tiffany's spot

Alright, apparently nobody liked my book review from yesterday. Fine. Whatever. I present Tuesday's Fantastic Five: My right thumb has a finger crack right at the tip. It's the exact part of the thumb I text with. Fan-freakin-tastic. My lips are chapped from breathing through my mouth all day due to my cold. My baby is less than attractive due to her bright red, chafed teething cheeks. Gotta love those fantastic two year molars coming in before baby is two. It's 4:02 and the magic supper fairy has yet to arrive and transform the half-thawed bag of hamburger sitting in the sink. I'm on the waiting list at the library for a book I really want to read. Someone is hoarding my book. First world problems are a real bitch. Seriously though, not a bad day. Got a 5+ mile walk in this morning with a friend, used the cold as an excuse to set a giant pile of peanut butter and jam sandwiches on the table and call it lunch, and had a little cat nap on the couch while the b...

I just read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. By 'just read' I mean that a friend dropped the book off today and I read it. I figure that if I ever get Alzheimer's the ability to read a book in a day will be beneficial. I'd hate to have to start the same book day after day, although supposing I had Alzheimer's I wouldn't know enough to hate that I was doing that. As it stands, although I am extremely forgetful at times, I don't have Alzheimer's. I've read ten books already this year, in probably fifteen days. I'll start a book and get caught up in it and then if it's really good I'll read it within the next 24 - 48 hours. If it's pretty good it might take me four or five days. If it's dull, well either I'll ditch it or read it over a longer period of time. When I read it in a day? I feel guilty. Surely the kids need me to watch them (or at least be aware of them) running around with Buzz and Ironman. In all honesty, ...

Jordan's on the phone with Steven. This is the conversation: Jordan : Daddy, where's my music player? Jordan : (to me) Daddy says it's in the booze cabinet. Me : Good grief. Tell Daddy little girls aren't allowed to say booze. Jordan : Daddy, Mommy says little girls aren't allowed to say booze. Jordan : Daddy said I can say boo. Me : Nope.

It's not even going to be a "ten things about elliot" or "ten reasons why i should rule the world" list (although, that might be a good idea). Today's ten things are just random, but immensely important things that I'm sure you'll want to know. 1. If I had a baby born with an extra finger or toe I'd have it lopped off immediately. None of this "Six Fingered Man" stuff. Did you see what happened to Tyrone Rugen ? Having six fingers is just not a good idea. Steven says he'd fight to keep that finger. Apparently the kid would be really good at guitar. I figured being stoned at school for being weird and fingery would  not be worth more efficient guitar playing. As I told a friend this morning, I stopped at four kids, in part, because I wanted to stop before they started mutating. 2. Steven threw out the gym bag that I made in home ec. in grade 7. Can you believe it? Me neither. The heartlessness of the act. I retaliated with name ...

I picked up Jordan at 3:38 today. I know school lets out at 3:30. Sue me. I showed up just in time to see her riding her back pack down the snow hill. It's okay, I love replacing things she destroys. She's worse than the boys. This year she has lost at least one tuque, a pair of mittens, a pair of shoes (I managed to find them in the school) and a nice sweater. In the fall I bought her a new snowsuit from Sears as well as a new pair of boots. She has worn holes in the jacket as well as all but destroyed her ski pants. I blame the lack of snow. She loves to run and slide on patches of ice. It would be nice if the ice was flanked by snow or more ice instead of concrete. I had to buy new boots a few weeks ago because she pulled the rubber bottoms right off the boots. The worst part of catching her riding her back pack down the hill was the subsequent obligation on my part to scold her. I hate picking her up and scolding her. I much prefer "Hi Jordan! Did you have a fantasti...

Watching the clothing spin around and around. Crowding the people using the bill-to-change machine so she could watch the loonies come out into the tray. Sharing a box of smarties. More the smarties, less the sharing. The friendly laundromat attendant who kept chatting with Elliot and calling her "him". Flushing the toilet in the restroom. The last ounce of coffee that she drank out of my coffee cup.

I started to write a blog post about the weather, but decided that it was infinitely more boring than just telling you that I was going to tell you about the weather. I'm just sitting here in my quiet dining room. My boys are watching tv and Elliot is having a nap. I know, I should send them outside. I will. The kids keep asking me if winter is over. The other day we were driving to pick up Jordan. There were puddles on the sides of the otherwise snow and ice-free roads. Water was dripping off eves and out of trees. Kids on the playground were running around with their jackets unzipped. "No," I said. "Winter is not over. It's just really nice out." I'm sure they think I don't know what I'm talking about. We're having April in February and I love it. Tennyson knows that his birthday is in the spring. We always tell him that when the snow is gone his birthday will get here. Poor kid. The snow has disappeared and come back numerous times...

I'm the oldest of two children. I have a younger brother. I'd like to come clean about something: as a child, my brother was annoying. Like really annoying. He did all sorts of annoying stuff. He made faces, made weird noises, played in my room when I didn't want him to, let his crap float over the line onto my half of the back seat of the car, etc. Oh yeah, and he used to get food in his hair at dinner time and I'm sure he ate loud. I remember trying to watch TV after school only to have him lay on the floor in front of the tv and put his feet on it. His feet!! Nothing ruins the Ninja Turtles quite like a pair of big stinky feet with dangling socks hanging off the toes wandering all over the TV screen. You know what else was annoying? That my parents didn't notice how annoying he was. He'd be doing his annoying things and I'd yell at him a bunch of times to stop before finally smacking him for all I was worth. I was a good big sister. He knew it was comin...

Valentine's Day is officially over. The one thing I really don't like about Valentine's Day is all the candy that's left here after. Hard candy drives me nuts. Suckers are a kid favorite, but it takes them forever to eat them. I try to make them stay at the table with them, which almost seems like a punishment because it takes so long, but if they sneak off with one there's no way around the sticky orange patch I find later on the carpet, or the chunks of long-dried confection fused to the couch. I started this post forever ago and I kind of forget where I was going with it. After Halloween I usually wait a week or two and then throw out whatever hasn't been eaten. I might do that with the Valentine's stuff. Poor kids.

Valentine's Day is here at our house. Probably because it is at the stores, on TV at school and preschool. I like Valentine's Day. I know there are so many people that poopoo it because of the commercial aspect, but then we could say the same about Christmas, Easter, Mother's Day and Father's Day too. There is a huge commercial aspect to those holidays, but only as much as we allow. I like Valentine's Day as a celebration of romance, relationships and friendship. We should more often take a moment to appreciate the special people in our lives. Did I buy some candies and goodies for my family? Yes I did. I can't wait to share them with the kids tonight. I also bought Steven a small gift and a little chocolate. Tonight he is cooking me dinner after the kids go to bed and we'll take time to catch up and share a hot meal and some conversation. The kids had Valentine's parties today at school. We all got up this morning and I put red and pick clothes on a...

Today was one of those days where it honestly felt that the kids were conspiring to drive me insane. I think they may have been successful. If they weren't the actual cause of my insanity then they at least succeeded to make it worse. Questions : 1. Why on Earth does a six year old care so much about her clothes? And how does she know what constitutes as an ugly pair of jeans? There are so many things she wants to wear that make my skin crawl with desire to rip the offending articles off her and burn them in the back yard. A perfectly normal pair of blue jeans? Not so much. And why must she whine and snivel like a crazy person when I brush her hair? I start at the bottom and gently work my way up. Each time there's the tiniest snag she freaks. I've seen her brush her own hair, she is no gentler. I know, I should just let her do it, and I normally do, but tonight I wanted to pull her hair back for her so she could go to her church function and run around and play games. ...

We've had a busy couple of weekends. This weekend hasn't been busy per se, but we've kept ourselves busy and away from the front of the TV. Yesterday Mitchell had swimming lessons in the morning. I should mention that he's cute and little and apparently two years younger than everyone else in the class. He'll stand nicely in line with his class, but when the teacher goes down the line getting the kids to bob under the water, he'll just give her a giant happy smile and shake his head no at her. She carries on. I have a feeling he'll do this class a number of times. Probably until he's twelve. At least then he'll be the same size as the other five year olds. Sometime in the mid morning a little girl from across the street came over to ask Jordan to come and play with her. She went. Tennyson sat and cried, because he's still not used to Jordan having a social life that doesn't always include him. I sent him outside to help Steven fix his tr...

Here's a video. I dare you to watch it and not laugh. I promise, no scary stuff like the last one! It's too funny, and yet it's such a nothing video!

Steven assured me it was a great movie. It was okay. He also mentioned that they explained the Cap'n's transformation really well. Ugh,  yeah. They made a serum out of some alien juices or some prehistoric power source the gods left behind and injected it into the runt's muscles. It made him bigger, and taller. It would seem that the serum also made his bones grow. The movie was okay though, seriously. I should have started a blog years ago entitled Movies Steven Makes me Watch with scathing reviews. Guess what he took me to on our first date? Nurse Betty . A man gets scalped in the first ten minutes, and then runs around the room, crashing into things with his hands tied behind his back. Yep. It was supposed to be a comedy. Real funny Steven, real funny.