At Home With Ailsa -December 2004

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Wednesday, December 22nd, 2004. Hi, there, Baby-Cakes! I can say that, finally, because I'm actually interested in cakes of all sorts, again... before today, I wasn't interested in anything but the health and safety of our little guy, Aidan. Well, he had his Dental Surgery yesterday, and he's home today watching his Christmas Shows, eating Jelly and Yogurt (not Brownies, like he wanted last night!), and he's completely okay, Thank God. The Gas Mask was much more difficult than we would have thought, and he struggled with us to prevent the Anesthesiologist from putting the Mask over his face, so that was really hard to deal with. Watching his little eyes roll back and the tears still rolling down his cheeks -- that was very difficult, but then they scooted us out the Surgical Room, and got started on his little teeth.

He ended up having 31 procedures done, including 9 Root Canals, 7 teeth removed, and I'm not sure how many Crowns. It was so sad to see his little face after the Surgery when they let me come in to see Aidan, and he was in the Nurse's arms (Thank God for great Doctors and Nurses!), and his face was all covered with blood...heartbreaking. But the Nurse put Aidan in my arms (they have really comfy chairs for their little Recovery Patients), and I got a cloth to clean him up. It was a lot like having a new baby, again, because it was the same overwhelming feeling of gratitude at having your 'baby' back. Now we can sit back and keep Aidan happy and comfortable, and enjoy the Christmas Holiday. That's the Christmas Gift that I wanted so desperately -- a healthy, happy little boy! So now our whole family can relax and have a great Christmas!

Now, I couldn't help but notice that there were all boys in there to go under the General Anesthesia for Dental Surgery. You know that whole thing a while ago where they wanted every parent to believe that Boys and Girls are exactly the same? What a big pile of crap that is -- boys are completely different, and we weren't the only parents who couldn't get into their boy's mouth to brush their teeth -- for years, if you can imagine that... Aidan would clamp his mouth shut whenever we went anywhere near him with a toothbrush -- even when he was sleeping, he would wake up and clamp those little lips, so there was no way to get in there. So if you happen to have a small boy, I'm thinking that it is okay to use a bit more force to get in there, and maybe they'll get used to it. Even with a cloth, which I used to do when he was tiny, but now I wish we had been a little more forceful with him -- I just didn't even know that children's teeth could get like that, so learn through my mistakes, and make it easier on yourselves and your child. Oh, and the Bill ended up being about $4200., which seemed like a real deal, since the initial quote was $5700. So that's that done, Thank God, and we can put it behind us.

Of course, this has not been a good week to talk about buying more Property, so maybe next week, when everything calms down, I can mention the Land thing, again! I did happen to mention, yesterday, that a beautiful Atrium filled with plants and a Pool or Hot Tub would be really nice in the next house we build, since there was a lovely Center Atrium at the Dentist's Office Building...and Dwight seemed very receptive to that, and we talked briefly about how the windows could surround an Atrium in two ten foot sheets of Glass, and maybe three sets of Double French Glass Doors to the exterior....but that's about it. It's like planting a seed and adding a bit of water (and sometimes a bit of Fertilizer, if you know what I mean! ya'ha,ha!), until your Spouse agrees to buy more Land to build another house! Ah, it's all part of the Process, right??

You know what I haven't had time to write, lately? Tips of the Day/Week/Month... so here are some that I've been trying to remember to say -- Put three or Four Big Garbage Bags in each Bathroom in your House for quick and easy clean up -- I've really needed that in the weeks that we were all sick -- not the kids, just us! And one of the Radiant Heat Valves started to leak about a week ago, so Dwight had to fix that, and those little parts are hard to get, so if you have In-Floor Radiant Heat, get at least enough interior parts for Two Valves that you can just keep on hand. Even if you don't replace the parts yourself, you'll have them handy for your Heating Contractor to install quickly and relatively easily.

And wouldn't you know it -- a whole lot of Light Bulbs burned out at the same time while we were sick (and I don't think I would have been sooo sick if I had made my Onion, Honey 'N Lemon Drink on the Thursday Night when I first felt it coming on, but I didn't want to miss any of The O.C., and waited until the next day when that stooopid Cold had already set in...ugh! So let that be yet another lesson from my procrastination due to Great TV Shows! ha,ha!), so then we had to go and hunt them down (finally, a little bit of Hunting for Dwight! ha,ha!) to find the right lightbulbs, since they are all very specific for the Pot Lights (I can't remember the fancier name for them...) and the Chandeliers....so my Tip for your Lighting is when you buy your New Lights (and if you are looking to update the look of and Older Home quickly and for a relatively small amount of money, New Lighting is a fabulous way to go...), buy a whole lot of Extra Bulbs at the same Lighting Store, since they may be hard to find later... that way they'll be on hand when they don't, in fact, last for Five Full Years!

We all wish you a Merry, Merry Christmas, and a Marvellous Holiday just Celebrating a Great Life!! And I hope you get lots of Chocolate, which, thankfully, I can finally taste, again, since I lost my sense of taste when I wasn't well -- makes you think of a house full of tacky furniture... and now I'm enjoying a wee bit o' chocolate again! WooHoo! Health! You gotta love it!

Health, Wealth (so you can pay for your Health!), and Much Happiness! Ailsa!

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Monday, December 20th, 2004. Hi, Honey! Welcome Back Home! Will you be travelling somewhere where you'll hear that in person?? Cara and I used to jump on a plane to head back to my Family in Ontario or Alberta when we lived in California, but now we just stay put, and it's a whole lot easier. This Holiday is going to be a bit bizarre, though, since we have more to deal with than Christmas... our poor wee Aidan (our little 5 year old boy!) has to go in for Dental Surgery this week. We just found out about it last week, and we've been in a whirlwind ever since.

I don't know how many Dentists we've been to with Aidan, because I wanted to find a Dentist who would work on him without putting him under General Anesthesia, since that's a very scary thing. This is our last stop, I think, with Dentists, and he's a Child Specialist, and he said we would be safer with Aidan under the General Anesthesia than with the Nitrous or the I.V. Sedation, since an Anesthesiologist is right there to monitor Aidan through the whole procedure. He told us that with the I.V. Sedation without the Anesthesiologist, there is a very fine line with children with the medication, and you don't want to cross that line or you could be in some serious trouble very quickly, so that was enough information for us to agree to the General Anesthesia... That and this Dentist has performed about 7 or 8 of these procedures on children once a week for the past 30 years, so he definitely knows what he's doing, so that makes us feel a bit better, too.. Oh, and the Bill for all of Aidan's Dental Work is estimated at $5700, since we don't have Insurance (Dwight's Self-Employed), so that's a big chunk of cash right at Christmas time. So right now I really, really appreciate your Support of my Website, since every little bit helps, right?? The best gift for me this Christmas is a healthy little boy, so that's what I'm hoping and praying for!

I'll let you know how Aidan is doing later in the week...and if you happen to be praying for a good Christmas, and if you would like to add in a wee prayer for Aidan's Safety, I would love that! It's very difficult as a parent to have to keep up the appearance of being normal when you just feel like shutting down and becoming a complete zombie, but that's not an option, so you just muster up all your strength and keep on going. And in the midst of all of that, I've been organizing and wrapping all our presents, which reminds me of my "eBay Story"...

I had a fair bit of Online Shopping to do for all our Friends and Relatives who live far away, (and of course I did all that online shopping from my Christmas Shoppng Page!), so inevitably I ended up on eBay. That was my first time actually buying something through eBay, and I learned a little lesson I thouhgt I'd pass along to you, since it's probably better if only one of us has to learn things the hard way, and this week it'll be my turn for that! ha,ha! So here's what happened -- you know when you're buying Online, you add things you are thinking about buying to your Cart (the 'Add to Cart' Button...)? Well, on eBay, the button says "Buy Now', so of course I immediately clicked that, but sadly enough, on eBay it doesn't mean"Buy Now?", it means "Buy Now!!", which ain't good for a gal like me who likes to mull things over and think about it a bit before I make a firm decision.

So now I am the not-so-proud owner of a Tea Set (it is cute...) that had a higher Shipping Cost than the entire Tea Set (I found that out later...) and a slightly used Pretty Pretty Princess Game, which I thought was brand new since it didn't say it was used, and it did say it was a 'Store'... whatever. Next time I will not push any buttons that actually mean what they say! I did have great luck at the Bombay Store, which is beautiful and has a great product line, and there was an amazing selection on Shop.com. If you are in the United States, Shop.com is a great option for you -- not so much for Canadians, though, since they provided shipping to Japan and pretty much everywhere else, but not to Canada, so that was frustrating. Most of the rest of my Shopping online was through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and two different Internet Florists. Oh, and Canadian Tire, since they always deliver in Canada, no problem at all!

Man, I haven't said a thing about all the great Shows that have been on, lately! I'm sooooo glad that 'The Donald' picked the right guy for the job (Kelly!) on The Apprentice -- I really couldn't stand that little Jenn after she hurt those poor wee dogs during the Dog Washing task ... plus, can you imagine having to work with a screaming nut all the time? Ugh. Can't stand that personality type, and when they happen to be the Boss, you really can't tell them to 'Shut up already...', or you would quickly end up with a Pink Slip with your name on it! ha,ha! And on The Amazing Race, I hate, hate, hate that stooopid jerk Jon, who is horrible to his wife Victoria. What a jerk! Good example, though, of what not to do in a relationship, and for girls to see that personality (and there are a lot of them out there...), so they can see that it doesn't get any better, and they never, ever see themselves in the wrong (they always view themselves as being the injured party, which is completely annoyink, so these folk are better left behind, preferably at a really smelly garbage dump, or maybe a dung heap, should you know where that sort of thing is!! ya'ha,ha!)

My other two favorite 'Night-time Shows' are The O.C. with the whole Chrismakah thing, which I love, and Desperate Housewives. Finally, a show about Girls gone Bad! ha,ha! We all really enjoy all the twists and turns in both of those Shows, and we really, really love the houses on The O.C. I'm working with someone from The O.C. 'group' to get their Ads on my Shopping Page since I want to buy their stuff for Cara, and we know all sorts of folks who love their cool Chrismakuh stuff, so I'll let you know when I hear back from them!

Okay, I better get back to wrapping! Thank God for the Gift-Wrapping Room! That seemed just a tad excessive for a while, but it's great during the holidays! I have all these piles of gifts all covered with pieces of material (from clothes I was going to sew, but never quite got around to it...), and I'm sloooowly getting everything wrapped up. And yesterday I found stuff that I must have bought a long time ago and had completely forgotten about, so now I need to figure out who to give the extra stuff to... ah, the Joys of Christmas!

Merry Christmas, if I don't get back in here to write before then, although I'll try my best to get in to let you know how our sweet little Aidan is doing!

I wish you all Health, Wealth & Happiness (not necessarily in that order!)! Ailsa xox

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Tuesday, December 7th, 2004. Yo, yo, yo -- What up with my Home-ies?? Man, sorry I was gone so very long -- I had no idea so much time has passed since I last wrote in here... Dwight and I were both sick, and at the very same time, which has never happened to us before. And at the end of all of that, we had to prepare for our giant Holiday Party, which was this past Sunday. Normally, we have well over a hundred people at the Holiday Party, and this year we anticipated over 150 people, but we had a big snowstorm in Calgary (we're out in the Country about 15 minutes outside of Calgary), so that made the roads icy and snowy, and the vast majority of our 'Calgary People' (the 'city folks'!) couldn't make it. We had just enough snow out here to make it really pretty -- perfect for a Holiday Party! Anyway, we ended up having about 60 people, which is a small party for us, and it turned out that you have waaay more time to talk to your Guests whenthere are fewer of them -- who knew??

I just saved some pictures from the Party, so I could show them to you. We had the Giving Tree, as always, and that worked out quite well. I put out great big baskets, which were quickly filled with all sorts of great toys and food from our Guests -- that's such a great thing to add to any Party! Actually, it was the Giving Tree that kept me going last week when I wasn't feeling up to getting ready for a party -- all the gifts that are brought by our Guests for our Local Charity were way more important then me not feeling all that well. It was probably good to have a 'higher cause' to keep me going like that! And last week I had completely lost my voice, so I made my way in to see a Doctor -- I never break down and actually seek medical care, because I am bound and determined to make my 'Natural Remedies' work. This thing I had was bigger than me, so I had to go get medicine for it.

I'm having a little snack of Crackers and Cheese, right now, and Tia -- sweet little Tia -- is sitting beside me waiting for her fair share! I break off a wee bit of the cheese for her to nibble (and by 'nibble', I mean 'devour'! ha,ha!) on while I'm working... and we have a massive amount of Cheese and Crackers left over from the party, so I'm thinking this'll be a regular snack for the next couple of weeks! As usual, I bought an abundance of food for the party, and since we had a much smaller number than anticipated, I have a whole lot of stuff left over -- including a case of Sody-Pop Wine we didn't even get to, and a lovely assortment of Wine (not Sody Pop Wine!) that some of our Guests brought -- enough for a whole other party! Must ask Dwight about that! (When he's better!)

Oh, and speaking of 'talking to Dwight' about something, I keep trying to bring the conversation back to the new piece of Land that I want to buy. Every time I drive past it (almost daily, lately...), I feel like we should own that Land... I can imagine living on it, building on it, driving up to it and being home, so that's how I know it's right for us. Now alls I gotta do is convince Dwight! ha,ha! Wish me luck on that one! And I decided not to bother drawing up the new House Design until I see (and Stand) on the New Land, wherever that will be..., since I need to see how the house should be situated on the Lot. You know -- to take advantage of the Mountain and City Views...and to plan it out so other houses could be built alongside it, should we ever be able to sub-divide the property (this is the new piece of Land I'm thinking about, now).

Ugh! I'm all out of time, again -- man, I really don't like this new schedule -- it doesn't leave me nearly enough time to 'chat'! Well, I have to go out for a minute, but I'll post the Giving Tree Party Pictures as soon as I get back, unless Dwight comes home early and he wants to talk -- maybe about Land! Ya'ha,ha!

You Know I Want the Best for You!! Love, Ailsa

Happy Hanukkah!!

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YaaHoo! Finally, enough time to get some new pictures on! Yippee! So that's Cara (my lovely 16 year old Daughter!) standing in the Kitchen right before the Party ... see all the 'Drink Stations'?? I set up Five Stations, typically -- Hot Apple Cider with Spiced Rum and Vanilla Rum (mixed all together makes a deeelicious 'Hot Apple Pie Drink!), Fruit Punch, Wine of all Sorts, Coffe with Baileys & Kahlua, and a big selection of 'Hard Liquor' with lots of Mix. Works out very well, because there's a little something to match every personality! (Or to 'Add a Personality', as Dwight says!) Then there's the Table with a lovely selection of tasty treats -- this year I moved all the chairs away from the Table, which made it easier to Serve the Food, and provided a good space for people to sit over by the windows.

And there's the 'Giving Tree'! It's a little bit dark, since I took the picture after the last Party Guests left -- can you see all the great gifts our Guests brought over for some Families in Need in our Community? Isn't that a great thing? I love it -- and we can really help out a lot of families this Holiday Season, which is wonderful. If you are planning a Party, please-oh-please consider adding a 'Giving Tree' to your 'Do' -- you'll all have fun and do something kind for others at the very same time!

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