my life in an update

Well, hello there November 30th. How you doin'?

Me? I'm doin' well. Thanks for asking.

Oh..... you weren't asking? All right then............

So I finished November's goal. A day early. And I'm pretty pumped about it. I did have a moment where I thought it wasn't going to get done. It was causing me some angst and I tend to retreat when I feel angst. I was ready to walk away, hang my head and admit defeat. But then yesterday came and my main character got all sassy and she found herself in big doodoo and her dad showed up and he was real angry-like and her mom and dad had another mongo doozy of a fight and mean words were said and she and her mom moved out and her dad started drinking himself to death and this was just one chapter.

Before I knew it I had written 5600 words and.......

voila!

Just like that I am a nanowrimo champion.



I should clarify something though. I did not write an entire novel in 30 days (well 29 but that's not the point). I wrote 50,000 words (well 50,118 but again, not the point) of a novel in that time. So, it's not done yet. It's almost done. I will finish it. I need to because the end isn't done and that's the part I wanted to write from the very beginning.

People die.....shhhhhhhh. It's a secret.

Anyway, today I have to get ready for the big Cub Christmas Craft. It's going to be .......... how do you say.......challenging?

I showed you what we were going to do but I needed to give it pizzazz. You know?

And by pizzazz I mean food.

So for family home evening Monday night we made some as a family. The prototype.

The chocolates were too heavy and pulled the centre paper all which way and back again. The clothespins were falling and pulling and it was a real pinterest nightmare. So we cut the centre out of cardboard, which fixed that wagon. But then the chocolates were falling off the clothespins because, again, they are too heavy and the two sided sticky things I had were from the dollar store because stuff is cheap at the dollar store and I have a meager budget. Like really skimpy. Anyway, they weren't sticky enough. Chocolates were falling all over the floor and I would yell things like "stop falling on the floor, I'm trying to write a book over here" and "I hate you stupid cheap dollar store two-sided sticky tabs!"

They weren't sticky enough. And it was irritating unto me. Shocker.

So the man suggested hot glue but my hot glue gun was malfunctioning. So the man went to the garage and got tools and I said a quick good bye to my already not working glue gun because we all know when the man shows up with tools a inanimate object funeral is imminent.

He took that $3 glue gun apart and made that sucker work. It's a good thing the man works pro bono because there was no way the time he spent fixing that piece of poop was worth it.

Anyway, we glued them and made them strong and then I cracked open a Diet Pepsi because it really had been quite the day.



And dinner was delicious too, I might add.

And then we watched Canada's Worst Driver. Do you watch that show? It really is something to behold.

Tomorrow I reveal December's goal. I'll give you two hints:

1. It will be lovely.

2. It involves this dude.....

a random assortment of me

It's Monday. Yesterday brought a crazy wind that gave me the shakes. Natural disasters might be my biggest fear. You can't win against the wind. Unless your superpower is fighting the wind. Which mine isn't. Mine involves fighting myself, which just so happens to be a full time job. I'm too busy to fight the wind.......

I heard crazy stories yesterday about the havoc the wind was wreaking. They even closed downtown. This tree is lying on the street by my house.



Crazy!

Speaking of downtown, I took three of the kids downtown to see a show on Saturday. The man suggested I take the c-train.

"The kids would love it," he said.

"You're right," I replied. "The kids would love it."

Huh? Hello, me. Have we met?

Two of them loved it but it's me who should have known better. What do I care if the kids are having fun? I sold my sanity for six dollars and twenty five cents.



Someone got a screaming deal. Let's just say construction in the downtown core made it so we had to get off the c-train and take a shuttle and walk to where we were going. It was fine though because the Calgary Tower is real tall-like and I could see it. The problem came when we got out of the show and I didn't know how to get back to wherever it was I needed to be. I am not public transit savvy. Nor do I ever care to be.

Jack said only podunk hobos take the c-train. I chastised him, explaining the concept of public transportation. I argued, endlessly, that he was wrong. And he is wrong but he's also right.

Purell, anyone?

I only had one plan. Take the train there and then take the train home again. I did not make room for concessions.

And to make matters worse, I wore really uncomfortable walking shoes.

Anyway, we worked it out. A one hour show took 4.5 hours to accomplish. No biggie.

"Lesson learned," says my aching feet.
****************

I'm under the gun people. I have 42,708 words written in my novel. I have only three days to finish. But...... I am also in charge of the Cub Christmas Craft on Wednesday night. There are 23 cubs and this is what we're doing.



We are also gluing Kisses to the back of every number otherwise they won't make it. There has to be incentive when you are a 10 year old boy. Food.

Thank-you Pinterest. I may have caught a glimpse of your value last week.

I have some punching out little white circles to do. Like 500-ish. And also.......some writing. Last week my book made me cry. Hard.

That's a good sign, right?

the plot: wreaking havoc

This post will be point form since I need to save my really good writing for my novel. Which is crap, by the way.

These are the things I know to be true in regards to writing a book, or the first 50,000 words of a book, in 30 days:

-my head hurts. A plethora of things are to blame. Chinook, endless reading and writing at the computer, kids who interrupt every 2 seconds, men who wake me up at 5:30 am with all their bed hogging and snuggling.

-men? I mean man. Just one man. The man. He is driving me bat crap crazy. I need my own bed.

-I am capable of procrastination in the most ingenious of forms. None of which include folding the laundry.



-the kids are digging through this daily and no one is complaining. So I'm going with it. It's all clean, what's there to whine about?

-I am 37,935 words into a book with a stellar beginning and a wicked ending and nothing in between. It literally is the book that went nowhere. Fast.

-actually, really slow. Painfully slow. I'm making it up as I go so it's a lot of blah blah blah blah............

-I should have taken typing 20 and 30 in high school. Yes, mother, you told me so.

-it's hard to know if what you are writing is any good when you are the one writing it. Youknowwhatimean? I see it like a movie in my head. It's as real as if I was there. But would you see it too if you were reading it? This must be what drives writers insane.

-I'm feeling a little insane.

-I have taken jammie day to a whole new level. And what is make-up? Someone remind me please.

-bra? Bra shma.

-I have practiced the piano more this month than I have in the last 4 years combined.

-my hips get achy and I need to walk around every two hours.

-time is flying. I only have 6 days to get 12,065 words written. They literally may be "blah blah blah blah" at the rate I'm going.

-writing makes me tired. Not hot yoga tired but a kind of tired that makes me stare at my couch in the middle of the day like a long lost lover who has finally returned to me. "Come to me" it beckons from across the room. It's hair blowing in the wind. "Fabio? Is that you?"

-I am all caught up on American Horror Story. I've been watching it online because the computer is right in front of me all the time. I love that show. Plus, it has the coach's wife in it. Her hair. Oh, her hair.

-It is possible, perfectly conceivable, quite literally probable, that I am eating myself to death.

-and there isn't enough Diet Pepsi.......... or Advil Liquigels, on the planet to reduce this chaos into something comprehendible.

-if I was a writer, an actual writer, I'd be that writer you'd talk about at dinner parties. The crazy one. The one you saw at Safeway in her jammies. The one who never washes her hair. The one who lives off ichiban and Diet Pepsi. The one who drank a 36 pack in 4 days. Now that's something to talk about. The one you wouldn't let your kids talk to or touch if you met me anywhere because "she's crazy, children. Stay away." There is a level of unkempt that can only be defined with the aid of a doctor. A straight jacket kind of doctor.

-I need a schedule. And not one that has a deadline.

-I have to stop now because I could do this all day. Plus it's making me anxious. And I have a deadline.

Toodles.

if rudolph were from newfoundland

Yesterday I took part in a facebook debate between husband and wife. And really, who doesn't love to get in between a husband and wife conflict that is not their own? You can throw your opinion every which way knowing that your own personal doghouse will remain empty that night.

Love that.

The debate involves an age old song that over time may have lost some zest in terms of pronunciation.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

As it was brought to my attention, one member of the couple insisted it was pronounced doff, the L being silent.

Oh for shame!

I sang it over and over. I was convinced, and remain still, the L was, in fact, pronounced and not silent. But..... maybe I was wrong.

Enter......the 'research'.

Yes, people, I like to know when I am doing something wrong. I could be walking around, year after year, singing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer with an L audible to all when, in fact, the L should be silent.

We are talking first world problems here. To a spectacular degree.

So I researched it. Even more so than what was being said on facebook.

Turns out the people who thought the L was silent are all from Newfoundland.

This is neither here nor there. Well, it may be more here than there but I'm not getting into it.

This is what I discovered in my extensive research on this most important matter.

1. This most confusing and not very helpful audio.

2. And this cha cha Q&A.

Cha cha is always right, isn't it. Didn't Ellen say that once on her show?

I'm sure there is more but what I have decided is that, in the spirit of Christmas and all that is gleeful singing and joyous reindeers, people should sing it how they want.

No one can tell the difference anyway.

So....... how do you sing it?

Now that the song is conveniently stuck somewhere in your right hemisphere, or maybe your left depending on whether or not you are from Newfoundland, are you feeling hungry?

Perhaps you should whip up some of this amazing soup. You know, for the carol festival you are sponsoring in your head right now.

My friend Sara gave me the recipe and I don't know where she got it from but holy mother of soup, it is the best soup I have ever had. And I can say with pride and astonishment that every single member of my annoyingly picky family loves it. Kale and all!

Yummy Potato and Italian Sausage Soup

RECIPE INGREDIENTS:

8 to 10 medium cleaned Idaho potatoes with skin on and cubed
2 lbs of mild Italian sausage, loose or links with the skin removed
3 ribs of celery, sliced length wise then diced
2 scallions (only) diced
1 large tablespoon of chopped garlic
1 litre of half & half
10 cups of chicken broth (sometimes I add more)
1 half package of Real Bacon Bits
1 package of cleaned and dried fresh spinach or Kale
1 container of fresh grated parmesan cheese( fresh kind only)
1/2 cup of flour

Seasonings:
1 teaspoon or 2 nice shakes of red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon of paprika
1 teaspoon of sea salt



DIRECTIONS
Brown sausage meat in a large pot. Drain. Add scallions, celery, bacon and garlic. Saute for a few minutes. Then add potatoes and 8 cups of chicken broth. Add paprika and red pepper flakes. Bring to a mild boil and turn down and simmer for 45 minutes to a hour or until potatoes are fork tender. Then slowly add the spinach or kale and work into soup, and simmer a couple more minutes. Mix the flour with the remaining broth and gradually add to the pot. It will not make it thick but it will add some body to broth...and finally stir in slowly the half and half (I used 3/4 of the quart). Salt to taste. Simmer a few minutes more and serve in bowls with a nice sprinkle of the fresh parmesan cheese.

The changes I personally made to it are:
-I use both fresh kale and spinach. I chop and add the kale to it when I add the potatoes and let it simmer. It never takes 45 minutes and I think that's because I use red potatoes because they are my favourite. I add the spinach towards the end.

-I use the entire litre of half and half.

-I skip the parmesan because I'm cheap and I don't really like parmesan. But mostly because I'm cheap.

-I also cook up a whole pound of bacon and chop that up to stick in the soup because I like bigger pieces of bacon and also because it's cheaper than buying the real bacon bits. And, as I may have already mentioned, I'm kind of cheap.

I prefer frugal but.......

Whatever.

Enjoy!

waxing nostalgic

Looking at old videos and pictures of my babies is creating in me some emotion.

I am waxing nostalgic.

Nostalgic for the olden days. Not the olden days like the days of Laura Ingalls. Just the olden days of me.

The days when my babies were being born. The days where I could pull a baby to my nose anytime I wanted and breathe him in. It was a never ending inhalation around here.

November seems to be a month of babies this year. They are coming all around me. I can smell them. I haven't even met them yet and I can smell them. It is scrumptious. The nostalgia is making me yearn.

Don't get carried away. This does not mean I want another baby. I know it doesn't. I wondered for a fraction of a second myself.

What is this? I pondered to myself. Do I want another one?

And then BOOM. Reality. No way. No way do I want to that again. No way do I want to put my body through that again. And my mind.

No way.

The other night I had a dream. I guess that is what sparked this internal discussion within me. The dream must have been prompted by all the babies being born in such a short time. And also by my eternal fear that my body will fail me and one day I will wake up and discover a life within. Every woman who knows her mind is done having babies has this dream.

Right?

The dream. It's the dream where I'm ‘late’ and I say things to myself like "this can't be happening" and "what are we going to do?" All the while rubbing my belly and just knowing in that womanly way we sometimes know things that there is a life inside. The dream turns into a nightmare when my husband says really unsupportive things like "everything will be okay" and "I guess we're going to have a baby" with a super fake and painfully forced smile on his face. There are visions of stabbing him in the eye.

Is that part just me? Oh……..

I can tell you I didn't wake up feeling happy from this dream. I was panicked and worried. I checked my calendar. Then I danced a dance designed to coax the gods of womanhood. To convince them that I am not a vessel for childbearing anymore. But instead, a museum. I am a museum of awesome that has all the indicators of the amazing abilities my femininity has allowed me. I needed to convince those gods that I was not a willing participant. My body does not approve. My time is done.

It was just a dream, I told myself when I awoke. No need to panic.

It was just a dream.

The feelings this dream has invoked within me are proof enough that I am only nostalgic and not in reality missing, or wanting, or needing a baby in my life.

Maybe the waxing nostalgic comes from remembering. A remembering of a time in my life where things were hard but steady. Hard in the work of birthing babies. Steady in the struggle of raising them. My waxing might come from remembering that I did that.

Me.

I did that.

I lived it and I came out the other side.

Times are different now. New hard things, new phases of my life. Mine and my children’s. A newness that presents challenges both difficult and scary.

If I look hard enough, strain my neck, squint my eyes, I can see the other side of this.

It's real pretty.

take backsies

Remember when I trashed on twitter?



I was wrong.

I am deeply sorry.

I #heart twitter.

@Twitter be dope, yo.

Thought you should know when I admit how shamefully wrong I am.

Tweet me sometime. Maybe we could be facebook friends.

Wait....what??

I need to go to bed now.

Good night my peeps I mean, tweeps, or twits, or fb friends, or....... who are you again?

seemedly, I am fustrated........

Yesterday I wanted to blog a little sumpin' for your lovely eyes. But seeing as how I was over 6000 words behind on my book I needed to do that instead. Four day weekends with 4 kids will kill a certain momentum, youknowwhatimean? So...... I needed a day to catch up.

I almost did catch up but then, all of a sudden, I couldn't see straight anymore and I started making up words. This is when I figured that not only should I stop but I should probably not bother mashing words together on my blog either.

I started making up words. Well, it was one word and I didn't know I was making it up. I thought it was a real word but the little red line kept telling me no.

I hate it when the computer is wrong and I am right, I thought to myself. So I googled it. Nothing. So I dictionary.com'd it. No results found.

Well, what the heck??? Seemedly was surely a word. I tried hard to prove it. But to no avail. Here's the sentence I wanted to put it in:

"And seemedly more in control of his temper than I would have given him credit for."

I was perplexed. What happened to the word seemedly? Did someone remove it from the dictionary because they hate me?

Well, I never. I had to remove it from my almost New York Times Best Seller and insert seemingly instead.

Because apparently, seemingly is a real word. Seemingly. Pfft. Whatever.

Who can I email to get my word made into an official word? I want copyrights.

People use words all the time that are a total crock of madeupedness. But because they are oblivious to their own ignorance (and I mean that in the nicest possible way) they get to spew those freely out into the universe.

How is that fair?

Here are a few examples for you to consider incorporating into your everyday vocabulary. I will give you the word and then give you a highly intelligent sentence as an example.

Acrossed. As in "He was acrossed the street." Nope, sorry, not a word. Not in any context whatsoever.

Fustrated. As in "I feel fustrated when people don't speak real good. Y'know?" Come on now y'all. Come on.......

Supposably. As in "Supposably he's a Rhodes Scholar. Hmmmmm, I wonder why I'm not." Don't quote me on this but I think it supposably has something to do with the people who love you not telling you the truth. Or something like that.

Actually, I think we can blame that one on spell check since it doesn't recognize the word as being UTTERLY and ridiculously wrong!

Irregardless. As in "Irregardless of what people try and tell me I don't believe in redundancy."

Don't even get me started on the whole controversy surrounding the to/two/too epidemic and the plague what is they're/there/their. What about the fact that yesterday does not have a U in it and that definitely is spelled wrong 97% of the time. Yes it most definitely does not have an A in it.

For the love of all that is good grammar and spelling correctness someone teach the people!

So back to my point. I want seemedly to become a word. I believe it makes sense and I like the way it flows from my tongue.

I wrote this post late last night so I could post this morning and still get another 6000 word day in on my book.

I seemedly have my priorities straight.

See what I mean? It's a word.

where have all the babies gone?

Amelia is at that stage where she just wants to write everything down. She wants to make lists and write love letters.... to me, of course. She wants to read books and copy them out. She wants to write write write.

Mommy, how do you spell.......? Is what I hear numerous times a day. I'll bet a bazillion times, at least.

And the list of words I have spelled for her over the last three months is endless.

She is almost at the end of her cute and almost into the real person phase of life. You know what I'm talking about, right? The phase where they make plans that don't involve me anymore. The phase where they say things like "Well, my teacher said...." and I start to feel like a second class citizen. The phase where I have to start with the whole "guiding and directing" part of child rearing as opposed to the "they are right under my thumb and therefore I have a lot of control they don't know about" kind of child rearing.

It was always fine when the one of the children started to grow up because there was always someone younger to coddle, snuggle, squeeze and control...... I mean love.

But soon all of them will be 'big' and there will be no more 'little' and.......

................ I am growing up.

Where have all my babies gone?

it was an accident, i swear

So I woke up a bit of a train wreck this morning. Just a little wreck though, nothing traffic stopping.

Look away! Look away!

I woke early, at 4:15, and I knew that my little blue lover was not fulfilling it's purpose. Sometimes it does that. Sometimes I pop the pill and it's like my doctor has slipped a placebo in there. If that's true then she did that on purpose because, well, she's like that.

Anyways, I suspected last night would be rough when an hour after I took it I was still staring up at the ceiling WIDE WAKE.

Why am I talking about this again? I didn't mean to, I swear. This is what happens when I'm tired. I talk....endlessly. And with no point. I do apologize.

No, actually, I don't. This is my blog so..........

After I started speaking to my people this morning I knew that I was officially cranky and therefore warned the masses. They ignored all warnings and walked straight towards the fiery wreck.

At this point I am not responsible for what happens to them. I did warn them. It's not my fault if they burn up in my wrath.

Just kidding. I don't have wrath.

Half way to school I adjusted the mirror so I could see Amelia's eyes. I wanted to teach her a little something about herself when, what do I behold? She is proving my point all over the place. See.....she was upset that she had forgotten her Canada flag at home, she wanted it for the Remembrance Day assembly today. The same assembly I am not going to because I "have really important things I need to do." The children don't know that I actually don't have anything 'important' to do. And no one needs to tell them. Youhearme?

Come on now! I can't be the only mom who 'doesn't do assemblies'.

Back to the wee child. I had asked her to put the flag in her back pack or else she would forget it because that's what she does. Naturally though, she ignored my stellar parental advice because that is ALSO what she does.

When she announced in the truck that she had forgotten it, I lowered the rearview mirror to see her sweet, sad eyes and hopefully teach her a little self awareness. This is when I noticed she wasn't wearing a coat.

I had to halt all talk about awareness....

"Where is your coat, young lady?"

"Ummm...."

...... because what kind of teacher/parent/grown up would I be if I pointed out to her that she should have just put the stupid flag in the back pack when I suggested it while the whole time I am preaching my preach she is sitting there in 2 degree weather with NO COAT ON?

Never you mind.

Last night I went to the Calgary Herald launch party for their new local blogger page of their online newspaper.

(Every time I try and type the word blogger I type blooger instead and have to fix it. Interesting.....)

Anyway, I was invited and I went and isn't that exciting? It was a fancy night, with fancy food, and fancy people from the Calgary Herald. They were wearing suits and dresses and stuff.

Here's the link: http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion/calgary-bloggers/index.html

It was an open bar. This is good news for two reasons. First of all, I didn't bring any cash and I was concerned that I'd have to go all night without a diet cola. But I didn't have to worry about it. That's how fancy it was.

Second, when I turned to my table, after watching a presenter, and took a ginormous sip of someone's alcoholic beverage by accident, because his glass was where my glass originally had been which had obviously (it's obvious now) been taken away by the wait staff who were so very efficient at their jobs, and just about barfed all over the table that person didn't need to be upset with me because he could just replace it for free. And isn't that great?

Yes, that was a run on sentence. Whatsyourpoint?

Which, when all was said and done, I see now that I should have just spit it back into the cup, instead of swallowing it, because !!seriously!! how does anyone drink that stuff? I thought it was poison. Imagine my shock when I thought it was my Diet Coke and it WAS NOT!!!

Gross. Ewww. Splat. Ick. Hiccup. Well I never......

So anyway. I felt defiled. And poisoned. Ugh.

It's the 10th today which means there are 7 days left in this never ending contest. And really, I am just sick of asking. It annoys me to be so beggy so I can only imagine how annoyed you all must be.

I may not ask anymore after today......... we'll see.

Circle of Moms Top 25 Canadian Mom Blogs

Go vote, if you feel so inclined.

For me....obviously.

As of tomorrow I will have four days with the kids home. All day. Everyday. How ever am I supposed to be a serious author with all the raucousness that is the roofers and now the children.

Oy vey......

I have almost 16,000 words of my book written which leaves me a tad behind but not too much.

Hmmmm....... maybe I should kill someone off today. That'd be fun. No?

anxiety

Anxiety is always changing around here. Before we started the reno I didn't have much anxiety. Except PMS, of course. My doctor told me PMS was a form of depression and anxiety and that I should be preparing myself for the day when I either suffer from depression on a regular basis or anxiety to such an extreme that I may have to do more than what I am doing to control it. I don't see the depression being a problem, I really don't. But the anxiety? Oh yeah, me and anxiety.....we're tight.

I take my doctor with a grain of salt. She's great but she's a pessimist. I really like her though, she's smart and funny. She's thorough and she listens to me. This is important to me. She listens. When I go in and I tell her I am losing my mind she listens and does whatever I want her to do plus anything else she may deem necessary.

She's a bit of a pill pusher though so I tread lightly. Actually one time I went to see her because I was going on a trip and I was terrified of all the airplanes we were going on. The trip was a week away and I was already losing sleep. I went for the specific purpose of getting drugs. The kind of drugs that keep me from turning all crazy-like on the airplane forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing in the middle of the ocean. Which would induce in me a whole new level of psychosis. Landing in the ocean? Holy crap, can you imagine it? Excuse me while I breathe into a brown paper bag.

My doctor always asks me about my life and how many kids I have now and are there any foster kids and so on and so forth. When I updated her about my life she asked me if there was anything else I wanted. Like, say, valium?

Oh that woman, she is my temptress.

I said no, by the way.

Anyway, the reno or Willacy, as I like to call it, added a level of anxiety to my life that I don't particularly care for. This level of anxiety has introduced me to chronic insomnia. Chronic insomnia brings out in me, an already emotional type human being, a new level of emotion that rears it's ugly head at the strangest of times.

The longer this house is for sale the more my anxiety and I become intimately acquainted. I've been trying to break up with it but I fear it's a bit of a stalker, youknowwhatimean?

I'm doing research into the current stalker laws but...........

Fruitless.

Wanna see what my anxiety looks like right now?





It looks like the old roof lying all over the exterior of my house. It looks like dust and dirt and little itty bitty pebbles and bits of tar and bigger bits of tar and it's even hanging in my neighbours tree.

My latest anxiety sounds like this:

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG! As they replace the old with the new.

What was that? Did you just ask me a question? Well sorry, but I can't hear you. BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG

Light fixtures are falling from the sockets and I hear banging in my medically induced sleep.

Today they are putting 'torch on' on the roof. This involves a blow torch which is just a fancy way of saying fire. My anxiety is mutating by the second.

We just hit 9 months with the house being on the market. Is there a pharmaceutical I can take for that?

The other day the man came down off the roof to take a wee break from all the banging and enjoyed a plate of tater tots with the kids.




When I asked him why he was eating with chopsticks he said he was being sophisticated.

Yep.

Speaking of sophisticated. Wouldn't it be super sophisticated of me to place in the top three in this contest I am in? I am holding #4 right now but I'm over a hundred votes away from #3. This simply will not do people. No no no. In the interest of saving my sanity I do declare you must go vote for me.

GO VOTE NOW! Circle of Moms Top 25 Canadian Mom Blogs





******

and the winner is..........

The Divine Ms. M!

Congrats. You have won the 5 free hot yoga class pass at Breath Hot yoga.

I will get in touch with you.

christmas wish list and a little bit o' poo

So the Holts catalogue came in the mail which is such a relief because I was stumped as to what I wanted for Christmas. Could not, for the life of me, think of what to ask for. This catalogue just makes everything so much easier.

Youknowwhatimean?

I am torn, however, between the Dior watch for $10,350 and the.......




the Chiclet bracelet for $4410



The prices are on opposite ends of the spectrum, I realize. I guess we'll see what the budget allows.

Strangely, at this point, I am feeling an urge to pay homage to Kim Kardashian. How could anything that seemed so right go so wrong? But I feel as though she might be receiving too much negative attention in the media. I wouldn't want what I have to say to be misconstrued so I think I'll step away.

Anyway, last night was this event and I was so excited to go. I harassed you and begged you and basically made you feel like poo if you didn't participate. I got all gussied up and made someone else drive me there only to be turned away after an intensive discussion regarding my previous heart issues. The nurse told me that 47 years of doing what she does and she'd never been faced with a condition like mine.

I felt so special.

Whatever. She checked with the head nurse, who also said no, and then we filled out paper work to be sent to my cardiologist. Hopefully in a few months time I will be cleared and be able to donate with my very own special permission letter.

I couldn't donate and now I feel like a piece of poo.

We went out for dinner after and it was still a great night out and I look forward to doing it again. And next time I will be bleeding into a tube. If not, I will be eternally devastated.

Isn't this a sad story? If you feel bad for me then you should feel free to go vote for me to brighten this otherwise less bright day. Circle of Moms Top 25 Canadian Mom Blogs. In fact, you can vote from every apparatus in your house or on your person. Which is simply awesome, no?

And by the way, if you have voted for me I love you. If you have voted for me more than once I owe you big time. Perhaps my 5th born?

And there is still time to throw your name in the hat for the giveaway.

dr.suess was an amateur

Here is an excerpt from my new book. Tell me what you think.

On Monday, the little one woke warm, with emotion.
She said "my stomachs' not well, it's like a rough ocean."
Her forehead was hot and her fever ran high.
We sent the others off to school, good-bye.
It was just her and me for days to come.
Just her and me and medications some.

I do not like it when she is sick
I do not like it. Not one lick.
It hurts my heart and leaves me hopeless
I can't fix it and I wish for mope-less
Besides that point it infringes on me
But that doesn't matter, it's about her, you see.
I had things to do both in and out
Things to do that are not about
being sick with sore throats and fevers galore
But instead about haircuts and plenty more.

The little one cried and whined and fussed.
She looked disheveled, her hair a-mussed.
Her throat was on fire, her cheeks were red.
I medicated and medicated and put her to bed.

On Halloween night we ventured out
And walked and walked with nary a pout
The little one was tired but walked longer still
She pressed on bravely 'cause her friends weren't ill.
She wanted her fair share and who could blame her?
She exclaimed,"This is the best holiday EVER!"

Four days off school so far but we'll see
When I told her "fever is broken" - glee!
She asked if she could go back to school because
She was better and bored and no more 'twas
This fever to take away all her fun
Days upon days with just mommy are done!

Fingers crossed.


Just kidding, this is not from my book. It's not a memoir, silly.

I am going loopy (how can you tell?) from being home bound and trying my hand at writing a book all whilst waiting out the fever that never ends. This rhyming crap is way easier. Maybe Dr. Suess is looking for a replacement?

Here's to hoping that Amelia is well. Poor little thing. Breaks my heart.

On that note...... here is what's driving me insane most of all. No pun intended.

Let me demonstrate.

This is a picture of the Mazda 3, the ugliest car known to man. (No offense if you own one of these, to each their own.)




And this is Jack's impersonation of the Mazda 3, which we not-so-fondly refer to as "smiley car".



This is neither here nor there.

This is the part that drives me mental. When we are out driving there are approximately 3562 of these cars on the road. Everytime we see one one of the kids yells "Smiley Car!" And what song do you think pops in my head every single time?

That's right. You guessed it. Now maybe you'll go insane as well and then we can be friends.

Speaking of friends, go here to vote for me or I'm comin' after you. What? You don't believe me? Try me. Circle of Moms Top 25 Canadian Mom Blogs .

Also, I'm giving crap away, if you're interested.

nanowrimo

Do you know what a nanowrimo is? No? Well, until about 9 days ago I didn't either. About 9 days ago I was doing something dangerous. I was surfing the web whilst waiting for my sleeping pill to kick in. It's either that or talk to the man but the problem is that this particular brand of pill makes me really chatty.

And when I say really chatty I mean like no breathing, run on sentences and complete chaos kind of chatty. It acts like a truth serum as well and I tend to divulge things that are better kept under wraps.

Youknowwhatimean?

Anyhow, this particular night I was surfing. A bunch of my tweeps were talking about the upcoming nanowrimo challenge. I clicked and clicked until I felt I had a pretty good idea of what it was.

Foggy, mind you, but I was excited. I wanted to tell the world that my new November goal was to partake in nanowrimo. It was at this moment I got up and went to bed for fear that I would start blogging or status updating incoherence that would scare the universe.

The next morning I thought it was a dream. I told the man about this amazing dream I had where by the end of November I would be famous. It occurred to me I should look it up. Well, I'll be........ It was real!

I talked to the family about it. They all thought it was a cool idea and then I started to get really excited so here is the big news.

Nanowrimo stands for...........

National Novel Writing Month. And you can check it out here.

Now, I just want to clarify a couple of things.

1. This is my first attempt at a novel or anything that may even resemble a novel so it's guaranteed to be crap.
2. Because of that no one, and I repeat no one, will be allowed to read it. Unless you ask about 30 minutes after I've taken a sleeping pill. In which case I would most likely read it out over the radio.
3. The point of this challenge is to commit a month to doing something many many people I know would love to do, including me. Not to become a world famous authoress by December and I am perfectly aware of that so don't poop on my parade okay?

Although that would be so cool, wouldn't it?

The challenge is 50,000 words by November 30. I think there are prizes but I will admit here that I haven't actually looked into it all that much. I know the basic rules.

So I have some work to do. I'll be busy because I have to write on average 1667 words a day. I don't even know how long that is so I guess Ima gonna go find out!

Oh mercy......... what should the first line be?

This is going to be a crazy month. I herby declare the man to officially be in charge of the grocery shopping.

Let it be so!

Also, don't forget about my giveaway at the end of this ridiculously long post.

And....please go vote for me. Pretty please? Once a day even. I love love love you!

Circle of Moms Top 25 Canadian Mom Blogs .

Off we go. To write a book. About?????????

Oh boy.............