Time goes by...

Call me sentimental in my old age. Whatever. It’s my blog.

Time seems to fly by so quickly these days and more often than not, I find myself taking a double take at how the days have actually turned into years.

I know I’m not making much sense this morning. I’d better grab another coffee.

What I mean is: wasn’t Austin just a newborn who did nothing but eat, sleep and poop? When did he start motoring around the house and yelling cat every time one of ours meanders into the room?

And this photo:

was taken four years ago today!

Yup, today is our four year anniversary. It’s hard to believe that four years ago we were standing in the chapel to say ‘I do’ and then partying the night away. Although everyone says ‘I’ll never forget’ about their wedding, but I bet not too many can say “I’ll never forget how we ended the party at 2 a.m. at Fynn’s, still dressed in our gown and tux, with some of our closest friends.’

Clean up time is here today

I’m so excited right now. As I type this someone is in my house.

Cleaning.

Yup, three months after heading back to work, we gave in and hired a cleaning woman.

When I first returned to work, we figured we’d try it out and see how we managed. Well three months later, I can honestly say we didn’t manage very well. Maybe we didn’t really make an effort at it, since our fall back plan was always “well if it doesn’t work out we’ll hire a cleaning woman.” So, when you know your fall back plan is to do what you wanted to do in the first place, why try very hard at making the so-called Plan A work?

I’m sure we could have managed to keep our house clean if we really tried. I mean how hard is it to mop the floors, clean the bathrooms and kitchen and vacuum the basement? Pretty hard really, when you’d rather spend time hanging out with your toddler on a Saturday morning. And even if we’re not lazing about with Austin, but getting stuff done (like running errands with him in tow) we’re still ‘hanging out’ with him and not dumping him in front of the TV to scrub the bathroom and dust the shelves.

But it can get expensive having someone else do the work for you, so here’s the compromise we made with ourselves – once a month, we’ll have someone else come in and give our house a good clean. In between, we’re perfectly capable of sweeping up and doing other minor cleaning here and there.

Now all I have to do to best make this arrangement work is to plan to have people over soon after she cleans and not soon before – because that means I’ll have to do it!

Too much TV

We got our PVR about a year and a half ago and honestly, I wonder what the heck we did without it. I mean I know WHAT we did – we recorded shows on our VCR – but I don’t remember recording very many shows. Because these days, it seems that our PVR is perpetually 90 per cent full.

You’d think maybe we’d learn that we watch more shows than we’re able to regularly follow, but no, because at least once a week, we’re scrolling through the list of recorded shows, hoping to find something to erase so that we can squeeze in just ‘one more show.’

A lot of it has to do with the fact that, because of Austin, we don’t have as much time to watch TV as we used to – before he was born, and when he was newborn, we used to flip on a previously-recorded show at 7 p.m. while we ate our dinner, just because we could. These days, there’s no time for that. Instead, we’re rushing around to get his dinner on the table, and then our dinner on the table and then maybe give him a bath and actually spend a little time playing with him before bed. So it’s usually 8 or 8:30 before we sit down and relax in front of the TV.

So there goes the 7 p.m. timeslot to catch up on shows. But at least, thanks to the PVR, we can watch a show that began at 8 p.m. by starting it at 8:30.

Then there’s bedtime. Shows that started at 10 p.m. never used to be a problem, but now, it’s practically unheard of for either of us to stay up that late on a weeknight (or Friday night for that matter – but that’s usually a result of falling asleep on the couch and then stumbling down the hall to bed.)

So anything that’s on at 10 p.m. just goes straight to the recorded list of the PVR. And it sits there for weeks and weeks and weeks. Along with anything else we hadn’t gotten around to watching.

Throw in the fact that the Raptors were in the playoffs so we were watching the games instead of our regularly scheduled programming, and you have one full PVR right now.

The advantage to having all these shows sit on there is come June, when every show has gone into reruns, we’ll still have episodes of CSI: Miami, among others, from March, April and May to watch. Much to Ryan’s dismay I’m sure, this means a few extra weeks of not having to watch the Blue Jays every night. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m a baseball fan – but six nights at week?!)

I think next TV season, I’m going to cut down on the number of shows I religiously follow. I mean do I really need to watch three incarnations of CSI? And as much as I love 24, this season is not sitting well with me – so if it doesn’t show signs of improvement next season, it may be time to consider moving on.

And when it comes to moving on, for every new show I want to take on, I should be willing to give up something else. Right?

This sounds good now, but for some reason, I think that come October, my PVR will be 90 per cent full again.