No Focus

I am not really sure what to write about today. I have a million things zooming around in my brain but nothing that I can make sense of in writing. I'll give it a shot anyway.

I am huge for 3 months pregnant. HUGE. I can no longer where my jeans. I did splurge on a comfy pair of maternity pants that can be worn to work and for dress up. I have taken a few pictures but still am not sure if I will post them or not. I appears more of a beer gut than baby belly in the pictures. :)

I have been able to spend some more one on one time with Rawley lately and realize how much I miss it. We get so busy in our day to day life that we forget about finding that special time with each other. It is definitely something I will be trying to do more. For Rawley & I and for Ryan & I.

~ We got to go sledding together the other night ~

School is stressing me out lately. I waited way to long to get my butt in gear and now I am running out of time to finish my course. I am currently doing Curriculum Planning. This is a hard course for me because I am not that creative. I have planned a few different activities; however, I am not sure on my marks as I have not gotten most of them back. Now my next assignment is to find a group of children to do one of my activities with and then evaluate how it went, what I should change, what went well, whether the children learned anything..... The only problem is I don't have a huge group of 3 year olds hanging around my house. I have been told I could do the assignment with some of my friends if I have to... So... If any of you are free on the same night and want to come over to my house to learn about shapes and do a fun shape search around my house..... let me know. Thanks!

Our Christmas shopping is done except for my dad. I ordered him a shirt from Sears online and was told it would be in this week. Now they are saying it may not be in until the 23rd if at all before Christmas. I am bummed because it was his fav kind of shirt and it was on sale. Shhh. ;) So now he may get a picture of a shirt for Christmas day. I guess I will have to buy him a bottle of Southern Comfort to drown his sorrows in as well. :)

I cannot believe Christmas is only 9 days away. Where does the time go. I remember when I was little and my parents used to say, "time goes by so fast", "it feels like it was just Christmas"... I never thought they were ever right. I mean when we were little time moved so slowly it felt like Christmas would never come. Now I turn around twice and hear it is.

I am looking forward to some extended weekends coming up. Next week we are only open for 3.5 days and one of the days we will be closing for a Christmas party lunch type deal. Then the following week we are only open for 2.5 days. The rest of the days I get to sit at home and relax while getting paid.

Anyway it is time to go find my afternoon caffeine before I fall asleep at the desk.

~ pregnant belly pictures ~



(please excuse the toothpaste on the mirror)

Road Trip

Rawley and I went on a little road trip yesterday to visitour friend, Bonnie, in Bellvue WA.

It was an interesting trip. Our morning started out late after a rough night then the border guard didn't want to even let us cross the border. He was not so pleasant. I had choice words for him but I will keep them to myself.

Before leaving I checked the weather in Bellvue, Bellingham and Abbotsford. It was suppose to be mainly sunny and plus 2 degrees. There was no snow in the forecast.

Well they were wrong.

By the time we got to bellingham it was snowing heavily. Americans (no offense) do not drive well in the snow. The pass between Bellingham and Skagit was a little icy and we saw a few car accidents. 10 to be exact. Yes, 10 accidents in a 25 minute stretch of highway. what?

We got to Bellvue around 1pm and had a wonderful afternoon visiting with Jovana & Bonnie. Bonnie is my friends with MS (from previous posts). I do not get down to the states often enough to see her so when we get to go it is extra special. Jovana has 3 boys and one is the same age as Rawley so they always have fun playing when they get to see each other.

Thank you for a wonderful day ladies. It really does mean a lot to me to just sit and be able to talk about life, struggles, children..... Love you both!

A few pictures of the accidents we saw. Only a couple seemed serious at all, they were mostly just fender benders.

The Cat is Out of The Bag

I finally told my boss I was pregnant yesterday. It was a very hard thing for me to do and I stressed for a long time about when and how to tell him.

My manager and I do not necessarily see eye-to-eye. Actually my boss doesn't really see eye-to-eye with many people.

A little history of my position:
I am an administrative assistant for a industrial sandblasting and painting company. My job is to keep the office in order and make sure the men at our job sites have all the things they need when they are there. I create all the job books and get their safety manual ready. I also order all the supplies as they need it and organize shipping to and from sites all over western Canada. This job is a hard one to learn as it is not very repetitive and there is something new all the time. I had to be here a full year before I had learned everything and then by the time the next year rolled around I almost had to relearn it all. I also do all the insurance on our fleet vehicles, accounts payables, HR stuff....That is the first reason this job is hard. Before I started here they had gone through 6 girls in 5 years. It is hard to get someone who will stay at the job for many reasons. One of many is the manager

The manager is not easy to get along with. I am not sure if the pressure if running a whole branch of a company is what gets to him but he has a habit of blaming, belittling, and just making one feel as though they are completely incompetent. He talks to me in a very disrespectful way. (which I eventually let him know) He has given me three raises and told me on those three different occasions that I am good at my job, but everyday in between he does not make me feel that way. No matter what I do it is wrong or anything that just happens to go wrong is a result of me doing something. Also, he has never made a mistake ever!!! ;)

Girls just get sick of it and quit, (I almost did twice) they can't put up with the way they are treated. So, why have a stayed longer than any other girl? Because the money is good, I have benefits for the first time since Rawley was born, the hours are great, it is actually a very interesting job. I like to be involved in the more manly things out there but this is nice because I get to be involved but still stay inside and sit down. I get to learn things most girls would never understand and I love it, but I don't actually have to get dirty (well not very often) I have occasionally had to drive the forklift, deliver 5 tons trucks to the repair shop and crawl around our huge dusty shop.

Even though my manager has been the major problem here and I have had my ego hurt more than once and tears have certainly flowed down my cheeks. I do have a great bunch of guys out on job sites that appreciate everything I do and stand up for me all the time. I love my site guys. They are polite and courteous to me and say 'thank you' when I do things for them. I know when I leave them with a new girl who does not know what she is doing it will make each one of their jobs harder when they need to call the office for something and no one can help them.

I have really lost my point here... oh right, why was I so scared to tell my manager..

Well we don't talk. We don't even say good morning most of the time, unless it is job related we hardly say a word to each other. He is not so social. So any conversation I have with him is really awkward. He also does not have kids so there is no common ground there. I am well aware of how hard it is going to be to replace me. I am not trying to toot my own horn , but I have put up with A LOT here. I have been yelled at, talked down to, stressed to the limit (bawling like a baby), unappreciated...and for the most part I have done it all without a complaint. When the guys call desperate for something I make sure they get it. I work my butt off here learning everything I need to know and more and I care. I care that I do a good job, I care about all my guys out on the job site that are stranded without respirators or need more time sheets like yesterday. So it was very scary to tell them I was going to be leaving.

My manager gets upset when I miss a day of work how can I tell him I am going to miss 365 days and maybe (definitely) not return at all.

Anyway....... now you know a little bit about my job and why I love it and hate it at the same time.

Now...how did it go when i told them? Well, I was smart about it. I waited till our company president was out from Ontario. I did not want to confront my boss alone. Our president is a really nice guy and has always been respectful and kind to me. He also has 3 kids and we share stories often. I knew he would have more understanding. So, while he was here I got them together after much fretting, shaking, sweating, nausea......... The president said "Congratulations" and seemed genuinely happy for me. He told me not to worry, that we would find a temp and my job would be here if I choose to return. The president and I made small chit chat while my boss just stood there and stared at me not saying a single word. Yikes! Then the room grew silent. I felt awkward so i said, "well that was all" and started to leave the room. with that my boss said, "um, right, okay"

Now if I can make it 6 months without being cornered and drilled with a ton of questions he is not even allowed to ask me I will be happy. Although those that know my boss know that it is almost inevitable. Here's to hoping.

I don't know why my small stories always turn into novels. I guess that is why I started a blog. That way you don't have to listen to (or technically read about) me if you don't want.

Pictures to go with yesterday's post. I thought I had some pictures of our Christmas tree too, but I was wrong. (not the first time either, and won't be the last) I will get some this Friday when we go to decorate.

So Very Busy

We had a very busy weekend this weekend and another one just around the corner. Friday night we braved the CandleLight Parade in Mission. It was cold but so worth it. The floats are always wonderful and all the Christmas music really gets you into the spirit. Rawley got a bucket full of candy so he was really happy.
Then Saturday Rawley and I had a date to finish up our Christmas shopping for Ryan. We did well actually. The only person left to shop for is my dad and then we are all done for the year. Yes!
Saturday night Owyn came over to hang out. Owyn is my 19 months old nephew. We had a blast with him. What was not cool was the 5:15am wake up call. Who wants to play at 5:15am? He even turned down a bottle just to run around and make noise.
Sunday we had lunch at my grandparents house. Grandma and I worked out who will cook/buy what for her Boxing Day open house get together. Then on our way home we stopped by Giesbrecht Tree Farm for our Noble Fir Christmas tree.
We had time to set it up at my dad's house and add the lights but it will remain otherwise naked until Friday night when we can all get together to decorate.

Christmas is coming so soon and I am enjoying all the festivities. Now if I could just find time to also finish my school work before the course deadline (Dec.21) I would be ecstatic!

(by the way I have pictures for all of these events but my camera is at home and I am at work so I will post them tomorrow)

Between a Small Plum and a Large Lime

We are between week 10 and 11 in the pregnancy right now. This means our baby is between the size of a small plum (week ten) and a large lime (week eleven). It weighs about 5-8 grams.
Tuesday we had our second doctor's appointment and we got to hear the heartbeat. I consider us to be very lucky because we knew that hearing the heartbeat around 10 weeks is often hard to do since the baby is still small and moving around a lot.
It was so exciting and Rawley got to be there for it. He was unsure at first which noise it was, but it was still very special. Yay!

I Love Free Stuff

Melon Scratcher of the Day (Country 107.1):

The average one of these is 5'9" and 218 lbs.
???
Santa Claus's

This morning I called into the radio station with that answer and won $75 gift certificate to Giesbrecht Tree Farm. I was ecstatic!!! Even Steve, the announcer, poked fun at me a bit for being so happy about a tree.

The thing is I was totally stressing about how we were going to pay for the Christmas tree this weekend. We are putting one up at my dad's house instead of ours and he has 9 foot ceilings. We wanted to get a nice big tree for our last Christmas on the west coast, but a nice big tree means nice big bucks to spend. The later is something we don't have a whole lot of these days. So , I am very very very delighted that we have this gift certificate now.

Country 107.1 has been good to us lately. We are both devoted listeners (Ryan sometimes because he does not have a choice) and country club members so we enter for all kinda of draws and I call in for the melon scratcher regularly. If you win you have to wait 30 days to try again and it has been just over that since I won Rascal Flatts tickets. Then the week before last Ryan won tickets to the Abbotsford Heat. Those of you who are not country club members should think about it. Free dates and free Christmas trees....'nough said.

Anyway. Yay for free stuff!!!!!