THE GOODS BLOG: Erika's Precious Little Life - October Edition
Updated: Jun 18, 2021
Oh boy. We’ve been having a time.
I apologize for the (likely) disjointed structure of this blog and random smattering of thoughts and events.
First; the recap.
September was good, bad, and interesting. It’s been a roller coaster of stuff. September was life, I guess.
At the beginning of the month we went camping (Archie’s first time!) on Vancouver Island right near Nanaimo. We camped for two nights and it was really fun! I consider it “real” camping because we slept outdoors, in a tent. All three of us shared a sleeping bag and an air mattress. We really didn’t know what to expect with Archie’s sleeping but it went surprisingly well! Once it was dark enough in the tent he just slept. (But he also kicked us in the face all night, HA HA.) We loved it. I’m really glad that we can start sharing these types of experiences with him!
The Vancouver Fringe Festival happened and I had a great time seeing seven different shows. I love the Fringe. Archie also saw his second Fringe show this year (he saw one last year as well) and he really seemed to enjoy it!
I have now been a member at my Vancouver yoga studio, Semperviva Yoga, for one year! I’d always dreamed of being able to practice at this studio as my “home studio,” and now I do. I enjoy it very much and have spent the past year attempting to attend class with every teacher that instructs there! (There are like 55 teachers between their four studio locations and I only have 5 left to try!!) My practice feels pretty solid these days and that makes me feel really good in terms of taking care of my well being, both physically and mentally.
We enjoy lots of family bed piles. ♥
One Sunday night I was leaving my apartment and going down the stairs and the stairwell happened to be pitch black. I was wearing rain boots, which are slightly awkward. Unfortunately, I tripped and fell down several stairs. My left ankle made a terrible pop/crunch sound. It’s now weeks later and it still hurts a lot and feels very stiff. I haven’t seen a doctor about it and I probably should.
Stuff like this has started happening! So this makes me feel good about my food blog endeavours.
Then Capcom Vancouver shut down and Tim lost his job.
This was both shocking... And strangely reliving and exciting for me. I would feel worse for Tim if he had been completely enamoured with his job and the work that he had been doing, but truthfully he wasn’t all that thrilled about it. The game production was having issues and Tim was already intending to move on from the company after completing the game. (It was supposed to come out in fall 2019.) We certainly did NOT expect everything to come crashing down so abruptly!! It would have been nice if he could have at least finished the game.
I forgot to share this photo last month of Archie visiting Tim on-set of a MoCap shoot in downtown Vancouver. Which doesn’t matter now. Because all of this work has been completely thrown away.
For me, it has been really nice to have Tim at home. I feel like I’m getting a break that I really, really needed. I’m obviously aware that this is only temporary but having both of us at home for a couple of weeks has been amazing.
In terms of Tim’s job hunt, he has now applied to: 7 places in Vancouver, 2 places in Toronto, 1 place in Montreal, 1 place in Halifax, 4 places in Seattle, 2 places in Los Angeles, 1 place in San Diego, 5 places in England, 1 place in Scotland, 1 place in Sweden, and 1 place in France. He has gone to three job fair “mixer” type of events in Vancouver. He has been contacted by a pile of recruiters and taken tons of phone calls. And he has had actual job interviews with EA in Vancouver, BioWare in Edmonton and Respawn in Los Angeles. We’re waiting to see what kinds of offers come in from those places.
Tim is a bit stressed that things aren’t happening faster and I’m trying to remind him to relax. He has only missed one pay day at this point (and of course still has three months of severance). He went for lunch this week with his entire old (unemployed) Capcom team (5 of them) and literally none of them have been officially hired elsewhere yet and some of them haven’t even had any interviews. So I think that that helped calm him down a bit.
I would really rather not have to move again. But I’m trying to be open to whatever comes our way.
I hung out with Kristen!
Carrie MOVED TO VANCOUVER from Regina!! We’ve never actually lived in the same city at the same time! She is going to be living here for one year, living at Dustin’s house (Tim’s friend). Dustin owns his own place and sometimes rents out his second bedroom, which currently happens to be available. So she’s moving on in! She has been staying at my place for the past week and a half before moving into Dustin’s house.
We are going to do so much yoga and collect so many rocks. Ha ha ha!
I hung out with Erin at her housewarming party!
Then Archie has his ordeal at the hospital with a fever and vomiting. And things were made much worse by the doctor insisting on a catheter and screwing it up. So then we had to deal with Archie having bladder issues on top of everything. Thankfully he bounced back quite well and the entire episode seemed to be resolved in less than 24 hours.
So it’s been a time.
I hadn’t really pieced all of it together until now, but now that I think about it, quite a lot of bad stuff has happened to us this summer; I had a kidney stone, I had really awful vertigo for weeks, we got into a pretty bad car accident, Tim is still going to physio for his knee injury, our new car got hit & run, there was all of the drama with Archie’s development, I twisted my ankle, Tim lost his job, Archie was in the hospital...
It’s been a lot. Despite this, I have not let it pile up and weigh me down. Or at least I don’t think that I have. I don’t feel sorry for myself or like “the world is out to get me.” I’ve just chalked it all up to “shit happens” and I’ve tried to carry on with my life with optimism and positivity. A negative mind will never give you a positive life. And of course, good things have been happening as well. But when I actually think about it, we’ve dealt with a lot these past few months.
...I’m starting to wonder if Vancouver is rejecting us??? This happened to Sarah in Edmonton. Is the universe trying to tell us that Vancouver is not where we’re meant to be?? This makes me sad. This is where we always dreamed to be.
I guess we’ll see which roads appear before us.
Trust, trust, trust.
Life with Archie:
Archie went for his Hearing Assessment and did two different hearing tests. Both showed that his hearing is completely normal (which we already knew) and that he can hear everything that we say.
Just like “back to school” time, all of Archie’s little programs started back up! We pretty much took the summer off from putting him in activities because we had various summer travels to do, plus just a wider array of outdoor activities available that we could enjoy, such as going to the beach. So now Archie is back in:
~ Toddler Storytime at Kitsilano Public Library
~ Tiny Tots at TumbleTown (toddler gymnastics)
~ Parent & Tot Swim at Robert Lee YMCA
~ BabyButtons at YogaButtons (toddler yoga)
He seems excited to be back in his activities and hanging out with the other kids again. He loves sharing and having other kids around to give toys to.
We have registered Archie with a drop-in daycare called Buddings. This is a type of daycare where you can bring your child with as little as one hour's notice. We think that this will be a really nice option to have available to us, should something arise during the week. Plus the extra socialization would be good for him. We don’t intend to use it every week but the option to use it will be nice.
Archie still doesn’t have very many words and the words that he does know don’t really get used. So that’s sort of our next “thing” with him.
He’s super bright and curious and smart and we love him very much. Here are some photos of my child being adorable:
Moving on to October...
We’re off to Toronto on Friday. We’ll be spending part of the time in London with the Golems celebrating Thanksgiving, but the real reason for our trip is because we’ll be spending part of the time in Toronto for Melanie’s wedding!! I’m so excited for that! And the best part is that we’re leaving Archie in London with the family while we’re in Toronto. This will be the first time since Archie’s birth that Tim and I are going to spend an overnight away from him together! I am not in the least bit concerned. It’ll be so nice to have a night away with Tim like that! Things are gonna get romance! :P
Once we’re back home, Susan will be coming to town for a visit!
Then it’s Tim’s 35th birthday near the end of the month! We already have dinner reservations at a nice restaurant (L’Abattoir in Gastown) and concert tickets to our favourite band; BØRNS on his actual birthday, and I’ve already gotten him a cool gift. So at least I feel totally on-the-ball with that!!
Then Tim’s Dad is having Deep Brain Stimulation Surgery near the end of the month to help his Parkinson's Disease. This surgery is supposed to achieve amazing results so we’re very excited for Peter’s quality of life to improve a lot. But it’s brain surgery, so it’s certainly no walk in the park. Send him your best vibes for an easy surgery, recovery, and great results!
And then it’s Halloween! I have not dealt with this at all. I have no idea what Archie is going to be. We talked about doing a family costume but I feel like we’re way too disorganized to get that together. However, we really loved Halloween in our neighbourhood last year and I’m looking forward to taking Archie trick or treating again!
THIS MONTH’S SHOUT-OUTS!:
October 7th is Colen Quinn’s 11th wedding anniversary!
I love that we’ll be celebrating Melanie’s wedding on this same day! All of us together just like we were 11 years ago! I guess I don’t have to ask how you and Jeff will be spending your anniversary, because I know!
October 13th is Kristen Smith’s 6th wedding anniversary!
What a most magical day! I hope that you and Dallas get some romance time together to celebrate!
October 24th is Rachelle Spence’s 34th birthday!
You are one kindhearted angel of a human and everyone who is close to you knows this. I love that our friendship is now 14 years strong and I can’t imagine these past 14 years without you in them. We have each other for life. You deserve nothing but the very, very best and I love you with every inch of my heart! ♥
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