Category Archives: Playtime

Rising up, back on the street.

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This morning I finally could breathe through my nose, and so I went to yoga for the first time since Sunday. When I was driving home, Eye of the Tiger was playing on the radio. It felt appropriate. I feel like I should play it on a continuous loop over the next few days as I prepare for Book Fair and all that entails. Rising up to the challenge of our rival and all that.

Not only am I running the Book Fair next week, but my children’s classes are hosting an assembly, in which they are going to play recorders. I cannot imagine just how badly this is going to go. The kazoo performance was one thing, but both boys have mentioned that they – and their classmates – are not very good at the recorder, which seems like an understatement of the largest order. I’m starting to be concerned for the music teacher’s mental health. The very few times that the boys have actually practiced the recorder at home have ended with the dog whimpering in his crate and me reaching for the wine bottle. Of course, the other day I was singing a spirited rendition of The Greatest Love of All and the dog ran and hid in his crate, which I am going to assume was just a coincidence. I went the distance, and I’m not going to stop.

The recorder, though. I know of only one person who has actually enjoyed her child playing the recorder, and I’m fairly certain that child has much, much more musical talent than the vast majority of children. In general it is truly a wretched instrument, which is not to say that I do not understand why the recorder is so widely used by elementary music teachers everywhere. It’s light, inexpensive, and appropriate for small hands and YET. One year I was running the Book Fair in the room beside the music room, and I heard recorder music for the entire day, to the detriment of my sanity. I hope that doesn’t happen next week. I’m just a girl with a will to survive.

The other day I came across an article that declared high waisted jeans are the biggest trend for this spring and I died a little on the inside. There has to be a happy medium between showing the world that you really do need a bikini wax and waistbands that end just below your ribcage. Why, world, why? We ladies of a certain age remember donning our high waisted jeans with our bodysuits underneath to head out to the bar to go what is now called “clubbing”, shaking our amply-denim-covered booties to I Saw The Sign and I Like To Move It Move It. We don’t need to relive those days, at least not with such unflattering clothes. Don’t lose your grip on your dreams from the past, but there’s no need to fight just to keep them alive.

Speaking of unflattering fashions, the other day I was in the mall and I saw this:

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I wonder if it’s a hot seller. It might be nice for wearing while jogging and singing Eye of the Tiger, which is something I should keep in mind in the unlikely event that I take up jogging. Although maybe it’s meant for evening loungewear? I don’t really know. Stalking prey in the night.

All Baking and No Eating Makes Nicole Go Something Something

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Happy Monday, I say from my perch on the office chair with a big coffee next to me. It’s Day…I don’t know how many days it’s been painfully cold but suffice it to say it was an indoorsy kind of weekend. Jake came down with a cold – probably because I’d JUST finished saying how lucky we’ve been and how we haven’t even had a cold in the house since late September – and so the boys did not even go to karate class on Saturday. Quiet weekend indeed. I baked some cookies in honour of Valentine’s Day.

Vday

SOME cookies. Eighty four, to be exact. Sadly, they are almost exclusively made of butter so I cannot eat them.

I also shot a couple of videos for Yummy Mummy Club:

Quinoa

The video on how to make quinoa as a breakfast cereal is right here. I’m wearing the apron my mom bought me for Christmas, from a lingerie store. The last video I shot I wore my old cupcake apron and my mom’s feelings were VERY HURT that I wasn’t featuring my lingerie apron. See Mom? I’m wearing it! I just like to switch things up a little.

Speaking of lingerie, I had a post all planned about thongs, but it will have to wait a day or two because my dear friend Kimberly from Make Mommy Go Something Something tagged me in a meme! And it’s Meme Monday so really, what could be better? NOTHING, that’s what!

1) If Jane had 3 apples and John had 78 nails, how many layers of clothing are you wearing (how is the weather in your neck of the woods?)?

Well, Kimberly, I am currently wearing jeans, a turtleneck, a huge sweater, and I’m sitting in front of a space heater because it’s OMG MY FACE HURTS cold outside. It’s the kind of cold that I always think “That’ll wake you up in the morning!” when I drop the kids off at school. Seriously. Every time. Oh, and I’m wearing my favourite thigh high thick grey socks OVER my jeans and fuzzy slippers.

socks2

I’m bringing sexy back…to the store for a refund.

2. What is keeping you sane during these long winter months?

Honestly, I’m at the point where I can’t remember what grass looks like. I’ve probably already lost my sanity. Oh! But I’ve been on a Margaret Atwood binge lately. Last night I picked up Cat’s Eye and remembered how hard it is to put down. *yawn* Which means I stayed up until 9:30 last night reading. 9:30! Clearly I HAVE lost my sanity!

3. If you were on a boat with a box of chocolate and your Mother In Law, who would you throw overboard?

What kind of chocolate? I kid, I kid. My mother-in-law has been knitting up a storm for me this winter and honestly, it’s made a huge difference in my quality of life. So far I’ve amassed six scarves and four pairs of legwarmers – plus she is currently working on an infinity scarf for me. To add to the sweetness, she sends them to me all wrapped up in ribbons with a note that says “Custom Made For Nicole”. Cute! So I’ll toss the chocolate and keep my mother in law and her knitting needles.

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4. What’s in your underwear drawer besides underwear?

I have so many of those bra inserts that come in yoga tops. I don’t like wearing the inserts, but yet I feel like I MIGHT want to some day. I like to keep my options open. So I have about forty of those inserts taking up valuable panty space…I should go throw them out RIGHT NOW. I won’t, but I should. WHAT IF I NEED THEM?

5. Do you trust yourself with sharp objects near your face? (as in, do you pluck your own eyebrows? Do you have any eyebrow horror stories?)

I do pluck my own eyebrows because if I had to wait 4-6 weeks to get waxed, it would be a nightmare. I’d look like Martin Scorcese crossed with Frida Kahlo. It would not be a good look for me. And here’s a secret…I also pluck my upper lip. I KNOW. The feminine mystique takes quite a beating as we age, doesn’t it? Now, my husband has seen me give birth – twice – and yet I will not allow him in the room if I’m plucking my upper lip because I want to keep the romance alive, people. Feeling like your wife might look like a 70s rocker or possibly Magnum PI without the help of a tweezer is probably not conducive to romantic thoughts.

6. I am terrified of dead bodies, spiders, and the dentist. What are you scared of?

Moths. Good lord I just typed “moths” and I think I had heart palpitations. Either that or I’ve had too much coffee. THIS is what happens when I stay up until 9:30 on a Sunday night!

7. Does your husband cut up the back of your legs with his long toenails when you sleep?

Um, no. No he doesn’t.

All right, it’s my turn to think of seven questions and tag seven people but you know, I like Kimberly’s questions, except for the toenail one. I’ll keep those and add the last question: are you wearing nail polish? And if so, what colour? (I have red on my toenails and pale pink on my fingernails, FYI). I tag the following wonderful bloggers:

Hannah from Hodgepodge and Strawberries

Allison from Bibliomama

Sarah from No Whey, Mama

Swistle from Swistle

Lynn from Turtlehead

Alex from I Don’t Blog

Peady from Tempered With Kindness

You don’t have to be a blogger to answer these questions – feel free to comment on any of the above. Have fun! Happy Meme Monday! xo

This Post Is Steeped

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Today I received an email from an insurance broker about a mix-up, and she very earnestly apologized for the “incontinence”, which has been making me smile all day. I’m sure her coworkers would be more in need of an apology than me, given the puddles and all.

I’ve been re-reading Alias Grace, and in the language of the 1850s, she describes sweeping under a bed and finding a ton of slut’s wool, which is apparently what they used to call dust bunnies, sluts back then being lazy housekeepers and not the whores we think of today. In my own bid to be a fabulous housewife, I moved the couch for the first time in many weeks to sweep behind it and I myself found enough slut’s wool to create my own dusty sheep, so I feel a kinship with all those nineteenth-century sluts.

When Jake started Grade One full time, I had several people ask me what will I do with all my TIME, intimating that I should consider going “back to work”. Did you know I used to have a career? One where I wore pantyhose and high heels and worked on a trade floor for twelve hours a day on average, and I used to cry in the bathroom sometimes, and once a guy flipped out so much that he banged his phone on his desk until it broke and he had to take an anger management course? Good times. Anyway, I never really considered going back to work in that capacity after I left, and it’s good that I didn’t, because then I wouldn’t be available for my current career of “school volunteer”, not to mention my role of slutty housewife.

Yesterday I was a judge at the school science fair, and let me tell you, it was the most fun I’ve ever had in a volunteer capacity. I highly recommend it. I was easily the most excited judge around, walking with my clipboard and asking VERY SERIOUS scientific questions. I loved all the students with their science-y joy and ideas. Changing the world, one science project at a time. One kid was so into his topic of waves and resonance, and so engaged and excited, that I mentioned he might want to consider taking more science once he was in junior high and high school, which subsequently made him even more engaged and excited, that I thought he might spin off the planet right then and there.

Sadly, there was not one baking soda volcano among the bunch. Not one! However, someone had built a Lego robot, and the boys assured me that it was one of the most popular tables, when their classes visited, along with a research project about venom and its uses. Venom! There’s nothing like a potentially deadly substance to get a bunch of third-and-fourth grade boys interested in scientific applications.

And hey, one week until Valentine’s Day! Apparently I will be making approximately one million heart-shaped cookies for the boys’ classes next week, in lieu of cards which they say are “lame” and “stupid”. Well, cookies are the opposite of lame and stupid! Remember that old Tim Hortons’ commercial in which the teenage son bought his mom a tea and said it was steeped, after which she thought “steeped” was the new word to say for something that was cool and used it in all sorts of situations? That’s totally me. I am that mother. Also, cookies in lieu of cards for Valentine’s Day is steeped. STEEPED I SAY.

Someone was asking the other day what men like to receive for Valentine’s Day and I blinked a couple of times. Blink. Blink. I can really only think of two things, and they are pretty obvious: sex and blowjobs. It’s perfect, you don’t need to wrap anything, you don’t need to buy anything, you don’t even need to leave the comfort of your own home. Alternately, you could make a batch of my aphrodisiac blondies. Blondes have more fun, my sweet young blonde yoga friend is always telling me, and I…don’t know if that’s true or not. But these blondies are very fun. Personally I’m hoping for a teddy bear wearing a bee costume emblazoned with “Bee Mine” but I’m not sure if I’ll get that or not. I might have to be satisfied with smooches and general romantic feelings. And maybe a bottle of wine.

My New Career As A Life Coach, Or Motivational Speaker

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Is it me, or is this winter the one that will go down in history for being the one where every geographical area did their best to win the Cold Olympics? It’s like we’re all in competition to see whose weather is the most atrocious. This morning it was minus 35 with windchill, which is pretty brisk. It’s worth noting that Calgary schools basically never close due to weather. I cannot recall one instance of schools closing here, because a) we’re used to hideously cold weather, b) we don’t get massive three-feet-of-snow-storms or ice storms that actually threaten power or heat, and c) if our schools closed due to cold weather they would be closed for weeks at a time, welcome to winter on the prairies. As it is our schools make indoor recess their concession to the cold.

But that doesn’t mean I’m not sympathetic to the plight of pretty much everyone else on the continent, what with seemingly endless snow days and abnormally low temperatures and massive snowstorms. A friend recently made snarky remarks about Southerners complaining of the cold, which I felt was uncalled for. If the temperature climbs above 24 degrees here, people start complaining about the heat, which I’m pretty sure would make any Southerner politely blink in confusion. Personally complaints about the “heat” make me feel like stabbing the complainee, and then I have to do deep breathing and OM SHANTI for a while just to settle down.

People, stop trying to win the Cold Olympics. Everywhere is cold. It’s winter. Even if it’s a relative cold, it’s STILL COLD.

Speaking of the Olympics, is it me or does the Russian Olympic Committee seem like that kid we all knew who waited until the night before the assignment was due to start working on it, all the while knowing that the assignment was worth 75% of the mark for the entire term? It makes me think of that SNL skit from a few weeks ago, where the character asked what the other venue choices were, Haiti or the middle of the ocean? Middle of the ocean actually sounds kind of cool in a Waterworld kind of way.

Ah, the Olympics. The precious time that my husband and I get into weird standoffs. He’s all about the athletes, and the determination, and the hard work that goes into training for what could be a once in a lifetime opportunity to represent your country and put pride into your fellow citizens’ hearts and tears of joy to their eyes. He is all about embodying the Olympic spirit and feelings of international cooperation through sport. I, on the other hand, have never gotten over the Sale and Pelletier gold medal debacle of 2002 and have not watched an event in its entirety ever since. I remember it like it was yesterday: watching in a hotel bar in Houston with American co-workers, surrounded by Texan men who, upon discovering my heritage, came over to offer sympathies and opinions, like it was I myself who was on the ice, gracefully skating to Love Story. I’ve had a soft spot for Texans in general and Houston in particular ever since.

Several years later I found myself at a Gold Medal Plates fundraiser with David Pelletier himself, and I will say this: there are probably more entertaining athletes to have dinner with. Not that I don’t feel empathy for the man; it must be very weird to be sitting at a table of people you don’t know, and having to make small talk when it’s pretty clear you have zero in common, and yet you are expected to be bright and charming and entertaining for the table full of athletic benefactors. A metaphorical soft-shoe, if you will.

David Pelletier

And yet, the guy basically texted Jamie Sale about the babysitter all night long, which in light of what happened next in the Sale/ Pelletier story, is pretty sad. Also, I was really jealous of the table who kept bursting into loud and raucous laughter at the apparently hilarious stories one of the Olympic skiers was regaling them with, while David Pelletier sat in glum silence. Long story short: I am not particularly excited about the Olympics, and for more reasons than just the figure skating. And yet, I will cheer Team Canada along side the guys in my house who ARE excited.

This morning I saw a rainbow, an actual rainbow in the sky. I would have taken a photo of it were my fingers not frozen stiff despite my gloves AND mittens. A rainbow, in February, in minus 35-with-windchill. A small miracle, I would say.

But yet it represents something even bigger: a dream. I say this to all of you – Olympic athletes included – as one who knows: dreams can come true, and the impossible can become possible, if only you work hard enough and believe in yourself. Yesterday, I accomplished something that I have always felt was out of reach, that was not possible, that could not be done. And yet. And yet I did it. Yesterday, I went to Costco with a list of 14 items, and I returned home with those same 14 items, and only $112 poorer. My husband did not believe me at first, but I saved the receipt and will possibly frame it, artwork entitled “BELIEVE”. This morning I saw the rainbow in the frozen morning sky, and I thought it was there for me. Reach for the stars, people, and you just might pluck one.

Late to the party.

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I have been relentlessly cheery today, so much so that I’m even annoying myself. Maybe it’s all the green smoothies I’ve been drinking; today I made one with frozen strawberries and, while it was very tasty, it looked like sludge.

But it has a great personality!

But it has a great personality!

I think my cheerfulness is actually directly related to the unseasonably warm temperatures we have been experiencing. It’s a spring-like feeling, the sun shining and the snow melting into messy piles of brown slush that very closely approximate the “great personality but non-photogenic” smoothie I had for lunch, which is a little disturbing to think about. Spring in January! Obviously I am not taken in by this; I recognize we have a solid four months before spring is actually here, but that does not mean I am not enjoying being able to move my fingers while walking the dog.

So I’m feeling cheerful and have spent the morning happily doing things around the house, singing random cheerful songs like “Burning Love” and “Sweet City Woman” and even, strangely enough, “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree”. I’m not singing these songs now, however, because the boys are home and they have a friend over. I have to keep checking to ensure that there is just one extra kid, because by the sounds of it there are about 40. What are they doing that necessitates so much enthusiastic yelling? I DO NOT KNOW. Well, it’s Friday, and in approximately ninety minutes I’m going to pour myself a big glass of wine and watch Downton Abbey. My husband and I, for the past several months, have been working our way through all six seasons of The Sopranos, which we own on DVD. Why we have all six seasons on DVD I cannot explain, but we have been doggedly watching them like it’s our duty to humanity. We swore we wouldn’t start a new series until we finished, and finally, finally last weekend we finished. I know I’m about seven years late to this party, but that was certainly an anticlimactic ending. I was expecting some sort of apocalyptic-all-ends-tied-up Breaking Bad-esque ending, but no.

In any case, I am now free, free as a bird – AND THIS BIRD YOU CANNOT CHANGE – and so I started watching Downton Abbey on Netflix. Here’s the problem: as a rule, I do not watch television during the day, unless you count the morning “news” I watch while eating breakfast. Lately I haven’t even been watching that because the local newscast has almost exclusively focused on a) FLU OUTBREAK PANIC PANIC PANIC EVERYONE GET YOUR FLU SHOTS OMG OMG WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE, followed by b) we are all out of flu shots and we don’t know why. I can conjecture why. In any case I’m sure there were other things happening in the world, however, by the time the local news decided that “other events” were worthy of coverage, I would have already turned the television off in exasperation at hearing the same flu clinics are mobbed we’re all going to die and now we’re out of vaccines, sorry, we can’t imagine why there was such sudden demand. It’s been so bad that I find myself watching the Business News Network with my husband and having earnest conversations on whether or not to hedge our currency exposure.

Sorry, I nodded off for a second there.

Anyway, back to Downton Abbey. I find myself hopelessly addicted to this show, but the problem is my husband seems to be completely uninterested for some reason. Apparently if the show doesn’t contain strip clubs, chopping off people’s heads and hands before sending them to a watery grave, murderous rampages, or a former junkie chained to an underground meth lab who is forced to produce crystal for a dead-eyed sociopath who is in love with a logistics coordinator for a manufacturing conglomerate who is illegally shipping said meth around the world, then my husband is just not interested. Even when I explained it was a British period drama about social hierarchies, he remained unmoved. And so I’m trying to watch the episodes before he comes home from work in the evenings, but that is proving to be difficult, what with preparing dinner, and cleaning up from dinner, and supervising homework. Apparently trying to voraciously wolf down episodes on the sly is not in keeping with being an involved parent.

Why not, you may say, just watch the episodes while he was home? Screw it, as it were. Well, the issue here is that my husband actually likes to TALK to me, apparently. He finds me scintillating for some reason. And trying to carry a conversation – even one about currency exposure and should we be looking at Asia? – while constantly pausing and rewinding Downton Abbey just isn’t working for me. So I think I’ll knock off a bit early today, and spend the rest of this lovely Friday afternoon conjecturing if Bates and Anna are going to get it on, servant style. What? I’m only on the first season, DON’T TELL ME.

Happy New Year! Happy New Look!

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Mark was peeling an orange and accidentally dropped a piece of peel on the floor; I managed to rescue it mere milliseconds before the dog pounced. I took that opportunity to tiresomely remind the children to be careful because food dropped on the floor could make Barkley sick. I finished with “The only thing worse than a barfing dog is a barfing kid.” Mark thoughtfully followed that up with “And the only thing worse than a barfing kid is a barfing mom!” True enough, however, the conversation turned to the possibility of a barfing dad, which to me is even WORSE. The kids didn’t think so. As they pointed out, Dad’s not home all day anyway, so if he’s sick, no big deal. If MOM is sick though…

While I appreciate the sentiment of my own indispensability to household harmony, I also recognized that during the Christmas holidays, the title of Most Important Parent is not mine. Mostly this is because of my complete inability to figure things out on the Wii or to put Lego together. For a few solid days, every few minutes I’d hear “Dad! DAAAAD! Can you help me?” followed up by a request to a) get to the next level, or b) put something together with Lego. Truth be told, the children do not want me to even touch their Lego, and shoo me away from it whenever I stop by to “help”.

But my husband is now back to work, and most of the Lego is already put together, and it’s time we start slowly getting back to regular routines, with regular food and with putting regular clothes on prior to “after lunch”. The boys are still sharing a room; Christmas Eve we moved Jake’s bed into Mark’s room, as per our tradition, and they are loathe to end this sleepover atmosphere. I’m happy they enjoy being together, but their chatter goes late into the night, or what passes for it at my house: anything after 9:30 pm.

Did you make any resolutions this year? I made some usual ones: to read more, write more, play the piano more, that sort of thing. One of my favourite resolutions came from an old friend who resolved to wear her nice shoes and carry her nice handbags more, which I think is brilliant. Don’t we all feel better when we look better? On that note, yesterday I put on my nice new sweater dress I bought at a 60% off Boxing Day sale, and some sassy high heeled boots, and went to the mall to buy makeup and socks.

sweaterdress

Things to note about this picture: Barkley has a need to sniff my leg frantically whenever I change shoes, and you can see the fuzzy burgundy slipper I’ve discarded to make way for my high heeled boots. It felt great to get dressed up, albeit for a pretty lame errand, but I think tomorrow I’m going to laze around in yoga pants with lots of coffee and maybe an episode of the Price is Right. After all, the break is almost over and I should probably have a resolution to the effect of savour every moment or something like that. In any case, I call Lazy Day tomorrow.

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Happy New Year to me! I’m so pleased with my new blog design, many thanks to my dear, longtime friend Marilyn at Cursive Web. Don’t you just love it?

 

Just call me Lynn Raisman.

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I’m not sure how you parents of children in highly competitive sports do it. This weekend was the Candy Cane Shiah at the boys’ karate dojo, and the boys each competed in a kata and a weapons division. The whole time I was a bundle of nerves and it was the Candy Cane Shiah, a very friendly and fun competiton. I felt like Aly Raisman’s mother, except all that dialogue was going on in my head and also, I didn’t really know the routines that they were doing. STICK IT STICK IT YEAHHHHHH. Mark got a bronze in kata and a silver in weapons in his division, and Jake got a silver in kata and a GOLD in weapons. This is what he looked like after winning:

So that was pretty fun. The entire day they walked around the house wearing their medals, like they medaled in an actual Olympic event. It was a constant jangle all day long.

This photo says everything about their personalities. Last night the boys were working on math sheets, practicing for unit tests on Tuesday. I looked over Mark’s word problems, which were all correct but just had the answers written down, no setting up of the problem, no work.

Me: Mark, you have to show your work. 801 is the correct answer, but how did you get it?

Mark: Um, I regrouped. In my head.

Jake was working on greater than/ less than problems, and the question specifically asked “How do you know?”. Jake wrote “Because I know math.” Partial credit?

The weekend before last we decorated our gingerbread house, and I feel like we’ve made gargantuan strides in this area. Part of this is the fact that I buy the pre-made house with the pre-mixed frosting and the pre-cut-out gingerbread characters, and before you say well, YEAH, you have to be an idiot not to make something decent out of that much pre-fabricated festivity, I invite you to see the house from 2011. But look at this year’s offerings! I am going to admit that this is the year that I have had the least involvement with the decoration, and it is also our best house ever. Possible correlation. I was too busy making the gingerbread Christmas tree to really fuss over the frosting lines on the roof, but it turns out my husband is remarkably competent in this area.

Those are my husband’s hands, not mine, wielding the frosting.

 

That is supposed to be me, in gingerbread woman-form. Aren’t I lovely?
See, the little tree was taking up all my efforts. And the red snowman…I don’t know. It wouldn’t be a gingerbread house in the Boyhouse if there wasn’t some kind of dead/ bloody/ blown up/ violent component.
Mark made a smiley face on the side of the house – the windows are the eyes. Jake put that blob of red frosting there, showing where the nuclear explosion was. I should maybe be concerned.