Category Archives: Schoolgirl Crushes

The Wearing of the Green (Eyed Monster)

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This weekend my husband was watching “The Wolverine”. Remember the lengths I went to in order to obtain that video? It turns out I was actually uninterested in watching it, and so I puttered around the kitchen, making cookies and banana bread while my husband – who must be the world’s most confident man – would call me in to the living room occasionally to watch a scene or two. The scenes that he was bringing my attention to were solely gratuitous shirtless fight sequences. “Nicole! You’ve got to come see this!” he would say and then we would both watch in awe. How much did that man train in preparation for that movie? By all accounts the movie was kind of terrible, but the parts I saw were just fine.

Hugh2

 

It’s a little bit funny that I should objectify the male body so much when I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the objectification of the female body. Remember that “What’s Your Excuse” mom – Maria Kang, who a little while ago posted a photo of her fit and toned body with her three young kids? Shock! Outrage! Shaming! And yet, I fail to see the issue. She’s a woman who has launched a fitness program and website for all those moms out there who are mired down in the world of early motherhood, who want to increase their level of fitness. Great, right? But no, she has been much taken to task for fat-shaming and bullying.

Very, very gently I say to you: if this bothers you, look away. Maybe I’m naive, but I do not see how a woman launching a fitness program is doing it specifically to make womankind in general feel bad about themselves. My belief is that this woman is capitalizing on what every single fitness program talks about, and that is to Just Do It, in the words of the Nike people. No fitness program is based on “just exercise when you feel like it, maybe, or don’t, whatever.” They all say, NO MORE EXCUSES, schedule it in, find the time, do it.

So what’s the difference between what every mainstream fitness program says, and what Maria Kang is saying? She’s a young, attractive mother with a smoking hot body who has obtained that figure through hard work and exercise, and flaunts it. And why shouldn’t she? What’s wrong with it? If someone else’s figure is deeply offensive to you, then I suggest not looking at the photos, reading the stories, or subscribing to her website. But why should it offend you at all?

I have mixed feelings about the expression “Things will only hurt you if you let them” because sometimes people are really assholes and do say things specifically targeted to hurt people’s feelings. Example: if you get new carpeting put in your house and show me with pride and happiness, and I say “Carpeting is for stupid people who like allergens” then I am being an asshole. But if someone posts a flattering photo of themselves, saying that they have done away with excuses and have obtained a targeted level of fitness, and that you can too, well, I fail to see how that shames anyone. This is one of those cases where if I have an issue with it, then it’s my issue to deal with.

121

I’m quite proud of this photo, actually.

Sometimes when a woman celebrates a breastfeeding milestone, or talks about her pride in giving her baby the very best start in life due to breastfeeding, I get a pang. I think of my own two children who I weaned very early and it makes me sad; but is it the fault of the breastfeeding mother? Is she talking about breastfeeding specifically to make me feel bad and ashamed of my own perceived failure? Of course not. It’s my issue and mine alone. It’s not her, it’s me.

And so I find it disheartening when I hear all this bashing about women and their bodies: from “Scarlett Johansson looking “fat” in a bikini” to “Real Women Have Curves” memes, from “Marilyn Monroe was a size 16” to “Denise Richards is too skinny”. There are the things we say to each other and about each other: “I hate you, you’re so skinny,” or “She probably has an eating disorder,” or “I hate to tell you this but you’ve gained so much weight that I’m worried about you!” We fixate on these things and so someone who purports to inspire young mothers to achieve new levels of fitness is slammed as a bully or a fat-shamer. We disparage fat people and we disparage skinny people and everyone’s body is up for criticism.

Lately there’s been a meme on Facebook, a “love your selfie” game where you post a photo of yourself without makeup and with natural hair. I love it because it’s celebrating what we are, our natural selves, even though this is what I look like au naturel:

Before

Even with that photo, I do love myself. There are things I do not like about my appearance, certainly. There are things I would change if I could, but on the most part I’m happy with my physical self. I wake up every morning at 4:30 and practice yoga for ninety minutes, I watch what I eat, I try to get enough vitamins, rest, and balance in my life. I can do a lot of things: I can play Fur Elise on the piano from memory, I can bake awesome cookies and read story books with all different voices. I can do calculus and analyze statistics and throw on a great Southern accent from that time I was Amanda Wingfield in my high school production of The Glass Menagerie. I can do this:

042040

But there are many, many things I cannot do. There are lots of things that YOU do that I admire, that I do not do myself: run marathons, press up into handstands, have the patience to spend your days working with children, take courses while juggling everything else, keep it together while your husband travels, travel alone to exotic locations, tote little people around all day. I cannot decorate cakes, swim laps, knit, sew on a button, or drive to new locations without much assistance and many tears. I have never turned a cartwheel in my life. But the fact that I do not or cannot do these things does not mean that I hate you for saying that you can do them. I do not feel that your ability to do these things shames me in any way. I’m proud of you for being able to do them. When my children were babies I was more like a chewed up piece of old string than Maria Kang, but that does not mean that Maria Kang has shamed me.

What I want us to do is look at ourselves, really look, and realize how beautiful we are. We are so beautiful, so interesting, so smart. We don’t need to feel inferior because of someone else’s success, because of someone else’s figure, vacation, job, or children. WE are successful, WE are beautiful, whatever the shape of our bodies and our days. What I want you to do for yourself is to really look at your life, really look at it, and see what amazing things you’ve done: the everyday things and the extraordinary things. I want you to see yourself for the amazing and beautiful person you are. Because I know you are. We all are.

You’re never fully dressed without a smile.

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This morning I was shopping for random things like Vitamin D pills, toothpaste, compost bags, 12 boxes of tissues, and socks for the boys. I had quite a cartful of items and after I finished unloading them I noticed the woman in front of me, who was purchasing only three things: two bottles of Midol and a giant bag of Cadbury Mini-Eggs. I wished I could take a photo; it was quite a powerful still-life image.

I was flipping through a magazine and I came across one of those weight-loss advertisements, and it really struck me – not for the first time – that those kind of photos are not a true representation of what a person really looks like. In any kind of weight-loss or makeover advertisement, the “before” photo almost always shows a slumped-over, unsmiling person wearing unflattering clothing; in the “after” photo the person has makeup on, a wind machine blowing her hair, and some gorgeous outfit that not only shows off the newly svelte figure, in the case of weight-loss, but is also a flattering cut and colour. This isn’t a news flash, of course, but it does make one think about how one presents oneself to the world.

I am fairly confident that I would not be described, by most people at least, as a bitch. I make exceptions for ex-boyfriends and that ex-friend who ended up ending our friendship over an ex-boyfriend who she then married. But I don’t waste time thinking about those people’s opinions; generally I would say I am a non-bitchy personality, even when I’m the one in need of two bottles of Midol and a giant bag of Cadbury mini-eggs. I do, however, suffer from Bitchy Resting Face Syndrome.

Don’t believe me? That’s because nearly every picture of me in existence is one in which I’m smiling. If I know there’s a camera in the vicinity, I will consciously smile a lot because of BRFS; on the off chance that there’s a non-smiling photo of me, I will delete it if it is in my power to do so. And you know what, smiling is a good thing. People smile at you if you’re smiling. After all, we don’t walk around with the desire to look like our passport photos, do we? At least I don’t. My passport photo is hideous, although it’s not totally the fault of my Bitchy Resting Face. I was also having a Bad Hair Day that day.

Want to see a dramatic makeover? Here is a photo of me that I took Saturday morning, before I even washed my face or brushed my hair, wearing my grey fleece pajamas:

Before

WHO’S THE FAIREST ONE OF ALL. I know, right? I look like I’m 100 years old and haven’t slept in weeks, and I had just woken up from eight and a half hours sleep. Look away, I’m hideous.

After2

This is the difference that a smile (and makeup and hair styling) can make. Now add sunglasses to hide the wrinkles and bright lighting to wash away the forehead lines:

incar

  So there you have it. My beauty advice for the day. Smile. And add a little lipstick, because you never know who you might meet.

Copy (1) of Jim Cuddy

Shamelessly gratuitous shot of that one time I met Jim Cuddy.

 

It Had To Be You

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This morning I was stopped at a red light, on my way home from yoga, and I saw, walking along the street, a young man dressed exactly like Turtle from Entourage. I did a double-take; these days it’s unusual to see such a style, not unlike spotting the Loch Ness Monster or similar mythical creature. I watched him stride along the street in his maroon-coloured ball cap and matching tracksuit, and thought, not without admiration, there goes someone who is comfortable in his look.

Speaking of somewhat questionable fashion decisions, my kids were ecstatic yesterday at the idea of Justin Bieber being in jail, and when I explained to them WHY he was in jail, they decided that impaired drivers/ street racers should be imprisoned for life, or possibly executed. Their view of the penal system, when I explained the actual probable outcome for the Biebs, was dim indeed. They proceeded to call him, in a derogatory way, “Justin BEAVER” as though they were the sole originators of a terribly amusing witticism.

I later heard on the “news” that Vanilla Ice is offering advice and support to poor Biebs/ BEAVS, and while discussing this important matter, my friend and I were curious as to how Vanilla Ice obtained so much celebrity. As far as I know, he really only had Ice, Ice Baby. How did he become such a star? I heard One Night in Bangkok on the radio today and while it was – and still is – an amazing song, I would put it in a similar category to Ice, Ice Baby and I do not even know the artist of said song. I get my kicks above the waistline, sunshine.

I do know that Vanilla Ice has some kind of television show and he was on some other kind of reality show, but to be honest, I don’t care that much. Does it seem to anyone else like there are no good television shows anymore? I’m not talking about fantastic Netflix-y shows like Breaking Bad or Mad Men or Downton Abbey – and yes, I know something terrible has happened with Anna but don’t tell me! I’m only on the second season! I mean that there are no sitcoms I find watchable anymore. Maybe I’m just getting old and crotchety, but all my old favourites I find repulsive lately: Modern Family, for example, and Parks and Recreation. They used to be so funny! Now I just find them grating. Even Suburgatory, which I had ONLY just gotten into, seems lame and sad. There’s The Mindy Project, which is funny, but is now on hiatus.

Oh well, maybe I’ll start watching American Idol. I have not watched that show since the Chris Daughtry Debacle of 2006. To be honest, I cannot deal with all the drama and the terrible, terrible singers who nevertheless are suffering from Extraordinarily High Self Esteem Syndrome. But I was tipped off by a girlfriend that there IS a reason to tune in:

HarryConnick

photo from harryconnickjr.com

 

What was that? I think I blacked out for a minute. My husband was flipping channels and there he was, on the screen and I gasped out loud. I had a thing for him way back in the early nineties when I was busy with my giant hair and high waisted jeans, and I can just say now that he is improving with age. My husband and I watched for a few minutes. Dear man, he is very confident and comfortable in his masculinity, because he immediately began an argument/ discussion with me regarding the relative attractiveness of men on reality musical shows.

 

Mr: That Keith Urban would be really good looking if he had a better haircut.

Me: Who?

Mr: Keith Urban, the other guy there.

Me: No.

Mr: What are you talking about?

Me: What are YOU talking about? He’s not good looking at all! He’s not even a little bit good looking.

Mr: This is going to be another one of those things where YOU say he’s not good looking and then you’re going to find out that every other woman in the world thinks he’s good looking. This is JUST like that Adam Levine thing. He’s probably one of those Sexiest Men Alive.

 

Note: Husband was right. He was one of the Sexiest Men Alive. This is an insult to George Clooney.  

More, More, More

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Has it been a weirdly long week?  Not a bad week, but a long week?  On Tuesday I told Mark that he had better get his library books together for school, to which he answered that library was on Thursday.  I knew that but honestly thought it was Thursday.  Wednesday I was planning for Friday, which I thought was the next day.  The fact that it’s the third of May is not helping matters either; I feel like I’m in a weird time warp in which I don’t have any idea what day, month, or year it is.  I realized this morning that there is only seven weeks left of school, which was shocking.  Time is slipping, slipping, slipping into the future, my kids are getting older and I’m getting older too, and the cat’s in the cradle with the silver spoon.

Speaking of getting older, I received – completely unsolicited – a copy of More magazine in the mail.  More!  The magazine for mature women.  I was very startled to see it in my mailbox, with my name and address on it, being I didn’t subscribe to it.  I realized this must be some kind of promotional item; perhaps since I actually have a subscription to the mature suburban Canadian women’s magazine Canadian Living I am actually on some kind of mailing list.  For mature women.  More magazine!  I scoffed a bit, picked it up, and then realized that I really am this demographic now.  Much more so than, say, Cosmopolitan.  Not that I’ve read Cosmo in years – I know all the sexy tricks, Cosmo.  I don’t need any more lists. – but it is a little startling when you realize that you’re more More than Cosmo, is all I’m saying.   

Anyway.  It’s Friday.  I’ve been busy in the kitchen all morning, preparing for some girlfriends to taste test some new recipes.  I’ve also been doing a little bit of taste testing myself, in other words, I’m feeling a bit FULL.  There’s not much that I love more than preparing desserts and appetizers for my open-minded girlfriends, while singing along to the station that plays all the ballads from the 1970s.  Cause I’m easy…I’m easy like Sunday morning. 

Segueing right into the eighties, I was heading into the grocery store (because where else do I go?) and I saw this amazing license plate.

If that doesn’t immediately make your day just a little bit brighter, then I don’t know what will.  That is the single greatest license plate/ car combination ever, better even than 1Bruce1 or HotCarl.  I wondered who owned this fantastic vehicle; perhaps a sexy, hirsute, moustachioed man.  I was not at all disappointed when the owner approached:

 
I kid.  I did not see the owner, mostly because I felt it might be weird and stalker-ish to stand at the car waiting for someone to bring out their groceries.  I did keep looking for Hawaiian shirts in the Co-Op, but alas, none were to be found. 
 
I have only ever seen one episode of Magnum PI.  I know!  You would think that I would be more up on that, but you would be wrong.  I’m sure there are reruns playing somewhere but I seem to be too busy these days watching and re-watching Mad Men episodes and making Tom and Lorenzo-like notes on the fashions.  How did Betty become so frumpy?  Is Megan wearing hair extensions?  Is it weird to have a crush on Henry Francis?  He’s wearing a Christmas sweater!  What is WRONG with me?
 
But back to Magnum.  My husband watched it a lot in the eighties, and every time he hears Phil Collins’ In The Air Tonight he says “Best. Magnum. Ever.”  Then he explains the plot to me and I think it sounds interesting and maybe I should watch it, and then I end up wondering if I could wear a gypsy scarf as a headband like Megan did that one time or would that look weird.  So I will probably go through my entire life without actually watching Magnum PI but still enjoying photos like this:
 
 
Remember back in the day when men didn’t shave and/ or wax their chests?
 
Somewhere hidden in a family album is a photograph of my mother in the late eighties, standing next to a life size cardboard cutout of Tom Selleck.  If I didn’t think my mother would disown me I would blow it up and frame it, or at least post it here.  However, I like to maintain good relations with my mother and so I will leave that photo where it lies.  My mother is a big fan of the moustachioed man, given her penchant for Tom Selleck and the famously stached Sam Elliot.  But I shall not make fun of her mature women fantasies because I picked up a copy of People at my hair salon and flipped to the men who were deemed to be “Sexy at (fill in the age decade)”.  I realized that the only appealing demographic was the Sexy at Fifty category.  HENRY FRANCIS?  I guess I am ready for More magazine after all.  
 

Men of Years Past, or Childhood Memories

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It’s the most wonderful time…of the year.  Not only is it the holiday season (well, almost the holiday season, I was singing Santa Baby in a slutty voice to myself this morning, so it totally counts) but it is also the Sexiest Man Alive season, as I alluded to in my last post.  Mark Wahlberg with no shirt on?  Hello nurse. 

I love the SMA awards (like the AMA awards, but sexier) not just because it is a thrill to see Patrick Duffy and Tom Brokaw make the list, against all odds I would think, but also because there is something about a magazine devoted to so many “hunks” (remember when people actually used the word “hunk”?  Actually I think my mom still does; “That Sam Elliott is a hunk.”) that gets my friends’ creative juices flowing.  Maybe that’s not the only kind of juices that are flowing.  Eeee.  I just squeamed myself out.  Sorry, everyone. 

In any case, for amusing commentary on the state of manly sex appeal, visit Hannah, Nan, and Beck.  Last year I wrote a list of the ten sexiest men, not including my husband, of course.  He would be top of the list, but you know what they say about writers who boast about their hunka-hunka-burning-loves, they are lame and boring.  Once I was having a purely theoretical discussion with some male co-workers about their “lists” – and in the context of this post I need not describe what such a list entails, readers will have to come to their own conclusions – and one co-worked informed us all rather righteously that there was one person on his list and that was his wife.  It kind of killed the mood, to be honest.  And so I will say right now for good form that my husband obviously on the top of my list, he’s super sexy and awesome and he looks like a cross between Jim Cuddy and Kyle McLaughlin, but in a good way, and he wears the hell out of a business suit.  Blah blah blah back to my SMA list.

I like my men dark, with strong jawlines, and a certain air of success and confidence about them.  But it wasn’t always that way.

Nicole’s List of Men Whom She Used To Crush On

1982 – Almanzo Wilder

I developed a huge crush on Almanzo as I spent my free time curled up with the Little House books, probably with my “Bookworm!” or my “I Heart Books!” bookmark by my side.  Oh!  How apt it was that his nickname was Manly, as he courageously battled minus forty temperatures and rising blizzards to save the entire town of DeSmet from starvation!  Oh, how my seven-year-old heart beat when Almanzo touched Laura’s mitten tip on the way home from church (when he was 25 and she was 15…but whatevs…).  Oh, the thrill when they exchanged name cards and went for buggy rides.  Remember when he surprised her by visiting on Christmas Eve, bearing gifts of a breastpin and oranges, and he asked, huskily, “Can’t you thank a fellow better than that.”  THEN THEY KISSED.  Old-timey romance; I’d rather not think about how after they got married they got diptheria, had crop failures and crippling debt, AND their house burned down.  Just look at this for photographic proof of pioneer sexiness.  Just don’t think about the one-bath-a-week thing.


1984 – Corey Hart

I was in the Corey Hart fan club.  I had posters and records that I would play over and over.  You can never surrender!  I’m pretty sure I have a xeroxed letter from him somewhere in my possession.  Sorry, younger self, I don’t really see the appeal here.

1985 – Gilbert Blythe

I know, he was on the list last year.  Every year at Christmas time I wish I had a VCR and the old cassette that I had recorded the CBC version of Anne of Green Gables on.  I wish I could still see those old Canadian Tire commercials.  I loved the books, and I just loved Gilbert.  I do still see the appeal, for a ten-year-old bookworm girl.

 
 
1986 – Judd Nelson
 
I watched The Breakfast Club a few years after it was released, and developed an enormous crush on Judd Nelson.  Bender!  This was the start to a long, unfortunate period in which I was very attracted to the Bad Boy.  No good can come of this, younger Nicole!  These are the guys that will end up dead or incarcerated!  Or at very best will be employed in dead-end jobs, still smoking dope at age 40.  Yet, it still is very cute when Molly Ringwald gives him her diamond earring.  EXCEPT NOW YOUR EARRINGS DON’T MATCH, DUMBASS.
 
 
 
1987 – Lou Diamond Phillips
 
Remember La Bamba?  And the Young Guns movies?  Yeah. 
 
 
 

1988 – John Cusack

Good taste, younger Nicole!  He’s still on the list!  “I’m an athlete so I rarely drink…what I’m saying is that you can trust your daughter with me for the next six to eight hours.”  God, I love that movie still.  And who can resist this?  Even my mom, when she watched this with me in the mid-nineties, got all uppity that Lloyd stood there with his boombox, unanswered.  “Go to him!  Doesn’t she go to him?”  Word, Mom.  What’s up with the sweatpants, though?  Oh, right.  Athlete.



1989 – Tom Hooper

If you are not a Canadian girl in her late-thirties to early forties, then you may not remember The Grapes of Wrath – the band from Kelowna, not the book.  Oooh, how I longed to run my hands through his curls.  Where is he now?  I have no idea.

1990 – Jim Morrison

I almost stopped the list at 1989 because of my deep shame and embarrassment at admitting that I had an enormous crush on a dead guy.  Not only that, but a dead guy who was crazy, wore leather pants, and drank himself to death at age 27.  But in the interest of veracity and full disclosure, I will close with the Lizard King himself.

And now that I have divulged my deep, dark, secret (or not so secret, really) crushes of my formative years, it’s your turn, dear reader.  Who did you crush on, back in the day when it was still all about VCR’s and records and writing notes in class?  Tell Nicole everything.  xoxo

Moustaches, Sexy Men, and Early Morning Photographs

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I have been a bit MIA this week because it was the school’s book fair and the annual general meeting of the School Council, of which I am the chair, and those two events, along with all the usual housewifely stuff, made for a very busy week.  This is my fourth year of running the book fair and I was silently resolving that this would be the last, especially as I answered the same questions over and over: no, that’s not really a cake pop/iPod/chocolate bar, it’s a pen/eraser/calculator, the posters are $5, yes, $5 for each poster.  But then at the end of the fair a boy came in especially to thank me for running the fair and also for being so nice.  Another girl in Jake’s class told me that Jake was lucky to have a mom who was so nice and never mad, which is not exactly true, but I don’t mind perpetuating that perception.  Then some teachers told me how much my efforts were appreciated…and then I silently resolved to do one more fair.  But we all know how that’s going to go, don’t we?  I’m going to be running these fairs until the end of time, or at least until my kids leave the school.  Every time I think I’m out they pull me back in.

There are always a vast number of novelty items at these fairs, but I have to say I was a bit surprised to unpack a box with erasers shaped like moustaches.  I thought that was strange, and wondered if it was some kind of Movember thing; the moustaches ended up being the hottest ticket item there.  Do you have any more moustache erasers? the children would ask desperately, and then their spines would crumple a bit at the news No, they are all gone.  Apparently, at our school, the children harbour a deep desire to be more like Magnum PI. 

Look at that gold medallion, all nestled in his chest hair.

Speaking of raw manly sex appeal, there was another event just as exciting, and much less exhausting – for me at least – happening this week, a little so-called magazine called People releasing the winner for the title of Sexiest Man Alive.  I wasted half an hour of my life this morning going through the website, where in addition to naming Channing Tatum, a fellow who is not attractive to me, but apparently is to the People editors, the Sexiest Man Alive, there are fifty one men who are included in a list entitled The United States of Sexy.  I will let that title just sit with you, dear reader, for a moment.

In any case, the United States of Sexy matches each state with a supposedly sexy gentleman from that state, although the rules around the definition of “from” seem to be fairly fluid.  You will never guess who is representative of Montana.  You may try, but you will never, ever guess.  It’s Patrick Duffy.  Patrick Duffy.  Bobby Ewing, in other words.  Bobby Ewing, who peaked in 1986 when he was revealed to not be dead at all, but only dream dead, is the Sexiest Man in Montana.  What the hell is going on in Montana?  I refuse to believe that I am living in a world where Patrick Duffy is the Sexiest Man in any state, unless every other man in that state has died.  I am just not that cynical.  It cannot be and I will not believe it.

I also have a hard time believing that Richard Gere is among the top ten Sexiest Men.  It’s horrifying.  Not only was he part of the most disgusting, unsettling, and distressing “feel-good” movie ever (I am looking at you, Pretty Woman), but he is also really unattractive.  How does he keep making these lists?  The only thing I can think of – as I commented on my friend Hannah’s hilarious reaction to the list – is that he has photos of one of the editors of People magazine fucking, or possibly receiving a blowjob from, a hooker, and so is using it for blackmail purposes to stay on the Sexiest Men Alive list.  There is no other possible explanation, unless there are a number of people who are not me who really do find Richard Gere attractive, but I refuse to believe that.  Again, I am not that cynical. 

There are a number of men who, in my “I’m everywoman” opinion, are very deserving of a sex-ay mention.  For example:

Now THAT’S what I’m talking about.  Eric Dane on fatherly duty?  To be honest, the fatherly thing doesn’t really work for me.  It humanizes the men I’m trying to objectify but still, I defy anyone to look at this picture and not appreciate Mother Nature and her artistry:

God bless Mother Nature.  She’s a single woman too.

Can you feel it, baby?  Yeah, I do too.  I have much, much more to say about the Sexiest Man Alive, other than the Who’s that guy? general puzzlement which is my frequent response, me being fairly un-hip to the scene and all.  However, I have loads of housewifely duties that have been sorely neglected this week which I should probably attend to toute de suite. 

Before I sign off, dear reader, I will tell you of an experiment I performed this week.  Several years back it was a thing for bloggers to take a photo of themselves first thing in the morning, and then another after shower, makeup, coffee, etc., a before-and-after of sorts.  Since I am nothing if not timely, I decided I would participate.  Or maybe I was trying to revive the game amongst the whole new crop of bloggers that is currently buzzing up the internet.  In any case:

Other than the lighting being better and my hair being less crazy, the only real difference is that I look much, much more diabolical in my after picture, which is in opposition to the schoolchildren’s perception of me as being “so nice”.  Bwhahaha.  Beware, children, of my evil forehead wrinkle!

Feeling the love

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It seems we all have very strong opinions on skinny jeans!  I do feel that we should have learned lessons from the eighties.  I will say this, my very worst hair decision ever – and this is even worse than my 1985 mullet that my mom had home permed – was to cut my hair like Madonna’s in her Papa Don’t Preach video.  And not when she’s dancing in her sassy little black outfit, I mean when she’s wearing her “Italians Do It Better” t-shirt.  Check out the video and you will understand why I will never again cut my hair short.  That very bad haircut took forever to grow out. 

Today I feel extremely self-satisfied.  Between the hours of 7:00 and 11:15 this morning I accomplished the following: showered, dressed, makeup and hair, baked two batches of blueberry muffins, made breakfast for the kids, cleaned the kitchen, cleaned the bathroom, walked the kids to school, walked home, walked the dog, baked brownies, and finished a task I have been working on for months – editing, uploading, and ordering photos.  I have not done this task in over a year.  I had Jake’s seventh AND sixth birthday photos to develop.  Good grief.  Now I only have to go pick up the developed prints and put them all into photo albums!  Perhaps if I didn’t put this task off for months and months I wouldn’t find myself going blind, editing and cropping 500 photos. To keep myself from going insane, I put youtube videos on to listen to while I cropped and cropped and cropped.  I somehow stumbled on this video and was reminded again why I watched The Fighter – I was sure hoping to see a lot more shirtless Mark Wahlberg than there was in that movie.  It’s such a good vibration!  Swweeeeeeet sensation!  I have probably watched this ten times already; there goes my productivity.  HE’S LIFTING WEIGHTS AND PUNCHING BAGS.  ONE OF THOSE WEIGHTS IS MADE OUT OF CINDERBLOCKS.  HE HAS NO SHIRT ON.  GRACIOUS.

I had to stop writing and watch that video again.  At this rate I will never finish this post.

Here’s a picture for my lovely blog friend Ciara, who would listen to him read the phone book (does anyone still use phone books?) in his Boston accent:



I KNOW, RIGHT?  If you ain’t in it to win it, then get the hell out.


Goodness, I am so distracted now, I almost forgot what this post is all about!  I’m supposed to be thanking Kerrie over at Family, Food, and Travel for the Liebster Award, and Rhiannon over at Happy Little Feet for the Versatile Blogger Award!  Thanks girls!  As part of accepting the award, I am supposed to give you seven or eleven facts about myself – but I’ll take the average and give you nine.  It’s a little daunting – don’t you all know everything about me by now?  I guess you didn’t know that I once had one of the very least flattering hairstyles ever and that I also have a thing for Mark Wahlberg.  So there are two facts, let me think of seven more:

1. Giving up cheese has made me so very sad.  But it also has pretty much made my premenstrual symptoms disappear.  I hardly ever want to mur-diddly-urder anyone during that special time of the month.  So, call it a break even?

2. I still kind of want to mur-diddly-urder people who misuse statistics or fail to understand that correlation and causation are not the same thing.

3. I am a huge nerd.  

4. The year my little brother was born I read A Little Princess over and over again, and wondered what it would be like to live a) in an attic in London, and b) in a gigantic palace-like place in India.  That summer I also read The Bobbsey Twins Visit The Farm many, many times and pretended that our backyard was a farm. 

5. I don’t ever want to live on a farm. 

6. I was an extremely anxious child, and I bit my nails until I was 24 years old.  Now I’m obsessed with having all my nails groomed to the same length.

7. Since giving up cheese, my standard lunch now consists of a tomato and pickle sandwich.  The humanity!

Thanks for the awards, Kerrie and Rhiannon!  Feeling the love!  It’s such a sweeeeeeet sensation!