I'm a horrible updater, I know. I don't really know who reads this journal anymore, since I'm so lax about it, but here are a few family pics anyway :-) Rich, me, the boy, the dog...a good life! These were taken in our new house, in our living-living room (as opposed to the den near the kitchen, which I still think of as a living room). My brother took these.

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And just for kicks, here is one of Riley and I at a baby shower, singing the "scream" part of the end of "Row row row your boat" ("If you see a crocodile, don't forget to scream")





In academic news: I'm about halfway through the dissertation, and I presented a paper at a conference in Toronto a few weeks ago (paid for by the conference people, yay!)

In dance news: Just finished teaching my fall class, and am having a joint student night tomorrow at a Greek restaurant. I will be wearing my absolutely gorgeously AWESOME Bella, which I just purchased used from Sandra (www.raks-sharki.com). Link here: http://www.raks-sharki.com/costumes/bella_black_silver.html I will never be able to afford another Bella, even a used one, so I am so happy that I have this one. I told Rich that this counts as my Christmas/anniversary/whatever gift. I bought him a painting last year, which was also a bit extravagant, so we're even and we will be cheap at Christmas from now on :-)

And now time for tea and bed because my mind is not focused on my work at the moment...

Rich and I are spending a few days in Victoria to visit friends and family (and so I can go to a two-day Bozenka workshop!) so I thought I'd do a very quick update.

I'm in the middle of my busiest semester ever - teaching dance, TAing an upper level course, writing my dissertation, and marking for Langara. Plus we still have our bible study group and our giant dog, and of course Riley! Riley has now started one day a week at a local family daycare with two other kids, and that has allowed me to do really focused work on the dissertation. I figure that I might as well pay for a bit of daycare while I'm still receiving my fellowship. I've decided that I WILL complete this dissertation before my funding runs out at the end of next year. But it's sooooo hard to focus and really think. Twice in the past couple weeks I've poured cereal into my tea, so you can imagine how difficult it is to get my brain in gear :-)

Riley and Rich are both my awesome boys, as usual. Riley doesn't say many actual words (mama, dada, giraffe, water), but he does lots of signs and lots of his own words. He's also very, very fast, and loves wrestling with us on the living room floor - it's one of our favourite family bonding times :-) Rich is a trooper - he works his 12 hour shifts, day or night, but always manages to help with the yard or with Riley or with cleaning or whatever. I'm very lucky to have him. It's been very busy unpacking the new house and figuring out everything.

Riley's asleep in his playpen in the bedroom (we got a one-bedroom suite at a very cheap hotel!) and we're watching the Police Women of Broward County and drinking wine. Ah, good times! I should really get some marking done.....

It's my 29th birthday today, and Rich and I celebrated at the Vault in Cloverdale, where I had rack of lamb and two amazing martinis. My parents stayed home with Riley. Again - my spologies for my bad updating practices.

I can't recall what my last posting was, but we are fully moved in to our new house now. We've ordered a dining room table and chairs from K&D Furniture Warehouse ($1000 less than anywhere else, thank you very much!), painted the living room, dining room and bathroom (paint job was new, but we just wanted some colour), and got a Great Pyrenees named Fergie. I'm starting my fifth year of grad school this week, and so I'll spend this semester continuing to write my dissertation and TAing for a medieval literature course. Rich, Riley, Fergie and I are enjoying the last moments of summer - Rich and I sit on lawn chairs outside and watch Riley and Fergie run around our little yard, digging in the garden, eating apples from the tree, and generally wreaking havoc. I found a used Little Tikes playhouse on SurreyReuses.com and Riley absolutely loves it - he constantly runs in and out, and he keeps his garden bucket inside. Fergie is excellent with him, and is such a sweetie - though she's had a tough time these past two weeks because she's recovering from being spayed and having her dew claws removed.

Once we find our stupid camera I will post house pics. In the meantime, here are photos from a visit with my parents (in Summerland and in our backyard here):

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Ha.....

Had to add this video to supplement my last entry -- it's Riley and Rich having a great time before Riley's bedtime :-)

I cannot believe how hot it's been here lately - I've been taking a cool bath every night, and Riley just runs around in his diaper (sometimes with the garden hose - he loves getting water in the face!). This afternoon, at 1:00 in the blazing heat, we saw the RCMP musical ride in Langley. Despite the heat, it was worth it. It was fantastic to see this legacy of Canadian policing; since I'm a horse person as well as a Mountie wife, it meant that much more. Riley loved watching the horses (he can make horse sounds, although he doesn't say the word) and he went on a pony ride afterwards.

Pics are under the cut below. This is about all I will update for now - we're in the midst of packing, getting ready to make our move to Ocean Park (10 minutes away) on August 5. Weee!!

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Wow, I've been a crappy updated. This summer has just flown by - I'm marking papers for Langara, I'm taught a bellydance class (which included having a student recital), we're prepping for moving to our new house next week, and I keep trying to work after Riley goes to bed. I should be getting more done on the dissertation; Riley goes to bed at 7 and sleeps until 7:30 the next morning, so technically I have loads of time, but somehow I get distracted by making dinner, cleaning something , or watching a movie with Rich. Not that I'm totally ignoring my work - I'm just needing chill-out time these days. It's especially hard to get work done when the weather is so bloody hot.

Speaking of the heat, Riley and I (and Rich, when he's not working) have been going to the water park and the ocean a lot :) The outdoor activity is fun for us, plus it also lets him burn off all his energy and so he's continuing to sleep well despite the heat. When I took him to the beach the other day the tide was all the way out and Riley ran (zigzagging) all the way through tidal pools and muddy sand to where the ocean actually started. He chased birds and fell flat on his face, getting completely filthy, and jumped in the tidal pools. Watching him running about with his little swim diaper on was the cutest thing ever :-)

I had some very good news the other week - the revisions I did on my Chaucer article got the thumbs up, so I am getting published in a major peer-reviewed journal! I spent 5 months revising, so this is tremendous news for me. Yay!!

Other good news is that Rich and I celebrated our 5th anniversary on July 3. We went for dinner at a funky restaurant that used to be a bank, then out for free swing dancing at the open bandshell at Douglas Park. Since we essentially got to know each other through the swing dancing scene in Victoria, going out dancing was the perfect event for our anniversary. We even got an anniversary swing circle, which is where everyone gathers in a circle around the couple (or the person, if it is a birthday circle) and then people step in and dance with you and you keep switching partners. We danced to "Dancing Cheek to Cheek" (Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong), which was our wedding song. Afterwards, we drove down to Marine Drive in White Rock and had specialty coffees and dessert on the open rooftop of the Boathouse, looking out onto the ocean. It was a perfect evening.

Anyway, I think that's about it. We are moving in one week (can't believe it) so I will definitely be updating from our new (detached!) house. No more strata!!!

It's been a strange and somewhat stressful week.

#1 source of stress: Riley grabbing my hair straightener (heated to 400 degrees) and NOT LETTING GO. He was shocked and crying and I had to pry his little hand off of it. I was so upset. I ran his fingers under cold water, then rushed him to the emergency room, where we waited for an hour with both of us crying and him vomiting until the doctor finally saw him. By then he had fallen asleep in my arms, poor little thing, and then when the doctor woke him he seemed fine. He wasn't in pain, even when the doctor prodded his burns. This caused some concern, because it can be an indicator of third degree burns and nerve damage. We had to wait for another hour for the pediatrician, who booked us in at BC Children's Hospital plastic surgery/burn unit for the next morning. Then the nurses bound up Riley's hand with some cream and gauze.

By the next day, when we unwrapped his hand at BC Children's, the burn had started to blister (thank goodness - it was just white and hard before). The doctor didn't think that it was deep enough for nerve damage, and thought that Riley's lack of sensitivity to the pain might just indicate that he has a high pain threshold. We will come back next week, and in the meantime his hand has to stay bandaged (with polysporin) all the time except when he has his bath. It looks like a wee little white boxing glove, and he is in as high spirits as ever.

#2 source of stress: showing the house, over and over again. It is SO HARD to keep a house clean when you have the fastest toddler in the world running around. However, we have been getting a lot of interest in it, which is good. In fact, we have accepted an offer (one of three made on the same day). Subjects won't be removed until next week, so we can't categorize it as "sold" yet. Having said that, it was $7,000 above the asking price, which was definitely a pleasant surprise. Now on to househunting!

In the midst of the Riley-burn/house-showing stuff I've been trying to keep up with my dissertation work. I finally completed the revision on my article for [Big Name Journal] and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they like the changes. I'm also trying to incorporate the stuff I learned during my trip to the Huntington Library a couple weeks ago into my dissertation chapter.

Stress #3: It's so hard to get work done. I was planning on doing some this morning, but then Rich got a call from Accounts Receivable at Bell (our cell phone company - both our cell phones are under an account that is under my name, so I was on the phone with him half the time) saying that he owed a bunch of money. After over two infuriating hours on the phone, we figured out that when Rich switched phones in March (because Bell lost his when they were supposed to repair it), rather than simply transferring his name/account to the new phone, Bell opened a new account without closing the old one. Then there was a phone number switch that confused things. So basically there are two phone numbers attached to his name or his account, and yet there is only one phone. But they are charging us for both numbers - so even though we have kept our phone accounts up to date (and didn't receive ANY notice whatsoever of an overdue account), they are still insisting that we pay all the money owing on this extra mystery account. We have to pay for two phones when Rich only has one. I cannot express my hatred of Canada's monopolized cell phone industry. They know that no one's gonna sue for a couple hundred bucks, so they just make you bend over and take it. Drives me up the wall.

But aside from Bell and burns, life is pretty good. Busy, but good. I'm teaching my bellydance course again this summer and enjoying the warm weather. Ahhh --- felt good to vent all of that! Now back to work...

Riley is currently very into sitting at the kitchen table on the adult chairs - he can't really pull himself up there on his own, but he finds me, does the "Help" sign, and points to the table. Then he just sits there.

Right now he's looking at my Victoria's Secret catalogue (a little early for that, but oh well) and he's pointing to the women in the pictures who have hair like me and saying "Mama!" So now I can tell people I've been mistaken for a Victoria's Secret model :-)

I was searching on Youtube for horse videos (Riley likes to watch them and I admit, I sometimes use them to get him to eat his dinner). I was going to type "horses playing" in the search field, but after I typed "horses" a bunch of other searches came up - all the "horse" combos that Youtube users search for. Guess what the first one on the list was? "Horses mating with humans." WTF? Who searches for that on Youtube? I'm sure there are twisted websites that cater to that sort of f-ed up stuff, but Youtube?? I was unimpressed.

Riley has had a couple late nights over the past few days, but he's been behaving very well. On Friday night my sister had a birthday dinner with her friends at the Old Spaghetti Factory in Gastown (45 min-1 hr away) and Riley and I joined them. Despite the fact that Riley is usually in bed asleep by 7, he managed the trip down and a dinner that lasted until almost 9 with great equanimity. He gave the waitress high fives every time she came by, and he grinned and laughed at everyone - he was generally being a little charmer :) Then last night we went to my sister's husband's parents' place for another birthday dinner, and Riley had a fantastic time running around their yard chasing their lab and emptying their clothespins container.

Today we are continuing to move things into our storage unit in preparation for listing our townhouse. We are planning to move into a place with one more bedroom - probably in this same area though. Prepping to show the house while taking care of Riley results in some very busy days. I'm also getting ready for my trip to LA on Saturday - five days without Rich and Riley (sniff sniff), going to a Piers Plowman workshop and seeing some manuscripts at the Huntington Library.

And now I'm going to try to squeeze in a bit of work while Rich reads "Pancakes for Breakfast" to Riley :-)