Kids Say the Darndest Things - Bye Bye Man!

Children are the best if comes to their expressions, their gestures and their innocent talk. Matthew is now 20 months and what a small loud character he is.

Yesterday we had an appointment with the banker to invest some money in Matthew's future education. Last year the same appointment wasn't so bad, as Matthew was still in the car seat, but this year he walks, runs and talks. The crayons and the coloring book only kept him busy for three minutes, other ten minutes he actually observed the banker do all the work on the computer. Suddenly, Matthew screams - 'oh preent preent woooow'. Yes, the man was suddenly printing our paper work. Well that was it for sitting in the office.

He runs out the office, and the exploration starts. On the side of the eye, I can see everyone looking at Matthew, and in their eyes I can see smiles. Yes, he not only walks, runs but asks - 'What is thees? and thees?'. That's man's computer, that is TV, you want to watch Bambi - 'Nope', he says. He walks into another empty office, stands there for a good minute and observes everything around. Finds calculator, 'Seet Seet', points at the chair. Sits on the chair and makes a butt motion to move him closer to the table. He is ready to calculate. He knows his numbers. Then he takes the calculator and brings to the office where his dad sits with the man.

Ready for another run. Matthew now gets my cell phone to play with. Oh Matthew this is a long distance to Maryland. I still don't know how his little fingers always find numbers to call the numbers we don't want him to call. So he calls some number, puts into his ear - 'Noonnaa, noonnaa! doing' That is his grandmother he is calling now and asking what she is doing.

Time to sign some paperwork for me, so we switch now - my husband gets him. Time is running out and so is Matthew's patience. He swirls him self away from daddy, grabs my handbag and starts walking out the door. Matthew where are you going sweetie? 'Bye bye man, taank you, bey bye man'. He walks out the office, and walking to the door keep repeating to everyone around 'bye bye man', happy having us going with him. On the side of my eye I could see everyone in the line turning, and again bright smiles in their eyes. We came out laughing too. I guess we will have to decide later on the education fund investment.

I also have Matthew's latest photo on MyOnlyPhoto blog, Motion Pictures - My Experimental Photography - little speedster he is.

Mr. President Barack Obama Thank You For Visiting Canada

Mr. President Barack Obama, you probably will never read this thank you letter, but I am sure you can see in people how thankful we Canadians are for your visit to Canada.

The fact that you chose to visit Canada first it means a lot, but the fact that you purchased maple leaf cookies cookies from the local baker it means even more. I actually got goose bumps hearing that on the news. Your risk, I am sure your secret service will get you in trouble later, made our Canadian baker very happy.

Mr. Obama, I watched your presidential race, but watching you being President of United States is even more impressive. Your leadership is beyond my expectations - you are definitely a people person. Your strong focus on the economic crisis and how you handling it so far is on the scale 1 to 10 - I am giving you 8. Sorry I cannot give you 10 just yet, just little too early, but I am sure you have great potential outperform.

It was also nice to watch you and our Prime Minister Mr. Harper getting along so well. You may not have the same views 100%, but I see that both of you have great respect for each other and willing to work together to get us out from the economic crisis.

Mr. Obama, thank you again. And before I conclude this thank you letter, I want to tell you that leadership as yours is needed especially during crisis. If you are good to the people, people will respond positively and will be motivated to work together on the same goal. Like they say, one person can do so much, but together we can do even more.

Enjoy your cookies and good night.


Regards,
Anna

Wrought Iron Gates - What Is Wrong With This Picture?

Driving home on the Sunday afternoon. As we get closer to home, we can see more and more snow. I guess we are living in the area where there always will be more snow. Such remarkable change in weather can be seen in twenty minutes apart.

I sit on the back with Matthew and as he sleeps I observe outside the world I used vividly photograph before Matthew was born. Yes, we got second time in three weeks a two inches of snow. Beautiful view, and as sun emerged in the afternoon all the trees sparkled.
- 'Beautiful ', I said to my husband, 'just beautiful day to go outside and shoot and shoot'.

Suddenly a very nice big house comes to my view.
- 'Look what an amazing gate on your right' - I pointed out. A beautiful structure made of iron wrought rods, and concrete support, and located on the one end of the long curved paved driveway. Oh, and has security key pad.
- 'Okay, I don't get it, what is wrong with this picture? There is no fence'. I know, I know, its a decor thing lol.

A Quote I Can Relate

I came across Google with this Quote of the Day:

"The things we know best are the things we haven't been taught."

- by Marquis de Vauvenargues.

This is so true, and I can relate.

My Blog's Door is Always Open Even When I'm Gone

When MyOnlyPhoto Blog is taking a short break, then I guess Story Blob Blog is too. I will be back shortly, for main message, please read my explanation here. Thank you all for your patience. Anna :)

Kids Speak

This weekend my 6 year old nephew and 3 year old niece were visiting my parents, to them they were visiting grandparents. We don't see them too much because of where we live and where they live, however, when we see them we always have so much fun. I usually take tons of pictures every time. They know now, and seems like they don't mind the paparazzi aunt.
After going home, we always laugh at things kids usually say. One of the funny episodes were with my husband and nephew, and my niece joining in. Just to explain couple of things, we are called teta and wujko. Teta is Ukrainian word for aunt and wujko for uncle. So it all started with my nephew pointing out - wujko you have a bad breath! My husband reacted by making a face, so my nephew continued, that is okay I have bad breath too sometimes. The game continues until, my nephew points out again - wujko you have big nipples, and my niece on the background laughs with screaming big nipples, big nipples, ha ha ha. Yes it was a bit cold outside.

[TRUE STORY]

Hwy 401 Observations

To point out I see my husband almost 24/7. We work together, and we go everywhere together. I have one day off work, but lately he has been taking days off with me because of his accumulated vacation days. However, we never run of things to talk about, even if something we see to criticize. Sometimes when we drive, we criticize others for their driving, or make fun of others. Don't you worry, nothing offending, just two people hanging out for too long with each other and starving for excitement.
This time we are driving on Hwy 401 and there is this guy driving red Jeep with no passenger side door. Okay, safety first, I don't think it is wise. But then we just envision this guy driving on the desert with his Jeep in Africa and this lion jumps in for a free ride. That would be fun to watch - may be someone can use this for movie set. So as we pass him and leave him behind and out of our sight, we finally reach Hwy 403, and we notice this piece of rolled paper swatting around the car and out the window. It turned out that a wasp jumped in for a free ride with this other guy. So our wish came true, lion - wasp, close enough, jumping for a free ride. It was funny to see, and hope everything turned out okay on the end. I tell you its not fun to ride with a wasp hovering over your head.

[TRUE STORY, MY THOUGHTS]

Backyard Birding Surprise

This is one of my birding stories. Its real, short and sweet if you not into long reading...

Today, I was not able to go birding (because we are renovating, actually my husband is working hard and I am here blogging). However, I was very fortunate to see something cool. So I am sitting on the Muskoka chair and eating breakfast outside. I looked up and I see this bird going head on, towards me. First I thought that it was a Rock Pigeon, yeah I really thought that. But then the flight pattern was different. As this bird flies towards me and got closer, it finally hit me that this was either an osprey or one of the hawks (not sure which one, or even Melrin), and this bird was holding something in his claws, fish or mouse, or even bird (sad). He flew over my head, just about 3 feet. It was a smooth and very quiet glide. And how cool this is, now that I am heavily involved in birding, birds come to me. Or may be it was my breakfast. lol.

So I get excited and called my husband to tell him the story.... So now we both standing and talking about it and I kept repeating 'wow'. Then suddenly both of us looked up and there is this Great Blue Heron flying over, unusually low, just cleared the house.

This is just within 5 minutes - two big birds just like that...must say it was fun morning. And where was my camera in moment like that - I guess I will have to remember it.

[TRUE STORY]

Installations

Yesterday we started to do two things, installing windows and installing security. The windows installation started just fine. The installation guy showed up earlier than I thought - I guess had to get up earlier than usual. The boxes were unpacked and straps removed. But before installing windows, we had to uninstall the old one. Messy job, but the guy did good job to cover his tracks - oh boy he talked a lot. While installing windows, why not install the security at the same time. The Internet security expired so we needed to install new version - and this is where all the mess started - I mean real mess started, not physically, but computer wise. I rather have messy house when installing windows, and not messy computer, because things can be lost. Well the real issue we had started with the order of three licenses, and every license needed to be downloaded from the site. I thing its stupid, but then we don't have much to say, just do as they say, and we still did our way thinking whatever we downloaded first time would still work. I guess not. Well then the security lady from India, and I am here in Canada, is taking over my computer. Should I trust her, god knows what they can do to your computer and disappear from face of this Earth, and I wouldn't even know where to look. She is in. Eight hours later, the scan still doesn't work, got the blue screen of death twice, she kept repeating like a broken record its not them, and the window guy is about to leave having all the windows in.

[TRUE STORY]

My New Friend - the Neighbours Cat

This has been one of those days that I just don't have creative juices flowing - and I say at all. I usually have good imagination, and since I don't have any good writing ideas for today, and as you noticed for few days now, I will blob about my day. So to start, I had to abandon the Story Blob blog for a while, and one of the reason was I was chasing meteor shower. That took some of my time, first prepping all my cameras, to ensure I am not to miss anything and then trying my cameras on the dark sky, because I never taken any photos of the dark sky. Well after all, the whole event turn out pretty good, got some shots of Perseid's Meteors, and some satellites hovering around. But this is not what I want to talk about today, therefore, to know more and to see more about meteors you can check my photo work on my myonlyphoto blog. So today we are replacing windows in the house - how exciting. Not to mention this week is my time off from work - how exciting. Not that exciting, but I will make it exciting - I will definitely find something to do - or may be I write more stories. Lets get back to what I was going to write today. Knowing that we cannot go back in time, once the windows are replaced - the old windows are history. Guess what - I am taking photos of the windows to have that snap shot for my personal historical reasons, and just in case if something goes wrong, I have a proof how good the windows were - no really, the old one may have been good, and we just getting something we may not like. Will see. Going back to my story again. I took shots inside the house and outside the house. While taking shots outside I met up with this cat. The cat I always told to leave my front yard. So the cat is trying to make friends with me, and I am photographing the cat - the windows are pushed aside for a bit. So this cat is going away, I guess is not liking the photo shoot. Well, some how I sensed that he wants to be friends, and this is the time I let the cat into my territory. On the side note, I am not a person that likes animals that much, but I know once the cat or dog warms up to me or any other animal (not sure what), I wished I had one of those. I sense wonderful feeling, giving this nice little neck rub and knowing that it is appreciated. Anyway, enough of this romantic talk, and the cat is now in my territory. I took finger off my trigger and looked what is going to happened. Next thing this cat is rubbing against my leg, and I am getting lots of hairs on my black pants, but I do not care. I am sensing gentleness and friendship, and peace. The cat moves away into shadow and is being playful. I give him nice rub. Then the cat takes a little break and goes and rests under my car, and I move on with my window photo shoot. The cat follows. Follows me all the way on the back of the house. I know we are friends now. The cat enters my backyard very cautious. Observes. I continue with my photo shoot, and sometimes I sneak that one photo of the cat between. I am done with photo shoot, the cat leaves the backyard first, but stays very close to me and walks with me. The spiritual time is coming to end, I give a cat good bye rub, and the cat purrs and rubs the wall and starting to be playful again. I play, and its fun. Time to go, so I say 'go on' and I will see you again. The cat with sad face now, moves on, he or she knows. This was very peaceful, spiritual and friendly time with this cat. I think I will see him or her again. Now to give you some background, this same cat one day, may be 5-6 years ago, showed up at my footsteps. The cat wanted to come in, but then when I showed my face cat recognized that I wasn't the owner - to cat's surprise. The cat said something and left the steps, and few years later here he or she is.

[TRUE STORY, REAL PHOTOGRAPHS]

They Make Us Say It

Day started up with calling my husband by my maiden name. It happens a lot, but it is solely my fault. I wanted to keep my maiden name, but I also wanted my husbands last name - talking about greed here. On the end I ended up with two part last name, and no hyphen. Things I did to remove that hyphen. If there is no hyphen on the credit card application form filled by me, there is none, why do people still added. Everyone likes to assume. Many times cards had to be re-issued, many corrections had to be made, and they still would put that damn hyphen. Well to avoid that I got into habit using my maiden name and if my husband is with me then he gets nailed with it. Sound kind of funny, because no body is called by my maiden name except my father.

So far morning is good. We had a good laugh about the name. That kind of brightens the whole day if you start on the right foot. Got hungry laughing. Next we are driving thru A&W. We like A&W and we had some coupons. Now comes another wave of laughs - ham'n'egger. Why do they do that to us, this just doesn't seem right - its too funny to say it. Try it. Repeat very fast few times, sound like some hanging egg header. Now the debate starts, how we are going to order this ham'n'egger, so I said - they don't know ya, just say it in a funny way, they will have fun listening. It was fun debating, until - can I take your order please? and my husband answers, I have a coupon for 2 ham and egg sandwiches for 4 dollars. Ohhhh, he was just embarrassed to say it. So I made him to pay in lot of change, like 24 x 1 cent. After all the fuss it wasn't so bad - they lady said I will take your word for it and she took all the change.

[TRUE STORY, MY THOUGHTS]

George the Duct Cleaner

Now with the telephone call display technology everything is just not right, yes not right. It is so chaotic. The telephone companies gave so much flexibility that I have no idea what I am looking at when someone is calling. Some of the numbers on call display are 1111, 222-2222 or 000-000-0000. What kind of number is that, I cannot even call back. The marketing companies finally learnt how to block the calls, so only some digits shows or sometime just Private Number. So to make this long blobbing story short, I get a call today. Guess who's calling. Its George from duct cleaning, and they are in the area and they will give me a free estimate. I am so amazed that estimates are free, what exactly am I getting that they really emphasize the 'free estimates' for. Can you imagine, estimates were not free, and then the estimate would include estimate price on top of the estimated price, if you know what I mean. So this man on the other side of the phone answers the phone. Yes, he answers the phone. He dials and then makes me wait and then he says hello. So he finally introduces himself, hi, I am George and I am calling from duct cleaning company. We are in the area and we are giving free estimates. The free estimate gets me every time as you know. So I interrupted George, and said: George my ducts are clean and they are clean as they can be. George I will not be needing any duct cleaning. George laughs on the other side of the phone, and answers that it's fine madam, you have yourself a good night. I hang up with a thought - what a pleasant marketing call for change.

[TRUE STORY]

July 30, 2007 My Day

Let me introduce you to My Day blobbing. My Day Blob is my day, real true stories, and what happened during that day. Enjoy or not, its real. Today is July 30, 2007 and I already wrote one story for my Story Blob blog today. What is so special about today? Nothing really, it is next day after full moon, and in the morning I found dead House Sparrow on my drive way. On the way home from work I saw killdeer - bird, its a bird if you don't believe me, not deer. Just in case you never met killdeer, I photograph him for you. Not just one but many, two juvenile and mother. How do I know that - I don't. Today also been third day on vacation, not me, but my parents are on vacation, travelling in Alberta. I cannot believe. They did not leave us with any information where they will be staying. I guess they did not learn from all the reminders we been getting from them when we travelled. And now it is 12:32 am July 31, 2007 and I am writing My Day blob. A blob from yesterday I guess. Its late, so excuse me for not making any sense.

[MY THOUGHTS]