Yo!

Posted on May 27, 2010 by Mike

As I was riding into work this morning, my brain started wandering through LJ’s past and I found myself wondering how everyone’s been. With so many other social networks and Real Life needs pulling people away (including myself) it’s easy to find oneself not posting/ reading for very long stretches of time.

Another funny thought: in the past, I would often find myself piping in here every now again just to get sh!t off my chest and vent. Nowadays, I’m more often than not posting to say how Beautiful life is. And yes, I’m aware that there are folks who don’t like reading happy stuff 😉 I can’t help it, though. Yes, there are some rough financial moments which bring undue stress to the household… but overall, I’m just so grateful with everything that living is an absolute pleasure.

Last weekend – being a long weekend – was simply amazing. Continued work in the basement (started putting up the ceiling), worked in the yard/ garden, but also had time to just sit back and bask in the heat of the days, lounge in the backyard or on the deck with a tasty coffee in hand. I have never gone through a weekend where I felt as peaceful and at ease as though I were on vacation – until this past weekend.

Lots of stuff going on, as always. I’m still trying to confirm a new daycare for the kids with the deadline fast approaching. We have a welcome BBQ at Kyle’s new school tonight and then Orientation next week. September will be here before we know it!

Charlize is such a little pixie it’s so obvious her totem/ mascot/ avatar/ what-have-you is TinkerBell. Mischevious, bubbly, and so full of life. And this little miracle of ours will be 3 years old next month! Heart defect? What heart defect? That period of our lives feels more like an old movie we sat through than something “real”.

Sadly, James still has no inclination of coming over. Melyssa has gone through quite a transformation and when she’s over… it feels like she’s so much a part of the household now. In the past, there’s always been a kind of “disconnect” in that she was with us… but not. Not any more. It’s such a nice feeling. In fact, the last couple of visits, after we’ve put the wee ones to bed, we’ve taken to watching movies together and I’ve been showing her some great “old” movies that still pretty much stand the test of time (Outsiders, Dirty Dancing, were the last 2).

Chantale… I can’t imagine my life without her. I could never believe it’s possible to love someone as much or as completely as I do her. The years roll by in bliss and each day continues to bring joy and happiness. This weekend, she even bought herself a new car! A sleek, black, Elantra GLS with the works! It’s nice to know that at the end of 5 years, it will be ours. I’m very much looking forward to having it in our driveway – we just have to work out the details of bringing back the leased Dodge Caliber. She works hard (and it’s great to see her finally being truly appreciated by her skills and what she brings to that company) and she deserves it 🙂

Well, that’s all the time I have this morning. Have to get ready for meetings, meetings, meetings! Maybe next post I can talk a little about what else I’m working on 🙂

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Bad Moon on the Rise…

Posted on May 20, 2010 by Mike

The cough Chantale’s been fighting for the last 2 weeks has finally attacked me. Bleargh. Working on a swift counter-attack so hopefully it won’t last that long!

Kyle, unfortunately, also caught some kind of cold recently and has been coughing for the last 3 days. Tuesday night was the worst and a 3am intervention was required to get him to fall back to sleep (everything we could do to clear his nose and help him breathe better).

Last night, everyone slept really well, except that at 2:15am I heard Kyle crying in his sleep. I immediately jumped out of bed to go see him. I sit on his bed and hold onto to him as he’s writhing on his back, holding onto his right arm.

“What’s wrong, sweetie?” I ask him gently but urgently.
“My arm is broke! My arm is broken!” he replies, scared and crying.
“It’s okay, I’m fixing it,” I answer as I slowly rub his right arm. “Okay, it’s okay now. I fixed it, okay?”

He sniffles, hugs his blankie to his face, and turns on his left side, slowly calming down. I kiss him on the forehead and go back to bed. I wonder what he was dreaming.

This morning, as I’m getting him ready for daycare, he asks me if I saw him in his dream last night.

“Did you see me in my dream, Daddy? Did you see me throw that big rock at the black Spiderman with the big teeth?”
“Yes, I did. You were strong,” I answer him.

I guess I became a spectator in his dreams last night 🙂

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Vroom Vroom!

Posted on May 13, 2010 by Mike

Who loves ya baby? 🙂

Or: How many comic book themes do you see in this photo? 🙂

Just a sneak peek from our trip to Disney last week 🙂

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Toddler Talk

Posted on May 10, 2010 by Mike

Disney World was an adventure almost difficult to put into words. I’ll try, later. For now, I wanted to note something funny on the drive home from the airport 🙂

Charlize: Daddy, there’s a fly on my window

Me: It’s okay sweetie. It won’t hurt you. Just say, “Shoo fly, don’t bother me”

Charlize: Shoo fly. Don’t bother Daddy.

Chantale laughs

Me: No, love, not “me/Daddy”. It’s “Shoo fly, don’t bother me!”

Charlize: Shoo fly, don’t bother Daddy

Me: *sigh*

🙂

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Protected: Quick/ Private Update

Posted on April 20, 2010 by Mike

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Open Your Eyes!

Posted on April 15, 2010 by Mike

As I was walking to a meeting this morning, I passed a guy on the road that immediately got my head shaking. A “typical” businessman (you know the type: suit, suitcase, stress pouring off of him in buckets) frantically trying to find and wave down a cab.

After walking out and back to the curb a number of times, he says to a complete stranger, “are there no cabs in this bloody town?!”. His exasperation was as comical as the look of complete “what the fuh?” on the other guy’s face.

As he finally saw a cab with an available light and ran towards it (middle of the road, weaving through other cars), I almost walked over and smacked him in the head. Truth is, if he hadn’t run off after the cab I *would* have. Why? Because RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET from him, to his right – the direction he needed to go, were 5 cabs just sitting there in their designated spot.

Unbelievable.

Open your eyes, people. Stop being so pissed off at the world that you can’t even see a few feet in front of your own self-importance.

Seriously. Get a life.

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I want to post…

Posted on April 14, 2010 by Mike

However, unfortunately, I don’t have the energy to do it. And this has been going on for a little while now.

I can at least hint at the fact that all the lawyer stuff is finally taken care of now. That’s pretty much the details I want to record… but it’ll have to be in a private post and at a later date…

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Gollum-speak

Posted on April 5, 2010 by Mike

This is a “capture-cute-moment” post 🙂

I mentioned earlier how, recently, Charlize has started to expand her vocabulary. However, she added a new twist in this last week by actually expanded some words in order to pluralize them!

What exactly do I mean? Here are examples: leafs becomes leafses. toys becomes toyses. socks becomes sockses.

See the pattern? 🙂 It’s hysterically cute and worthy of remembering 🙂 A part of me wonders if I had anything to do with it as I’ve been known to mutter a thing or two about “those nasty hobbittses” in the evenings when thinking about certain… irritants 🙂

I should so try to capture her saying these things on video 🙂

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Just Happy

Posted on March 15, 2010 by Mike

Even though it’s Monday and I’m battling another migraine, I have to admit to being in a very good mood 🙂 I had a really nice weekend which is the main reason for the smile on my face.

Friday after supper, I decided to give Kyle and Charlize a little treat of a small scoop of ice cream: mint chocolate chip 🙂 Kyle’s comment after tasting it? “Mmm!! Daddy, this toothpaste ice cream is good!” LOL! 🙂

That evening and the next morning we watched a few movies all snuggled together. It might be bizarre to admit this, but I actually really like Enchanted. It’s such a happy feel-good movie with rounds of kookiness that just tickles my funny bone. And there’s nothing like getting up in the middle of the living room and dancing like fools with the kids just like happens at the end of the movie 🙂

Chantale had a rough time getting back from Frankfurt on Saturday and hit a lot of turbulence (to add to the insults of extra tight security and customs) but, finally, by 6pm, we were all reunited again and enjoying a nice supper 🙂

On Sunday, after an easy morning, we got ready and headed out to watch Kyle at his very first soccer practice. He was SO into it, much more than we could have thought! It took him a bit of time to understand the basics that the coach was giving out, but when he did he took to it really well. And during the last sprint -which included all the kids playing together trying to score on the other “team”- he was the only kid who naturally assumed the goaltender position to protect the net! What initiative! 🙂

Another really cool thing to see was how fast he was. He’s been saying for so long now that he can “run really fast, like the flash” as proof that he’s growing up. But seeing him during that final sprint where he would stay back and then sprint past all of them to head for the ball in the front of the pack. Over and over again. He looked like Dash from The Incredibles! It was great! Charlize, Chantale, and I sat by the wall and cheered him on :). After every play, Charlize would ask if it were her turn to go on! 🙂

He did take it a little bad that his “team” only scored 1 goal to the other’s 2, but we explained that it didn’t matter, it was all for fun, it happened before he had taken it upon himself to protect the net, and that his group had already gathered the most balls during the previous rounds 🙂

After the practice, we had some shopping to do and on the rounds we picked up another soccer ball for him. He spent the rest of the afternoon kicking it around without any prompting on our part 🙂

Really, it was a great day. It even ended with me and Kyle playing with the Super Powers action figures he kept asking for. (“Please, Daddy. Can I play with them? I really need Red Tornado and Green Lantern!”) Lol! 🙂 I even caught my wife spying on us while we played in his room. Nice father-son bonding time 🙂

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Come on Get Happy!

Posted on March 11, 2010 by Mike

You’ve heard it, you’ve probably even said it. “When I get X then I’ll be able to Y, and THEN I’ll be happy!” But isn’t that a crazy mess? In this rat-chase or dog-eat-dog world, isn’t all we do a chase for happiness that feels like it’s ever-eluding?

And, really, how many times did X really come about and you didn’t really Y? And even if you did, how long did your happiness last? Is it our lot in life to constantly be chasing after happiness as an almost unattainable goal? If it is, it’s probably because we’ve been programmed for it.

Well, I think it’s seriously time to change this thinking. Stop chasing after dreams and start LIVING them instead!

I’m not preaching, though, I want to lead by example. I have to, after all, since I know I’ve often said those exact words. “When I retire, I’ll have all the time I need to work on my books, then I’ll be happy (with the output)!”

Really? How silly a goal is that?! I think that when my life is almost over, then I’ll be happy? How about an attitude change instead? Instead of Have-Do-Be, let’s change that around to Be-Do-Have! In other words, “I AM Happy because I CAN be creative with the time I have (even though it’s not much)”

Works better, doesn’t it? 🙂 And it’s applicable to everything! Stop thinking that you’ll be happy some time in the future. Instead, remind yourself that you’re actually capable of being happy NOW. You know what will happen? You’ll actually find yourself BEING happy on a much more regular basis!

The Power of Positive Thinking? You bet. The power to create the kind of life you want/ deserve? You bet. Just keep in mind that everything around you is a reflection of what’s inside you. If you’re happy and full of love inside, the world around you will change to be the same.

I AM Happy because I enjoy the time I spend with my kids (whatever amount that is)
I AM Happy because I enjoy every interaction I have with my wife
I AM Happy because I make enough money to keep a roof over my head
I AM Happy because I have an outlet for my creativity
I AM Happy because I have a job that allows me to make an impact on People’s lives
I AM Happy because the words I say/write are heard/ read and appreciated by others
I AM Happy for so many reasons! SO Many that it’s just a waste of energy to stay angry/ upset/ sad, etc on negative things.

Is Life Wonderful? Absolutely. 🙂

Think of the treasures you have and hold them tight to your heart. Small or Large, they exist, they are real, they have an impact. Think about it. And make it a reality.

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