Costco

Yesterday my neighbor invited me to go with her to Winnipeg to Costco. I jumped at the opportunity. It was a fun outing. I think I like Costco better than Sam's Club? I don't know if it was because they had a better selection, or if it was because, with having to make the kids' lunches for school everyday, there were more bulk items that I needed? A membership is required at Costco, which we don't have yet. Liz said we could put it on her card if necessary and then I could pay her back. As we were headed to the checkout, I asked her if she was sure she could do that, as both of our carts were nearly overflowing. When she got to the checkout, she asked the lady if we could scan separately and she let us! Even though they aren't supposed to do that. I was glad about that.......and I'm sure Liz was too! My best find there was in the produce section. They had a package of pomegranate arils! WHAT?!?!?!?! You mean I can enjoy a pomegranate and not have to spend an hour digging it all apart? SCORE! AND, it was only $6.99! There were at least 2 pomegranates in the package and sometimes they can cost up to $2-3 each. Having them already removed from the rhine and membrane is totally worth the extra couple dollars. TOTALLY!
Liz was born and raised in Winnipeg, so she was great to go with. She was telling me all she could. Unfortunately I know I didn't absorb it all, but I did learn that we haven't been shopping in the best area of Winnipeg. We will be learning the new area the next time we go. In fact the different stores in this area of Winnipeg have me very excited about my next visit. ;-) I think I also found myself a softball team to play on this spring! Liz coordinates the Friday softball league! SCORE! Now if I can just get volleyball on the agenda!
Gage and Emma were dying to go to Laser Jungle last night to play some laser tag. We finally were able to go after supper, but found out that you have to call ahead. We tried calling ahead, but each time Gage called, the line was busy. We just assumed it was because it was off the hook or something like that. No, it was always busy because other people were calling in to book a time slot. Apparently the weekends are always full, so you must call ahead of time. We'll be doing that the next time. There are people who drive here from Winnipeg to play! (It's not that far from Winnipeg, but because of all the activities that Winnipeg has to offer, that must mean Laser Jungle "kicks ass". Or at least that's what neighbor Liz says. ;-) Since we weren't able to stay and play, we rented some movies from there instead. We got Ramona & Beezus, Cats and Dogs and The Book of Eli. Ramona and Beezus was so cute. We all enjoyed it. However, I wasn't expecting that I would cry TWICE during the movie.
The Book of Eli was very thought provoking. I feel like I need to watch it again to see what I missed.
Cats and Dogs is the movie for Sunday morning. The kids are already down there watching it, so I need to go make them start it over.
As for Sunday, we haven't found a church yet. We went to the Knox Presbyterian church 2 Sundays ago. It was very small. Like 12 people or so there. There were only 2 kids, who were the Pastor's sons. They are a little older than Gage, but I figure if the kids don't both have other kids there that they can get to know, it will be a fight every Sunday morning. We will be checking out some more churches. We aren't able to today though, because Scott has some gathering that he has to give a talk at this morning in Winnipeg. Next Sunday he will be in South Dakota. Hopefully the following Sunday we'll be able to check out another church.

Unattended Children

I went to get my hair cut today. It was long overdue!!! I hate making appointments to get my hair cut. Usually, when I finally do it, I want it done NOW!!!! There is a hair place on the corner near the school that I drive by every day. I have memorized the phone number because I kept wanting to call and make an appointment, but then would forget the number by the time I got home. I have done that so many times that I now know the number by heart. It's taken me about 2 weeks to actually call the place to get an appointment, and when I called, she said she schedules appointments at least a month in advance and I couldn't get in until mid February. WHAT?!?!?!? I need my hair cut NOW! I told her I would see if I could find someone else. I sent a message to my neighbor asking her of places that do hair in town. I don't want to have to drive to Winnipeg for a haircut. She gave me the name and number of another place right on Main Street. I hadn't noticed it before. I called for an appointment and she scheduled me for the next day (today). One thing I hate about getting my hair cut is that I always want to try something new. I can never describe what I want and somehow I always come home with the same thing. When I went in to the salon, I had a few moments to sit down and look through some magazines. They had all kinds of hair magazines and I was flipping through as fast as I could to try and find something I liked before my name was called. I did find something I liked, but then thought to myself, "I've done this before, and it never fails, I get the same thing I had previously", so I didn't bother taking it with me to the chair when my name was called. Then comes the question, "What can I do for you?" UGH! I hate that! I told the lady that I always want something different and always end up with the same thing, and I don't ever know how to say what I want. She said, "Well, then, what DON'T you want?" I told her my Dad says that the only difference between a bad haircut and a good haircut is about two days. She laughed. Then I told her, "You can't get it too short!" And away she went!!!!!!!!!! I've never had anyone brave enough to do that............and I LOVED it! She's never seen me before, so she had no idea what kind of hairstyle I usually have. She just started cutting away. She also used the razor alot, which not many people do. I grew up with razor cuts. My Mom was a beautician and she always used the razor. She loves razor cuts too, but not many people do it anymore. Anyway, the gal cut my hair. There was ALOT of hair on my cape, so I knew she was doing well. When she finally finished, she turned me towards the mirror. I LOVED IT! She did a great job. Mostly, I loved that she just did it without me having to tell her what to do. When I was putting on my coat to leave, I noticed a sign hanging on the wall that read, "Unattended Children will be given an espresso and a puppy!" I loved it! I will be going back there. Thanks to my neighbor, Liz, for the recommendation!

Obsessed with Haricots

Are you wondering what haricots are?? That is the French term for beans. I have never been obsessed over something like beans before, but it is driving me nuts that I can't find the ones I am wanting. Great Northern Beans. How hard can that be? We can't get much farther north without leaving civilization!

I think Scott is lucky that I have had a very open mind about being here, because if I didn't, his life would be very miserable right now. The grocery store would be enough to just put me into a big depression. As I said before, I am not into cooking. When I have a recipe, I follow it to the T. Very rarely do I substitute things, because I don't know if it will ruin it or not. I'm just not adventurous in the kitchen. (Nor anywhere else, for that matter!)

A stop at the grocery store takes me at least twice as long as it would normally. Alot of that is because I just don't know where everything is yet. However, another chunk of that time is spent wondering what I can use instead for the item that I can't find. This morning my list contained 3 items, and I was in there for at least 20 minutes. Of course I can never get out of the store with just the items on my list. However, the 3 items on my list were things I needed to add to the stuff I had at home to make homemade pizza (kind of.........if you call have the refrigerator pizza dough homemade (like I do!)) Do you think I can find pepperoni? Of course not! Or, at least not the way I would buy it at home. At home, you can buy it already sliced. I didn't even know you could buy pepperoni in the big tube-summer-sausage-like-casing. Good Lord! Does that mean I have to cut that entire thing into thin little slices? Apparently so! What the heck does a person use a thing of pepperoni like that for? I should probably get started on that now, as it might take me all day to do! Maybe I will need to invest in a food processor? AND, I had to buy raw white beans to substitute for my Northern Beans. I don't know if that is the right substitute or not, but I'm going to give it a whirl. I've never cooked beans from their raw state before. We could be in trouble. Maybe I should go buy some nose plugs? They probably don't have those here either.

Another obsession I have now is following the exchange rate. It is VERY disturbing to me that I am losing money by exchanging it over to Canadian. The lady at the bank says it's usually the other way around. Well, wouldn't you know it! I move to Canada and now the Canadian dollar is worth more than the US dollar. UGH! We have probably already just thrown at least $100 out the window in this exchanging (or selling) thing. That was another thing that I wasn't sure about when I went to the bank this morning. I wrote a check from our Bismarck account to our American fund account here and then asked her what the exchange rate was. She asked if I was buying or selling. What?? I'm just exchanging it lady. LOL! Okay, that is pretty dumb on my part, but I have just never been the one to deal with stocks/bonds or buying/selling. That is Scott's job. I know now, that I would be selling my American dollar...........at a loss! I am going to wait to do it, because I will lose about $30 on the $1000, or $3 on the $100. Even losing $3 disturbs me. I'm probably stupid not to do it though, because it could be worse tomorrow, or whenever it will be that I just HAVE to do it, in order to pay the mortgage. I am going to turn into a money hoarder. That's probably not a bad thing though.

Graceful

The weather warmed up enough for school to be back in session today! YEAH! Although, I must admit that I'm starting to go a little stir crazy not having anything to do. Once I can get started on the office and organizing my scrapbook stuff, I will be good to go. Until then, I will just be bored. There's lots of things I can do. Just none of them are things I want to do.

I was thankful that my car started this morning. Or, more like I'm glad Scott's truck started thsi morning, so I had my car. When I was getting out, after backing it out of the garage, somehow I slammed my forehead into the edge of the door. MAN DID THAT HURT! I thought for sure I was going to end up with a black eye. I decided if it did, I would just tell anyone that asked that Scott did it, because the other story would be too hard to explain. Who believes the old story of "I walked into a door?" LOL! I've had a headache most of the day because of it. Not sure if I gave myself a concussion or not. I know I hit hard enough it's possible. I also bend the nose piece on my glasses, but thankfully I was able to bend them back in shape. I'm so graceful!

The kids had a good day at school. I'm always so excited when I pick them up to hear how their day went. There is almost always something interesting. Monday, Emma quizzed me all the way home on new French words she learned. Their brains are like little sponges. It amazes me. I keep waiting for papers to come home so I can see how they are doing, or WHAT they are even doing. They had spelling tests last Friday and I still haven't seen them. Gage said they keep them in their "duo-tangs" (plastic 2-pocket folder for you Americans!). Their spelling lists have been very easy so far, but Gage told me he missed a couple because he does his cursive O's different than they do them here. I told him to be sure and ask the teacher if any of these things are supposed to come home so I can see what's going on. Geez, I'd hate to get nothing and then go to parent-teacher conferences to find out they aren't doing so well! Especially when it seems that he's ahead of the 4th graders here. They start school here as soon as they turn 5. No waiting a year if you miss the deadline, like Gage did with his October birthday. Gage turned 10 in October and he was invited to another 4th grader's birthday party tomorrow, who is turning 9!! According to Canadian School systems, Gage should be in 5th grade. I'm sure he's smart enough to be, but I'm not sure I would want to skip him a grade. I think that would almost be like missing out on a whole year of his life. Plus, I'm not sure what would happen when we go back to the states, like if he would have to go back a grade?

Our furnace guy came today to replace the motor in our furnace. It's only 5 years old, so that is upsetting. I'm afraid to see what the bill will be for that part. However, I'm glad to know it's working correctly again, as it is supposed to be VERY cold again tomorrow. Like -33C, which equals about -27F, and that's not including the windchill! WOWZA! And I thought Bismarck was COLD! I'm anxious to see just how cold it's possible to get. Bring it!!!!

The Great North is COLD!

Wow! It's cold! -27F with -50F windchills is a little much I think! Apparently it's a little much for everyone, as school was cancelled today, because of the windchill. We only had 1 or 2 snow days in Bismarck in our time there, which were last year. When I was a kid, I LOVED snow days. Now, not so much. ;-)

The kids have enjoyed their "snow day." We have a fort behind the chair in the living room, equipped with a security camera. I told Gage he should probably turn the video off on his camera, or he would most certainly drain them. I really don't think a security camera was necessary, unless that was there to deter Brie from entering. Apparently she's "gassy" today. Or at least that is what I've been told about 3 times. However, I do know that to be true, as I went downstairs and got a whiff of the wonderful aroma. UGH! We have had problems keeping her out of the basement and out of the cat food and more importantly the cat BOX! YUCKO!

In Bismarck, we kept that cat food on top of the refrigerator so Brie couldn't get into it. We didn't want to really encourage Grus to be on the countertops here, so figured we would try it in the basement. It isn't easy trying to keep it open for the cat, but closed off to the dog. I didn't really want to cut a cat door into the door at the top of the basement stairs because they are nice, solid doors. We decided to just take the door off the hinges so Grus wouldn't accidentally get shut in or out of the basement. Well, Brie has been finding her way to the basement, and today, we are suffering because of it. Enough about dog farts! Who wants to read about farting, cat-poop-eating dogs??

Let me get started on a different subject.

A year and a half ago, we started saving money for a trip to Disney World. You may remember this, as I blogged about it http://behindthetimes-stacy.blogspot.com/2009/08/up.html. We finally made our savings goal and Scott has booked plane tickets for us to go in MARCH 2011! How exciting!! (and stressful!) After booking the tickets, we have been looking at many different options for activities. This is going to be our "trip of a lifetime", and because I know I will probably never get to go again, I want to do it all! HA! To do it all is going to cost WAY MORE than we saved! :( One of the top things on our list is to go to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which is at Universal Studios' Island of Adventures. I know this is pathetic, but I really didn't know all of these different attractions weren't actually "Disney World"! I thought it was all together. I'm learning, in a hurry, that this isn't the case. Disney World contains 4 theme parks, Epcot Center, Hollywood Studios, Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom. Universal Studios is a whole different thing, which means a whole new set of tickets, which means we need a whole lot more moolah! If I had looked at this stuff BEFORE we booked the tickets, I think I would have put it off for awhile so we could save more money. However, I think it could be true that a person never actually has enough. You can find more and more things to do to spend more and more money. It's probably good that we know what our limit is. The bad thing is that it will more than likely be spent BEFORE we even get there, on plane tickets, hotel reservations, etc, etc. However, we are all very excited. We've never taken a real family vacation before. Gage and Emma think Clearfield, Iowa is a vacation destination. We did go to Colorado a couple of years ago, but that didn't really count because it was a business trip of Scott's, that we just tagged along on. That is the closest thing we've had to a real vacation, so we are quite excited about this. Planning a vacation of this magnitude is also very stressful! Thankfully, an old high school friend of mine read my plea for help on FB, and has offered her assistance! I had no idea she was a travel agent! She will most certainly be a lifesaver in this endeavor!

Oh, Canada!

Well, it's about time, right? I can't keep putting this off. I need to get into the habit of blogging again. Today is the day to start the habit.

As most of you know, the Stephens' family has moved to Canada! What an adventure this is! I am learning all kinds of new things. I'm learning how to get out of supporting the Canada Post system by figuring out how to pay some bills electronically. I have many bills that I pay online, and have for several years. However, there are some that I have still written checks for and mailed them through the USPS. I was informed at the Canada Post that it is $1 to mail things to the US. WHAT!?!?! You've got to be kidding me! And, it's $0.57 per stamp to mail within Canada. So no more complaining amongst you Americans about the postage going up! Here in Canada we don't even get door-to-door mail delivery service! Because Scott's paycheck is in American dollars, we had to keep our American Bank Center chequing (learning a new way to spell too!) account open as DU is unable to direct deposit his "cheques" into a Canadian account. With our chequing account, we have a free service and can write electronic checks (I'm not going to get used to spelling words the Canada way!) and the bank will mail them to the address that I enter. So far, that is working swell. So, I will contiue to boycott the Canada Post for as long as possible! (Well, at least for mailing bills to the US) I can't completely boycott them, as I do enjoy getting mail. Even though it's much more sparse than usual at this point.

Another thing I am learning, is that they just don't have all of the choices in the grocery stores here, as we had in the states. I am not much of an adventurer, when it comes to the kitchen, so this is going to be hard to get used to. One thing that I cannot seem to find here, so far, are Great Northern Beans. At least not in the can. I've never used raw beans before, but I suppose it's time I figured out how to do that. If we want to continue having white chili, the way we are used to it. They don't have all the bean choices I want for regular chili either. :(

I figured Gage and Emma would be the only ones learning French. Well, I am also learning some french, by default. Everything in the grocery store, with labels, has English and French writing. We'll see how much French I can pick up in this manner.

The weather here isn't much different than what we're used to in North Dakota. We are still seeing lots of snow and bitter cold temps. Although, I can't really tell you what the exact temperature is, because it's recorded in Celsius here. I have finally figured out how to convert Celsius to Farenheit, and discovered how important that is to know when you need to read your thermostat and decide if your furnace has quit working or not! The math to do that; however, is about too much for my little brain. Maybe I'll figure it out. Maybe I won't? Time will tell.

Skype has become my communication of choice. It's free! However, I am going to have to get my hair cut soon, as it's looking pretty awful. Who'd ever think you would have to fix your hair in order to have a conversation with someone long distance!?

Vent

I haven't posted on here in quite awhile. I'm wanting to use this posting as a venting session, but it probably isn't appropriate. Instead, maybe I'll just type and see where it leads.

There has been alot of worry going on in my life these days. Scott has asked me not to post it on facebook, so I haven't. I haven't decided if I should post it on here or not. We'll see where it leads.

Scott and Gage are camping this weekend at Eagles Park, north of Bismarck. It is called Webelos Woods and it is basically a fun thing to get the Cub Scouts at the Webelos level to start thinking about wanting to join Boy Scouts. Of course, I don't know if Gage will be able to continue on into Boy Scouts or not. Hmmm.........it seems that just about every topic I have come up with so far is leading me to where it probably shouldn't! It will be a chilly night in the tent, so I hope Gage will stay warm in Scott's super warm sleeping bag!

This is Emma's and my 2nd Girl's Weekend in a row. We attended a Girl Scout event last Saturday called "Girls Rock the Park". This was our third year of attending. It is the same every year and I would say it's a bit boring after 3 years. They need to change it up a bit and get new girls interested in joining Girl Scouts.

We have been working on our basement, trying to get it finished up. We started finishing it off in August. We are getting close to the end. We ordered carpet to be installed this next week. I've been staining woodwork getting ready for the finishing details. This morning I discovered a bit of a problem in one of the new doors we bought. The cat door was cut into the wrong end. I don't think Grus can jump high enough to use it? Frustrating stuff! I should probably get back to some of that work!