The Happy Domestic

I have six kids. Seven if you count my husband. Are they all mine? Thankfully, no. But this kind of craziness explains in part why blogging has taken a backseat to real life in the past ...weeks? month? Anyhow. My girlies are turning 1 and 2 in a week and a bit, and I am going to be 28. For some reason I feel like I've been 28 forever and I should be turning 31 by now. We just found out that we have a foster child being placed in our home full time, and she is already staying with us. This is exciting, and so far things have been going well. All (3) of our girls are getting along great and enjoying each other's company. On Tuesday some friends of ours were able to get last minute flights to Alberta to pick up some belongings that have been missed for some time, so we are also looking after their three school-aged children. Despite my initial panic, life has continued on at a manageable but very busy pace. I love to be creative in the kitchen, but cooking for eight (me and h...

I was sent an email from the agency I work with today containing a presentation of Fast Facts on H1N1 by a qualified medical doctor. I found it extremely interesting, from the charts and tables to the statistics quoted.  I particularly enjoyed doing the math. According to the presentation, nine to twelve out of every hundred people get the flu, or up to 42 in 100 if they have young children (in school or daycare). 11/1000 of these got REALLY sick, enough that they went to their local emergency clinic and sat waiting however long it took for someone to actually take them in and examine them. So now we have around a tenth of a percent of the normal population (0.132%) really sick. Got that? Now 7/10,000 of THOSE people died (in the U.S.)... putting us at an expected 0.0000924% rate of death in the population. That means that in Northumberland, Hastings, and Prince Edward Counties (a combined population of 236,933) there may be 0.2 people who die... in their worst case scenario. I'll...

I went for a walk today with our girlies, savouring the breezy autumn air and the riotous falling leaves. The colours, if you take a moment to gaze at them, are overwhelming, supersaturated hues of gold and scarlet and tangerine with hints of lime, deep-dark purples and blackish greens tinged with crimson. Colour is everywhere. Soon the azure skies and ice cream scoop clouds will flee before wild, dark and stormy skies when the setting sun gilds the world under a heavy slate horizon. I love autumn. All the blustery, chaotic, colourful changefullness of the season tells me I'm alive, so very alive! Maybe that's why I don't mind a little messiness, chaos, unpredictability and drama in my world. Life is full of both glee and heartache, pleasure and pain, and I'll take them both together for better or worse... I'll take it all.

This past spring I blogged about my intent to set healthy habits , and to fit into my pre-preg pants. Now that it's autumn, I thought it was time for an update on my progress, goals, etc. Confession time. I have not been drinking 8 glasses of water a day. Some days I have forgotten to drink at all, and other days I have struggled to get in 4 or 5 glasses of water. This is partly because I have been drinking coffee, milk, and occasionally juice. From time to time I feel incredibly fatigued and headachy, and then I know I am dehydrated and immediately get some water. Sometimes being dehydrated has made me feel hungry, and I snack unnecessarily without thinking. I don't get 30 minutes a day of straight exercise, but I do get that at least 3 times a week. Carting children around helps. The good news is... I fit into my old pants! So it would seem that part of the problem was simply my abdomenal "muscles" (I can hardly use the word without sarcasm) still contracting af...

My one girlie loves playing with Mr. Potato Head. She also likes playing "Mr. Potato Head" with her sister.

Today, finally, my house is clean, Clean, CLEAN! I am flabbergasted by the sheer productivity of my time this morning, that and the fact that the girlies slept for 3 whole hours, allowing me to get it all done. The usual stacks of dishes all got washed, pots and pans scrubbed and sparkling, counters made spotless, and even my sinks and faucets were scoured until they shone. Floors were vacuumed, baby clothes were sorted and put away! and laundry was gathered up from all over the house. Bathrooms were cleaned. Garbages were emptied, and beds were made. Windows were opened and rooms aired out. And this was all by lunchtime! My bedroom is unrecognizeable. This carpet... this dingy, stained, disgusting old carpet, that we meant to replace when we first moved in but never got the time or money together... is such an eyesore now. Now that you can really see it, I mean. But the rest of the bedroom looks pristine. It makes me want to paint the walls, like I intended to do over a year ago. A...

Last night we went out on a date to the Brighton Speedway. Now, I'm not normally into the whole stock car subculture, but this weekend we had a good friend racing and a few of us went out to cheer him on. The noise was, as I remembered from the one previous time I'd gone, painful and deafening. The air was a miasma of exhaust fumes, flying dust, and cigarette smoke. But the races were awesome . The skill of these drivers really hit me while watching these pure stock cars skidding and sliding through curves, then screaming and bumping their way down the straightaway. Serious skills are required. The sheer adrenaline that drives these races is contagious, and although at another time I would probably say it's just a bunch of dirty, smelly, polluting machines going in circles a gazillion times, up close I could not help being in awe and cheering at the top of my lungs for a favourite car. While I can't understand people wanting to poison their lungs, damage their eardrum...