Amanda Pietersma

Just a quick note to indicate that we do indeed have a big birthday bash coming up on June 20th!    Celebrating birthdays are William (11), Eleanor (39) and David and James (2).  We are also going to chuck in a special deal and celebrate Father’s Day as well for Harry and Alan.

For those that are able to come, we will be having a BBQ somewhere between 5 and 6pm.  We are planning on erecting a slide structure thingy for the twins that day, so anyone that wants to come early and help out is more than welcome.  Greg plans to have a chunk of it ready to go, so it will just be assembling the thing.  Let us know if you plan to come early!

Suggestions for presents for the boys are as follows:

There are 2 donation funds set up for both William and the twins that are located on this blog site.  The top ‘DONATE’ button is to donate to Williams piano fund.   He has decided to go the conservatory route and needs to upgrade his piano.  While we don’t expect to have this ready for the party (as it will likely take a bit to actually save up for it) William is quite aware of what is going on and is cool with the idea of people pitching in.  If however, you already have something or mind that’s great, or here are some different ideas:

itunes gift cards, xbox gift cards, clothes.

The twins also have a donation fund set up for their play structure which is also located on this blog site - the bottom ‘DONATE’ button.  We are adding on to the current swing set so if you’d like to contribute to this, they would be tickled pink.  They have just learned the fine art of climbing fences, clambering up on to the change table and the like, so this should give them something that they can actually climb without being squawked at!  And, they get to fling themselves down a slide once they’ve got to the top.   Yay!  Again, if you already have something in mind that’s great or here are some different ideas:

PJ’s, sturdy trucks etc for the sandbox, engines for their Thomas The Tank Engine wooden train set or additional buildings.  They do have some engines and buildings so give me a shout first before buying anything if you go this route

So far I think that it’s just Philip and Cynara that are tied up with another event on this day, and Selam who has to work, but otherwise we should have a full house.  Here’s hoping that by then we have some finer and warmer weather!

If you have any questions about anything, please let Greg or me know!

xoxoxo

Today, I was subjected to extreme heat, a working over on my neck and having my feet dunked in paraffin.   It sounds like a rather unique torture method doesn’t it?

My lovely in-laws, being the charming and thoughtful creatures that they are, decided as a Christmas present to give me a gift certificate for a slew of pampered delights at an establishment in Morrisburg.  Now one may sniff at the use of the word ‘Morrisburg’ but it does actually house the odd business worth mentioning….I think there’s a nifty law office in town if I remember correctly….

At any rate, said in-laws also offered to take the wee sprogs whilst the pampering took place so that I could really enjoy the experience.  It’s hard to match the words ‘pampering’ and ‘twins’ together you see.  Well, being the opportunist that I am I of course said yes!  Just like that.  Yes!

Trying to get a date organised was another matter.  Both the fair and lovely Eleanor and I are working gals and both of us also have a bit of a life outside of work.  Nevertheless we penciled in a date and lo and behold if the day didn’t creep up on me.  Undaunted by the fact that we were supposed to be battling the elements - ice rain be damned! - I drove off with the twins and half of their belongings, they contentedly burbling away in the back seat.

Once at my fair in-laws, I unloaded the car in 3 trips and was so worn out I had to sit down for a spell.  Well, not really.  I did unload the car in 3 trips but then hung around just to make sure that everyone settled in nicely.   C’mon!  I’m not that out of shape!  I was then off to Morrisburg with Santogold (thanks Eric!) screaming in my ears.

Well, what can I say?  I was greeted warmly when I got there and made to feel relaxed as soon as I kicked off my shoes.  At this point I thought to myself “hey ho!  I think I might move in!”.  I answered a few questions so as to relieve them of any misconception that I might pop off during one of the treatments and was lead to the sauna room.

Now, the last time I had a sauna experience, it was with drink in hand, steam in eyes and an ungodly amount of sweat dripping off me.  It was not pretty and as I was dehydrating myself instead of hydrating myself, probably not the smartest adventure.   Sauna’s have changed a bit and this one was an infrared type.  No steam but still the heat and a bucket load of sweat.  I sat in my cubicle with soothing tunes in my ears and picked orange lights to beam down on me.  Depending upon what you want to deal with - hormone problems?  sleep disorders?  headaches? - you could pick a light colour to help.  Orange is a lively colour and dammit, I just wanted to feel lively and cheery at the end of it all.  After half an hour I was hot, sweaty, relaxed and yet feeling high-spirited.  (I have since decided that I want to own one of these once I win the lottery.)  I was told to have a shower and to slip into the provided bathrobe and then off to Door #2.

To be honest, I have had a couple of massages before; both since the twins have arrived oddly enough.  Both have been fine and by that I mean that it felt nice at the time but beyond that there was no life-altering experience to be had.  This time however, it was different.  I don’t know what the hell she did, but I got up off of the table at the end, a changed woman.   My neck felt amazing.  My shoulder felt amazing.  I wondered where the 45 minutes had gone to.  I am still - as I write this - feeling amazingly un-stiff…de-stiffed?  Sans le stiff?  Whatever she did, the woman is a marvel!  (I have since decided that I want to own one of these once I win the lottery.)  She told me to get up at my leisure (I wish I heard THAT more often at home!) and to head to the next room.

Behind Door #3 lay a container of hot paraffin and a woman offering me champagne and chocolates.  Holy fall-in-love Batman…..did somebody say CHOCOLATES?  What ho!  I had my feet wrapped in hot paraffin paraphernalia  and my hands full of drink and chocolate and I think that she could tell  I was really feeling very cheerful by this point because I’m pretty sure  that I was welling up with tears of joy.

I was by this point understandably smitten with what had just happened and extremely thankful that I look like someone who needs a relaxing, pampering experience.  After pulling myself together,  I bade farewell to the ladies and headed back to retrieve the twins, feeling very content.  My lovely in-laws made a fine choice of a gift; extremely thoughtful and totally terrific.  I think they might have got the idea that this was the case when I couldn’t stop enthusing about it.  No, I don’t get out too often, it’s true!

Now I am going off to bed one cheery, relaxed, soft-footed and happy woman

Today I have re-discovered the joy of not doing anything.  Now believe me, there are plenty of things I could be doing, and I’ve been moving very s-l-o-w-l-y at getting some necessities accomplished, but otherwise I am fairly inert.

Why am I sitting about like Lady Muckbucket while those piles of ‘things to do’ wave at me yelling “cooey, don’t forget about us or you’ll regret it!”?  Well.  I have a cold.  And it’s one of those colds that insists on making me feel like I’ve climbed a very large mountain wearing ballet slippers for traction; I am wiped out.

I’ve actually been sick since I got back home from the UK just before Christmas.  At that point I was feeling fairly run down due to the Christmas season with the business, the boy’s activities and trying to organise a quick trip to the UK for my Grandad’s funeral.  Never mind the trip itself and the time change adding insult to injury.  I was worn out over the holidays and have seemed to have picked up anything that’s going around.  I’m like a prostitute that way

And so today finds me sitting for the most part.  It’s quite a novel experience.  And I must be worn out, because I simply don’t give a toss about all of the things that need to be done yet.  They are in the back of my foggy head and I’ve just told them to bugger off for the time being.  For today at least, I am going to enjoy the self-imposed rest; I can go back to charging around and worrying tomorrow!

A.

There seems to have been a lot that has gone on between posts and yet not much of anything substantial.  My days have been crammed with to-ing and fro-ing and while there has been a return on that amount of activity I feel drained rather than glowing with fulfillment.  Go figure!

I have been enjoying my time at the bank in a strange kind of way.  I don’t think it’s necessarily the banking itself that I enjoy (although that has to be part of it otherwise work would be wretched), I think it’s the ability to interact with people that I quite like.  Admittedly, it’s a little difficult to hold a full conversation with anybody there for obvious reasons, but it is nice to see the same faces and to hear the latest bit of news and to actually start caring a little about some of them.  There are quite a few that I couldn’t care if I ever saw again but we all know people like that in all spheres of our lives right?   Admittedly I’ve been finding that of late, I quite like the challenge of dealing with those sorts.  The Amanda of old wouldn’t have bothered to tolerate anybody that caused her to want to punch them; the new Amanda just wonders what got this person to be such a cranky, sad and miserable creature.

I don’t know that I add much to the banking world in terms of sales and volume growth.  I’m not going to make branch manager anytime soon - nor would I want to - as I’m just not that ambitious.  I’m quite happy plodding along like this and doing my little bit and then heading home.  As of late however, I have felt a little unhappy with having to be there at all as it has just been so horrendously busy at home with the business.  I have to keep that feeling of resentment in check when I’m there thinking about all of the things I have yet to complete before the day is done.  It’s not fair to my fellow employees or the customers if I’ve got bloody tin on my mind and not their needs!  It’s an odd dynamic because I also feel a bit of resentment towards the business for intefering with my bank job.  Both are important to me so I’m working through thinking about what the jobs are and what they do for me as a whole rather than focusing on the negatives.  Part of human nature I suppose to deal with the negatives before the positives.

While I have been extremely, extremely busy over the past 3 months and do have something to show for it in terms of renumeration, it just hasn’t felt very satisfying.  I am putting it down to just being too plain worn out to really see it.  I’ve had a lot of positives thrown my way at work and they’re a great bunch to work with - I haven’t ever worked with a team like this before…it’s totally foreign to actually get along. The business has been ticking along but we’ve got lots to work on for next year and while we were extremely busy this seaon, we fell behind early on which was a total bummer.  That in itself seems to have been quite a drain trying to play catch up.  Nothing ever seems to run quite as smoothly as you plan.  But, we haven’t had a shortage of orders and as I write, our show in Toronto has started with a bang so that’s all good.

I was just looking at my bank schedule for December and have come to the realisation that ‘casual part-time’ is not an apt job description!  It’ll be a fun month there and still busy with tin things here so although I like to dream of a December where it will be us sitting around hanging stockings with care and  sipping on rum-laced eggnog while William tinkles the ivories and we sing Christmas ditties, it just isn’t going to happen this year…again!  The idea of sitting about relaxing just seems so foreign; I don’t know what I would do if I wasn’t rushing around from thing to thing…..well, other than write about it that is

Right.  I should have been in bed early tonight as I’d promised myself I would be.  But, you see, my Google Reader was full up with all sorts of musical tidbits and various celebrity gossip segments (I am ashamed.  Very ashamed of this.  Seeking treatment as we speak) so I thought I’d tidy up the unread stuff and go through the items I’d shoved a star next too and *BAM* before I knew it, hours had passed.

I have discovered some interesting stuff out there all of which I intend to listen to further…um…when time permits.  BUT, I did manage to crank up my Yahoo Music Jukebox and try out some James Hunter.  Well!  I’ve often thought that my mother played waaaay too much Motown/Soul as a youngster because I have an odd affinity for it.  It’s not something I bring up in conversation much - it’s almost like a dirty secret.  Mind you, it could be worse…I could have a real thing for <gulp> young country.  EEEEK.

At any rate, I tripped on through Mr. Motown himself, tried out some Fleet Foxes, Love As Laughter and The Presets and even dabble with Lykke Li.  The music is all over the place and I just love it.  I am a music nut and only wish I had more time to test drive other bands.  There’s so much cool stuff out there.  I could waste bags of time given half a chance.   The Yahoo Music Jukebox works well for the most part although it doesn’t always have the ability to access all the music I want to listen to.  I can keep what I want though so am busy stuffing it with all sorts of goodies.  I also finally discovered Travis this week (they’ve only been around for a millenium or so, but I’ve finally caught up to the little darlings) and fell madly in love.  It’s such lovely stuff!

Right now I’m just using old faithful Rolling Stone for my tips and reviews and can’t imagine trying to follow anything else at the moment.  I get stressed just trying to keep up with what I’ve got for goodness sakes!  Aside from the news sent to Google Reader I must have several back issues all gathering dust in the reading basket.  I’m sure that there’s a new pile of cool artists just waiting to launch themselves at me - it’s pretty exciting.

I have to say that my Mum was definitely the music listener in the family.  My earliest memory is of being surrounded by laundry hanging in the living room as she sang away to - yes - Motown.  I don’t remember who exactly, but she has since told me that it was likely The Supremes or some such thing.  She liked all sorts of things from classical, to aforementioned Motown, rock, pop and dance.  Pretty eclectic taste although we did part company when it came to heavier sounding music - she didn’t quite take to my veering off into loud, strange and slightly gritty areas.  She was quite the concert goer too, even dragging my brother and I off to see The Shadows and Cliff Richard when we were youngsters.  Her enthusiasm for the live show was even greater than her love of listening to music on the stereo…which was quite something once she found her groove ;)  I know where I get the desire to have something playing all the time and to try out all sorts of neat stuff.  I also know where I get the excitement from when the opportunity to see a live act presents itself.

Sam and William are dutifully sitting through James Hunter warbling away; quite frankly they don’t have much of a choice!  Neither have asked to have it turned down or switched off which is a good sign.  It will be interesting to see whether they adopt a similar love of all types of music or get completely turned off.  I hope it’s the former.   When a great song hits you, you feel it all over - and there’s nothing better.  Well, other than maybe a chocolate bar, but that’s another story……