Ah Ha! I've Got It!

So it's Friday. The end of the working week for any of you that actually went in to work. It's a happy day for most people - the start of the weekend. Not really a good time for a heavy blog topic...so what's a bored, too-much-time-on-her-hands girl to do for a post?

Well I thought...

And thought...

And thought some more...

And then, of course!!!! Wish you a Happy Weekend!
So have a great one lovies, and I'll catch you on Monday.

Notes to Self - Part 2

1. Come to terms with the fact that your hair is messy. Even when you brush it, it's messy. That's just the way your hair rolls. Quit stressing about it, put down the brush, and move along. Anyone that can't get over your messy hair doesn't deserve to know you.

2. When the husband is working nights, go to bed. Seriously. What is the point of staying up till all hours of the night? No one else is dumb enough to stay up unless they have a really good reason. And fyi - watching "Look Who's Talking Too" is not a really good reason.

3. Leave Telus. They used to be a good cell phone service provider, but now they are complete crap. Find a way to get out of your contract and move on. You pay for services to work, not to have to call the helpline twice a week because those services are not, in fact, working.

4. Put away the clothes that have overtaken your bedroom. No little fairy, or cleaning person, or mother-type-figure, or makeover maven is going to do it for you. You do realize that you can barely see the floor in there now, don't you?

5. Bake some banana chocolate chip muffins. Or at least clean out your freezer. The banana graveyard is getting way overpopulated.

6. Finish your Christmas shopping! What are you waiting for? Christmas is less than a month away and you've stalled! Now when you go you'll be the one cursing, making obscene hand-gestures, and elbowing people in the ribs because you'll be miserable that everyone is in your way...just like what happens every year.

A Favourite Quote

If you want to know where your heart is, look where your mind wanders.

So simple, but have you ever read anything more true?

Denim Blues

I have owned my favourite pair of jeans for about the last two years. And actually, I have two identical pairs of my favourite jeans...is that confusing?

Anyways, one of those pairs has a hole in one knee, and another on one thigh, but I cannot force myself to give them up. Both pairs are faded and worn, but are at that place in time where they have the perfect state of raggedness at the cuffs, the perfect "lived in" colour, and are so comfy they are like wearing sweats.

The problem? They are at least two sizes too big, fall down constantly, and are so sacked that once I have them on for 30 seconds I have serious saggy-ass going on. Not so much what you would call hot jeans...I wore them till I was seven months pregnant, if that gives you an idea of how much too big they are.

Now I do have other pairs of jeans, but like with anything else, I get my favourites, and everything else pretty much ceases to exist.

But a few weeks ago while I was walking to the house carrying Ellery, the diaper bag and 37 grocery bags, I began to feel that all too familiar feeling of fabric slipping down my hips. I barely made it to the door before flashing everyone. And in fact, sometimes when I feel them falling down at home I'll actually just keep going about whatever I'm doing, then giggle when they finally drop and the husband starts to laugh.

(And before anyone asks - I DO wear a belt sometimes, but when I make it as small as it needs to be to hold my pants up, I end up with this bunch of extra fabric at the small of my back, because the pants are too big.)

SO...I've been jeans shopping lately. What a pain in the ass.

Part of the problem is my height - I'm 5'5'. That puts me at the end of sizing in the petites department, and the beginning of sizing in the regular length department. And depending on the make of jeans, that either means I end up with flood pants or a foot of extra fabric under my feet.

But I persevered, and ended up buying some jeans, two pairs actually.

Side note: When I find a pair of jeans I like I usually buy two pairs of them at a time - am I the only one that does that?

Okay, so I bought these two pairs, which ended up being way too long. No problem. I threw on my knee high boots (they are the highest heels I wear in the winter) which have a 3.5 inch heel, decided the right length, and took them to my tailor place to get them hemmed. Well I don't know what the hell happened, but they are now so short that I can maybe pull them off with flip flops in the summer. In my boots I look like I'm from 1985.

So I looked on.

Last week I ended up buying a pair in Old Navy. A very dark wash - they fit nice, if a teeny bit long. Well, shit. Overnight they have morphed into these super long, super stretchy pants that fit like I stole them from my 6'2" older sister's closet. They are now about 6 inches too long, and are falling down every time I wear them! Aaagh!

So I was almost at the end of my rope.

Until this weekend. I went home again since the husband was working nights, and my mom and baby bro and I ended up heading to the states on Sunday to take advantage of some of the Thanksgiving week sales. I was strolling past a rack of jeans in Target of all places, when a pair caught my eye. They were cute, so I decided to try them on, and the price tag of 22 bucks made me happy.

They fit like a glove! Perfect length, perfect colour, perfect everything! I am in love with these jeans. Would you believe they only had one pair in my size? I almost cried.
Looks like I'm heading to Grand Forks soon to make a Target run...

Are They Pornstar Wannabes or Do They Just Really Like Clean Clothes?

Our neighbours upstairs are a couple that I'm guessing are in their early 60's. They've taken a liking to Ellery, and from what I can tell watching them carry cases of empty beer bottles out of their place, they have taken a liking to Labatt's Blue as well.

No matter, they're sweet and we like them a lot.

But here's the thing - their washing machine sounds like a squeaky bed when someone is doing the nasty.

And they do laundry all the time.

I know it's laundry and not their sexual prowess, because their laundry room is directly above mine, and when I'm standing in mine, I can tell it's their washer. Hmm, unless they're always "doing laundry" because they like to do the whole sit-on-the-washer-during-the-spin-cycle-and-get-it-on" scenario...

Either way, it's hard to look them in the eye sometimes when I've heard the "laundry" going all evening the night before.

Snippets of My Weekend

This past weekend the husband, Miss E and I headed home to Ontario for a much needed visit to the homeland. The city and all the things in it have been getting to all of us, so what better place to escape to than a small town and loved ones?
We spent three days just kind of shuffling between my parent's house and my inlaws, keeping a low profile and vegging out. It was great.

Found this picture of Monica and I forgotten on a counter - it was us at Christmas in 1982, when we were 2.5 years old. I'll have to tease her about the brown vest with a green bow, and the fact that she's hugging me! She's the least affectionate person I know! I'll have fun with this one :)

Christmas time around our house always means board games. Since I was young I was always going to someones house around the holidays playing board games...maybe it's a small town thing. Anyways, the year Monica moved to the Bahamas, she brought home the game of Domino's at Christmas, taught us all how to play, and now it's one of my favourite games.
The baby brother and I dragged it out last night and had a showdown...

...he strategized forever, but I still whupped his ass.

And this morning, my parent's house - my place of peace (when there's no fighting going on) - the place where I ground myself, and get away from it all. Aaaaaah.

How to be Sexy, According to...Me?

The other day I got an email from Rock Chef - that's not so weird, since we occasionally write back and forth - but this particular email made me giggle out loud. John had had another dream about me. As if being a superhero in a blockbuster wasn't enough, now I am also some sort of guru on being sexy!

His email read:

Hi

Last night I had a dream about you.

You had written a book called "How to be Sexy" and it was a roaring success. You were on all the big chat shows on TV and touring giving lectures to masses of people who wanted to know the secret. I even got to meet you when you visited England to share your wisdom!

Thought you might enjoy that one!

John

I am absolutely tickled at the idea that I could ever know enough about being sexy to write a book and become famous!

If only I actually had a clue...

A Smorg...Because That's As Long As I Could Focus Today

Oh Lord, I need a massage. Like to every inch of my 5'5" bod. I ache all over, but especially my back and shoulders. I haven't had a massage since I was 8 months pregnant... and I would almost run someone over to get one now.

And husband, I swear, if you leave in the comments that what I really need is a trip to the chiropractor I will go Chuck Norris on your ass. Don't tempt me!

Ellery weighed in at 13lbs, 9oz last week - so she's up exactly 3 pounds from the month before. Obviously the formula was a good move. Hard on the cash supply, but worth it to see tiny little rolls on the babesicle's legs.

My table is still a disaster area. Is anyone at all surprised? But I'm going to fix it soon. I'm guessing the urge to clean will hit me sometime around 10pm in the next week or two, and by the time everyone else wakes up in the morning I'll have cleaned the table and re-arranged the living room. Because, you know, the urge to re-arrange furniture hits everyone in the middle of the night, right?

Winter is here. I really do like winter a lot - building snowmen, romantic walks, pushing people in snowbanks, Santa and all that fun stuff - but eeew, I wasn't ready for it this year. Perhaps because one day it was 17 degrees outside, and the next it was snowing and icy and freezing. This coming weekend I'm getting my studded tires put back on though, so I'll be much happier after that.

I really hate my profile picture. When I posted it I kind of liked it, but yuck! It bugs me more every day. Oh how I would love to have some amazing photographer take pictures of me where I would just look drop dead gorgeous in every one. Note to self: find such a photographer, or learn how to use photoshop properly.

I'm halfway done my Christmas shopping. That is an utterly amazing feat for me - so amazing in fact, that I may actually even get around to sending out Christmas cards this year! Maybe I'll even get around to sending out all the ones I wrote, but didn't send to you guys last year, hehe.

A Memorable Thanksgiving (shudder)

As some of you may or may not know, Canadian Thanksgiving was about a month ago. As per usual, I headed home to Ontario to spend the weekend with my parents and brother, and any extended family which could make it. As it turns out, only 11 of us could get there, which by my family's standards, is a pretty crappy turnout.

Anyways, we still always have Thanksgiving at my grandparents' house, and since there were so few of us, it was a piece of cake for my grandma, since three of her daughters were in attendance. Now one thing about my grandparents' house, is that no room is off limits. You can go in any of the bedrooms, the basement, the attic - essentially wherever you like. This includes my grandparents' bedroom, which just so happens to be the room where everyone throws their jackets and cameras and purses and junk.

Usually when a carload of us shows up, we walk in, my grandma stands there in her apron and makes a fuss about everyone that comes in, then we all take off our shoes, traipse into her bedroom, remove our outside clothes, then make our way to the living room, which is usually packed to the gills, and begin a round of hugs hello and all that good stuff.

Another thing you need to know about my grandparents' house is that they never shut their bedroom door. Ever.

And here is where my story gets memorable...

As I'm standing there laughing with my cousin Krista, my mom yells that Ellery has just spit up, and can I grab her a receiving blanket to clean her up? No problem.

I start walking backwards down the hall to the bedroom as I'm still talking to Krista, and as I take the first step into the bedroom, I turn my head to the left, and then everything goes slow motion.

Why?

Because my grandpa is standing there in his underwear and socks. And nothing else.

Yeah. Let that sink in.



Have you got that mental image now? Yeah, me too.



So what does yours truly do?

Well I casually turn myself around so I'm walking forward, keep walking over to the bed as he turns around to look at me in horror, wave at him and say: "Whoa! Hey there grampa! Sorry about walking in on you in your undies - just need to grab the diaper bag and I'll be out of here!"

And he says: "Uhhhhh..."

And then I go: "Got it, see you soon!"

And then I calmly walk back out, stroll over to Krista and hiss in her ear: "Kill me now. I just saw grampa in his underwear. How the hell am I supposed to talk to him over turkey?!?"

Then Krista and I bust into hysterical giggles.

And chatting with my grandpa over turkey? Was completely normal - or at least as normal as my family ever is.

Oh, the Cuteness...

I've been going through the 10 frillion pictures of Miss Ellery that I need to have printed, so here are a handful from the past week...

We tried her highchair out for the first time last Monday. She looks both too grown-up, and too little to be in it, but she loves it.

It's been just over a week, and she's already into blowing raspberries with every second mouthful, ensuring she sprays pablum all over - little bugger.

Today, practicing her tummy time "Supergirl" pose in her crib.

More and more often she wants to be where I am, so when I'm in the kitchen making dinner or something, I put her bumbo seat up on the counter, give her a cup and spoon, and she babbles away.
Ahem, take no notice of the Bacardi rum cup she's mouthing.

She's not great with laundry yet, unless you count getting tons of it dirty, but she's still little enough that I can drag her around in the basket when I need to do some.

Love her. Like crazy.

A Little of This, A Little of That

Why is it that I have all this time at home now and can not for the life of me, discipline myself enough to have any sort of consistency with posts? In all honesty, I have 17 posts that are in various stages of being written, that I just can't make myself finish. Most of them I either think are too heavy, or too flaky to post.
And every time I go out somewhere, I'm constantly saying "I should totally blog about this!" And then no sooner do I speak those words that the thought is lost to the mush that is my brain.

Tomorrow I take Ellery for her first weigh in since we started her on formula. A month ago she weighed in at 10lbs, 9oz - I'm thinking she's somewhere around the 13lb mark by now, which for a 6 month old isn't very heavy, but for my arm carrying around the car seat? Feels like a ton.
I've also been keeping track of what the formula is costing us. Dear Lord. She's going through one can of powdered formula about every 4 days, which at a cost of about $25 bucks a can, adds up. Yi.

One of my best girlfriends had a baby boy yesterday. His name is Benjamin, and he weighed in at 7lbs, 10 oz. I'm delighted for my friend, but am interested to see what she'll be like as a mom. This is the girl I used to have to give a piggyback ride home to after it rained (while we were in high school), because earthworms "freaked her out."

I'm back into Ramona in a big way. My fingers ache from all the playing around. Let's hope my resolve to be a kick ass guitar chick hangs in there this time.

You know what's dumb? Dumb is washing a load of clothes, then realizing a day later that those clothes are still in the washer, then yelling expletives for five minutes before finally going into the laundry room, opening the washer, realizing that those clothes now smell not-so-fresh, and then having to re-wash them.
You know what's really dumb? Doing that with three loads of laundry in one week.

I'm hoping that I've gotten over my melancholy state of mind. Being so emo really sucks. So yay for a happier mood, for better posting habits, and for not forgetting any more loads of laundry!