Category Archives: Housewifery

It’s a good thing

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It’s Saturday morning, and the house is so peaceful – it’s just me and the dog; the kids are at swimming lessons, the house is filled with the scents of bread and chocolate chip cookies. Someone recently referred to me as a “Martha Stewart” and I didn’t respond right away because I needed to figure out if that person was being sarcastic or not. Apparently she was not being sarcastic but was referring to my love of baking things; clearly she was not referring to my complete inability to perform any task that requires artistic or decorative skills. Because I’m pretty sure if Martha tried to decorate cupcakes, they would look more like edible art and less like someone visually impaired and with only one hand attacked them with frosting and sprinkles.

Also I think Martha would have a much better craft supply storage solution than put everything on top of the fridge and hope that an avalanche does not occur while cooking.


Notice the various crafts and colouring pages.


The fridge is generally covered with three or four layers of paper at any given time.


As should be obvious by this point, I have one child who is really into crafts and colouring, and one who is sort of into crafts and colouring, with the result that the house is overflowing with art. So here’s my question: what does one do with it all? I have two giant containers in the basement where I keep a LOT of it, but eventually I smuggle piles out to the recycle bin. So what do you do with all of your children’s art, and how do you decide what to keep? While I’m at it, how do you deal with clutter?

I’m a baskets sort of person. Note the Bakugan stuck on the metal part of the fireplace. Classy touch.

But this is what it looks like under one of my living room end tables. NOT SO GOOD. I think the Hungry Hungry Hippos got so hungry they detached themselves from the game and died a slow death. I actually think that having an Attractively Decorated Home is incompatible with children. Or maybe it’s just me and my filled-to-overflowing-with-children’s-art-and-toys home.

Awww! So cute. This has nothing to do with clutter, but I think he’s looking for a walk. Enjoy the weekend!

Happy Thoughts!

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It rained on Friday, which is highly unusual at this time of year – normally precipitation takes the form of snow – and the city smelled so fresh and clean, also a highly unusual occurrence.

It was dark and grey though, and I’m choosing to believe that was the reason that Costco, haven for bad humour everywhere, housed even more grouchy people than usual. For this post I considered writing merely “I took two kids to Costco on a rainy Friday. The End.” and that would have been a fairly complete description of my day.

It wasn’t the kids. They were actually exceedingly helpful: Mark fetching items I’d asked for and depositing them gently into the cart, Jake frequently looking at my face with some alarm and saying “Mom? Mom? Are you okay, Mom?” Because I’m sure I looked somewhat distressed at the human condition as see in Costco: strangers snapping at each other for their objectionable cart etiquette, children screaming, babies crying, drivers trying to run over pedestrians at high speeds in the parking lot. The fact of us making it out of there unscathed, with the items we went in for, no less, seemed to me to be somewhat miraculous.

So I felt Swistle’s post about happy thoughts was very timely, although she was talking about taxes, and not disturbing Costco trips, but still, here is my list of things that are making me happy right now:

1) Spring break! Girls gone wild! And by girls I mean me, and by wild I mean I’m going to enjoy drinking coffee at a leisurely pace rather than my usual habit of chugging down as much caffeine as humanly possible whilst striving to remain patient, yet encouraging, in the matter of the kids getting dressed, etc., recalling that comments like “What the? For the love of….just get your socks on already!” are not particularly helpful in this type of situation.

2) We’re going to the zoo tomorrow! I used to take the kids all the time when they were smaller but we have not been since school started. There is a new dinosaur display, with some funky animatronic dinos, that I am expecting to be quite entertaining. Plus, Jake is fascinated by the hippos and the fish that eat their fecal matter, and viewing that display always leads to some interesting and enlightening conversation.

3) The weather, other than the brief rainy spell, has been spectacular and not only have I been playing in the garden (so many little perennial sprouts, squee), but I have been able to send the boys outside. Yay spring.

4) My stinky dog is getting groomed tomorrow. Perhaps they will put a little bandanna on him.

5) I have a date! I have a date! My husband and I are going out to my favourite restaurant to belatedly celebrate our anniversary; dinner AND babysitting courtesy of my generous parents. I’ve already looked at the online menu to decide what, exactly, I am going to order, right down to a cosmopolitan to start, to make me feel all Carrie Bradshaw and whatnot. Without creepy Mr. Big.

So, dear readers, what makes you happy right now? Let’s start the week off right and tell me, what is putting a smile on your face today?

He’s gone.

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Oh I, oh I, I’d better learn how to face it.


I love Hall and Oates.

So what did I do other than bake bread this weekend? Hold onto your hats: I went to Ikea. I think I’ve made it fairly clear that I’m not someone who particularly enjoys shopping, so I entered the store with my usual mix of trepidation and feelings of being overwhelmed. The thing is, I was overwhelmed and anxious through the trip, but I was also overcome with feelings of consumerism and dissatisfaction as I looked at their neat displays: did I need new drinking glasses, I wondered, or maybe some fancy napkins, or even a giant bubble shaped floor lamp? In the end I left with only one discretionary purchase: a mold for making heart-shaped ice cubes. The other, semi-non-discretionary purchases were of a very practical nature: a desk and shelving unit for our disaster of an office.

After lugging home our purchases, I promptly left for the evening, leaving my husband to swear and sweat and curse the Swedes and their complex, wordless instructions. I came home to find a new desk in the office! A miracle! What a lovely husband I have.

I spent a large amount of time cleaning out the horrors of our office, finding many bizarre and useless items, leaving me to wonder why I hadn’t thrown them out already. It shall remain a mystery. My husband uncovered an old tape case – remember tape cases? – filled with various cassettes and mixed tapes, some hilariously labeled “Party Mix” and one labeled with a distinctly feminine hand. Oh yes it was! A mixed tape from an old girlfriend.

Is there any woman out there who hasn’t made a mixed tape for a boyfriend? Ah, I remember those days with fondness. Mixed tapes were like an interpretive dance for a relationship; there were things that you wanted to say but couldn’t, and so you made a mix tape to show your feelings. Maybe if you were especially creative you could add some photos or something on the case. There was a special formula to a perfect mixed tape: a nice blend of peppy, popular music to show that you were a cool and fun girlfriend, but also some emotionally-charged ballads that you would hope that your boyfriend would interpret in just the right way. The making of the mixed tape would be filled with tension, and often tears, and the mixed tape itself would be heavy with meaning and, possibly, angst. Chances are the boyfriend would be like “Cool. A mixed tape. Thanks.” and then would probably tape over it with something he liked better. I guess with the advent of CD’s and whatnot, those days are long gone. Sigh.

Those days are gone, and I never did make a mixed tape for my husband, but as of today it is a mere nine days until our eighth anniversary! Eight years! Adding that to the four years of togetherness prior to our marriage, and we have been together twelve years! Twelve years of bliss, I might add, but that does makes me feel a teensy bit old. Not, however, as old as when I think of how long it has been since I labeled a mixed tape.

Happy Homemaker’s Household Hints

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If I had posted yesterday, like I intended to, you may have been concerned for my mental state and perhaps you would have had all sorts of interesting suggestions to combat my case of the Januarys. Or perhaps not. Anyway, people, I have been BLUE. Blue and gloomy and so very very sick of being freezing cold all day long. But it seems that the weather has broken and so has my mood, and this is partly due to the application of my patented anti-sadness formula of…drum roll…housecleaning and bread baking!

Maybe I should rename this blog “The Happy Homemaker”.

You know that kind of activity that is known, when you are pregnant, as nesting but when you are not pregnant it is simply crazed maniacal cleaning? That’s what I have been doing. Crazed maniacal cleaning. Like, baby, I am going to town on those baseboards. I have my spray bottle of cleaner and I am scrubbing the hell out of my kitchen cupboards. All those weird little nooks and crannies are now appropriately disinfected. Or inappropriately disinfected. The problem with this kind of cleaning project is, while it is quite satisfying for me, no one else (read: my husband) can really notice the results. So while I’m showing him the fruits of my labour with a crazed glint in my eyes, he is looking at me in the alarmed and suspicious way that you might look at someone who just spent four hours in a 1950’s housewife stupor.

As an aside, several years ago I received an email, undoubtedly from my mother, entitled “Helpful Household Hints”. I don’t actually remember any of the hints except this one: “Stop throwing out that leftover wine! Instead, freeze it in ice cube trays to use later for sauces!” I am still baffled by that hint. Who has leftover wine? Don’t you just, um, drink it? Especially the amount that would fill an ice cube tray. If you have wine that would make one single ice cube, suck it up and, well, suck it up. That, possibly, is the worst household hint I have ever heard.

But back to the second part of my anti-sadness formula – bread baking. Just when you thought it couldn’t get more exciting than baseboard cleaning, here I am talking about bread. Today I made two baguettes, and they actually look like baguettes! And taste like baguettes! My New Year’s resolution is being kept, and it’s already the ninth! I know it’s a bit late, but maybe I will make another resolution: not to throw out any leftover wine. I’m just going to drink it. It’s going to go great with my baguettes.

New Year, New Me?

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There’s nothing quite like a fresh start, is there? I think that’s why New Year’s resolutions are so tempting. A New Year – A New You. Each and every time I open my mailbox, it is full of flyers from various companies salivating over Resolution People and their Willingness to Spend Money on Fresh Starts: fitness clubs, diet and nutritional programs, exercise equipment outlets, and health food stores. Today I received a four page flyer advertising various cleanses. Have you ever been on a cleanse? I once tried the Wild Rose 12-Day Cleanse and I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say it was one of the poorest decisions of my life. Really, what good can come of a cleanse, unless you exclusively eat KFC, Coke and gummy bears? And if that is your particular diet, then perhaps a cleanse isn’t going to solve all your issues.

But I do understand the concept behind resolutions: there is a feeling of openness, of new beginnings, of unlimited possibilities. I’m just a little cynical about the actual keeping of resolutions, especially when they are of the “complete lifestyle change” variety. People, if I were to make a resolution that said I was going to a) take up jogging, b) eat liver on a daily basis, and c) wear shorty-shorts and crop tops, you can bet that I would also not make it to the middle of January with resolutions kept. I would not likely make it one day.

So what I’m saying is I don’t really make New Year’s resolutions. Which is not to say that my life has no room for improvement. I do tend to make resolutions, but they are more daily resolutions, such as “Today I will play dinosaurs for at least one hour without becoming distracted and needing to leave the room after being violently killed and eaten by my fellow dinosaur players.” Or, “Today I will have a snack prior to picking the kids up at school, rather than simply drinking eight cups of coffee and having a blood sugar crash together with a caffeine high and then becoming incensed after tripping over the backpacks that have been left in the doorway and stepping with my sock foot in a gritty puddle left by the discarded snowboots and screaming at the boys for leaving their things lying around while they are themselves irritable and ready for lunch.” Sometimes I keep those resolutions, and sometimes I do not.

But I did make a New Year’s resolution, and it was to start baking bread. Hold onto your hats! Baking bread! I became inspired after reading this, and thought, I like baking things, and I like bread. What a great resolution!

There is a drawback, however. I bake all the time, I bake cookies and muffins and quick loaves. I bake those things because I like to send them in the boys’ school snack bags. It makes me feel like a Very Good Mother, to send them a snack that I Baked Myself, along with some cut-up Fruits and/or Vegetables. Very Good Mother. Also, no matter how many of those items I bake, I am not overly tempted to actually eat them myself. I can pretty much take it or leave it when it comes to most baked goods. Except fresh baked bread.

I love fresh baked bread; yesterday I made my first loaf of herbed cheese bread, and it was so delicious that I ate piece after piece, fresh from the oven. So, I am wondering, if I keep up with this whole “bake bread” resolution, will that necessitate a “stop eating the bread you bake” resolution? We’ll see.

GROSS

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When I got home early this morning, Mark met me at the door to inform me that he was “a little bit sick”. He certainly didn’t look sick, his colour was good, he ate a good breakfast, but my husband did mention that both boys woke up coughing. I thought about a reader comment about coughing and RSV and I thought I would keep them home for the day. Then they didn’t cough even once the whole day, which was fine. I took it as a mental health day. But after lunch Jake started acting strange. He didn’t want to eat much and was rubbing his head a lot. I started to worry. No fever. Still no eating. He was clingy and wanted to be hugged and held a lot. I started self-medicating. Don’t worry – I wasn’t stumbling around drunk or anything. I mean I ate a couple of chocolate chip cookies with leftover Halloween candy chasers. I was starting to feel a bit stressed.

Now, for the sake of readers who are not parents, or who may wish to become parents, or are maybe pregnant or with young infants, I will not go into great detail about the origin of Jake’s lassitude. I will only say that sometimes young children like to, shall we say, withhold certain body functions, and that sometimes leads to, shall we say, undesirable results.

Oh! Did I mention I also washed the floors today?

So now that it is past 7:30, I say screw the chocolate. I am going straight for the wine.

Is it really only Tuesday?

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I’ve been in an absolute flurry of activity the past couple of days, the details of which are much to boring to divulge, but believe me: flurry of activity. I will share with you two major accomplishments from the past couple of days: a) I finished my Christmas shopping, and b) I was in and out of Superstore with everything on my list in only twenty minutes! Much as I dislike shopping, I love grocery shopping, and if you put me in a situation where there are not only groceries, but also cosmetics, vitamins, and Christmas ornaments, I’m sure to get distracted and spend more time and money than is absolutely necessary. Therefore, the twenty minute trip is an accomplishment in my world. By now you’re probably thinking, I thought she wasn’t going to divulge boring details? Ha! You should see how boring the other hundred accomplishments were, that my quick Superstore trip is considered NOT boring.

Have you ever read The Nanny Diaries? There is a great scene in which the nanny visits FAO Schwartz a few days before Christmas, and it is just total chaos with children shrieking and lying on the floor, and a big voice over the loudspeaker “Welcome to our world of toys” and grim-faced parents with a “let’s just get through this” expression. That scene perfectly describes my feelings about the mall. I went to the mall on Saturday night – yes, Saturday night – to finish my Christmas shopping and I felt like I had blasted off and landed on some other planet. The moisture was being sucked out of my skin by the hideous recycled air and children were crying and I was staring at the Hot Wheels Colour Shifters in a befuddled way: sports car or rescue vehicle? But! I’m finished shopping, so hooray.

This week feels long already. I can’t believe it’s only Tuesday. But I heard that “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight” song this morning and it made my day. This is when it really pays to listen to a radio station geared towards old people: the sheer volume of 1970’s light rock love songs. It is a genre – I feel I must mention – that my husband abhors. I may as well stick pins in his eyes, as force him to listen to light rock from the 70’s.

Speaking of my husband, poor dear, he is very upset these days. I don’t know if you live with a New England Patriots fan, or maybe you are a New England Patriots fan yourself, but they lost to the Colts on Sunday night. It was, as my husband said, the game of the year, and they lost. My husband is still somewhat scarred from Superbowl 38 (I think it was 38?) and so Sunday’s loss has made him VERY UPSET. If you see a Patriots fan, give them a hug. They need it.

So, enough random thoughts for one day. I have a flurry of activity to keep up! But don’t worry! I’ll save only the exciting, juicy, Superstore-like details for you.