Inadequate Materials

For some odd reason, American Thanksgiving seems like an appropriate time for an embarrassing confession: we bought our house, and the five acres on which it sits, for the dogs. Don't get me wrong. We like the place, and the privacy. There's nothing quite like heading out back to hang laundry on a hot July afternoon, wearing a dirty old t-shirt and your fat pants and belting out the entire score of Grease , secure in the certainty that no one will ever know. But the driving force behind purchasing such a property, with its hours and hours of lawn-cutting, pipes that freeze every winter, and garden that needs constant attention all summer long, was having a place where our dogs could run free. After 3 years of moving from military base to military base, and living in married quarters with nothing more than an unfenced postage stamp for a backyard, Rusty and Jerome were getting a little on the portly side. Letting them off-leash was a bit of an iffy enterprise because they were n...

I have reached my breaking point. This happens every time the Captain goes away. For the first few days, I'm dealing with a child with separation anxiety and trying to make things consistent. Then, for the bulk of the separation, I'm in my groove, getting things done, falling into comfortable routines, occasionally dropping Rosemary's Baby with a sitter so I can have a day to buy groceries and get a head start on the Christmas shopping. And then the last 3 weeks is upon me and my body realizes I'm in the home stretch and gives me permission to give in to the exhaustion. This is where the proverbial you-know-what hits the fan. When my brain catches up and realizes my body is screaming "ENOUGH!!", it wants to help me out. And I love it for that. Unfortunately, in these situations (and many others), my brain is like a friend who means well with her indulge-yourself advice, but just ends up getting me into trouble, and lots of it. When I want to sit on the kitche...

I've already admitted to having a shoe obsession , so you must've known this was coming. No one is obsessed with shoes and NOT also obsessed with purses. They're sister obsessions. I was attempting to get Rosemary's Baby and Firstborn bundled up for our monthly pilgrimage to the town dump this morning, and couldn't figure out why the closet door was having such trouble sliding along its track. When I looked down, the reason became abundantly clear. The enormous Rubbermaid tub which houses my handbag stash was overflowing to the point that one had slid off the pile and was stopping the door from closing properly. After carefully placing the bag back onto the purse hill (remember Homer and the garbage pile ?), quickly closing the door before everything fell out again, and loading the kids into the car, I got to thinking. Could it be time to get rid of a few of my purses? Like shoes, purses do not require you to lose 5 lbs in order to use them. They can be switched qu...

Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away, there lived a little boy. Because this was a time before ADD was invented, most people just thought this little boy was wildly hyperactive, willfully naughty, and predisposed to being the complete centre of attention at all times. One day, the little boy was home sick from school with his twin sister and got bored. So he pulled out the paintbox and went to work on himself in green watercolour. And by "himself" I mean a certain body part. I won't tell you which one because I don't need to. I'm pleased to confirm that the body part you're thinking of is the correct one. The little boy is now 31, and some sort of rocket scientist. Actually, he's an engineer, but he's in pretty high demand and has just recently started working for a little company you may have heard of. It's called NASA . Sigh... As the oldest of 7 children, there was a very brief period in my life where I was a family success story. I wa...

The alarm went off this morning at 0600, and I forced myself out of bed because today we had a plan. We were going to do the 45-minute early-morning drive into our nearest Booming Metropolis to run a few errands then stop in on a playgroup made up primarily of army wives. But plans changed. When I looked out the window, I noticed the early commuters puttering by on the highway at an alarmingly low speed. So I got online and checked out the highway conditions. If there was a condition called "atrocious", it could certainly have been used this morning. From here to Booming Metropolis, and on all the roads surrounding, there was ice everywhere, accompanied by a healthy measure of packed and blowing snow. We weren't going anywhere. And to be perfectly honest, it was the best thing that could've happened. A couple of hours later, we've been fed and we're all still in our pajamas. I'm about to go make myself a third cup of coffee and, although Sirius appears t...

After a couple of months of research into what people blog about, I've found myself considering starting another blog. I love the idea of keeping a blog about one specific topic, like crafting or cooking. But the problem for me is that I don't think I could keep that going on any sort of regular basis. Sometimes I want to talk about my latest knitting project, or post a photo of a few cards I've recently made, but I don't think I want to pigeonhole myself by setting up a blog where that's all I can talk about. Luckily, this little endeavour of mine has turned out to be pretty versatile in its ability to let me ramble on about whatever I please whenever I please. So why shouldn't I talk about the stuff I love to do once in a while? This Christmas, all the gifts going home will be homemade. I've been doing this for a few years now and I find it's pretty successful in general. My siblings and I had a 7-way email conversation recently that got a little heat...

On the last day of September, I awoke from a dream I'm still reluctant to describe. I have no idea where it came from, but I think I know what it meant. The Captain and I were in a Nazi concentration camp. People were being shot. We were afraid to do anything, for fear of being shot too. But this wasn't the bad part, believe it or not. In the midst of the chaos, I felt something tug at the back of my shirt. I turned around to see Firstborn looking up at me, and my terror magnified by about a million percent. I pulled him close to me and wrapped myself around him, trying to protect him from the imminent danger. And then I woke up. After the horror wore off, and the relief set in, I tried to forget that dream, but of course I couldn't. I always believe that my dreams mean something, even when they're insignificant. And I knew right away what the message was. It's not all about me. The Captain goes away a lot. Most of the time it's a course or an exercise. But we ...

This morning I was thrilled to attend Firstborn's very first Kindergarten performance. With it being a Remembrance Day service, and knowing the disruptive mischief Rosemary's Baby would get up to, I booked him in for a couple of hours with a local babysitter I use from time to time. She's another stay-at-home mom just like me, and she takes kids in during the day to help make ends meet a bit. Rosemary's Baby loves it there and I never have to worry that he's doing anything dangerous because I know in my heart that he's in great hands. But I have one major issue with the Sitter, and here it is: she charges 3 bucks an hour. If you work out what that'd cost for an average workday plus travel time, here in Western Manitoba, the sum is comparable to what you'd pay for one child in a daycare centre. In short, it's perfectly average for where we live. Here's what bothers me. If I need my car, computer or refrigerator fixed, my labour cost alone is any...

Rosemary's Baby has started playing hide-and-seek. While this is usually occasion for a few motherly ooh's and aah's of adoration, another little milestone for my rug rat, I have other ideas running through my head right now. I'm just plain alarmed. Last fall, my little munchkin, then under 2 years old, pulled out all the stops. I have a friend, who is a great cook, a fun mom and a divorcee. I'll call her the Karaoke Queen, because she's that too. In September, the Karaoke Queen decided to move in with the Boyfriend, and because friends like to help each other out (and gab while the men do all the heavy lifting), I buckled the kids into our rusty old tin-can of a truck and headed over to her place to help haul a few loads for her. We put the kids in her living room with some toys and some kid-friendly cable programming , closed the french door so they were contained, and went to work. After 5 minutes of lugging a large entertainment centre up the basement stairs...

Let me begin by mentioning that I generally don't talk politics too heavily, and certainly not in a public forum like this. And being Canadian, I'm even less likely to be heard discussing things like an American presidential election. But I do have family in the States who voted for the future of their nation yesterday, and I think we can agree that what goes on over there does end up affecting all of us the world over. So, with apologies to those who don't give a damn, I give you my comments on the events of last night. Let's be honest, I could talk about the economy, the war in Iraq, or the environment. I could talk about what a historic victory this is for liberals and African Americans alike. I could talk about the changes that are to come, that it's a new day for America, and that the future looks so much brighter than it did a few days ago. But it's been done. Everyone's talking about that. As always, what I have to say is far, far more superficial. Da...