Category Archives: Life

The O-Word

Yesterday I read a comment somewhere on the the internet and it left me feeling a little off. It took me a while to figure out what this feeling was, but after a moment, I had it.

I felt offended.

For some this feeling comes easily. But for me, a girl with a small emotional spectrum, offense is one of the extremes I rarely experience.

In the world of parenting especially, you see it all the time. One person does something a certain way, and others chime in with their opinions. I think this is all fine and good because it is good to hear from other experienced people, but when you start having these interactions in text rather than in speech, some of the intention and tone gets lost and feelings get hurt. For those of you who have strangers express their opinions to you in person, I am sorry that I cannot empathize with you on that. I have never had this happen to me. Or maybe I have, but it doesn’t get under my skin, so I forget about it.

I feel blessed to have the natural ability to let things like this roll off my shoulders, and have not once, in my 1.5 years of parenting have I been made to feel like I was an inferior parent for doing things my way. Until yesterday. And it caught me off guard. I didn’t know what to do with this new feeling. I talked things through with Tim and he made me feel better. It made me wish that I could teach others how to not take offense to things because it sucks to feel that way. But how do you teach a natural ability? I find it hard to give advice in any kind of situation for the mere fact that I just do things that make sense. You won’t find any parenting literature on my shelves (except “Bringing Up Boys” because I thought I might need help with that and I have only heard wonderful things about it), and the only reason I read articles online about parenting is to read the comments and see the opinions, because I really enjoy hearing what others have to say and sometimes they make me laugh. I can’t think of a single time where I have implemented a strategy I learned about in literature into my parenting repertoire. You can’t teach common sense, and for that I am sad.

I have discovered a downside to not being easily offended. It’s often hard for me to know what might offend somebody else. Often times I have to reread comments I make in different voices and perspectives to see how others would see it coming off. Many times I rewrite it, and sometimes I just delete it all together. Sometimes I leave it because it is somebody I know and I think they can take it.

Parenting is just one example of where this is applicable in my life.

But anyways. I think I have rambled enough. I don’t know where I wanted this to go, but I just knew that I had these thoughts I wanted to share, even though it is is hard to get my feelings into text.

In other news, Calvin can now say “no”, so depending on the question I ask, his response sometimes offends me.

Just kidding.

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The Finished Bathroom

5 days later and the bathroom is done!

The priming and painting were spread over three days during naptime. The walls all got painted the green colour and the mouldings were painted white. Hooray! Here is the view of the other direction.

A couple other changes include:
– a new double towel bar (the existing one was far too small to be used by both us and guests which we have fairly often)
– a new shower bar (this wasn’t planned, and it was also a downgrade. The existing one, which was one of those nice curved ones, fell down in the middle of the night a few nights ago. It was stuck up with thick double sided tape so we got more of that and tried again. It didn’t last two showers. We then decided it needed to be screwed in, and drilling into tile wasn’t something we wanted to attempt quite yet, so we replaced it with a simple straight pressure mount one)
– a diaper sprayer (Calvin’s messes normally just fall right out of his diapers, but once in a while they require a little help, so I purchased this used diaper sprayer. No more bathroom spatula! Can I also say I am excited to have it for use post delivery?)

Here is a little before and after so you can see the difference. You may notice we also changed out the lightbulbs. Not only to be more energy efficient, but also so I wouldn’t sweat while I brushed my teeth. Seriously.

I am so glad it is done, and it makes me excited to change the rest of the colours in this house! Not sure when it will happen, though, since I am a month away from being a mom of two and probably the same distance away from winter. But if you want to come visit and help me knock out a room or two in a weekend, I pay in meals and Calvin snuggles!

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The Bathroom

This is our bathroom:It’s pretty nice, with nice new tile in the bath, and fresh paint on the walls, a nice vanity and new fixtures. However, it is not to my taste. The colour on the walls is the same colour that is on every single wall in this house. And it is the same as the tile, so it’s all just kind of bland. This week’s project is to get it painted!

When it comes to colour, I am a little limited by the accent tile. Here’s a close up:

Fairly neutral colours, but there aren’t too many colours I would want my bathroom to be that would match that green glass. Good thing this isn’t our forever home, right?

As luck would have it, the previous owner had left behind a can of paint that matches really well!

And it just happens to be for kitchens and baths. The place it is used currently is the back entrance, and it’s a nice colour. Again, not my ideal choice, but it matches, and it is better colour than the yellow!

And for some reason this guy decided to get fancy and paint one of the walls the same dark, flat brown that is on the majority of the trim in the house. You may notice there is also no hand towel rack on the wall. Who doesn’t put in a hand towel rack? Don’t worry, we’re on it.

Blah.

So it’s a good thing he also left behind a big can of primer!

I’m excited to get a different colour into this house of ours! And I’m extra excited that I didn’t have to pay for this one! One day soon maybe I will make a trip to pick up some paint chips for the rest of the house.

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Laundry Room Fix

One of my pet peeves is doors that open the wrong direction. I’ve found that this is a very common occurrence in laundry rooms, on the dryer.

This is our laundry room:

The dryer actually used to be in the space behind the wall to the left of were it is now, so it was sitting perpendicular to the washer , with a space in between. While it was like that, the door opening to the right made complete sense. But I preferred to have the dryer right next to the washer because they are buddies, and I think it looks better that way, so last weekend we moved it. So then of course, having the door open to the right didn’t make too much sense. It would have been worse if the washer was front loading, but thankfully it’s not.

I was just going to deal with it, when I had the thought that the door must be reversible! And sure enough, I saw these guys on the opposite side of the opening of where the hinges were.

So I got out the drill and went to work. And now it looks like this!

Except what you can’t see is that the door actually doesn’t close. I think the drill was too wide so the screws went in crooked and couldn’t go in all the way. So I am going to wait for Tim to come home and give me a hand because it was hard to hold the door in place and drill at the same time. With an extra pair of hands I’m sure the screws will go in as they should.

But I am glad I no longer have the dryer door in the way while I am transferring the clean things. Next up is the fridge door.

You can see it opens away from the kitchen area, with a peninsula in the way. Having to step outside of the kitchen to get something out of the fridge is not ideal.

What kind of pet peeves around the home do you have?

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BC Holiday: The Sevenhuysens

Yes, there was one more part of our trip to BC! I have just been a slacker on posting about it because of my lack of pictures. But I don’t want to leave anything incomplete!

When we left Langley, we headed to Rossland where Tim’s sister had an acting job in a local theater for the summer. The whole family was able to stay at the home where she was boarding, which was great! Their backyard wasn’t too shabby either.

Rossland is just one of BCs many most beautiful places.

Although Rossland is small, there are still a couple things to do, so we didn’t spend all of our time hanging around the house and playing Settlers of Catan. For instance, we went down to the river!

Calvin got more than just a little wet by the end of the visit.

And we ate ice cream!

And of course we had to go see Catherine’s show, which was pretty funny. Every year they put on a new show about Rossland back in the day. This particular year was about a lady (Catherine) who brings some dancers to the town for entertainment for the miners.

Catherine’s in the blue dress.
I won’t mention the part where they pulled male audience members onto the stage for a tamish dance.

And also one morning we went out for a yummy breakfast.

As you can see, it was very enjoyable.
Apparently there is a better shot of everybody on somebody else’s camera, so if you don’t want this one on here, you better get it to me!

And soon enough we were back on the road headed for home sweet home. We made one little stop at this rock slide I forget the name of, but you have probably heard of. It was quite impressive.

Our little growing family that I love so much.

And now home is where we will stay until Christmas time, enjoying our new space and anybody who feels like they want to come visit. Especially after a certain new little person comes! You are all welcome!

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Pregnancy #2: 33 Weeks

33 weeks brings me well into my third trimester. The third trimester for me has meant I get my mild acid reflux a bit more often and a couple charley horses. Well, one real one. Then somebody told me about putting a bar of soap in your bed and when you feel one coming on, just reach for it with your foot and the pain will stop and not get worse. Well, the next time I felt it, I didn’t have a bar of soap, but I found the corner of the bed with my foot. And the pain stopped before it got bad! Way better than trying to stretch it out during the pain which really does nothing and you hurt for a couple days after.

Other than that, I have learned that my hips and tailbone hurt less when I turn over in bed if I don’t put a pillow between them. I discovered this during Tim’s work trip when one of the hotels only had two pillows in the entire room. I still use one now to support my belly, but I just don’t put it between my knees.

My doctor appointments, which are every 2 weeks now, are quite boring. I am measuring “beautifully” and my blood work comes back looking “gorgeous” and I have nothing ever to ask my OBGYN. We listen to the heartbeat, Calvin says “wow!” and then we go home. Nice and quick!

So now we have less than two months to go! I just have to sort through my newborn stuff and set up the pack and play in our room. And I guess I have to pack a bag and stuff too. Fun!

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BC Holiday: The Babies

A bonus of our trip to BC was to meet a handful of babies that friends and family members have had in the past couple months! There were also a couple yet-to-be-born babies to “see”.

I already mentioned meeting my oldest brother’s baby girl, Anna, who is my third niece.

Anna and our little one will be the closest in age of the Thiessen cousins so far, only 3 months apart.

Also in Langley was my friend Amy and her three-month-old, Jonah. Amy and I have known eachother since we were children, with our families attending the same church.

I then got to hang out with one of my best friends, Megan, who just recently announced she is due with their first in January! I am very glad we had an opportunity to get a belly photo of the two of us. We have known each other for always. Our mothers went to church and school together when they were growing up. I hope our kids will grow up as friends as well.

Then on Tuesday, Tim, Calvin and I made a whirlwind trip to Victoria to see some friends and more babies! Mostly Calvin just wanted to see Anna.But we also went to a park to hang out with the girls and their kids too.

Chavon could have her second any day now!

Raya, the newest baby in the group.

It was nice to have a baby girl after the last three (who were also the first three) were boys.

One of the last times Calvin and Ethan (in the middle) saw each other, they looked like this:

On the way back to my parents’ place from the ferry, we stopped in to visit with my cousins, Andrew and Naomi, who had their baby girl just three days before my sister-in-law had Anna!

This is a little dark, but it was so cute! Mackenzie was sleeping in her swing and Calvin was just crouched there, watching her go back and forth. Then he decided he wanted to swing her himself.

Calvin was actually really gentle with all the babies he met. He mostly pet their heads and made cute little sounds like “doodle doodle doodle”. The only trouble was if he had a wooden hammer in his hands. Because of course you are allowed to bang on anything if you are wielding a wooden hammer (don’t worry…no babies were hurt). So I am hopeful that he will be the same way with our newborn.

It is interesting thinking of all my different friends, in Langley, Victoria, and now Edmonton, and how my relationships with them all are different. My Edmonton friends I know only as parents. I don’t know much of their background or who they were as teenagers. I feel like I am learning from them, since the majority have children older than mine. My Victoria friends I got to know as they were students in college, becoming newlyweds and recently parents. I got to learn alongside of them. I have known my Langley friends through all stages of life, and it’s fun to watch them become parents now, continuing the circle. I wish I was closer to them to see this next stage more first hand, but I am content with the special little visits I get here and there.

And that concludes the baby tour! Besides Chavon, there are two people on my pregnant people list (yes, I actually have a list of my friends’ due dates because there are so many to keep track of) due, and then it’s my turn! Only two more months, which is kind of crazy. And seeing all these newborns didn’t help prepare me for my own in the least. Good thing I know first hand that the knowledge comes naturally. I’m excited!

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