Category Archives: Uncategorized

The lotus blooms in mud, or something.

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The long weekend is here, and then the kids start back at school on Tuesday. I seem to have reached a grizzled, jaded stage of motherhood where the cheerful articles about back to school and lunch making and activities make me smile ruefully. I mean, I was there once. At one point I was weighing the difference between having the kids go to a community school or a charter one, I was looking into the differences between traditional learning programs and Montessori. I spent countless hours wondering about the learning opportunities at the various preschools available to me and I even found myself on a frigid February morning in the parking lot hours before registration started, so that I could get the time slot I wanted. And now I just find myself impotently enraged about the 65 minute difference in start times between the boys’ schools, because damn, that is going to be inconvenient.

In other words, I’m shaking my liver-spotted fist, pulling on my sweatshirt that has baskets of flowers embroidered on it, and telling those damn kids to get off my lawn and stop playing that loud music. The next step is accusing the nurses of stealing my non-existent money, while wearing polyester pull-on pants that belong to someone else.

God bless you people, looking up school lunch ideas on Pinterest, and skewering tiny pieces of sandwiches with bamboo sticks, and making happy faces and cheese cut-outs with cookie cutters. I missed my window of opportunity to do such things; at this point in my life I am at peace with the fact that this is something I was never meant to do, and also I think my junior high student would possibly die of embarrassment if he opened his lunch to a sushi-rice sculpture in the shape of Chewbacca.

Remember the old days when we would eat lunch at school, and it would be a bologna sandwich, an apple, a juice box, and a cookie? Our mothers certainly didn’t spend any time wondering if that was “too boring” or “not varied enough.” Eat it or go hungry seemed to be the motto of the Eighties, and honestly, it’s not a bad motto. Hell, my kids have come home for lunch practically every day of their school lives, and they have eaten peanut butter bagels for each and every one of those days, so I’m not really concerned about them “being bored” with their lunches. Come to think of it, I eat the same exact lunch every day of the week, so maybe it’s a genetic thing. Maybe we are just a very boring people. I am okay with that.

A few days ago, I took the boys and some friends to the swimming pool – along with, apparently, the rest of the city – and the kids spent the entire time not being anywhere near me. They literally checked in only to retrieve their money for the snack bar, then wandered as far away as possible to eat said snacks. I’m not complaining, mind you. It was a nice opportunity to read a book on a beautiful day, and I had some sympathetic smiles for the moms who were more in demand than I was, rushing around on the deck and in the pool.

We had a lovely dinner, several weeks ago, with some old friends. My friend and I were reminiscing about us both being pregnant, at a fancy dinner downtown with my old boss and an older colleague. They had lovely houses, older children, and went on wonderful vacations, whereas we younger people were just starting out, in small apartments and un-renovated older houses. My friend (HI VALERIE) said, and I agreed wholeheartedly, “But I wasn’t unhappy then, in our little apartment. I guess it’s just all about being happy where you are.” That stuck with me, and it occurs to me that it is the key. Being happy where you are. Or, perhaps, blooming where you are planted.

And so I was thinking about this, as my “Facebook memories” keep showing me adorable photos of my kids in coordinating golf shirts for the first day of school, with their backpacks that are huge and round faces. Everything’s changing, but I’m happy where I am. I hope you are too.

Does anyone still read print magazines or is it just me?

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Thank you to everyone for your kind words about Barkley! I’m happy to report he’s pretty much all better, except for having to take pills and eat really, really gross looking canned dog food for a few more days. One huge benefit of having a Labradoodle is that he will happily eat the pills with no coaxing at all, just pushed into a little bit of the aforementioned gross looking canned dog food. It’s a good thing that he is better and today – according to the powers that be – is National Dog Day!

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He just got groomed and his ear was excitedly flipped back – don’t worry, he still has ears. I tried to take a selfie with him but he tried to lick me AND the phone, so I just took one of myself.

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I also got groomed this week, in that I got my hair cut and coloured. I flipped through a Hello! magazine and a People magazine, and honestly, I’ve reached Old Lady Status where I really don’t know who any of the famous people are or why they are famous, other than the British Royal Family.

Well, that’s not totally true. I know who this guy is.

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And this guy too:

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And also these three:

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So I guess I’ve just reached Pervy Old Lady Status.

That magazine, by the way, is one my husband subscribed to during the school’s magazine campaign, and I will renew it for him until the end of time. IT IS FULL OF VERY INFORMATIVE ARTICLES AND COMMENDABLE RESEARCH.

Speaking of old ladies, I was reminded of my dear grandma when I saw this in the grocery store:

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My grandma was very interested in the JonBenet Ramsey case, and followed it closely back in the day. I cannot believe this case is still unsolved. I remember my grandma reading everything about it and discussing it with her, and then my dad raised her ire by suggesting that JonBenet’s mother was the guilty party. Hoo boy, I learned a lesson: do not suggest such a thing to my grandma.

Anyway, one thing that I learned – circling back to recent Hello! and People magazines that I flipped through at the salon – is that history, as usual, is doomed to repeat itself. By this I mean fashion history. I have also noted this at places where Young People Gather. Current fashion is favouring the outfits that I myself wore in my teen years, regrettably short denim cutoffs with very high waists, crop tops, body suits, acid wash, and – alarmingly – overalls.

How do you stand on fashions that you remember The First Time Around? I lean toward the camp that says if you wore it once, you shouldn’t again, but possibly it depends on what age you wore it the first time. Or if the fashion is a modification of the earlier one, perhaps that would be fine. I mean, there’s no way I’d wear this again:

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There is NO part of that outfit I would wear again, really. That move I am doing is vogue-ing, for those of you who remember vogue-ing.

And on that note I shall sign off for the weekend. Happy Friday, everyone! xo

My Face Says I’m Disappointed, But My Heart Says I’m Happy

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Well, hello there! So much has happened in the last two weeks; my husband took time off work and we Vacationed Like Nobody’s Business. First of all, the boys finished off their week of karate camp with a mini-tournament, and all I can say is that I really get Aly Raisman’s parents. I really do. I cannot imagine the nervous breakdown I would have in the highly unlikely event that my children were Olympic medal contenders, because I find myself sweating, with heart palpitations, just watching the karate kids sparring in a fun-tournament-that-has-no-real-consequences. Johnny, you’re a cream puff. It’s not just for my kids, either; I find myself all tied up in knots watching ANY of the students.

Happily, the mini-tournament went well, and the boys did not have to compete against each other too much, which was a huge relief. They are in the same belt and age group and so this has happened in the past; it is just as much fun as you might imagine.

Just as a quick side note: the only summer Olympic event I actually am interested in watching, albeit briefly, and never very closely, is women’s gymnastics, and unfortunately this is the only summer Olympic event my husband is NOT interested in watching. This means there is a lot of Ooh, look at that! kind of commentary, followed by total disinterested silence from the other spouse. Occasionally there will be a polite Ah! in response, but those Ah!’s are few and far between.

After karate camp, my husband took the boys Camping For Real, which meant that I stayed home and made avocado fries and kale chips and watched back-to-back episodes of NYPD Blue before falling asleep at 8:45. I also tried to soothe Barkley, who had apparently fallen into a deep depression after hearing the truck being packed up and being left behind. Poor puppy. Who can blame him? NYPD Blue isn’t everyone’s taste. He sat outside in the backyard, staring at the garage for hours, until I tempted him in with treats, only to go back outside again. It was like a less-sad version of that movie where the dog waits for his deceased owner at the train station until death finally releases him from this heart-breaking hopefulness.

God, now I’m depressed.

Vacation! Back to vacation. We spent a few days at my parents’ place, and the weather cooperated enough for us to not only go boating, but for the boys to go tubing and swimming as well. My dad snapped this photo of me, and it cracks me up.

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I look like I am Deeply Disapproving of all this Fun In The Water, but really, this is just what my face looks like in repose. I was fully approving of the aquatic good times, I swear.

We then spent eight days at my in-laws’ place, where we had not one but two lovely dinners with friends, I enjoyed a Girly Afternoon With The Girls complete with mani-pedis and lunch, the boys went swimming several times, my husband and I took not-sad-anymore Barkley for long walks along the creek, and we went bowling twice.

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Notice anything about this photo, other than my saucy bowling shoes? My shirt – which I chose while shopping with my mother, who thinks I wear Too Much Black – is not only colourful, it is long sleeved. It seems the below-average temperatures like to follow me wherever I go this summer. The chilliness didn’t really kill my summer buzz, but I would like more opportunities to wear my cute summer clothes before fall sets in.

To be honest, it kind of feels like fall has already set in; soon we’ll be doing things like wearing socks and sweaters and non-flimsy scarves. August is a bit of a funny month for me; for example, I spent this morning at the orthodontist, and next week the boys have appointments with both doctor and dentist. I need to make optometrist appointments, and I have to buy a LOT of clothes. I had the boys try on every clothing item they have, only to discover that Mark has zero pants that fit. Jake now has three pair of Mark’s old pants – the only ones that weren’t worn completely out – and nothing else. There’s only three weeks left of summer vacation!

Well, I need to cram some fun times into these final three weeks, as well as all the important health-and-clothing related business. Maybe I’ll take the kids to the amusement park, so I can look Deeply Disapproving there.

Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

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Not all news is bad, people. Today I learned that you can make crispy pan-fried chickpeas on the stove top! Just like amazing, addictive, roasted chickpeas, but without turning on the oven! This is an incredible breakthrough in chickpea technology and I, for one, am going to try it out as soon as possible.

This week has been very fun for the boys; they have been enjoying karate camp immensely. Every day they wake up excited for what’s in store, and then every afternoon I pick them up and they are filthy, exhausted, and very happy. Meanwhile, Barkley and I have reverted to our usual school-year routine. When everyone is home Barkley finds it hard to relax: there is always someone around and who knows what adventures the day will bring? But when it’s just me and him, well. We go for a walk and then he sleeps the day away, waking only when he hears food being prepared or when he decides he’s had enough of his dog bed and goes outside to sleep in the sun.

Barks

The corner of the deck also works for napping.

Passed-out dog aside, there are so many interesting and beautiful things in the world, if you just keep your eyes open. In the words of Ferris Bueller,

Pardon my French, but Cameron is so tight that if you stuck a lump of coal up his ass, in two weeks you’d have a diamond.

Whoops, wrong quote.

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

Here are some of the things I’ve seen when I stopped and looked around.

Cherry’s Got Back

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We can’t understand why our enrollment numbers are down.

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A Perfect Avocado: Next I’m Going To Find A Unicorn

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If I Eat Any More Strawberries I Will Have To Make Friends Called Lemon Meringue and Huckleberry Pie

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One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others, One Of These Things Just Isn’t The Same

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I’m Not Talking About Moving In, And I Don’t Want To Change Your Life, But There’s A Warm Wind Blowing, The Stars Are Out, And

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So stop what you’re doing, look around, and see the amazing things in the world. xo

Bundle up, it’s summer!

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It seems our unbelievably mild winter and early, hot spring has melted into a typical Calgary summer: cool, rainy, grey, and windy, topped off with inexplicable daily thunderstorms. How can we get so many thunderstorms without daytime heat? I don’t know. In any case, looking on the bright side, I don’t have to worry about watering my garden. Yesterday we went for a family bike ride and the wind was so cold that I actually wished I had earmuffs on my bike helmet.

I’m taking this as a sign to take things easy today, to just spend some quiet indoor time with the kids. Well, “quiet.” I keep seeing recipes that are “beat the heat” this and “no-bake” that, and meanwhile I’m considering a marathon baking session today, wearing an apron over my wool sweater. Last week I faced my pastry fears and baked my very first pie.

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I don’t eat pie, but by all accounts it was excellent, despite being very, very ugly. Facing my fears via pie crust is the topic for a whole post in itself, however, so I shall not bore you with the details at the moment. I’ll bore you with them later!

One benefit of kind-of-crappy weather is that outdoor attractions are not at all busy, so the boys and I bundled up to go to the zoo last week. We even got to see the new baby gorilla, nursing and riding on her mother’s back. It’s very heartening to see babies in captivity doing well, and I laughed to see one of the males beating his chest to no one in particular and getting in the mother’s space, only to have her scamper away with the baby on her back. Every time the male came near her, she left, and if she could speak English I’m sure she would be saying Get away from me, you loser, and rolling her eyes. Finally he gave up and went to munch on some lettuce.

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Pants, sweater, a jacket…the perfect summer outfit!

In other exciting news, my husband and I are going to a concert on Thursday night. I haven’t been to a concert in over two decades, so it should be very fun. The kids are going to Camp Grandma for a couple of days, so the going will be very tough for them, I’m sure. It’s going to be non-stop goodies and marathon sessions of Simpsons’ Clue.

Remember when concert tickets were less than $20 apiece? I sure do, and I’m not one to lament times gone by but those were the days, were they not? My girlfriends and I saw tons of great shows all for the price of a few hours’ babysitting. Actually, now that I think of it, I made about $2/hour babysitting, so I guess those concert tickets were pretty hard-earned after all. But I am looking very much forward to this concert, and it is during Stampede so I’m contemplating what to wear. Will it be hot with all the people and (presumably) dancing? Or should I dress for the chilly weather outside? Should I put on layers, or will that be too risky in terms of losing clothing articles? I mean, there probably isn’t going to be a mosh pit or crowd surfing or anything at Zak Brown Band, but the fewer things to keep track of, the better.

Many years ago, I was at a concert at the university, when my friend’s boyfriend did some drunken crowd surfing, and ended up with one shoe, in the middle of winter. We looked and looked, to no avail. We even went back to the Economics Undergraduates Society office, where I was the president, and made drawings of shoes on pieces of foolscap, captioned “Have You Seen Me?” but we never did find that shoe. The guy had to walk/ hop through the snow to the designated driver’s car, with his soggy foot. I wonder if that was the last time I was at a concert.

What was the last concert you went to? What was the first? I don’t remember my last one but my first was INXS in 1988. Good times.

Everything is rosy.

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Has it really only been 10 days since the end of school? It seems like much longer, but in a good way. There’s been a lot of activity around here, and I know it’s on-trend to claim that we are just going to let the kids fend for themselves and kick them outside for the whole day like we did when we were kids, but that’s not really my M.O. these days. I mean, they do spend time just wandering the neighbourhood with friends, bringing the whole crowd back here for snacks, but I’m doing a lot of activity planning as well.

This is what has happened in the Boyhouse over the past week: pool afternoon with two other boys, which ended abruptly with the appearance of lightning and subsequent whistle-blowing and Everyone out of the pool-ing by lifeguards, a morning at the amusement park, two nights at my parents’ lakehouse, which included two boat-rides and tubing for the boys, bike rides, a parade and Canada Day celebrations, and an evening watching Finding Dory in those awesome new reclining theatre seats. I also feel the need to mention that, while at my parents’ for two days, I rode 47.5 kilometers on my bike and it’s still a bit sore to sit down.

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My husband had a few days off and we finished staining the deck (I say “we” but it was less “me” than it was “him”). He also replaced all the steps and railings, to the amazement of the boys’ friends. The steps were non-existent when they were over on Tuesday, and completed when they were over the following day.

What are you doing this summer? My plan is a mix between semi-lazy days and semi-vigorous activity, it seems. I’m allowing my kids screen time for a few hours each day while I get some work and writing done, and then it’s time to go outside. We have passes for the local amusement park and the zoo, and I’ve managed to score free passes to the science centre as well. I’m also hoping to get the kids out hiking in the mountains once a week or every two weeks, weather depending. The unseasonably hot weather has melted into usual-Calgary-summer-weather, which means highs of about twenty degrees with late-day thunder showers.

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However, that unseasonably hot weather, combined with our mild winter and early spring, means that my garden looks amazing. My roses, in particular, are taking over.

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The smell is incredible, and I feel like it is a beautiful omen for the summer. How did you spend the long weekend? Tell me everything. xo

PMS or Dreadful New Personality?

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One of the interesting things about being in my forties and starting the slow boat to periomenopause is that I have only the vaguest idea of when my Ladies’ Holiday will land, which means that I have the alarming experience of not knowing if My Mood is the result of the upcoming aforementioned Holiday, or if I have this whole new awful personality.

Now, before I get to what I am going to call The Coleslaw Incident, I feel that I need to digress a moment. Because of the vast amount of time I spend in the kitchen, both because a) I enjoy it and b) I am a food blogger, my family has become terribly spoiled, like one of those wretched turn-of-the-21st-century Park Avenue children, but with food. Examples: a) my children are surprised that you can purchase items like Caesar salad dressing and spaghetti sauce already made, b) there are no fewer than five homemade ice cream flavours in the freezer at any given time, c) they think store-bought ice cream is a depressing imitation of homemade, and d) when we are out of homemade jam, Jake refuses to eat any at all, preferring plain peanut butter toast to the apparent atrocity that is a spoonful of Smucker’s. But for every rule there is an exception, and in this case, it is coleslaw.

Coleslaw is something I do not eat. I don’t like it, I don’t like the texture, I don’t like the taste. My husband and kids, however, love it but have had problems trying to land on the perfect recipe. They’ve tried cookbooks, the internet, and my mother-in-law, but have been unable to get the perfect coleslaw dressing. That is, until we were at a barbeque at a friend’s house. My husband asked the hostess how to make the dressing on her coleslaw, and her response was, “Are you serious? It’s PC brand from Superstore.”

So here we were coming up to Father’s Day weekend, and my husband decided on Thursday that he wanted to spend his Father’s Day cooking a brisket for eight hours on the charcoal grill, and he would also make a coleslaw to go with it. I’m not sure why he wanted to spend all day grilling but hey, it’s his day. I eat neither of those things, but it’s not my special day, so whatever floats the boat. The kids were thrilled with the prospect of grilled meat and coleslaw.

Thursday night I came home from my yoga teacher training, and my husband asked if I had happened to pick up a bottle of coleslaw dressing. Now, in my defense, I had no notice that this was needed and also, it was almost 9:30 on a Thursday. Those who know me well know that it isn’t well advised to talk to me after nine o’clock on any day. I’m basically in a coma by then, or extremely put out that I am still vertical. Since I had just gotten home, it was the latter.

My husband suggested that I could maybe pick up a bottle, since no other kind would do. Normally, I would say okay, and pop out to the store as soon as it was convenient. But as I said, I was exhausted, it’s nearing the end of June, there are teacher gifts and end-of-school celebrations, I am busy with teacher training and staining the deck every spare moment, and as always, there is much to do keeping up with the one million things that come up in a household and when working from home. Going to Superstore to get coleslaw dressing seemed to be a bridge too far. And for some reason, in my sleep-deprived mind, this seemed less like a request than an Accusation That I Am Not Properly Running The Household Because We Are Out Of Coleslaw Dressing And All Is Ashes. As I melted down a little, my husband suggested that I must be kind of tired, and maybe should go to bed.

The next day, I was cognizant of my over-the-top irritation but that didn’t stop me from being irritable. My husband suggested that perhaps my Ladies’ Holidays were due, which led, as you can imagine, to MORE irritation. Sadly, in retrospect, he was wrong. It is just my horrible new personality.

But I carved out a few extra minutes in my Friday, and decided to run over to Superstore for the dressing. After all, I thought, with just one item I could pop in and pop out, and in total, including driving time, it would be thirty minutes out of my day. I could spend thirty minutes to make three people in the house very happy, especially with it being Father’s Day and all. So I drove over, ran in, grabbed a bottle of dressing and four pounds of strawberries – I am not made of stone, who among us can go into Superstore and get only one thing – and then hopped over to the 12 Items or Less line. There were only three people in front of me and not one had more than four things, so it seemed to be the place to be.

In retrospect, I should have been suspicious that people were avoiding that line.

It turns out the fellow at the front of the line had been there a while. By the time I had set down my items, he was in the midst of debating credit card usage, wondering why they didn’t take Visa, contemplating an application for a PC Mastercard, asking about PC Points, and thinking seriously about The Deal of the Day. Finally he finished buying his Romaine lettuce and box of crackers, asked for cash back, and slowly made his way out of there. The woman in front of me looked at me, rolled her eyes, and sighed loudly, which summarized the scenario quite nicely. The next guy? I knew we were in trouble when he brought out a flyer and started pointing to specific pictures and loudly asking questions.

I like to think of myself as a fairly patient person. If I am behind an elderly person who is fumbling with getting the exact change and who takes 20 minutes to buy a carton of eggs, I have all the time in the world; after all, we may all be that person one day if we are lucky. If I have a mother with small screaming children behind me in line I will always give up my spot for her because I was that person not so terribly long ago. But when I pop in to get one (okay, two) things at Superstore and someone is taking that much time in the express line because they are unaware of and are debating the store policy on credit cards, well.

I am happy to report that I did make it out alive, but not without doing some ujjayi breathing and thinking there will be a time after Superstore. And even more happy to report that my efforts were not in vain; the coleslaw was enjoyed by all. I also managed to catch up on sleep on the weekend and so was Much Less Irritable. Maybe I don’t have a terrible new personality after all.