We all have our triggers; those little things that cause us to feel like raging against the machine, those issues that have our blood pressure soaring and our heart rates pumping. In my case, this is seeing shopping carts left carelessly in the parking lot. Extra steam for carts left carelessly when the corral is right there, such as in the Costco parking lot. This enrages me no end; people who are too lazy to take those extra few steps to return their carts, instead causing inconvenience for other shoppers and extra work for the store staff.

But be the change you want to see, right? If there is something wrong in the world, start by changing yourself. The man in the mirror, etcetera. So a few weeks ago, I felt the rage when I was at the Co-Op and saw carts scattered randomly around the parking lot. I took one with me to do my shopping. My friend Alice (HI ALICE) calls this Shopping Cart Karma; if you take a cart back to the store, you will have a good shopping experience. I did, in fact, have a good shopping experience – a cashier opened up a new line and I was the first in the line – and so after I took my groceries to the car I decided to ramp up my karma, and I took back four other carts to the corral. I even caught an elderly man in the act of pushing his cart to the side of his parking stall; I plastered a crazy-lady smile on my face and said, possibly a bit too loudly, “I’ll take that for you!” I walked through the parking lot with a train of carts, which is actually much, much harder than it looks, especially in the snow.

This act of cart-returning has yielded great grocery shopping experiences ever since, which means that Alice is a genius. Yesterday I went to Costco and not only were there brilliant deals – I got a life-changing dish rack, for example – but the fellow who packed my cart was, quite literally, the single greatest cart packer ever. That man knew what he was doing. He created layers, the boxes he used were perfectly leveled so they were ergonomically easy to remove from the cart, and all spare spaces were filled with various dry goods. I was so impressed I complimented him three times and also commented about it to the people who checked my carts as I left the store. I was one step away from screaming “Congratulations, Costco, on such an upstanding employee! This man deserves a plaque!” That may have been overkill, though.

I bought so many things that it took a solid forty-five minutes to bring everything in from the car and put everything away. I walked up and down the stairs so many times that I regretted not carrying my phone with me; my stair climbing stats would have been through the roof. Alas. My life-changing dish rack, though. This is probably a sad commentary on my housewifery, but it is a thing of beauty. I actually had to rearrange my kitchen countertops because of this item, which turned out to be for the best. The kids came home and actually oooed and aahhhhed a little about it. I have a VERY FANCY BEAUTIFUL DISH RACK AND I LOVE IT.

Speaking of fancy things, today is Fancy Day at school. Fancy Day. Here’s your one chance, Fancy, don’t let me down. It’s a Spirit Day, meaning the kids get points for participating; in this case, it means that students are supposed to dress “fancy”. Not to be all gender-specific, but this seems like a much more girl-centric Spirit Day than others. My children went to school in jeans, t-shirts, and button up shirts, which is their definition of “very fancy”. Hopefully they get points for that.

Believe me, I’m not complaining. Fancy Day is far better than Dress As Your Favourite Story Book Character Day or Dress As What You Want To Be When You Grow Up Day, both of which are ridiculous, in my opinion. How many of us have story book character costumes at our disposal? Certainly not me. And while I found it hilarious that one of my friend’s sons wore regular clothes and said he was dressing up as a stay-at-home dad, in general that day is not easy to come up with a costume idea either. Besides, one of my sons wants to be an engineer and the other wants to be a commodity trader, and the clothing choices for both of those are really up for interpretation.

The next Spirit Day is Wear Your Toque Inside Day which at first struck me as lame and “we’ve run out of ideas”. But on further reflection, I believe that it is in lieu of Crazy Hat Day, one of my most-loathed days. Why must we make hats crazy? So I acquiesce to Wear Your Toque Inside Day, which will cause me absolutely zero extra effort and which has the added benefit of keeping kids warm, unlike Crazy Hat Day, when children are likely to wear sombreros or giant Cat-in-the-Hat creations or fascinators in whipping wind and blizzard conditions. All hail Wear Your Toque Inside Day!

In December, the school was collecting socks and toiletry items for the Drop-In Centre, and tied in Funky Sock Day. Everyone wear your funky socks! I assumed they meant “funkily decorated” and not “unwashed for weeks” and so I asked the kids what they wanted to do. Mark took a pair of light grey socks and drew smiley faces all over it with a marker. Jake looked at me, and looked at his socks, and said “I really think my socks are funky enough. I mean, they have a blue stripe on them so…” he trailed off and I nodded in agreement. As someone who only has plain black socks, I am fully in support of a blue stripe counting as funky and different.

I have a confession to make: earlier this month, I thought of closing this blog down. I thought maybe I should retire it; when I started it in 2008 – 2008! – I was writing about life with two little boys, aged 3 and 4. I was writing about funny and not so funny anecdotes about life with little boys; the boys aren’t little anymore and I don’t really write about them anymore. And here’s the thing – the blogging world isn’t what it used to be. Well, what is? Some might say that personal blogs aren’t a thing anymore.

I thought I’d write a year in review, then maybe close this baby down. But then as I started going through old posts, I realized something. I like personal blogging. I like having this online diary where I record minor and unimportant happenings, because who remembers the minor and unimportant things?

So it looks like the Boyhouse will live to see another day. And what happened in the Boyhouse in 2014? Lots! Lots of minor and unimportant things.

January

I shopped a lot at Costco and had lots of thoughts about it. I talked all about Vera’s Weiner Pie and other upsetting recipes from the Lutheran Ladies’ Family Favourites, and boasted about my puffy pirate shirt from the early 90s. I also posted photos of me without makeup, and with makeup, just to show the startling difference beauty products make (also, I probably need more sleep).

The puffy shirt.

February

I decided to become, for one day only, a motivational speaker (although I did not take up residence in a van down by the river). I reminisced about what shopping “across the line” was like, back in my childhood, when it was a real thing to go to the US for cheap items and exotic things like Hostess Twinkies. I weirdly developed a crush on the Canadian Men’s Curling Team AND the boys played the recorder terribly.

I also showed off my new eyelashes courtesy of Daniel Thompson Beauty.

March

Yelling is now considered to be just as detrimental as spanking, according to a study that came out that month, and so I may as well have taken out my blacksnake whip to the jerky kids at the playground. I posted a photo of myself in a bikini, and Mark turned 10!

A PERFECT ten, some might say!

April

We returned home from a trip to Maui, I yelled at some university students for leaving beer cans on my yard, and I turned 39!

And my friend gave me a tiara of my very own!

May

I found out that my favourite clothing store, Jacob, was closing and I had a massive crisis over the inability to find suitable clothing for a “woman of my age”. I described a very strange quirk of mine and also learned that “throughout the ages, music class has been lame”. I discovered that I look like a mix between Agnes Skinner and Nick Nolte, and also did NOT volunteer for field trips.

Plus, my husband bought me the greatest Mother’s Day gift ever – a giant bag of dirt.

June

The children finally, officially outgrew their Vancouver 2010 Olympic Mascots t-shirts, and my mom made them into pillows, I wrote down the wrong date for the end of school, and I saw a human arm in our alley (attached to a human).

The best way to repurpose t-shirts.

July

I realized everyone has a great story, even my neighbours, the kids went to karate camp and I cried to get my own way at the tire place, and I discovered that Alex Trebek is 74 years old.

I also spent a lot of time at the lake and at the pool, wearing a giant hat.

 August

We visited my in-laws and I had a massive wardrobe malfunction, trying to be the fun mom. I got all controversial and opinionated, and I admitted to three very strange things.

I also spent a lot of time hanging with the boys in the sunshine.

September

It snowed and threw the whole city into chaos, but I got by with a little help from my friends, Jake turned nine, and I got maudlin about Franklin books.

Nine! It feels fine.

 October

I went to Toronto for the Blissdom Canada conference and had a blissful blast, I bought running shoes, and I carved pumpkins in the kids’ classes and still have all my fingers.

I also visited the in-laws for Thanksgiving.

November

I set a new record for finishing Christmas shopping, my mother forced me to take my things from where they were stored at her house, which my husband dubbed my “childhood boxes of terror”, and I went through the Sears Wish Book.

November was also the month of the mannequin.

The mannequin, raised Lazarus-like from the dead.

December

I prepped for Christmas by insanely going to both Costco and the post office, the mannequin returned, much worse for the wear, and I talked about enjoying the holidays without losing one’s mind.

We also enjoyed creating fugly gingerbread.

So goodbye, 2014! Thank you for reading, and – as I hokily say to the boys every New Year’s Eve – see you next year! xo

Since the last day of classes, I have collapsed into a puddle of sloth and gluttony. HOO BOY, the last week of school was a long week.

No matter how prepared a person may be, there are always some strange requests in the last week of school. On Wednesday, Mark told me that he needed to bring “food to share” to the class party on Friday. Fortunately yesterday I made and frosted 84 cookies, so I could spare a few for that, but then he also told me he needed to wear hockey gear for his class contribution to the Canadian Version of the 12 Days of Christmas. What? We have no hockey gear. His class had the line “FIVE STANLEY CUPS” and for that reason, he needed to wear hockey gear. For the school-wide 25 minutes of caroling. After much digging I found a Canucks ball cap that he had received some years ago as a gift, and he was grudgingly satisfied with it.

Jake’s class, by the way, had the line “Seven Sled Dogs Sledding” and HE needed to bring a stuffed dog to class, which also proved to be problematic, not because we don’t have a plethora of stuffed dogs, but because he couldn’t find one that he wouldn’t be sad about in the unlikely event of it getting lost or stolen. Finally I found one at the back of a whole pile of stuffed animals – we have way too many, really – and put it in his backpack, amid exclamations of excitement over the long-lost dog.

But now we are on vacation, and I’m telling you, I am the laziest person around. Other than going out for the last pre-Christmas grocery shop yesterday morning, I’ve been doing almost nothing except watch movies and read, while wearing yoga pants or pajamas. And eating and drinking, of course. All the boozy coffee for me, please!

This past weekend we headed up north to the lake, which was frozen solid, but in bumpy waves due to high winds. The kids got a huge kick out of walking on the lake.

Did you know that Clarence Carter, of “Stroking” fame has a Christmas song? BACK DOOR SANTA. The title alone should probably say everything you need to know about it. Since it’s Festivus today, we should probably all start airing our grievances with a song that details how “Santa” sneaks around to have sex with all the married ladies in the neighbourhood, unbeknownst to their long-suffering and/or negligent husbands. Personally, I think Dick in a Box is a more appropriate Christmas song, because at least it celebrates monogamy, albeit through putting one’s junk in a box and having one’s lady friend open said box.

But the reality is that I don’t have many grievances to air, Festivus or not. I do hope that you all have a wonderful holiday filled with love and laughter. xoxo

1) It has been unseasonably warm for the past week; the air feels soft, almost spring-like. I’ve been able to let the boys play in the snow after school until the sun goes down (i.e., 4:30) and I’m not even painfully frozen by the time we leave the playground.

2) While my friends and I were walking our dogs yesterday morning, we came across this and two other trees just like it:

I keep picturing someone with an excess of ornaments heading over to the offleash, and it makes me smile. Frankly, it’s inspiring. I have tons of extra ornaments, perhaps I’ll start decorating the trees in the green space behind our house. Maybe the mannequin will come back, wearing a Santa hat.

3) I’m currently reading The Girl Who Saved The King of Sweden and it’s delightful.

4) We went to see Big Hero 6 on Sunday and I found it very enjoyable, even if 50% of our family disagrees with me. I would love my very own Baymax to snuggle with.

5) I went to the Ladies’ Advent Luncheon with my mother, and one of the elderly ladies hugged me and said she remembered what an “exuberant young girl” I was, which I take as a compliment. Also, there were about four of us under age sixty and we all brought quinoa salads. Solidarity!

What’s making you happy today?