tiffany's spot

"Mommy! Just cover me up with groceries!" Okay. Moments later: "Mommy, Mommy! It hurts!" (I'm translating. She actually said "Mommy, Mommy! It huhhts! Gotta love the speech impediments). As a responsible, loving parent, I said, loudly (people laughed, they are as awful I as I am), "Stop wiggling around! You're squishing my bread! We are almost to the till!"

This seems to be the week of Steven. I came home the other night and when I opened the garage door, he was standing there, in his pajamas, playing the mandolin. It was somewhat unexpected. Steven has this thing where he does these random things, that I'm sure make perfect sense to him, but are highly amusing to me. Keep it up honey.

I really don't know why his arm is sticking directly out the front of the box. Tennyson spent a bunch of time today taping random recycling bits together, filling in the spaces with newspapers. Then when he went to "robot fight" with his dad and the paper all fell apart, well, so did he. Hence, the box. Thanks to Steven for picking up the box for him - and for trying it on after.

This: Is not how I put socks and underwear away. Steven's undies are now better organized than mine.

I really didn't. I would never do things that would make people shake their heads, or smirk, or any of that other stuff. People shouldn't anyway, because that would be unkind , especially since I don't mock people . For instance: Let's just get ingress out of the way, since Steven thinks it's incredibly nerdy and I'd hate to give him more ammo to make fun of it all: I did not relentlessly heckle complete strangers from opposing factions (in communications, not in person) when they came through town just before the weekend, and destroyed only two of my portals. That wouldn't be good sportsmanship. I also did not avoid having a Thanksgiving drink all weekend with my husband, just in case the bad guys came back through at the end of the weekend (okay, I'll admit, I had serious suspicions. Probably because he said "see you soon....") I also did not ditch Steven with dinner prep at 4:30 tonight when, after following the communications lo...

This is a weird Thanksgiving weekend for us. There have been years where we have had to squeeze two or three gatherings into a single weekend, sometimes a single day. This year? Nada. I'll admit, there were times this weekend when I was a little pouty about having four days off and no plans, but on the other hand, it was kind of nice to have a weekend without a bunch of running around. It seems our weekends fill up really fast these days. Today (on Sunday, because of course I'm not backdating this, that would be Blogtober Cheating , and I'm nothing if not completely honest), I got up at 7am and decided to go for a bike ride. Keep in mind I'm more of a runner/walker, and when it comes to biking, it's more for leisure or family time. But no, today I was going to make this my exercise, so I went alone. I must also add, that, should you think it unkind of me to ditch my kids and husband to go biking, when clearly, everyone loves it, remember that I spend a lot of ...

Steven and the kids are watching a movie. I was supposed to be watching the movie with them, but I completely tuned it out just minutes in. It's boring and ridiculous. It's called Asterix and the Mansions of the Gods , or something. I know how we all make fun of Disney, but this is definitely NOT Disney. There is a reason Disney is popular. The reason is - they don't make shitty kids movies . That's really about all.

My boys are begrudgingly drying dishes for me. They're talking about how when they grow up, they're going to have dish washers and dish dryers. Then this conversation happens: "Yeah," says Mitchell. "Because I don't wanna do work." "Mitch," I sigh, "You're never going to get married you know." (not that we push the idea that everyone needs to get married, but just go with me.) "I don't wanna get married," he says, matter of factly. Okay, now Mitchell is this total cuddly sweetheart who has lots of girl friends at school. "Mitch," I say, "Why not?" "Because." "What if you find a really really nice girl that you really like and you want to be with her all the time?" "I won't." "You might. And you can cuddle up and watch movies and have fun snacks." "I can watch movies all by myself and eat ALL the snacks." "Hey," s...

Tonight was book club. It was my turn to host, meaning that my house is now clean going into the weekend (that doesn't happen often). The book was Common Ground by Justin Trudeau. Did it sway my vote either way? No. I actually did not enjoy the book, and only made it to page 35. I may not have admitted this to the group, but fortunately (or unfortunately, since I'm a bit of a talker), I completely lost my voice yesterday and spent the evening eating and pouting and attempting, from time to time, to whisper, so nobody noticed. I really love book club. I may be admitting my nerdiness, but it's seriously the highlight of my month. Next month we are back to fiction and it's a book that sounds pretty interesting so I'm pumped! Our group is made up of 9 women. We are all ages, and have different jobs and family situations, different backgrounds, etc. and the conversation and the different viewpoints are awesome. Happily, nobody is overly scary so we all feel pretty comf...

I I bought a new cup to replace the cup that had been my favorite for a dozen years until it broke.  This one is full of Neocitran. I have self-diagnosed the plague.  You would think we cured the plague. You would be wrong.  I am waiting for the magic of this drink to kick in. Admittedly, I have absolutely zero tolerance for whatever they put in it to make it so magical.  In a few minutes I should be in a neocitran coma. It's my favorite. 

Sometimes I want to go back and find specific blog posts. It's hard. I've decided to rectify that by making my titles more specific to the post. Right? Today I skipped school and went into the city for a day of shopping with all the women in my family. 'Twas fun. We ate a lot and shopped a little and spent the bulk of the day trying to get certain family members to leave stores with sale prices when it was time to eat again. All good. Then I came home to model some of my new outfits for my supposedly doting husband. Know what he did? He laughed at my unitard. Not even kidding. I know, I've spent years mocking people in full-body spandex, but when I do it he should be more supportive. In my own defense, I was still wearing the leggings (I know, I know, leggings ) from the previous outfit and I put on a black undershirt so I could show him the sweater/cardigan/button-uppy "thing" that went over it, but somewhere in the middle of all of this I had on a ...

I would just like to take this opportunity to point out that unlike other people in this town, I do not go out walking or running in the dark wearing all dark clothing. That would be irresponsible. I certainly do not walk on the road instead of the sidewalk simply because I dislike all of our crappy neighborhood sidewalks. No sirree. Not me. Nor would I ever dream of worrying homeowners by walking down back lanes with my phone flashlight all in the name of taking short cuts to portals. Because that would be silly. I'm not 15 after all. Not for 14 years now. I am also entirely above smugly feeling like a bad-ass ninja after-dark walker when I see people coming toward me and they move a little closer together and hold hands. Because I'm totally not scary. Not at all.

A bowl of Greek yogurt with a squirt of blueberry syrup, and a glass of wine.  This is why I could never run a popular food blog.  This is why being a grown up is sometimes seriously awesome.  This was completely necessary to make room for the kids' lunch boxes. I certainly wasn't going to drink four litres of milk.  This has been spirited away so I can eat it in my room where nobody else is.  This follows a day where I've actually eaten very little in proportion to the amount of running I did this morning. Should be a pleasant afternoon.  Cheers. 

I'm not feeling particularly "bloggy" tonight. There are a few things that would be fun to write about, but I don't want to ruin them. If that makes sense. Nanowrimo is coming again in November. I know it's kind of goofy to devote so much time to something I'll never ever let anyone else read, or read again myself (for the most part), but it's awfully fun to do. I've only ever finished twice, so this year I'm determined to make the third. I made Steven order a power cord for his own computer last night. I just now kicked him off his computer so I could take back my power cord. I feel like I should write about what we did today. Let's do it in ten points. Today's Ten Things: 1. I took Elliot to swimming lessons, but not before she freaked out at me at home because I brushed her rat's nest air, and she doesn't think it needs brushing if she doesn't have to go to school. Her meltdown quickly became a tantrum, and she d...

I've started running again. I'm not sure if I ever "officially" stopped, but I only ran twice in August, totalling about nine miles, so I kind of felt like when I restarted in September that I was, well, restarting. This is probably not even blog-worthy. It would probably be better served disappearing into the chasm that is facebook, but I need blog topics, so here it is. I once had a friend (coughcoughangelacough) who said that she didn't run outside because she was afraid that just maybe, she ran "funny," and people would see her. Being an awesome friend, I insisted that surely she didn't. I lied. I have never even seen her run. I have just recently decided that she does run funny. Wanna know why? (as if spell check didn't underline 'wanna') Everyone runs funny. Quite seriously, everyone . I prefer to run outside, because the treadmill sucks my will to live, and a mile or two in I turn into a sighing, eye-rolling teenager, o...

Today is the first day of Blogtober. I am being forced to dictate this to a device instead of typing it into my computer like a normal person. I even had an awesome blog in mind. I was going to tell you all about taking Jordan to the art gallery to see the Greek exhibit, complete with awesome pictures, humorous anecdotes, and and especially disturbing, yet incredible giant dead baby. My friend insisted that the baby was not meant to be dead, merely giant, but you can judge for yourself. Do you know when you can judge for yourself? When Steven returns my laptop power cord. I imagine him sitting in the kitchen right now giggling to himself as he listens to me curse at Siri for screwing up every third word. Stevens power cord stopped working a long, long time ago. Now he steals my power cord any time he wants to use his computer. Unfortunately, the battery in my computer no longer works for more than a minute or two without being plugged in. This should make for an awesome blog Tober. ...