a moment of bragging....(revised)

Ok, so I'm not emailing everyone about this post, which means I'll get to find out who checks this of their own volition! I know I haven't posted in ages and today's won't be much either, be sure to check back, because I will eventually post all the half written posts from the last two months, with their original dates on them (I will rig things so that they all show on the main page, you won't have to click on the archives). So, the reason for this post is because I want to jump up and down and do some kind of victory dance! I got marks back today in my Death and the Family class. I wrote an 8 page book report that I got an amazing 98% on (that, by the way was the highest mark in the class!) wahoo! We also got marks back in the same class for a group project we had to do. This group project was a little challenging in terms of group dynamics and the class presentation part was a total bomb (at least to me it's really bad when one group member takes up over half of the time limit, the next member just reads her part of the paper and also takes too long and the prof has cut her off and ask the next person to do their piece in the last minute of the presentation). I guess our written work made up for the disastrous presentation because we got 29/30! I'm really pumped right now because I've been so swamped and feeling pretty discouraged about school in general because I feel as though I haven't really been putting out my best work. These marks mean that I'm really just being way too hard on myself. I did have on assignment that I handed in that was probably my most shabby ever (it was 1/4 of the recommended length) and even that got me a 72%. Given my circumstances right now with struggling to juggle my classes, dealing with personal and relational struggles, I can live with the 72% and rejoice in the other marks! Ok, I'll stop bragging now...it just feels so good to have all the hard work and putting my nose to the grindstone pay off with marks like that! On another note: Michael shared with me earlier this week that he's feeling pretty discouraged and stuck in his job and is thinking about a change. He also was getting the sense that God might be asking him to stay and learn the hard lesson that his identity as a man is more than just his work. Then on Thursday his boss told him he got a raise! It was like God arranged this just to give Michael a little boost to stick with it! Yay! I'm proud of Michael because he has definitely worked hard and deserves the raise!

anniversary...

well, we have reached the 3 year mark. it feels well, shocking. three years has been so long and yet so short, to think we'll be spending another 50 years together if we live to be 77 and hopefully even longer! it's hard to imagine what we'll be like in 50 years! this past year of married life has had it rocky spots, as we adjusted to our new 8-5 lifestyle, but we're getting used to each other in the new routines. I think in some ways, this is what it must be like in the first year of marriage for most other people. We spent ours in a truck, which is a whole different type of getting used to each other! At the end of the day, we both still kiss each other goodnight and say 'I love you.' To celebrate our anniversary this year we went to Celebrations Dinner Theatre. The show was called Frasier: the College Years. It was a pretty cool experience, neither one of us had ever gone before. The place seats about 400 people and has a center stage, with two side stages, so you feel somewhat surrounded by the set. The food was pretty good, although anything good suffers when you're doing it for that large of a crowd. All of the servers were part of the acting crew, we had some good laughs with the crazy characters we met. At the end of the night they hauled up all the people who had a birthday that day and made them do the hokey pokey. Then they called up anyone who was celebrating an anniversary, and because we were at a table with friends ( who chanted and heckled until we no choice but to go up) we got to waltz on stage in front of 400 people! For the record: Michael and I both do not know how to dance, let along waltz. In the words of our pastor on the way out, "nice mennonite waltz!" I'm kind of glad I don't have pictures of this to prove it! Thank you Michael for a special day to celebrate 3 years of being together! The very same night we got a phone call at around 11pm from my Dad, who told us that my sister was in the hospital in diabetic shock. that was a really unexpected phone call! I didn't sleep much that night because my mind was racing about the possible implications of this. Since I am writing in hindsight, I'll tell you that my sister spent a week in the hospital and came home, everything is going well, she's healthy and started a new job shortly after this incident.

organizing projects...

well, in an attempt to have more than one post in September, I'll tell you what I've been up to besides school, since that hasn't kept me too terribly busy. I have a lot of free time during the day, on tuesdays and Thursdays I get home from school by 10am and have the rest of the day at home. It feels very weird to have such a long stretch of uninterrupted time.

I have tackled a few organizing projects, one being to find a good place for our dirty laundry hamper. It used to be in the spare room, but when we had company then it had to go into our office (which really didn't have room). It was just annoying. I know that you are all thinking the logical place would be in our bedroom, but there isn't room. We have a king sized bed...that means there is enough space (like 3 feet) to walk around our bed on the three sides that are not against the wall and that's it. Luckily we have a big closet, because our dresser went inside it. Anyway, I also have learned to be a bit compulsive when it comes to sorting laundry, so I wanted a place where I could sort whites, darks, light colors and reds. I know the reds part seems especially silly, but Michael and I own a lot of red, so it's not hard to get a load of entirely red items. We have three linen size closets in our hallway, one of which had never been given a designated purpose...it became the catch all. I cleaned it out and got some stacking bins to convert it into our laundry closet. Now I have the laundry, stain remover, iron, ironing board and spare sheets & pillows all in one place!



I also tackled some of the paper mess and set up a filing system in our office. Then Michael rearranged some of the furniture, so our office is finally a calm clutter free and functional work space. (Now we just have to deal with the stuff that got pulled out of that room and piled on the spare bed because it doesn't belong in the office).














Finally, and probably the most exciting one is the garage. It's been cleaned up to the point where we can actually fit both cars inside! We have never been able to do that, not even the night we got possession (because we painted the garage floor till 3 am that night). Michael had been promising me to do this for a long long time. We even had a few fights over it, especially because I didn't think he could do it. I was wrong, because it's done and it looks fabulous! We actually struck a deal, his job was to clean it up and get it looking decent and make space for the cars, and now I get to direct the sorting and organizing things part of the project, so that we can easily find things. At the end we'll both be happy. (actually Michael is already happy, he doesn't need to be able to find things easily he just needs to have them, I don't need to have as much stuff, but what I have I need to be able to find)

beautiful breezey evening walking at the forks...

Michael was sensing that I was going a little stir crazy (I had been confined to our home, carless on a Saturday doing homework all day while he went to haul dirt for some extra cash) and decided that it was time to do something special. So, we went for a walk at the Forks. It was lovely! We were out at my favorite time, when the sky is an awesome deep royal/navy blue. We walked across the infamous foot bridge (this structure is some what of an eye sore and also criticized for looking like a phallic image, since it was built while the gay mayor was in power), and found a really great little gelati place, I had gelati that tasted a lot like hedgehog ice cream, which does not exist out here in the flat lands. It was wonderfully scrumptious! Overall I really enjoy living in Winnipeg, I like it here (I know all the west coast people think I'm crazy, but you don't know what it's like to live in sunshine about 90% of the time, you'd never want to go back to dark & rainy either), but I am realizing that there are two things I don't like: the lack of good hard ice cream (although BDI's almost makes up for this with it's amazing soft serve and hot fugde) and the lousy grocery stores.

tribute to the treasure hunting grounds....

ok, so across the back lane from our house (it still feels weird to say that we have a back lane...Abbotsford really doesn't have any of that, and even now, we don't really use ours), there was this house that has been vacant since we moved here. The owner, Mr. Klassen, lived in a seniors home nearby and would still come by on his pedal bike to putter around, we think he was at least over the age of 80 and we were quite impressed that he would ride his bike over. Then Mr. Klassen passed away, less than a year after his wife. The children, particularly Brandt, then began the HUGE process of cleaning up all the STUFF in this house.

Michael being his natural friendly self went over to chat with Brandt and got the chance to look around at the place. It became his treasure hunting ground. He would go over when Brandt was around to see all the amazing stuff in the garage (I have to admit it was at least a little amazing, there was so many collections of things, really old things). Michael dragged me along to see it one day, there was a peg board about 4 feet by 4 feet filled with bottle cap openers, just as an example of a collection. There were old irons (the kind you stick in the fire to get them hot), a couple of phonographs and I can't really remember what all else, but lots of old STUFF. Anyway, Michael would come back home from these treasure hunts with wide bright eyes, and then he'd tell me something like, "this guy had huge stacks of old Eaton's catalogues, amazing!" Brandt would also leave piles of STUFF in the back lane for the garabage people to pick up. I'm not sure who picked up more....the garabage truck or....Michael. He began bringing home stuff from the place on a regular basis, I of course got frustrated and drew the line: no more! if you find something you think you really want, something else has to go back. Much to my dismay I discovered that Michael had been squirrelling things into our detached garage (we call it the loft) without my knowledge and without bringing something else back (I found out when I had to go in there for something recently). Oh well, I have decided that I should really give him space and get over the STUFF collecting because I won't really be able to stop it anyway. I think God knew we would need that detached garage when we bought this house!

this is the best I could do for a before photo

So, the tribute part of this post is to say that the old house has been torn down...we got to watch. Acutally, we were in bed (it was 7am) when Michael bolted up and exlaimed: "I think that beeping is a bulldozer!" He proceeded to the kitchen patio doors with the camera to catch the action...in his gitch! This means I no longer have to wonder if Michael is sneaking stuff into the loft. Here's a clip or two:

trials & triumphs of owning an older car

well, i just have to say that our car has been through a lot. we bought a 1992 Honda Accord just before we moved to Winnipeg (from now on referred to as the "black car"), we decided this would be a good way to own our own car outright, and be able to afford the possibility for repairs. See Michael has a 1991 Honda Accord (referred to as the green car) that has been parked for some time, after it didn't quite survive being used to push a full size pick-up out of the way (aka: rear ender), which we figured would still be good for parts.

it started at some point this winter when the car went into the ditch front end first and filled with water up to the driver & passenger seats. it didn't start after that. Michael did his best to check it out and find the problem himself to no avail. Then he asked his coworkers if they knew a good mechanic in town and they did. So Michael called this guy up and it turns out that he knew exactly what was wrong from what Michael described to him. The computer in our lovely car, is directly under the passenger's feet, which meant it was under water and likely fried to a crisp. It turns out that this mechanic used to work for a Honda dealer, and also has a few older Accords himself. Cool how God could see the big picture when He had us buy this car and arrange for just the right mechanic close to where Michael works. Long story short, we were able to pull the computer out of the green car and it worked, despite the manuals saying it wouldn't because the cars are actually different years. Yay! Michael pulled out the carpet so we could clean it and dry it out, this involves taking pretty much every piece of plastic on the inside of the car off and the seats, to get at the carpet. Michael put the seats back in and we have been driving car without an interior for several months. I'll come back to this in a moment.



The other car story is more recent. Occasionally I've had the key not turn, but if I jiggled the steering wheel so that it would lock, then everything would work fine. Then one day Michael and I headed out and he couldn't turn the key either. He fiddled and jiggled and then it worked, so we let it pass and didn't think anymore of it. Two days later, Michael called me from work at 6pm or so to say he couldn't get the car to start but he was going to call our mechanic and see if he couldn't figure it out. So, I waited...finally Michael called back saying he had given up for the day. Luckily I had our friend Arlene's car that week, so I could go and pick him up. The next day the mechanic came to actually look at the car and they discovered that the ignition had seized, so they pulled the ignition out of the green car only to find out that it didn't quite fit. The did figure out that a screwdriver (or the actual key) could be stuck into this crank thingy on the other end of the shaft that the ignition and key turns, so Michael could at least start the car to come home. The mechanic took both ignitions and set to work to piece together bits of both ignitions and the next day he put it in the black car. Here's a picture of the car without an ignition (the white circle is where we could stick the key in and turn it).



Back to the fact that we had a car without an interior....this past weekend Michael put it back together! Yay! It is so so nice to have a whole & complete car again! I'm so amazed at Michael's ability to take things apart and put them together again. I would be way too scared to take apart the inside of a car for fear that I wouldn't be able to figure out where all the little pieces went when I had to put it back together again!

the hills are alive...

Last night Michael took me to Sound of Music at Rainbow Stage as the final instalment of my birthday gift. It was awesome! Rainbow Stage is an outdoor theatre (well, actually it has a domed roof, but no walls). I don't have pictures because they don't let you take any, but let's just say it was a great experience...one I think might become a family tradition... thanks so much Michael for a great memory!

golden...

Michael and I went flew to Toronto for a weekend in August, just a quick Friday to Monday trip (that was all Michael could manage to take off work). We actually flew early in the morning there and late at night coming home, so that Michael would be available over the phone and have access to a computer during office hours. His family is actually in Aylmer, so we got to do a bit of driving too, but that was fine by me, it meant I could take a nice nap. Anyway, we went to celebrate with Grandma & Grandpa Peters their golden anniversary.

grandma & grandpa then & now

It was really good weekend celebrating and visiting Michael's extended family (there are some from both sides there). Here's a few pictures, hopefully I can add more later...

this is a camp fire night we had with the Peters clan at Uncle Jake & Aunt Cindy's place (thanks for having us over Uncle Jake & Aunt Cindy!), it was really nice to hang out and relax and as well as catch up with everyone.

We also had a "disco" (pronounced deesko), which is basically an outdoor version of the classic Mexican meal of tacos cooked in an old disker (piece of farm equipment, for those of you who don't know, and don't worry I didn't either). Michael is over seeing the cooking of the meat with his cousin Terry. We also had a good time here, and got to witness a huge thunder storm, complete with lightening and lots of wind and even a power outage! It meant we had to move everything into the garage and take cover, but it was still fun. Ok, actually I loved it, because I love storms.

card making...

One of the things on my to do list this summer was work at making cards so that I would have a stash ready for the times when I'm busy during the school year and need a card ASAP. I know to some of you this is totally normal and common sense, but I've always found it hard to make cards without a person in mind for the inspiration. I also acquired some "new to me" slightly used stamp sets with some birthday money (thanks Dad!) I think they will pay for themselves quite quickly! So, here's samples from my first attempt (I have to confess that these are all borrowed ideas).

I was trying really hard to make some "manly" cards, that's why there's so many with leaves on them. I figured a guy could appreciate a leaf better than a flower or butterfly, but Michael informed me that guys don't give two hoots about leaves. According to Michael manly cards would have wheels and chrome and trucks and tools on them. Thus far, I haven't discovered or invested in such a stamp set, does one even exist?

first place!

well, i don't have much for pictures, but Michael played in on our church softball team this summer. They entered their team as a first division team and half way through dropped down to 2nd division. But they finished the year strong and got first place in their division! If I can get my hands on more pictures I will!

that's Michael on the chair in the corner of the picture

our lovely score keeper...

the "coach"