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Showing posts from 2011

WHY ARE YOU ALL BLOGGING AT CHRISTMAS TIME???

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Like I need this pressure? I thought we were friends!  Fine. Fine!!  First of all, my husband went out and bought a new TV today, which kind of ticks me off because how am I supposed to mock people for Boxing Week shopping when my husband is Boxing Week shopping? On the other hand, our old TV fell prey to this creeping blue digital fungus months and months ago and now I can't even type without my eyes constantly wandering over to the TV because the picture! It's so bright! and clear! and people look like people and not like half-people half-grey-blobs. I don't even like hockey but damn! this hockey game looks GORGEOUS! So that's our Christmas present to each other plus Matt's 40th birthday present. Plus a college fund or two, who counts?  After all the crazy lead-up annoyances, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were blissful. I was making Christmas Eve dinner for the ten of us (my sister and her family, my Mom and Dad and the four of us), but I did most o

Under an Afghan Meatball

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So Angus's class was having World Expo today - they all picked a country to study and present about. Angus chose Afghanistan because he wanted to write about the war. Which made me realize that I hadn't really talked to him about the war and didn't really know that he knew about the war and OH MY GOD I'm SCREWING EVERYTHING UP as a mother and... anyway. He wanted to make food to serve at World Expo. So we made meatballs with lamb and chickpeas and spices. They were okay - I don't really like lamb. I thought it was a little screwy to be making Afghani meatballs in the midst of Christmas craziness also, but what the hell, it was kind of fun.  So he came home from school and said "today was AWFUL. Well, I did my project, but Connor upchucked in class. And I was RIGHT BEHIND HIM." We asked him how his project went and he said fine, but clearly the classroom upchucking was the centerpiece of the day. When I told him I needed some serious meatball lov

Random bullets (none of them have anyone's name on them)

-My husband got back from a week and a half in Japan yesterday. I also got my hair cut and highlighted. I know I should be happier about the former than the latter, but honestly? Those roots were getting really depressing. And the hair appointment didn't leave me with a mountain of well-travelled underwear on top of the washer. So...  -I took Eve to the mall on Monday morning to see Santa because she suddenly sprung on me that she really wanted to see Santa and there was no way in hell we were going after piano lessons, which would be right when the dinner rush was ramping up. She got to school two hours late. Judge me if you want. It was adorable. She wore her Santa hat and asked for a science kit. In other news, I bought a science kit today.  -After seeing Santa we went to the Footlocker in Bayshore and they had ONE pair of the god-awful shoes Angus has been wanting that no store has had in his size, in his size. Yay. And also, bleargh.  -After Santa and the Foot

Digging a Hole for a Post

I've been ignoring all of your blogs because it helps me pretend I'm not writing because I don't have a blog, what? I don't even know what a blog is, what a funny word, blog blog blog, lalalalalala I can't hear you. This week sucks much less than the last week Matt was away for the week, which was two weeks ago, what a funny word, week week week week. I always forget to reverse whine about my head not hurting - hey everyone! My head doesn't hurt this week! I have wrapped, I have taped, I have melted and beaten and creamed until light and fluffy. I have trod the mill and pumped the iron. I have done all this while still producing creative and nutritious meals every night (that's a bald-faced lie - this week has been brought to you by frozen pizza, grilled cheese and chicken wraps made from grocery store barbecued chicken. I just wanted to feel like Superwoman for a millisecond. It really wasn't me). I'm slowly managing to separate the actua

Conflicted

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It's December twelfth and today I went out wearing a t-shirt. First I was wearing a sweater, but then I got too hot. This is not right. It's December. We need snow. We have a Christmas tree and decorations up and it's dark at four-thirty ANYWAY, so I'm with the kids on this one -- we want snow. Of course, the likelihood is that if it was gray and snowy I would be headachy and miserable, and if I had to shovel out the driveway to get the kids to school every day this week while I'm solo parenting, I would not be impressed. While instead, I got multiple Christmas and household errands done today and felt happy. But it's almost Christmas and it's kind of sad to think we won't have a white one. So I guess you could say I'm a little sad that I'm happy, but also a little happy that I'm sad. And people wonder why I'm always so tired.

Christmas crap

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The second attempt at tree decorating went much better, even though we were still approaching the full moon. Although inevitably what begins like this, degenerates into this Also, I need a better camera, Santa Baby. So of course the entire main floor of my house looks like half a Macy's department store circa Miracle on 34th Street got deposited in it by some random tornado and my husband's leaving for Japan in the morning. If I sit at the kitchen table and look in the direction of the garland on the stair rail and squint enough to block out the surrounding crap, I guess it's kind of Christmassy. Otherwise I still just feel kind of tired about the whole thing. Pam and I went to the craft show on Thursday. We have a near unbroken record of starting these little trips out full of bitterness and loathing for all of humanity (we didn't make any skinny jogger jokes this time though). Pam was coming off a difficult evening and morning of melting down child

Moon Madness - brought to you by Surly Thursdays

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Someone said it was a full moon yesterday, and although it's not on my calendar until Saturday, I believe her. I couldn't wake up in the morning. I got presents wrapped, got to the chiropractor and got a few key presents bought yesterday and I should have felt great but I didn't - I felt anxious even though everything was going fine, and exhausted even though I had plenty of time to get everything done. The kids have been waiting since Sunday to decorate the tree, and when Matt finally got the lights on and they could start, they -- who haven't fought in weeks -- were suddenly at each other's throats. They both put themselves to bed VOLUNTARILY a good fifty minutes earlier than usual. Matt had a conference call at ten and went to the bed at eight-thirty and slept until nine-fifty (he's sandwiched between a trip to China and a trip to Japan, so that was maybe less full moonish than an understandable confusion about which fucking time zone he should be adheri

To Neti Pot or Not

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Warning: there will be ickiness in this post. I have allergies. Hardcore, nasty, year-round allergies. This started around the time I turned thirty and started having babies (which is kind of cool, because as with so many other things, I can blame the children). I use Nasonex daily, but I frequently also have to take an allergy pill. My doctor suggested a couple of years ago that I also use Hydrasense to flush out my sinuses. I did use it for a while, and then a friend told me that I should get a neti pot instead for nasal irrigation (or nasal douche , as the Wikipedia article says - join me in an adolescent giggle at the word douche , won't you?), because it's a lot cheaper than buying Hydrasense, which is really freaking expensive. So I did. I suck at the neti pot. Hydrasense, while being really freaking expensive, has a fairly long, skinny nozzle that you can jack right up into your nostril to fire that stream of salty water into your sinuses. My neti pot has

MyMemories Giveaway

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A couple of weeks ago I was approached by MyMemories Digital Scrapbooking asking if I would be interested in hosting a giveaway. I've been warned by other, more experienced bloggers to be very selective about getting involved in sponsored giveaways, so I was careful to explore the site before I said yes. I've never done digital scrapbooking, although my sister and several friends swear by it. I like the feel of paper and being able to handle the little flowers and tags and letters (okay, I hate trying to handle the letters, they're a pain in the ass). But here's the thing: digital papers and embellishments can't get lost. You can't bury a digital brad under six layers of journalling cards and chipboard fairies. If you have one background paper and you use it, it's gone, even if you find the photo it would be the perfect background for later on. So I downloaded the software and started playing around. You guys - it is SO MUCH FUN. This is what I did

Three Bags Full - of chocolate

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Ha-HA! I don't HAVE to post. I can just post because I FEEL like it. Guess what? Today didn't suck. Today I went for a walk with Pam and we stopped at Brown's Cleaners to pick up the Sears package that I had left languishing there for many weeks solely because I hate having to face the sourpuss counter lady. Well, not solely - I also forget things a lot. Then we went to the bank because Pam needed a new bank card. I went up to the counter with her and we were chatting with the teller and I wondered briefly if she assumed we were a couple, because once when Eve was at dance I went to Best Buy with Janis, whose daughter was also at dance, to buy a tv for Matt's man cave, and the young man selling it to us obviously thought we were a couple, which was hilarious because this is Janis: See? WAAAAAAYYYYYY out of my league. Then we went home and dressed up nice and went out for lunch with Julie, near the Museum of Science and Technology where Julie works. We wen

Not with a bang

It's the last day of NaBloPoMo. I feel like I should be posting something Grand. Insightful. Auspicious. Ain't Gonna Happen. I will, however, endeavour to cease my overuse of capital letters. Damn, I wish I hadn't already done the gratitude post. Oh well, you know what they say, if wishes were horses the world would be three feet deep in horse crap. Okay, I'm checking the daily prompt. "What did you learn from doing NaBloPoMo?" Oh for -- seriously? Fine. I learned that I don't do NaBloPoMo to grow my blog or improve my writing or get closer to writing a book. I do NaBloPoMo because, despite what T.S. Eliot might have written, November is the cruellest month. November is like fifty pounds of grayness and enervation pressing down on my head. Unlike January, when I feel like crap but at least there is usually a happy family Christmas behind me, in November I feel like crap with the added pressures of preparing said happy family Christmas

What kind of mother lets her kid get purple hair?

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Remember Eve's Halloween costume? The makeup was temporary. The purple streaks in her hair were not. I know, it's not that surprising. I let my son get freak hair for hockey playoffs. It's the kind of thing that I generally waffle on briefly, agree to, and then worry about. Not the thing itself necessarily, but what it says about my parenting. Am I too permissive? Am I setting a dangerous precedent? Am I letting my desire to be cool supplant my need to set boundaries? I don't think so. First of all, even though having unusual colours in one's hair is sometimes associated with other unsavoury behaviours, it's basically an arbitrary association. My kids know that I expect them to do their homework, treat other people with respect, eat mostly healthy food and fetch me chocolate whenever I snap my fingers - purple streaks and red fauxhawks don't change that. I don't automatically agree to everything they ask for. I consider why they&

Mondays on the Margins: Book Review - Easy to Like by Edward Riche

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The synopsis from House of Anansi: "A bitingly hilarious satire of the making of wine, television, and taste from one of Canada's most accomplished comic writers. From award-winning author Edward Riche comes an immensely readable and sharp novel about "C"-list screenwriter and wannabe vintner Elliot Johnson. With his life growing more ruinous by the day -- his writing career is on the rocks, his struggling vineyard is being investigated by the feds, and his son, a former child star, is in prison -- Elliot decides to do what any self-respecting wine lover would do: escape to France. Alas, fate has other things in store. Stranded in Canada by an expired passport, he is strongly encouraged to remain there due to his bit part in a growing Hollywood scandal. Deciding that Toronto may just be the perfectly engineered city in which to lay low, Elliot kills time by bluffing his way to the top of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. A brilliant work of searing satire, E

Charmingly Offbeat or Some Creepy Shit?

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First of all, thanks and praise to Honest Betsy , who likes my post titles and gave me this (which has nothing to do with the post title, which is meant to be attached to the rest of what the post is about - crap, I sense I'm in danger of having my award revoked): Get it? Because the word titler has 'tit' in it? Also, we're both breastfeeding advocates - and what says 'breastfeeding advocate' like cleavage in an animal-print bra? Second of all, it was American Thanksgiving recently, and there were two Charlie Brown Thanksgiving specials on, which I PVRed, because hey, Charlie Brown. Tonight Eve asked if the three of us could have supper on TV trays (actually she asked if we could have lunch on lunch little tables, but if I said that none of you would know what the hell I was talking about, so I paraphrased) and watch Happiness is a Warm Blanket. I happily agreed because we usually let them watch tv while eating on Sunday, I like it when there's som

Time to Light the Lights

This morning my husband left for China at some ungodly hour. At a somewhat more civilized hour, I took Angus to hockey practice. I shuttled him into the dressing room, then went to sit in the rink. Then I realized that two teams were practicing and since it was a practice no one would be wearing jerseys with names or numbers on them and it was going to be really hard to figure out which team was Angus's and which kid was Angus on the team. I was wrong. It wasn't hard. It was impossible. I sat for half the practice on one half of the arena, thought I was watching the wrong team, switched to the other half and picked out who I thought was Angus to watch and felt proud because he was smoking his partner in the drill where they had to skate around the pylon and get the puck. Turns out I was in the right half of the arena to begin with. Don't think I saw Angus do a single thing. Oh well. Came home. Baked some cheddar cheese scones with fresh rosemary. Sounds delic

Mental cavities

Last night over dinner my husband was telling the kids about a program he'd watched the night before on the local cable station. It was a couple of psychologists talking to parents about how to keep an eye on their teenagers for warning signs of depression or anxiety, and how to approach the subject of professional help. There was stuff about keeping the lines of communication open and explaining that everyone needs help sometimes and being honest about it. One of the psychologists said, "here is an example of what not to do: a family came in to see me a few weeks ago; a mother and father and a very angry teenaged boy. I introduced myself to the boy and asked him why he was so angry, and he said 'You're NOT a DENTIST'." We all laughed. Then Matt said another thing the psychologists said was to not let your kid get away with just saying 'good' or 'fine' when you ask him how his day was. We both looked pointedly at Angus, who had just fiv

Slow and Steady

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It's been a good week. I got my passport renewed with much less drama than I anticipated, went for a great walk, worked in the library, made a kick-ass butternut squash soup, left dinner for my Cuba-returning parents and hosted a fabulous book club meeting. So naturally I woke up this morning feeling like a heavy, worthless sack of expired potential. So then I got up and ate a bunch of chocolate cookies instead of going to the gym because I'm a giant self-defeating stupidhead. So let's talk about the book, because the book is not a giant self-defeating stupidhead. The book makes me happy, even though some of it is sad, and even though I'm a giant self-defeating stupidhead. Should I stop using the phrase giant self-defeating stupidhead? I'll think about it. The book is called Come, Thou Tortoise . The author is Jessica Grant , who was apparently a New Face of Fiction. That doesn't make me bitter, even though I've never been a New Face of Anything,

Wednesday Waffling

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Anyone who reads this blog with any regularity knows how I stand on cursing. Or they should - there's a small chance that they think I'm against cursing and just have really poor impulse control, and, well, I guess that wouldn't be the craziest thing to presume, but.... wait, I'm getting off track. There are people who seem to think that cursing is one of the worst things you can do - up there with stealing and burning down orphanages and nun-beating. There are people on Goodreads who lament getting into a book and starting to enjoy it and then encountering 'the f word' on page forty-eight and having to stop reading, and wishing they hadn't wasted all that time getting engaged with something they couldn't possibly finish because.... what? Reading the word 'hell' or 'shit' would keep them from sleeping, or cause them to go out and rob a convenience store? I'm genuinely interested in what their line of reasoning is. Okay, you di

In which I make with the 'tude (but not the bad one)

The lovely and talented Beck graciously invited me to be part of her anti-Oprah Christmas list post (and by 'invited' I actually mean 'didn't block me when I ambushed her in her Twitter timeline in mid-discussion of the post saying "please please please can I do the book part please please?" This is one nice, nice lady folks.) I was going to save my thank-you post for a day when I was really stuck, and today I'm actually not stuck. There's a book I need to review that I forgot to do yesterday that I could do today. I already know what I'm doing for Wednesday Waffling tomorrow. But after reading your comments on yesterday's atrocity, I am so overcome with gratitude that I have to do my thank-you post today. Everyone knows it's not easy posting every day - that's why we need a wacky, hard-to-say phrase like nablopomo, because if you're posting every day many things become wacky and hard to say. You start to forget if you&#

Value Meals

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I just saw another article advising people about what they should order at restaurants to get the best value for their money. I've been told by people who work at restaurants never to order pasta, because pasta has the biggest mark-up. This kind of advice always makes me scratch my head (shut UP, I do NOT have lice). Granted, I'm not the cheapest person I know, but even the cheap people I go out to eat with don't tend to scan a menu and pick out what to order based solely on how they can best stick it to the restaurant in the value department. When I go out to eat, the VALUE for me is in someone else cooking my food, serving it to me, and cleaning up afterwards. And I LIKE pasta. If I feel like having pasta, am I really going to not have it just because the restaurant might make too much money on my order? It would be different if I ate out at restaurants a lot, but I don't. So when I do, I'm generally going to order what I feel like eating, not what I think

Sunday Scenes

I was surfing the NaBloPoMo blogroll this morning, as I have most days this month. The first blog post I read was about the blogger's one-year-old and it was cute, but she closes comments and requests emails instead because "it will mean more to both of us". (sound of loud annoying buzzer like the kind that means you guessed WRONG on a game show) I LIKE leaving comments. I don't leave one unless I feel it's meaningful. I rarely get one that I don't consider meaningful (assuming it's from a real person). Also, when I click on 'email me' on a blog, I get this email form that doesn't work, so I have to click over to my email and type the address in. In other words, she would have had me as a reader and now she does not. The second blog was a cool book blog - instead of full reviews each post was just general musing about whatever part of the book the blogger was at. But a few posts down was a post saying he was doing NaBloPoMo but was stil

So Glad You Asked

Can I post about World Trivia Night tonight, Finola asks? Why yes, Finola, yes I can. Do you mind if I smother you in kisses for the suggestion? No? Just a firm handshake then? Sorry - I moved furniture in Eve's room all afternoon and then had to ingest a hefty dose of robaxa-something-or-other containing codeine. Lynn, aka Turtlehead , posted something on her blog two years ago almost to the day, something about buying Pringles for trivia night and did anyone want to join her? I commented on her blog that I would be right over, thinking that she meant trivia night at her house or a local bar and also thinking I was just being silly commenting on a blog post, not actually inviting myself to her trivia night. As it turned out, she was talking about World Trivia Night, which takes place in the Aberdeen Pavilion at Lansdowne Park every year, and her team had a vacancy. Since I was experiencing a fortuitous convergence of two fairly rare circumstances, i.e. my husband was i

Getting Down on Friday

I have finished my last assignment for my course. I have started on the mountain of laundry in the basement. I have debated whether or not to boot Eve and her friend off of the computer, decided not to mess with contentment, and been vindicated when they raced upstairs to her room to play some make-believe game involving teleporting and recorder playing a few minutes later. It's World Trivia Night tonight - my third with the inimitable Turtlehead (my first without Julie - boo to no Julie). Of course I don't feel like going right now because, well, I never feel like going anywhere if we're being brutally honest, unless 'anywhere' includes up to my bedroom with a book. Once I get there it will totally rock. Especially if I can cough up an answer that has something to do with something other than my knowledge of bad tv shows and their actors (we all know that's not going to happen, but it's a nice thought. So in the spirit of getting a lazy-ass post up

Abba-Dabba-Doo

I went to see Mamma Mia last night. It was enjoyable, although I realized that I have a very marked preference for a certain kind of musical, which this was not. I realize that musicals in general require a willing suspension of disbelief, but for me this only extends to people acting like they're in a play, and then every once in a while they all spontaneously break into song and dance. My willing suspension of disbelief does NOT extend to people singing dialogue to each other, such as "let's go oh-oh-oh-over to the kitchen and may-ay-ake scrambled eggs", or a person singing to one other person. Not only does it make me practically writhe with embarrassment for the person singing, it makes me feel desperately sorry for the poor sap who has to stand there being sung to and gestured at. Sure, it's all well and good to be the character emoting musically. What if you're standing there having to look eager and receptive, unable to scratch your nose or crack

An Angus post just to even things out

Angus has grown up exhibiting a lot of my anxiety-related traits. He sometimes obsesses over things. He needs to know what's happening next. He's not comfortable with uncertainty. Now since he's - unlike me - a boy, and - very unlike me - athletic, playing sports has helped with a lot of this. He's come extremely far in terms of confidence and self-esteem, which is nice. But he's still asked me every day this week if he's sleeping over at his friend Noah's on Thursday night and if I've talked to Noah's mother and learned any additional details of which he should be apprised immediately, if not sooner. Today I got an email from his English teacher that the Scholastic order had come in and, though he said he pre-ordered the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid book, she didn't have a form for him. I stared, aghast, at the computer screen. I remembered him attacking me with the form and demanding that we order the book two months ago so that he could ge

Eve's Ear OR Telling it Backwards for Suspense over Sense

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On Friday last week when both the kids were home from school, Eve wandered down from her room and over to the kitchen table where I was working on an assignment, or blogging, or surfing aimlessly, as she often does. I stopped and hugged her, as I often do, and then she leaned on the table looking at the computer, which presented her left profile to me. So I flipped her ear around to look at the back of her earlobe, which I often do (this makes sense later, I promise). And I saw a small opening in the back of her earlobe, and shining through this opening was a swath of silver metal. And that's how I discovered my daughter is a cyborg. * * * * * * * * Just kidding. Eve's ears have always sort of been her Achilles heel....er.... yeah. When she was a baby, she had wax buildup behind them that had to be scraped out occasionally. When she was three, she had a small bump on her right ear that kept getting infected. We took her to the doctor and found out that it was an extra sin