. I've been thinking perhaps it is under the oven, and so cleaning under there is on my to do list, but clearly it has been on my to do list since around the New Year, so its not a huge priority to get that cleaned. If I knew the teaspoon measure was under there however, you can be sure I would be pulling the damn oven out immediately. Arg.

Anyway, anyone else have a house elf? Sigh... Or a faulty memory?

Upswing-ing

The past just over a year has been a bit of a rough one. Part of it has been how we've been looking at things (I mean come on, right? we brought a brand new healthy baby home, how could it not be an amazing year?). But there have been a lot of expensive things that have happened, some with good (and really great) outcomes, but still they have been draining, both emotionally, and financially. It was a year where we often felt like we couldn't catch a break, couldn't get ahead. Starting 2014 we felt like we would be getting out of it. You know, 2013 was that year, 2014 would be better. But January had barely begun and I felt Tia's lump returning. We started looking at prices, length of recovery, and quality of life. Hard things to weigh with a level head when you are talking about the best (dog) friend you have moved across the continent with, who has been by your side for over nine years. The year had barely begun and here we were right back into the heavy stuff.

We have a couple people in our lives who are pretty negative, glass half empty kind of folk. In truth, they are glass three quarters empty when in truth it is likely only a quarter empty. We do our best to dampen, and outright avoid, their negativity, as it really doesn't sit well with us. But we were feeling like we were turning into that sort of people. So we started trying to look on the bright side. Instead of choosing between two crappy options (amputate or euthanize), we looked at it the opposite - two good options - one where a beloved, 11 year old dog would get to live out a few more months until due to cancer impeding her walking ability she would have to be put down, and the other where a beloved, 11 year old dog would be able to get a third (or would this be fourth?) chance at life as a pampered-to-the-best-of-our-current-abilities three legged dog.

Then the vet said she wasn't sure it was actually the mass coming back, that it might just be scar tissue, and that she would look at it again in two weeks and see if it had changed.

Then one of the two remaining manuscripts from my masters thesis work was accepted pending revisions.

Then the waldorf-inspired daycare that we absolutely love told us that they were going to be expanding in the next few months, and that they might have some extra spots, which would solve my 1.5 day a week dilemma at our other daycare, where it takes me 45 minutes to drive to Baby E to nurse her bottle-refusing self, which severely limits my work hours, and really eats into our time at home those days, and generally has been causing me a lot of turmoil over not being able to find the current balance between earning enough money to get the necessary bills paid and being at home with my family enough to keep everyone healthy and happy and all the chores kept up with.

And all of a sudden, on the Friday of a long week, I'm feeling all joyful and happy. Hopeful. The upswing has happened. The worm has turned. I'm sure there will still be trials and tribulations to come. There always are. But there are now enough good and positive things under our belt, that the good will hopefully keep outweighing the bad for another good long while, and we will be able to look at it all with a positive light once again. Happy day. So on this Friday, I hope you all are able to look upon your lives with that positive outlook that makes for a bright tomorrow!

Under the weather

We've been battling a cold or flu for the past almost 2 weeks, with me being the last one to get sick, and the last one to (just today) start feeling better. Little M was spared the worst of it, having a cough just before the rest of us got sick, and a cough and stuffy nose just now, but avoiding the high fevers that brought the rest of us to our knees. Now that we are recovering and getting back to our normal work, play, home routines, I'm feeling that sigh of relief that comes when life gets so much more manageable again!

One morning early on while we were sick, I had a burst of energy one morning (trust me, I regretted acting on it later in the day!) and swapped some furniture out in our living space, moving the carpet play area closer to the wood stove so we would have a cozier place to play. Within the hour us three girls were contentedly playing with 'legos' (really duplos, but don't tell Little M!). She has been really into her lego's since about mid-December, before that it was wooden blocks that were the thing. The lego thing is going into its second month now, and I'm absolutely loving building with her - castles, or barns, or barn castles are the most frequent construction. Baby E enjoys 'playing' with us too, although the last week or two she has been getting awfully close to making forward crawling movement, and has needed frequent rescuing as she gets into positions that she can't get out from, and can't comfortably play in either. In the picture below you can also see that Little M got her first real/professional haircut - her bangs finally grew out long enough, and the bob cut is working so well!

Well, I hope you are all well, and enjoying the last bit of winter that the season has been throwing our way (at least here, where we finally have a few inches of snow, and the temps are dipping down into the negatives, and staying well below freezing even during the day!