music, music, music ...

I have lots of music singing in my head as we're preparing for our school December music concert. I have been having so much pleasure out of playing on the new keyboard that my principal bought. In fact, I spent most of today playing on it, even though I work only mornings ! Turns out, I realized today, that I'm accompanying on piano all of the classes except for the 2 kindergartens. How fun ! I composed most of the arrangements also so I've been having a ton of fun ! I am enjoying playing music SO much ! I haven't done anything music-wise in the past 15 years at least ! It does a lot of good to my soul to get reacquainted with my first love, music, which is so ingrained in my soul.

Today, I created a musical score on the keyboard for the song that one teacher wrote with her husband and that she taught to the grade 1 students. Now I'll have this tune in my head for the rest of the night ! ;) I wrote down the score (I usually invent and memorize, never write them down) this afternoon so that I could give a copy of it to the teacher : I believe that she'll appreciate having it written down ! The song is about having 2 holes in the nose and how to clean it. Super well written, words-wise and tune-wise. The teacher who taught it to her grade 1 students did an awesome job, including the gestures that accompany the words to the song ! They are just adorable and the public will get a chuckle at the end of the song ...

I came back home with a cold, feeling feverish, so I'll be sure to be in bed earlier tonight that the last 2 months' nights ! I usually work late in the night, putting touches to our home. Also, I am really excited about finishing putting away my scrap and art stuff in our basement. I'm almost done but it will have to wait for the weekend probably ... unless I feel better Friday. Too much to do at school before then. DH assembled the IKEA Alex storage piece today (he stayed home, he's nursing a cold) and I was so pleased to see it just besides my scrap table when I came downstairs to admire my DH's handiwork ! I already have ideas of what the 9 drawers will house ! Man it takes so much time to organise a home after one has moved ! Incredibly time-consuming but at the same time, so exciting for me that loves to organize stuff (and musical shows !).

Dinner's ready : barbecued steak ! Yum, gotta go !

xoxo

Thankful ...

... for so much in my life right now :

- First of all, my husband and my son.
- My family.
- My dear dear friends Mance and Hélène and others, including the new ones that the Universe sent me this fall in the persons of Jeannine and Anne : so so grateful for them !
- My health.
- Our new house where we feel so much at home (hurray for smaller houses !)
- The new wonderful keyboard that the principal at my school just bought for me : I'll be using it this coming Friday at our Christmas music show.
- My really awesome colleagues : I love them !
- For our great new neighbours !
- The learning disabilities specialists that have identified this past week 2 learning disabilities in my son - diagnoses we've been looking for for the past 5 years. Not many people know that giftedness often coexists with learning disabilities. In fact, the more gifted a person is, the more chances that he or she will also have learning disabilities. Dual exceptionality is what it is called in professional jargon.

Today on the agenda :

- emptying more boxes
- measuring our son's bedroom window to order some blinds - his window has been covered with a blanket for the past 2 weeks, since we moved in.
- finishing re-assembling our bedroom furniture (DH)
- assembling the ALEX storage unit that I bought at IKEA several weeks ago to store my favorite punches (DH)
- dropping some toys and children furniture at Boomerang Consignment store
- refining the musical arrangements that I created to accompany each class in my school for the Christmas music concert. NOTE TO MYSELF : I need to write down all of those arrangements so that I'll remember them next year !
- getting a haircut, which I desperately need !
- addressing bought Christmas cards for friends
- enjoying every moment of my day

Have a great day everyone ! Much is awaiting me !

Almost to the weekend again ...

Weeks are just flying by around here ! I'm really busy at work, lots of projects going on at school. I'm involved in the Christmas show at our school this year - we haven't had one in YEARS ! It does my heart good, it swells with joy to hear my students singing happily and asking eagerly whether they are going to sing during their English period or not ... :)

I'm gearing up to make lots of Christmas cards with my students that want to do it during lunchtime, like we did last year. We gave the cards to seniors in a residence and they were so happy about them ! I believe that I started a tradition last year ... one that I aim to continue for many years to come ! I'm also gearing up to write the report cards this weekend : they are due on December 1st, following our move to our new home the weekend before ... so I want to finish the report cards before then.

Our moving our stuff to our new home is going along in a speedy fashion. DH drops some stuff at our new home every morning, after having dropped our son to school. Last weekend, we did set up my stamp room (storage room #2 - I'll eventually name the two storage rooms (scrap and stamp) by something more interesting, just haven't had the time to go there yet !). DH assembled quickly my IVAR shelving system and Rafael and I put back on the many shelves. It went up pretty quickly. I'd say it took about 3 hours to redo the set-up that I had in my previous home. I had placed all of my stamps which were in plastic trays (by category) in boxes so it was a piece of cake to just unload the numbered boxes and put back the trays on the shelves.

DH and DS assembled our PAX unit (from IKEA) in our basement. I love watching DH and DS working together. It took them quite a while !

This afternoon, I went in after work and spent 2 hours working in storage room #1 : I have now put away all of my CS and PP ! So happy about that ! I still have lots of shelves that are empty so I'm deliberating what else this room will store. I did put away quite a bit of stuff this afternoon and I felt quite satisfied with my work when I left Orleans at 4:25 to go pick up DH and DS. I'm thinking of going back tonight after DS is in bed to empty more boxes. We're officially moving in to live in our new home on Saturday November 28th and we want to feel like it's a home, not a house filled with boxes !

Gotta go : supper's ready ! Some yummy mussels that DS prepared ! Take care !

so excited ....

... because tomorrow we're setting up our basement combined art-fun family room ! After much planning, it is soon going to be reality ! Yippee !!! :)

In order to make this happen, late this afternoon we went to IKEA with the U-HAUL trailer behind our car. We purchased the table tops for our computers plus the table tops for the creative section of the basement. I will have enough space for 2-3 persons creating at the same time - perhaps 4. I'll know more after the set-up is done. After that part has been set up, I'll make the final decision on whether or not I'll buy the IKEA kitchen island to scrap standing up. I really really love it, but since it's a big purchase, I'm carefully weighing the pros and cons in getting it. I'll also be setting up my old and practical IVAR shelving units for my rubberstamps in the second storage room, the one I call #2 because it's a little bigger than the storage #1. I am really excited to have my rubberstamps at my fingertips and be able to stamp again. In my former art room, there wasn't enough space on my scrap table to be able to stamp and emboss on it without having embossing powders flying on the table. I'll admit it, I'm anal about not having any glitter on my scrap pages. It just bugs me to have pieces of glitter moving around in my plastic sleeve of scrapped pages. In my new art room, I'll have a separate table to stamp and emboss and glitter to my heart's content ! :)

In case you don't know, I used to rubberstamp extensively, especially scenic art. I used to belong to the BIO scenic club, By Invitation Only, but dropped out of it after I had my son because I just didn't have the time to rubberstamp. This club, which still runs, has the best scenic stampers in the world. I was sad to read lately that the person who started this club years ago, Joan Wear, a fabulous scenic stamper, one who started the movement of scenic stamping, stopped stamping a while ago and is selling her stamps. For reasons of health, she can't stamp anymore.

On another note, I need to get in touch with our family doctor again as our son is still falling asleep in class although he has slept 11 hours during the night. This situation has been going on for the past 2 years. Today again, he fell asleep during class. He started his math evaluation and then fell asleep. I'm hoping to be able to get in touch with a sleep specialist. This situation has been going on for too long. I don't know that we'll get an appointment with a sleep specialist soon as CHEO is really busy with the H1N1 flu : Rafael's scheduled EEG in November was postponed indefinitely we were told a couple of weeks ago.

I had tears in my eyes at noon today when I read in the papers that a 38 year old University physics teacher, father of 3, died of the infamous flu. It's so sad.

Hope you have a great weekend : it looks like it will be a splendid on, weather-wise ! We intend to take advantage of it during the afternoons. Thanks for stopping by !

Two weeks to go ....

... before we actually move in our new home ! We've had the keys to it since October 15th but waited to move in for the installation of wood floors (dining room, living room and on the second floor (3 bedrooms, hallway) as we didn't want to live with the noise and the mess of having something installed in our home. We've also have had installed some "plancher flottant" (wood flooring) in the basement and boy did it ever changed the look of the basement. We love it ! The walls freshly painted in a revigorating green, same color that was in my previous art room, also made a H-U-G-E difference in the atmosphere in the basement ! I am sooooooo looking forward to organizing the living part of the basement as my art studio and also a space for our family and friends. It's a much smaller basement than our previous one but we do want to make it work for both art and relaxation.

We've been moving my art stuff progressively to our new home for the past 3 weeks. I knew that dismantling my art room (Studio D, as my DH calls it !;)), would be a lot of work and I was right ! I own a LOT of art stuff. Too much for that matter, but that's for another post ! Ha ! We've moved most of it in laundry baskets and other plastic containers. Simple and very quick !

This past weekend, we again spent quite a bit of time in our new home and I finally started to organize the smallest basement storage room (there are 3 storage rooms) : it will house my PP, CS and some other scrap supplies. This little room used to have ugly blah linoleum flooring and washed down pinkish white walls and the previous owners were using it as a storage room for their paints and tools for the household. This very small room is now sporting the same flooring as the rest of the basement floor and the same gorgeous green paint. It looks like an extension of the main living part of our basement. It's exciting to organize this room as I visualize myself (and friends) ambling over to choose CS and PP and letter stickers, among other things ! In our new home, I don't want all of my art stuff in plain view like in my previous scraproom ; it was too distracting even though everything was well organized and labelled. It was stiffling my creativity at times.

On the same topic of scraprooms, have you been following Donna Downey's scraproom rejuvenation ? I love watching her room evolve. I've spent some time during the past month on the internet, looking at other scrapbookers' rooms since I have to organize my new one. It gave me some neat ideas.

Here's a link to Donna Downey's blog, in case you would like to see her scraproom's transformation :

http://donnadowney.typepad.com/

If you have ideas or suggestions for the placement of stuff in my new scraproom, I'd love to hear them !

Until next time, take care !

O

Life ....

... always has some unexpected turns when one least expects it ! Ha ! Ain't that the truth ! These past few months have been super busy (and tiring) for our family. Also exciting.

Lately, it's still very busy. So many things and situations that appear and keep us so busy. Lately, it's our health that has been on the forefront. My son came back from school last Thursday, he had a fever, was tired, had a sore throat. He stayed home on Friday, fever got worse, started having some respiratory problems. It reminded me of 7 years ago when he had the flu and then asthma set in and he spent 6 days under the oxygen tent at CHEO (hospital for sick kids in Ontario, Canada). So Friday, when I noticed that his asthma was getting worse, I didn't wait any longer. We got into the car at 9 p.m. and headed straight to CHEO where we were greeted with a smiling woman who immediately gave us a mask for all of to wear. In fact, everyone in the hospital was wearing one, including small babies ! We left the hospital at 1 a.m., after the doctor had told us that Rafael had the H1N1 flu and had given us a prescription for Tamiflu, a ventolin pump and another pump plus a cupful of Advil. There were lots of people in the hospital. The personnel was pleasant even though it was clear that they were overworked.

We then spent 3 hours to get the Tamiflu. We had a list of pharmacies opened 24 hours so we went to the first one, in the south end of Ottawa, to learn that they had run out of the Tamiflu. While my husband was getting that piece of news, I was in the grocery store next door, getting some light foods for our son : jello, popsicle and such. Then we drove to the far end of Orleans, near Tenth Line, to this other pharmacy where we waited an hour and a half to get the Tamiflu prescription. We got home at 3:30 a.m. No one hardly talked : we were all so tired, we all headed straight to bed.

A good portion of Saturday was spent working in our new home, installing stuff, etc. DS spent a lot of time sleeping. Then DH went to work at 7 p.m. (yes on Saturday night) on a special project he is heading at work. He came back home at 4 a.m. Sunday morning. Yup, two nights in a row with little sleep. Result ? He now has a beginning of pneumonia. So he has been staying home with DS since the beginning of the week. His voice has gone down considerably lower. Quite a sexy voice ... almost. As for myself, I have been holding down the fort. But today, I started to feel symptoms of a cold. Sore throat, scratchy throat. I took a nap this afternoon. I'm hoping that I'll be soon back to normal. Positive thinking IS always good !

I am so looking forward to unpacking my art stuff : I miss so much having time to create art. I miss being able to amble down in my art room. Soon though. I still need to exercise my patience ! I am thinking of doing the December Daily again this year. For the second year. I haven't taken photos since the month of June. I am missing taking photos, especially of nature. That too will soon resume in my life.

It's already past 9 p.m. Time for this tired and a little sick person to get to bed. Have a great day tomorrow !

Still here ...

This week has gone very quickly, like they the previous ones ! I've been working a lot, napping during several afternoons to heal my body of the cold that invaded it and took my voice, I started the end-of-the-school-year routine in my classroom (pulling stuff away from walls, etc), designed Father's Day's cards for my grade 2-3 students.

This afternoon, I spent more than 2 hours in our basement pulling stuff for the consignment store and some stuff to give to my colleagues since it doesn't look like I'll be teaching some subjects in the near future so I might as well take this teaching material out of our home and have another teacher use it. I also prepared a little pile of stuffed animals and misc. stuff that my husband and son left at the nearest St-Vincent-de-Paul red bin as soon as they got home. While in the basement, I threw a couple of loads in the laundry machine. I made a pile of books from my teaching years in grade 3 for Rafael to look through and decide if he wanted them - if not, out the door they go ! LOL Edited : He took them all except for 2. I love his passion for reading and learning ! :)

Barb, if you're reading this, let me know when the silent auction at your sons' school is - I'll be happy to donate something like the previous years !

I gotta go ! We're dropping off our 2 bins of stuff to Boomerang Consignment Shop and then we're coming back with a pizza and a rented movie ! I'll be back during the weekend, in between report cards and around the house. We have a long list of things to do but I'm feeling really good about having done 2.5 hours of it this afternoon ! What a great headstart for the weekend ! Getting rid of more stuff feels so good ! Simplicity is soooooooooo much better than having lots of stuff ! Amazing how, as time went by, I just want to be surrounded by simplicity. One could argue that I'm now allergic to stuff surrounding me ! LOL This way of living my life has a lot to do with my personal growth of the past few years. I know more about who I am inside, rather than defining myself by what I do, what I wear, what I own, etc. Life sure has its advantages as we get older ... and wiser ! :)

I'll be back with photos of the mini-scrapbooks from my grade 6 girls, called MY BOOK OF FAVORITES.

Have a great evening, everyone ! Bonne soirée, mes copines francophones !