Hardwood, birthday prep, smoking

Pictures! Hardwood! Don’t worry, they are G-rated.


My husband also painted that lovely burnt orange colour this weekend.


The remainder of the house has yet to be painted – and I’m anxious to get the kitchen painted, as its current yellow clashes weirdly with the orange – and baseboards have yet to be repainted and attached, but the home renovation is coming along nicely, with my sanity mainly intact. Of course, I’ve turned into Lady Macbeth, except with dust, but that was to be expected.

Other than dusting – and laundering my dusty panty drawer – I have been busy preparing for Jake’s birthday, which is two days from now. I feel like I should be nostalgically mooning around, remembering things like “Five years ago today I was waddling around like an obese penguin. Five years ago today I was bursting into tears about nothing. Five years ago today I consumed half a loaf of bread, toasted with Cheez Whiz.” For some reason I’m not doing that. I am, however, obsessing over goody bags to give his little friends. I have a problem with goody bags. For one thing, I don’t like all the typical goody bag crap that eventually ends up in the landfill, but I don’t want to NOT give goody bags. What I end up doing is filling them with one small toy – a bouncy ball – a sheet of stickers, and a whole bunch of mini chocolate bars. This gives me pause. I think it’s better to give something consumable, rather than something landfill-ish, but will the high sugar content render me unpopular with the parents? Warning: if you’re reading this and your child is coming to Jake’s party, you are going to have lots of chocolate to deal with.

In other news, I ran to the grocery today to pick up cake mix – don’t judge, I have a LOT of things to bake this week – and birthday candles, and at the checkout I asked the cashier if they sold lighters. “Lighters?” she asked “Like to light cigarettes?” No, I explained, to light birthday candles. She appeared not to hear me and then launched into this incredibly long and bitter monologue about not being able to sell cigarettes or smoking related paraphernalia in the grocery, because there is an anti-smoking conspiracy around and smokers – like her– were essentially pariahs in this society. I listened to this with a polite, nervous smile – fortunately there was no lineup behind me – and wondered where I COULD buy a lighter, or even a book of matches, but I didn’t want to ask because the cashier was getting really agitated by her own conversation. Finally I left with my one small bag and she called out after me, ominously, “We smokers pay a LOT of taxes.” On my way out a carry out guy tapped me on the shoulder to inform me that lighters were available at the gas station.

Comments

  1. 1. I like boxed cake mix better than from-scratch cakes. BETTER!

    2. I love that orange paint. And the floors of course.

    3. The other day, I made a joke about kids back in school and the grocery clerk gave me this lonnnnnnnng rant about homeschooling and how much better it is.

    4. I think your goody bags sound great. My kids always like the candy best anyway.

  2. Your house looks like fall with the lovely wall color! And the floors are gorgeous! (I’m a little jealous.)

    I have two birthdays coming up. My son and daughter were born three years and one day apart.

  3. LOVE your floors. They look great with the new wall colour as well.

  4. Wow! Love the floors! And that colour! Can’t wait to see it when the rest of it is painted. Good luck at the birthday party – they often seem to give me a headache.

  5. My kids always like candy/chocolate as well. One birthday party, my son received one of those mini Robert Munsch books. I think they’re like $1.99. I thought it made a great goodie bag item.

  6. I love your floors – they’re such a rich colour. Does the orange have a name?

  7. Thanks! Bea – the colour is Firenze by Benjamin Moore.

  8. Your house looks beautiful! I love the colour of your walls.

  9. Awesome wood, dude! And my living room is that same terra cotta colour.

    Loot bags are the bane of my existence. Making them, getting them, throwing out the plastic crap from them, the way the kids are OBSESSED with them. I would be awake for days before the party obsessing about whether I had enough stuff. I think chocolate is definitely the way to go.

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