Things Charlotte Likes To Eat:

Crayons
Glitter Glue
Receipts
Mango Body Butter
Vaseline
Diaper Rash Cream
Vapor Rub
Sand under the play structure at the park
Dog kibble

Things Charlotte Throws to the Dog:
Vegetables

*I have the Poison Control number written in permanent marker very close to my phone and they have always been very helpful. None of the things Charlotte has eaten has been in amounts that could be harmful to her. Just sayin'*

Tipping Point Meme

I don't usually do memes because I think they are kind of dumb. My friend Poppins made this one. It is not dumb. It will make you think. I encourage you to do it in your own blog. Let's all start thinking about small things we can do to protect our planet and give it a Christmas gift this year too. If you don't have a blog (ahem, Manitoba Farm Girl and Janelle, cough cough) just answer the questions in my comments.

Three things I'm happy to be doing already:
1. Using reusable containers to pack my groceries in at the store
2. Walking to run errands when possible (my double stroller holds a lot!)
3. Using fluorescent light bulbs in the fixtures that are turned on most often in my house.

Three things I want to do starting now:
1. Learn to compost my food waste.
2. Find more environmentally friendly ways to wrap gifts.
3. Buy less processed, over packaged food.

Three things for someday:
1. Find fair-trade alternatives for favourite products.
2. Learn to live with less.
3. Buy more vegetables from local farmer's market and process them myself. (maybe grow my own too?)

Have you heard of the Buy Nothing Christmas? I encourage you to go here and do some reading. I am trying very hard to not get caught up in a commercial buying spree this year. Do we really need more junk cluttering our house and a heart-attack inducing credit card bill in January??

Off the wagon.

I have fallen off the Weight Watchers wagon. This week has been a whirlwind of chips, cheeseburgers, doughnuts, chocolate and even a couple of glasses of wine. There is a big church dinner on the calendar for tonight. Have I mentioned I have not journalled in almost two weeks? I skipped weigh-in last week too. I have been shrouded in a nice cocoon of denial and procrastination. I need to fight my way out of it before too much damage is done.

New Recipe

Check out my food blog for a yummy breakfast idea. Click here if you are too lazy to scroll down my sidebar.

You talk funny.

What American accent do you have? Your Result: North Central "North Central" is what professional linguists call the Minnesota accent. If you saw "Fargo" you probably didn't think the characters sounded very out of the ordinary. Outsiders probably mistake you for a Canadian a lot.
The Midland
Boston
The West
Philadelphia
The Inland North
The South
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

Why yes, I do get mistaken for a Canadian a lot.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Do you remember being asked that question as a kid? Did you have the same answer every time? Did it change as you grew? What happened when you graduated from High School? Did you confidently stride into the post-secondary institution you carefully chose and work on a major that you loved from the start? Did you enter the workforce for a while to mull over your options and gain some life experience?

I am going to tell you what I did. I graduated from High School, took a year off to fry burgers and make milkshakes at a department store cafeteria. I then moved away to the not-so Big City and promptly partied my way out of a first year of university. I was going to be a teacher. Instead of going to class I became News Editor of the school paper and learned to support a pack-a-day cigarette habit by using my womanly wiles. (I later married the man who gave me the cigarettes...thanks, hon!)I floundered around for a year, almost starving and working a minimum of three jobs at a time to pay rent.

I then got it into my head I wanted to be a nurse. The University wouldn't take me back--flunking out on academic suspension will do that. To Community College I went. A short year and a half later I was a newly minted LPN, licence in my hand and my head full of the new-nurse idealism that I could heal the world.

Flash forward 8 years to the present where I am a happy wife and stay-at-home mom and Sunday School Superintendant with a severe case of disillusionment towards my chosen profession. They are making it harder and harder for me to do my job. There are levels of bureaucracy and layers of red tape to sift through to get to what I love: caring for patients and making a difference in a person's life. (OK, so the idealism is still there, but buried now). I am staring at a folder that tells me I must submit proof of continuing learning. I have to submit a portfolio every year and fill out questionnaires. If I don't they won't give me the piece of paper I need to work in a place where everyone is burnt out and mean and tired. I hate being forced to do this. I hate that there is a forest worth of trees gone because of all the paper I have to wade through as well as all the paper the rest of the LPNs in my province have to wade through. I feel like I have to do this to justify a bureaucrat's job in some office somewhere--not to further the pursuit of professional excellence. I hate that I am being treated like an RN and in some cases being expected to do more than an RN without the pay an RN gets.

Where does this leave me? I don't see myself continuing a career in nursing anymore. I don't know what else I would do if I wasn't one. I don't know what I want to be when I grow up anymore.

It is a good thing she is cute...

Char dropped a full, just-opened 4-litre jug of milk off the dining room table this morning. Right after she spilled my coffee and right before she stood at the window to bark at the neighbours dog throwing him into fits. Charming. It is a good thing she is cute. I don't remember Emmett ever doing things like that. Maybe I have mommy amnesia.

She redeemed herself when we went to visit my friend Amy and her Charolais cattle at the livestock fair. Char barked at the cows and called them puppies. We watched a cow get a haircut and taught Amy the sign for cow. I finally got Charlotte to moo by the time we got home.

Boo!

Halloween this year was a low-key affair. Heavy snowfall the day before made for cold and wet trick-or-treating. Emmett only wanted to go to a few houses. That is fine by me! The less candy in the house the better. The kids looked adorable in their costumes.