Summer Walk

Last night we made sure to be finished dinner early enough and we headed out on a walk (the boys wanted to get a slushie at the corner store). We had a great time walking, biking and rollerblading. (I pulled Quentin in the red wagon, which he loved!) I think we will make this evening walk a habit.

Beautiful Sarah Mlynowski

On Sunday, the lovely Sarah Mlynowski (originally from Montreal), had a book reading for her latest Young Adult (YA) book, which is called Whatever After #1: Fairest of All. Sarah has written 5 adult novels (below), which I plan to re-read, as I haven’t read them in years, the ones that I have read.

Sarah (adorable at 6 months pregnant with her 2nd daughter) & I.

These are her 5 adult novels, As Seen on TV, Monkey Business, Milkrun, Me vs. Me, and Fishbowl. These are all first edition publication, which Sarah was impressed I had in mint condition (I take care of my books, what can I say?). A few of these have been re-released she said, with new covers. I also just ordered See Jane Write, as I’ve been intrigued by writing lately, after the writing workshop that I took back in April with Catherine McKenzie & Shawn Klomparens.

Sarah graciously autographed all 5 of her novels for me.

After listening to her read from her latest book (a short clip above), I am intrigued to read her YA stuff too. Too bad I don’t have a daughter to read them with, I don’t think my boys would be into these. They do look cute, and if you have girls, check out her Magic in Manhattan series, there are 4 books, and they look cute. (Chapters.ca link).

I will definitely come back and give you a review of her books as soon as I read them.

A Final Answer (of sorts)

This morning Sean and I had his follow up appointment at the Montreal Children’s Hospital. We were testing him further into the “family” of fruits that belong to Peaches, since he had a reaction back in January and then testing in March of this year.

Sean is severely allergic to (fresh & cooked) peaches, nectarines, apricots, and cherries (cherries were borderline and we'll be doing further testing at a later date). We thought it was associated to birch pollen, but it's not, it's a severe food allergy and a rare one in Canada to boot (an allergy that is seen mainly in Spain). Luckily there are other fruits out there, so avoiding pitted fruits won't be a big deal. At least now we know for sure what the deal is, and we can move on forward with assurance.

Since this test reacted more than the one we did in March, Sean’s arms were on fire when they reacted. The nurse who did his allergy test put cream on his arms once the test was over, and then gauze over the affected area. It was so bad, that they ended up having to administer an adult allergy medication (for the dosage) to help Sean feel better. He was such a good patient though, not too many tears were shed today, luckily.

I treated Sean to lunch today, but he wasn’t too happy about me taking any more pictures!

I’m glad that we now have some answers. We were told we could come back in 3 months, or 6 months even to get him further tested into the cherries business, or we could (if we didn’t mind avoiding them), come back in a year from now when he has his next follow up, to get the cherries tested then. We’re in no rush, and have to avoid the other pitted fruits, so what’s one more? The hospital isn’t exactly around the corner and the parking it the pits (pun intended), so we can wait for our follow up next year. As for the plums that we tested today (Black plums, as that is all I could find in the grocery store yesterday, not sure the difference) and it didn’t react, well, we don’t really eat plums in this house (none of us do), so we’ll probably avoid those too, as plums didn’t react today, but we need to test him by eating a small piece, wait an hour and if he doesn’t react, try another piece double in size from the original piece. But since none of us eat plums and we don’t really buy them, it’s not a big deal to figure out if he’s going to react against them or not. (And yes, you read that correctly, I had to do my own groceries for the test today, the hospital doesn’t supply the fruit. And for the cooked peaches, since I didn’t know that canned peaches are cooked (now I do), I picked up baby food, (purée), and that is what they used to test him on cooked peaches. (Sometimes people whom have a fresh peach allergy can eat cooked peaches, but this is NOT the case for Sean, he’s allergic to it in both ways, fresh & cooked, unfortunately).

Do you or your children have food allergies? How do you manage?

Monday Morning Link Love

- Music from a dry cleaners is pretty neat.
- LOVE this table makeover.
- It doesn't have to be Halloween for some roasted pumpkin seeds, right?
- Love this saying.
- This shirt made me laugh. I guess living with all boys, I have to have a sense of humor... right?
- Sean is playing baseball this summer - these are cute for a team party!
- Toys that are not picked up go in the ransom box and they have to pick a chore to complete to earn it back! A great lesson in personal responsibility.
- Love this ring. 
- 16 ways to flirt with your husband.
- We are done having kids, but I love this nursery set-up.
- Copy Cat recipe for Starbucks Caramel Apple Spice.
- Loving this pillow.
- What a lovely chair.
- And another awesome chair.
- 6 steps to thinner thighs. Yes please! Even after losing all the baby weight (and then some), I'd still like to tone my thighs a bit.
- What a stunning image.
- And another stunning image.
- Love these DIY cupcake liners.
- What a stunning dress!
- Just finished listening to Two For the Dough. Loving Stephanie Plum.
- How to create a cash budget.
- I will miss my girls, so sad Desperate Housewives is over.

Baseball

Sean started baseball today, but I think we’re going to move him up to the next level. The 4/5 initiation program is not stimulating enough for my all-around athlete. The 5/6/7 year old program will be 2 nights during the week instead of Saturday mornings. He still had fun today. A lot of the kids there today were 3 turning 4 or 4 turning 5. Sean will be 6 this year, so he was the eldest there.

Enjoying a freezie after an hour and a half of hard work on the field.

It’s been all baseball talk around here. All he wanted to do all afternoon was toss the ball some more.

Speaking of baseball, Jamie had a ball game recently and after when he got home, he was stretching his knee because he was sore. This is the conversation he had with Sean:

Sean: “What are you doing daddy, stretching?”
Jamie: “Yeah, my knee is bothering me, so I’m stretching it".
Sean: “That’s good daddy, stretching is good when you get old”.

I swear, I don’t make this stuff up. Sean’s been on the ball with the funnies lately.

Birthday Gift for a Dear Friend

My friend Kerry had a birthday recently, and a bit delayed, but I sent her a package in the mail. I knit her up in some yummy Noro Silk Garden in this Drop Stich Scarf. I love the way it turned out! I used just under 3 balls of yarn, and US 8/ 5.0mm needles. It took me just under 2 months to knit it – as I was working on other projects at the same time, of course.

I hope Kerry loves it too!

Garden 2012

This week I worked on my garden, starting on Monday, which was a holiday. I spent Monday weeding, turning the earth, adding in more black earth & manure as well. I spent all day in the garden. (I got a nice tan to boot). I was able to plant the front half of the garden (on the left hand side of the image), sowing any seeds I was able to, right into the ground. I kind of let time slip away from me this year, and I didn’t plant any early starters indoors. (Next year, I promised myself). So, on Tuesday and Wednesday I picked up at various greenhouses and garden stores, the rest of the supplies (more earth & more manure, as well as started plants) and by Wednesday evening, my entire garden was finished. I planted green onions, 3 kinds of cucumbers, zucchini, 2 kinds of radish, a variety of large tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, a variety of lettuce, spinach, and a variety of both beans and peas. I think that's everything! I am very excited to see everything grow & eat fresh vegetables. This year I opted to not do spaghetti squash, which we grew last year and I gave up on trying to do broccoli, celery and cauliflower, as well as any kind of pepper. I find that peppers don’t grow well in our backyard. Maybe I’ll try them again in the future, but not this year.

Another project I worked on this week was converting our old Little Tikes Turtle Pool into a herb garden. It was sitting on the side of our house not being used, and since a herb garden needs to be contained so that things like mint don’t spread, I thought it would be fun to convert the pool into a garden.

Filled it up with earth & manure too.

And planted! I have Mint, Chocolate Mint, Thyme, Rosemary, Chives, Basil, Oregano and Parsley. I’m very excited to see what happens with this! While this is my 5th summer vegetable gardening, this is my first time with a herb garden. I’ll keep you updated on it’s progress (both my vegetable garden & this herb garden too).

These are my 2 fave decorations in the garden.
Aren’t they both pretty?

My fairy’s got a rake, those bugs better watch out!

Do you have a garden of any kind? What are you growing?

I don't make this stuff up

Sean: "Mommy, do you know this song: "I Love you like a love song"?"
Me: "No Sean, I don't think I do, who's it by?"
Sean: "I think it's by Lady Gaga".
Me: "Sorry, I don't really know Lady Gaga's songs."
Sean: "She's the best. But Michael Jackson is better".

Uhm, ok!

Looked up the song, it's by Selena Gomez.

Mother’s Day 2012

I know I'm a tad late on this as life has been quite busy around here, and getting time to actually sit down at my computer for long enough periods of time is rare these days. I've been meaning to tell you about the awesome gift I got for Mother's Day this year. My boys spoiled me with this Boye Electric Ball Winder. I haven't actually had any yarn to wind yet, so I cannot wait to actually use it. I will review it once I actually get to plug it in & use it. Do you have this ball winder? What's your opinion of it? My arm was tired of using the manual Royal one I have, so this is really a treat. (I'm still keeping my manual one though, just in case I ever need it - as back up). But other than this great gift, I got to sleep in, and that was a super nice treat too. I couldn't have asked for a better mother's day.

Wordless Weekend Wrap Up

his is what my weekend looked like – it was a holiday weekend here in Canada. Today is Victoria Day – celebration of the Queen’s birthday. Monday morning link love will resume next Monday at it’s usual time – 9 am. I’ve got some knitting updates & finished objects to show you this week. Stay tuned for some posts!