Category Archives: Home Renovations

All the cool kids are doing it!

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And so will I – a Year in Review.  Yes, I know it is the sixth of January and most year in reviews have already been posted, but I was far too busy writing about people who eat toilet paper and watching When Harry Met Sally.

So what happened in 2010 over at the Boy House?

January

I made a resolution to learn how to bake bread, and did so immediately, learning two important things: a) baking bread is not as hard as I thought it would be, and b) the key to New Year Resolution Success is to aim low.

I also ranted about the weird things people say to pregnant women and posted a picture of me with an extra seventy pounds to love.

Yowza.  I still had seven weeks to go at that point.  SEVEN WEEKS.
February
We got really, really excited about the Olympics.  We also went on our first ever winter vacation and became a parody of Canadians as the kids got off the plane wearing t-shirts emblazoned with Team Canada logos, and instantly started running around shrieking in amazement, “Mom, look!  There are FLOWERS!  And they’re REAL!  And the grass is GREEN!  And there’s no SNOW!”
March
Mark turned six!  I had my usual crises with regards to birthday party planning and Daylight Savings Time.  I cleaned out the office and found a whole box of mix tapes, some labeled “Party Mix” and one that was made for my husband from one of his old girlfriends that included songs from Richard Marx.  Hee.

April

I turned 35!  I celebrated by chaperoning on a field trip to the firehall, and cemented my cougar-like status by volunteering to try on the firefighter outfit, discovering just how heavy said outfit is, and actually saying to the young and attractive firefighter “Wow, you guys must be in great shape.”  Coo-coo-coo-choo, Mrs. Robinson.  It also snowed a lot and I wrote about attractive movie characters who would be terrible to be married to, i.e., Ralph Fiennes in the English Patient.


My friend lent me a tiara for my birthday, fulfilling my lifelong dream of birthday crown-wearing.

May
Jake’s pre-Kindergarten class had a Mother’s Day tea in which they sang a song that went “May there always be sunshine, may there always be blue skies, may there always be mama, may there always be me”, and I still tear up thinking about it.  I also cried a lot thinking about this Tim Horton’s commercial and I got way too excited about the woman with the MBA with a concentration in economics winning Miss USA.  Clearly May is an emotional roller-coaster of a month for me.
It was still snowing in May.
June
It was really cold.  On Father’s Day weekend – and Super Soccer Saturday weekend – I attended a yoga weekend workshop.  Happy Father’s Day!  Now take care of the kids all weekend.  The kids finished school and my husband came up with a plan in case my kids ever decide to be protesters at a G-20 Summit. 
My two favourite pictures of Mark ever taken.  He’s getting his groove on at the end-of-school-Stampede-breakfast.  Note that it is June and Jake is wearing his fleece jacket.
July
It was raining and cold and I decided to make yarn octopuses, which turned out as well as any craft I make does.  Terribly.  We went to the Okanagan for some sunshine.  The cold and rain made me become Miss Carpe Diem, and so any day with slightly above average temperatures had me running the kids to the pool.
The yarn octopuses, Moppy and Bum, doing a duet of Heart and Soul.
August
It was still cold and rainy.  I wrote a lot about fashion, especially the jeans with zippered ankles that came out that made me feel like I was wearing turquoise slacks and a coordinating blouse, hobbling around with my walker and my Scotch mints, with a tissue in my sleeve.  Also – and my friend just reminded me of this yesterday – I saw a guy wearing a t-shirt that said “Vagitarian”.  I still laugh evilly thinking about it.  Vagitarian.  Says the guy who lives in his mom’s basement.
September
Mark started Grade One and Jake started Kindergarten.  We got hardwood installed by two attractive young whipper-snappers which led to many “hardwood” jokes.  Also I came home to find that they had taken out my drawers to move my dresser with ease, and my panty drawer was proudly on display for all to see.  So I had to show my panties to get hardwood.  Hee.  Also, Jake turned five!
Too cool for school!  Note the boxes of hardwood at right.
October
In typical October fashion we seemed to have a lot of viruses, dead squirrels, and excitement about Halloween.  Also I went on a two-night vacation with my husband and no kids!  And we all survived!  Actually the boys had the time of their lives and still talk about how awesome it was that Grandma picked them up at school.
Boo, I’m a scary witch!  For real.
November
It snowed a lot, I got ready for Christmas, I ran the Scholastic Book Fair, Mark barfed.  That pretty much sums up November.
A foam finger!  It says “We’re #1 – bp”.
December
I blogged almost exclusively about Christmas, Christmas songs, Christmas baking, and my new awesome sexy bitch boots.

Whew!  If you’re still reading this, thank you!!!  So 2010 was a great year, and here’s to a wondeful 2011 for all of us.

Wasn’t that a party?

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The party was great!  I had full intentions of posting pictures of my outfit, but we had a new sitter and in my anxious getting-ready-to-leave-and-talking-far-too-much (“and the cell number is here, and here, and here”) I forgot to take a picture before we left, and then when we got home I was feeling slightly worse for the wear.  There was great food, lots of wine, and the deejay even played Billie Jean, despite which I maintained my dignity by NOT doing the moonwalk.  In fact I didn’t dance at all, instead partaking in many entertaining conversations, not the least of which was with one woman who regaled me with her stories of visiting “The Happiest Place on Earth” and crying a lot.  I felt an immediate kinship with her.  I introduced myself to one sweet young girl who floored me by saying she recognized me from this blog.  That was both startling and gratifying, and if you are reading this, hi!  Thanks for reading!  Also highly gratifying was the conversation that took place with another lovely young girl in the ladies’ room, who informed me that she loved my hair and wished hers was like it.  Such a thing has never been said to me before, given that my hair is one of my least favourite attributes and the cause of much emotional suffering throughout my life.  In fact, I can summarise an entire decade of bad hair in two words: home perms.  I would do a photo montage of that time if it wasn’t so incredibly depressing.  So I was sufficiently warmed by the kindness of people, and I stayed up until all hours – i.e., midnight – resulting in my feeling quite tired and slightly delicate today.
In other words, I was not in the least prepared for the scenario in which I drove Jake to a birthday party, taking place at a church gymnasium, and realized when we arrived at the church, ten minutes late, that we were actually at the wrong church.  Situation was revolutionized by my actual utilization of my Garmin.  My husband bought me that Garmin two years ago in response to my constant getting lost and hysterical, but I have never independently operated it.  I did manage to use it today, and although I was a bit panicky (“Why is it saying to put in an address for British Columbia?  We’re not IN British Columbia.”) I did end up at the correct church.  However, once we were there and I was oriented, I realized that the Garmin had taken the most circuitous route possible.  Nonetheless, I did get there so Garmin for the win! 
While Jake was spending, apparently, two solid hours in a bouncy castle, I browsed through Bed, Bath and Beyond.  I had never been there before but I always kind of wanted to, all because of the scene in Old School where Frank the Tank describes his potential “pretty nice little Saturday”.  I ended up buying a new shower curtain, to replace our ten year old one, and felt like I just renovated our entire bathroom.  It’s funny how something small can do that.  It’s also funny how my husband’s and my own tastes are incredibly divergent on the subject of shower curtains.  I cannot wait for the conversation when I go to replace our aged comforter!  But that is a story for another day.

I just want to eat my COOKIE!

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How was your weekend?  It has been painfully cold around here – so cold that I gave the boys the warm fleece pajamas that I was saving for Christmas – and so I spent a large part of the weekend pleasantly bustling around the house, baking things and making batch after batch of cookie dough in preparation for holiday baking.
Speaking of cookies, have you seen this video of the CEO of Alberta Health Services, refusing to answer media questions on the grounds that he was too busy eating a cookie?  You can’t make this stuff up.  I think the funniest part is how shrill his voice is when he says “I am interested in eating my COOKIE.”  Good times.  I think I’m going to start responding like that whenever anyone asks me anything.  “I am STILL eating my COOKIE.”  Maybe I’ll shove the cookie in the questioner’s face, just for fun.  Actually, since most people who ask me for things are my children, they probably would appreciate that.  To a kid, eating cookies is serious business.
While I was baking things and running errands and discovering that Lindor now makes PEPPERMINT CHOCOLATES – Mother of God, it is the most amazing discovery since frozen After-Eights – my husband continued his painting rampage that has been going on for the past few months.  This weekend he started painting Mark’s room a deep blue, a nice change from the dull brown colour it has been since before we had kids and that room was an office.  Anyway, he took everything out of Mark’s closet, which is apparently a catch-all for all kinds of things that we forgot we had.  Like a 1980’s version of Trivial Pursuit.
And this is where I say I don’t know why I bought the children any toys for Christmas, because if you give them an extremely outdated version of Trivial Pursuit, they will be occupied for hours.  And no, I am not boasting about my precocious children and their intimate knowledge of Arts and Literature and Geography and how they somehow knew who Phyllis Diller was in the Entertainment category.  No.  I just mean that Jake opened up his very own bakery and made pies all day long.



He made pies like a samurai!  While using the Chutes and Ladders board.

 While Jake was busy force-feeding the rest of the family pie, Mark set up the actual game board and started a complex game using wooly mammoths, sabre-tooth tigers, and pirates.

If that wasn’t enough excitement for one day, they also found a giant foam finger from my days as a working girl, as opposed to my days as a household drudge/ bon-bon eating housewife.

This picture is absolutely hilarious to me.  Worth a thousand words, I tell you.

And for those of you in more moderate climes, here is a view out my back door:

It looks pretty, anyway.  Check out one of my gardens!

There are leaves still on the shrubs!  Poor things.

So tell me, how was your weekend?  And do cookies trump serious conversation?  Discuss.

Hardwood, birthday prep, smoking

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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.

That’s what she said!

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So! The hardwood is in! The hardwood is in! Part one of our home renovation process is DONE, and thank god for that because a) it is extremely messy, dirty, and disruptive, and b) this past week I have turned into the World’s Least Interesting Person. My entire brain was concentrated on the hardwood installation. The kids are back to school? Whatever, we’re getting hardwood. I feel badly for any of the poor unsuspecting souls who had the grave misfortune of talking to me this week. The slightest greeting from their side resulted in the regaling of my hardwood tales. “Hi Nicole, how are you?” “We’re getting hardwood installed.” Cue long story about hardwood.

So, I apologize to everyone I talked to this week. Also I feel I must apologize for the plethora of really bad hardwood jokes that I felt must be made under the circumstances, of the “that’s what she said” variety. But, wow. Those jokes practically tell themselves. After the installation, the (very cute) installer warned about scratches and dents, saying “Hardwood is a bit of a misnomer. It’s not that hard. It’s more like medium wood.” And THAT, I felt, needed some kind of witty remark but to be honest, I was kind of high from all the glue fumes in the house and so any repartee would have made me sound like a delirious lunatic.

So now I am going to go spend some time putting the house back together – including throwing out some of the accumulated crap from the kids’ bedrooms, sssh, don’t tell them – and enjoying the feeling that I have a brand new house, in the convenient location of my old house. Pictures to follow once I have things back in order, although, alas, I do not have any pictures of the installation itself. I was tempted, on the suggestion of a friend, to photograph the cute installers under the guise of “recording the progress”, but I felt too weird and cougar-ish to actually go through with it. Plus, I was feeling kind of strange since in moving my dresser they removed the drawers and my panty drawer was on full view for the entire installation. Did they need to see my panties in order to put in the hardwood? I suppose so. See? Hardwood installation is a WEALTH of comic material. Of course, now my panty drawer is very dusty, which seems like a euphemism but isn’t.

On that note, I’m off to clean! Happy Friday, everyone.

P.S. In the comments, Tonggu Momma asked if I wanted to pet the floors. I do. I do want to pet them. They are so nice. I think maybe I should open the windows to let the fumes out, what think?

It’s quiet. A little TOO quiet.

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Today was the big day. Not back to school – that was last week. Today was the day we were slated to get the hardwood installed. It was no mean feat getting ready for the installation, given that we were out of town for the long weekend. All moveable items were moved, all clothing, toys, and breakable items stashed in the basement. Then this morning we got the phone call that they were delayed and wouldn’t start until tomorrow.

Sigh.

I was under the expectation that I would drop the boys off – Jake’s first full morning of kindergarten after last week’s frantic pace of staggered entry – and then I would come home to chaos and noise and instead it is so very quiet. Even the dog is still at the kennel. I’m lonely. And I’m also unable to find anything, and I keep bumping into things.

This is the view of my office right now. Halp.


We were in Saskatchewan this weekend, visiting with my grandparents. My grandfather turned 96 on Saturday, which is quite a feat, I think. Last year there was a huge family reunion for his 95th birthday, which was initially supposed to be somewhat of a surprise party, much to my strong disapproval. Who thinks that a surprise party is a good idea for a 95 year old man? NOT ME. Anyway, at the reunion last year I had the sad feeling that it would be the last time I would see my grandfather – he was not doing particularly well and, in any case, he was 95. One does not buy green bananas when one is 95. But here he is! He looked great and was in good spirits and I was very happy we had made the trip. Plus my grandma made a scrumptious lemon poppyseed chiffon cake, of which I ate slice after slice.

One thing about travelling with kids is that it can be exhausting. We stayed in a hotel and so the kids were WIRED and no one was sleeping particularly well, with the obvious result that we were all a bit crabby when we started the two hour drive to the airport yesterday morning. A mere ten minutes into the drive, Jake morphed into a surly little goblin, “This is taking FOREVER. When are we going to be HOME? I’M NOT TIRED. I JUST WANT TO GO HOME. THIS CAR IS MAKING ME HOMESICK.” We listened to this diatribe many, many times. I stared out the window at the unvarying landscape of flooded fields and pumpjacks, all the while thinking “I can see for miles and miles. I can see for miles and miles. I can see for miles and miles and miles and miles.”

So how was your long weekend? I’m feeling kind of blah today, tell me something good?

Home Renos Part One: I do not do well with chaos.

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Look what was delivered to my living room on Friday!

Not a six year old. Not a dog. It’s 3200 pounds of hardwood!


I’m very, very pleased to be replacing our carpet. No matter how many times the carpet had been cleaned, it still looked pretty gross, given the abuse it has taken; two kids and a dog will do that. There was that time the dog ate potting soil and then barfed all over it, the times the kids had the stomach flu and were too small to make it to the bathroom in time, the many, many potty accidents from both dog AND children…not to mention the amount of dirt and dust tracked in constantly.

However, our house is resembling a disaster zone right now, and the installers have not even begun, and will not begin for another nine days. My husband, as I write this, is painting the walls behind the piano, which will be inaccessible once the hardwood is in and the piano moved. This is what the living room looks like.


And the front hall:


Notice that there is no room to move? This does not bode well for my long-suffering baby toe.

Friday morning was the expected delivery time for the wood, and so I rushed through my shower/getting ready routine, having already had the less than optimal experience of having delivery people arrive early. I have, unfortunately, answered the door a number of times in my robe and with wet hair, which is somewhat awkward and gives me the creepy feeling of being a specific type of bored housewife in a specific type of adult movie. Wanting to avoid that I was out of the shower and dressed much earlier than usual, and then of course the delivery guy was running late and showed up after lunch.

He was in his early twenties, and I would consider him attractive if I actually found guys in their twenties attractive – which I do not, I prefer men who are a bit aged, like my very handsome and beloved husband. However, I still felt a bit on the creepy side because the boys were somewhat fascinated by him carrying in forty boxes that were six feet long and about eighty pounds each. He carried them in, one by one, on his shoulder, bounding up our front steps. It was a bit amazing, really, and Mark commented on his evident strength, to which he answered, “Well, it saves me on a gym membership” and winked at me. Awkward. Maybe I am giving off some kind of bored housewife vibe? I HOPE not.
I can’t wait to have the house back to normal. Of course, with all the flooring, then the painting, and baseboards, and trim, we have a goal to be finished before Christmas. Christmas! I’m just going to be happy to be able to move around the living room without dislocating my toe. Again.