Category: Lifestyle

Portland Parking

Not that I’ve exactly ever been the world’s best parallel parker, but I’m not all that bad either.  However, now that there are new laws on parking in my city, I may start “stressing out” as my husband so lovingly and encouragingly puts it.  The new laws are only going to be effective over the weekend though which shouldn’t impact me too much as Daniel usually does the driving then.  I try to avoid getting behind the wheel as much as possible so only drive to work and back and to collect the kids from preschool. 

Still, when I heard about the Friday night-Saturday morning parking ban in the city I wasn’t exactly thrilled. If we want to go out on a Friday night that’s going to put a bit of a damper on things although Daniel says it’s really not such a big deal as he has always been a lucky parker. But if he does take his chances and mis-parks, he could risk being towed at a $135 fee ($70 towing fee, $35 impound fee and $30 ticket).  Parking is now forbidden from 10:00pm Friday until 6:00am Saturday.

But then I was thinking anyway, I usually like to be in bed pretty early – even on the weekends – so we could for sure leave the city after an evening out by 10:00pm.  We usually leave around 10:30pm, so pushing it back half an hour or so wouldn’t exactly spoil our plans (although Daniel always complains at how early we go home as it is). 

Meanwhile, our great city has kindly put out a list of the venues people can park in the city, at no cost.  These include the Hadlock Field parking lot, all of the Portland Public School lots (except Reiche School), Munjoy and Wilson Street parking lots; and more.  Still, like I said, it hopefully won’t affect us too much as Daniel doesn’t stress about parking and this is only over part of the weekend when I rarely drive.

As my wise mother would say, “this should be our biggest problem.”

Birthday Presents

So as I promised in my previous post now that things are calmer, I can tell you what I got for my birthday.  First, I got the cutest little necklace (that I asked Daniel to order) of the boys. It’s silver (I don’t really like gold) and has two little boys on it engraved with their names.  I wanted to add a bone with Galvin engraved on it and I even had a bone that I got ages ago when we just had Jayden, which Daniel got engraved but it was much bigger than the little boys and just didn’t look right.  So now I just have the two boys which has upset Daniel as he says I don’t care as much about Galvin as he does which is so not true as it’s usually me who walks him.  Still, I will look out for a more suitable bone.

Then I got bath stuff from Jayden.  He went with Daniel to choose me a gift.  They both know how much I love my long hot soaks in the tub so Jayden sniffed all the bubble baths in the store and chose two along with four candles.  Then he told me (when I opened it) that he wants it for his bath too!  That could be cute, putting the kids in a candle-lit tub with lots of smelly bubbles!

Amanda came round on my birthday with thick bed-house socks. She said she knows how I always love to be home and in bed and cozy so thought that would work which it does.  And then Danielle bought me a really cute mini-gold purse which is kind of tacky but fun at the same time.  My parents just gave me money so I’ll have to work out what to do with that. They told me they want me to use it to buy something for me, not just for bills.

And that’s about it.  I did pretty good and was happy with my gifts. It was nice when my friends brought the gifts round as it gave me an opportunity to see them which doesn’t happen nearly enough.  Worth having a birthday just for that!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Yes, today is my birthday. I am 41-years-old.  It’s been a lovely day so far (well, other than the fact I had to go to work!). My necklace arrived with two little boys on it – one saying Ethan, one saying Jayden – and, when I got home from work, a few of my friends came round for a drink, some snacks and some birthday cake that Jayden had decorated with Daniel.

Funniest thing was, they could only find ‘Bratz’ in the store so that’s what I ended up with! Daniel said it was either that or Spiderman. Cute though, huh? Jayden literally used a whole tub of sprinkles with which to decorate it.

The cake was a Duncan Hines marble cake (as Daniel pointed out “try as I might I’ll never make anything better than them”) – and it was truly delicious.  And the cutest thing was just how excited Jayden was to present it to me.  He was so proud of what he had done.  At first, Daniel said he thought it was a bit much with all the sprinkles, but in the end we all agreed it looked (and tasted) perfect.  Of course I’m now trying to deal with sugar-overload – both from the kids and me!  But still, a great birthday all round.  And the presents seem to be still coming in!

Craft Activities with the Kids

I wanted some downtime with the kids after the weekend, but Jayden seemed to be too full of energy to just sit and chill.  So I decided on a compromise and told him we’d make some nature stuff.  I found a really cool recipe for Treasure Rocks using coffee grounds, sand, salt, flour and water.  Of course, I had to make Daniel run out and get some sand from one of the local play areas as that’s not exactly something we keep in the house so much!  Jayden mixed all the ingredients together and of course – leaving him alone for less than a minute – Ethan started trying to eat it!  They both certainly enjoyed being covered in the mucky goo we ended up creating so I was glad for that.

Our next assignment was to create a rainbow.  I happened to have a ton of food colors as Daniel had bought them to make my “surprise” birthday cake next week with Jayden.  Jayden was so delighted with his creation that he asked me to take a picture of it with him standing next to it (which is pretty impressive for him as he usually hates having his picture taken).  So that was how we spent our afternoon.  I was glad that I had agreed to do something creative with them as it really was a lot of fun for all of us in the end.

Weekend Plans

We have had a great weekend so far.  Early Friday evening, I took the kids to The Devil and the Deep and they loved it!  It was a totally cool aquatic/nautical art show.  I wasn’t sure if it would be age-appropriate for them (well for sure it was for Ethan but he just loves being around his brother and seeing action so I knew he would be fine) but surprisingly, Jayden really got into all the art. 

After that I took the kids home and Daniel and I went to Salt & Straw Ice Cream, which, in retrospect, the kids would have enjoyed too. But then I may have had to give some of my ice cream to them!    The event was to celebrate Elvis Presley’s birthday.  I didn’t try the new special flavor as, truthfully, it sounded gross to me – banana with bacon-infused peanut butter – but Daniel kept trying to convince me as he said he loved it!

Saturday Jayden had a playdate with a friend so Daniel and I took a long walk with Ethan.  I enjoyed it a lot.  When we go walking, it’s one of the only times Daniel doesn’t play Angry Birds on his phone so we really get to talk!