A week of firsts

These past few days have been filled with a bunch of firsts. Let me run dow the list:

• I received my first mid-term phone call last week in which the coordinator said to me "What are you doing next week? Nothing, good. Wanna make some money? Yes, good!" What he meant was that there was an emergency opening that they needed me to fill. So I worked for one of my vacation weeks. (Don't feel bad for me; we can use the money!)
  
• Late last week I also, for the first time, burnt banana muffins. I'm very careful when it comes to overbaking things, preferring to leave them a little raw in the inside but this time I failed. Darren doesn't think they were actually burnt, but they were far to dark for my liking. Luckily for him, he got to eat them all!
• Saturday evening Alaina, Darren and I hung out with our friends Brad and Michelle and family (that includes you, Chrissy). While there we had the pleasure of watching, for the first time ever, a 5-year-old (or maybe 6?) sing Johnny Cash. I still have the song in my head! "And it burns, burns, burns...the wing of fire"
  
• The following day Darren and I attended our first Sunday afternoon wedding. It was kind of like a Saturday wedding, but people had to rush there from church. Oh, and it was over earlier because people had to work the next day. But we enjoyed ourselves!
  
• Tuesday's first was that for the first time Darren washed and I dried/put away the dishes. Usually the roles are reversed because I'm a faster washer, but it was nice to play the less signifcant role in the dish washing for a change.
  
• On Wednesday I got my first hair critique from a student. He said, "I think you should go to the salon and ask for a new hairstyle." To be honest, I've been thinking of getting a hair cut before the fall term starts, but I've never had a student be so blunt with me before.
• When I got home I found a letter from "CANADA" and discovered that for the first time I'm being audited. They asked for some specific documents which I thought I had in a folder in our filing cabinet. But when I looked, these receipts weren't there. After a bit of searching, I found the stuff so I can prove that I am, indeed, honest.
  
• I had my first technology-related freak out on Thursday. Darren showed me some photos of a transformer from the upcoming movie and it scared me nearly to death, or at least to shouting. You see, I have a fear which I can't exactly put my finger on but it includes things like swarms of black birds and piles of scrap metal. This transformer was disgusting! (To see these pictures you'll have to go to themovieblog.com because I refuse to post such trauma.)
  
• I have never been so happy to see a group of students graduate as I was this week. This first is the first ESL graduation-induced sense of relief.
  
• For the first time Friday afternoon I put on an episode of Crusade without my husband prompting me to. I don't know what has come over me...honestly.
• Last night Darren and I went to see Little Miss Sunshine and for the first time since I can remember, I laughed and cried in the same movie. And I'm not talking about a little smirky laugh, but a real, belly-holdin' guffaw. It was a funny movie!
• And finally, this morning I am cooking eggs, bacon and toast with the intention of eating them separately, perhaps for the first time in my entire life. My favourite breakfast is an egg, cheese, and bacon sandwich, but I think I'll change it up a little today.
  

That's it for my list of firsts, which doubles as an update on the Conley household. Oh! Except that at this moment Darren is downstairs doing the laundry by himself for the first time since we've been married. What a man!

Mental absense

We haven't been home much this week. That's not to say that Darren and I haven't spent a lot of time at our apartment, for we have. But in terms of mental whereabouts, we've been elsewhere. 3 places, to be specific:

1. Henderson Hospital - My aunt was recently diagnosed with brain cancer - we found out less than a month ago - and went downhill extremely quickly. Her current residence is the hospital and visiting her breaks my heart. It's really hard to think about anything else, knowing that my family is going through such a painful time.
   My father-in-law had been staying one floor down from my aunt since Tuesday, recovering from knee replacement surgery. He's now home and working really hard to do menial, but important, tasks like going to the bathroom.
   
2. A parallel universe - Darren has been doing extensive reading about time travel. This week has been filled with ongoing, in-depth research which will culminate in 4 extremely long posts on his blog. It's been challenging listening him speak so intently about things that I (1) don't really understand and (2) don't believe are possible.
3. Niagara College - The summer semseter ends this coming Friday following a week of exams. The past week has been one of finishing up the classwork and preparing for exams, which takes more focused attention than mid-semester lesson planning. At the same time I'm preparing my challenges to be given advanced standing in the Post Graduate TESL program so I can earn this certificate by doing only 25% of the coursework. I've found out that sometimes it's hard to justify knowlege.

So that's where these Conleys have been for the past week or so. Physically, everything's good here, but I'm mentally and emotionally tired. I can't wait to see what next week brings.

Family Picnic

In an attempt to help promote my friend and his photography and highligh some of the crazy I married into, I bring you the Conley family picnic:

The Lovely Lorraine

Not our frisbee :)

When Darren gets too hot, it must be time for a swim...


...in shark-infested water???

Monkey see...

Monkey do

Frisbee fun

Last week Darren and I decided that we should own a frisbee. So we headed to the mall to run a few errands, the most important of which was buying a frisbee.

I told him to park at the back of the mall because that's where the Dollar store is, to which Darren replied quite forcefully, "We can't buy a dollar store frisbee!" I still don't think there's that much difference between a cheap and an expensive plastic flying disc, but I assumed the role of unknowledgeable one and agreed to look at Sport Check. We were pleased to find a single frisbee, discounted for the end of the season.

I don't know if I had ever thrown a frisbee before last week. It's not that I was afraid or uninterested, but I simply have never had the chance. So when Darren and I immediately took our newly-purchased frisbee to the park behind our apartment to throw it around for a bit and I discovered that I didn't suck at it, I was pleasantly surprised and rightfully proud of myself. After a good half hour of throwing and chasing (I don't suck, but I'm not amazing either) we decided to call it quits for the afternoon.

Like most purchases, this one gives great moments of enjoyment, but they are infrequent. The frisbee has been sitting in our trunk from that afternoon on. To be fair, we did do some frisbee throwing at the Conley family picnic yesterday, but not OUR frisbee. It seemed redundant to go get ours when there were 3 perfectly good frisbees at hand.

Of these 3 frisbees, only one was of similar quality to ours. The other 2 may have cost more than $1, but not necessarily. Anyway, it interested me to discover that the preferred plastic disc was the orange, lighter, cheaper one.

Quite the man

So this morning I am sitting on the couch in the living room reading my friends' blogs -- gotta keep up to date! -- and a strange thing happens. Darren comes and joins me on the couch, book in hand, saying, "I just felt like reading the [etymological] dictionary."

Then he proceeds to tell me vital pieces of information like the words hole and hollow have the same root, the use of eye for hole of a needle is widespread, in Old English the only word for big/great was micel which has completely disappeared, the Middle English word for right (as in right hand) was swither which comes from the word strong and the word meagre is derrived from the word for long.

I'm going to have the smartest kids ever!

Ice cream, anyone?

When it's this hot, the only thing worth eating is ice cream.
Or should I say, someone else's ice cream?