hip hip hooorrrrayyyy!

hip hip hooorayyyyyy! we're in latvia!!!

we had a few excruciatingly busy days just before our departure. even though i had good friends helping me out with babysitting a couple of afternoons, i found myself running out of time constantly. then, kaspar got sick two days before we were scheduled to leave. it was so stressful! i was so worried about the flight, about his well being, about myself keeping my sanity. uh! however, after a good day of chamomile tea and a whole lot of people sending good thoughts and prayers our way, his fever broke and he was fine on the day of the flight.

we left for the airport shortly after 3pm, even though our flight was scheduled to leave at 6pm. that was me trying to be super organized! good thing, too, because shortly after arriving at the airport i realized that i had left my sling (baby carrier) at home. we don’t leave the house without that contraption! i could not imagine spending the next two months without it. i contemplated taking a taxi back to the house (for a short moment), but decided to call my saving grace, my favourite neighbour, someone who really should be awarded the title of a ‘fairy god mother’, because she always saves me in situations of distress and is always there for me – astride. and she saved us again!!! so finally, at 6pm, after approximately 24 hours of no sleep we boarded the plane and took our seats. the flight was smooth. kaspar was more then happy flirting with the flight staff, sitting in my lap and doing laps up and down the isles on his hands and knees. he slept for a couple of hours, maybe three in total. however, i could not sleep, partially because i was afraid i might let go of him, partially because the flight had some turbulence and maybe also due to over exhaustion. But I managed to relax a bit and keep my eyes shut for a while. in frankfurt we had a short layover, however, for a couple of overtired little travelers the two hours seemed to last forever. kaspar was on his second wind. he wanted to move and crawl, but the floors were so disgusting that i had to keep him on the seats. they were long, bench like seats, so i could let him crawl a bit, if i kept close supervision. his energy lasted for about an our and then he just became tired. thank god we had the sling. about 15 minutes before our flight to riga began boarding he fell asleep in my arms and stayed totally passed out until we landed in the riga airport. i was thrilled to get a short hour of shut eye in during the second flight! the seats were narrow and small and i was able to prop pillows and bags around us, so that i was sure he was not going to slip out of my arms, even if i did fall asleep.

when we finally landed and got through the passport control and got our luggage, i was so glad to be done with the flight, so glad to be in riga, that the rest of the airport antics did not even phase me. you see, we had arrived on the same plane as the slovak hockey team for the world championships. so, there were men in beaver suits, a whole orchestra dressed in red suits playing a march of some sorts and a few young girls doing something that reminded me of really bad cheerleading moves or really strange dancing. besides that there was press, of course, with cameras and without, and a lot of people and fans. my mom kept asking if we should take a picture of kaspar with the beaver in the hockey shirt, but in all honesty - i was too tired to care. so, we went home instead! the first night, for the very first time in his life, kaspar slept from 8:30pm until 11:15 am the next day. that was definitely a first!

the picture in this post is on of us taken at terminal one in toronto just before checking in for our flight. terminal one is awesome! it does not even look like a toronto airport! so sleek and new... yikes. the image is not loading. why. why. why? i hate tech problems! tought luck. no picture this time...

pics

i’m thinking …. pictures. this blog is going to be a photo blog. i just don’t have the time to recall everything i wanted to write about, and so much time has passed that to be honest i don’t even remember what i wanted to write. time has been escaping me lately. only a few more days left here in toronto and then we leave for latvia. we’re (me and kaspar) going to be gone for nearly two months. i promise to keep you posted from latvia!

the weather has been marvelous (or should i say "was marvelous") for almost a week here. warm, gorgeous, sunny spring days. my mother (despite her busy work schedule, before leaving) spent several days tending to our garden, making it absolutely stunning, while I spent time in the studio and hung out with kaspar. but steve got a bit of his share, too, while he was home for a few days. here they are in front of the garage soaking up he warmth.

easter sunday we had a short visit with oma and kaspar’s couzins. here is a good little shot of kaspar and his cousin carter. carter is about a month younger then kaspar. what a difference a month makes at this age. wow! by the time they’re 12, no one will suspect an age difference. it’s great to have cousins the same age. i have a cousin, who’s eight months younger, but we always felt like we were a team, especially when we were younger. supposedly i bit her in the toe, when i first met her as a baby.... :-)


the view from the other side... this one is us peaking over the fence at our neighbours yard. but as you all know, nothing is one sided. she's got special access! look at this gate. kaspar is taking a run for it... can you blame him? chased by the camera. as though he was camera shy or something.

hope to post more tomorrow. tonight is just one of those nights, when too much excitment keeps us all awake!

another week

i don't know about this thing called time... it's deceiving. it's just never what you think. it always passes either too fast, or too slow. there is either not enough of it (that's me!) or you're bored, because there is too much of it (for some people, i hear!) well, i just wanted to warn you - time is not on my trusted list!

do we have news? oh, do we ever! let's see... kaspar's fifth tooth is out; grandma is home from the hospital; oma has had her operation and is doing well; kaspar has a brand new cousin; i am a whole year older; we finally have hard copies of our tickets to latvia; my cousin's youngest is sick - so easter plans have fallen through; steve is home for two weeks; steve's european tour schedule has been confirmed; i've made a few jewellery deadlines and also missed a few; kaspar has figured out the 'i demand' command; spring is here; our garden is blooming, including the 'ieva' tree; i've joined a gym (well, for two weeks, 'cuz it was free (does that count? maybe not. but i did...); an old high school friend is coming for a visit; oh... i could go on, but i'm bored. list are sort of boring!

now, let's elaborate: yeah - kaspar has sprouted another tooth. it kind of just appeared one morning. even though, i think i should have seen it coming. he did spend two days with one hand always in the mouth, as though searching for something. the tooth's on the top, on the right side of the two front teeth. i'll miss his honest and funny little beaver face - the two front top and bottom teeth. it's a cute look. c'est la vie!

grandma and oma are both recovering miraculously well, i'm proud to report. oma had her lumpectomy and is doing very well and the news from the doctors are promising. we keep holding our thumbs for both of them!

i'm thrilled to report that my brother and his wife just had their baby. it's a boy. well, we already knew it was going to be a boy, but we're thrilled anyway! his name is patrik. he's still in the hospital in kuldiga with his mom, but everyone else is celebrating! he's incredibly cute, 58 cm tall and over 4 kg at birth. congratulations guys! i cannot wait to meet him. ants in my pants :-) here is a beautiful picture of patrik at the hospital.

oh yeah, yesterday was my birthday. you're probably thinking 'happy birthday' or 'oh, i missed it'. well, thanks for the happy birthdays, if you're thinking it. and don't worry, if you forgot. i forget everyone's birthdays all the time. in fact, i'm the queen of forgetting birthdays! i should have one of those programs that email you a reminder five times before each birthday. i had a great day. ran a bunch of errands, like getting kaspar's passport renewed, which took two hours at the passport office. absolute disaster - that office! it's funny, he's only had a passport for a couple of months and it's already expired. we got him a passport before he had a birth certificate, so, it was good only for a few months. and i saw my best/oldest friend for lunch, which was awesome. sometimes it's just really good to touch base with old friends. and i got some take out sushi for dinner and went to bed early. slightly uneventful, but a nice day! i'm thankful for it.

where was i on this list? tickets to latvia. yeah. kaspar and i are going to latvia for a couple of months. we leave in a couple of weeks and we will be there until the end of june. i cannot wait to see my whole family and friends, have kaspar meet his 'opits' (my dad) and just take time out before having to return to work on july 1st. looking forward to it! steve's hoping to join us for a few days, after his european tour is over. i think he confirmed his tickets today. hip, hip hooray!

our elaborate easter plans have fallen apart. we had hoped that my cousin, with his wife and two kids might com up from the sates, but the youngest is sick. they’re staying home partly because they don’t want to introduce kaspar to a fancy thing called the stomach flu. that must be a nasty thing for young kids!

i started writing this last night, but never posted it. ooops. here is a fresh morning and i’m posting last night’s blog. more to follow on the rest of the subjects on the list, not yet discussed. :-)

some days...

oooohhhh, did i ever get a slap on the fingers with that last comment.... for those of you not fluent in the latvian language, i was just told that if i've started a 'blog' then i'm also responsible for updating it. uh! the balls of some people. :-)

well. we've had a week of insane news. and it's kind of thrown me off kilter. it started with us finding out that oma (one of kaspar's grandmothers) has cancer. she's an amazing woman, who, just a short two years ago went through some very rough time, losing her husband (steve's father) to lung cancer. i was so saddened by the news! but i'm praying that this will be in no way similar case. she's scheduled for surgery on my birthday and i'm hoping for a birthday present - news that the entire lump is removed and it has not metastasized. just recently, in a special on cbc television i heard that the statistics today are - 1 out of every 3 people in north america will be diagnosed with cancer some time in their life. yikes!

a mere 12 hours after the news about oma, we found out that grandma (grandma lives on the west coast!) had broken her leg, been rescued by a helicopter and was in hospital awaiting surgery. shocking! that was two grandmothers with bad news in one day. and a friend of mine emailed me to say that bad things come in threes. the guts! i refused to believe it, and thank god grandmother #3 is doing just fine. no problems to report there! now, grandma's was a story i could have devoted an entire blog entry to. or maybe grandpa should start his own blog!?! their story was like something out of a james bond movie. but grandma has been pinned, plated and screwed back together and now is at home, resting and healing. we wish her a full and fast recovery!

the third sad event followed just this past week-end. and it in no way compares with the above two. elliott brood did not get the juno. sorry guys! but, that was enough bad news for me for one week. enough things to worry about. uh. and it's not over yet! i'll keep you posted, if you promise to keep all our grans and omas out there in your prayers...

on a happier note i can give you a rockin' update on kaspar. he's finally over all his fevers and ills and is doing grand! he's discovered that he can stand up on his own pretty much anywhere, where there is something to hold on to (the picture is him cruising the couch!). that includes mom's pants, from behind, while she's doing dishes. that's a funny one! especially, since i cannot turn around without making him fall and he holds on for his dear life so that i have no chance of turning around... it's a site that has to be experienced first hand. the whole standing thing has also given him a few red bumps on his otherwise perfect forehead, which he has begun to abuse regularly. lately, he's become more and more daring, at times jumping off the bed head first, or crawling into the wall head first. he usually thinks that it's very funny, until it starts to hurt a bit more then he had expected. and then we have one of those big huge grand wails...

about two weeks ago kaspar graduated to taking baths on his own. he finally learned to sit still, so that i was not afraid to sit him in the tub on his own. it took him a while to realize that the tub is slippery and constant movement does not make for safe bath time. we had a couple of 'face under the water' moments, which, to my surprise did not phase him at all. but now, he's the king of the tub! he loves it. it's hard for me to take him out. as soon as he notices the towel in my lap, he just turns his whole body away from me and pretends i'm not there. some times there is crying, kicking, screaming... well, you get the picture. but i can hardly have him sitting there turning into a prune, can i ???

a rapid learning curve

oh boy. what a rapid learning curve this kid has! it seems like it's only been a few days since he began crawling fast enough to get around, yet, today he's already pulling himself up to a standing position. his legs are still oh so very wobbly, but he loves to stand. and as long as there is something to hold on to nearby, he'll be standing. before i know it, he'll have the kitchen drawers and shelves figured out. argghhhh! he's now got the 'getting out of bed safely' down packed, but this morning he took the first five steps towards what we like to call 'cruising the furniture'. yeah! he got off the couch, all by himself just fine, and then moved sideways along the couch, towards his rabbit toy, (just like this frog, but imagine it being a rabbit) a good five or six steps. it's the rabbit. i blame the rabbit! years ago.... well, it was probably two years ago, i was visiting a friend in montreal and we found a shop in china town that sells the old metal 'wind up toys'. the sorts of wind up toys, like i used to have when i was a kid. i used to have a chicken that pecked and jumped. i bought a rabbit, that jumps and moves forward, when wound up. kaspar loves the rabbit. it's the toy that taught him to speed crawl. he liked it so much, that all i had to do, was wind up the rabbit and place it on the ground in the opposite corner of the room and kaspar was there in less then a minute. it was a good game to play just before bed time :-)

i lost my train of thought. a furnace repair man just called. he's coming over to take a look at the furnace. it was just replaced a month before we moved in, but our landlord is on top of it and wants to get a maintenance check in before the summer. wow. totally on top of it. i'm impressed.

it does seem like we're getting summer very soon. today i was out in a sweater. we went for a walk for about an hour and forty minutes. it was warm. i think the thermometer was at +14 in the shade. it must have been a few degrees warmer in the sun, because i definitely did not need a jacket! the crocuses are out in full bloom. and there are two hyacinths poking their heads out, about to bloom in the front of the house. what a nice surprise! we'll have tulips, too, but later. and kaspar is thrilled about the change in weather, too. for the third day, he's been sitting in the stroller and pulling his hat off constantly. in fact, we lost one of our favourite hats just yesterday, or the day before! he pulls it off, and just as i turn my head it gets tossed off to the side, somewhere... be it bushes or the traffic.... he does not care. just the act of pulling it off and tossing it seems to be good enough for him :-)

speaking of mischief. today goes down in history as kaspar's first temper tantrum! my mom laughed at me, when i told her about it. she insists, that i was absolutely unreasonable with my temper tantrums as a young child! apparently, as the story goes... one day, as i'm down on the floor, feet kicking, screaming on top of my lungs, my grandmother (may she rest in peace!) goes out into the yard, grabs a stinging nettle and spanks me on the back of my bare legs. that cured it! i never fell to the ground screaming ever again. i'm hoping we won't let kaspar get to that point. yikes. today, he simply wanted to go out. and made the mistake of opening the door (leaving he screen closed) and telling him - yes, we'll go outside! we'll go for a walk! we just have to get dressed first. the 'dressed part' did it. he did not want to go and get dressed. he did not care that mommy still had a bed head. he did not care that he had no pants on. he wanted to go outside. and that was that! so, i had my child kicking and screaming and pounding the floor until he hit his head on the floor, too, and then there were more tears and louder screaming and more pounding. and i was the bad guy. i tried picking him up, but had no luck. he was screaming and kicking his belly up and ooooohhh.h.h.h. it was hard! harder on me, i think. but i'm sure he would beg to differ.

here is a good picture for his current height. yes, the top of his head is higher then the kitchen table! and here is his mr. rabbit... always reaching for it!

mozy

did i mention this allready in my last blog? kaspar's now really crawling. no, i tink i forgot to... well, here it is! he's not just slowly crossing the room, when necessary. he's not dragging himself and complaining all the way. he's chasing after me, when i go to the kitchen. he's crawling down the hall and following me in to the bathroom. he's even learned how to slip off the bed safely with feet first, just so that he can follow me, when i leave the room. if i do manage to slip out unnoticed, before i know it, there is his sweet little face poking around the corner in the doorway. he's very funny, a bit like a puppy, following me everywhere. if he finds himself in the room alone, he crawls out into the hallway and then freezes and listens intently... where might she be? and god forbid, i have gone upstairs. i immediately hear about it! otherwise, he'll just mozy on over to the destination of choice... be it kitchen, livinroom or office or even the bathroom. the bathroom door has to stay slightly ajar. i learned it the hard way. when the door is closed, you can end up in a situation, where kaspar is having a fit behind the door, and the only way to reach him is to crush him with the door opening in his face. yeah. he doesn't get the 'back away for a moment' concept yet :-)

music

i've just spent the last hour watching video clips from this google site. some of the stuff out there is absolutely hilarious. a friend of mine sent me the link and a few selected clips and i've been hooked. 'look around you' series (you can do a search) is pretty good. but consider yourself warned - it might just eat up hours of your precious time :-) i needed a little 'pick me up' tonight, when kaspar went to bed, so... i spent an hour here and ended up in tears. i mean laughing to tears!

it's been a weird day. last night i slept like a log. i'm assuming that my son did, too! we slept in until 9 am. that hardly ever happens! and the rest of the day had it's ups and downs. but in general, kaspar's doing better. we've conquered the fever and found out from our family doctor that his blood test came back allright. we've got this illness by it's horns, so to speak.

however, he had this strange episode of crying for almost an hour at about 6pm. i'm beginning to wonder, if that's just his way of making sure i stay at home. :-) yeah, i had planned to go out for the night. my mom was ready to babysit. and then kaspar woke up and just cried. and grandma said - oh no, he must still be sick. and i tried everything imaginable. and nothing helped. and i gave up on going out. and five minutes later he found the button on the back of the rocking chair and all his worries disappeared into thin air. and we spent the next two hours crawling on the floor. he was crawling under things and i was franticly trying to get there just ahead of him with my wet cloth in hand, making sure that all the dust bunnies are out of his way. he made it all the way under his crib and back out!

but, i'm exhausted from the excitement of the night. i think this was the first time he has crawled as much or as fast. i still have to finish a piece for a client before i can call it a night, so, keeping the blog short. here is a five or four day old picture of him, looking miserable....

sick & tired

oh. i’m tired. so very very tired. last night sleep was a deficit. kaspar slept, but barely. kept waking every half hour or just tossing and turning. i didn’t sleep much at all. between the times, when i was holding him and the times, when i was trying to make sure he does not wake up, i might have had a few minutes of shut eye. finally at 6am my mom gave me a break and i slept for an hour. bless her soul, i don’t know what i would do without her!!!

yeah, he’s still sick. we finally went to see a doctor (just our luck, that our doctor was away this week) at the ‘just for kids clinic’ on monday. he appeared to be healthy, said the doctor, but due to the prolonged fever made us take some tests. oh. it’s absolutely grueling having to hold your screaming child while his blood is being taken from the tiny arm. and the vein is so very small, that it makes you wonder how the nurse can even see it. and the needle going into the arm so big. oh man! he was hot and sweaty from screaming and i was too, just from listening him scream. i had a massive headache afterwards, too. and kaspar developed a runny nose and a cough. I don’t think it was the needle. not the heat. i’m blaming it on all the other sick kids in close proximity. germs, germs, germs!!!

the clinic had a small-ish sized waiting room with a large structure in the middle of the room, like a small play house. the room was packed full of sick children and their distraught parents and the temperature in the room was a good 5-6 degrees above 20+ celsius. yeah! imagine… it was like florida on a hot spring day! and all the kids were dressed for winter, hot and miserable and sick. we had to wait for our turn to see the doctor for about an hour and a half. it was pretty bad. i took kaspar out into the hallway for most of the time, because it was a little cooler there and less intense. the kids, who were old enough to be crawling, were on the floor of the waiting room on all fours. do you have any idea how much dirt a sweaty palm can pick up? or the knees of a white sleeper? boy, oh boy…. were those floors dirty. one of the kids, wearing a pale blue sleeper was gray in minutes! no, i’m not exaggerating. he was so dirty that one might wonder if he had been living in the same sleeper for months. it all happened right in front of my eyes. crazy!

these days i really admire women that bring up two, three, four kids on their own (or mostly on their own). there was this one mother at the clinic, waiting. she was probably my age. pregnant – probably at least six months. she had a year old and a three year old with her. apparently there was another older girl at home and then the one she was expecting. and she handled it just fine. i was so impressed with her ability to cope and handle the kids and the heat and everything. it was amazing. no, forgive me. SHE was amazing!

anyhow… i could talk about the four hour long hospital experience for another day or two, but i’ll spare you. I do have to say one more thing, though. the doctor was awesome. thorough. nice. intelligent. listened. asked questions. absolutely great!

but, speaking of doctors. do any of you have a good family doctor, who still accepts new patients? or maybe you can beg, plead, coerce, threaten or pay off your nice family doctor to accept two more very nice patients  we’re losing our family doctor. she’s going back to school and closing her practice. i’m devastated. i had heard that getting a new doctor can be very hard, but i had never imagined that it might be this hard. i have been cold calling many of the doctors in our neighbourhood (wider neighbourhood – all the way to spadina and bloor!) with no luck at all. there is simply one answer: we’re not accepting new patients! misery oh misery. i want a family doctor! i don’t want to go to the hospital every time kaspar is sick. help…

what else have we got on the go at this household? i’ve finally done taxes. not only taxes for myself, but for steve too. and not only for this year, but for 2004, as well. yeah. the pregnancy really threw us off last year. we never did taxes for 2004. yikes! i feel like i’ve just moved a mountain and i want someone to give me a pat on the back for the job well done. i don’t think most of you understand the undertaking of having to do taxes for steve. the man piles all his bills in a box for the whole year (this time for two years), without any rhyme or reason and then come tax season, he has to go through them all, record them, count them and file them accordingly. it’s nuts! it took me about 18 hours to get it all organized. after two years in a box (and i’m sure before the box, it must have been at least a week in a wallet in the back pocket of the pants!) some bills become unreadable! the ink simply is not meant to last the torture  but, i’m proud to say, i’ve organized a file for future tax dealings for steve. i just hope he’ll use it. or i’ll have to start charging him accounting fees. hi, hi, hi!

oh boy. i’ve done quite the rant today. must be the lack of sleep. anyone looking for an apartment or a station wagon? our basement neighbour is moving out. just found out last night. and we’re trying to get rid of our old car. probably both, in fact. but that’s a story for another day. i think i will go for a nap now.

the little things

whenever i open up my last entry, i'm always surprised - has it really been five days since i wrote? maybe i'm missing an entry. maybe i deleted it by mistake. maybe someone infiltrated the blog and stole my last post... oh. time. time. time. the days pass so quickly. i was going to write on monday. but i had to set up and resp for kaspar. and that was no simple task. well. maybe i'm exaggerating just a little. but, i did have to do some research and organize the whole thing and read a bunch of forms and fill out a stack of applications and make a few appointments. did you know that the canadian government adds 20% to whatever we save for kaspar every year? not bad! free $$$. well. maybe free is not really the right word. i assume that the canadian government expects this cash to go back into the school system by the time kaspar is 18 or so. and if by some fluke it does not, then the government will tax me up to 60% of whatever we decide to take out for other reasons. all these rules and regulations. who can figure it all out. i just hope this kid of ours will want to go to school, when he's 18 :-)

on tuesday i was going to write, but i procrastinated for a while. my christmas cactuses... ( by the way, i'm planning to officially apply for a change of name for this species for plants! my cacti have been blooming non stop from november of 2005 until now. it's hardly fair calling them christmas cacti!) well, i noticed that all the fallen blossoms were starting to look like a mess on the shelf in the window. i began cleaning up and giving all the plants a little shower time and some extra soaking. then i had to bleach some spots on the shelf, because the red blossoms actually have some strong dyes in them and by the time i had that task finished, kaspar came down with a fever of 40.4 degrees celsius.
go figure! it must be teething, because otherwise he seems to be healthy, even our doctor could find nothing wrong with him. but due to the high fever he had his first taste of real medicine, which knocked the 40.4 down to 36.1 within about half hour. he went from hot and red to very wet, cool and pale. i could finally put him down, out of my arms, onto the bed... and we both slept long and hard.

wednesday i tortured kaspar by keeping him indoors. after such a high fever, i thought, i'd better be safe then sorry. but every time he'd hear the door bell he'd start calling out and waving his little hand in the air. it seems as though the waving of 'bye, bye' has become a sign for 'going outside' for him. it makes sense in away. we usually wave 'bye, bye' to dad, when he goes outside... so, why would it not mean 'going out'? then, the post man came with a package. i had to sign for it. kaspar practically jumped into the postman's arms. he wanted to go outside so much that he was willing to give himself over to a complete stranger and was thoroughly disappointed, when i locked the door behind him and we stayed on this side of the glass. but i did make up for the indoor time with a whole day out of the house yesterday. we left at about 10am and only returned at 4pm. kaspar was thrilled! exhausted, but thrilled...

spectacular

oh. today was a spectacular day! the sun was spilling over. the air was brimming with spring. the dogs and kids and parents and birds were out chirping and chatting and laughing and strolling. the funeral home barometer was reading +20 at times, but never went below +16. we went walking, too, and walk we did... until kaspar began to look drunk with sleep. he began by rubbing his eyes, then leaning further and further back, once in a while trying to straighten himself, as though to say "i'm not falling asleep, no i'm not!" and finally after a half hour fight he passed out in the stroller. this is a very rare sight! these days he likes to watch the world go by. he doesn't really sleep in the stroller anymore. but we spent a long time out and about and finally bloor street did him in. he was so tired that he fell sleep clutching a toy and i took him from the stroller to the bed (in the back door, up the stairs..) he never woke up and never let the toy go. an hour later he woke up still holding on to his toy. amazing!

his top front teeth are growing by the day! they're coming in so fast and so big. frightening, really! he still won't let me touch them, so a picture will come, when he begins to show them voluntarily to the world. today was finally a day when he was acting somewhat normal. yesterday was one of those days, when he slept more then he was awake. the day before that, he did not allow me to put him down for more then a minute at a time. and on friday he would cry whenever anything touched his mouth (which meant, he did not really eat anything else except breast milk, and was cranky from hunger!) i cannot wait until this teething period is over. at least he does not drool as much, anymore. i don't have to change outfits every couple of hours. :-)

today has been one of those days that makes one feel extremely positive. the weather. people. lots of love in the air. and i keep thinking about something i experienced a few days ago, too. something that moved me to tears, really. a friend of mine called. she had found out about the juno nomination, about the ticket prices being expensive and offered me (out of the blue!) 300$ (to have - not to borrow!), so that i could go to the juno's if i wanted to. it moved me to tears. yeah, i hung up the phone and i cried. not because of the money. i did not really want it or need it. not because of the idea that i could go. because i don't really care about going or not. but, just that she thought about me, and felt for me on that level... and because she's not even close to being rich. and she's not my best or oldest friend. she made me feel so extremely blessed that i have friends like her, that there are people out there in the world, who are willing to share their last penny with their friends. we live such busy lives that so often we forget to think about others on a deeper level... we live considerably well and yet we rarely see the need to share our wealth with others... she made me see it!