working for pennies

I don't know why i'm putting this in blog format. i have 3 weeks to go before i can go on maternity leave, and today is Aloka's big end of school year picnic for all the families. I got a phone call at work from Josh saying he forgot Aloka needs fairy wings because the children are all doing a play for the parents.
i raced up to her school with a pair of fairy wings i bought from the store where i unfortunately have to be working today.
there were happy parents and children everywhere, i saw Aloka getting ready with all her friends for the play, tons of parents basking in the sun out in the yard where the play is, everyone bringing lots of food. and i have to go back to work so i can earn my $12 that i get per hour instead of being with Aloka. Then Josh shows up with his new girlfriend, yay. So they get to be there for Aloka, but not me. I feel great today.

wow, i'm back!

I can't believe Blogger worked this time! I've been trying to post (via my slooow dialup connection) but i kept getting a weird blank page, every time i tried. so i gave up for a while. but now it's working again! i'm going to see how it is uploading photos. if it's painful, well, i'm not sure how often i'll post, but we'll see.
so where do i start? maybe i'll just do a couple little posts at a time, because i do have a lot of photos! we've finally moved about a month ago, which was, well, to summarize, a total nightmare. But finally being moved it's great. I packed up my entire house singlehandedly, and Richard and Josh both helped move everything. Josh came over one day and helped move the big furniture, and then Richard did all the other runs of zillions of boxes and other furniture.

My landlady ended up being a complete psychopath, (really...not joking here) as in, calling me 3 times at 6:30am and once at 12:30am just to see if i had an extension cord she was looking for. She was calling me telling me how great i was, and then in the same sentence saying what a mess i left everything. This is delusional, the place was spotless. I even have videos. Then she would start crying. Honestly, crazy... but after twice of threatening to call the police, i think she's leaving me alone finally. What a weird experience.

It's been a very stressful pregnancy i must say. Even being here now, I'm more broke than i've ever been in my life. I'm perpetually overdrawn, and my paychecks just keep bringing me back to a zero balance. It's nuts! But i have confidence this too shall pass and things will improve.

Aloka loves it out here. We've been going on lots of walks, often right after dinner, and she just loves it. She collects rocks, jumps in puddles, examines all sorts of rodent holes and burrows... we found a little stream yesterday, it was beautiful, and she had so much fun just pulling up grass and throwing it in the stream and watching it float away. There's also a huge rock yard across the road from us. They have beautiful flagstone and granite that they sell by the pallete to folks on the coast. At the rock yard there's an enormous sand pile that Aloka loves playing in, it's so fun! It makes me want to order a dump truck load of sand for our house. Who needs a sandbox??

Another fun discovery is the thousands (and i mean thousands!) of wild strawberries growing everywhere here, on our land and everywhere you look pretty much. They are covered in flowers, so we'll being seeing fruit soon! We also have a ton of wild blueberries on our land. Such a different life than living in the town.
The downside is that it's 10km or 15km from town and soooo expensive on gas. I don't know how to afford that part of things. i'm probably putting $100 to $150 in gas in my car every month. And you Americans who are complaining about gas prices right now? We pay $137 per litre!! Thats around $5.50 per gallon!! And it's supposed to go up to $1.40-$1.45 this summer, crazy!

Anyway, that's all i have time to type right now, but i'll try to post some photos. I'll start with some cute photos of a goat farm that Aloka went to on a school field trip. Josh went too. Next post i'll try out the photos from May Day which was wonderful!

Sophie's birthday

Aloka went to Sophie's birthday last week and had a great time. It was at the place they both go to for gymnastics, the Glaciar Gymnastics Club. Josh and I were both there, so here's a couple photos from it!
I don't have much time to write, because i'm moving today and tomorrow, and after today I will on dial-up, so i'm trying to get this posted before my new connection becomes painfully slow!

long time no blog...

i'm still here! Life has been the most insane it's ever been for me this month, year. i'm not sure how i'm keeping it together. I've had a horrific cold preventing me from sleeping most nights for the past two weeks, and i'm supposed to be moved out of this house by May 1st. I'm not sure if i've even mentioned that. In fact there's a whole lot i haven't mentioned come to think of it. Here's the story: My landlady decided she wants to move back in to her house after assuring me this would be a long term rental. I can't find a place in town anywhere to rent, so it seems Aloka and I are moving up to Richards house, which is a 500 sq ft trailer 20 minutes out of town. I'm working 5 days a week, trying to pack, and oh yeah, i'm also 5 months pregnant by the way. I'm feeling so sick, so homeless, so ungrounded, and I just want this to pass and settle. I'm so broke, trying to start my business, but there just seems to be so many obstacles. For instance today i found out that i'm not going to be able to get high-speed internet out at his house. Dial up it is i guess. just one more thing. I can't seem to stop crying today, they sent me home from work because i'm so sick, and i have a doctors appt. at 1:45pm, hopefully they'll give me something so i can sleep. the stuffiness has been keeping me up at nights.

So that's my life in a nutshell right now. I'm going to keep doing posts, but i've decided that instead of people always having to check and see if i've updated, i'll send out an email to you all whenever i have a new blog entry. that way you'll always know right when it goes up and know when not to bother checking.

we're hanging in there, Josh has been very emotionally supportive, though he's certainly having his trails and tribulations with earning enough too. He's got a girlfriend which is nice, and she's wonderful with Aloka, which is important to me. Right now we're trying to figure out how to pay Aloka's $1400 dental bill from last fall (which is now down to $1000, thanks cousin Julia!!) and she's complaining about more tooth pain. When will life get easier, i wonder?

hopefully my next update will be more uplifting.

Easter!

I decided to try dyeing eggs using vegetables. they didn't get very dark in colour, but i found out later i was supposed to let them soak in the liquid for 8 hours. oh well, it was still fun!
We had a fun Easter; Josh came over and we did an egg hunt and a little basket scavenger hunt inside, because it was SNOWING. ugh. we had some really sunny nice warm weeks, and now we're getting this weird cold front that doesn't seem to be going away. I can't WAIT till the warm weather is here!

She's such a 4 year old!

And here are some videos of her scavenger hunt leading to the basket! We had a lot of fun!




Aloka loved opening up her basket. There was a cool prism, lots of neat little stones and treasures, lots of stickers, bubbles, and of course treats, like jelly beans, a few chocolate eggs, lots of carob covered almonds ; ) and Aloka's favourite, dried Blueberries.
Here are also some pictures of the eggs we dyed, and some really cool ones Josh did with Aloka... Josh should win some awards!!

Above, the big thing is a bird, and there's a little person next to it

This one above is a mermaid...

A princess with red lipstick, of course....

Our vegetable dyed ones are in the back right there... and the dark brown ones on the left are the onion skin dyed ones!! I was joking that we couldn't just bought brown eggs and save some onions!

The most exciting hour of my life

Well, I can think of others actually.... but this was definitely up there.

I decided to get some lotto scratch tickets, because i'm so broke right now. It's not something I do very often; the last time was around Xmas because I put them in everyone's stocking.

But I just had a really good feeling about it. So I got to my car and scratched of my tickets. I won 7$ which pretty much paid for the tickets, and then I got to one called "King of Cards" which had 6 different little "card" games on it. As I was scratching, I realized I had won one of them. I hadn't scratched off the Prize for it yet. So I started scratching off the prize, first I saw a 5, then a 50, then 500 and then 5000!! Holy crap... I was reeling!!! I was in total disbelief that I might have actually won $5000, after sitting in my car processing this for a half hour, I called Josh from my cell. I told him, and he was so excited for me!! I kept looking at the ticket to make sure I wasn't misreading it. Then I went in to tell Richard who had been working at the store. He too, was thrilled for me!
By now an hour had passed, my face had a perma-grin on it and was thinking of everyone I was going to call. I got back to my car, sat down and looked at my ticket again, when I realized I had missed something. My heart sank, and again I found myself looking at it over and over but this time in disbelief that it wasn't actually a winning ticket after all. It was a clever and very hard to catch trick of the eye, but I had totally missed it. I wasn't a winner. Goodbye $5000 that was Oh SO Needed!!
But it was a fun hour...

A sweet post

I'm posting a sweet post to check out on Melissa's blog... i thought you fans of Aloka would enjoy it! Nile and Aloka can just be so cute together. Especially as they've gotten older, and the age difference narrows....

One of my favorite pictures of Aloka

And speaking of 3 feet of snow....

Walkway up to our house

Our driveway

Our driveway again

I thought I'd post some pictures of the snow over the past month or so here.

We've actually seemed to have turned a corner here, and spring is very much in the air now. A few weeks ago I noticed the Canada Geese have returned, and I'm hearing all kinds of birds chirping outside in the mornings as we wake up. And of course, most of all, it's been warm!! The snow is melting, the sun shines almost every day, radiating warmth and happy feelings all around.

The seasons are so distinctive here, I just love it. No more of those loooong Vashon winters that seemed to end in June and Start again in September.

And then there's Richards house, yikes!

Here is a video we took when we were up there skiing a few weeks ago.... well, Aloka was skiing!

Adventures in Vancouver!

Aloka and I went to Vancouver last weekend to visit my Dad and Stepmom, Jeanne! They very generously got us both tickets to come out and see them and to be there for my Dad's 60th birthday. My sister Katie and brother Winston were also there, so it was a nice reunion. Kate and Winston haven't seen Aloka since she was just an infant, it had been a while!

It was a short trip...we got there on Saturday afternoon, and had to leave Monday afternoon so I could be back at work for the following day. But it was nice, and Aloka got to spend some nice time with her relatives.
Among other things, she played on this weird playground contraption at the apartment building where Dad and Jeanne live. It was strange and kind of nice to be in rain, instead of the 3 feet of snow in my yard back home!
Here is a video of my sister Kate singing a beautiful song with goofy Aloka playing and so excited to be there!

And here's a video of my cutie pie brother Winston and my Dad being obnoxiously funny at the end:


On Sunday night we had a nice dinner party, and Jeanne, Kate and Winston made a yummy Mexican taco feast. I made the desert, which was Lava Cake (rich chocolate cake with a gooey runny center) topped with a Blackberry Compote (a la Kate) and Vanilla ice cream. It was pure chocolate decadence!!

Now, the main reason I'm calling this trip an adventure was, yes, it was exciting to go to a new big city we hadn't been to for a while, but MAINLY the adventure lies in the insane airline flight. All the locals here in Nelson think I'm making a big deal out of nothing, I know, but landing in a mountain town in really crappy weather is INSANE. It would take heavy bribery and massive and painful arm twisting for me to do it again in the winter.

Going out was fine....besides the fact that there was a weather advisory so we wouldn't know if our flight would actually go until we were at the airport waiting to board it. It was slightly stressful just because I had to pack, get all the food ready and drive an hour knowing we might just have to turn around and go back home. But we remained optimistic.
Arriving at the Trail "airport" was a sight to behold. It also operates as a flight club, and is a teeny, slightly smelly building that has some chairs and a dingy counter to get your tickets.
Now all you folks in the States can appreciate the fact that there is ZERO security! The only thing they did even remotely secure was check my ID to verify that yes, I had a ticket.
The plane arrived, a little 19 seater with no bathroom and not really a cockpit. Just, "the front of the plane where the pilots sit".
Ok, that's a little exaggeration, but seriously, they are just sitting there up in the front and you can see everything they're doing. Pretty cool. No overhead bins, but the pilot offered to throw my bag in the "closet" when I got on, the closet being an alcove behind the captains seat.

In hindsight, I should have just checked my bag, because what that entails is them taking your bag from you and throwing it in the "trunk" of the plane, a large compartment. Then when you get off, they just hand you your bags. And getting on and off the plane of course consists of walking out onto the tarmac and up the stairs onto the plane. But I'm sure you were already picturing that. A 19 seat propeller plane can't exactly have a jet bridge.
The flight was a little bumpy and a lot noisy, but was a fun adventure especially for Aloka. And it's also a very short 1 hour flight. Here are two videos, I took the first and Aloka took the second!


Now, the return wasn't so glamorous. When Dad brought us to the Vancouver airport (the little teeny South terminal where the little teeny planes live) they announced that there is a weather advisory and there is a strong possibility that they may get to Trail, not be able to land, and have to return back to Vancouver.
Eeeek!! I'm trying to imagine which is worse; having to return back to Vancouver, or having to land in maybe-we-should-cancel-the-flight weather! Good Lord.
The ticket agent also casually tells me that they compare landing in Trail like trying to land on the moon. He also said that there's about a 50% cancellation rate. "The MOON?" I'm still thinking. Did I agree to this?

We board the plane, (again no worries about security here, Dad could practically walk us to the plane) and take our seats. Aloka is already digging in to her bag of food, and treats that Jeanne and I made for her.
So, the one nice announcement is that there is a tailwind and will get us there in 50 minutes. Woo hoo! Some good news.

So far, the flight is bumpless, even despite taking off on a rainy foggy day in Vancouver. No mountains, no problem!
As we're approaching, the captain comes on the load speaker, which we could barely hear because the propellers were so loud, and says he thinks they can land but it will take some "maneuvering".
Ack!!! Maneuvering???? No, no, no, I'm thinking to myself. I must disembark! Help.
We're starting our decent, and once more, "Wade" our pilot (he has a huge sticker saying "Wade" on his pilot cap) turns around and says "Does anyone need a cab??" One lady raises her arm, and our buddy Wade calls the cab for her apparently.

Our decent begins. Except it was more of a plummet-sideways-out-of-the-sky type of thingy. We turned, we twisted, we pummeled, we practically somersaulted onto the run way. The lady in front of me was clutching her arm rest the whole time, but later told me when we were on the ground that "Wade" had a smile on his face the whole time so she knew we were probably going to be ok.

Aloka, in childlike wonder and living ever so in the moment, shouts (as were flying sideways towards the ground at 500 mph) COOL!!! MAMA I CAN SEE THE GROUND!!! I look out the window, and wish I hadn't... No, that was a view I'd rather not see from the angle I was at. But I manage to scrape a response to her, like "isn't that neat??" all the while, grateful that there are at least barf bags on the flight, should I need it.

We finally touched down, slid sideways a little, bouncing on the wheels a little, and then, thankfully stabilized and started slowing down.
I contemplated whether or not I had actual trauma from the flight, or if I would just get over it. I'm still not totally sure, but apparently, people get used to these landings. "That's life in the Kootenay's!" as everyone here keeps saying.
My friend Kara says she's probably done this landing 90 times. That would be 89 more times that I care to participate in, thank you very much.

I'm changing the title of this blog post to: "Only The Brave Shall Visit" or, "We'll Pick You Up In Spokane!"

More Aloka art - the painting series

"School"

"Aloka"

"The Bride"

Aloka draws still life

Josh has this little metal bird statue that Aloka drew:

Blogging? What's blogging again?

Wow, I keep going too long without posting. The past week has been hard. Aloka and Josh came down with a horrible flu. Aloka was with Josh when they came down with it, and Aloka had a fever for 7 days off and on. It looked like she was getting better on Day 5, with her fever finally gone, but then the next day she had 102.4 and I took her to the doctor (which because it was Sunday, ended up being the Emergency Room.
She has a lung infection, as it turns out. Just the very beginnings of Pneumonia. So now, she's on anti-biotics, and feeling a million times better! I'm giving her insane amounts of probiotic, and will continue after her 10 day dose is finished.
We had a funny conversation today in the car about good and bad bacteria. Anti-biotics vs. Pro-biotics. She totally gets it.
And on a little side note, last night we were hanging out in her room, and she found a piece of dental floss on the ground. She picked it up and said "ewwwww! Already-teethed dental floss"! I had a good laugh!

Aloka the snowflake

Aloka's Waldorf school had put on a really cute little play and Aloka was a little snowflake! she was so cute!
The other little girl in the pictures is Sky. She lives about 2 blocks from us and Aloka has a lot of fun with her! Starseed (Aloka's school) is just across the street from our house, and Sky's house is on the other side of Starseed, so it's a great setup.

This is Sheilagh, Aloka's teacher, lighting the Christmas tree candles which were so nostalgic for me from the days of living in Germany! I love real candles on the tree!
Here's Aloka and Sky dancing as little snowflakes:


And Aloka et al singing Rudolph!


I gave Josh and Aloka matching long underwear. They were so cute!

The Christmas Train!

I have a million zillion things to post about with all the festivities going on around here, but i'll just do it all a bit at a time. Things are busy with work, but thankfully slowing down finally. Ah, the joys of the retail toy industry during Xmas! I must have been overheard a hundred times in these last few weeks saying "I feel like one of Santa's elves", since my job is to manage the website and do the orders and shipping.

Just before Christmas, the train came into town. It was quite an exciting and HUGE event; I couldn't believe how many people were there at Lakeside Park just to see the xmas train. It had to be in the thousands. There was live music. roasted chestnuts, hot cocoa. popcorn... and best of all, it's a fundraiser for the food banks. They travel all across Canada earning money and food donations for the needy.

And of course, Aloka also got some fun playtime at the park in the pitch black amongst about 30 other children, all sliding down icy slides in their snowsuits, shooting out and off at 100mph!



Goodbye Christmas Train!