Monthly Archives: December 2015

2015 Boyhouse Year in Review

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It’s almost time to say goodbye to 2015! It was a good year at the Boyhouse, and although I lead a pretty ordinary life, it seems like there’s always something popping, as the kids say. Here are the highlights of 2015:

January

We never quite see ourselves as others see us, and I am no exception, I discovered that my vagina was not a cavernous wasteland of womanhood (sorry, menfolk), and I raged a bit about Spirit Days and people who leave their shopping carts willy-nilly in parking lots.

barkleybaba

February

Someone stabbed their roommate for constantly listening to the Eagles and instead of being empathetic about it, I couldn’t stop laughing, I skipped right over middle age to become that crazy old lady with tons of plants, and I ran my fourteenth book fair.

parking

March

I got confrontational about parking issues, I got all exhausted by Daylight Savings Time as per usual, and I realized that I have never once calculated gas mileage. Also, Mark turned 11!

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April

In an unexpected turn of events, I took the car in for an oil change and my husband became famous in my circle for flipping out on the dealership, I turned 40 and my dream of being serenaded by a guy in a Top Gun outfit finally came true, and I decided to Never Surrender.

Happy

May

I realized that I was pretty much on point with certain trends since I basically wear the same thing every day, I met a guy whose job is a Beducator, and I frightened my family by having a semi-breakdown over an empty shampoo bottle.

osteopermum

June

I rode a bike for the first time since 2003, I wrote a whole post on how to dress for the Calgary Stampede when you don’t have a big belt buckle or cowboy boots, there were alarming happenings in my neighbourhood, and I went to Las Vegas!

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July

Jake is the Hippo Whisperer, my kids think I’m most like C-3PO, and I discovered perms are making a comeback.

Leia copy

August

I actually under-packed for the first time in my life and I regretted it deeply, Judy Blume tweeted me and made my life complete, and I prepared for back-to-school.

JudyBlume

September

When a door closes a window opens, and since I’m not chairing the SC/PA anymore, I started signing up to volunteer for field trips, I planted a whole lot of bulbs, and we went to Vancouver Island. Also, Jake turned 10!

Jake10

October

My favourite thermal spray was discontinued and I spiralled into hoarding paranoia about it, I travelled and worked and planned a party and became exhausted, and I completely lost my shit on a telemarketer.

CNTower

November

I dressed up for Halloween and people just did not know what to say, I turned into Cynical, Hard-Bitten Old Mom, as opposed to Enthusiastic, Energetic Young Mom, and my kids hilariously participated in Crazy Hair Day at school.

wormsanddirt

December

The boys got their green belts in karate, we went to Orlando, and I found an answer to Elf on the Shelf.

Chewie

Thank you, dear readers. Here’s to 2016! May it be wonderful in your house. xoxo

Clean all the things!

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How have your holidays been? Mine have been a lovely mix of sloth and good food, along with my usual post-Christmas frantic cleaning and reorganizing. All last week I hardly worked at all, and then I fell into the Christmas cheer. We visited with some of my husband’s family on Christmas Eve, and if they ever decide to go on a sunny vacation together, I’m thinking of tagging along because these people are FUN. Christmas Day we headed to my parents’ for a couple of days, which was lovely.

Usually my tree and decorations come down on Boxing Day, but since I was actually not home on Boxing Day, the annual CLEAN EVERYTHING fiesta waited until Sunday, when I had been home for approximately three minutes. I love Christmas and all its glorious sparkly decorations, but I also love that clean, uncluttered look too.

Barkley4

The house looked like this for a brief moment on Christmas morning, and then I started the cleaning process. My husband gave me the side-eye a little because I’m sure he thought I was going to start de-Christmassing, but no. Not on Christmas Day, no matter how tempting.

Yesterday I decided that just de-Christmassing wasn’t enough; I had to reorganize everything in the bathroom and hall cupboards. And honestly, it was pretty bad. There were a number of items I hadn’t used or gotten rid of: several shampoo bottles with 1/2 an inch of shampoo left in them, lip glosses that were discovered to be unflattering, and many bottles of expired medication. There was also a package of gigantic, extra-absorbent sanitary napkins that I had purchased for post-partum bleeding back in 2005, and then never used again, alongside a box of slim, light days tampons. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that no woman who has given birth vaginally is going to use slim, light days tampons. I think we can all admit that in those cases the feminine mystique takes a bit of a beating and those tampons are best left to others.

I also found a number of strange items in the hall cupboards, including a bottle of golden corn syrup. For one thing, I cannot remember ever buying corn syrup or even what I would have used it for. For another thing, it was far from golden; it was dark brown and sort of sludgy looking.

Today the big job was to reorganize my dresser – a big task, given that it was getting difficult to close the drawers properly. I was in the perfect mood to do it; if I didn’t LOVE an item, it went into the donation bag. At this rate I’m going to mow through the house by the time the kids go back to school. It’s a very satisfying process; I hope I don’t lose my ambition. NO HALF-MEASURES, NICOLE.

Speaking of binge-watching things, my husband and I have been watching Game of Thrones. He watched the whole thing last year, and I joined in around Season Four. Let me tell you, things make MUCH more sense when watched from the beginning. I was previously so confused and constantly texting my friend Hannah (HI HANNAH) questions about who was who, why was that guy like that, what’s with all the incest, and OMG ARE THOSE ZOMBIES? Finally, I understand – sort of.

I see your Elf on a Shelf, and I raise you a group of snowmen on the bathroom counter

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After a fairly warm fall/ early winter, the world is suddenly covered with a thick blanket of snow and very, very cold. It looks very pretty and of course the children are delighted with the festivity of fluffy snow a week before Christmas, but on Wednesday I had an early-morning spot on the news and I woke up to 10 cm of snow and traffic in a snarly mess. This happened the last time I was on the news, which filled me with slight foreboding. Fortunately, I got there safely and the spot went off without a hitch. However, I have been incorporating all the appetizers I made for the show into dinners since then, so as not to waste them. It’s filling my entire family with puzzlement. You know that you’re a rigid person when your husband is completely SHOCKED to discover tortilla wraps for dinner on a Wednesday, and tacos on a Thursday. “What next?” he asked last night as he warily filled a taco shell, “Are we not having pitas for dinner tomorrow?” He almost fell over when I told him no, we weren’t.

Today is the last day of school, and all pretence of academia is long gone. Speaking of which, I forgot to mention the added-insult-to-injury of Jake’s week-long field trip: each child was required to pay an extra $50 for the honour. $50 so that the kids could be bored out of their minds and learn nothing, with the only highlight being the indoor garden. OUTRAGE.

Anyway, it’s pajama day at school, and after many years of shunning pajama day, my children trudged through the snow with their flannel bottoms tucked into their boots. I’m not the biggest fan of it myself – but at least the kids will be comfortable as they watch movies and eat party treats. Mark is watching the Polar Express with his Grade 1/2 buddy class, which he says is lame, but okay for the buddies I GUESS.

It’s a tradition of mine to send festively-shaped sugar cookies to class for every special occasion: birthdays, Halloween, Valentine’s Day, and Christmas. I’ve been doing it so long that now the boys’ longtime classmates ask if I’m going to send cookies. Frankly, it makes me feel a bit like a rock star when I see them in the halls and they tell me that my cookies are superior to every other cookie they’ve ever had. I mean, you cannot hear that kind of compliment without it going to your head a little bit.

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Between appetizers, cookies, and making peppermint bark and truffles for teacher gifts, it’s been a busy week in the kitchen. Main teachers also get gift cards, but I like to send chocolates to the office staff and the teachers who supervise the crossing guards. My kids are both crossing guards and the supervisory role is a stressful one, given the asshole way people drive through the crosswalks.

So the boys went loaded down with cookies, teacher gifts, and snowpants, since they are going to be sledding with friends after early dismissal this afternoon. And just to make my life even more awesome, they are at the age that I don’t have to stand in the snow and wait for them. I’m dropping off the sleds and then going back to my cozy house; they will sled and then WALK HOME, IT IS A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE. I mention this to give hope to all you mamas out there who are working up a sweat wrangling your children into winter gear, freezing to death watching them narrowly miss the brick walls of the school, and then managing both the tears when faceplants in the snow occur and sudden meltdowns because snow is in the mittens. One day soon your children will walk home when they are done, carrying their own sleds, with no supervision. IT IS GLORIOUS.

Another glorious thing: we got a Roomba. Someone was mentioning the other day how hard it is to really “wow” teens and tweens at Christmas. I mean, at a certain age they are just not going to be as excited getting a video game/ books/ shirts/ new gloves (all things my own children are receiving this year) as they were when a Thomas the Tank Engine table magically appeared in the basement. That’s part of the growing-up process UNLESS you decide to do something incredible like BUY A ROOMBA. We ran it in our carpeted basement this morning and two things occurred to me: a) our vacuum is clearly too old to be effective anymore because the filter needed cleaning twice, grosssssss, and b) watching a Roomba maneuver around furniture and exercise equipment was more fun than anyone could have imagined. We were all cheering the Roomba, giving it positive reinforcement (GREAT JOB, ROOMBA!), and projecting human feelings onto it (YOU’RE SO SMART, ROOMBA, WE ARE SO PROUD OF YOU!). No need for a late-in-life baby, we are all embracing the Roomba like the Christmas miracle that he is. Who knew we had an empty space in our hearts, filled only by a robotic vacuum cleaner?

Also filling empty spaces in our hearts is our tiny snowman collection. When I had a tiny light-less tree in my first apartment, I bought a set of tiny snowmen to decorate it. They were cheap, from Wal-mart, but very cute. Almost twenty years later, all their hooks have fallen off, but I put a handful of them on the bathroom counter to make showering and other bathroom activities super-festive.

Santa

One morning I finished my breakfast to see that my husband had rearranged all the snowmen, so that instead of the dull little groups of two or three I had them in the bathroom was transformed into a snowman hide-and-seek game.

hide and seek hiding snowman

And, like Donkey Kong, it was on. We have all been switching the snowmen to different vignettes and then seeing if anyone else can guess what they are doing. I admit, my ideas run towards the dull – a yoga class, a conga line, everyone in a circle singing Christmas carols – but the testosterone in the house has led to slightly non-Christmassy themes.

Younglings

Such as, Anakin brutally slaying the younglings so that his power, Herod-like, would be unchallenged.

The other day Jake said “I call the snowmen today!” and busily rearranged them. It was a bit later when I went in to see the initially startling result:

lightsaber

Before you express concerns that I have a Rosemary’s Baby kind of situation around here, it is a LIGHT SABER. Just a light saber. We are going to see The Force Awakens tomorrow, and excitement is through the roof and coming through extensively in our snowman-vignette game. Light saber. Not work of the devil.

Snap back to reality

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Oh, you guys, it is SO DARK. It’s still a week away from the shortest day of the year, and the sun rises at 8:32 and sets at 4:28. There has been low-lying cloud and fog, and the other day I went to pick the kids up from school at 3:30 and the streetlights had come on. On Thursday it got so dark AT NOON that my light-sensing outdoor lights went on. At NOON. I’m popping Vitamin D and listening to Michael Buble, Neil Diamond, and Elvis sing Christmas carols on repeat. I think it’s especially hitting me because a week ago we were in Florida, and I was feeling a bit amused seeing people wearing down jackets and gloves, at 24 degrees Celsius.

I feel like we’ve really hit the ground running, since our holiday. The kids have caught up on their schoolwork and were back at patrols and karate last week. I had volunteered to chaperone the last day of Jake’s class’ week-long field trip, which was Friday. Week-long field trip. I know. It was, we were told, a huge privilege to go on this field trip. Of hundreds of applicants, only a few were chosen, and Jake’s class was one of them. However, after discussing with the other parent volunteers, and then being on the trip itself, I can only say this: I think it would have been a bigger privilege NOT to go on the field trip.

I wasn’t sorry that Jake missed the first two days. According to my friend (HI REBECCA) who chaperoned one day, the kids had the privilege of sitting in on a school board trustee meeting. As an adult, I cannot imagine anything more boring, and I’m pretty informed on the school board’s policies. As a child, though? It seems like staring blankly at the wall for six hours would have been more interesting. I was just happy that I chaperoned on Friday, which was an early dismissal day. Something I thought I’d never say: the bus ride there was the best part. At least the kids were cheerfully singing Christmas carols for the whole time, and there was only one class so I didn’t have to share my seat with two children.

The vast majority of the field trip was spent at the Calgary Board of Education building downtown, and the woman running the program was not exactly someone who I thought excelled at working with children. We were ushered into a room that was completely white and grey, with absolutely no colour or artwork. The kids were given a big lecture on funding, and community collaboration, and then were given a small exercise to do. FUNDING and COMMUNITY COLLABORATION. I was dying of boredom, and I’m an economist. I felt deep sympathy for the children, who were then supposed to write a journal entry on what they’d learned this week. According to every student, the best part about the whole week was the one hour they spent touring an indoor garden and looking at a fish tank.

You know, there’s learning enrichment, and then there’s complete waste of time and resources.

Mark’s class has the privilege of a week-long field trip in January, but his is at the Arts Commons so hopefully it will be more interesting, or, at the very least, not a totally useless week.

Well, it’s the last week of school before the winter break, so I’m taking advantage of this time to get a lot of work and writing done. I want to spend the holidays with the kids watching Price is Right and holiday specials, maybe with a giant mug of coffee and Baileys. I have gingerbread men to bake and a gingerbread house to decorate, which I’d normally have done already, but I’m holding off so we have extra activities to do over the break. With a week off school before Christmas, I think a few extra activities will not be amiss.

By the way, if you’re feeling stressed out, I have a few links for you: How To Enjoy The Holidays Without Losing Your Mind and Avoid Holiday Stress and Put The Zen In Your Holidays. To that end, I’m not going to feel stressed that I haven’t – yet – written my usual Sears Catalogue post. It’s coming! It’s coming! I think. Have a happy Monday, everyone. xo

My Orlando break from reality

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Here’s a fun way to lose weight and tone up those legs: walk 72 kilometers in 5 days. That’s what I did this past week, on my trip to Disney World and Universal Studios.

Selma

This was me a few times on the trip, but with less awesome hair.

I’m going to just come out and say it: we have taken the kids on lots of trips, and this was by far the best one for everyone. We had so much fun, and to be honest, I didn’t really expect to. I mean, I thought I would just sort of enjoy the trip by osmosis, since my husband and kids were so over-the-moon excited, but I honestly loved the whole experience so much.

I have a lot to say about it, and plane travel in general, and tips like “Never take the Magic Express Bus at 12:30 pm because that is when all the small children are going back to their hotel for a nap. If you do, prepare for much crying.” But for now, I will leave you with the highlights.

Christmas Everywhere

Since we were there after the US Thanksgiving, everything was decorated for Christmas. This included the Blues Brothers’ vehicle. At Universal, my husband and I watched them perform Christmas-themed versions of their songs – “I’m a SNOWMAN” – while the kids rode on the Transformers ride for the twelfth time.

BluesBrothers

Elwood

Bluesbrotherssing

I wish we’d gotten a photo of them decorating a small Christmas tree with packages of Marlboroughs and Pabst Blue Ribbon cans.

AnimalTree

There are Christmas trees everywhere!

 

Grinch

“And they’re hanging their stockings!” he snarled with a sneer.

Macy

Universal has a “Macy’s Parade” every night at 5 pm, and it’s very fun to watch. Those are random people in the photo.

The famous Sleeping Beauty castle was all lit up with Christmas lights, and it was pretty special. The one downside? I actually got a bit tired of Christmas music. I know! But when you hear “It’s the MOST wonderful TIME of the YEARRRRRRRRRR” over and over, you weary of it. A bit.

Nostalgia for Cars

For many years, my house was vehicle-crazy. The boys had pretty much every Cars movie character in miniature form, we had books about Cars characters, and a large percentage of every day was devoted to “playing Cars.” We stayed in the Art of Animation resort, which was separated into four different themes: Little Mermaid, Finding Nemo, Lion King, and Cars. This is where we stayed:

Wheel Well

There were life-sized climbable Cars characters all along the pathway (Route 66) to the different buildings.

Doc Hudson

Guido

If we had gone when the kids were small, we would have never made it out of the resort. They would have just wanted to play around Doc Hudson and the rest of the gang all day long.

The Art of Animation was a great hotel, with lots of vegetarian choices at the cafeteria, so I was happy. We had a suite, which meant TWO bathrooms. This really made the trip go from great to amazing. They also have some fun looking pools – the kids only swam one night, since we were so busy at the parks – and there is even a pool bar, which made me even more happy.

Roller Coasters

I don’t love all rides – anything that spins makes me feel ill – but I love roller coasters. Disney has some really fun ones, like Everest and the Rock and Roller Coaster, but Universal had the ultimate crazy ride: the Rip Ride Rockit. I didn’t get a photo but the description is here. It was the craziest thing I’ve ever been on, truly. My heart was pounding when I boarded it, and I asked the guy beside me if he’d ever been on it. He replied that he didn’t speak English, but he screamed “HOLY SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT” through the whole ride. Holy shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit indeed.

Universal

My hair in a neat bun pre-Rip Ride Rockit.

Krustyland

Universal has a whole section devoted to The Simpsons, and it has piqued my children’s interest in watching the show. I haven’t watched it for probably fifteen years, but I’m hoping to find some reruns of the classics, like Duff Gardens – if only to explain this to the kids:

Surly

Me and Surly.

Duff

The Duff Man. Note my hair, straining to be released from its bun. That was after Rip Ride Rockit.

Harry Potter

I have not seen the movies, nor read the books, but we have Harry Potter fans in the house. The train alone that goes between parks is worthwhile, even if you don’t know Harry Potter from a hole in the ground.

HP

Snow in Orlando!

Bank

The dragon actually roars.

The Muppets

My love for the Muppets is well known. At Disney’s Hollywood Studios, there is a Muppet 3D attraction, and it’s fabulous.

Muppet Theatre

A little excited, I guess.

MuppetVision

Squee!

Star Wars

I have saved the best for last. Unless you are disconnected from any kind of media – in which case, you are probably not reading this – the new Star Wars movie is coming out in EIGHT DAYS. The countdown has been on at my house for a while, and we were all pretty excited to hear that Disney was opening its new Star Wars Launch Bay on December 1. We were there December 4! It was pretty much impossible not to get caught up in it. We all enjoyed Star Tours SEVERAL times, went to see a “Path of the Jedi” short film, and we looked at the many artifacts at the Launch Bay. We even stood in line to meet a celebrity. Now, my kids couldn’t care less about meeting Mickey, or a princess, or any other character at Disney. But we did want to meet this guy:

Chewie

He loves me!

Now it’s back to reality – tomorrow I’m chaperoning a field trip! Although it was a short vacation, it felt like longer, like a real break from reality. Which, I guess, it really is.

One of these days these feet are going to walk all over you.

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I found out that Billy Idol just turned sixty this week, and when I mentioned my surprise to my husband, he was nonplussed. “Why wouldn’t you think he’d be sixty?” he asked. “His big hits all came out in the early 80s.”

That wasn’t what I meant, though. It wasn’t that I couldn’t believe his age, per se, it’s just I cannot believe he’s actually lived this long. I believe he was the epitome of “live fast die young” given his penchant for overdosing and also having sex with multiple prostitutes and/or groupies at a time. You’d think something would have done him in by now, but no. I call that amazing.

Also of note: the boys graded at karate this weekend and are now green belts. It’s not as incredible as Billy Idol living three decades longer than anyone might have guessed, but I still think it’s pretty great.

Greenbelts

They look a little like black belts in that photo, but really, they are green.

greenbelts2

I should have maybe photoshopped out the dirty foot. Those dojo floors are never as clean as you might hope. Once Jake came home with glitter on the soles of his feet, and wondered what exactly happened in the dojo when they weren’t there.

Speaking of feet, I was at the hair salon the other day, and there was a woman speaking about her recent experience at a newly-opened day spa. The experience was not, shall we say, ideal. I shamelessly eavesdropped as she discussed the plumbing issues, the jackhammering noise, and the massage therapists that walked around all wearing gladiator-style sandals. What’s the big deal with gladiator-style sandals, you might wonder, other than being not as flattering as some footwear. Well.

The woman was lying on the massage table, and all seemed normal at first. Then, she said, something changed. The massage felt very different somehow. It didn’t feel like hands, and it didn’t feel like elbows. The woman turned her head – no mean feat on a massage table – and the massage therapist was USING HER FEET TO MASSAGE HER BACK.

This is where the gladiator sandals detail becomes pertinent. If someone is putting their feet on my body, I would like those feet to be as clean as possible. Also, I would not like anyone’s feet on my body. Unless, I suppose, my husband is playing a game of footsie, but THAT IS IT. No other feet, please.

The woman’s hair stylist stopped with the foils and looked at her. “What do you…mean, exactly? Was she…walking on you?”

This was also my question, but I didn’t feel like I could ask, since I was, after all, eavesdropping.

No, it turns out, the massage therapist was kneeling on the bed with one foot rubbing the woman’s back. Her upper back, near her hair. Her hair. Feet. Near her hair. I don’t think I’m a germaphobe – well, maybe just a little – but this seems to me to be especially gross.

I don’t get massages anyway, since I am not someone who enjoys other people rubbing my back with more than feather-strength. Yet, I felt it was valuable information to have. Usually the only information I gain from the salon is from reading People magazine. For example, the reason David Beckham was named is because he vacuums, and that Carly Simon is still in love with James Taylor, who hasn’t spoken to her for many years. Now, I love James Taylor’s music but his shoddy treatment of the adoring Carly Simon is enough to make me not sing along to Fire and Rain. Oh, who am I kidding. I’m still going to sing along but it’s not the same.

Chocolate and no more moustaches

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This week has been frantically busy and it’s only Tuesday. Actually, it’s only 6:30 in the morning, on Tuesday, but it feels like it should be at least Thursday. Not to mention it’s December 1; I feel simultaneously like it’s still mid-November but it’s also almost Christmas, so it’s confusing to be in my brain right now.

December 1 marks the unveiling of the Advent calendars! I had bought the boys each a Lindor one, forgetting that my mother-in-law sends them each a calendar as well, so they will be doing fine on the chocolate front. She sent them Kinder Surprise calendars, which makes me feel like I have some kind of contraband. I guess we are not in the US, so it’s not really contraband. Did I mention it’s 6:30 in the morning?

We have a wooden calendar as well, and I used to fill it with treats, and then later I copied Lynn’s idea (HI LYNN) of putting in little slips of paper with fun Christmassy activities for us to do together. However, my creative juices went dry and I would write “go sledding after school” or “read a Christmas book” on at least 50% of the days. Then last year I came up with the idea to write down nice things I noticed about each boy, and put it in the calendar for them to read later. For example “Today I was so happy when you emptied your laundry basket without being asked,” or “Today I liked when you gave your brother a hug when he was feeling down.” I found that by the end of the month they were doing a lot of extra things around the house, so it turned out quite nicely.

I’ve noticed this year some people are doing reverse Advent calendars – putting food for the Food Bank in empty wine cases – or “Acts of Kindness” calendars, and I might try that another year. For now, I’ll stick with this one.

Another great thing about December 1 is that it’s the end of Movember! There are a lot of men who look fine in moustaches; mostly men of my father’s generation or possibly older, and the occasional football coach/ police officer type. Sam Elliott still rocks a moustache, and so does Tom Selleck, but I do still find Movember a bit startling.

 

Hall and Oates

MagnumPI

SamElliott

I had to include Hall and Oates in there.

Happy December, everyone! Time to get on with my day. xo